Ada notes

Art communicates to us in many ways to serve various functions

• Inspire
• Beautify
• Persuade
• Entertain
• Transform
• Spark imagination
• Arouse emotions like
1. Anger
2. Deception
3. Delight
4. Humiliation
Leo Tolstoy said ‘to evoke in one self a feeling one has experienced and having evoke it ……. Then by
means of movement, line, color, sounds, forms or words express and transmit that same feeling this
is the activity of art’

2.art that inspired me Heikla

Artwork I made in anger
Artwork I made when I was happy

art is beyond any single object and concept art is an international language human effort to
immediate supplement alter or counteract the work of nature the conscious production or
arrangement of sounds colour for movement or other elements in a manner that affects the sense
of duty specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium
[4:34 PM, 4/21/2021] Ruksat Jahan: Art is activity
art is reflection of the world
art is cognition
Art is concept
art is prediction
art is information
art is communication
art is suggestion
art is enjoyment
art
Is education

Throughout the centuries art has been used as an effective instrument for educating directing
popular values molding public opinion gaining and holding political power

3 Art = form \content \ context

Form
• Form means the constituent elements of a work of art independent of their meaning (the
color, composition medium or size, rather then its emotional significance)
 • Formal elements include primary features which are color dimensions, dimensions, line,
mass, medium, scale, shape, space, texture, value, and their corollaries.
• The secondary features are the relations of the primary features with one another these
include balance, composition, contrast, rhythm, similarity, unity , and variety
• The third and tertiary level concerns the way form interacts with content and/ or context
Content
• There is less consensus here
• The emotional or intellectual message of an artwork
• The expression essential meaning significance or aesthetic value of a work of art
• Content refers to the sensory subjective psychological or emotional properties we feel in a
work of art
• Content is not just a sensory, subjective, psychological, or emotional properties, we feel in a
work of art.
• Content is not just a description of the subject matter.
• The primary content is the simplest way of taking inventory of what you se, as in literal
images straightforward subjects and imagery and describable facts, actions, and or poses.
• The secondary content includes things which push what you see into what you understand
so to speak.

Context

• The set of circumstances or fact that surround a particular event, situation etc.
• This could include when a work of art was made, where, how and for what purpose.
• This could include historical information on the artist or issues or things the artist references.
• Attitudes, beliefs, interests, values, education and training, biographies, philosophies, histories,
psychology all play an important role in establishing context.
• Signs and symbols, myths and metaphors become popular modes of communicating ideas in the
absence of words.

More simply put, form is "how" the work is, content is "what" the work is about, and context is "in
what circumstances" the work is (or was)

Art is beyond any single object and concept. Art is an international language. A human effort to
imitate, supplement, alter or counteract the work of nature.

The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements or other elements in
a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or
plastic medium

Aesthetics became a branch of philosophy in 18th century.

A German philosopher 'Alexander Gottilieb Baumgartner' used it for the first time in 1735.

Then in 1750, he entitled an unfinished treaties 'AESTHETICA'.

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy concerned with the whole nature of experience itself, explored
through our perceptions, feelings and emotions.

The study of aesthetics, along with its widespread application in philosophical, artistic and literary
circles, gained currency in the 18th century at the dawn of the romantic period. What was
recognised then - that to act upon our true feelings means taking a step into the unknown - is what
aesthetics is centrally concerned with now.

Aesthetics today is not only scholarly discipline but also the means for developing a philosophy of
life based upon emotion.

THE ELEMENTS OF ART

• As complex as works of art typically are, there are really only three general categories of
statements one can make about them.

• A statement addresses FORM, CONTENT or CONTEXT ( or their various interrelations)

• However, within each of these categories is variety of subcategories, giving visual culture it's
variety and complexity.

Contrapposto
Counter — Balance

With the Kritios Boy the Greek artist has mastered a complete understanding of how the different
parts of the body act as a system. The statue supports its body on one leg, the left, while the right
one is bent at the knee in a relaxing state. This stance forces a chain of anatomical events as the
pelvis is pushed diagonally upwards on the left side, the right buttock relaxes, the spine acquires an
"S" curve, and the shoulder line dips on the left to counteract the action of the pelvis.

BC before Christ
AD onno domini
BCE before common era
Ce common era
c
CA circa
Prehistory the term place refers to all of human history that we serious the invention of writing
system the timeline covered in this area is vast 32000 BC to 7,000 Neolithic settlement
Keval is often hidden de in cave formation suggestion that it was intended for a privileged subset of
people it suggests a society is built on hierarchy one that was structured and order how did
prehistoric humans work and paint in deep ke formations that would have pitch Black they did so by
using animal fat lamps what material where the using natural pigment derived from stone and plant
charcoal and applied using their hand or if some archaeologist believe that payment may have been
mixed in the mouth and then spent on to the walls however the difficulty and the time required to
make the work meant they were not just for aesthetic pleasure alone they could have been used for
clan rights as an initiation for younger clan members

Cave art is often

The dead were often buried beneath the floors of houses in some instances the bodies where
complete but in others the skull was removed and treated separately the lower job was often
removed and then the skull was remodeled with plastic to build up the facial features shells are
cowries where set into the empty sockets to represent the individual characteristics such as hair and
even most catches it is possible that this practice was part of an ancestor called similarly plaster skull
have been found at sites in Palestine Syria and jordan
For the Love of God is a sculpture by Damien his produced in 22007 it consists of a platinum cost of
an 18th century human skull encrusted with 8601 flawless diamond including a pear shaped pink
diamond located in the forehead that is known as the skull star diamond the skulls teeth are original
the artwork is a memento Mori a reminder of mortality of the viewer

Stone henge
Dawarka was or the group was is a card alabaster store metal found in the temple complex of the
sumerian goddess in aana in the ruins of the ancient city of ruk located in the modern a i uthana
governorate in Southern Iraq normal palette from Egypt it is one of the earliest surviving works of
niti narrative relief sculpture dated to ca 3200 3000 bce

The horizontal band called registered was is called in low relief the watch was a harbinger of the
hope for renewal of the fertility of the soil after the winter of sterility
The salvage of date syrup can make a make present the human economic and ecological disaster
caused by the Iraq was and thereafter match with the issue is a part of the invisible any should not
exist its ongoing 11 year refer to recreate over 7,000 archaeological artefacts noted from the Iraq
museum during the war or destroyed in its aftermath thus far Rakowitz with the help of some 2
dozen other artists including some northwestern alumni has completed near 700 works using
recycled packaging of middle eastern food stuff and local arabic newspapers.
it is clearly a project that is going to outline me and my studio which is really the point history
cannot be reconstructed says Rakowitz display whose work are displayed in collection around the
the globe.

Rakowitz hopes the Lamassu reminds view of the destructive cost of war and stimulates discussion
about immigration but he hesitates to describe any specific meaning to the work "

I hope people see things in if that I don't see he says that what's excites me about the 8 people are
interested as vital collaborator in the production of mini following its two year run on the fourth land
records would like to see the lamasu re-establish its place as the city of gatekeeper

"the recreation will stand outside in trafalgar square with wings raised still performing his duty as a
guardian of Iraq past present hoping to return in the future" rakowitz says
By the mid 6th century BCE the had learnt the black figure technique from the Corinthians and taken
over the export market for fine painted ceramics executors had perfected the black figure technique
by 540 BC and his pupil the and Akhilesh painter had successfully experimented in red figure painting
by 525 BCE revolutionizing the art of drawing 15 years letter two painter euphronios and euthymides
would battle it out to become the top painter of their time in a series of increasingly intricate and
remarkable was which would quickly become the norm for red figure painting this one is a pride and
joy of minds who decided to create this was as an independent figure study the figure are three tipsy
jewellers host also are for certain to show realistic movement and death the central figure is the real
star are being shown from the year with a twisting spinal column and butocks youth I might showed
his Pride by adding to the formulaic signature euthymides painted me the phrase as never
euphronios could do

The statue of moschophoros calf bearer was found in fragments on the athenian acropolis and has a
base with a inscription stating that a man named rhonobos dedicated the statue Athena in
Thanksgiving for his prosperity he has the same left foot forward manner as the arrows above but
has a beard with which implies he is no longer on the thin cloak included on the statue does not
represent any realistic style of Greek of this time but it is a way for the sculpture sculptor to
maintain the artistic convention of main nudity while indicating that a mature respectable woman
would be cloth the face is drastically different from earlier Greek statues in the fact that he appears
to be smiling this file is an indicator for things to come for the Greek as other archaic Greek statues
will always smile the archaic smile is at times inappropriate for the context but seems to be the
sculptors way of indicating that the person portrayed is alive furthering the progression away from
EgyptIan influence

Some time around 5:30 BC young man named kriosos died a hero's death in battle and his family
erected a quarrel statue over his grave at was not far from the Athens the base read stay and mourn
at the tomb of the dead kriosos whom reacting was destroyed one day as he fought in the foremost
rank the statue which still carries some of the paint is not A portrait of a specific person any more
than the earlier quarrels but is far more naturalistic the head is more proportional to its body and
the face is much more rounded the hair fall naturally over the the back and he has rounded fleshy
hips

Polykleitos was a creek sculptor from the school of our goes known forest masterly bronze
sculptures of young athletes he was also one of the most significant aestheticization in the history of
art Greek used a system of measure when they made temple and also attempted to use a standard
unit of measure to draw the human body polykleitos of August was the sculptor who best
represented the idea of constructing the ideal human figure polykleitos influenced artists by making
nude figures more popular along with poised rhythmic poses and the male and female head with
characteristic rounded structure and full oval face the canon is a theoretical work that discusses
ideal mathematical proportion for the parts of the human body and proposes for sculpture of the
human figure a dynamic counter balance between the relaxed and tense body parts between the
direction in which the parts move polykleitos created his method around 450 BCE and called it the
canon coming from the Greek word canon meaning measure rule on law to prove his theory
polykleitos created a hero heroine bronze statue of chillies sadly this statue was destroyed but since
it was so widely known many sculptor re did it

Hellenistic period
More pronounced realism and expressiveness variety of entrepreneurs extreme torsion
experimentation extended subject matter
Ancient Rome at a glance

753 BCE founding of Rome

509 BCE period of kings come to an end Roman becomes a republic
275 BC ROMe controls all of the Italian Peninsula
150 BCE rome controls Greece
31 BCE ROMe controls gaul and Egypt
27 BC imperial period begins with our stars
313 CE emperor Constantine and the persecution of Christians
330 ce constantine moves the capital of the Roman empire to Constantinople Byzantine era
Roman art is generally defined as much more than the art of the city of Rome rather it is the art of
Roman civilization from Roman letters to the emperor Constantine and covers a period of more than
1000 years many characteristics of Roman art have their origins in the art of ertrucans the Roman
predecessors as the dominant culture of Italy as a Roman domination spread through Italy Europe
and the Mediterranean however Roman are absorved This ertrucan style and Etruscan influence
included temple architecture sculpture portraiture and wall painting
Room was also deeply influenced by the art of hellenistic world which had spread to the southern
Italy and Sicily through the Greek colonies their plutarch writing in the 2nd century a.d. wrote that
before room conquest of Greek Syracuse in Sicily Rome neither had not even know of these refined
things nor was there in the city and a love of what was charming and elegant rather it was full of
barbarik weapons and bloody spoils as Greek treasures continued to arrive in rome for example
after the sack of corinth in 146 BC hellenistic art continued to exert a fascination on the more
austere Romans yet Greek culture was not fully accepted until the region of them hadrian and his
court
However Roman art also had its own original contribution compared with Greek architecture
Roman was more secular and utilitarian and showed an interest in grander and scale for example in
the Colosseum and public bath in Rome the Roman also develop the use of the arc the world and the
dome and discovered concrete which all allowed for a much grander architecture is culmination
being found in religious buildings such as the pantheon in Rome and heavier Sophia in
Constantinople
Pont du gard
The pont DU gard is a Roman monument built halfway through the first century a.d. it is a principle
construction in a 50 km long aqueduct that supplied the city of nimes formerly known as nemauses
with water built as a three level adequate standing 50 metre height allow water to flow across the
garden or river in essence the bridge is constructed out of yellow lime stone blocks taken from a
nearby quarry that borders the river the highest part of the structure is made out of Breeze blocks
join together with motor it is stopped by a device designed to the water channel whole stone slabs
are covered with calcium deposits in designing the three-story bridge which measures 360 at its
longest point along the top the Roman architects and hydraulic engineers created a technical
masterpiece that stands today as a work of art at once provided 100 gallons of spring water a day
from the spring of uzes 30 mile to the North moreover archaeologist also uncovered evidence of
how well organised the project was they found numbering on the stone points of support for
scaffolding and evidence of the use of host
Aerial view of the Colosseum Rome and was a number of athletic events and spectacles in
Colosseum animal hats fights to the death between Gladiator or a Gladiator and animal trend
animals and ac robot moxie battles it was possible to flood the floor the opening performance last
hundred days and cause the lives of 9000 animals and 2008 YR
The story of ancient Rome is a story of evolution, of how a civilization's ability to adapt and
dominate can lead to its survival for over 1,000 years. Rome began as a small village on central Italy's
Tiber River. In the coming centuries, it grew into an empire that stretched from the north Atlantic all
the way to the Persian Gulf. During this transformation, Rome displayed a political, military, and
cultural prowess that enabled it to become a super power and helped shape what would become
known as western civilization. The lifespan of ancient Rome can be divided into three major periods,
the regal, the republican, and the imperial. During the regal period, Rome was monarchical and ruled
by a succession of about seven kings. Rome's first king, according to legend, was a man named
Romulus. He and his twin brother Remus are said to have founded Rome in 753 B.C. In 509 B.C.,
Rome adopted a republican system of governance in which the state was primarily ruled by two
annually representatives called praetors, who were later called consuls. One of them become a
famous general and dictator, Julius Caesar. The imperial period followed. It was characterized by the
rise of the Roman Empire and notorious leaders such as Octavian,

Rome's first emperor, who

issued in an era of peace,

and Nero, who, some scholars believe,

was Rome's cruelest emperor.

Rome's focus and pride in its military

was vital to the civilization's growth,

and this ethos was evident

as early as the regal period

when Rome was only a small village.

Still, Rome slowly conquered and annexed

neighboring peoples.

This slow and steady

expansion eventually lead

to the Romans' domination

of the Italian peninsula

and the entire Mediterranean Sea,

where they conquered the Greeks,

Egyptians, and Carthaginians.

Military conquests would later help Rome

conquer lands as far

away as Britain and Iraq.

This massive scale and growing populous

necessitated advancements

in Roman engineering.

Aqueducts were constructed,

which increased

the public's access to water,

helped improve public health,

and paved the way for

Rome's famed bath houses.

A 50,000 mile long road

system was built as well.

While made originally for the military,

it facilitated the movement of people

and ideas throughout the empire.

This transmission of ideas

and increased contact

with diverse cultures also enabled

other aspects of Roman culture to evolve.

A key to Rome's success and longevity

was the empire's inclusion of cultures

from the lands they conquered.

From the nearby land of Latium,

Rome acquired the Latin language,

which became the empire's

official language

and the ancestor to

Europe's Romance languages.

Romans also adopted cultural aspects

from the ancient state of Etruria,

including their religion, alphabet,

and the spectacle of gladiator combat.

However, no other civilization

influenced the Romans

as much as the ancient Greeks.

Their influence is probably most apparent

in Rome's art and architecture.

Upper class Romans commissioned

paintings and sculptures

to imitate Greek art.

Greek architectural

styles, such as columns,

were implemented in Roman structures

such as the Pantheon and Colosseum.

One cultural shift in

particular that resonated

throughout the empire was

the rise of Christianity.

Originating in the Middle East,

the religion found a strong

advocate in Constantine I,

the first Roman emperor to

convert to Christianity.

He enabled Rome's transition

into a Christian state

and encouraged the religion

to spread across Europe.

By the fourth century, after a lifespan

of over a millennium, the

Roman Empire declined.

Factors including political corruption,

economic crises, and class conflict led

to the empire's decay from within

while invasions and other military threats

caused it to break down from outside.

Rome's ability to

incorporate diverse cultures,

dominate rivals, and

adapt political systems

to the needs of its people

are all lessons to be learned

jan 25
Guernica by Picasso
On April 26th, 1937,

Fascist forces bombed the Basque village

of Guernica in Northern Spain.

It was one of the worst civilian

casualties of the Spanish Civil War,

waged between the democratic republic and

General Franco’s fascist contingent.

For Pablo Picasso, the

tragedy sparked a frenzied period of work

in which he produced a

massive anti-war mural,

aptly titled "Guernica."

The painting is a powerful work of

historical documentation

and political protest.

But while Picasso’s artistic

motivations are clear,

the symbolism of the painting can be as

confusing and chaotic as war itself.

How can we make sense of this

overwhelming image,

and what exactly makes it a

masterpiece of anti-war art?

The painting’s monumental canvas is

disorienting from the start,

rendered in the abstracted Cubist style

Picasso pioneered.

Cubism deliberately emphasized the

two-dimensionality of the canvas

by flattening the objects being painted.

This afforded viewers multiple

and often impossible perspectives

on the same object;

a technique considered shocking

even in Picasso’s domestic scenes.

But in this context,

the style offers a profoundly

overwhelming view

of violence, destruction, and casualties.

Multiple perspectives only compound

the horror on display–

sending the eyes hurtling around the

frame in a futile hunt for peace.

On the far left, a woman holding her

dead child releases a scream;

her eyes sliding down her face

in the shape of tears

and her head bending back unnaturally

to echo her baby’s.

There is the statue of a soldier

present below,

but he is unable to defend

the woman and child.

Instead his broken body lies in pieces,

his arm clutching a splintered sword

in a signal of utmost defeat.

The tip of his sword meets a woman’s foot

as she attempts to flee the devastation.

But her other leg appears

rooted to the spot,

locked in the corner of the canvas

even as she stretches to move it.

Another victim appears

behind this slouching figure.

Falling helplessly as flames

lick around her,

she too is caught in her

own hopeless scene.

Each of these figures bordering the

painting are horribly trapped,

giving the work an acute

sense of claustrophobia.

And where you might expect the canvas’

massive size to counteract this feeling,

its scale only highlights the nearly

life-sized atrocities on display.

Some possible relief comes from a lamp

held tightly by a ghostly woman

reaching out her window.

But is her lantern’s hopeful glow

truly lighting the scene?

Or is it the jagged lightbulb–

thought to represent the technologies

of modern warfare–

which illuminates her view of

the chaos below?

From the coffin-like confines

of her window,

her arm guides the viewer back

into the fray,

to perhaps the most controversial

symbols of all–

two ghostly animals caught

in the destruction.

Does the screaming horse embody the

threat of Franco’s military nationalism;

or does the spike running through

its body convey its victimhood?

Does the white bull represent Spain,

the country of matadors and a common

theme in Picasso’s work–

or does it stand for the

brutality of war?

In this scene of strife, these animals

raise more questions than answers.

And additional elements hidden

throughout the frame

offer even more secrets for

close observers.

At the top of the canvas flashes a bird

desperate to escape the carnage.

And the abundance of animals on display

may hint at the bombing’s date–

a market day which flooded the streets

with villagers, animals, and

other potential causalities.

Like the bombing of Guernica itself,

Picasso’s painting is dense

with destruction.

But hidden beneath this supposed chaos,

are carefully crafted scenes and symbols,

carrying out the painting’s multifaceted

attack on fascism.

Decades after its creation,

"Guernica" retains its power to shock

viewers and ignite debate,

and is often referenced at anti-war

gatherings around the world.

Hundreds of viewers have grappled with

its harsh imagery, shattering symbolism

and complex political messaging.

But even without a close understanding

of it’s complicated subtext,

Picasso’s work remains a searing reminder

of the true casualties of violence.

why Art Matters a Kilroy Academy

tutorial by dr. Edie Widder Art Matters

because art reaches a part of our brains

that science leaves unmoved art has the

power to alter perspectives in ways that

mere facts can't for example if I tell

you that 71% of the earth's surface is

covered by water but that only 3% of

that water is fresh water and less than

1% is available for drinking water

that's a very important fact but for

most people just hearing those numbers

doesn't have much impact as a scientist

I might try to drive home the point with

a pie chart like this that shows all the

water on earth as 97% saltwater and 3%

freshwater with about two percent tied

up in glaciers and polar ice caps and

less than one percent available for

drinking water but this image still

doesn't have anywhere near the impact of

this artist's rendition

here we see the volume of all the water

on earth relative to the volume of the

earth itself and next to that a very

tiny sphere that represents all the

drinkable water on earth that's a very

powerful image both artistically

imaginative and scientifically accurate

and now if I add to that these artists

images of water scarcity the importance

of protecting water becomes enormous

Lemoore meaningful and powerful than if

I just try to fill your head with a

bunch of facts about why it's important

not to waste water

another example is world population

growth I can show you a graph like this

that shows human population growth going

from 1 billion people on earth in 1804

to just under 2 billion when my parents

were born to now more than 7 billion in

a single lifetime those are staggering

numbers but for most people it's

difficult to grasp their significance

alternatively I can show you pictures

from this recently published book that

show the consequences of overpopulation

such as clear-cut forests water

pollution air pollution garbage and this

unimaginable sea of humanity in Mexico

City that has left no trace of natural

habitat but pictures like these are so

removed from the everyday lives of most

Americans that they may have less impact

than a photograph like this from the

same book of a surfer in Indonesia

riding a trash wave what an amazing

image or this one that I find both

alarming and mesmerizing of swimmers at

a water park in China enjoying a day off

these are powerful images that make

those numbers on a graph have far

greater meaning and impact art provides

the means of seeing the world

differently and as such it serves to not

only reflect changing human perspectives

but to inspire them a great example is

this iconic image of The Crying Indian

which launched one of the most

successful ad campaigns in history to

stop the littering of our nation's

highways what made this campaign so

powerful was its effectiveness at

capturing a deep

human emotion anguish as seen in the

face of this Native American man who was

depicted in short video ads encountering

the decimation of his native land now

more than ever we need to reconnect with

nature our future well-being on the

planet depends on it our goal with

Killroy Academy is to forge a stronger

link between citizens and their local

ecosystems and we want to draw on your

artistic Wellsprings to help us make

that connection as we learn about each

of the environmental variables that the

kil Roy's measure and key concepts

related to sustainability of healthy

aquatic ecosystems we will be

challenging you to come up with new ways

to convey those concepts these

challenges will be in the art discipline

section under each key concept you can

see an example of an artistic way that I

found to convey a key concept in the

discipline of mathematics under aquatic

ecosystems here for this video called a

fuzzy fairy tale I teamed up with an

artist and a musician to help me convey

the concept of exponential growth you

can either work alone or work in teams

the point is to be as creative as you

can be according to Pablo Picasso we are

all born artists you just need to find

your talent and use it before you lose

it this exercise is not only good for

the planet it's good for you because as

Kurt Vonnegut said practice any art

music singing dancing acting drawing

painting sculpting poetry fiction essays

reportage no matter how well or badly

not to get money and fame but to

experience becoming to find out what's

inside you to make your soul grow

9 MARCH
WHAT IS ART FOR
You might think there was a simple to answer

to this.

After all, we know how to say what most things

are for, like this

or that

And people flock to museums like never before,

so they must have their motives.

But when it comes to art, people get strangely

afraid to ask too directly what it might all

be for - because

well, everyone except you might know the answer

already

It’s perhaps too obvious

It’s perhaps too complicated

The result is an awkward silence

and a lot of confusion.

But maybe it shouldn’t be that hard to say

what art is for.

Maybe we can have a go at ascribing certain

rather clear purposes to art.

Here’s five things art might be able to

do for us:

It’s an obvious but striking fact that the

most popular works of art in the world show

pretty things: happy people, flowers in spring,

blue skies.

This is the top selling postcard in the world

from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York

This enthusiasm for prettiness worries serious

types a lot. They wonder: have people forgotten

what life is really like?

But that seems a misplaced worry. We need

pretty things close to us not because we’re

in danger of forgetting the bad stuff, but

because terrible problems weigh so heavily

on us, that we’re in danger of slipping

into despair and depression.

That’s why prettiness matters. It’s an

emblem of hope, which is an achievement. Prettiness,

those flowers and blue skies and kids in meadows,

is hope bottled and preserved, waiting for

us when we need it.

The world often requires us to put on a cheerful

facade

But beneath the surface, there’s a lot of

sadness and regret that we can’t express

from fear of seeming weird or a loser.

One thing art can do is to reassure us of

the normality of pain, it can be sad with

and for us.

Some of the world’s greatest works of art

have been loved for their capacity to make

the pain that’s inside all of us more publically

visible and available.

Like putting on a sad piece of music, sombre

works of art don’t have to depress us...

...rather they can give us the welcome feeling

that pain is part of the human condition.

Art fights the false optimism of commercial

society

It’s there to remind us with dignity that

every good life has extraordinary amounts

of confusion, suffering, loneliness and distress

within it.

and that therefore we should never aggravate

sadness by feeling we must be freakish simply

for experiencing quite a lot.

All of us are a little unbalanced in some

way.

We’re too intellectual or too emotional,

too masculine or too feminine, too calm or

too excitable…

The art we love is frequently something we’re

drawn to because it compensates us for what

we lack: it counterbalances us.

When we’re moved by a work of art, it may

be because it contains concentrated dose of

qualities we need more of in our lives.

Perhaps it’s full of the serenity we admire,

but don’t have enough of

Perhaps it’s got the tenderness we long

for, but that our jobs and relationships are

currently lacking

Or perhaps it’s suffused with a pain and

drama we’ve had to stifle but want to get

in touch with.

Sometimes a whole society falls in love with

a certain style in art, because it’s trying

to rebalance itself, like France in the late

18th century

that wanted David as a corrective to its decadence,

or Britain in the 19th century that looked

to the pre-Raphaelites to counter the effects

of brutal industrialisation

The art a country or a person calls ‘beautiful’

gives you vital clues as to what is missing

in them.

It’s in the power of art to help us be more

rounded, more balanced and more sane.

The media is constantly giving us hints about

what’s glamorous and important

Art also tells us about what’s glamorous

and important, but fortunately - given that

you weren’t invited again to the Oscars

this year - it usually picks on some very

different things.

Albrecht Durer makes grass look glamorous

John Constable draws our attention to the

skies:

Van Gogh reminds us that oranges are worth

paying attention to

Marcel Duchamp challenges us to look again

at the seemingly mundane

These artists aren’t falsely glamorising

things that are better ignored, they’re

justly teasing out a value that’s been neglected

by a world with a deeply distorted and unfair

sense of what truly matters. Art returns glamour

to its rightful place, highlighting what is

genuinely worth appreciating.

Nothing seems further from good art than propaganda;

the sort encouraging you to fight

or what government to support

But one way to think about art is that it

is a sort of propaganda, in the sense of a

tool that motivates and energises you for

a cause - only it is propaganda on behalf

of some of the most important and nicest emotions

and attitudes in the world - which it uses

its skills to make newly appealling and accessible.

It might be propaganda about the simple life:

Or about the need to broaden one’s horizons

Or about a more playful, tender approach to

life

It’s a force that stands up for the best

sides of human nature and gives them a platform

and an authority in a noisy, distracted world.

For too long, art has attracted a little too

much reverence and mystique for its own good.

In its presence, we’re like someone meeting

a very famous person. We get stiff and lose

our spontaneity.

We should relax around it, as we already do

with music:

and learn to use it for what it’s really

meant for: as a constant source of support

and encouragement for our better selves.

9 march
Why study art
David Hockney, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Michael Craig-Martin, Catherine Opie, Cate Blanchett,
Anne-Marie Imafidon, Cornelia Parker, Wolfgang Tillmans, Amanda Levete, Tania Bruguera, Bob
and Roberta Smith, Michael Clark, Jacqueline Wilson, Alan Parker and Jeremy Deller.
David hockney “There's a deep desire in us to make
pictures
I mean we've been drawing for 30 thousand years

The teaching of drawing is

teaching people to look.

That's what it's

doing.

Yinka Shonibare “It was really when I was at art

school that I started to see the

relationship between history, philosophy

politics and art. Prior to that I

thought that art was just making pretty

pictures.

Actually, art is connected to,

you know, life.

Michael Craig-Martin “You can't teach art in the

same way you can teach French.

French

exists whether whether you do it or not

but when you're doing art, the centre of

doing art is in yourself.

Most of the literate subjects do not ask

that of them, so this develops an

entirely different realm of skill.

Catherine opie “Creativity is critical thinking and

without it, how are you going to really

open up and ask harder questions?

And art

opens all of those kind of passages and

possibilities to think beyond what we

already know.

Kate Blanchett “In a child's education, the

doors need to be open to other universes

other modes of thinking, and art is a non

pre-described, dangerous world full of

possibility, and I think it's a vital

space for children to have in their

formative years of their education.

Anne marie imafidon “From a top down level you don't have

innovation if you don't have art.

It's as simple of that.

Cornelia parker “It doesn't matter if

you're gonna study history or geography or science, you still need to be creative

because the people who are the

outliers in those fields are the most

creative people.

To have art in schools

be eroded, which is happening at the

moment, is disastrous for Britain, I think,

because our best industry is the

creative industry.

Wolfgang tillman “Art and cultural production is at the

very centre of what makes a society what

it is, and for an entire new generation

not to know what is the cultural and

visual history of ourselves is kind of

denying our own identity.

Amanda levete “Art is a reflection of the society that we are

the kind of mirror that art holds up, the

way that art helps define the identity

of a nation, that you can trace that back

historically, it's deeply embedded in humanity.

Tania braguera “What art education does to

people who are not going to be artists

is giving them the opportunity to build

certain aspect of themselves that

otherwise will be either ignored,

undeveloped or repressed.

Bob and robetta smith “It's all about kids finding out who they

are, and they're all different.

Micheal clark “That you can be whatever you want to be is something that art's only taught me.

It can access a part of your brain, body, spirit, mind that nothing else can.

Jaqueline Wilson “Nothing is more stimulating, exciting,

consoling than looking at a brilliant painting.

Alan parker “Art in schools shouldn't be

sidelined, I think it should be right

there, right up in the front because I

think art teaches you to deal with the

world around you. It's the oxygen that

actually makes all the other subjects breathe.

Jeremy deller “There's a great quote by John

Ruskin: 'Art shows us what it is to be human'

and really that's why art

should be on the curriculum.

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER

(23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851)

Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851) was an English Romantic
landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker, whose style can be said to have laid the
foundation for Impressionism. Although Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day,
he is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history
painting.

His work was exhibited when he was still a teenager. His entire life was devoted to his art. Unlike
many artists of his era, he was successful throughout his career.

Turner's will, which was under litigation for many years, left more than 19,000 watercolors,
drawings, and oils to the British nation. Most of these works are in the National Gallery and the
Tate Gallery, London. Many of Turner's oils have deteriorated badly.
The comedian 10 march
Comedian is a 2019 artwork by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. The work, created in an edition of
three, consists of a fresh banana taped to a wall with a piece of duct tape. Two editions of the
piece sold for $120,000 USD at Art Basel Miami Beach to significant media attention.

16 march find artwork to reflect realities

19 march prehistoric art
prehistoric art prehistoric art pertains

to all art forms produced before the

existence of any writing forms although

much contested because of it being

Eurocentric this term is still the one

used in most art books printed art

pieces under this umbrella term were

created from circa 30,000 BCE to circa

4000 BCE ranging from panel ethic the

Neolithic periods respectively so why

are these artifacts important

well since art pieces are tangible

proofs and records of the past looking

to the creative productions of our

ancestors is significant in our attempt

to know how they lived discover their

value systems and ultimately call

whatever we can learn from their

existence the Venus of Willendorf this

sculpture has been the finest example of

padel ethic art excavated in Willendorf

austria it has been one of the strongest

evidences that our ancestors were able

to produce art the Venus of Willendorf

size and body shed a plethora of clues

about our ancestors being around four

inches in size it signifies the

possibility that this was carried by the

nomads wherever they go

the huge depictions of the breasts and

the buttocks are all indications that

this might have been a fertility statue

it is also interesting to note that the

Venus of Willendorf is not alone a

number of excavated sculptures also bear

the same qualities like

Venis of les bog and the venus of Lhasa

now housed in the Natural History's

Museum in Vienna the Venus of Willendorf

is indeed a milestone in art history

Hall of the Bulls the Hall of the Bulls

is a 17 meter long rotunda depicting

wall paintings of animals like horses

and cattle these cave wall paintings are

only a part of almost 2,000 other

paintings found inside the Lascaux cave

in France there are a lot of

speculations on the possible purpose of

these cave paintings from something very

lofty like recording their daily lives

and rituals to something mundane like

keeping track of their animals the

answer might still be a subject of

debate but one thing is for certain

our ancestors were not devoid of any

form of creativity

[Music]

Hanne stencils inside Gravas de las

manos these hand stencils inside gravis

de las manos or cave of the hands in

argentina were believed to have been

created around 11,000 BCE to 7,500 BCE

just like the walls of Lascaux in france

there are also animal paintings inside

this cave but the most prominent were

the hand stencils according to art

experts and archaeologists these

stencils were made by blowing pigments

while the hands are placed on the

surface of the walls just like the whole

of the Bulls the function that these

hand stencils serve is still not

definite some would say that these are

used as territorial markings some said

these are their own version of census

while some stipulated that the stencils

are the human beings first steps in

using art for the purpose of posterity

19 march caveart 101

Wooly mammoths, step bison,

and other large mammals

once roamed alongside

people across Eurasia.

Tens of thousands of years later,

we may have glimpse

into this Ice Age world

through the cave art left

behind by early humans.

(tinkling music)

Around 400 art-filled caves and shelters

predominately located in France and Spain

have been discovered so far.

Some of the most elaborate

prehistoric artwork

exists in caves in France

known as Lascaux Grotto

and Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc.

Cave art dates as far

back as 65,000 years ago

to the time of the neanderthals.

Though, radiocarbon

dating and other methods

have revealed most art to be

less than 40,000 years old

and created by homo sapiens.

The majority of cave art depicts animals

that humans would have

encountered or hunted

during the Ice Age,

such as mammoths, horses,

lions, aurochs, and deer.

Some human figures and other symbols

have also been discovered.

Cave paintings were mostly created

with red or black

pigments made from rocks.

Some artworks were painted

directly onto cave walls,

while some were first engraved

into the stone with tools.

Occasionally, the artists would follow

the natural contours of the stone walls

to accentuate an animal's features.

Ever since the late

1800s, people have debated

the meaning and purpose of cave art.

Some scholars think cave paintings

were created by shamans who

would go deep into caves

and enter a trance-like state,

drawing animals they

encountered in the spirit world.

Symbols repeated across artworks

may indicate that those symbols

had agreed upon meaning among the artists.

Thus, perhaps cave art also represents

the earliest form of

graphic communication.

In reality, cave art may have been created

for a variety of reasons.

While we may never know

with absolute certainty

why cave art was made,

or the meaning behind

individual paintings,

these works give us insight

into the evolving minds

of our prehistoric ancestors

and the world in which they lived.

By one view, cave artists

were prehistoric naturalists.

Their detailed drawings may teach us

about the appearance

and behavior of animals

that have long been extinct.

But perhaps more significant,

a part of our never-ending

quest to find out

who we are and where we came from,

cave art may provide evidence of a time

when humans were first able

to etch their thoughts in stone.

19 march Chauvet cave
on a journey to one of the most

important prehistoric sites ever

discovered it's hidden deep within these

limestone cliffs until recently the last

people to set foot in this place were

our Paleolithic ancestors before a rock

fall cut it off from the outside world

sealed shut for tens of thousands of

years this place was discovered by

cavers in 1994 and then closed off to

the public immediately very few people

have ever been allowed in but it's

absolutely spectacular on top of its

natural beauty there Chauvet caves most

breathtaking feature is its art hundreds

of images adorn the walls

most of them animals they're

surprisingly sophisticated but these

were painted 35,000 years ago by early

humans it's some of the oldest art ever

found but opening it up to the public

could destroy it we risk contamination

the climate would be much disturbed so

much that we could have alteration of

the paintings we don't want to take this

risk now the French authorities have

found a way to both preserve and promote

the Chauvet Cave they've built another

one this stadium-sized replica cost 55

million euros it reproduces some of the

caves most important features to scale

it's hugely impressive this

collaboration between scientists

architects and engineers but the walls

here aren't made from rock they're made

from concrete and resin 3d scans were

used to create a digital map of the cave

then sculptures and artists brought the

natural features to life photos of the

ancient arts were projected onto

canvases of faith rock they took months

to create it's important for the public

to see the art in

in environment you have the darkness you

have also this fresh air and so on

humidity and these elements are also an

important part of the feelings of the

emotion that you can have in front of

the originals back in the original cave

and it's full of the echoes of history

but with so few privileged enough to

experience this the hope is that the

replica will bring a glimpse of the past

to the wider world

Rebecca Morelle BBC news a Chauvet Cave

19 march why are these 32 symbols found in Europe

For centuries, the focus of paleoanthropology (and the popular imagination) has
been the representational art that our ancestors left behind in caves: eye-catching
drawings of deer, horse, bison and human figures. But when she was a senior in
college, von Petzinger, a TED Fellow and a researcher at the University of Victoria
in Canada, was drawn to the often-overlooked abstract signs: the disks, triangles,
dots, circles and lines. “There was something about them that I found much more
interesting than the animals and the people,” she says. “Those are nice too, but it
seemed like there were some patterns going on there, and yet there was not even
enough information to even delve into it.”

Five years ago, von Petzinger set out to document and systematically catalogue the
geometric signs that were created tens of thousands of years ago in Europe during
the Ice Age. She started by compiling a database of the geometric signs found at
the nearly 370 known rock art sites across the continent. From there, she identified
gaps in the inventories at many sites and by exploring the rarely documented sites
— with her husband, photographer/filmmaker Dillon von Petzinger, to capture the
images — she made discoveries that hold tantalizing implications about the origin
of art and the evolution of human cognition.

The Las Chimeneas cave in northern Spain. Pictured here is a Spanish tectiform sign (left), a local version
of the tectiform (meaning “roof-shaped”) sign. The Spanish tectiform is indigenous to northern Spain, and
it’s been hypothesized to be a representation of a Paleolithic dwelling or a boat or to be a more abstract
interpretation of a local clan or tribal sign.
Up a side passage off the main pathway in the El Castillo cave in Spain, you will find a single panel
consisting of a penniform (named after the Latin word for “feather”) sign in black, surrounded by five
bell-shaped signs in red. The ledge framing the bottom of this tableaux gives it an almost altar-like
appearance.

The 32 signs that von Petzinger has catalogued in Ice Age cave art across Europe. They account for the
vast majority of non-figurative imagery found across the continent during this 30,000-year time span,
suggesting that they were used with purpose and were meaningful to their creators. Each of the 32 signs
has their own distinct pattern of use. Courtesy Genevieve von Petzinger.
A chamber with Spanish tectiforms made with red ochre, found in El Castillo. The tectiform signs are large
— many of them are two to three feet in length. The large groupings of red dots in the form of rows or
circular patterns seem to appear most often in northern Spain.

What can art tell us about the evolution of human cognition? “Art is a really
interesting window into the mind,” von Petzinger says, “It’s this very abstract,
cognitively complex thing to do.” If early humans were creating signs with specific
meanings during the Ice Age, it would mark a huge step forward in when we
developed complex writing systems. After all, our ability to communicate
graphically is one of the things that sets us apart from the rest of the animal
kingdom. “Once you can store information outside of an individual, think about
what the potential is to be able to pass that information onto larger groups of
people and to preserve important information,” von Petzinger says. “I think those
very first little steps actually helped put us on this incredible path that we’ve
ended up on.” She is currently working to broaden her database to include sites in
the Balkans and Caucasus, before expanding further east into Eurasia. And she’s
planning an expedition in spring 2018 to go to the coast of Spain and search for
submerged caves that just might have intact Ice Age art, a collaboration with
underwater robot entrepreneur and fellow TED Fellow David Lang.

22 march history of Stonehenge

eep in the heart of England, by the side

of a road, stands a massive stone monument

that has mystified visitors for millennia.

It is called Stonehenge, and it is an ancient

stone circle, older than the pyramids of Giza.

What little is known about its history has

been pieced together by archaeologists, because

it is so old that there is no written record

of its construction, or of its original purpose.

Stonehenge is probably between 4,000 and 5,000

years old, and its construction was spread

across hundreds or even thousands of years.

It was used, among other things, as a place

of burial.

Some think it may also have been used as a

calendar, or as a place to study the movements

of the stars and worship the Sun and Moon.

Although we may never know exactly why Stonehenge

was built, most believe it was used for religious

ceremonies.

The earliest versions of Stonehenge were made

of earthworks and ditches dug with tools made

of antlers.

This was eventually replaced by some kind

of wooden structure, which was replaced in

turn by circles of massive standing stones.

The stones at Stonehenge were brought there

over a period of several hundred years.

The largest stones, called sarsens, measure

up to 30 feet or 9 meters tall and weigh an

average of 25 tons.

These stones were probably transported 20

miles or 32 kilometers to Stonehenge.

Some of the smaller stones, called bluestones,

are believed to have been brought from Wales,

more than 140 miles or 225 kilometers away.

Although they are smaller than the massive

sarsens, the bluestones still weigh an average

of 4 tons each, and archaeologists are baffled

as to how they were transported so far without

modern technology - or even the wheel!

Some people think the stones were rolled on

tree trunks, or dragged in huge baskets pulled

by oxen.

Others believe they were moved by boat, with

the help of the nearby river Avon.

However the stones were moved, they were placed

with incredible precision.

Certain stones in the ancient circle line

up with the midsummer sunrise and the winter

solstice sunset, marking the longest and shortest

days of the year.

Today Stonehenge is a carefully protected

World Heritage Site visited by about a million

people each year, and many people still visit

Stonehenge at midsummer and midwinter to view

the ancient phenomena that marks the rising

and the setting of the sun, and wonder at

the mysteries Stonehenge still hides.

22 march
Stonehenge was built and modified several

times over the course of a thousand years

starting around 5,000 years ago.

This kit shows what the final version probably

looked like based on the ruins that are there today.

But some of these stones are simply missing

so archaeologists can’t know for sure that

this plan was ever actually completed.

These tall structures are called trilithons,

and the tallest one is 9 meters, or 30 feet.

There's only 3 of them still standing today, but it would

have been just two, except they propped one

back up in the 1950s.

These smaller stones are called bluestones.

The geological source for these is over 200km

away, and there’s an ongoing debate

about whether they were carried to the

site by people, or by glaciers some time long ago.

Even these smaller stones weigh around 3 or 4 tons,

so it would be like moving 40 dead

hippos from DC to Philly without a wheel.

This is a prehistoric project, which means that the neolithic people that built it

didn't leave any written records about why or how they were doing this.

But they did leave behind some clues, like

the antlers they used as picks to dig holes.

Because antlers are organic material, they can

be radiocarbon dated, which is how archaeologists

can estimate the chronology

of all of this.

These outer stones weigh around

25 tons.

Their source was more local, but they still

had to be moved some 20 km. and archaeologists

can only guess how they did that.

They’re called sarsen stones and they’re

harder than steel but they were shaped into

these fairly uniform blocks using stone tools.

And then they were pushed into pits before being pulled upright.

The stones in the top ring are called lintels

and you can’t tell from this model but they

actually had joints - like woodworking joints.

There were grooves in the lintels that fit into bumps on the top of the upright stones and then on
the side

of the lintels, they also fit together like puzzle pieces.

And not only that, but the neolithic builders who made this were able to carefully calculate

the heights of all the stones so that the monument

was level even though it’s not on level ground.

The stone circle was just part of the Stonehenge

site.

It sits in a much larger circle that was drawn

in the earth with ditches and mounds.

There was an avenue leading up to the entrance

of that circle, a big stone on that avenue

called the Heel stone, and four other stones

that form a rectangle and may be linked to

certain moon cycles.

This site must have been incredibly important

to the neolithic people that built it, but despite

hundreds of years of analysis and speculation,

we’ll never know for sure

what it really meant to them.

But we do know that it’s design involved

an early form of astronomy.

In the 18th century, a historian noticed that

the central axis of stonehenge points toward

the location on the horizon where the sun

rises on the summer solstice.

So if you stood in the center of the monument and looked toward the Heel stone, you'd see

the sun rise there on June 21st — it’s not

a perfect alignment, but it's close.

Summer solstice is when the sun’s path is

furthest north, rising in the northeast and

setting in the northwest.

That makes it high in the sky in the northern

hemisphere and low in the southern hemisphere.

This is all because the earth is tilted relative

to it’s orbit around the sun, and the solstices

are where the sun’s path appears to pause and change

direction.

But the people that built stonehenge didn’t

know the earth moves around the sun or spins

on a tilted axes.

They probably didn’t even suspect it was

round.

They just saw the sun bring longer days in

the summer and shorter days in the winter

and those turning points would have meant a lot for their food security.
And there’s reason to think that the winter

solstice was particularly important for the people

at Stonehenge. The winter solstice sunset is on the same axis as the summer solstice sunrise - just

on the other end, toward the southwest.

And the midwinter alignment shows up in other

monuments, like the

Newgrange tomb in Ireland which has a window that

allows the sunrise to illuminate the inner chamber

on the sunrise of winter solstice.

Archeologists also found pig bones from a

settlement near Stonehenge that they believe

were slaughtered in the wintertime, based

on the pigs’ age.

Their findings suggest an annual winter solstice pilgrimage and feast.

The idea is that people would have approached

the monument by walking on the avenue, which

would have put the midwinter sunset in their

sightline, right in the window of the tallest

trilithon.

Historian John North argued that when viewed

from this side, the monument’s silhouette

would have looked like a solid black form,

with the setting sun bursting through

bringing the promise of another spring.

23 march
Sir Francis Galton

gives a remarkable talk.

He's speaking to the anthropologic

institute of Great Britain and Ireland.

Known for his pioneering work

in human intelligence,

Galton is a brilliant polymath.

He's an explorer,

an anthropologist,

a sociologist,

a psychologist

and a statistician.

He's also a eugenist.

In this talk,

he presents a new technique

by which he can combine photographs

and produce composite portraits.

This technique could be used

to characterize different types of people.

Galton thinks that if he combines

photographs of violent criminals,

he will discover the face of criminality.

But to his surprise,

the composite portrait that he produces

is beautiful.

Galton's surprising finding

raises deep questions:

What is beauty?

Why do certain configurations of line

and color and form excite us so?

For most of human history,

these questions have been approached

using logic and speculation.

But in the last few decades,

scientists have addressed

the question of beauty

using ideas from evolutionary psychology

and tools of neuroscience.

We're beginning to glimpse

the why and the how of beauty,

at least in terms of what it means

for the human face and form.

And in the process,

we're stumbling upon some surprises.

When it comes to seeing

beauty in each other,

while this decision is certainly

subjective for the individual,

it's sculpted by factors that contribute

to the survival of the group.

Many experiments have shown

that a few basic parameters contribute

to what makes a face attractive.

These include averaging, symmetry

and the effects of hormones.

Let's take each one of these in turn.

Galton's finding

that composite or average faces

are typically more attractive

than each individual face

that contributes to the average

has been replicated many times.

This laboratory finding fits

with many people's intuitions.

Average faces represent

the central tendencies of a group.

People with mixed features

represent different populations,

and presumably harbor

greater genetic diversity

and adaptability to the environment.

Many people find mixed-race

individuals attractive

and inbred families less so.

The second factor that contributes

to beauty is symmetry.

People generally find symmetric faces

more attractive than asymmetric ones.

Developmental abnormalities

are often associated with asymmetries.

And in plants, animals and humans,

asymmetries often arise

from parasitic infections.

Symmetry, it turns out,

is also an indicator of health.

In the 1930s,

a man named Maksymilian Faktorowicz

recognized the importance

of symmetry for beauty

when he designed the beauty micrometer.

With this device,

he could measure minor asymmetric flaws

which he could then make up for

with products he sold from his company,

named brilliantly

after himself, Max Factor,

which, as you know,

is one of the world's most famous brands

for "make up."

The third factor that contributes

to facial attractiveness

is the effect of hormones.

And here, I need to apologize

for confining my comments

to heterosexual norms.

But estrogen and testosterone

play important roles

in shaping features

that we find attractive.

Estrogen produces features

that signal fertility.

Men typically find women attractive

who have elements

of both youth and maturity.

A face that's too baby-like might

mean that the girl is not yet fertile,

so men find women attractive

who have large eyes,

full lips and narrow chins

as indicators of youth,

and high cheekbones

as an indicator of maturity.

Testosterone produces features

that we regard as typically masculine.

These include heavier brows,

thinner cheeks

and bigger, squared-off jaws.

But here's a fascinating irony.

In many species,

if anything,

testosterone suppresses the immune system.

So the idea that testosterone-infused

features are a fitness indicator

doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.

Here, the logic is turned on its head.

Instead of a fitness indicator,

scientists invoke a handicap principle.

The most commonly cited

example of a handicap

is the peacock's tail.

This beautiful but cumbersome tail

doesn't exactly help the peacock

avoid predators

and approach peahens.

Why should such an extravagant

appendage evolve?

Even Charles Darwin,

in an 1860 letter to Asa Gray wrote

that the sight of the peacock's tail

made him physically ill.

He couldn't explain it

with his theory of natural selection,

and out of this frustration,

he developed the theory

of sexual selection.

On this account,

the display of the peacock's tail

is about sexual enticement,

and this enticement means

it's more likely the peacock will mate

and have offspring.

Now, the modern twist

on this display argument

is that the peacock is also

advertising its health to the peahen.

Only especially fit organisms

can afford to divert resources

to maintaining such

an extravagant appendage.

Only especially fit men can afford

the price that testosterone levies

on their immune system.

And by analogy, think of the fact

that only very rich men can afford

to pay more than $10,000 for a watch

as a display of their financial fitness.

Now, many people hear these kinds

of evolutionary claims

and think they mean that we somehow

are unconsciously seeking mates

who are healthy.

And I think this idea

is probably not right.

Teenagers and young adults are not exactly

known for making decisions

that are predicated on health concerns.

But they don't have to be,

and let me explain why.

Imagine a population

in which people have three different

kinds of preferences:

for green, for orange and for red.

From their point of view,

these preferences have

nothing to do with health;

they just like what they like.

But if it were also the case

that these preferences are associated

with the different likelihood

of producing offspring --

let's say in a ratio of 3:2:1 --

then in the first generation,

there would be 3 greens

to 2 oranges to 1 red,
and in each subsequent generation,

the proportion of greens increase,

so that in 10 generations,

98 percent of this population

has a green preference.

Now, a scientist coming in

and sampling this population

discovers that green

preferences are universal.

So the point about this little

abstract example

is that while preferences

for specific physical features

can be arbitrary for the individual,

if those features are heritable

and they are associated

with a reproductive advantage,

over time,

they become universal for the group.

So what happens in the brain

when we see beautiful people?

Attractive faces activate

parts of our visual cortex

in the back of the brain,

an area called the fusiform gyrus,

that is especially tuned

to processing faces,

and an adjacent area called

the lateral occipital complex,

that is especially attuned

to processing objects.

In addition,

attractive faces activate parts

of our reward and pleasure centers

in the front and deep in the brain,

and these include areas

that have complicated names,

like the ventral striatum,

the orbitofrontal cortex

and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

Our visual brain that is tuned

to processing faces

interacts with our pleasure centers

to underpin the experience of beauty.

Amazingly, while we all

engage with beauty,

without our knowledge,

beauty also engages us.

Our brains respond to attractive faces

even when we're not thinking about beauty.

We conducted an experiment
in which people saw a series of faces,

and in one condition,

they had to decide if a pair of faces

were the same or a different person.

Even in this condition,

attractive faces drove neural activity

robustly in their visual cortex,

despite the fact that they were thinking

about a person's identity

and not their beauty.

Another group similarly found

automatic responses to beauty

within our pleasure centers.

Taken together, these studies suggest

that our brain automatically

responds to beauty

by linking vision and pleasure.

These beauty detectors, it seems,

ping every time we see beauty,

regardless of whatever else

we might be thinking.

We also have a "beauty is good"

stereotype embedded in the brain.

Within the orbitofrontal cortex,

there's overlapping neural activity

in response to beauty and to goodness,

and this happens even when people

aren't explicitly thinking

about beauty or goodness.

Our brains seem to reflexively

associate beauty and good.

And this reflexive association

may be the biologic trigger

for the many social effects of beauty.

Attractive people receive

all kinds of advantages in life.

They're regarded as more intelligent,

more trustworthy,

they're given higher pay

and lesser punishments,

even when such judgments

are not warranted.

These kinds of observations

reveal beauty's ugly side.

In my lab, we recently found

that people with minor facial

anomalies and disfigurements

are regarded as less good, less kind,

less intelligent, less competent

and less hardworking.

Unfortunately, we also have

a "disfigured is bad" stereotype.

This stereotype is probably

exploited and magnified

by images in popular media,

in which facial disfigurement

is often used as a shorthand

to depict someone of villainous character.

We need to understand

these kinds of implicit biases

if we are to overcome them

and aim for a society

in which we treat people fairly,

based on their behavior and not

on the happenstance of their looks.

Let me leave you with one final thought.

Beauty is a work in progress.

The so-called universal

attributes of beauty

were selected for during the almost

two million years of the Pleistocene.

Life was nasty, brutish

and a very long time ago.

The selection criteria

for reproductive success from that time

doesn't really apply today.

For example,
death by parasite is not one

of the top ways that people die,

at least not in the technologically

developed world.

From antibiotics to surgery,

birth control to in vitro fertilization,

the filters for reproductive success

are being relaxed.

And under these relaxed conditions,

preference and trait combinations

are free to drift

and become more variable.

Even as we are profoundly

affecting our environment,

modern medicine

and technological innovation

is profoundly affecting

the very essence of what it means

to look beautiful.

The universal nature of beauty is changing

even as we're changing the universe.

Anjan Chatterjee

31 march
astronomy, and law.

The story of civilization

itself begins in one place.

Not Egypt, not Greece, not Rome.

But Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia is an

exceedingly fertile plain

situated between the Tigris

and the Euphrates Rivers.

For five millennia,

the small strip of land

situated in what is today

Iraq, Kuwait and Syria

fostered innovations that

would change the world forever.

Inhabited for nearly 12,000 years,

Mesopotamia's stable climate, rich soil

and steady supply of

fresh water made it ideal

for agriculture to develop and thrive.

About 6,000 years ago,

seemingly overnight,

some of these agricultural

settlements blossomed

into some of the world's first cities.

In the period between 4,000 and 3,100 BC,

Mesopotamia was dotted

with a constellation

of competing city states.

At one point, they were unified under

the Akkadian Empire and then broke apart

forming the empires of

Assyria and Babylon.

Despite near constant warfare,

innovation and development

thrived in ancient Mesopotamia.

They built on a monumental scale

from palaces to ziggurats,

mammoth temples served as ritual locations

to commune with the gods.

They also developed advanced mathematics,

including a base 60 system that created

a 60-second minute, a 60-minute hour

and a 360-degree circular angle.

The Babylonians used

their sophisticated system

of mathematics to map and study the sky.

They divided one earth

year into 12 periods.

Each was named after the

most prominent constellations

in the heavens, a tradition

later adopted by the Greeks

to create the zodiac.

They also divided the

week into seven days,

naming each after their seven gods

embodied by the seven

observable planets in the sky.

But perhaps the most impactful

innovation to come out

of Mesopotamia is literacy.

What began as simple pictures

scrawled onto wet clay

to keep track of goods and wealth

developed into a

sophisticated writing system

by the year 3,200 BC.

This writing system would

come to be called cuneiform

in modern times and

proved so flexible that

over the span of 3,000

years, it would be adapted

for over a dozen different major languages

and countless uses including

recording the law of the

Babylonian king Hammurabi,

which formed the basis of a

standardized justice system.

But Mesopotamia's success

became its undoing.

Babylon in particular

proved too rich a state

to resist outside envy.

In 539 BC, the Persian king

Cyrus conquered Babylon

and sealed his control over

the entirety of Mesopotamia.

For centuries, this

area became a territory

of foreign empires.

Eventually, Mesopotamia

would fade like its kings

into the mists of history.

And its cities would sink

beneath the sands of Iraq.

But its ideas would

prevail in literacy, law,

math, astronomy and the

gift of civilization itself.

31 march
Lamassu
Lamashtu, (Akkadian), Sumerian Dimme, in Mesopotamian religion, the most terrible of all
female demons, daughter of the sky god Anu (Sumerian: An). She slew children and drank the
blood of men and ate their flesh. The bearer of seven names, she was often described in
incantations as the “seven witches.” Lamashtu perpetrated a variety of evil deeds: she
disturbed sleep and brought nightmares; she killed foliage and infested rivers and streams;
she bound the muscles of men, caused pregnant women to miscarry, and brought disease
and sickness. Lamashtu was often portrayed on amulets as a lion- or bird-headed female
figure kneeling on an ass; she held a double-headed serpent in each hand and suckled
a dog at her right breast and a pig or another dog at her left breast.

31 march 5 things we love about rakowitz

Artwork by Chicago-based Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz has appeared worldwide –

and this year, he created the piece for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth, The invisible enemy
should not exist. Here are five reasons we love his work.

He resurrected a 3,000-year-old winged bull

Behind the four lions of Trafalgar Square perches a stranger, older beast. Its face is human, its
body a bull’s and the bright wings of a bird stretch out from its back. It is the protective deity
that stood sentry at the Nergal Gate in the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nineveh from
700BC. After surviving for nearly 3,000 years, it was destroyed by Islamic State in 2015. This
year, the lamassu winged its way to the Fourth Plinth, courtesy of Michael Rakowitz, where it
will remain until 2020 - facing southeast towards Nineveh, longing to return.

Rakowitz’s Fourth Plinth offering is part of a much larger project. Since 2006, Rakowitz has
sought to reconstruct more than 8,000 artefacts from the National Museum of Iraq in
Baghdad that are missing, stolen, destroyed or ‘of status unknown’ following the 2003
invasion by the US-led coalition. The sacking of the museum was, he has said, the first event
of the war about which there was a consensus – whether you were for or against the conflict,
this was a tragedy.

4 april
Ancient Egypt civilization
the ancient Egyptian civilization lasted
for over 3,000 years

and became one of the most powerful and

iconic civilizations in history at its

height ancient Egypt's Empire stretched

as far north as modern-day Syria and as

far south as today's Sudan but long

before it was an empire ancient Egypt

was a series of small independent

city-states that bloomed along North

Africa's Nile River the city-states were

divided into two regions and named

according to the flow of the Nile upper

egypt in the south which was upstream

and lower egypt in the north which was

downstream by about 3100 bc the two

halves united thereby creating one

egyptian state that lasted for millennia

the reign of the civilization can be

divided into three major periods of

prosperity called the old middle and new

kingdoms and two periods of instability

in between called the first and second

intermediate periods guiding the

Egyptian people was a succession of

about 300 rulers often referred to as

Pharaoh's Pharaoh which means great

house in Egyptian was never the rulers

formal title it only became synonymous

with a ruling individual in modern times

thanks to its use in the Hebrew Bible

these rulers who were not always men nor

Egyptian were considered protectors of

the people and served as divine liaisons

between humanity and the hundreds of

gods they worshiped after the rulers

passed away ancient Egyptians believed

they then became gods to prepare their

journey into the afterlife the rulers

constructed elaborate tombs including

the Great Pyramids at Giza and

underground mausoleums

in the Valley of the Kings rulers filled

their tombs with all the items they

could need in the afterlife including

gold jewelry through

drink and even pets preparing for this

journey to the gods also involved

mummifying ones body the deceased corpse

was embalmed wrapped in hundreds of

yards of linen and placed inside the

tomb so the body could be reanimated in

the afterlife to this day structures

like the Great Pyramids are a testament

to the role of religion in ancient

Egyptians lives but they also represent

the innovative and cultural might of the

Egyptian people innovations in

mathematics and written language in

particular propelled their civilization

to success math specifically measurement

mathematics helped the Egyptians

understand and harness their world with

numbers like no other civilization had

before they developed a new form of

measurement called the cubit it was used

to design massive structures such as the

Great Pyramid with remarkable

geometrical precision the Egyptians also

measured time by combining mathematics

with astronomy they established a 24

hour division to the day and created a

solar calendar which was the first

dating system in history to feature 365

days in one year

lastly Egyptians developed methods to

measure and survey land around the Nile

River these civil engineering feats made

way for the construction of dams canals

and irrigation systems that helped

farming and agriculture to flourish in

the Nile Valley in addition to

mathematical concepts

the ancient Egyptians also created

written languages to describe the world

around them the oldest and probably most

well known of these is hieroglyphic

writing

this system was developed around 3150 BC

during the Old Kingdom and has over 700

pictorial characters it was used to

inscribe monuments and pottery and

predominantly served a decorative or

ceremonial purpose soon after another

ancient form of writing called higher

attic developed out of the hieroglyphic

system it was a form of cursive that was

written an inked and served a more

functional purpose unlike it's more

formal predecessor higher attic was

written on another ancient Egyptian

innovation papyrus papyrus was a type of

paper derived from the papyrus plant

which grew plentifully along the Nile

River this medium gave the ancient

Egyptians a new avenue of communication

and record-keeping that allowed their

civilizations administrative skill to

grow and their culture to spread for

thousands of years as with all great

empires ancient Egypt came to an end it

was eventually conquered after a series

of invasions including those by the

Persian Empire in the 4th century BC and

the Roman Empire around 30 BC not many

civilizations can claim a lifespan of

over 3,000 years let alone one that made

vast cultural contributions that still

resonate in modern times ancient Egypt

with its linguistic and mathematical

innovations spirituality and religion

and extensive political and military

might set a high standard for all

civilizations that followed

13 april ancient Greek architechture

of all the ancient architectural styles

Greek architecture has proven to be the

most enduring sure the Egyptians built

some impressive structures and the

Romans pulled off some amazing feats of

engineering but you don't see us

building pyramids anymore at least

nowhere but Vegas and even Roman

engineering Marvel's incorporated Greek

form and style Greek architecture is

more than just impressive it is timeless

you don't have to dig in ruins to find

Greek architecture it's all around you

don't believe me go visit a civic

structure City Hall a theater a bank a

library a museum or if you're really

ambitious head to DC or any Western

capital for that matter what do you see

columns columns columns columns columns

in short if you want a westerner to

think something is important

put columns on it and not just any

columns Greek columns Greek columns come

in three varieties or orders Doric ionic

and Corinthian all three share the same

fluted column or drum where they differ

is at the top what is called the capital

of the column and what better place to

learn about column capitals than at our

nation's capital for of all the world's

cities none is more indebted to

classical Greek architecture than

Washington DC let us start with the

Lincoln Memorial look at those lovely

columns these are columns of the Doric

order the dis simplest of the Greek

columns with a tapered disk supporting a

square top now let's skip along to the

Jefferson Memorial see those little

Curly's at the top that tells us that

these are columns of the ionic order

let us end our tour at the Capitol

building itself see that fancy filigree

at the top of the columns sort of looks

like a very symmetrical plant tried to

grow at the top this is a column of the

Corinthian order Corinthian columns come

in many forms each more ornate than the

last but they all share the same

undeniably leafy quality there now you

know the three orders of Greek columns

and can impress or annoy your friends by

pointing them out as you walk around

town yet there was more to Greek

architecture than just columns the

Greeks built breathtaking temples as

well as Treasuries stadiums and theaters

your basic Greek temple is a roofed

rectangle surrounded by columns that's

me in front of a particularly old Greek

temple in Corinth what sort of columns

are those that's right Doric well done

anyway these temples had a long angled

roof peaking on the short ends to form a

triangle called

a pediment these shallow shelters were

filled with life-size sculptures the

roof rested upon an even plane called an

entablature which spanned the gaps

between columns to provide a solid

surface as temple building developed

architects added decorations to the

entablature

called meta peace separated from each

other by three lines called a tri glyph

further developments and bigger temples

led to the addition of a second row of

columns with a continuous decoration

called a frieze running along the top

inside the temple was a smaller

enclosure called a mouse lined with its

own columns this was the holiest place

of the temple and usually housed an idol

of the deity for whom the temple was

built

sometimes the Greeks would switch up

column styles within the nose putting

the hefty Doric on the outside and the

delicate ionic or Corinthian within

perhaps the most famous Greek temple is

the Parthenon the Athenians began

building this temple to Athena in 447

BCE and did not complete it until 15

years later like all Greek city-states

the Athenians built their most

impressive temples atop the highest

point in town called the Acropolis

literally High City

the Parthenon had all the elements of a

Greek temple the columns and entablature

the pediment full of sculptures it even

had the extra features meta peas

depicting a battle between centaurs and

Lapiths and the second row of columns

with their accompanying frieze depicting

a civic procession of Athenians in

exquisite detail and within the nas

recreated here by the fine folks at

Nashville's Centennial Park big Idol of

Athena on the inside

yet these images cannot convey the

overall effect of this building you

simply have to be there standing among

the columns you see the clever tricks of

the eye Greek architects used to make

the Parthenon tower imposingly you can

see how they tapered the columns at the

top to make the building seem taller a

trick they called aunt asus as you

examine more closely you notice that

there is not a single right angle or

straight line in the entire Parthenon

yet the mind expects right angles it

expects straight lines by taking

advantage of the minds expectations the

Greek architects could make the

Parthenon appear even larger than it

actually was the overall effect is one

of airy grandeur Treasuries and stadiums

pop up in important Panhellenic sites

like Delphi and Olympia places where all

the Greeks came to worship meet and

compete stadiums provided a place to

watch competitions these stadiums were

not the massive round Affairs that we

have today but rather tiered benches

along the side of a long track called a

Stade which is where we get the name

stadium competitors would race down the

Stade and back again here's me and some

friends running the state at Delfy of

course the Greeks would have done this

naked but there were ladies present my

friend Mel and I were actually arrested

months later for running naked to the

ancient Stadium of Olympia apparently

the Greek police don't know a historical

reproduction when they see one still

they were good sports and dropped us off

at our hotel though we never got a

chance to recover our clothes for all I

know they're still there part of the

historical record another way

city-states competed that these holy

sites was by making lavish donations to

the God which they housed in Treasuries

being full of treasure Treasuries lacked

the airy openness of Greek temples they

were squat strong houses with opulent

facades to declare the glory of the

polis that built it and hint at the

wealth stored with

in the form of these Treasuries is often

mimicked by today's banks yet perhaps

the most distinctly Greek piece of

architecture is the theater indeed an

archaeologist can identify a Greek

colony based on little else Greeks use

their theaters for more than just

entertainment theater was both religious

and competitive and the Greeks took

theater and music competitions as

seriously as their sporting events if

the Greeks had refined their engineering

skills in their temples they mastered it

in their theaters Greek theaters are an

engineering marvel vast enough to seat

thousands yet precisely designed to

carry the slightest sound all the way to

the back at the center of every Greek

theater lays a small stone this is the

sweet spot of the theater that's Mel

from the Olympia debacle standing on the

sweet spot of Epidaurus home of the

largest and best-preserved of the Greek

theaters from that spot even the

slightest whisper resonates and spoken

words ring like the voice of God I've

been a singer all my life and I could

not resist I stood upon that sweet spot

and saying my face off and let me tell

you no stage no hall no Cathedral can

match the acoustic mastery of the Greek

Theatre the Greeks left us an

architectural legacy that in my humble

opinion we have failed to improve upon

in 3,000 years none have matched the

Greek balance of elegance and power

grace and gravity sure Roman arches are

quite useful and their domes defied

gravity medieval castles can be

beautiful and Gothic cathedrals near

take the breath away yet Roman

architecture like the Romans themselves

was always more practical than artistic

castles are beautiful relics and we

don't build many Gothic cathedrals these

days steel and glass have replaced stone

and steel and glass have allowed modern

architects to construct Marvel's

unimaginable grief yet the very vastness

our skyscrapers does not lend itself to

a human experience they are not built to

a human scale you might spy them from

afar gape upwards from their base or

downward from their top but you cannot

really grasp the entirety of a

skyscraper it is simply too big so while

it may seem that we have achieved with

steel with the Greeks merely suggested

with curves and angles Greek

architecture by tailoring itself to

human perception

somehow contrives to be grander than the

tallest tower

13april ancient Greece 101

Art, philosophy,

democracy, and heroes.

These are just a few achievements

of the legendary civilization

known as ancient Greece.

Ancient Greece was born on

the shores of the Aegean Sea

about 4,000 years ago.

In over a millennium, it expanded to lands

as far west as Spain and

as far east as India.

Throughout this age of empire,

the ancient Greeks made

political, militaristic,

and cultural achievements that resonated

long after their empire fell.

Part of the ancient Greeks'

legacy involved politics,

one of which was the political

system of Greece itself.

Unlike many nations that

were under unified rule,

Greece was a collection

of over 1,500 territories

that acted as sovereign nations.

Called city-states, these territories

had their own rulers and

sometimes fought each other.

Another political development

was the institution

of the first large-scale democracy.

Developed in the city-state of Athens,

democratic rule was a way

to give the Greek people

representation and political power.

The Greeks also earned a strong reputation

for their military.

The military helped

expand the Greek Empire

by establishing colonies overseas,

and it protected Greece

itself from foreign invaders

like the Persian Empire.

When such a threat

occurred, city-states united

to defend their homeland.

Many Greeks, particularly in Sparta,

took immense pride in their military

and regarded their soldiers as heroes.

Their heroism was often turned into legend

thanks to literary works like "The Iliad."

War heroes also inspired the

creation of the Olympics,

which celebrated physical competition.

Of all aspects of ancient

Greek civilization,

their cultural contributions

left a considerable mark

on the western world.

Particularly noteworthy

were the ancient Greeks' art

and architecture.

They created incredible sculptural works,

such as standing figures and reliefs.

Plus, they developed

three types of columns

and incorporated them to

structures like the Parthenon.

This artistry was imitated

by other civilizations

and spread throughout the

globe for thousands of years.

How the Greeks interpreted the world

was also reflected in other cultures.

Greek religion, which was comprised

of many anthropomorphic deities,

helped shape the spiritual beliefs

of the Etruscans and,

later, the ancient Romans.

Greek philosophy, which

explored matters of reason,

ethics, and natural law influenced

later civilizations' achievements

and politics and science.

Greek language made

quite an impact as well.

Ancient Greek, at about 3,400 years old,

provided the basis of

many modern languages.

The English language alone

has thousands of words

with Greek roots.

Ancient Greece's artistry,

regard for heroes,

and democratic rule left

a considerable impression

on world history.
With contributions that

lasted for millennia,

the civilization of ancient Greece

is nothing short of legendary.

13 april iris van herpan

14 april iris ven herpen process film

16 april
Ancient rome 101
The story of ancient Rome

is a story of evolution, of

how a civilization's ability

to adapt and dominate

can lead to its survival

for over 1,000 years.

Rome began as a small village

on central Italy's Tiber River.

In the coming centuries,

it grew into an empire

that stretched from the north Atlantic

all the way to the Persian Gulf.

During this transformation,

Rome displayed a political,

military, and cultural

prowess that enabled it

to become a super power and helped shape

what would become known

as western civilization.

The lifespan of ancient

Rome can be divided

into three major periods, the regal,

the republican, and the imperial.

During the regal period,

Rome was monarchical

and ruled by a succession

of about seven kings.

Rome's first king, according to legend,

was a man named Romulus.

He and his twin brother Remus are said

to have founded Rome in 753 B.C.

In 509 B.C., Rome adopted a

republican system of governance

in which the state was primarily ruled

by two annually representatives

called praetors,

who were later called consuls.

One of them become a famous general

and dictator, Julius Caesar.

The imperial period followed.

It was characterized by the

rise of the Roman Empire

and notorious leaders such as Octavian,

Rome's first emperor, who

issued in an era of peace,

and Nero, who, some scholars believe,

was Rome's cruelest emperor.

Rome's focus and pride in its military

was vital to the civilization's growth,

and this ethos was evident

as early as the regal period

when Rome was only a small village.

Still, Rome slowly conquered and annexed

neighboring peoples.

This slow and steady

expansion eventually lead

to the Romans' domination

of the Italian peninsula

and the entire Mediterranean Sea,

where they conquered the Greeks,

Egyptians, and Carthaginians.

Military conquests would later help Rome

conquer lands as far

away as Britain and Iraq.

This massive scale and growing populous

necessitated advancements

in Roman engineering.

Aqueducts were constructed,

which increased

the public's access to water,

helped improve public health,

and paved the way for

Rome's famed bath houses.

A 50,000 mile long road

system was built as well.

While made originally for the military,

it facilitated the movement of people

and ideas throughout the empire.

This transmission of ideas

and increased contact

with diverse cultures also enabled

other aspects of Roman culture to evolve.

A key to Rome's success and longevity

was the empire's inclusion of cultures

from the lands they conquered.

From the nearby land of Latium,

Rome acquired the Latin language,

which became the empire's

official language

and the ancestor to

Europe's Romance languages.

Romans also adopted cultural aspects

from the ancient state of Etruria,

including their religion, alphabet,

and the spectacle of gladiator combat.

However, no other civilization

influenced the Romans

as much as the ancient Greeks.

Their influence is probably most apparent

in Rome's art and architecture.

Upper class Romans commissioned

paintings and sculptures

to imitate Greek art.

Greek architectural

styles, such as columns,

were implemented in Roman structures

such as the Pantheon and Colosseum.

One cultural shift in

particular that resonated

throughout the empire was

the rise of Christianity.

Originating in the Middle East,

the religion found a strong

advocate in Constantine I,

the first Roman emperor to

convert to Christianity.

He enabled Rome's transition

into a Christian state

and encouraged the religion

to spread across Europe.

By the fourth century, after a lifespan of over a millennium, the Roman Empire declined.
Factors including political corruption, economic crises, and class conflict led to the empire's
decay from within while invasions and other military threats caused it to break down from
outside. Rome's ability to incorporate diverse cultures, dominate rivals, and adapt political
systems to the needs of its people are all lessons to be learned for time eternal.