Exploring Art History: Threats to Artworks and Architectural

School: Ashworth College - Course: ART HISTOR AR300 - Subject: Accounting

1 ZELDA HAYES AC1408619 At History A300 Assignment #4 December 01, 2022 The purpose of this paper is tobriefly define art history as an academic field based on my understanding of the readings in the textbook Introduction. Then, discuss two of the natural and human threats to artworks that concern contemporary art historians while providing specific examples of threats, the artworks involved, and how these threats affect the interpretation of the works by art historians. Another purpose of this paper is toexplain the construction of megalithic architecture and dome building, tracing its history from pre-historic art to the Renaissance. Let us first look at the question what defines art? According to our textbook, art is defined in various ways, one being that works of art demonstrate a combination of imagination, skill, training, and observation on the part of their human creators. It encapsulates the culture of the artist, when it appeals to our taste as beautiful and harmonious its beauty is in the eyes of the beholder definition of art. However, the definition of art can also incorporate notions about artists and patrons, who shared responsibility for the works. Only when being able to decipher the role of viewer responses and those who saw the works at the beginning stage can we really develop a true understanding of those artifacts we now call works of art.Let us now turn our discussion to describing the architectural innovations of the tomb in Newgrange, Ireland, and

2 connect these innovations with subsequent examples of the tholos tombs in Greece, to the Pantheon in Rome and conclude with the Florence Cathedral. At Newgrange in Ireland, a huge passage grave—originally 44 feet tall and 280 feet in diameter—was constructed about 3000-2500 BCE Its passageway, is 62 feet long and it is lined with standing stones that lead into a three-part chamber with a corbel vault. In discussing passage graves, we come to the limestone, corbeled vault known as the tholos tomb OR Treasury of Atreus located in Mycenae Greece.height of the vault approx. 43′ (13 m), diameter 47′ 6″ (14.48 m).standing stones, lead into a three-part chamber with a corbel vault For over a thousand years after it was constructed, this vast vaulted chamber remained the largest unobstructed interior space built in Europe. It was exceeded in size only by the Roman Pantheon.