Items of personal adornment from the Nile Valley are an important part of the history of jewelry. More than mere body ornament, jewelry in ancient Egypt was used to display rank, proclaim wealth, and designate social status. It was also fashioned into powerful amulets, objects of barter and trade, accouterments of daily attire, diplomatic gifts, military honors, and propagandistic tools.
Jewelry (κόσμος, lit. “ornament”). Byzantine jewelry continued Greco-Roman traditions but was also influenced by Eastern decorative and nonfigural types, with an admixture of local elements wherever in the empire it was produced. The forms of objects made by jewelers in Rome, Constantinople, Athens, Antioch, or Alexandria thus varied considerably. Byz. jewelry may generally be distinguished by its extensive use of color, usually achieved with gems or enamels.
Church (ἐκκλησία, lit. “assembly”). The Byz. did not develop a systematic ecclesiology. Instead, for them the church was a sacramental communion that included not only the earthly oikoumene but the Kingdom of Heaven as well, with angels, saints, and God himself: in the words of Isidore of Pelousion (PG 78:685A), a “union of saints hammered out of true faith and perfect behavior.” In general, however, the Byz. church rejected the claims of Donatism and Montanism, whose followers sought to exclude sinners from membership in the church. Sanctity and unity were considered basic features of the church, contrasted with the multiplicity and falsity of paganism and heresy. The unity of the church was underlined by such epithets as katholike (general) and oikoumenike (universal), and its dogmatic correctness by the epithet orthodoxos (of right belief).
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The cultural, artistic and literary contributions accompanying the economic changes we have just mentioned cannot simply be considered as descriptive or celebratory refl ections of these
events. They signify, instead, a new social awareness, advancement, consolidation and, frequently, far-sightedness. Thus, on the one hand, these additional forms of expression were
of major importance in supporting the advancement of the
middle-classes and their view of the world, and, on the other,
they supplied the very soil which gave rise to the studies of the
specialist treatises, an attempt to produce the kind of building
that was relevant to their particular ways of life.
Alberti, Leon Battista (1404–72), Italian humanist writer on the theory of art and architecture, designer of buildings, and, in varying degrees, athlete, lawyer, mathematician, moral philosopher, musician, painter, playwright, and satirist, born in Genoa, the illegitimate son of a Florentine exile. He was educated in Padua, where he was inducted into the humanist movement, and later studied law at Bologna.
“Vincent” is a song by Don McLean written as a tribute to Vincent van Gogh. It is also known by its opening line, “Starry Starry Night“, a reference to van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night. The song also describes different paintings done by the artist.
The Turkish word harim (Arab., “forbidden, inviolable”) refers to the part of a palace where the women and their resident personnel lived in seclusion. They were under the authority of the ruler, but within the harem existed a hierarchical order, the top of which was the sultan’s mother. A woman treasurer was responsible for the management of the harem.
At the next rank are the sultan’s favorite, then his sisters and daughters. The favorite who bore the first son to the sultan became his first spouse; he could have four. Women slaves assumed higher rank if they bore the sultan’s children. Women enjoying privileged status had their own household and income; the highest in rank owned palaces within the domain of the harem. Within the harem itself, the crown prince had his own harem. The work was done by numerous ordinary slaves and servants, watched over by eunuchs. The struggle for position was carried out through intrigue, and succession was often linked to murder.
Here we have one post that I read on wonderful blog The Victorian era.I believe that is interesting to see something like that, and to see how this theme found its way to art… in drawing of course.
http://19thcentury.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/female-hysteria/
Northern France had not ignored sculpture in the Romanesque period: its workshops had produced capitals decorated with foliage or animals, but rarely with the human figure, and the great sculpted tympanum had remained unknown there. It was in this region that Gothic art came into being, and from its beginning sculpted works of very high quality appeared, notably on the façade of Saint-Denis. What still exists of the masterpieces produced by these northern provinces of France before the end of the 13th c. is considerable, despite important losses caused by revolutionary vandalism. In all this output, sculpture was strictly subordinated to architecture: after the death of Louis IX, profound changes took place.
Hope you like this movie. Enjoy 
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