The Last Paragraph of my Art History Paper - Just Because :)

 Hey all!  I turned this paper in yesterday.. I am not sure if this one was my best work, I got really tired with it and just ended up submitting it without reading over it again.  I mean I did work on it a lot don't get me wrong.  This essay is about ancient narrative art and how it can tell us about the culture and life of the time through the story depicted.  I discussed the Warka Vase (ca. 3300 BCE), the Judgement of Hunefer (ca. 1290-1275 BCE), and Achilles and Ajax Playing a Dice Game (ca. 540-530).

Anyway!  As the title promised here is the last paragraph of the essay, not sure why but I kind of like it! 

"Humans have been creating stories through art before the invention of writing.  Narrative art is extremely common in ancient times if you consider how many ways stories and tales can be told.  I learned a great deal just researching three styles and pieces and it made me realize how it doesn’t matter how much time has passed between now and ancient times, the need to depict a story and create something has been there all this time.  What we learn from the art depicted might be just as important as the creation itself.  We can learn about rituals and worshiping a goddess we know nothing about and about the people who worshiped her at the same time.  We discover truths about a people and culture whose belief in death and the afterlife is so different from ours and so intricate and complex that without the scrolls and pieces of art, we would hardly know anything about it.  We can also understand how even a piece created before the common era, depicted stories in such a masterful way using subtle movements to show metaphor and foreshadowing of events.  By studying the art from the past, I’ve rediscovered how beautiful it all is.  Every piece of true art is like a self portrait even if, upon the surface, it has nothing to do with the one creating it.  It has to do with the life and culture of the time, like a snapshot of how they loved and how they lived.  Stories are one of the best ways to depict life from the past, but when recovering written works isn’t available, art pieces that tell stories seem to provide us with much more.  We’re not only looking at beautiful creations but at  the history, and culture from the past."

Have the best week you cool cats! 

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