Book contents
- The Cambridge World HistoryVolume IV
- The Cambridge World History
- A World with States, Empires, and Networks, 1200 bce–900 ce
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1Introduction: the world from 1200 bce to 900 ce
- Part IGlobal histories
- 2Global economic history
- 3The gendering of power in the family and the state
- 4Slavery
- 5The Axial Age in world history
- 6Developments in science and technology c. 800 bce – c. 800 ce
- 7Discourses on gender and sexuality
- 8Art
- 9Pastoral nomads
- Part IITrans-regional and regional perspectives
- Index
- References
8 - Art
from Part I - Global histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
Book contents
- The Cambridge World HistoryVolume IV
- The Cambridge World History
- A World with States, Empires, and Networks, 1200 bce–900 ce
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1Introduction: the world from 1200 bce to 900 ce
- Part IGlobal histories
- 2Global economic history
- 3The gendering of power in the family and the state
- 4Slavery
- 5The Axial Age in world history
- 6Developments in science and technology c. 800 bce – c. 800 ce
- 7Discourses on gender and sexuality
- 8Art
- 9Pastoral nomads
- Part IITrans-regional and regional perspectives
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter provides some hint of the richness and variety of the world's artistic traditions. Though art made in Europe since the Renaissance has had some distinctive features to make such recent and local developments an essential part of the definition would be ethnocentric and parochial. Royal art often functions as propaganda aimed at the people who pose the greatest threat to the king, those nearest him; it is his relatives and high nobles who must be made to feel the sanctity of his person. In Islamic art, writing occurs on all surfaces, from bowls to buildings, in a multiplicity of script variants, sometimes boldly legible, sometimes impenetrably patterned. Setting and audience matter because they are clues to the purposes that shaped a work, clues to the effect it was meant to have. The works of Buddhist art illustrates most of the functions on Seckel's list, and readers will probably have no difficulty supplying Christian counterparts for all of them.
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- The Cambridge World History , pp. 179 - 234Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015
References
Further Reading
Bagley, Robert, Gombrich among the Egyptians and other Essays in the History of Art, Seattle, WA: Marquand Books, 2015.Google Scholar
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