Descriptive Art History Essay

Jade Richards-Butler Professor Jonathon Farris ARTH 100 Descriptive Essay This mould resembles a four-legged animal w auricleing a mask with human features. It is a sculpture in the round created using an additive method. The smooth, highly tenuous texture and reddish act upon of the sculpture give the impression that the worldly is ceramic. The sculptures head displays both human and animal qualities. The ears be positioned symmetrically, slightly moody concentre of the head.They ar of a triangular pattern and stand erect in a pointed manner resembling ears similar to those of or so dog breeds. They atomic number 18 slightly concave and submit frontwards. Around the face there is a raised layer of the material creating the illusion that a mask has been superimposed onto the sculpture. The mask is a slightly different colour than the head and covers what would be the sculptures face. Right in the center of the mask argon human features. The eyebrows are slightly raised an d base set, sitting unusually close to the eyes.The eyes protrude slightly from their sockets. They are almond shaped with incisions outlining the eyeballs. The top of the nose begins between the deuce eyes, longitudinally it occupies about a third of the mask. It is highly protruding with a sharply defined bridge. Under the nose there are two raised areas denoting lips. There is an indentation representing the space in between the lips, which is trend slightly upwards suggesting a smile. The ears sit half way downhearted the mask, they are symmetryal to the mask features with slightly exaggerated ear lobes.There is a hole in the right lobe that appears to be an artistic prime(a) rather than a preservation problem. The inner edges of the hole seem scratched, maybe there was previously an item sitting in the hole. The front legs are short in comparison to the rest of the body. There is an outward bend dexter half way down each leg. The base of the legs taper off slightly, re sembling paws. There are three equally distributed indentations on each paw, the indentations sail from the where the legs begin to taper to the tip of the paws.These indentations delineate toes on the paws. The stomach is not in proportion with the rest of the body as it is quite massive and sits slightly off the ground. It is a bulbous shape and suggests that the dog is overweight. This could be a signal of the domestication of this particular breed of dog. The breed was believably native to the area of the art and consequently domesticated, serving as companions to humans. The rotundness may suggest that they were pampered, idolized animals. Unlike the two front legs, the two choke off legs are completely straight.They do not have bends or indentations to resemble paws, instead they slightly flare out towards the bottom. The so-and-so to a fault does not resemble the tail of any known animal. In proportion to the rest of the statue the tail is extremely wide. It is rounded and appears hollowed out. It appears to be diagonally chopped downwards, the highest point being at the back of the tail. This suggests the sculpture could have a dual mathematical function as an ornament and a storage vessel. The tail could be an opening to a hollowed out stomach that would provide an get hold of storage facility for grain or liquid.The sculptures purpose of creation could be symbolic of shamanism. The mixed representations of human and animal features are possibly the artists way of exploring the relationship between these animateness forms. The human mask could be demonstrating the shamanist practices in which animal booze work in harmony with a human host by means of ritualistic trance states. In summary it could be concluded that the artwork could be workd both for decorative purposes and for a deeper spiritual use within the rituals of its social setting.