Cultural Artifacts: Painting and Sculpture

This document explores the cultural artifacts of painting and sculpture and their significance in visual arts. It discusses their similarities, differences, and historical context. It also provides information on relevant humanities resources and references.

Humanities
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Table of Contents
Cultural artifacts..........................................................................................................................................3
Common Theme of artifacts........................................................................................................................4
Personal Experience on these artifacts.........................................................................................................4
Profession....................................................................................................................................................4
Humanities Resources.................................................................................................................................4
Historical Context........................................................................................................................................5
Similarities and Differences of the artifacts.................................................................................................5
Medium.......................................................................................................................................................6
Thesis Statement..........................................................................................................................................6
Audience.....................................................................................................................................................6
Message for the audience............................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7

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Cultural artifacts
The two cultural artifacts chosen for this particular context are sculpture artifacts and
painting artifacts. A cultural artifact is something that is made by human and serves information
related to the culture of such aspects on the basis of its creators and users. Painting artifact
derives the anthropological concepts of modern and early society (Beckett & Conlogue, 2016). It
is regarded as the practice of applying color, pigment, paint and another medium. It is a
significant form in the visual arts that helps in bringing various components such as, abstraction,
narration, composition and gesture and drawing. Painting artifact was created by Dutch painter
Johannes Vermeer in the seventeenth century.
Figure: Painting of Milkmaid
(Source: Salamon, Lancelle & Eisemann, 2017, May)
Whereas, the sculpture is determined to be such artifacts that represent the current or
ancient archaeological artifacts with the help of different figures, monuments or statuaries.
Sculpture artifacts are presented in decorative forms that possess existence for centuries.
Sculpture artifacts consist of six types of techniques and methods such as wax modeling,
modeling clay, ivory carving, wood carving, stone carving, and bronze carving. Sculpture
artifacts were created at the beginning of Upper Paleolithic Age about 40,000 years ago.

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Figure: Stone Age art during Upper Paleolithic Age
(Source: Beckett et al., 2016)
Common Theme of artifacts
A common theme of painting and sculpture artifacts is that both possess a medium of
expressing art forms based on visual art. In painting artifacts, it depicts its story through paper or
paint pigment. Whereas, in sculpture artifacts, it expressed through three-dimensional form.
Personal Experience on these artifacts
The cultural artifacts such as painting and sculpture artifacts are chosen that would be
helpful for me in expressing my thoughts. The common theme used in both the artifacts will help
me in expressing my personal feelings regarding the objects or things.
Profession
An archaeologist will be influenced by the common theme identified as it would help
them in gaining more information regarding the material remains. With the help of the theme, the
archeologist could provide an understanding of human cultures in terms of when and where
people loved on the earth. The visual arts presented would be beneficial for them to understand
the significant change in human behavior.
Humanities Resources
The three relevant humanities resources that would be useful in investigating the artifacts
and themes are books, websites and Art cyclopedia. All these three resources would be helpful in
providing a relevant and huge amount of information related to cultural artifacts such as painting

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and sculpture artifacts. These particular resources will also help in gaining appropriate
knowledge about ancient and modern artifacts. Art cyclopedia would provide information related
to various ancient paintings, sculptures, artist, and sculptors (Caldwell, Atkinson & Renner,
2016). Whereas, different books and websites based on cultural artifacts possess adequate
information related to numerous cultural artifacts. Thus all the three humanities resources are
considered to be highly helpful in gathering vast knowledge regarding humanities. While
searching for these particular resources my thought process was to get relevant information
regarding cultural artifacts. However, I did not face any type of difficulty while searching for the
resources. As the resources such as books and artcylopedia were easily available within the
library from where I can easily access websites through online services.
Historical Context
A significant relationship between painting and sculpture artifacts is that both possess a
visual record of historical places, people and events. The painting and sculpture artifacts
comprise of historical coins, clothing, tools and eating utensils. Based on the historical context it
has been observed that the art historians made use of different types of analysis to demonstrate
the culture of different artifacts. In the historical period, the paintings and sculpture depict the
story of high culture during each civilization. On the basis of these artifacts the art historians
with the low culture that helps in identifying their material or visual culture.
Similarities and Differences of the artifacts
Similarities
Painting and sculpture reflect upon an idea in order to make it visible. Both sculpture and
painting have arisen from drawing. It can be seen that painting and sculptures are determined to
be the medium that makes use of experiences based on the art form. Both the artifacts connect
conceptual and physical space as per the changing nature (Salamon et al., 2017, May). The
primary aim of both the artifacts is to generate a series of interest and the rich relationship
between the two disciplines where it activates the revolution of arts. Both the artifacts present
photographs and image to present their culture.
Differences

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The significant difference between sculpture and painting is sculptures are three-
dimensional whereas, paintings are two-dimensional. A sculpture is a 3D object while painting is
painted on the wall, canvas, and paper. Paintings make use of colors like oil colors, poster colors,
watercolors, pencil colors and many more (Caldwell et al., 2016). While sculpture makes use of
particular tools like hammer, pointed chisel of different weights and sizes. Painter is determined
to be the artist of the painting, whereas sculptor is considered to be the artist of preparing
sculpture. Paintings could be made at any place across the world and sculptures can be made in
some stable place.
Medium
The creator of painting artifacts uses the medium of oil paint on canvas, the medium of
lithography or etching in the print, a medium of crayon or pencil in drawing and watercolor on
paint. Whereas, the creators of sculpture artifacts makes use of marble or bronze as a medium to
present their ideas in front of the audience (Maróti et al., 2017). The medium used by both the
artifacts generally makes use of different materials such as mixed media. The performance art
utilizes the own body of the medium or material of the artist.
Thesis Statement
The painting and sculpture artifacts present their art in a visual form based on ancient and
current archeological artifacts to demonstrate their ideas in front of the audience.
Audience
The individuals who possess an interest in knowing the culture of ancient history are
interested in observing the cultural artifacts related to painting and sculpture. Also, the audience
who are interested in gathering information about the materials used in making such artifacts are
highly interested in viewing the cultural artifacts.
Message for the audience
The audience must gather information about such great artifacts that depict the culture of
ancient and current history in visual form. For example, ancient Egyptian art includes sculptures
and paintings in ivories, jewelry, papyrus, ceramics, and stones as well as wood that grabs the
attention of the audience.

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References
Beckett, R. G., & Conlogue, G. J. (2016). Paleoimaging: field applications for cultural remains
and artifacts. CRC Press.
Caldwell, C. A., Atkinson, M., & Renner, E. (2016). Experimental approaches to studying
cumulative cultural evolution. Current directions in psychological science, 25(3), 191-
195.
Maróti, B., Kis, Z., Szentmiklósi, L., Horváth, E., Káli, G., & Belgya, T. (2017).
Characterization of a South-Levantine bronze sculpture using position-sensitive prompt
gamma activation analysis and neutron imaging. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear
Chemistry, 312(2), 367-375.
Salamon, N. Z., Lancelle, M., & Eisemann, E. (2017, May). Computational Light Painting Using
a Virtual Exposure. In Computer Graphics Forum (Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 1-8).