Two Statuettes of Two Worshipers

This peace symbolizes something quite important it shows man’s transition from the wild to civilized society. These statuettes demonstrate how religion and social standings play a giant role in people’s lives and artwork. Man started off Living spot to spot following food whether in animal meat or plants. Never had they stopped and lived in a central place for a long period of time. The Neothithic Revolution came to be c8000-6000 BCE. Where people stopped there day to day nomadic lifestyle and actually set up a Civilization. This started in Mesopotamia known as the land between two rivers.

With a civilization came Upper classes, Domestication of animals, and Specialization of labor. Unfortunately Mesopotamia had no natural defenses so large varieties of people lived there because of the takeovers from wars. Sumerians coming from Mesopotamia (now known as southern Iraq) were the people most known because of their invention of writing. The writing known as cuneiform, using pictorial language to keep track of transactions. Ancient Sumer was made up of a dozen or so independent city states so it was not unified. Along with civilization came religion and social classes.

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Who were early humans praising? They were praising the Gods. As for social classes it was rulers and priests at the top then laborers came under them. The Sumerians constructed ziggurats. The ziggurats acted as a place of worshiping the Gods. But the downside was that not just anyone was allowed inside. It was only available to the worshipped or the priests. At this period in time female goddesses were still worshipped. This was due to the fact that a female can reproduce and give life. The art I chose reflected an offering and sort of gift for the female goddess Inanna.

The two sculptures were said to be given as a gift for divine bringing, these types of statues often came with the name of the donor and the God or specific prayers to the deity of the owner’s behalf. Looking at the “two Statuettes of two worshipers” before analyzing anything on them a person must first look at the art piece with no emotion, basically say everything you see on the surface. The man on the left has big eyes, his hands together, he seems to have no shirt on, he’s wearing a skirt reaching a little under his knees, he has a long beard, standing on his tip toes, and is made of what looks to be light brown.

On the right side there is a woman with big eyes as well, she has much smaller hands then the male, she is wearing a hat, she’s wearing a fairly long dress, she is holding something in her left hand, is standing on a platform with a stick off to the right, is on her tip toes and seems to be light brown like the male. Looking at them both the women seems to have smaller features such as her hands, platform and overall size. The male has more of his body exposed such as more of his lags and torso. As for the sculptures they are both sculptures in the round.

This means the artwork can be seen 360 degrees. When civilized society came to be, artwork no longer (as much as before) was only about animals or things in the wild. The philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel believed that art was a memory of man’s view of nature. Art is a kind of flashback to the original human in nature. When civilization came in people started to sculpt and make art of themselves, just like “two Statuettes of two worshipers” because people were no longer leaders of nature but leaders of themselves.

This lead to self-painting/sculpting or of other people. Now viewing “two Statuettes of two worshipers” off the book Gardner’s art through the ages: The western perspective (12th edition). It states the statuettes are carved out of soft gypsum and inlaid with shell and black limestone. This was not known as a prized or sculptures of great meaning. These statues aren’t known to be that big. They range from under a foot to about thirty inches. The larger the statues simply meant how wealthy the person being portrayed in the statue really was.

They have there arms crossed and are on their tip toes because they have to appear to be in a gesture of prayer because they were used for religious rites. The statuettes are not sculpted to be perfect but more rather body type and size. The exaggerated eyes are known to mean attentiveness necessary for fulfilling religious duty. From my point of view these statuettes demonstrate what males and females do in the society, their roles. I think the males’ larger features mean he is the laborer. He is in charge of going out for food and protecting his family.

The smaller arms on the females suggests she is more fragile and is not meant to do hard labor. The males larger size does not necessarily mean superiority but it does mean he can be more powerful and dangerous. As for the big eyes it makes me feel scared of doing things because it seems their eyes are watching every move I make. It works like a police officer in a way because a person wouldn’t do bad things in front of a police officer. A person would feel like the police officer is watching and scare him/her into doing nothing bad, much like these statuettes.

Long story short “Two Statuettes of two worshipers” were an example of man’s transition from the wild nomadic people moving place to place to a civilized society living in one place and being able to establish religion, social classes, and a home ultimately. These statuettes are very important to understanding the lives of early human. It’s amazing how people made and expressed their observations with art. People living in Mesopotamia (ancient near east) c8000-6000 BCE might have not known as much as we do now a days but they are some of the most intelligent people that have existed to this day.