Week 8: Video Reviews

The first video was More Human than Human and focused on artists’ obsession with human form.
I liked the video because of the angle it took on works of art about the human body – I agree that the world’s most popular images of the human body are popular because they are unrealistic.  As an anthropologist, I loved that the video involved archaeology!  The most interesting part for me was learning about different version of Venus figures – I had formerly only learned about one version of them in my anthropology classes and was fascinated by the fact that they were found in numerous cultures.   This video related to much of the content in Chapter 14, such as the section on the Venus of Willendorf figures.

I chose to watch The Illuminated Manuscript because I was very interested in learning about it when it was presented in Chapter 15.  I very much enjoyed the Irish accents, especially since it is St. Patrick’s Day!  I learned about the life of people during the Middle Ages (especially illuminators), a period I am very interested in.  It was interesting that few people knew how to read and write besides scribes, monks, etc.  I can’t imagine what life would be like if I were illiterate!

I chose to watch Cairo Museum because I once had an exchange student from Egypt and with everything that is going on in Egypt right now, I thought it would be a good one to watch.  And of course, I have always been interested in ancient Egyptian culture!  I liked this video, especially because it was directly related to anthropology.  I love learning about how anthropology, especially archaeology and museum studies, are connected to art and art history.  I think this video made a good point that the mystery of ancient Egypt is what draws many people to it.  The video definitely added to what we learned about Egypt in Chapter 14.

The last video I watched was Cataclysm: The Black Death Visits Tuscany.  My sister is studying abroad in Rome right now and she just went on a weekend trip to Tuscany.  The pictures I have seen of Tuscany from her intrigued me because of the small towns Tuscany seems to be made up of, so I wanted to learn more about it.  Although the video was a little depressing, it helped me to understand more about the art of the Renaissance that we learned about in Chapter 15.  It was interesting to see more examples of how artists were less interested in the natural world and more focused on the divine world, such as the Christian mosaics depicting the motif of the second coming of Christ.