Essay #3c COMPARE & CONTRAST-All Together Now!

ESSAY #3c

COMPARE & CONTRAST – All Together Now!

INSTRUCTIONS: Find and post the images of the artwork(s) mentioned in the Topic Essay Question.

QUESTION: Would you describe the building of the Egyptian pyramids and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres as a community or, a public works project? If yes, why and can you find other similarities. Research and select one other example of architecture from another culture, time period or geographic location and compare and contrast it to the other two to and describe why you selected it.

(http://www.kazrikphotos.com/page4.htm)

(http://www.culturefocus.com/egypt_pyramids.htm)

(http://www.culturefocus.com/egypt_pyramids.htm)

(http://www.francetripweb.com/chartres-cathedral-cathedral-of-our-lady-of-chartres-cathedrale-notre-dame-de-chartres-france.html)

(http://michaelbrewerphotos.photoshelter.com/image/I0000CiS4BlmSm0k)

 

Video created from images found through google.  Music in the background was purchased for the video.  This video was made specifically for the essay Compare & Contrast-All Together Now.



(http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-colosseum)

(http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/rome-colosseum)

PART ONE

SUMMARY:  I jumped in with both feet on this one.  There wasn’t an option on how to go about the essay.  The structures are so different from each other that there is definite differences between the two mentioned and then you throw in a third into the mix and you have a whole different ball of wax.  My main problem I encountered was getting all of my images to show together.  I created a power point and was unable to find a way to insert it into the blog.  Technology overcame me.  I did find a way around the problem and was able to create a video of the images I wanted to display.

REASON:  I feel that the question was asked as a way to open up the mind to possibilities of how little things change or how much they change over a period of time.  I was tempted to add a structure that was from the early 1800’s.  I didn’t because it wasn’t from the time period of our course of study.  The building was built by volunteers.  I wanted to focus on our time period and that is what I believe you wanted us to do.  To look at structures from either different cultures or a range of time to see how they were created.  Were they created by slaves or by paid workers?

PURPOSE:  As far as purpose I think I have somewhat answered in my summary and reason.  We need to always think outside of the box.  To see what answers might be there and what might not be.  To look at what can be the possibility of choices made in history.  There are always the choices that we as students make.  How do we look at the question?  Do we see and understand what is behind the subtext of the wording?

DIRECTION:  I went into this with an open mind.  I learned a few things in what I read in the text.  I didn’t add that into the answer because it didn’t pertain to the question.  It did give me a broader scope of what was going on and so I could narrow down what I needed to be focused on.  It gave me an opportunity to answer the question with more knowledge and background.

IMPRESSION:  A lot of what was in this question I knew already from Western Civilization.  There were details that I was able to put into the piece that I had no clue about before I started the essay.  There is always more that we can all learn.  There isn’t a stopping point to what knowledge can be gained.  I did learn from the essay.  As they say a picture is worth a thousand words.  I could have painted or drawn my answer to the question.  The question would be would you understand what my meaning was. 

 

PART TWO

One person alone couldn’t create the structures mentioned below and pictured above.  Even with the technology of today we can’t create a structure similar to these alone.  We may have the equipment to make the work less strenuous.  There is beauty in all of the work pictured.  In the video the different photos and artwork wasn’t done as an individual either.]

 Egyptian pyramids are very massive in size.  The ones I have pictured are constructed with limestone and granite.  (Art History, Marilyn Stokstad/Michael W. Cothren, Fourth Edition/volumn 1, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc., page 56)  “Constructing the Pyramids.  Building a pyramid was a formidable undertaking.  A large worker’ burial ground discovered at Giza attest to the huge labor force that had to be assembled, housed, and fed.  Most of the cut stone blocks-each weighing an average of 2.5 tons-used in building the Giza complex were quarried either on the site or nearby.  Teams of workers transported them by sheer muscles power, employing small logs as rollers or pouring water on mud to create slippery surface over which they could drag the blocks on sleds.”   (Art History text, page 57)  The information found her shows it took a great amount of manpower to build the pyramids.  The wording “a large worker’ burial ground” tells us that many men worked on the pyramids.  There wouldn’t have been a large burial ground otherwise if it didn’t take many people to construct the pyramids. 

“Almost most impressive were the actual mechanics of construction.  Herodotus says that 100,000 men worked for twenty years fed on a diet of onions.  The blocks of stone, some of them 20 feet by 6 feet, would be brought from the quarry by barge at the height if the Nile flood, but they had to be handled at both ends of the journey and then dragged up a ramp of the Pyramid site, a hundred feet above the river.  Wedges, rockers, levers, cradles and sledges were all used.  The missing element was the wheel – no carts, no pulleys, no cranes.” (A Concise History of Western Architecture, R. Furneaux Jordan, 1983 Thames and Hudson Limited London, page 12)

With the technology of today it would take a lot of manpower and engineering to construct a pyramid.  We have information that tells us it took a lot of manpower and a lot of time to build the pyramids.  The people of the time wouldn’t have had a choice as we do now on whether or not they wanted to build the pyramids.  It is a sad thing the number of lives lost to build them.

“They say the Pharaohs built the pyramids Do you think one Pharaoh dropped one bead of sweat?   We built the pyramids for the Pharaohs and we’re building for them yet.” (Anna Louise Strong, http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/pyrami``ds.html)

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, I found a website on sacred destinations that gave a brief history of the building.  I think it is fitting to include the information given in the essay.  I am going to quote the whole article in its entirety so I don’t lose any of its meaning.

“History

According to tradition, Chartres Cathedral has housed the tunic of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Sancta Camisia, since 876. The relic was said to have been given to the cathedral by Charlemagne, who received it as a gift during a trip to Jerusalem. Because of this relic, Chartres has been a very important Marian pilgrimage center and the faithful still come from the world over to honor it.

The present cathedral is one of several French Gothic masterpieces built because fire had destroyed its predecessors. After the first cathedral of any great substance burnt down in 1020, a glorious new Romanesque basilica with a massive crypt was built under the direction of Bishop Fulbert and later Geoffroy de Lèves.

The cathedral survived a fire in 1134 that destroyed much of the rest of the town, but was not so lucky on the night of June 10, 1194, when lightning ignited a great fire that destroyed all but the west towers, the façade and the crypt.

The people despaired when it seemed that the Sancta Camisia had also perished in the fire. But three days later it was found unharmed in the treasury, which the bishop proclaimed was a sign from Mary herself that another, even more magnificent, cathedral should be built in Chartres. Donations came in from all over France and rebuilding began almost immediately in 1194. The people of Chartres volunteered to haul the necessary stone from quarries 5 miles away.

The construction project used the plans laid out by the first architect in order to preserve the harmonious aspect of the cathedral. Work began first on the nave and by 1220 the main structure was complete, with the old crypt, the west towers and the west facade incorporated into the new building. On October 24, 1260, the cathedral was finally dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX and his family.

Chartres Cathedral was never destroyed nor looted during the French Revolution and the numerous restorations never have altered its glorious beauty. It always stayed the same: a great triumph of Gothic art. The cathedral was added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1979.”  (http://www.sacred-destinations.com/france/chartres-cathedral)

            The history here talks about rebuilding of the cathedral.  The people volunteered to carry the stone from the quarries.  It took a community to rebuild the cathedral.  One person couldn’t do it alone.  It took many years to complete.  

            “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it. Bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” (Antoine de Saint-Exupery, http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/cathedral.html)  It may take one man to imagine what can become of a pile of rocks; however it takes many men to create it.

            “Building the Colosseum - Who built the Roman Colosseum?
An estimated 100,000 prisoners were bought back to Rome as slaves after the Jewish War. Vespasian had a limitless work force. In the building of the Colosseum the slaves undertook the manual labor such as working in the quarries at Tivoli where the travertine was quarried. Slaves would also have been used to lift and transport the heavy stones 20 miles from Tivoli to Rome. Teams of professional Roman builders, engineers, artists, painters and decorators undertook the skilled tasks necessary for building the Colosseum.” (http://www.roman-colosseum.info/colosseum/building-the-colosseum.htm)

            The Flavian Amphitheater or colosseum was Rome’s greatest arena.  It was an enormous entertainment center.  The other walls stand 159 feet in height.  It is an oval shape and its diameter is 615 feet by 510 feet.  The floor is 280 feel by 175 feet. (Art History text, page 188)  The size of the colosseum is important.  The time period is 70 CE to 80 CE (Art History text, page 188) and that shows that it wouldn’t have been a one man job.  This would have taken many workers.  As quoted above they brought in slaves to do the work.  In my next quote they state they were sailors that did the work.  It is past the building stage; however I consider this as part of the work in the colosseum.

 “The walls of the top level of the arena supported a huge awning that could shade the seating areas. Sailors, who had experience in handling ropes, pulleys, and large expanses of canvas, worked the apparatus that extended the awning.” (Art History text, page 189)  “ The velarium, slung from mast, was moved round as the hot afternoon wore on; it is said that sailors manipulated the ropes.   In fact this velarium may have done little more than shade the imperial box.” (Western Architecture text, pages 63 & 64) I quoted the two sources because they showed that even though the structure was completed it still took men to work the mechanisms to make the awning work.

In comparing the three different structures I can find some similarities.  In the Colosseum and the Pyramids they used slaves to do the work.  The stone work was heavy and took a lot of ingenuity to construct the projects.  With the Cathedral it talks about the rebuilding and using volunteers to do the work.  Did the people really have a choice in rebuilding the Cathedral?  Did they feel it was their duty as Christians to do the work?  There is a similarity between all of them.  It took a lot of manpower to do the work, and a lot of years to complete the structures.  Does it really make a difference if you volunteer to work or you are volunteered to do the work?  Either way you are working without compensation.  That is another similarity between all three.

I used the term men as a generalization.  There was a time before feminism that you could use the term men to mean men and women as a grouping.  That is what I did here.   My family is a big part of what helps me build my life.  I see this as the same as building a Cathedral.  My husband and I are the cornerstones of the building.  My children are the first set of stones.  The grand-children are the next level and on from there.  We can look at "All together now" in many different ways.

The Lunt Family (minus the grand-daughter not born when the photo was taken)