Essays on Effigy

Italian Renaissance in the 15th Century: Funeral Monument of John XXIII by Donatello

Italian renaissance marks a period of rebirth and renewal in the interest of culture. This period was after the dark ages and lasted from the 14th to the 15th Century (Gardener et al. 14). During this period, Donatello was one of the best skilled artists. Donatello was an Italian sculptor (1386-1466) (Gardener et al. 14). Donatello designs the funeral monument to the anti-pope John XXIII and positions it between two columns inside the baptistery. The style of the work is classical antiquity and reflects the grandest Italian tomb in the medieval times. Donatello retains considerable elements of classical antiquity. The ...

Moche

Moche were considered to be the most interested in the Cupisnique iconographic message. Like their predecessors, Moche chose to include – the spider, bird of prey, monster, fish, and humans – in their religious art. In addition, they added supernatural crab and scorpion. However, the decapitation depiction is extremely circumscribed. Although the variety of decapitators is small, all of them perform the identical task, which is of severing of head. There are several theories that have been proposed to explain the reason behind the several characters that represented the head-takers. The first one is temporal theory. According to this theory, each ...

The Great Serpent Mound, found on the Serpent Mound Crater, is a three-foot-high effigy preserved by the Ohio Historical Society. It is the largest serpent effigy in the world, and extends about 420 meters. Coiling seven times, the serpent represents a sun, an egg, and the body of a frog. On the other hand, the Pyramid of the Sun is the largest building in Mesoamerica, and stands at around 71 meters high. The structure of the building is significant because the pyramid slightly points towards the direction in which the sun sets, twice in a year (April 29 and August 12). Although the ...