Ancestors in Traditional Indonesian Cultures
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
In all traditional Indonesian cultures, ancestors were the preeminent spiritual authorities. They included the earliest settlers, and people memorized genealogies that led from primeval, mythical times to their immediate forebears. Since memories are limited and writing was generally unknown, intervening generations were often compressed into just a few names.
Islam
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The religion of Islam originated in the 7th century in the Arabian peninsula. Islam was founded by an historic individual, the Prophet Muhammad (c. 570-632 CE). The message of Muhammad, considered God's last prophet, centered on his belief in the one true God, Allah. Muhammad's teachings were compiled in the Quran shortly after his death. Muslims acknowledge the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospels, but believe that Islam is the perfection of the religion that was first revealed to Abraham.
Frederic Edwin Church's "Great Pictures" and Theatrical Display
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
By 1857 Frederic Edwin Church began working with commercial agents and galleries to display each of his large-scale paintings, which he called “Great Pictures,” as a solo event. Viewers paid an admission fee and received a printed broadside to enhance their sense of awe and appreciation of the artist's technical prowess.
Nineteenth-Century Americans, Exploration, and Science
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
For 19th-century Americans it seemed everywhere one looked, from the tropics to the Arctic, from the Far East to the far west, to the heavens overhead, the perspective of the earth and the Universe was widening.In the plethora of names from many countries, one heroic leftover from the age of the Enlightenment loomed largest: Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), the German naturalist, explorer, encyclopedist, thinker, and beatific presence in t
Hudson River School
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The Hudson River School was an landscape that dominated American art in the mid-19th century. Not an institution of artistic training, the Hudson River School was a group of like-minded landscape painters in New York City and New England. Though their styles varied, the Hudson River School painters all sought to capture the grandeur of nature in America.
Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Frederic Edwin Church was one of the most celebrated American landscape painters of his time, and his legacy continues into the present. Church was born in Hartford, Connecticut to a wealthy family that used their connections to establish Hudson River School landscape painter Thomas Cole as Church’s mentor.
The Toraja of Sulawesi
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The whole of the Indonesian archipelago is characterized by an astounding cultural diversity, and Sulawesi, whose peoples speak sixty-two distinct languages, is no exception. Those of South Sulawesi, with whom we are mainly concerned, are broadly divisible into three groups: the Bugis and Makassar of the lowland areas and the Toraja of the mountainous north.
Toraja Ancestral Origin Houses (tongkonan)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The focal point of Toraja kinship organization and social life is the ancestral origin house. These houses are pile-built structures, with characteristically curved and extended roofs, so cantilevered that the eaves must be supported on special freestanding posts at the front and the rear.
Shakyamuni Buddha (The historical Buddha)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The Buddha was probably born c. 553 BCE (though dates range from c. 624 to c. 486 BCE), with the given name Siddhartha. His clan name was Gautama, and he was a member of the Shakya tribe, and thus later in life known as Shakyamuni, the sage of the Shakyas. His father was the tribal chief of the Shakyas and ruled the modern border of India and Nepal.
There is little factual documentation on the life of the Buddha.
Jerry Bywaters and Texas Art
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
From regional artist to Director of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the accomplishments of Jerry Bywaters are synonymous with the growth of art in Texas. He came to public attention as the dynamic figurehead of the Dallas Nine, a group that emerged in the 1930s. Members of the group focused on individual artistic styles while working with others to portray the "American Scene" by depicting unique qualities of the Texas landscape.