A small Christmas gift – Introduction

In the article “Advent atmosphere – in and from the computer” we presented an Advent calendar with angels, which can of course still be accessed.

Our small Christmas gift to you is texts about each artist who designed an angel for the Advent calendar.

The texts are arranged chronologically in the article and follow in two parts for download in the article “A small Christmas gift – getting to know angel artists”.

Our little Christmas gift introducing the angel artists also includes an idea for artistic pastimes that will provide plenty of practice until spring: download pictures from the calendar as coloring templates (this is allowed for purely private use for such purposes, but not for distribution, sale, etc.), enlarge them in a graphics program and then print them out – and then get started with pictures for your own calendar.

Beginners first transfer the outlines onto their painting surface using tracing paper, while more advanced artists draw the angel images freehand. While working, you can have the texts about the angels at hand so you know which painting style/famous artist you are currently working with.

You can then set the text for each angel in a decorative font of your choice, print it out, cut it out and glue it onto a calendar template along with your pictures.

The oldest angel on the calendar dates back to the 13th century , and it certainly increases one's reverence for all angelic art when one realizes that this "ancient angel" is actually a very recent work of art. For art has played a significant role for humankind from very early on, and when one delves into this topic, it becomes clear why art is so important to humanity.

Art and the development of humanity

There's no arguing with it: Biologically, humans belong to the apes; they are higher mammals of the order Primates, and within that order, members of the family Hominidae (great apes). Homo sapiens has certainly done some things right; they are the only species of the genus Homo to have survived (so far, though skeptics don't give them much longer). And they have survived for quite some time; the oldest fossil Homo sapiens skeletons from Africa are around 200,000 years old.

Even the distinction between humans and apes has a certain artistic merit; humans supposedly defined themselves as "the crown of creation" when they began to work and use stone tools. This is a popular approach, and it is claimed, but not yet precisely proven, that the genus Homo exhibits significant differences from its closest relatives.

The more voluminous brain is cited as justification. The minimum volume of the human brain was set at 900 cm³ by a Mr. Mayr in 1950. However, this was not considered a truly essential characteristic in the scientific community. Not defining it precisely is always quite convenient and should prove convenient in this case as well

“Homo habilis” was discovered in 1964 Homo habilis only had a meager 600 cm³, just barely above gorilla level.

Therefore, the limit was quickly raised to 600 cm³, a safe 94 points above the gorilla, which had been set at 506 cm³. A trick, but not a good argument: in 1966, a (very large) gorilla with a cranial capacity of 685 cm³ was found, which, according to this definition, would then be a “Homo gorillus”..

Another characteristic cited is, for example, upright walking, which for the 70 percent of people who occasionally or constantly suffer from back pain is rather an evolutionary mistake…

Why humans should be considered intellectually superior to the rest of the world is a bit more difficult to explain. No, space rockets, nuclear power, and genetic engineering don't necessarily have anything to do with superiority; it depends on who is superior to whom and what the benefits are. When considering these and other human marvels, many a contemporary begins to doubt human superiority, but we'll get to that later.

To justify the superiority… Carl von Linné, who established the genus Homo in 1735, was also unsure, preferred to forgo a corresponding delimitation of his genus and simply wrote “Nosce te ipsum” (Know thyself) as a description of man in his work “Systema Naturæ” .

As is well known, humans still have difficulties with this 279 years later, and it is also quite doubtful whether a large brain actually means a smart brain.

Then, for example, men would be smarter than women because their brain volume is somewhat larger – but the cranial volume of the very large gorilla cited above already suggests that this isn't true. A few years ago, neuroscience proved this to be true

It is true that men's brains, on average, are housed in a larger skull and weigh about 100 grams more than women's brains. Men, therefore, have more brain mass. This discovery was enthusiastically used during the 19th century to argue for the superiority of men over women, a superiority that, for the proponents of the then-popular social Darwinism, was already derived from the "right of the stronger.".

The great advances made in the natural sciences at that time did not improve social cohesion, but on the contrary, were used to further entrench the disenfranchisement of a segment of society. This clearly demonstrates once again that "more brainpower" has nothing to do with "more intelligence"—civilization means overcoming the "law of the jungle" for the benefit of all members of a community.

These differences in overall brain size were very well suited (and for a very long time) as a justification for denying women equal rights in the supposedly civilized society.

Several years ago it was discovered that, in addition to the overall brain size, the relative size of different brain areas also shows differences between men and women.

In women, the hippocampus is larger; it is responsible for learning and memory.

In men, the CA1 region in the hippocampus, which is responsible for spatial memory, is larger. Furthermore, the greater brain weight is due to an increased number of pyramidal cells. These cells are responsible for transmitting information received from sensory organs and for relaying excitatory and inhibitory impulses. The pyramidal cells transmit information from other brain regions to the cortex (the neuron-rich layer of the cerebral cortex). If there is insufficient excitation (frequency below 6 Hertz) to transmit, the cortex switches to sleep mode.

Presumably not only an explanation for postcoital sleep attacks, but also a good reason for “chasing after every skirt” – who wants a sleeping cerebral cortex (and the reason for strange decisions made by all the men who no longer do that?).

The amygdala also functions differently in men and women: reproductive behavior, emotional events, and their storage are processed by the left hemisphere in women, and by the right hemisphere in men. The left hemisphere is the hemisphere of "conscious awareness"; it processes analytical, logical, rational, linguistic, and temporally linear processes.

The right hemisphere of the brain works holistically; it's responsible for image editing and processing, music and creativity, and intuition. Here, thinking is independent of space and time, emotional and body-oriented… which might sound slightly heretical at first, since women are supposedly responsible for emotions and intuition. However, a strictly gender-specific portrayal overlooks the fact that every woman has a little bit of man in her, and vice versa.

Neuroscientists have long since abandoned this strict classification according to the old "hemispheric model"

In general, and in typical human overestimation, the distinction between monkeys and apes based on tool use is quite unfair – monkeys use many tools, and who makes a fool of themselves by monkey paintings for over 20,000 euros is a completely different question (as happened in London in 2005, see spiegel.de ).

Even though the human brain is quite large, whether it produces the best results is a matter of perspective. Like any underdeveloped reptile, humans tend to select from "the best" results those that benefit their own species. If we truly were the crown of creation, however, we should surely have progressed to selecting only the results of brain activity that advance all life on Earth or at least do not harm it.

Humans are far from this ideal; on the contrary, they constantly and everywhere manage to harm themselves by putting their brainpower into practice. There are countless species that have "devised" (developed through evolution) better ways: from the pollinating bee to the many different microorganisms responsible for soil cultivation and thus soil formation, down to the several hundred different species of bacteria in the human body (around 2 kg), without which it would perish miserably – a large brain does not equal a good brain.

In any case, the pictures of the monkey Congo tell of mental stimulation through artistic activity; Picasso had hung up a “real Congo” and in 2012 there was a whole exhibition of animal art at London University College.

Featuring art by chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas, paintings of elephants and architectural marvels that bowerbirds build for their future sweethearts.

Here's some more animal art to look at:

• Bowerbird palaces
• even more magnificent bowerbird palaces
• a true artist among bowerbirds

It is undisputed in this entire complex that culture (along with genetics and brain development, ecological and social interactions) played a crucial role in human evolution.

Human beings depend on social bonds, on care during childhood and the affection of their peers, on language acquisition and the development of their talents, both intellectual and cultural. This is essential for them to become and remain human.

Cultural factors (art) therefore still play a crucial role in human development – ​​or rather, ensure that humans remain human today, and thus the entire previous paragraph has explained one of the decisive aspects that makes art so important to us.

Therefore, humans discovered art early on , initially within the context of cultic practices in prehistoric cultures. Painting and sculpture, music and dance existed as early as the Paleolithic era : Ivory figurines nearly 40,000 years old were found in the Lone Valley (Baden-Württemberg), slightly older flutes in a cave near Blaubeuren (Geißenklösterle), and wonderful cave paintings from a later period of the Paleolithic era, dating back "only" around 30,000 years, were discovered in the Chauvet Cave in the French department of Ardèche.

These were the first things our ancestors crafted without immediate practical use for survival. This art served as an indicator of the emergence of human consciousness and thought – anthropologists see precisely this as the transition from Homo sapiens to Homo sapiens intellectus .

In antiquity, art developed to an impressive level of mastery : In the late ancient cultures, in Old Kingdom Egypt, in classical Greece and late Rome, a wealth of magnificent works of art were created, some of which have survived to this day. Architecture, sculptures, frescoes and paintings, plays and Musil.

And in all of this, we can remember that the ancient “artes liberales” (liberal arts, the concept of art differs from today’s) were so called because they were a privilege of the free man.

At that time, the entire spectrum of intellectual activity belonged to the liberal arts: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and to some extent medicine and architecture. Of our "fine arts," only music was included (painting and sculpture were considered crafts; this was the beginning of the debate about what constitutes art, what constitutes craft, and what constitutes applied art) .

However, this is about something else: Art, and thus intellectual activity, was reserved for free men, and the practice of this (intellectual) art collapsed when people's freedom was restricted by the wars and upheavals during the Migration Period in the Middle Ages.

The concept of art will change, but the principle remains the same: if art decreases, so too will thought and freedom, and this is another aspect of the great importance of art in a free society – art is important for people today so that thought can change direction without restriction.

Art from the 13th to the 21st century

Because art is so important to people, we are giving you, as readers of the blog, a little “overview of art” , grouped around the pictures of the angels from the Advent calendar for better clarity.

It is art from the 13th century onwards , when the art of antiquity transitioned into the art of the Middle Ages. Humanity and art had just experienced a tremendous setback in the turmoil of the Middle Ages. Slowly, people recovered and rediscovered art and artistic creation, still somewhat apprehensively and focused on the religious content of the representation, such as angels.

In the article “A small Christmas gift – getting to know angel artists” the artworks are presented according to their time of creation, a walk through art history.

For your convenience, here is a list of the artists and their artworks in the order of the calendar images:

• Entrance side: Fra Angelico, 1387 – 1455, “The Annunciation” from a main panel of the altarpiece on the life of Mary, created between 1433 and 1434.
• December 1: Titian, 1488 – 1576, “Resurrection of Christ”, left panel from the Averoldi altarpiece polyptych, Annunciation angel from a scene above, made between 1520 and 1522.
• December 2: Inga Schnekenburger, 1949 – 2013, “The Angel of John”, 2002.
• December 3: Gentile de Fabriano, 1370 – 1427, “Angel of the Annunciation”, left gable tondo from the “Adoration of the Magi”, made in 1423.
• December 4: Inga Schnekenburger, 1949 – 2013, “Time marches on”.
• December 5: Carlo Crivelli, 1430/1435 – before 1500, detail from “Annunciation”, created in 1486.
• December 6: Unknown Russian artist, “Saint Nicholas”, icon created around 1665.
• December 7: Benozzo Gozzoli, 1420 – 1497, “Adoring Angels”, detail from an altarpiece created between 1460 and 1480.
• December 8: Hubert van Eyck, 1370 – 1426, “Musician Angels” from the “Ghent Altarpiece”, which, according to current knowledge, was made solely by Jan van Eyck 1426 – 1432.
• December 9: Inga Schnekenburger, 1949 – 2013, “Guardian Angel”.
• December 10: Hubert van Eyck, 1370 – 1426, “Angel of the Annunciation” from the Ghent Altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb, see above 8.
• December 11: Master of the Wilton Diptych, “Virgin Mary with Eleven Angels” from the right wing of the Wilton Diptych, created around 1395.
• December 12: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, 1606 – 1669, details from “Jacob’s Struggle with the Angel”, a painting created in 1659.
• December 13: Giotto di Bondone, 1266 – 1337, “Mourning Angels”, detail from a fresco cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, created 1304 – 1306.
• December 14: Filippino Lippi, 1457 – 1504, “Tobias and the Angel”, a painting created between 1472 and 1482.
• December 15: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, 1606 – 1669, details from “Prophet Balaam and the Donkey”, a painting created in 1626.
• December 16: Bavarian Master, “Annunciation to Mary”, created around 1500.
• December 17: Domenico Beccafumi, 1494 – 1551, “Annunciation”, painting created in 1545 or 1546.
• December 18: Melchior Broederlam, c. 1380 – 1410, “Annunciation” from the left wing of an altarpiece for Philip the Bold, created in 1398.
• December 19: Ssemyon Fedorovich Ushakov, c. 1626 – 1686, “Archangel Gabriel”, Russian icon from the second third of the 17th century.
• December 20: Pietro Perugino, c. 1445/48 – 1523, “Archangel Michael”, detail from “Assumption of Mary with Four Saints”, painting created in 1500.
• December 21: William Blake, 1757 – 1827, “Archangel Raphael with Adam and Eve”, painted with pen and watercolor in 1808.
• December 22: Master of the Ursula Legend, around 1480 – 1510, “Appearance of the Angel” from the Ursula cycle, created around 1500.
• December 23: Friedrich Herlin, second half of the 15th century, “Nativity” from the wing of a polyptych that no longer exists, created in the second half of the 15th century.
• December 24: Hugo van der Goes, c. 1140 – 1482, “Angel”, detail from the Portinari Altarpiece, created between 1476 and 1478.

Now on to the texts, Kunstplaza wishes you lots of fun with them and Merry Christmas!