Free Essays on Roman Art

Greek and Roman art gave Western art its classical foundation in form, line, structure, and meaning. These two periods gave a great deal of impact and inspiration to our arts and our lives. Many of our structures and sculptures have at least some form of influence from these classical periods. Some of the examples are Epidaurus Theater, The Colosseum, The Parthenon, Temple of Fortuna Virilis, The Panthenon, and the Discus Thrower. Epidaurus Theater and Colosseum exemplifies the classic artistic inheritance in many ways. Epidaurus Theater and Colosseum were both made for entertainment just like our amphitheaters today. Epiduarus Theater was built for performing plays. The middle center is called orchestra and most action took place within here (Janson 138). The seats were curved around the orchestra and went up like a staircase. Hundreds of people could be seated and play can be seen without much difficulty. People also had no trouble hearing what the actors and actresses were saying. They had seats in the front made out of marble for the upper class people, and the top rows were made out of stone for lower class people. The Colosseum was built for gladiatorial games. It was a massive structure that could fit more than 50,000 spectators (182). It usually had three floors with eighty-five entrances, which let people exit and enter into the arena very quickly. The doors were decorated with classical Doric columns on the ground floor followed by Ionic and Corinthian (182). The stage can be adjusted to the environment it needed to be in for the performance. It also had seats for higher class at the bottom made of marble and stone seats on top for lower class citizens. Epidaurus Theater looks just like our amphitheaters today where plays and concerts are performed. They also have places in the back of the stage for actors and actresses to stand by and change. The Colosseum looks like our sports arena and Olympic stadiums. The main ... Free Essays on Roman Art Free Essays on Roman Art The Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal when he himself converted. One of the famous stories about Constantine is of his vision from God on the night before the battle of the Milvian Bridge. According to the legend, Constantine saw the symbol of Jesus Christ’s power in the clouds and a message written in Latin, which read â€Å"In this sign thou shalt conquer.† Immediately, Constantine ordered artisans to place the sign of Christ on his soldier’s shields. The effect of the legalization on the development of the Early Christian church was considerable. The church was thrilled to have Constantine convert; it was a milestone, the emperor of a nation thousands of years old and deeply rooted in their own beliefs one day legalizing and adopting this new religion. This represented the link between the Early Christian church and the state. Art of the time was affected too; there was more of a focus on content than representation. The portrait of Constantine, from the Basilica of Constantine, a huge statue thirty feet high is a good example of content over representation. This was becoming more and more the norm. His eyes were gigantic, (abstract like), and looking upward. His nose is oversized and they use linear lines to identify his hair. Churches started to flourish and Christianity, they were being built in homes. The Basilica of Maxantius was built for Constantine. There was a clear focus at the end of the long axis, toward the alter. The churches were mostly rectangular or â€Å"T† shaped. The outside of these buildings were made to look minimalist, a quality attributing the poverty of Christ. The inside of the churches were not decorated for the same reason, but eventually became highly ornamented. The Basilica at Trier was part of Constantine’s palace; the long flat walls on the outside are plain, except for the arches. Christianity was starting to adopt a classical Roman sense, but the external re... Free Essays on Roman Art Greek and Roman art gave Western art its classical foundation in form, line, structure, and meaning. These two periods gave a great deal of impact and inspiration to our arts and our lives. Many of our structures and sculptures have at least some form of influence from these classical periods. Some of the examples are Epidaurus Theater, The Colosseum, The Parthenon, Temple of Fortuna Virilis, The Panthenon, and the Discus Thrower. Epidaurus Theater and Colosseum exemplifies the classic artistic inheritance in many ways. Epidaurus Theater and Colosseum were both made for entertainment just like our amphitheaters today. Epiduarus Theater was built for performing plays. The middle center is called orchestra and most action took place within here (Janson 138). The seats were curved around the orchestra and went up like a staircase. Hundreds of people could be seated and play can be seen without much difficulty. People also had no trouble hearing what the actors and actresses were saying. They had seats in the front made out of marble for the upper class people, and the top rows were made out of stone for lower class people. The Colosseum was built for gladiatorial games. It was a massive structure that could fit more than 50,000 spectators (182). It usually had three floors with eighty-five entrances, which let people exit and enter into the arena very quickly. The doors were decorated with classical Doric columns on the ground floor followed by Ionic and Corinthian (182). The stage can be adjusted to the environment it needed to be in for the performance. It also had seats for higher class at the bottom made of marble and stone seats on top for lower class citizens. Epidaurus Theater looks just like our amphitheaters today where plays and concerts are performed. They also have places in the back of the stage for actors and actresses to stand by and change. The Colosseum looks like our sports arena and Olympic stadiums. The main ...

Anyone Can Learn to Play This Guitar in Minutes

Anyone Can Learn to Play This Guitar in Minutes Practice, practice, practice. If you want to become good at anything, theres no getting  around those three words. Musicians, of course, know this all too well. Research has shown that trained violinists and pianists typically put in an average of 10,000 hours before they can be considered elite performers. For the rest of us with far less lofty aspirations, there are popular rhythm-based video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band that are much easier to pick up. The games also allow players to quickly get accustomed to rhythmic timing, notes as well as some of the dexterity necessary to play drums, bass, and other instruments. Still, making the leap over to, say, actually playing the guitar, is entirely different. There’s just simply no substitute for the hours upon hours of practice necessary to master the finer subtleties of things like finger positioning and different picking techniques. The learning curve can often feel so steep that about 90 percent of beginners quit within the first year, according to Fender, a leading guitar brand.    That’s where technologically-enhanced instruments such as the MI Guitar comes in. Pitched as the guitar anyone can learn to play in mere minutes, the rhythmic guitar is something of a novice’s dream. Similar to Guitar Hero, it features a tactile electronic interface along the fretboard but is capable of expressing a wide range of chords. At the top, the guitar’s force-sensitive strings also allow users to generate chords with varying degrees of loudness, much like a real guitar. The Crowdfunding Project That Could Originally launched as a crowdfunding project on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo, the campaign raised a total of $412,286. The final product isn’t due to ship until late 2017, but early hands-on reviews of the latest prototype have generally been positive. A reviewer at Wired magazine praised the guitar as â€Å"totally fun and shockingly simple to use.† The Next Web echoed a similar sentiment, describing it as â€Å"great for quick jam sessions with friends, or using it to master the strumming portion first.† Brian Fan, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based startup Magic Instruments, came up with the idea after spending an entire summer trying to learn the guitar, with little progress. This despite having played the piano as a child and all the way through his musical training at The Juilliard School, one of the world’s most prestigious music conservatories. â€Å"I tried everything [to learn the guitar]. YouTube videos, learning guitars, gimmicks you name it,† he said. â€Å"The thing is you have to develop the motor skills and muscle memory for that particular instrument, which takes a lot of time. A lot of the time it felt like playing hand twister.† The first thing to know about the rhythmic guitar is that it bears only a superficial resemblance to a traditional string instrument. Like other sampler devices, users are limited to a series of pre-recorded digital sounds that play through the speaker. You won’t be able to perform hammer-ons, pull-offs, vibrato, string bending, slides and other advanced techniques that are used to shape the sound and give it that distinction. â€Å"Intentionally, it’s geared towards people like me with limited or no experience and who want to just play, rather than guitar players,† Fan said. â€Å"So it behaves nothing like a guitar, but it’s still so much easier to play music since it’s not bound by the physics of vibrating strings.† Review of the MI Guitar Cradling the latest version on my lap, it did have the look and feel of an actual guitar, though lighter and admittedly much less intimidating. Despite not having much of a musical background beyond a piano class in high school, it still lends the player an air of confidence with its buttons in addition to strings considering we all press buttons on a computer keyboard every day, how can it not be intuitive? It also comes with an iOS app that displays the lyrics and chords to various songs. Sync it with the guitar and it’ll carefully guide you along Karaoke-style, scrolling forth as you play each chord. Its not hard to flub my first couple attempts at a Green Day song, either by pressing the wrong cord button or hesitating a beat too many. But by the third go around, its easier to pick up the pace a bit, stringing them together until lo and behold music. Joe Gore, a guitar player, music software developer and former editor for Guitar Player magazine, who has yet to try out the technology says that while he likes the notion of a guitar for that anyone can play, he doesn’t expect it to be well-received by those who’ve long put in their dues. â€Å"The guitar community is very conservative,† he explained. â€Å"And because theres a certain work ethic that goes into honing your craft, it’s natural to feel a bit scorned when they see someone cheat and take a shortcut instead of investing the time into something their completely passionate about.† And while Fan says he understands where the criticism comes from, particularly the barrage of â€Å"hate posts† his team has received on social media, he doesn’t see any reason for guitar purists to feel threatened. â€Å"We are not replacing the guitar, especially the expressiveness and sound,† Fan said. â€Å"But for those who’ve never learned it when they were young and have less time now, we’re saying here’s something that you can pick up and enjoy playing right away.† Where to Purchase Anyone interested in pricing information and purchasing the Rhythmic Guitar on pre-order can do so  by visiting ​Magic Instruments website.​