enduring understanings
- Artistic traditions of the ancient Near East and dynastic Egypt focus on representing royal figures and divinities and on the function of funerary and palatial complexes within their cultural contexts
- Works of art illustrate the active exchange of ideas and reception of artistic styles among the Mediterranean cultures and the subsequent influence on the classical world.
- Religion plays a significant role in the art and architecture of the ancient Near East, with cosmology guiding representation of deities and kings, who themselves assume divine attributes
- The art of dynastic Egypt embodies a sense of permanence. It was created for eternity in the service of a culture that focused on preserving a cycle of rebirth
- The art of Ancient Greece and Rome is grounded in civic ideals and polytheism
- Etruscan and Roman artists and architects accumulated and creatively adapted Greek objects and forms to create buildings and artworks that appealed to their tastes for eclecticism and historicism
- Contextual information for ancient Greek and Roman art can be derived from contemporary literary, political, legal, and economic records, as well as from archaeological excavations conducted from the mid-18th century onward
- Etruscan art, by contrast, is illuminated primarily by modern archaeological record and by descriptions of contemporary external observers