analyzing artwork 2.

Code of Hammurabi.


The Code of Hammurabi has both art and writing included in its form. First thing that is noticed is its height. The top depicts Hammurabi, the ruler of the land, with the bottom including the code- the law by which the land lived. During the Ancient Near East Art, it was customary to have art and writing incorporated in the same piece. First, lets look to the art. The art is has been done  in hieratic scale. This is when the kind/ most important person is larger than the rest of the piece. Hammurabi is  depicted as a relief. There is good use of volume, that is created by form and the light that hits all of the indentions and such.This sculpture/ relief work is very charicteristic of the time period. The subject is also customary. During this time they depicted the rulers in kings in most of the artwork. Western art also focuced in the human body, realism and idealism. This sculpture focuses on the king, and idealizes him as perfect, just how they would want to be remembered. Lastly, the art piece is shown in composite pose, where the legs and face are profile but the torso is head on. 


The second part of this artwork is the writing. Not only was this a sculpture, it was a code of living for this time period. It is written in cuneiform, which was the writing that the Sumerians created. It  is an angular writing that took less time to carve into stone. It was important for them to keep these writings set in stone, as they were important to all the land  and needed to be kept for a long time. I like that they tried to incorporate art into their code but also recorded the ruler who set these rules into the art. It takes the simple code and and makes it artwork.