#IBMakingArt and McBeth

Here is the art I picked: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/63.12/

1. Artist:  Abbey of Bury Saint Edmunds, Title: The Cloister's Cross, Date: ca. 1150–60, medium: Walrus ivory, size : 22 5/8 x 14 1/4in

2. Geographic Location: Eastern England in the middle of the twelfth century. This type of design could be found on the front of a cathedral building during this time.  

3. Subject/Iconography: According to the site, this cross contains anti-jewish inscriptions, hinting that the people of this time period were against the jewish religion and showed their dislike through art such as this. This art really portrayed their praise of Christianity because the cross is the main holy symbol. The cross depicts, from what I can see, people praying to G-d or Jesus and this really shows the importance of religion to the Europeans at this time. 

4. Style/Technique: The art was formed using 5 pieces of walrus tusk that were fit together. TO portray the importance of this piece of art, the author included a great deal of pictures and engravings on this. He wanted to make the art special and perhaps different from other works. He also made this art in a way so that it would voice an opinion that he had about which religion he believed was the superior. It's hard to see exactly what is depicted on the cross but something else I noticed was how crowed the cross was with designs and engravings of pictures. The author filled up every last inch of space on this piece to make it be the most effective as possible. The more pictures, the easier it would have been for citizens to understand the art and appreciate it. The cross is not dyed a different color than the bones were, showing that the creator likes to keep things natural and pure probably because they believe it makes it more holy.

5. Significance/functions/purpose: I kind of talked about this earlier in the post about how this piece functions to shun the Jewish religion and make the Christians seem superior to all. At this time Christianity was getting really big and people started to believe that other religions were not correct to practice, such as Judaism, causing works of art such as this to be made to try and persuade people to change. The hope seems to be to show Christianity is the most holy religion and should be practiced by all. Today this piece would still be considered holy and important to religion because the cross is the main sign of Christianity and it is still treated with great respect in every church. Some extreme religious people still do not treat jews with respect like this specific cross is showing, but many churches do respect the Jewish religion now. This means that this art would not fully be used in society today because we have changed our thinking to try and accept all religions and people. So the cross part is valued today but not the engravings necessarily.