Armenia

A study of medieval Armenian painting, church architecture, bas-relief sculpture, and other media demonstrates close attention to, and reception of, the art and culture of the Byzantine Empire. Historic Armenia (including the present-day Armenian Republic and territories in eastern Anatolia, southern Georgia, northwest Iran, and Azerbaijan) and the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia (1199–1375, southwestern Anatolia) had close relations with neighboring powers throughout the medieval era, and scholars, most prominently Sirarpie Der Nersessian, have long studied the presence of Byzantine ideas in Armenian art and architecture. The early medieval period, the “Age of the Kingdoms” (ninth to eleventh centuries), and twelfth- to fourteenth-century Cilicia demonstrate strong evidence for contact and familiarity with Byzantine culture. An examination of select cases demonstrates the diverse and dynamic nature of such appropriations, reflecting the complex and changing nature of political, social, religious, and cultural relations between empire and locality.

Chaya Someshwara Temple The Magnificent Architectural Engineering and Art Grandeur

Panagal of Nalgonda was a significant religious place during Kakatiya period. An inscription mentioning Pratap Rudra the greatest Kakatiyaking on PachalaSomeswara temple supports the assertion that these temples were erected for the greater glory of the Kakatiya ruler's favorite god, Shiva.Chaya SomeswaraSwamy temple and PachalaSomeswara temple are two well-known Shiva temples.The Chaya Someswara is a trikuta shrine with a common hall formed by plain wall and a nominal adhisthana for its vimana with Phamsana superstructures crowned with a square shikara. When daylight is present, the Shiva lingam of Chaya Someswara (chaya means "shadow" in Telugu) is straddled by a constant shadow of a pillar.The pillars of the temple are adorned with relief sculpture of episodes from the two great epics of India, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The research paper is a study of the Art and Architecture of the Chaya Someshwaraand theshadow that falls inside the garbhagriha. The paper is based on field work and survey conducted as part of documenting the temples for applying a Project.

Relief sculpture

Relief sculpture was one of the primary methods used to decorate structures and objects from the Predynastic period through to the end of pharaonic civilization. Relief decoration might be raised, incised, or a combination of both formats. The techniques of carving in relief, as well as the fundamental canonical principles of two-dimensional representation, were fully developed by the end of the Old Kingdom and were generally maintained, though with significant stylistic variations, during all subsequent eras of ancient Egyptian history. These techniques and the chronological development of relief sculpture as a medium are summarized here.

Plastic relief sculpture: Improving Nigerian students’ performance in practical biology

Among the factors identified to be responsible for the poor performance of senior high school students in biology is inappropriate instructional media. This study investigated the effects of plastic relief sculpture on senior high school students’ performance in biology practical activity in Ogbomoso, South Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. Moreover, it also observed gender as the moderating effect in this study. The population of this quasi-experimental study was the all senior high school biology students in Oyo State. Two intact classes of 120 biology students were randomly sampled for the study. Two instruments were used in this study i.e. Students’ Biology Practical Test and Biology Practical Lesson Notes. The findings of this study revealed that there was significant difference existed between the performance of students in the experimental and control group (F (8, 51) = 1.89, p < 0.05). Meanwhile, female students performed insignificantly different compared with male students (t (118) = 7.16, p = 0.12). Therefore, the study concluded that plastic instructional relief sculpture is effective in improving students’ performance in biology. Thus, it is recommended that teachers should adopt plastic relief sculpture as the innovative instructional resource in teaching biology.

Research of a complex fire-induced pollution on the marble relief from the Pushkin state museum of fine arts collection

Background Fundamental restoration of sculptures must include the research of pollution composition and exhibit surface condition as well as accurate identification of the materials of sculptures, bas-reliefs and coatings. In the recent years, studies of marble objects aimed at identification of contamination nature and composition have been developed. It should be noted that some exhibits have individual features as objects of restoration due to complex exposure to the environment, e.g. to fire. Results The article describes the results of surface contamination study on two exhibits from the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts collection. Marble relief sculpture “The Flagellation of Christ” was the main object of the study. Glazed terracotta (majolica) “Madonna Friedrichshain” was studied as a control sample with the same type of contaminations but with less sensitive surface. According to the results of different gas chromatography and X-ray fluorescence analyses, pollution compounds were identified as fatty alcohols, fatty acids and esters, part of which being residues of pyrolysis gasification, including those containing iron and lead. In order to gently clean the exhibits, several variants of chemical compounds were proposed based on various chelating agent mixtures, and, after studying their comparative effectiveness, the optimal scheme was chosen for removing existing contamination. For verification of marble exhibits safety, selected cleaning mixtures were tested on polished Carrara marble sample. Conclusion The most suitable scheme of organic contaminations removal including those containing iron and lead was suggested as part of restoration process. There is a number of working schemes of cleaning the surface of exhibits, however our proposed scheme interacts with the marble surface more gently because the target cleaning mixture composition was formulated taking into account the nature of pollutants and the least possible impact on the sample surface.