Where is the relationship you ask me?

And you will be right.

What do you think when you look at the photo below?

Dollhouse. Windsor Castle-Queen mary's dolls' house

Museum of dolls in Paris

Nativity Scene, Naples

A direct link is detected.

It turns out that all types of art cannot exist without each other, they interact and complement the whole curtain.

Without a correct understanding of the era, appearance, costumes and the surrounding space, we cannot create a reliable image.

Christmas Nativity Scene.

We begin a cycle of materials by an expert in the field of history and theory of art - Maria Krestyanikova.

Pantheon - Temple of all gods. Rome.

"Architecture is the main art."

Why? Well, at least, because of its unconditional utility. I know that one can argue with this statement, since it is not entirely clear, after all, what is art about? About benefits or beauty?

And here a wonderful person comes to our aid, who lived 2000 years ago and wrote "10 books on architecture" - Vitruvius... It was he who formulated the three main commandments, which we will now refer to:

• Strength;
• Benefit;
• The beauty.

It is these three postulates that underlie the understanding of architecture.

The building must be solid, because this is the guarantee of its reliability. The building is useful because fulfills its main function - it preserves what is inside it. And the building should be beautiful to please the eye and bring aesthetic pleasure.

If you imagine life without architecture, then in central Russia, for example, this life will look very sad, especially in winter. Don't tell me about the dugouts. Because a dugout is also architecture. It doesn't matter in what way and from what materials the dwelling is built, it is important that it protects from wind and bad weather. And, sometimes, from enemies.

But architecture is not only a dwelling. If we have already remembered the dugouts, then let's look under the ground - the metro. This is also architecture. And all the stations, and crossings, and underpasses, and lobbies. We get out to the surface again and look around: bus stops, train stations, administrative buildings, museums, circuses, theaters, bridges, arches, fences, playgrounds. And that's all - architecture. Is it not convincing? Can't this art form claim to be the main one? Although there is another one that has entered our life so tightly and deeply that it can argue with architecture in the supremacy. But about him another time.

Primitive architecture.

Dolmen. Village Vozrozhdenie. Krasnodar region

From the school history course, mentions of some primitive sites of an ancient man, caves, strange, incomprehensible purpose of huge stones dug into the ground come to our minds. But, I bet, no one pops up in the memory of at least some intelligible image that draws us a dwelling of an ancient man built from any materials. Because they have not survived. Even if they built something, it was made of materials that could not bear the weight of the millennia that had fallen on them.

There is only one material that has endured them, and that is stone. Therefore, when talking about primitive architecture, we are talking only on the example of stone remains.

Menhir of Sainte-Macher-en-Mozh (Brittany)

Let's not "tease the tiger" and remember Gornaya Shoria, Arkaim and the Solovki labyrinths. This should be done by courageous scientists who are ready to withstand the onslaught of traditional science.

We will turn to the unshakable facts recognized by the world community and taught in universities.

Stonehenge. Great Britain

Three types of primitive architecture are:

• Menhirs - freestanding stones reaching 5 meters in height, sometimes forming groups. Such artifacts are "scattered" all over the Earth.
• Dolmens - small buildings, consisting of 5 flat stones, forming a kind of small house. Most often there is a small round hole on the front stone in the dolmen, which was once plugged with a stone plug. The most "rich" place for dolmens is the Vozrozhdenie village near Gelendzhik in the Krasnodar Territory.
• Cromlechs - a complex of megalith stones (huge stones) that make up the "readable" compositions. The most famous cromlech is the Stonehenge complex, located in the UK.

And do you know what unites all these seemingly so different structures? The fact that the world community still cannot come to a consensus about why, for what purpose, for what they were built.

Of course, the main hypothesis is the sacred structures built for rituals and service to the deities. But there are also "funeral" versions, and "energetic" and "astronomical".

Choose which one you like best.

Architecture of Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Pyramids of Giza, Egypt.

They are much alike, these two great ancient civilizations.

Yes, at least with these pyramidal outlines of their main buildings, known to the whole world. The pyramids at Giza and the ziggurat at Ur, the main remaining contender for the Tower of Babel. The difference between them is, of course, great. Both in terms of time and materials.

It is believed that the time of the construction of the pyramids is the XXVI-XXIII centuries BC. And the construction of the remaining ziggurat belongs to the XXI century BC.

It is believed that the pyramids were built from solid stone blocks, and the ziggurat from adobe bricks.

It is generally accepted that the pyramids are tombs, although not a single mummy has been found there, and the ziggurat is a temple or even a temple complex.

But in our conversation with you about art, even this is not all important. But the fact that Already in antiquity, man strove for monumental forms, for huge, astounding scales.

Ziggurat in Ur

Moreover, look at the similarity of the form. But it was precisely one of the ziggurats, it was called Etemenanki (“the house where heaven and earth converge”), the Jews perceived as an encroachment on the greatness of God. It is this tower that will later be called the Babylonian tower and make it a symbol of utopia.

But in fact, ziggurats are temples. Huge, not hollow, artificial mountains built of bricks.

Upstairs is a shrine where only the head priest can enter.

In Egypt, the temples looked very different. The temple in Egypt is a process. This is the road to the Kingdom of fiery Ra. The procession goes through several "trials": the alley of the sphinxes (can you answer all their tricky questions), the hypostyle hall (can you read the entire Book of the Dead, written on huge columns in this roofless hall), guardians-pharaohs sitting by the pylons and a sanctuary, which, of course, can only be entered by a priest.

The scale, the grandeur, the colossal. All the signs of gigantism that are characteristic of our contemporary architecture.

And why does it seem that ancient people were different? Yes, the same. With the same aspirations and dreams. With the same hopes and fears. And, of course, with the same feelings.

To be continued…

Photos are taken from open sources on the Internet.

Best regards, Maria Krestyanikova