GREEK ART

GREEK ART

Iktinos and Kallikrates, Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens, 447 – 432 B.C.E
  • Greek art began in the Cycladic and Minoan civilization, and gave birth to Western classical art in the subsequent Geometric, Archaic and Classical periods (with further developments during the Hellenistic Period). 
  • It absorbed influences of Eastern civilizations, of Roman art and its patrons, and the new religion of Orthodox Christianity in the Byzantine era and absorbed Italian and European ideas during the period of Romanticism (with the invigoration of the Greek Revolution), until the Modernist and Postmodernist.
  • Greek art is mainly five forms: architecture, sculpture, painting, pottery and jewellery making.

The Stag Hunt Mosaic at the Archaeological Museum of Pella (3rd BC)

  • Artistic production in Greece began in the prehistoric pre-Greek Cycladic and the Minoan civilizations, both of which were influenced by local traditions and the art of ancient Egypt.
  • There are three scholarly divisions of the stages of later ancient Greek art that correspond roughly with historical periods of the same names. These are the Archaic, the Classical and the Hellenistic.
  • The Archaic period is usually dated from 1000 BC. The Persian Wars of 480 BC to 448 BC are usually taken as the dividing line between the Archaic and the Classical periods, and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC is regarded as separating the Classical from the Hellenistic period. 
  • The art of ancient Greece is usually divided stylistically into four periods: the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. The Geometric age is usually dated from about 1000 BC, although in reality little is known about art in Greece during the preceding 200 years, traditionally known as the Greek Dark Ages.


General characteristic of Greek art





The Archaic Period in Greek art (c. 600-480/479 B.C.E.)
  •  Archaic Period, the city of Athens witnessed the rise and fall of tyrants and the introduction of democracy by the statesman Kleisthenes in the years 508 and 507 B.C.E.
  •  Visually, the period is known for large-scale marble kouros (male youth) and kore (female youth) sculptures (see below). The kouros stands rigidly with both arms extended at the side and one leg advanced.
  •  Frequently employed as grave markers, these sculptural types displayed unabashed nudity, highlighting their complicated hairstyles and abstracted musculature (below left).
  •   The kore, on the other hand, was never nude. Not only was her form draped in layers of fabric, but she was also ornamented with jewellery and adorned with a crown.
  •    Though some have been discovered in funerary contexts, like Phrasiklea (below right), a vast majority were found on the Acropolis in Athens .
  •  Ritualistically buried following desecration of this sanctuary by the Persians in 480 and 479 B.C.E., dozens of korai were unearthed alongside other dedicatory artefacts.
  •   While the identities of these figures have been hotly debated in recent times, most agree that they were originally intended as votive offerings to the goddess Athena.
                                
Left: Anavysos (Kroisos) Kouros, c. 530 B.C.E., marble, 6′ 4″ (National Archaeological Museum, Athens), photo: Steven Zucker Right: Aristion of Paros, Phrasikleia Kore, c. 550 – 540 B.C.E. Parian marble with traces of pigment, 211 cm high (National Archaeological Museum, Athens), photo: Asaf Braverman CC BY-NC-SA 2.0



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