Ancient Greek Art

The Art of Ancient Greece, by Rachel Widock. The time referred to as the historical Greek period emerged some 400 years after the decline of the Mino-Mycenaean cultures around 1100 BCE. The Socratic idea of man is the measure of all things is evident throughout Greek and later Roman art. It can be seen in the use of anthropomorphism and canons. Pottery The earliest style is known as geometric. It was used in small-scale sculpture. The lively, rectilinear meander patterned circle in the body of the amphora, which is a two-handed storage jar, are typical of geometric pottery design. Orientalizing style shows influences from the Near East and Egypt in a recognizable way. In this orientalizing amphora, dated 675-650 BCE, the shapes have become larger and more curvilinear than those of the geometric style. Odo Zeus and his men are driving a stake into the eyes of the Cyclopes, polyphemos, who had eaten some of Odo, Zeus' sailors. The Archaic period utilized a painting technique known as black figure. This amphora has a scene known as Achilles and a jazz playing a board game. Similar to orientalizing, the central image is a narrative scene. Painting Mosaics from the Hellenistic period are the best preserved examples of large-scale Greek pictorial style. This so-called Alexander mosaic is a Roman copy of the Greek fresco of around 300 BC. It depicts Alexander the Great defeating the Persian king Darius II at the Battle of Issos. Radical foreshortening as the central horse, seam from the ear and the use of shadowing to convey a sense of mass and volume enhance the naturalistic effect of the seam. Sculptures The Greeks used many different types of materials in their sculptures including stone, marble and limestone as these were abundant in Greece. Other materials such as clay were also used but due to their brittle nature very few have survived. This row of impressive white marble lions on the island of Delos continues the traditional guardian function of animals. They sit on their haunches looking awake and ready to pounce. This sense of contained energy combined with monumental form and stylization is characteristic of the early Greek styles. Monumental sculpture of human figures began in Greece during the archaic period. They learned to carve blocks of stone from the Egyptians but adapted the technique to suit their own tastes, as is evident in the New Yorker rose. The end of Persian invasion to Greece is reflected in the art style, sometimes referred to as Sevilla. The best example of this is seen in the marble Christios boy. It reflects self-awareness and decrease of stylization. Notice the wavy hair, the flesh now seeming to cover the organic structure of bone and muscle, and the disappearance of the smile. We'll do it all, everything.