Greek art
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Greek art and architecture
The art and architecture of Greek-speaking societies from the beginning of
the Iron Age (11th century bc) to the late 1st century bc. Earlier (Bronze
Age) art of the Greek mainland and islands (with the exception of Crete,
where there was a distinct tradition called Minoan art) is known as
Mycenaean Art, and later Greek art, known as Hellenistic art, is considered
part of the culture of the Roman Empire. Solid bronze statuettes of men, and
particularly horses, are the earliest Greek sculpture. The first nearly
life-sized statues were made about 650 bc in stone. In the beginning of
this, the 'Archaic Period', the sculptor, to avoid cutting the stone deeply,
rendered features and muscles as markings on the surface. Sculptors of the
6th and early 5th centuries studied the forms of the body, gradually working
out its proportions. Statues were painted throughout the Greek period. Many,
buried in the debris after the Persians had sacked the Athenian Acropolis
(citadel) in 480 bc, were excavated with their colour still preserved. The
victories over the Persians in the early 5th century bc found
characteristic expression in grander sculpture, as at Olympia. Myron's
Discobolos, an athlete hurling the discus, made in about 450 bc, was
originally in bronze, but survives only in Roman marble copies. Indeed most
sculptors of this period worked in bronze. Few life-size bronzes survive,
except in copies, but we have one, by an unknown sculptor, which must be
among the greatest - the bronze statue of Zeus hurling a thunderbolt, found
in the sea off Cape Artemisium, and dated about 470-460 bc. In the 5th
century emotion was shown in the whole figure rather than in the face, which
was generally shown with calm features. Fourth-century sculptors such as
Scopas concentrated on representing intellect and emotion through the face,
and this led to the development of portraiture. as demonstrated by the works
of Praxiteles (mid-4th century bc), who worked mainly in marble.
Greek architecture has an equally long and distinguished history. Early
Greek temples were small hut-like buildings of rubble or mudbrick, sometimes
thatched. Colonnaded temples of stone were rare before the 6th century. The
design was simple - a rectangular building on a foundation of usually three
steps, with columns (See orders of architecture) at the porch, at either
end, or all round. The Greeks did not use the arch. Figure sculpture in the
round filled the triangular gable (pediment) at each end of the building,
and reliefs were carved on the horizontal beams supported by the columns.
Pediment figures with elaborate scenes of movement have been preserved from
temples at Aegina (early 5th century), Olympia, and the Parthenon (mid-5th
century bc). (See Elgin.) Little is left of large-scale Greek
wall-painting, except for some remarkable tomb paintings of the 4th and 3rd
centuries bc, notably the royal tombs at Vergina, Macedonia. The Greeks
were adept at other arts: superb bronzeworks have been found at Vix in
central France (c. 500 bc), for example. Greek art did not end with the
Roman conquest of Greece, or even with the transition from the ancient to
the medieval world; it developed as Hellenistic art and later as Byzantine
art, and has been at the foundation of the art of western Europe.
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