Greece

Chapter 4 As happened centuries later with a handful of Renaissance painters, ancient Greek art tends to be thought of in vague terms of vases, statues and architecture produced "a long (unspecified) time ago." Indeed - a long time has passed between us and ancient Greece, and thinking like this is a good starting point, really. The vases, sculpture and architecture were huge - **huge!** - innovations and artists forever afterward owed an enormous debt to the ancient Greeks. Because so many centuries and different phases encompass "ancient Greek art" what we'll try to do rather briefly, here, is to break it down into some manageable chunks, thus giving each period its due. There were many phases from the 16th century BC, until the Greeks suffered defeat at the hands of the Romans at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The phases are roughly as follows: **Mycenaean Art** occurred from roughly 1550 to 1200 BC on the Greek mainland. Although the Mycenaean and Greek cultures were two separate entities, they occupied the same lands, successively. The latter learned a few thing from the former, including how to build gates and tombs. Besides architectural explorations including Cyclopean masonry and "beehive" tombs, the Mycenaeans were awesome goldsmiths and potters. They raised pottery from merely functional to beautifully decorative, and segued right out of the Bronze Age into their own insatiable appetite for gold. (One suspects that that the Mycenaeans were so wealthy they weren't satisfied with a humble alloy.) Around 1200 and the Homeric fall of Troy, the Mycenaean culture dwindled and died, followed by an artistic phase known both as **Sub-Mycenaean** and/or the "Dark Ages". This phase, lasting from c. 1100 - 1025 BC, saw a bit of continuity with the previous artistic doings, but no innovation. From c. 1025 - 900 BC, the **Proto-Geometric** phase saw pottery beginning to be decorated with simple shapes, black bands and wavy lines. Additionally, both technique in creating, and shapes of pots were being refined. **Geometric Art** has been assigned the years of 900 - 700 BC. Its name is utterly descriptive of the art created during this phase. Pottery decoration moved beyond simple shapes to also include animals and humans. Everything, however, was //rendered with// the use of simple geometric shapes. **Archaic Art**, from c. 700 - 480 BC, began with an Orientalizing Phase (735 - 650 BC). In this, elements from other civilizations began to creep into Greek art. The elements were those of the Near East (not exactly what we think of as "Oriental" now, but remember the world was a lot "smaller" in those days). The Archaic phase is best known for the beginnings of realistic depictions of humans and (no coincidence) monumental stone sculptures. It was during the Archaic that the limestone **kouros** (male) and **kore** (female) statues were created - always showing young, nude, smiling persons. (Interesting aside: The Archaic, and subsequent Classical and Hellenistic periods //each// contained separate **Early**, **High** and **Late** phases - just like the Italian Renaissance would further on down the road.) **Classical Art** (480 - 323 BC) was created during a "golden age", from the time Athens rose to prominence, to Greek expansion and right up until the death of Alexander the Great. It was during this period that human statues became so heroically proportioned. Of course, they were reflective of Greek Humanistic belief in the nobility of man and, perhaps, a desire to look a bit like gods - as well as the invention of metal chisels capable of working marble. Finally, **Hellenistic Art** (323 - 31 BC) went a wee bit over the top. By the time Alexander had died, and things got chaotic in Greece as his empire broke apart, Greek sculptors had mastered carving marble. They were so technically perfect, that they began sculpt //impossibly// heroic humans. People simply do **not** look as flawlessly symmetrical or beautiful in real life, as those sculptures - which may explain why the sculptures remain so popular after all these years. It's important to know that ancient Greek art was mainly comprised of vases, sculpture and architecture, lasted around 1,600 years and covered a number of different periods.
 * Greece **
 * What were the different phases of ancient Greek Art? **

 Pottery of Ancient Greece
The **pottery of ancient Greece** is one of the most tangible and iconic elements of ancient Greek art. The colourful vases and pots of the ancient Greeks have survived in large numbers and are today highly prized as collectors' items.

//Uses of pottery in Ancient Greece//
Ancient Greeks made pottery for everyday use, not for display; the trophies won at games, such as the Panathenaic Amphorae (used for storage), are the exception. Most surviving pottery consists of drinking vessels such as amphorae, kraters (bowls for mixing wine and water), hydria (water jars), libation bowls, jugs and cups. Painted funeral urns have also been found. Miniatures were also produced in large numbers, mainly for use as offerings at temples. In the Hellenistic period a wider range of pottery was produced, but most of it is of little artistic importance. In earlier periods even quite small Greek city-states produced pottery for their own locale. These varied widely in style and standards. Distinctive pottery that ranks as art was produced on some of the Aegean islands, in Crete, and in the wealthy Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily. By the later Archaic and early Classical period, however, the two great commercial powers, Corinth and Athens, came to dominate. Their pottery was exported all over the Greek world, driving out the local varieties. Pots from Corinth and Athens are found as far afield as Spain and Ukraine, and are so common in Italy that they were first collected in the 18th Century as "Etruscan vases". Many of these pots are mass-produced products of low quality. In fact, by the 5th Century BC, pottery had become an industry and pottery painting ceased to be an important art form of ancient Greece.

//History of Ancient Greek pottery//
The history of Ancient Greek pottery is divided stylistically into periods: The range of colours which could be used on pots was restricted by the technology of firing: black, white, red, and yellow were the most common. In the three earlier periods, the pots were left their natural light colour, and were decorated with slip that turned black in the kiln. The fully mature black figure technique, with added red and white details and incising for outlines and details, originated in Corinth during the early 7th century BC and was introduced into Attica about a generation later; it flourished until the end of the 6th Century BC. The red figure technique, invented in about 530 BC , reversed this tradition, with the pots being painted black and the figures painted in red. Red-figure vases slowly replaced the black-figure style. Sometimes larger vessels were engraved as well as painted. During the Protogeometric and Geometric periods, Greek pottery was decorated with abstract designs. In later periods, as the aesthetic shifted and the technical proficiency of potters improved, decorations took the form of human figures, usually representing the gods or the heroes of Greek history and mythology. Battle and hunting scenes were also popular, since they allowed the depiction of the horse, which the Greeks held in high esteem. Greek pottery is frequently signed, sometimes by the potter or the master of the pottery, but only occasionally by the painter. Hundreds of painters are, however, identifiable by their artistic personalities: where their signatures haven't survived they are named for their subject choices, as "the Achilles Painter ", by the potter they worked for, such as the Late Archaic "Kleophrades painter ", or even by their modern locations, such as the Late Archaic "Berlin Painter ". ** Red-figure pottery ** is a style of Athenian Pottery , later adopted in Southern Italy, in which the figure outlines, details and the background are painted black, while the figure itself is not painted. This way, the figures take on the reddish tone of Athenian clay after it has been burned in the presence of oxygen , due to the clay's high iron content.  Red-figure pottery, developed around 530 BC by the Andokides Painter, superseded the earlier black-figure pottery , except in the case of Panathenaic Amphorae , because the new process allowed more intricate detail on the ornaments, humans, animals, etc. depicted. When developed, it was one of several techniques with which artists experimented. The techniques and conventions of red-figure painting were developed by a group of artists known as the Pioneer Group. It became the predominant technique and remained popular until the late 4th Century BC. Red-figure pottery is considered to mark the apex of Greek pottery, as most vases or cups famous today for their skillful painting are in the red-figure style.  Creating a finished piece of red-figure pottery required close collaboration between the potter and the painter. The potter would shape the piece out of clay and deliver it to the painter while the clay was still damp. The painter would paint the vase using an instrument like a pastry bag with a syringe like nozzle of bone or wood to lay out the fine detail lines and background colors.  Since the paint only developed its color once the piece was fired in a kiln, the painter had to paint almost entirely from memory, unable to see his previous work. Additionally, the colors could only be applied while the clay was still wet, so the painter had to work very quickly. In the large kraters painted with the red-figure technique, this meant that tens of thousands of invisible lines had to be applied, each ending precisely at the right point to prevent overlapping in the intricate detail work, in an extremely short period of time. Despite these constraints, red-figure painters developed an intricate and detailed style. The Pioneer Group o f painters in particular used the red-figure technique to achieve a naturalism not previously seen in earlier styles. Humans and animals were depicted in naturalistic poses with schematic but accurate anatomy, and techniques of foreshortening and illusionistic perspective were developed to exploit the relative freedom of the red-figure method. The **black-figure pottery** technique is a style of ancient Greek Pottery painting in which the decoration appears as black silhouettes on a red background. Originated in Corinth during the early 7th century BC, it was introduced into Attica about a generation later. The technique flourished until being practically replaced by the more advanced red-figure pottery technique in 530 BC, although later examples do exist. Greek vases were made of a pale iron-rich clay which turned a reddish-orange color when fired. The design was sketched in outline, and then filled in using refined clay as paint. Details would be added with an engraving tool, scratching through the paint layer to the clay below. The vessel would then be fired in a kiln at a temperature of about 800°C, with the resultant oxidization turning the vase to a reddish-orange color. The temperature was then raised to about 950°C with the kiln's vents closed and green wood being added to remove the oxygen. The vessel then turned an overall black. The final stage required the vents to be re-opened to allow oxygen into the kiln, which was allowed to cool down. The vessel now returned to its reddish-orange color due to renewed oxidization, while the now-vitrified painted layer remained the glossy black color created in the second stage. Apart from black, other colors could be used by modifying the characteristics of the clay used to paint the vase. The most common was a yellowish-white derived from a purified iron-free clay, and a purplish-red derived from the same refined clay used to produce the black areas mixed with ochre (red iron oxide) and water. Black-figure pottery typically depicted figures in silhouette, but it was somewhat limited in artistic scope due to the limitations of engraving tools. Only a few painters are known by name, though many black-figure vases have been grouped on the basis of painting style and appear to be the work of distinct individuals or workshops. The most famous named painter is Exekias, a vase painter of the 6th Century BC who is best known for his battle scenes.
 * the **Protogeometric** from about 1050 BC ;
 * the **Geometric** from about 900BC ;
 * the **Late Geometric** or **Archaic** from about 750BC ;
 * the **Black Figure** from the early 7th Century BC ;
 * and the **Red Figure** from about 530 BC.

//Definitions of Shapes and Names  //
** Note: ** The names given to the parts of a vase correspond to the parts of the human body, from "mouth" to "shoulder" to "belly" to "foot". **Amphora** A two-handled jar used for storing liquids, such as oil and water, and solids, such as grain. A neck-amphora has the neck sharply set off from the body. A jar with a wide belly, narrow neck, and three handles: two are horizontal, for lifting, and one is vertical, for pouring. It is used to store and transport water. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">A large, deep bowl with two handles, used for mixing wine and water. A bell-krater has horizontal handles and a bell-shaped body. A column-krater has vertical, columnar handles and a neck which is set off. A volute-krater has vertical handles, which terminate in spirals, and a set-off neck. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">A drinking cup which has a shallow bowl, no horizontal handles, and a tall foot. The term "kylix" covers a wide variety of shapes, many of which are called simply "cups" or "bowls". <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">A shallow basin with a narrow ring foot, two handles, and a rim with a ledge to receive a lid. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">A slim jug with a narrow neck, one vertical handle, and a flat lip, used to contain and pour oil. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">A pitcher with a high vertical handle and trefoil mouth, used for pouring wine.
 * Hydria **
 * Krater **
 * Kylix **
 * Lekanis **
 * Lekythos **
 * Oinochoe **

Ancient Greek sculpture represents one of the most influential artistic movements in the history of art. The statues created by the ancient Greeks in the Classical and Hellinistic ages provided the foundation not only for Roman sculpture, but also for western sculpture as we know it today. Of course Greek sculpture is not necessarily a movement, but rather an art form that developed over 1000 years. **Archaic period** (8th to early 5th century BC)
 * Sculpture in Ancient Greece**

The first period of Greek sculpture was heavily influenced by the works of the ancient Egyptians. There was an emphasis on creating perfection in human form. However, most of the statues created during this time period appear very rigid and unnatural. They reflected a body being assembled in pieces much in the way a mannequin might be created today. Referred to as kouros and kore, these statues typically stood very upright with their feet together and a blank stare on their face. Despite the shortcomings, the Greeks were the first to create free-standing statues during this period.

**Classical period** (5th to 4th century BC)

The Classical Period began after the defeat of the Persian invasion at the battle of Marathon in 490. A renewed sense of optimism led the artists to strive for an improved sense of reality in their sculpture.

The most significant advancement of this period came in the form of the contrapposto stance. This is when one leg is extended and the imaginary shift in weight is modeled into the statue to convey a sense of gravity and enhance the realism of the piece.


 * Discobolos** (The Discus Thrower) by Myron in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome is one of the most famous classic Greek statues from this period. Myron's athlete engaged in the discus throw boasts vigorous and convincing movement in a perfect made form. His flexing muscles and concentrated expression create the impression of a tightly stretched bow a moment before the string is released.

**Hellenistic period** (late 4th - 1st century BC)

This period starts near the end of the 4th century and lasts until the Roman invasion in the 1st century. It was during this time that the Greek Statues and Sculpture spread throughout the world as the Greek empire continued to expand. During this period, an even greater emphasis was placed on generating dynamic movement and extreme poses in the art. **The Nike of Samothrace** reigns as the masterpiece of the Hellenistic period due to its dynamic movement. You can sense the wind blowing the folds of the clothing and the feathers of the wings being pushed back by the gust. ** Architecture in ancient Greece:  ** Greek life was dominated by religion and so it is not surprising that the temples of ancient Greece were the biggest and most beautiful. They also had a political purpose as they were often built to celebrate civic power and pride, or offer thanksgiving to the patron deity of a city for success in war. The Greeks developed three architectural systems, called orders, each with their own distinctive proportions and detailing. The Greek orders are: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. Doric

The Doric style is rather sturdy and its top (the capital), is plain. This style was used in mainland Greece and the colonies in southern Italy and Sicily. ||   Ionic

The Ionic style is thinner and more elegant. Its capital is decorated with a scroll-like design (a volute). This style was found in eastern Greece and the islands. ||   Corinthian

The Corinthian style is seldom used in the Greek world, but often seen on Roman temples. Its capital is very elaborate and decorated with acanthus leaves. ||  ||  ** Parthenon ** - temple of Athena Parthenos ("Virgin"), Greek goddess of wisdom, on the Acropolis in Athens. The Parthenon was built in the 5th century BC, and despite the enormous damage it has sustained over the centuries, it still communicates the ideals of order and harmony for which Greek architecture is known. ** Erechtheum  **  - temple from the middle classical period of Greek art and architecture, built on the Acropolis of Athens between 421 and 405BC. The Erechtheum contained sanctuaries to Athena Polias, Poseidon, and Erechtheus. The requirements of the several shrines and the location upon a sloping site produced an unusual plan. From the body of the building porticoes project on east, north, and south sides. The eastern portico, hexastyle Ionic, gave access to the shrine of Athena, which was separated by a partition from the western cella. The northern portico, tetrastyle Ionic, stands at a lower level and gives access to the western cella through a fine doorway. The southern portico, known as the Porch of the Caryatids (see caryatid) from the six sculptured draped female figures that support its entablature, is the temple's most striking feature; it forms a gallery or tribune. The west end of the building, with windows and engaged Ionic columns, is a modification of the original, built by the Romans when they restored the building. One of the east columns and one of the caryatids were removed to London by Lord Elgin, replicas being installed in their places. ** The Temple of Apollo at Didyma  **  - The Greeks built the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, Turkey (about 300 BC). The design of the temple was known as dipteral, a term that refers to the two sets of columns surrounding the interior section. These columns surrounded a small chamber that housed the statue of Apollo. With Ionic columns reaching 19.5 m (64 ft) high, these ruins suggest the former grandeur of the ancient temple.
 * Doric Order: **
 * Doric Order: **
 * Ionic Order: **

** The Temple of Athena Nike ** - part of the Acropolis in the city of Athens. The Greeks built the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, Turkey (about 300 BC). The design of the temple was known as dipteral, a term that refers to the two sets of columns surrounding the interior section. These columns surrounded a small chamber that housed the statue of Apollo. With Ionic columns reaching 19.5 m (64 ft) high, these ruins suggest the former grandeur of the ancient temple. - most ornate of the classic orders of architecture. It was also the latest, not arriving at full development until the middle of the 4th cent. B.C. The oldest known example, however, is found in the temple of Apollo at Bassae (c.420 B.C.). The Greeks made little use of the order; the chief example is the circular structure at Athens known as the choragic monument of Lysicrates ( 335 B.C.). The temple of Zeus at Athens (started in the 2d cent. B.C. and completed by Emperor Hadrian in the 2d cent. A.D.) was perhaps the most notable of the Corinthian temples. ||  || <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; msobidifontfamily: Wingdings; msofareastfontfamily: Wingdings; msolist: Ignore;">«  Amphora <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; msobidifontfamily: Wingdings; msofareastfontfamily: Wingdings; msolist: Ignore;">« Kraters <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; msobidifontfamily: Wingdings; msofareastfontfamily: Wingdings; msolist: Ignore;">« Hydria <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; msobidifontfamily: Wingdings; msofareastfontfamily: Wingdings; msolist: Ignore;">« Lekythos <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-bidi-font-family: Wingdings; mso-fareast-font-family: Wingdings; msobidifontfamily: Wingdings; msofareastfontfamily: Wingdings; msolist: Ignore;">« Oinochoe
 * Corinthian Order: **
 * Questions **
 * 1) What were the different phases of Greek art?
 * 2) Define the uses for these types of pots:
 * 1) What designs were painted on the pottery? Give examples from three periods.
 * 2) Describe the difference between the red figure pottery and the black figure pottery.
 * 3) How did pots get their colors?
 * 4) What colors were available to Greek potters?
 * 5) Name the three periods of ancient Greek sculpture.
 * 6) Describe the differences between them.
 * 7) Name the three different orders of Greek architecture.
 * 8) Describe the differences between them.