GREECE
1
776 BCE 1st Olympiad – traditional beginning of Greek History
750 – 600 BCE Greek emigration to Southern Italy and Sicily
510 – 508 BCE Democracy established in Athens
479 BCE end of Persian War
460 – 429 BCE Golden Age of Greece
431 – 404 BCE Peloponnesian Wars
336 – 323 BCE Alexander the Great rules Greece
146 BCE – 330 CE Roman rule of Greece
Greece was composed of two groups, the Dorians who inhabited
the Greek mainland and the Ionians who lived on the Greek islands,
Asia Minor and the city of Athens. The Peloponnesian
Wars pitted the Dorian city of Sparta and her allies against
Athens.
Greek art periods:
1000 – 700 BCE Proto-Geometric and
Geometric
700 – 600 BCE Orientalizing
600 – 400 BCE Archaic
480 – 450 BCE Early Classical
450 – 330 BCE Classical
330 – 146 BCE Hellenistic
Greek art is devoted, almost exclusively, to the human
figure.
“Man is the measure of all things.”
Protagoras
“From the love of beauty has sprung every good in heaven
and earth.” Plato
This love of beauty will cause Greek art to be ideal rather
than real. This preference for the ideal is also reflected in a
statement by Socrates. He writes, “But when you want to
represent beautiful figures, since it is not easy to find
everything without a flaw in a single human being, do you
not then collect from a number what is beautiful in each, so
that the whole body may appear beautiful.”
In the Geometric Period our main concern will be
on Greek vases and vase painting. Amazingly in
the Orientalizing Period we, again, will concentrate
on Greek vases and vase painting. In the Archaic
Period we will not only look at the vases, but will
extended our investigation of the art of Classical
Greece by looking at both Greek sculpture and
architecture.
In the Early Classical, Classical and Hellenistic
periods we will concentrate of architecture and
sculpture.
“There can be no fairer spectacle than that of a man
who combines the possession of moral beauty in his
soul with outward beauty of form, corresponding and
harmonizing with the former, because the same
pattern enters into both.”
Socrates
The Greeks believed that an individual should strive for a
balance between the body and the spirit. They felt the ideal
person would have a healthy mind and a healthy body. This
concept is beautifully exemplified in a Greek vase in the British
Museum in London. On the pot is a painting of boys in a
gymnasium, all the boys, but one, have beautiful bodies. The
lone outsider is fat and unfit causing the others to mock him as
his physical character revealed his lack of spiritual perfection.
Greek pottery and Greek vase painting
Greek pottery was essentially functional and there are
numerous forms and functions. This list is just a
sampling of the various vase forms.
Types of pottery:
Amphora
Oenochoe
a storage jar
a wine jug similar to
with a large opening
water pitcher
and a lid
Krater
Lekythos
a mixing bowl for
an oil flask used in
wine and water
funeral rites
Kylix
Arbyllos
a drinking cup for
a perfume bottle
wine
There are five forms of painting that decorate the walls of
Greek vases.
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Geometric
Orientalizing
Black figure
Red figure
White ground
1000 – 700 BCE
700 – 600 BCE
600 – 525 BCE
525 – 400 BCE
600 – 400 BCE
Vase painting became a minor art after the
Archaic Period.
Early Geometric vases would have
consisted of simple geometric
patterns divided into zones or bands
that encircled the pot. Animals would
have been introduced in the 8th
century BCE, the human figure a bit
later.
Dipylon Krater
ca. 740 BCE
The Dipylon Krater is an excellent
example of a late geometric krater.
Because the image on the pot is of a
funeral rite, we know this is a funeral
krater. Pots in the Geometric Period
were often used as a tomb marker.
The figures on the Geometric pots
are stylized rather than naturalistic.
During the Orientalizing Period we see the introduction of
Egyptian and Near Eastern animals, real and mythical, as design
motifs in Greek pottery. In the period we also will notice that the rigid
horizontal breakup in Geometric design is relaxed creating large open
areas that become the playing ground for the animals.
Lion headed arbyllos
Orientalizing Amphora
ca. 625 – 600 BCE
Orientalizing Olpe
In the Archaic Period we will find Black-figure vase
painting as well as the introduction in 525 BCE of
Red-figure vase painting. Subject matter and
narrative become very important in these periods.
Images come from all aspects of Greek life. In the
black figure technique the image is dark and the
ground (base) is light. In Red figure this is
reversed. The Andokides Painter introduced the
Red figure style which is more painterly than Black
figure.
Black figure
Exekius
Dionysus in a boat
Kylix
Women at the well
Hydria
Black figure Krater
Black figure Hydria
Red figure Powder Box
Because of the scene, a bride being brought to her groom
on the powder box we know this is a wedding gift.
Douris – Kylix with Heterae
ca. 490 – 480 BCE
In Classical Greek culture the genders were quite
separated. At parties the wives and daughters would not
participate the men would hire heterae, professional
entertainers.
Euphronios – Death of Sarpedon
ca. 515 BCE
Euphronios was the painter of this krater and Euxitheos was the potter.
The image illustrates the death of Sarpedon, a son of Zeus, who was
killed in the Trojan War. When Sarpedon was killed Zeus honored him
by causing bloody rain to fall. This piece that has been in the collection
of the Metropolitan Museum in New York is one of the works that was
forced to be returned to Italy during the debate over the repatriation of art
objects. It was smuggled out of Italy in 1971.
White Ground Painting
An arbyllos of conch shells
An Oenoche with a woman spinning. Notice the
beautiful linear treatment of the clothing. This use
of the contour line influenced later Classical artists.