SUBJECT: Ancient Aegean and Greek Art
Stokstad Chapter: 4 & 5
RESOURCES
Student discussion readings for this lecture:
 MacGregor #18, Minoan Bull-leaper, Crete (1700–1450 BC)
 MacGregor #27, Parthenon sculpture: Centaur and Lapith, Greece , (about 440
BC)
 On nudity in Greek Art, see Prof. J. Hurwit in The American Journal of
Archaeology or Prof. J. Mouratidis on The Origin of Nudity in Greek Athletics
Student discussion videos for this lecture:
 PBS Nova Secrets of the Parthenon (discusses the mapping of the ideal human
figure onto the ideal architectural monument). 1 hour in length. See Class
Activity tab for guided at-home viewing questions.
 Students can trace the Parthenon’s many lives through this interactive timeline
on the PBS website, and read an interview with Prof. Jeffrey Hurwit that
discusses the architectural, historical, and symbolic value of the Parthenon.
 The Greek Gods – History Channel explains the Greek Pantheon
 Crash Course History – Alexander the Great, and the concept of Greatness
 Crash Course History - The Persians and the Greeks
 Interactive tour of the Palace at Knossos
Optional in-class video resources for this lecture:
 The Acropolis Deconstructed – facts and figures to play in the background in
addition to slides
 Dr. Nigel Spivey explains “contrapposto” (watch between 5min and 7min)
LECTURE NOTES
Key question for the lecture: What similarities and differences do we see between art
we have already looked at (Prehistory, ANE, Egypt) and the objects we see today? How
does the depiction of the human figure change?
Timeline: c. 2,700 BCE (early Cycladic Figures) through Hellenistic Art of the 3rd century
BCE.
Historical outline:
 Ancient Aegean Art (c. 3000 BCE – 1200 BCE) is the precursor for Ancient
Greek (900 BCE – 31 BCE).
 Although we know that there were communities established in Greece from the
Paleolithic period onwards, Aegean material culture really begins to flourish just
after the time period as we’ve just looked at in the Ancient Near East and Egypt.
This is the period of time after Prehistory, after Neolithic cultures settled, and
when they began to work in and use metal.
 We’ll see that, just like the Ancient Egyptian, the Greeks systematized the
depiction of the human figure (canon of proportions) in ways that acknowledged
earlier Aegean examples BUT took it steps further – creating “perfect” sculptures
and then building entire architectural systems based on the proportions of the
ideal human body.
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Objects covered:
Aegean Art
1. Cycladic figures
2. The palace at Knossos, and Knossos interior
 Bull leaping (supplementary)
 Woman or goddess with snake (supplementary)
 Kamares ware jug (supplementary)
 Flotilla Fresco (supplementary)
3. Citadel and Lion’s Gate at Mycenae
Corbeled Vault, Tholos (supplementary)
Mask of Agamemnon (supplementary)
Gold bee pendant (supplementary)
Art of Ancient Greece
1. Funerary Vase
2. Kouros
Anavysos kouros (supplementary)
3. Herakles Driving a Bull to Sacrifice
4. Polykleitos, Spear Bearer
5. Alexander the Great Confronts Darius III at the Battle of Issos, floor
6. Nike of Samothrace
Old Woman (supplementary)
Aphrodite of Melos (supplementary)
Dying Gallic Trumpeter (supplementary)
Reconstructed West Front of the Altar from Pergamon, Turkey (& detail: Athena
Attacking the Giants) (supplementary)
7. Parthenon and Acropolis, Athens; Frieze and Pediment of the Parthenon
Greek temple plans; Greek architectural orders (supplementary)
8. Plan of the Agora
Theater, Epidauros (supplementary)
9. Earrings
Conclusion: From the Cycladic figure through Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic figures
of Ancient Greece, an ideal is created, manipulated, and exaggerated for aesthetic effect
and to celebrate technologically advanced, skilled craftsmanship. The forms we see in
Ancient Greece are copied by the Romans, and live on in the Western Hemisphere
today.
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Aegean Art
Geography:
 What is “Aegean”?
 Breaks down in to 3 areas – Cycladic Islands, Minoan art on Crete, and
Mycenean Art on the mainland of Greece.
 When are we looking? Timeline 3000 BCE – 1200 BCE – “Bronze Age Cultures”
 What are we looking at? The Egyptians were wedded to the Nile, but these
groups of people are tied to the sea as seafarers. Instead of just burials and
temples, we also have evidence of shipwrecks, which tell us about what these
cultures made, and also what they traded, and with whom.
 This geographic area was rich in some minerals and natural resources (esp.
marble!) but not in others so there was reason to fish, shipbuild, exchange
resources, and goods made from these resources.
 It’s difficult to date these cultures. Like the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius and the
destruction of Pompeii, the eruption of a volcano on the island of Thera helps
archeologists date some artifacts based on working back from or towards the
date it obliterated those living on the Cycladic island and its impact on nearby
Crete, but dates are always approximate.
1. Cycladic figures
What are we looking at here?
 Proportion/canon and proportions/geometry
 All conform to conventions
 Essentalised
 Would have been polychromatic, paint worn off
 Details such as eyes, mouths, hair, and headdresses were often added in paint;
where paint has disappeared, areas of discoloration or very low relief document
its original presence.
 Precursor to the freestanding sculpture we’ll see in “classical” Greek Art
 Think about: conventions for representing human forms. Is this ideal or real?
When were these made? Who for?
 Around 2700 BCE
 Used as burial goods; figures almost always female
 At least some of them show clear signs of having been repaired, implying that they
were objects valued by the deceased during life and were not made specifically
for burial.
 The figures apparently were buried equally with both men and women. Such
figures were not found in every grave
 Maybe they were added to and used throughout life? Burial or mourning tool? We
really don’t know.
Technique: Compare and Contrast
Comparison between Cycladic and Willendorf
 How do they compare to other female forms that we’ve seen so far?
 They point us in the direction of Greek art and the depiction of the body in an
idealized, pared down form. But - Egyptians did this too, even Willendorf is
essentialized.
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 Sculptures made because of the availability of marble and the abrasive materials
(pumice, emery, sand, obsidian) with which the stone was worked
Transition: Cycladic figures were evidently designed according to simple geometric
principles and proportions that could be marked on a piece of marble with a compass, a
straightedge, and some charcoal. How might this relate to some of the later Greek
Art we see? This combination makes a very prominent reappearance in the art that
began to take shape about 1000 BCE, and is called Geometric (for obvious reasons).
2. The palace at Knossos, and Knossos interior
 Bull leaping (supplementary)
 Woman or goddess with snake (supplementary)
 Kamares ware jug (supplementary)
 Flotilla Fresco (supplementary)
What is Minoan Art?
 Same time period of Bronze Age (c. 3000 BCE) as Cycladic Art of the Islands.
 Centered on the larger Greek island of Crete although we don’t want to be too
“separatist” about Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean art as remember, these
peoples move about – they are seafarers, and they invade one another too!
 The people that lived on Crete – the Minoans - traded with mainland Greece,
Egypt and the Near East, and so would have been aware of some of the art that
we have already looked at.
 Minoan art (Bronze Age art from Crete) was thus called because of the legend of
the Minotaur – the son of King Minos’ wife and a bull that lived in a maze at
Knossos that feasted on human flesh.
 The name was given in the early 20th C by the British archeologist who led
excavations at Knossos. Consider this in light of the question of cultural
patrimony we have begun to think about already “who should look after a
country’s cultural artifacts?” – who should name them? Who should own them?
The archaeologist Arthur Evans bought the whole site – he oversaw excavation
as his own personal project, v different from modern archaeology.
What were some of the objects found at Knossos?
 Minoan art really began to flourish in the 2nd millennium BCE, later than Cycladic
art.
 A natural disaster wiped the slate clean again in around 1700 BCE, after which
architecture and communities were rebuilt, including the Great Palace at
Knossos.
 The palace was complex, including distinctive Minoan columns, which taper to the
bottom. Originally in wood, they have been restored in stone.
 Much of the palace at Knossos was painted very colorfully with animal figures, and
groupings of humans and animals.
 One example is the fresco (explain technique) of the Bull leaping. The fresco
shows the type of entertainment that night have taken place in the palace
courtyard, although it was a “bull game” rather than a fight and the animal would
only have been killed if it was part of the sacrifice afterward.
 The bull painting is a visual explication of where the term “Minoan” comes from.
Stylized. Energetic. Figures in profile. Quick drying medium leaves
impressionistic results.
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 The potters wheel was introduced to Crete around 20000 BCE so we see many
types of pottery forms as part of excavations at Knossos, including Kamares
ware jug (named for the mountain on Crete where many were found) – you’ll see
in Stokstad that the decoration of these ceramics are much more abstract and
expressive than the “Geometric” examples we will see in the later Greek period.
They were popular and were exported.
 Glazed earthenware figurines like the Woman or goddess with Snake have also
been found. Feline creature on her head, snakes in her hands, exposed breasts
– is this a fertility figure?
 Minoan influence spread outside of Crete, to places like Thera, an island about 60
miles north.
 The Flotilla Fresco is an example of an interior wall decoration in a much less
grand setting than Knossos.
 The fresco is very detailed, depicting a flotilla of ships and ports that prizes
variation rather than strict adherence to conventions of depiction
3. Citadel and Lion’s Gate at Mycenae
Corbeled Vault, Tholos (supplementary)
Mask of Agamemnon (supplementary)
Gold bee pendant (supplementary)
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MYCENAEAN CULTRE = Mainland Greece
Mainland Greece invaded Crete around 1450 BCE and took over the
palace at Knossos, as well as building their own palaces on the mainland.
Mycenaean culture runs concurrently with Cycladic and Minoan cultures.
The large architectural complexes of this culture were built between 14001200 BCE, at which time all Aegean material culture “drops off” –
archaeologists think that the Aegean populations succumbed either to an
outside attack or internal warfare, but don’t know exactly
The period between 1200-900 BCE when Ancient Greek culture emerges
is called the “Greek Dark Ages.”
The Citadel of Mycenae, where the Lion’s Gate is found, is so heavily fortified and
built at when the Ancient Greeks discovered it, they thought it couldn’t be the
work of humans but of the mythical race of giants, the Cyclopes.
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It is sometimes known as Cyclopean masonry because of this, and is up to 20
feet thick in some sites
“Corbelling” means where bricks have been piled up in the direction of each other
until they meet
No mortar is used, the weight of the bricks keeps things in place
Monumental architectural sculpture is used to break up the corbelling, such as
the Lion’s Gate where two (now headless) creatures – maybe lions? – flank a
Minoan-style column.
Powerful guarding symbolism!
To the right of the gate was found a grave circle, in which Agamemnon is thought
to have been buried. Agamemnon was a Mycenaean king who, when Helen is
abducted by Paris of Troy, commands the united Greek armed forces in the
ensuing Trojan War.
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The Mask of Agamemnon is an artifact discovered at Mycenae in 1876 by
Heinrich Schliemann, a German archaeologist closely linked to Aegean Art. It is
undetermined whether the mask is a fake or not.
Let’s watch the short History Channel video that takes us inside this tomb.
Minoans, whom the Mycenaeans conquered, were very skilled at metalwork
and so became sought after on the mainland of Greece, both the artisans
and the objects they made.
Remember, the “Bronze Age” follows the Stone Age because the development is
moving from working with Stone to working with Metals in many geographic
areas and cultures.
Objects like the very complex Bee pendant are evidence of this highly skilled
craftsmanship
Art of Ancient Greece
Art Historians have divided up the chronology of this period of Ancient Greek Art
for us into the following sections.
900-600 BCE: Geometric
600-480 BCE: The Archaic Period
480-323 BCE: The Classical Period
323-31/30 BCE: The Hellenistic Period
Where do these divisions of time come from?
 Well, they originate from historical events that are momentous enough to divide
time into before and after, for example the “Classical” turns into the “Hellenistic”
after Alexander the Great dies in 323 BCE and his Greek Empire begins to fall
apart.
 However, they are retrospective divisions. Although the Greeks would have
certainly felt that Alexander’s death was very important, these classifications
actually – like MANY art historical vocab terms and historical distinctions – come
from the 18th and 19th centuries.
 So these divisions of time are about value judgments made by art historians as
much as they reflect actual hard-and-fast historical divisions. They’re a product of
art history.
 These divisions of time are useful in some respects – they tell us that art objects
and architecture changed in the way it looked and sometimes in the way it
functioned over time, and how these changes reflect other cultural changes – but
Greek people were not labeling their art in the same way that modern art
historians do.
1. Funerary Vase
Painted vases were often made in specific shapes for specific daily uses:
 storing and transporting wine and foodstuffs (amphora),
 drawing water (hydria),
 drinking wine or water (kantharos or kylix)
And for special, often ritual occasions, such as
 pouring libations, or a tribute to the gods or the dead (lekythos) or carrying water
for the bridal bath (loutrophoros).
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Vases were also used as grave markers, known as funerary kraters like the one
we can see in the slide, which is actually at the Met Museum.
What do we notice about this vase?
 registers
 narrative is formed on the registers,
 in the krater, the narrative occurs at the widest point of the vase, so is given the
most space
 there are conventions for painting the “decorative elements” too – “meander
pattern”
What can we see depicted on the vase?
 The vase, shows the prothesis, a ritual in ancient Greek funerary practice in
which the deceased is laid out on a high bed and relatives and friends may come
to mourn and pay their respects to the deceased (before cremation).
 The deceased is shown on his side and the checkered shroud that would
normally cover the body has been raised and regularized into a long rectangle so
we can see the dead body clearly.
 there are conventions for portraying the figures – chests are frontal and heads
are in profile. The legs are shown with frontal thighs but calves in profile. Where
have we seen this before? Egypt. What did we call it? Twisted perspective.
What was it made of?
 Terracotta, which is a clay-based ceramic.
 A meander pattern delineates the neck from the body of the vessel. This vase
represents the Geometric style, which takes its name from the geometric shapes
that constitute its artistic language.
 In a band below the funeral scene, chariots stand hitched to teams of horses and
warriors carry spears and large shields. The figures may refer to the military
exploits of the deceased;
 However, these types of weapons were more “Bronze Age,” and therefore the
scene more likely evokes the glorious ancestry and traditions to which the dead
man belonged rather than things he might have done personally.
What did the Ancient Greeks believe about death?
 In the Odyssey, Homer describes the Underworld, deep beneath the earth,
where Hades and his wife, Persephone, reigned over all those who had died.
However, there was less definite ideas about what happened after death than the
Egyptians, who thought of a full afterlife.
 Very few objects were actually placed in Greek graves, but monumental earth
mounds, rectangular built tombs, and elaborate marble stelai and statues were
often erected to mark the grave and to ensure that the deceased would not be
forgotten. Immortality lay in the continued remembrance of the dead by the living.
Transition: So, the Geometric period was a watershed moment for Greek culture. The
Greek city-state (polis) formalized, the Greek alphabet was developed, and new
opportunities for trade and colonization were realized. It’s the same story as many of the
developments of cultures and empires we’ve seen so far.
 With the development of the Greek city-states came the construction of large
temples and sanctuaries like the Parthenon dedicated to patron deities, which
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signaled the rise of state religion. Each polis – think as a comparison of the
Sumerian city-states we looked at in the Ancient Near East - identified with its
own legendary hero.
Part history, part-myth, writers such as Homer contributed to these legends and
heroic stories with his tale of the Illiad in the 8th C BCE which told the story of the
Greek campaign against Troy, in modern-day Turkey (Trojan War = thought to
have taken place in the 13th/12th C by the Ancient Greeks).
2. Kouros
Anavysos kouros (supplementary)
Our earliest freestanding sculpture is a kouros. What was a kouros?
 It is a type of sculpture of a male youth, characteristically depicted nude with
the left leg striding forward and hands clenched at the side.
 Most kouroi were made in the Archaic period, between the late seventh and
early fifth centuries BCE, and are believed to have served as grave markers,
votive figures or as dedications in the sanctuary of a god.
 Note his “Archaic smile.” Why might this have been a convention for
sculptors of this time? possibly to suggest that their subject was alive, and
infused with a sense of well-being – the new artistic ideal was as close to life
as possible.
What is its relationship to Egyptian statuary?
 The Greeks learned to quarry stone and plan the execution of large-scale
statues from the Egyptians.
 The pose of the kouros, a clear and simple formula, derives from
Egyptian art.
 From the very beginning, however, the Greeks = nude males, Egytians =
kilted..
 The Greek artist eliminated the rectangular pillar of stone that is found on
the back of Egyptian statues.
What similarities and differences do we notice between the Metropolitan Kouros
and the Anavysos Kouros from about 70 years later?
 same pose – clenched fists, one leg forward, abstracted hair, archaic smile,
naked figure
 BUT – could we say here the anatomy is slightly more life-like, even though the
intention in both is to be as life like as possible? Are sculptors are getting closer
to what we might say actually truly resembles a human form?
3. Herakles Driving a Bull to Sacrifice, Greek, Archaic Period, about 525–520
B.C.
(Text from MFA website)
 This amphora is form the same period as the Kouros – the Archaic. We
can see that, like the kouros, the human figure is still quite stylized.
 This amphora is decorated on both sides but in different painting
techniques. One side has a scene depicted in the Red Figure style, and
the other side shows the same scene in the Black Figure style. This type
of decoration puts the vase into the so-called Bilingual group.
 The traditional attributions for the painter is: the Black Figure (side A) is
by the Lysippides Painter, and the Red Figure (side B) is by the
Andokides Painter.
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What is the difference between Black-figure and Red-figure painting?
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For both of these techniques, the painter prepares a slip (mixture of clay
and water)
 applies the slip to the vessel
 slip-coated vessel is fired in a kiln
 areas with slip remain black, as they have been protected from oxygen
 oxygen in the kiln turned the exposed areas different colors- ranging from
dark red to pale yellow
 black-figure: artists painted designs with the slip, then used a stylus to
cut through the slip to the body of vessel, incising linear details with within
the silhouette.
 Red-figure: artists use the slip to create the background, drawing details
with the same slip using a brush
 Artists enhance the details with white or red gloss, or pigments mixed with
the slip
Both sides depict Herakles driving a bull to sacrifice, past a tree, holding his club
in his right hand, and in his left the rope fastened round the horns of the bull, also
a bundle of spits.
 Who was Herakles? a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and
great-grandson (and half-brother) of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek
heroes, a paragon of masculinity, and a champion of the Olympian order. In
Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later
Roman Emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified
themselves.
 He wears a short tunic (chitoniskos), a lionskin, a belt, has sword and quiver
slung, by crossbands, at his left flank, carries two small wineskins, apparently
empty, over his left arm.
 The bull's head is filleted with colorful ribbons, and the woollen fillet has the form
commonly used for this purpose as for others, tied at intervals and the ends
splayed.
 Condition: Considerably restored.
4. Polykleitos, Spear Bearer
We’ve moved from the Archaic Period to the Classical Period. What has changed and
what has remained the same about the way sculptors present the male form?
- The body is no longer rigidly straight and staring forward
- Anatomy more realistic? Nigel Spivey suggests that it’s just as exaggerated as
Willendorf – the most desirable features are exaggerated, and he has a woman’s
buttocks. What do you think? “Selective exaggeration.”
Classical period: 480-323 BCE
- Three general concepts: humanism, rationalism, idealism
- “man is the measure of all things,” (seek an ideal based on the human form),
“know thyself” (seek the inner significance of forms) and “nothing in excess”
(reproduce only essential forms)
- Privileged reason over emotion
- Artists grounded their art in close study of nature.
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After meticulous study, then they began to generalize: rather than portraying their
models in the actual, individual detail, they sought to distill their essence
This lead to the system of mathematical proportion espoused by such figures as
the 6th C Greek Pythagorus, Euclid in the 4th C who gave us the foundations of
geometry, and the later Roman architect Vitruvius who was then avidly read by
Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci, and resulted in the Vitruvian Man
which we’ve already seen a few classes before.
What did CONTRAPPOSTO look like, and what did it symbolize? We’re going to see
Dr. Nigel Spivey describe it for us….
 Proportions of Greek Sculpture: (watch 5 min to 7.05)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88gXWW3qN7o
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Polykleitos was a Greek sculptor in bronze of the fifth and the early 4th century
BCE. He is considered one of the most important sculptors of Classical antiquity.
Often, what we know of Greek sculpture has been handed down to us through
later Roman copies.
The Romans loved Greek art and, although - or indeed because they conquered
the Greeks – they preserved Greek art or made copies of Greek sculpture that
have often survived where the originals have not. (Orig are often in metals and
are reused whereas marble is left alone).
17th/18th/19th century restorations have also added another layer of separation
from the originals too.
Polykleitos also sculpted a famous bronze male nude known as the Doryphoros ("Spearcarrier"), which survives in the form of numerous Roman marble copies. Further
sculptures attributed to Polykleitos include the Discophoros ("Discus-bearer"), and
Diadumenos ("Youth tying a headband").
So why is Polykleitos so important to the history of Ancient Greek art?
 His name has survived in part because he wrote a treatise (Kanon) and designed
a male nude (also known as Kanon) exemplifying his aesthetic theories of the
mathematical bases of artistic perfection
 Polykleitos consciously created a new approach to sculpture; "His general aim
was clarity, balance, and completeness; his sole medium of communication the
naked body of an athlete, standing poised between movement and repose"
(Kenneth Clark)
Polykleitos meant that a statue should be composed of clearly definable parts, all
related to one another through a system of ideal mathematical proportions and
balance, influenced by mathematician Pythagoras.
 Polykleitos was one of the first generation of Greek sculptors to have a school of
followers. Polykleitos' school lasted for at least three generations
 His son, Polykleitos the Younger, worked in the 4th century BCE. Although he
was also a sculptor of athletes, his greatest fame was won as an architect. He
designed the great theater at Epidaurus.
Such Early Classical sculptures were the first to break away from the rigid and
unnatural Egyptian-inspired pose of the Archaic kouroi.
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Why were Greek sculptures always nude?
Jeffrey Hurwit, Prof at U of Oregon (and one of the talking heads on the “Secrets of the
Parthenon” video) differentiates between different types and uses of nudity:
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a nudity of youth – playful nudity, or a erotic nudity
“democratic nudity” – ideal man = ideal democracy, transparency
a nudity of status or class – naked male = heroic vs naked female = lower class
and a nudity of vulnerability and defeat (pathetic nudity) – Dying Gaul
As in the art of other ancient cultures, nudity is a costume whose significance is
determined by context and subject rather than by abstract principle.
Transition: So, in the Classical period there are some important developments that take
place over a relatively short period of time, and have affected the way that ideals of the
human body are still seen in most of Western culture [Slide: Cover of Men’s Health]
The Greeks establish a standard for beauty that has endured throughout the history of
Western art. We still say “he has the body of a Greek God.” This is desirable and many
of the connotations remain the same – virility, power, manliness, warrior-hood, strength,
etc.
5. Alexander the Great Confronts Darius III at the Battle of Issus
(Teacher Note: Nigel Spivey discusses this work in Disc 3: The Art of Persuasion in the
series “How Art Made the World”)
Text from Discovery.com article
One of the most well known leaders of the Late Classical period was the legendary
Alexander the Great (d. 323 BCE).
 This mosaic documenting one of his victories was found during the 1831
excavations in the lava-buried town of Pompeii (it’s now on display at the
National Archaeological Museum in Naples)
 Measuring 19 feet by 10 feet, the piece was made around 100 B.C. out of
roughly 4 million tesserae (small mosaic tiles).
 The artwork once decorated the floor of a room in the House of the Faun, one of
Pompeii's grandest residences.
 The tiny tesserae depicted a dramatic scene from a battle between Alexander the
Great and the Persian king Darius III.
 This is a Roman copy of a Greek original. "Although there is some
disagreement as to exactly which battle the mosaic depicts [either the Battle of
Issus in 333 B.C. or the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C.], we know many things
about this mosaic. For example, it is uniformly agreed [that the mosaic is] a copy
of a famous Hellenistic painting executed sometime around 300 B.C.," Martin
Beckmann, of the University of Western Ontario, Canada, told Discovery News.
 Why did it end up copied onto a floor surface in an Italian house? “In this
role, it has the potential to provide evidence of the tastes, interests and desires of
the wealthy Romans during the late Republic," Beckmann said.
 Roman writers like Pliny the Elder praised Greek art and so encouraged
Roman artists to copy it for its aesthetic and philosophical/political connotations
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6. Nike of Samothrace, 180 BCE
Old Woman (supplementary)
Aphrodite of Melos (supplementary)
Dying Gallic Trumpeter (supplementary)
Reconstructed West Front of the Altar from Pergamon, Turkey (& detail:
Athena Attacking the Giants) (supplementary)
Transition: After the Classical period comes the Hellenistic period, a time where some
sculptors continued the very idealized aesthetic of Polykleitos’ work, and others opted to
take art practice in a different, more expressive “experimental” direction.
These more “expressive” artists were centered around Pergamon, in Asia Minor (today,
Turkey) on the East Coast of the Mediterranean. Like the mosaic of Alexander and
Darius, their subject matter was often more dramatic and interested in capturing the
human body as realistically as their materials would allow.
How might we describe works like these?
(Text from UMissouri. See also Louvre Museum)
 dramatic, dynamic, like wind is blowing through her clothes, alive,
unreal/mythological, damaged/no head.
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The winged goddess Nike (victory) was the daughter of the Titans, Pallas and
Styx; After helping Zeus banish the Titans from Mt. Olympus, the supreme god
honored Nike, and she then earned her title as the goddess of victory.
The image of Nike is prominent throughout Greek art and was traditionally
associated with victory in war, athletics, and even poetry contests.
The Nike of Samothrace originally stood on the marble bow of a sculpted
warship, a monument that commemorated a naval victory. The Nike is designed
to seem as if she is just landing in a fierce headwind, her great wings still aloft.
The body twists slightly as if to maintain its balance, while the sheer chiton,
heavy with sea spray, both clings and billows dramatically.
This monument was erected on a hill overlooking the Sanctuary of the Great
Gods on the northern Aegean island of Samothrace.
A reflecting pool created the illusion that the warship was sailing out of its
rectangular base while a misting fountain simulated sea spray.
Made of Parian marble, the Nike is an excellent example of the expressive, Hellenistic
style. The lively drapery, twisting pose, and dramatic setting create a dynamic
composition that has much in common with the art of Pergamon (see Great Altar of
Pergamon).
Today, the original Nike of Samothrace stands on the grand staircase landing of the
Louvre Museum in Paris. Her large size, dramatic forward motion, and location in the
museum attract much attention.
Dying Gallic Trumpeter (supplementary)
 Describe? anatomically correct, naked, torc, beard and hair, trumpet by his side
 What is his body position? The one we use when it takes effort to get up.
Thinking about his reserves of strength, the slight bowing of his supporting right
arm and his empty gaze suggests death is near
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The Dying Gaul is a Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic work of the late third
century BC
- It was commissioned some time between 230 BC and 220 BC by Attalus I of
Pergamon to celebrate a military victory
Where earlier Classical artists sought the general ideal, Hellenistic artists are
interested in the specific and the individual
Reconstructed West Front of the Altar from Pergamon, Turkey (& detail: Athena
Attacking the Giants) (supplementary)
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The Attalid kings of Pergamon tried to make this Asia Minor city the Athens of the
east.
Victory over the Gauls (like the Dying Gaul) was to be regarded as a triumph of
Greeks over barbarians like the Athenian triumph over the Persians.
This monumental colonnade altar was built during the reign of King Eumenes Il in
the years around 170 B.C. Whether the altar is dedicated to Zeus or Athena, or
to both gods, is unclear due to the largely fragmented inscription.
The frieze around the altar entrance is now housed in Berlin, on Museum Island, and is
visited by thousands of tourists each year.
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Crowding together in dramatic action these practically freestanding figures seem
to jostle one another and strain the boundaries of their architectural framework.
The old mythical theme of the Battle of Giants was a comparison of the fight of
the good, the lawful order and civilization against evil, arbitrary action and chaos.
Known as the Gigantomachy, this battle was the symbolic struggle between the
cosmic order of the Olympiansled by Zeus and the nether forces of Chaos led by
the giants.
Drama and tension of the sculptures = Hellenstic
See Smarthistory video for at-home viewing
Old Woman (supplementary)
 During the Hellenistic period, artists became concerned with the accurate
representation of childhood, old age, and even physical deformity. The range of
subject matter was extended to include genre-like figures from the fringes of
society.
 Fine, large-scale statues of fishermen, peasants, and aged courtesans became
valued religious dedications, sometimes placed in a park-like setting within the
sanctuary of the god.
 Although this statue is known familiarly as The Old Market Woman, it probably
represents an aged courtesan on her way to a festival of Dionysos, the god of
wine.
 Delicate sandals and the ample material = not a peasant.
 Fruit and the two chickens = dedicatory gifts to the god
Aphrodite of Melos – “Venus de Milo” (supplementary)
(See text from UMissouri)
Mythological Origins? Aphrodite, according to the Greek poet Hesiod, was born from
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sea-foam gathered around the dismembered genitals of Uranos, the god of the heavens,
who was castrated by his son Kronos. The goddess arose from the sea and came
ashore on the island of Cyprus (or Kythera). As she walked along the beach, flowers
sprang forth in her footsteps. Awestruck by her beauty, the gods were consumed by love
and adoration for the goddess, and at once received her into Mt. Olympus. She thus
became the goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality.
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In the late Hellenistic Period, the demand for Greek art in the growing Roman
Republic was tremendous. Fascinated and awed by the Greek past, Romans
eagerly collected Classical sculpture or copies and variants of it.
To satisfy the growing market, Greek sculptors often produced works that
incorporated Classical traits the new and popular theme of eroticism and female
beauty. Images of the goddess Aphrodite abounded.
Found in 1820 on southern Aegean island of Melos, hence “Venus de Milo”
The Aphrodite represents a mixture of Classical and Hellenistic traits. The body’s
twisting pose and jagged, deeply carved drapery is indicative of Hellenistic styles,
but the soft, flowing musculature is similar to the Praxitelean S-curve associated
with Late Classical art.
The proportions of the body are also Classical, and the face is sculpted with the
restrained and idealized Classical demeanor. This amalgam of styles was much
sought after by Roman patrons of art.
Today, the original stands in the Louvre Museum of Paris
When Alexander dies in 323 BCE the fall of the Greek Empire to Rome is still
almost 200 years away. His death heralds the Hellenistic era we have just looked
at. Alexander leaves a vast empire with no administrative structure and no
accepted successor
- The empire begins to break apart
- Local governments take precedence over the state
- Then, over the course of the second and first centuries BCE, the kingdoms
succumb to the growing empire in Rome, which is where we’ll pick up next
lesson with Chapter 6.
- Ptolemaic Egypt holds out the longest, almost two and a half centuries and
emerges as a great Hellenistic center for learning and the arts.
- But the Hellenistic period ends in 31 BCE, with the Battle of Actium, and the
death of Cleopatra in 30 BCE (the following year)
Alexander’s lasting legacy was the spread of Greek culture far beyond its original
borders
Transition: Before we leave Ancient Greece, let’s look at the building you watch a PBS
film about, one that has indeed spread Greek culture far beyond its original borders –
how many banks, colleges, museums, and public buildings have you seen that look like
this over the world?
7. Parthenon and Acropolis, Athens; Frieze and Pediment of the Parthenon
Greek temple plans; Greek architectural orders (supplementary)
PARTHENON & Parthenon film (PBS Nova:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLCW0zKR4xk)
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The PBS video showed us how the Parthenon was built using the current archeological
excavations – so it was be both contemporary and ancient in its scope.
Questions for “The Secrets of the Parthenon”
 What was the Parthenon used for?
 What role did the Salamis Stone play in the story of the building of the Parthenon?
 What is the process of reconstruction of the Parthenon? Is the reconstruction of
the Parthenon worth the estimated $100 million it has already cost?
 Bonus: What is the narrative of the Centaur and the Lapith, and how did it mirror
contemporary Greek experience in the 5th century BCE?
What was the Parthenon used for?
- Built in its current incarnation to glorify Athens at a time when the city was at a
point of security from external armies, the Acropolis had been the center of
Athens since Neolithic times when people had settled on the raised hilly land.
 Becomes the religious and administrative center of the city from the early time of
the settlers, and is mainly dedicated to the goddess Athena, although there were
also statues and spaces dedicated to other deities.
 Athena was the goddess of warfare and civilization, and was the patron of the
city
 The Parthenon, the temple of Athena, represents cultural achievement of
classical Greece and its form has been used successively many times over in
order to convey power, culture, notions of civilization since then.
 Think of almost every large stone-built bank, courthouse and other important
buildings that use columns and colonnades.
 Seen as the epitome of classical proportion and balance, but is actually made up
of angles that are not perfect right angles (see film).
The Parthenon, then, is the major temple building, and the Acropolis, is the
enclosed hilly area with the Parthenon and many other buildings on it.
Who was Pericles?
 Pericles took over the Parthenon’s construction. He was a charismatic leader of
Athens in the 5th C BCE over about 4 decades.
 The Parthenon itself rests on the foundations of an earlier temple, called the
“Older Parthenon,” begun in 489 B.C. in celebration of the victory over the
Persians in 490 B.C. at Marathon.
 However, when the Persians returned ten years later, construction halted, and
didn’t resume until several decades later.
 Pericles was the driving force behind its eventual incarnation.
It was nominally a temple, but other temples on the Acropolis were used more
frequently
 It was used as a treasury for the Delian League
 The Delian League, founded in 477 BC was an association of Greek city-states,
under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the
Persian Empire. The League's name derives from its official meeting place, the
island of Delos, where congresses were held in the temple and where the
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treasury stood until, in a symbolic gesture, Pericles moved it to Athens in 454
BC.
 The huge statue of Athena was also seen as somewhat of a gold reserve
(Teacher Note: Good bibliog: Jeffrey Hurwit, The Acropolis in the Age of Pericles, 2004)
What role did the Salamis Stone play in the story of the building of the Parthenon?
 200 different stonemasons were recruited from throughout the Greek islands and
would have had many different systems of measurement. Without a common
standard, coordinating this workforce would have been a logistical nightmare.
 The island of Salamis, not far from Athens, was where the stone was found depicts an arm, hands and feet, may be a conversion table for the different
measuring systems, Doric, Ionic and Common.
 The Salamis Stone represents all the competing ancient Greek measurements:
the Doric foot, the Ionic foot, and, for the first time, the Common foot
 We find evidence of all three measuring systems in the height of the Parthenon.
 So the Salamis Stone may have provided a simple way for ancient workers from
different places to calibrate their rulers and cross-reference different units of
measurement.
 Salamis Stone = a clue to how the ancient Greeks were using the human body to
create what we now regard as ideal proportions.
 The Parthenon literally embodies the words of the Greek philosopher Protagoras,
who lived in Athens during the construction of the Parthenon, "Man is the
measure of all things."
Discussion:
What is the process of reconstruction of the Parthenon? Is the reconstruction of
the Parthenon worth the estimated $100 million it has already cost?
Bonus: What is the narrative of the Centaur and the Lapith, and how did it mirror
contemporary Greek experience in the 5th century BCE?
- Legend of the Centaurs who were invited to a Greek wedding. Unused to their
wine, they tried to rape the bride, and were ejected from Greece after being
defeated. Mirrors Greek victory over the Persians in the 5th century BCE.
What are the Elgin Marbles?
 In the first decade of the 19th century Thomas Bruce, earl of Elgin, British
Ambassador to Istanbul, removed about half of the frieze and figures from the
metopes and pediments (247 feet of the original 524-foot frieze, 15 of the 92
metopes, and 17 figures from the pediments) plus other architectural elements,
and took them back to England.
 Sold them to the British Museum where they are today – Elgin’s Marbles.
8. Plan of the Agora (Marketplace)
Theater, Epidauros (supplementary)
(Text sourced from The American School of Classical Studies at Athens)
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The Agora in Athens was at the foot of the Acropolis and was a space for
everyday trade.
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Its main building focus was the stoa, a colonnaded covered space for
traders and market goers to congregate
On any given day the space might be used as a market, or for an
election, a dramatic performance, a religious procession, military drill, or
athletic competition. Here administrative, political, judicial, commercial,
social, cultural, and religious activities all found a place together in the
heart of Athens, and the square was surrounded by the public buildings
necessary to run the Athenian government.
Used as a burial ground and for scattered habitation in the Bronze and
Iron Ages, the area was first laid out as a public space in the 6th century
B.C.
Following the total destruction of Athens at the hands of the Persians in
480 B.C., the city was rebuilt and public buildings were added to the
Agora one by one throughout the 5th and 4th centuries, when Athens
contended for the hegemony of Greece.
It is during this “Classical” period that the Agora and its buildings were
frequented by statesmen such as Perikles (supervised the building of the
Parthenon) by the poets Sophokles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, by the
writer Herodotos, and by philosophers such as Sokrates, Plato, and
Aristotle.
These poets and writers would also have frequented theaters like the
one at Epidauros (a small fishing village south of Athens)
Designed by Polykleitos the Younger, in the 4th century B.C. Originally
seating 6,210, the expansion of 21 rows allowed the theater to
accommodate about 14,000.
Orchestra = performance area. Skene = architectural backdrop stage set.
Tradgedies would have been performed, excellent sightlines and
acoustics. Still used today.
9. Earrings (Zeus Abducting Ganymede), 330-300 BCE, hollow cast gold (Met
Museum Collection)
 In conclusion, the art of Ancient Aegean and Greek worlds attempted to
depict the human body as “realistically” as materials would allow, whether
that meant the idealized, freestanding poses of Classical Greek art or the
more dramatic narratives of sculptures from the Hellenistic period.
 As far back as the Cycladic Island figures, there is an obsession with a
geometric basis for the human body that finds its way into the design of
major buildings like the Parthenon.
 Like these earrings, small decorative items on a much smaller scale than
the buildings of the Acropolis, we can see the human body- perfect, ideal,
real, mythological – as the basis for artistic investigation.
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