Greek Architecture
First Stone Temples
Peripteral Greek Temple
Greek Temples
Corinthian Capital
¤  More ornate (stylized
leaves of the
acanthus plant).
¤  Eliminated capital
problems.
¤  Did not become
popular until the
Hellenistic and
Roman times.
Innovations in Greek Architecture
¤  Tholos:
Circular shrine
¤  Caryatid:
Female version of
columns carved as figures
Archaic Sculpture in Architecture
¤  Sculpture fits into the
pediment shape of the
Greek temple (Temple of
Artemis @ Corfu, Greece).
¤  Medusa flanked by two
large felines and frightens
enemies away from the
temple.
¤  Turned body is typical of
Archaic time.
Archaic Sculpture in Architecture
¤  Dying warrior fits neatly into the corner of a west pediment to a temple.
¤  Torso is rigidly frontal.
¤  He looks out directly at the spectator.
¤  Pose of crossed legs is unnatural, given the life and death struggle the dying
warrior is undergoing.
¤  Archaic smile.
Classical Sculpture in Architecture
¤  Transitional phase between
the stiff Archaic and the
more relaxed Classical
forms.
¤  Metope from the Temple of
Zeus.
¤  Atlas returning to Herakles
with the apples of the
Hesperides.
¤  Herakles held the world (with
a cushion) while Atlas was
gone.
Acropolis
Parthenon
Classical Sculpture in Architecture
¤  Figures are related to one another in their poses.
¤  “Wet drapery” reveals the bodies beneath.
¤  Figures sit within the framework of the pediment.
¤  Variation of surface and play of light and shade.
Erechtheion
Theater by Polykleitos the Younger in
Epidauros, Greece
Pergamon Alter (Alter of Zeus)
Hellenistic Sculpture in Architecture
¤  Sculpted frieze almost 400
feet long, populated by
about a 100 larger-thanlife-size figures.
¤  Subject = battle of Zeus
and the gads against the
giants.
¤  Gigantomachy
¤  Tumultuous narrative has
emotional intensity