ANCIENT GREECE
GARDINER CHAPTER 5-3
PP. 114-120
FRANCOIS VASE

Archaic painted vases -> artist
signatures -> mid 6th century
Athenians learn the black-figure
technique from the Corinthians

The masterpiece of Athenian blackfigure painting

Krater, 570 BCE

200 figures, 6 registers, lablelled
figures

1 band Orientalizing animals and
beasts, other 5 an encyclopedia of
Greek mythology

Focus on Peleus and his son Achilles,
and Theseus -> composite type
figures
EXEKIAS

Achilles and Ajax playing a dice
game

Detail from black-figure amphora,
540-530 BCE, 2’ high

Exekias = Athenian master of
black-figure technique

Didn’t use a series of bands ->
instead, a single large framed
panel

Gravity and tension -> “the calm
before the storm”

Dark silhouettes and incised details
BILINGUAL PAINTING

Andokides Painter

Achilles and Ajax playing dice

Athenian bilingual amphora

Same composition on both sides ->
one side black-figure, other side
red-figure

Red-figure = outlined the figures,
background is black, red clay for
figures, interior details drawn w/a
soft brush instead of incised
EUPHRONIOS

Depicts Heracles wrestling with
Antaios

Athenian red-figure krater

510 BCE, 1’7” high

Diluted/thinned glaze to depict
hair, musculature

Deliberately rejects the
conventional composite posture
for the human figure -> instead, he
reproduces how a particular
human body is seen ->
protagonists moving in threedimensional space
EUTHYMIDES

Three revelers

Athenian red-figure amphora, 510
BCE

Unusual positions of the human
form

Does not use conventional frontal
and composite views

Figures are foreshortened -> ¾
view, central figure shown from
rear with twisting spinal column
and buttocks in ¾ view
TEMPLE OF APHAIA, AEGINA

Years just before and after 500 BCE a time
of dynamic transition in architecture and
arch sculpture

500-590 BCE

Doric design -> 6 columns on facades
and 12 on the flanks -> columns more
widely spaced and more slender

Capitals create smooth transition from
shafts to the architrave

Interior -> two colonnades of two stories
replace single row of columns -> statue of
deity between them on linear axis

Pediments featured life-size statuary in
place of Archaic high reliefs

Theme of statuary is the battle of Greeks
and Trojans -> unified theme and
consistent scale
DYING WARRIOR
West pediment of the Temple of Aphaia -> archaic features -> torso rigidly frontal, archaic smile ->
mannequin with arms and legs arranged for display 490 BCE
East pediment -> radically
different -> Classical era ->
more natural, self
consciousness, shows pain
DYING WARRIOR – EAST
PEDIMENT OF TEMPLE OF APHAIA
EARLY AND HIGH CLASSICAL
PERIODS

Defeat of the Persian invaders by
the allied Hellenic city-states ->
Athens is sacked in 480 BCE ->
Greeks win epic naval victory over
the Persians at Salamis

This marks the beginning of the
Classical age of Greece

Victory nurtured a sense of
Hellenic identity strong and distinct
from the civilization of Asia
TEMPLE OF ZEUS, OLYMPIA

The first great monument of
Classical art and architecture is
the Temple of Zeus at Olympia

470-456 BCE

Today the temple is in ruins

Even # of 6 columns on ends, two
rows of columns in 2 stories inside
the cella

Lavishly decorated -> statues filled
pediments, metopes adorned
w/reliefs
East
pediment
of Temple
of Zeus,
Olympia ->
chariot
race
between
Pelops and
Oinomaios
HERAKLES

One of the metopes from the
Temple of Zeus -> depict the 12
labors of Herakles

Athena, Herakles, and Atlas with
the apples of Hesperides

Hero holding up the world with
Athena’s help

Early Classical phase of Greek art
is called the SEVERE STYLE