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Apr 22, 2020 · In this collection, we examine the major aspects of the culture and thinking of the ancient Greeks, from temple architecture to how to live a good life. We also consider aspects of their religion - another outdoor activity - their diet, medicine and music.
- Mark Cartwright
- Publishing Director
The art of ancient Greece is usually divided stylistically into four periods: the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. The Geometric age is usually dated from about 1000 BC, although in reality little is known about art in Greece during the preceding 200 years, traditionally known as the Greek Dark Ages.
- The Architecture of Classical Greece
- Greek Temple Architecture
- Proportion and Perspective
- Ancient Greek Sculpture
- Ancient Greek Pottery
The most noteworthy result of Pericles’ public-works campaign was the magnificent Parthenon, a temple in honor of the city’s patron goddess Athena. The architects Iktinos and Kallikrates and the sculptor Phidias began work on the temple in the middle of the 5th century B.C. The Parthenon was built atop the Acropolis, a natural pedestal made of rock...
With its rectangular stone platform, front and back porches (the pronaos and the opisthodomos) and rows of columns, the Parthenon was a commanding example of Greek temple architecture. Typically, the people of ancient Greece did not worship inside their temples as we do today. Instead, the interior room (the naos or the cella) was relatively small,...
The architects of classical Greece came up with many sophisticated techniques to make their buildings look perfectly even. They crafted horizontal planes with a very slight upward U-shape and columns that were fatter in the middle than at the ends. Without these innovations, the buildings would appear to sag; with them, they looked flawless and maj...
Not many classical statues or sculptures survive today. Stone statues broke easily, and metal ones were often melted for re-use. However, we know that Greek sculptors such as Phidias and Polykleitos in the 5th century and Praxiteles, Skopas and Lysippos in the 4th century had figured out how to apply the rules of anatomy and perspective to the huma...
Classical Greek pottery was perhaps the most utilitarian of the era’s art forms. People offered small terra cotta figurines as gifts to gods and goddesses, buried them with the dead and gave them to their children as toys. They also used clay pots, jars and vases for almost everything. These were painted with religious or mythological scenes that, ...
- Missy Sullivan
- 10 min
Dec 6, 2023 · Check out our three chapters about ancient Greek art in Reframing Art History: Pottery, the body, and the gods in ancient Greece, c. 800–490 B.C.E. War, democracy, and art in ancient Greece, c. 490–350 B.C.E. Empire and Art in the Hellenistic world (c. 350–31 B.C.E.)
Artistic production in Greece began in the prehistoric pre-Greek Cycladic and the Minoan civilizations, both of which were influenced by local traditions and the art of ancient Egypt. There are three scholarly divisions of the stages of later ancient Greek art that correspond roughly with historical periods of the same names.
Although popular modern understanding of the ancient Greek world is based on the classical art of fifth century B.C.E. Athens, it is important to recognize that Greek civilization was vast and did not develop overnight. The Dark Ages (c. 1100–c. 800 B.C.E.) to the Orientalizing Period (c. 700–600 B.C.E.)
Mar 15, 2018 · The sculpture of ancient Greece from 800 to 300 BCE took inspiration from Egyptian and Near Eastern monumental art, and evolved into a uniquely Greek vision of the art form. Greek artists captured the human form in a way never before seen where sculptors were particularly concerned with proportion, poise, and the idealised perfection of the ...
