Greek Art and Architecture

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Introduction

Greek Art and Architecture, the art and architecture of Greece and the Greek colonies dating from about 1100 bc to the 1st century bc. They have their roots in Aegean civilization, but their unique qualities have made them among the strongest influences on subsequent Western art and architecture.

Greek art is characterized by the representation of living beings. It is concerned both with formal proportion and with the dynamics of action and emotion. Its primary subject matter is the human figure, which may represent either gods or mortals; monsters, animals, and plants are secondary. The chief themes of Greek art are taken from myth, literature, and daily life.

Few examples of Greek architecture or large sculpture have survived in their original, undamaged form and no large Greek paintings are known. An abundance of pottery vases, coins, jewellery, and gems have survived, however; along with Etruscan tomb paintings, these give some indication of the characteristics of Greek art. These treasures are supplemented by accounts given in literary sources. Such travellers as the Roman author Pliny the Elder and the Greek historian and geographer Pausanias saw many works that have since perished, and their writings give much information about the artists and their works.

Up until about 320 bc, the primary function of architecture, painting, and large sculpture was a public one, being concerned with religious objects and the commemoration of important secular events, such as athletic victories. The major arts were used by private individuals only to decorate tombs. The decorative arts, however, were applied chiefly to objects for private use. The average household contained a number of well-made painted terracotta vases, and some wealthier households had bronze vessels and mirrors. Many terracotta and bronze utensils incorporated small figures and reliefs.

Greek architects usually worked in marble or limestone, using wood and tile for roofs. Sculptors carved marble and limestone, modelled clay, and cast works in bronze. Large votive statues were made of plates of hammered bronze or consisted of wooden cores sheathed in gold and ivory. Heads and outstretched arms were sometimes made separately and then attached to the torso. Stone and clay sculpture was brightly painted, entirely or partly. Greek painters used water-based colours to paint large murals or decorate vases. Potters formed vases freehand on the potter's wheel; when the vase was dry, it was polished, painted, and fired.

Greek art and architecture are customarily divided into periods reflecting changes in style. Chronological divisions in this article are as follows: (1) Geometric and Orientalizing periods (c. 1100-650 bc); (2) Archaic period (c. 660-475 bc); (3) Classical period (c. 475-323 bc); (4) Hellenistic period (c. 323-31 bc).

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Geometric and Orientalizing Periods

The most important vestiges of Greek art from the earliest periods are pottery. Vases of the Geometric period have bands of meanders and other angular geometric ornament, which give the period its name. In early examples rectilinear motifs are combined with curvilinear elements derived from the Mycenaean style. Beginning about 750 bc, animals and humans were introduced, represented by slim, abstracted figures, such as a dead warrior lying in state or a chariot with horses. The finest example of Geometric pottery is the Dipylon Vase (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), a large grave marker intended to hold offerings, which was found in a cemetery near the Dipylon Gate in Athens.

About the 7th century bc the style of vase painting changed, reflecting increasing Greek colonization of the eastern Mediterranean and trade with the Phoenicians and other Eastern peoples. On vases of this period, known as the Orientalizing phase of vase painting, the abstract geometric designs were replaced by the more rounded, realistic forms of Eastern motifs, such as the lotus, palmette, lion, and sphinx. Ornament increased in amount and intricacy.

Only small pieces of Geometric-period sculpture, in bronze and clay, have been found. The sculptures include a small bronze statuette of Apollo (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). Figures of this period are not direct visual representations but are more conceptual in nature.

Architecture of the Geometric and Orientalizing periods consisted of simple structures of mud brick and rubble. The earliest houses were circular huts, which evolved into elliptical and subsequently horseshoe-like shapes. Later houses became rectangular, built on an east-west axis with an entrance and a columned porch at one end. Roofs were flat mud or thatched gable.

The basic plan of temples was similar to that of houses. Foundations of temples of the late Geometric period have been found in Sámos, Sparta, Olympia, and Crete. Somewhat later temple foundations in Eretria and Thermon have a horseshoe plan. In rectangular temples the two side walls projected beyond the front wall to form a porch. Within the single room, or cella, the wooden beams of the gable roof were supported by a single row of wooden columns along the main axis, which, because it obscured the image of the divinity, was later replaced with two rows of columns. These, like the side walls, extended beyond the front wall to support the porch roof.

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Archaic Period

During the Archaic period, as Greek society expanded geographically and economically, greater wealth and foreign contacts led to the development of formal architecture and monumental sculpture. Both were made from the marble and limestone with which Greece was plentifully endowed. Temples housed images of the gods and were decorated with sculpture and paintings. Painting also flourished on vases, which were important articles of trade.

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Sculpture

Inspired by the monumental stone sculpture of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Greeks began to carve in stone. Free-standing figures share the solidity and frontal stance characteristic of Eastern models, but their forms are more dynamic than those of Egyptian sculpture, as for example the Lady of Auxerre and Torso of Hera (Early Archaic period, c. 660-580 bc, both in the Louvre, Paris). After about 575 bc, figures, such as these, both male and female, wear the so-called archaic smile. This expression, which has no specific appropriateness to the person or situation depicted, may have been a device to give the figures a distinctive human characteristic.

Three types of figures prevailed—the standing nude youth (kouros), the standing draped girl (kore), and the seated woman. All emphasize and generalize the essential features of the human figure and show an increasingly accurate comprehension of human anatomy. The youths were either sepulchral or votive statues. Examples are Apollo (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), an early work; the Strangford Apollo from Límnos (British Museum, London), a much later work; and the Anavyssos Kouros (National Archaeological Museum, Athens). More of the musculature and skeletal structure is visible in this statue than in earlier works. The standing, draped girls have a wide range of expression, as in the sculptures in the Acropolis Museum, Athens. Their drapery is carved and painted with the delicacy and meticulousness common in the details of sculpture of this period.

Relief sculpture, which developed somewhat later than free-standing sculpture, showed figures in action. Noteworthy examples from the Middle Archaic period (c. 580-535 bc) are friezes from the Treasury of the Siphnians in the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi (Archaeological Museum, Delphi), depicting a battle in the Trojan War. Also notable is the fragmentary pediment, representing a struggle between gods and Titans, from the old Temple of Athena on the Acropolis in Athens (Acropolis Museum). Examples from the Late Archaic period (c. 535-475 bc) include sculptures (now in the Glyptothek, Munich) from the pediments of the Temple of Aphaia at Aegina (Aiyina). The artistic merit of Archaic sculpture was first recognized in the late 19th century. The figures of the east pediment seem as full of life as the athletes described by the poet Pindar.

Archaic sculptors continued casting bronze statuettes. Examples from the 6th century bc have muscular limbs, a narrow arch for the lower boundary of the thorax, and horizontal markings. Sphinxes and other forms sculptured in stone served as finials, or headpieces, on gravestones.