Greek Art and Architecture

B

Architecture

Aware of Egyptian temples in stone, the Greeks began to build their own stone temples in a distinctive style in the 7th century. They used limestone in Italy and Sicily, marble in the Greek islands and Asia Minor, and limestone covered with marble on the Greek mainland. Later they built chiefly in marble. The temples were rectangular and stood on a low, stepped terrace in an enclosure where rituals were performed. Small temples had a two-columned front porch, sometimes with a portico before it. Larger temples, with front and back porches, might have a six-columned portico before each porch or be entirely surrounded by a peristyle. The colonnade supported an entablature, or lintel, under the gabled, tiled roof.

Two orders of architecture, or styles of columns, the Doric and the Ionic, developed. Doric columns, which had no base and whose capitals consisted of a square slab over a round cushion-like element, were heavy and closely spaced to support the weight of the masonry. Their heaviness was relieved by their tapered and fluted shaft. On the entablature, vertical triglyphs were carved over every column, leaving between them oblong—later square—metopes, which were at first painted and later filled with painted reliefs. The Doric style originated on the Greek mainland and became widespread. The Doric temples at Syracuse, Paestum, Selinus, Acragus, Pompeii, Tarentum (Taranto), Metapontum, and Corcyra (modern Corfu) still exist. Especially notable is the Temple of Poseidon at Paestum (450 bc).

Ionic columns, which were first used in Ionia (Asia Minor) and the Greek islands, are more slender, more narrowly fluted, and spaced further apart than Doric columns. Each rests on a horizontally fluted round base and terminates in a capital shaped like a flat cushion rolled into volutes at the sides. The entablature, lighter than in the Doric style, might have a frieze. Examples of Ionic temples can be seen at Ephesus, near modern İzmir, Turkey; in the form of the Erechtheum, Athens; and (some traces) in Naucratis, Egypt.

C

Vase Painting

About 675 bc vase painters in Corinth began to decorate their wares with black figures in silhouette, usually of running animals with rounded forms, arranged in one or more small friezes. This is called the proto-Corinthian style. In the fully developed Corinthian style, which flourished until 550 bc and of which numerous examples survive, the vases are crowded with figures set against backgrounds of floral ornament. The vases often depict fabulous monsters such as the fire-breathing Chimaera, a creature with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. Similar Oriental motifs appear on vases found in Laconia, Boeotia, Khalkis, Rhodes, and Sardis.

By the Middle Archaic period, Athens was saturating the market for vases. Athenian vases have been found in the Aegean Islands, North Africa, Asia Minor, Italy, and Sicily, and even in France, Spain, and the Crimea. The popularity of Athenian pottery was based on its practical excellence and its beautiful proportions, its velvety, jet-black finish, and the lively narrative scenes with which it was decorated.

Athenian vase decoration was in the black-figure style, which had been brought from Corinth to Athens about 625 bc and blended with the more linear and larger-scale Athenian style. The decoration was painted in black slip on the red ground of the clay. Details were incised and were sometimes emphasized and given three-dimensionality by the use of red and white highlights.

From this period on, scenes depicted on the vases and the artists who painted them are often identified by inscriptions. About 30 vase painters signed their names on the vases, and about 100 are identified by their style. Modern names have been assigned to the latter painters on the basis of the present-day location of a good example of their work, for example, the Berlin Painter; the subject of a prominent work, for example, the Pig Painter; a collection containing their works, for example, the St Audries Painter; or the name of the potter for whom the painter worked, for example, the Amasis Painter. Among masterpieces are the François Vase made in 560 bc by Ergotinus and painted by Clitias (Museo Archeologico, Florence), the Dionysus Cup by Exekias (Glyptothek), and works by two of the most distinguished painters in the black-figure style, Lydos and the Amasis Painter (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Vases decorated in the red-figure style, believed to have been introduced by the Andocides Painter, were first produced about 530 bc. The decoration was produced by negative painting; the background was painted black, leaving the red of the clay in the shapes of the figures. Instead of being incised in the clay, details were drawn in black slip in a stiff, wiry line that often stands out in slight relief. An additional colour, a new golden brown, obtained by diluting black slip, was also used.

About 540 bc Athenian vase painters developed still another style, exemplified in a cup known as the Antaius Krater by the potter Euphronius. Besides taking an intense interest in the anatomy of the human body, these innovators developed a new conception of space, which they expressed through foreshortening and the use of a brown wash for shading. Thus was initiated a type of painting in which three-dimensionality is indicated both by shading and by contrasting areas of colour.

Although the black-figure style continued to dominate throughout the Archaic period, production of the red-figure style gradually increased. Among important Late Archaic vase painters were Duris, the Brygus Painter, the Berlin Painter, and the Cleophrades Painter.

IV

Classical Period

Greek art of the Classical period, from the era of the Persian Wars through the reign of Alexander the Great, was fully developed, independent of foreign influences, and much sought after in other lands.

A

Early Classical Period

(c. 475-448 bc). After the Greek victory over Persia, the need to repair the devastation caused by the Persian invasion generated great activity in both architecture and sculpture. This was especially true in Athens, the dominant political and economic power.

A

1

Architecture

Most of the Early Classical temples were Doric. An outstanding example is the Temple of Zeus (mid-5th century bc) at Olympia, designed by Libon of Elis. Its relatively slim columns indicate a reaction against the heavy proportions of the Archaic Doric style.