II.

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.