So obviously this is a massive period and has been so significant in many societies (but that may just be our perspective only because the curriculum is so white)??
People had been living in Greece for ages and there were two main parts which evolved during the Bronze Age- the Minoan culture on Crete and the Mycenaean culture on the mainland. Then like, everything got burnt down and people disappeared and weird new people settled in and there were little tribes and not much culture or a society so that was a bit awkward.
Then, it got all interesting and a "rebirth" happened!
The Geometric Period (850-700 BC)
Settlements grew into cities and sanctuaries were founded. Societies were once again developing and people started creating lots of art. Usually painted on top of pots. It was mainly based on geometric designs (duh) like triangles, dots and straight and angled lines. Realistic human body silhouettes with curves and funny round bits, rather than misshapen angular parts like previously, started to emerge around 700 BC. They decorated burial monuments. Exciting stuff.
(omg centaur)
The Orientalizing Period (700 - 600 BC)
Greek art started to be influenced by the advanced civilizations of Egypt and Western Asia (known as the Orient) especially in the city of Corinth. The geometric style was replaced by more experimental and bolder pictures with brighter colours. More animals were put into the art too. I'm not sure why.
The Archaic Period (600 - 480 BC)
This was kind of a combination of the previous two styles. This was the period in which the distinct Greek style came about and there were increasingly more naturalistic styles shown because of Near East and Egyptian influences. Stay with me. This is a big one...
So after about 600BC, the Greeks began building temples to honour their gods. This saw to the creation of the three famous styles of pillars - Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.
Doric is the simplest design as you can see for yourself...
Below us is a picture of the Parthenon which uses the Doric order for its architecture. This is the famous temple dedicated to Athena and located in the city named after her, Athens, the capital of Greece. It is on the Acropolis which is a big hill that overlooks places. The temple was constructed from 447BC to 432BC (technically it's not a part of the Archaic period but more on that later) and is made of marble. It is very beautiful. Unfortunately, if you visit it today, you won't be able to get a complete view of the temple - there is so much building work going on because of course it is very old and rickety and also during the British colonial/bigoted times in the 19th century, some rich man basically stole loads of pieces off the Parthenon and used them to establish the first few bits shown in the British Museum which now refuses to give them back. Controversy...
These are some Ionic columns. As you can see, they are still pretty simple, but now they have the added luxury of some twirly pieces of embellishment at the top which looks pretty funky.
Here is a modern example of a place which was designed by an architect that was inspired by the Ionic order - the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C!
Now below is where things really got fancy. This is the Corinthian order. It is much more detailed and almost resembles nature with its petal-like shapes.
These columns are some of the few remaining columns of the Temple of Zeus in Athens.
These columns are actually a part of the New York State Post Office. What a fancy post office, right?
Basically, people started to get better at sculpting and subsequently were able to make more natural-looking figures who were life-sized even and this new found talent was used mainly for sanctuaries and grave monuments. The statues were painted in many colours and the concept of an ideal body type was born.
This is a statuette of Herakles made of bronze with the purpose of being worshipped in a sanctuary.
Wall painting was popular but unfortunately few examples remain. However we have lots of painted vases! By this time, painters had really improved. There were two main techniques to paint: one with figures painted on the vases in liquid clay which you then baked for it to become black so you'd get cool black silhouettes which you could carve details into or paint stuff on and there was another technique which reversed this idea with having a black background with coloured figurines on top.
The Classical Period (480-323 BC)
Parthenon (447 - 432 BC)
This was the temple dedicated to Athena by the citizens of Athens as they believed that she was responsible for the creation of their city. It stood on the Acropolis (the highest point of the city) in order to show her power and its columns were built in the Doric order. It is made of solid marble and was decorated with magnificent sculptures and reliefs of the greatest points in Athena's life e.g. her kicking Poseidon's ass.
Then about 20 years later, the Erechtheion was built on the Acropolis with cool caryatids (these are sculptures used as columns). It was for worshipping the god/king of Athens Erectheus.
The picture below shows the Porch of the Maidens on the temple.
Much of sculpture originals don't remain from this period but the Romans made plenty of copies. During this time, more people were beginning to create sculptures of the ideal body shape which was seen to be an athletic male figure. One of the most famous examples of this is 'The Discus Thrower' by Myron of Thebes created around 450BC.
As one can tell, this is heavily stylised, mainly due to the fact that the figure's face is not at all contorted as it should be when having to be in a difficult physical position. He is very beautiful, however, and is made of pure marble. One can clearly see the tenderness with which Myron made this figure and his clear focus on carving his beauty. However, this exists today only as a Roman copy.
Classical sculpture peaked after the mid 400s. Two really famous sculptors of this period are Phidias and Polykleitus. Phidias made colossal gold and ivory statues of Zeus and Athena but unfortunately we only know about this through writing. Polykleitus made athlete figures such as the Spearbearer. This firmly established the ideal measurements and proportions for a body and the position in which the figure is in (contraposto) has been a source of inspiration throughout the rest of art history.
Yet again, we do not have many remnants of painting from this period. Figure painting on vases even began to die out by the end of this period.
Mosaics started to gain popularity during this period though they had been around since 500BC. They were made of bits of marble, glass and stones to decorate walls and floors. They depicted mythological scenes and nature.
The Hellenistic Period (323 - 146 BC)
With the rise of great cities and the ever blossoming influence of Rome at hand, urban architecture flourished. This grew as the invention of stone came about.
Hellenistic sculptures did have a lot of influence from the Classical period and there were still many figures of men in peak physical form being made but now, children and even the elderly were being depicted including more dramatic facial expressions to reflect the influx of tragedy in the popular Greek theatre. Two of the most famous Greek sculptures date from this period - the Venus of Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. We don't know who created them. They are both in the Louvre Museum of Paris.
The Venus de Milo is marble and is armless as I guess her arms broke off. This may have been during the time as they often buried damaged sculptures (the irony). Though, we call it 'Venus' after the goddess of love, it is possible that it was a sculpture of a prostitute as at that time while prostitutes waited for customers, they would thread a ball of wool (or something like that).
This depicts the Greek goddess Nike standing on the prow of a ship with her wings spread wide and her garment flowing in the wind.
Paintings actually survived from this time period and they are mainly found in the tombs of some people living in a Northern Region of Greece called Macedon. The complicated compositions and the use of different colours and perspectives show that there was a high standard among paintings. I don't have any examples unfortunately...
Mosaics became more intricate and people found better ways to make them during this period.
The below depicts the great emperor Alexander leading the Macedonians against the Persians and is found in Pompeii (a Roman city in Italy).
Okay, thanks for reading and I know this was quite a long and complicated one! The Greeks were so freaking cool as you can probably guess from this post. Obviously, this is a really really brief overview of this time period so make sure, if this interested you, to read up on this!
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