Art in

Early Civilization
Agenda
Early Civilization

ART IN EARLY CIVILIZATION 2

What is Art History?
People do not often juxtapose the words art and history. They tend to think of history as the record and interpretation of past

human actions, particularly social and political actions. In contrast, most think of art, quite correctly, as part of the present. Of

course, people cannot see or touch history’s vanished human events, but a visible, tangible artwork is a kind of persisting

event. One or more artists made it at a certain time and in a specific place, even if no one now knows who, when, where, or

why. Although created in the past, an artwork continues to exist in the present, long surviving its times. The first painters and

sculptors died 30,000 years ago, but their works remain, some of them exhibited in glass cases in museums built only a few

years ago.
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 Anonymity in Art
Usually, someone the artist has never met will Throughout history, most artists created paintings,
purchase the artwork and display it in a setting sculptures, and other objects for specific patrons
the artist has never seen. This practice is not a and settings and to fulfill a specific purpose, even if
new phenomenon in the history of art—an today no one knows the original contexts of those
ancient potter decorating a vase for sale at a
artworks. Museum visitors can appreciate the visual
village market stall probably did not know who
and tactile qualities of these objects but cannot
would buy the pot or where it would be
understand why they were made or why they
housed—but it is not at all typical. In fact, it is
appear as they do without knowing the
exceptional.
circumstances of their creation.

4
Questions Art How Old Is It?
Historians Ask Before art historians can write a history of art,
they must be sure they know the date of each
work they study. Thus, an indispensable subject
of art historical inquiry is chronology, the dating
of art objects and buildings. If researchers
cannot determine a monument’s age, they
cannot place the work in its historical context.

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 Art historians have developed many ways to
establish, or at least approximate, the date of an
Physical Evidence artwork.

often reliably indicates an object’s age. The

material used for a statue or painting may Documentary Evidence
indicate the earliest possible date can help pinpoint the date of an object or
someone could have fashioned the work. building when a dated written document
Artists may have ceased using certain mentions the work. For example, financial
materials, such as inks and papers for records may note when church officials
drawings, at a known time. The study of commissioned a new altarpiece for a
tree rings can determine within a narrow church—and how much they paid to which
range the date of a wood statue or timber artist.
roof beam.

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Internal Evidence Stylistic Evidence
can play a significant role in dating an is also very important. The analysis of style—an
artwork. A painter might have depicted an artist’s distinctive manner of producing an
identifiable person or a kind of hairstyle, object— is the art historian’s special sphere.
clothing, or furniture fashionable only at a Unfortunately, because it is a subjective
certain time. If so, the art historian can assessment, stylistic evidence is by far the most
assign a more accurate date to that painting. unreliable chronological criterion. Still, art
historians sometimes find style a very useful tool
for establishing chronology.

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 Questions Art • Period style refers to the characteristic artistic
Historians Ask manner of a specific time, usually within a
distinct culture, such as “Archaic Greek”.

• Regional style is the term art historians use to

What Is Its Style? describe variations in style tied to geography.
Defining artistic style is one of the key
• Personal style, the distinctive manner of
elements of art historical inquiry, although
individual artists or architects, often decisively
the analysis of artworks solely in terms of
explains stylistic discrepancies among
style no longer dominates the field the way
monuments of the same time and place.
it once did. Art historians speak of several
different kinds of artistic styles.

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Questions Art Historians Ask
What Is Its Subject? • Iconography—literally, the “writing of
Another major concern of art historians is, images”—refers both to the content, or subject
of course, subject matter. Some artworks, of an artwork, and to the study of content in art.
such as modern abstract paintings, have no By extension, it also includes the study of
subject, not even a setting. Art historians symbols, images that stand for other images or
traditionally separate pictorial subjects into encapsulate ideas.
various categories, such as religious, • Throughout the history of art, artists have used
historical, mythological, daily life, attributes (an object associated w ith a
portraiture, landscape , still life, and their particular figure) and personification, abstract
numerous subdivisions and combinations. ideas codified in human form.

20XX 9
Saint Peter (c. 1610–1612) by Peter Paul Rubens, depicting Peter,
vested in the pallium, and holding the Keys of Heaven.
Questions Art Historians Ask
Who Made It? Who Paid For It?
If Ben Shahn had not signed his The role of patrons in shaping the form and
painting of Sacco and Vanzetti, an art content of artworks is also an important
historian could still assign, or attribute, subject for art historical inquiry. Many times,
the work to him based on knowledge artists had little to say about what form their
of the artist’s personal style. Although work would take; they worked under the
signing (and dating) works is quite radar to do the bidding of their patrons.
common (but by no means universal)
today, in the history of art countless
works exist whose artists remain
unknown.

20XX 11
Civilization
The term civilization basically
means the level of development at
which people live together
peacefully in communities.

Ancient civilization refers

specifically to the first settled and
stable communities that became
the basis for later states, nations,
and empires.
The Cradle of Civilization
Mesopotamia—a Greek word meaning “the land between the [Tigris and Euphrates] rivers”—is the core of the region often
called the Fertile Crescent and the presumed locale of the biblical Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:10–15), where humans first learned how to use
the wheel and plow and how to control floods and construct irrigation canals. In the fourth millennium BCE, the inhabitants of ancient
Sumer, the world’s first civilization, also established the earliest complex urban societies, called city-states, and invented writing. They may
also have been the first culture to use pictures to tell coherent stories, far surpassing the tentative efforts at pictorial narration that survive
on the walls of prehistoric caves in western Europe and in early shrines in Turkey.

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The so-called Standard of Ur, a rectangular box of uncertain function found in a tomb
in the Sumerian city that was home to the biblical Abraham, is one of the earliest
extant works incorporating all the pictorial conventions that would dominate ancient
narrative art for more than 2,000 years. The Sumerians also pioneered the use of
hierarchy of scale, a highly effective way of distinguishing the most important (largest)
figure from those of lesser rank. This pictorial convention would also have a long
future in the history of art.

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PREHISTORY
humankind originated in Africa in the very remote past. Yet it was not until millions of years
later that ancient hunters to represent the world in a variety of ways, and to fashion the first
examples of what people generally call "art".

Paleolithic Age
The earliest preserved art objects date to around 30,000 BCE, during the Old Stone Age or
Paleolithic period (from the Greek paleo, “old,” and lithos, “stone”) Paleolithic artworks are
of an astonishing variety. They range from simple shell necklaces to human and animal
forms in ivory, clay, and stone to monumental paintings, engravings, and relief sculptures
covering the huge wall surfaces of caves.

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Venus of Willendorf
One of the oldest sculptures discovered to date, carved using
simple stone tools, is the tiny figurine of a woman nicknamed
the Venus of Willendorf after its findspot in Austria, and can only
speculate as to its function and meaning. Many scholars believe
that the Willendorf figurine's anatomical exaggeration served as
a fertility image, as have other prehistoric statuettes of women.
However, sculptors frequently omitted this detail in other
Paleolithic female figurines, and many of the women have far
more slender proportions than the Willendorf woman,
prompting some scholars to question the nature of these
figures as fertility images. In any case, the intention appears to
have been to represent the female form rather than a specific
woman.
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17
Art in the
Old Stone Age
Scholars have postulated various meanings for the abstract
signs that accompany cave paintings and reliefs from the
Paleolithic era.

Some have suggested that the prehistoric hunters attributed

magical properties to the images they painted. Some
speculate that the animal representations may have served as
teaching tools to instruct new hunters about the character of
the various species they encountered.

The remoteness and difficulty of access to many of the

images, and indications the caves were in use for centuries, are
why they remain an enigma.

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Neolithic Age
Around 9000 BCE, the ice covering much of
northern Europe during the Paleolithic period
melted as the climate grew warmer. The The Neolithic settlement at
Neolithic age, or New Stone Age, marks the Çatal Höyük flourished
between 6500 and 5700 BCE
beginning of a period in which humans began and was one of the world's first
experiments in urban living.
to domesticate plants and animals and settle in
The regularity of the town's
fixed abodes, and their food supply was plan suggests that inhabitants
built the settlement to some
assured. German archaeologists have predetermined pattern.
discovered that prehistoric hunter-gatherers
built a stone temple with ani mal reliefs at
Göbekli Tepe before sedentary farmers
established village communities at Çatal Höyük.

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Stonehenge

Construction of Stonehenge probably

occurred in several phases in the
centuries before and after 2000 BCE. It
seems to have been a kind of
astronomical observatory. During the
Middle Ages, Britons believed the
mysterious structures were the work of
In western Europe, where Paleolithic paintings and Merlin of the King Arthur legend. Most
sculptures abound, no comparably developed towns archaeologists now consider them to
of the time of Çatal Höyük or Ain Ghazal have been be remarkably accurate solar calendars.
found. The arrangement of huge stones in a circle
(called a henge) is almost entirely limited to Britain.
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Ancient Mesopotamia and Persia
The fundamental change in human society from the dangerous and uncertain life of the hunter and gatherer to the more predictable and
stable life of the farmer and herder first occurred in the “fertile crescent” of Mesopotamia, the land mass that forms a huge arc from the
mountainous border between Turkey and Syria through Iraq to Iran’s Zagros Mountain range. There, in present-day southern Iraq, the
world’s first great civilization—Sumer—arose in the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

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Sumer
Ancient Sumer was not a unified nation. Rather, it

comprised a dozen or so independent city-states under the

protection of different Mesopotamian deities.

Mesopotamian city-states of the 4th and early 3rd millennia

BC, was one of the first complex urban societies. The

Sumerian rulers were the gods' representatives on earth and

stewards of their earthly treasure. Some members of the

community were free to specialize in other activities,

including manufacturing, trade, and administration.

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Ziggurat of Ur
The great ziggurats of Mesopotamia made a profound impression on the peoples of ancient
Mesopotamia and are one of the most important monuments of their kind in the world. The best
preserved is at Ur, made of mud brick built about a millennium later than the Uruk ziggurat and
much grander. The tallest ziggurat of all, at Babylon, was about 270 feet high and became the
centerpiece of a biblical tale about insolent pride.

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EGYPT UNDER THE PHAROAHS
The ancient Egyptian pharaohs erected countless monuments and statues to honor their god-kings, as
well as magnificent tombs to house them in the afterlife. The backbone of Egypt was, and still is, the
Nile River, which, through annual floods supported all life in that ancient land.

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Predynastic and Early
Dynastic Periods
Archaeologists have identified the pharaoh Menes of
ancient Egypt with King Narmer, whose image and
name appears on a ceremonial palette (stone slab with
a circular depression) found at Hierakonpolis. Narmer's
palette is an elaborate, formalized version of a
utilitarian object commonly used in the Predynastic
period to prepare eye makeup. (Egyptians used
makeup to protect their eyes against irritation and the
glare of the sun.) The palette is important as a
document marking the transition from the prehistoric
to the historical period in ancient Egypt.
 Mummification and
Immortality
The Egyptians did not make the sharp
distinction between body and soul that is
basic to many religions. Rather they
believed in a kind of other self, the ka or life
force, which could inhabit the corpse and
live on after death. For this to be possible,
the body had to remain as nearly intact as
possible, so embalming was developed to
ensure that it did.
(top), plan (center), and restored view (bottom) of typical
Egyptian mastaba tombs. The standard early form of Egyptian
tomb had an underground burial chamber and rooms to house
a portrait statue and offerings to the deceased. Scenes of daily
life often decorated the interior walls.
Mummification and Immortality
Embalming generally lasted 70 days, Egyptian
surgeons removed the organs of the dead and
placed them in jars for eventual deposition in
the burial chamber with the corpse. Surgeons
removed the brain through the nostrils and
discarded it because they did not attach any
special significance to that organ. But they left in
place the heart, necessary for life and regarded
as the seat of intelligence. The body was then
covered in resin-soaked linens and treated for
40 days with natron, a naturally occurring salt
compound that dehydrated the body. During
which time the corpse was treated with lotions
and resins and covered with amulets.
Imhotep and Djoser
Imhotep is considered one of the most renowned figures
in Egyptian, master builder for King Djoser (r. 2630–2611
BCE) of the Third Dynasty. Imhotep’s is the first recorded
name of an artist and served as the pharaoh’s official seal
bearer and as high priest of the sun god Re.

After his death, the Egyptians deified Imhotep and in

time probably inflated the list of his achievements, but he
undoubtedly designed Djoser’s stepped pyramid at
Saqqara, near Memphis, Egypt’s capital at the time.

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Djoser’s Pyramid
The pyramid was the centerpiece of an immense
(37-acre) rectangular enclosure surrounded by a
monumental (5,400 feet long) wall of white
limestone.

About 200 feet high, the stepped pyramid seems to

be composed of a series of mastabas of diminishing
size, stacked one atop another. Djoser's Pyramid is
one of the oldest surviving examples of an Egyptian
tomb. The stepped pyramid was built to protect the
mummified king and his possessions. Beneath the
pyramid was a network of several hundred
underground rooms and galleries. It was to be
Djoser's new home in the afterlife.
Old Kingdom
Many Egyptologists now begin the Old Kingdom with the first pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty,
Sneferu (r. 2575–2551 BCE). The traditional division of. kingdoms places Djoser and the Third
Dynasty in the Old Kingdom. It ended with the demise of the Eighth Dynasty around 2134 BCE.

Great Pyramids
At Gizeh stand the three Great Pyramids the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. The
prerequisites for membership in this elite club were colossal size and enormous cost. The Gizeh
pyramids testify to the wealth and pretensions of the Fourth Dynasty pharaohs. The new tomb
shape probably reflects the influence of Heliopolis, the seat of the powerful cult of Re, whose
emblem was a pyramidal stone, the ben-ben. The three pyramids, built in the course of about 75
years, represent the culmination of architectural evolution.
Building the Great Pyramids
The ancient Egyptian artisans who built the Great Pyramids
of Gizeh were engaged in one of the most labor-intensive
enterprises ever undertaken - erecting them from stone
quarried thousands of miles (1,000km) away from modern-
day Cairo. Like all building projects of this type, the process
of erecting the pyramids began with the quarrying of stone,
in this case primarily the limestone of the Gizeh plateau
itself. The pyramids of Giza were built using a special kind
of construction called ashlar masonry, which is made up of
carefully cut and precisely shaped blocks of stone piled in
rows, or courses. The Egyptians moved the ashlar blocks for
the Great Pyramids using wooden rollers and sleds. Finally,
the pyramid received a facing of white limestone cut so
precisely that the eye could scarcely detect the joints.
Of the three Fourth Dynasty pyramids at
Gizeh, the tomb of Khufu is the oldest and
largest. Except for the internal galleries and
burial chamber, it is an almost solid mass of
limestone masonry, a veritable stone
mountain. When its original stone facing
was intact, the sunlight it reflected would
have been dazzling, underscoring the
pyramid’s role as a solar symbol.

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Great Sphinx
Beside the causeway and dominating the valley temple of Khafre rises the Great Sphinx. Carved from a spur of
rock in an ancient quarry, the colossal statue is probably an image of Khafre (originally complete with the
pharaoh’s ceremonial beard and uraeus cobra headdress), although some scholars believe it portrays Khufu and
antedates Khafre’s complex. The sphinx—a lion with a human head—was associated with the sun god and
therefore was an appropriate image for a pharaoh. The composite form suggests the pharaoh combines human
intelligence with the fearsome strength and authority of the king of beasts.

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New Kingdom
About 2150 BCE, the Egyptians challenged the pharaohs’ power,
and for more than a century the land was in a state of civil unrest
and near anarchy. But in 2040 BCE the pharaoh of Upper Egypt,
Mentuhotep II (r. 2050–1998 BCE), managed to unite Egypt again
under the rule of a single king and established the Middle Kingdom
(11th to 14th Dynasties), it too disintegrated. Power passed to the
Hyksos, or shepherd kings, who descended on Egypt from the
Syrian and Mesopotamian uplands. But around 1600–1550 BCE
native Egyptian kings rose in revolt, and Ahmose I, conquered the
Hyksos and became first king of the 18th Dynasty, ushered in the
New Kingdom, the most glorious period in Egypt’s long history. A
new capital—Thebes, in Upper Egypt—became a great metropolis
with magnificent palaces, tombs, and temples along both banks of
the Nile.
 Hatshepsut
The New Kingdom pharaoh Hatshepsut (r. 1473–1458
BCE) is one of the most intriguing figures in ancient
history. In 1479 BCE, Thutmose II died, Hatshepsut, his
principal wife (and half sister), had not given birth to
any sons who survived, so the title of king went to the
12-year-old Thutmose III, son of Thutmose II by a minor
wife. She became regent but soon proclaimed herself
pharaoh. She insisted her father Thutmose I had chosen
her as his successor during his lifetime. Hatshepsut is
the first great female monarch whose name has been
recorded. For two decades she ruled what was then the
most powerful and prosperous empire in the world.
Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut (looking southwest), Deir el-Bahri, Egypt, 18th Dynasty, ca. 1473–1458 BCE.
Her immense terraced funerary temple featured an extensive series of painted reliefs recounting her divine birth,
coronation, and great deeds.

36
 Ramses II
Ramses II (r. 1290–1224 BCE) ruled Egypt
for a century, an extraordinary
accomplishment in an era when life
expectancy was far less than it is today.
Ramses appears in his atlantids (statue-
columns) in the guise of Osiris, god of the
dead and king of the underworld.
Temple of Amen-Re, Karnak
The Karnak temple of Amen-Re was largely the work of
the 18th Dynasty pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Ramses
II (19th Dynasty rulers) and others also contributed
sections. The name derives from the pylons (gateways
with sloping walls) that are characteristic features of New
Kingdom temple design. A typical pylon temple is
bilaterally symmetrical along one axis that runs from an
approaching avenue through a court and hall into a dimly
lit sanctuary.
The clerestory is an Egyptian innovation, and its
significance cannot be overstated. In the Amen-Re
temple at Karnak, for example, the two central rows of
columns were raised so that sunlight could enter the
interior through an opening in the roof. This method of
construction appeared in primitive form in the Old
Kingdom valley temple of Khafre at Gizeh.
Egypt in Decline
During the first millennium BCE, Egypt lost the commanding role it once had played in the ancient
world. The empire dwindled away, and foreign powers invaded, occupied, and ruled the land, until
Alexander the Great of Macedon and his Greek successors and, eventually, the Romans, took
control of the land of the Nile. But even after Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, its
prestige remained high. Visitors to Rome today who enter the city on the road from the airport
encounter the tomb of a Roman nobleman who died around 12 BCE. His memorial takes the form
of a pyramid, 2,500 years after the Old Kingdom pharaohs erected the Great Pyramids of Gizeh.

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Ancient Greece
The ancient Greek temple was a multimedia monument, richly adorned with painted statues and
reliefs. Although the Greeks borrowed many ideas from Egypt and Mesopotamia, they quickly
developed an independent artistic identity. Their innovations in painting, sculpture, architecture and
sculpture are the foundation of the Western tradition.

40
The Greeks and Their Gods
Ancient Greek art occupies a special place in the history of art through
the ages. The Greeks, or Hellenes, established independent Greek
states on the Greek mainland, on the islands of the Aegean Sea, and on
the western coast of Asia Minor. Unlike Egyptian and Mesopotamian
deities, the Greek gods and goddesses differed from humans only in
being immortal. In 776 BCE, the separate Greek states held their first
athletic games in common at Olympia. From then on, despite their
differences and rivalries, the Greeks regarded themselves as sharing a
common culture, distinct from the surrounding “barbarians” who did not
speak Greek.
42
 Minoan Art
Archaeological excavations on the Greek islands
of Crete and Kos have revealed details of
Minoan life in the 3rd millennium BCE, an era
when the first great Western civilization
emerged. The Cretan palaces of the Minoans
were large, comfortable, and handsome, with
residential suites for the king and his family and
Bull-leaping, from the palace at Knossos (Crete), Greece, ca. 1400–
1370 bce. Fresco, 2′ 8″ high, including border. courtyards for pageants, ceremonies, and
Archaeological Museum, Heraklion. Frescoes decorated the games.
Knossos palace walls. The Minoan men and women have stylized
bodies with narrow waists. The skin color varies with gender, a
common convention in ancient paintings.

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 Knossos
The Knossos palace was the legendary home of
King Minos and of the minotaur, a creature half
bull and half man. Its central feature was a large
rectangular court; the builders arranged the
other palace units around this primary space.
According to the myth, when the Athenian king
Theseus defeated the monster, he was able to
Aerial view (looking northeast) of the palace at Knossos (Crete),
Greece, ca. 1700–1370 BCE. find his way out of the maze only with the aid of
The palace’s mazelike plan gave rise to the myth of the Minotaur Minos's daughter Ariadne.
in the labyrinth

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A recreation of the Palace of
Knossos

45
 Minoan Pottery
Minoan painters also decorated small objects,
especially ceramic pots, usually employing dark
silhouettes against a cream-colored ground. On
a flask found at Palaikastro on Crete the
tentacles of an octopus reach out over the
curving surfaces of the vessel, embracing the
piece and emphasizing its volume. The vase is a
masterful realization of the relationship between
the vessel’s decoration and its shape, always a
problem for the ceramist
Octopus flask, from Palaikastro (Crete), Greece,
ca. 1450 bce. 11″ high.

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 Minoan Decline
Scholars dispute the circumstances Around 1450 BC, Minoan culture reached a

ending the Minoan civilization, although turning point due to a natural disaster (possibly
an earthquake). Although another eruption of the
most now believe Mycenaeans had
Thera volcano has been linked to this downfall, its
already moved onto Crete and
dating and implications are disputed.
established themselves at Knossos in the
15th century BCE.

20XX PRESENTATION TITLE 47

Greece
The destruction of the Mycenaean palaces brought with it the disintegration of the Bronze Age social order. The
disappearance of powerful kings and their retinues led to the loss of the knowledge of how to construct fortified citadels
and vaulted tombs, to paint frescoes, and to sculpt in stone. Depopulation, poverty, and an almost total loss of contact
with the outside world characterized the succeeding centuries, sometimes called the Dark Age of Greece.

48
Greek Temples
Egypt also had a profound influence on Greek
architecture. The basic plan of all Greek temples
reveals an order, compactness, and symmetry that
reflect the Greeks’ sense of proportion and their
effort to achieve ideal forms in terms of regular
numerical relationships and geometric rules.
From the sixth century BC onwards, Greek temple-
builders sought to find the most satisfactory
proportions for each part of the building and for the
structure. To the Greeks, proportion in architecture
and sculpture was much the same as harmony in
music, reflecting and embodying the cosmic order.
Geometric and Archaic Art
This era was in its own way a heroic age, a time when the
Greeks established the Olympic Games, wrote down
homer’s epic poems (formerly passed orally from bard to
bard), began to trade with their neighbors in both the east
and the west, and returned the human figure to Greek art.

Art historians call the art of this formative period Geometric

because Greek vase painting of the time consisted primarily
of abstract motifs. A krater, or bowl for mixing wine and
water, that marked the grave of a man buried in the Dipylon
cemetery in Athens around 740 BCE.
Geometric krater, from the Dipylon cemetery,
Athens, Greece, ca. 740 BCE. 3′ 41 – 2″ high.

50
 Doric and Ionic
Temples

The temple core was the naos, or cella, which housed the cult statue of the deity. In front was a pronaos,
or porch, often with two columns between the antae, or extended walls (columns in antis, that is,
between the antae). A smaller second room might be placed behind the cella, but more frequently the
Greek temple had a porch at the rear (opisthodomos) set against the blank back wall of the cella. The
second porch served only a decorative purpose.
Doric and Ionic Temples
Greek temples had peripteral colonnades (row of columns
generally supporting an entablature - row of horizontal
moldings, used either as an independent feature or as part
of a building) Worshipers gathered outside the temples,
where priests made offerings at open-air altars.
The elevation of a Greek temple consists of the platform, the
colonnade, and the entablature. The names of the orders
derive from the Greek regions where they were most
employed. The Doric, formulated on the mainland, remained
the preferred manner there and in the Greeks’ western
colonies. The Ionic was the choice in the Aegean Islands and
on the western coast of Asia Minor. The geographical
distinctions are by no means absolute.
53
The Greeks painted their architectural
sculptures and usually placed statues and
reliefs only in the building parts that had
no structural function. Occasionally, they
replaced their columns with female
figures with caryatids. The Greeks also
often painted the capitals, decorative
moldings, and other architectural
elements, which enabled architects to
bring out more clearly the relationships of
the structural parts and soften the stone’s
glitter at specific points, as well as provide
a background to set off the figures.

Screenshots of the Parthenon taken from AC: Odyssey

54
Black-Figure Painting
Greek artists pioneered a new ceramic painting
technique during the Archaic period called the
black-figure painting in Corinth and quickly
replaced the simpler silhouette painting
favored in the Geometric period. The black-
figure painter also put down black silhouettes
on the clay surface, but then used a graver (a
sharp, pointed instrument) to incise linear
details in the black-glaze forms. The technique
involved adding highlights in purplish red or
white over the black figures before firing the
vessel. Ex ekIas, Achilles and Ajax playing a dice game (detail of
a black-figure amphora), CA. 540–530 BCE.
Left: Black-Figure Painting
Right: Red-Figure Painting
55
 Exekias The acknowledged master of the black-figure
technique was an Athenian named Exekias. An
amphora, or two-handled storage jar , bears his
signature as both painter and potter. Such
signatures, common on Greek vases, reveal both
pride and a sense of self-identity as an “artist.”
They also served as “brand names” because the
vases of Athens and Corinth were widely
exported. (The Exekias amphora was found in a
tomb at Vulci, an Etruscan city in central Italy.)

20XX 56
 Red-Figure Painting
This technique, called red-figure painting,
occurred around 530 BCE. The artist used the
same black glaze for the figures but outlined
them with red clay instead of creating
silhouettes. For the interior details, the painter
used a soft brush in place of a metal graver.

Left: Black-Figure Painting

Right: Red-Figure Painting

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Early and High Classical Art
Art historians mark the beginning of the Classical Age from a historical event: the defeat of the Persian invaders

of Greece by the allied Hellenic city-states. The narrow escape of the Greeks from domination by Asian

“barbarians” nurtured a sense of Hellenic identity so strong that from then on European civilization would be

distinct from Asian civilization. historians universally consider the decades following the removal of the Persian

threat as the high point of Greek civilization. This is the era of the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides,

as well as Herodotus, the “father of history,” the statesman Pericles, the philosopher Socrates, and many of the

most famous Greek architects, sculptors, and painters.

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Hollow-Casting Life-Size Bronze Statues

Greeks hollow-cast large statues by the cire perdue

(lost-wax) method. Process entailed several steps
and had to be repeated many times. Bronze workers
typically cast monumental statues in parts, head,
arms, hands, torso, and so forth.

First, the sculptor makes a full-size clay model of the

intended statue, then an assistant forms a clay
master mold around it. When dry, the various pieces
of the master mold are reassembled for each
separate body part.
Myron, Diskobolos
Early Classical Greek sculptors also explored the problem of
representing figures engaged in vigorous action. The famous
Diskobolos (Discus Thrower) by Myron, with its arms boldly
extended, body twisted, and right heel raised off the ground, is
such a statue. The pose suggests the motion of a pendulum clock.

The illustrated marble statue, however, is not Myron’s, which was

bronze. It is a copy made in Roman times. Rome's demand for
copies of famous Greek statues so exceeded supply that an
industry was born to produce copies. Usually, copies were of less
costly painted marble, which presented a different appearance
than shiny bronze. Copies rarely approach quality of the originals,
but they are indispensable today.
Athena Parthenos
The sculpture of Athena Parthenos, depicts the
goddess holding Nike (the winged female
personification of victory) in her left hand and the
Persian sack of Athens in her right. On the thick
soles of Athena's sandals was a representation of a
centauromachy (Athenians vs. Persians) and
emblazoned on the exterior of her shield were high
reliefs depicting the battle of Greeks and Amazons

Screenshots of the Parthenon taken from AC: Odyssey

(Amazonomachy).
On the shield’s interior, Phidias painted a

The Parthenon was completed in 479 BCE, and Phidias's gold- gigantomachy (battle between the Gigantes) Each
and-ivory 38-foot-tall chryselephantine (type of figural of these mythological contests was a metaphor for
sculpture in which the flesh was made of ivory and the drapery the triumph of order over chaos, of civilization over
of gold) Athena Parthenos was the most expensive item of all. barbarism, and of Athens over Persia.

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 White-Ground Painting
White-Ground painting was a relatively recent innovation in the
art of pottery, developed in the middle of the fifth century BCE
by a Greek artist. White-ground is essentially a variation of the
red-figure technique and was used exclusively on lekythos (flask
containing perfumed oil) which families placed in graves as
offerings to the deceased. Despite the obvious attractions of the
technique, the impermanence of the expanded range of colors
discouraged white-ground painting on everyday vessels, For
vessels designed for short-term use, the fragile nature of white-
ground painting was of little concern.

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 Late Classical Art
The Peloponnesian War, which began in 431 BCE with the complete defeat of a plague-weakened Athens. The victor,

Sparta, and then Thebes undertook the leadership of Greece, both unsuccessfully. At the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE,

the Greek cities suffered a devastating loss and had to relinquish their independence to the Macedonian king, Philip II, later

to his heir Alexander the Great who led a powerful army on an extraordinary campaign that overthrew the Persian Empire.

After the Peloponnesian War, Greek art began to focus more on the individual and on the real world of appearances instead

of on the community and the ideal world of perfect beings and buildings. The fourth century BCE brought an end to the

serene idealism of the previous century and created a period of political up-heaviness and alienation in which art was born.

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 Praxiteles
A new approach to art is evident in the works of Praxiteles, one of the great
masters of the Late Classical period (ca. 400–323 BCE) and his Olympian gods
and goddesses retained their superhuman beauty but took on a worldly
sensuousness.

He also created the Aphrodite of Knidos that has a humanizing spirit. In fact, the
goddess engages in a trivial act out of everyday life. She has removed her
garment, draped it over a large hydria (water pitcher), and is about to step into
the bath. The lost marble original is known only through copies of Roman date,
but Pliny considered it “superior to all the works, not only of Praxiteles, but
indeed in the whole world.”

A statue of Hermes and the infant Dionysus by Praxiteles, found in the Temple of
Hera at Olympia provides a good idea of the "look" of the Aphrodite of Knidos.

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 Theater
of
Epidauros
architect was Polykleitos the Younger CA. 350 BCE

Ancient Greek drama was closely associated with religious rites and was not pure entertainment. The precursor of the formal
Greek theater was a circular patch of earth where actors performed sacred rites. At Epidauros, an altar to Dionysos stood at the
center of the circle. The spectators sat on a slope overlooking the orchestra—the theatron, or “place for seeing”. Its 55 rows of
seats accommodated about 12,000 spectators. Even in antiquity the Epidauros theater was famous for the harmony of its
proportions. Although spectators sitting in some of the seats would have had a poor view of the skene, all had unobstructed
views of the orchestra. Because of the excellent acoustics of the open-air cavea, everyone could hear the actors and chorus

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 Venus de Milo

The Venus de Milo is a larger-than-life-size marble statue of

Aphrodite found on Melos together with its inscribed base
(now lost) signed by the sculptor Alexandros of Antioch-on-
the-Meander. Her left hand may have lightly grasped the
apple the Trojan hero Paris awarded her when he judged her
the most beautiful goddess.

The sculptor intentionally designed the work to tease the

spectator, instilling this partially draped Aphrodite with a
sexuality absent from Praxiteles’s entirely nude image of the
goddess.

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Thank you

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