Greek Art and Architecture

I

Introduction

Greek Art and Architecture, paintings, sculpture, buildings, and decorative arts produced in ancient Greece, from about 1050 bc to 31 bc. Greek civilization encompassed not only mainland Greece but also nearby islands in the Aegean Sea, the western coast of Turkey (known as Ionia), southern Italy and Sicily (known as Magna Graecia, or Great Greece), and by the late 300s bc, Egypt, Syria, and other Near Eastern lands. Among its best-known monuments are stone temples, statues of human figures, and painted vases.

The importance of Greek art and architecture for the history of Western civilization can hardly be overstated, for the Greeks established many of the most enduring themes, attitudes, and forms of Western culture. The stories told in Greek art and literature of gods and heroes have been retold ever since and continue to form a common ground for the art, literature, and even popular culture of the Western world.

Greek artists were the first to establish mimesis (imitation of nature) as a guiding principle for art, even as Greek philosophers debated the intellectual value of this approach. The repeated depiction of the nude human figure in Greek art reflects Greek humanism—a belief that 'Man is the measure of all things,' in the words of Greek philosopher Protagoras. Architecture is another Greek legacy that the West has inherited, as Greece established many of the structural elements, decorative motifs, and building types still used in architecture today.

II

A Historical Overview

Historians have divided Greek history into periods that are in some ways based on individual judgment, and the names and dates of those periods vary from one account to another. Without question, however, the roots of Greek culture lie in Mycenaean culture, which lasted from about 1600 to about 1100 bc. This was a time of warrior-kings, fortified cities, and palaces, a time when highly developed monumental art and architecture first flourished on the Greek mainland and bureaucrats wrote in an early form of Greek called Linear B. This era has become known as the age of heroes, through such stories as those of Achilles and Odysseus that Greek poet Homer later recorded in his epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey (8th century bc). Many of the Greek gods (see Greek Mythology) were first worshiped in the Mycenaean age, and the remains of Mycenaean architecture and other artifacts fueled the imagination of later Greeks.

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Mycenaeans built simple houses of a type that the Greeks continued to build long after the Bronze Age ended. And Mycenaean workshops established a tradition of painted pottery that continued without interruption, though not without great changes, into later periods. In short, much of Mycenaean culture carried over into later Greek society.

A

The Dark Age (1100?-750 bc)

At the end of the Bronze Age, invaders, civil wars, or wars between kingdoms destroyed most Mycenaean centers of power, and Greece entered a period of relative impoverishment, depopulation, and cultural isolation known as the Dark Age. The art of writing was lost for most of the Dark Age, and few notable artifacts of the period remain. During this time, Greece seems to have been a land of small farming communities that had little to do with one another.

Yet the term Dark Age masks some real achievements. Archaeological finds on the island of Euboea have shown that at least parts of Greece prospered and enjoyed extensive contact with cultures to the east. During the Dark Age, Greeks settled Ionia, a tradition of oral epic poetry (that probably began in the Mycenaean age) continued to develop, and artisans in Athens produced an abstract style of painted pottery called protogeometric (meaning “first geometric”). The precision and harmony of the painting on this pottery foretell the character of later Greek art.

The last 200 years or so of the Dark Age, from about 950 to about 750 bc, are called the Geometric period, a term that refers to a primarily abstract style of pottery decoration of the time. During the Geometric period the Greeks came into closer contact with cultures of the Near East, and traders and artisans from Phoenicia (along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea) settled in parts of Greece itself. The Greeks probably adapted their alphabet from a Phoenician model around 800 bc; the earliest surviving examples of written Greek date to soon after that.

The Geometric period also saw the emergence of independently governed city-states. Marked by rugged mountains, valleys, and a jagged coastline, the geography of Greece did not promote unity. During most of its ancient history, Greece was a disunited land of scattered city-states, and wars between the city-states probably first occurred by the end of the 8th century bc. Although the rise of the city-state emphasizes the Greeks’ political disunity, other developments demonstrate their cultural unity. For example, religious sanctuaries (sites for temples and other buildings devoted to the gods) such as Olympia drew people from every Greek city-state who came to dedicate offerings to the gods and to compete in the Olympic Games, which tradition says began in 776 bc. The epic poet Homer, who perhaps lived in the mid- to late-8th century bc, also expressed Greek unity through stories that involve all Greeks. The 8th century also saw Greek expansion into southern Italy and Sicily, where city-states from the Greek mainland established their first colonies.

B

The Archaic Period (750-480 bc)

The period from 750 bc to 480 bc is called the Archaic period. Contact with Near Eastern cultures had influenced Greek art in the Dark Age, but after about 750 bc these influences on the art and culture of Greece became particularly visible. Eastern imports to Greece were plentiful, as were Greek imitations of eastern objects or motifs, and trade with lands to both east and west led to new prosperity for Greece. Also during this era, tyrannies appeared for the first time in Greece. Powerful dictators took over from aristocracies that had governed many of the city-states. New battle tactics, which used masses of heavily armed foot soldiers, may have aided the tyrants’ rise.

New city-states took shape during the 6th century bc, while many existing city-states became more powerful and more competitive with each other. Monumental building programs became part of this competition, as each community attempted to establish itself as culturally superior. City-states competed to erect the most beautiful buildings at religious sanctuaries such as Delphi that were panhellenic—that is, they were sacred to all of Greece, not to any one city-state. The city-state of Athens was ruled by a hereditary aristocracy and had avoided tyranny in the 7th century. In the second half of the 6th century a mild tyranny took over, but by century's end Athenians had established a limited democracy (representative government).

However, a threat to Athenian democracy developed in the East, where Persia expanded into Ionia and to the rim of the Aegean Sea. The Persian Wars, between Persia and Greece, broke out in the early 5th century, and decisive battles in 480 and 479 bc ended in victory for Athens and the Greeks.

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