Greek Art and Architecture

Article Outline

Introduction; A Historical Overview; Architecture; Sculpture; Painting and Pottery; Decorative Arts; Greek Revivals

City Planning and Houses

Even before the start of the Classical period in the early 5th century bc, the Greeks had begun to lay out some cities in a gridlike plan, with streets regularly intersecting at right angles. The ancient Greeks, however, always credited the invention of this right-angled plan to a mid-5th century Ionian architect, Hippodamus of Miletus, who planned new cities for Piraeus, which was a port near Athens, and the Athenian colony of Thurii in Italy. His influence also appeared in the uniform streets and blocks of late 5th-century Olynthus, on the Chalcidice peninsula. By the 4th century bc, carefully planned cities and civic spaces had become the rule in ancient Greece. Around 350 bc, for example, the people of Priene moved from an old, haphazardly laid-out town to a new, more regular one, even though the sloping ground on which it was built made right angles awkward.

Greek houses varied, but in the 5th and 4th centuries bc two standard plans emerged. Typical 5th- and 4th-century houses in Olynthus and then 2nd-century houses on the island of Delos had small rooms arranged in a rectangular plan around a colonnaded interior courtyard, often with a covered veranda facing onto it from one or two sides. A second type of house, found in Priene, also focused on an interior courtyard. But instead of a collection of small rooms, the main living area consisted of a large rectangular hall that opened onto a columned porch. Smaller rooms for servants, storage, or cooking opened off the other sides of the courtyard. In the Hellenistic period, housing types became more diverse, but houses of wealthy people might feature marble thresholds, doorways, and columns; mosaic floors depicting humans or animals; and plastered walls modeled and painted to look like fine stonework.

Sculpture

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There are three major categories of Greek sculpture: free-standing statues, architectural sculpture (on pediments, metopes, and friezes), and nonarchitectural reliefs (such as carved gravestones). The principal subjects of Greek sculpture are gods, heroes of legend, and athletes, youths, or maidens intended to demonstrate ideals of beauty. From the 4th century bc on, portraits of historical persons also became commonplace. Also common were sculpted images of animals such as horses or lions and imaginary monsters such as sphinxes. Statues and reliefs (sculpted forms that project from a flat background) were created from a variety of materials. Stone and bronze were the most widely used materials, but the Greeks also created many images in wood, clay, gold, ivory, and silver.

Whatever the subject, category, or material, the typical Greek sculpture was basically religious in function. Most statues and reliefs were dedicated as offerings in sanctuaries to please or thank divinities, or stood as markers over graves, while architectural sculpture was carved essentially only for temples, treasuries, or tombs.

Early Greek Sculpture

Although many of the earliest Greek sculptures must have been made of wood, the earliest surviving pieces are figurines of terracotta (baked clay), bronze, and in rare cases, ivory. One of the earliest surviving pieces of Greek sculpture is a skillfully modeled terracotta centaur (creature that is part horse, part human), made about 900 bc at Lefkandi on the island of Euboea (Erétria Museum, Euboea). Its subject testifies to the attraction of myth as early as the close of the Dark Age. More typical examples of sculpture from the Geometric period (950 to 750 bc) are small, bronze, and in the form of horses, cattle, warriors, musicians, or artisans (rather than mythological subjects). Many are small enough to fit easily in the palm of one’s hand, and were either attached to the rims and handles of large bronze cauldrons or offered to gods or goddesses in sanctuaries. Less usual were mythological subjects, although a small bronze from about 725 bc shows a hero fighting a centaur (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) and indicates that myth still occasionally interested sculptors. The earliest surviving cult statues may be a series of three relatively large figures thought to represent the gods Apollo and Artemis and their mother, Leto (700? bc, Archaeological Museum, Herakleion). The two female figures of Artemis and Leto are about 40 cm (16 in) tall, and the male Apollo figure is 80 cm (32 in) tall. They were made of hammered bronze and found in a temple at Dreros on the island of Crete.

The formative phase of Greek sculpture closes with a bronze statuette of a youth dedicated to the god Apollo in Thebes about 700 to 675 bc (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts). The statuette is about 20 cm (7.9 in) tall and stands stiffly with one leg forward. It is meant to be viewed principally from the front, a quality known as frontality. This stance—frontality and an advanced left leg—predominates in later monumental (large-scale) statues in Greece and so initiates the Archaic period.

Archaic Sculpture

The characteristics of Archaic sculpture began to define themselves after 675 bc, in the so-called Daedalic style. Named after the legendary Greek artist Daedalus (meaning 'Skilled One'), the style in fact derives some of its elements from Syrian and Phoenician models. The typical Daedalic relief or statuette depicts a frontal figure (most often female) standing stiffly with a low forehead and a U-shaped face framed by heavy triangular wedges of hair. Around 650 bc the Daedalic style was used for the first large-scale stone statues in Greece, which show the influence of Egyptian statuary. The earliest known Daedalic statue is a marble figure from Delos (650? bc, National Museum, Athens); inscriptions on the statue reveal that a woman named Nikandre dedicated this female figure to the goddess Artemis. The figure’s hair, dress, and pose are all treated very formally; that is, they adhere to established forms and patterns rather than resembling the hair, dress, and pose of an actual person. The formality of the Daedalic style became a characteristic feature of Archaic sculpture.

The Human Figure: Kore and Kouros

The two principal types of Archaic free-standing statues are the standing, clothed female figure called a kore (meaning 'young woman'; plural, korai), and the standing male nude called a kouros (meaning 'young man'; plural, kouroi). One leg of the kouros, usually the left, strides forward, while he holds his arms stiffly at his sides. Most korai and kouroi served as dedications in sanctuaries, although some stood as markers over graves. For the most part they did not represent specific individuals, but rather ideal figures of youth, beautiful objects that might please the gods to whom they were offered.

One of the best-known features of Archaic figure sculptures is their subtle, enigmatic smile. This smile is not a sign of joy or well-being so much as a masklike feature preventing the viewer from perceiving a thinking or feeling being beneath the surface. The Archaic figure lacks an inner character or self-consciousness and seems unable to respond to things outside itself, just as it seems incapable of breaking out of its blocklike stance.

Styles differed from region to region: Kouroi from the Cycladic islands (see Cycladic Culture), such as the so-called Apollo of Melos (550? bc, National Museum, Athens), are less muscular than those from Athens, such as the Anavyssos Kouros (530? bc, National Museum, Athens). Although the rigid pose and blocklike shape of the kouros lasted until the end of the Archaic period, its anatomy gradually became more naturalistic, as seen in the Strangford Apollo from Anaphe (500? bc, British Museum, London). The evolution of the Archaic kore figure is slightly different: Early sculptors concentrated on the kore’s clothing, showing folds in the cloth at first as regularly incised lines and later as more varied and deeply cut. By the close of the Archaic period, artists had begun to pay more attention to the shape of the body beneath the folds and to render figures with greater individuality.