Chapter 4 - Aegean Art
fresco
a durable method of painting on a wall by using watercolors on wet plaster
megaron
a rectangular audience hall that has a two-column porch and four columns around a central air well
Palace complex at Knossos
Culture/Period: Aegean, Minoan Art Location: Crete Date: 1500 BC - pier and door construction, ashlar masonry - largest structure - included central court, storerooms, shrines, residential, etc. - no fortifications - maze-like for defense and control - many light wells
Toreador fresco
Culture/Period: Aegean, Minoan Art Location: Knossos, Crete Date: 1450 BC - made with wet fresco - naturalistic in movement - could be continuous narrative - has two white men, a bull, and black man jumping over bull - might be a succession from boy to man
Treasury of Atreus
Culture/Period: Aegean, Mycenaean Art Location: Mycenae Date: 1250 BC - made of limestone - built in tholos to draw attention (later burglarized) - influenced by Egyptians - dromos entrance - man made hill covering
Lion Gate
Culture/Period: Aegean, Mycenaean Art Location: Mycenae Date: 1250 BC - made of limestone - huge lintel over gateway, relieving triangle provided space for thin stone relief - heads would have been made of gold/clay and put on afterwards with post-and-lintel - repeled bad spirits
Lion Hunt Scene
Culture/Period: Aegean, Mycenaean Art Location: Mycenae Date: 1600-1550 BC - made with bronze, gold, silver, and niello - decorated on black niello of the knife - naturalism in the lions' movement
Citadel and Palace of Mycenae
Culture/Period: Greek, Mycenaean Art Location: Mycenae Date: 1400 BC - made with cyclopean masonry, ashlar masonry - built for protection, manipulated visitors to be at residents' advantage - corbel arch marks the gate - Lion's Gate - thrown room at the highest point: megaron, clerestory technique
niello
a black sulfurous substance used as a decorative inlay for incised metal surfaces; the art or process of decorating metal in this manner
ashlar masonry
carefully cut and regularly shaped blocks of stone, fitted together without mortar
corbel vault
circular room formed by progressively projecting courses of stone or brick, which eventually meet to form the highest point of the vault
corbel arch
each course of masonry projects slightly beyond course beneath it, until the walls meet in an irregular arch to cover the span
cyclopean masonry
massive, crude walls that foreigners thought could only be made by the giants
pier and door construction
recesses that allow a great deal of flexibility in the admission of light and ventilation, and in the control or facilitation of movement; separates a hall into two unequal parts
relieving triangle
the triangular opening above the lintel that serves to lighten the weight to be carried by the lintel itself
