testtest Art History: Greece

Stoa

A columned pavilion open on three sides, built by the people of Athens.

The Temple of Aphaia on Aegina

A fully developed and somewhat sleeker Doric temple- part of a sanctuary dedicated to a local goddess named Aphaia- was built on the island of Aegina during the first quarter of the fifth century BCE. The temple is reasonably well preserved, in spite of the loss of pediments, roof, and sections of its colonnade. Enough evidence remains to form a reliable reconstruction of its original appearance.

Berlin Kore

A funerary statue found in a cemetery at Keratea and dated about 570-560 BCE. The erect, full-bodied figure takes and immobile pose- accentuated by a bulky crown and thick-soled clogs. The thick robe and tasseled cloak over her shoulders fall in regularly space, symmetrically disposed, parallel folds like the fluting on a Greek column.

The Amasis Painter

A mid-sixth-century BCE amphora- a large, all-purpose storage jar- with bands of decoration above and below a central figural composition illustrates this development. The painting on this amphora has been attributed to an artist we call the Amasis Painter, since this distinctive style was first recognized on vessels signed by a prolific potter named Amasis.

Entasis

A refinement where as the column shafts rise, they swell in the middle and contract again toward the top.

Symposium

A social gathering of rich and powerful men.

Orthogonal

Another word for a grid plan.

Podium

Another word for a raised platform.

Agora

Another word for the marketplace.

Greek Art

Around the mid eleventh century BCE, a new culture began to form on the Greek mainland. Athens began to develop as a major center of ceramic production, creating both sculpture and vessels decorated with organized abstract designs.

Kylix

Broad, flat drinking cup.

The Orientalizing Period

By the seventh century BCE, painters in major pottery centers in Greece had moved away form the dense linear decoration of the Geometric style, preferring more open compositions built around large motifs- real imaginary animals, abstract plant forms, and human figures. The source of these motifs can be traced to the arts of the Near East, Asia Minor, and Egypt.

Deripheral

Columns across the building.

Caryatids

Columns carved in the form of clothed women in finely pleated, flowing garments, raised on pedestals and balancing elaborately carved capitals on their heads.

Olpe (Pitcher)

Corinth. c. 650-625 BCE. Ceramic with black-figure decoration.

Porches

Covered, open space in front of an entrance.

Metropolitan Kouros

Dated about 600 BCE, recalls the pose and proportions of Egyptian sculpture. This young Greek stand rigidly upright, arms at his sides, fists clenched, and one leg slightly in front of the other. Greek artist cut away all stone from around the body to make the human form free-standing.

Black-Figure Vessels

During the Archaic period, Athens became the dominant center for pottery manufacture and trade in Greece, and Athenian painters adopted Corinthian black-figure techniques, which became the principal mode of decoration throughout Greece in the sixth century BCE.

Pronaos

Enclosed vesibule, that has three columns between flanking wall piers, and a row of columns runs down the center of the wide cella to help support the ceiling and roof.

Temenos

For centuries ancient Greeks had worshiped at sanctuaries where an outdoor altar stood within this enclosed sacred area, reserved for worship.

Battle Between the Gods and the Giants

Fragments of the north frieze of the Treasury of the Siphnians, Sanctuary of Apollo, Delphi. c. 530-525 BCE. Marble.

Peripheral

Free standing columns that surround the building.

Funerary Krater

From the Dipylon Cemetary, Athens. c. 750-735 BCE. Ceramic. Large funerary vessels were developed at this time for use as grave markers, many of which have been uncovered at the ancient cemetery of Athens.

The Sanctuary at Delphi

From very early times, it was renowned as an oracle, a place where the god Apollo was believed to communicate with humans by means of cryptic messages delivered through a human intermediary, or medium. Also, was the site of the Pythian Games which, like the Olympian Games, attracted participants from all over Greece.

Painted Pots

Greek potters created beautiful vessels whose standardized shapes were tailored to specific utilitarian functions. Occasionally, these potters actually signed their work, as did the artists who painted scenes on the pots.

Free-Standing Sculpture

In addition to statues designed for temple exteriors, sculptors of the Archaic period created a new type of large statues made of wood, terra cotta, clay fired over lowe heat, sometimes unglazed, limestone, or white marble from the islands of Paros and Naxos. Figures were brightly painted and sometimes bore inscriptions indicating that individual men or women had commissioned them for a commemorative purpose.

Red-Figure Vessels

In the last third of the sixth century BCE, while many painters were still creating handsome black-figure wares, some turned away from this meticulous process to a new, more fluid technique.

White-ground

In this technique, painters first applied refined white slip as the ground on which they painted designs with liquid slip.

The High Classical Period

Lasted only a half-century, 450-400 BCE. Art historians have considered this period a pinnacle of artistic refinement, producing works that set a standard of unsurpassed excellence. Also referred to as Greece's "Golden Age."

The Akropolis

Means "city on top of a hill" that later served as a fortress and sanctuary. As the city grew, it became the religious and ceremonial center devoted primarily to the goddess Athena, the city's patron and protector.

Euphronios

One of the best-known red-figure artists. His rendering of the death of Sarpedon, about 515 BCE, is painted on a krater called a calyx krater because its handles curve up like a flower's calyx.

The Early Classical Period

Over the brief span of 160 years, between c. 480 and 323 BCE, the Greeks established an ideal beauty that has endured in the Western world to this day. Sculptures were more relaxed and lifelike. Bronze was introduced which allowed sculptors to make sculptures that had more movement.

Man and Centaur

Perhaps from Olympia. c. 750 BCE. Bronze. The geometric shapes to represent human figures- triangles for torsos and heads, round dots for eyes, long thin rectangles for arms, tiny wastes; and long legs with bulging thigh and calf muscles are what has given the Geometric style its name.

Exekias

Perhaps the most famous of all Athenian black-figure painters. He signed many of his vessels as both potter and painter. He took his subjects from Greek mythology, which he and his patrons probably considered to be history.

Reconstruction Drawing of the Treasury of the Siphnians

Sanctuary of Apollo, Delphi. c. 530-525 BCE. This small treasury building at Delphi was originally elegant and richly ornamented. The figure sculptures and decorative moldings were once painted in strong colors, mainly dark blue, bright red, and white, with touches of yellow to resemble gold.

Amphora

Storage jar. Can be huge. Used as grave markers.

Rosettes

Stylized flower forms, filling the spaces around silhouetted creatures.

Elevations

The arrangement, proportions, and appearance of the columns and the lintels, which now grew into elaborate entablatures.

Contrapposto

The convention of presenting standing figures with opposing alternations of tension and relaxation around a central axis that will dominate Classical art.

Anavysos Kouros

The powerful, rounded, athletic body of a kouros from Anavysos, dated about •Date: c. 530 BCE •Artist ? •Material: Marble with remnants of paint •Location: At Anavysos, near Athens •Shows the increasing interest of artists and their patrons in a more life-like style of the human figure.

The Archaic Period

This period does not deserve its name. It means "antiquated" or "old fashioned," even "primitive," and the term was chosen by art historians who wanted to stress what they perceived as a contrast between the undeveloped art of this time and the subsequent Classical period, once thought to be the most admirable and highly developed phase of Greek art.

The Geometric Period

This period flourished in Greece between 900 and 700 BCE, especially in the decoration of ceramic vessels with linear motifs, such as spirals, diamonds, and cross-hatching. They were often used for funerary purposes.

Lost-wax process

This process occurred in the Classical Period. It has to do with making a wax model of the sculpture, melting the wax, and pouring a molten metal, such as bronze, into the mold. This allows the sculptors to sculpt their figure more effectively, because they are able to create movement in the figure more easily.

Stele Sculpture

Upright stone slabs called stelai, were used in Greek cemeteries as gravestones, carved in low relief with an image of the person(s) to be remembered.

Treasury of the Siphnians

Was built in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi by the residents of the island of Siphnos in the Cyclades, between about 530 and 525 BCE. It survives today only in fragments housed in the museum at Delphi.

Sanctuaries

Were thought to be sacred to one or more gods. Earliest included outdoor alters or shrines and a sacred natural element such as a tree, a rock, or a spring.

Archaic Smile

Where the eyes are relatively large and wide open, and the mouth forms a conventional close-lip expression.

Kantharos

Wine cup.

Onichele

Wine cup.