General Outline

Greece edited October 4, 2018

2018-2019

Enduring Understanding
Greek art grounded in civic ideals and polytheism
Greek art/culture had strong impact on Etruscan and Roman art and
architecture
The art and culture of Greece remains studied today due to contemporary
records and ongoing archeological excavations

Essential Knowledge
• Greek art produced in Europe and Western Asia (Greece, Turkey,
southern Italy (600BCE – 100 CE)
• Greek art is studied chronologically and is known by periods and
stylistic changes vs. political factors – governments or dynasties as in
Roman art
• Greek art incorporated aesthetic concepts such as idealized proportions
and spatial relationships along with social ideals of order and harmony
• Greek culture shared a rich tradition of storytelling based on
(glorifying) gods, goddesses and heroes
• Greek art influenced art making throughout Europe and western Asia

Geographic/ Cultural Context

900-30 BCE

I. Geographic/Cultural Context
Geography, mythology, humanism, conflict

I. General Context
Geography
• Extensive coast line
o Trade, cultural links in region
• Dry, rocky land
 o Olive oil, grapes
o Fish (sea)
Mythology
• Gods and goddesses
o Their role in culture
o Numerous and varied

Humanism
• Man as “measure of all things”
o Origins of democracy-rule of the people
o The human as the Greek ideal

Conflict
• Within Greece and beyond
o Persia and Asia Minor

➔ Historical Periods and key artwork

• Geometric 900-700 BCE

• Orientalizing 700-600
o Vases, krater
• Archaic 600-480
o NY Kouros, Kroisos
o Temple plans, 3 architectural orders
• Early & High Classical 480-400
o Kritios Boy, Spear Bearer
• Late Classical 400-323
o Hermes and Dionysus, Aphrodite
• Hellenistic 323-31 BCE
o Dying Gaul, Nike of Samothrace.

II. Art Context

The human figure, architecture (temples), distinct artistic periods,
artists by name

Human figure
• New interpretation of how the body looks/works
o Joins the best of man - athletic (physical) prowess
with intellectual inquiry
o Contrapposto
 o Conforms to an ideal and natural understanding
▪ Fusion of emotion and reason/rationality

Architecture
• Greek temple
o Design - orders
o sculpture
o ties to humanism

Artistic periods
• transitions in appearance and meaning of figures, buildings
o Geometric to Hellenistic

Emergence of specific artists’ names

• Artist as recognized/respected figure in society
o Sculptors
o Architects
o ceramicists

Key art images-with star in slide show

III. Vocabulary words

Terms

Political
Polis-the city-state; usually walled and with a central citadel or acropolis

Ceramic
Meander - or key pattern around the rim of a vase
Black-figure painting-a style or technique of ancient Greek pottery in
which black figures are painted onto the red clay pot; details are
then engraved into painted layer
Red-figure painting-style or technique of ancient Greek vase painting
defined by a black background painted around the defined
figures; details are then drawn onto the figures. This style
allowed for more sense of form; dynamic interpretation of the
body
-Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
Amphora- jar with narrow neck, two handles used to hold oil or wine
Krater – two handled bowel used to mix wine with water

Greek Temple (architectural) Plans

Greek Temple orders - Doric order

- Ionic order
- Corinthian

Entasis- the swelling (convex profile) in the shaft of a column

Metope – space between two triglyphs on a Doric frieze often adorned with
carved work
Megaron - the reception hall of the king
Peristyle-a colonnade all around the cella and its porch
Peripteral – single row of columns on all sides
Dipteral – double row of columns on all sides
Amphiprostyle-four columns on front and back but not along the sides
Pronaos – inner area of a portico
Cella – area enclosed within walls of a temple
Stylobate – top step of a platform upon which temple sits

Human Figure
Contrapposto - (counterbalance) separates Classical from Archaic Greek
statuary.Example, Kritios boy
chiastic – cross balance in pose. Example, Spear Bearer by Polykleitos
Kouros-youth; plural, kouroi