Introduction to Greek Art

Introduction

Greek art developed from two major influences, art from Northern European settlers/invaders and from imported art from Egypt and the Middle East. The early art from settlers shows no counterpart in Egypt and the Middle East. It is covered in the Proto-Greek Art gallery.

Around twelve to ten centuries BC a major cultural disruption occurred in Greece, the Cycladic islands and as far South as Crete. For unknown reasons, an unknown force invaded, destroyed and burned Mycenæn cities. Greece entered a dark age from which emerged the Greek city states. A new culture emerged based largely on the old gods and myths operating in the context of independent city states. This meant that new local gods emerged dedicated to protecting each city. These city states experimented in methods of governance including: autocracy (with both tyrants and philosopher kings), rule by the few, and democracy.

The Greeks are the "classic" model of art which every empire since has considered the ideal model for art. However, like Egyptian art, most Greek art is really practical art since it was mostly designed to be put in temples, as a dedication to the gods. Sculptors were not highly valued; they were like carpenters, you hire them to get a job done. A few great sculptors were recognized for their capabilities, but the Greeks put the most value on ideas and literature not on things.

Like Egyptian and Roman art, statues were used for worship, and many people believed them to be alive. That you could offend a statue or please it was part of the world view of the ancient world. Perhaps it is more correct to say you might offend the deity the statue represented, but for many ancient people this academic distinction had no meaning; the statue itself was the deity.

Much of how we "understand" the world is framed by the myths which are accepted by the culture as a whole. Thus, in a highly Christian place, like the European Middle Ages, believers saw every event as a result of God's meddling in human lives. Everything was explained by God's law and was being done for God's reason. In Egypt the myth was different, one could control the gods by offering a gift at a temple where the particular god in that temple would control what you needed. Kings, being rich, tended to build temples as their gifts to please the gods and thus protect or enrich the country and themselves.

The same mystic principal existed in Greece, but one tried to influence the god by offering wealth to the priests, or if one was poorer an offering of food or drink. Many left a statue dedicated to the god for a special favor that was answered or anticipated. The statue could be an image of the god or less grand the image of a youth to serve him. These statues of youths are called kouros, and they almost universally have the same form although the faces and proportions probably reflected a living youth.

Kouros from Attica
around 525 BC

So to understand the importance of these statues to a Greek person living a century or so before Christ, one has to mentally put oneself into a different world and let the magic of art take over. Are things going badly for you? Pray and offer to the statue! And it may take over, and may help you through a difficult time in life.

From earliest times statues were always painted to make the look real. One could almost believe that they were alive. Almost never in a modern museum will you see a painted Greek statue. The two statues below have been restored to a way in which they might have originally looked. Below them are unpainted copies.

Feel free to download and color these or other Greek statues and paint them as you feel they might have looked. If you feel your result is worth including in the museum, send it to us and we will make a gallery of painted Greek sculpture. We will meet these statues again in their historical context as survey the development of Greek art.

Praxiteles: Apollo as Lizard Hunter [Roman copy - repainted] about 330bc	Herakles [from Temple of Aphaia at Aegina] about 490bc

In Greek art men and gods are often presented nude; women and goddesses are almost always presented dressed, with the common exception of Aphrodite. This reflected the realities of ancient Greek culture. Women were highly protected and relatively isolated until marriage, and even then they were kept in the background. Aphrodite was the goddess of sexual love and she is inevitably shown nude with hands coyly covering her breasts and genitalia.

Since men were kept away from women until marriage and the sexual drive of young men is strong, it became common for young men to take teenagers as sexual partners. This pederasty was accepted as the norm and most of the Greek gods have stories involving their male sex affairs: Zeus, king of the gods, married to Hera, has his boy friend Ganymede; Apollo and Zephreus compete for the beautiful boy Hyacinthus. Because a gay relationship was an accepted part of growing up there was no guilt associated with it. However, even in ancient Greek culture it was considered odd for a male couple to settle down for a life partnership together, eventual marriage to a woman was the norm. Sexual dalliance with a boy after marriage was considered normal, but playing around with someone else's wife was considered bad form.

The Greeks were always fighting, if not one another, they were fighting the Persians or Carthaginians. Each of the major city states dominated Greece at one time or another. But each city state retained it's own individuality even when dominated by another city. Athens and Sparta were traditional rivals. Sparta was a city state that raised its young men as warriors (and completely separated from women and family) primarily to create an army to dominate Athens.

Greek Myths and Heroes

Greek myths formed the cement of Greek culture. In unified the Greeks and gave them a common world view. The Olympian gods, mostly the children and grand-children of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, were the center of the Greek religion.

Olympian Gods

More about the Greek Gods and the HOMR

Greek History, Literature, and Language

Art in Tigertail Museum	Period	Events	Perseus Literary Sources for Myths and History
Proto Greek Culture	Neolithic (6000-3000 BC)	Possible worship of fertility mother-goddesses
	Minoan (3000-1500 BC)	"Minoan" culture on Crete with large population and rich palace-centers. Did not speak Greek.
	Middle Bronze Age (2000-1700 BC)	Large-scale invasions of Greek-speaking patriarchal peoples into mainland Greece.	(Linear A - still undeciphered)
	Late Bronze Age (Mycenaean) (1700-1100 BC)	Island development under Minoan influence peak and decline (after 1250 BC) of "Mycenaean" culture in mainland Greece.	(Linear B script used for palace records)
Archaic	"Dark Age" (transition to Iron Age) (1100-850 BC)	Break-up of Mycenaean civilization; Greek settlements throughout the Aegean Islands and the coast of Asia Minor. The Historic Greek War against Troy?
	Early Archaic Period (850-725 BC)	Redevelopment of overseas trade. Alphabetic script adapted from Phoenician in Greece, ca 750.	Homer: Iliad, 750? Odyssey, 725-700?
	Middle Archaic (725-610 BC)	Emergence of the classical Greek city-states, governed by family groups or dictators (mainly 7th-6th century),or democracies (begun by Athens, 5th century)	Hesiod: Theogony, Works & Days, ca 680? Homeric Hymns, lost Cyclic Epics. Bacchylides: Odes 5th - 6th century?
Classic	Late Archaic (610-510 BC)		Aeschylus, 525-456,
	Persian War (510-450		Pindar of Thebes, 518-428;
	High Classical Period (450-323 BC)	Greek city-states flourish until overshadowed by the powerful Macedonian kings. Philip of Macedon rules Greece; his son Alexander campaigns as far east as India, conquering Persia and Egypt, before dying in 323 BC	Sophocles, 495-405; Euripides, 480-406 Herodotus, ca 484-425 Plato, 428-347 Demosthenes, 384-322
Hellenistic	Hellenistic Period (323-146 BC); Roman Republic (to 44 BC)	323: On Alexander's death, The empire fragments into Greek monarchies in Macedonia, Syria and Egypt. Roman overseas expansion begins in 208 BC; Merging of Roman myth & religion with the Greek Olympians. Greece becomes a Roman province. The Roman Republic ends with a seizure of power by Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BC)	Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, 3rd-2nd century BC
	Roman Empire (31 BC on)	Augustus, 31 BC - to 14 AD	Virgil, 70-19 BC Livy, 59 BC - ?? AD Ovid, 43 BC 18 AD
		Julio-Claudian emperors & successors	Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC), Apollodorus, 1st century AD Plutarch, ca 45 AD -ca 125 AD Pausanias, 115 AD - 180 AD
		312 AD - Conversion of Constantine to Christianity.

Greek literature in English translation that is in the public domain is listed in the fourth column. It is all available from:

Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu .

However, their site is awkward to use and extremely slow. The Perseus site's organization and realization seems a little (if not a lot) ill conceived. -- ed.