Early Greece

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Early Greece

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Aegean Culture

• Cyclades Islands
• Bronze tools
• Imaginative/humorous pottery
• Marble statues/idols
• Peaceful fishing / agriculture society

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Bronze Age in Crete

• Arthur Evans, 1894-1900
• Crete
• King Minos / Knossos
• Early Minoan
• Increasing growth
• Scattered Towns

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• Image 1.22
• Palace of Minos at Knossos

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Middle Minoan

• Evolution of large urban centers
• Art lively and colorful
• Little interest in monumental art
• Writing system of hieroglyphic signs

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• Image 1.25
• Wasp Pendant

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Late Minoan

• Period of rebuilding after earthquakes
• High point of Minoan culture
• Linear A / Linear B writing
• Religion centered upon mother goddess connected
  with fertility

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• Image 1.27
• Snake Goddess

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• Image 1.28
• Funerary Mask

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Mycenaean Culture

• Heinrich Schliemann, 1870-1873
• The Trojan War (1250 B.C.E.)
• Strongly influenced by Minoan Culture
• Art preoccupied with death and war
• Fall of the Mycenaean empire (1200 B.C.E.)

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History of Early Greece

• Three Main Periods
• The Heroic Age
• The Age of Colonization
• The Archaic Period

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The Heroic Age

• Religious Worldview
• Civic (city-state deities)
• Private (chthonic deities)
• Urban Lifestyle
• Polis
• Acropolis
• Agora
• Human not divine Solutions

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• Image 2.1
• Zeus (Poseidon?)

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The Iliad The Odyssey

• the Homeric question
• Oral Tradition
• Epithets
• Iliad
• Theme of Human Responsibility
• Elaborate Similes
• Odyssey
• Return of the Epic Hero

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The Iliad

• Greeks
• Achilles
• Agamemnon
• Menelaus
• Helen
• Patroclus
• Trojans
• Hektor
• Paris
• Priam
• Key Players
• Thetis
• The Gods

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Themes

• Anger
• War
• Glory
• Honor

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The Odyssey

• Continues after the Trojan War
• Odysseus journey home to Ithica
• Heros returns despite trials

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Art and Heroic Age Society

• Painted Vases
• Protogeometric (1000-900 B.C.E.)
• Concentric circles, semi-circles
• Geometric (900-700 B.C.E.)
• Linear designs, the meander
• Human Forms (800 B.C.E.)
• Amphora /Amphorae

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Age of Colonization

• Prosperity of City-States
• Competition, Image
• Wealth Over-Population Colonization
• Italy, Sicily, Egypt, Asia Minor
• Trade and Cultural Exposure
• Orientalizing

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Visual Arts at Corinth and Athens

• Corinthian Art
• Eastern Motifs
• Commercially Successful
• Athenian Art
• Narrative style (Myth, Daily Life)
• Trade Rivalry Corinth vs. Athens

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The Beginnings of Greek Sculpture

• Heavy Egyptian influence
• Kore / Korai (Female)
• Kouros / Kouroi (Male)
• Increasing Realism, Naturalism
• Careful study of human anatomy
• Representation of Life and vigor

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Sculpture and Painting in the Archaic Period

• Tyrants / Artistic Patronage
• Artistic Developments
• Freestanding Figures
• The Archaic Smile
• Vase Painting
• Black- and Red-Figure Styles

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• Image 2.9
• Calf-Bearer

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• Image 2.13
• Kritios Boy

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• Image 2.15
• Euphronios, painter, Euxitheos, potter,
  red-figure calyx krater

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ArchitectureThe Doric Order

• Simple dignity
• No Base/20 flutes
• Capital
• Echinus, Abacus
• Entablature
• Architrave, frieze, triglyphs/metopes
• Cornice, Pediment

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• Image 2.16
• Basilica at Paestum

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ArchitectureThe Ionic Order

• Ornate, fanciful
• Tiered Base/24 flutes
• Capital
• Volutes
• 3-D Architraves
• Running Frieze

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Literature

• Lyric verse vs. Heroic verse
• Sappho
• Herodotus (Father of History)
• History of the Persian Wars
• Right over Might
• Hubris

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Protagoras

• Man is the measure of all things, of the
  existence of those that exist, and the
  nonexistence of those that do not
• First culture to be human-centered.

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Pre-Socratic Philosophy

• Materialists
• Explain phenomena through elements
• Thales water
• Anaxagoras reason
• Pythagoranism
• Mathematics - underlying principle of the
  universe / moral life

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Pre-Socratic Philosophy

• Dualists
• Two universes
• One of perfection - Reason (unseen)
• One of change (temporal)
• Atomists
• Unchanging Reality consists of small unseen
  particles (atoms) in the void

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Chapter 2 Discussion Questions

• What significant differences exist between the
  cultures of the iron age and those of the bronze
  age? Explain.
• Consider the role of religion in Early Greece.
  What does Early Greek theology suggest about the
  concerns of the society? Explain.
• What were the causes for and the results of Greek
  colonization? Cite specific examples.
• Explain the new directions of art in the Archaic
  Period. What do these changes suggest about the
  culture that was producing and patronizing this
  art?