Greek Art and Culture

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Greek Art and Culture
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Greek Art and Culture

• Concerned with creating the perfect individual
• Balance between the intellectual and physical
  (beauty and harmony)
• Human form was focal point of art
• Greeks encouraged all forms of art
• Broken into three periods
• -Archaic 600-480 BCE
• -Classic 480-323 BCE
• -Hellenistic 323-150 BCE

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Greek Sculpture

• Pre-Archaic-Rigid, did not represent
• real people
• Archaic-Less natural and realistic,
• more idealized, from observation
• Classic- Arts flourished after war-
• worked in bronze-very natural-still a
• bit rigid and severe
• Hellenistic- Began after a war
• disrupted Classical Greece-more
• concerned with action and emotion

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The Kritios Boy

• 480 BCE Marble 310 Late Archaic/Early
  Classic Period Acropolis
  Museum, Athens
• -Amazing because he actually stands-not held by a
  block
• -Arms are free, not bound by part of the original
  stone
• -Weight rest mainly on the left leg- relaxed
  stance
• -contrapposto- Technique of sculpting the human
  figure in a pose that puts the weight of the body
  in balance. Weight is on one leg with shoulders
  and hips in counterbalance of each other
  naturally so that the figure does not fall over.
• -Shows that artist understood that different body
  parts work as a system
• -Brings the sculpture to life

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Charioteer of Delphi

• 470 BCE Bronze Classic Period 71
• Archaeological Museum, Delphi Found
  1896
• -originally stood on chariot drawn by four
  horses
• - The sculpture depicts the driver of the
  chariot race at the moment when he presents his
  chariot and horses to the spectators in
  recognition of his victory.
• - meant to honor Apollo
• -bronze cast in section and then put
  together
• -inclined slightly to one side
• -left arm missing
• -inlaid glass in the eyes with copper and
  silver accents around the eyes and head

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Nike of Samothrace

• 190 BCE Hellenistic Period Marble 8
  The Louvre, Paris
• forward movement
• Right arm was forward but they were never
  recovered
• notable for its naturalistic pose and for the
  rendering of the figure's draped garments
• Fun Fact- The Rolls Royce radiator figurine,
  Spirit of Ecstasy,
• is based on the Nike
• Probably celebrating a naval victory
• Probably stood on the prow of a ship overlooking
  the Sanctuary of the Great Gods