Art History Unit

AP ART HISTORY chapter 5 Greek Art ENDURING UNDERSTANDING •• •• •• Greek art is grounded in civic ideals and polytheism. Greek Art is characterized by a pantheon of gods celebrated in large civic and religious buildings. Contextual information for ancient Greece can be derived from contemporary literary, political, legal, and economic records as well as from archeological excavations condicted from the mid-18th century onward. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE • • • • • • Greek art is studied chronologically according to changes in style. Greek works are not studied according to dynastic rule, as in Egypt, but according to broad changes in stylistic patterns. Greek art is most known for it’s idealization and harmonic proportions, both in sculpture and in architecture. Greek art has had an important impact on European art, particularly in the eighteenth century. Greek writing contains some of the earliest contemporary accounts about art and artists, Epics form the foundation of Greek writing. The texts were at first transmitted orally, but later written down. ideas and concepts 1. Greek art is organized by styles that evolve from Geometric to Hellenistic. 2. Greek art was influenced by earlier Mediterranean cultures, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Minoan and Mycenean. 3. Greek citizens focused on rationality and reason, this is demonstrated in their sculptures and architectures as perfect mathematical proportions. 4. The development of the standing male nude in Greek sculpture. Note particularly the changing proportions, the depiction of motion, and the conception of the figure in space. 5. Stylistic conventions of the kouros. 6. The three classical orders of architecture. 7. Classical Art originates in Greece and is a foundation of all art history. 8. Greek sculpture is characterized by the idealizing of the human form, the beauty of the nude body, and the ability of figures to express a great range of emotions. 9. Greek temples become extremely influential in the development of European architecture. 10. Painting on Greek pottery echoes the development of Greek sculpture and forms virtually all our knowledge about Greek painting. vOCABULARY Aegean Arthur Evans ashlar masonry citadel corbeled vault Cycladic Cyclopean walls faience Heinrich Schliemann Helladic Knossos Labyrinth megaron Minoan Mycenaean relieving triangle repousse tholos Tiryns wet (or true) fresco abacus agora Amazonamachy amphora Apollo architrave caryatid cella centaur chryselephantine colonnade contrapposto Delian League encaustic engobe entasis foreshortening gigantomachy Hera Herakles Homer kore kouros lekythos Lord Elgin naos Nike pediment Pericles peristyle Propylaia stoa triglyph Vitruvius volute AP ART HISTORY journal Greek Art Doryphoros (3.1, 2.3, 1.2) Parthenon (3.1, 2.3, 3.3) CONTEXT The collapse of Aegean society around 1100 BCE left a vacuum in the Greek world until a reorganization took place around 900 BCE in the form of city-states. Places like Sparta, Corinth, and Athens defined Greek civilization in that they were small, competing political entities that were united only in language and the fear of outsiders. In the Fifth century BCE the Persians threatened to swallow Greece, and the city-states rallied behind Athens’ leadership to expel them. This was accomplished, but not before Athens itself was destroyed in 480 BCE. After the Persians were effectively neutralized, the Greeks then turned, once again, to bickering among themselves. The worst of these internal struggles happened during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) when Athens was crushed by Sparta. Without an effective core, Greek states continued to struggle for another century. This did not end until the reign of Alexander the Great, who in the fourth century BCE briefly untied the Macedonians and Greeks, by establishing a mighty empire that eventually toppled the Persians. But because Alexander died young and left no clear successor, his empire crumbled away soon after his death. The remnants of Greek civilization lasted for another hundred years or so, until it was eventually absorbed by Rome.