GREEK HUMANISM The civilization of Ancient Greece emerged in the ninth century BCE and passed through five periods of intense artistic activity spanning more than 800 years. Through Greek colonization, it spread from the Greek mainland to Asia Minor (Western Turkey) and Magna Graecia (Southern Italy and Sicily). During the Hellenistic period, Greek art and culture were dominant throughout the Mediterranean.

Gods and humans: Even the gods of the Greeks, in marked contrast to the divinities of the Near East, assumed human forms whose grandeur and nobility were not free from human frailty. Greek origins: The Greeks, or Hellenes , as they called themselves, appear to have been the product of an intermingling of Aegean peoples and Indo-European invaders. They never formed a single nation but instead established independent city-states or poleis .

Olympia and Hellas: In 776 BCE, the separate Greek-speaking states held their first ceremonial games in common at Olympia. Athens and Greek culture: The distinctiveness and originality of Greek contributions to art, science, and politics should not, however, obscure the enormous debt Greek civilization owed to the earlier great cultures of Egypt and the Near East. Reassessing Greek civilization: Nor should a high estimation of Greek art and culture blind historians to the realities of Hellenic life and society. Many modern artists have rejected Greek standards.

Geometric & Orientalizing Art

Out of the Dark Age: Following the collapse of the Mycenaean (Late Helladic) civilization around 1200 BCE and the ensuing period of cultural decline and minor artistic activity known as the Dark Age, the first sign of a newly emerging Greek (Hellenic) culture was ceramic pottery decorated with geometric patterns in the ninth century. The destruction of the Mycenaean palaces was accompanied by the disintegration of the Bronze Age social order.

Geometric Art: In the eighth century, representations of animals begin to appear together with purely geometric patterns on painted ceramic pots. A little later, schematic human figures are seen depicted on very large ceramic vessels designed to serve as grave markers and to function in funerary rites. Small-scale sculptures of human figures, animals, and mythological creatures show the same geometric reduction of form.

Figure painting revived: Also during the eighth century, the human figure returned to Greek art-not, of course, in monumental statuary, which was exceedingly rare even in Bronze Age Greece, but painted on the surfaces of ceramic pots, which continued to be manufactured after the fall of Mycenae and even throughout the Dark Age.

Geometric Krater from the Dipylon cemetery, Athens ca. 740 B.C.E. ceramic 40 1/2 in. high

Hero and centaur ca. 750-730 B.C.E. bronze approximately 4 1/2 in. high Similar schematic figures also appeared in the round at this date, but only on a very small scale.

Votive Statuette of a Horse late 8th Century B.C.E. bronze approximately 3 in. high

Mantiklos Apollo ca. 700-680 B.C.E. bronze approximately 8 in. high One of the masterworks of the early seventh century BCE is the Mantiklos Apollo, a small, bronze statuette dedicated to Apollo at Thebes by an otherwise unknown man named Mantiklos.

Corinthian black-figure amphora ca. 625-600 B.C.E. ceramic approximately 1 ft. 2 in. high The appeal of such vases was not due solely to their Orientalizing animal friezes, but also to a new ceramic technique the Corinthians invented, which art historians call black-figure painting .

Black-figure painting is one of the most modern styles for adorning antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th BC, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd BC.

Greece's first stone temples: The foundation of the Greek trading colony of Naukratis in Egypt before 630 BCE brought the Greeks into direct contact with the monumental stone architecture of the Egyptians.

Plan of Temple A Prinias, Greece | ca. 625 B.C.E.

Lintel of Temple A Prinias, Greece ca. 625 B.C.E. | limestone | approximately 2 ft. 9 in. high

Lady of Auxerre, statue of a goddess or kore, ca. 650-625 B.C. Limestone, approx. 2' 11/2" high .

Archaic Art

Kourous ca. 600 B.C.E. marble 72 1/2 in. high

Calf Bearer (Moschophoros) from the Acropolis, Athens, Greece ca. 560 B.C.E. | Marble | 65 in. high

Kroisos from Anavysos, Greece ca. 530 B.C.E. | marble | 76 in. high

Peplos Kore from the Acropolis, Athens, Greece ca. 530 B.C.E. marble 48 in. high

Temple of Hera I Paestum, Italy ca. 550 B.C.E.

Temple of Hera I Paestum, Italy ca. 550 B.C.E.

Doric order Corinthian order Ionic order

Exekias Achilles and Ajax playing dice from Vulci, Italy ca. 540-530 B.C.E. ceramic approximately 2 ft. high

Andokides Painter Achilles & Ajax playing a dice game from Orvietto, Italy ca. 525-520 B.C.E. ceramic 21 in. high

Euphronios Herakles wrestling Antaios from Cerveteri, Italy | ca. 510 B.C.E. | ceramic 19 in. high

Euthymides Three revelers from Vulci, Italy ca. 510 B.C.E. ceramic approximately 2 ft. high

Temple of Aphaia Aegina, Greece ca. 500-490 B.C.E.

Temple of Aphaia Aegina, Greece ca. 500-490 B.C.E.

West pediment of the Temple of Aphaia Aegina, Greece ca. 500-490 B.C.E. marble approximately 5 ft. 8 in. high at center

Dying warrior from the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina, Greece ca. 500-490 B.C.E. marble approximately 5 ft. 2 1/2 in. long

Dying warrior from the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina, Greece ca. 490-480 B.C.E. marble approximately 6 ft. 1 in. long

Early Classical Art

Kritios Boy from the Acropolis, Athens, Greece ca. 480 B.C.E. marble 34 in. high

Warrior from the sea off Riace, Italy ca. 460-450 B.C.E. bronze 78 in. high

Zeus (or Poseidon?) from the sea off Cape Artemision, Greece ca. 460-450 B.C.E. bronze 82 in. high

Myron Diskobolus (Discus Thrower) ca. 450 B.C.E. Roman marble copy after a bronze original 61 in. high

Polykleitos Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) ca. 450-440 B.C.E. Roman marble copy after a bronze original 83 in. high

Polykleitos Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) ca. 450-440 B.C.E. 83 in. high