Make a presentation (at least 20 slides) on Greek art.
8. GREEK ART
Greeks loved art and were very good at every artistic discipline:
Architecture:
They built their buildings at human scale following proportion and harmony.
They used to work with stone, mostly marble.
Their architecture does not use any arch or vault, it just uses architraves. Roofs are double-sloped.
They invented classical orders: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian.
There were many kinds of buildings:
- Temple: they were religious buildings with similar characteristics. The Parthenon of Athens in the main example.
- Theatre: plays were performed in them. They used to be at open-air. Delphi and Epidaurus have the best preserved theatres.
- Stoa: it was a commercial building with external galleries, such as the stoa of Athens.
Sculpture:
Greeks idealised beauty and represented humans.
There were three different stages with different characteristics:
Archaic:
- It used to be static and schematic.
- It was common the statues of kouroi (male nude athletes) and korai (dressed women).
Classical:
- Figures used to have much more movement.
- Statues were realistic, although quite idealised.
- There were famous sculptors in this period:
- Myron: Discobolus.
- Phidias: Reliefs of the Parthenon.
- Polykleitos: Doryphoros.
- Praxiteles: Hermes and the infant Dionysus.
- There was a lot of tension in the figures.
- Feelings and passions are expressed in these statues.
- There were four major schools:
- Pergamum: reliefs of the Great Altar of Zeus.
- Rhodes: Victory of Samothrace, Laocoon and his sons.
- Alexandria: Group of the Nile.
- Athens: Venus of Milo.
Painting:
Greek painting is mostly preserved on pottery.
They usually represent mythological episodes or sport competitions.
There are several stages in painting:
- Geometric style.
- Black-figure style.
- Red-figure style.
- Hellenistic style.
