Greek art

The city of Athens, according to one version of the story, was responsible for the death of King Minos' son, Androgeus, and had to pay a tribute to the King of Crete of seven of the best and most noble youths and seven of the finest and most virtuous maidens every year who would be sent to Crete aboard a ship with black sails, cast into the labyrinth deep within the palace of Minos, and be eaten by the Minotaur. Theseus, son of King of Aegeus of Athens, volunteered to end the tribute by taking his place among the youths and killing the Minotaur. With the help of King Minos' daughter, Ariadne, Theseus succeeded in slaying the monster and fled with Ariadne back toward Athens, leaving Ariadne behind on the island of Naxos (whether by accident or on purpose depends on which version of the story one reads). Theseus was supposed to change the black sails of the ship to white so that King Aegeus would know his son lived and had conquered the Minotaur. Theseus forgot, however, and his father, seeing the ship with the black sails, hurled himself off a cliff into the sea in grief and was drowned (the sea became known as the Aegean, after him). Ariadne, who was forgotten on the island, was later comforted by Dionysos.

Cretean art

Throne room
Shrine

Kings megaron

Queens megaron

Knossos palace reconstruction

Knossos palace

Knossos, the throne room

The queens megaron

Bull leaping, tauromachia

Bull leaper, Knossos

 Prince with lilies Knossos

Bull head, Knossos

Kouros, the statue of a young male

Smashed and burnt male deity from Paliakastro

Made of ivory, amazingly detailed depiction with muscles and veins

- break with the traditional female deity after the disastrous earthquake in Thera, which affected the whole area bringing famine and chaos - can be seen as evidence of a struggle between the old and new faiths and practices - it marks the end of the Cretean civilisation

Creatan hyeroglyphics

Linear B Linear A

While Linear B can be accurately read as an archaic Greek dialect, it remains unknown which language(s) either Linear A or Minoan hieroglyphics represented. Eventually, their successful decoding may shed invaluable historical insights on the specific details of Minoan daily life, including trade, farming, administrative practices, ritual, and perhaps names of individuals, rulers, and datable events.

map

Mycenean art

vocabulary

Mycenean citadel, The lion gate

The citadel of Mycenae was probably the greatest and the largest of all the Mycenaean cities. The city walls were immense, incredibly thick, and consisting of several ton boulders. The Lion Gate of Mycenae, is one of the few examples of a decorated entranceway in the Bronze Age on mainland Greece. The space above the lintel is filled with a sculptured image of two lions on either side of a Minoan style column. Underground tunnels were built to wells and springs at both Mycenae and Tiryns in preparation for sieges.

Mycenean grave circle

Five royal tombs were found in the grave circle with rich finds

Funerary mask

Diadem

Treasure from the tombs

Gold cup

Mycenaean civilization was dominated by a warrior aristocracy. Around 1400 BC, the Mycenaeans extended their control to Crete, center of the Minoan civilization, and adopted a form of the Minoan script to write their early form of Greek in Linear B. We call this language and culture Achean. Not only did the Mycenaeans defeat the Minoans, but according to later legend they defeated Troy, presented in Homer s epic as a city-state that rivaled Mycenae in power. Troy was an important trade post between Asia Minor and Europe and played a key role in controlling the Aegean sea, its trade and natural resources. Moreover, according to recent discoveries, Troy was a Hittite vazal state, so Hittites were also involved in the war.

Mycenean tomb, a beehive tomb

Inside

Womens rituals - scene from a gold cup

Eleusinian mysteries Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance.It is acknowledged that their basis was an old agrarian cult which probably goes back to the Mycenean period (c.1600-1100 BC) and it is believed that the cult of Demeter was established in 1500 BC.The mysteries represented the myth of the abduction of Persephone from her mother Demeter by the king of the underworld Hades,in a cycle with three phases,the "descent" (loss),the "search" and the "ascent",with main theme the "ascent" of Persephone and the reunion with her mother.It was a major festival in Greece and later spread to Rome. The rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept secret and consistently preserved from a hoary antiquity. Since the Mysteries involved visions and conjuring of an afterlife, some scholars believe that the power and longevity of the Eleusinian Mysteries came from psychedelic agents

More: http://www.pantheon.org/articles/e/eleusinian_mysteries.html

Persephone was the daughter of the goddess Demeter. One day Persephone was dancing with her friends in a sunny meadow, having a good time, picking flowers. Suddenly Persephone's spooky uncle Hades burst out of the ground and grabbed her and pulled her into his chariot! He took Persephone under the ground to his kingdom, the land of the dead, and told her that he wanted her to be the Queen of the Underworld and marry him. Persephone was very sad there under the ground. She wanted to go up into the sunshine again. But Hades would not let her. Persephone was so sad that she would not eat nor drink. Meanwhile, back up in the land of the living, Persephone's mother Demeter was looking everywhere for her and could not find her. She cried and cried. Finally she went to her brother Zeus, who was also Persephone's father, and asked him to help find Persephone. Zeus, sitting way up there on top of Mount Olympus, was able to see where Persephone was. He told Hades to give her back. But Hades said he would only give Persephone back if she had really not eaten or drunk anything from the land of the dead. Persephone had not eaten much, but it turned out she HAD eaten six pomegranate seeds. So they agreed that Persephone could spend six months a year above ground with her mother, but she would have to spend the other six months in the land of the dead with her uncle/husband. And that is how it has been since then, according to the story: that's why we have the seasons.

architectural predecessor of the classical Greek temple. It was used for poetry, feasts, worship, sacrifice, formal royal functions, councils, and is said to be where guests of the king would stay during their visits.

The Greek Pantheon

Greek mythology

Hsziodosz: Istenek szletse: http://mek.niif.hu/06200/06221/06221.htm

THE TWELVE OLYMPIAN GODS The Greek Pantheon was ruled by a council of twelve great gods known as the Olympians, namely Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athene, Hephaistos, Ares, Aphrodite, Apollon, Artemis, Hermes, Dionysos, and sometimes Hestia. These twelve gods demanded worship from all their subjects. Those who failed to honour any one of the Twelve with due sacrifice and libation were duly punished. Directly and through a host of divine minions the Twelve gods governed all aspects of human life.

Zeus

Hera

Poseidon

Demeter (from Knidos)

Athene

Hephaistos The smith god

Ares the god of War Artemis the goddess of hunting

Apollo

Aphrodite (Venus of Milo

Dionysos with Ariadne Dionysos with Ariadne

For the Greeks, Dionysos was a fertility god like Demeter. But while Demeter was the goddess of dry things growing, like grain, Dionysos was the god of wet things growing, like fruit of all kinds, but especially grapes (and the wine that people made from grapes). In fact, Dionysos is in some ways more like Persephone than like Demeter, because he is often thought of as being the wine itself, just as Persephone is the wheat. For instance, when people drank wine, they said that they were taking the god into their own bodies, and when they became tipsy, they said that the god had taken over their minds and hearts. The Greek word for this is "enthusiastic", en= in and thus = god, taking the god into you. You were not really responsible for things you did while you were drunk, because the god made you do them. He is the son of Zeus, and a mortal woman. The story goes that Zeus and Semele were in love, and she was going to have his baby, and he was so happy about it that he told her (foolishly) that he would give her whatever she wished for. Semele wished to see Zeus in his true form, but Zeus' true form is that of a lightning bolt! That would kill her! Zeus tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted. So he had to do it. But when he appeared right next to her as a lightning bolt, of course she was killed. Zeus managed to rescue their unborn child and sewed the baby up in his own leg until it was born, and that was the baby Dionysos

Greek archaic art

One difference between the ancient and modern Olympic Games is that the ancient games were played within the context of a religious festival. The Games were held in honour of Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, and a sacrifice of 100 oxen was made to the god on the middle day of the festival. Athletes prayed to the gods for victory, and made gifts of animals, produce, or small cakes, in thanks for their successes. Individuals and communities donated buildings, statues, altars and other dedications to the god. The most spectacular sight at Olympia was the gold and ivory cult statue of Zeus enthroned, which was made by the sculptor Pheidias and placed inside the temple. The statue was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and stood over 42 feet high. A spiral staircase took visitors to an upper floor of the temple, for a better view of the statue. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGfh6ZFmvto

Film : Olympia

Kalokagathia: Sound mind in a sound body

back

Archaic smile

The classical period

Pericles: Our constitution does not copy the laws of other states: we are a model for others, not their imitators. The city's government favours the many rather than the few, that's why it is called a democracy. Our laws provide equal justice for all. Success in public life depends on ability and merit, not on social origin and class. Nor does poverty impede anyones advancement

 Caryatides Acropolis Erechteion

Akropolis,Parthenon, Doric order, designed by Iktinos and decorated by Phidias

notes

Beam, bearer - trm

Parthenon reconstruction
tympanon

Ground plan

megaron

 Naos (cella) Athene, made by Phidias (restoration)

 Phidias Athene

Parthenon friezes:Poseidon, Apollo, and Artemis

The metopes of the Parthenon all represented various instances of the struggle between the forces of order and justice, on the one hand, and criminal chaos on the other. On the west side, the mythical battle against the Amazons (Amazonomachy); on the south, the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs (Centauromachy); on the east, the battle between the gods and the giants (Gigantomachy); on the north, the Greeks versus the Trojans. Of the panels the best preserved are those showing the Centauromachy

Statue of a kouros. Parian marble. Found in Anavissos, Aticca. The body is powerful and articulate, with emphasized musculature. The statue was funerary and stood on the grave of Kroisos, as is indicated by the epigram on the base: Stop and mourn at the grave of Kroisos, whom the raging Ares destroyed when he fought among the defenders.About 530 B.C.

 Bronze statue Classical period

Myron:Discobolos

 Polykleitos Doryphoros Spear Bearer

Conrapost

 Praxiteles:Aphrodite of Knidos

 Front view, Different copy

 Venus de Milo
Venua z Milo

Compare:

Greek phylosophers Socrates, the gad fly of Athens, was remarkable for living the life he preached. Taking no fees, Socrates started and dominated an argument wherever the young and intelligent would listen, and people asked his advice on matters of practical conduct and educational problems. He challenged his students to think for themselves to use their minds to answer questions. He did not reveal answers. He did not reveal truth. Many of his questions were, on the surface, quite simple: what is courage? what is virtue? what is goodness? But what Socrates discovered, and what he taught his students to discover, was that most people could not answer these fundamental questions to his satisfaction, yet all of them claimed to be courageous, virtuous and good. What he demanded from people was to doubt ready-made answers, think over basic questions and not to be satisfied with banalities . The questions he asked, Socrates couldnt answer himself: "I know that I do not know. The source of his wisdom lay upon constant inquiring, asking good questions, making people think, stimulate them to improve their mind and soul. The unexamined life is not worth living." In 399 B.C., Socrates was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth by a jury of five hundred of his fellow citizens. He was convicted to death. He could have avoided his fate, but refused to escape, because he didnt want to break the law. He argued that a righteous person has to respect the law, even if convicted unjustly.

Plato Socrates wrote nothing himself. Our knowledge of Socrates comes to us from numerous dialogues which Plato wrote after 399. In nearly every dialogue and there are more than thirty that we know about Socrates is the main speaker. Plato was influenced by Socrates but he looked for something more permanent and general than the individual quest for knowledge and truth.

Plato argued that reality is known only through the mind. There is a higher world, independent of the world we may experience through our senses. Because the senses may deceive us, it is necessary that this higher world exist, a world of Ideas or Forms -- of what is unchanging, absolute and universal. Because we trust our senses, we are like prisoners in a cave we mistake shadows on a wall for reality. The Allegory of the cave presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually; (his idea that knowledge cannot be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his faith that the universe ultimately is good; his conviction that enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and that a good society must be one in which the truly wise - the Philosopher-King are the rulers). Plato about art:

Plato about art: His definition of art - imitation of appearance follows from Plato's three-way differentiation: 1. Form (of couch, of table) made by a god. 2. Individual things (couches, tables) made by artisans. 3. Paintings (of couch or table) made by painters - imitators.

Platos most famous student was ARISTOTLE (384-322 B.C.). His father was the personal physician to Philip of Macedon and Aristotle was, for a time at least, the personal tutor of Alexander the Great. He was a famous polymath with a wide range of knowledge from science, philosophy, to art and ethics. He was more empirically-minded than Plato, believed in experience and observation, rather than the world of ideas. Aristotle was convinced that the world of ideas is not given, we have to get there, we have to get to forms or abstractions by experience and intellectual work. For Aristotle the idea of the world of forms is too passive. The Metaphysics is considered to be one of the greatest philosophical works. Its influence on the Greeks, the Arabs, the scholastic philosophers and even writers such as Dante, was immense. It is essentially a reconciliation of Platos theory of Forms that Aristotle acquired at the Academy in Athens, with the view of the world given by common sense and the observations of the natural sciences. According to Plato, the real nature of things is eternal and unchangeable. However, the world we observe around us is constantly and perpetually changing. In every change there is something which persists through the change and something else which did not exist before, but comes into existence as a result of the change. Aristotle says that it is matter that underlies the change. The matter has the form , which is relatively constant. Thus all the things around us, all substances, are composites of two radically different things: form and matter.

Aristotle was the first to classify areas of human knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics, biology, and ethics. Some of these classifications are still used today. As the father of the field of logic, he was the first to develop a formalized system for reasoning. Aristotle observed that the validity of any argument can be determined by its structure rather than its content. A classic example of a valid argument is his syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore, Socrates is mortal. Given the structure of this argument, as long as the premises are true, then the conclusion is also guaranteed to be true. Aristotle thought that art involved imitation (mimesis), One famous element of his aesthetics is his theory of the katharsis, or purging of the emotions "through pity and fear", that is accomplished by a tragedy.

Hellenistic period
The conquests of Alexander the Great Alexandria library - collection of ancient knowledge Big cities Cosmopolitism

Hellenistic period (a Roman copy of a Greek painting)

 Apollo Belveder Cca 330 BC

 Laokoon Hellenistic period

Dying Gaul (Celt)

 Gaul and his wife committing suicide

Revision

Throne room
Shrine

Kings megaron

Queens megaron

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

Mi a mimzis 1 s a katarzis?

Mi a kalokagathia? 2

Ki volt Athn bglye? 3 Hogyan jellemeznd a grg vallst s kultrt? 4

Roman art

Etruscan tomb with tools and kitchen utensils

smile

Etruscan sarcophagus

Etruscan sarcophagus

Roman temple

Arches, aquaducts

Domes

Pantheon

The inscription across the front of the Pantheon says: MAGRIPPALFCOSTERTIUMFECIT or in full, "M[arcus] Agrippa L[ucii] f[ilius] co[n] s[ul] tertium fecit," meaning "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, made this building when consul for the third time. However, archaeological excavations have shown that the Pantheon of Agrippa had been completely destroyed except for the facade, and Emperor Hadrian was responsible for rebuilding the Pantheon on the site of Agrippa's original temple.There had been two earlier buildings on the same spot, for which the new Pantheon was a replacement.

Interior, dome, coffer ceiling

Barrel vault and groin vault

Groin vault construction was first exploited by the Romans, but then fell into relative obscurity in Europe until the resurgence of quality stone building brought about by Carolingian and Romanesque architecture

Colosseum Arcades

An arcade is a succession of arches, each counter thrusting the next, supported by columns or piers

 Colosseum motif

Triumph Arch of Constantine, Rome

Portraits

Vespazian

Augustus

Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius, equestrian statue

Old Fisherman

2nd century Roman copy of Hellenistic original Black Marble and Alabaster

Roman funerary relief

Relief types:
Classical Greek

High relief is where in general more than half the mass of the sculpted figure projects from the background, indeed the most prominent elements of the composition, especially heads and limbs, are often completely undercut, detaching them from the field.

Ancient Persian bas-relief, from 5th century BC

A bas-relief or low relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief.

Sunk or sunken relief is largely restricted to the art of Ancient Egypt where it is very common, becoming after the Amarna period of Ahkenaten the dominant type used, as opposed to low relief. It had been used earlier, but mainly for large reliefs on external walls, and for hieroglyphs and cartouches. The image is made by cutting the relief sculpture itself into a flat surface. In a simpler form the images are usually mostly linear in nature, like hieroglyphs, but in most cases the figure itself is in low relief, but set within a sunken area shaped round the image, so that the relief never rises beyond the original flat surface.

Two thousand years before modernism, artists in Egypt painted some of the most arresting portraits in the history of art Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Oldest-ModernistPaintings.html#ixzz21qjLCNTO The Mysterious Fayum Portraits (Roman conquest period)

Matisse 20th C

Gauguin 19th C

Fayum portraits:

Gauguin

Fayum portrait

Compare: Rodin: "Man with a Broken Nose," 1864

Hellenistic scupture, 2nd century

Pompei

Graffiti

 Pompeii frescoes

 The three Graces

 Erotic art A bedroom in Pompeii

Still life

Villa of the Mysteries

Mysteries - initiation

Represantation of space, illusionistic paintings

Illusion and reality

Ancient science

The end

Allegory of the cave, extract Socrates] And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. [Glaucon] I see. [Socrates] And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent. [Glaucon] You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. [Socrates] Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? [Glaucon] True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? [Socrates] And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows? [Glaucon] Yes, he said.

The Parthenon itself replaced an older temple of Athena, which historians call the Pre-Parthenon or Older Parthenon, that was destroyed in the Persian invasion of 480 BC. The temple is archaeoastronomically aligned to the Pleiades.[4] Like most Greek temples, the Parthenon was used as a treasury. For a time, it served as the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. In the 5th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After the Ottoman Turk conquest, it was turned into a mosque in the early 1460s, and it had a minaret built in it. On 26 September 1687, an Ottoman Turk ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures.

Vocabulary
Veil-zvoj Still life-ziie Barrel vault-valen klenba Groin vault-krov klenba Skeleton-kostra Tribute-sarc-da Trojans-Trjania Beehive Sacrificed- obetovan Walls hradby Deceased- zosnul Ivory-slonovina
Triumphal arch- vitazny oblk Coffer ceiling-kazetovy strop Niche-vklenok Bridge over- preklenutie priestoru Initiation-zasvtenie Funerary mask-pohrebn maska Abduction nos Execution-poprava Fell into obscurity- upadol do zabudnutia Ash- popo Petrified lava- skamenen lva

31-14

Augustus Tiberius Gaius (Caligula) Claudius

NOTES

14-37 37-41 41-54

54-68

Nero 68 C. Iulius Vindex 68 L. Clodius Macer

68-69

Galba C. Nymphidius Sabinus

69 69 69-79 79-81

Otho Vitellius Vespasian Titus

81-96

Domitian 89 L. Antonius Saturninus

96-98 98-117

Nerva Trajan

117-138

Hadrian

The basis for this myth The basis of Greek mythology Greek mythology, e.g. , the story about the Minotaur contains a number of True facts: the labyrinth rivalry between city states the names of some rulers: Minos, Aegeus Stone bowl Long-lasting war Impiety-necta k bohom Fencky vplyv Tribute-sarc- da, vojensk da Ivory-slonovina Sarcophagi (gai)

A frieze (pronounced FREEZE) is a long narrow band of sculpture that runs along the architraveof a Greek temple or another building. One of the most famous friezes is the one on the Parthenon inAthens, Greece
Usually Greek and Roman temples had either a frieze or alternating triglyphs andmetopes in this location, but occasionally (as in theParthenon) a temple might have both.

Alexander the Great

Ancient Macedonian tomb-Anthemion, 300 BC tympanum

Development of Greek sculpture

Signs of perpective

The market gate of Miletus (Berlin)

Salvador Dali Venus de Milo with Drawers, detail, Chicago

Treasure house
Treasure House of the Athenians, Delphi. Greek cities erected such treasure houses to store war spoils dedicated to the gods. The Treasure House of the Athenians contained spoils from the battle of Marathon (490-489 BCE). Marble. 6.90 x 10 m

 At some point in the war Achilles and Ajax were playing a board game (petteia) They were absorbed in the game and oblivious to the surrounding battle.The Trojans attacked and reached the heroes, who were only saved by an intervention of Athena

Victorious Youth Greek, 300-100 BC

This bronze statue of a Greek youth fresh from his victory at the Olympic Games is one of the few life-size Greek bronzes to survive since antiquity. It was found in international waters off the coast of Italy.

http://www.historyguide.org/ancient/lecture 8b.html