Introduction

Greek Timeline

•Before Greek culture took root in Greece,early civilizations thrived on the Greekmainland and the Aegean Islands.

•The two main cultures were the peacefulMinoans and warring Myceanaeans, whoare distinguished by their uniquearchitecture and material culture.

•Greek culture began to develop duringthe Geometric, Orientalizing, and Archaicperiods, which lasted from 900 to 480BCE. During this time the population ofcity-states began to grow, panhellenictraditions were established, and art andarchitecture began to reflect Greekvalues.

•The Early, High, and Late Classical periods in Greece occurred from 480 to 323 BCE. During these periods, Greece flourished and the polis of Athens saw its Golden Age under the leadership of Pericles. However, city-state rivalries lead to wars, and Greece was never truly stable until conquered.

•The Hellenistic period in Greece is the last period before Greek culture becomes a subset of Roman hegemony. This period occurs from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, to the Greek defeat at the Battle of Actium in 30 BCE.It marks the spread of Greek culture across the Mediterranean.

• Ancient Greek culture is noted for its government, art,architecture, philosophy, and sport, all of which becamefoundations for modern western society. It was admiredand adopted by others, including Alexander the Great andthe Romans.

• Geometric Art 900 – 700 BCE

• Orientalizing Art 700 – 600 BCE

• Archaic Art 600 – 480 BCE

• Classical Art 480 – 400 BCE

• Late Classical Art 400 – 320 BCE

• Hellenistic Art 320 – 30 BCE

• Greek art began in the Cycladic and Minoan pre-

historical civilization, and gave birth to Western classical

art in the ancient period (further developing this during

the Hellenistic Period).

• Greek art is mainly five forms: architecture, sculpture,

painting, pottery and jewellery making.

As the result of its relative durability, pottery is a large part of the archaeological record of Ancient Greece, and because there is so much of it (some 100,000 vases are recorded in the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum) it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society.

Little survives, for example, of ancient Greek painting except for what is found on the earthenware in everyday use, so we must trace the development of Greek art through its vestiges on a derivative art form.

Nevertheless the shards of pots discarded or buried in the first millennium BC are still the best guide we have to the customary life and mind of the ancient Greeks

Protogeometric styles

Vases of protogeometrical period (c. 1050-900 BC.) The style is confined to the rendering

of circles, triangles, wavy lines and arcs, but placed with evident consideration and

notable dexterity, probably aided by compass' and multiple brush.

Geometric styleGeometrical art flourished in the 9th and 8th centuries BC. It was characterized

by new motifs, breaking with the iconography of the Minoan and Mycenaean

periods: meanders, triangles and other geometrical decoration (from whence

the name of the style) as distinct from the predominantly circular figures of the

previous style.

Orientalizing style

The orientalizing style was the product of cultural ferment in the Aegean and

Eastern Mediterranean of the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Fostered by trade links

with the city-states of Asian Minor the artifacts

It was characterized by an expanded vocabulary of motifs: sphinx, griffin, lions,

etc., as well as a repertory of non-mythological animals arranged in friezes

across the belly of the vase. In these friezes, painters also began to apply

lotuses or palmettes.

Black figure

The black-figure period coincides approximately with the

era middle to late Archaic, from c. 620 to 480 BC. The

technique of incising silhouetted figures with enlivening

detail which called the black-figure.

Red Figure

The innovation of the red-figure technique was an Athenian invention of the late

6th century. The ability to render detail by direct painting rather than incision

offered new expressive possibilities to artists such as three-quarter profiles,

greater anatomical detail and the representation of perspective.

• The Canon is a theoretical work that discusses ideal mathematical proportions for the parts of the human body and proposes for sculpture of the human figure a dynamic counterbalance—between the relaxed and tensed body parts and between the directions in which the parts move. ("Polykleitos")

• Polykleitos created his method around 450 BCE and called it “The Canon” coming from the Greek word kanon meaning measure, rule, or law. To prove his theory, Polykleitos created a heroic bronze statue of Achilles. Sadly, this statue was destroyed but since it was so widely known, many sculptors redid it. The most commonly known replica is called the Spear Bearer (Doryphoros). Diadumenus and Doryphoros are known only through Roman copies. (Stockstad 110) ("Polykleitos")

• Because the statue had been destroyed, scholars spent their time studying the replicas that had been made by Romans to try to find the constant measurement seen in the Canon. They believed that the Canon was based on a ratio of units and the length of various body parts.

The Unit of Measurement:

• The unit of measurement is unknown but is thought of

as the length of a finger or the length from the hairline to

the jaw. Polykleitos also set the standards of symmetria,

by setting the lengths of various body parts equal to each

other.

• Use HB Pencils to create your

work

• This work will be rendered in

portrait style to emphasize the

size.

• Margin from the top and two

sides are still O.5 inches and 1

inch on the lower margin; place

the plate no. title, materials,

grade and date submitted on

the lower margin.

Roman art refers to the visual artsmade in Ancient Rome and in the territories ofthe Roman Empire.

Roman art includes architecture,painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Luxuryobjects in metal-work, gem engraving, ivorycarvings, and glass, are sometimesconsidered in modern terms to be minor formsof Roman art, although this would notnecessarily have been the case forcontemporaries.

Sculpture was perhaps considered asthe highest form of art by Romans, but figurepainting was also very highly regarded. Thetwo forms have had very contrasting rates ofsurvival, with a very large body of sculpturesurviving from about the 1st century BC onwards, though very little from before, but verylittle painting at all remains, and probablynothing that a contemporary would haveconsidered to be of the highest quality. A lot oftimes art came from Greece.

Pompeian Style painting,

cubiculum (bedroom), Villa

of P.

(3rd century), Palazzo dei

Senatori - Musei Capitolini,

Rome.

Ancient Roman pottery was not a luxury product, but

a vast production of "fine wares" in terra sigillata were

decorated with reliefs that reflected the latest taste, and

provided a large group in society with stylish objects at

what was evidently an affordable price.

Terra sigillata

or red-gloss wares

Roman, probably made

in Arretium (Italy) Arretine

Footed Bowl with Winged

Musicians First century

BCE–first century CE

Terracotta, glaze

Roman coins

were an important

means of propaganda,

and have survived in

enormous numbers.

It was in the area of architecture thatRoman art produced its greatest innovations.Because the Roman Empire extended overso great of an area and included so manyurbanized areas, Roman engineersdeveloped methods for city building on agrand scale, including the use of concrete.

Massive buildings like the Pantheonand the Colosseum could never have beenconstructed with previous materials andmethods. Though concrete had beeninvented a thousand years earlier in the NearEast, the Romans extended its use fromfortifications to their most impressivebuildings and monuments, capitalizing on thematerial’s strength and low cost.

The concrete core was covered witha plaster, brick, stone, or marble veneer, anddecorative polychrome and gold-gildedsculpture was often added to produce adazzling effect of power and wealth.

Pantheon, Rome, Italy, on the site

of an earlier building

commissioned by Marcus Agrippa

during the reign of Augustus (27

BC – 14 AD)

Colosseum or Coliseum, also

known as the Flavian Amphitheatre

is an oval amphitheatre in the

centre of the city of Rome, Italy.

Built of concrete and sand, it is the

largest amphitheatre ever built

Paintings from antiquity rarely survive—paint, after all, is a much less durablemedium than stone or bronze sculpture.But it is thanks to the ancient Romancity of Pompeii that we can trace thehistory of Roman wall painting. Theentire city was buried in volcanic ash in79 C.E. when the volcano at MountVesuvius erupted, thus preserving therich colors in the paintings in the housesand monuments there for thousands ofyears until their rediscovery.

These paintings represent anuninterrupted sequence of two centuriesof evidence. And it is thanks to AugustMau, a nineteenth-century Germanscholar, that we have a classification offour styles of Pompeian wall painting.

Example of Second Style

painting, before 79 C.E., fresco,

Pompeii

View of Mount Vesuvius from Pompeii

The four styles that Mau observed in Pompeii were

not unique to the city and can be observed elsewhere, like

Rome and even in the provinces, but Pompeii and the

surrounding cities buried by Vesuvius contain the largest

continuous source of evidence for the period.

The Roman wall paintings in Pompeii that Mau

categorized were true frescoes (or buon fresco), meaning

that pigment was applied to wet plaster, fixing the pigment

to the wall. Despite this durable technique, painting is still a

fragile medium and, once exposed to light and air, can fade

significantly, so the paintings discovered in Pompeii were a

rare find indeed.

Its origins lay in theHellenistic period—in the 3rdcentury B.C.E. in Alexandria.

The First Style ischaracterized by colorful,patchwork walls of brightlypainted faux-marble. Eachrectangle of painted “marble”was connected by stuccomouldings that added a three-dimensional effect. In templesand other official buildings, theRomans used costly importedmarbles in a variety of colors todecorate the walls.

Detail of faux marble, Villa of

the Mysteries, before 79 C.E.,

fresco, just outside the walls of

Pompeii on the Road to

Herculaneum

Ordinary Romanscould not afford suchexpense, so they decoratedtheir homes with paintedimitations of the luxuriousyellow, purple and pinkmarbles. Painters became soskilled at imitating certainmarbles that the large,rectangular slabs wererendered on the wall marbledand veined, just like realpieces of stone. Greatexamples of the FirstPompeian Style can be foundin the House of the Faun andthe House of Sallust, both ofwhich can still be visited inPompeii.

First seen in Pompeii

around 80 B.C.E.

(although it developed

earlier in Rome) and was

in vogue until the end of

the first century B.C.E.

The Second Pompeian

Style developed out of

the First Style and

incorporated elements of

the First, such as faux

marble blocks along the

base of walls.

Example of Second Style painting,

cubiculum (bedroom), Villa of P. Fannius

Synistor at Boscoreale, 50–40 B.C.E.,

fresco

265.4 x 334 x 583.9 cm

The First Style embracedthe flatness of the wall, the SecondStyle attempted to trick the viewerinto believing that they were lookingthrough a window by paintingillusionistic images. As Mau’s namefor the Second Style implies,architectural elements drive thepaintings, creating fantastic imagesfilled with columns, buildings andstoas.

In one of the most famousexamples of the Second Style, P.Fannius Synistor’s bedroom (nowreconstructed in the MetropolitanMuseum of Art), the artist utilizesmultiple vanishing points. Thistechnique shifts the perspectivethroughout the room, frombalconies to fountains and alongcolonnades into the far distance,but the visitor’s eye movescontinuously throughout the room,barely able to register that he orshe has remained contained withina small room.

Example of Second Style painting,

cubiculum (bedroom), Villa of P. Fannius

Synistor at Boscoreale, 50–40 B.C.E.,

fresco

The Dionysianpaintings from Pompeii’sVilla of the Mysteries arealso included in theSecond Style because oftheir illusionistic aspects.

The figures areexamples ofmegalographia, a Greekterm referring to life-sizepaintings. The fact thatthe figures are the samesize as viewers enteringthe room, as well as theway the painted figuressit in front of the columnsdividing the space, aremeant to suggest that theaction taking place issurrounding the viewer.

Example of Second Style painting, view of

the Dionysiac frieze, Villa of the Mysteries,

before 79 C.E., fresco, 15 x 22 feet, just

outside the walls of Pompeii on the Road

to Herculaneum

Came about in the early1st century C.E. and was popularuntil about 50 C.E. The ThirdStyle embraced the flat surface ofthe wall through the use of broad,monochromatic planes of color,such as black or dark red,punctuated by minute, intricatedetails.

The Third Style was stillarchitectural but rather thanimplementing plausiblearchitectural elements that viewerswould see in their everyday world(and that would function in anengineering sense), the ThirdStyle incorporated fantastic andstylized columns and pedimentsthat could only exist in theimagined space of a painted wall.

Example of Third Style painting, panel

with candelabrum, Villa Agrippa

Postumus, Boscotrecase, last decade

of the 1st century B.C.E.

The Roman architect Vitruvius was certainly not a fan of Third Stylepainting, and he criticized the paintings for representing monstrosities ratherthan real things, “for instance, reeds are put in the place of columns, flutedappendages with curly leaves and volutes, instead of pediments, candelabrasupporting representations of shrines, and on top of their pediments numeroustender stalks and volutes growing up from the roots and having human figuressenselessly seated upon them…” (Vitr.De arch.VII.5.3)

The center of walls often feature very small vignettes, such as sacro-idyllic landscapes, which are bucolic scenes of the countryside featuringlivestock, shepherds, temples, shrines and rolling hills.

The Third Style also saw the introduction of Egyptian themes andimagery, including scenes of the Nile as well as Egyptian deities and motifs.

Example of Third

Style painting, panel

with candelabrum

(detail with Egyptian

motif ), Villa Agrippa

Postumus,

Boscotrecase, last

decade of the 1st

century B.C.E.

Became popular in the mid-first century C.E. and is seen in Pompeii until the city’s destruction in 79 C.E.

It can be best described as a combination of the three styles that came before. Faux marble blocks along the base of the walls, as in the First Style, frame the naturalistic architectural scenes from the Second Style, which in turn combine with the large flat planes of color and slender architectural details from the Third Style. The Fourth Style also incorporates central panel pictures, although on a much larger scale than in the third style and with a much wider range of themes, incorporating mythological, genre, landscape and still life images.

Example of Fourth Style painting,

Ixion Room, House of the Vetii,

Pompeii, 1st century C.E.

"The Fourth Style walls appear to be a conglomeration of the previous three styles. There is blank space, like the First and Third Styles, but it is punctuated with solid-looking, three-dimensional scenes, like the Second Style. The scenes are framed, like windows or photographs".

Some of the best examples of Fourth Style painting come from the House of the Vettiiwhich can also be visited in Pompeii today.Source: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-

civilizations/roman/wall-painting/a/roman-wall-painting-styles