Notes
The Greeks and their neighbours
- Made up of a series of city states, all independent of each other and self governed. States had a lack of political unity and no common governing system.Each polis (meaning self governed state - where the meaning of the word ‘politics’ derived from) had a different governing style - tyranny, oligarchy, democracy (terms invented by the greeks, identifying the types of leadership: single person, small group of people and majority of community) Terms are the foundations of todays ‘politics’.
- Male nudity rare in west Asian art, make ‘normal’ by the Greeks, female nudity avoided until 4th century B.C.C. (Aphrodite of Cnidus first completely nude Greek female sculpture)
- Athletes were soldiers born into richer/higher ranked families, destined to serve in infantry/cavalry.
- Work forces consisted of lower class citizens and slaves, allowing the higher class to concentrate of training/fighting.
- Majority of sculptures were male, symbolising the male dominated society. Males were seen as superior to women in both beauty and strength. Women were ‘possessions’, generally unseen and stayed in the home. Greek laws make this clear - adultery defined as a married woman engaging in intercourse with a man who was not her husband. Rape was seen as an offence against husband/father/other male guardian rather than herself.
- Monarchy gave way to aristocracy - originally meant to be ruled by the ‘best’ people, in terms of riches and birth. Aristocratic government originally adopted in Hellenistic cities mid century B.C.C, established in Italy.
- Beginning of 6th century a status hierarchy was created (Solon) based on wealth (agricultural produce) this gave a small, but significant role to middle class citizens - became the basis of a democracy.
- Patrons to Greek artists were more numerous/less wealthy compared to Egyptians, Assyrians and Iranians.
- Graves were marked by stone monuments, emphasising life rather than death as a celebration.
- Greeks thought themselves different as far superior to the rest of mankind.
- “Romans and later inheritors of the Greek tradition came to believe that a stand of excellence , to which all art should aspire, had been set by Greek ‘canonical’ works” WHA - p.g 117
- Artists were free to travel between city states in search of patrons. Products made by artists were exported to overseas Greek cities/traded with Italy and Southern Russia.
- Artistic experimentation wasn’t discouraged - artists seemed to compete with each other to be better than predecessors.
- Egyptian stone carving techniques were copied (drawing outlines onto block before carving, giving 2 viewpoints - front and back) then adapted to work with marble.
- Greeks used Polyclitian system which mirrored real human body proportions when creating human sculpture - more noticeable in nude male sculpture, compared with the abstract numerical system the Egyptians used.
- More realistic style of sculpture began to emerge early 5th century B.C.C.
- Muscle over pelvis exaggerated to give smooth transition between thighs and torso/to join front and back of sculpture - devise used by nearly all future Greek sculptors.
- “The sequence in which a Greek temple was built is instructive. First a stepped platform of stone was laid out, then the columns (composed of drums held together by central pegs) were erected and the blocks of entablature set on top of them. Only then did work begin on the walls of the cella” WHA p.g 129
- Sixth century b.c.c , figures on vases were shown in black on orange-red background. Greek process which uses chemicals and heat to create the two colours (when carefully fired in 3 stages).
- Proto-geometric: Made on a wheel, bold and symmetrically balanced, even surface texture, buff coloured background, black ‘bands’ and circles, painted while vessel is still rotating on the wheel. Not ornamental, intended as drinking vessels etc, occasionally placed on graves.
- Geometric: More elaborately decorated, patterns of diamonds, chequers, chevrons and Greek fret pattern. Used for funerary but not exclusively.
- Generally Greek pottery decoration was of mythological subjects and daily life scenes.
- Archaic period - 750 to 480 b.c.c
- Classical period - 480 - 323 b.c.c
- Kouroi - Clothed, young, female sculptures created between 600 - 480 b.c.c more delicate and natural than earlier sculptures.
- Korai - Translated as ‘youth’. Male, nude, usually of well formed athletes.
- Archaic male sculpture emphasises shoulder breadth, pectoral/calf muscles, defined slim waist, hardness of knee. roundness of buttocks and thighs. Combines naturalism and realism (most feasible representation of a ‘perfect’ body a human could achievable, through training,) could be comparable to the youthfulness of Gods.
- Archaic sculpture was rigid: upright with arms down by sides, fists clenched, both feet together.
- Archaic style evolved to more realistic style: more relaxed, right leg slightly bent at knee to allow more comfortable/realistic pose with weight shifted onto the left leg - tribute to Greek’s youthful male nude.
- Doric order - simplest of the orders, characterised by short, grained (vertical grooves almost like tree bark) heavy columns with plain, round capitals and no base. regarded as the national style.
- Ionic order- characterised by delicately carved mouldings, slender columns and volute capitals (scroll like ornament). Capital more functional than Doric order. Emphasis on ornament.
- Stellae - Relief carved monumental slabs which marked graves. Not regarded as major pieces of art in the ancient world.
- Cotinthian order - First invented in Athens 5th century b.c.c, rarely used before 4th century. Most ornate of the orders, decorated with carved acanthus leaves, floral in theme
- Influenced by luxury items in the Assyrian empire (8th century B.C.C).
- Asian motifs had an influence and were occasionally incorporated into Corinthian pottery decoration. No other pottery similar to Corinthian style, influences likely came from Asian metal works and textiles, also evident in wooden carvings of the human form.
- Archaic Korai influenced by west asian luxury items e.g ivory carvings as well as Egyptian stone carving techniques (drawing outlines onto block before carving, giving 2 viewpoints - front and back).
- Greeks learnt the techniques of building with post and lintel from the Egyptians, adapting them to their own needs.
- Elements of the Doric order derived from carpentry.
- Ionic order originated in Greek cities of Asia Minor and Islands of eastern Aegean.
- Influenced Roman art, Romans made copies of Greek sculpture which are one of our main sources when researching Greek art. Majority of originals from which Romans made copies from don’t exist anymore.
- Greek coins show a miniature history of Archaic and Hellenistic period. Only link that has followed through completely to the modern world.
- “The aim of the architect is to give his work a semblance of being well-proportioned and to devise means of protection against optical illusion so far as possible, with the object, not of factual, but of apparent equality of measurements and proportion” (Heliodorus of Larisa, WHA page 130)
- Aristotle suggests that painters had evolved idealisation, caricature and realism by the fourth century b.c.c.
- “Plato distrusted change in art as in politics” - (WHA page 146)
Hellenistic and roman art
- Originally used to differentiate Greek speaking from others (in the empire founded by Alexander the Great)
- Hellenistic now refers to the period after Alexanders death (three centuries after) 323 BCE
- Alexander the great and his armies conquered most of the known world between 334 and 323 BCE
- Alexanders ‘generals’ known as ‘Diadochi’ or successors - divided the land between them
- Ptolemy - Egypt and Southern Syria
- Seleulus - Asian empire
- Antigonus - Macedon
- Greece and Aegan Islands city states regained some of their independance but lost their power and importance
- Athens became little more than a centre of culture and learning
- Rulers of Hellenistic Kingdoms were of Greek (Macedonian) decent
- Cities were rebuilt on the pattern of the Greek Polis
- Each Polis had a temple, assembly hall, theatre, gymnasium, stoa and agora - built to Greek orders of architecture and sculpture enbodying the Greek ideal of the human form.
- Stoa - Public, covered walkway
- Agora - Meeting place (market maybe?)
- Capital cities grew into large and wealthy centres of trade, industry, leanring and artistic activity
- Described as the sequal to the classical age
- Late 4th or early 3rd century BCE - first histories of art seem to have been written
- “Alexanders court sculptors, were claimed to have excelled all of their predecessors, and Alexander court painter, Apelles, was said by Pliny to have ‘surpassed all those who were born before him and all those who came later’”. WHA p.g 169
- Plato believed all art should conform to some absolute standard, he praised the Egyptians for not allowing artistic freedom - Aristotle criticised this
- “Aristotle’s teaching opened the door to expressiveness and the cultivation of the artists individuality, even to eclecticism and to the notion that an artistic style might be appropriate in certain circumstances and not in others” WHA p.g 169
- Skiagraphic - style of painting using strong contrasts of light and shade to give an illusion of the 3rd dimention.
- “By analogy, styles in the visual arts might be regarded like literary genres - epic, tragic, comic, lyric, elegiac - each with it’s own rules, laid down in Aristotle’s poetics”. WHA p.g 169
- “There can, however, be little doubt that the artistic style of the late fourth century acquired political significace, visually associating Hellenistic rulers with Alexander and his legacy of prestige and power” WHA p.g 169
- Plato’s ideas changed the general attitudes towards art - statues, paintings and temples started to be regarded as ‘works of art’ rather than just images
- “Things that repel in everyday life may please when represented in art” Aristotle - WHA p.g 171
- Plato believed that all imitations were false and morally harmful, socrates demanded that artists represent the ‘good’ and the ‘beautiful’
- No distinction made by Greeks between moral and physical beauty
- Sleeping figures appear for the first time in Hellenistic sculpture
- By 2nd century B.C Greek Gods had lost their credibility as inhabitants of a superior world influencing mankind below
- Greek Gods became personifications - statues intended to be ‘read’
- Hysippus credited with a complete revision of the Polyclitan canon of proportions - representing men as they ‘appear to be’, rather than ‘how they were’
- Walking posture given livelier movement, feet wider spaced, arms in ‘spiral curve’, over developed broad shoulders stresses strength and height, not agility and slenderness - head not idealised
- Ruler portrait - Idealised physical perfection with only the head as an actual portrait. In Archaic and Classical Greece only athletes shared the ‘perfection ideal’ now it is shared with rulers
- Hellenistic - shirt from city state to empire - larger but more utilitarian buildings created
- Sculpture had emphasis on personal emotion - Hellenistic
- Parthenon built as a work of art with no real purpose
- Realistic heads had been made in Etruscan times, but ‘genre’ was developed by the Romans - their most significant and memorable contribution to visual arts
- Marble casts made from wax head carvings
- Wax heads made from death masks - displayed at family funerals and public ceremonies. Heads of ancestors kept in special recessed or shrines
- Roman sculpture began to reflect the needs of Christianity
- Majority of surviving busts are bronze or marble
- Triumphal arch - Roman invention, half sculpture, half architecture, free standing, purely ornamental. First built beginning of the second century BCE
- Imperial Arches - “A rectangular block with round headed opening framed with pilasters and entablature with a large panel for an inscription above” WHA p.g 205
- Romans placed enormous importance on monument inscriptions - first to discover their artistic capabilities
- “Technical knowledge for creating spacial depth and other naturalistic illusions had been abandoned” WHA p.g 213
- “The new function and new meaning arise simply from the architects act of choice. In this wau the idea behind the work of art aquired greater importance than the work itself; and all the naturalistic skills cultivated in classical Greece, the Hellenistic Kingdoms and the Roman Empire came to seem irrelevant to the main purpose of art” WHA p.g 213
medieval christendom
- Early Christians depicted Christ as a healer, teacher, law giver or judge.
- Cross was a symbol of triumph over death
- Crucifixion rarely represented in art from
- Byzantine artists depicted the sacramental element, with dignity and restraint, rather than the reality of the brutal act of crucifixion - after iconcoclassic period.
- Byzantinian artists stayed close to the Greek ideals of physical beauty.
- Earliest instance of depicting physical crucifixion - 969-76 - carved for Gero - Archbishop of Cologne.
- Originated in Northern Europe - would be a distinguishing feature of Western Catholic.
- Bernard of Angers declared that no other image than Christ on the Cross was appropriate for a Church - 1020
- Only Western Christians believed the five wounds from the crucifixion were gifts of divine grace.
Ottoman Art
- Named after Otto I (936 - 73) - Ruled Germany and Italy until 1956
- Conscious revival of the Carolingian style
Romanesque
- Late tenth/early eleventh century
- Christian plans and decorative schemes were revived.
- Reverted to a style of brick architecture. Brick & rubble vaulting - first introduced around 800
- Sheathing buildings with marble - Roman idea
- Marble - dignifies a building
- Cluniac order - New standard for religious life/monastic organisation/churches - large buildings with magnificance/bold/solid construction/stone vaulting
- Accelerated developments rather than creating a new order
- Proportions dependant on stone vaulting
- Stone gave a more noble/solemn effect - better accoustics for religious services
- St-Sernin (and other churches with similar plans) encorporated smaller chapels inside larger structure
- Pilgrimages were binding - brought religious followers/clergy members together
- Secular tone
- Innovations in Romanesque Architecture
- End of eleventh century Germany/France
- Technical knowledge and skill for stone vaulting
- Transverse system - alternative vaulting system
- Tunnel vaulting - unsatisfactory, expensive, cumbersome, minimal light
- Groin vault - half tunnel half transverse vault (came from developing the two)
- Groin vault carried by four corner points not whole wall - harder to construct
- Introduction of ribbed groin vaults - more room (loft) better lighting, fire proof, aesthetically pleasing - improved technical means for large nave rooms
- Rib vault - most important structural device in Romanesque architecture
Gothic architecture
- Pointed arches/ribbed vaults - most obvious characteristics of Gothic architecture - had been used before Gothic but not to same extent
- Revolution (By St Denis Church) more about structural relationship rather than forms
- St Denis political as well as religious
- Cistercian movement - simplicity and purity - may be reason why ancient timber construction were used
- Wood plentiful in Northern Europe
- Stone plentiful in Southern Europe
- Mud brick plentiful in West Asia
- Within two decades three other great Gothic Cathedrals were begun in France (Noyon, Loan, Notre Dame) gothic style was found outside of France shortly after.
- Early twelfth century biggest achievement - structure/construction/visual expressive form became indistinguishable in a Gothic cathedral - became a symbol of all-embracing religious faith
- Flexible - allowed changes and plan variation/stumulated evolution of construction/carved decoration became important again
- Style of architecture from St Denis became known as High Gothic
- Romanesque style completely redundant by time of Amiens Cathedral, France. Had huge space (tall and wide)
- Columns no longer seems isolation - seamless stone- branched into vaults
- Stained glass was used to fill the cathedrals/churches with coloured light creating ‘sacred windows’
- Figures in the illustrative windows are usually related, or tell a story - often dedicated to virgin mary
- Walls eventually got thinner, allowing for more stained glass to be used as the outside walls - letting in even more light
- Flying butresses were used to counteract the weight of the vaulting and stopping walls from forcing outward.
- Until the end of the twelfth century Romanesque style was closely associated with the Holy Roman Empire.
- Gothic architecture introduced into Italy by the Cistercians