greek art

Greek art

from 800 BCE to 30 BCE, influenced Western culture through its emphasis on beauty, humanism, and idealized representations of the human form.

Media

Greek artists primarily used marble, bronze, and pottery. Marble allowed for fine detail in sculpture, while bronze facilitated dynamic poses. Pottery, such as the black-figure François Vase, where figures are painted in a black slip on a natural red clay background, and the red-figure Panathenaic Amphora, where the figures retain the natural red color of the clay while the background is painted black.

Styles

– Greek art is distinguished by naturalism in sculpture. Artists employed Contrapposto to create lifelike figures with a sense of movement and balance.

Purpose

– Greek art celebrated human achievement, explored mythology, and honored the gods, often created for public spaces and temples, reflecting civic pride.

Significant Artists

– Phidias, renowned for the statue of Zeus at Olympia and Praxiteles, a sculptor known for his more relatable and sensual approach, as seen in the Aphrodite of Knidos (Cnidus).