The Archaic Period: 600-480 BCE

Greek Geography:

• Mountainous Peninsula and Archipelago.

• A majority of the population lived near water → very active traders and boatmakers

• Utilized the sea/navy for defense to fight battles

• The mountainous areas led to divided city states that were unified by mythology.

There are three main periods of Greek Art: Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic.

One of the most famous things from this period was the Kouros sculpture.

Korous figure ~600-590 BCE (both)

• Made to represent an Apollo figure and the ideal athlete—signified by the filet (resembling a hair band) functioning as an athletic headband/sweat band

• The Archaic smile (slight smile)—how you might identify Art from this period.

• The Archaic braided hair-do with a FILET (resembles a hair band).

“Dying” warrior

• The arrow was once in his chest (mid-right hole)

• Wearing a beard—a lil’ older, wiser, maybe a commander of some kind

• We know it’s archaic bc of this “weird smile”—archaic smile.

• There are traces of paint—

  • the paint used in both is ENCAUSTIC paint which has BEESWAX as its binder

NOTE: the Greeks NEVER wore pants so if you see a sculpture with pants you know it ain’t Greek

→ Which ancient culture influenced the Greeks’ large scale human sculptures?

• The Egyptians — the Greeks knew about them because of trade

• They took their stance called a power walk

• However Egyptian sculptures were in relief (high = more 3d, low = more 2d), and Greek sculptures were in the round

• The faces in Egyptian sculptures gud but PROPORTIONS IN GREEK KOUROS FIGURE BETTER—PROPORTIONS WERE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE GREEKS

→ Which sculpture technique was used for the Kouros figure and others?

• The subtractive sculpture method — took a block and subtracted from it

• gridded the block, implying that they had a reference—these references were usually smaller sculptures

• used calpers—wood tool made of two chopstick thingies that could be adjusted to the proportions of