HISTORY OF GREEK ART

HISTORY OF GREEK ART

Greek art (or, more accurately, art in Greece) began in the Cycladic and Minoan civilization, and gave birth to Western classical art in the subsequent Geometric, Archaic and Classical periods (with further developments during the Hellenistic Period). It absorbed influences of Eastern civilizations, of Roman art and its patrons, and the new religion of Orthodox Christianity in the Byzantine era and absorbed Italian and European ideas during the period of Romanticism (with the invigoration of the Greek Revolution), right up until the Modernist and Postmodernist. Greek art is mainly five forms: architecture, sculpture, painting, pottery and jewelry making.

Three period of greek art ;

There Are; -

    Ancient period

    Byzantine period

    Post-Byzantine and modern period

Ancient period

Artistic production in Greece began in the prehistoric pre-Greek Cycladic and the Minoan civilizations, both of which were influenced by local traditions and the art of ancient Egypt.

Woman kneeling before an altar. Attic red-figure kylix, 5th BC, Stoa of Attalos

There are three scholarly divisions of the stages of later ancient Greek art that correspond roughly with historical periods of the same names. These are the Archaic, the Classical and the Hellenistic. The Archaic period is usually dated from 1000 BC. The Persian Wars of 480 BC to 448 BC are usually taken as the dividing line between the Archaic and the Classical periods, and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC is regarded as separating the Classical from the Hellenistic period. Of course, different forms of art developed at different speeds in different parts of the Greek world, and varied to a degree from artist to artist.^[1] There was no sharp transition from one artistic period to another.

The art of ancient Greece has exercised an enormous influence on the culture of many countries from ancient times until the present, particularly in the areas of sculpture and architecture. In the West, the art of the Roman Empire was largely derived from Greek models. In the East, Alexander the Great's conquests initiated several centuries of exchange between Greek, Central Asian and Indian cultures, resulting in Greco-Buddhist art, with ramifications as far as Japan. Following the Renaissance in Europe, the humanist aesthetic and the high technical standards of Greek art inspired generations of European artists. Pottery was either red with black designs or black with red designs.

Byzantine period

Byzantine art is the term created for the Eastern Roman Empire from about the 5th century until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. (The Roman Empire during this period is conventionally known as the Byzantine Empire.) The term can also be used for the art of states which were contemporary with the Persian Empire and shared a common culture with it, without actually being part of it, such as Bulgaria, or Russia, and also Venice, which had close ties to the Byzantine Empire despite being in other respects part of western European culture. It can also be used for the art of peoples of the former Byzantine Empire under the rule of Ottoman Empire after 1453. In some respects the Byzantine artistic tradition has continued in Russia and other Eastern Orthodox countries to the present day.

Mosaic from Daphni Monastery (ca. 1100)

Post-Byzantine and modern period

Cretan School describes the school of icon painting, also known as Post-Byzantine art, which flourished while Crete was under Venetian rule during the late Middle Ages, reaching its climax after the Fall of Constantinople, becoming the central force in Greek painting during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. The Cretan artists developed a particular style of painting under the influence of both Eastern and Western artistic traditions and movements; the most famous product of the school, El Greco, was the most successful of the many artists who tried to build a career in Western Europe, and also the one who left the Byzantine style farthest behind him in his later career.