History of Art: Greek and Hellenistic

"That brief but thorough empire-building campaign changed the world: It spread Greek ideas and culture from the Eastern Mediterranean to Asia. Historians call this era the "Hellenistic period"."

Greek and Hellenistic: 850 BCE - 31 BCE

Characteristics: Greek idealism: balance, perfect proportions; architectural orders (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian)

Chief Artists and Major Works: Parthenon, Myron, Phidias, Polykleitos, Praxiteles

Historical Events: Athens defeats Persia at Marathon (490 BCE); Peloponnesian Wars (431 BCE - 404 BCE); Alexander the Great's conquests (336 BCE - 323 BCE)

The world "Hellenistic" comes from the word Hellazein, which means "to speak Greek or idenity with the Greeks".

Between 334 and 323 BCE, Alexander the Great and his armies conquered much of the known world, creating one of the worlds biggest known empires that stretched from Greece and Asia Minor through Egypt and the Persian empire in the Near East to India. This contact with cultures around the world spread Greek culture and its arts, and exposed Greek artistic styles to a host of new and exotic influences.

The death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE traditionally marks the beginning of the Hellenistic period.

Hellenistic Art is a richly diverse art period in subject matter and in stylistic development. It was essentially created during an age characterized by a strong sense of history. For the first time the Greeks had museums and great libraries. Examples of these include those at Alexandria and Pergamon. The artists of the Hellenistic period copied and adapted earlier styles and also made great innovations. The representations of the Greek Gods took on new forms. One famous example is the nude Aphrodite who reflects the increased secularization of traditional religion. Also prominent in Hellenistic art are the representations of Dionysos, the God of wine and legendary conqueror of the East, as well as those of Hermes, the god of commerce. In strikingly tender depictions, Eros, the Greek personification of love, is portrayed as a young child.

Because of the new international Hellenistic milieu, there was a widened range of subject matter that had little precedent in earlier Greek art. There were now representations of unorthodox subjects such as grotesques, and of more conventional inhabitants, such as children and elderly people. These images, as well as the portraits of ethnic people, especially those of Africans, describe a diverse Hellenistic populace that Alexander the Great created.

Hellenistic Greece became a time of substantial maturity of the sciences. In geometry, Euclid's elements became the standard all the way up to the 20th Century, and the work of Archimedes on mathematics along with his practical inventions became influential and legendary. Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth within 1500 miles by simultaneously measuring the shadow of two vertical sticks placed one in Alexandria and one in Syene. The fact that the earth was a sphere was common knowledge in the Hellenistic world. This precision was also evident in art within the Hellenistic period with exact proportions of the human form.

"Alexander's empire broke apart on his death, with several Hellenistic (Greek-like( kingdoms appearing. The great art centers of the mainland gave way to cities on Islands such as Rhodes or in the eastern Mediterranean (Alexandria, Antioch, and Pergamum).

Sculpture had tendencies toward classicism, rococo, and baroque -- in other words, no clear direstion or restriction. Art glorified the gods and great athletes, but it also serves to decorate the homes of the newly rich.

Heroic portraits and massive groups were popular, but so were humble themes and portrayals of human beings in all walks and stages of life—even caricature became popular. From architecture came an awareness of space that added landscapes and interiors to sculpture and painting. 
Whereas Hellenic art was restrained and attempted to show the perfect and the universal, Hellenistic art was preoccupied with the particular rather than the universal. Patrons and artists alike preferred individuality, novelty (including ethnicity and ugliness), and artistic inventiveness. Hellenistic art built on the classical concepts, but became more dramatic, with sweeping lines and strong contrasts of light, shadow, and emotion. 
Idealism gave way to naturalism, the culmination of the works of fourth-century b.c.e. sculptors Lysippos, Skopas, and Praxiteles, all of whom emphasized realistic expression of the human figure. Greatness and humility, characteristic of the Charioteer of Delphi, gave way to bold expression during tense moments, typified by the Boy Jockey.
Unlike Hellenic art, sculptures showed extreme emotion: pain, stress, anger, despair, or fear, but depiction of the outward subject was insufficient for many Hellenistic sculptors. Posture and physical characteristics were used to show thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. 
Hygeia, of which only the head remains, is a statue that reflects the Hellenistic style. Although done in conformance to classical standards and ideals, Hygeia has an expression of concern and understanding."

There was also more and more art collectors who commissioned original works of art and copies of earlier Greek statues. Likewise, increasingly affluent consumers were eager to enhance their private homes and gardens with luxury goods such as fine bronze statues and statuettes, intricately carved furniature decorated with bronze fittings, stone sculptures and elaborate pottery with mold-made decoration. These items, that were considered as lavish and known to be only in high society, were manufactured on a grand scale as never before.

The keenest of collectors were the Romans who decorated their town houses and country villas with the Greek sculptures according to their interests and tastes. The wall paintings from the villa at Boscoreale, some of which clearly echo lost Hellenistic Macdonian royal paintings, and exquisite bronzes in the Metropolitan Museum's collection testify to the refined classical environment that the Roman aristocracy cultivated in their homes. By the first century BCE, Rome was a center of Hellenistic art production, and many Greek artists came there to work.

The conventional end of the Hellenistic period is 31 BCE, the date of the battle of Actium. Octavian, who later became the emperor Augustus, defeated Marc Antony's fleet and, consequently, ended Ptolemaic rule. The Ptolemies were the last Hellenistic dynasty to fall to Rome.

Interest in Greek art and culture remained strong during the Roman Imperial period, and especially so during the reigns of the emperors Augustus (r. 27 BCE - 14 CE) and Hadrian (r. 117 CE - 138 CE). For centuries, Roman artists continued to make works of art in the Hellenistic tradition.

Sources:
www.infoplease.com
www.visual-arts-cork.com
www.history.com
earlyworldhistory.blogspot.co.uk
ancient-greece.org
www.google.co.uk

Up Next: Roman Art

History of Art: Mesopotamia

"Mesopotamia is a Greek word meaning "between the rivers,"..."

Mesopotamia: 3500 BCE - 539 BCE

Characteristics: Warrior art and narration in stone relief

Chief Artists and Major Works: Standard of Ur, Gate of Ishtar, Stele of Hammurabi's Code

Historical Events: Sumerians invent writing (3400 BCE); Hammurabi writes his law code (1780 BCE); Abraham founds monotheism

Mesopotamia was an ancient region in the eastern Mediterranean bounded in by the northest by the Zagros Mountains and in the southeast by the Arabian Plateau, corresponding to today's Iraq, mostly, but also parts of the modern-day Iran, Syria and Turkey. The rivers that the name 'Mesopotamia' refers to is the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers and the land was known as 'Al-Jazirah' (the island) by the Arabs referencing what Egyptologist J.H Breasted would later call the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian civilization began.

We know little about religion within Mesopotamia however we have taken a lot of what their religion was from their poetry, "The Epic of Gilgamesh" being the most important. The Sumerians were highly religious people and had a theocratic culture where gods ruled the earth and man was created to serve them. They practiced tithing and so 10% of their goods went to the gods. There was also a leader of each state who was considered a local god who talked to the head gods. There were many temples and statues that were built in their name. In Ur, their own head god had an earthly home of the city of Ziggurat. These temples were built up in layers and would tower above the flat land of the area, as if reaching to the heavens.

Within the art itself, the sizes of entire figures were determined by a hieratic imaging system. The most important people were made the tallest. In the same vein, a beard on a figure signified a man in a powerful position.

Two-dimensional depictions usually show figures' heads, legs and feet in profile, while their shoulders and torso are shown frontally.

The famous statues found at the Abu Temple in Tell Asmar from around 2700 BCE are examples of the way Sumerian sculpture is typically based on cones and cylinders - arms and legs like pipes, skirts smooth and round, flaring out at their bottoms. Faces are dominated by very large eyes; but, for reasons we might take for granted, artists of many cultures have placed emphasis on eyes.

The Early Bronze Age of Mesopotamia (3000 BCE - 2119 BCE) was the age at which the arts were beginning to become more detailed. The cultural stability necessary for the creation of art in the region resulted in more intricate designs in architecture and sculpture, as well as "a number of specific and momentous inventions: the plough and the wheel, the chariot and the sailboat, and the cylinder seal, the single more distinctive art form of ancient Mesopotamia and a pervasive demonstration of the importance of property ownership and business in the country's daily life," were all either invented or improved upon during this time.

Libraries were also formed; the Akkadian Empire of Sargon was the first multi-national realm in the world and Sargon's daughter, Enheduanna, the first author of literary works known by name. The library at Mari contained over 20,000 cuneiform tablets and the palace was considered one of the finest in the region.

Bibliography:

www.google.co.uk

www.google.co.uk

http://www.ancient.eu/Mesopotamia/

www.dummies.com

www.artlex.com

Next: Ancient Egyptian Art