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Lecture 8: Ancient Greece |
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Buildings & settlements are related to the resources of land within the various city states, assisted by the continued out migration of landless people to the various Greek colonies. Resource exploitation was on a small and relatively primitive scale, as compared with Egypt for example. There seems to have been no pressing cultural need to reproduce the macro elements of their environment in their buildings. Religious structures certainly possess supra-normal characteristics in their scale relationships to non-religious buildings & in their often superior construction design and adornment. Yet these buildings are essentially structures built by man for gods in man’s guise, extensions of hospitality to metaphysical beings whose natural abode was elsewhere in the cloudy mountain wastes, in dark groves or in the depths of tree filled ravines. These natural realms were immeidiate geographically, even if the spirits who inhabited them may have been more elusive. The small size of urban communities and their close relationship with farmland and wilderness did not demand of the Greeks that urge to return to nature or natural pursuits long forgotten, as it did of the Romans. Gardening as an art at least during the ‘great periods’, seems to have been remote form their creative horizons. The natural landscapes was probably as beautiful and elemental as it is today; the concepts of their metaphysical world demand that it remained that way, unimproved by human intervention. To be true there were the academic groves outside of Athens and other cities, but these are best regarded as alternatives to the bustling life of the stoa and agora, rather than retreats from it, Theophrastus, successor to Aristotle at the Athenian Lyceum, established the first botanical garden there. He also wrote a useful catalog of plants, but these seem to be more the careful notations of a proto botanist than the plants that might be used by the designer. During Hellenistic times the change of values in society at large are reflected in house planning and it is possible that there are the beginnings of some conception of creating landscape environments rather than living in the ones nature provided. The poetry of Theocritus reflects this change. Beautiful as it is, his poem ‘Harvest time in Cos’, is an attempt to conjour up the memories of the spirits that once peopled the landscape. Earlier poems, for example the Homeric hymns, and works by Alcman and Sappho take all this for granted, the spirit world, automatically it seems is incorporated into their poems. Poet and listener took this for granted. Theocritus and his audience was no longer in touch with this world and was forced to romanticize it. In the same way as Vergil, Horace and 18th cent. Romanticists as Keats and Shelley. Reinforcing this idea was the Hellenistic innovation of the topia, reliefs or paintings portraying garden architecture in picturesque settings of rugged mountains and seaside cliffs. Attempts to bring a touch of simplicity into lives and tastes jaded by luxury. Alexandria,
the city founded by the Hellenic propogandist, Alexander the
Great, became the center for innovation in Garden Art. The
gardens of the Ptolemies showing the distallation of ideas from
Mesopotamia
and Greece. Mechanical invention was applied to fountains and
automata. There were reproductions of the famous hanging gardens
of Babylon. Dark Ages 1100-700BC Dorian invasion of the mainland and beginning of Iron Age Crude civilization. Geometric Period in art. Homer 800BC.
Formulation of a new alphabet, derived from the Phoenicians. Period of physical, intellectual and artistic awakening. Oriental influences. Wood, stone and marble used in sculpture and architecture. Terra cotta (fired clay) for sculpture. Bronze statuary, often colored. Buildings: Temple of The Heraion @ Olympia 590 BC, Doric. Personalities: Poet Archilochus 650 BC; Tyrtaeus of Sparta 650 BC; Solon of Athens 640-559BC; Sappho of Lesbos 590 BC Period
of colonization: Many famous cities and states are founded. Archaic Period 550 BC- 480 BC 500 BC Sparta leader of the Peloponnesian League Persian Wars: Marathon 490 BC Sculpture: Shows Egyptian influence. ‘Kouros’ or ‘Apollos’ types. Formal posture left facing. Distortions of anatomy to conform to artistic pattern. ‘Calf bearer’ & ‘Apollo’ from Sunion Female figures usually draped ‘Kore’ or ‘Maidens’ type. Other sculptural forms: Reliefs on steles, metopes. Buildings:
Temple at Selinus 560 BC Doric Schools
of Art: Attic School (Athens) Personalities:
Poet Pindar, Playwrite Aeschylus 524-455 Transitional Period 480 – 450 BC 477 Delian League many states in the east join in this confederacy, for mutual defense against Persia. Ships and money are contributed by members; executive headquarters and treasury on the island of Delos. Athens transfers treasury of delian League to Athens in 454 BC, members of League lose their freedome and pay tribute to Athens. Attic School in Athens: examples ‘Charioteer at Delphi 475-470 BC, Myron’s ‘Discobolus’ 460-450 BC Relief Sculpture Buildings:
Temple of Zeus, Olympia 460 BC Personalities:
Herodotus 485-425 BC GREAT PERIOD ONE 450-400 BC Golden age of Pericles (461-429 BC). Pericles is elected chief general numerous times, leader of the popular assembly. Unofficial ruler of democratic Athens. Athenian imperialism, based on naval power strongest in the world. Wealth of Athenian government from tribute exacted from cities of empire, and from heavy taxation of the rich. Much of the cash used to beautify the city- buildings on the acropolis, and to extend democracy. Athens a great commercial center. Peloponnesian War 431-404 BC Sculpture:
Grand in character, impersonal, civic quality. Attic School: Work of Sculptor Pheidas. Buildings: The
Acropolis, Athens. Personalities:Sophocles
497-405 BC GREAT PERIOD TWO 400- 323 BC Sculptors:
Praxiteles, Athens 400-340 BC ‘Hermes’ of Olympia. Buildings: Temples
of Apollo at Bassae first use of the Corinthian Order of Architecture. Public Building Types: Agora
A town square Personalities:
Plato 428-328, Aristotle 384-322 Hellenistic Period 323- 146 BC Conquests of Alexander the Great produce major cultural upheavals. Artistic endeavour now rather reverts to copyism, rather than originality. Works show exaggeration and lack of restraint – exertion and strain. Genre (subjects from everyday life) works abound. Social and political unrest. Merging of eastern and western ideas. The cities of Priene, Olyntus and Pergamon were grid city plans, the plan of which was based on the city of Athens. City planning also involved perimeter walls for defense and planned housing projects. Agora were centrally located and there was a democratic layout or humanistic order in cities where neighbourhoods were not exclusive to one class. Houses became sanctuaries from the streets with interior garden spaces. Stone was used in mosaics, paving and sculpture. Sculpture: ‘NIKE’ of
Samothrace 200 BC Buildings: Temple of Zeus Olympus, the Olympieon, Athens. 173BC- 132AD; Graeco- Roman 146-27 BC Roman conquest of the Greek world. Eastern part still carries on the Hellenistic traditions. Two schools of art appear under the Pergamenian influence: School
of Rhodes Western Greek World inspires Roman artisans. Work for most part is imitative and eclectic. Neo
Attic School Athens area Greek
Architecture ‘A’ represents
the Inantis temple, the enclosing wall is completed by
two free standing columns (antae) at the front. The two projecting
walls form a portico. ‘B’ Prostyle temple:
Columns stand in front of the cella and extend to its width. ‘C’ Amphiprostyle:
Prostyle plan has a porch added to the rear. ‘D’ & ‘E’ Peripteral:
A single colonnade surrounds the cella. ‘F’ Dipteral: Double colonnades around the cella. |
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