Hellenic Visual Arts
Structural foundations
Architecture of Athens
- Rebuilding project after the Persian war
- The acropolis
and surrounding areas (agora - marketplace)
- Layout
- Mnesicles - Propylaea
(below)
- Gateway above a zigzagging ascending slope
- A porch flanked by a picture gallery and a open room
of statues
- The portal or gateway leading to the top of the acropolis
- Callicrates - Temple
of Athena Nike (below)
- Named after the goddess of victory
- Reinforces the context of victory in the Person wars
- Ictinus and Callicrates - Parthenon
(interior)
- Monument
to Athena
- Two rooms (cellas), one a memorial, the other housed
the state treasury
- Deviations from Regularity
- Ideal forms
- A visual perfection, though irregular in actual
measurement
- Mnesicles - Erechtheum
- Named after the legendary founder of Athens, Erechtheus
- Ionic orders, though also with Caryatids
- Temple
of Olympian Zeus
- Corinthian orders vs "Hellenic taste"
- Distinctions in time and style
- Later construction reflection of Roman influence
- Theater of Dionysus
Figure Sculpture - Three phases of style
- Archaic (c. 600 BC)
- Geometric rigidity - block form and formal
- Egyptian influence
- Nude form reflects transformation through humanism
- Kouros
- Kore
- Hellenic (c. 450 BC)
- The Polyclitus canon - a system of ratios with individual
parts forming an ideal whole
- Arrangement and modeling of form
- Less rigid than archaic
- "Flesh" under stone
- Contrapposto - Weight shifted to one foot, shoulders
"tip" off axis
- Polyclitus - Spear
Bearer
- Phidias - Athena
- Late Hellenic (c. 350 BC)
- The Praxitelean form
- Arrangement and modeling of form
Humanities
Resource of Mark Hunter