ART IN OUR COUNTRIES FAMOUS PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURES
ART
GREEK ART Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.
The earliest art by Greeks is generally excluded from "ancient Greek art", and instead known as Aegean art; this includes Cycladic art and the art of the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures from the Greek Bronze Age.[1] The art of ancient Greece is usually divided stylistically into four periods: the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic.The 7th century BC witnessed the slow development of the Archaic style as exemplified by the black-figure style of vase painting. Around 500 BC, shortly before the onset of the Persian Wars (480 BC to 448 BC), is usually taken as the dividing line between the Archaic and the Classical periods, and the reign of Alexander the Great (336 BC to 323 BC) is taken as separating the Classical from the Hellenistic periods.
Ancient Greek sculpture Ancient Greek sculpture is the sculpture of ancient Greece. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials. The Greeks decided very early on that the human form was the most important subject for artistic endeavour. [1] Seeing their gods as having human form, there was little distinction between the sacred and the secular in art—the human body was both secular and sacred. A male nude of Apollo or Heracles had only slight differences in treatment to one of that year's Olympic boxing champion. The statue, originally single but by the Hellenistic period often in groups was the dominant form, though reliefs, often so "high" that they were almost free-standing, were also important.
Neptune of Artemision The Artemision Bronze (often called the God from the Sea) is an ancient Greek sculpture that was recovered from the sea off Cape Artemisiou, in northern Euboea. It represents either Zeus or Poseidon, is slightly over lifesize at 209 cm,and would have held either a thunderbolt, if Zeus, or a trident if Poseidon. However, the iconography of Ancient Greek pottery portrays Poseidon wielding the trident, when in combat, in more of a stabbing motion (similar to a fencing stance or an 'advance-lunge') Zeus is depicted fighting with his arm raised, holding the thunderbolt overhead, in the same position as the Artemision Bronze (see 'Poseidon and the Giant Polybotes' an Attic Red Figure Stamnos attributed to the Trolios Painter, as well as 'Zeus hurling his lightning at Typhon' ca. 550 BC which is a blackfigured Chalcidian hydria). The empty eye-sockets were originally inset, probably with bone, as well as the eyebrows (with silver), the lips, and the nipples (with copper). The sculptor is unknown.
Minoan snake goddess figurines "Snake goddess" is a type figurine depicting a woman holding a snake in each hand, as were found in Minoan archaeological sites in Crete. The first two of such figurines (both incomplete) were found by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans and date to the neo - palatial peiod of Minoan civilization, c. 1700–1450 BCE. It was Evans who called the larger of his pair of figurines a "Snake Goddess", the smaller a "Snake Priestess"; since then, it has been debated whether Evans was right, or whether both figurines depict priestesses, or both depict the same deity or distinct deities. The figurines were found only in house sanctuaries, where the figurine appears as "the goddess of the household", and they are probably (according to Burket) related to the Paleolithic traditions regarding women and domesticity.] The figurines have also been interpreted as showing a mistress of animals-type goddess and as a precursor to Athena Parthenos, who is also associated with snakes.
ITALIAN ART
THE VENUS The Birth of Venus,is a painting that was made for the Medici family, by Sandro Botticelli, between 1482 and 1485. The Venus, with her long hair and legs, signed the start of a glorious period for Italian’s art, The Reinassance. Now it is kept in the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence. In the painting, the goddess appears in all her grace. She is in the middle of the picture, naked; she is keeping her right hand on her breast and the left one on her pubis. Her hair is moved by the wind and her expression is sweet and calm. She’s wearing a cloak that is the symbol of her way of protecting her figure, since she is naked. There are the faces of the winds such as Zefiro, Brezza and Venus herself that strike the audience’s attention.
Riace’s Bronzi
On 16 August Stefano Mariottini, in one of his divings in the Ionian Sea water, at 230 metres from Riace’s coast, discovered the statues of two bronze warriors. The two statues are a Greek work of the 5th century; they may have belonged to Reggio Calabria, Atene, Olimpia and Locri Epizefiri too. The principal material of the two statues is bronze, but the eyes and the eyelashes are in silver. Now the two statues are kept in the National Museum of Reggio Calabria.
David of Michelangelo David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian artist Michelangelo. David is a 5.17-metre marble statue of the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence.David was originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the east end of Florence Cathedral, but was instead placed in a public square, outside the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of civic government in Florence, in the Piazza della Signoria where it was unveiled on 8 September 1504.Because of the nature of the hero it represented, the statue soon came to symbolize the defence of civil liberties embodied in the Republic of Florence, an independent city-state threatened on all sides by more powerful rival states and by the hegemony of the Medici family.
LA PRIMAVERA La Primavera was painted by Sandro Botticelli and it’s got a mythological subject. It was painted in 1478 and given to Pierfrancesco de’ Medici.The painting features six female figures and two male, along with a cupid, in a orange grove. The scene is in a green clearing with lots of flowers and plants, limited by orange trees. On the right there is Zephyrus, the biting wind of March, kidnaps and possesses the nymph Chloris, whom he later marries and trasforms into a deity; she becomes the goddess of Spring, eternal bearer of life and is scattering roses on the ground. In the centre there is Venus, a red-drapped woman in blue. The trees behind her form a broken arch to draw the eye. On the left of the painting the Three Graces, a group of three female also in diaphanous white, join hands in a dance. At the extreme left Mercury, clothed in red with a sword and a helmet. The costumes of the figures are versions of the dress of contemporary Florence,though the sort of “quasi-theatrical costumes designed for masquerades of the sort that Vasari wrote were invented by Lorenzo de’ Medici for civic festivals and tournaments”. The lack of an obvious narrative may relate to the world of pageants and “tableau vivants” as well as typically static Gothic allegories.
THE LAOCOONTE The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group, has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures ever since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and placed on public display in the Vatican, where it remains. It was made by Agesandro and Atenodoro of Rhodes. The story is that during the Trojan War, Laocoön, a priest of Apollo in the city of Troy, warned Trojans about the danger of the wooden horse left by the Greeks outside the city gates. Athena and Poseidon, who were favouring the Greeks, sent two great sea-serpents which have wrapped their coils around Laocoön and his two sons and are killing them. The suffering is shown through the contorted expressions of the faces ( Charles Darwin pointed out that Laocoön's bulging eyebrows are physiologically impossible), which are matched by the struggling bodies, especially that of Laocoön himself, with every part of his body straining.