Ancient Greek Art By: Sophia Taylor
Introduction
The Ancient Greek people
loved art. Most of their art
was put on public display.
They used art to honor the
gods, express their emotion,
and help them with politics.
They loved all types of visual
arts. They were painters,
potters, sculptors, architects,
and much, much more.
Sculpture The Ancient Greeks were amazing sculptors. They
perfected the art of sculpture. A male sculpture is
called Kouros, and a female is called Kore. The
Greeks thought that human beauty was a huge factor
in everyday life. Using a combination of math and
art, the Greeks found the “mathematically
proportioned human beauty�. They used math to find
the ratio of the head to the body. An average Greek
citizen is six and a half to seven heads tall. By
increasing the size of the body to the head, they
found a more visually appealing look of the
sculpture.
Even to this day, comic book artists use
this strategy to make super heroes look even more,
well, super. Then they found if they spread the legs
farther apart than normal, the statue would be more
stable. They even used a tip that the they got from
the Egyptians, that if they extended the hair a bit
longer, then it would help support the neck.
Because
the Greeks were smart, they soon found out the head
was the most vulnerable part of the statue. They even
sometimes made the head removable so during
transport, the head would not get damaged. During
the Hellenistic period the sculptures started to show
more action and emotion.
Painting
Paintings were another part of the Greeks
specialties. They liked to paint with friends or
in public and they typically liked to paint
outside, so I guess you would not be surprised
when I tell you that they normally painted on the
exterior walls of buildings. These paintings
were typically of the gods.
These paintings are
not there today, they have eroded off the
buildings.
Painting was the major thing going
on in around 400 BC.
If you look around today at any government
building in the US you can see signs of Ancient
A
R
Greek architecture. Columns are one of the
C Greeks signature creations. They had three
H types of columns: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian.
The Doric was the simplest column. Ionic was
I
like Doric, but it has two scroll like designs at
T
the top. The Greeks used the Ionic style column
E
the most. The Corinthian was the most fancy.
C
It has flora covering the top. The Greeks did
T not particularly like the Corinthian style, but
U the Romans who liked the Greeks style of art
and eventually took some of their customs
loved the Corinthian column. In the sides of
the columns there are little grooves that are
called fluting. The fluting gave the temple a
look and feeling of balance. The columns were
a major component of the temples.
A special
spot was always reserved for a temple before
it was built. The temples were always built to
honor the gods and never kings or other
royalty.
As you can see, architecture was a big
part of Ancient Greek culture.
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