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Home , 27 BC, Mycenaean Greece

Prehistoric and Early

The Robert and Renee Belfer Court The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Robert and Renee Belfer Court

The opening of The Robert and Renee Belfer Court completes the first phase of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's renovation of the galleries of and Roman art. Based on Richard Morris Hunt's plan of 1895, the Belfer Court displays prehistoric and early Greek art. During the second phase of the renovation, eleven galleries devoted to Greek art of the Archaic and Classical periods, as well as Cypriot art, will be reinstalled. The final phase of this large project will focus on exhibition areas for Hellenistic, South Italian, Etruscan, and Roman art, and Roman art will again be presented in the atrium (now the restaurant).

Represented on the west side of the Belfer Court are several regions— the Cycladic Islands, , and parts of the Greek mainland centered around —where major works of art were first produced. The respective cultures, known as Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean, flourished during the prehistoric period known as the , between about 3200 and 1050 B.C. After a period of decline and general impoverishment, a vigorous resurgence took place that was centered upon . Between about 1050 and 700 B.C. an artistic style known as Geometric prevailed over most of .

Attic South Italian The east side of the Belfer Court is devoted to the succeeding Archaic period of about 700 to 480 B.C. The emphasis is on works that display the colorful, complex multiplicity that characterized the Greek world for more than two centuries rather than on works that represent a succession of cultures that came to the fore over a long period. This side of the Court highlights the art of eastern and western Greece (the Greek colonies in western Minor and southern and ), of Crete, and of various areas on the mainland that flourished at this time: Corinth, Lakonia, , and . While works from (with its capital, Athens) are included, they will be highlighted during the second phase of the renovation. Artists from these areas shared such features as great proficiency in working bronze and clay and an iconographical repertory that favors animals and stylized plant motifs as well as the exploits of the gods and heroes of mythology. met the challenge of the Persian invasions that ended in 479 B.C., assuring the continuity of its traditions.

Geometric

Early Bronze Age 1 WEST GALLERY The Cycladic Islands Situated in the southwestern , the Cycladic Islands were settled in the mid-sixth millennium B.C.; the origin of the inhabitants has not been established. The made during the Neolithic period are the precursors of the far more numerous—and better known—pieces datable between about 3200 and 2000 B.C. that are commonly called Cycladic. These works are a product of an imperfectly understood culture; few settlements have been found and much of the available evidence, including the figures, comes from graves. In the predominance of human form, the use of marble heightened with polychromy, the application of proportions, and the harmony of parts, the works initiate the glorious tradition of Greek marble .

Female Figure, marble, Cycladic, Early Cycladic II, Minoan Crete late Spedos type, ca. 2600-2400 B.C. The prehistoric culture of Crete is known as Minoan, Gift of Christos G. Bastis, 1968 68.148 after King Minos. Having seduced Europa in the form

Right: of a bull, carried her to Crete, Female Figure, where Minos was born and later marble, Cycladic, ca. 4500-4000 B.C. built the celebrated Labyrinth. The Bequest of Walter C. Baker, 1971 culture of Crete reached its apogee 1972.118.104 with the establishment of centers, Vase in the Form called , that concentrated not of a Bull's Head, terracotta, Minoan, only political and economic power Late Minoan II, ca. 1450-1400 B.C. but also artistic activity. The first palaces, Gift of Alastair B. Martin. 1973 notably at and , devel­ 1973.35 oped about 1900 B.C. After widespread destruction, new palaces were built during the seventeenth century B.C.; from about 1500 B.C. on, there is increasing evidence of influence from the mainland. By about 1100 B.C. the entire culture was in decline. The most fully represented in the Metropolitan is seal engraving. Seals reveal an

Agate Lentoid: extraordinary sensitivity to materials Griffin, Cretan, Late Minoan II. and to dynamic form, whether the ca. 1450-1400 B.C. Funds from various subjects are drawn from nature or donors, 1914 are purely ornamental—characteristics 14.104.1 that are equally apparent in other media, whether clay, gold, stone, or bronze. The prehistoric culture of mainland Greece is called Helladic. Material wealth and artistic enterprise in Greece did not become conspicuous until about 1600 to 1450 B.C., as exemplified by the Shaft Graves at Mycenae. The subsequent four centuries saw an extraordinary flowering of a culture centered in strongholds immortalized by 's and his Odyssey—Mycenae, , , and Thebes, to name a few. This Late Helladic period is commonly called Mycenaean. Due to the commercial sunup jar with oaopus, and military initiatives of local rulers, Mycenaean terracotta, Helladic, . . • l j i i Mycenaean, Late Heiiadic me, goods—and even outposts—were widespread around the Purc^L^uisaEidndge , from Italy to the . Mycenaean McBumey Gift, 1953 contacts with Minoan culture exerted a powerful effect 53.11.6 r on the art of both cultures. Although the Mycenaean Age came to an end about 1050 B.C. and was followed by a period of impoverishment, many sites and traditions reemerged in the subsequent Geometric period. Geometric Greece The roots of lie in the Geometric period of about 1050 to 700 B.C. The primary Greek institutions were established—city-states, major sanctuaries, -Hellenic festivals—and the Greek developed and spread. The eighth century is also the time of Homer, whose account of the Greek campaign against constitutes one of the major sources of subject matter for Greek, Roman, and later European art. The Geometric period

Man and , bronze, derives its name from the Greek (Geometric), mid- 8th century B.C. Gift of prevailing artistic idiom, J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 which was based upon 17.190.2072 rectilinear and curvilin- W> Right: Funerary , ear forms. While the /'*^' terracotta, Greek (Attic, Geometric), style is simple, the works second half of the 8th century B.C. are highly refined. The Rogers Fund, 1914 monumental vases and 14.130.14 powerful bronzes mani­ fest not only a masterful technical command of the media but also the clarity and order that are, perhaps, the most salient characteristics of Greek art, which reached its height in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. The Ancient Greek World

ETRURIA

Caere .Rome

ITALY ADRIATIC SEA . .Neapolis Bay ^ of .Taras Metapontion" GREECE

. AEGEAN TYRRHENIAN SEA .Kroton EUBOEA

ue,Delohnii Chalkis P • BOEOTIA • . .Lokroi Thebes* „ .. .Rhegion „ . Athens .Selinus Olympia. Connth ATTICA Sicily ' •Mycenae Akragas' PELOPONNESOS ARG°L"D " .Syracuse „ , Sparta. py'°s. LAKONIA

Crete

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Cyrene •Istros

BLACK SEA

.Odessos •Sinope

THRACE . Tios. Herakleia.

Byzantion. .Chalkedon

.Troy ASIA MINOR

SEA

.Kyme LTUIM •Sardis .Klazomenai •Ephesos Priene 'Miletos Al Mina. Naxos CYCLADIC ISLANDS

LEVANT Knossos

Phaistos Sidon. Tyrus.

Naukratis

EGYPT

100 Miles

200 Kilometers EAST GALLERY

Greek Expansion in the Mediterranean and Contacts with the Near East

As the turmoil and poverty that followed the decline of Mycenaean civilization in Greece slowly abated, the ventured into the Mediterranean, first seeking opportunities for trade and then founding new indepen­ dent cities, from the western coast of Asia Minor to southern Italy and Sicily. Trading stations in the Levant and later in the Nile Delta led to contact with literate urban civilizations that had well-established artistic and cultural traditions. The Greeks borrowed and assimilated so much from cultures to the east that the eighth Vase in the Form of and seventh centuries are commonly called the a Woman, terracotta, East Greek, possibly Orientalizing period. They adopted an alphabetic Samian, ca. 540-530 B.C. script from the Phoenicians (who were Bequest of Richard B. Seager, 1926 settled in Syria-) that was so 26.31.453 ingeniously simple that reading and Right: Cosmetic Vase, terracotta, became widely accessible for the East Greek or Lydian, first time. The most easily traceable influences 7th century B.C. Classical Purchase Fund, can be seen in the transformation of Greek art. Unlike 1977 1977.11.3 the abstract geometric patterning that dominated Greek art from about 1050 to 700 B.C., Near Eastern art was representational and naturalistic. Moreover, Oriental craftsmen were highly skilled in such diverse techniques as gem cutting, ivory carving, jewelry making, and metal working. Inspired by objects brought to the mainland and trained by itinerant eastern craftsmen, Greek artists soon began to work in a variety of media and to introduce Oriental pictorial motifs, including palmette and lotus patterns, hunting animals, lion fights, and such composite beasts as griffins, sphinxes, and sirens. Although always open to new ideas, the Greeks were not merely imitators, and they rapidly assimilated the naturalistic style and foreign motifs to forge the foundations of Archaic and Classical Greek art.

The Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean

By the tenth century B.C. Greeks had settled along the western coast of Asia Minor, founding cities at the mouths of important rivers and on the offshore islands of Samos and Chios. Somewhat later, other Greeks settled to the south, on the islands of Rhodes, Kos, and Crete. By the sixth century B.C. the East Greeks Mitra with Sphinxes, controlled the Aegean Sea and had founded new bronze, Greek (Cretan), ca. 625-600 B.C. Gift of independent cities along the . They competed Norbert Schimmel Trust, 1989 with one another in the construction of rich sanctuaries with 1989.281.53 huge stone temples, and their prosperous cities were home to famous poets and the earliest Greek philosophers. The Greeks in Southern Italy and Sicily

In the eighth century B.C. Greeks from Eretria and Chalkis, towns on the island of Euboea, just off the Greek mainland, established the first Greek settlements in Italy. Soon

Black-Figure Neck-Amphora they had placed colonies in the Bay (jar), terracotta, Greek (Chalcidian), ca. 540 B.C. of Naples and on the northeast coast of Attributed to the Painter Sicily. In 733 B.C. colonists from the city of the Cambridge Hydria Dodge Fund, 1963 of Corinth, on the Greek mainland, 63.11.3 founded Syracuse and gained the finest harbor on Sicily's east coast. Other Greek cities founded colonies on the southern coast of Italy, and before long the new towns established colonies of their own. Although the new settlements were politically independent, all maintained religious ties and trade links with their mother city. Until the mid-sixth century B.C., Corinth dominated the western trade markets, exporting such products as Corinthian vases, often filled with precious oils from the east, and importing grain. As the western cities prospered, some built temples that rivaled those in the east and developed distinctive artistic styles.

The Greeks on the Mainland

Beginning in the eighth century B.C., wealth and population increased rapidly in Greece. A network of small city-states developed, most consisting of a central­ ized town and the surrounding territory. Separated from one another by the mountainous geography and the sea, these settlements were fiercely independent. Each evolved politically in its own way, had particular customs and religious cults, and developed identifiable artistic styles,

Relief of Two Women, especially in pottery. While the Corinthians invented ivory, Greek, ca. 650-600 B.C. Gift of a style of silhouetted forms that become the black-figure J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 technique and concentrated on tapestrylike patterns of 17.190.73 small animals and plant motifs, the potters of Athens were more interested in illustrat­ ing mythological episodes in large outline drawings. Despite varieties in dialect, the Greeks recognized their language as a unifying factor, and great Panhellenic m sanctuaries grew up at Olympia, , and Delos, where all Greek- speaking people could come together

Sphinx, marble. for festivals and games. Much imported Greek (Attic), ca. 580 B.C. Oriental art—and Greek works Fletcher Fund, 1924 24.97.87 it inspired—was dedicated at these sanctuaries. Chronology of Greek and Roman Art

B.C.

Period 4500 4000 3500 3000

Final Neolithic Period ca. 4500-ca. 3200 B.C.

Early Bronze Age ca. 3200-ca. 2000 B.C. Early Cycladic Early Minoan Early Helladic

Middle Bronze Age ca. 2000-ca. 1600 B.C. Middle Cycladic Middle Minoan Middle Helladic

Late Bronze Age ca. 1600-ca. 1050 B.C. Late Cycladic Late Minoan Late Helladic (Mycenaean) Geometric Period ca. 1050-ca. 700 B.C.

• Archaic Period ca. 700-ca. 480 B.C.

Classical Period ca. 480-ca. 323 B.C.

Hellenistic Period ca. 323-ca. 27 B.C.

Roman Empire ca. 27 B.C.-ca. A.D. 337 Early Greek Art - Periods of Greek Art Represented in The Belfer Court

Future Greek and Roman Galleries

A.D.

500 300 100 100 300

Growth of stone vuse production in ca. 4500-ca. 3200 B.C. Intensive settlement of cave sites, ca. 4500-ca. 3200 B.C Contacts between Aegean settlement and western Asia Minor, ca. 3800-ca 3300 B.C.

Old Kingdom of F|gypt, Dynasties 3- I, ca. 3100-ca. 2100 B.C. Connections between Cycladic Islantjls and mainland Griece, ca. 2800-ca. $300 B.C. Significant metahk/orking on Crete, c 2800-ca. 2300 B.' Pyramids at Giza , ca. 2550-ca. 247C B.C.

Middle Kingdom of Egypt: , Dynasty 12 c, . 1991-ca. 1783 B. First palaces in Crete ca. 1900 B.C-ca. 700 B.C. Second palaces in C ete, ca. 1700 B.C.-4a. 1200 B.C.

New Kingdom of Egypt. Dynasties 18-20, ca. 1550-ca. 1070 B.C. Destruction of The a, ca. 1500 B.C. Expansion of Myce naean influence, CE 1350-ca. 1250 B.C. Fall of Troy, ca. 1 200 B.C.

Era of Greek colonization, ca. 1100-4a. 650 B.C. Phoenician expansion into Mediterranean, ca. 900 B.C. First , 7J6 B.C. Legendary foundihg of Rome, 753 B. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, ca. 750 B

Kingdom of oa. 700-547 B.C. Persian empire established, ca. 550-ct. 525 B.C. founded, 509 B.C. Persian Wars, 490 479 B.C.

Construction of the , 447-432 B.C. , 431-404 B.C. , 356-323 B.C.

Consol dation of Roman power in Greece, 146 Mark Antony and Clpopat:ri a defeated in battle of Actium, 31 Octavian assumes itle of , 27

Eruption of Vesuvius destroys 3ompeii, A.D. 79 reaches greatest extent, A.D. 98-117 Christian faith leg a izedI , A.D. 312 Death of Cons antine, A.D. 337 Cover: Seated Harp Player, marble, Cycladic, •early 3rd millennium B.C. Rogers Fund, 1947 (47.100.1)

Back Cover: Head of a Griffin, bronze, Greek, third quarter of the 7th century B.C. Bequest of Walter C. Baker, 1971 (1972.118.54)

©1996 The Metropolitan Museum of Art