Chapter 4: Art of the Aegean
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Chapter 4: Art of the Aegean Periods of Art Location Architecture: Date Cycladic Cycladic Islands various burial mounds c. 2500BCE Minoan Island of Crete Palace of Knossos c. 1500 BCE Mycenaean mainland Greece Citadel at Mycenae c. 1200 BCE CYCLADIC ART CYCLADIC ART Cue Card •Most what survives from Cycladic culture has been found in grave sites on the Greek Male islands. •Figurines as small as two inches, were placed near the dead. Women always carved standing nude, men are playing harps, both have back-tilted heads, rendered in simple geometric shapes, look very modern, small traces of paint have been found on them •Female: very thin hands, feet too small to support sculpture, meant to be placed on their straight backs , lying down, next to the decease, Wedge shaped pelvis and body, emphasized the breasts and public area, archaeologists speculate where this is to represent a dead person, fertility figure, or a goddesses •Male: simple geometric shapes, head tilted back, not playing the harp so much as holding 4-2: Figurine of a it, he might be playing to the deceased in the woman, c. 2600-2300 afterlife although we unsure of their meaning BCE, marble, 1’6” CYCLADIC ART Cue Card Male Female 4-3: Male harp player 4-2: Figurine of a woman c. 2600-2300 BCE c. 2600-2300 BCE, marble, 1’6” marble, 9” Cue Card MINOAN ART 4-4 to 4-7: Palace at Knossos c. 1700-1400 BCE Crete •The home of King Minos, large rambling structure built against the upper slopes and across a the top of a low hill • All around were mansions and villas of Minoan elite Cue Card 4-4to44 to 4-7: Palace at Knossos c. 1700-1400 BCE CtCrete •The central feature of the palace was it great rectangular court. Compare to •areas for official business, storing food, workrooms, Doric column and a theater like area – possible forerunner to the later Greek theater, it was complex with three stories high, •This was a place for official business, manufacturing, religion, trade, politics interior light and air wells the 4-6: Stairwell of Palace staircases, had an advanced drainage of rainwater, at Knossos remarkably efficient system of terracotta (baked clay) pipes under the building •The painted wooden columns have distinctive capitals and shafts, taper from a wide top to a narrower base, the opposit e o f bo th Egyp tian an d la ter Gree k co lumns : •Frescos - close relationship with their natural environment, many flowers, The many flowers, fis h, an d animals in Minoan paintings reveal a people who delighted in observing and recordinggy, the beauty of nature, didn’t paint soldiers or battles Queens megaron Buon (Wet) Fresco Reconstructed drawing of Knossos throne room Cue Card Sty lize d sh apes 4-8: Bull-leappging Fresco c. 1400-1370 BCE, 2’8” •Possibly a ritual (very difficult acrobatic maneuver) showing two women (fair skin) and a man (dark skin)(ancient convention) jumping over a bull, woman on left grabs the horns, the man is jumping over the bull, the woman on the right has landed, •As in Egyptian Art, males have darker skin than females, figures have extremely thin waists, stand in profile but otherwise reflect an Egyptian figure style, •figures have a floating quality with no ground line, sweeping curved lines, S-shaped curves of bu ll’s un ders ide an d ta il, •in contrast to Egyptian wall paintings, the curving lines employed suggest the elasticity of living and moving beings. 4-9: Landscape with swallows (Spring Fresco) c. 1650-1625 BCE, Fresco Cue Card •This is the largest and most complete pure landscape •Discovered in volumes of volcanic ash that was as much as 5 yards deep, they believe that this eruption could have been the demise of the civilization, painted in wet fresco, the painter used vivid colors and undulating lines to capture the essence of nature, joyful patters, geometrically simplified swallows fly through the air •The love of nature is manifested in the painted vases Cue Card • Kamares Ware was named after the cave on the slopes where they were discovered 4-10: Kamares Ware jar •the central motif is a great leaping fish c. 1800-1700 BCE, 1’8” •curvilinear abstract patterns including waves and spirals, evoke life in the sea Polychromatic Curvilinear both abstract and natural forms. abstract patterns •These are light figures on a dark background 4-11: Marine style octopus jar Cue Card c. 1450 BCE, 11’ •Tentacles of the octopus reach out over the curing surfaces of the vessel, embracing the piece and emphasizing its volume. •Masterful realization of the relationship between the vessel decoration its shape •Dark figures on a light vessel 4-12: Snake Goddess, Faience – low-fired opaque glasslike Cue Card c. 1600 BCE, 1’ 1 ½” silicate •They believe mortal priestesses rather than a deity, large exposed breast – symbol of fertility, •snakes in hand-power over animal world, •frontality of the figures is reminiscent of Egyptian and Mesopotamian statuary, •If this is a goddess , it seems Other Snake as another example of human Goddesses beings fashion their gods in their own image., thin waists, wide-eyedid expression •cat image on headdress One of the most remarkable objects ever found on Crete, hippopotamus-tusk ivory, god serpentine, and rock crystal, rendering minute details of muscles and veins 4-13: Young god(?) Cue Card 4-14: Harvester Vase •Finest surviving example of relief sculpture 1500-1450 BCE •Harvester vase - scenes showing sowing and Steatite with gold leaf harvesting •repetition in composition bursting with energy, crowd singing and shouting, •One of the first instances showing a keen interest in underlying muscular and skeletal structure of the human body, Minoan artist’s studied the human anatomy Cue Card MYCENAEAN ART 4-16:Citadel at Tiryns, Greece 4-16:Citadel at Tiryns, Greece •This is a sharp contrast to Cretan palaces – clearly reveal their defensive character, •20 feet in thickness, piled the large irregular Cyclopean blocks in horizontal courses and then cantilevered them inward until the two walls met in a pointed arch • no mortar was used, •the vault is held in place only by the weight of the blocks by the smaller stones used as wedges Corbelled Gallery in walls – used cyclopean Masonry (huge, roughly cut stone blocks forming the massive fortification walls) Corbel vault Three methods of spanning a passageway Post and Lintel Corbeled Arch Arch 4-18A: Palace of Nester, Pylos Megaron – The large recept ion ha ll an d t hrone room in a Mycenaean palace, fronted by an open-two- columned porch – This was the main feature of the palace Megar on •Outer gateway- enemies Cue Card would have had to enter Corbeled Arch this 20-foot-wide channel and face Mycenaean defenders above them, Relieving Triangle •the gate consists of two ggpgreat upright monoliths capped with a huge lintel, the masonry formed a corbelled arch, •Filing this relieving triangle is a great limestone slab with two lions in high relief facing a central Minoan- type column. • The whole design matches its triangular shape, harmonizing dignity, strength, and scale, lions heads were turned to face the observer, • NtllNarrow, tall passageway leading to gate, built for 4-19: Lion Gate, defensive purposes Mycenae Cue Card Dromos Tholos Tomb Dromos: a long passageway 4-20 & 4-21: Treasury of Atreus •Misnamed in the belief it was a repository for treasures; probably originally a tomb, •Elite families buried their dead outside the citadel walls in beehive-shaped tombs covered by enormous earthen mounds, •9 such tombs remain •TfTreasury of Atreus ithbis the bes t preserve d, a long passageway (dromos)l) lea ds to a doorway • The burial chamber, or tholos, con si sts of a seri es of ston e corbelled courses laid on a circular base to forma lofty dome. • Mason had to use great precision to make the stones to conform to horizontal and vertical curvature of the wall (precision cutting of stones) • This is 43 feet high, this dome at the time was the largest vaulted space without interior supports that had ever been bu ilt. • Largest interior domed space until the Romans 4-22: Funerary mask 1600-1500 BCE, 1’ • Repoussé - formed in relief by beating a metal plate from the back , leavi ng th e impression on the face • It is one of the first attempts at life-siltize sculpture • Gold work in repoussé, found in a royal shaft grave, mask pldthdlaced on the decease d’fd’s face like Egyptian burial practices (like King tut), curlicue ears, eyes rendered as slits, hair detailed with long, thin incised marks, Cue Card 4-26: Warrior Vase (Krater), 1200 BCE, 1’4” Cue Card KtKrater – blfbowl for mixing wine and water Prominent frieze of soldiers marchinggy off to war, woman bid farewell to the heavily armed warriors , lacks a landscape, all the soldiers repeat the same pattern, Key Idea • The Cycladic civilization of the Greek islands produced stylized statuettes of nude standing females and nude males playing musical instruments • The Minoans from the island of Crete built mixed-use palaces with complex ground plans • M‘fildGMycenaean‘s from mainland Greece were noted for massive citadels marked by cycldblldltilopean masonry and corbelled vaulting. SUMMARY Cycladic: island – Cycladic figurines Minoan: island Art: palaces – not fortified,,g, nurturing, loved life Vases: invented potter’s wheel Wet Fresco Sty lis tic Charac ter is tics: movemen t -use ofdf curved line, nature (organic), polychrome Intent : reflection of life, no concern with afterlife Mycenaean: mainland Greece, warfare AtArt: megaron. BhitBeehive tom b – 1st ddhdome and arch (corbelled), relieving triangle Metal workers: gold, mask, sword, cups Intent of Art: protection, utilitarian objects, funerary Innovations in Architecture • Cyclopean masonry – minimally cut blocks of stone atop one another to create walls and buildings without using mortar • Corbelled arch – a type of vaulted space which the blocks of stone are gradually placed closer together as building rises, forming an inverted V-Shaped roof Innovations in Sculpture • They were good at sculpting in repoussé, a technique that involves fitting a sheet of think metal, gold, or bronze, onto a surface.