Diagram of Greek and Roman Orders. Classical Greek and Roman columns consist of a base, shaft, capital, and an emblature. Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders are differentiated by their degree of ornamentation. the island of Crete and reached its pinnacle in the ANCIENT GREEK ART second millennium B.C.E. From around 660 to 475 B.C.E., during the Archaic The Minoan culture centered around the city of Period, the Greeks, influenced by the stone sculp- Knossos on Crete, where the legend of the Minotaur— tures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, created sculptures the creature believed to be half man and half bull who carved in marble and limestone. These freestanding devoured those who entered his maze—is supposed figures borrowed the frontal pose used in Egyptian to have taken place. The maze was actually the royal art, but were more dynamic and placed greater palace, a sprawling complex that has since been emphasis on depicting realistic human features. excavated. The art of these island people depicts sea Temples were also built during this time period using life and includes statues of a female snake goddess. columns in the early Doric and Ionic decorative The Minoans created artworks that were character- styles. Vase painting was another notable art form ized by a naturalistic pictorial style. Their paintings and was done in many different styles. Some vases took two major forms: frescoes painted on palace portrayed black silhouetted figures, while those walls and pottery designs. The architectural achieve- in the Corinthian style set figures against a floral, ments of the Minoans were also impressive, as they ornamented background. Athenian-style vases used built four major palaces, all completely unfortified black figures, but were more linear and larger in and designed in a light, flexible, and organic style. scale. Red-figure vases, with red figures standing out against a black background, were also common. The collapse of the Minoan civilization coincided with the pinnacle of Mycenaean culture, and as a The best-known ancient Greek art is that from result, many historians believe the Minoans were the city-state of Athens from the Classical Period destroyed by the Mycenaeans. The Mycenaean cul- (475–323 B.C.E.). During the Early Classical Period ture was centered around the city of Mycenae on (c. 475–448 B.C.E.), temples were typically built with the Greek mainland. The Mycenaeans built elaborate sturdy, Doric columns. Unfortunately, much of the tombs, and their burial practices allowed for a large sculpture from this period has not survived, but number of objects to be preserved. The objects that luckily Roman copies have provided us with a good are best known are made of gold and show astonish- deal of information on these ancient works. The ing levels of mastery in goldsmithing. Additionally, sculpture of the Early Classical Period was charac- the Mycenaeans demonstrated much skill in their terized by its solemnity, strength, and simplicity of use of relief sculpture. form and most often focused on a figure or scene 2013–2014 ACADEMIC DECATHLON ® ART RESOURCE GUIDE REVISED PAGE 13 * The oldest [Futurists] are not yet thirty years old: we have therefore at least ten years to accomplish our task. When we are forty let other younger and stronger men throw us in the waste- basket like useless manuscripts.9 The Futurist artists were enamored with change and progress, and from today’s perspective, their youth- ful exuberance may seem naïve. We can now see, of course, that even though these artists hoped to reject tradition, they built on the foundations of the past. In the case of Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, the forceful, striding pose evokes classical sculptures such as the monumental Nike of Samothrace, which was on display in the Louvre by the time Boccioni created his sculpture.10 However, when rendered in shiny, polished metal rather than in a classical mate- rial such as marble, the sculpture seems to celebrate the machine age. It is a dynamic victory figure for the Umberto Boccioni, self-portrait, March 1913. modern world that the Futurists envisioned. Photograph. Calmarini Collection, Milan. ***** Subject Matter and Visual Analysis SELECTED ARTWORK Boccioni created Unique Forms of Continuity in Space in plaster. He intended to eventually cast the work in Portrait of a German Officer, bronze, but, given the expense of casting a work in Marsden Hartley, 1914 metal, as well as the fact that the weight of the final piece would have made it difficult to move around, it Marsden Hartley: Biography was quite typical for artists to exhibit plaster models Marsden Hartley (1877–1943) was an American artist as final works of art. The sculpture was never actual- who painted some of his most notable works while ly cast in bronze during the artist’s lifetime; the first living in Berlin during the early years of World War I. two bronze casts of the work were made in 1931. The Hartley was born in Cleveland, and he received for- sculpture shown in the Art Reproductions Booklet mal training in the arts there and in New York. In his is from this period. Several other casts were made early career, he worked in Maine and Boston, but in later, and so you may also encounter this sculpture 1909 Hartley moved to New York and began to asso- in other museums throughout the world. ciate with avant-garde artists. He gained the support of Alfred Stieglitz, who showed Hartley’s work at his The piece depicts an abstracted human figure in 291 Gallery and encouraged his travel to Paris in motion, though the sculpture is nearly forty-four 1912. In Paris, Hartley developed a friendship with inches high, and so it is smaller than life-size. Two Gertrude Stein as well as with the circle of artists block-like pedestals at its “feet” ground the figure as and collectors who frequented her salons. He was it strides forward; the front leg is bent as the back leg inspired by Matisse and Picasso, and he was aware pushes off from the ground with great energy. The of the latest artistic developments such as Futurism. torso is leaning slightly forward, and, although face- Although the Futurist movement was largely Italian, less, the figure seems to gaze straight ahead. Though the 1909 manifesto was published in Paris, and so it the figure lacks arms, it almost seems as if it could is reasonable to propose that Hartley reacted to the fly off if it weren’t rooted to the ground. Rather than tenets of Futurism in his Expressionist paintings. depicting the solidity of human form, or attempt- Traveling to Berlin in 1913, Hartley developed an ing to convey naturalistic musculature, the artist interest in the work of the German Expressionists has created the sense of the human body in motion Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. Hartley felt at through a series of curvilinear, feathery forms that home in Berlin, a city that in the early twentieth flow around and from the body. century was known for its lively homosexual subcul- Contextual Analysis ture, and he stayed there until the war forced him to return to the United States in 1916. Beginning in 1914, A line from the 1909 Futurist Manifesto reflects the Hartley produced a series of works that reflected brazen optimism of the group in its early years, and both his fascination with the pageantry of war and a sense that the future belonged to youthful leaders: his rejection of its destructive forces. The abstract 2013–2014 ACADEMIC DECATHLON ® ART RESOURCE GUIDE REVISED PAGE 67 *.