During the 13th and 12th centuries b.c great waves of migrating people moved west over central Asia. The helleus settled in the Cylacles, the Ionians and Dorians in Greece, displacing the Mycenaens. This fusion of Asian and European culture was to lay the foundations of the modern world.
The city state arose in which each was a self governing city trading in competition with one another i.e: Attica, Corinth, Rhodes.
The Greeks broke the bond which held primitive man an insignificant unit at the mercy of the mysterous and magical power of nature. Where primitive man invented gods and religions for fear of what he did not understand, the Greeks saw in man himself the power of reason by which he could understand nature.
In their art, the Greeks personified the attributes of the human being - intelligence, creativity, senstivity, aggression and affection. In their mythology they built an abstract concept in material form - the perfect human. The Greeks dispised the vague and obscure - they applied logic to everything - art, literature, poetry, drama, politics, mathematics, astromomy - in order to establish laws of truth and harmoney in which primitive man saw only magic and mystery.
Periods of development of Greek art: Archaic Style - 12,00 to 500 BC. Classical Style - 500 to 400 BC. Hellenism - 400 to Birth of Christ. (Archaic means crude or primitive.)
Archaic Period
The Dorians emerged from their primitive state with a love of geometric rigidity. Strong Asian influences from Mesopotamia appeared in geometric sculpture and decoration. Crude temples constructed of wood and clay housed early idols. The Doric style developed, reflecting a love of simplicity and nobility. From Asia a love of splendor, luxury and wealth developed the Ionic and Corinthian styles.
Classical Peroid
After complete distruction by the Persians in 480 BC, Athens was rebuilt with refinement of style and proportion never before seen in architecture. The athlete or Appollo expressed the serenity and equilibrium of Greek life.
Hellenistic Period
This is an art manifesting the Greek spirit but produced outside Greece itself long after Greece was conquerored by the romans. This empire under Alexander the Great, extended as far as North India. In Hellenism the calm and peace of Classical Greece gave way to weak sentimentality and emotionalism.
Architecture
The Greeks used the flat roof, they had no knowledge of the vault or arch of Mesopotamia. This was a drawback as the post and lintel gave little space for invention by the architect. So a process of refinement took place in which the column and its proportion was planned and orders developed.
The Doric order - Expressed strength and nobility
The Ionic order - Expressed grace and elegance
The Corinthian order - Expressed luxury
The major architectural construction of the Greeks was the temple. It was the price of the city and around it ceremonies were conducted paying homage to the god whose image it housed.
The Greeks always assembled in the open air so the exterior of the temple was considered more important than the inside, which explains the care and perfection of line and balance which is seen at its best in the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens.
Domestic architecture consisted of small rooms grouped around a central open garden and pool.
The Greeks invented the theatre, a segnieul of a circle of tiered seats for the audience, the circular orchestra for the chior and the proscenium (stage for the actors).
Sculpture
After the abstract idols of hte bronze age, sculpuors began to experiment with the human figure. Archaic sculpture showed an Egyptian influence - a rigid frontal view standing figure with one foor forward and arms by sides. On theface, appears a faint smile called "the archaic smile", the fore runner of classical serenity and confidence.
Two sculpture forms developed - the figure of the athlete "Appollo" and the draped female or "Kore' ". These led to perfection of anatomical structure in the former and the study and treatment of drapery in the latter. The first Archaic figures were treated in a stylized way reminiscent of Assyrian art (hair, muscles etc). However with their search ofr physical and intellectual perfection Greek sculpture lost its Archaic rigidity and reached the idealzed human form. The height of the classical period was the "Olympian" figure - the Greek conception of the divine (godly) - Dorylphorus by Polyclietus 445 B.C is an example. Then to the athletic perfection of the Olympian was added, the qulaity of action, Discobolus by Myron an example.
In the beginning of the 4th century, Greek civilization spread outside Greece and into Asia. Classical dignity and perfection began to degenerate into a display of sentimentality (eg: Venus de Milo) and finally vulgar emotionalism (Laocoon group). Art outside Greece - the Helenistic world - displayed all passions of life - strife, old age, suffering, death and the beautiful athlete of old became an overgrown Hercules twisting and writhing and looking uneasy.
The Greeks were then defeated by the Romans and became apart of their empire.
Painting
Little or nothing of Greek painting remains. This is regrettable when we find in Greek literature that the achievements in painting were considered more important than the work of the sculptors. Some idea of what they did is evident from wall carvings and from latter Roman paintings at Pompeii and Herculaneum where Greek artists were employed.
Pottery
The earliest pottery of the Doric primitives showed a geometric types of designs. Then from Asia by way of Ionia a sytlization of animal forms, similar to Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylon.
Scenes from every day Greek life and from Myth and legand were done as dark figures on a light background. With the rise to power, Athens about 650 B.C, the Mediterranean market was flooded with pottery decorated with figures from Greek mythology - elegant black figures on a red background. The later method of red figures on black led to the use of light and shade, or modelled. This style borrowed from painting had the disadvantage of spoiling the visual shape of the pot. After this, pottery declined.
Names of vessels and uses:
Lekythos: a slender jug or vase fro holding insence at funerals, in tombs etc.
Amphora: for storing liquids
Krater: for mixing wine
Hydra: for fetching water
Kylix: Drinking cup
Minor Arts
The Greeks had a general disregard for comfort (eg: Spartans) and luxury, this meant that little was made in the way of goods for self-indulgence - cloth, jewellery, interior decoration. Of self interest is the design of their coinage which was used in other countries as well.