Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient Greek art

Heracles and Athena, black-figureside of a belly amphora by the Andokides Painter, c. 520/510 BC

The Hellenistic Pergamon Altar: l to r Nereus, Doris, a Giant, Oceanus

Hades abducting Persephone, 4th-century BC wall painting in the small Macedonian royal tomb at Vergina

Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.

Greek architecture, technically very simple, established a harmonious style with numerous detailed conventions that were largely adopted by Roman architecture and are still followed in some modern buildings. It used a vocabulary of ornament that was shared with pottery, metalwork and other media, and had an enormous influence on Eurasian art, especially after Buddhism carried it beyond the expanded Greek world created by Alexander the Great. The social context of Greek art included radical political developments and a great increase in prosperity; the equally impressive Greek achievements in philosophy, literature and other fields are well known.

The earliest art by Greeks is generally excluded from « ancient Greek art », and instead known as Aegean art; this includes Cycladic art and the art of the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures from the Greek Bronze Age.^[1] The art of ancient Greece is usually divided stylistically into four periods: the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. The Geometric age is usually dated from about 1000 BC, although in reality little is known about art in Greece during the preceding 200 years, traditionally known as the Greek Dark Ages. The 7th century BC witnessed the slow development of the Archaic style as exemplified by the black-figure style of vase painting. Around 500 BC, shortly before the onset of the Persian Wars (480 BC to 448 BC), is usually taken as the dividing line between the Archaic and the Classical periods, and the reign of Alexander the Great (336 BC to 323 BC) is taken as separating the Classical from the Hellenistic periods. From some point in the 1st century BC onwards « Greco-Roman » is used, or more local terms for the Eastern Greek world.^[2]

In reality, there was no sharp transition from one period to another. Forms of art developed at different speeds in different parts of the Greek world, and as in any age some artists worked in more innovative styles than others. Strong local traditions, and the requirements of local cults, enable historians to locate the origins even of works of art found far from their place of origin. Greek art of various kinds was widely exported. The whole period saw a generally steady increase in prosperity and trading links within the Greek world and with neighbouring cultures.

The survival rate of Greek art differs starkly between media. We have huge quantities of pottery and coins, much stone sculpture, though even more Roman copies, and a few large bronze sculptures. Almost entirely missing are painting, fine metal vessels, and anything in perishable materials including wood. The stone shell of a number of temples and theatres has survived, but little of their extensive decoration.^[3]

Pottery

Detail of a black-figure vase, c. 540. White, which has not worn well, and a different red-purple are also used.^[4]

Interior of an Attic red-figure cup, about 450

White ground, Attic, c. 460, Cylix of Apollo, who pours a libation, detail.^[5]

Main article: Pottery of ancient Greece

Further information: Ancient Greek vase painting

By convention, finely painted vessels of all shapes are called « vases », and there are over 100,000 significantly complete surviving pieces,^[6]giving (with the inscriptions that many carry) unparalleled insights into many aspects of Greek life. Sculptural or architectural pottery, also very often painted, are referred to as terracottas, and also survive in large quantities. In much of the literature, « pottery » means only painted vessels, or « vases ». Pottery was the main form of grave goods deposited in tombs, often as « funerary urns » containing the crematedashes, and was widely exported.

The famous and distinctive style of Greek vase-painting with figures depicted with strong outlines, with thin lines within the outlines, reached its peak from about 600 to 350 BC, and divides into the two main styles, almost reversals of each other, of black-figureand red-figure painting, the other colour forming the background in each case. Other colours were very limited, normally to small areas of white and larger ones of a different purplish-red. Within the restrictions of these techniques and other strong conventions, vase-painters achieved remarkable results, combining refinement and powerful expression. White ground technique allowed more freedom in depiction, but did not wear well and was mostly made for burial.^[7]

Conventionally, the ancient Greeks are said to have made most pottery vessels for everyday use, not for display. Exceptions are the large Archaic monumental vases made as grave-markers, trophies won at games, such as the Panathenaic Amphorae filled with olive oil, and pieces made specifically to be left in graves; some perfume bottles have a money-saving bottom just below the mouth, so a small quantity makes them appear full.^[8] In recent decades many scholars have questioned this, seeing much more production than was formerly thought as made to be placed in graves, as a cheaper substitute for metalware in both Greece and Etruria.^[9]

Most surviving pottery consists of vessels for storing, serving or drinking liquids such as amphorae, kraters (bowls for mixing wine and water), hydria (water jars), libation bowls, oil and perfume bottles for the toilet, jugs and cups. Painted vessels for serving and eating food are much less common. Painted pottery was affordable even by ordinary people, and a piece « decently decorated with about five or six figures cost about two or three days’ wages ».^[10] Miniatures were also produced in large numbers, mainly for use as offerings at temples.^[11]In the Hellenistic period a wider range of pottery was produced, but most of it is of little artistic importance.

In earlier periods even quite small Greek cities produced pottery for their own locale. These varied widely in style and standards. Distinctive pottery that ranks as art was produced on some of the Aegean islands, in Crete, and in the wealthy Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily.^[12] By the later Archaic and early Classical period, however, the two great commercial powers, Corinth and Athens, came to dominate. Their pottery was exported all over the Greek world, driving out the local varieties. Pots from Corinth and Athens are found as far afield as Spain and Ukraine, and are so common in Italy that they were first collected in the 18th century as « Etruscan vases ».^[13] Many of these pots are mass-produced products of low quality. In fact, by the 5th century BC, pottery had become an industry and pottery painting ceased to be an important art form.

The range of colours which could be used on pots was restricted by the technology of firing: black, white, red, and yellow were the most common. In the three earlier periods, the pots were left their natural light colour, and were decorated with slip that turned black in the kiln.^[7]

Greek pottery is frequently signed, sometimes by the potter or the master of the pottery, but only occasionally by the painter. Hundreds of painters are, however, identifiable by their artistic personalities: where their signatures have not survived they are named for their subject choices, as « the Achilles Painter« , by the potter they worked for, such as the Late Archaic « Kleophrades Painter« , or even by their modern locations, such as the Late Archaic « Berlin Painter« .^[14]

History

The history of ancient Greek pottery is divided stylistically into five periods:

• the Protogeometric from about 1050 BC
• the Geometric from about 900 BC
• the Late Geometric or Archaic from about 750 BC
• the Black Figure from the early 7th century BC
• and the Red Figure from about 530 BC

During the Protogeometric and Geometric periods, Greek pottery was decorated with abstract designs, in the former usually elegant and large, with plenty of unpainted space, but in the Geometric often densely covering most of the surface, as in the large pots by the Dipylon Master, who worked around 750. He and other potters around his time began to introduce very stylised silhouette figures of humans and animals, especially horses. These often represent funeral processions, or battles, presumably representing those fought by the deceased.^[15]

The Geometric phase was followed by an Orientalizing period in the late 8th century, when a few animals, many either mythical or not native to Greece (like the sphinx and lion respectively) were adapted from the Near East, accompanied by decorative motifs, such as the lotus and palmette. These were shown much larger than the previous figures. The Wild Goat Style is a regional variant, very often showing goats. Human figures were not so influenced from the East, but also became larger and more detailed.^[16]

The fully mature black-figure technique, with added red and white details and incising for outlines and details, originated in Corinth during the early 7th century BC and was introduced into Attica about a generation later; it flourished until the end of the 6th century BC.^[17]The red-figure technique, invented in about 530 BC, reversed this tradition, with the pots being painted black and the figures painted in red. Red-figure vases slowly replaced the black-figure style. Sometimes larger vessels were engraved as well as painted. Erotic themes, both heterosexual and male homosexual, became common.^[18]

By about 320 BC fine figurative vase-painting had ceased in Athens and other Greek centres, with the polychromatic Kerch style a final flourish; it was probably replaced by metalwork for most of its functions. West Slope Ware, with decorative motifs on a black glazed body, continued for over a century after.^[19] Italian red-figure paintingended by about 300, and in the next century the relatively primitive Hadra vases, probably from Crete, Centuripe ware from Sicily, and Panathenaic amphorae, now a frozen tradition, were the only large painted vases still made.^[20]

• 

  Middle Geometric krater, 99 cm high, Attic, c. 800-775 BC

• 

  Late Geometric pyxis, British Museum

• 

  Corinthian orientalising jug, c. 620 BC, Antikensammlungen Munich

• 

  Black-figure olpe (wine vessel) by the Amasis Painter, depicting Heraklesand Athena, c. 540 BC, Louvre

• 

  Interior (tondo) of a red figure kylix, depicting Herakles and Athena, by Phoinix (potter) and Douris (painter), c. 480-470 BC, Antikensammlungen Munich

• 

  Detail of a red-figure amphoradepicting a satyr assaulting a maenad, by Pamphaios (potter) and Oltos (painter), c. 520 BC, Louvre

• 

  White-ground lekythos with a scene of mourning by the Reed Painter, c. 420-410 BC, British Museum

• 

  Hellenistic relief bowl with the head of a maenad, 2nd century BC (?), British Museum

Metalwork

The Derveni Krater, 4th century BC, with Dionysus and Ariadne seen here.^[21]

Fine metalwork was an important art in ancient Greece, but later production is very poorly represented by survivals, most of which come from the edges of the Greek world or beyond, from as far as France or Russia. Vessels and jewellery were produced to high standards, and exported far afield. Objects in silver, at the time worth more relative to gold than it is in modern times, were often inscribed by the maker with their weight, as they were treated largely as stores of value, and likely to be sold or re-melted before very long.^[22]

During the Geometric and Archaic phases, the production of large metal vessels was an important expression of Greek creativity, and an important stage in the development of bronzeworking techniques, such as casting and repousse hammering. Early sanctuaries, especially Olympia, yielded many hundreds of tripod-bowl or sacrificial tripodvessels, mostly in bronze, deposited as votives. These had a shallow bowl with two handles raised high on three legs; in later versions the stand and bowl were different pieces. During the Orientalising period, such tripods were frequently decorated with figural protomes, in the shape of griffins, sphinxes and other fantastic creatures.^[23]

Swords, the Greek helmet and often body armour such as the muscle cuirass were made of bronze, sometimes decorated in precious metal, as in the 3rd-century Ksour Essef cuirass.^[24] Armour and « shield-bands » are two of the contexts for strips of Archaic low relief scenes, which were also attached to various objects in wood; the band on the Vix Krater is a large example.^[25] Polished bronze mirrors, initially with decorated backs and kore handles, were another common item; the later « folding mirror » type had hinged cover pieces, often decorated with a relief scene, typically erotic.^[26] Coins are described below.

From the late Archaic the best metalworking kept pace with stylistic developments in sculpture and the other arts, and Phidias is among the sculptors known to have practiced it.^[27] Hellenistic taste encouraged highly intricate displays of technical virtuousity, tending to « cleverness, whimsy, or excessive elegance ».^[28] Many or most Greek pottery shapes were taken from shapes first used in metal, and in recent decades there has been an increasing view that much of the finest vase-painting reused designs by silversmiths for vessels with engraving and sections plated in a different metal, working from drawn designs.^[29]

Exceptional survivals of what may have been a relatively common class of large bronze vessels are two volute kraters, for mixing wine and water.^[30] These are the Vix Krater, c. 530 BC, 1.63m (5’4″) high and over 200 kg (450 lbs) in weight, holding some 1,100 litres, and found in the burial of a Celtic woman in modern France,^[31] and the 4th-century Derveni Krater, 90.5 cm (35 in.) high.^[32] The elites of other neighbours of the Greeks, such as the Thracians and Scythians, were keen consumers of Greek metalwork, and probably served by Greek goldsmiths settled in their territories, who adapted their products to suit local taste and functions. Such hybrid pieces form a large part of survivals, including the Panagyurishte Treasure, Borovo Treasure, and other Thracian treasures, and several Scythian burials, which probably contained work by Greek artists based in the Greek settlements on the Black Sea.^[33] As with other luxury arts, the Macedonian royal cemetery at Vergina has produced objects of top quality from the cusp of the Classical and Hellenistic periods.^[34]

Jewellery for the Greek market is often of superb quality,^[35] with one unusual form being intricate and very delicate gold wreathes imitating plant-forms, worn on the head. These were probably rarely, if ever, worn in life, but were given as votives and worn in death.^[36] Many of the Fayum mummy portraits wear them. Some pieces, especially in the Hellenistic period, are large enough to offer scope for figures, as did the Scythian taste for relatively substantial pieces in gold.^[37]

• 

  Bronze griffin head protome from Olympia, 7th century BC

• 

  The Vix Krater, a late Archaic monumental bronze vessel, exported to French Celts

• 

  Fancy Early Classical bronze mirror with human caryatid handle, c. 460 BC

• 

  Golden wreath, 370-360, from southern Italy

• 

  Silver rhyton for the Thracian market, end 4th century^[38]

• 

  4th century BC Greek gold and bronze rhyton with head of Dionysus, Tamoikin Art Fund

• 

  Fragment of a gold wreath, c. 320-300 BC, from a burial in Crimea

• 

  Gold hair ornament and net, 3rd century BC

• 

  Late Hellenistic silver medallion

Monumental sculpture

Riders from the Parthenon Frieze, around 440 BC.

Main article: Ancient Greek sculpture

The Greeks decided very early on that the human form was the most important subject for artistic endeavour.^[39] Seeing their gods as having human form, there was little distinction between the sacred and the secular in art—the human body was both secular and sacred. A male nude of Apollo or Heracles had only slight differences in treatment to one of that year’s Olympic boxing champion. In the Archaic Period the most important sculptural form was the kouros(plural kouroi), the standing male nude (See for example Biton and Kleobis). The kore (plural korai), or standing clothed female figure, was also common, but since Greek society did not permit the public display of female nudity until the 4th century BC, the kore is considered to be of less importance in the development of sculpture.^[40] By the end of the period architectural sculpture on temples was becoming important.

As with pottery, the Greeks did not produce sculpture merely for artistic display. Statues were commissioned either by aristocratic individuals or by the state, and used for public memorials, as offerings to temples, oracles and sanctuaries (as is frequently shown by inscriptions on the statues), or as markers for graves. Statues in the Archaic period were not all intended to represent specific individuals. They were depictions of an ideal—beauty, piety, honor or sacrifice. These were always depictions of young men, ranging in age from adolescence to early maturity, even when placed on the graves of (presumably) elderly citizens. Kouroi were all stylistically similar. Graduations in the social stature of the person commissioning the statue were indicated by size rather than artistic innovations.^[41]

Unlike authors, those who practiced the visual arts, including sculpture, initially had a low social status in ancient Greece, though increasingly leading sculptors might become famous and rather wealthy, and often signed their work (unfortunately, often on the plinth, which typically became separated from the statue itself).^[42] Plutarch(Life of Pericles, II) said « we admire the work of art but despise the maker of it »; this was a common view in the ancient world. Ancient Greek sculpture is categorised by the usual stylistic periods of « Archaic », « Classical » and « Hellenistic », augmented with some extra ones mainly applying to sculpture, such as the Orientalizing Daedelic style and the Severe style of early Classical sculpture.^[43]

Materials, forms

Rare large Late Archaic terracotta statue of Zeus and Ganymede, Olympia.

Surviving ancient Greek sculptures were mostly made of two types of material. Stone, especially marble or other high-quality limestones was used most frequently and carved by hand with metal tools. Stone sculptures could be free-standing fully carved in the round (statues), or only partially carved reliefs still attached to a background plaque, for example in architectural friezes or grave stelai.^[44]

Bronze statues were of higher status, but have survived in far smaller numbers, due to the reusability of metals. They were usually made in the lost waxtechnique. Chryselephantine, or gold-and-ivory, statues were the cult-images in temples and were regarded as the highest form of sculpture, but only some fragmentary pieces have survived. They were normally over-lifesize, built around a wooden frame, with thin carved slabs of ivory representing the flesh, and sheets of gold leaf, probably over wood, representing the garments, armour, hair, and other details.^[45]

In some cases, glass paste, glass, and precious and semi-precious stones were used for detail such as eyes, jewellery, and weaponry. Other large acrolithic statues used stone for the flesh parts, and wood for the rest, and marble statues sometimes had stucco hairstyles. Most sculpture was painted (see below), and much wore real jewellery and had inlaid eyes and other elements in different materials.^[46]

Terracotta was occasionally employed, for large statuary. Few examples of this survived, at least partially due to the fragility of such statues. The best known exception to this is a statue of Zeus carrying Ganymede found at Olympia, executed around 470 BC. In this case, the terracotta is painted. There were undoubtedly sculptures purely in wood, which may have been very important in early periods, but effectively none have survived.^[47]

Archaic

Kleobis and Biton, kouroi of the Archaic period, c. 580 BC, Delphi Archaeological Museum

Bronze Age Cycladic art, to about 1100 BC, had already shown an unusual focus on the human figure, usually shown in a straightforward frontal standing position with arms folded across the stomach. Among the smaller features only noses, sometimes eyes, and female breasts were carved, though the figures were apparently usually painted and may have originally looked very different.

Inspired by the monumental stone sculpture of Egypt and Mesopotamia, during the Archaic period the Greeks began again to carve in stone. Free-standing figures share the solidity and frontal stance characteristic of Eastern models, but their forms are more dynamic than those of Egyptian sculpture, as for example the Lady of Auxerre and Torso of Hera (Early Archaic period, c. 660–580 BC, both in the Louvre, Paris). After about 575 BC, figures, such as these, both male and female, wore the so-called archaic smile. This expression, which has no specific appropriateness to the person or situation depicted, may have been a device to give the figures a distinctive human characteristic.^[48]

Three types of figures prevailed—the standing nude youth (kouros), the standing draped girl (kore) and, less frequently, the seated woman.^[49] All emphasize and generalize the essential features of the human figure and show an increasingly accurate comprehension of human anatomy. The youths were either sepulchral or votive statues. Examples are Apollo (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), an early work; the Strangford Apollo from Anafi (British Museum, London), a much later work; and the Anavyssos Kouros (National Archaeological Museum of Athens). More of the musculature and skeletal structure is visible in this statue than in earlier works. The standing, draped girls have a wide range of expression, as in the sculptures in the Acropolis Museum of Athens. Their drapery is carved and painted with the delicacy and meticulousness common in the details of sculpture of this period.^[50]

Archaic reliefs have survived from many tombs, and from larger buildings at Foce del Sele (now in the museum at Paestum) in Italy, with two groups of metope panels, from about 550 and 510, and the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi, with friezes and a small pediment. Parts, all now in local museums, survive of the large triangular pediment groups from the Temple of Artemis, Corfu (c. 580), dominated by a huge Gorgon, and the Old Temple of Athena in Athens (c. 530-500).^[51]

• 

  Dipylon Kouros, c. 600 BC, Athens, Kerameikos Museum

• 

  The Moschophoros or calf-bearer, c. 570 BC, Athens, Acropolis Museum

• 

  Peplos Kore, c. 530 BC, Athens, Acropolis Museum

• 

  Frieze of the Siphnian Treasury, Delphi, depicting a Gigantomachy, c. 525 BC, Delphi Archaeological Museum

• 

  The Strangford Apollo, 500-490, one of the last kouroi

• 

  The Sabouroff head, an important example of Late Archaic Greek marble sculpture, ca. 550-525 BCE.

• 

  The Perserschutt, or « Persian rubble », dating from the destruction of Athensin 480/479 BC during the Second Persian invasion of Greece offer a clear datation marker for Archaic statuary.

Classical

Severe style

The Artemision Bronze, either Poseidon or Zeus, c. 460 BC, National Archaeological Museum, Athens. This masterpiece of classical sculpture was found by fishermen off Cape Artemisium in 1928. It is more than 2 m in height.

In the Classical period there was a revolution in Greek statuary, usually associated with the introduction of democracy and the end of the aristocratic culture associated with the kouroi. The Classical period saw changes in the style and function of sculpture. Poses became more naturalistic (see the Charioteer of Delphi for an example of the transition to more naturalistic sculpture), and the technical skill of Greek sculptors in depicting the human form in a variety of poses greatly increased. From about 500 BC statues began to depict real people. The statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton set up in Athens to mark the overthrow of the tyrannywere said to be the first public monuments to actual people.^[52]

« The first true portrait of an individual European »:^[53]Roman-era copy of a lost 470 BC bust of Themistocles in « Severe style« .^[54]

At the same time sculpture and statues were put to wider uses. The great temples of the Classical era such as the Parthenon in Athens, and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, required relief sculpture for decorative friezes, and sculpture in the round to fill the triangular fields of the pediments. The difficult aesthetic and technical challenge stimulated much in the way of sculptural innovation. Unfortunately these works survive only in fragments, the most famous of which are the Parthenon Marbles, half of which are in the British Museum.^[55]

Funeral statuary evolved during this period from the rigid and impersonal kouros of the Archaic period to the highly personal family groups of the Classical period. These monuments are commonly found in the suburbs of Athens, which in ancient times were cemeteries on the outskirts of the city. Although some of them depict « ideal » types—the mourning mother, the dutiful son—they increasingly depicted real people, typically showing the departed taking his dignified leave from his family. They are among the most intimate and affecting remains of the ancient Greeks.^[56]

In the Classical period for the first time we know the names of individual sculptors. Phidias oversaw the design and building of the Parthenon. Praxiteles made the female nude respectable for the first time in the Late Classical period (mid-4th century): his Aphrodite of Knidos, which survives in copies, was said by Pliny to be the greatest statue in the world.^[57]

The most famous works of the Classical period for contemporaries were the colossal Statue of Zeus at Olympia and the Statue of Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon. Both were chryselephantine and executed by Phidias or under his direction, and are now lost, although smaller copies (in other materials) and good descriptions of both still exist. Their size and magnificence prompted emperors to seize them in the Byzantine period, and both were removed to Constantinople, where they were later destroyed in fires.^[58]

• 

  Copy of Polyclitus‘ Diadumenos, National Archaeological Museum, Athens

• 

  So-called Venus Braschi by Praxiteles, type of the Knidian Aphrodite, Munich Glyptothek

• 

  The Marathon Youth, 4th-century BC bronze statue, possibly by Praxiteles, National Archaeological Museum, Athens

• 

  Hermes, possibly by Lysippos, National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Hellenistic

 Hellenistic art

The Venus de Milo, discovered at the Greek island of Milos, 130-100 BC, Louvre

The transition from the Classical to the Hellenistic period occurred during the 4th century BC. Following the conquests of Alexander the Great (336 BC to 323 BC), Greek culture spread as far as India, as revealed by the excavations of Ai-Khanoum in eastern Afghanistan, and the civilization of the Greco-Bactrians and the Indo-Greeks. Greco-Buddhist artrepresented a syncretism between Greek art and the visual expression of Buddhism. Thus Greek art became more diverse and more influenced by the cultures of the peoples drawn into the Greek orbit.^[59]

In the view of some art historians, it also declined in quality and originality. This, however, is a judgement which artists and art-lovers of the time would not have shared. Indeed, many sculptures previously considered as classical masterpieces are now recognised as being Hellenistic. The technical ability of Hellenistic sculptors is clearly in evidence in such major works as the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Pergamon Altar. New centres of Greek culture, particularly in sculpture, developed in Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamum, and other cities, where the new monarchies were lavish patrons.^[60] By the 2nd century the rising power of Rome had also absorbed much of the Greek tradition—and an increasing proportion of its products as well.^[61]

During this period sculpture became more naturalistic, and also expressive; the interest in depicting extremes of emotion being sometimes pushed to extremes. Genre subjects of common people, women, children, animals and domestic scenes became acceptable subjects for sculpture, which was commissioned by wealthy families for the adornment of their homes and gardens; the Boy with Thorn is an example. Realistic portraits of men and women of all ages were produced, and sculptors no longer felt obliged to depict people as ideals of beauty or physical perfection.^[62]

The world of Dionysus, a pastoral idyll populated by satyrs, maenads, nymphs and sileni, had been often depicted in earlier vase painting and figurines, but rarely in full-size sculpture. Now such works were made, surviving in copies including the Barberini Faun, the Belvedere Torso, and the Resting Satyr; the Furietti Centaurs and Sleeping Hermaphroditus reflect related themes.^[63] At the same time, the new Hellenistic cities springing up all over Egypt, Syria, and Anatoliarequired statues depicting the gods and heroes of Greece for their temples and public places. This made sculpture, like pottery, an industry, with the consequent standardisation and some lowering of quality. For these reasons many more Hellenistic statues have survived than is the case with the Classical period.

Some of the best known Hellenistic sculptures are the Winged Victory of Samothrace (2nd or 1st century BC),^[64] the statue of Aphroditefrom the island of Melos known as the Venus de Milo (mid-2nd century BC), the Dying Gaul (about 230 BC), and the monumental group Laocoön and His Sons (late 1st century BC). All these statues depict Classical themes, but their treatment is far more sensuous and emotional than the austere taste of the Classical period would have allowed or its technical skills permitted.

The multi-figure group of statues was a Hellenistic innovation, probably of the 3rd century, taking the epic battles of earlier temple pediment reliefs off their walls, and placing them as life-size groups of statues. Their style is often called « baroque« , with extravagantly contorted body poses, and intense expressions in the faces. The reliefs on the Pergamon Altar are the nearest original survivals, but several well known works are believed to be Roman copies of Hellenistic originals. These include the Dying Gaul and Ludovisi Gaul, as well as a less well known Kneeling Gaul and others, all believed to copy Pergamene commissions by Attalus I to commemorate his victory around 241 over the Gauls of Galatia, probably comprising two groups.^[65]

The Laocoön Group, the Farnese Bull, Menelaus supporting the body of Patroclus (« Pasquino group »), Arrotino, and the Sperlonga sculptures, are other examples.^[66] From the 2nd century the Neo-Atticor Neo-Classical style is seen by different scholars as either a reaction to baroque excesses, returning to a version of Classical style, or as a continuation of the traditional style for cult statues.^[67] Workshops in the style became mainly producers of copies for the Roman market, which preferred copies of Classical rather than Hellenistic pieces.^[68]

Discoveries made since the end of the 19th century surrounding the (now submerged) ancient Egyptian city of Heracleum include a 4th-century BC, unusually sensual, detailed and feministic (as opposed to deified) depiction of Isis, marking a combination of Egyptian and Hellenistic forms beginning around the time of Egypt’s conquest by Alexander the Great. However this was untypical of Ptolemaic court sculpture, which generally avoided mixing Egyptian styles with its fairly conventional Hellenistic style,^[69] while temples in the rest of the country continued using late versions of traditional Egyptian formulae.^[70] Scholars have proposed an « Alexandrian style » in Hellenistic sculpture, but there is in fact little to connect it with Alexandria.^[71]

Hellenistic sculpture was also marked by an increase in scale, which culminated in the Colossus of Rhodes (late 3rd century), which was the same size as the Statue of Liberty. The combined effect of earthquakes and looting have destroyed this as well as other very large works of this period.

• 

  Statue of a prince or dynast without crown, traditionally thought to be a Seleucid prince, maybe Attalus II of Pergamon. Bronze, Greek artwork of the Hellenistic era, 3rd-2nd centuries BC.

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  The Winged Victory of Samothrace(Hellenistic), The Louvre, Paris

• 

  Laocoön and His Sons (Late Hellenistic), Vatican Museum

• 

  Late Hellenistic bronze of a mounted jockey, National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Figurines

Terracotta figurines

 Greek terracotta figurines

Pottery vessel in the shape of Aphrodite inside a shell; from Attica, Classical Greece, discovered in the Phanagoria cemetery, Taman Peninsula (Bosporan Kingdom, southern Russia), 1st quarter of 4th century BC, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.

Clay is a material frequently used for the making of votive statuettes or idols, even before the Minoan civilization and continuing until the Roman period. During the 8th century BC tombs in Boeotiaoften contain « bell idols », female statuettes with mobile legs: the head, small compared to the remainder of the body, is perched at the end of a long neck, while the body is very full, in the shape of a bell.^[72] Archaic heroontombs, for local heroes, might receive large numbers of crudely-shaped figurines, with rudimentary figuration, generally representing characters with raised arms.

By the Hellenistic period most terracotta figurines have lost their religious nature, and represent characters from everyday life. Tanagra figurines, from one of several centres of production, are mass-manufactured using moulds, and then painted after firing. Dolls, figures of fashionably-dressed ladies and of actors, some of these probably portraits, were among the new subjects, depicted with a refined style. These were cheap, and initially displayed in the home much like modern ornamental figurines, but were quite often buried with their owners. At the same time, cities like Alexandria, Smyrna or Tarsus produced an abundance of grotesque figurines, representing individuals with deformed members, eyes bulging and contorting themselves. Such figurines were also made from bronze.^[73]

For painted architectural terracottas, see Architecture below.

Metal figurines

Figurines made of metal, primarily bronze, are an extremely common find at early Greek sanctuaries like Olympia, where thousands of such objects, mostly depicting animals, have been found. They are usually produced in the lost wax technique and can be considered the initials stage in the development of Greek bronze sculpture. The most common motifs during the Geometric period were horses and deer, but dogs, cattle and other animals are also depicted. Human figures occur occasionally. The production of small metal votives continued throughout Greek antiquity. In the Classical and Hellenistic periods, more elaborate bronze statuettes, closely connected with monumental sculpture, also became common. High quality examples were keenly collected by wealthy Greeks, and later Romans, but relatively few have survived.^[74]

• 

  Bell Idol, 7th century BC

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  8th-century BC bronze votive horse from Olympia

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  Actor from the New Comedy, about 200 BC

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  Tanagra figurine of fashionable lady, 32.5 cm (12.8 in), 330-300 BC

Architecture

 Architecture of ancient Greece

Two early Archaic Doric orderGreek temples at Paestum, Italy, with much wider capitals than later.

Temple of Hephaistos, Athens, well-preserved mature Doric, late 5th century BC

Architecture (meaning buildings executed to an aesthetically considered design) ceased in Greece from the end of the Mycenaean period (about 1200 BC) until the 7th century, when urban life and prosperity recovered to a point where public building could be undertaken. Since most Greek buildings in the Archaic and Early Classical periods were made of wood or mud-brick, nothing remains of them except a few ground-plans, and there are almost no written sources on early architecture or descriptions of buildings. Most of our knowledge of Greek architecture comes from the surviving buildings of the Late Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Roman periods (since ancient Roman architecture heavily used Greek styles), and from late written sources such as Vitruvius (1st century BC). This means that there is a strong bias towards temples, the most common major buildings to survive. Here the squared blocks of stone used for walls were useful for later buildings, and so often all that survives are parts of columns and metopes that were harder to recycle.^[75]

For most of the period a strict stone post and lintel system of construction was used, held in place only by gravity. Corbelling was known in Mycenean Greece, and the arch was known from the 5th century at the latest, but hardly any use was made of these techniques until the Roman period.^[76] Wood was only used for ceilings and roof timbers in prestigious stone buildings. The use of large terracotta roof tiles, only held in place by grooving, meant that roofs needed to have a low pitch.^[77]

Until Hellenistic times only public buildings were built using the formal stone style; these included above all temples, and the smaller treasury buildings which often accompanied them, and were built at Delphi by many cities. Other building types, often not roofed, were the central agora, often with one or more colonnaded stoa around it, theatres, the gymnasium and palaestra or wrestling-school, the ekklesiasterion or bouleuterion for assemblies, and the propylaea or monumental gateways.^[78] Round buildings for various functions were called a tholos,^[79] and the largest stone structures were often defensive city walls.

Tombs were for most of the period only made as elaborate mausoleaaround the edges of the Greek world, especially in Anatolia.^[80] Private houses were built around a courtyard where funds allowed, and showed blank walls to the street. They sometimes had a second story, but very rarely basements. They were usually built of rubble at best, and relatively little is known about them; at least for males, much of life was spent outside them.^[81] A few palaces from the Hellenistic period have been excavated.^[82]

Temples and some other buildings such as the treasuries at Delphi were planned as either a cube or, more often, a rectangle made from limestone, of which Greece has an abundance, and which was cut into large blocks and dressed. This was supplemented by columns, at least on the entrance front, and often on all sides.^[83] Other buildings were more flexible in plan, and even the wealthiest houses seem to have lacked much external ornament. Marble was an expensive building material in Greece: high quality marble came only from Mt Pentelus in Attica and from a few islands such as Paros, and its transportation in large blocks was difficult. It was used mainly for sculptural decoration, not structurally, except in the very grandest buildings of the Classical period such as the Parthenon in Athens.^[84]

There were two main classical orders of Greek architecture, the Doricand the Ionic, with the Corinthian order only appearing in the Classical period, and not becoming dominant until the Roman period. The most obvious features of the three orders are the capitals of the columns, but there are significant differences in other points of design and decoration between the orders.^[85] These names were used by the Greeks themselves, and reflected their belief that the styles descended from the Dorian and Ionian Greeks of the Dark Ages, but this is unlikely to be true. The Doric was the earliest, probably first appearing in stone in the earlier 7th century, having developed (though perhaps not very directly) from predecessors in wood.^[86] It was used in mainland Greece and the Greek colonies in Italy. The Ionic style was first used in the cities of Ionia (now the west coast of Turkey) and some of the Aegean islands, probably beginning in the 6th century.^[87]The Doric style was more formal and austere, the Ionic more relaxed and decorative. The more ornate Corinthian order was a later development of the Ionic, initially apparently only used inside buildings, and using Ionic forms for everything except the capitals. The famous and well-preserved Choragic Monument of Lysicrates near the Athens Acropolis (335/334) is the first known use of the Corinthian order on the exterior of a building.^[88]

Most of the best known surviving Greek buildings, such as the Parthenon and the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, are Doric. The Erechtheum, next to the Parthenon, however, is Ionic. The Ionic order became dominant in the Hellenistic period, since its more decorative style suited the aesthetic of the period better than the more restrained Doric. Some of the best surviving Hellenistic buildings, such as the Library of Celsus, can be seen in Turkey, at cities such as Ephesusand Pergamum.^[89] But in the greatest of Hellenistic cities, Alexandriain Egypt, almost nothing survives.

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  The Erechtheion on the Acropolis of Athens, late 5th century BC

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  Model of the processional way at Ancient Delphi, without much of the statuary shown.^[90]

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  Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, Athens, 335/334

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  The theatre of Epidauros, 4th century BC

Coin design[edit]

Main article: Ancient Greek coinage

Athenian tetradrachm with head of Athena and owl, after 449 BC. The most acceptable coin in the Mediterranean world.

Gold 20-stater of Eucratides of Bactria circa 150 BC, the largest gold coin of antiquity. 169.2 grams, diameter 58 mm.

Coins were (probably) invented in Lydiain the 7th century BC, but they were first extensively used by the Greeks,^[91] and the Greeks set the canon of coin design which has been followed ever since. Coin design today still recognisably follows patterns descended from ancient Greece. The Greeks did not see coin design as a major art form, although some were expensively designed by leading goldsmiths, especially outside Greece itself, among the Central Asian kingdoms and in Sicilian cities keen to promote themselves. Nevertheless, the durability and abundance of coins have made them one of the most important sources of knowledge about Greek aesthetics.^[92] Greek coins are the only art form from the ancient Greek world which can still be bought and owned by private collectors of modest means.

The most widespread coins, used far beyond their native territories and copied and forged by others, were the Athenian tetradrachm, issued from c. 510 to c. 38 BC, and in the Hellenistic age the Macedonian tetradrachm, both silver.^[93] These both kept the same familiar design for long periods.^[94] Greek designers began the practice of putting a profile portrait on the obverse of coins. This was initially a symbolic portrait of the patron god or goddess of the city issuing the coin: Athena for Athens, Apollo at Corinth, Demeter at Thebes and so on. Later, heads of heroes of Greek mythology were used, such as Heracles on the coins of Alexander the Great.

The first human portraits on coins were those of Achaemenid EmpireSatraps in Asia Minor, starting with the exiled Athenian general Themistocles who became a Satrap of Magnesia circa 450 BC, and continuing especially with the dynasts of Lycia towards the end of the 5th century.^[95] Greek cities in Italy such as Syracuse began to put the heads of real people on coins in the 4th century BC, as did the Hellenistic successors of Alexander the Great in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere.^[96] On the reverse of their coins the Greek cities often put a symbol of the city: an owl for Athens, a dolphin for Syracuse and so on. The placing of inscriptions on coins also began in Greek times. All these customs were later continued by the Romans.^[92]

The most artistically ambitious coins, designed by goldsmiths or gem-engravers, were often from the edges of the Greek world, from new colonies in the early period and new kingdoms later, as a form of marketing their « brands » in modern terms.^[97] Of the larger cities, Corinth and Syracuse also issued consistently attractive coins. Some of the Greco-Bactrian coins are considered the finest examples of Greek coins with large portraits with « a nice blend of realism and idealization », including the largest coins to be minted in the Hellenistic world: the largest gold coin was minted by Eucratides (reigned 171–145 BC), the largest silver coin by the Indo-Greek king Amyntas Nikator (reigned c. 95–90 BC). The portraits « show a degree of individuality never matched by the often bland depictions of their royal contemporaries further West ».^[98]

• 

  Arethusa on a coin of Syracuse, Sicily, 415-400

• 

  Drachm of Aegina with tortoise and stamp, after 404 BC

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  Heracles fighting lion. Silver coin from Heraclea Lucania

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  Macedonian tetradrachm with image of Alexander the Great as Heracles, after 330 BC

Painting

Macedonian tomb fresco from Agios Athanasios, Thessaloniki, Greece, 4th century BC.

The Greeks seem to have valued painting above even sculpture, and by the Hellenistic period the informed appreciation and even the practice of painting were components in a gentlemanly education. The ekphrasis was a literary form consisting of a description of a work of art, and we have a considerable body of literature on Greek painting and painters, with further additions in Latin, though none of the treatises by artists that are mentioned have survived.^[99] Unfortunately we have hardly any of the most prestigious sort of paintings, on wood panel or in fresco, that this literature was concerned with.

The contrast with vase-painting is total. There are no mentions in literature at all, but over 100,000 surviving examples, giving many individual painters a respectable surviving oeuvre.^[100] Our idea of what the best Greek painting was like must be drawn from a careful consideration of parallels in vase-painting, late Greco-Roman copies in mosaic and fresco, some very late examples of actual painting in the Greek tradition, and the ancient literature.^[101]

There were several interconnected traditions of painting in ancient Greece. Due to their technical differences, they underwent somewhat differentiated developments. Early painting seems to have developed along similar lines to vase-painting, heavily reliant on outline and flat areas of colour, but then flowered and developed at the time that vase-painting went into decline. By the end of the Hellenistic period, technical developments included modelling to indicate contours in forms, shadows, foreshortening, some probably imprecise form of perspective, interior and landscape backgrounds, and the use of changing colours to suggest distance in landscapes, so that « Greek artists had all the technical devices needed for fully illusionistic painting ».^[102]

Panel and wall painting

showList of known ancient Greek painters One of the Pitsa panels, the only surviving panel paintings from Archaic Greece

The most common and respected form of art, according to authors like Pliny or Pausanias, were panel paintings, individual, portable paintings on wood boards. The techniques used were encaustic(wax) painting and tempera. Such paintings normally depicted figural scenes, including portraits and still-lifes; we have descriptions of many compositions. They were collected and often displayed in public spaces. Pausanias describes such exhibitions at Athens and Delphi. We know the names of many famous painters, mainly of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, from literature (see expandable list to the right). The most famous of all ancient Greek painters was Apelles of Kos, whom Pliny the Elder lauded as having « surpassed all the other painters who either preceded or succeeded him. »^[103][104]

Unfortunately, due to the perishable nature of the materials used and the major upheavals at the end of antiquity, not one of the famous works of Greek panel painting has survived, nor even any of the copies that doubtlessly existed, and which give us most of our knowledge of Greek sculpture. We have slightly more significant survivals of mural compositions. The most important surviving Greek examples from before the Roman period are the fairly low-quality Pitsa panels from c. 530 BC,^[105] the Tomb of the Diver from Paestum, and various paintings from the royal tombs at Vergina. More numerous paintings in Etruscan and Campanian tombs are based on Greek styles. In the Roman period, there are a number of wall paintings in Pompeii and the surrounding area, as well as in Rome itself, some of which are thought to be copies of specific earlier masterpieces.^[106]

In particular copies of specific wall-paintings have been confidently identified in the Alexander Mosaic and Villa Boscoreale.^[107] There is a large group of much later Greco-Roman archaeological survivals from the dry conditions of Egypt, the Fayum mummy portraits, together with the similar Severan Tondo, and a small group of painted portrait miniatures in gold glass.^[108] Byzantine icons are also derived from the encaustic panel painting tradition, and Byzantine illuminated manuscripts sometimes continued a Greek illusionistic style for centuries.

Symposium scene in the Tomb of the Diver at Paestum, c. 480 BC

The tradition of wall painting in Greece goes back at least to the Minoan and MycenaeanBronze Age, with the lavish fresco decoration of sites like Knossos, Tiryns and Mycenae. It is not clear, whether there is any continuity between these antecedents and later Greek wall paintings.

Wall paintings are frequently described in Pausanias, and many appear to have been produced in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Due to the lack of architecture surviving intact, not many are preserved. The most notable examples are a monumental Archaic 7th-century BC scene of hoplite combat from inside a temple at Kalapodi (near Thebes), and the elaborate frescoes from the 4th-century « Grave of Phillipp » and the « Tomb of Persephone » at Vergina in Macedonia, or the tomb at Agios Athanasios, Thessaloniki, sometimes suggested to be closely linked to the high-quality panel paintings mentioned above.

Greek wall painting tradition is also reflected in contemporary grave decorations in the Greek colonies in Italy, e.g. the famous Tomb of the Diver at Paestum. Some scholars suggest that the celebrated Roman frescoes at sites like Pompeii are the direct descendants of Greek tradition, and that some of them copy famous panel paintings.

Hellenistic Greek terracotta funerary wall painting, 3rd century BC

Reconstructed colour scheme of the entablature on a Doric temple

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  Ancient Macedonian paintings of armour, arms, and gear from the Tomb of Lyson and Kallikles in ancient Mieza(modern-day Lefkadia), Imathia, Central Macedonia, Greece, 2nd century BC.

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  A stele of Dioskourides, dated 2nd century BC, showing a Ptolemaicthyreophoros soldier, a characteristic example of the « Romanization » of the Ptolemaic army

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  Fresco from the Tomb of Judgment in ancient Mieza (modern-day Lefkadia), Imathia, Central Macedonia, Greece, depicting religious imagery of the afterlife, 4th century BC

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  A fresco showing Hades and Persephone riding in a chariot, from the tomb of Queen Eurydice I of Macedon at Vergina, Greece, 4th century BC

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  A banquet scene from a Macedonian tomb of Agios Athanasios, Thessaloniki, 4th century BC; six men are shown reclining on couches, with food arranged on nearby tables, a male servant in attendance, and female musicians providing entertainment.^[109]

• 

  Fresco of an ancient Macedoniansoldier (thorakitai) wearing chainmailarmor and bearing a thureos shield, 3rd century BC

• 

  The Sampul tapestry, a woollen wall hanging from Lop County, Xinjiang, China, showing a possibly Greek soldier from the Greco-Bactrian kingdom (250–125 BC), with blue eyes, wielding a spear, and wearing what appears to be a diademheadband; depicted above him is a centaur, from Greek mythology, a common motif in Hellenistic art;^[110]Xinjiang Region Museum.

Polychromy: painting on statuary and architecture

Traces of paint depicting embroidered patterns on the peplos of an Archaic kore, Acropolis Museum

Much of the figural or architectural sculpture of ancient Greece was painted colourfully. This aspect of Greek stonework is described as polychrome (from Greekπολυχρωμία, πολύ = many and χρώμα = colour). Due to intensive weathering, polychromy on sculpture and architecture has substantially or totally faded in most cases.

Although the word polychrome is created from the combining of two Greek words, it was not used in ancient Greece. The term was coined in the early nineteenth century by Antoine Chrysostôme Quatremère de Quincy.^[111]

Architecture

Painting was also used to enhance the visual aspects of architecture. Certain parts of the superstructure of Greek temples were habitually painted since the Archaic period. Such architectural polychromy could take the form of bright colours directly applied to the stone (evidenced e.g. on the Parthenon, or of elaborate patterns, frequently architectural members made of terracotta (Archaic examples at Olympia and Delphi). Sometimes, the terracottas also depicted figural scenes, as do the 7th-century BC terracotta metopes from Thermon.^[112]

Reconstructed colour scheme on a Trojan archer from the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina.

Sculpture

Most Greek sculptures were painted in strong and bright colors; this is called « polychromy« . The paint was frequently limited to parts depicting clothing, hair, and so on, with the skin left in the natural color of the stone or bronze, but it could also cover sculptures in their totality; female skin in marble tended to be uncoloured, while male skin might be a light brown. The painting of Greek sculpture should not merely be seen as an enhancement of their sculpted form, but has the characteristics of a distinct style of art.^[113]

For example, the pedimental sculptures from the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina have recently been demonstrated to have been painted with bold and elaborate patterns, depicting, amongst other details, patterned clothing. The polychromy of stone statues was paralleled by the use of different materials to distinguish skin, clothing and other details in chryselephantine sculptures, and by the use of different metals to depict lips, fingernails, etc. on high-quality bronzes like the Riace bronzes.^[114]

Vase painting

The most copious evidence of ancient Greek painting survives in the form of vase paintings. These are described in the « pottery » section above. They give at least some sense of the aesthetics of Greek painting. The techniques involved, however, were very different from those used in large-format painting. The same probably applies to the subject matter depicted. It should be noted that strictly speaking, vase painting was a separate skill or art from potting. It should also be kept in mind that vase painting, albeit by far the most conspicuous surviving source on ancient Greek painting, was not held in the highest regard in antiquity, and is never mentioned in Classical literature.^[115]

Mosaics

The Stag Hunt Mosaic, late 4th century BC, from Pella; perhaps with Alexander the Great at right.^[116]

Unswept Floor, Roman copy of the mosaic by Sosus of Pergamon

A domestic floor mosaic depicting Athena, from the « Jewelery Quarter » of Delos, Greece, late 2nd or early 1st century BC

Mosaics were initially made with rounded pebbles, and later glass with tesserae which gave more colour and a flat surface. They were popular in the Hellenistic period, at first as decoration for the floors of palaces, but eventually for private homes.^[117] Often a central emblema picture in a central panel was completed in much finer work than the surrounding decoration.^[118]Xenia motifs, where a house showed examples of the variety of foods guests might expect to enjoy, provide most of the surviving specimens of Greek still-life. In general mosaic must be considered as a secondary medium copying painting, often very directly, as in the Alexander Mosaic.^[119]

The Unswept Floor by Sosus of Pergamon (c. 200 BC) was an original and famous trompe l’oeil piece, known from many Greco-Roman copies. According to John Boardman, Sosus is the only mosaic artist whose name has survived; his Doves are also mentioned in literature and copied.^[120] However, Katherine M. D. Dunbabin asserts that two different mosaic artists left their signatures on mosaics of Delos.^[121]The artist of the 4th-century BC Stag Hunt Mosaic perhaps also left his signature as Gnosis, although this word may be a reference to the abstract concept of knowledge.^[122]

Mosaics are a significant element of surviving Macedonian art, with a large number of examples preserved in the ruins of Pella, the ancient Macedonian capital, in today’s Central Macedonia.^[123] Mosaics such as the « Stag Hunt Mosaic and Lion Hunt » mosaic demonstrate illusionist and three dimensional qualities generally found in Hellenistic paintings, although the rustic Macedonian pursuit of hunting is markedly more pronounced than other themes.^[124] The 2nd-century-BC mosaics of Delos, Greece were judged by François Chamoux as representing the pinnacle of Hellenistic mosaic art, with similar styles that continued throughout the Roman period and perhaps laid the foundations for the widespread use of mosaics in the Western worldthrough to the Middle Ages.^[117]

• 

  A mosaic of the Kasta Tomb in Amphipolis depicting the abduction of Persephone by Pluto, 4th century BC

• 

  Central panel of the Abduction of Helen by Theseus, floor mosaic, detail of the charioteer, from the House of the Abduction of Helen, (c. 300 BC), ancient Pella

• 

  Alexander the Great (left), wearing a kausia and fighting an Asiatic lion with his friend Craterus (detail); late 4th-century BC mosaic from Pella^[125]

• 

  Mosaic of a nymph from the Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes, 2nd century BC

• 

  The winged god Dionysus riding a tiger, from the House of Dionysus in Delos, Greece, 2nd century BC

• 

  Detail of floor panel with Alexandrine parakeet, Pergamon modern Turkey, middle 2nd century BC (reigns of Eumenes II and Attalus II)

• 

  Ptolemaic mosaic of a dog and askoswine vessel from Hellenistic Egypt, dated 200-150 BC

• 

  Hellenistic mosaic from Thmuis(Mendes), Egypt, signed by Sophilos c. 200 BC; Ptolemaic Queen Berenice II (joint ruler with her husband Ptolemy III) as the personification of Alexandria.^[126]

Engraved gems

Apollonios of Athens, gold ring with portrait in garnet, c. 220 BC

The engraved gem was a luxury art with high prestige; Pompey and Julius Caesarwere among later collectors.^[127] The technique has an ancient tradition in the Near East, and cylinder seals, whose design only appears when rolled over damp clay, from which the flat ring type developed, spread to the Minoan world, including parts of Greece and Cyprus. The Greek tradition emerged under Minoan influence on mainland Helladic culture, and reached an apogee of subtlety and refinement in the Hellenistic period.^[128]

Round or oval Greek gems (along with similar objects in bone and ivory) are found from the 8th and 7th centuries BC, usually with animals in energetic geometric poses, often with a border marked by dots or a rim.^[129] Early examples are mostly in softer stones. Gems of the 6th century are more often oval,^[130] with a scarab back (in the past this type was called a « scarabaeus »), and human or divine figures as well as animals; the scarab form was apparently adopted from Phoenicia.^[131]

The forms are sophisticated for the period, despite the usually small size of the gems.^[94] In the 5th century gems became somewhat larger, but still only 2–3 centimetres tall. Despite this, very fine detail is shown, including the eyelashes on one male head, perhaps a portrait. Four gems signed by Dexamenos of Chios are the finest of the period, two showing herons.^[132]

Relief carving became common in 5th century BC Greece, and gradually most of the spectacular carved gems were in relief. Generally a relief image is more impressive than an intaglio one; in the earlier form the recipient of a document saw this in the impressed sealing wax, while in the later reliefs it was the owner of the seal who kept it for himself, probably marking the emergence of gems meant to be collected or worn as jewellery pendants in necklaces and the like, rather than used as seals – later ones are sometimes rather large to use to seal letters. However inscriptions are usually still in reverse (« mirror-writing ») so they only read correctly on impressions (or by viewing from behind with transparent stones). This aspect also partly explains the collecting of impressions in plaster or wax from gems, which may be easier to appreciate than the original.

Larger hardstone carvings and cameos, which are rare in intaglio form, seem to have reached Greece around the 3rd century; the Farnese Tazza is the only major surviving Hellenistic example (depending on the dates assigned to the Gonzaga Cameo and the Cup of the Ptolemies), but other glass-paste imitations with portraits suggest that gem-type cameos were made in this period.^[133] The conquests of Alexander had opened up new trade routes to the Greek world and increased the range of gemstones available.^[134]

Ornament

A typical variety of ornamental motifs on an Attic vase of c. 530.

The synthesis in the Archaic period of the native repertoire of simple geometric motifs with imported, mostly plant-based, motifs from further east created a sizeable vocabulary of ornament, which artists and craftsmen used with confidence and fluency.^[135] Today this vocabulary is seen above all in the large corpus of painted pottery, as well as in architectural remains, but it would have originally been used in a wide range of media, as a later version of it is used in European Neoclassicism.

Elements in this vocabulary include the geometrical meander or « Greek key », egg-and-dart, bead and reel, Vitruvian scroll, guilloche, and from the plant world the stylized acanthus leaves, volute, palmetteand half-palmette, plant scrolls of various kinds, rosette, lotus flower, and papyrus flower. Originally used prominently on Archaic vases, as figurative painting developed these were usually relegated to serve as borders demarcating edges of the vase or different zones of decoration.^[136] Greek architecture was notable for developing sophisticated conventions for using mouldings and other architectural ornamental elements, which used these motifs in a harmoniously integrated whole.

Even before the Classical period, this vocabulary had influenced Celtic art, and the expansion of the Greek world after Alexander, and the export of Greek objects still further afield, exposed much of Eurasia to it, including the regions in the north of the Indian subcontinent where Buddhism was expanding, and creating Greco-Buddhist art. As Buddhism spread across Central Asia to China and the rest of East Asia, in a form that made great use of religious art, versions of this vocabulary were taken with it and used to surround images of buddhas and other religious images, often with a size and emphasis that would have seemed excessive to the ancient Greeks. The vocabulary was absorbed into the ornament of India, China, Persia and other Asian countries, as well as developing further in Byzantine art.^[137] The Romans took over the vocabulary more or less in its entirety, and although much altered, it can be traced throughout European medieval art, especially in plant-based ornament.

Islamic art, where ornament largely replaces figuration, developed the Byzantine plant scroll into the full, endless arabesque, and especially from the Mongol conquests of the 14th century received new influences from China, including the descendents of the Greek vocabulary.^[138] From the Renaissance onwards, several of these Asian styles were represented on textiles, porcelain and other goods imported into Europe, and influenced ornament there, a process that still continues.

Other arts

Left: A Hellenistic glass amphora excavated from Olbia, Sardinia, dated to the 2nd century BC
Right: Hellenistic satyr who wears a rustic perizoma (loincloth) and carries a pedum (shepherd’s crook). Ivory appliqué, probably for furniture.

Although glass was made in Cyprus by the 9th century BC, and was considerably developed by the end of the period, there are only a few survivals of glasswork from before the Greco-Roman period that show the artistic quality of the best work.^[139] Most survivals are small perfume bottles, in fancy coloured « feathered » styles similar to other Mediterranean glass.^[140] Hellenistic glass became cheaper and accessible to a wider population.

No Greek furniture has survived, but there are many images of it on vases and memorial reliefs, for example that to Hegeso. It was evidently often very elegant, as were the styles derived from it from the 18th century onwards. Some pieces of carved ivory that were used as inlays have survived, as at Vergina, and a few ivory carvings; this was a luxury art that could be of very fine quality.^[141]

It is clear from vase paintings that the Greeks often wore elaborately patterned clothes, and skill at weaving was the mark of the respectable woman. Two luxurious pieces of cloth survive, from the tomb of Philip of Macedon.^[142] There are numerous references to decorative hangings for both homes and temples, but none of these have survived.

Diffusion and legacy

Greco-Buddhist frieze of Gandhara with devotees, holding plantainleaves, in Hellenistic style, inside Corinthian columns, 1st–2nd century AD, Buner, Swat, Pakistan, Victoria and Albert Museum

Ancient Greek art has exercised considerable influence on the culture of many countries all over the world, above all in its treatment of the human figure. In the West Greek architecture was also hugely influential, and in both East and West the influence of Greek decoration can be traced to the modern day. Etruscan and Roman artwere largely and directly derived from Greek models,^[143] and Greek objects and influence reached into Celtic art north of the Alps,^[144] as well as all around the Mediterranean world and into Persia.^[145]

In the East, Alexander the Great‘s conquests initiated several centuries of exchange between Greek, Central Asian and Indian cultures, which was greatly aided by the spread of Buddhism, which early on picked up many Greek traits and motifs in Greco-Buddhist art, which were then transmitted as part of a cultural package to East Asia, even as far as Japan, among artists who were no doubt completely unaware of the origin of the motifs and styles they used.^[146]

Following the Renaissance in Europe, the humanist aesthetic and the high technical standards of Greek art inspired generations of European artists, with a major revival in the movement of Neoclassicism which began in the mid-18th century, coinciding with easier access from Western Europe to Greece itself, and a renewed importation of Greek originals, most notoriously the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon. Well into the 19th century, the classical traditionderived from Greece dominated the art of the western world.^[147]

Historiography

Hypnos and Thanatoscarrying the body of Sarpedonfrom the battlefield of Troy; detail from an Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 440 BC.

The Hellenized Roman upper classes of the Late Republic and Early Empire generally accepted Greek superiority in the arts without many quibbles, though the praise of Pliny for the sculpture and painting of pre-Hellenistic artists may be based on earlier Greek writings rather than much personal knowledge. Pliny and other classical authors were known in the Renaissance, and this assumption of Greek superiority was again generally accepted. However critics in the Renaissance and much later were unclear which works were actually Greek.^[148]

Due to Ottoman Empire occupation, Greece itself could only be reached by a very few western Europeans until the mid-18th century. Not only the Greek vases found in the Etruscan cemeteries, but also (more controversially) the Greek temples of Paestum were taken to be Etruscan, or otherwise Italic, until the late 18th century and beyond, a misconception prolonged by Italian nationalist sentiment.^[148]

The writings of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, especially his books Thoughts on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture(1750) and Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums (« History of Ancient Art », 1764) were the first to distinguish sharply between ancient Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art, and define periods within Greek art, tracing a trajectory from growth to maturity and then imitation or decadence that continues to have influence to the present day.^[149]

The full disentangling of Greek statues from their later Roman copies, and a better understanding of the balance between Greekness and Roman-ness in Greco-Roman art was to take much longer, and perhaps still continues.^[150] Greek art, especially sculpture, continued to enjoy an enormous reputation, and studying and copying it was a large part of the training of artists, until the downfall of Academic art in the late 19th century. During this period, the actual known corpus of Greek art, and to a lesser extent architecture, has greatly expanded. The study of vases developed an enormous literature in the late 19th and 20th centuries, much based on the identification of the hands of individual artists, with Sir John Beazley the leading figure. This literature generally assumed that vase-painting represented the development of an independent medium, only in general terms drawing from stylistic development in other artistic media. This assumption has been increasingly challenged in recent decades, and some scholars now see it as a secondary medium, largely representing cheap copies of now lost metalwork, and much of it made, not for ordinary use, but to deposit in burials.^[151]

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Notes

1. ^ Boardman, 3–4; Cook, 1–2
2. ^ Cook, 12
3. ^ Cook, 14–18
4. ^ Athena wearing the aegis, detail from a scene representing Herakles and Iolaos escorted by Athena, Apollo and Hermes. Belly of an Atticblack-figured hydria, Cabinet des Médailles, Paris, Inv. 254.
5. ^ Apollo wearing a laurel or myrtle wreath, a white peplos and a red himation and sandals, seating on a lion-pawed diphros; he holds a kithara in his left hand and pours a libation with his right hand. Facing him, a black bird identified as a pigeon, a jackdaw, a crow (which may allude to his love affair with Coronis) or a raven (a mantic bird). Tondo of an Attic white-ground kylix attributed to the Pistoxenos Painter (or the Berlin Painter, or Onesimos). Diam. 18 cm (7 in.)
6. ^ Home page of the Corpus vasorum antiquorum, accessed 16 May 2016
7. ^ Jump up to:^a b Cook, 24–26
8. ^ Cook, 27–28; Boardman, 26, 32, 108–109; Woodford, 12
9. ^ Preface to Ancient Greek Pottery(Ashmolean Handbooks) by Michael Vickers (1991)
10. ^ Boardman, 86, quoted
11. ^ Cook, 24–29
12. ^ Cook, 30, 36, 48–51
13. ^ Cook, 37–40, 30, 36, 42–48
14. ^ Cook, 29; Woodward, 170
15. ^ Boardman, 27; Cook, 34–38; Williams, 36, 40, 44; Woodford, 3–6
16. ^ Cook, 38–42; Williams, 56
17. ^ Woodford, 8–12; Cook, 42–51
18. ^ Woodford, 57–74; Cook, 52–57
19. ^ Boardman, 145–147; Cook, 56-57
20. ^ Trendall, Arthur D. (April 1989). Red Figure Vases of South Italy: A Handbook. Thames and Hudson. p. 17. ISBN 0500202257.
21. ^ Boardman, 185–187
22. ^ Boardman, 150; Cook, 159; Williams, 178
23. ^ Cook, 160
24. ^ Cook, 161–163
25. ^ Boardman, 64–67; Karouzou, 102
26. ^ Karouzou, 114–118; Cook, 162–163; Boardman, 131–132
27. ^ Cook, 159
28. ^ Cook, 159, quoted
29. ^ Rasmussen, xiii. However, since the metal vessels have not survived, « this attitude does not get us very far ».
30. ^ Sowder, Amy. « Ancient Greek Bronze Vessels », in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. online(April 2008)
31. ^ Cook, 162; Boardman, 65–66
32. ^ Boardman, 185–187; Cook, 163
33. ^ Boardman, 131–132, 150, 355–356
34. ^ Boardman, 149–150
35. ^ Boardman, 131, 187; Williams, 38–39, 134–135, 154–155, 180–181, 172–173
36. ^ Boardman, 148; Williams, 164–165
37. ^ Boardman, 131–132; Williams, 188–189 for an example made for the Iberian Celtic market.
38. ^ Rhyton. The upper section of the luxury vessel used for drinking wines is wrought from silver plate with gilded edge with embossed ivy branch. The lower part goes in the cast Protoma horse. The work of the Greek master, probably for Thracian aristocrat. Perhaps Thrace, the end of the 4th century BC. NG Prague, Kinský Palace, NM-HM10 1407.
39. ^ Cook, 19
40. ^ Woodford, 39–56
41. ^ Cook, 82–85
42. ^ Smith, 11
43. ^ Cook, 86–91, 110–111
44. ^ Cook, 74–82
45. ^ Kenneth D. S. Lapatin. Chryselephantine Statuary in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-19-815311-2
46. ^ Cook, 74–76
47. ^ Boardman, 33–34
48. ^ Cook, 99; Woodford, 44, 75
49. ^ Cook, 93
50. ^ Boardman, 47–52; Cook, 104–108; Woodford, 38–56
51. ^ Boardman, 47–52; Cook, 104–108; Woodford, 27–37
52. ^ Boardman, 92–103; Cook, 119–131; Woodford, 91–103, 110–133
53. ^ Tanner, Jeremy (2006). The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece: Religion, Society and Artistic Rationalisation. Cambridge University Press. p. 97. ISBN 9780521846141.
54. ^ CAHN, HERBERT A.; GERIN, DOMINIQUE (1988). Themistocles at Magnesia. p. 19.
55. ^ Boardman, 111–120; Cook, 128; Woodford, 91–103, 110–127
56. ^ Boardman, 135, 141; Cook, 128–129, 140; Woodford, 133
57. ^ Woodford, 128–134; Boardman, 136–139; Cook, 123–126
58. ^ Boardman, 119; Woodford, 128–130
59. ^ Smith, 7, 9
60. ^ Smith, 11, 19–24, 99
61. ^ Smith, 14–15, 255–261, 272
62. ^ Smith, 33–40, 136–140
63. ^ Smith, 127–154
64. ^ Smith, 77–79
65. ^ Smith, 99–104; Photo of Kneeling youthful Gaul, Louvre
66. ^ Smith, 104–126
67. ^ Smith, 240–241
68. ^ Smith, 258-261
69. ^ Smith, 206, 208-209
70. ^ Smith, 210
71. ^ Smith, 205
72. ^ « Bell idol », Louvre
73. ^ Williams, 182, 198–201; Boardman, 63–64; Smith, 86
74. ^ Williams, 42, 46, 69, 198
75. ^ Cook, 173–174
76. ^ Cook, 178, 183–184
77. ^ Cook, 178–179
78. ^ Cook, 184–191; Boardman, 166–169
79. ^ Cook, 186
80. ^ Cook, 190–191
81. ^ Cook, 241–244
82. ^ Boardman, 169–171
83. ^ Cook, 185–186
84. ^ Cook, 179–180, 186
85. ^ Cook, 193–238 gives a comprehensive summary
86. ^ Cook, 191–193
87. ^ Cook, 211–214
88. ^ Cook, 218
89. ^ Boardman, 159–160, 164–167
90. ^ another reconstruction
91. ^ Howgego, 1–2
92. ^ Jump up to:^a b Cook, 171–172
93. ^ Howgego, 44–46, 48–51
94. ^ Jump up to:^a b Boardman, 68–69
95. ^ « A rare silver fraction recently identified as a coin of Themistocles from Magnesia even has a bearded portrait of the great man, making it by far the earliest datable portrait coin. Other early portraits can be seen on the coins of Lycian dynasts. » Carradice, Ian; Price, Martin (1988). Coinage in the Greek World. Seaby. p. 84. ISBN 9780900652820.
96. ^ Howgego, 63–67
97. ^ Williams, 112
98. ^ Roger Ling, « Greece and the Hellenistic World »
99. ^ Cook, 22, 66
100. ^ Cook, 24, says over 1,000 vase-painters have been identified by their style
101. ^ Cook, 59–70
102. ^ Cook, 59–69, 66 quoted
103. ^ Bostock, John. « Natural History ». Perseus. Tufts University. Retrieved 23 March2017.
104. ^ Leonard Whibley, A Companion to Greek Studies 3rd ed. 1916, p. 329.
105. ^ Cook, 61;
106. ^ Boardman, 177–180
107. ^ Boardman, 174–177
108. ^ Boardman, 338–340; Williams, 333
109. ^ Cohen, 28
110. ^ Christopoulos, Lucas (August 2012). « Hellenes and Romans in Ancient China (240 BC – 1398 AD) », in Victor H. Mair (ed), Sino-Platonic Papers, No. 230. Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, University of Pennsylvania Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. ISSN 2157-9687, pp. 15–16.
111. ^ Sabatini, Paolo. « Antoine Chrysostôme Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849) and the Rediscovery of Polychromy in Grecian Architecture: Colour Techniques and Archaeological Research in the Pages of « Olympian Zeus.« «  (PDF).
112. ^ Cook, 182–183
113. ^ Woodford, 173–174; Cook, 75–76, 88, 93–94, 99
114. ^ Woodford, 173–174; Cook, 75–76, 88, 93–94, 99
115. ^ Cook, 59–63
116. ^ the figure on the right is possibly Alexander the Greatdue to the date of the mosaic along with the depicted upsweep of his centrally-parted hair (anastole); the figure on the left wielding a double-edged axe (associated with Hephaistos) is perhaps Hephaestion, one of Alexander’s loyal companions. See: Chugg, Andrew (2006). Alexander’s Lovers. Raleigh, N.C.: Lulu. ISBN 978-1-4116-9960-1, pp 78-79.
117. ^ Jump up to:^a b Chamoux, 375
118. ^ Boardman, 154
119. ^ Boardman, 174–175, 181–185
120. ^ Boardman, 183–184
121. ^ Dunbabin, 33
122. ^ Cohen, 32
123. ^ Hardiman, 517
124. ^ Hardiman, 518
125. ^ Olga Palagia (2000). « Hephaestion’s Pyre and the Royal Hunt of Alexander, » in A.B. Bosworth and E.J. Baynham (eds), Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198152873, p. 185.
126. ^ Fletcher, Joann (2008). Cleopatra the Great: The Woman Behind the Legend. New York: Harper. ISBN 978-0-06-058558-7, image plates and captions between pp. 246-247.
127. ^ for Caesar: De Vita Caesarum, Divus Iulius, (The Lives of the Caesars, The Deified Julius), Fordham online text; for Pompey: Chapters 4–6 of Book 37 of the Natural History of Pliny the Elder give a summary art history of the Greek and Roman tradition, and of Roman collecting
128. ^ Boardman, 39, 67–68, 187, 350
129. ^ Boardman, 39 See Beazley for more detail.
130. ^ « Lenticular » or « lentoid » gems have the form of a lens.
131. ^ Beazley, Later Archaic Greek gems: introduction.
132. ^ Boardman, 129–130
133. ^ Boardman, 187–188
134. ^ Beazley, « Hellenistic gems: introduction »
135. ^ Cook, 39–40
136. ^ Rawson, 209–222; Cook, 39
137. ^ Rawson, throughout, but for quick reference: 23, 27, 32, 39–57, 75–77
138. ^ Rawson, 146–163, 173–193
139. ^ Williams, 190
140. ^ Williams, 214
141. ^ Boardman, 34, 127, 150
142. ^ Boardman, 150
143. ^ Boardman, 349–353; Cook, 155–156; Williams, 236–248
144. ^ Boardman, 353–354
145. ^ Boardman, 354–369
146. ^ Boardman, 370–377
147. ^ Cook, 157–158
148. ^ Jump up to:^a b Ceserani, Giovanna, Italy’s Lost Greece: Magna Graecia and the Making of Modern Archaeology, 49–66, 2012, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-987679-2, Google books
149. ^ Honour, 57–62
150. ^ See Classical Art from Greece to Rome by John Henderson and Mary Beard, 2001), ISBN 0-19-284237-4; Honour, 45–46
151. ^ See Rasmussen, « Adopting an Approach », by Martin Robertson and Mary Beard, also the preface to Ancient Greek Pottery (Ashmolean Handbooks) by Michael Vickers (1991)

References

• « Beazley » The Classical Art Research Centre, Oxford University. Beazley Archive – Extensive website on classical gems; page titles used as references
• Boardman, John ed., The Oxford History of Classical Art, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0198143869
• Burnett, Andrew, Coins; Interpreting the Past, University of California/British Museum, 1991, ISBN 0520076281
• Chamoux, Françios, Hellenistic Civilization, translated by Michel Roussel, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002 [1981], ISBN 0631222421.
• Cohen, Ada, Art in the Era of Alexander the Great: Paradigms of Manhood and Their Cultural Traditions, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 9780521769044
• Cook, R.M., Greek Art, Penguin, 1986 (reprint of 1972), ISBN 0140218661
• Dunbabin, Katherine, M. D., Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0521002303
• Hardiman, Craig I., (2010). « Classical Art to 221 BC », In Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian, A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, ISBN 9781405179362.
• Honour, Hugh, Neo-classicism. Style and Civilisation 1968 (reprinted 1977), Penguin
• Howgego, Christopher, Ancient History from Coins, Routledge, 1995, ISBN 041508993X
• Karouzou, Semni, National Museum : Illustrated Guide to the Museum (NM of Athens), 1980, Ekdotike Athenon S.A., ISBN 9789602130049 (later edition)
• Rasmussen, Tom, Spivey, Nigel, eds., Looking at Greek Vases, 1991, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521376792, google books
• Rawson, Jessica, Chinese Ornament: The Lotus and the Dragon, 1984, British Museum Publications, ISBN 0714114316
• Smith, R.R.R., Hellenistic Sculpture, a handbook, Thames & Hudson, 1991, ISBN 0500202494
• Williams, Dyfri. Masterpieces of Classical Art, 2009, British Museum Press, ISBN 9780714122540
• Woodford, Susan, An Introduction To Greek Art, 1986, Duckworth, ISBN 9780801419942
• Greece: From Mycenae to the Parthenon, Henri Stierlin, TASCHEN, 2004

Further reading

• Betancourt, Philip P. Introduction to Aegean Art. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press, 2007.
• Burn, Lucilla. Hellenistic Art: From Alexander the Great to Augustus. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004.
• Coldstream, J. N. Geometric Greece: 900-700 BC. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2003.
• Jenkins, Ian, Celeste Farge, and Victoria Turner. Defining Beauty: The Body In Ancient Greek Art. London: British Museum, 2015.
• Langdon, Susan Helen. Art and Identity In Dark Age Greece, 1100–700 B.C.E. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Ling, Roger. Making Classical Art: Process & Practice. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus, 2000.
• Moon, Warren G. Ancient Greek Art and Iconography. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.
• Pedley, John Griffiths. Greek Art and Archaeology. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2012.
• Plantzos, Dimitris. Hellenistic Engraved Gems. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.
• Pollitt, J. J. Art In the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
• –. Art and Experience In Classical Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
• Smith, Tyler Jo, and Dimitris Plantzos. A Companion to Greek Art. Somerset: Wiley, 2012.
• Stewart, Andrew F. Classical Greece and the Birth of Western Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Yatromanolakis, Dimitrios. Epigraphy of Art: Ancient Greek Vase-Inscriptions and Vase-Paintings. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_art

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Giacobbe Giusti, Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

Giacobbe Giusti, Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

 

Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe, Rom, Museo Gregoriano Profano

Giacobbe Giusti, Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

Wettkampf zwischen Apollon und Marsyas, am rechten Rand die Schindung; Sarkophag des späten 3. Jahrhunderts, Louvre-Lens

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

Rotfigurige Oinochoe aus Vari (Attika), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

Athena, Paris, Louvre MA 2208

Giacobbe Giusti, Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

Frankfurter Athena, Liebieghaus

Giacobbe Giusti, Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

Athena, Madrid, Museo del Prado 82-E

Giacobbe Giusti, Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe, Rom, Museo Gregoriano Profano

Die Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe ist eine um 450 v. Chr. von dem aus Eleutherai stammenden griechischen Bildhauer Myron geschaffene Statuengruppe. Aufgestellt war die Gruppe auf der Athener Akropolis. Sie stellte die Göttin Athenaund den Satyr Marsyasdar, der im Begriff ist, die von Athena erfundenen, dann aber entsetzt weggeworfenen Auloiaufzuheben. Obwohl das originale Werk aus Bronze nicht erhalten ist, konnte die mit einer Höhe von rund 1,50 Metern knapp lebensgroße Gruppe anhand von Einzelfunden römischer Marmorkopien – es wurden nie Teile beider Statuen in einem Fundzusammenhang entdeckt – in ihren wichtigsten Zügen rekonstruiert werden.

Schriftliche Überlieferung

Im 34. Buch seiner Naturgeschichte behandelt Plinius der Ältere die Geschichte der Metalle und ihre Verwendung in der Kunst. In dem Zusammenhang nennt er die Namen der wichtigsten Künstler, die in Bronze gearbeitet haben, und zählt deren Werke auf. Unter den bemerkenswerten Künstlern der 90. Olympiade, das heißt der Jahre um 420 v. Chr., hebt er Myron aus Eleutherai wegen seiner besonders realistischen Darstellungsweise hervor. Neben anderen Statuen habe dieser „… einen mit Bewunderung die Flöten und Athena betrachtenden Satyrn… gemacht“.^[1]Pausanias hingegen erwähnt bei seiner Beschreibung der Athener Akropolis eine Statue der Athena, die den Marsyas schlägt, weil er die von ihr weggeworfenen Auloiaufheben wolle.^[2] Im Jahr 1830 kombinierte Karl Otfried Müller als erster diese beiden Textstellen und vertrat die Ansicht, dass sie sich auf ein und dasselbe Bildwerk bezögen.^[3]

Mythos und Auletik

Giacobbe Giusti, Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

Wettkampf zwischen Apollon und Marsyas, um 330 v. Chr. aus Mantineia, Archäologisches Nationalmuseum Athen MNA 216

Wettkampf zwischen Apollon und Marsyas, am rechten Rand die Schindung; Sarkophag des späten 3. Jahrhunderts, Louvre-Lens

In der griechischen Mythologie galt Athena als Erfinderin der Auloi, mit denen sie dem Dichter Pindar zufolge die Totenklage der Gorgonen nach der Enthauptung ihrer sterblichen Schwester Medusa imitierte und sie zu diesem Zwecke den Menschen zum Geschenk machte.^[4] Von dem Instrument war selbst Apollon so angetan, dass er laut der griechischen Dichterin Korinna das Aulosspiel erlernte.^[5] Athena aber, die ihr Spiegelbild während des Spielens in einem See sah, warf wegen der Entstellung ihres Gesichts das neue Instrument entsetzt ins Gras^[6] – da der Aulos als Rohrblattinstrument einen erheblichen Einsatz an Blaskraft verlangt, wurde er oftmals mithilfe einer Phorbeia genannten Binde um den Kopf gespielt. Das weggeworfene Instrument fand ein Satyr, der die Kunst des Spielens bald soweit beherrschte, dass er Apollon zum Wettstreit herausforderte.^[7] Als Folge kam es zur Schindung des im Wettkampf unterlegenen Satyrn – Gegenstand einer weiteren statuarischen Gruppe.^[8] Im Werk des Hyginusist Marsyas der Name des Satyrn, und nicht allein das Spiegelbild, sondern auch das Gelächter von Iuno und Aphrodite hätten Athena veranlasst, das Aulosspielen zu lassen. Außerdem schreibt Hyginus, Athena habe denjenigen verflucht, der in Zukunft auf dem Instrument spielen werde.^[9]

Seit der aus dem späten 18. Jahrhundert stammenden grundlegenden Arbeit „Pallas Musica und Apollo Marsyas-Töter“ von Karl August Böttiger^[10] war man versucht, der den Perserkriegen folgenden Zeit eine Abneigung gegen das Aulosspiel zu unterstellen, die mit einer anti-böotische Einstellung einhergegangen sei. Der Klang des Instrumentes habe zu sehr an die Schalmeien des persischen Heeres und die an ihrer Seite kämpfenden Böoter erinnert. Die Vertreter dieser Theorie beriefen sich auf die bei Plutarch überlieferte Anekdote,^[11] Alkibiades hätte sich geweigert, das Spiel zu erlernen.^[12] Dem steht jedoch die Rede des Alkibiades in Platons Symposionentgegen, in der er die Wortgewalt des Sokrates mit der Wirkung der Aulosmusik und Sokrates direkt mit Marsyas vergleicht.^[13] Gleichwohl lehnte Platon in der Politeia„Aulosmacher und Aulosspieler“ als unnütz ab.^[14] Aristoteles folgte ihm hierin und berief sich direkt auf den Widerwillen der Athena, sah die im Mythos überlieferte Entstellung ihres Antlitzes jedoch als zu vordergründig für ihren Widerwillen an und intellektualisierte die Deutung: Da man nicht zugleich blasen und reden könne, wäre das Aulosspiel nicht der geistigen Entwicklung zuträglich. Aristoteles ist hier ganz Erzieher, Marsyas oder einen anderen mythischen Spieler nennt er in dem Zusammenhang nicht.^[15]

Allen Überlieferungen zum Mythos gemein ist, dass Athena die Szene längst verlassen hat, wenn Marsyas auftaucht. Daher gab es Vorschläge, in der Gruppe die Verarbeitung einer nicht überlieferten Mythosversion zu erkennen, etwa des Dithyrambos Marsyas des in der zweiten Hälfte des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. wirkenden Dichters Melanippides, in dem sich der Dichter – selbst ein Neuerer des Kitharaspiels – über das Aulosspiel lustig machte.^[16] Und bereits bei Melanippides warf die Göttin das neue Instrument als Ärgernis des Körpers aus der göttlichen Hand.^[17] Laut einem gegen Melanippides polemisierenden Enkomion des um 400 v. Chr. wirkenden Dichterkollegen Telestes wurde das Musikinstrument dann von Marsyas gefunden. All dies hielt Telestes für Unfug, denn Athena hätte den Aulos zwar erfunden, nicht aber weggeworfen, sondern als hilfreichen Diener dem Dionysos – Telestes nennt ihn Bromios – übergeben.^[18]

Wiederentdeckung

Sogenannter Finlay-Krater, Athen, Archäologisches Nationalmuseum

Wie fast alle bronzenen Originalwerke der griechischen Antike ist auch das Original der Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe des Myron verloren. Karl Otfried Müller, der als Erster die Textstellen zum Mythos bei Plinius und Pausanias aufeinander bezog, erkannte in athenischen Münzen der römischen Kaiserzeit und in dem Relief des in Athen befindlichen „Finlay-Kraters“ Darstellungen der literarisch überlieferten Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe.^[19] Damit waren erste Anhaltspunkte für die Suche im Bestand römischer Kopien nach griechischen Vorbildern gegeben. Im Jahr 1824 führte der Antiquar Ignazio Vescovali in der Via dei Quadro Cantoni auf dem EsquilinAusgrabungen durch, bei denen neben vielen anderen Funden die Statue eines Satyrn zum Vorschein kam. Ein Jahr später wurde die Statue für die musei Pontificierworben, jedoch erst 1852 im Museo Gregoriano Profano ausgestellt. Als Ergebnis einer eingehenden stilkritischen Analyse erkannte Heinrich Brunn im Jahr 1853 in dieser Statue eine römische Kopie nach dem Vorbild des myronischen Marsyas.^[20]Bruno Sauer schlug ein halbes Jahrhundert später im Jahr 1907 vor, die Marsyasstatue mit einem Statuentypus der Athena zu verbinden, der in verschiedenen Repliken in Paris, Toulouse und Madrid vorliegt.^[21] Ein Jahr später legte Johannes Sieveking auf Anregung Adolf Furtwänglers eine erste Rekonstruktion der Gruppe in Gips und eine Nachbildung in Kupfer vor.^[22] Ludwig Pollak veröffentlichte 1909 mit der Frankfurter Athena die besterhaltene Replik des genannten Athenatypus als Gegenstück zum Marsyas vom Esquilin.^[23] Da sich die Zuordnungen als korrekt erwiesen, war die Gruppe in ihren wesentlichen Bezügen rekonstruiert.

Befund

Im Denkmälerbestand konnten zahlreiche, teils nur fragmentarisch erhaltene Kopien der Gruppenstatuen nachgewiesen werden. So liegen von der Athena eine Statuenreplik, sieben Körper- und wenigstens drei Kopfrepliken vor.^[24] Vom Marsyas sind bislang eine Körperreplik, drei Torsen und drei Kopfrepliken nachgewiesen.^[25]Hinzu kommen Darstellungen in der Vasenmalerei, in Relief und auf Münzen. All dies lässt eine weitgehend gesicherte Rekonstruktion der Gruppe zu, auch wenn einzelne Details weiterhin Gegenstand der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion sind. Gleichwohl gibt es vor allem amerikanische Forscher, die den Bezug der Plinius- und der Pausaniasstelle prinzipiell leugnen und weder in den Münzdarstellungen noch in den statuarischen Überlieferungen Spuren der Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe erkennen wollen.^[26] Auch wurde vorgeschlagen, zwei Gruppen zu scheiden: Mit Plinius eine des Myron, deren Aufstellungsort nicht bekannt sei, und eine auf der Akropolis, die keinem Bildhauer zugewiesen werden könne.^[27]

Darstellungen

Rotfigurige Oinochoe aus Vari (Attika), Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Zeichnung einer Münzdarstellung hadrianischer Zeit

Ältestes Zeugnis der Gruppe ist die Darstellung auf einer rotfigurigen Oinochoe, die bei der Gemeinde Vari in Attika gefunden wurde. Sie wurde um 440 v. Chr. geschaffen und befindet sich in den Staatlichen Museenin Berlin. Athena im strengen Rechtsprofil, mit der linken Hand die Lanze haltend, hat mit der vorgestreckten rechten Hand gerade die Auloi weggeworfen, die noch im Fallen rechts von ihr zu sehen sind. Sie trägt Helm und Ägis, unter ihrem knöchellangen Chitonsind linkes Stand- und rechtes Spielbein klar getrennt zu erkennen. Von rechts nähert sich ein Satyr mit Pferdeschweif, spitzen Tierohren und struppigem Bart der Bildmitte. Sein nach vorn tretendes rechtes Bein setzt ungefähr dort auf, wo die Auloi gleich landen werden, doch scheint er mit dem rechten Knie wie zum Sprung zurückzuweichen. Sein rechter Arm ist hoch erhoben, sein nach unten geführter linker Arm nimmt die zurückweichende Bewegung seines linken Beines auf.

Dargestellt ist die gleiche Szene auch auf einem um die Mitte des 1. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. geschaffenen neoattischen Marmorkrater, der sich im Archäologisches Nationalmuseum Athen (Inventarnummer 127) befindet, unter dem Namen „Finlay-Krater“ bekannt ist und wahrscheinlich aus Athen stammt.^[28] Die nicht ganz zu Ende ausgeführte Arbeit gibt gegenüber der Oinochoe die Gruppe allerdings spiegelverkehrt wieder: Marsyas auf der linken, Athena auf der rechten Seite. Entsprechend hat Marsyas seinen linken Arm erhoben. Auch ist seine zwischen Annäherung und Zurückweichen schwebende Bewegung weniger dramatisch akzentuiert. Athena, deren Wegeilen nach rechts aus der Szene durch die Bewegung ihres Gewandes deutlich vorgetragen wird, hält in ihrer Linken einen Schild, mit der Rechten hat sie auch hier gerade die Auloi von sich geworfen.

Münzbildnisse der römischen Kaiserzeit geben die Gruppe ebenfalls wieder, und zwar in zwei Varianten: Während die Münzen hadrianischer Zeit die lanzenlose Athena auf der linken Seite des Bildes zeigen,^[29] steht sie auf den Münzen aus der Zeit Gordians auf der rechten Seite.^[30] Gemeinsam ist beiden Typen der zur Bildmitte hin hocherhobene Arm des Marsyas.

Athena-Statue

Alle Repliken zeigen die sehr jugendliche Athena aufrecht stehend, mit einem hochgegürteten Peplos bekleidet, dessen rechte Seite offen ist. Das Gewicht lastet auf dem durchgestreckten rechten Standbein, während sich das leicht angewinkelte linke Spielbein deutlich unter dem Gewand abzeichnet. Ihr linker Fuß berührt nur mit dem Ballen und den Zehen den Boden. Bei den Körperrepliken Lancellotti und Paris reicht das Gewand nicht bis zur Standbasis, sondern lässt deutlich die Füße erkennen. Als einzige Replik weist der Torso Lancellotti außerdem einen Gewandsaum am Rand des Gewandüberfalls, des Apoptygmas, auf. Die Repliken in Florenz und Hamburg kennzeichnen Athena mittels einer Ägis, die allen anderen Wiederholungen fehlt. Der Oberkörper vollführt eine leichte Wendung zu ihrer Linken, die der Kopf mit seinem zurückgeschobenen Helm – im Original wohl die einzige Kennzeichnung der Statue als Athena – energisch aufnimmt, so dass er fast im Profil erscheint. Der Blick richtet sich auf ein am Boden zu suchendes Ziel und auch der linke Arm war, deutlich nach unten geführt, vom Körper abgestellt. Mit der Rechten, die bei der Frankfurter Athena ebenso wie ein Teil des zugehörigen Armes erhalten ist, hielt die Göttin eine Lanze. Über der Stirn und im Nacken sind die Haare Athenas umgeschlagen und unter den Helm – einen chalkidischen Helm, wie man an der Aussparung für die Ohren erkennen kann – geschoben. Allerdings fällt bei den Repliken in Toulouse und Florenz ein dichter Zopf über Nacken und Schultern.

• 

  Frankfurter Athena, Liebieghaus

• 

  Athena, Madrid, Museo del Prado 82-E

• 

  Athena, Paris, LouvreMA 2208

Repliken der Athena

Erhalten	Aufbewahrungsort	Fundort	AusklappenBeschreibung

Marsyas-Statue

Die besterhaltene Replik des Marsyas in den Vatikanischen Museen, die auf dem Esquilin in Rom gefunden wurde, gibt das Bewegungsmotiv des Satyrn am gewissenhaftesten wieder. Marsyas steht nur auf den Fußballen, die Fersen sind angehoben. Sein rechtes Bein ist vorgestreckt, fast rechtwinklig dazu steht der linke Fuß auf den Betrachter gerichtet, das leicht gebeugte linke Bein trägt die ganze nach links hinten verlagerte Last. Lediglich der Unterschenkel der Statue vom Esquilin ist ergänzt, die Fußstellung hingegen gesichert. Tänzelnd, vordrängend und zurückweichend, nähert sich Marsyas einem auf dem Boden liegenden Gegenstand, dem auch sein Blick gilt. Kräftig und durchtrainiert ist die Muskulatur des Körpers, die so detailliert und dabei anatomisch korrekt ausgearbeitet ist, dass selbst feine Adern an der Oberfläche zur Darstellung kommen. Dem vorgestellten rechten Fuß folgt auch der nach oben gestreckte und leicht nach vorn geführte rechte Arm, während der linke Arm vom Oberkörper fort und nach unten gehalten wird. Dem antwortet die flacher ausgebildete Brustmuskulatur der gestreckten rechten Seite. Der ganze Körper ist im Moment einer beginnenden Drehung erfasst, die aus seinem Vorwärtsdrang eine Flucht macht. In tiefe Falten geworfen ist dabei die Stirn des Marsyas, der sich anhand seiner spitzen Ohren, seines Schwanzansatzes und seiner dicken, runden Nase deutlich als Satyr zu erkennen gibt. Verwunderung, Neugier und Gebanntheit vom Ziel seines Blickes kommen in seiner Mimik zum Ausdruck.

Eine Besonderheit weist die weitgehend erhaltene Statue in den Vatikanischen Museen auf: Sie besitzt auf der Statuenbasis zwei Eintiefungen, eine vor dem linken, vorgestellten Fuß, die andere etwa 23 Zentimeter weiter zur linken Mitte hin. Sie dienten zur Befestigung eines oder mehrerer heute verlorener Gegenstände, die wohl gesondert aus Metall gearbeitet waren.^[43]

• 

  Marsyas vom Esquilin, Rom, Museo Gregoriano Profano

• 

  Marsyas, Rom, Museo Barracco

Repliken des Marsyas

Erhalten	Aufbewahrungsort	Fundort	AusklappenBeschreibung

Rekonstruktion

Keine Replik der einen Statue wurde in Zusammenhang mit Funden der anderen entdeckt. Und obwohl beide Statuentypen keinen direkten Anhaltspunkt dafür geben, dass sie ein Gegenstück besaßen, geht aus Anlage und Bewegungsmotiv bei beiden hervor, dass sie nicht in sich geschlossene und für sich allein stehende Kompositionen darstellen. Der Vergleich mit den Darstellungen in Vasenmalerei, Relief und auf Münzen macht hingegen deutlich, dass diese beiden auch durch Isokephalie und Blick auf ein gemeinsames Ziel verbundenen Statuen einst zu einem gemeinsamen Gruppenzusammenhang gehörten.

Seit den ersten Rekonstruktionen der Gruppe von Bruno Sauer im Jahr 1907 sowie jener von Johannes Sieveking und Adolf Furtwängler 1908 wurden immer wieder Vorschläge gemacht, die sich zumeist auf die Rekonstruktion der Armhaltungen, insbesondere der Athena konzentrierten.^[50] Paul Jonas Meier glaubte an der Frankfurter Athena Reste eines kleinen Steges, eines „Puntello“, auf der rechten Seite des Apoptygma genannten Gewandtüberfalls erkannt zu haben und rekonstruierte 1911 die Haltung des rechten Arms vor den Körper geführt, eine zum Kompositionszentrum der Gruppe schräg nach oben geführte Lanze haltend. Außerdem drehte er den Marsyas stärker ins Profil. Mit der Lanzenhaltung schien Meier erstmals der Aussage des Pausanias, Athena hätte den Satyrn geschlagen, nahegekommen zu sein.^[51]

Eine Autopsie der Statue und vor allem des als Stegansatz gedeuteten Puntello ließen jedoch Heinrich Bulle erkennen, dass für eine derartige Rekonstruktion die Grundlage fehlt, da der vermeintliche Puntello lediglich eine Versinterung darstellt und keine tragfähige Stütze bieten kann.^[52] Einen eigenen Rekonstruktionsvorschlag^[53] verwarf er einige Jahre später.^[54]

Einen neuen Weg versuchte Sieveking 1912 zu gehen. Er löste sich gänzlich von der 1908 mit Furtwängler entwickelten Rekonstruktion und gab nun der Athena die beiden Auloi in die linke und rechte Hand.^[55] Dagegen spricht zum einen das Fehlen von zu erwartenden Löchern am Gegenstand, der in der Hand der Frankfurter Athena hinreichend erhalten ist und bei dem es sich nur um das Stück eines Lanzenschafts handeln kann, zum anderen berücksichtigt die Rekonstruktion nicht die Löcher auf der Basis des Marsyas vom Esquilin.^[56] Doch fand die Rekonstruktion eines Aulos in der rechten Hand der Athena auch die Zustimmung von Peter Cornelis Bol^[57] und anderen.^[58]

So bleibt festzuhalten, dass unabhängig von weiteren Details die Frage nach dem Gegenstand in der rechten Hand der Athena bislang ungelöst ist, während vor den Füßen des Marsyas aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach wenigstens ein Aulos lag. Dass Athena mit der Lanze in der rechten Hand sich gegen Marsyas richtete, während die geöffnete Linke auf die am Boden liegenden Auloi wies, vertrat Raimund Wünsche.^[59]

Zuletzt hat Vinzenz Brinkmann in Anschluss an Heinrich Bulle den technischen Befund der Frankfurter Athenareplik dokumentiert. Seine Beobachtungen favorisieren die frühe Rekonstruktion von Bulle, nach der die Lanze der Athena schräg hinter dem Körper der Athena ansetzt, um weit zu ihrer Linken hinauszuweisen.^[60]

• Rekonstruktionen der Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe
• 

  Rom, Museo Gregoriano Profano

• 

  Frankfurt am Main, Liebieghaus

• 

  Kopenhagen, Botanischer Garten

Deutung

Weder gibt es Nachrichten über den Stifter der Statuengruppe noch über den Anlass ihrer Aufstellung. Doch wurden immer wieder Überlegungen angestellt, die das Werk in einen historischen Kontext zu stellen versuchten. Sehr konkret mit einem Einzelstifter und einem bestimmten Anlass verband John Boardman die Gruppe mit dem Dichter Melanippides, der ab der Mitte des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. wirkte, einen Dithyrambos Marsyas verfasst hat und als Neuerer des Dithyrambos galt.^[61]Boardman wandte sich damit gegen die aus dem 18. Jahrhundert stammenden^[62]und in der Folge weiterentwickelten, chronologisch verfeinerten Theorien, die in dem Monument eine Versinnbildlichung des erwähnten Hegemonieanspruchs Athens gegenüber Böotien sahen. Marsyas vertritt in dieser Lesart das wilde und das Aulosspiel liebende Böotien, Athena als Stadtgöttin das gesittete, dem Lyraspiel zugewandte Athen. Um die Mitte des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. wurde dieser Antagonismus auch gewaltsam ausgetragen.^[63] Myron wurde in diesem konstruierten Zusammenhang sogar als besonders spitzer, humoristischer und Position beziehender Künstler aufgefasst.^[64] Speziell als gegen die Persergerichtetes und mit dem Kalliasfrieden von 449/448 v. Chr. zu verbindendes Anathemsah Werner Gauer die Statuengruppe.^[65]

Einen anderen Ansatz verfolgen Deutungen, die die Erfindung des Aulos in den Mittelpunkt stellen und Athenas Aspekt als Kulturbringerin betonen.^[66] Die Verbindung mit Marsyas aber fände ihre Rechtfertigung darin, dass der Satyr als Vermittler dieser Kunst an die Menschen diente, denn laut Johannes Tzetzes, einem byzantinischen Gelehrten des 12. Jahrhunderts, dem noch umfangreich antike Schriften zur Verfügung standen, hat Athena die Kunst der Auletik dem Marsyas übergeben.^[67] Ein Konflikt zwischen Athena und Marsyas sei daher in der Gruppe überhaupt nicht ausgedrückt, die Darstellung eines solchen nie intendiert gewesen, sondern erst Folge des Unverständnisses späterer Zeiten.^[68]

Bislang liegen befriedigende und von einem breiteren wissenschaftlichen Konsens getragene Interpretationen der Gruppe und des Anlasses ihrer Aufstellung nicht vor,^[69] was sogar auf die „besondere konzeptionelle Qualität“ des Werks zurückgeführt wird: Da es auf vielerlei Art gelesen und verstanden werden könne, sei auch der Kreis möglicher Stifter entsprechend groß.^[70]

Literatur[

• Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983 (mit der älteren Literatur auf S. 71–73).
• Werner Gauer: Athena und Marsyas. In: Detlef Rößler, Veit Stürmer (Hrsg.): Modus in rebus. Gedenkschrift für W. Schindler. Mann, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-7861-1331-9, S. 50–55.
• Peter Cornelis Bol: Liebieghaus – Museum alter Plastik, Frankfurt am Main. Führer durch die Sammlungen. Griechische und römische Plastik. Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1997, S. 66–73. 274 ff.
• Klaus Junker: Die Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe des Myron auf der Akropolis von Athen. In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Band 117, 2002, S. 127–183.
• Helga Bumke: Statuarische Gruppen in der frühen griechischen Kunst (= Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Ergänzungs-Heft 32). De Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2004, ISBN 3-11-018179-7, S. 145–154.
• Vinzenz Brinkmann: Die Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe des Myron. In: Vinzenz Brinkmann (Hrsg.): Die Launen des Olymp. Der Mythos von Athena, Marsyas und Apoll. Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-86568-373-1, S. 73–85.
• Luise Seemann: Zur Interpretation der Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe des Myron. In: Boreas. Münstersche Beiträge zur Archäologie. Band 32, 2009, S. 1–18.
• Klaus Junker: Götter als Erfinder. Die Entstehung der Kultur in der griechischen Kunst. Philipp von Zabern, Darmstadt/Mainz 2012, ISBN 978-3-8053-4479-1, S. 61–70.

Weblinks

 Commons: Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe – Sammlung von Bildern, Videos und Audiodateien

• Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe in der Skulpturhalle Basel
• Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe im virtuellen Museum der Universität Göttingen

Anmerkungen

1. ↑ Plinius, Naturalis historia 34,59: fecit … Satyrum admirantem tibias et Minervam…; bereits Eugen Petersen: Myrons Athena und Marsyas. In: Archäologischer Anzeiger. 1912, S. 111 erkannte, dass Plinius die Werke Myrons in alphabetischer Reihenfolge listet, Marsyas und Athena daher zusammengehören müssen und nicht als einzelne Werke zu verstehen sind.
2. ↑ Pausanias 1,24,1: ἐνταῦθα Ἀθηνᾶ πεποίηται τὸν Σιληνὸν Μαρσύαν παίουσα, ὅτι δὴ τοὺς αὐλοὺς ἀνέλοιτο, ἐρρῖφθαι σφᾶς τῆς θεοῦ βουλομένης.
3. ↑ Karl Otfried Müller: Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst. Josef Max, Breslau 1830, § 371, 6, S. 488 f. (Digitalisat).
4. ↑ Pindar, Pythische Oden 12.
5. ↑ Plutarch, de musica 14p 1136b.
6. ↑ Ovid, fasti 6,697–709; Ars amatoria 3,505 f.
7. ↑ Ovid, fasti 6,697–709.
8. ↑ Adolf H. Borbein: Die Statue des hängenden Marsyas. In: Marburger Winckelmannsprogramm. 1973, S. 37–52, speziell: S. 48–51, Taf. 9–12; Hugo Meyer: Der weiße und der rote Marsyas. Eine kopienkritische Untersuchung(= Münchener Archäologische Studien. Band 2). Fink, München 1987, ISBN 3-7705-2476-4; Raimund Wünsche: Marsyas in der antiken Kunst. In: Reinhold Baumstark, Peter Volk (Hrsg.): Apoll schindet Marsyas. Über das Schreckliche in der Kunst. Katalog zur Ausstellung des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums in München vom 15. März bis 18. Juni 1995. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, München 1995, ISBN 3-925058-30-3, S. 144–147, Kat.-Nr. 2 und 3; Die sogenannte „Marsyas-Schleifer-Gruppe“ auf der Internetseite der Skulpturhalle Basel (mit Abbildungen).
9. ↑ Hyginus, Fabulae 165.
10. ↑ Karl August Böttiger: Pallas Musica und Apollo Marsyas-Töter. In: Wieland’s attisches Museum. Jahrgang 1, Heft 2, 1796, S. 279–385 (= Carl August Böttiger, Julius Sillig (Hrsg.): C. A. Böttiger’s kleine Schriften archäologischen und antiquarischen Inhalts gesammelt und herausgegeben. Band 1. Arnold, Dresden/Leipzig 1837, S. 3–60 [Digitalisat]).
11. ↑ Siehe etwa Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 16; zur Diskussion Helga Bumke: Statuarische Gruppen in der frühen griechischen Kunst (= Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts.Ergänzungs-Heft 32). De Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2004, ISBN 3-11-018179-7, S. 151 f., vor allem Klaus Junker: Die Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe des Myron auf der Akropolis von Athen. In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Band 117, 2002, S. 148–158.
12. ↑ Plutarch, Alkibiades 2.
13. ↑ Platon, Symposion 251 a. 216 c.
14. ↑ Platon, Politeia 399 d–e.
15. ↑ Aristoteles, Politik 1341b.
16. ↑ Melanippides bei Athenaios 616e; John Boardman: Some Attic Fragments: Pot, Plaque and Dithyramb. In: Journal of Hellenic Studies. Band 76, 1956, S. 18–25; Piers B. Rawson: The Myth of Marsyas in the Roman Visual Art. An Iconographic Study. BAR, Oxford 1987, ISBN 0-86054-447-8, S. 17.
17. ↑ Denys Lionel Page: Poetae melici Graeci (PMG). Clarendon Press, Oxford 1962, fr. 758.
18. ↑ Denys Lionel Page: Poetae melici Graeci (PMG). Clarendon Press, Oxford 1962, fr. 805.
19. ↑ Karl Otfried Müller: Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst. Josef Max, Breslau 1830, § 371, 6, S. 488 f.
20. ↑ Heinrich Brunn: Bullettino dell’Instituto di corrispondenza archeologica.1853, S. 145 f. (Digitalisat), siehe auch ders.: Il Marsia di Mirone. In: Annali dell’Istituto. Band 30, 1858, S. 374–383 (Digitalisat).
21. ↑ Bruno Sauer: Die Athena-Marsyasgruppe des Myron. In: Wochenschrift für klassische Philologie. Band 24, 1907, S. 1243–1249; ders.: Die Marsyasgruppe des Myron. In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Band 23, 1908, S. 125–162.
22. ↑ Johannes Sieveking: Myrons Gruppe der Athena und des Marsyas. In: Archäologischer Anzeiger. 1908, S. 341–343.
23. ↑ Ludwig Pollak: Die Athena der Marsyasgruppe des Myron. In: Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Instituts. Band 12, 1909, S. 154–165. 221 f.
24. ↑ Replikenliste mit Literatur bei Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 74 f.
25. ↑ Replikenliste mit Literatur bei Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 75 f.
26. ↑ Vertreten beispielsweise von: Rhys Carpenter: Observations on Familiar Statuary in Rome (= Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Band 18). New York 1941, S. 5–7; Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway: The Severe Style in Greek Sculpture. Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 1970, S. 85 f.; dies.: Roman copies of Greek sculpture: the problem of the originals.University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1984, ISBN 0-472-10038-6, S. 53 f. 62 Anm. 34.
27. ↑ H. Anne Weis: The ‚Marsyas‘ of Myron: Old Problems and New Evidence.In: American Journal of Archaeology. Band 83, 1979, S. 214–219.
28. ↑ Zum Krater Dagmar Grassinger: Römische Marmorkratere (= Monumenta artis romanae. Band 18). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1991, ISBN 3-8053-1087-0, S. 156 f. Kat.-Nr. 2.
29. ↑ Jean N. Svoronos: Les monnaies d’Athènes. Band 6. München 1923, Tafel 89, 26–30; Arvid Andrén: Der lateranische Silen und die Gruppe von Athena und Marsyas. In: Opuscula archaeologica. Band 3, 1944, S. 7 Abb. 1 und 14
30. ↑ Jean N. Svoronos: Les monnaies d’Athènes. Band 6. München 1923, Tafel 89, 33–34; Arvid Andrén: Der lateranische Silen und die Gruppe von Athena und Marsyas. In: Opuscula archaeologica. Band 3, 1944, S. 9 Abb. 2
31. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 74 Nr. 1.
32. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 74 Nr. 2.
33. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 74 Nr. 3.
34. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 74 Nr. 4.
35. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 74 Nr. 5.
36. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 74 Nr. 6.
37. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 74 Nr. 7.
38. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 74 Nr. 8.
39. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 75 Nr. 9.
40. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 75 Nr. 10.
41. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 75 Nr. 11.
42. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 75 Nr. 12.
43. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 47.
44. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 75 Nr. 1.
45. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 76 Nr. 2.
46. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 76 Nr. 3.
47. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 76 Nr. 4.
48. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 76 Nr. 5.
49. ↑ Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 76 Nr. 6.
50. ↑ Zu den Rekonstruktionsvorschlägen bis 1983 siehe mit Literatur Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie.Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 44–47.
51. ↑ Paul Jonas Meier: Die Marsyasgruppe des Myron. In: Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum. Band 27, 1911, S. 551–560.
52. ↑ Heinrich Bulle: Eine neue Ergänzung der myronischen Athena zu Frankfurt am Main. In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Band 27, 1912, S. 175–199.
53. ↑ Heinrich Bulle: Eine neue Ergänzung der myronischen Athena zu Frankfurt am Main. In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Band 27, 1912, S. 175–199 Abb. 22. 23.
54. ↑ Heinrich Bulle: Die samische Gruppe des Myron. In: Festschrift für Paul Arndt. Bruckmann, München 1925, S. 62–141, hier: S. 140 Anm. 35.
55. ↑ Johannes Sieveking: Die Ergänzungen der Marsyasgruppe des Myron. In: Archäologischer Anzeiger. 1912, S. 1–10.
56. ↑ Raimund Wünsche: Marsyas in der antiken Kunst. In: Reinhold Baumstark, Peter Volk (Hrsg.): Apoll schindet Marsyas. Über das Schreckliche in der Kunst. Katalog zur Ausstellung des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums in München vom 15. März bis 18. Juni 1995. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, München 1995, ISBN 3-925058-30-3, S. 19–47, hier: S. 23.
57. ↑ Peter Cornelis Bol in: Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron(= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 47.
58. ↑ Brigitte M. Klein: Die Myronische Athena – Im Weggehen begriffen? In: Boreas. Münstersche Beiträge zur Archäologie. Band 11, 1988, S. 43–47.
59. ↑ Raimund Wünsche: Marsyas in der antiken Kunst. In: Reinhold Baumstark, Peter Volk (Hrsg.): Apoll schindet Marsyas. Über das Schreckliche in der Kunst. Katalog zur Ausstellung des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums in München vom 15. März bis 18. Juni 1995. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, München 1995, S. 19–47, hier: S. 26.
60. ↑ Vinzenz Brinkmann (Hrsg.): Zurück zur Klassik. Ein neuer Blick auf das alte Griechenland. Ausstellungskatalog Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung. Liebieghaus, Frankfurt 2013, ISBN 978-3-943215-02-1, S. 46–48.
61. ↑ John Boardman: Some Attic Fragments: Pot, Plaque and Dithyramb. In: Journal of Hellenic Studies. Band 76, 1956, S. 18–25.
62. ↑ Karl August Böttiger: Pallas Musica und Apollo Marsyas-Töter. In: Wieland’s attisches Museum. Jahrgang 1, Heft 2, 1796, S. 279–385 (= Carl August Böttiger, Julius Sillig (Hrsg.): C. A. Böttiger’s kleine Schriften archäologischen und antiquarischen Inhalts gesammelt und herausgegeben. Band 1. Arnold, Dresden/Leipzig 1837, S. 3–60).
63. ↑ Vgl. etwa Georg Daltrop, Peter Cornelis Bol: Athena des Myron (= Liebieghaus Monographie. Band 8). Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1983, S. 53 f.; Irmgard Kasper-Butz: Die Göttin Athena im klassischen Athen : Athena als Repräsentantin des demokratischen Staates. Lang, Frankfurt am Main/New York 1990, S. 184; Peter Cornelis Bol: Liebieghaus – Museum alter Plastik, Frankfurt am Main. Führer durch die Sammlungen. Griechische und römische Plastik. Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1997, S. 73.
64. ↑ Georg Lippold: Griechische Plastik (= Handbuch der Archäologie. Bd. 3). Beck, München 1950, S. 139
65. ↑ Werner Gauer: Athena und Marsyas. In: Detlef Rößler, Veit Stürmer (Hrsg.): Modus in Rebus. Gedenkschrift für W. Schindler. Mann, Berlin 1995, S. 50–55.
66. ↑ Hans-Christoph von Mosch: Bilder zum Ruhme Athens. Aspekte des Städtelobs in der kaiserzeitlichen Münzprägung Athens. Ennerre, Mailand 1999, ISBN 88-87235-06-6, S. 33 f.
67. ↑ Johannes Tzetzes, chiliades 1,369.
68. ↑ Zur Deutung als Erfinderin der zu Myrons Zeit allgegenwärtigen und beliebten Aulosmusik sowie dem Wandel des mit dem Werk verbundenen Verständnisses siehe Klaus Junker: Die Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe des Myron auf der Akropolis von Athen. In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Band 117, 2002, S. 127–183.
69. ↑ Peter Cornelis Bol: Liebieghaus – Museum alter Plastik, Frankfurt am Main. Führer durch die Sammlungen. Griechische und römische Plastik.Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main 1997, S. 73.
70. ↑ Klaus Junker: Die Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe des Myron auf der Akropolis von Athen. In: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts. Band 117, 2002, S. 178.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena-Marsyas-Gruppe

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora

 

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora

Dettaglio dei mosaici della Basilica di San Vitale (Ravenna), raffigurante, secondo alcune interpretazioni,^[1] le sorelle di Teodora, Anastasia (a sinistra) e Comitò (al centro).

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora

Milano – Castello sforzesco – presunto ritatto Teodora – Foto G. Dall’Orto

Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora

Depiction of Justinian from a contemporary portrait mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna

Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora
Depiction of Theodora from a contemporary portrait mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna
Byzantine Empress
Reign	9 August 527 – 28 June 548
Born	c. 500 Cyprus
Died	28 June 548 (aged 48) Constantinople
Burial	Church of the Holy Apostles
Spouse	Justinian I
Issue	illegitimate: John Theodora
Dynasty	Justinian
Religion	Miaphysite Christianity

Justinian dynasty Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora
Bust of a Byzantine empress, possibly Theodora. 6th century. Museum of Ancient Art in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, Italy.
Chronology
Justin I		518–527
Justinian I		527–565
Justin II		565–578
with Sophia and Tiberius as regents, 574–578
Tiberius II		578–582
Maurice		582–602
with Theodosius as co-emperor, 590–602
Succession
Preceded by Leonid dynasty		Followed by Phocas and the Heraclian dynasty

Theodora (/ˌθiːəˈdɔːrə/; Greek: Θεοδώρα; c. 500 – 28 June 548) was empress of the Eastern Roman Empire by marriage to Emperor Justinian I. She was one of the most influential and powerful of the Eastern Roman empresses, albeit from a humble background.^[1] Some sources mention her as empress regnant with Justinian I as her co-regent. Along with her spouse, she is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, commemorated on November 14.

Historiography

The main historical sources for her life are the works of her contemporary Procopius. The historian offered three contradictory portrayals of the Empress. The Wars of Justinian, largely completed in 545, paints a picture of a courageous and influential empress who saved the throne for Justinian.

Later he wrote the Secret History, which survives in only one manuscript suggesting it was not widely read during the Byzantine era. The work has sometimes been interpreted as representing a deep disillusionment with the emperor Justinian, the empress, and even his patron Belisarius. Justinian is depicted as cruel, venal, prodigal and incompetent; as for Theodora, the reader is treated to a detailed and titillating portrayal of vulgarity and insatiable lust, combined with shrewish and calculating mean-spiritedness; Procopius even claims both are demons whose heads were seen to leave their bodies and roam the palace at night. Alternatively, scholars versed in political rhetoric of the era have viewed these statements from the Secret History as formulaic expressions within the tradition of invective.

Procopius’ Buildings of Justinian, written about the same time as the Secret History, is a panegyricwhich paints Justinian and Theodora as a pious couple and presents particularly flattering portrayals of them. Besides her piety, her beauty is excessively praised. Although Theodora was dead when this work was published, Justinian was alive, and probably commissioned the work.^[2]

Her contemporary John of Ephesus writes about Theodora in his Lives of the Eastern Saints as the daughter of a pious Monophysite priest. He mentions an illegitimate daughter not named by Procopius.^[3]

Various other historians presented additional information on her life. Theophanes the Confessor mentions some familial relations of Theodora to figures not mentioned by Procopius. Victor Tonnennensis notes her familial relation to the next empress, Sophia.

Michael the Syrian, the Chronicle of 1234 and Bar-Hebraeus place her origin in the city of Daman, near Kallinikos, Syria. They contradict Procopius by making Theodora the daughter of a priest, trained in the pious practices of Miaphysitism since birth. These are late Miaphysite sources and record her depiction among members of their creed. The Miaphysites have tended to regard Theodora as one of their own and the tradition may have been invented as a way to improve her reputation and is also in conflict with what is told by the contemporary Miaphysite historian John of Ephesus.^[4] These accounts are thus usually ignored in favor of Procopius.^[3]

Early years

Theodora, according to Michael Grant, was of Greek Cypriot descent.^[5] There are several indications of her possible birthplace. According to Michael the Syrian her birthplace was in Mabbug, Syria;^[6] Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos names Theodora a native of Cyprus, while the Patria, attributed to George Codinus, claims Theodora came from Paphlagonia. She was born in 500 AD.

Her father, Acacius, was a bear trainer of the hippodrome’s Green faction in Constantinople. Her mother, whose name is not recorded, was a dancer and an actress.^[7] Her parents had two more daughters.^[8] After her father’s death, when Theodora was four,^[9] her mother brought her children wearing garlands into the hippodrome and presented them as suppliants to the Blue faction. From then on Theodora would be their supporter.

Procopius (in his Secret History) relates that Theodora from an early age followed her sister Komito’s example and worked in a Constantinople brothel serving low-status customers; later she performed on stage.^[10] Lynda Garland in « Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527–1204 » notes that there seems to be little reason to believe she worked out of a brothel « managed by a pimp« . Employment as an actress at the time would include both « indecent exhibitions on stage » and providing sexual services off stage. In what Garland calls the « sleazy entertainment business in the capital », Theodora earned her living by a combination of her theatrical and sexual skills.^[4] In Procopius’ account that confirms to rhetorical conventions for slander (or invective), Theodora purportedly made a name for herself with her salacious portrayal of Leda and the Swan.^[11] These salacious allegations conform to a tradition of slander against the women of imperial houses evident since the allegations of prostitution made against the daughter of the Roman Emperor Augustus, Julia the Elder.

During this time she met the future wife of Belisarius, Antonina, with whom she would remain lifelong friends.

At the age of 16, she traveled to North Africa as the companion of a Syrian official named Hecebolus when he went to the Libyan Pentapolis as governor.^[12] She stayed with him for almost four years before returning to Constantinople. Abandoned and maltreated by Hecebolus, on her way back to the capital of the Byzantine Empire, she settled for a while in Alexandria, Egypt. She is said to have met Patriarch Timothy III in Alexandria, who was Miaphysite, and it was at that time that she converted to Miaphysite Christianity. From Alexandria she went to Antioch, where she met a Blue faction’s dancer, Macedonia, who was perhaps an informer of Justinian.

Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora

Depiction of Justinian from a contemporary portrait mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna

She returned to Constantinople in 522 and, according to John of Ephesus, gave up her former lifestyle, settling as a wool spinner in a house near the palace. The extreme and conventional nature of the negative rhetoric of Procopius and the positive rhetoric of John of Ephesus has led most scholars to conclude that the veracity of both writers might be questioned.

When Justinian sought to marry Theodora, he could not: He was heir of the throne of his uncle, EmperorJustin I, and a Roman law from Constantine’s time prevented anyone of senatorial rank from marrying actresses. In 525, Justin repealed the law, and Justinian married Theodora.^[12] By this point, she already had a daughter (whose name has been lost). Justinian apparently treated the daughter and the daughter’s son Athanasius as fully legitimate,^[13]although sources disagree whether Justinian was the girl’s father.

Life as Empress

When Justinian succeeded to the throne in 527, two years after the marriage, Theodora became Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire. She shared in his plans and political strategies, participated in state councils, and Justinian called her his « partner in my deliberations. »^[14] She had her own court, her own official entourage, and her own imperial seal.^[15]

The Nika riots

Theodora proved herself a worthy and able leader during the Nika riots. There were two rival political factions in the Empire, the Blues and the Greens, who started a riot in January 532 during a chariot race in the hippodrome. The riots stemmed from many grievances, some of which had resulted from Justinian’s and Theodora’s own actions.^[16]

The rioters set many public buildings on fire, and proclaimed a new emperor, Hypatius, the nephew of former emperor Anastasius I. Unable to control the mob, Justinian and his officials prepared to flee. At a meeting of the government council, Theodora spoke out against leaving the palace and underlined the significance of someone who died as a ruler instead of living as an exile or in hiding, reportedly saying, « royal purple is the noblest shroud ».^[17]

As the emperor and his counsellors were still preparing their project, Theodora interrupted them and claimed :

« My lords, the present occasion is too serious to allow me to follow the convention that a woman should not speak in a man’s council. Those whose interests are threatened by extreme danger should think only of the wisest course of action, not of conventions. In my opinion, flight is not the right course, even if it should bring us to safety. It is impossible for a person, having been born into this world, not to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be a fugitive. May I never be deprived of this purple robe, and may I never see the day when those who meet me do not call me empress. If you wish to save yourself, my lord, there is no difficulty. We are rich; over there is the sea, and yonder are the ships. Yet reflect for a moment whether, when you have once escaped to a place of security, you would not gladly exchange such safety for death. As for me, I agree with the adage that the royal purple is the noblest shroud. »^[18]

Her determined speech convinced them all, including Justinian himself, who had been preparing to run. As a result, Justinian ordered his loyal troops, led by the officers, Belisariusand Mundus, to attack the demonstrators in the hippodrome, killing (according to Procopius) over 30,000 rebels. Despite his claims that he was unwillingly named emperor by the mob, Hypatius was also put to death, apparently at Theodora’s insistence.^[19] Interpretations that Justinian never forgot that it was Theodora who had saved his throne depend on seeing Procopius’ account as a straightforward report, and not framed to impugn Justinian with the implication that he was more cowardly than his wife.

Later life

The Empress Theodora at the Colosseum, oil painting by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant

Following the Nika revolt, Justinian and Theodora rebuilt and reformed Constantinople and made it the most splendid city the world had seen for centuries, building or rebuilding aqueducts, bridges and more than twenty five churches. The greatest of these is Hagia Sophia, considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and one of the architectural wonders of the world.

Theodora was punctilious about court ceremony. According to Procopius, the Imperial couple made all senators, including patricians, prostrate themselves before them whenever they entered their presence, and made it clear that their relations with the civil militia were those of masters and slaves.

Not even the government officials could approach the Empress without expending much time and effort. They were treated like servants and kept waiting in a small, stuffy room for an endless time. After many days, some of them might at last be summoned, but going into her presence in great fear, they very quickly departed. They simply showed their respect by laying face down and touching the instep of each of her feet with their lips; there was no opportunity to speak or to make any request unless she told them to do so. The government officials had sunk into a slavish condition, and she was their slave-instructor.

They also carefully supervised the magistrates, much more so than previous emperors, possibly to reduce bureaucratic corruption.

Theodora also created her own centers of power like the Hagia Sophia. The eunuch Narses, who in old age developed into a brilliant general, was her protege, as was the praetorian prefect Peter Barsymes. John the Cappadocian, Justinian’s chief tax collector, was identified as her enemy, because of his independent influence.

Theodora participated in Justinian’s legal and spiritual reforms, and her involvement in the increase of the rights of women was substantial. She had laws passed that prohibited forced prostitution « and was known for buying girls who had been sold into prostitution, freeing them, and providing for their future. »^[20] She closed brothels and made pimping a criminal offense. She created a convent on the Asian side of the Dardanelles called the Metanoia (Repentance), where the ex-prostitutes could support themselves.^[12] She also expanded the rights of women in divorce and property ownership, instituted the death penalty for rape, forbade exposure of unwanted infants, gave mothers some guardianship rights over their children, and forbade the killing of a wife who committed adultery. Procopius wrote that she was naturally inclined to assist women in misfortune.^[21] After Theodora’s death, « little effective legislation was passed by Justinian. »^[22]

Procopius’ Secret History presents a different version of events. For instance, rather than preventing forced prostitution (as in Buildings 1.9.3ff), Theodora is said to have ’rounded up’ 500 prostitutes, confining them to a convent. This, he narrates, even led to suicides as prostitutes sought to escape ‘the unwelcome transformation.’ (SH 17) As this ‘history’ also suggests that the royal couple were « demons whose heads were seen to leave their bodies and roam the palace at night, » its veracity is questioned.

Religious policy

Saint Theodora Giacobbe Giusti, Theodora
Empress Theodora and attendants (mosaic from Basilica of San Vitale, 6th century)
Empress
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church Eastern Catholicism Oriental Orthodox Church
Major shrine	Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople modern day Istanbul, Turkey
Feast	November 14
Attributes	Imperial Vestment

Theodora worked against her husband’s support of Chalcedonian Christianity in the ongoing struggle for the predominance of each faction.^[23] As a result, she was accused of fostering heresy and thus undermined the unity of Christendom.

In spite of Justinian being Chalcedonian, Theodora founded a Miaphysitemonastery in Sykae and provided shelter in the palace for Miaphysite leaders who faced opposition from the majority of Chalcedonian Christians, like Severus and Anthimus. Anthimus had been appointed Patriarch of Constantinople under her influence, and after the excommunication order he was hidden in Theodora’s quarters for twelve years, until her death. When the Chalcedonian Patriarch Ephraim provoked a violent revolt in Antioch, eight Miaphysite bishops were invited to Constantinople and Theodora welcomed them and housed them in the Hormisdas Palace adjoining the Great Palace, which had been Justinian and Theodora’s own dwelling before they became emperor and empress.

In Egypt, when Timothy III died, Theodora enlisted the help of Dioscoros, the Augustal Prefect, and Aristomachos the duke of Egypt, to facilitate the enthronement of a disciple of Severus, Theodosius, thereby outmaneuvering her husband, who had intended a Chalcedonian successor as patriarch. But Pope Theodosius I of Alexandria, even with the help of imperial troops, could not hold his ground in Alexandria against Justinian’s Chalcedonian followers. When he was exiled by Justinian along with 300 Miaphysites to the fortress of Delcus in Thrace, Theodora rescued him and brought him to the Hormisdas Palace. He lived under her protection and, after her death in 548, under Justinian’s.

When Pope Silverius refused Theodora’s demand that he remove the anathema of Pope Agapetus I from Patriarch Anthimus, she sent Belisarius instructions to find a pretext to remove Silverius. When this was accomplished, Pope Vigilius was appointed in his stead.

In Nobatae, south of Egypt, the inhabitants were converted to Miaphysite Christianity about 540. Justinian had been determined that they be converted to the Chalcedonian faith and Theodora equally determined that they should be Miaphysites. Justinian made arrangements for Chalcedonian missionaries from Thebaid to go with presents to Silko, the king of the Nobatae. But on hearing this, Theodora prepared her own missionaries and wrote to the duke of Thebaid that he should delay her husband’s embassy, so that the Miaphysite missionaries should arrive first. The duke was canny enough to thwart the easygoing Justinian instead of the unforgiving Theodora. He saw to it that the Chalcedonian missionaries were delayed. When they eventually reached Silko, they were sent away, for the Nobatae had already adopted the Miaphysite creed of Theodosius.

Death

Theodora’s death is recorded by Victor of Tonnena, with the cause uncertain but the Greek terms used are often translated as « cancer. » The date was 28 June 548 at the age of 48.^[24]Later accounts frequently attribute the death to breast cancer, although it was not identified as such in the original report where the use of the term « cancer » probably referred to « a suppurating ulcer or malignant tumor ».^[24] Other sources report that she died at 51.^[25] Justinian wept bitterly at her funeral.^[26] Her body was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles, in Constantinople.

Both Theodora and Justinian are represented in mosaics that exist to this day in the Basilica of San Vitale of Ravenna, Italy, which was completed a year before her death.

Lasting influence

Her influence on Justinian was so strong that after her death he worked to bring harmony between the Monophysites and the Chalcedonian Christians in the Empire, and he kept his promise to protect her little community of Monophysite refugees in the Hormisdas Palace. Theodora provided much political support for the ministry of Jacob Baradaeus, and apparently personal friendship as well. Diehl attributes the modern existence of Jacobite Christianityequally to Baradaeus and to Theodora.^[27]

Olbia in Cyrenaica renamed itself Theodorias after Theodora. (It was a common event that ancient cities renamed themselves to honor an emperor or empress.) The city, now called Qasr Libya, is known for its splendid sixth-century mosaics.

Media portrayals

Sarah Bernhardt in the title role of Sardou‘s Théodora in 1884

Art

• The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Theodora.^[28]

Books

• The Glittering Horn: Secret Memoirs of the Court of Justinian. Pierson Dixon (1958). A historical novel about the court of Justinian with Theodora playing a central part.
• Count Belisarius. Robert Graves. A historical novel by the author of I, Claudius which features Theodora as a character.
• The Purple Shroud. Stella Duffy (2012). A historical novel, about Theodora’s years as empress.
• Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore. Stella Duffy(2010). A historical novel, about Theodora’s years up until she became empress.
• The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora. Stephanie Thornton (2013). A historical novel, about Theodora’s rise to empress.
• The Bearkeeper’s Daughter. Gillian Bradshaw (1987). A young man out of Theodora’s past arrives at the palace, seeking the truth of certain statements made to him by his dying father.
• Theodora and The Emperor. Harold Lamb (1952). Historical novel that focuses on the life of Theodora, her relationship with Justinian, and her many accomplishments as Empress.
• The Sarantine Mosaic. Guy Gavriel Kay (1998). Historical fantasy modelled on the Byzantium empire and the story of Justinian and Theodora.
• In the historical mystery novel One for Sorrow by Mary Reed/Eric Mayer, Theodora is one of the suspects in the murder case investigated by John, the Lord Chamberlain.
• In one of the episodes of Hendrik Willem van Loon‘s 1942 fantasy novel Van Loon’s Lives, Empress Theodora is able to return to earth and spend one evening in a 20th provincial town, where she gets to meet Queen Elizabeth I of England, and where the book’s narrator dances with her and falls a bit in love with her.

Film

• Teodora imperatrice di Bisanzio (Short, 1909) aka Theodora, Empress of Byzantium. Directed by Ernesto Maria Pasquali (it).
• Teodora, imperatrice di Bisanzio (1954) aka Theodora, Slave Empress. Directed by Riccardo Freda. Theodora played by Gianna Maria Canale.
• Kampf um Rom (1968) directed by Robert Siodmak, Sergiu Nicolaescu and Andrew Marton. In this movie she is played by Sylva Koscina.

Theater

• Theodora, A Drama. (1884), a play by Victorien Sardou.
• « Theodora: An Unauthorized Biography » (1994) a play by Jamie Pachino.^{[29] [30][31][32]}

Video games

• Theodora is the leader for the Byzantines in the video game Civilization V in its Gods and Kings expansion.
• Theodora gives missions to Belisarius, the main character in the Last Roman DLC for Total War: Attila.

Notes

1. Jump up^ Becoming visible : women in European history. Bridenthal, Renate., Koonz, Claudia., Stuard, Susan Mosher. (2nd ed ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1987. p. 132. ISBN0395419506. OCLC15714486.
2. Jump up^ « Roman Emperors – DIR Theodora ». roman-emperors.org.
3. ^ Jump up to:^ab Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 3, ed. J.Martindale. 1992.
4. ^ Jump up to:^ab Garland. Page 13.
5. Jump up^ From Rome to Byzantium: The Fifth Century A.D., Michael Grant, Published by Routledge, p.132
6. Jump up^ James Allan Evans (2011). The Power Game in Byzantium: Antonina and the Empress Theodora. A&C Black. p. 9. ISBN9781441120403.
7. Jump up^ The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire 2 Volume Set., J. R. Martindale, 1992 Cambridge University Press, p.1240
8. Jump up^ Garland. Page 11.
9. Jump up^ Anderson, Zinsser, Bonnie, Judith (1988). A History of Their Own: Women in Europe, Vol 1. New York, NY: Harper & Row. p. 47. ISBN0-06-015850-6.
10. Jump up^ Claudine M. Dauphin (1996). « Brothels, Baths and Babes: Prostitution in the Byzantine Holy Land ». Classics Ireland. 3: 47 and 72. doi:10.2307/25528291.
11. Jump up^ Procopius, Secret History 9
12. ^ Jump up to:^abc Chisholm 1911.
13. Jump up^ Diehl, Charles. Theodora, Empress of Byzantium ((c) 1972 by Frederick Ungar Publishing, Inc., transl. by S.R. Rosenbaum from the original French Theodora, Imperatrice de Byzance), 69–70.
14. Jump up^ Diehl, Charles (1963). Byzantine Empresses. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
15. Jump up^ Anderson & Zinsser, Bonnie & Judith (1988). A History of Their Own: Women in Europe, Vol 1. New York, NY: Harper & Row. p. 47.
16. Jump up^ Dielh, ibid.
17. Jump up^ Safire, William, ed, Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1992, p. 37
18. Jump up^ William Safire, Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History, Rosetta Books
19. Jump up^ Diehl, ibid.
20. Jump up^ Anderson & Zinsser, Bonnie & Judith (1988). A History of Their Own: Women in Europe Vol 1. New York, NY: Harper & Row. p. 48.
21. Jump up^ Garland. Page 18.
22. Jump up^ Anderson & Zinssen, Bonnie & Judith (1988). A History of Their Own: Women in Europe, Vol 1. New York, NY: Harper & Row. p. 48.
23. Jump up^ « Theodora – Byzantine Empress ». About.com. Retrieved 11 April 2008.
24. ^ Jump up to:^ab « Breast Cancer ». google.com.
25. Jump up^ Anderson & Zinsser, Bonnie & Judith (1988). A History of Their Own: Women in Europe, Vol 1. New York, NY: Harper & Row. p. 48.
26. Jump up^ Diehl, ibid., p.197.
27. Jump up^ Diehl, ibid., p.184.
28. Jump up^ Place Settings. Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved on 2015-08-06.
29. Jump up^ « Reviews and Press – Jamie Pachino ». http://www.jamiepachino.com. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
30. Jump up^ Helbig, Jack. « Theodora: An Unauthorized Biography ». chicagoreader.com. Retrieved 5 April2018.
31. Jump up^ Claycomb, Ryan (8 August 2012). « Lives in Play: Autobiography and Biography on the Feminist Stage ». University of Michigan Press. Retrieved 5 April 2018 – via Google Books.
32. Jump up^ « Theodora: An Unauthorized Biography ». indianapublicmedia.org. Retrieved 5 April 2018.

References

• Hans-Georg Beck: Kaiserin Theodora und Prokop: der Historiker und sein Opfer. Munich 1986, ISBN 3-492-05221-5.
• Henning Börm: Procopius, his predecessors, and the genesis of the Anecdota: Antimonarchic discourse in late antique historiography. In: Henning Börm (ed.): Antimonarchic discourse in Antiquity. Stuttgart 2015, pp. 305–346.
• James A. S. Evans: The empress Theodora. Partner of Justinian. Austin 2002.
• James A. S. Evans: The Power Game in Byzantium. Antonina and the Empress Theodora. London 2011.
• Lynda Garland: Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527–1204. London 1999.
• Hartmut Leppin: Theodora und Iustinian. In: Hildegard Temporini-Gräfin Vitzthum (ed.): Die Kaiserinnen Roms. Von Livia bis Theodora. Munich 2002, pp. 437–481.
• Mischa Meier: Zur Funktion der Theodora-Rede im Geschichtswerk Prokops (BP 1,24,33-37). In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 147 (2004), pp. 88ff.
• David Potter: Theodora. Actress, Empress, Saint. Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-974076-5.
• Procopius, The Secret History at the Internet Medieval Sourcebook
• Procopius, The Secret History at LacusCurtius

Empress Theodora (6th century).

• Ancient History Encyclopedia – Empress Theodora
• Gibbons’ The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: The Fall of the Roman Empire in the East
• Discussion of mosaics by Janina Ramirez and Bettany Hughes: Art Detective Podcast, 21 December 2016

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodora_(6th_century)

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com