Introduction

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The art of the ancient Greeks and Romans is chosen classical art. This proper noun is used likewise to describe subsequently periods in which artists looked for their inspiration to this aboriginal style. The Romans learned sculpture and painting largely from the Greeks and helped to transmit Greek art to later ages. Classical art owes its lasting influence to its simplicity and reasonableness, its humanity, and its sheer dazzler.

The get-go and greatest menses of classical art began in Greece about the heart of the 5th century bc. By that time Greek sculptors had solved many of the problems that faced artists in the early primitive menstruation. They had learned to stand for the homo form naturally and easily, in action or at remainder. They were interested chiefly in portraying gods, however. They thought of their gods equally people, but grander and more cute than any human being. They tried, therefore, to portray ideal dazzler rather than any particular person. Their all-time sculptures accomplished almost godlike perfection in their calm, ordered beauty.

The Greeks had plenty of beautiful marble and used it freely for temples as well as for their sculpture. They were non satisfied with its cold whiteness, nevertheless, and painted both their statues and their buildings. Some statues have been found with their bright colors still preserved, but most of them lost their pigment through weathering. The works of the great Greek painters have disappeared completely, and we know only what ancient writers tell us about them. Parrhasius, Zeuxis, and Apelles, the great painters of the 4th century bc, were famous as colorists. Polygnotus, in the 5th century, was renowned as a draftsman.

Fortunately we take many examples of Greek vases. Some were preserved in tombs; others were uncovered by archaeologists in other sites. The cute decorations on these vases give us some thought of Greek painting. They are examples of the wonderful feeling for grade and line that made the Greeks supreme in the field of sculpture.

The earliest vases—produced from about the 12th century to the 8th century bc—were decorated with brown paint in the so-called geometric way. Sticklike figures of people and animals were fitted into the over-all blueprint. In the next period the figures of people and gods began to exist more realistic and were painted in black on the carmine clay. In the sixth century bc the figures were left in red and a black background was painted in.

By the eighth century bc the Greeks had get a seafaring people and began to visit other lands. In Arab republic of egypt they saw many beautiful examples of both painting and sculpture. In Asia Small-scale they were impressed by the enormous Babylonian and Assyrian sculptures that showed narrative scenes.

The early Greek statues were potent and flat, just in near the 6th century bc the sculptors began to study the human being torso and work out its proportions. For models they had the finest of immature athletes. The Greeks wore no clothing when they practiced sports, and the sculptor could detect their cute, strong bodies in every pose.

Greek religion, Greek beloved of beauty, and a growing spirit of nationalism institute fuller and fuller expression. But it took the crunch of the Persian invasion (490–479 bc) to arouse the young, virile race to great achievements. After driving out the invaders, the Greeks all of a sudden, in the fifth century, reached their total stature. What the Persians had destroyed, the Greeks set to work to rebuild. Their poets sang the glories of the new epoch, and Greek genius, as shown in the great creations at Athens, came to full strength and beauty. It was then, under Pericles, that the Athenian Acropolis was restored and adorned with the matchless Parthenon, the Erechtheum, and other beautiful buildings. There were beautiful temples in other cities of Hellenic republic likewise, notably that of Zeus at Olympia, which are known from descriptions by the aboriginal writers and from a few fragments that have been discovered in recent times. (For Greek architecture see architecture.)

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The 5th century bc was made illustrious in sculpture also by the work of iii groovy masters, all known today in some caste by surviving works. Myron is famous for the boldness with which he stock-still moments of tearing action in bronze, as in his famous Discobolus, or Discus Thrower. At that place are fine copies now in Munich and in the Vatican, in Rome. The Doryphorus, or Spear Bearer, of Polyclitus was chosen past the ancients the Dominion, or guide in limerick. The Spear Bearer was believed to follow the true proportions of the human body perfectly.

The Neat Phidias

The greatest proper name in Greek sculpture is that of Phidias. Under his management the sculptures decorating the Parthenon were planned and executed. Some of them may have been the piece of work of his ain hand. His great masterpieces were the huge gilt and ivory statue of Athena which stood within this temple and the like ane of Zeus in the temple at Olympia. They have disappeared. Some of his great genius can be seen in the remains of the sculptures of the pediments and frieze of the Parthenon. Many of them are preserved in the British Museum. They are known as the Elgin Marbles. Lord Elgin brought them from Athens in 1801–12.

The Parthenon Sculptures

These sculptures are the greatest works of Greek art that have come down to modern times. The frieze ran like a decorative band around the top of the outer walls of the temple. It is 3 feet 3 one/two inches high and 524 feet long. The subject is the ceremonial procession of the Panathenaic Festival. The figures represent gods, priests, and elders; cede bearers and sacrificial cattle; soldiers, nobles, and maidens. They stand out in low relief from an undetailed background. All are vividly alive and beautifully equanimous inside the narrow band. The horses and their riders are particularly graceful. Their bodies seem to printing forrad in rhythmical movement.

Around the outside of the portico above the columns were 92 nearly foursquare panels known as the metopes. Each panel depicted two figures in gainsay.

In the east and west triangular pediments were groups of figures judged to be the globe's greatest examples of monumental sculpture. The problem of composing figures in the triangular infinite of a low pediment was most skillfully solved.

The east pediment represented the contest of Athena and Poseidon over the site of Athens. The west pediment illustrated the miraculous birth of Athena out of the head of Zeus. The utilize of color and of statuary accessories enhanced the dazzler of the pediment groups.

Later Greek Sculptures

The Aphrodite of Melos, commonly known as the Venus de Milo, is a beautiful marble statue now exhibited in the Louvre, Paris. Zippo is known of its sculptor. Experts date it between 200 and 100 bc.

The works of Phidias were followed by those of Praxiteles, Scopas, and Lysippus. What is believed to be an original work of Praxiteles, the statue Hermes with the Infant Dionysus, is preserved in a Greek museum. This is the but statue that can be identified with one of the great Greek masters. Near of these sculptors are known but through copies of their piece of work by Roman artists. The effigy of Hermes—strong, active, and graceful, the face expressive of nobility and sweetness—is most beautiful. The so-called Satyr or Faun of Praxiteles, which suggested Hawthorne's Marble Faun, is probably the piece of work of another sculptor of the same school. Praxiteles' sculpture is less lofty and dignified than that of Phidias, just it is full of grace and amuse. Scopas carried further the tendency to portray dramatic moods, giving his subjects an intense impassioned expression. Lysippus returned to the athletic type of Polyclitus, but his figures are lighter and more slender, combining manly dazzler and force. He was at the height of his fame in the fourth dimension of Alexander the Swell, who, it is said, wanted only Lysippus to portray him.

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The period following the death of Alexander is known equally the Hellenistic. Greek art lost much of its simplicity and platonic perfection of form, its placidity and restraint, just it gained in intensity of feeling and became more realistic. Two works of the period are the Dying Gaul, sometimes called the Dying Gladiator, and the beautiful Apollo Belvedere. The Laocoön grouping, which depicts a male parent and his sons crushed to death by serpents, illustrates the extremity of concrete suffering equally represented in sculpture.

A famous late Hellenistic statue is the Nike, or Winged Victory. The dramatic outcome of her sweeping draperies and the swift movement of the effigy are distinctive. In contrast to previous continuing figures, this is an action pose, giving a sense of motion and air current at body of water. The date of the statue has been disputed. At present it is usually placed between 250 and 180 bc. It was discovered in 1863 on the isle of Samothrace and is now in the Louvre, Paris. Excavations on the same site in 1950 uncovered the correct hand of the effigy. The Greek government gave it to the Louvre in exchange for a frieze that once adorned a temple on the island.

The Art of the Romans

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From early times the Romans had felt the creative influence of Greece. In 146 bc, when Greece was conquered by Rome, Greek art became inseparably interwoven with that of Rome. "Greece, conquered, led her conquistador captive" is the poet's way of expressing the triumph of Greek over Roman civilisation. The Romans, however, were not just imitators, and Roman art was not a rust-covered grade into which Greek art had fallen.

To a large extent the art of the Romans was a development of that of their predecessors in Italian republic, the Etruscans, who, to be sure, had learned much from the Greeks. Nor were the Romans themselves entirely without originality. Though their artistic forms were, for the most part, borrowed, they expressed in them, peculiarly in their architecture, their own applied dominating spirit.

In the 2nd century bc the Roman generals began a systematic plunder of the cities of Greece, bringing back thousands of Greek statues to grace their triumphal processions. Greek artists flocked to Rome to share in the patronage that was so lavishly bestowed, owing to the rich conquests made as the Roman power was extended. The wealthy Romans congenital villas, filled them with works of fine art in the manner of our modern plutocrats, and called for Greek artists or Romans inspired past Greek traditions to paint their walls and decorate their courts with sculptures. The ruins excavated at Pompeii and Herculaneum show us how fond the Romans and their neighbors in Italia were of embellishing non only their houses, but the objects of daily use, such every bit household utensils, article of furniture, etc.

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But with the Romans art was used not so much for the expression of great and noble ideas and emotions every bit for decoration and ostentation. Every bit fine art became fashionable, it lost much of its spiritual quality. As they borrowed many elements of their organized religion from the Greeks, and then the Romans copied the statues of Greek gods and goddesses. The Romans were lacking in great imagination. Even in one of the few ideal types which they originated, the "Antinoüs," the Greek stamp is unmistakable. In one respect, all the same, the Roman sculptors did prove originality; they produced many vigorous realistic portrait statues. Among those that take come downwards to the states are a beautiful bust of the young Augustus, a splendid total-length statue of the same emperor, and busts of other famous statesmen. All these have a historic equally well as an creative value. So, too, have the reliefs which adorn such structures every bit the Arch of Titus and the Cavalcade of Trajan, commemorating peachy events in these emperors' reigns.

In painting—though here, too, they learned from the Greeks—it seems probable that the Romans developed more originality than in sculpture. Unfortunately, equally in the instance of the Greeks, the great masterpieces of ancient painting no longer exist; merely we can learn much from the mural paintings institute in houses at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Rome. The pleasing coloring, which in many of the paintings still remains fresh and brilliant, and the freedom and vigor of the drawing, would seem to indicate that fifty-fifty from these ancient days Italy was the home of painters of bully talent. Portrait painting especially flourished at Rome, where hack street-corner artists became so common that one could accept his portrait painted for a few cents.

Although the art of Rome loses in comparison with that of Hellenic republic, withal it commands our admiration, and we owe the Romans a debt of gratitude for helping to transmit to us the art of the Greeks, who were their smashing masters.