Introduction

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The art of the ancient Greeks and Romans is called classical fine art. This name is used also to describe later periods in which artists looked for their inspiration to this ancient 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 commencement and greatest period of classical art began in Greece well-nigh the eye of the 5th century bc. By that time Greek sculptors had solved many of the bug that faced artists in the early on primitive period. They had learned to represent the homo form naturally and hands, in action or at rest. They were interested chiefly in portraying gods, however. They thought of their gods as people, but grander and more than beautiful than any human beingness. They tried, therefore, to portray platonic beauty rather than any particular person. Their all-time sculptures achieved about godlike perfection in their at-home, ordered beauty.

The Greeks had plenty of cute marble and used information technology freely for temples every bit well as for their sculpture. They were not satisfied with its cold whiteness, yet, 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 paint through weathering. The works of the great Greek painters have disappeared completely, and we know only what ancient writers tell us almost them. Parrhasius, Zeuxis, and Apelles, the great painters of the quaternary century bc, were famous every bit colorists. Polygnotus, in the 5th century, was renowned as a draftsman.

Fortunately we have many examples of Greek vases. Some were preserved in tombs; others were uncovered past archaeologists in other sites. The beautiful decorations on these vases give us some idea of Greek painting. They are examples of the wonderful feeling for form and line that fabricated the Greeks supreme in the field of sculpture.

The primeval vases—produced from most the twelfth century to the eighth century bc—were decorated with brown paint in the then-called geometric style. Sticklike figures of people and animals were fitted into the over-all pattern. In the adjacent period the figures of people and gods began to be more realistic and were painted in black on the reddish clay. In the 6th century bc the figures were left in red and a black background was painted in.

By the 8th century bc the Greeks had become a seafaring people and began to visit other lands. In Egypt they saw many beautiful examples of both painting and sculpture. In Asia Minor they were impressed past the enormous Babylonian and Assyrian sculptures that showed narrative scenes.

The early Greek statues were strong and flat, simply in about the 6th century bc the sculptors began to written report the human torso and work out its proportions. For models they had the finest of young athletes. The Greeks wore no clothing when they practiced sports, and the sculptor could notice their cute, strong bodies in every pose.

Greek religion, Greek love of beauty, and a growing spirit of nationalism plant fuller and fuller expression. But information technology took the crisis of the Farsi invasion (490–479 bc) to arouse the immature, virile race to great achievements. Afterwards driving out the invaders, the Greeks suddenly, in the fifth century, reached their full 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 smashing creations at Athens, came to full forcefulness and beauty. Information technology was then, nether 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 Greece besides, notably that of Zeus at Olympia, which are known from descriptions past the aboriginal writers and from a few fragments that have been discovered in contempo times. (For Greek architecture see architecture.)

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The 5th century bc was made illustrious in sculpture also by the piece of work of iii groovy masters, all known today in some caste by surviving works. Myron is famous for the boldness with which he fixed moments of violent action in statuary, every bit in his famous Discobolus, or Discus Thrower. There are fine copies now in Munich and in the Vatican, in Rome. The Doryphorus, or Spear Bearer, of Polyclitus was chosen by the ancients the Rule, or guide in composition. The Spear Bearer was believed to follow the true proportions of the human trunk perfectly.

The Slap-up Phidias

The greatest name in Greek sculpture is that of Phidias. Under his management the sculptures decorating the Parthenon were planned and executed. Some of them may accept been the work of his own hand. His great masterpieces were the huge gold and ivory statue of Athena which stood within this temple and the similar 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 effectually the top of the outer walls of the temple. It is three feet 3 1/ii inches loftier and 524 feet long. The subject is the formalism procession of the Panathenaic Festival. The figures stand for gods, priests, and elders; sacrifice bearers and sacrificial cattle; soldiers, nobles, and maidens. They stand out in low relief from an undetailed background. All are vividly live and beautifully composed within the narrow band. The horses and their riders are particularly graceful. Their bodies seem to press forward in rhythmical movement.

Around the outside of the portico to a higher place the columns were 92 almost foursquare panels known as the metopes. Each panel depicted ii figures in combat.

In the e and west triangular pediments were groups of figures judged to be the world'southward greatest examples of monumental sculpture. The problem of composing figures in the triangular space 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 apply of color and of bronze accessories enhanced the dazzler of the pediment groups.

Later Greek Sculptures

The Aphrodite of Melos, unremarkably known as the Venus de Milo, is a beautiful marble statue at present exhibited in the Louvre, Paris. Naught is known of its sculptor. Experts engagement 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 only statue that can be identified with one of the keen Greek masters. Most of these sculptors are known just through copies of their work by Roman artists. The figure of Hermes—strong, active, and graceful, the face expressive of nobility and sweetness—is most beautiful. The so-chosen 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, but information technology is full of grace and charm. 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 beauty and forcefulness. He was at the height of his fame in the time of Alexander the Great, who, information technology is said, wanted only Lysippus to portray him.

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The catamenia following the death of Alexander is known as the Hellenistic. Greek art lost much of its simplicity and ideal perfection of class, its serenity and restraint, merely information technology gained in intensity of feeling and became more realistic. Two works of the menstruum are the Dying Gaul, sometimes called the Dying Gladiator, and the beautiful Apollo Dais. The Laocoön group, which depicts a father and his sons crushed to death by serpents, illustrates the extremity of physical suffering equally represented in sculpture.

A famous belatedly Hellenistic statue is the Nike, or Winged Victory. The dramatic effect of her sweeping draperies and the swift movement of the effigy are distinctive. In contrast to previous standing figures, this is an action pose, giving a sense of motility and wind at sea. The date of the statue has been disputed. At present it is usually placed between 250 and 180 bc. Information technology was discovered in 1863 on the island of Samothrace and is now in the Louvre, Paris. Excavations on the same site in 1950 uncovered the right paw of the figure. The Greek government gave it to the Louvre in exchange for a frieze that once adorned a temple on the isle.

The Art of the Romans

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From early times the Romans had felt the artistic 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'southward mode of expressing the triumph of Greek over Roman culture. The Romans, still, were non just imitators, and Roman fine art was not a rust-covered form into which Greek fine art had fallen.

To a large extent the art of the Romans was a development of that of their predecessors in Italia, 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 well-nigh part, borrowed, they expressed in them, especially in their compages, their own practical dominating spirit.

In the 2nd century bc the Roman generals began a systematic plunder of the cities of Greece, bringing dorsum 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 fabricated as the Roman power was extended. The wealthy Romans built villas, filled them with works of art in the way of our mod plutocrats, and chosen for Greek artists or Romans inspired by Greek traditions to pigment 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 not but their houses, only the objects of daily utilize, such equally household utensils, furniture, etc.

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But with the Romans art was used non and so much for the expression of groovy and noble ideas and emotions as for decoration and ostentation. As art became fashionable, it lost much of its spiritual quality. As they borrowed many elements of their religion from the Greeks, so the Romans copied the statues of Greek gods and goddesses. The Romans were defective in keen imagination. Even in one of the few ideal types which they originated, the "Antinoüs," the Greek stamp is unmistakable. In one respect, nonetheless, the Roman sculptors did bear witness originality; they produced many vigorous realistic portrait statues. Amongst those that have come down to us are a beautiful bust of the young Augustus, a splendid full-length statue of the same emperor, and busts of other famous statesmen. All these take a historic besides as an artistic value. So, likewise, have the reliefs which adorn such structures as the Arch of Titus and the Cavalcade of Trajan, commemorating great events in these emperors' reigns.

In painting—though here, besides, they learned from the Greeks—it seems likely 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; but we can learn much from the mural paintings establish in houses at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Rome. The pleasing coloring, which in many of the paintings still remains fresh and vivid, and the freedom and vigor of the drawing, would seem to point that even from these ancient days Italy was the domicile of painters of great talent. Portrait painting especially flourished at Rome, where hack street-corner artists became so mutual that one could accept his portrait painted for a few cents.

Although the art of Rome loses in comparing with that of Greece, still it commands our admiration, and we owe the Romans a debt of gratitude for helping to transmit to us the fine art of the Greeks, who were their great masters.