classical art essay

Classical Art – Understanding this Highly Influential Style

Classic art styles from the ancient Greco-Roman periods have influenced the works of artists for centuries. What is it about the art from these periods that continues to inspire artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Banksy? Classical notions of proportion, balance, harmony, and elegance subtly permeate the sculptures, architecture, and paintings of many modern art movements. In this article, we are going to take a deep dive into the fundamentals of Classical art and explore its continued influence.

Table of Contents

• 1 A Broad Overview of the Classical Aesthetic
• 2.1.1 Vase Painting
• 2.2.1 Greek Classicism Sculpture: Molding the Classical Style of Sculpture
• 2.3.1 The Golden Ratio: The Beauty Proportion
• 2.4.1 Ancient Greek Architecture: Laying the Foundations
• 2.4.2 Frescos: A Bridge Between Ancient Greek and Roman Classicism Period art
• 3.1.1 The Concrete Revolution: Classical Advances in Roman Architecture and Engineering
• 3.2.1 Roman Portraiture: Contributions to Classicism
• 4.1 The Italian Renaissance: Classicism Art Revival
• 4.2 Neoclassicism: Reinventing Classical Ideas

A Broad Overview of the Classical Aesthetic

The Classicism definition of art and architecture from the Greco-Roman eras emphasizes the qualities of balance, harmony, idealization, and sense of proportion. The human form was a common subject of Classical art and was always presented as a generalized and idealistic figure with no emotionality. The composition and line in Classical styles are far more important than the use of color.

Classical architecture is underlain by Classical concepts of mathematically precise proportions that create balance and symmetry. The eras of Greek and Roman Classicism saw a monumental level of architectural innovation, from the invention of cement to the use of the dome. Elements of Classical architecture continue to permeate Western theories and practices today.

Before we can investigate the influence of Classicism artists throughout the ages, it is essential to understand how the elements of the Classicism definition developed. The style spans centuries, cultures, and continents. We begin with the earliest utterances of the Classical style in Mycenaean Greece and finish in the Imperial Roman Empire.

Key Stylistic Contributions From Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is the starting point in our journey through Classicism. We can see the spark of Classicism in the vase paintings of the early Mycenaeans and the development of the golden ratio. First, we look at the historical development of Ancient Greek culture, and then we will look closer at some of the most important contributions to Classicism.

1600-1100 BCE: Early Mycenaean Influences

The Mycenaean civilization is considered the first Greeks, and their style of art, sculpture, and architecture were fundamental building blocks for later Greek Classicism. Geographically, this elite warrior civilization spanned the coastal areas of modern-day Italy, Turkey, Syria, and Southern Greece.

Mycenaean society was governed by palace states and can be separated into three classes: slaves, common people, and attendants of the king. The king of each palace state wielded religious, political, and military authority. Heroic warriors and gods were worshiped by the Mycenaean people and early Mycenaean art often pay homage to these figures. The tales of these gods and warriors lived on in later Greek literature, like the Odyssey by Homer.

The drivers of Mycenaean geographical and political expansion were trade and agriculture. The Mycenaean engineering genius enhanced both of these drivers with drainage systems, dams, harbors, bridges, aqueducts, and a road network only rivaled by the Romans. Cyclopean masonry created enormous fortifications from large boulders held together with mortar.

These innovative architects created the relieving triangle, a common practice today whereby a triangular space is left above the lintel to keep stone archways from collapsing.

Mycenaean societies were the first to create the acropolis hill-top fortress that came to characterize later Greek towns. The center of the king’s palace was a circular throne room often decorated with vibrant frescos. These frescos depicted goddesses and gods, battle scenes, the ocean, hunting parties, and symbolic processions. Following the Mycenaean era of prosperity, the Greek Dark Ages saw the Geometric style of vase painting.

Vase Painting

Although vase painting continued throughout the following periods of Ancient Greek history, it has its roots in the Mycenaean era. The vase painting of Classicism artists exemplifies the Ancient Greek focus on portraying the human form in an increasingly realistic manner.

Geometric patterns adorn the earliest vase paintings, but the focus quickly shifted to the human figure. Following this, vase painting became more oriental, depicting Eastern motifs. The black-figure style followed, using black to present more accurate and detailed human figures.

Another style of vase painting arose during the Classical Greek era using red rather than black figures. Vase painters in this style crafted human figures with strong outlines on black backgrounds. This technique allowed artists to paint the fine details rather than incising them into the clay. The resulting color and line variations are more rounded than the patterns from the Geometric era.

776-480 BCE: Greek Archaic Period

The establishment of the first Olympic Games marked the beginning of the Greek Archaic period. For this Greek civilization, human achievement as personified by the athletic games set them apart from “barbarian” people not of Greek descent. The Mycenaean era was valorized by the Archaic Greeks, leading to the idealization of the male form.

For the Greeks of this period, the nude male figure represented the epitome of bodily beauty and character nobility. It stands to reason that the male form featured heavily in the Classical art of this Greek period.

The Greek Archaic period also saw significant shifts in social and political life. The political and social system of the Archaic Greeks was based on the city-state. Sparta was a city with immense military power, while Athens became the center of western art, philosophy, science, and culture. Around 594 BCE, a philosopher king, Solon, created a political body that could challenge the king and fundamentally shift the political landscape of the day.

People were no longer placed into slavery for debt, and the ruling class was established based on wealth, not descent. Extensive sea-based trade drove the Greek economy, and many city-states began establishing settlements across the Mediterranean. As a result, Greek cultural, artistic, and political ideals spread to other European cultures like the southern Italian Etruscans.

The most significant artistic innovation of this period in Greek history was figurative sculpture. These idealized yet realistic sculptures took influence from Egyptian sculpture and the idealization of the nude male form. The Cyclades islands were the birthplace of the first life-sized sculptures of young women ( kore ) and men ( kouros ). Towards the end of the Archaic era, sculptors like Nesiotes, Kritios, and Antenor rose to fame.

In 510 BCE, Antenor created the bronze Tyrannicides in commemoration of Aristogeion and Harmonides, the two assassins of Hipparchos. These two men symbolized the transition towards democracy. The significance of this sculpture lies in the fact that it was the first recorded piece of publically funded art. The sculptor, Kritos, recreated the sculpture in the Early Classical style with individual characterization and realistic movement, following its disappearance when the Persians invaded.

Greek Classicism Sculpture: Molding the Classical Style of Sculpture

Ancient Egyptian sculpture was very influential to Greek sculptors from the Archaic period. Greek sculptors created life-sized sculptures of kouroi . There are three distinct types of kouroi : the standing and dressed young woman, the nude young man, and the seated woman.

Funerary monuments, votive statues, and public memorials featured the characteristic “Archaic smile”. The sculpted representations of the human figure were more idealistic than realistic and were rarely of individuals. Archaic Greek sculpture captures human movement through realistic anatomy.

The late Archaic era saw the celebrity of sculptors like Kritios, Phidias, Myron, Lysippus, and Scopus, to name a few. Discobolus , a sculpture by Myron, became famed for being the first sculpture to capture the balance and harmony of human movement in a moment. Classic Greek sculpture, as with painting and architecture, became increasingly focused on mathematically precise beauty. Polycleitus’s systems of mathematical proportions focus on creating rhythm and balance through symmetry.

Early Greek bronze sculptures were created using hammered sheets held together with rivets. Techniques became more advanced by the end of the Archaic period. Greek sculptors started to use the lost wax method of bronze sculpture. Large-scale sculptures were created by casting the bronze in several pieces. These pieces would then be welded together, and the teeth, eyes, fingernails, lips, and nipples were formed from copper inlays.

Unfortunately, a large number of the original Greek bronze statues do not exist today. The early Christian era melted down several statues believed to represent pagan idols. Of those that remain, the Raice bronzes, the Charioteer of Delphi , and the Artemision Bronze are notable examples.

As well as three-dimensional sculptures, Greek sculptors decorated temple entablatures with relief sculptures depicting mythological scenes and legendary battles. The Parthenon Marbles , created by Phidias, are perhaps the most famous examples of this style of Classical Greek sculpture. These relief sculptures are known for their dynamic movement and realism and decorated the temple chamber’s interior walls. This sculpture, and other reliefs of this time, have influenced later artists like Auguste Rodin .

Chryselephantine statues in gold and ivory were a popular form of Classicism sculpture during the early Archaic period. Phidias worked in these mediums, creating the 43-foot-tall Statue of Zeus at Olympia (435 BCE) and the almost 40-foot-tall Athena Parthenos (447 BCE). A wooden structure is a basis for both of these statues, and ivory limbs and gold panels are attached in a segmental fashion. These impressive statues stood not only as an expression of Ancient Greek power and wealth, but also as symbols of the gods.

Unfortunately, neither of these sculptures are standing today. What we know of them comes from descriptions and representations on coins.

480-323 BCE: Classical Greece

Also known as the Golden Age, the philosophy, art, science, politics, and architecture of the Classical Greek period were fundamentally influential for the developing Western civilization and the Roman Empire. Western philosophy has its roots in the writings of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates. Although key aspects of their philosophy diverged, Aristotle and Plato agreed that art should aspire to recreate the beauty of the natural world.

Freedom of speech and the assembly of a Greek government of citizens defined a new age of Greek democracy. Sculptor Phidias and Pericles rebuilt the Parthenon in Athens. The power and cultural influence of Athens increased and spread throughout the Mediterranean.

With the growing emphasis on the individual in Classic Greek society came an increase in personalized art. Sculpture for funerals became increasingly realistic in emotional expression, as opposed to the idealization of the past. The nude male form continued to be celebrated in bronze sculpture. The female form also began to get attention, as seen in Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Knidos .

The Golden Ratio: The Beauty Proportion

For Ancient Greek philosophers and artists alike, there was a close association between beauty and truth. As the Ancient Greeks did, we can understand beauty and truth in mathematical terms. Aristotle’s golden mean represented the way to live a life of virtuous heroism by avoiding any extremes. For Socrates, all areas of virtue and beauty were manifestations of proportion and measurement.

Pythagoras and Euclid developed the golden ratio based on two quantities and the proportion between them. The ratio between these two measurements should be equal to the ratio between the larger measurement and the sum of the two measurements.

A substantial amount of Ancient Greek architecture employed the golden ratio, with perhaps the most well-known being the Parthenon. Phidias oversaw the building of the Parthenon. Today, the golden ratio is known by the Greek letter phi to honor Phidias’ contribution to the most perfect building imaginable.

For many Classic artists and architects, the golden ratio has remained an integral concept. Vitruvius, the Roman architect , used the golden ratio, and his principles had a profound effect on the art and architecture of the Renaissance period. Even modern architects like Le Corbusier find inspiration in the golden ratio.

323-31 BCE: The Age of Hellenistic Greece

The Hellenistic era in Greece started with the death of Alexander the Great. Following his death, a political scramble left the Greek empire divided into three separate states. The influence of mainland Greek culture was in a gradual decline, while Hellenistic culture flourished in Egyptian Alexandria and Syrian Antioch. The immense wealth that remained in these epochs of the Greek empire led to the arts having royal patronage. Architecture, sculpture, and painting, in particular, flourished with backing from the royal courts.

Lysippus was the official sculptor for Alexander the Great, and following Alexander’s death, crafted bronze sculptures that mark the transition from Classical to Hellenistic styles. Some of the most well-known artworks from Ancient Greece were created during the Hellenistic period.

Much of the art from the Hellenistic era had functional purposes. Early Hellenistic sculptures were often, first and foremost, votive gifts and architecture focused on civil monuments with social value. Artistic value for Hellenistic artists came second to function.

It was during the Hellenistic era that great strides in Greek architectural design took place. With a focus on urban planning, Hellenistic architects designed theaters, parks, and buildings for other recreational activities. The Corinthian order is perhaps the most decorative Classic order and is exemplified in the colossal temples of the time.

The city of Pergamon, known for its enormous architectural complexes, became a cultural epicenter of the Hellenistic period. A stunning example of Hellenistic architecture is the Pergamon Altar .  It was during the Hellenistic era that Greece became slowly integrated into the Roman Empire.

Ancient Greek Architecture: Laying the Foundations

Ancient Greek architecture is perhaps best known for its temples that embody the cultural emphasis on formal unity. The temples were often rectangular and framed by open colonnades. Ancient Greek architects developed three orders of Classic architecture : the Corinthian, the Ionic, and the Doric. These orders set the foundations for Roman architecture , and the concepts spread throughout Europe and America.

Each order stemmed from distinct places and times in Ancient Greece. It is possible to distinguish between the architectural orders based on the capitals, the columns, and the entablature. The Doric order uses circular capitals, fluted or smooth columns, and entablature features that add a more elaborate and embellishing element to the simple design.

The use of scrolls or volutes to accent the top of the capital is typical of the Ionic order. Narrative frescos extend across the length of Ionic buildings as a result of the entablature design. The Corinthian order is a later Classical architectural design named after the city of Corinth. Corinthian architecture is by far the most elaborate, with acanthus leaf motifs and decoratively carved capitals.

The first Ancient Greek temples were constructed from wood using a post and beam design. Stone and marble became increasingly popular, and the Parthenon was the first temple to be constructed entirely from marble. Ancient Greek architects were pioneers of the amphitheater and the stadium. The Romans later appropriated these architectural structures.

Frescos: A Bridge Between Ancient Greek and Roman Classicism Period art

Although architecture and sculpture are the most common forms of Classical art, Greek and Roman painters made classical innovations in panel and fresco painting. Most of what we know about Classical Greek painting comes from the painted vases and Roman and Etruscan murals influenced by the Greeks. One stunning example of Classic Greek frescos is the mural Hades Abducting Persephone in the Vergina tombs. This mural reflects the increased realism of Greek paintings and sculptures of this time.

A great deal more Roman fresco and panel paintings survive. The excavation of Pompeii in 1748 revealed several very well-preserved Roman frescos in residences like the House of the Vettii, the House of the Tragic Poet, and the Villa of Mysteries. These fresco paintings brought a sense of color, light, and space into interiors that were often dark, cramped, and lacked windows.

Popular fresco subjects included scenes from the Trojan war, religious rituals, landscapes, mythological tales, still lifes, and erotic scenes. Often walls would be painted to resemble alabaster panels or brightly colored marble, often enhanced by illusionary cornices or beams.

Key Stylistic Contributions From the Roman Empire

In the Roman Classicism period, art took a great deal of inspiration from the artistic and cultural developments of Ancient Greece. Building on the Greek valorization of heroic figures and grand architecture, the Romans build cities, commissioned public art, and developed Classical portraiture.

509 BCE-26 CE: The Roman Republic

The Roman Senate, a collection of noblemen, elected the kings in the Roman Republic, which began as an immense city-state. Rome became a Republic following the expulsion of the last King, Lucius Tarquinii Superbus, in 509 BCE. Tarquinii was deposed by the husband and father of a noblewoman raped by his son. Not only was this story central to the History of the Roman Republic, but it was also a central subject of Roman art in the centuries that followed.

Following the abolition of kingship, the Roman Republic established a new governing system led by two consuls. The governing upper class and the common people were often in conflict, and this situation inspired much of the architecture in early Rome. City planning on a grid system emphasized public entertainment facilities to keep the peace. In the 3rd century, the Romans developed concrete revolutionizing engineering and architecture.

Many of the Greek stories of heroes and gods were adopted by Roman culture, alongside their way of the ancestors’ traditions. This tradition was an almost contractual relationship between Rome’s founding fathers and the gods. Greek sculptures taken during the war were often displayed in Roman homes, public places, and palaces on the basis of their aesthetic value.

The Greek Classical traditions discussed above were the primary influence on Roman architecture and art.

The Concrete Revolution: Classical Advances in Roman Architecture and Engineering

The Romans took architectural advancement to new levels. Technological innovations, including the invention of concrete, meant that architectural design was no longer limited to bricks and mortar. The dome, barrel vault, arch, and groin vault were Roman architectural innovations.

The Roman era saw an age of incredible architecture, not only for pleasure like the Colosseum, but also to improve city life like aqueducts, bridges, and apartment buildings. The arch is one of the most influential architectural developments from Roman Classicism. The segmental arch was pioneered for use in bridges and homes, while the triumphal and extended arches celebrated the emperor’s victories.

The use of the dome is by far the most significant innovation of Classical Roman architecture. Roman architects were influenced by Greek architectural styles and the Etruscan use of hydraulic technologies and arches. Even when porticos, columns, and entablatures were no longer needed for structural integrity thanks to technological advancements, the Romans still used them.

Vitruvius is the most famous Roman architect and engineer.  Between 30 and 15 BCE, while working for the military of Augustus, Vitruvius wrote the Ten Books on Architecture . These books are a record of Roman architectural theory and practice, describing the process of town planning, religious building, different building materials, aqueducts and water supplies, and various types of Roman machinery like cranes and hoists.

The Vitruvian Triad refers to Vitruvian’s theory that any built structure should have the qualities of beauty, stability, and unity. The Vitruvian architecture reflects the proportionate beauty of the natural world and the human form. The extension of Vitruvian proportion to the human figure is reflected in Vitruvian Man (1490) by Leonardo da Vinci.

27BCE-393 CE: The Imperial Roman Empire

Despite the civil war that followed Caeser’s attempt to become emperor, Augustus eventually became the first emperor of Imperial Rome. Augustus reigned for almost 45 years, and during this time, he created the first police force, postal system, fire fighting force, and municipal offices. The taxation and revenue systems implemented by Augustus allowed him to transform the arts and launch a new program of building temples and public buildings.

Artistic works like Augustus of Prima Porta were commissioned and played into the Classical Greek style of idealized representation. The lavish art of Imperial Rome defined this period. Grand architectural buildings were decorated with extravagant frescos and commissioned portraits of the wealthy.

Roman Portraiture: Contributions to Classicism

While many Classic Roman sculptures are little more than copies of Classic Greek sculptures, portraiture is where Roman innovation came into its own. These early Classic portraits emphasized realism. Early Romans felt that representing a powerful man in the most honest way possible was a sign of character.

The tables turned once emperors were reinstated during Imperial Rome. Portraiture in Imperial Rome was idealistic, producing strong politically motivated images presenting the emperors as descendants of heroic Greek and Roman history. This practice led to the development of a Greco-Roman style of relief sculpture.

Roman portraiture also found inspiration in a Greek method of glass painting. Small portraits on medallion-sized pieces of glass or roundels from drinking glasses were popular. Personalized drinking cups containing gold glass portraits were popular among the most wealthy Romans and following their death, these glass portraits would be cut into a medallion shape and placed into the cement walls of the tomb.

Among the most famous Roman portraits are those found on mummified bodies in Fayum. This set of portrait panels was preserved by the dry Egyptian climate and is the largest surviving collection of Classic Roman era portraiture. These portraits display an intermingling of Ancient Egyptian and Classical Roman traditions while Egypt was under Roman rule. The style of these portraits is quite idealistic but the features of each individual are naturalistic and distinct.

Long Live Classicism

The Legacy of Classicism did not fall with the Roman Empire. The influence of Classical Greek and Roman architecture and art permeates all art periods and movements in the Western world. Greek art and Roman architecture were influential for the Byzantine and Romanesque periods.

It was the Italian Renaissance that really took inspiration from the Classical style of Greek and Roman art and architecture. The architectural practice and theory of architects like Palladio and Leon Battista Alberti are informed by Vitruvius’ writings, the Pantheon, and the Parthenon.

The Italian Renaissance: Classicism Art Revival

The Italian Renaissance period in the 15th and 16th centuries is perhaps one of the more durable revivals of Greco-Roman Classicist art. Transitioning from the dark ages of art and culture, European artists, philosophers, and humanists renewed their interest in Classical antiquity. Like Greco-Roman Classicism, the Italian Renaissance period is hailed for its achievements in literature, architecture, painting, philosophy, technology, sculpture, and science.

As we have explored in Greek and Roman art and architecture, proportion, beauty, and orderliness were key elements of Italian Renaissance Classicism art . The golden rectangle proportion associated with Roman and Greek architecture found a revival in Renaissance architectural models. Renaissance artists like Albrecht Durer, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci were influenced by Greek sculpture, as were later artists from the Baroque period like Bernini. Below, you can see the golden ratio’s proportions displayed in da Vinci’s famous  Mona Lisa painting.

Neoclassicism: Reinventing Classical Ideas

The terms Classicism and Neoclassicism are often confused because of their similarity. While Classicism denotes the particular artistic, architectural, and philosophical aesthetic of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, Neoclassicism reflects any later imitation of these Classical styles.

Neoclassicism broadly refers to the style of Classical imitation, but it also refers more specifically to an artistic movement in Western Europe during the 18th century. This art movement began in Rome, following the discovery of Pompeii.  Soon, Neoclassical aesthetics based on Roman and Greek ideas spread throughout Europe.

The Neoclassical art movement occurred in parallel to the Age of Enlightenment during the 18th century and continued into the 19th century. In terms of architecture, Neoclassical aesthetics have continued to be influential in the 21st century. The Neoclassical architectural style emphasizes symmetry and simplicity, tokens from Rome and Ancient Greece, and taken directly from Renaissance styles.

The Neo in Neoclassicism points to the difference between this style and its Greco-Roman inspiration. Neoclassical artists, writers, and sculptors chose some models and styles from Classicist art and ignored others. For example, Neoclassical artists paid homage to the sculptural ideas from Phidias’ generation, but the sculptures that were actually produced are more similar to the Roman remakes of Hellenistic sculptures. Drawings and engravings that reconstructed Greek buildings mediated the Neoclassical impressions of Greek architecture. Neoclassical artists entirely ignored artistic and architectural styles from Archaic Greece.

Although the roots of Classicism feel as though they are in the distant past, the aesthetic ideas continue to permeate many aspects of modern Western life. From architectural designs using cement and arches to the fundamentals of drawing the human figure and influential works of literature, Greco-Roman Classicism is all around us. The Renaissance and Neoclassical celebration of Classical aesthetics is a testament to the innovation of early Greek and Roman artists and architects.

Take a look at our Classical Art period webstory here!

Isabella studied at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English Literature & Language and Psychology. Throughout her undergraduate years, she took Art History as an additional subject and absolutely loved it. Building on from her art history knowledge that began in high school, art has always been a particular area of fascination for her. From learning about artworks previously unknown to her, or sharpening her existing understanding of specific works, the ability to continue learning within this interesting sphere excites her greatly.

Her focal points of interest in art history encompass profiling specific artists and art movements, as it is these areas where she is able to really dig deep into the rich narrative of the art world. Additionally, she particularly enjoys exploring the different artistic styles of the 20 th century, as well as the important impact that female artists have had on the development of art history.

Learn more about Isabella Meyer and the Art in Context Team .

Cite this Article

Isabella, Meyer, “Classical Art – Understanding this Highly Influential Style.” Art in Context. February 12, 2021. URL: https://artincontext.org/classical-art/

Meyer, I. (2021, 12 February). Classical Art – Understanding this Highly Influential Style. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/classical-art/

Meyer, Isabella. “Classical Art – Understanding this Highly Influential Style.” Art in Context , February 12, 2021. https://artincontext.org/classical-art/ .

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The Most Famous Artists and Artworks

Discover the most famous artists, paintings, sculptors…in all of history! 

MOST FAMOUS ARTISTS AND ARTWORKS

Discover the most famous artists, paintings, sculptors!

Classical Greek and Roman Art and Architecture

Summary of Classical Greek and Roman Art and Architecture

Classical Art encompasses the cultures of Greece and Rome and endures as the cornerstone of Western civilization. Including innovations in painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and architecture, Classical Art pursued ideals of beauty, harmony, and proportion, even as those ideals shifted and changed over the centuries. While often employed in propagandistic ways, the human figure and the human experience of space and their relationship with the gods were central to Classical Art. Over the span of almost 1200 years, ideals of human beauty and proportion occupied art's subject. Variations of those ideals were later adopted during the Renaissance in Italy and again during the 18 th and 19 th century Neoclassical trend throughout Europe. Connotations of moral virtue and stability clung to Classical Art, making it attractive to new nations and republics trying to find an aesthetic vocabulary to convey their power, while, later, in the 20 th century it came under attack by modern artists who sought to disrupt and overturn power and traditional ideals.

Key Ideas & Accomplishments

• The idealized human form soon became the noblest subject of art in Greece and was the foundation for a standard of beauty that dominated many centuries of Western art. The Greek ideal of beauty was grounded in a canon of proportions, based on the golden ratio and the ratio of lengths of body parts to each other, which governed the depictions of male and female figures.
• While ideal proportions were paramount, Classical Art strove for ever greater realism in anatomical depictions. This realism also came to encompass emotional and psychological realism that created dramatic tensions and drew in the viewer.
• Greek temple designs started simply and evolved into more complex and ornate structures, but later architects translated the symmetrical design and columned exterior into a host of governmental, educational, and religious buildings over the centuries to convey a sense of order and stability.
• Perhaps a coincidence, but just as increased archaeological digs turned up numerous examples of Greek and Roman art, the field of art history was being developed as a scientific course of study by the likes of Johann Winkelmann. Winkelmann, often considered the father of art history, based his theories of the progression of art on the development of Greek art, which he largely knew only from Roman copies. Since the middle of the 18 th century, art historical and classical tradition have been intimately entwined.
• While Greek and Roman sculpture and ruins are linked with the purity of white marble in the Western mind, most of the works were originally polychrome, painted in multiple, lifelike colors. 18 th century excavations unearthed a number of sculptures with traces of color, but noted art historians dismissed the findings as anomalies. It was only in the late 20 th century that scholars accepted that life-size statues and entire temple friezes were, in fact, brightly painted with numerous colors and decorations, raising many new questions about the assumptions of Western art history and revealing that centuries of classical imitations were not in fact imitations but rather based on nostalgic ideals of the past.

Artworks and Artists of Classical Greek and Roman Art and Architecture

Roman copy 120-50 BCE of original by Polycleitus, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer) c. 440 BCE

This work depicts a nude muscular warrior, as he steps forward, his head turns slightly to his right, and his left hand would have readied a spear that originally rested upon his left shoulder. The figure's anatomical realism conveys potential movement through a complex interaction of tensed and relaxed muscles. Almost seven feet tall, the monumental work conveys an imposing sense of male heroic beauty that could face whatever may come with dispassionate calm, as shown in the serious but expressionless face. Because marble copies needed additional support, the tree stump was an addition to the bronze original. What is known of the original is based upon the exceptional quality of later copies, including this one. Polycleitus thought this work was synonymous with his Canon, a treatise of sculptural principles, based upon mathematical proportions. Though his treatise has been lost, references to it survived in later accounts, including Galen's, a 2 nd century Greek writer, who wrote that its "Beauty consists in the proportions, not of the elements, but of the parts, that is to say, of finger to finger, and of all the fingers to the palm and the wrist, and of these to the forearm, and of the forearm to the upper arm, and of all the other parts to each other." At the time it was made, the work was widely acclaimed, as Warren G. Moon and Barbara Hughes Fowler write, the Doryphorus ushered in "a new definition of true human greatness...an artistic moral exemplar...tied to no particular place or action, he represents the universal male ideal." This marble copy, found in a gymnasium at Pompeii, became the most admired work of the Roman Republic, as Roman aristocrats commissioned copies.

Marble copy of bronze original - Naples National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy

The Parthenon

Artist: Ictinus and Callicrates

This iconic temple, dedicated to Athena, goddess of wisdom and patron of Athens, stands majestically on top of the Acropolis, a sacred complex overlooking the city. The 17 Doric columns on either side and the eight at each end create both a sense of harmonious proportion and a dynamic visual and horizontal movement. The building exemplifies the Doric order and the rectangular plan of Greek temples, which emphasized a flow of movement and light between the temple's interior and the surrounding space, while the movement of the columns, rising out of the earth, to the entablature that rings the building, draws the eye heavenward to the carved reliefs and statues that, originally, brightly painted, crowned the temple. Ictinus and Callicrates were identified as the architects of the building in ancient sources, while the sculptor Phidias and the statesman Pericles supervised the project. Dedicated in 438 BCE, the Parthenon replaced the earlier temple on the city's holy site that also included a shrine to Erechtheus, the city's mythical founder, a smaller temple of the goddess Athena, and the olive tree that she gave to Athens, all of which were destroyed by the invading Persian Army in 480 BCE. The Persians also killed the priests, priestesses, and citizens who had taken refuge at the site, and, when the new Parthenon was dedicated, following that experience of trauma and desecration, it was a monument to the restoration and continuation of Athenian values and became, as art critic Daniel Mendelsohn wrote, a "dramatization of the political and moral differences between the victims and the perpetrators." As Mendelsohn noted, the Parthenon while taken "as the epitome of Greek architecture...was typical of nothing at all, an anomaly in terms of material, size, and design." It was both the largest temple in Greece and the first built of only marble. While Doric temples commonly had thirteen columns on each side and six in the front, the Parthenon pioneered the octastyle, with eight columns, thus extending the space for sculptural reliefs. Originally the Parthenon Marbles decorated the entablature, as 92 metopes , or rectangular stone panels, depicted mythological battle scenes - of gods fighting giants, Greek warriors fighting Trojans or Amazons, and men battling centaurs - while the pediments contained statues depicting the stories of Athena's life, so that as Mendelsohn wrote, "Merely to walk around the temple was to get a lesson in Greek and Athenian civic history." The temple's interior was equally meant to inspire, as Phidias's colossal statue of Athena Parthenos , or the virgin Athena, dominated the space. Forty feet tall, the statue held a six foot tall gold statue of Victory in her hand. A frieze, carved in relief, lined the surrounding walls, innovatively introducing a decorative feature of Ionic architecture into the Doric order. The 525 foot long frieze has been described by art historian Joan Breton Connelly as "showing 378 human and 245 animal figures... the largest and most detailed revelation of Athenian consciousness we have ... this moving portrayal of noble faces from the distant past, ... the largest, most elaborate narrative tableau the Athenians have left us." The Parthenon's design employed precise mathematical proportions, based upon the golden ratio, but as Mendelsohn noted, "There are almost no straight lines in the building." The columns employ entasis , a swelling at the center of each column, and tilt inward, while the foundation also rises toward the façade, correcting for the optical illusion of sagging and tilting that would have resulted in perfectly straight lines. Aesthetically, though, as Mendelsohn explains, "[T]he slight swelling also conveys the subliminal impression of muscular effort...Arching, leaning, straining, swelling, breathing: the over-all effect...is to give the building a special and slightly unsettling quality of being somehow alive." The building has been highly praised since ancient times as the 1 st century Roman historian Plutarch called it "no less stately in size than exquisite in form," and in the modern era, Le Corbusier called it "the basis for all measurement in art."

Marble - Athens, Greece

Apollo Belvedere, Roman copy, c. 120 - 140 CE of Leochares bronze original c. 350-325 BCE

This nude statue, a little over seven feet tall, depicts Apollo, the Greek god of art and music, as he strides forward, having just shot an arrow from a bow which his extended left hand originally held. Realistic in its anatomical modeling, the work conveys a sense of gravity, both in his form as seen in the musculature of his weight-bearing right leg and in the folds of his chlamys , or robe, falling across his left arm. Contrapposto is employed innovatively to create a sense of complex movement, presenting the statue both frontally and in profile as the god strides forward majestically. While the statue is identified as the god by the headband he wears, reserved for gods or rulers, and his bow and the quiver across his left shoulder, he is also equally a symbol of youthful masculine beauty. The work has also been called the Pythian Apollo, as it was believed to depict Apollo's slaying of the Python, a mythical serpent at Delphi, marking the moment when the site became sacred to the god and home of the famous Delphic Oracle. The marble statue is believed to be a Roman copy of an original bronze from the 4 th century by the Greek sculptor Leochares. The work was discovered in 1489 and became part of the collection of Cardinal Giulano della Rovere who, subsequently, became Pope Julius II, the leading patron of the Italian High Renaissance. He put the work on public display in 1511, and Michelangelo's student, the sculptor Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli, restored the missing parts of the left hand and right arm. Much acclaimed, the work was sketched by Michelangelo, Bandinelli, Goltzius, and Albrecht Dürer who modeled Adam upon Apollo in his engraving Adam and Eve (1504). Marcantonio Raimondi made a copy of the Apollo, and his engraving in the 1530s was widely disseminated throughout Europe; however, the work became most influential in the 1700s as Winckelmann, the pioneering German art historian, wrote, "Of all the works of antiquity that have escaped destruction, the statue of Apollo represents the highest ideal of art." The work became fundamental to the development of Neoclassicism as seen in Antonio Canova's Perseus (1804-1806) modeled after the work. As art critic Jonathan Jones noted, "The work was admired two hundred years ago as an image of the absolute rational clarity of Greek civilisation and the perfect harmony of divine beauty," but in the Romantic era it fell into disfavor as the leading critics, John Ruskin, William Hazlitt, and Walter Pater critiqued it. Still, it has remained popular and frequently reproduced, lending it a cultural currency, as seen in the official seal of the 1972 Apollo XVII moon landing mission.

Marble - Vatican City

The Dying Gaul, Roman marble copy of Greek bronze by Epigonus

This Roman copy of a Greek Hellenistic work depicts a nude and dying man, identified as a Gaul or more specifically a Galatian, a member of a Celtic tribe in Pergamon, a Greek city in Turkey. Sitting on the ground, his left hand grasping his left knee, and his right hand resting upon a broken sword as he holds himself up, he looks down as if contemplating his end. His extended legs and the twist of his torso suggest pain and immanent collapse. The work is realistic and emotionally expressive, as the tension between tensed and relaxed muscles conveys his struggle to fight off death. A pensive and somber feeling dominates the work, making it an intense reflection on defeat and mortality, while the idealization of his physical beauty suggests a heroic death. The statue was discovered sometime in the early 1600s at the Villa Ludovisi, the country residence of a wealthy and powerful Italian family, and was originally believed to depict a Roman gladiator. The work was popular and viewing it became a necessary part of the Grand Tour undertaken by young aristocrats in the 18 th and 19 th centuries. The British Romantic poet, Lord Byron whose famous poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812) was written following his Grand Tour, wrote, "I see before me the gladiator lie/ He leans upon his hand - his manly brow/ Consents to death, but conquers agony." Its popularity led to a proliferation of marble and plaster copies across Europe. In the 19 th century, scholars identified the subject as a Gaul, due to his hairstyle and the torque he wears on his neck, and Epigonus, a court appointed sculptor of Pergamon, as the original artist. The original was part of a complex sculpture group to celebrate Pergamon's victory over the Gauls and exemplifies what was called the "Pergamene Style," which as contemporary art critic Jerry Saltz noted, "emphasized emotional appeal and almost Baroque volatility. Nothing defines that style quite as clearly as the Dying Gaul , who is both tragic and sensual, firing both our desire and our sense of compassion."

Marble - Capitoline Museums, Rome, Italy

Winged Victory of Samothrace

This monumental work, depicting Nike, the goddess of victory, and created in honor of a naval victory, emphasizes dynamic movement, as the goddess surges forward, swept by the wind, her wings unfurled behind her. As art historian H.W. Jansen wrote, "This invisible force of on-rushing air here becomes a tangible reality; it not only balances the forward movement of the figure but also shapes every fold of the wonderfully animated drapery. As a result, there is an active relationship - indeed, and interdependence - between the statue and the space that envelops it, such as we have never seen before." Over 18 feet tall, the Hellenistic statue stands on a pedestal, placed upon a base that resembles the prow of a ship. Most scholars believe the work was originally placed at the Sanctuary of the Greek Gods, a temple complex overlooking the harbor on the island of Samothrace. Charles Champoiseau, a French envoy, discovered the fragmented statue in 1863 and sent it to Paris where it was reassembled and placed in the Louvre, famously dominating the view up the grand staircase. The work influenced a number of modern artists and movements, as Umberto Boccioni's Futuristic work Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) references the statue, and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti also referenced it in his Futurist Manifesto (1903). The American sculptors Samuel Murray and Augustus Saint-Gaudens created Nike-like figures, as seen in Saint Gauden's Sherman Memorial (1903) and the statue was a favorite work of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who included reproductions of it in a number of his residential designs. Yves Klein painted a number of plaster copies, painted in his International Klein Blue and using a resin he named Victoire de Samatrace , and more recently, Banksy's CCTV Angel (2006) repurposed the figure.

Parian Marble - Louvre Museum, Paris

Venus de Milo

Artist: Alexandros of Antioch

Believed to portray Venus, the goddess of love, this six-and-a-half-foot statue creates dynamic visual movement with its accentuated s-curve, emphasizing the curve of the torso and hip, as the lower part of her body is draped in the realistic folds of her falling robe. The dramatic contrapposto , her left knee raised as if lifting her foot off the ground, further emphasizes her movement, as she turns toward the viewer. The work was originally attributed to Praxiteles but is now generally credited to Alexandros of Antioch. Scholarly dispute continues about the identity of its subject; traditionally identified as Venus, some scholars believe the work actually portrays Amphitrite, a sea goddess, worshipped on the island of Milo where the sculpture was found in 1820, and some contemporary scholars have suggested the figure may in fact portray a prostitute. The statue was made from several pieces of marble, two blocks used for the body, while other parts, including the legs and left arm, were sculpted individually and then attached. When excavated in 1820, part of an arm and a fragmented hand holding a round orb were discovered with the statue, which stood upon a stone plinth. At the time, the fragments were discarded, due to their 'rougher' finish, and later so was the plinth. It's believed that, originally, the statue was brightly painted and adorned with expensive jewelry. During his Italian campaign Napoleon Bonaparte took the Medici Venus (1 st century BCE), then the most renowned classical female nude, to France and installed it in the Louvre. But in 1815 the French returned the Medici Venus and bought the Venus de Milo , which they promoted both as the finest classical work and a model of feminine grace and beauty. More than any other classical sculpture, this iconic nude has greatly influenced both modern art and culture, due to its compelling ideal of feminine beauty and its beguiling mystery. As art critic Jonathan Jones writes, "The Venus de Milo is an accidental surrealist masterpiece. Her lack of arms makes her strange and dreamlike. She is perfect but imperfect, beautiful but broken - the body as a ruin. That sense of enigmatic incompleteness has transformed an ancient work of art into a modern one." Salvador Dalí's Venus de Milo with Drawers (1936) copied the work but inserted pull drawers with pink pompom handles into the torso. As Jones noted, the Venus de Milo has retained its contemporary artistic relevance because it "entered European culture in the 19th century just as artists and writers were rejecting the perfect and timeless." As a result, the work haunts the modern imagination, referenced in literature, films, and television episodes and used in any number of advertisements, while its impact on cultural concepts of feminine beauty can be seen in the American Society of Plastic Surgeons' use of the figure on its seal in 1930.

Marble - Louvre Museum, Paris

Laocoön and His Sons

Artist: Agesandro, Athendoros, and Polydoros

This famous work depicts the doomed struggle of Laocoön, and his two sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus caught in the coils of two giant poisonous sea serpents, one of them biting Laocoön's hip. His hand grasps the snake's neck as he tries to fend it off. On the left, the youngest boy, dying from the poison, has collapsed, his legs caught in the coils that lift him off the ground. The central figure is the father, whose powerful muscular form twists upward and backward, his despairing and contorted gaze turned heavenward, as his son on the right turns to look pleadingly at him. Drawing upon the story of the Trojan war, the work is thought to dramatically depict the moment when Laocoön, a priest of Troy who warned the Trojans against taking the Greek wooden horse into the city, was attacked, along with his two sons, by the serpents sent by the gods to silence him. As a result the frightened Trojans, fearing the gods' punishment, took in the wooden horse containing the Greek soldiers, who, hidden within it, came out at night to open the gates for the Greek army, leading to the fall of Troy. Art historian Nigel Spivey has called the work "the prototypical icon of human agony," and its dynamic sense of drama and its use of slightly unrealistic scale to emphasize paradoxically the father's power and helplessness made it innovative and a masterwork of the Hellenistic style. In 1506 the work was discovered during excavations of Rome and immediately drew the attention of Pope Julius II who sent Michelangelo to oversee the excavation. Its identification drew upon the ancient accounts of Pliny the Elder, a Roman writer, who described the work as located in the emperor Titus's palace and attributed it to the Rhodes sculptors Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus. The work greatly influenced Michelangelo, including some of his figures in the Sistine Chapel ceiling and his later sculpture. Raphael depicted Homer with Laocoon's face in his Parnassus , and Titian drew upon the work for his Averoldi Altarpiece (1520-24), as did Rubens for his Descent from the Cross . (1612-14). William Blake also referenced the sculpture, though within his own belief that imitations of Classical Art destroyed the creative imagination. The work informed a number of ongoing debates, as to whether sculpture or painting were more primary, and has played a role in modern discourses, as seen in Irving Babbit's (1910) The New Laokoon: An Essay on the Confusion of the Arts (1910) and Clement Greenberg's Towards a Newer Laocoön (1940), where he argued for abstract art as the new, equivalent, ideal. The Henry Moore Institute held a 2007 exhibition with this title while showing modern works influenced by the statue, and contemporary artist Sanford Biggers has referenced the work within his contemporary installation pieces.

Augustus of Prima Porta

This statue depicts Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, in military uniform, his right arm raised in a gesture of leadership, addressing the military and populace of Rome. His contrapposto pose, the muscular modeling of his breastplate, and his dispassionate expression are informed by Polycleitus's Doryphorus , as the emperor is presented as the new model of the universal male ideal. His breastplate is intricately carved with scenes and figures - including the sun, sky, and earth gods, a diplomatic victory over the Parthians, and female figures representing conquered countries - that establish him as a military leader, founder of the Pax Romana, and heir of Rome's mythological and historical traditions. Tugging at his right, a small cupid rides a dolphin that symbolizes Augustus's victory at the 31 BCE Battle of Actium over Mark Antony and Cleopatra, which made him sole ruler. At the same time, the cupid, representing Eros, a son of the goddess Venus, refers to Julius Caesar's claim that he was descended from the goddess. As Augustus was Caesar's grand-nephew and adopted heir, he establishes his divine patrimony and connects it to the legendary founding of Rome by Aeneas, the only mortal son of Venus and the only surviving Trojan prince. The statue is barefoot, a trope associated with portrayals of divinity, and as art critic Alastair Sooke noted, the work, "is not simply a portrait of Rome's first emperor...it is also a vision of a god." Emerging victorious from a civil war that followed the assassination of Julius Caesar, Augustus launched a notable building campaign, saying later, "I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble." His image became a powerful propaganda tool, as art critic Roderick Conway Morris wrote, "He projected his image through art and architecture and...this gave birth to a new classical Roman style, which would long outlive the first emperor and influence imperial and dynastic art over the next two millennia." As a result, more images of Augustus in statues, busts, coins, and cameos, all depicting him as this ever youthful and virile leader, survive than of any other Roman emperor. While Romans were known for their exacting portraiture, Augustus insisted on the idealized, youthful image throughout his reign to distance himself from any unrest in the empire. The work was rediscovered following its excavations in 1863 at Prima Porta, a villa which belonged to Augustus's wife, and as Sooke wrote, "Since its rediscovery, this charismatic work of art has become a symbol of ancient Rome's peculiar blend of refinement and ruthless military might." As a result, it has had a somewhat notorious afterlife, as when the Italian dictator Mussolini held an art exhibition in 1937 dedicated to Augustus and included this work in order to identify Fascist Italy with a new Roman Empire.

The circular temple faces the street with a monumental portico, employing eight Corinthian columns at the front with double rows of four columns behind, to create an imposing entrance. The façade, evoking the octastyle of the Athenian Parthenon, also emphasized that Rome was the heir of the classical tradition. The large granite columns rise to an entablature with an inscription reading "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, made [this] when consul for the third time." Though Agrippa's temple, built during the reign of the Emperor Augustus (27 BCE-14 CE), burned down, the Emperor Hadrian retained the inscription when he rebuilt the temple. The building's innovative and distinctive feature was its concrete dome; with a height and diameter of 142 feet, still, the world's largest dome made of unreinforced concrete. The interior was equally innovative, as the dome rose above a circular interior chamber, illuminated by an oculus opening to the sky in the center of the coffered dome, creating a sense of both an imperial and divine space. "Pantheon" means "relating to the gods," and scholars continue to debate whether this meant the temple was dedicated to all the gods or followed tradition in being dedicated to a specific god. Specific dedications to single gods were considered more provident since, if any mishap struck, the people would know which god had been offended and could offer sacrifices. When Agrippa first built the temple, it was part of the Agrippa complex (29-19 BCE) that also included the Baths of Agrippa and the Basilica of Neptune, and it is thought that the façade is what remains of his original structure. The building is one of the best preserved from the Imperial Roman era, as it was turned into a Christian church in the 7 th century, though it has also been altered, and many of the relief sculptures of gilded bronze were melted down. The work influenced Filippo Brunelleschi's dome of Florence Cathedral in 1436, a radical design that transformed architecture and informed the development of the Italian Renaissance. The Pantheon also informed the Baroque movement, as seen in Bernini's Santa Maria Assunta (1664), and the Neoclassical movement, as seen in Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda (1817-26) on the grounds of the University of Virginia.

Marble, concrete, bronze, stone - Rome, Italy

Beginnings of Classical Greek and Roman Art and Architecture

Mycenaean influences 1600-1100 bce.

Considered the first Greeks, the Mycenaeans had a lasting influence on later Greek art, architecture, and literature. A bronze age civilization that extended through modern day southern Greece as well as coastal regions of modern day Turkey, Italy, and Syria, Mycenaea was an elite warrior society dominated by palace states. Divided into three classes - the king's attendants, the common people, and slaves - each palace state was ruled by a king with military, political, and religious authority. The society valorized heroic warriors and made offerings to a pantheon of gods. In later Greek literature, including Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey , the exploits of these warriors and gods engaged in the Trojan War had become legendary and, in fact, appropriated by later Greeks as their founding myths.

Agriculture and trade were the economic engines driving Mycenaean expansion, and both activities were enhanced by the engineering genius of the Mycenaeans, as they constructed harbors, dams, aqueducts, drainage systems, bridges, and an extended network of roads that remained unrivaled until the Roman era. Innovative architects, they developed Cyclopean masonry, using large boulders, fit together without mortar, to create massive fortifications. The name for Cyclopean stonework came from the later Greeks, who believed that only the Cyclops, fierce one-eyed giants of myth and legend, could have lifted the stones. To lighten the heavy load above gates and doorways, the Mycenaeans also invented the relieving triangle, a triangular space above the lintel that was left open or filled with lighter materials.

The Mycenaeans first developed the acropolis, a fortress or citadel, built on a hill that characterized later Greek cities. The king's palace, centered on a megaron , or circular throne room with four columns, was decorated with vividly colored frescoes of marine life, battle, processions, hunting, and gods and goddesses.

Scholars still debate how the Mycenaean civilization declined, and theories include invasions, internal conflict, and natural disasters. The era was followed by what has been called the Greek Dark Ages, though it is also known as the Homeric Age and the Geometric period. The term Homeric Age refers to Homer whose poems narrated the Trojan War and its aftermath. The term Geometric period refers to the era's style of vase painting, which primarily employed geometric motifs and patterns.

Greek Archaic Period 776-480 BCE

The Archaic Period began in 776 BCE with the establishment of the Olympic Games. Greeks believed that the athletic games, which emphasized human achievement, set them apart from "barbarian," non-Greek peoples. The Greeks' valorization of the Mycenaean era as a heroic golden age led them to idealize male athletes, and the male figure became dominant subjects of Greek art. The Greeks felt that the male nude showed not only the perfection and beauty of the body but also the nobility of character.

The Greeks developed a political and social structure based upon the polis, or city-state. While Argus was a leading center of trade in the early part of the era, Sparta, a city state that emphasized military prowess, grew to be the most powerful. Athens became the pioneering force in the art, culture, science, and philosophy that became the basis of Western civilization. Though the era was dominated by the rule of tyrants, Solon, a philosopher king, became the ruler of Athens around 594 BCE and established notable reforms. He created the Council of Four Hundred, a body that could question and challenge the king, ended the practice of putting people into slavery for their debts, and established a ruling class based on wealth rather than descent. Extensive sea-faring trade drove the Greek economy, and Athens, along with other city-states, began establishing trading posts and settlements throughout the Mediterranean. As a result of these forays, Greek cultural values spread to other cultures, including the Etruscans in southern Italy, influencing and co-mingling with them.

Figurative sculpture was the greatest artistic innovation of the Archaic period as it emphasized realistic, though idealized, figures. Influenced by Egyptian sculpture, the Greeks transformed the frontal poses of pharaohs and other notables into works known as kouros (young men) and kore (young women), life-sized sculptures that were first developed in the Cyclades islands in the 7 th century BCE. During the late Archaic period, individual sculptors, including Antenor, Kritios, and Nesiotes, were celebrated, and their names preserved for posterity.

The late Archaic period was marked by new reforms, as the Athenian lawgiver Cleisthenes established new policies in 508BC that led to him being dubbed "the father of democracy." To celebrate the end of the rule of tyrants, he commissioned the sculptore Antenor to complete a bronze statue, The Tyrannicides (510 BCE), depicting Harmonides and Aristogeion, who had assassinated Hipparchos, the brother of the tyrant Hippias, in 514 BCE. Though the two were executed for the crime, they became symbols of the movement toward democracy that led to the expulsion of Hippias four years later and were considered to be the only contemporary Greeks worthy enough to be granted immortality in art. The commission of Antenor's work was the first public funded art commission, and the subject was so resonant that, when Antenor's work was taken during the 483 BCE Persian invasion, Kritios was commissioned to create a replacement. Kritios's The Tyrannicides (c. 477 BCE) developed what has been called the severe style, or the Early Classical style, as he depicted realistic movement and individual characterization, which had a great influence on subsequent sculpture.

Classical Greece 480-323 BCE

Classical Greece, also known as the Golden Age, became fundamental both to the later Roman Empire and western civilization, in philosophy, politics, literature, science, art, and architecture. The great Greek historian of the era Thucydides, called the general and populist statesman Pericles "Athens's first citizen." Equal rights for citizens (which only meant adult Greek males), democracy, freedom of speech, and a society ruled by an assembly of citizens defined Greek government. Pericles launched the rebuilding of the Parthenon (447-432 BCE) in Athens, a project overseen by his friend, the sculptor Phidias, and established Athens as the most powerful city state, expanding its influence throughout the Mediterranean region.

The Classical era also saw the establishment of Western philosophy in the teachings and writings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The philosophy of Socrates survived through Plato's written accounts of his teacher's dialogues, and Plato went on to found the Academy in Athens around 387 BCE, an early prototype of all later academies and universities. Many leaders studied at the Academy, including most notably Aristotle, and it became a leading force known throughout the world for the importance of scientific and philosophical inquiry based upon the belief in reason and knowledge. While their philosophies diverged in key respects, Plato and Aristotle concurred in seeing art as an imitation of nature, aspiring to the beautiful.

Additionally, the emphasis on individuality resulted in a more personalized art, and individual artists, including Phidias, Praxiteles, and Myron, became celebrated. Funerary sculpture began depicting real people (instead of idealized types) with emotional expression, while at the same time, bronze works idealized the human form, particularly the male nude. Praxiteles, though, pioneered the female nude in his Aphrodite of Knidos (4th century BCE), a work that has been referenced time and time again in the ensuing centuries.

Hellenistic Greek 323-31 BCE

The death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE marked the beginning of the Hellenistic period. Having amassed a vast empire beyond Greece that included parts of Asia, North Africa, Europe and not having named a successor instigated a war between Alexander's generals for control of his empire, and local leaders jockeyed to regain control of their regions. Eventually, three generals agreed to a power-sharing relationship and carved the Greek empire into three different regions. While the mainland Greek cultural influence declined, Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in modern day Syria became important centers of Hellenistic culture. Many Greeks emigrated to other parts of the fractured empire, "Hellenizing the world," as art historian John Griffiths Pedley wrote.

Despite the splintering of the empire, great wealth led to royal patronage of the arts, particularly in sculpture, painting, and architecture. Alexander the Great's official sculptor had been Lysippus who, working in bronze after Alexander's death, created works that marked a transition from the Classical to the Hellenistic style. Some of the most famous works of Greek art, including the Venus de Milo (130-100 BCE) and the Winged Victory of Samothrace (200-190 BCE) were created in the era.

Architecture turned toward urban planning, as cities created complex parks and theaters for leisure. Temples took on colossal proportions, and the architectural style employed the Corinthian order, the most decorative of Classical orders. Pergamon became a vital center of culture, known for its colossal complexes, as exemplified by in the Pergamon Altar (c. 166-156 BCE) with its extensive and dramatic friezes. During the Hellenistic period, the Greeks gradually fell to the rule of the Roman Republic, as Rome conquered Macedonia in the Battle of Corinth in 146 BCE. Upon his death in 133 BCE, King Attalus III left the Kingdom of Pergamon to the Romans. Though Greek rebellions followed, they were crushed in the following century.

Roman Republic 509 BCE - 26 CE

Rome began as a city-state ruled by kings, who were elected by the nobleman of the Roman Senate, and then became a Republic when Lucius Tarquinii Superbus, the last king, was expelled in 509BC. Because his son had raped Lucretia, a married noblewoman, who took her own life, Tarquinii was deposed by her husband, her father, and Lucius Junius Brutus, Tarquinii's nephew. The story became both part of Roman history and a subject depicted in art throughout the following centuries.

With the kingship abolished, the Republic was established with a new system of government led by two consuls. As the patricians, the upper class who governed Rome, were often in conflict with the plebeians, or common people, an emphasis was put upon city planning, including apartment buildings called insulae and public entertainments that featured gladiator fights and horse races to keep the people happy, a type of rule that the Roman poet Juvenal described as "bread and circuses." Cities were planned on a grid system, while architecture and engineering projects were transformed by the development of concrete in the 3 rd century. Rome was primarily a military state, frequently at war with neighboring tribes in Italy at the beginning. Various military campaigns resulted in the conquest and destruction of Carthage, a North African kingdom, in three Punic wars, the conquest of the Macedonia and its eastern territories, and Greece in the 2 nd century BCE resulted in geographically expansive empire.

Roman culture adopted many of the myths, gods, and heroic stories of the Greeks, while emphasizing their own tradition of the mas majorum , the way of the ancestors, a kind of contractual obligation with the gods and the founding fathers of Rome. Greek works, taken as spoils of war, were extensively copied and displayed in Roman homes and became a primary influence upon Roman art and architecture. The rise of Julius Caesar, following his triumph over the Gauls in northern Europe, marked the end of the Republic, as he was assassinated in 44 BCE by a number of senators in order to prevent him being declared emperor. His death plunged the Republic into a civil war, fought by his former general Marc Antony allied with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, against the forces of Pompeius and the forces of Caesar's great nephew and heir, Octavian.

Imperial Rome 27 BCE - 393 CE

While the assassins may have staved off the crowning of Caesar as emperor, eventually an emperor was named. Imperial Rome begins with the crowning of Octavian as the first emperor, who came to be known as Augustus. In his almost forty-five year reign, he transformed the city, establishing public services, including the first police force, fire fighting force, postal system, and municipal offices, while creating revenue and taxation systems that were the blueprint for the Empire in the following centuries. He also launched a new building program that included temples and notable public buildings, and he transformed the arts, commissioning works like the Augustus of Prima Porta (1 st century CE) that depicted him as an ideal leader in a classical style that harkened back to Greece. He also commissioned The Aeneid (29-19 BCE) an epic poem by the poet Virgil that defined Rome and became a canonical work of Western literature. The poem described the mythical founding of Rome, relating the journey of Aeneas, the son of Venus and Prince of Troy, who fled the Sack of Troy to arrive in Italy, where, fighting and defeating the Etruscan rulers, he founded Rome.

The Imperial era was defined by the monumental grandeur of its architecture and its luxurious lifestyle, as wealthy residences were lavishly decorated with colorful frescoes, and the upper class, throughout the Empire, commissioned portraits. The Empire ended with the Sack of Rome in 393 CE, though by that time, its power had already declined, due to increasingly capricious emperors, internal conflict, and rebellion in its provinces. The conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity and the moving of the imperial capital from Rome to Constantinople in 313 CE established the rising power of the Byzantine Empire.

Classical Greek and Roman Art and Architecture: Concepts, Styles, and Trends

The golden ratio.

The Greeks believed that truth and beauty were closely associated, and noted philosophers understood beauty in largely mathematical terms. Socrates said, "Measure and proportion manifest themselves in all areas of beauty and virtue," and Aristotle advocated for the golden mean, or the middle way, that led to a virtuous and heroic life by avoiding extremes. For the Greeks, beauty derived from the combination of symmetry, harmony, and proportion. The golden ratio, a concept based on the proportions between two quantities, as defined by the mathematicians Pythagoras (6 th century BCE) and Euclid (323-283 BCE), was thought to be the most beautiful proportion. The golden ratio indicates that the ratio between two quantities is the same as the ratio between the larger of the two and their sum. The Parthenon (447-432 BCE) employed the golden ratio in its design and was fêted as the most perfect building imaginable. Because the artist Phidias oversaw the building of the temple, the golden ratio became commonly known by the Greek letter phi , in honor of Phidias. The golden ratio had a noted impact on later artists and architects, influencing the Roman architect Vitruvius, whose principles informed the Renaissance, as seen in the work and theory of Leon Battista Alberti , and modern architects, including Le Corbusier .

Greek Architecture

Best known for its temples, using a rectangular design framed by colonnades open on all sides, Greek architecture emphasized formal unity. The building became a sculptural presence on a high hill, as art historian Nikolaus Pevsner wrote, "The plastic shape of the [Greek] temple ... placed before us with a physical presence more intense, more alive than that of any later building."

The Greeks developed the three orders - the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian - which became part of the fundamental architectural vocabulary of Rome and subsequently much of Europe and the United States. Developed in different parts of Greece and at different times, the distinction between the orders is primarily based upon the differences between the columns themselves, their capitals, and the entablature above them. The Doric order is the simplest, using smooth or fluted columns with circular capitals, while the entablature features add a more complex decorative element above the simple columns. The Ionic column uses volutes , from the Latin word for scroll, as a decorative element at the top of the capital, and the entablature is designed so that a narrative frieze extends the length of the building. The late Classical Corinthian order, named for the Greek city of Corinth, is the most decorative, using elaborately carved capitals with an acanthus leaf motif.

Originally, Greek temples were often built with wood, using a kind of post and beam construction, though stone and marble were increasingly employed. The first temple to be built entirely of marble was the Parthenon (447-432 BCE). Greek architecture also pioneered the amphitheater, the agora , or public square surrounded by a colonnade, and the stadium.The Romans appropriated these architectural structures, creating monumental amphitheaters and revisioning the agora as the Roman forum, an extensive public square that featured hundreds of marble columns.

Roman Architecture and Engineering

Roman architecture was so innovative that it has been called the Roman Architectural Revolution, or the Concrete Revolution, based on its invention of concrete in the 3 rd century. The technological development meant that the form of a structure was no longer constrained by the limitations of brick and masonry and led to the innovative employment of the arch, the barrel vault, the groin vault, and the dome. These new innovations ushered in an age of monumental architecture, as seen in the Colosseum and civil engineering projects, including aqueducts, apartment buildings, and bridges. The Romans, as architectural historian D.S. Robertson wrote, "were the first builders in Europe, perhaps the first in the world, fully to appreciate the advantages of the arch, the vault and the dome." They pioneered the segmental arch - essentially a flattened arch, used in bridges and private residences - the extended arch, and the triumphal arch, which celebrated the emperors' great victories. But it was their employment of the dome that had the most significant impact on Western civilization. Though influenced by the Etruscans, particularly in their use of arches and hydraulic techniques, and the Greeks, Romans still used columns, porticos, and entablatures even when technological innovations no longer required them structurally.

Though little is known of his life beyond his work as a military engineer for Emperor Augustus, Vitruvius was the most noted Roman architect and engineer, and his De architectura ( On Architecture ) (30-15 BCE), known as Ten Books on Architecture , became a canonical work of subsequent architectural theory and practice. His treatise was dedicated to Emperor Augustus, his patron, and was meant to be a guide for all manner of building projects. His work described town planning, residential, public, and religious building, as well as building materials, water supplies and aqueducts, and Roman machinery, such as hoists, cranes, and siege machines. As he wrote, "Architecture is a science arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning." His belief that a structure should have the qualities of stability, unity, and beauty became known as the Vitruvian Triad. He saw architecture imitating nature in its proportionality and ascribed this proportionality to the human form as well, famously expressed later in Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man (1490).

Vase Painting

Vase painting was a noted element of Greek art and provides the best example of how Greek painting focused primarily on portraying the human form and evolved toward increased realism. The earliest style was geometric, employing patterns influenced by Mycenaean art, but quickly turned to the human figure, similarly stylized. An "Orientalizing" period followed, as Eastern motifs, including the sphinx, were adopted to be followed by a black figure style, named for its color scheme, that used more accurate detail and figurative modeling.

The Classical era developed the red figure style of vase painting, which created the figures by strongly outlining them against a black background and allowed for their details to be painted rather than incised into the clay. As a result, variations of color and of line thickness allowed for more curving and rounded shapes than were present in the Geometric style of vases.

Greek and Roman Painting

While Classical Art is noted primarily for its sculpture and architecture, Greek and Roman artists made innovations in both fresco and panel painting. Most of what is known of Greek painting is ascertained primarily from painting on pottery and from Etruscan and later Roman murals, which are known to have been influenced by Greek artists and, sometimes, painted by them, as the Greeks established settlements in Southern Italy where they introduced their art. Hades Abducting Persephone (4 th century BCE) in the Vergina tombs in Macedonia is a rare example of a Classical era mural painting and shows an increased realism that parallels their experiments in sculpture.

Roman panel and fresco paintings survived in greater number than Greek paintings. The 1748 excavation of Pompeii, a Roman city that was buried almost instantaneously in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, led to the groundbreaking discovery of many relatively well-preserved frescos in noted Roman residences, including the House of the Vettii, the Villa of Mysteries, and the House of the Tragic Poet. Fresco paintings brought a sense of light, space, and color into interiors that, lacking windows, were often dark and cramped. Preferred subjects included mythological accounts, tales from the Trojan war, historical accounts, religious rituals, erotic scenes, landscapes, and still lifes. Additionally, walls were sometimes painted to resemble brightly colored marble or alabaster panels, enhanced by illusionary beams or cornices.

Greek Sculpture

Influenced by the Egyptians, the Greeks in the Archaic period began making life-sized sculptures, but rather than portraying pharaohs or gods, Greek sculpture largely consisted of kouroi , of which there were three types - the nude young man, the dressed and standing young woman, and a seated woman. Famous for their smiling expressions, dubbed the "Archaic smile", the sculptures were used as funerary monuments, public memorials, and votive statues. They represented an ideal type rather than a particular individual and emphasized realistic anatomy and human movement, as New York Times art critic Alastair Macaulay wrote, "The kouros is timeless; he might be about to breathe, move, speak."

In the late Archaic period a few sculptors like Kritios became known and celebrated, a trend which became even more predominant during the Classical era, as Phidias, Polycleitus, Myron, Scopas, Praxiteles, and Lysippus became legendary. Myron's Discobolos , or "discus thrower," (460-450 BCE) was credited as being the first work to capture a moment of harmony and balance. Increasingly, artists focused their attention on a mathematical system of proportions that Polycleitus described in his Canon of Polycleitus and emphasized symmetry as a combination of balance and rhythm. Polycleitus created Doryphoros ( Spear-Bearer ) (c.440 BCE) to illustrate his theory that "perfection comes about little by little through many numbers."

Most of the original Greek bronzes have been lost, as the value of the material led to their frequently being melted down and reused, particularly in the early Christian era where they were viewed as pagan idols. A few notable examples have survived, such as the Charioteer of Delphi (478 or 474 BCE), which was found in 1896 in a temple buried in a rockslide. Other works, including the Raice bronzes (460-450 BCE) and the Artemison Bronze (c.460) were retrieved from the sea. The earliest Greek bronzes were sphyrelaton , or hammered sheets, attached together with rivets; however, by the late Archaic period, around 500 BCE, the Greeks began employing the lost-wax method. To make large-scale sculptures, the works were cast in various pieces and then welded together, with copper inlaid to create the eyes, teeth, lips, fingernails, and nipples to give the statue a lifelike appearance.

Along with sculpture in the round, the Greeks employed relief sculpture to decorate the entablatures of temples with extensive friezes that often depicted mythological and legendary battles and mythological scenes. Created by Phidias, the Parthenon Marbles (c. 447-438 BCE), also known as the Elgin Marbles, are the most famous examples. Created on metopes , or panels, the relief sculptures decorated the frieze lining the interior chamber of the temple and, renowned for their realism and dynamic movement, had a noted influence upon later artists, including Auguste Rodin.

The Greeks also made colossal chryselephantine, or ivory and gold statues, beginning in the Archaic period. Phidias was acclaimed for both his Athena Parthenos (447 BCE), a nearly forty foot tall statue that resided in the Parthenon on the Acropolis, and his Statue of Zeus at Olympia (435 BCE) that was forty three feet tall and considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Both statues used a wooden structure with gold panels and ivory limbs attached in a kind of modular construction. They were not only symbols of the gods but also symbols of Greek wealth and power. Both works were destroyed, but small copies of Athena exist, and representations on coins and descriptions in Greek texts survive.

Roman Portraiture

Many Roman sculptures were copies of Greek originals, but their own contribution to Classical sculpture came in the form of portraiture. Emphasizing a realistic approach, the Romans felt that depicting notable men as they were, warts and all, was a sign of character. In contrast, in Imperial Rome, portraiture turned to idealistic treatments, as emperors, beginning with Augustus, wanted to create a political image, showing them as heirs of both classical Greece and Roman history. As a result, a Greco-Roman style developed in sculptural relief as seen in the Augustan Ara Pacis (13 BCE).

The Romans also revived a method of Greek glass painting to use for portraiture. Most of the images were the size of medallions or roundels cut out of a drinking vessel. Wealthy Romans would have drinking cups made with a gold glass portrait of themselves and, following the owner's death, the portrait would be cut out in a circular shape and cemented into the catacomb walls as a tomb marker.

Some of the most famous painted Roman portraits are the Fayum mummy portraits, named for the place in Egypt where they were found, that covered the faces of the mummified dead. Preserved by Egypt's arid climate, the portraits constitute the largest surviving group of portrait panel painting from the Classical era. Most of the mummy portraits were created between the 1 st century BCE and the 3 rd century CE and reflect the intertwining of Roman and Egyptian traditions, during the time when Egypt was under Rome's rule. Though idealized, the paintings display remarkably individualistic and naturalistic characteristics.

Later Developments - After Classical Greek and Roman Art and Architecture

The influence of Classical Art and architecture cannot be overestimated, as it extends to all art movements and periods of Western art. While Roman architecture and Greek art influenced the Romanesque and Byzantine periods, the influence of Classical Art became dominant in the Italian Renaissance, founded upon a revival of interest in Classical principles, philosophy, and aesthetic ideals. The Parthenon and the Pantheon as well as the writings of Vitruvius informed the architectural theories and practice of Leon Battista Alberti and Palladio and designs into the modern era, including those of Le Corbusier .

Greek sculpture influenced Renaissance artists Michelangelo , Albrecht Dürer , Leonardo da Vinci , Raphael , and the later Baroque artists, including Bernini . The discoveries at Pompeii informed the aesthetic theories of Johann Joachim Winckelmann in the 18 th century and the development of Neoclassicism , as seen in Antonio Canova's sculptures. The modern sculptor Auguste Rodin was influenced primarily by the Parthenon Marbles, of which he wrote, they "had...a rejuvenating influence, and those sensations caused me to follow Nature all the more closely in my studies." Artists from the Futurist Umberto Boccioni , the Surrealist Salvador Dalí , and the multifaceted Pablo Picasso , to, later, Yves Klein , Sanford Biggers, and Banksy all cited Greek art as an influence.

Classical Art has also influenced other art forms, as both the choreography of Isidore Cunningham and Merce Cunningham were influenced by the Parthenon Marbles, and the first fashion garment featured in the Museum of Modern Art in 2003 was Henriette Negrin and Mariano Fortuny y Madrazos' Delphos Gown (1907) a silk dress inspired by the Charioteer Delphi (c. 500 BCE) which had been discovered a decade earlier. The legends, gods, philosophies and art of the Classical era became essential elements of subsequent Western culture and consciousness.

Useful Resources on Classical Greek and Roman Art and Architecture

• Treasures of Ancient Greece | 1 of 3 | The Age of Heroes Our Pick BBC

• Seeing the Parthenon through Greek Eyes Joan Breton Connelly, author of "The Parthenon Enigma," joins Jeffrey Brown
• Vestiges of an ancient Greek art form, preserved by catastrophe January 25, 2016

• The Foundations of Classical Architecture: Roman Classicism Talk by Calder Loth
• Greek Art (World of Art) By John Boardman
• Roman Art By Nancy H. Romage and Andrew Romage
• The Art & Architecture of Ancient Greece Our Pick By Nigel Rodgers
• Roman Architecture Our Pick By Frank Sear
• Athenian Vase Painting: Black- and Red-Figure Techniques Our Pick
• How the Parthenon Lost Its Marbles Our Pick By Juan Pablo Sanchez / National Geographic Magazine / March 4, 2017
• If It Pleases the Gods By Caroline Alexander / New York Times / January 26, 2014
• Why we're still up in arms about the mystery of the Venus de Milo Our Pick By Jonathan Jones / The Guardian / May 11, 2015
• Deep-frieze By Daniel Mendelsohn / The New Yorker / April 14, 2014
• When the Parthenon Had Dazzling Colours Our Pick By Natalie Haynes / BBC / January 22, 2018
• A Look at Emperor Augustus and Roman Classical Style Our Pick By Roderick Conway Morris / New York Times / December 17, 2013
• The Body Beautiful: The Classical Ideal in Ancient Greek Art By Alastair Macaulay / New York Times / May 18, 2015
• The Latest Scheme for the Parthenon By Mary Beard / New York Review of Books / March 6, 2014
• I, Augustus, Emperor of Rome..., at the Grand Palais in Paris, review: 'dazzling and charismatic' By Alastair Sooke / The Telegraph / March 18, 2014
• The top 10 ancient Greek artworks By Jonathan Jones / The Guardian / August 14, 2014

Similar Art

Tempietto (1502)

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Content compiled and written by Rebecca Seiferle

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Kimberly Nichols

Classic, classical, and classicism explained

A conversation with Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank and Dr. Steven Zucker at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Video transcript

[0:00] [music]

Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:10] We’re in the Metropolitan Museum, in the galleries devoted to ancient Greek and Roman art. We wanted to talk about the difference between what is classical, what is classicism, and what is classic.

Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank: [0:16] When I think of the term classic, I think of things like classic cars or classic rock. I think often I associate things that are classic with being wonderful examples of a certain era.

Dr. Zucker: [0:30] Art historians do use the term “classic.” For example, we might think about the Classic Maya Period.

Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [0:34] When we use the term “classic” in reference to certain periods in Mesoamerican history, it’s a reference to periods that are perceived by modern scholars as being the art that is considered to be among the best.

Dr. Steven Zucker: [0:49] And art historians should know better. We study history, and we know that fashions in what is considered important, even in the history of art, changes over time. Let’s move on to classical.

[0:59] That’s usually a reference to ancient Greek and Roman culture, this period that lasted over a thousand years. A period in which much of the Mediterranean was dominated by first the Greeks and then the Romans.

Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [1:10] Here we are in the court showing lots of examples of Greco-Roman sculpture that would be considered classical. More specifically, people talk about the Classical Period, which is a specific time period in ancient Greek art. These are divisions that are made by art historians in much later time periods.

Dr. Zucker: [1:34] This Aphrodite is such an exemplar of what comes to mind when we think of the classical. It’s clearly informed by careful observation of the human body, although idealized, made better. So although this comes out of a period that we would specifically refer to as the late Classical in ancient Greece, it is also part of this larger, sweeping period that we call the classical, which is a reference to ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [2:00] So if we were looking at the Renaissance era, we could think about Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” where Venus is modeled on sculptures very similar to this Aphrodite sculpture that we’re looking at. We might refer to that looking back to ancient Greco-Roman culture as looking back to classical culture.

Dr. Zucker: [2:12] Since its revival in the Italian Renaissance, an interest in classicism has never entirely been lost. Two events collided in the 18th century to bring forth what we call Neoclassicism. There was the rediscovery of the city of Pompeii, sparking this renewed interest in ancient Roman culture.

[2:33] But at the same time, there was an intellectual movement that was taking place, which we call the Enlightenment, which would revive the ancient Greek idea of democracy.

Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank: [2:39] This is when you think of buildings like the White House, Monticello. These are all being constructed thinking about the Greco-Roman world. This is also the time when you have the origins of the discipline of art history. Johann Winkelmann is interested in ancient Greek and Roman art, and he’s creating these stylistic categories like the Classical period.

[3:06] Some of those value judgments that we use today, for instance, feeling that the classical era has the most sophisticated, advanced, naturalistic art, comes from that time period.

Dr. Zucker: [3:18] That idea that there is a static perfection of the past that we try to get back to came into conflict in the 19th century with ideas of industrial progress. Were the Greeks and Romans this epitome, this perfection that we can only hope to reachieve? Or, in fact, is our society moving forward? In the 19th and 20th and 21st centuries, we’ve been grappling with that conflict.

Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [3:37] When you have people looking to the ancient Greek and Roman past, they were reimagining it as this pure white marble. The great irony is that much of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture was brightly painted.

[3:55] We can still see traces on many different sculptures, although for those where you don’t see traces, sometimes it was because sculptures were later bleached to remove the traces of color.

Dr. Zucker: [4:06] The 18th and 19th centuries, and even early 20th century, were imposing their aesthetics on these ancient objects. Making them conform to their idea of what they should have looked like, even though we now know that was wrong.

Dr. Kilroy-Ewbank: [4:14] How different these periods of revival would have been if only people had been more aware of the brightly colored art and architecture of the ancient Greek and Roman past.

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Classical Art Movement (Classicism) – History, Artists, and Artwork

What is classical art.

Classical art, or Classicism, refers to artwork that draws inspiration from ancient Roman or ancient Greek culture, architecture, literature, and art. Classicism was most popular in Western art during the Renaissance period and often depicted scenes from mythology through painting, sculpture, and printmaking. Classicism informs much of the subject matter depicted in history painting.

Notable Classical Artwork

History of Classical Art

Much of Western civilization was built on the philosophy, science, art, and culture of ancient Greece. Because of trade routes along the Mediterranean sea and centuries of battle, ancient Greek culture was able to intermingle with Etruscan culture in southern Italy and the vast empire of the Romans.

Ancient Greek and Roman cultures, and therefore their artwork, valued nobility of character and military prowess. Before Christianity, both cultures worshiped a pantheon of gods and goddesses. Offerings were often made to these gods and goddesses in hopes of them bringing prosperity and protection to people of all classes. Spirituality was one aspect of culture that had significant influence on the art and architecture that followed.

Myth and legend were significant to both ancient Greek and Roman civilizations for many centuries. These beliefs impacted activities such as architecture and engineering. Cyclopean stonework, for example, is named for the Cyclops found in Greek mythology and the belief of later Greeks that only the mythical giant was strong enough to carry the massive stones. This is just one of many examples of how Myths and legends are also reflected in the culture and work of Greek artists.

The period known as classical antiquity lasted roughly 1500 years, from 1000 BCE to 450 CE. As a result, many innovations in the classical style of visual art developed during this time. One of the most significant innovations of the classical style belongs to Greek sculpture. Greek artists developed figurative sculpture which emphasized the depiction of realistic human features. However, despite their realism, these sculptures were often idealized based on the standards of beauty generally accepted at the time.

Frescoes, murals painted on fresh plaster, were also a popular technique used in the classical period. Vivid depictions of gods and goddesses, battles, processions, hunting, flora and fauna were commonly found in fresco painting.

In the Archaic Period, beginning in 776 BCE, male athletes became common subject matter as well. In Greek culture, the male nude was an example of physical perfection, beauty, and strong character. Athletes were depicted in frescoes and sculptures–they even adorned pottery such as vases, water jugs, and plates.

Later Developments in Classical Antiquity

There were many changes to the political climates of classical Greece and Rome throughout the era of classical antiquity. Existing policies were rectified, shifting both cultures closer to democracy. Art, particularly sculptures, worked to memorialize these widespread changes and honor those who led them to reform.

The teachings of Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato were immensely influential in Western philosophical and scientific inquiry. Though their philosophical inquiries did not always agree, these great thinkers were of the same opinion when it came to art: Art was meant to imitate nature and convey a sense of beauty according to mathematical principles. Much Greek art follows the golden ratio.

Greek myths, gods, and tales of heroism influenced Roman culture, especially Roman art and architecture. Roman emperors also began to commission art such as sculpture and even poetry. In fact, Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid was commissioned by the emperor Octavian, later known as Augustus. Emperor Augustus also commissioned Augustus of Primaporta (1 CE), which depicted him as an ideal leader in classical Greek style.

The Golden Ratio

Greek culture appreciated beauty in close relation to mathematics. Beauty was achieved through a combination of proportion, harmony, and symmetry. Pythagoras and Euclid, Greek mathematicians, defined the golden ratio as a concept based on proportions between two quantities. Specifically, the ratio between two quantities is the same as the ratio between the larger of the two combined. Each body part of a human figure, for example, is related to the whole by means of this fixed mathematical ratio.

The Parthenon in Athens, Greece, one of the most famous Greek cities, was built according to the golden ratio and was revered for its mathematical perfection and therefore its beauty. The concept of the golden ratio continued to influence artists and architects for centuries to come, including Roman architects, Renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, and the modern architectural style of architects such as Le Corbusier.

The Revival of Classicism

Classicism refers to artwork that draws inspiration from classical antiquity. A revived form of Classicism was most popular in Western art during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, also known as the Age of Enlightenment. Classicist artwork often depicted scenes from Greek and Roman mythology through painting, sculpture, and printmaking.

Artists of the Italian Renaissance were inspired by the artifacts of Greco-Roman antiquity and strived to emulate the works of classical artists. In the Western canon of art, Classical sculpture and architecture were reproduced in paintings, altarpieces, and sculptures, often carrying a moral message.

Roman ruins and other Roman architecture often appeared in religious art as a symbol of Christianity as the departure from Roman culture, specifically pagan beliefs. They were often juxtaposed with Christian iconography that symbolized the birth, resurrection, and immortality of Jesus Christ. In paintings such as Domenico Morone’s The Adoration of the Magi , from 1484, ancient Roman ruins are repurposed as shelter for holy figures and depicted with archeological accuracy.

Roman sculpture also influenced the prints of German artist Albrecht Dürer, whose engraving Adam and Eve (1504) is influenced by the sculpture of Apollo Belvedere , which was excavated near Rome in the late 15th century.

Artists emulated antique objects in their paintings that allowed them to reproduce classical compositions, poses, and motifs valued by Greco-Roman artists. Renaissance artists were particularly interested in the treatment of the human body by their ancient predecessors. The golden ratio fascinated many artists and the traditional poses of gods and goddesses led to the depiction of subjects in contrapposto , an asymmetrical stance where one foot is placed slightly ahead of the other.

Artists also made connections between ancient remains such as coins, armor, weapons, as well as similar technologies, and modern inventions. This was a time of widespread scientific and archeological discovery, which fascinated artists and fostered a culture of knowledge and inquiry. The same appreciation of science first seen in Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Persian Empire is a common theme in Classicism and informs much of the subject matter depicted in later history painting.

Neoclassicism and Romanticism

Classicism remained a common theme in visual art through to the 18th and 19th centuries. Neoclassicism was a major art movement during this time that lasted from around 1760 to 1840 and favored a depiction of classical themes and subject matter. Neoclassicism was deeply inspired by classical Greek and Rome and often depicted scenes from myths and legends that conveyed a moral message. Subjects, settings, and costumes were often depicted with historical accuracy thanks to the highly detailed classical literature of the Greek author Homer, the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, the Roman poet Ovid, among other prolific Greek and Roman thinkers.

A key aesthetic component of Neoclassical art was also technical precision. Neoclassical paintings typically idealized human figures, depicting them according to the standards of physical beauty accepted at the time. Compositions were also shallow and closed, balanced, with a restrained color palette. Order, logic, and scientific advancements were reflected in Neoclassical art, which was a reaction to the frivolity seen from the 1720s through to the 1750s when the Rococo style was popular in Europe, particularly France.

In the 1840s, Romanticism emerged as a reaction to Neoclassicism. This art movement also included many references to antiquity in its paintings and sculptures. American artist Thomas Cole’s series of five paintings called Course of Empire (1833-1836) depict the rise and fall of Western society using monuments and sculptures from classical antiquity as part of the subject matter. In The Consummation of Empire (1836) Ancient Roman temples represent the decadence that, in Cole’s view, caused the Roman civilization to crumble along with its megalithic structures. In Destruction (1836) an enormous sculpture of a gladiator can be seen among the ruins of an ancient world in the throes of chaos.

Phyllis Pray Bober and Ruth Rubenstein, Renaissance Artists & Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources (London: H. Miller; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

Notable Classical Artists

• Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825, French
• Benjamin West, 1738-1820, British-American
• Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1780-1867, French
• Jean-Jermain Drouais, 1763-1788, French
• Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, 1758-1823, French
• Anton Raphael Mengs, 1728-1779, German
• Michelangelo, 1475-1564, Italian
• Raphael, 1483-1520, Italian
• Albrecht Dürer, 1471-1528, German
• Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519, Italian
• Hieronymus Bosch, 1450-1516, Dutch

Related Art Terms

• Iconography
• Neoclassicism
• Romanticism
• Renaissance Art
• History Painting
• Genre Painting
• Contrapposto

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Art History Analysis – Formal Analysis and Stylistic Analysis

Typically in an art history class the main essay students will need to write for a final paper or for an exam is a formal or stylistic analysis.

A formal analysis is just what it sounds like – you need to analyze the form of the artwork. This includes the individual design elements – composition, color, line, texture, scale, contrast, etc. Questions to consider in a formal analysis is how do all these elements come together to create this work of art? Think of formal analysis in relation to literature – authors give descriptions of characters or places through the written word. How does an artist convey this same information?

Organize your information and focus on each feature before moving onto the text – it is not ideal to discuss color and jump from line to then in the conclusion discuss color again. First summarize the overall appearance of the work of art – is this a painting? Does the artist use only dark colors? Why heavy brushstrokes? etc and then discuss details of the object – this specific animal is gray, the sky is missing a moon, etc. Again, it is best to be organized and focused in your writing – if you discuss the animals and then the individuals and go back to the animals you run the risk of making your writing unorganized and hard to read. It is also ideal to discuss the focal of the piece – what is in the center? What stands out the most in the piece or takes up most of the composition?

A stylistic approach can be described as an indicator of unique characteristics that analyzes and uses the formal elements (2-D: Line, color, value, shape and 3-D all of those and mass).The point of style is to see all the commonalities in a person’s works, such as the use of paint and brush strokes in Van Gogh’s work. Style can distinguish an artist’s work from others and within their own timeline, geographical regions, etc.

Methods & Theories To Consider:

Expressionism

Instructuralism

Postmodernism

Social Art History

Biographical Approach

Poststructuralism

Museum Studies

Visual Cultural Studies

Stylistic Analysis Example:

The following is a brief stylistic analysis of two Greek statues, an example of how style has changed because of the “essence of the age.” Over the years, sculptures of women started off as being plain and fully clothed with no distinct features, to the beautiful Venus/Aphrodite figures most people recognize today. In the mid-seventh century to the early fifth, life-sized standing marble statues of young women, often elaborately dress in gaily painted garments were created known as korai. The earliest korai is a Naxian women to Artemis. The statue wears a tight-fitted, belted peplos, giving the body a very plain look. The earliest korai wore the simpler Dorian peplos, which was a heavy woolen garment. From about 530, most wear a thinner, more elaborate, and brightly painted Ionic linen and himation. A largely contrasting Greek statue to the korai is the Venus de Milo. The Venus from head to toe is six feet seven inches tall. Her hips suggest that she has had several children. Though her body shows to be heavy, she still seems to almost be weightless. Viewing the Venus de Milo, she changes from side to side. From her right side she seems almost like a pillar and her leg bears most of the weight. She seems be firmly planted into the earth, and since she is looking at the left, her big features such as her waist define her. The Venus de Milo had a band around her right bicep. She had earrings that were brutally stolen, ripping her ears away. Venus was noted for loving necklaces, so it is very possibly she would have had one. It is also possible she had a tiara and bracelets. Venus was normally defined as “golden,” so her hair would have been painted. Two statues in the same region, have throughout history, changed in their style.

Compare and Contrast Essay

Most introductory art history classes will ask students to write a compare and contrast essay about two pieces – examples include comparing and contrasting a medieval to a renaissance painting. It is always best to start with smaller comparisons between the two works of art such as the medium of the piece. Then the comparison can include attention to detail so use of color, subject matter, or iconography. Do the same for contrasting the two pieces – start small. After the foundation is set move on to the analysis and what these comparisons or contrasting material mean – ‘what is the bigger picture here?’ Consider why one artist would wish to show the same subject matter in a different way, how, when, etc are all questions to ask in the compare and contrast essay. If during an exam it would be best to quickly outline the points to make before tackling writing the essay.

Compare and Contrast Example:

Stele of Hammurabi from Susa (modern Shush, Iran), ca. 1792 – 1750 BCE, Basalt, height of stele approx. 7’ height of relief 28’

Stele, relief sculpture, Art as propaganda – Hammurabi shows that his law code is approved by the gods, depiction of land in background, Hammurabi on the same place of importance as the god, etc.

Top of this stele shows the relief image of Hammurabi receiving the law code from Shamash, god of justice, Code of Babylonian social law, only two figures shown, different area and time period, etc.

Stele of Naram-sin , Sippar Found at Susa c. 2220 - 2184 bce. Limestone, height 6'6"

Stele, relief sculpture, Example of propaganda because the ruler (like the Stele of Hammurabi) shows his power through divine authority, Naramsin is the main character due to his large size, depiction of land in background, etc.

Akkadian art, made of limestone, the stele commemorates a victory of Naramsin, multiple figures are shown specifically soldiers, different area and time period, etc.

Iconography

Regardless of what essay approach you take in class it is absolutely necessary to understand how to analyze the iconography of a work of art and to incorporate into your paper. Iconography is defined as subject matter, what the image means. For example, why do things such as a small dog in a painting in early Northern Renaissance paintings represent sexuality? Additionally, how can an individual perhaps identify these motifs that keep coming up?

The following is a list of symbols and their meaning in Marriage a la Mode by William Hogarth (1743) that is a series of six paintings that show the story of marriage in Hogarth’s eyes.

• Man has pockets turned out symbolizing he has lost money and was recently in a fight by the state of his clothes.
• Lap dog shows loyalty but sniffs at woman’s hat in the husband’s pocket showing sexual exploits.
• Black dot on husband’s neck believed to be symbol of syphilis.
• Mantel full of ugly Chinese porcelain statues symbolizing that the couple has no class.
• Butler had to go pay bills, you can tell this by the distasteful look on his face and that his pockets are stuffed with bills and papers.
• Card game just finished up, women has directions to game under foot, shows her easily cheating nature.
• Paintings of saints line a wall of the background room, isolated from the living, shows the couple’s complete disregard to faith and religion.
• The dangers of sexual excess are underscored in the Hograth by placing Cupid among ruins, foreshadowing the inevitable ruin of the marriage.
• Eventually the series (other five paintings) shows that the woman has an affair, the men duel and die, the woman hangs herself and the father takes her ring off her finger symbolizing the one thing he could salvage from the marriage.

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Ancient Greek Art

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 23, 2023 | Original: May 17, 2010

In around 450 B.C., the Athenian general Pericles tried to consolidate his power by using public money, the dues paid to Athens by its allies in the Delian League coalition, to support the city-state’s artists and thinkers. Most of all, Pericles paid artisans to build temples and other public buildings in the city of Athens. He reasoned that this way he could win the support of the Athenian people by doling out plenty of construction jobs while building public monuments so grand that people would come from far and wide to see them, increasing Athens’ prestige as well as his own.

The Architecture of Classical Greece

The most noteworthy result of Pericles’ public-works campaign was the magnificent Parthenon , a temple in honor of the city’s patron goddess Athena. The architects Iktinos and Kallikrates and the sculptor Phidias began work on the temple in the middle of the 5th century B.C. The Parthenon was built atop the Acropolis , a natural pedestal made of rock that was the site of the earliest settlements in Athens, and Pericles invited other people to build there as well: In 437 B.C., for example, the architect Mnesikles started to build a grand gateway known as the Propylaia at its western end, and at the end of the century, artisans added a smaller temple for the Greek goddess Athena—this one in honor of her role as the goddess of victory, Athena Nike—along with one for Athena and Erechtheus, an Athenian king. Still, the Parthenon remained the site’s main attraction.

Did you know? Many of the sculptures from the Parthenon are on display at the British Museum in London. They are known as the Elgin Marbles.

Greek Temple Architecture

With its rectangular stone platform, front and back porches (the pronaos and the opisthodomos) and rows of columns, the Parthenon was a commanding example of Greek temple architecture. Typically, the people of ancient Greece did not worship inside their temples as we do today. Instead, the interior room (the naos or the cella) was relatively small, housing just a statue of the deity the temple was built to honor. Worshippers gathered outside, entering only to bring offerings to the statue.

The temples of classical Greece all shared the same general form: Rows of columns supporting a horizontal entablature (a kind of decorative molding) and a triangular roof. At each end of the roof, above the entablature, was a triangular space known as the pediment, into which sculptors squeezed elaborate scenes. On the Parthenon, for example, the pediment sculptures show the birth of Athena on one end and a battle between Athena and Poseidon on the other.

So that people standing on the ground could see them, these pediment sculptures were usually painted bright colors and were arrayed on a solid blue or red background. This paint has faded with age; as a result, the pieces of classical temples that survive today appear to be made of white marble alone.

Proportion and Perspective

The architects of classical Greece came up with many sophisticated techniques to make their buildings look perfectly even. They crafted horizontal planes with a very slight upward U-shape and columns that were fatter in the middle than at the ends. Without these innovations, the buildings would appear to sag; with them, they looked flawless and majestic.

Ancient Greek Sculpture

Not many classical statues or sculptures survive today. Stone statues broke easily, and metal ones were often melted for re-use. However, we know that Greek sculptors such as Phidias and Polykleitos in the 5th century and Praxiteles, Skopas and Lysippos in the 4th century had figured out how to apply the rules of anatomy and perspective to the human form just as their counterparts applied them to buildings. Earlier statues of people had looked awkward and fake, but by the classical period they looked natural, almost at ease. They even had realistic-looking facial expressions.

One of the most celebrated Greek sculptures is the Venus de Milo , carved in 100 B.C. during the Hellenistic Age by the little-known Alexandros of Antioch. She was discovered in 1820 on the island of Melos.

Ancient Greek Pottery

Classical Greek pottery was perhaps the most utilitarian of the era’s art forms. People offered small terra cotta figurines as gifts to gods and goddesses, buried them with the dead and gave them to their children as toys. They also used clay pots, jars and vases for almost everything. These were painted with religious or mythological scenes that, like the era’s statues, grew more sophisticated and realistic over time.

Much of our knowledge of classical Greek art comes from objects made of stone and clay that have survived for thousands of years. However, we can infer that the themes we see in these works–an emphasis on pattern and order, perspective and proportion and man himself–appeared as well in less-durable creations such as ancient Greek paintings and drawings.

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Home — Essay Samples — Arts & Culture — Art History — Characteristics of Classical Art

Characteristics of Classical Art

• Categories: Art History

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Published: Dec 18, 2018

Words: 793 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

• Larger than life·
• Emphasized fitness and strength·
• Contrapposto
• Pale colors and Cherubs·
• Light-hearted, flirty, graceful figures·
• Backgrounds often included delicate depictions of nature
• Romantic depictions indulging leisure activities

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Classical Art History

Michael Squire

The aim of this virtual issue is to bring together a selection of articles on ancient Greek and Roman art historical subjects. On the one hand, the anthology makes publicly available – and without cost – eleven contributions that have been published in  Art History  between 1978 and 2018. On the other, the collection celebrates the role that the journal has played – and, it is hoped, will continue to play – in bridging the academic fields of classics and art history.

The metaphor of ‘bridging’ seems appropriate here because of the residual gulf between so much classical and art historical scholarship. To demonstrate the point, let me begin with a personal anecdote, drawn from a recent spell as external examiner at a prestigious British university. As is customary with such roles, my job entailed reviewing undergraduate scripts and coursework: to comment on academic standards, student performance and general assessment processes, above all in the field of ‘classical art and archaeology’. The quality of work was hugely impressive, matched only by the care with which academic staff had marked it. But the more essays I read, the further I found myself pondering their disciplinary fault lines: there was something striking about the parameters in which responses had been framed.

A case in point came in discussions of the ‘Knidian Aphrodite’ – a marble statue sculpted by Praxiteles in the mid-fourth century BCE, and the archetype for every ‘female nude’ in western art historical traditions. 1  Students demonstrated an excellent knowledge of the statue and its archaeological contexts: they analysed the trademark Praxitelean ‘s-curve’ of the statue, for example, its iconography and the problems of reconstructing a lost Greek ‘original’ from extant Roman ‘copies’. 2  Candidates had evidently thought hard about certain issues. But responses were also conspicuous for the questions, approaches and interpretive modes left unspoken. Only a handful of students touched upon the dynamics of viewing the sculpture, for instance. Still fewer thought it important to tackle the Knidia’s long and chequered reception since antiquity. And not a single essay tackled issues of gender – the fact that this statue, sculpted by and for men, at once reflected and constructed a particular ideology of the female body. How could it be, I wondered, that so fundamental an art historical case study was being discussed without reference to the theoretical frameworks, disciplinary debates and critical toolkits developed by art historians?

I decided to raise this question in the annual report sent back to the board of examiners. It is in the nature of such letters that most comments had to do with assessment procedures and the spread of results. To liven things up, I threw in a wild card: ‘in the art historical papers, I wonder whether more might be done to encourage students to think about issues in broader comparative terms – in particular, to bridge the study of classical materials with larger art historical questions’.

The comment evidently spurred careful consideration, and at different administrative levels. A few months later, however, I received a letter from the university, complete with the following response:

While appreciating the comments about the ‘art historical papers’, these are in fact classical art and archaeology papers, and are not conceived of or taught within a framework of art history per se, but of classical culture. It would therefore not be appropriate to expect students to address questions outside of their discipline.

Whatever ‘art history’ may or may not be, it was here deemed to lie ‘outside’ the study of ‘classical culture’. Now, the response is in some ways reasonable enough – it simply re-states the university’s teaching arrangements (‘these are in fact classical art and archaeology papers’), while simultaneously enshrining the objective of fair and proper evaluation (‘it would therefore not be appropriate to expect students to address questions outside of their discipline’). Still, there could be no franker admission of disciplinary confines: given that art history did not form part of the ‘framework’ in which papers are ‘conceived of or taught’, I was told, it was only right that it should lie beyond the parameters of assessment.

A mere anecdote, as I say. But a touchstone, in my view, for how the study of ancient Greek and Roman art continues to be practised, especially (but by no means exclusively) in the UK. 3  My anecdote pertains to just one university, and within a single national tradition. And yet it is broadly representative of the ways in which classical art tends to be taught and researched. Here in the UK, at least, the study of classical art is almost exclusively conducted in departments of classics: it forms part of the larger project of understanding Greek and Roman antiquity specifically. 4  Conversely, in chronological terms, most art history departments take up their subject from the ‘post-antique’, usually beginning, in western chronological terms, with the ‘medieval’ (the ‘Byzantine’ is left in something of a proverbial limbo). Let me say outright that, from a classicist’s perspective, this institutional framework brings with it certain strengths, not least in fostering close relationships between the study of ancient visual materials and that of Graeco-Roman literature, philosophy and ancient history. But the costs of segregating the ‘classical’ from ‘art history’, no less than the ‘art historical’ from ‘classics’, are conspicuous. When it comes to academic research, just as with teaching, it can quickly become ‘not […] appropriate to expect students to address questions outside of their discipline’.

Truth be told, classical specialists have sometimes relished the isolationism of their field. 5  Where the larger field of art history works across variables of time and place, defining its common subject around a (broadly speaking) visual medium, many classicists prefer to stick with the historical and historicist framework of ‘antiquity’. For some, especially in Germanophone traditions, even to label ancient Greek and Roman objects ‘art’ smacks of sacrilegious anachronism: by imposing modern ideas and ideologies, the very category of ‘art history’ has at times been thought to hinder the objective of historical explication. 6  Other classical archaeologists have gone still further, insisting on a ‘material culturalist’ perspective that denies the category of ‘classical art’ altogether. ‘Classical art history is archaeology or it is nothing’, to cite one vociferous rallying cry; ‘there is nothing at all radical about sprinkling postmodern fairy dust over the traditional objects of classical archaeology and calling the resulting mélange “classical art history”’. 7

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, art historians have at times responded in kind. ‘Art historical classicists are in fact so lacking in self-assertiveness’, as one prominent voice declared in 2012, ‘that they have more or less retreated into a corner of their own, isolated from the rest of the discipline […]. Nor does any classicist dare to build a case for the unavoidability of their field, any case at all’. 8  One might take issue with the phrasing. But the consequences are evident enough. In response to the terms ‘art history’ – specifically, the question of ‘what […] we in fact refer to when we use them?’ – it was once written in this journal that ‘a simple answer […] is to say, in England, “what is done and taught at the Courtauld Institute”’. 9  Suffice it to note here, though, that ancient Greek and Roman materials have effectively been dropped from the Courtauld’s syllabus. Following a decision not to replace a teaching position, there has not been a permanent post in classical art at the Courtauld Institute since 2011: in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the Courtauld had been one of the most exciting and theoretically engaged British centres for the study of classical art; today, students are denied even the option of specializing in Greek and Roman materials. 10

Quite how, when and why we have ended up with this twenty-first-century situation is an interesting historiographical question. To claim, as I would, that the whole history of western art is one of responding to ancient materials – an elaborate series of pushes and pulls, each redefining in turn (what we call) the classical – might be open to debate. 11  But there can be no denying the role of antiquity in shaping the disciplinary parameters of art history: the very project of writing about art – of critiquing images, historicizing them, or determining frameworks for their analytical interpretation – was fashioned from a quest to make sense of the classical legacy.

Like it or not, the western project of theorizing the visual has gone hand in hand with attempts to understand and explain antiquity. Take a project like Vasari’s Lives in the sixteenth century, simply unimaginable without the model of Pliny’s  Natural History . 12  The ties are even more conspicuous in eighteenth-century Germany, when art history, alongside philosophical aesthetics, developed into a self-standing field of enlightened intellectual enquiry. Consider Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whose  Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums  (1764) is rightly regarded as the founding text of classical archaeology and art history alike. 13  But consider too almost any of the great Germanophone ‘critical historians of art’ that followed, from Lessing, Herder, Goethe and Hegel, to the likes of Riegl, Wölfflin, Cassirer, Saxl, Warburg and Panofsky (to name but a few). 14  In each case, ancient Greek and Roman materials were judged to have a wholly programmatic significance – not only for a historical understanding of classical antiquity, but also for art historical method and aesthetic critique.

The decisive change came in the twentieth century, above all in the aftermath of World War II. Part of the explanation for this shift lies in disciplinary specialization: with the development of new methods of archaeological excavation (especially from the late nineteenth century onwards), and the associated rise in excavated objects, classicists developed their own frameworks for historical interpretation. 15  But no less important is the history of twentieth-century art itself: the parting of ‘classics’ from ‘art history’, I would argue, reflects perceived developments in modern artistic practice. Generally speaking, the various movements of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries tended to villainize the old and champion the new: with each subsequent ‘-ism’ (‘Impressionism’, ‘Expressionism’, ‘Cubism’, ‘Futurism’, ‘Dadaism’, ‘Surrealism’, etc.), objects from the classical past seemed ever more passé. Where earlier generations had constructed the classical as an exemplary paradigm, twentieth-century perspectives deemed it ancient history: perhaps inevitably, the study of Graeco-Roman materials became the focus of a narrowing disciplinary historicism – and to the great detriment of classics and art history alike. 16

Over the last forty years,  Art History  has arguably done more than any other academic platform to challenge this status quo. The journal has published articles on a wide range of Greek and Roman topics. But  Art History  has also done something else: it has provided a forum for productive engagements between specialists in classical materials and those concerned with the visual arts of other periods and places.

This distinctive remit stretches back to the core principles of the journal, and not least to the creative vision of its founding father, John Onians. The very first editorial of  Art History , published in 1978, laid out the rationale as effective manifesto; indeed, it seems appropriate that the present anthology forms part of the celebrations marking the fortieth anniversary of that inaugural issue. 17  Right from the outset,  Art History  was conceived to provide an ‘open outlet’, encompassing ‘areas with which we are familiar’, as well as ‘areas more remote in time and place’: ‘in the exploration of new fields for research no materials no tools, no methods and no language will be excluded’. 18

In writing these words, John Onians can today be seen as having sown the seeds for what he would later champion as ‘world art studies’. 19  From a classicist perspective, however, it is tempting to read the editorial as a response to contemporary scholarship on Graeco-Roman art in particular. Onians’ first degree was in classics (at Cambridge); 20  in 1979 – the year after his editorial appeared – Onians’ book on  Art and Thought in the Hellenistic World  radically redefined approaches to Greek art between the fourth and first centuries BCE. 21  This disciplinary backdrop lends piquancy to the journal’s foundational ‘conviction that of all people it is the art historian who should be best equipped to analyse and interpret works of art and that our discipline can only benefit if we sharpen it, extend it and broaden its base’. 22  The words were not addressed to classicists. But Onians’ rallying cry was arguably informed, at least in part, by his work on ancient Greek and Roman materials – a conviction that classical subjects belonged to the diachronic and transcultural project of art history, not just to the historicist frameworks of classics and classical archaeology. 23

Since the first issue of  Art History  in 1978, a wide range of articles have explored Graeco- Roman art through the ‘open’ disciplinary lens that Onians championed. Some have formed part of special thematic issues: the present collection complements a volume dedicated to  The Embodied Object in Classical Antiquity  (published in 2018: issue 41: 3), 24  and two earlier issues examined  The Image in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds  on the one hand (1994: issue 17: 1), 25  and  Art and Replication: Greece, Rome, and Beyond  on the other (2006: issue 29: 2). 26  In the majority of cases, though, contributions have been published as self-standing articles, in regular issues of the journal.

What, then, makes  Art History  so distinctive? One answer lies in the journal’s rigorous process of peer review – by two or more carefully selected anonymous readers, as well as by the editors (and frequently by additional members of the editorial board). A second, and related answer, lies in the journal’s wide-ranging readership. Unlike specialist classics or classical archaeological journals, the articles published in  Art History  are selected, at least in part, for their generalist appeal across the field of art history (as indeed beyond it). Consider the current guidelines for submission:

Art History  covers all kinds of art and visual culture across all time periods and geographical areas. The journal welcomes contributions from the full spectrum of methodological perspectives, and is a forum for a wide range of historical, critical, historiographical and theoretical forms of writing. By means of this expanded definition,  Art History  works to transform and to extend the modes of enquiry that shape the discipline. 27

When it comes to Graeco-Roman art, as with so many other areas, this rubric has been hugely productive: it has encouraged those specializing in classical materials to re-frame their discussions with a view to the ‘transferable’ stakes, and to the enrichment of both classical and art historical perspectives alike. 28

The articles collected in this virtual issue play out the point. Needless to say, the present anthology can present only a small proportion of relevant articles. As a representative sample, the collection nonetheless testifies to the journal’s role in sustaining dialogue between specialists in classical materials and the broader intellectual and imaginative landscapes of art history.

Five interrelated factors have influenced my selection of articles. First, I have chosen work from across the forty-year lifespan of the journal, reflecting different spurs and intellectual trends. Second, I have prioritized pieces of particular or lasting influence, while also throwing into the mix some lesser-known articles (which, in my view, deserve re-reading in their own right). Third, I have included articles on a range of subjects, some focussed on particular Greek or Roman case studies, others adapting a more diachronic or thematic approach. Fourth, given the long-standing contribution of reviews, it seemed right for at least one article to be taken from that section of the journal. 29  Fifth and finally, in so far as I was able, I have tried to showcase a diversity of methodological approaches – by different authors, and from a range of institutional and national backgrounds. This last criterion was in many ways the trickiest. It is salient to note, for instance, that male authors have published around three times as many relevant articles in the journal than female scholars (a bias which may not be representative of  Art History  as a whole, but which is still a major problem in classicist circles – especially in the fields of archaeology and ancient history). Likewise, when it comes to articles on Greek and Roman topics, particular sorts of affiliations recur.  Art History  has always prided itself on its international profile. And yet the majority of articles on classical subjects were written by scholars based in, trained at or affiliated to particular British universities (none more so than Cambridge). 30

Rather than introduce each article in turn, it seems appropriate to add something about their interconnections in the present anthology. To my mind, four themes stand out. The first is an interest in the dynamics of viewing – that is, the attempt to explore not just the objects of classical art, but also their social and cultural construction of the viewer. The topic lies at the core of Rainer Mack’s article (2002) on the petrifying gaze of the Gorgon Medusa in Archaic and Classical Greek art. 31  But it is also foundational to Robin Osborne’s analysis of viewing Attic funerary monuments (1988), 32  Barbara Kellum’s recourse to the ‘Augustan viewers’ of the Ara Pacis (1994), 33  and Katharina Lorenz’s discussion of ‘spectator figures’ in Roman wall-painting (2007). 34

A second, albeit related, theme pertains to cultic and religious frameworks – the subject of a seminal article on ‘Production and Religion in the Graeco-Roman World’ by Richard Gordon (1979), as well as Milette Gaifman’s discussion of ‘Statue, Cult and Reproduction’ (2006). 35  Gordon’s contribution in particular played a pivotal role in affecting a ‘cultic turn’ in classical art history. At the same time, the article staged a thinly veiled critique of the traditional disciplinary frameworks of classical archaeology, with its ‘studious avoidance of the really difficult problems’. 36

Third comes the relationship between visual and verbal media, both within the historical confines of antiquity, and as more general theoretical dilemma. The theme, variously refracted, recurs in each of the articles reproduced in this anthology. In particular, though, it gave rise to a review by Mary Beard (1995), discussing an influential volume on Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture. Questions of ‘image and text’ also lie at the heart of the articles by John Onians (1980) and Jas Elsner (2010). On the one hand, Onians seeks to explain the stylistic shifts of late-antique art in relation to a prototypical sort of ‘verbal turn’ (there is ‘a crescendo in the volume of artistic descriptions at precisely the same time that art itself is becoming less and less descriptive’). 37  On the other, Elsner relates the entire disciplinary project of art history to ancient rhetorical ideas about ekphrasis (‘Far from being a rigorous pursuit, art history – certainly since its founding fathers […], and undoubtedly in the surviving ancient sources who were their inspiration – is nothing other than ekphrasis, or more precisely an extended argument built on ekphrasis’). 38

The project of Elsner’s article, moving from ancient ekphrasis to the author’s own ekphrastic response to Michelangelo’s Rondanani Pietà (c. 1555–1564), also serves to introduce a fourth theme: namely, cross-cultural, diachronic and comparative analysis. All manner of relevant articles might be cited here. But two stimulating recent case studies are found in the articles by Jeremy Tanner (2016) and Verity Platt (2018) – the one comparing the social and cultural roles of portraiture in Classical Greece and Early Imperial China, the other centred around ancient and modern ideologies of the ‘incomplete’.

One aspect to emerge from my rummage through the archives is how the landscape of Art History has changed over the last forty years. I refer here not just to developments in content – the sorts of materials, arguments and intellectual questions explored. Rather, it is striking to note the related changes in the journal’s physical (as indeed virtual) form and presentation. Within the present anthology, the two early articles by Gordon and Onians (1979, 1980) are conspicuous for their lack of accompanying reproductions. By contrast, recent articles are remarkable not only for their abundance of images, but also – especially since the re-designing of the journal in early 2010 – for the quality of colour reproductions and the attention to layout. 39  In his inaugural editorial of 1978, as we have already noted, John Onians argued that ‘of all people it is the art historian who should be best equipped to analyse and interpret works of art’. Forty years on, it seems appropriate that the physical format of the journal champions the point: within my own field of specialism, no other periodical comes close to the presentational standards of  Art History .

A different editor, I am sure, would have settled on an entirely different cohort of papers. But I need make no apology here: readers are today in a position to work through the  Art History  archive for themselves. 40  Thanks to an important recent initiative, all journal articles are now available online; likewise, a new e-platform makes it possible to search the digital repository according to not only date, volume and issue, but also title, author, keywords and abstract. 41  As a result, any number of virtual anthologies could be imagined, and from a total of over 1,000 previously published papers: one might choose to supplement the current collection with articles that take their lead from the early modern artistic reception of ancient critical frameworks, 42  for instance, or those that are interested in the visual afterlife of classical texts and objects. 43  Whatever one thinks about this brave new world of digitization, it is radically transforming the ways in which art history is being conducted, in terms of academic research and student pedagogy alike.

It seems right to end this introduction on a different note, returning to the disciplinary relationships between classics and art history with which I began. In light of my opening anecdote, it might be easy to feel gloomy about the current state of classical art history; indeed, one might assume that ancient materials have little to contribute to the future twists and turns of the larger discipline. But there are grounds, I think, for optimism. In my view, the very marginalization of the classical brings with it an opportunity, prompting productive questions about the objects we study, no less than about our rationales for doing so. Something similar might be said about the rise of ‘world’ and ‘global art history’. Far from making a Eurocentric irrelevance of Greek and Roman materials, such trends can only illuminate the cultural peculiarities (not to mention global diversity) of classical traditions; if anything, moreover, they underline the constitutive role of Graeco-Roman antiquity in defining western cultural assumptions about objects, images, critical ideologies, aesthetics and phenomenologies of the visual.

Whatever that future,  Art History  looks set to play a decisive role, just as it has in the past. By bringing together previously published articles, and making them freely available, the editorial board hopes that this virtual issue might spur further work, extending the remit of both classics and art history alike. For even – and perhaps especially – in an ‘era of diversity’, to quote the journal’s most recent editorial,  Art History  remains as committed as ever to reaching ‘into every corner of the discipline into which our international span of authors engage’. 44

I am grateful to Samuel Bibby (Managing Editor of Art History ), and to the journal’s past and present editors (Genevieve Warwick and Natalie Adamson; Dorothy Price and Jeanne Nuechterlein), for inviting me to compile the present issue. The anthology is designed to accompany a special issue on ‘The Embodied Object in Classical Antiquity’ ( Art History , 41: 3, June 2018) that I co-edited with Verity J. Platt and Milette Gaifman. A version of this introduction was presented at the Andrew W. Mellon conference on ‘ Art History : Undisciplined?’ at the Courtauld Institute of Art in June 2018, organised by Alixe Bovey and Fern Insh: I am grateful to both the conveners and participants of the workshop for their responses, as well as to Verity J. Platt and Jas Elsner for their comments on an earlier draft. Finally, it is a pleasure to thank Léo Caillard for permission to use one of his ‘Hipsters in Stone’ photographs as the lead image for this virtual issue.

1 For an introduction, see, for example, Michael J. Squire, The Art of the Body: Antiquity and its Legacy , London, 2011, 69–114 (with bibliography at 213–218). See also: Christine M. Havelock, The Aphrodite of Knidos and Her Successors: A Historical Review of the Female Nude in Greek Art , Ann Arbor, 1995; Antonio Corso, The Art of Praxiteles, Vol. 2: The Mature Years , Rome, 2007, 9–186; and Verity J. Platt, Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco- Roman Art, Literature and Religion , Cambridge, 2011, 180–211. 2 For so-called Kopienkritik , see, for example, Jas Elsner and Jennifer Trimble, ‘Introduction: “If You Need An Actual Statue”’, Art History , 29: 2, 2006, 201–212, esp. 202–203. Bibliography is booming: see, for example, Klaus Junker and Adrian Stähli, Original und Kopie: Formen und Konzepte der Nachahmung in der antiken Kunst , Wiesbaden, 2008; and Anna Anguissola, Difficillima imitatio: immagine e lessico delle copie tra Grecia e Roma, Rome , 2013. 3 For more detailed discussions of national traditions in Britain and elsewhere, see Jas Elsner, ‘Archéologie classique et histoire de l’art en Grande-Bretagne’, Perspective , 2007, 231–242. See also: Jeremy Tanner, ‘Shifting Paradigms in Classical Art History’, Antiquity , 68, 1994, 650–655; A. A. Donohue, ‘Introduction’, in A. A. Donohue and Mark D. Fullerton, eds, Ancient Art and its Historiography , Cambridge, 2003, 1–12, esp. 4; Michael J. Squire, The Iliad in a Nutshell: Visualizing Epic on the Tabulae Iliacae , Oxford, 2011, 372–81 (also discussing other national frameworks); Michael J. Squire, ‘A Place for Art? Classical Archaeology and the Contexts of Art History ’, in Susan Alcock and Robin Osborne, eds, Classical Archaeology , second edition, Malden, MA, 2012, 468–500; and Anthony Snodgrass, ‘Penser l’art antique: alliances et résistances disciplinaires’, Perspective, 2012, 213–15. On the history of German institutional structures and the study of Klassische Archäologie, see: Suzanne L. Marchand, Down from Olympus: Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970 , Princeton, 1996; Hellmut Sichtermann, Kulturgeschichte der klassischen Archäologie , Munich, 1996, esp. 9–27; and Tonio Hölscher, ed., Klassische Archäologie: Grundwissen , Stuttgart, 2002, esp. 11–15, 73–5. On Francophone traditions, see, for example, François Lissarrague and Alain Schnapp, ‘Tradition und Erneuerung in der klassischen Archäologie in Frankreich’, in Adolf H. Borbein, Tonio Hölscher and Paul Zanker, eds, Klassische Archäologie: Eine Einführung , Berlin, 2000, 365–382. On the history of scholarly traditions and institutional structures in North America, see Stephen L. Dyson, Ancient Marbles to American Shores: Classical Archaeology in the United States , Philadelphia, 1998, with scintillating provocations in Verity J. Platt, ‘The Matter of Classical Art History’, Daedalus , 145: 2, 2016, 5–14. 4 One might compare Mary Beard’s opening to the article reproduced as part of this virtual issue (‘Re-Reading the Greek Revolution’, Art History , 19: 1, 1996, 128–133, esp. 128–129): ‘Classical art history in Britain ought to be better than it is. It would be enormously improved by a large injection of theory, by a closer understanding of recent – and not so recent – developments in the art history of other periods, and (most of all perhaps) by a much greater awareness of its own institutional history and the reasons why it has come to be practised as it is.’ 5 Comparing the state of classical art history with that of the larger field, some scholars have even found the latter wanting: see, for example, John Boardman, ‘Classical Archaeology: Whence and Whither?’, Antiquity , 62, 1988, 795–777), declaring that ‘art-historians of other periods are barely approaching in the last generation the position achieved in classical art history nearly a century ago’ (795–796). 6 See, for example, Hölscher, Klassische Archäologie , 13: ‘In manchen Ländern wurde sogar an den Universitäten eine Trennung von “Kunstgeschichte der Antike” und “Klassischer Archäologie” vollzogen. Entsprechend hat die Neuere Kunstgeschichte sich von Anbeginn vorwiegend mit Werken der “Kunst” befaßt. Diese Trennung von “Kunst” und materieller Kultur ist aber eine Erscheinung der Neuzeit, die für die Antike nicht gilt. Antike “Kunstwerke” waren nicht museale Objekte des Kunstgenusses, sondern hatten Funktionen im Leben […]. Dieselben Funktionen wurden z.T. von Gegenständen erfüllt, die heute kaum unter den Begriff der “Kunst” fallen.’ For similar sentiments, see, for example, Tonio Hölscher, ‘Einleitung’, in Borbein, Hölscher, and Zanker, Klassische Archäologie , 7–21, at 7; and Stefan Ritter, Alle Bilder führen nach Rom: Eine kurze Geschichte des Sehens , Stuttgart, 2008, 12–13. On the ‘art’ of ‘classical art history’ here, see Michael J. Squire, ‘Introduction: The Art of Art History in Graeco- Roman Antiquity’, Arethusa , 43: 2, 2010, 133–163, along with the other essays in the special issue of the journal, co-edited with Verity J. Platt. Fundamental is Jeremy Tanner, The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece: Religion, Society, and Artistic Rationalisation , Cambridge, 2006. Compare also the essays in Michael J. Squire and Verity J. Platt, eds, The Frame in Classical Art: A Cultural History , Cambridge, 2017, along with Michael J. Squire, ‘Reflections on Art’, in Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray, eds, A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics , Malden, MA, 2015, 307–326. 7 James Whitley, ‘Agency in Greek Art’, in Tyler Jo Smith and Dimitris Plantzos, eds, A Companion to Greek Art , Malden, MA, 2012, vol. 2, 579–595, at 595 (and compare, earlier, James Whitley, The Archaeology of Ancient Greece , Cambridge, 2001, xxiii). For responses, see: Richard Neer, The Emergence of the Classical Style in Greek Sculpture , Chicago, 2010, 6–11; Squire, The Iliad in a Nutshell , 375–377; and Michael J. Squire, ‘Animating Classical Art History ’, Art History , 36: 5, 2013, 1077–1080. 8 Christopher S. Wood, ‘Reception and the Classics’, in William Brockliss, Pramit Chaudhuri, Ayelet Haimson Lushkov and Katerine Wasdin, eds, Reception and the Classics: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Classical Tradition , Cambridge, 2012, 163–173, at 171. 9 John Onians, ‘Art History, Kunstgeschichte and Historia ’, Art History , 1: 2, 1978, 131–133, at 132. 10 At the time of publication, the chronological listing of ‘research areas’ at the Courtauld is advertised as beginning with the ‘Medieval and Byzantine’: see www.courtauld.ac.uk/research/sections. 11 For the argument, and more detailed bibliographic guides, see: Squire, The Art of the Body ; Michael J.Squire, ‘Theories of Reception’, in Clemente Marconi, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Art and Architecture , New York, 637– 671; and Michael J. Squire, ‘The Legacy of Greek Sculpture’, in Olga Palagia, ed., A Handbook of Greek Sculpture , Berlin, forthcoming. See also, most recently, Caroline Vout, Classical Art: A Life History from Antiquity to the Present , Princeton, 2018. 12 On the one hand, Vasari’s prosopographic mode of narrating art history formed part of the classical ‘rebirth’ that he sought to narrate and explain. On the other, his anecdotes – indeed, the rhetorical and conceptual frameworks for approaching the visual – were adopted and adapted after ancient precedent. For discussion, see in particular Sarah Blake McHam, Pliny and The Artistic Culture of the Italian Renaissance: The Legacy of the Natural History , New Haven and London, 2013, and Nadia Koch, Paradeigma: Die antike Kunstschriftstellerei als Grundlage der frühneuzeitlichen Kunsttheorie , Wiesbaden, 2013, esp. 274–280 (on ‘Topik und Bios bei Giorgio Vasari’). Numerous articles in this journal might also be cited: see, for example, Patricia Rubin, ‘What Men Saw: Vasari’s Life of Leonardo da Vinci and the Image of the Renaissance Artist’, Art History , 13: 1, 1990, 34–46, esp. 34–35. 13 See, for example, Klause-Werner Haupt, Johann Winckelmann: Begründer der klassischen Archäologie und modernen Kunstwissenschaften , Wiesbaden, 2014. For an English translation of the 1764 edition, see Johann Joachim Winckelmann, History of the Art of Antiquity , trans. Francis Mallgrave, Los Angeles, 2006. For discussions, see, for example: Fausto Testa, Winckelmann e l’invenzione della storia dell’arte: i modelli e la mimesis , Bologna, 1999; Alex Potts, Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History, New Haven, 2000; Elisabeth Décultot, Johann Joachim Winckelmann: enquête sur la genèse de l’histoire de l’art , Paris, 2000; Édouard Pommier, Winckelmann, inventeur de l’histoire de l’art , Paris, 2003; and Katherine Harloe, Winckelmann and the Invention of Antiquity: History and Aesthetics in the Age of Altertumswissenschaft , Oxford, 2013. 14 For a recent stimulating attempt to revive this tradition, see Katharina Lorenz, Ancient Mythological Images and Their Interpretation: An Introduction to Iconology, Semiotics, and Image Studies in Classical Art History , Cambridge, 2016. On the one hand, Lorenz notes that ‘Panofsky belonged to the last generation in which modern art-historical and art-theoretical scholarship had an impact on the study of ancient art and, vice versa, problems derived from the study of ancient art still substantially informed art-historical discussion and theory formation at large’. On the other, she observes that ‘such mutual exchange has since largely ceased, replaced by a unidirectional relationship dominated by modern art history’: ‘one of the objectives of this study’, Lorenz adds, ‘is to reignite this discourse’ (5). The most accessible introduction remains Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art , New Haven, 1982. On the centrality of the classical to Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics – along with the centrality of his project to the development of art history as a disciplinary field – see now the essays in Paul A. Kottman and Michael J. Squire, eds, T he Art of Hegel’s Aesthetics: Hegelian Philosophy and the Perspectives of Art History , Paderborn, 2018. A number of articles in this journal have probed this historiography: see in particular Jas Elsner, ‘The Birth of Late Antiquity: Riegl and Strzygowski in 1901’, Art History , 25: 3, 2002, 358–379; and Martin Schwarz and Jas Elsner, ‘The Genesis of Struktur : Kaschnitz-Weinberg’s Review of Riegl and the New Viennese School’, Art History , 39: 1, 2015, 70–83. 15 On the disciplinary history of classical archaeology (and some steering prophecies about its future), see, for example: Anthony Snodgrass, An Archaeology of Greece: The Present State and Future Scope of a Discipline , Berkeley, 1987; Michael Shanks, Classical Archaeology of Greece: Experiences of the Discipline , London, 1996; Sichtermann, Kulturgeschichte , esp. 9–27; Stephen L. Dyson, In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts: A History of Classical Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries , New Haven and London, 2006; and Achim Lichtenberger and Rubina Raja, eds, The Diversity of Classical Archaeology , Turnhout, 2017. 16 This is not to deny the continuing influence of classical ideas, idioms and forms on the development of modern and contemporary art (the subject of an ongoing research project on ‘Modern Classicisms’ at King’s College London: www.modernclassicisms.com). See, for example, Rosemary J. Barrow, ‘From Praxiteles to de Chirico: Art and Reception’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition , 11: 3, 2005, 344–368; Elizabeth Cowling and Jennifer Mundy, eds, On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico, and the New Classicism, 1910-1930 , London, 1990; Christopher Green and Jens Daehner, eds, Modern Antiquity: Picasso, de Chirico, Léger, Picabia , Los Angeles, 2011; Elizabeth Prettejohn, The Modernity of Ancient Sculpture: Greek Sculpture and Modern Art from Winckelmann to Picasso , London, 2012, esp. 3–5; Kenneth E. Silver, ed., Chaos & Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918 – 1936 , New York, 2010; Isabelle Loring Wallace and Jennie Hirsh, eds, Contemporary Art and Classical Myth , Farnham, 2011; Brooke Holmes and Karen Marta, eds, Liquid Antiquity , Geneva, 2017; Vout, Classical Art , esp. 220–242; and Michael J. Squire, James Cahill and Ruth Allen, eds, The Classical Now , London, 2018. 17 See in particular the special anniversary issue of the journal ( Art History , 40: 4), dedicated to ‘Art History 40: Image and Memory’, and featuring articles by former editors. For a reaffirmation of the founding principles of the journal on its fortieth anniversary, see Genevieve Warwick, ‘Editorial’, Art History , 40: 1, 2017, 8–9. 18 John Onians, ‘Editorial’, Art History , 1: 1, 1978, v–vi, at v. On the ‘periodical landscape’ of Art History in the 1970s, compare the scintillating comments of Samuel Bibby, ‘The Pursuit of Understanding’: Art History and the Periodical Landscape of Late-1970s Britain’, Art History , 40: 4, 2017, 808–837. 19 See, for example, John Onians, Art, Culture and Nature: From Art History to World Art Studies , London, 2006. For a recent overview of Art History ’s important contributions here, readers are referred to the virtual issue on ‘Documents of Human Culture as a Whole: Art History and World Art Studies’, edited by Samuel Bibby (www.arthistoryjournal.org.uk/ virtual-issues/documents-of-human-culture-as-a-whole-art-history-and-world-art-studies/). 20 One might note in passing that – in a recent author biography published in this journal (to accompany ‘Art History and Memory, From the Couch to the Scanner: On How the New Art History Woke Up to a Neural Future’, Art History , 40: 4, 2017, 704–723) – it is stated that ‘John Onians started out as a classicist before becoming an art historian’… 21 John Onians, Art and Thought in the Hellenistic World: The Greek World View 350–50 BC , London, 1979. The book was ahead of its time, which accounts in part for some of the negative initial reviews by classicists (for example, C. E. Vafopoulou-Richardson, Classical Review , 30: 2, 1989, 306–307: ‘a brave attempt, but one which leaves the reader more irritated than satisfied […]. One cannot help asking for whom this book is intended. For the specialist or the non specialist? The former will find it riddled with mistakes and misinterpretations, and the latter will be misinformed’ (306)). 22 Onians, ‘Editorial’, v. 23 For the sentiment, compare also Richard L. Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary: Production and Religion in the Graeco-Roman World’, Art History , 2: 1, 1979, 5–34 (reproduced in this virtual issue). 24 Edited by Milette Gaifman, Verity J. Platt and Michael J. Squire: the volume is represented in this virtual issue by Verity J. Platt, ‘Orphaned Objects: The Phenomenology of the Incomplete in Pliny’s Natural History ’, Art History , 41: 3, 2018, 492–517. 25 Edited by Marcia Pointon and Paul Binski: the volume is represented in this virtual issue by Barbara Kellum, ‘What We See and What We Don’t See: Narrative Structure and the Ara Pacis Augustae’, Art History , 17: 1, 1994, 26–45. 26 Edited by Jas Elsner and Jennifer Trimble: the volume is represented in this virtual issue by Milette Gaifman, ‘Statue, Cult and Reproduction’, Art History , 29: 2, 2006, 258–279. 27 Quoted from www.arthistoryjournal.org.uk/submit/. 28 Working through the archive of articles on Graeco-Roman topics, I was struck by how many authors comment on this aspect: see, for example, Carol G. Thomas, ‘Greek Geometric Narrative Art and Orality’, Art History, 12: 3, 1989, 257–267, declaring that a reviewer’s ‘comments led to the elimination of certain allusions familiar only to classical historians and the addition of “concessions” to the non-classical art historian’ (264). 29 The selected article was Beard, ‘Re-Reading the Greek Revolution’, responding to Robin Osborne and Simon Goldhill, Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture , Cambridge, 1994. 30 For one highly critical characterization of a so-called ‘Cambridge culture’ in the field of classical art history, see Elizabeth A. Meyer and J. E. Lendon, ‘Greek Art and Culture Since Art and Experience in Classical Greece ’, in Judith M. Barringer and Jeffrey M. Hurwit, eds, Periklean Athens and its Legacy: Problems and Perspectives , Austin, 255–276, esp. 262–267. 31 One might compare Guy Hedreen, ‘Involved Spectatorship in Archaic and Classical Greek Art’, Art Histor y, 30: 2, 2007, 217–246, with various responses to Mack’s arguments. 32 For two other recent discussions in this journal of ways in which Greek funerary monuments were viewed, see: Nathaniel B. Jones, ‘Phantasms and Metonyms: The Limits of Representation in Fifth-Century Athens’, Art History , 38: 5, 2015, 814–837; and Michael J. Squire, ‘Embodying the Dead on Classical Attic Grave Stelai’, Art History , 41: 3, 2018, 518–545. 33 For articles with further extended discussions of ‘Roman viewers’, compare also, for example: P. Gregory Warden and David Gilman Romano, ‘The Course of Glory: Greek Art in a Roman Context at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum’, Art History , 17: 2, 1994, 228–254; John Henderson, ‘Seeing Through Socrates: Portrait of the Philosopher in Sculpture Culture’, Art History , 19: 3, 1996, 327–352; John Ma, ‘The Two Cultures: Connoisseurship and Civic Honours’, Art History , 29: 2, 2006, 325–338; Jessica Hughes, ‘Personifications and the Ancient Viewer: The Case of the Hadrianeum “Nations”’, Art History , 32.1, 2009, 1–20; and Michael J. Squire, ‘Embodied Ambiguities on the Prima Porta Augustus’, Art History , 36: 2, 2013, 242–279. Fundamental on the ‘Roman viewer’ is Jas Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity , Cambridge, 1995. 34 Again, additional contributions might just as well have been included – not least the pioneering work of Jas Elsner published in this journal; see, for example, his ‘The Viewer and the Vision: The Case of the Sinai Apse, Art History , 17: 1, 1994, 81–102). 35 Other relevant contributions in this journal include: Jas Elsner, ‘Image and Iconoclasm in Byzantium’, Art History , 11: 4, 1988, 471– 491; and Verity J. Platt, ‘Viewing, Desiring, Believing: Confronting the Divine in a Pompeian House’, Art History , 25: 1, 2002, 87–112. 36 Gordon, ‘The Real and the Imaginary’, 5. 37 John Onians, ‘Abstraction and Imagination in Late Antiquity’, Art History , 3: 1, 1980, 1–24, at 4. 38 Jas Elsner, ‘Art History as Ekphrasis’, Art History , 33: 1, 2010, 10–27, at 11. 39 For the rationale behind this redesign, see Christine Riding and David Peters Corbett, ‘Editorial’, Art History , 33: 1, 2010, 8–9. 40 Quite apart from the twenty or so relevant articles in special issues (see above, nn. 24, 25 and 26), I list the following articles that have not yet been mentioned in my notes: Susan Silberberg-Price, ‘Politics and Private Imagery: The Sacral-Idyllic Landscapes in Augustan Art’, Art History , 3: 3, 1980, 241–251; Susan Silberberg-Price, ‘The Many Faces of the Pax Augusta : Images of War and Peace in Rome and Gallia Narbonensis’, Art History , 9: 3, 1986, 306–324; Paul Davies, David Hemsoll and Mark Wilson Jones, ‘The Pantheon: Triumph of Rome of Triumph of Compromise?’, Art History , 10: 2, 1987, 133–153; Philip Peirce, ‘The Arch of Constantine: Propaganda and Ideology in Late Roman Art’, Art History , 12: 4, 1989, 387–418; Peter Stewart, ‘Fine Art and Coarse Art: The Image of Roman Priapus’, Art History , 20: 4, 1997, 575–588; Kim Bowes, ‘Ivory Lists: Consular Diptychs, Christian Appropriation and Polemics of Time in Late Antiquity’, Art History , 24: 3, 2001, 338–357; Mark Bradley, ‘The Importance of Colour on Ancient Marble Sculpture’, Art History , 32: 3, 2009, 427–457; and Caroline Vout, ‘Laocoon’s Children and the Limits of Representation’, Art History , 33; 3, 2010, 396–419. 41 See Genevieve Warwick and Natalie Adamson, ‘Editorial’, Art History , 36: 1, 2013, 8–11, at 11. 42 Consider, for example, Emmanuelle Hénin, ‘Parrhasius and the Stage Curtain: Theatre, Metapainting, and the Idea of Representation in the Seventeenth Century’, Art History , 33: 2, 2010, 248–261 (discussing the early modern reception of the Elder Pliny’s story about a competition between Parrhasius and Zeuxis [ Natural History , 35.65]). 43 Examples are legion. Consider, for example: Jane Ten Brink Goldsmith, ‘From Prose to Pictures: Leonaert Bramer’s Illustrations for the Aeneid and Vondel’s Translation of Virgil’, Art History , 7: 1, 1984, 21–37; Maiken Umbach, ‘Classicisms, Enlightenment and the “Other”: Thoughts on Decoding Eighteenth-Century Visual Culture’, Art History , 25: 3, 2002, 319–340; and Amelia Rauser, ‘Living Statues and Neoclassical Dress in Late Eighteenth-Centry Naples’, Art History , 38: 3, 2015, 462–487. 44 Dorothy Price, ‘Editorial’, Art History , 41: 1, 2018, 8–11, at 10.

Classical  Art History : An Introduction Michael Squire

The Real and the Imaginary: Production and Religion in the Graeco-Roman World R. L. Gordon

Abstraction and Imagination in Late Antiquity John Onians

Death Revisited, Death Revised: The Death of the Artist in Archaic and Classical Greece R. G. Osborne

What We See and What We Don’t See: Narrative Structure and the Ara Pacis Augustae Barbara A. Kellum

Re-Reading the Greek Revolution Mary Beard

Facing Down Medusa (An Aetiology of the Gaze) Rainer Mack

Statue, Cult and Reproduction Milette Gaifman

The Ear of the Beholder: Spectator Figures and Narrative Structure in Pompeian Painting Katharina Lorenz

Art History as Ekphrasis Jas Elsner

Portraits and Politics in Classical Greece and Early Imperial China: An Institutional Approach to Comparative Art Jeremy Tanner

Orphaned Objects: The Phenomenology of the Incomplete in Pliny’s  Natural History Verity Platt

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Classical Art Essay Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: History , Athens , Rome , Thinking , Body , Bible , Art , Greece

Published: 01/12/2020

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The ancient Greek art, particularly architecture and sculpture, influenced the culture of many nations. The Roman Empire derived its art from Greek models. The Conquests of Alexander the Great led to the interactions between Greek, Indian and Asian cultures, leading to the emergence of Greco-Buddhist art. Greek’s classical tradition, for a long time, dominated the western world’s art.

The Aphrodite of Knidos was sculpted by Praxiteles, at around 330BC. He was commissioned to create a sculpture of Aphrodite, the goddess, and responded by making two sculptures: one clothed and the other where Aphrodite was naked. It is believed that Praxiteles was from Athens. His father, Kephisodotus was also a renowned sculptor. Many of his works were copied by the Romans due to his fame and popularity. Some pictures of his sculptors were even engraved on Roman coins, and also described by writers like Pliny the Elder. He significantly influenced the development of sculptors in Greece. His pieces portrayed elegance and sensual grace. He innovatively transformed the works of his predecessors to create impressive sculptures with a more attached tone, particularly in sculptures representing gods. He bridged the gap with the viewer by creating humanizing views of gods. Most sculptors in his time used bronze since it allowed for flexibility. However, Praxiteles preferred marble because it was able to bring out the radiance and softness of the skin. With bronze, it was easier to bring out the human anatomy and the responsiveness due to motion of the body. Therefore, Praxiteles has to be more accurate to create a perfect figure. He achieved this, and also created a beautiful surface and texture on his works. This gave him an edge over other sculptors and made him the distinguished sculptor he was. His works were of the younger gods like Hermes, Aphrodite and Apollo instead of elderly gods such as Zeus or Poseidon.

Aphrodite of Knidos was his most famous and admired sculpture. It was the first ever sculpture of a naked female. When he revealed the finished work to the island of Kos, they were shocked and rejected it because of the nudity of the goddess. Instead, the city of Knidos bought the sculpture and it became an attraction to many tourists that came to their land. King Nicomedes efforts to acquire the sculpture were thwarted when the people of Knidos declined his offer to settle their debt in exchange for the sculpture. Critics praised the sculpture by claiming that Praxiteles gave soul to marble. People claimed that the sculpture resembled Aphrodite so much that a story emerged that Aphrodite saw it and asked “When did Praxiteles see me naked?” Aphrodite of Knidos became so famous that artists in different generations were inspired to make similar copies. Many of these exist in museums worldwide. The original Aphrodite was; however, stolen from Knidos. Lausos’ palace in Constantinople was the last place it was seen.

A fundamental feature of the High and Late Classical sculptures brought out by the sculptures of the gods was the recognition of their personifications of concepts. For instance, Aphrodite, the goddess of love and sex was portrayed as nude and expressing her sensuality. Another feature used by Praxiteles was the idea of contrapposto (counter pose). The hips of the sculpture had a contrasting slant to that of the shoulders. The weight of the statue remained shifted on one leg, and the body had a more pronounced curve. It brought out a sense of equilibrium. Furthermore, it enhanced the sensuousness of Aphrodite’s figure. The sculpture brought out a serene and calm feeling as Aphrodite prepared to bathe. Her head looked to the left, creating an impression that she had been disturbed. It created an interaction with the viewer, making him feel that he was looking at something he should not. The sculptures of early classical period only allowed for a frontal view. During the late classical period, artists created sculptors that could be viewed in three dimensions, with equal effectiveness.

Ancient Greece. (2012, May 15). Praxiteles. Retrieved November 20, 2012, from Ancient Greece: http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/People/Praxiteles/

Kleiner, F. S. (2010 ). Gardner's Art Through the Ages: A Global History. New York: Cengage Learning.

Norris, M. (2006). GREEK ART: FROM PREHISTORIC TO CLASSICAL, A RESOURCE FOR EDUCATORS. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Think Quest. (2011, July 03). Classical Art. Retrieved November 20, 2012, from Think Quest: http://library.thinkquest.org/23492/

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Art Period Comparison: Classicism and Middle Age Compare & Contrast Essay

Introduction, classicism in art as a powerful example of form and order, medieval art as a result of population prosperity and stability, similarities and differences between classicism and medieval art, reference list.

Among the varieties of phases in art development, it is not always easy to pick out one period and prove that it is the most outstanding and captivating issue to deal with. Each period of art has its own peculiarities, characteristics, social conditions, and impacts on people. For this paper, two different periods from different epochs are chosen for the analysis and evaluation: the classical art period and the middle age art period.

The peculiar feature of these two periods is the purpose to teach and to help people comprehend this life, its rules, and orders. However, the classical period of art introduced lessons about gods and goddesses, leaders and ordinary people, and the medieval period, in its turn, focused on religion and its significance for people.

Classical and medieval periods of art demonstrate the power of the idea to continue traditions such as teach people and share the basics of life on the one hand, and the necessity to react to the previous periods like the change of the main themes in order to prove the possibility to develop, be improved, and become deeply aware about nature on the other hand.

The first recognized period of art was dated from 480 B.C. to 500 A.D. and called as Classical Art. This period of art was usually attributed to the Greeks with their magnificent skills to introduce their interests and beliefs by means of sculptures, paintings, and other types of art works.

Beard and Henderson (2001) admit that this period “has made itself the crucial episode in the story of ancient art: it saw the first attempts to produce a critical analysis of painting and sculpture, and the invention of the ‘artist’ as a figure of fame” (p.3). As any type of art period, classical art has a number of characteristics that attract people’s attention, prove the significance of this time, and introduce clear ideas according to which people become able to evaluate artworks and contribution of ancient people to the sphere of art.

First, artists focused on the idea of harmony: they tried to delete all extra issues, things, and details in order to represent the essence. Second, the vast majority of works is devoted to human nudity (Figure 1) and the beauty of the body. To underline this beauty and idealize the world, artists could use robes or other type of clothes that demonstrated preferences in culture, style, and even social status.

Some other characteristics of the period are body conditions (usually active and athletic), calm faces (absence of emotions provide people with a chance to think over the current conditions), particular occupations of characters (heroes, writers, thinkers), presence of backgrounds of paintings (attention to sense and perspective).

Social conditions inherent to the chosen period were closely connected to the style of life demonstrated by the Greek people: wars which helped to gain recognition, power, and space; loving affairs which unite gods and people; faith in supreme powers that was the reason of human weakness in front of gods; and finally, changes and improvements of living conditions that prove how ancient people strived for inventions and novelties.

The classical period of art is a unique combination of power and faith, humans and gods, trust and betrayal. This period represented an edge according to which people tried to live, love, and survive. Artworks of classicism serve as the best and the most effective proves of the prosperity of the chosen period.

The medieval art or the art of Middle Ages is a kind of successor of the above-mentioned classicism. It is usually dated from 500 C.E. to 1300 C.E. and spread mostly over the European society. Sekules (2001) explains that there was “a perverse tendency among artists and patrons to overturn the rules and confound expectations in order to keep viewers thinking hard about the possibilities of single meaning, multiple meanings, or lack of meaning” (p. 3).

The analysis of this art period proves that the representatives of the medieval art did their best to create a proper continuation of the traditions and ideas offered during the classical period. Though a number of distinguished tendencies were inherent to the medieval art, all these differences had powerful grounds and clear explanations.

Among the variety of specific characteristics of the chosen period, it is necessary to define the following: religious nature of all artworks that demonstrated Jesus’ role in society, impact of saints and other characters from the Bible; identification of major and minor characters of paintings (major characters were bigger and brighter); absence of nudity that was so inherent to classical works (Figure 2); bright colors preferred; and faces full of serious emotions and confidence.

To represent a proper continuation of traditions, it is important not only to rely on the achievements and inventions but also to prove that society was able to change and choose other aspect to respect and consider.

The representatives of the medieval art were known as those who preferred warm colors and gold in particular (Figure 2). They truly believed that such attention to colors could make them closer to Jesus and religious they believed in. A great number of medieval artists aimed at teaching people about the ways of how to respect the supreme power, what kind of effect this power may be used on people, and why religion became so crucial for human lives.

The idea to keep traditions turns out to be important for the sphere of art during a long period. It is not enough to present a new art approach and define it as a new era of art. This is why it is necessary to continue traditions as well as to reflect on the existed achievements.

The representatives of the medieval art tried to use the same material that was used by the representatives of the classical period to admit that the chosen material was really strong and appropriate for the chosen sphere.

With the help of backgrounds and centralizing of figures (that came from classicism), medieval artists introduced the works and pay more attention to main images by means of decreasing the necessity of the minor characters. Respect to gods (classicism) had much in common with religion (medieval art) because both tendencies demonstrated human dependence on power.

All these differences and similarities of two different periods of art serve as a good example of how people are able to develop, teach, evaluate, and analyze their lives. The idea to use the basics of classicism and improve the medieval works sounds perfect because this is how continuation and creativity should cooperate.

The historical significance of the medieval period of art of the world art in general lies in the fact that people proved how they could use their knowledge and experience in order to create magnificent works, sculptures, and paintings, and teach a future generation how to succeed in development.

Beard, M. & Henderson, J. (2001). Classical Art: From Greece to Rome . New York: Oxford University Press.

Sekules, V. (2001). Medieval Art. New York: Oxford University Press.

Figure 1: Apollo

Figure 2: The Icon of St. John the Evangelist.

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IvyPanda. (2019, April 20). Art Period Comparison: Classicism and Middle Age. https://ivypanda.com/essays/art-period-comparison-classicism-and-middle-age-essay/

"Art Period Comparison: Classicism and Middle Age." IvyPanda , 20 Apr. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/art-period-comparison-classicism-and-middle-age-essay/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Art Period Comparison: Classicism and Middle Age'. 20 April.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Art Period Comparison: Classicism and Middle Age." April 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/art-period-comparison-classicism-and-middle-age-essay/.

1. IvyPanda . "Art Period Comparison: Classicism and Middle Age." April 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/art-period-comparison-classicism-and-middle-age-essay/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Art Period Comparison: Classicism and Middle Age." April 20, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/art-period-comparison-classicism-and-middle-age-essay/.

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October 2001

The classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and the Latin West. The Byzantines , who called themselves Rhomaioi, or Romans, retained many of the trappings and economic, legal, and administrative institutions of the ancient Roman empire . In the West, rulers such as the Frankish king Charlemagne (r. 768–814) or the Saxon ruler Otto I (r. 936–73) sought to revive a Western Roman Empire and were crowned “Emperor and Augustus” by the pope in Rome.

The Antique Presence in Literature The culture of antiquity played an important role in the literary and artistic endeavors of the Middle Ages. We owe much of our knowledge of classical Greek poetry, drama , and philosophy to the scribes and illuminators who produced books for the intellectuals and wealthy patrons of Byzantine society, who placed great value on classical learning. Among these, the ninth-century patriarch Photios boasted that he had read hundreds of classical texts. The writings of Cicero, Catullus, Virgil—indeed, most of ancient Latin literature—has come down to us because it was laboriously copied by medieval monks and preserved in monastic, ecclesiastical, and royal libraries. Even in a ruined state, the baths , aqueducts, and sanctuaries of the classical world provoked the people of the Middle Ages to reflect upon the grandeur of the past. Benedict, a canon of Saint Peter’s in Rome, and the Englishman Master Gregory, both writing in the twelfth century, were among many authors whose works provide us with medieval descriptions of the marvels of antiquity.

Art and the Classical Tradition Art objects of all varieties display an awareness of classical tradition through form, decoration, and visual vocabulary. The silver plate showing the Battle of David and Goliath looks to the Old Testament for its theme, but to the classical past for its naturalistic style and use of personification ( 17.190.396 ). Medieval artists often employed ancient motifs despite their pre-Christian connotations. The imagery of Dionysos, god of wine, for example, remained popular even after Christianity eclipsed his cult ( 26.9.9 ; 17.190.56 ). As if to deny the distance between antiquity and the present, classical figures might appear on art objects wearing medieval dress and in medieval surroundings ( 17.190.173a, b; 1988.16 ). Sculptural and architectural fragments from antiquity were often incorporated on medieval buildings , and extant monuments such as city gates often served as motifs for medieval architects (see images of Porte d’Arroux and nave of Cathedral of Saint-Lazare at left).

In the courts of medieval monarchs, classical history and legend offered models for noble behavior. Rulers in both Byzantium and western Europe borrowed imperial imagery from their Roman predecessors to assert continuity between the classical past and their own enterprise. Greco-Roman divinities , events from the Trojan War, and the feats of Hercules , Alexander , and Julius Caesar appeared not only in illustrated manuscripts, but also in tapestries , decorative sculpture, and small objects exchanged as gifts among aristocrats ( 47.101.3 ; 16.106 ). Sometimes medieval artists based their representations of classical subjects on ancient works of art, such as the coins, cameos , and gems often kept in noble and ecclesiastical collections ( 38.150.23 ). These relics from antiquity might even find their way into newly crafted objects designed for religious use ( 17.190.1406 ), a vivid demonstration of the way in which medieval artists and patrons saw the pagan past as relevant to the Christian present.

Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “Classical Antiquity in the Middle Ages.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/anti/hd_anti.htm (October 2001)

Further Reading

Survival of the Gods: Classical Mythology in Medieval Art . Exhibition catalogue. Providence: Brown University Bell Gallery, 1987.

Wind, Edgar. Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance . Rev. ed. London: Faber, 1968.

Additional Essays by Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters

• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Art for the Christian Liturgy in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
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• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ The Crusades (1095–1291) .” (originally published October 2001, last revised February 2014)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ The Cult of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages .” (October 2001)
• Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters. “ Stained Glass in Medieval Europe .” (October 2001)

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