As promised, here’s a look at what I’m learning this
semester in my art history class at George Mason University.
Many, many years ago, when I was in high school, we read
book by Edith Hamilton about Greek mythology and I remember being fascinated by
the pantheon of gods and goddesses. We may
also have read Homer’s Odyssey (high
school classmates, do you remember?), but that is where my study of the
classics ended. In a belated attempt to
remedy this educational deficit, I signed up for an art history class entitled Symbols
and Stories in Western Art. Now I’m
finally acquiring a deeper understanding the figures and stories found not only
ancient Greek art, but in all of western art from the Renaissance through
modern times. In the past few weeks, I’ve
been introduced to a huge cast of quirky gods, goddesses, heroes and
monsters. And thanks to a professor with
a lively lecturing style and a great sense of humor, the class has been as
entertaining as it is informative.
At our very first class meeting, Professor Gregg asked us if
we knew the meaning of the word “symposium.”
He then showed us an image of painted Greek vase with a scene of a
symposium. Much to my surprise, I learned
that a symposium was actually a drinking party in ancient Greece. (See photo below.) Only men and prostitutes were present at
these gatherings. Consider that at the
next symposium you attend.
A lot of the new knowledge I’ve gained comes in sets of
threes. For example, scholars divide
ancient Greek art into three historical periods. The first is the Archaic period, from about
the 8th century BCE to 480 BCE. If you’ve seen any Greek statues
where the smiling figure is in a stiff, awkward pose (as in the photo below),
you’re looking at an Archaic work of art.
The Classical period began in 480 BCE, which was a very busy
year for the ancient Greeks. First of
all, the mighty Persian army invaded Greece and ransacked the temples on the
Acropolis. However, later that same
year, the Greeks decisively defeated the Persians at the battle of Salamis and
the Persian general Xerxes took his army back home. After eliminating the Persian threat, Athens
flourished. During this golden age, the
Parthenon was built.
Also during the Classical period, sculpture became more
natural, and an idealized form of the Greek male appeared. This was a youthful figure with a serene
expression, relaxed stance, compact perfect proportions (with noticeable
musculature), an oval head with a U-shaped jawline and a broad chin. You can see an example in the photo
below. Knowing how young girls today
develop complexes about body image due to the prevalence of idealized female
images in the media, I wonder if young boys in ancient Greece suffered from
similar psychological problems.
The death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE ushered in the
Hellenistic period. By this time, Greek
culture had spread throughout the Mediterranean and deep into Asia. Compared to Classical sculpture, sculpture
from the Hellenistic period was a lot more dynamic, and much more effective at
storytelling. It was theatrical,
emotional, psychologically complex, and able to engage the viewer more than ever
before. You can see an example in the
photo below.
Perhaps you’re already familiar with another group of three,
i.e. the three orders of architecture – Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. In case you don’t recall, the Doric column is
plain, the Ionic column has two scrolls at the top, and the Corinthian column is
the most elaborate, with leaf-like shapes at the top.
Then there are three types of sculptural friezes (rectangular
fields of decoration on a Greek temple).
A Doric temple can have sculpture in the metopes (self-contained rectangles above the columns). A metope
is like a snapshot, capturing a single moment in time.
When looking at Ionic and Corinthian temples, you often see
pedimental friezes (in the triangular pediments on the front and back of the
building) and a continuous frieze (a long rectangular band that wraps
completely around all four sides of the building). A continuous frieze is like a movie, in that
it can tell a complete story with the action happening over time. A pedimental frieze (two are seen below) is
larger than a metope, but its storytelling
ability is limited by its triangular shape.
Pedimental friezes and continuous friezes are never found on Doric
temples.
While we’re discussing time, I’ll mention the three types of
narrative time found in ancient Greek art – anticipatory, synoptic and
climactic. Climactic, of course, shows
the most dramatic moment in the story; anticipatory is a single moment in time before
the climax of the story. When a scene is
portrayed in synoptic time, we see several different moments in the story.
In addition, we learned the names of three types of pottery
vessels – amphora, krater, and kylix.
The amphora (accent on the first syllable) was the jug used for storing
liquids, such as wine. The krater was
shaped like an inverted bell. It was
used for mixing the wine with water and various spices (the Greeks never drank
undiluted wine). The kylix (pictured
below) was a broad, shallow, footed wine cup.
All three of these pottery vessels had two handles.
As far as techniques used for painting pottery, there’s
another group of three. The earliest technique
was black-figure. Using this technique,
large areas of black paint were applied to unfired pottery and details were
created by scratching lines into the black paint prior to firing. You can see this in the amphora pictured
below. The later red-figure technique
allowed for more fluidity and greater detail, as lines and shapes could be
painted in prior to firing. (see the
photo of the kylix, above) Finally, the
white ground technique involved the application of polychromatic tempera
pigments after firing. Since the
decoration produced with this technique was fragile, not many examples have
survived antiquity.
Professor Gregg also told us that Greek artists weren’t very
good at landscape. They generally used
symbols to show geographic features. So
if you see Prometheus bound to a column, the column represents a mountain or
cliff. (see photo below) If you see
Poseidon surrounded by fish or ships, they represent the sea.
A lot of our study has been devoted to iconography, i.e. the
visual clues that help you identify figures in the art. These could be physical characteristics of
the figure or objects associated with the figure. For example, if you see a male figure with a
lion skin, a club, arrows and quiver, you’re looking at Herakles. Zeus and Poseidon are both portrayed as mature,
bearded male figures, but Zeus usually holds a thunderbolt while Poseidon holds
a trident.
You might also see gods and goddesses with their special
animals: the eagle for Zeus, the horse for Poseidon, the peacock for Hera
(there’s a long story related to this), the owl for Athena, etc.
Some of the more interesting epithets used in literature to
describe the gods and goddesses are:
Hera – ox-eyed (that was supposed to be complimentary)
Poseidon – earth shaker
Zeus – the thunderer
Athena – Parthenos (virgin, maiden)
Ares – strong-fisted (Ares, the god of war who reveled in
the strife and chaos of battle, wasn’t popular with the ancient Greeks)
By the way, do you have a favorite Greek god or
goddess? Mine is Athena, the goddess of
wisdom, weaving, and warfare. The massive
chryselephantine (marble and gold) statue of Athena by Pheidias that stood in
the Parthenon no longer exists, but here’s a modern re-creation:
Gestures and poses are also very helpful for identifying
figures in ancient Greek art. In the
enthroned pose, a god or goddess, usually Zeus or Hera, is seated on a
throne. This was the pose used in the
monumental cult statue of Zeus in Olympia, by the Greek sculptor Pheidias. The same pose was adopted by the 18th
century American sculptor Greenough for his marble statue of George Washington,
on view in the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
In the smiting pose, the figure is striding forward, with
the left foot in front, and the right arm raised, holding a weapon. The Greeks borrowed this pose from Egyptian
art. In the statue seen in the photo
below, either Zeus or Poseidon is shown in the smiting pose. Scholars aren’t certain of the figure’s
identity because the weapon (either thunderbolt or trident) didn’t survive.
The early 19th century painting seen below
(“Jupiter and Thetis” by Ingres) below shows the gesture of supplication. Thetis is crouching down before an enthroned
Zeus and reaching up to touch his lips as she asks for a favor.
Greek mythology is filled with stories, some of which I was already
familiar with. However, I’d never heard of the Titanomachy, or the war of the Titans,
where Zeus and his fellow Olympians fought against his father Cronus and the
Titans. Zeus won. This was followed by the Gigantomachy, the
war Zeus and the Olympians waged against the Giants. The ancient Greeks viewed the Giants as
savage and cruel, and saw themselves as bringers of order and logic. Thus the Gigantomachy was of critical
importance for the ancient Greeks, as it represented the struggle between order
and chaos, and it was frequently depicted in architectural sculpture (see photo
below) and on painted vases.
Zeus was certainly part of a dysfunctional family. His father, Cronus (known as Saturn by the
Romans), swallowed the first five of his children before his wife, Rhea, gave
birth to Zeus and hid him from her crazy husband. Don’t worry, though. Cronus threw up all the children later on,
which made it possible for Zeus to marry his older sister, Hera. Goya’s 1815 painting
of Cronus eating his child (see photo below) is especially horrific.
Being married didn’t stop Zeus from pursuing and mating with
all sorts of goddesses (Thetis, mother of Achilles), Titans (Mnemosyne, mother
of the Muses), and mortals, both male (Ganymede) and female (Europa). Through the reading for my class, I learned
of his countless amorous adventures, which included some rather creative wooing
strategies and some unusual offspring.
When Zeus seduced the Titan Metis, then turned her into a fly and
swallowed her, the result was the goddess Athena, born from the head of Zeus. Needless to say, Hera, the wife of Zeus, is
often portrayed as angry and vengeful.
Professor Gregg noted that erotic acts involving the gods
were never shown explicitly in ancient Greek art. Instead, the artists used a particular
gesture, the wrist or forearm grab, to indicate that the sexual act occurred. Additionally, the artist could portray a
female figure removing the veil from her head to signify her sexual
availability.
Homosexuality was accepted between older men and young boys
in ancient Greek society. The rooster
was a courting gift that an older man would give to the object of his desire. We saw this on a vase from the Archaic period
(see photo below) where the young Ganymede, pursued by Zeus, is holding a
rooster. Also note that Zeus is gripping
Ganymede by the forearm.
You may be familiar with the somewhat gruesome story of
Prometheus, the Titan who created man.
According to Greek myth, he also stole fire from the gods on Mt. Olympus,
hid it in a fennel stalk, and brought it to mankind. Zeus was so angry that he punished Prometheus
by chaining him to a rock or cliff for eternity and arranging to have an eagle
peck out his liver everyday (it would grow back every night). It was interesting to a modern representation
of Prometheus, the stealer of fire, such as the 1934 gilded bronze statue by
Paul Manship, located at 1 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City.
Note that there were no women at the time Prometheus brought
fire to mankind. Women didn’t exist
until Zeus ordered Hephaestus to gather clay and create one mortal based on the
form of a goddess. He instructed all the
gods and goddesses to bestow gifts on the woman, named Pandora (which means “all
gifts”). The Greek poet Hesiod wrote
that Zeus told the god Hermes to give Pandora the mind of a bitch and the
character of a thief. Hmm. Unfortunately, this is just one example of
how misogynistic ancient Greek culture was.
Finally, a story that’s often portrayed in ancient Greek art
concerns a small, unnamed town that held a competition to see which god or
goddess would become its patron. The
inhabitants issued an invitation to all of the Olympians, asking each one to
present a gift to the town. Only
Poseidon and Athena chose to participate in the contest. Poseidon appeared and thrust his spear into
the ground, whereupon water sprang up.
Unfortunately, the water turned out to be salty (after all, he was the
god of the sea). Athena thrust her spear
into the ground, and an olive tree appeared – the very first olive tree, in
fact. There was no doubt about whose
gift was better. The town chose Athena
and named itself Athens in her honor.
And that’s a summary of what I’ve learned in school in the
past few weeks. Now it’s on to the
Trojan War!
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