Essay on ancient greek art

Introduction

Ancient Greek Culture has had an enormous influence on many world cultures from the olden days up to now, specifically in the sectors of architecture and sculpture. Many historians of art usually define the Ancient Greek Art as the art produced in the Greek nation from 1000 BC to 100 BC. This particular art culture subsequently ended with the invasion of the Roman Empire and its established rule over the Greek nation. The Ancient Greek culture is usually divided into three stylistic periods and these are the Archaic, Classical and the Hellenistic periods. In this particular paper, I am going to concentrate on the development of one aspect of the ancient Greek art through the three periods and that is the female figure.
In the Archaic period, possible examples of the female figure are the Peplos Kore and The Lady of Auxerre. The female figure in the Archaic period was particularly not naturalistic or realistic. The female sculptures had a lot of abstract and geometric shapes (Pollitt 2001). In addition, the figure’ face usually had the Archaic smile. In Peplos Kore, a softer female version was rendered more naturally than in the Lady of Auxerre. However, both cannot be comparable with later art forms that were more natural and that exhibited more motion.
A sculpture that can be used to represent the Classical Female figure is the Aphrodite of Knidos. This portrait shows a nude goddess with exemplary superhuman beauty. The figure however seems to have adopted a more defined worldly sensuousness (Pollitt 2001). This figure is very erotic. It marble has essentially been transformed into radiant and soft flesh. The art forms of this era also had more defined motions than those of the Archaic era.
The Hellenistic period witnessed a lot of incorporation of eroticism into art. An example of a Hellenistic female sculpture is the Venus de Milo. This is a half draped goddess who exhibits more sexual overtures than the Classical Aphrodite of Knidos. The sculptor of this particular work of art specifically designed his art to tease spectators. This is because the goddess right hand is grasping the drapery edge to prevent it from slipping down completely. The Hellenistic period also had more exploration of reality, for example the ‘ ugly and aged” Old Market Woman is an example of the incorporation of reality into Hellenistic art (Pollitt 2001).

References

Pollitt, J. J. (2001). The ancient view of Greek art: criticism, history, and terminology. New Haven: Yale University Press.