Greek Art

In Ancient Greece, sculpting, painting, and architecture were not called art they were called “teche” a word that means “things requiring a special body of knowledge and skill to make”. Greek paintings were supposedly beautiful but there are none left except for the paintings that were done on terra cotta vessels. Like many Greek artworks the paintings on these vessels sometimes focused on the Greek gods such as Athena. The Greek sculptures were also usually about Greek gods and stories of Greek gods. They were carved out of marble and some of the sculptures look like they are moving because of how they are carved. And the way they are carved makes the movement of the sculptures look very realistic. Such as the sculpture of Three Goddesses which almost looks like the subjects of the sculpture could be moving. The movements of these sculptures could be due to the Hellenistic phase of Greek art, which was what the last phase of Greek art is known as. Instead of being a classical style the Hellenistic style has “dynamic poses and extreme emotion” which is different from the more reserved sculptures in that didn’t express any movement.  Many sculptures were inside the buildings in Greece. The architecture in Greece in often dedicated to the Greek gods and they become the subject of the architecture. The Parthenon for example is dedicated to Athena and there was once a 30 feet tall statue of Athena in the Parthenon. The Parthenon like a lot of Greek artwork is very worn down from time and some parts of it have even been lost. But even though parts of it are damaged its still as artistic as it was hundreds of years ago. 

Python(potter) Douris(painter), Heracles  and Athena, 480BC

Three Goddesses, 438BC   

Iktinos and Kallikrates, The Parthenon, 447BC