TVM Entry Floor: Ancient Greek Art

Greek Art

2,000 BC to 300AD

Background Material for Ancient Greek Art and Culture

Visit Mt. Olympus and get the latest gossip.

Hephaestus is back in favor after being thrown out by Zeus; Hera is still angry with Zeus about the Leda affair; and Aphrodite is making eyes at Ares.

The Story of the Greek War Against Troy

The arguments among Greek generals over concubines. Why Achilles is sulking and refusing to fight. The details of how everyone got home after the war and the surprises they found there.

The Story of Herakles

How he became a serial killer and became reconciled to his fate. What terrible labors he was made to do, and how well he overcame all obstacles. The details of his horrible death.

The Story of Dionysus

How he became woman killer. What terrible things he did to people who refused to believe his religion. And how he rescued the beautiful Ariadne.

Some Background Rumors
About Greek Art and Culture

Slanted nonsense about how Greeks behaved and what they believed from someone who has never visited or talked to an ancient Greek.

And a timetable of Greek History, Art and Literature.

Geography of Greece

Greece lies between Italy and Turkey in the Mediterranean Sea. In the times when Greece was the dominant force in the region, most of what is now Southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and the Turkish coast were Greek. This map only covers the central area of Greece, the islands out to Crete, and the Turkish coast. Someday if we find the time and put in the effort we will add a map of ancient western Greece.

There is an active version of this map that contains the regional names and city names. However it takes about a minute and a half with 56K modem to download the page. If you have patience or a fast internet connection, you will find it a lot more fun to use. To get a feeling for the size of Greece the island of Crete is about 225 kilometers long (about 140 miles long). The map is oriented with North at the top.

Thumbnail Sketch of Greek Art

Like the rest of this museum Greek art is organized chronologically. The chronology of Greek art is a contentious subject, even today. Unlike Egyptian art, Greek art is seldom marked with a king's name or associated with an historical event, so direct dating is impossible. Another part of the problem stems from the fact that often we don't have access to the original work. Instead all we have is a later Greek or Roman copy of the work. Sometimes we only have a copy of a copy. Existing examples of Greek art may have been in art collections for a thousand or two thousand years. No one exactly knows the origin or date of the original, because it has no archeological context. This means that the dates and context for these pieces have to be determined indirectly from the style of the art -- a notoriously inaccurate way of dating things and one which makes the art useless for understanding the development of Greek art because it's true place in history is really unknown. No scientific method is known for dating marble or clay pots -- thus only the archeological context containing dateable materials can help establish a date. Last, but not least, for two thousand years there have been several periods when fake Greek sculpture was available on the art market. This was true in ancient as well as modern times. Old buried fakes look just like old buried originals. Trying to determine truth in all this noise is difficult and often impossible. So you should take the chronological sequence presented here with a large grain of salt.

One last not note... all may not be lost in discovering the real chronology of Greek art. Undersea ship wrecks may eventually provide us with a body of original dateable sculpture, pots, and other art so that an accurate history of the development of Greek art may yet emerge. It may even confirm that the guesswork made in modern scholarship accurately reflects the historical truth.