The Classical Period or Golden Age of Greece, about 500 to 300 BC, produced the great monuments, art, philosophy, architecture, and literature which are the building blocks of our own civilization.

Venus of Milo, 200 BC

Once Greek artists started to leave the formulaic work of the Egyptians behind, the transition was fairly rapid. Artists tried out new ways of representing the human figure, and as new methods of interpreting form were discovered, others adopted the techniques and added to them. One such example is the discovery of weight shift or contrapposto, where the weight of the body rested on one leg.

Hermes and the Infant Dionysus by Praxitalis, c. 340 BC

Nearly all of the famous Greek statues were destroyed after the onset of Christianity. As Ernst Gombrich noted, "it was considered a pious duty to smash any statue of the heathen gods." Many of the statues in museums are copies of the originals. The statue of Hermes by Praxiteles is assumed to be an original, but we cannot be sure.

The Greeks were supposedly skilled painters, but none of their works have survived. We are, however, able to study the vases they left behind. From these we can see the transition from the rigid profile figures used by the Egyptians to the discovery of foreshortening and the use of more natural forms. In all Greek art we see a balance between “an adherence to rules and a freedom within the rules”. (Gombrich) The ideal proportions of Classical Greek statues, as well as the Greek philosophy of humanism, have influenced other artists for centuries.

Terracotta column-krater (bowl for mixing wine and water) c. 430 BC

The constant throughout art history has been the search to explain what we think we see, what we actually see, and, perhaps more importantly, what we want to see.

The Story of Art: Symbolism, Idealism, and Realism, Continuity and Change Through the Centuries is based on a presentation I created for my workshop students. You can access the previous article by going to the Newsletter Archive link located below the Email Signup at the bottom of my web site pages.

If you are looking for an excellent art history book that is not 600 pages, I highly recommend The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern by Carol Strickland, Ph.D.