Companion to Greek Art by
A comprehensive, authoritative account of the development Greek Art through the 1st millennium BC. An invaluable resource for scholars dealing with the art, material culture and history of the post-classical world Includes voices from such diverse fields as art history, classical studies, and archaeology and offers a diversity of views to the topic Features an innovative group of chapters dealing with the reception of Greek art from the Middle Ages to the present Includes chapters on Chronology and Topography, as well as Workshops and Technology Includes four major sections: Forms, Times and Places; Contacts and Colonies; Images and Meanings; Greek Art: Ancient to Antique
Greek Gold by
Three world-class museums--the British Museum, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and St. Petersburg's State Hermitage--have opened their coffers to showcase close to 200 pieces of ancient jewelry. Samples have been plucked not only from Greece but also from what is now known as Egypt, Cyprus, Sicily, and southern Italy. The authors' scholarship is unobtrusive; in fact, the text provides relatively easy reading for those charmed by objets d'art as well as curators and professional jewelers. Each item is well researched; included are its provenance, approximate date of manufacture, dimensions, a lengthy description, current and original owners, and a bibliography. The color photography is exquisite, resulting in details so fine that readers sense they could almost touch the precious metals. ~--Barbara Jacobs Booklist Review
The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture by
The Grove Encyclopedia of Classical Art and Architecture is the most current and comprehensive reference resource for the visual arts of the Classical period. It features an abundance of in-depth articles on this field of enduring importance—from biographies to thematic entries on architecture, ceramics, metalwork, mosaics, painting and sculpture. The resource provides fascinating and authoritative art historical and cultural information about art forms, artists, rulers, philosophers, architecture, renowned works of art, archaeological sites and stylistic developments. Notable important subjects include the Apollo Belvedere, Carthage, the Euphronios krater, the Laokoon, Troy, the Venus de Milo and much more. Encompassing over four thousand years of artistry and innovation, this resource spans every art form, medium and civilization from Cycladic, Minoan, Helladic, and Etruscan art to the fall of the Roman Empire. Drawing upon the unparalleled scholarship in The Dictionary of Art (1996), and adding dozens of newly commissioned entries on recent archaeological discoveries, fully updated bibliography and over 600 illustrations, this publication sets a new standard in Classical studies. Less
An Introduction to Greek Art by
Woodford has met the obligation of her title with skill and tact; her book is based on her long experience of presenting Greek art to the public at the British Museum. She has written a concise introduction to Greek figured art from the 8th to the late 4th century BCE and has complemented the informative, well-organized text with a representative selection of photographs, instructive drawings, and a useful glossary. Her analysis of the artworks-painted vases, free-standing and relief sculpture, and architectural sculpture-provides a reliable guide for the beginner, whether student or tourist. Readers will surely be stimulated to study the objects of Greek art more closely both in their presence and in the library. Recommended for college and public libraries.-R. Brilliant, Columbia University
The Parthenon by
Oscar Wilde compared it to a white goddess, Evelyn Waugh to Stilton cheese. In observers from Lord Byron to Sigmund Freud to Virginia Woolf it met with astonishment, rapture, poetry, even tears--and, always, recognition. Twenty-five hundred years after it first rose above Athens, the Parthenon remains one of the wonders of the world, its beginnings and strange turns of fortune over millennia a perpetual source of curiosity, controversy, and intrigue.
At once an entrancing cultural history and a congenial guide for tourists, armchair travelers, and amateur archaeologists alike, this book conducts readers through the storied past and towering presence of the most famous building in the world. Who built the Parthenon, and for what purpose? How are we to understand its sculpture? Why is it such a compelling monument? The classicist and historian Mary Beard takes us back to the fifth century B.C. to consider the Parthenon in its original guise--as the flagship temple of imperial Athens, housing an enormous gold and ivory statue of the city's patron goddess attended by an enigmatic assembly of sculptures. Just as fascinating is the monument's far longer life as cathedral church of Our Lady of Athens, as "the finest mosque in the world," and, finally, as an inspirational ruin and icon. Beard also takes a cool look at the bitter arguments that continue to surround the "Elgin Marbles," the sculptures from the Parthenon now in the British Museum. Her book constitutes the ultimate tour of the marvelous history and present state of this glory of the Acropolis, and of the world.
The Parthenon Enigma by
Built in the fifth century b.c., the Parthenon has been venerated for more than two millennia as the West's ultimate paragon of beauty and proportion. Since the Enlightenment, it has also come to represent our political ideals, the lavish temple to the goddess Athena serving as the model for our most hallowed civic architecture. But how much do the values of those who built the Parthenon truly correspond with our own? And apart from the significance with which we have invested it, what exactly did this marvel of human hands mean to those who made it?
In this revolutionary book, Joan Breton Connelly challenges our most basic assumptions about the Parthenon and the ancient Athenians. Beginning with the natural environment and its rich mythic associations, she re-creates the development of the Acropolis--the Sacred Rock at the heart of the city-state--from its prehistoric origins to its Periklean glory days as a constellation of temples among which the Parthenon stood supreme. In particular, she probes the Parthenon's legendary frieze: the 525-foot-long relief sculpture that originally encircled the upper reaches before it was partially destroyed by Venetian cannon fire (in the seventeenth century) and most of what remained was shipped off to Britain (in the nineteenth century) among the Elgin marbles. The frieze's vast enigmatic procession--a dazzling pageant of cavalrymen and elders, musicians and maidens--has for more than two hundred years been thought to represent a scene of annual civic celebration in the birthplace of democracy. But thanks to a once-lost play by Euripides (the discovery of which, in the wrappings of a Hellenistic Egyptian mummy, is only one of this book's intriguing adventures), Connelly has uncovered a long-buried meaning, a story of human sacrifice set during the city's mythic founding. In a society startlingly preoccupied with cult ritual, this story was at the core of what it meant to be Athenian. Connelly reveals a world that beggars our popular notions of Athens as a city of staid philosophers, rationalists, and rhetoricians, a world in which our modern secular conception of democracy would have been simply incomprehensible.
The Parthenon's full significance has been obscured until now owing in no small part, Connelly argues, to the frieze's dismemberment. And so her investigation concludes with a call to reunite the pieces, in order that what is perhaps the greatest single work of art surviving from antiquity may be viewed more nearly as its makers intended. Marshalling a breathtaking range of textual and visual evidence, full of fresh insights woven into a thrilling narrative that brings the distant past to life, The Parthenon Enigma is sure to become a landmark in our understanding of the civilization from which we claim cultural descent.
Treasures of Ancient Greece by
Surveys the achievement of the ancient Greek civilization as revealed by its material culture, most notably, its architecture, sculpture, and vase painting
Ancient Greece : the traditions of Greek culture by
These illuminating programs, filmed on location across Greece, present the religion, architecture, art and customs of Greek culture which have survived throughout its 4,000 year history.This unique DVD affords us the opportunity to witness the traditions which are the foundations of Western Civilization.
Ancient Greek Art Periods
Geometric (c. 900 BCE - 700 BCE)
Archaic (c. 8th century BCE - 480 BCE)
Classical (c. 480 BCE - 323 BCE)
Hellenistic (c. 323 BCE - 31 BCE)
