The Periods of Greek Art

Greek art has many different periods that reflect the historical events of the time. The style of Greek art changes with the culture and the government such as the classical, archaic, and geometric Greek arti Geometric art and classical art are drastically different, where as Archaic art serves as a bridge between the two. Often times classical art is seen as superior to other forms of Greek art, especially the geometric period, because the artists focused on perfection over historical narrative.

Geometric art was popular from 900 to 700 BCE. and focused on bronze sculptures and terracotta vases. The time period was a rebirth of history and culture for the Greeks as they expanded their boarders towards the coast and the Greek alphabet was created. The cultural rebirth was reflected through an onset of visual art and poetry.Geometric art was centered around storytelling and relaying Greek narratives not esthetic quality.

The focus of geometric art from this time period is on using geometric shapes to illustrate stories from the time period The geometric art movement used geometric shapes; specifically horizontal and wavy lines to represent nature, circles and arcs to represent horses, and triangles to represent people The ocean scene was very popular in geometric art because of the expansion of Greece to the coastal boarders.

Terracotta vases were a focus in the city of Athens, where they were used daily for many different reasons such as transporting and storing goods The illustrations on the vases explained different Greek myths. There was very little known about geometric Greek art until the Dark Ages because many artifacts were destroyed during the Minoan period, However many of the geometric Greek artifacts were uncovered during the Dark Ages and people became interested in decoding the meanings of the geometric shapes, This was very difficult because the Greek vases lacked inscriptions and focused on story telling through geometric art themes (Geometric Art in Ancient Greece).

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The period that bridges the gap between geometric and classical art is known as archaic Greek art originating in 650 BCE.. It was during this time that Greek art began to turn from sharp geometric shapes to the portrayal of more natural figures. The archaic period acted as a bridge between the geometric and classical periods because they began to turn towards a focus on the human body while still describing the narrative aspect of an. The classical period came about beginning in 480 BCE. when Athens was in control of Greece. Athens was the most influential of all the city-states in art, culture, and government, this was known as the Golden Age of Greece, Greek art during the classical period took a dramatic turn from that of the geometric Greek art The classical period is often seen as superior to the geometric period because the focus turns from story telling to esthetic quality.

Perfection of the human form was considerably more important during the classical periodt Many of the statues were of Greek Gods in the nude focusing on the perfection of their muscles. Sculptures of figures in robes places importance on draperyt Because of the interest in perfecting the human form through art the classical period an turned from painting and vase making to sculpting the human form and depicting the human form in architecture. After Greece fell to the Roman Empire the beauty of Greek sculpting was copied in Roman marble. Many people believe because of the focus on perfection that classical art is superior to geometric an and achieves the highest quality of excellence Greek art changes drastically between the three periods. Reflecting culture and government the esthetic style begins to transform from focus on the narrative to perfection of human form, The transformation can be mainly attributed to the creation and growing popularity of the written word.