Download Ancient Greece: Fundamental Transition from

Science in the Arts
Ancient Greece:
Fundamental Transition from Convention-Based to
Observation-Based Art
Marek H. Dominiczak*
The realistic representation of the human figure is one
of the hallmarks of ancient Greek art. It reflects the
increasing importance of observation in that culture.
In painting and sculpture the transition from pure decoration to naturalist representation began in the Archaic period (600 – 480 BC), and continued through
the Pre-Classical (480 – 450 BC) and Classical (450 –
400 BC) periods of Greek history.
Artistic creativity was at least in part a result of
underlying societal and political change. The independent city-states (poleis) emerged in Greece in the
eighth century BC. In the sixth century, the Greek
world bordered the Persian Empire, which extended
from Thrace on the Greek mainland, through the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean, to Egypt and North
Africa and to India in the East. There were many trade
routes in the Eastern Mediterranean that linked the
Greek cities with the Levant, Egypt, and the Asia Minor. In addition, emigration from the homeland was
part of the Greek way of life, and by the sixth century
Greek settlements were established in southern France,
Italy, Egypt, and North Africa, as well as on the shores
of the Black Sea. Although the migrant Greeks retained
their language and rituals, they were exposed to local
cultures. The major conflict between the Greeks and
Persians erupted around 500 BC when some Greek cities in Asia Minor rebelled against Persian domination.
Subsequently, the Persians twice invaded the Greek
mainland. They were eventually defeated in 480 BC in a
sea battle at Salamis. Athens, the city-state that contributed most to the victory, achieved prominence in the
Greek world and was the main focus of Greek culture
throughout the Classical period (1 ).
Thus there was access to diverse art styles. Ancient
Egypt had a long tradition of painting and monumental sculpture. Egyptian painting conventions, such as
representation of persons using profile faces and fron-
College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow,
UK.
* Address correspondence to the author at: Department of Biochemistry, Gartnavel General Hospital, Glasgow G12 0YN, UK. Fax ⫹44141-211-3452; e-mail
[email protected].
Received July 31, 2014; accepted August 13, 2014.
© 2014 American Association for Clinical Chemistry
tal eye shape, were adopted by the Greeks. The more
organic, curvilinear forms probably came from the Levant and Persia. Interestingly, Levantine and Persian
influences were hardly highlighted—if not suppressed—
by the early historians of classical art, whose mantra
was the entirely independent evolution of the Greek
artistic style.
We know about Greek painters from the written
sources because no freestanding paintings survived. A
major source of our knowledge comes from the images
on pottery. The early vases produced in the so-called
Geometric period (900 –700 BC) had purely decorative
patterns. This gradually changed to painting of organic, mostly marine forms. In 700 – 640 BC the style
was strongly influenced by Egyptian painting, and this
became known as the Orientalizing period. Later still,
the scope of vase decoration broadened to scenes of
mythology and everyday life. Two main types of vases
are the black-figure vases (700 – 480 BC), invented in
Corinth, and the red-figure vases invented in Athens
around 530 BC (2, 3 ). In the black-figure pottery, human and animal figures were shown as black silhouettes with pale incised lines. The background was plain
and there were occasional red and white painted details. The figures on these vases are characteristically
2-dimensional. Although they show little anatomical
detail, there are attempts to show movement and draw
dynamic poses. Some vases contain a series of drawings
with complex narratives, such as those on the François
Vase created by the painter Kleitias and potter Ergotimos. The vase contains several bands (friezes) of
decorative patterns, animal figures, and mythological
scenes (4 ).
In the red-figure vases the figures were red and the
background black. A brush was used instead of a
graver; this allowed the artists to vary the thickness of
paint and thus present volumes more realistically.
There are also more anatomical details, and the stances
became anatomically correct. Drawing techniques get
more sophisticated with foreshortening and hints of
depth in the scenes. There are increasingly complex
folds and patterns on clothing, seen clearly in the work
of the painter Makron (5 ).
A parallel transition from convention to naturalism can be observed in Archaic sculpture, which
Clinical Chemistry 60:11 (2014) 1461
Science in the Arts
Acropolis in 1886 (8 ). It is one of the technically most
advanced pieces. There are traces of paint on the face,
and traces of dress pattern and delicately sculpted dress
folds. She wears a peplos, a woolen garment worn over
the shoulders. The predominant view is that the pottery painters were inspired by the free-standing painting and sculpture. Boardman points, for instance, to
the similarities between relief sculpture found in the
Siphnian Treasury in Delphi just before 525 BC and
paintings on some red-figure vases (9 ).
Interestingly, this increasingly naturalistic approach
in the arts loosely parallels the emergence of philosophy in
the Ionian Greek cities on the shores of Asia Minor, and
thus the reworking of the world view from myth oriented
toward observation based (10 ). Science and experiment
could not have emerged without this transition.
Author Contributions: All authors confirmed they have contributed to
the intellectual content of this paper and have met the following 3 requirements: (a) significant contributions to the conception and design,
acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (b) drafting
or revising the article for intellectual content; and (c) final approval of
the published article.
Authors’ Disclosures or Potential Conflicts of Interest: No authors
declared any potential conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgments: My thanks to Jacky Gardiner for her excellent
secretarial assistance.
Fig. 1. Kore no. 679, c. 550 to c. 480 BC (marble),
Greek School.
Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece. Bridgeman Images.
©Reproduced with permission.
evolved from small figurines, and reliefs created on the
pediments of temples, to large freestanding pieces.
These sculptures, at the beginning, also showed strong
Egyptian influences. The characteristic works are the
male (Greek kouroi, singular kouros, meaning “young
man”) and female (korai, singular kore, meaning
“maiden”) votive figures, which also served as grave
markers (6 ). Kouroi and korai were made in marble,
bronze, wood, and other materials. Most of them were
life size and showed a uniformly vertical stance. The
male figures were always nude and the female ones
were clothed. The first kouroi appeared in the seventh
century BC. Similarly to pottery painting, there is a
gradual emergence of anatomical detail, such as the
musculature of the early New York Kouros (7 ). The
kore shown in Fig. 1 is known as the Peplos Kore. It was
created around 520 BC and was found on the Athenian
1462 Clinical Chemistry 60:11 (2014)
References
1. Forrest G. Greece: the history of the Archaic Period. In: Boardman J, Griffin
J, Murray O, Eds. The Oxford history of Greece and the Hellenistic world.
Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1988.
2. Boardman J. Athenian Black Figure vases. London: Thames and Hudson;
1997.
3. Boardman J. Athenian Red Figure vases. The Archaic period. London: Thames
and Hudson; 1997.
4. Cartwright M. Francois Vase. Ancient history encyclopedia. http://www.
ancient.eu.com/Francois_Vase/ (Accessed July 2014).
5. Makron (vase painter). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makron_(vase_painter)
(Accessed July 2014).
6. Lapatin KDS. Kouros/kore. In: Brigstocke H, ed. The Oxford companion to
Western art. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2001. p 398.
7. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Heilbrunn timeline of art history. Statue of
a kouros (youth), ca. 590 –580 B.C. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/worksof-art/32.11.1 (Accessed July 2014).
8. Johnston A. Pre-classical Greece. In: Boardman J, ed. The Oxford history of
classical art. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1997. p 11– 82.
9. The Museum of the Goddess Athena. Siphnian Treasury East Frieze. Delphi
Museum. http://www.goddess-athena.org/Museum/Sculptures/Group/Siphnian_
Treasury_East_Frieze_x.htm (Accessed July 2014).
10. Thales of Miletus (c. 620 BCE - c. 546 BCE). Internet encyclopedia of
philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/Thales/ (Accessed July 2014; reaccessed
October 2014).
DOI: 10.1373/clinchem.2013.218354