Content Area 2:
Ancient Mediterranean
3500 BCE – 300 CE
PART TWO
APAH - Valenzuela
36 Works

Sub Units:
a. Ancient Near East (Stokstad Ch. 2)
b. Ancient Egypt (Stokstad Ch. 3)
c. Aegean / Ancient Greek (Stokstad Ch. 4 & 5)
d. Etruscan / Ancient Roman (Stokstad Ch. 6)

Part III
Aegean Art & The Art of Ancient Greece
Stokstad Chapters 4 & 5
Required Images from AP: 11

The Aegean in The Bronze Age...
Since AP doesn’t include Aegean art in your
image set, this will be a BRIEF overview of the
art of the Aegean. I would encourage you to
READ chapter four so you have some
background, as it is the foundation for Greek
art. It WILL be on your next test.

Aegean Cultures & Periods:
Cycladic: 3000-1600 BCE (Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea) *Produced stylized
statuettes of nude standing females and nude males playing musical instruments
Minoan: 1900-1375 BCE (Island of Crete) *Built mixed-use palaces with complex
ground plans
Mycenaean: 1600-1100 BCE (Greece) *Built massive citadels marked by cyclopean
masonry and corbelled vaulting Aegean art’s three main civilizations:

Fresco Secco - Dry
(Egypt)
Buon Fresco - Wet
(Aegean)

Mask of Agememnon;
Mycenae, Gold, National
Museum in Athens

The Cyclades

The Minoans: Crete

Minoan Architecture:
Palace Complex at Knossos c. 2000-1375 BCE

Minoan Sculpture

Mycenaean Art & Architecture

Art of Ancient Greece
Stokstad Chapter 5
AP Required Works: 10

Greek Artistic
Periods:
Archaic
(600-480 BCE)
Classical (480-
323 BCE)
Hellenistic
(323 - 30 BCE)

H
I
S
T
O
R
Y

EU: Greek art is characterized by pantheon of gods (particular set of gods;
literally a pantheon is a temple or house of worship) that are represented by
intricately done images of them decorating large civic or religious buildings.
● Greek art is studied chronologically according to changes in styles
● Greek works are not studied according to dynastic rule, as in Egypt, but
according to broad changes in stylistic patterns
● Greek art is most known for idealization and harmonic proportions, both in
sculpture and in architecture.
● Greek art has had an important impact on European art, particularly in the
18th century.

EU: Much ancient writing survives in the fields of literature, law, politics and
business. These documents shed light on Greek civilization as a whole, and on
Greek art in particular.
● Greek writing contains some of the earliest contemporary accounts about art and
artists.
● Epics form the foundation of Greek writing. The texts were at first transmitted
orally, but later recorded in writing.

Greek Art & Periods
Geometric Period
The Orientalizing Period
The Archaic Period
The Early Classical Period
The High Classical Period
The Late Classical Period
The Hellenistic Period
The Classical Period

Greek Pottery

Tomb Pottery:

Geometric Period

Orientalizing Period

Archaic Period
600 - 480 BCE
Ajax and Achilles Playing a Game, Exekias, black
figure amphora, later 6th century, 61cm, Vatican
CIty Museum

archaic sculpture

Statue of a kouros (youth), ca. 590–
580 b.c.; Archaic
Greek, Attic
Naxian marble; H. without plinth 76 in.
(193.04 cm)

A cast and painted cast of the Peplos Kore in
the Museum of Classical Archaeology in
Cambridge, England.
The original is in the Acropolis Museum.

Classical Period
(c.480-323 BCE)

Early Classical
High Classical
Late Classical Hellenistic Period

THE CHIASTIC PRINCIPLE

Doric + Ionic

The Erechtheion

Side A

Side B

Aphrodite of Knidios
Late Classical -350 BCE
marble
Artist: Praxiteles

Hellenistic Period of Greece:
Art & Architecture
323 - 31 BCE

Important to Note:
● Hellenistic Greek States were governed by Kings unlike previous
periods where they were democratically ruled by their citizens.
● These rulers were specifically interested in exotic goods and
amassed a great deal of them through building commercial
relationships with cultures from all over Eurasia
● People moved freely throughout the Hellenistic world and
everyone spoke a common language, koine, a kind of colloquial
Greek.

A Few More Notes:
● With this newfound modernity, people also felt alienated and alone. At one time,
they were in complete control of every detail of government and society, and now
they were governed by bureaucrats.
● This feeling of alienation can be seen in the art of the time and read in both
philosophy and literature.
● Both the art and the writing of the time reveals feelings of intensity, desperation,
great emotion and toil, and even protest against commercialism and modernity.
● Art specifically expressed the importance of the individual and represented actual
people as opposed to gods and ideal perfection.

by Athanadoros,
Hagesandros, and Polydoros
of Rhodes
Laocoön and his Sons,
early first century C.E.,
marble, 7'10 1/2" high
(in the Vatican Museum)

Photo by
Mrs. V
at
The Louvre

Dying Gaul, ancient
Roman marble copy of a
lost bronze Greek
sculpture, c. 220 B.C.E.

Acropolis of
Pergamon

ENDURING UNDERSTANDING 2-4.
The art of Ancient Greece and Rome is
grounded in civic ideals and polytheism. Etruscan and Roman artists and architects
accumulated and creatively adapted Greek objects and forms to create buildings and
artworks that appealed to their tastes for eclecticism and historicism.
Essential Knowledge 2-4a.
Ancient Greek art was produced in Europe and western
Asia, primarily in the region of present-day Greece, Turkey, and southern Italy, from
600 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. Etruscan art (c. 700–100 B.C.E., from the region of Etruria
in central Italy) and ancient Roman art was produced in Europe and western Asia
from c. 753 B.C.E. to 337 C.E. The arts of these early western artistic cultures are
generally studied chronologically. Additionally, archaeological models and stylistic
analysis have identified periods based on stylistic changes. Artworks are assigned
to periods according to styles (e.g., archaic Greek), governments, or dynasties (e.g.,
the Roman Republic).
Essential Knowledge 2-4b.
Art considered Ancient Greek includes works from the
archaic, classical, and Hellenistic periods, as defined according to artistic style,
not by political units such as governments or dynasties. Etruscan art is typically
considered as a single cultural unit even though Etruria was comprised of separate
city-states. Roman art includes works from the republican, early imperial, late
imperial, and late antique periods, as defined using governmental structures and
dynasties rather than stylistic characteristics. Many Hellenistic works are in fact
Roman in origin, which favors presenting these traditions at the same time.

Essential Knowledge 2-4c.
Ancient Greek, Etruscan, and Roman artists and
architects were influenced by earlier Mediterranean cultures. Ancient Greek
religious and civic architecture and figural representation are characterized by
idealized proportions and spatial relationships, expressing societal values of
harmony and order. Art from the Etruscan and Roman periods is typified by stylistic
and iconographical eclecticism and portraiture. Etruscan and ancient Roman art
express republican and imperial values, power, and preference for conspicuous
display. Etruscan and Roman architecture are characterized by investment in
public structures. Roman architecture is also characterized by borrowing from its
immediate predecessors (Greek and Etruscan) and by technical innovation.
Essential Knowledge 2-4d.
Ancient Greek and Roman art provides the foundation
for the later development of European and Mediterranean artistic traditions. From
the 18th century onward, European and American observers admired ancient Greek
and Roman ethical and governmental systems, which contributed to prioritizing
art and architecture that could be associated with political elites and cultural
capitals (e.g., Rome). More recently, art historians have examined art produced by
contemporary subjects or “provincial” populations.

ENDURING UNDERSTANDING 2-5.
Contextual information for ancient Greek and
Roman art can be derived from contemporary literary, political, legal, and economic
records as well as from archaeological excavations conducted from the mid-18th
century onward. Etruscan art, by contrast, is illuminated primarily by modern
archaeological record and by descriptions of contemporary external observers.
Essential Knowledge 2-5a.
Some of the earliest written statements about artists
and art making survive from the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Little survives of
the rich Etruscan literary tradition that is documented in Roman sources.
Essential Knowledge 2-5b.
The Greek, Etruscan, and Roman cultures shared a rich
tradition of epic storytelling (first orally transmitted, later written) that glorified
the exploits of gods, goddesses, and heroes. The texts recorded a highly developed
rhetorical tradition that prized public oratory and poetry. Religious rituals and
prognostications were guided by oral tradition, not texts.

Πεπερασμένος!
(Finished!)