G156

Athens

#13

Athens #13


Greek in 5 BCE

Athens 5th

  • 480 defeat P at Platea

  • 479 form league

  • 454/453 leagues treasury move from Delos to Akropolis

  • direct democracy: political equality and equality before law

  • kleidthenes reform, weaken aristocrats

  • Perikles constitutional reform, constructed Parthenon

  • 431 other cities form Peloponnesian League, 30 years war, 404 Athens defeated

Arts

480 end of Persian war

Early Classic: 480-450

  • figures with noble awareness and restrained emotion

  • Attribute virtue of moderation and self control as their victory over Persians

High Classic Mid 5th

  • Parthenon

  • Timeless, idealized serenity, beauty, calculated proportion

  • Transience of flickering treatment of wind blown hair and drapery

Literature

  • Most famous poet: Pindar

  • Aristocrats commissioned him odes for Panhellenic winners. aristocratic family strive for areté - excellence overcoming obstacles

  • Drama developed from dithyramb, coral song by fifty singers at festival

  • Festival of Dionysus: tragic poets do three and a satyr play; comic playwright do one play 

  • Masterpieces: Oresteia, Oedipus Tyrannus, Bacchae

Philosophy

  • End of century: arrived at theories based on observation and reason

  • Thales of Miletus: origin of matter

  • Leuciopus: atomic particles

  • Pythagoras of Samos: numeral structure

  • Socrates: equate Good with Knowledge

Greek 7th: one circle and two triangular or lines indicate 眼角

Greek 6th: eyes like inset with two circles and two triangle or lines indicate 眼角, fist hands sometimes not draw finger lines

Greek 5th: finger lines always there

women eyes are always fish eye (enclosed or two parallel lines up and dow) enclosing a pupil, naturalistic. 5th is when men gradually like women

Greek 4th: eyes as acute angle and popping eye (what we see eyes on profile view) represented by a curve

Statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton

  • most famous pair of statues in antiquity

  • Heroized figures were the only statues Athenian allowed in the Agora for 100 years

  • “Tyrannicide Group”

  • H: rise sword over head, ready to deliver a slashing downward stroke

  • A: cloak wrapped around outstretching left arm, read to thrust his sword with right hand

The Seven against Thebes: cut a lock of hair and tie to chariot that carries the lone survivor

Trireme

Fashion:

  • Belted peplos

  • chiton

  • high polo (headdress) - a goddess

  • Chlamys - short cloak

  • Petasos - broad brimmed hat

Principle coinage of Athens: Athens head on one side, owl the other

0825825

  • severe style: heavy drapery and quiet stance - sculpture of 2nd quarter 5th

\\ don the armor - put on

061021117

1st half 5th

  • main theme is victory over Persian, but mostly mythological, this is a rare one of actual battle

Panhellenic games at Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, and Ishmia 

Others games athletes compete in other cities:

Panathenaic games at Athens…

Athenian boys received three elementary educations at three places: 

  • read write arithmetic at various private institutions

  • lyre and sing from a lyre master

  • Gymnastic at palaestra

1723010

\\ a boy trudge to school carrying a writing tablet 跋涉

  • suggest they are playing school, pretend to be a teacher

Apollo

  • kithara: leader of nine muses and patron of arts

  • Attributes: bow, lyre

  • Youthful god presides wide variety of activities: imitation of boys into manhood to utterance of oracles

1972118128

  • long narrow face + wig like hair: early style

  • But legs are models underneath drapery: late 5th

\\ businesslike: (of clothing, fashion) practical not decorative

061141

  • late archaic style: sharply cut curls, narrow eyes, closed lip raised at the corners in a smile

L1999108

  • holes at a crown of head for meniskos: statuebmust have stood in the open

  • Many marble ears are perched for metal earrings

Herald’s staff: kerykeion

  • herald carry as travel from city to city

Herms: rectangular pillars with (mostly Hermes) deity head mark boundaries, at gateways and entrances to cities or towns

  • Hermes: guardian of boundary, protector of traveler

/ flat back of neck, coarse and groves hair: indicate herm head

Agora: Athenian public areas

2528

/ Greek masted 3d perspective very well: baby Herakles kneeing position

Hyakinthos: Apollo loved the youth but killed by accident throwing a diskos 

  • represented riding a swan: bird of Apollo

Centaur

  • 5th Centaur began to appear in monumental representations

  • Theseion wall paintings

  • Partheon also

Greek Religion

Twelve deities

  • Zeus: ox and oak tree are sacred to him

  • Two brothers Hades and Poseidon

  • Sister and wife Hera: cow-eyed, depicted wearing tall polo crown

  • Athena: full armor, snaky aegis (protective bib), helmet and spear. Also patroness of weaving and carpentry

  • Youthful Apollo: kithara lyre, or bow. Delphi sanctuary is center of universe

  • Apollo sister Artemis, patroness of hunting

  • Hermes: winged sandals and herald staff caduceus

  • Aphrodite: goddess of love

  • Dionysos: wine and theater

  • Ares: war

  • Lame Hephaistos: craftsmanship

1919211

  • simplified form, full jaw, thick eyelids: transitional work between Archaic and Early Classical

  • Despite smile, head gives seriousness of early 5th

12.59 marble steel

  • short hair, well defined jaw, unsmiling mouth: early 5th

1814561 Nike

  • wind blown drapery, ridge like folds of curved patterns: elegant mannered of late 5th to early 4

1972118110

  • sweet expression, hair in coils like a melon: 4th 

30113

  • regular feature and simplified plane of face impart a quiet dignity and serenity: high classical


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