Ancient Greek Art and Cultural Expression

1. Ancient Greek Art and Cultural Expression

2. 1) The Male Nude and Masculinity • The male nude was Greek sculpture’s central genre, just as the citizen male himself was the polis’s master, model, and microcosm

3. 1) The Male Nude and Masculinity • “Kouros”: young, autonomous, beautiful, and happy—visually seductive

4. 1) The Male Nude and Masculinity • “Warrior”: a hero—an Agamemnon or Odysseus; once bearing a shield, spear, and perhaps a helmet too, massively muscled and intimidating • Encapsulating the central role of masculinity in Greek culture; man is literally the measure of all things; especially, the centrality of warrior culture

5. 1) The Male Nude and Masculinity • only surviving as copy of the original; representing the perfectly measured man, whose behavior is a measured as his physique, an ethical standard for the classical polis. (Question: does Odysseus act in a measured way? How does he stray from the ideal man?)

6. 2) Hubris and Nemesis • The victory of nemesis (i.e. retribution) over hubris (arrogance, pride) was a staple of Greek sculpture

7. 2) Hubris and Nemesis • Gods defeating the Giants

8. 2) Hubris and Nemesis • a Trojan warrior shot in the chest, in death agony

9. 2) Hubris and Nemesis • again, defeat of the Giants, who are hideous hybrids, with snaky legs, wings, and sometimes animal bodies—deviants to be exterminated at all costs

10. 3) Women and Goddesses • Polis structure regarded women as “unfinished” men and constrained them by strict behavioral codes; goddesses, however, were autonomous and all powerful

11. 3) Women and Goddesses • “Kore,” beautifully dressed, with slightly downcast eyes, offering Athena an apple: a virgin votive to a virgin goddess

12. 3) Women and Goddesses • a goddess • note: body is merely a derivative of a man’s body

13. 3) Women and Goddesses • a more feminine, demure Athenian lady, attended by her slave girl; • head-covering representing her chastity, but ironically, her transparent drapery puts her body on display for the spectator—announcing that her husband has the most desirable wife in Athens

14. 3) Women and Goddesses • Aphrodite: depicting the essence of the love-goddess—her body. And thus the business of the sculpture was to reveal essences (the essence of beauty, womanhood, manhood, etc.); • yet, being a goddess, she still had to maintain her distance, hence the ethereal S-curve, the dreamy, sideways glance, and her modest gesture=> constructing the onlooker as a voyeur

15. 4) Life, Death, and the Gods • Major themes of art and literature: • Life and death • Relations with gods whose control seemed absolute, especially to early Greeks living in an uncertain world threatened by unseen powers • NB: pay attention to importance of proper burials in Odyssey

16. 4) Life, Death, and the Gods • the dead were honored with carefully controlled rituals that varied over space and time. In Attica, early customs among the elite dictated forms of visual remembrance that are well embodied in monumental funeral vessels used to mark the burial spot • On these vases scenes involving burial preparations of warriors and battles by land or at sea

17. 4) Life, Death, and the Gods • later forms: figured plaques depicting family scenes; hinting at generational continuity and introducing emotional elements

18. 4) Life, Death, and the Gods • even though Greece was a masculine world, women played a public role in the religious sphere