1 Year History of Art Tutorial
1 Year History of Art Tutorial
2) There are three architectural styles in temple building in ancient Greece discuss the elements of the
building. Fill in the diagram of the Greek temple orders. (10)
5. Propylaea
a. The monumental gateway of the Acropolis was designed by the architect Mnesicles and
constructed in 437-432 B.C. It comprises a central building and two lateral wings.
9. Chalkotheke.
a. Was a building located on the Acropolis of Athens which housed the treasury of Athens. Named for
the bronze (chalkos) and other metals it contained it was located south-west of the Parthenon and
adjacent to the Brauroneion.
10. Pandroseion
a. Was a sanctuary dedicated to Pandrosus, one of the daughters of Cecrops I, the first king of Athens,
located on the Acropolis of Athens.
11. Arrephorion
21. Aglaureion
a. This sanctuary, built in a crack of the cliff on the northern side of the Acropolis, was dedicated to
Aglaurus, one of the daughters of Cecrops, the first king of Athens (see Herodotus' Histories, VIII,
53). It is there that the Athenian ephebes used to take the pledge of allegiance to their homeland,
invoking in it Aglaurus, along with Ares and other local and more "universal" divinities.
1. His homeland was Athens. For a short time, his apprentice was his sister's son Perdix. When Daedalus feared
that the boy would surpass him in talent, he murdered the boy by tossing him from the Acropolis of Athens.
He was then tried at the Areopagus and banished from the city.
2. He fled to Crete, where he began to work at the court of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae[AO2], in the
magnificent palace of Knossos. There he constructed a wooden cow for the queen to hide in to satisfy her
amorous longings for a white bull sent by Poseidon and by which she became pregnant with the Minotaur.
3. When the Minotaur was born, Daedalus built the Labyrinth to contain the monstrous half-man, half-
bull.
4. For years Minos demanded a tribute of youths from Athens to feed the creature.
5. Eventually, the hero Theseus came to Crete to attempt to slay the Minotaur.
6. Ariadne, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, fell in love with Theseus and asked Daedalus to help him.
7. Daedalus gave her a flaxen thread for Theseus to tie to the door of the Labyrinth as he entered, and by
which he could find his way out after killing the monster. Theseus succeeded, and escaped Crete with Ariadne.
Minos, enraged at the loss of his daughter, shut Daedalus and his son Icarus into the Labyrinth.
8. To escape, Daedalus built wings for himself and Icarus. They successfully flew from Crete, but Icarus'
wings melted when he flew too close to the sun, and he drowned in the sea. Daedalus buried his son and
continued to Sicily, where he came to stay at the court of Cocalus.
9. Minos then went in pursuit of Daedalus, hoping to trick the great inventor into revealing himself. At each
city he visited, Minos offered a reward to whomever could thread a spiral seashell. Eventually, Minos came to
Camicus in Sicily and presented the contest at Cocalus' court. Cocalus knew of Daedalus' talents, and gave
the shell to him. The clever Daedalus tied the string to an ant, place the ant at one end of the shell, and
allowed the ant to walk through the spiral chambers until it came out the other end.
10. When Minos saw that someone had solved the puzzle, he demanded that Cocalus surrender Daedalus. Cocalus
promised to do so, but he persuaded Minos to take a bath and stay for some entertainment. Minos agreed,
and was murdered by Cocalus' daughters.
11. The Athenians thought that a figure of such manifest intelligence and ingenuity had to be Athenian, and so they
contrived a geneology whereby Daedalus was the son of Metion, son the Erechtheus, the legendary founder of
Athens.
12. Daedalus served as something like a patron saint of sculptors.
1. Like modern day Freemasonry, the Eleusinian Mysteries were open to initiates of all walks of life, but there
were prerequisites to the 'greater' mysteries.
2. Details of the earliest rituals conducted at Eleusis have been clouded by the mist of time. And no wonder,
settlement at Eleusis dates back nearly 4000 years. What we do know is that later day rituals appear to have
been based on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which was written in the 8th century BC.
3. The 'lesser mysteries' took place in Athens in mid February in a sanctuary called the Agra, near Olympic
Stadium. It is believed that the rituals contained a sexual element or theme.
4. The 'lesser mysteries' served as prerequisites for the 'greater mysteries', which took place around the 22nd of
September (in our modern calendar) and lasted for 9 days; symbolic of Detemer's 9 day wandering in search of
her abducted daughter, Kore.
5. The high priests from Eleusis were escorted by a torchbearer along the 12 mile 'sacred way' to Athens. Upon
arrival in Athens, sacrifices were made to Athena at the Acropolis, to bless the forthcoming ceremony.
6. In preparation for the procession to Eleusis, ceremonies took place in the nearby Agora, including the bathing,
bloodletting, sacrifice and burial of a pig by each initiate. This signaled the start of the symbolic process of
letting go, or the death of one's 'self'.
7. Several days of ceremony ensued before the day of Gathering, or agrymos, when the initiates would assemble
in the Agora at the Eleusinion, a temple dedicated to the mysteries, to prepare for the pilgrimage to Eleusis.
This took place on or around the 27th of September, and from this point onward, the initiates were sworn to
secrecy
8. From the Eleusinion, the procession of initiates, called mystai, were led by priest and priestess through the
Agora to the Kerameikos, Athens ancient cemetery.
9. The theme of death, the shedding of one’s former 'self', intensifies from this point onwards. In addition to the
Dipylon (or double) Gate - the grandest in the world in its day, the Kerameikos boasted the Sacred Gate, which
marked the start of the official procession to Eleusis.
10. From the sacred gate, the mystai process for several miles along the 'avenue of tombs', again focusing the
initiates mind on death.
11. Next, the mystai were led to a particular spot where gephyrismoi, or 'bridge gests' were preformed. This
consisted of what we would call hazing, or mockery. The 'gests' were highly personal, and were intended to
further 'kill' the individuals concept of self.
12. Darkness would have descended by the time the mystai arrived in Eleusis. Here they would begin a two day
period of initiation. The rituals were highly secretive, but are believed to have included ceremonies at the
ancient well of Demeter and the nearby Cave of Hades, which was thought to be the entrance to the
underworld, as recounted in the Hymn to Demeter. Here initiates are believed to have prayed in the presence
of an omphalos, the navel of the world.
13. The ceremony climaxed at the Telesterion, a specially designed temple for the initiation of mystai. Initially, the
Telesterion was modest and quite intimate in size. Later, it was rebuilt to accommodate 3000 initiates
14. It is believed that prior to entering the great hall the high priest would administer an entheogen to enhance the
initiate's experience of re-birth.
15. Archaeologists believe that part of the secret of the ritual was the re-enactment of the reunion of Kore, or
Persephone as she was known to the mystai, and Demeter. Persephone's return from darkness is believed to
have triggered a hallucinogenic inspired reaction in the initiate, symbolising the rebirth of their new self.
16. Once the mysteries had completed, the mystai returned to the Eleusinion in the Agora in Athens to confer with
the 'council of 500', an act that illustrates how important the mysteries were to Greek society.
17. Historians tell us that the reason the Eleusinian Mysteries were permitted to carry on until late Roman times
was the fear that failure to pay homage to the reunion Demeter and Kore would result in nothing short of the
death of Greece, and the obliteration of mother earth itself.
7) Why are there no examples of Greek painting and sculpture except what we see in the relatively minor
art form of pottery? (10)
1. As for the Archaic period of Greek art, painted pottery and sculpture are almost the only forms of art which
have survived in any quantity.
2. Greek painting is only seen in relatively minor art form of vase painting, The Ancient Greeks made pottery
for everyday use, not for display; the trophies won at games, such as the Panathenaic Amphorae (wine
decanters), are the exception.
3. Most surviving pottery consists of drinking vessels such as amphorae, kraters (bowls for mixing
wine and water), hydria (water jars), libation bowls, jugs and cups.
4. The Greeks, like most European cultures, regarded painting as the highest form of art.
5. The painter Polygnotus of Thasos, who worked in the mid 5th century BC, was regarded by later Greeks in
much the same way that people today regard Leonardo or Michelangelo, and his works were still being admired
600 years after his death.
6. Today none of his works survives, not even as copies. Greek painters worked mainly on wooden panels, and
these perished rapidly after the 4th century AD, when they were no longer actively protected.
7. Today nothing survives of Greek painting, except some examples of painted terra cotta and a few
paintings on the walls of tombs, mostly in Macedonia and Italy. Of the masterpieces of Greek painting we
have only a few copies from Roman times, and most are of inferior quality.
8. Even in the fields of sculpture and architecture, only a fragment of the total output of Greek artists survives.
9. For the Christians of the 4th and 5th centuries, smashing a pagan idol was an act of piety. One of the
sad facts of ancient history is that when marble is burned, lime is produced, and that was also the fate of the
great bulk of Greek marble statuary during the Middle Ages.
10. Likewise, the acute shortage of metal during the Middle Ages led to the majority of Greek bronze
statues being melted down. Those statues which had survived did so primarily because they had been
buried and forgotten, or as in the case of bronzes having been lost at sea.
11. The great majority of Greek buildings have not survived: they were either pillaged in war, looted for
building materials or destroyed in Greece¹s many earthquakes. Only a handful of temples, such as the
Parthenon and the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, have been spared.