Greek Art and Archaeology from c.500 to 300 B.C.

IV.2. Greek Art and Archaeology from c.500 to 300 B.C.

The images and monuments of the fifth century B.C. made a decisive break with the visual modes of the archaic aristocracy and established the influential idea that images should try to look like what and whom they represent. This subject involves the study of the buildings of classical Greek cities and sanctuaries as well as the images and artefacts that were displayed in them, and one of its major themes is the swift emergence and consolidation of the revolutionary way of seeing and representing that we know as ‘Classical art’. The images and objects are best studied in their archaeological and broader historical contexts, and typical questions to ask about them would include: What were they used for? Who paid for them, made them and looked at them? And what ideas and priorities did they express in their local settings?

The course looks at the full range of ancient artefacts, from bronze statues and marble temples to painted pots and clay figurines. The Ashmolean Museum has a fine collection of relevant objects, especially of painted pottery, and the Cast Gallery houses plaster copies of many of the key sculptured monuments of the period, from the Delphi Charioteer and the Olympia sculptures to portrait statues of Demosthenes and Alexander the Great.

A wide range of lectures and classes are given throughout each academic year - on the sculpture, wallpainting, vase-painting, and architecture of the period, and on their archaeological contexts in sanctuaries, cities, and cemeteries.

Good brief introductions are: J. J. Pollitt, Art and experience in Classical Greece (Cambridge, 1972), and R. Osborne, Archaic and Classical Greek Art (Oxford 1998). For different modern approaches, you might try: T. Hölscher, 'Images and political identity: The case of Athens', in D. Boedeker, K. A. Raaflaub, Democracy, Empire, and the Arts in Fifth-century Athens (Cambridge, Mass 1998; Paperback 2003), 153-83, and R. R. R. Smith, 'Pindar, athletes, and the early Greek statue habit', in S. Hornblower, C. Morgan (eds), Pindar's Poetry, Patrons, and Festivals: from Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire (Oxford 2007), 83-139.