Transcript of Ancient Aegean Art

Ok! Our next review is the introduction to the ancient Aegean, so we'll be covering the Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean cultures in this lecture -- focusing in on the area of Greece. So this is mainland Greece -- modern-day Greece today We'll be starting off in some of the islands here in the Aegean Sea, then moving down to the island of Crete, right down here, and finally to what's called the Peloponnese -- this area where the Mycenaean culture was really thriving later on. So that'll be our main focus today, so the islands, then down to Crete, then up to the Peloponnese here. So beginning with the Cycladic culture, we focus in on these islands, which you can see a little bit more clearly here, as we zoom in this picture and then this is zooming in on a variety of the islands there, so isands like Paros, and Syros. You can see all those in this slide. The types of sculptures that we see in the Cycladic culture tend to look a little bit like this. So this is an example -- this is our key work from the Cycladic culture, and it's a male lyre player, so a man that's playing a harp -- a kind of harp or musical instrument. You can see a little duckbill suggesting a kind of bird head, suggesting the kind of music that's being played there. And the figures themselves are very geometric from this period, and that's how they became very popular in the 20th century because it was very similar to the kind modernist aesthetic people that people appreciated in the 20th century. so a lot of people wanted these types of sculptures. These sculptures that were made of marble -- that now all the pigment had come off them. They're this very pure white color -- the pigment was gone and you have these very geometric forms, so the head is generally reduced to an oval, the arms are very much reduced to simple forms, the harp or the lyre is very much reduced to simple forms, so this was very appealing to people in the 20th century -- appealing to modern artists, and this has led to a major problem of a lot of forgeries of these sculptures being produced, so it had to be relatively small -- some of them are quite large, and they can be many feet tall -- but a lot of them are smaller. This one's nine inches tall, so not even a foot tall. So, if you can get some marble from this area and some tools that would be similar to the types of tools that would be used at that time, if you can accelerate the aging process of the stone, you can have a forgery on your hands, so we do have this problem with forgeries with these Cycladic sculptures because they did become so popular beginning about a hundred years ago with the rise of modern art, so these are just two views of one that we do know what's called its "provenance", so we know the history of its excavation and collection and ownership, so and knowing a work's "provenance" is very important especially an ancient work of art because you don't want to have a work of art that could be a forgery, and you also don't want to have a work of art that was excavated illegally, so you want to make sure that you know where the excavation took place. Sometimes, you go to a museum and the work will say "Provenance Unknown", but they'll maybe make a guess about where it came from, so usually you like to know where the provenance is so you have the most complete information about the work and you can do the best interpretation of it by knowing that provenance. Next up, we have the Minoan culture going down to the area of Crete here. The representation of the human figure becomes a little bit less geometric in the Minoan period, and we also see evidence of a lot of extensive architecture during this period, so in the Cycladic period, we don't have any writing from that period, so what we see in the works of art, is primarily guesswork -- for example, the piece that we were just looking at, we presume -- because it was found in the area of a burial -- this is a figure that would entertain the deceased, someone to bring comfort to the deceased as they head off to the afterlife, but we don't have any writing from that period. We do have writing, however, from the Minoan culture, and also from the Mycenaean culture, so just keeping that in mind as we move forward. So we do see architecture in the Minoan culture, and we do see painting, and so we will look at some of that at the Palace of Knossos, which is the largest palace right here in the center of Crete. So here is the Palace of Knosses. You can see it's relatively complex in its overall form. It does possibly have this myth that seems to be related to it -- may be developed out of this particular Palace. We do call it the "Minoan" culture, and this comes from King Minos. This legendary or mythological king -- there's a number stories about him in mythology. And one of them has to do with a Labyrinth, so some people have begun to associate the labyrinth of King Minos with the palace that we see here. Based on what we have though, we know it was the largest palace on Crete during this period. It was built during what's known as "The New Palace period" between 1700 and 1400 BCE, after an earthquake had destroyed an earlier palace at the site. Previously, the Minoans were known as a very peaceful people. They don't seem to have had too much warfare the way the Mycenaeans did. However, there have been recent excavations that reveal some evidence of fortifications or walls, so it seems that warfare was a part of their lives, and eventually the palace will be sacked by the Mycenaeans, taken over by the Mycenaeans. Alright, so there you can see a reconstruction of the Palace of Knossos. The individual that came to lead the excavations: Sir Arthur Athens. He included a lot of restorations. You can see some of the columns restored there. You can see some of the fresco back here that is restored, so when the house was discovered, they did go ahead and do quite a bit of restoration that is now somewhat controversial, but the palace itself is very well visited by tourists, and I think having these restorations do help people in reconstructing or getting an idea of what the palace may have looked like, however, that materials are somewhat different than they would have been originally. So, you can see the complexity the palace where this idea labyrinth maybe had come from, and so you do you have this story about King Minos, and the story of the labyrinth, and this question of what's the mythology? What about the mythology is true? Was there actually a King Minos, or is it all just story that developed later on in ancient Greece. But the story is that there is this Palace of King Minos, and there was a Minotaur that lived in that maze or that labyrinth, and that the maze was constructed by King Minos' architect, and so the Minotaur was the son of Pasiphae, who was the wife of King Minos. King Minos had gotten in some trouble with [the god] Poseidon. She falls in love a bull belonging to the sea god Poseidon, and so she ends up having this Minotaur. And you can see this half bull/ half man, who's being killed by the Greek hero Theseus, so we see Theseus here. This is from a Greek vase painting. You can see the blood coming out, as he's being killed. So the Minotaur was really terrorizing people because he did require human tribute in his labyrinth, and so eventually especially the Athenians had had enough of this. They sent Theseus there. He kills the Minotaur and there's a whole story along with that, so possibly this "Palace of Knossos" could could be the starting point of that myth -- of that story about the labyrinth due to its complexity. As we look at the plan, we can see there's a large central court, extensive areas for storage, so-called throne rooms, possible areas to do with religion or worship, although the religion this period is not known. A lot of the details aren't known for certain. But again, you're just getting a sense of the complexity of the palace here. These are some of the reconstructions. Minoan columns start off quite thick at the top and then taper downwards to a smaller base, so just keeping that in mind. Originally, the columns would have been wood, and they've been replaced by cement. You can also see paintings back here -- probably of shields, so the Minoan shields were wide at the top, and then wide at the bottom -- leaving the area where the waist would be as a little bit more tapered inward. The most famous fresco at the "Palace of Knossos", which is heavily restored -- so the darker areas are original, the lighter areas are modern restoration and additions -- is "The Bull Leaping Fresco", so you see a figure grabbing onto the bulls horns. The bull will flick its head, that figure will flip onto the back of the bull, and then finally finish over here. These figures are sometimes thought to be women due to their lighter skin. This is presumably a man, so that's one suggestion, however, these women don't seem to have the kind of indications of breasts that we look for, but anyways another question to do with this fresco: is this religious or is this just entertainment? Unfortunately, we don't know for sure, but presumably this was a popular activity. We do see evidence of bull leaping in the ancient Near East, as well as in Egypt, so it does seem to have spread around the Mediterranean at this point. Alright, our final site is Mycenae, which is in the Peloponnesian region. The Mycenaeans moved on to Crete. They established themselves at Knossos. Mycenae was the most significant site of this period. It's located right about here, so right about here on this map, and eventually the entire civilization does fall and we're going to enter into the Greak "Dark Ages", but this does seems to have been very much a warring [military] period out -- very preoccupied with war, which is maybe where we got the story of the Trojan War because we hear about sites like Mycenae and Tiryns, and the cities that we hear about in the Trojan War seem to be thriving during this Mycenaean period. So we see impressive masonry [stone work], forms of corbeled vaults, which we sometimes call Cyclopean masonry. These really tall or really large stones creating these relatively tall forms of corbeled arches, where the stones are being laid down courses and then slowly closer and closer together to create what we call a false arch or a corbeled arch. So, the most famous site is Mycenae. It's known from Homer's poetry as the home of King Agamemnon. He was the brother, of course, of Menelaus, who was the husband of Helen, who, according to legend, was abducted in the Trojan War. If the Trojan War really did happen, it was probably at a place called "Hissarlik", which is in modern-day Turkey, and it probably took place about 1200 BCE, that is when we have a level of destruction that seems to have occurred at the city of Hissarlik. It doesn't seem to be as grand, however, as how it was portrayed in the poetry. The Iliad and Odyssey by Homer were composed later and they probably were passed down through oral traditions before that. This site was excavated by Heinrich Schliemann, who we see here and then his wife dressed up in some of the jewels that he discovered, so as I mentioned 1200 BCE is about the time when the war would have taken place if this war actually happened, however, mythology makes it much more grand than the excavations seem to reveal. We do have a few things surviving from Mycenae, however. We do have the lion gate -- the lion presumably warded off evil. They're surrounding a Mionan- style column. You can see this large, Cyclopean masonry, and you have what's called a "relieving triangle", so that the lion is this kind thin relief sculpture that isn't going to weigh down as much on that the lintel. So the idea is you create this "relieving triangle" -- this strangle that relieves the weight on the lintel and then leaves a space for decoration that's both functional and attractive, so warding off evil and protecting the city, and the idea was that anyone who approached this gate, you could easily attacked them from up above and from either side, and hopefully the lions would scare them off as well. We also find this kind of mask that was originally called the "Mask of Agamemnon," however it's about three hundred years too old based on when Agamemnon would have lived, if he actually did live. You can see it's a kind of beaten gold and would have been placed within the burial ground. It's in a Grave Circle that's now inside the city walls or was later put in side the walls my Mycenae, but originally was outside the city walls, but it does relate to this mythology of Agamemnon with what Heinrich Schliemann called it when he discovered it, however we know for sure the date is quite off here. And finally we have what's called the "Warrior Vase", which was found in a house just outside of the citadel of Mycenae, and what's exciting about this vessel is it comes from about exactly the time the Trojan War would have occurred, so about 1200 BCE. It's in the shape of a mixing bowl and the style isn't necessarily that refined, but you get a sense of some of the things that are mentioned in Homer's poetry such as the Boar's tusk helmets, so you can see there little tusks sticking out from the helmets. You can see these figures going off with the type of armor and shields that they would have carried. And it's interesting because you see a figure bidding them goodbye off to the side. So you see a woman here raising her arm and then these figures moving in the opposite direction and then on the other side you either have maybe an opposing army or an army that's joining with them, and the whole idea in the Trojan War was that a number armies banded together or came together all go save Helen. Presumably, if the Trojan War really did happen at the site of Hissarlik, it was probably over resources or other reasons not really over a woman, but that makes for a much better story. Next time, we'll be moving on ancient Greece after the Greek "Dark Ages."