PrimeLuck ArtsAncient Greek art
Ancient Greek artists searched for ideal proportion and natural movement. Their sculpture, architecture and painted pottery shaped Western art for centuries.
- Period
- Ancient civilizations
- Approximate dates
- c. 900 BCE to 31 BCE
- Place of origin
- Greece and the Aegean
- Key regions
- Greece, Asia Minor, southern Italy and the Mediterranean
- Art forms
- Sculpture, pottery, architecture, relief
- Major artists
- Phidias, Myron, Polykleitos, Praxiteles
Visual introduction
The Parthenon
Ictinus and Callicrates (architects); Phidias oversaw the sculpture · 447 to 432 BCE · Marble · Acropolis, Athens
A temple that brings together proportion, sculpture and architecture of the Classical age.
Discobolus (Discus Thrower)
Myron · c. 460 to 450 BCE (Roman marble copies survive) · Bronze original, now lost · Copies in several museums
Shows a body caught in a moment of balanced action.
Winged Victory of Samothrace
Unknown · c. 190 BCE · Marble · Louvre, Paris
A Hellenistic work where windblown drapery gives a strong sense of movement and drama.
Historical context
Greek art developed in independent city-states such as Athens and Sparta. It is usually divided into the Archaic period, when figures were stiff and upright; the Classical period, around the 400s BCE, when balance and natural pose were achieved; and the Hellenistic period after Alexander the Great, when emotion and drama increased.
Much of what survives is later Roman copies, because the original bronze statues were often melted down. Greek sculpture and temples were also painted in bright colours, even though the surviving marble looks white today.
Visual characteristics
Form and proportion: the human body is studied closely and shown in balanced poses, such as contrapposto, where weight rests on one leg.
Architecture: stone temples built with columns in set orders: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.
Pottery: black-figure and red-figure vases show myths and daily life in sharp silhouettes, with fine incised detail.
Related movements
Sources and further reading
Further reading: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Tate, Art Terms. Smarthistory.