WEBVTT 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:15.000 Hi everyone, this lecture is about the Bronze Age and Archaic Greece. So we're going to be, working with 3 different time periods for this section on Greece. 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:25.000 The first is the Bronze Age. We'll be going over that in this lecture. 3,000 to 1,000 BCE. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:37.000 This is called the Bronze Age because of the use of bronze materials. Archaic Greece is going to be 600 to 480 BCE. 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:46.000 And then we'll be covering the classical period, 500 BCE and forward in a different lecture. 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:52.000 So, the Bronze Age centers around art production in 3 different areas. One is the cyclides. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:01:08.000 So these are the islands. In the center of the Aegean C, they're called the cyclides because they're kind of in a circular format thinking about cycle bicycle. 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:19.000 So kind of this round a formation of islands. We have another artistic center on the island of Crete. 00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:28.000 Minoan culture and then finally there is a some settlements on mainland Greece in Mycenae. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:35.000 This is also called the Holatic culture. 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:45.000 So in the cyclides during this time period, there appears many of these sculptures, they're made out of marble. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:51.000 We're going to see that the Greeks loved working with marble and also with bronze. 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:58.000 And it's about 2 feet high. This particular one is now at the metropolitan Museum in New York City. 00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:06.000 So we're looking at this female figure and the reason we know it's female is the presence of breasts. 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:17.000 We also have the presence maybe of some kind of genitalia here with this marking. So we have identified this. 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:28.000 As a woman. So we think about other sculptures of female figures that we've looked at, the much older Venus of Willendorf. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:32.000 But the same idea, right? Look at the position of the figures. They have a standing pose. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:43.000 This one here has the presence of a nose. While the Venus of Willendorff doesn't. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:44.000 But we can see the arms. Crossed over the chest in the Venus of Willendorf. 00:02:44.000 --> 00:03:01.000 They are over her breasts. In the cyclides figure they are under her breasts. We have a little bit of a protruding belly, not as much as the Venus of Willendorf. 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:09.000 And then again, these standing legs. So. We've talked about, you know, possible interpretations of the Venus of Willendorf. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:14.000 Is this having something to do with fertility? Is this some kind of deity? So that may be what is also going on here. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:30.000 In Greece, even though this is 20,000 years later, the ideas of a woman's body symbolizing fertility still remain. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:39.000 This is a side view so you can see the very beautifully carved head has somewhat of a curve to it. 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:53.000 And there were lots of these figures found. This wasn't just the only one. So all kind of similar, right, with the arms crossed around the belly, this kind of standing pose, the same kind of protruding nose. 00:03:53.000 --> 00:04:00.000 So it turns out that these actually had faces painted on them. They weren't just this kind of blank face. 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:07.000 This was found in the contemporary period to have been painted. So you can see there were the appearance of eyes, eyebrows. 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:16.000 Maybe some kind of marking. On the cheek and then the lips. 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:25.000 This is another example of one of these figures. This is a liar player. You can see the musical instrument on the lap is somewhat like a harp. 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:40.000 It's a very beautiful constraint instrument and this person is sitting and playing this musical instrument. So, Pablo Picasso, a contemporary artist working in the twentieth century, was very inspired by these art forms from the Cyclades. 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:59.000 And there was a collection of these at the Louvre Museum and when Picasso lived in Paris he would go to the Louvre and make sketches and you can see this work woman with joined hands has a similar form, right? 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:08.000 We have the face, the very long nose in the center, the square shoulders, the arms kind of folded across the body. 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:14.000 And so Picasso often gets talked about as an artistic genius, right, who's come up with these modern forms all on his own. 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:25.000 But he did it, right? He was looking at different art forms. He was getting inspiration from other art. 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:34.000 So I really want to challenge this idea that anybody can be an artistic genius just coming up with random ideas out of their head. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:40.000 We're always influenced by our environment, things we see. Other artworks, other people, and Picasso was no different. 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:52.000 We know that Picasso also was very influenced by the African art that he also saw in the Louvre Museum on the left-hand side the orange face is a Picasso on the right hand side is an African mask. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:06:05.000 So again, you know, Picasso looking to Africa and the abstraction of African art and being really inspired by that. 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:13.000 Here's another example of a Picasso on the left and an African mask on the right. 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:27.000 Okay, so we're going to focus in on one particular site in the cyclades. This is the city of Akrotiri on the island of Sarah, which is now known as Santorini. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:37.000 So Santorini has a reputation today of being kind of like a party island but this also has archaeological sites on it. 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:45.000 So I hope you get the chance to go there one day. And see some of these archaeological cities, right, that still remain. 00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:56.000 So Akrotiri is located here on the island. You'll notice that the island has this kind of circular shape and then there's little bit of formation in the center that's because this island used to be a volcano. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:08.000 That exploded. And when it exploded, it blew off. All of the land that was here. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:16.000 So this was filled in at 1 point. It was a complete circle. But because of the volcanic eruption. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:28.000 Part of the island is now gone because it has been blown out into the ocean. So, Akrotiri is located on this side of the island. 00:07:28.000 --> 00:07:43.000 Here you can see it's here underneath the roof structure. This is something that archaeologists do to preserve the the site underneath right so the archaeological site has been covered up. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:50.000 This is what it looks like underneath. So excavations about the city, how was it organized, how were the buildings arranged. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:57.000 And they found something really interesting. A lot of these buildings were painted with beautiful murals on the wall. 00:07:57.000 --> 00:08:09.000 So people were living in these very colorful homes. You can see here this is a wall of a beautiful landscape scene with hilly mountains of red, blue, and yellow, a beautiful flowers and birds, right? 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:18.000 So people weren't living in these, you know, stark homes with no paint on the walls, right? 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:39.000 They actually were enjoying scenes right in their home. We're gonna focus on this particular wall. It's been recreated so you can see kind of the full picture of what was on on this person's home. 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:40.000 We can see a pair of antelopes with kind of beautifully curvy lines of their body. 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:55.000 They're in motion. One's looking back at the other. And then this other wall here has a very interesting scene. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:57.000 Sorry. There, I knew I had a detail of it. It's 2 boys that are boxing. 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:11.000 And this is a preview. Into things that Greeks love. They love sporting events. Men were the ones who were able to participate in these events, not women. 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:31.000 And so we can see here this mural of these boys practicing their boxing they have on navy glove hand mits their heads are partially shaved with these 2 long tufts of hair. 00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:38.000 So that was a style. A very interesting hair style of your head mostly shaved except for these long pieces of hair coming out. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:54.000 And we can see that they are, not really clothed and that's because for athletic competition, it wasn't really about wearing clothing, right? 00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:07.000 It was about doing these things in the nude or mostly nude. And so we can see that here with this mural on the wall. 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:17.000 Okay. So now we are going to focus in on some other art of the archaic period. So we're gonna start with this sculpture. 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:23.000 So we've come forward in time. Please know, 590 to 580 BCE. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:31.000 So the sculpture is about 2,500 years older than now. It's made out of marble. 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:40.000 One of the favorite materials for ancient Greece and it is 6 feet 4 inches high. So it's actually quite a large sculpture. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:45.000 This one is also at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, so it's called the New York. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:50.000 4. Kuros just means a youth, a young man. And these statues were used for a couple of different purposes. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:59.000 Number one, they were used as grave markers. So if someone died and they were buried, you might put a corros to remember them and mark their spot. 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:21.000 Sometimes they were offerings to gods and sometimes they were a representation of a god himself, Apollo, who was the god of the son responsible for moving the sun across the sky. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:30.000 So I really want to compare the Kuro's figure to the sculpture of ancari and queen that we looked about. 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:42.000 Let we looked at in ancient Egypt. So what are the similarities and differences here and what does that tell us about the values of Egypt versus Greece? 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:52.000 Well, the first thing that really stands out to me is that,cari and Queen are clothed and the Kuro's figure is completely in the nude. 00:11:52.000 --> 00:12:16.000 The Greeks loved the male nude body that for them that was the the top of what you could admire the top beauty was the male body not the female body so the Greeks don't want put clothing on their male sculptures because they want to admire the the forms, the musculature. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:20.000 So, mancari and queen, you know, they're not going to be in the nude, right? 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:29.000 These are specific people. This is their portrait. So they are going to be shown with this clothing that identifies them as royalty. 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:35.000 Whereas the chorus figure, that's a more general idea, right, of youth of beauty. 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:41.000 So it's not that important. That that person is closed because it's not really specific. Portrait of someone. 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:52.000 I also notice the hairstyle, right? So, Omen Car and Queen, he's wearing his headdress. 00:12:52.000 --> 00:13:03.000 She probably has a wig on and the chorus figure has this very interesting kind of plated braid hairstyle, long hair that goes down to kind of mid back. 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:10.000 I'll show you a back view in just a minute. Similarities? Opposed, right? 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:14.000 Very similar. The chorus figure stands with their left foot slightly forward, just like Mencare and Queen. 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:28.000 The chorus figure, hands at the side, clenched fists, just like Macari and Queen, a very frontal pose, right? 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:35.000 So standing up, looking straight out, you know, not looking down or making eye contact with the viewer. 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.000 Just looking straight out ahead. And I think that has to do with the function of these statues, right? 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:52.000 It was both for both of these. There is this relationship to memory. Right? This idea of monumentalizing someone that has died. 00:13:52.000 --> 00:14:13.000 And so remembering them into the future. So that facial expression, the kind of neutral, looking out in the distance that has to do with this purpose of these sculptures are meant to be timeless and eternal. 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:26.000 I wanted to bring this in because I really enjoy this work. This is a very abstracted sculpture by a Japanese American contemporary artist named Usamu Nukuchi. 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:30.000 He calls it Koros. He made it in 1,945. It's made out of marble. 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:43.000 And it's also in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So you can see the Greek Kuros and then you can see Noguchi's koros which has the same pink shaded colorful stone. 00:14:43.000 --> 00:14:53.000 Maybe there's a presence of a figure, a head, a shoulder, a leg, right, but it's an abstracted form. 00:14:53.000 --> 00:15:09.000 So I just wanted to show this to you because I think it's kind of fun. To think about as a contemporary artist how you can abstract things from the past, right, and create a new artwork. 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:19.000 So this figure goes through some development as well. We can see in 590 to 5 80. 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:24.000 We come forward. 50 years in time. How's the figure changed? So that's something I want you to think about. 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:41.000 In, in the questions, right? How have the body. Changed in 50 years. 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:47.000 So here is the back view. We can see there is a hair tie. Some definition in the elbows. 00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:57.000 The legs. But we see that foot forward, right? The left foot forward. 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:12.000 So this is in the archaeological museum in Athens. It's called the Anavistos Kurus, also very, very tall, 6 feet 4 inches. 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:19.000 And this particular sculpture had an inscription that went along with it. Which is very helpful for us. 00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:29.000 So the inscription says, stay and mourn at the monument of dead Croyso's who raging airy slew. 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:37.000 As he fought in the front ranks. So this is great. This gives us a clue about who this was used for. 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:43.000 This was a funerary monument to a person named Kroesos. And what happened to Chrysos? 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:54.000 He died in battle. Ares is the Greek god of war. So he, Croyso's was fighting in the front ranks, very brave, and dies on the battlefield. 00:16:54.000 --> 00:17:09.000 And so this Kuros is placed at his gravesite. To encourage people to stay and reflect. On crisis, this warrior. 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:20.000 And so the sculpture, right, is very youthful, very, very muscular. But again, this kind of neutral expression in the face, right? 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:31.000 Timeless. It's called an archaic smile because it's about this idea of being at peace, right? 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:40.000 This idea of contentedness, having moved on, right, to the beyond afterlife. So. 00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:47.000 We can see that this sculpture was originally painted. There's little bits of the paints left on the hair. 00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:54.000 Also the pupils were painted so the eyes weren't just blank. They were actually looking out. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:08.000 But we can see the sides of the mouth are kind of pulled into this almost smile, right? It's not a full smile, but it's this idea of transcending to the next life. 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:23.000 I like this detail because we can see the beautiful hair. There's curdles above the forehead and then these grades that are coming down the back. 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:36.000 Okay, so what has happened to the figure? In 50 years. So that is the question for you. 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:46.000 So there were! Statues of Women. They were called cori, not chorus, so Cori is a young woman. 00:18:46.000 --> 00:19:00.000 This particular woman is wearing a peplose, which is a garment. You can see down below it would have been like a tonga or a white cloth tied at the shoulders. 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:07.000 And so you can see it's also cinched at the waist here. So what was this used for? 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:19.000 It might have been an offering to a god that was the kind of original interpretation of these statues. But later interpretations have considered its location. 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:24.000 So that particular Corey was found at the Acropolis, which is a temple in Athens. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:36.000 We're going to talk more about this building. 2 in a different lecture. But some scholars started to think maybe this was supposed to be a representation of a goddess herself, not an offering. 00:19:36.000 --> 00:19:41.000 To a goddess. And if we know these sculptures were painted, then perhaps that painting would have given some clue. 00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:52.000 Was it Athena? The goddess of wisdom? Was it Artemis, the goddess of hunting, right? 00:19:52.000 --> 00:20:01.000 Maybe she had a bow and arrow in her hand. We don't know. If we look at the top of our head There are little metal pieces sticking out. 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:10.000 So perhaps she had an amazing crown. On her head. On the right hand side you see an artist recreation. 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:22.000 What she may have looked like. Certainly she was painted. We can see the little bits of paint left on her hair and also on the pupils again. 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:28.000 Here's more imaginings, right? What could she have looked like? Maybe she was painted head to toe. 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:33.000 Maybe she had a fruit in her hand. Maybe she had some, you know, structure on her head where she was carrying something. 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:43.000 So many possibilities. 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:53.000 So I also want you to consider, this. Exhibition that just closed in March, the twentieth, 23. 00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:56.000 It was called Chroma and it was at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. You're gonna watch a little clip from it. 00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:14.000 And these scholars imagined, right? What these sculptures would have looked like and they made threed printed models and sculpted models and they painted them based on their research. 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:22.000 So it's really trying to give a picture that these sculptures were not white, they were very brightly colored. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:41.000 And you know, what were those colors, right? Like how bright were they? Here is the vase that is in the collection of the MET and here is the imagining right of what these colors might have been, what would it have looked like. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:48.000 Here is another, original Greek vase that shows an artist workshop. There is an artist here working on a statue. 00:21:48.000 --> 00:22:00.000 And he's painting it, right? So we know that these sculptures were painted. 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.000 So a little bit of backlash, the exhibition though I have to share with you, was just how intense the hues were. 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:18.000 So some scholars said, well, yeah, fine. Maybe you know the color. Maybe you know she was wearing a green shawl, but do we know it was this like kind of neon bright green? 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:28.000 Maybe was a more muted green. So, you know, this is one scholars opinion about how bright the saturation actually was. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:35.000 Maybe these colt colors weren't as fluorescent as they appear to be. But maybe they were. 00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:42.000 I like this sculpture because they think it's really interesting how the Greeks may have painted like layers of color. 00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:49.000 So you have the pink dress underneath. And then you have this kind of like gauzy green shawl on top. 00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:57.000 So where in the shawl do you have kind of the peak of color of the skin coming through the undergarments. 00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:03.000 So that's an interesting thing to consider as well, right? That color saturation. 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:09.000 All right, thank you very much.