CA Greeks Accomplishments in Painting Discussion Replies

reply to students:

1-Dourus – Jason, Athena and the Dragon c. 475 BCE

Jason, the hero of this narrative, is having the most unheroic day of his life (so far). After a 15 round slobber-knocker with a monster, he is literally limp from exhaustion,  down for the ten count, and halfway down the lizard’s maw.

Athena, at last, comes to his aid. 

Personally speaking, there are times when all the fight you have to offer against a terrible situation is just not enough.  One must call upon somebody with more muscle than you have, be it a friend, a relative or an immortal god, to pull you out of the alligator’s mouth. I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone. 

That is the moment, expressed with marvelous restraint, we see here.  

It may be a copy or a variation of a lost wall painting, or it may be an original invention, but that hardly matters. It’s very hard to correct mistakes in this unforgiving media and so the drawing was executed in one, very assured, go. 

That is impressive enough.   

The ancient Greeks wrote extensively about their accomplishments in painting. If it was equal to their sculpture it must have been good indeed.  Unfortunately almost nothing has survived. The Greek legacy in two dimensional art is entirely graphic and ceramic. These illustrated amphoras (storage vessels)  and kylexs (large, flat drinking cups) are the only Greek renderings that come down to us. Fired clay is VERY permanent stuff and vessels of some kind were often found in Ancient tombs or in archeological  digs, so we have a lot of it, from many artists who’s names are sometimes known. This graphic is the ideal balance between expressive drawing and classical composure, an ideal that I have always aspired to. People who are all about a jazzy styles usually need more and balance and composition. People who are all about balance and composition usually need more jazz.

This example not only unifies those two formal ideas, but speaks to a very human concern.   JD

2- AFor the purposes of this discussion post I selected the work of art by an unnamed classical Greek sculptor titled “Woman Adjusting Her Sandal”, dated approx. 460 BCE. The first reason I selected this piece is one of the groundbreaking concepts in Greek art we’ve been learning about, the ability of their sculptors to create and master the visual appearance of fabric clinging to flesh in a piece carved and chiseled out of solid stone. I have to admit that to me this concept is the same as jet engines and commercial airliners – as many times as it’s explained to me, as many times as I can read or hear a well-articulated explanation of how it works, it still might as well be voodoo or black magic. In context of modern technology or new 3D printers I can understand it, but to think this level of craftsmanship was in full play two-and-a-half millennia ago is just incredible.

Another reason this piece also stood out to me in context of our recent course learning is how the ancient Greeks kind of “broke the mold” of typical artwork up to that point – I feel like this is a perfect “case-in-point” of that concept. This isn’t a depiction of some super human deity creating the heavens, or saving a mortal, or damning a mortal eternally. In it’s most basic form, this is really just a portrait of a normal woman adjusting her sandal. Using art to highlight the beauty of normal day-to-day happenings, rather than reaching exaggeratedly to infer beauty from some supernatural happenings that may or may not have actually occurred, well I guess that just makes more sense to me and speaks to me personally. But I’ve still much to learn I suppose. This piece also struck me as it was from our ancient Greek grave stele segment and that highlighted another universal human truth to me, the fact that whether ancient, modern or future culture, our own mortality and the pending unknown of the afterlife are an eternal source of inspiration. And a source of massive unexplainable fear, and passion, and discomfort – all of the above really. No matter a given culture’s actual or perceived level of enlightenment some things never change, and art seems to be the perfect frame for that concept for better or worse.