Archaic Greek Art

Not just the funerary kouros but also the votive kouros displayed wealth – perhaps more obviously. As well as the cost of commissioning the sculpture, dedicating it at a well-known sanctuary meant that the donator could afford to give it away and travel to do so. However it was not only kouroi that were left as offerings; there have been many other objects found at temples and sanctuaries such as bronze and wooden statuettes, tripod cauldrons and small-scale potteries. These dedications were offered as thanks for a past favour from the gods, or in anticipation of a future one.

As well as the types of sculpture already discussed, there were also those commissioned by the state in celebration of sporting and political achievement. Sparkes (2004) and Pedley both discuss the Tyrranicides – these bronze statues represent a “political symbol of democratic freedom” (Sparkes, 2004) and stress the successes of democracy overcoming tyranny. Displayed in public places, these kinds of political statues would serve to justify the places of the government in the minds of its citizens who would walk past them regularly. During the Archaic period much art was erected by the city at public expense; “patriotic displays” as Stewart calls them, again intending to make the public aware of the benefits of the government.

There is little doubt that today we regard sculpture and pottery to come out of the entirety of Ancient Greece, not just the Archaic period, as spectacular works of art, but whether the Archaic Greeks themselves thought of their achievements as ‘art’ is another matter entirely. Sculptors and potters were primarily tradesmen, not artists. They trained as apprentices, learning their trade thoroughly before setting out on their own.

Osborne (1998) states that: “very little Greek art of the archaic and classical period was created for the admiring gaze of the art connoisseur”. Its certainly true that all of what we nowadays would consider art – pottery, sculpture etc. – seemed to have had a primarily functional purpose in Archaic Greece. As Osborne (1998) puts it, “works of art worked”. Pottery had its place in the home, the number of variations of different types of pot alone demonstrate the wide-ranging uses they had in the household. Sculpture too had its purposes whether to show off the state’s prosperity, remind the populace of their achievements or commemorate the dead. Pedley discusses how all art tells stories and sends messages; on a personal level everyday pottery was meant to be handled up close and had “intimacy with the viewer”; on a commemorative level seen on grave markers which bring into mind the dead and their wealth and social status; on a religious level with temples and pottery describing the mythical histories of the city and its heroes; and on a political level as discussed earlier with the sculptures of the Tyrrannicides celebrating the triumphs of democracy. 

Bibliography

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Carpenter, T. H. Art and Myth in Ancient Greece: a Handbook (1991)

Keay, S. and Moser, S. Greek Art in View: Essays in Honour of Brian Sparkes (2004)

Osborne, R. Archaic and Classical Greek Art (1998)

Pedley, J. G. Greek Art in The Art Institute of Chicago (vol. 20 no. 1)

Pomeroy, S. B. (et al.) Ancient Greece: a Political, Social and Cultural History (1999)

Snodgrass, A. Archaic Greece: the Age of Experiment (1980)

Spivey, N. Understanding Greek Sculpture: Ancient Meanings, Modern Readings (1997)

Stewart, A. Greek Sculpture: an Exploration (1990)

Whitley, J. The Archaeology of Ancient Greece (2001)

Woodford, S. Images of Myths in Classical Antiquity (2003)