1.
Glyptothek
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The Glyptothek is a museum in Munich, Germany, which was commissioned by the Bavarian King Ludwig I to house his collection of Greek and Roman sculptures. It was designed by Leo von Klenze in the Neoclassical style, today the museum is a part of the Kunstareal. He envisioned a German Athens, in which the ancient Greek culture would be remembered, colorful frescoes and stuccos made by distinguished artists such as Peter von Cornelius, Clemens von Zimmermann, and Wilhelm von Kaulbach adorned the walls of the museum. In the few years between 1806 and the opening of the museum in 1830, Ludwig completed a collection of Greek. Through his agents, he managed to such pieces as the Medusa Rondanini, the Barberini Faun, and, in 1813. The museum was designed in the Classical Greek - Italian style, the portico is Ionic, and the outer walls contain niches, in which 18 original Roman and Greek sculptures stand, six on each wall. The thirteen rectangular, square or round rooms are arranged around a courtyard, in front of the vestibule is the portico of twelve Ionic columns. The overlying gabled includes a group of Johann Martin von Wagner represents Athena as protector of the plastic arts, the exterior walls are adorned with sculptures in niches, while the windows are open to the interior courtyard. The sculptures represent mythical or historical representatives of the arts, these are in the front of the Königsplatz Daedalus, Prometheus, Hadrian, Pericles, Phidias, the museum was originally built completely out of marble. However, during World War II the museum was bombed, the walls from the interior are composed of red brick and painted with a light plaster. The Glyptothek contains sculptures dating from the age to the Roman era. Other notable sculptures, mosaics and reliefs can also be found here and this collection is complemented by the terracotta and bronze collections in the Staatliche Antikensammlung, which is located opposite the Glyptothek. Among the most famous sculptures covering Archaic Greece are the Munich Kouros, the Kouros of Tenea, of the latter, there are in fact two sets of similar sculptures at the Glyptothek. The Greeks had not bothered to clear the area, and had left the remains of the temple buried at the same location. The most famous sculpture representing the Hellenistic period is the Barberini Faun, among the famous Roman copies of Greek sculptures are the Boy with the Goose and the Drunken Woman. The Glyptothek keeps a collection of Roman busts, among the most famous ones are the busts of the Emperors Augustus, Nero, Septimius Severus. A heroised statue portrays Domitian as prince, to the major attractions belong also a colossal statue of Apollo from a Roman villa in Tuscany, several Roman sarcophagus reliefs and mosaic floors. An imitation of the style is the Roman head of a youth in bronze
2.
National Gallery of Denmark
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National Gallery of Denmark is the Danish national gallery located in the centre of Copenhagen. The museum collects, registers, maintains, researches and handles Danish, the major part of the museums older collections comes from the art chambers of Danish kings. The display of European Art 1300–1800 is a collection of art over the 500-year period, featuring works by Mantegna, Cranach, Titian, Rubens. The art is spread over thirteen rooms, and is the oldest art collection in Denmark, with a emphasis on Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Italian, French, Spanish. Danish and Nordic Art 1750-1900 charts Scandinavian art from the beginnings of Danish painting through the ‘Golden Age’ to the birth of Modernism and it displays over 400 works through 24 galleries. It features work by Abildgaard, Eckersberg, Købke, Ring, SMK gained its modern French art collection in 1928 when it was donated by the late collector Johannes Rump. This collection features some of the museum’s most famous pieces from artists such as Matisse, Picasso, Derain and Braque. The collection was first offered to the SMK by Rump in 1923, housed in the museum’s 1993 extension, this 20th and 21st century collection is predominantly focused on the most important examples of modern Danish art. A long corridor of paintings looking onto Østre Anlæg park works as an overview of the work from this period. The beginnings of this collection were made around the time of Christian II, in his diary from 1521 the German painter Albrecht Dürer says he has given the King the best pieces of all my prints. In 1843 the various works, which had so far been the private collection, were displayed to the public. It was then moved into the Statens Museum for Kunst when the first building was completed in 1896, along with The Royal Collection of Paintings, although the papers contain a great number of foreign works, Danish art constitutes the main part of the collection. This collection is open to the public through the Print Room, the Royal Cast Collection is held at the West India Warehouse, Toldbodgade 40, between The Little Mermaid and Nyhavn in Copenhagen. It consists of over 2,000 naked plaster casts of statues and reliefs from collections, museums, temples, churches, the Royal Cast Collection is only open for special events. At the start of the Second World War the art of antiquity became increasingly unfashionable, associated with an archaic artistic tradition. In 1966, as abstract art became popular, the Royal Cast Collection was removed to a barn outside Copenhagen for storage. The collections of the Danish National Gallery originate in the Art Chamber of the Danish monarchs, when the German Gerhard Morell became Keeper of Frederick Vs Art Chamber about 1750, he suggested that the king create a separate collection of paintings. To ensure that the collection was not inferior to those of other European royal houses and local counts, the collection became particularly well provided with Flemish and Dutch art
3.
Myron
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Myron of Eleutherae, working c.480 BC -440 BC, was an Athenian sculptor from the mid-5th century BC. He was born in Eleutherae on the borders of Boeotia and Attica, according to Plinys Natural History, Ageladas of Argos was his teacher. The traveller Pausanias noted that sculptures by Myron remained in situ in the 2nd century CE, the Early Imperial Roman writers consistently rated Myron among the greatest of Greek sculptors, a sign that his contemporaneous reputation had remained high. The heifer seems to have earned its fame mainly by serving as a peg on which to hang epigrams, chionis, a 7th-century BC Olympic victor from Sparta, was commemorated in an idealized bronze by Myron. An epigram on Ladas, the fleetest runner of his time, notes that he was commemorated in a sculpture by Myron, of Myrons Ladas there is no known copy. A description by Lucian conclusively identifies as Myrons the Discobolus or Discus-Thrower, of several copies exist. Strabo also registers stray comments on Myron, especially a group at Samos. The full group is copied on coins of Athens, on a vase, the ancient critics say of Myron that while he succeeded admirably in giving life and motion to his figures, he did not succeed in rendering the emotions of the mind. This agrees with the extant evidence, in a certain degree, the bodies of his men are of far greater excellence than the heads. The face of the Marsyas is almost a mask, but from the attitude we gain an impression of the passions which sway him. The face of the discus-thrower is calm and unruffled, but all the muscles of his body are concentrated in an effort, a considerable number of other extant works were ascribed to the school or the influence of Myron by Adolf Furtwängler. These attributions have not stood up to the test of time, a papyrus from Oxyrhyncus gives dates of victors at Olympia of whom Myron made statues of the athlete Timanthes, victorious at Olympia in 456 BC, and of Lycinus, victorious in 448 BC and 444 BC. This helps us to fix his date and he was a contemporary, but a somewhat older contemporary, of Pheidias and Polykleitos. References Sources This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
4.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
5.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
6.
Severe style
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The severe style, or Early Classical style, was the dominant idiom of Greek sculpture in the period ca.490 to 450 BCE. It marks the breakdown of the forms of archaic art. It was a style found at many cities in the Hellenic world and in a variety of media including, bronze sculpture in the round, stelae. The style perhaps realized its greatest fulfillment in the metopes of the Temple of Zeus, another is the Kritian boy, c. S. Ridgway puts it, no longer a type but a subject. We can observe the characteristics of the period on its greatest masterpiece the Temple of Zeus, Olympia. Here we find a simplicity of forms, especially in dress and the absence of decoration, indeed this era sees a shift from the use of the Doric chiton to the Ionic peplos whose irregular groupings and folds better express the contours of the underlying body. There is further experimentation with the expression of emotion on the metopes of the depicting the labors of Herakles. More especially, in the face the eyelids acquire volume, often appearing as thick rims around the eyes. The Severe period owes its name to this most evident of all its traits, from this point of view the term Severe describes the style more accurately than the terms transitional or early classical, which stress continuity rather than difference. A change in drapery, readily apparent in two forms, a shift from Doric to Ionic fashions, a change in the treatment of the folds, so that the final effect resembles corrugated iron. One aspect of this phenomenon is an increase in characterization, the basic Kouros type now becomes sharply differentiated into either Apollo or a human being, and the difference no longer rests on the attributes held by the statue. Apollo is recognizable not only through a certain grandeur or ethos, the increase in characterization, with its potential for narrative, is obviously accompanied by an interest in the mechanics of expression. The range goes from quiet brooding to worried forethought to physical distress, emotions or physical distress are usually dependent upon strain or action. Thus traits 3 and 4 combine to produce a series of statues in motion, of the Severe artists whose names have come down to us there are in addition to Kritios and Nesiotes already mentioned also Pythagoras, Calamis and most notably Myron. Why this naturalizing trend should emerge in early 5th Century Greek art has been a matter of scholarly speculation. Renate Thomas summarizes the contending views thus, The significance of the Late Archaic period remains unclear, did the “Discovery of the Mind” in the sixth century produce two different effect, one of which produces new sets of laws through reflection upon traditional norms. Vagn Häger Poulsen, Der strenge Stil, studien zur Geschichte der griechischen Plastik 480-450, Kopenhagen 1937 V. Knigge, Bewegte Figuren. München 1965 F. Schachermeyr, Die frühe Klassik der Griechen, rome 1981 R. R. Holloway, The Severe Style, New Evidence and Old Problems, in, Numismatica e antichità classiche, Quaderni Ticinesi 17,1988
7.
Kenneth Clark
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Clark was born in London, the only child of Kenneth MacKenzie Clark and Margaret Alice McArthur. The Clarks were a wealthy Scottish family with roots in the textile trade and his great-great-grandfather had invented the cotton spool. Kenneth Clark the elder, reputedly the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo, had retired in 1909 at the age of 41 to become a member of the idle rich. Clark was educated at Wixenford School, Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford, in 1927 he married a fellow Oxford student, Elizabeth Jane Martin, who was Irish and the daughter of Dr. Emily Winifred Dickson, first female Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. The couple had three children, Alan, in 1928, and twins Colette and Colin in 1932, greatly influenced by John Ruskin and a protégé of the most influential art critic of the time, Bernard Berenson, Clark quickly became the British art establishments most respected aesthete. After a stint as fine art curator at Oxfords Ashmolean Museum, in 1933 at age 30 and he remains the youngest person ever to hold the post. The following year he also became Surveyor of the Kings Pictures, as Director of the National Gallery he oversaw the successful relocation and storage of the collection to avoid the Blitz and continued a programme of concerts and performances. In 1939, Clark visited Australia, and later referred to it as that intolerable continent, adding that Australian galleries had the worst art, as Director of The National Gallery he wrote Southampton Art Gallerys acquisitions policy which included a growing collection of modern oil paintings. He was also an advisor to the Ministry of Information commissioning Dylan Thomas amongst others to write scripts for propaganda films, in 1946 Clark resigned his directorship in order to devote more time to writing. Between 1946 and 1950 he was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford. He was a board member and also served as Chairman of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1955 to 1960. In the preface to his book, The Nude, a study of art, Clark wrote. There is difficulty of form, a survey would be long and repetitive. And there is a difficulty of scope, since Jacob Burckhardt no responsible art historian would have attempted to cover both antique and post-mediaeval art, in 1955, Clark bought Saltwood Castle in Kent. Kenneth Clark was created Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1938 and he was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1976. In 1959, he received the Grand Decoration with Sash for Services to the Republic of Austria and he was one of the founders, in 1954, of the Independent Television Authority, serving as its Chairman until 1957. In 1969 he wrote and presented Civilisation for BBC television, a series on the history of Western civilisation as seen through its art, afterwards Clark was persuaded to write a book version of Civilisation but lamented that without the visual and musical accompaniment it was weak. Also broadcast in the US on PBS in 1969, Civilisation was successful on both sides of the Atlantic, gaining Clark an international profile, according to Clark, the series was created in answer to growing criticism of Western civilisation, from its value system to its heroes
8.
Cameo (carving)
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Cameo is a method of carving an object such as an engraved gem, item of jewellery or vessel made in this manner. It nearly always features a relief image, contrast with intaglio. Today the term may be used loosely for objects with no colour contrast. This derives from another generalized meaning that has developed, the cameo as an image of a head in a frame in any medium. In cheaper modern work, shell and glass are more common, glass cameo vessels, such as the famous Portland Vase, were also developed by the Romans. Modern cameos can be produced by setting a carved relief, such as a portrait and this is called an assembled cameo. Sometimes dyes are used to enhance these colours, sir Wallis Budge alleged that the noun Cameo apparently comes from Kameo, a word used in kabbalistic slang to signify a magical square, i. e. A kind of talisman whereupon magical spells was carved, stone cameos of great artistry were made in Greece dating back as far as the 3rd century BC. The Farnese Tazza is the oldest major Hellenistic piece surviving and they were very popular in Ancient Rome, especially in the family circle of Augustus. Roman Cameos became less common around in the leading up to 300AD although production continued at a much reduced rate right through the Middle Ages. The technique has since enjoyed periodic revivals, notably in the early Renaissance, the Neoclassical revival began in France with Napoleons support of the glyptic arts, and even his coronation crown was decorated with cameos. In 1852 Théophile Gautier titled a collection of his highly polished, during the Roman period the cameo technique was used on glass blanks, in imitation of objects being produced in agate or sardonyx. Cameo glass objects were produced in two periods, between around 25 BC and 50/60 AD, and in the later Empire around the mid-third and mid-fourth century. Roman glass cameos are rare objects, with only two hundred fragments and sixteen complete pieces known, only one of which dates from the later period. Blanks could be produced by fusing two separately cast sheets of glass, or by dipping the base glass into a crucible of molten overlay glass during blowing, the most famous example of a cameo from the early period is the Portland Vase. Although occasionally used in Roman cameos, the earliest prevalent use of shell for carving was during the Renaissance. Before that time, cameos were carved from hardstone, the Renaissance cameos are typically white on a grayish background and were carved from the shell of a mussel or cowry, the latter a tropical mollusk. In the mid 18th century, explorations revealed new shell varieties, helmet shells from the West Indies, and queen conch shells from the Bahamas and West Indies, arrived in Europe
9.
Attica
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Attica is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece. The historical region is centered on the Attic peninsula, which projects into the Aegean Sea, the modern administrative region of Attica is more extensive than the historical region and includes the Saronic Islands, Cythera, and the municipality of Troizinia on the Peloponnesian mainland. The history of Attica is tightly linked with that of Athens, Attica is a triangular peninsula jutting into the Aegean Sea. It is naturally divided to the north from Boeotia by the 10 mi long Cithaeron mountain range, to the west, it is bordered by the sea and the canal of Corinth. The Saronic Gulf lies to the south, and the island of Euboea lies off the north, mountains separate the peninsula into the plains of Pedias, Mesogaia, and Thriasion. The mountains of Attica are the Hymettus, the portion of the Geraneia, the Parnitha, the Aigaleo. Four mountains—Aigaleo, Parnitha, Penteli and Hymettus —delineate the hilly plain on which the Athens-Piraeus metroplex now spreads, Athens water reservoir, Lake Marathon, is an artificial lake created by damming in 1920. Pine and fir forests cover the area around Parnitha, Hymettus, Penteli, Myrrhinous and Laurium are forested with pine trees, whereas the rest are covered by shrubbery. The Kifisos is the longest river of Attica, according to Plato, Atticas ancient boundaries were fixed by the Isthmus, and, toward the continent, they extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes. The boundary line came down toward the sea, bounded by the district of Oropus on the right, during antiquity, the Athenians boasted about being autochthonic, which is to say that they were the original inhabitants of the area and had not moved to Attica from another place. The traditions current in the classical period recounted that, during the Greek Dark Ages, Attica had become the refuge of the Ionians, who belonged to a tribe from the northern Peloponnese. Supposedly, the Ionians had been forced out of their homeland by the Achaeans, supposedly, the Ionians integrated with the ancient Atticans, who, afterward, considered themselves part of the Ionian tribe and spoke the Ionian dialect. Many Ionians later left Attica to colonize the Aegean coast of Asia Minor, during the Mycenaean period, the Atticans lived in autonomous agricultural societies. The main places where prehistoric remains were found are Marathon, Rafina, Nea Makri, Brauron, Thorikos, Agios Kosmas, Eleusis, Menidi, Markopoulo, Spata, Aphidnae, all of these settlements flourished during the Mycenaean period. According to tradition, Attica comprised twelve small communities during the reign of Cecrops, strabo assigns these the names of Cecropia, Tetrapolis, Epacria, Decelea, Eleusis, Aphidna, Thoricus, Brauron, Cytherus, Sphettus, Cephisia, and possibly Phaleron. These were said to have been incorporated in an Athenian state during the reign of Theseus. Modern historians consider it likely that the communities were progressively incorporated into an Athenian state during the 8th. Until the 6th century BC, aristocratic families lived independent lives in the suburbs, only after Peisistratoss tyranny and the reforms implemented by Cleisthenes did the local communities lose their independence and succumb to the central government in Athens
