Art and Architecture in the Ancient World: Europe and the Mediterranean region

Introduction

Neolithic art (c. 8000-6000 b.c.e.) marks the rise of permanent agricultural settlements in Europe and the Mediterranean. In Europe, colossal stone megaliths were erected in alignment with the Sun at the solstices and equinoxes, attesting the rising importance of agriculture. Examples include Stonehenge (3100-1550 b.c.e.) on the Salisbury Plain, England, and long parallel ranks of stone monoliths (menhirs) found at Carnac (c. 4000 b.c.e.) in southern Brittany. Menhirs occasionally bear simple relief carvings of the horror vacuii (leaving no spot untouched) type. Other megalithic monuments include “table stones,” or dolmen, believed to be the remains of passage graves; cromlechs, or stone grave circles; and cairns, or stone mounds marking a gravesite.

In the Near East, Neolithic fortifications at Jericho (c. 8000-7000 b.c.e.) included a 5-foot-thick (1.5-meter-thick) brick wall more than 12 feet (3.7 meters) in height and a tower 30 feet (9 meters) in height and diameter. “Spirit traps” made from decorated human skulls found at Jericho (c. 7000-6000 b.c.e.) indicate cults of ancestor worship. Excavations at Hacilar and €atalhyk, in Anatolia (c. 6000 b.c.e.), reveal a Neolithic culture spanning eight hundred years. The settlement at €atalhyk consists of rectangular mud-brick chambers interconnected via common walls for easy defense. Interior decorations include wall murals depicting silhouettelike images of hunters as well as numerous shrines to an unknown bull deity. Clay statuettes from €atalhyk resemble earlier Paleolithic fetish objects, such as the “Venus” of Willendorf (c. 30,000-25,000 b.c.e.), and may represent homeopathic magic-making images.

Ancient Mesopotamia

This region encompassed the alluvial plain north of the Persian Gulf corresponding to modern-day Iraq. From circa 3000 to 300 b.c.e., several kingdoms rose successively to prominence in this semi-arid region. The culture of Sumer (c. 3500-2300 b.c.e.), a group of cities near the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, emerged as the first of the great Mesopotamian civilizations and therefore served as a paradigm for later development in this region. The Sumerian representational style, roughly contemporaneous with ancient Egypt, was widely emulated, especially its use of the simultaneous profile, which combines profile and frontal views of the figure. Artworks celebrate the power and prestige of the local gods and the ruler-king, whose power was usually absolute.

Sumerian images often incorporate sequential narrative, a pictorial device linked to the Sumerian invention of linear texts, as in the Standard of Ur (c. 2600 b.c.e.). Votive figures of carved marble are distinguished by their rigid frontal quality: For example, statuettes from Tel Asmar, Iraq (c. 2700-2500 b.c.e.), have their arms folded across the chest in solemn prayer with eyes wide and staring, outlined in black. A bearded bull, perhaps representing a legendary god-hero, appears as a design motif on a harp from Ur (c. 2600 b.c.e.).

Temples took the form of enormous step-pyramids called ziggurats, an example of which, the ziggurat of the Moon god Nanna, Ur (c. 2250-2233 b.c.e.), has been partly reconstructed. Built of mud brick and bitumen, ziggurats were topped by a shrine to which, it was believed, the god descended for earthly visits.

Principal Mesopotamian civilizations include Akkad (c. 2300-2100 b.c.e.), especially under the semilegendary Semitic ruler Sargon of Akkad (r. c. 2334 to 2279 b.c.e.) and his grandson Naram-Sin (r. c. 2200 b.c.e.), remembered in a victory stela; Babylonia (1900-1500 b.c.e.), especially during the reign of the famed lawmaker Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 b.c.e.), remembered in a stela; Assyria (c. 2300-612 b.c.e.), especially under Sargon II (r. 721-705 b.c.e.), notable for his palace complex at Dur Sharrukin (later Khorsabad); and Persia (c. 1000 b.c.e.-334 b.c.e.), especially under the Achaemenian kings Darius the Great (r. 522-486 b.c.e.) and Xerxes I (r. 486-465 b.c.e.), whose palace complex at Persepolis blends elements from earlier epochs: colossal Assyrian lamasu figures of winged bull-men, Egyptian ornamental details, and Ionian volutes and columns.

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt (c. 3100-300 b.c.e.) occupied the fertile river valleys bordering the Nile River. About 3100 b.c.e., the Lower Kingdom surrounding the Nile Delta and the Upper Kingdom extending south of Memphis were united by King Menes (also known as Narmer), who established his capital at Memphis, thus beginning the dynastic period. The first artist known by name is the Egyptian Imhotep (fl. twenty-seventh century b.c.e.), a figure mentioned in period writings as the “father of medicine.” Imhotep served as architect of the step pyramid tomb of King Djoser (r. c. 2687-2668 b.c.e.) at Saqqara.

Egyptian art revolved around the ruling pharaoh and his preparations for the afterlife. Preservation of the body through mummification provided a dwelling place for the ka, or vitalizing force. Sculptural ka portraits, such as the Khafre, from Giza (c. 2570-2544), served a purpose similar to that of spirit traps. Spare body parts were provided as well as small modeled servants (ushabti) for pharaoh to command.

Old Kingdom tombs (before c. 2200 b.c.e.) evolved from squat rectangular mastabas into the massive pyramids at Giza, whose form is thought to derive from the ben-ben, a fetish representing the beneficent rays of the Sun god Amun-Re. The Egyptian necropolis (city of the dead) included pyramid tombs, temples, and guardian statues such as the Great Sphinx at Giza (c. 2550 b.c.e.), carved from a spur of living rock elaborated with brickwork. Middle Kingdom rock-cut tombs, such as those at Beni-Hasan (c. 2000-1500 b.c.e.), consist of horizontal chambers cut into the rocky hillsides and fronted by column-and-entablature facades. New Kingdom mortuary temples (after c. 1570 b.c.e.) were located some distance from the burial site to confound tomb robbers. A notable example is the elaborate terraced temple complex dedicated to the female pharaoh Hatshepsut (r. c. 1502-1483 b.c.e.).

Pharaonic tombs included painted reliefs depicting scenes of earthly pleasures as well as rites of passage into the afterlife drawn from the Egyptian Book of the Dead (also known as Book of Going Forth by Day, Coming Into Day, compiled and edited in the sixteenth century b.c.e.). Among these is a cycle of paintings known as the psychostasis (soul-balancing), in which the deceased’s heart is tested against the feather of truth while a hybrid demon, the lesser god Ammit, stands ready to devour the unjust; an example of this type of painting is Last Judgment Before Osiris, Thebes (c. 1310 b.c.e.).

The Egyptian figural style derives from the seminal Palette of Narmer (c. 3150 b.c.e.). Relative size of the figures indicates relative importance; the king was always largest. Egyptian art is highly formalized, carved in accordance with mathematical canons of proportion to ensure conformity. Persons of lesser prestige and animals are represented in a more realistic manner, while persons of prestige are idealized. Relatively few stylistic changes occurred until the reign of the pharaoh Akhenaton (c. 1390-c. 1360 b.c.e.), whose courtly Amarna style is distinguished by its relaxed naturalistic compositions. A religious as well as an artistic reformer, Akhenaton embraced the cult of Aton, a solitary solar deity (Akhenaton means “he is pleasing to Aton”). Following Akhenaton’s death, however, the old gods and rigid artistic conventions were soon reasserted. The last Pharaonic dynasty (the Thirty-first) ended in 305 b.c.e., after Alexander the Great’s death, when one of his generals established a Greek-speaking dynasty in Egypt.

Preclassical Helladic civilizations

These civilizations, from circa 2500 to 1000 b.c.e., arose on the Peloponnese and the islands of the Aegean Sea. Principal among these was the Minoan civilization (c. 2500-1200 b.c.e.) on the island of Crete, a center of maritime traffic and cultural exchange. King Minos’s palace at Knossos (c. 1500 b.c.e.) is among the largest of the unfortified Minoan palaces; its rambling, mazelike plan may have inspired the myth of the Minotaur. Among the remarkable fresco fragments from Knossos is a portrait of a pretty green-eyed brunette nicknamed La Parisienne (c. 1500 b.c.e.) because of the subject’s uncanny resemblance to the young women of Paris. Also represented are frescoes (such as the Toreador fresco, also known as The Bull-Games, c. 1500 b.c.e.) of bull vaulting, a ritual that involved grasping the horns of a charging bull and somersaulting over, or perhaps onto, the animal’s back.

Minoan Kamares ware ceramic vessels such as the Octopus Jar, Gournia (c. 1600 b.c.e.), recovered near Phaestus, bear painted images of sea life, decorative whorls, and other sea-inspired patterns. Glazed statuettes of an unknown Minoan goddess or priestess, including the Snake Goddess, Knossos (c. 1600 b.c.e.), standing bare-breasted with open bodice and grasping a writhing snake in each hand, are also common.

In contrast, Mycenaean art (c. 1500-1200 b.c.e.) exhibits the warlike character of the Mycenaean kings inhabiting the Greek Peloponnese. Important citadel palaces at Tiryns and nearby Mycenae were protected by massive stone walls pierced by long corbeled galleries. Beehive tombs, such as the misnamed Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae (c. 1250 b.c.e.), employ corbeling to generate high ogival domes, some more than 40 feet (12 meters) in height and diameter. Relief carving above the lintel of the lion gate at Mycenae (c. 1250 b.c.e.) depicts two imposing heraldic lions, now partially ruined, flanking a column of the “inverted” Minoan type, evidence that such columns were revered as cult objects. Ancient Mycenae bore the Homeric epithet “rich in gold,” and the Mycenaean taste for metal craft is evident in artifacts recovered from shaft graves, including bronze dagger blades inlaid with gold and silver and gold repouss‚ work made by hammering a relief image from thin sheet metal. One example of this metalwork is the Vaphio cup (c. 1650-1450). Mycenaean repouss‚ funerary masks, such as the Mask of “Agamemnon” (c. 1550-1500 b.c.e.), bore a stylized likeness of the deceased.

Cycladic art (c. 2500-2000 b.c.e.) encompasses the Bronze Age cultures of the Cyclades Islands, which, because of their physical insularity, lagged somewhat behind the more developed cultural centers at Crete and the mainland. Marble plank idols ranging in size from several inches (five or six centimeters) to more than four feet (slightly over a meter) in length often accompany burials and most probably represent a goddess of rebirth. Seated male musicians holding lyrelike instruments made up a later three-dimensional variant in the Harp Player from Keros (c. 2500-2200 b.c.e.). Similar clay figures found on Crete and the Greek mainland suggest that these cultures enjoyed some contact, though not intensive enough to inspire a significant intermingling of traditions.

Classical Greece

The Hellenic Age (fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e.) marks the rise of the Greek city-states following the Persian armada’s defeat at the Battle of Salamis (480 b.c.e.). The art of Classical Greece, with Athens as its cultural epicenter, existed in service of philosophical ideals expressed through reasoned aesthetic principles. Its development can be traced through several evolutionary phases and substyles; in ceramics, simple repetitive geometric style designs, as in the Dipylon Vase (eighth century b.c.e.), evolve into increasingly complex representational images in black figure style, such as the Fran‡ois Vase (c. 570 b.c.e.), and a later red figure style represented by Euphronius’s Death of Sarpedon (c. 515 b.c.e.).

Sculpture was the favored art form of the ancient Greeks. Sculpted marble figures of the Archaic period (800-500 b.c.e.) manifest an “Egyptian stride,” especially evident in the nude male kouros figures, grave memorials formerly thought to represent the god Apollo (female counterparts are called kore). Earlier Archaic figures such as Kouros from Tenea (c. 570 b.c.e.) appear stylized and tentative. Faces present a generic type stamped with a distinctive “archaic smile” whose very ubiquity suggests a meaning other than happiness—perhaps the facial rigor of the deceased as a funerary marker. In just over one hundred years, however, the Greek kouroi sculptors mastered the subtleties of anatomical representation, including the elegant counterpoise of hip and shoulder when body weight is shifted onto one leg, called ponderation, as can be seen in Kritios Boy, Athens (c. 480 b.c.e.).

In Greek philosophy, as in Greek art, perfection of form was thought to go hand in hand with perfection of concept: For a thing to be perfect, it had to look perfect as well. Therefore, later classical sculptors (c. fifth century b.c.e.) developed canons of proportion thought to yield an ideal figure, as in Polyclitus’sDoryphorus (c. 440 b.c.e.). Most Greek marble carvings were painted, especially facial details and drapery, to enhance their verisimilitude; the pristine appearance of classical sculpture is entirely an accident of time.

Classical Greek architecture used mortarless post-and-lintel construction techniques. Temple forms are varied, but most incorporate a rectangular naos (or cella) fronted or surrounded by columns supporting a spanning entablature and gabled roof. The pediment, or triangular area beneath the roof gables, was frequently adorned with sculpture. Three classical orders are readily identified by their distinctive column capitals: the Doric Order with its plain cushionlike capitals; the Ionic Order with its elegant scroll-shaped volutes; and the Corinthian Order, originating from Asia Minor, with its bundled acanthus leaves.

The most famous examples of classical architecture are the temples on the Athenian Acropolis (literally, “hill city”), built in gratitude to the protector goddess Athena Parthenos. The Parthenon, a Doric temple with Ionic features (built by architects Ictinus and Callicrates in 447-432 b.c.e.), originally housed a 40-foot (12-meter) gold and ivory statue of Athena (now lost) by the sculptor Phidias, as well as the treasury of the Delian League. The Parthenon’s original relief carvings and pediment statues (by the workshop of Phidias) are now in the British Museum. The Erechtheum, a rambling Ionic structure built by Mnesicles (fl. fifth century b.c.e.) to commemorate a contest between Athena and Poseidon, contains within its compass several cult items: a sacred olive grove, a stone marked by Poseidon’s trident, a saltwater spring, and the tomb of the semi-legendary hero Erechtheus; therefore, the Erechtheum is asymmetric and built on two different levels. The south Porch of Maidens is famous for its caryatids, female figures used as supporting columns. The Propylaea built by Mnesicles, gateway to the Acropolis, contained a picture gallery-museum in its north wing.

The later period following the death of Alexander the Great of Macedonia (r. 336-323) was regarded as a decadent epoch by Roman scholars such as Pliny the Elder, who called it Hellenistic (meaning “Greek-like”); it has since come to be appreciated in its own right, however, for its distinctive emphasis on realism, movement, and emotion. Among the many Hellenistic masterpieces are the Nike of Samothrace (c. 190? b.c.e.) and Laoco”n by Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus of Rhodes (c. 100 b.c.e.), a work much admired by Michelangelo. Many surviving classical sculptures are actually Roman marble copies of lost Greek originals.

Roman art

In the two centuries following the birth of Christ, the Roman Republic expanded from a small Etruscan settlement to an Empire encircling the Mediterranean Sea and extending, at its zenith, well into Britain, North Africa, and Asia Minor—the entire known world. From an artistic standpoint, the Romans especially admired Greek culture and emulated it, employing Greek slaves as artisans; thus, Roman art continues the Classical Age begun in Greece in the fifth century b.c.e.

The Romans excelled at civic architecture, employing the round arch and its variants, the barrel vault, the intersecting groin vault, and the dome, in combination with decorative elements borrowed from Classical Greece, as in the Flavian Amphitheater in Rome (c. 80 c.e.). Roman architecture used concrete poured over stone rubble and faced with slabs of marble veneer. The Pantheon, a temple dedicated to the planetary gods (c. 125), incorporates most of the distinctive Roman architectural elements. Roman triumphal arches, such as the arch of Titus (c. 81), and columnar monuments, such as the column of Trajan (dedicated 113), feature reliefs commemorating significant military campaigns. Roman public monuments often bear the inscription SPQR, an abbreviation for Senatus Populusque Romanus (“the senate and people of Rome”).

Especially popular were the numerous Roman baths, the “people’s palaces,” which featured warm, hot, and cold pools, hence their Latin name thermae (“hot springs”). Notable examples are found in the city of Bath (Aquae Salis) in southwestern England and the ruined Baths of Caracalla in Rome (c. 215). Lavishly decorated, the baths provided the plebeian class with a taste of patrician comfort and splendor. A system of sloped watercourses called aqueducts, some more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) long, brought fresh water from distant mountain streams.

The ancient Romans worshiped ancestral gods (lars); therefore, portrait busts are plentiful. Sculptors offered stock figures for sale, carved “in the Greek style,” with blank or missing faces to be carved to order. Portraits of the emperors are idealized, dressed in military cuirass, and gesturing as if delivering a proclamation. The larger-than-life marble Augustus of Prima Porta (early first century c.e.) is a work of this type; the cupid astride a dolphin may allude to Augustus’s imagined link to the line of Aeneas, son of Venus and the founder of Roman civilization.

In the later Imperial era (after mid-second century c.e.), the realism of the Republican period gives way to a more stylized, doll-like figural type influenced by the art of Asia Minor. This later “decadent” type established the paradigm for most early Christian art.

Early Christian art

From about the second to third centuries c.e., the early Christians eschewed the worldly cultures of Greece and Rome for a higher didactic purpose: to teach the way to salvation by spreading the Christian faith. Physical beauty became a secondary concern. Early Christians were bitterly persecuted for suspected ideological sedition until the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306-337 c.e.) converted to the new religion after a battlefield vision. Constantine legalized Christianity through his promulgation of the Edict of Milan (313 c.e.) and later established Christianity as the favored religion of the Roman Empire (324 c.e.).

Stylistically speaking, early Christian art is a continuation of the late Roman decadent style; only the subject matter differs. Ironically, the old gods were occasionally pressed into Christian service as a ready link to the mythic past, for example, in Christ Depicted as Apollo Driving the Sun Chariot, vault mosaic detail, Mausoleum of the Julii, Rome (c. 250-275).

During the Great Persecution (303-313 c.e.), Christian rituals were secretly enacted in private homes. Hastily painted catacomb frescoes appeared in the mazelike burial passageways beneath the city of Rome. In the Recognition period (after 313 c.e.), the emphasis shifted to architecture. Churches emulated Roman meeting halls (basilicas) following either a central plan after the Greek cross, as at San Vitale, Ravenna (526-547 c.e.), or a longitudinal plan after the Latin crucifix, as at San Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna (c. 500). Church exteriors are unadorned, and interiors are ornate, reflecting the Christian dichotomy between body (debased matter) and soul (transcendent, immortal). Mosaics of coarse stone or glass incorporate denaturalized figures to avoid idolatry; sculpture was not favored, for obvious reasons.

Byzantine art

Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 c.e., the city of Ravenna, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, enjoyed a period of cultural ascendancy under Emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565 c.e.). A second capital had been established in 329 c.e. by Constantine at Constantinople (Istanbul, formerly called Byzantium) to serve the sprawling Eastern Empire. Byzantine art is characterized by Islamic influences filtering westward from the Eastern half of the empire, as evident in Haghia Sophia, a church in Constantinople (consecrated in 537 c.e.).

The Byzantine style continued the denaturalized forms of late Roman art but with a greater feeling for visual design. Images incorporated arabesque motifs borrowed from Islamic wall reliefs and the pages of the Qur՚ān. Figures became flatter and more stylized and took on a weightless quality. Mosaic remained the dominant medium for architectural decoration with gold backgrounds indicating that a scene took place outside of normal space and time, as in the apse mosaic The Second Coming, San Vitale (c. 547). The sanctuary mosaic at San Vitale of Emperor Justinian and His Retinue (c. 547) indicates relative importance of the personages by placement and overlapping (an ambiguity is evident in the placement of Justinian relative to Bishop Maximianus).

Art of the migration period

A great migratory wave of Germanic Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Slavs, and Asiatic peoples among others swept across Western Europe and into southern Britain from about the fifth to ninth centuries c.e. Prominent among these were the Norsemen or Vikings. The ferocity of the Viking raids is evidenced in an Old English prayer that ends with a supplication for protection against “the fury of the Northmen.” The characterization of the migration cultures as ruthless “barbarians,” however, is not entirely accurate; such cultures were highly developed within their own limits, reflecting complex adaptations to their environments.

Norse and Germanic artifacts and nomad gear are generally associated with practical ends: wrought-edged weapons, carrying satchels and purses, jeweled brooches for fastening capes, utensils, and horse tack. Wood and metalwork designs suggest plaited strips of leather and exhibit the horror vacuii found in primitive art. Common motifs include stylized heraldic animals in mirror-reverse poses, as in the Purse Lid, Sutton Hoo cache (c. 655-656). Forged and cast implements predominate with little or no repouss‚ work in evidence. Jewelry was chiefly cloisonn‚ (colored glass or enamel set between thin strips of soldered metal). Ceremonial weapons were decorated with inlay of ductile wire (copper, silver, or gold) hammered into the grooves of a chiseled design.

Intact Viking ships have been recovered from burial sites at Sutton Hoo, England (early seventh century) and Oseberg, Norway (c. ninth century), the latter found buried with its hawser tied to a nearby boulder. All feature shallow draft hulls that allowed the ships to be rowed in close to shore. Removable wooden figureheads of stylized beasts were believed to ward off spirits. A single sail, embroidered and trimmed in fur, hung from a removable mast slotted into the ship’s keel. Norse migration period dwellings take the form of long halls whose roof lines, interestingly enough, resemble inverted ships’ hulls.

Hiberno-Saxon Art

Hiberno-Saxon art (sixth to seventh centuries c.e.) reflects the culture of Christianized Ireland in the period following the pagan conquest of Britain. Gospel books were hand-copied from older manuscripts by monks working in the monastic scriptoria. The Lindisfarne Gospels (c. late seventh century c.e.) is noteworthy for its serpentine designs influenced by Celtic cordwaining. Illuminations of the figure are highly denaturalized because medieval copyists, unaccustomed to drawing from life, resorted to constructing figures from calligraphic marks.

Once referred to disparagingly as the Dark Ages, the thousand-year span from the fall of Rome (fifth century c.e.) to the rebirth of Greco-Roman culture in the Italian Renaissance (c. 1400 c.e.) has since come to be appreciated as a rich cultural epoch dominated intellectually, spiritually, and artistically by the Catholic Church and, to a lesser degree, the secular nobility of continental Europe and Britain.

Bibliography

Boardman, John. Greek Art. 1964. Reprint. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985.

Bonnefoy, Yves. Mythologies. Translated by Wendy Doniger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Osborne, Harold, ed. The Oxford Companion to Art. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Pritchard, James B., ed. The Ancient Near East: An Anthology in Texts and Pictures. 2 vols. 1958. Reprint. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973.