Bring home a god from Olympus By Helena Parker Nov 28, 2011 Whether your favourite is Zeus, Cupid, Fortune or another inhabitant of Mount Olympus, you can now bring one of them home. Whilst buying an ancient Greek and Roman piece is impossible, even with an unlimited budget, you now have the option to decorate your home and garden with Ithaca Art's reproduction of ancient bas-reliefs, plaques and dramatic masks representing the ancient deities. The ancient Romans and Greeks believed in a wide range of gods and goddesses. Many of these may originally have had a connection with forces of nature, natural phenomena and had characteristics to do with their role in human life. It is now possible to add the classic touch to your place, and learn …show more content…
Each one, while based on a famous original piece, is a piece of artwork that can stand on its own. With a 40-year reputation for producing beautiful wall art sculpture and having received countless numbers of international awards, Ithaca Art has over 150 artworks in its catalogue - all entirely hand-crafted and sold at affordable prices. The Italian-based company is one of the few organisations in the world able to reproduce the original masterpieces whilst meeting museum quality-standards. Ithaca Art's prices range from a few dollars to a couple of hundred dollars, making it possible for anyone to add a piece to their collection. Shop our online catalogue and place your order today on http://www.ithaca-art.com ABOUT ITHACA ART: Ithaca Art is one the leading sources of museum-quality Greek and Roma reproductions. With a new UK website launched last month, Ithaca Art's artists are trained in art history and classic craftsmanship. Each piece of art is handmade using the same ancient techniques and materials as the originals. Museum gift shops throughout Europe fill their shelves with the quality works of Ithaca. You will also find the Ithaca brand in stores in Venice, Paris, Rome, London and now
Greek art is considered as a turning point for the development of all aspects of cultural art history, such as architecture, sculpture, pottery and painting. The ancient Greek civilization was famous for its mythical and aesthetic principle in the art culture. Renowned for the pottery, Greek had developed its unique painting technique called the black-figured. “Achilles and Ajax playing Dice” by Exekias is the most significant black-figure amphora for its iconography and that represents the ideal art principle and history of the ancient Greece.
These aspects of their culture have made a significant contribution to their quality of life. Moreover, these topics will be examined in relation to the twelve Olympian gods and their associates. The ancient Greeks practiced a religion that was, in effect, a building block to many ensuing pagan religions. This religion revolved around their reverence for the gods. Essentially, the Greeks worshipped numerous gods, making their religion polytheistic.
Each having a function in the life of the everyday Roman, that would require some sort of worshipping. The Roman gods were taken from the beliefs of the Greek gods. They are directly descended from their neighboring religion. The Roman mythology consisted of the high god Jupiter, his wife and sister Juno, son Vulcan, son Mercury, daughter Diana, daughter Venus, son Mars, daughter Minerva, son Apollo, sister Vesta, brother Pluto, brother Neptune, and Janus.(Classical Mythology)
Kleiner, Fred S. A History of Roman Art. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010. Print.
The first piece of art I will be discussing is a sculpture by an unknown artist called Crouching Lion, made in Greece around 330-317 B.C. Approximate dimensions of the Crouching Lion are 29’’ tall x 48’’ wide. It is made of Pentelic marble. “Although the ancient Greeks used a variety of animals, including bulls, griffins and lions, to decorate tombs, lions were the most popular, typically functioning as guardian figures,” (MIA placard). The Crouching Lion was created during “The Classical period in Greek sculpture, ending in 323 B.C. with the death of Alexander the Great, emphasized accuracy of physical details, as shown here in the veins and musculature of the feline body” (Crouching Lion), “and ends in 31 BC with the conquest of the last Hellenistic kingdom by Rome, the Lagid kingdom of
Kleiner, Fred S., and Helen Gardner. Gardner's Art through the Ages: A Global History. Boston, MA:
When looking at a piece of art a sense of wonder and beauty bewitches the beholder.
and narrative Greek art. Around the third quarter of the sixth century (550-525 BCE) Attic black-
First the Hellenic and Hellenistic period's art where both beautiful by focusing on two different things. In the Hellenic periods society wanted to show the moral goodness of the apperception and spirit that one's outer beauty reflects. The sculptures are usually relaxed, but balanced. The body is slightly turned to one side and the weight is rested mainly on one leg with the hip raised on that one side. The Hellenistic
World Art Collections Exhibitions, Sainsbury Centre for visual arts, No date given, found here: http://www.scva.ac.uk/education/resources/pdfs/13.pdf, (accessed 26/11/2013).
...r. "Ancient Greece." Gardner's art through the ages the western perspective. 13th ed., Backpack ed. Boston, Mass.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 101, 123,129. Print.
The amazing thing about Greek art is that it almost always portrays a story (Boardman 262). There are many examples of this storytelling throughout Greek art history. The medium that painters of this time used varied greatly. The medium used seemed to tie in with what the art story was about and who the artist wanted to reach with his work. If the topic was a public one and was to be general knowledge then the medium was often walls of the city or of public buildings (Boardman 292). These artworks depicted topics ranging drastically from scenes of daily life: athletics, weddings, dating, to those of war( Sowerby 302). "On the walls of public buildings at Delphi and Athens Polygnotus painted great friezes with figures set up and down the field…and presented epic scenes of Troy and the underworld, and Micon the more recent, but heroically conceived, struggle for freedom at Marathon" (Boardman 292). Most of Greek history was oral so that much of what we in the present day have to draw on in order to understand life in ancient Greece is what we find on artifacts. "Most of the mythological scenes which have survived, and they are myriad, appear on objects of ordinary use, or at least not of extraordinary use like temple sculptures. The earliest pictures are symbols for contemporary events, of burial or battle, and the example of the East led the artist… detail of a historical … story could be expressed" (Sowerby 300).
Traditionally, art institutions endeavour to display true craftsmanship in respect to art practices for example painting, sculpture, print etc. The original format, as produced at the labour of the artist. Whether leaving the piece at the mercy of the public to analyse, or telling the story and intention by means of a curator. However, these institutions have long been avoided by the general public as they are believed to be elitist, leaving many works open for appreciation and acknowledgement by those learned and practised in the arts alone.
The Romans have adopted many features from the Greek style of art and architecture during the third and second centuries B.C. During that time period the Romans discovered that they have taking a liking to Greek statues, which they placed in many different places. The Roman sculptors then decided to also start making statues alongside the Greeks. The statues that the Romans created were realistic looking with, sometime, unpleasant details of the body. The Greeks made statues with, what they thought of, ideal appearances in the statues figure. Sculpture was possibly considered the highest form of art by the Romans, but figure painting was very high considered as well. Very little of Roman painting has survived the tests of time.
As I walked around the gallery, I noticed that accompanying most of the artists’ works were their rough sketches that showed the different stages of the work being pieced together. This really showed the viewer just how much went into each piece and the artists’ train of thought as they developed their work.