Melanie Hohn
July 5, 2011
Assignment #6

The period that I found to be most appealing to me was the Classical and Medieval West period. I have always been drawn to this era and its history whether it is in literature, art, or movies. What is interesting about this period to me is that such great attention to detail is displayed in many of the pieces of art in this era. The type of art created just seems far more different to me than art in any other era. From the introduction of new colors and architectural evolution, this type of art seems to introduce a whole new world and tells us a lot about the history of that era. The Classical and Medieval West period emerged in the 5th century B.C.E to the Rome’s fall in the 5th century C.E. This period’s history includes the rise of Christianity where a majority of the art from both Eastern and Western Europe prevailed as well as the Roman rule of Europe. Greek artists in this era were particularly interested in the human body, in its most ideal, perfect form. They strived on perfecting this creation which they regarded as the highest creation of nature. Painters during this time were better known for their art work than Greek sculptors, which I found interesting because the Greek sculptures I have found to be one of the most beautiful displays of art about this era; however, in hindsight, it seems the sculptures prevailed because many of the wall paintings of this era did not survive. One of the more well-known pottery painters of this era was Euphronios. His terracotta piece Euphronios Krater tells a story from Homer’s Odyssey and was in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for many years until the integrity of how it was exported was compromised and questioned and the Metropolitan was forced to return it. An interesting thing about the Greeks is that they honored achievement by creating beautiful, life-sized nude male sculptures! (Also, fully clothed female figures.) But beautiful, life-sized nude male sculptures! One of the best known sculpted figures of this era was the piece created by Polykleitos named Spear Bearer. He created this piece with his ideal of perfect proportions of the male anatomy. It actually derived from observations made of other statues and mathematical calculations. Architectural design grew to its full-blown potential for its time in this era. Massive structures were resurrected in beautiful stone with great attention to detail. Columns were used in abundance as displayed in the Parthenon design, which was a gift to Athena Parthenos, who was deemed a goddess and honored for her wisdom, arts, industries, warfare and protector of the Athenian navy. Rome was the height of their influence of the Western world by 2nd century B.C.E. Roman culture was the catalyst and the example of culture that has affected our lives in areas of law and government, calendar, religions and languages. Rome’s art reflected much of Greek tradition, which they admired, collected and even imitated. Although Rome imitated a lot of art derived from Greek culture, Rome had a unique practice of creating pieces of art using marble to display a lifelike “death mask” of a deceased family member for families to keep as a shrine or alter. In contrast to Greek creations of their ideal human form in sculptures, the Romans observed and carefully depicted identical detail to the faces of deceased family and recorded every line and imperfection that made up that persons face. My favorite displays of art in this era is the early Christian art. Christians during that time were forced to worship in seclusion, much like the Chinese Christians of today, and hide their art out of fear of harm done to them. However, as the Emperor Constantine began to acknowledge Christianity, the splendor of Rome was beginning to decline and the people’s view of Christianity and spirituality was changing drastically. Christian art and architecture began to its growth considerably and churches and temples were resurrected everywhere. The vast sizes of these churches were often ideal resting places for many large and admired collections of art work. Artists introduced mosaic art and created beautiful designs and stories by attaching pieces of colored glass to walls and floors. What made the early Christians different from other era’s of artists that used this concept was that they used much smaller pieces of glass and marble which made it’s brilliance even more profound. There are many beautiful and astounding types of art included in this era which makes it an ideal period of art for me. The attention to detail, evolution of art, construction, spirituality, and architecture tell great stories of our history in this era which has made it the most interesting and appealing to me.