The early evidence of art in Greece dates back to the year 2000 B.C. The period from then until   approximately 550 B.C. represents the style known as “Archaic.” It was a combination of the Egyptian influence with the arts of the semi-civilized tribes of the Peninsula. The Greeks had been great sailors and merchants and had encountered many outside influences.

The geology of Greece had much to do in giving an aesthetic advantage to the greek people over the Egyptians. The Grecian peninsula was amply covered with a great variety of white and colored marbles, a finely grained soft stone as compared to the granite of the North African people. This fact, as much as any other, contributed to the high point to which sculpture, statuary, and bas-relief ornaments were developed and was also the cause of the development and refinement of corner block molding.

The Greeks were the greatest masters of intellectual art that ever lived. Their lines, colors and ornament were designed to expressly appeal to the mind and not to the emotion. They did not wish to excite the aesthetic senses so much as the intellectual and spiritual side of man. Every form and arrangement was the result of carefully studied calculation.

The Greeks desired not only to obtain the general effect of beauty but that the minutest detail of every production should in itself be as perfect as mortal man could make. It is for this reason that Grecian art is today considered a standard by which to judge others, particularly in the matter of line and proportion.

The high period of Greek art occurred after the Persian Mars and during the Age of Pericles from 450 to 100 B.C. It was during this period of time that the great Acropolis and its supreme triumph the Parthenon were built. National enthusiasm rose to such a high pitch after the expulsion of the invader that the glory and wealth of the world centered in Athens as the champion of all Greece.

This was the age of Ictinus, the architect, Phidias the sculptor and many others of surpassing genius. In addition to the Parthenon, the other great monuments that have come down to us are the Erechtheum, the Propylaea, and the monument of Lysicrates.

The Periclean Age was followed by the Alexandrian or age of decline from 400 to 300 B.C. While perfection had been the ideal of Pericles, splendor was the ideal of Alexander. The temples became larger and more lavishly covered with surface ornament. This period was followed by a gradual decadence and finally as the roman dominion spread over Greek territory, the buildings took on the Roman character.

Domestic buildings in Greece never attained importance. The citizen of Athens gave all his thought to the glory of his city and religion. Few remains have been found, our principal knowledge having been derived from literary sources. It is believed the Greek house resembled the Pompeiian in plan, decoration, and wooden bar rails.

The Romans, while they were never to develop the supreme creative genius of the Greeks along either literary or plastic lines, they had other qualities that were equally important in transmitting to the people of Western Europe the culture of Grecian civilization. The Romans were primarily colonizers, organizers and extremely practical.

While they were admittedly deficient in culture, they were able to recast Greek forms and evolve a wholly new type of art, typical of their genius and with their imprint firmly upon it. They brought the science of engineering into their structures and gave their architecture a flexibility which accommodated it to a wide range of requirements. They introduced the arch, the vault and a multitude of forms of lesser importance. They used cheaper materials for structural purposes, using the richer materials in thin slabs on the surface only.

Early Roman architecture is known as the Etruscan style. It was not until the Greek conquest that Rome became truly enriched with the spoils of Greek culture. The founding of Rome dates from 753 B.C. and the Etruscan style lasted until about 100 B.C. The Augustan age ushered in the Empire (27 B.C.-14 A.D.) and from then on, Rome assumed the aspect of a splendid metropolis. This was the period of the great civic development and the construction and adornment of the Roman Forum, temples, basilicas, theatres, baths, triumphal arches and other public buildings.

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