Published: March 5, 2012

Ancient Art

(From Lat. Antiquus - ancient) - the art of ancient times, the art of ancient Greece and the countries and peoples of the ancient world, whose culture was developed under the determining influence of the Greek cultural tradition: the art of the Hellenistic, Roman and Etruscan.

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image: Ettore Forti, Public domain

The concept of "ancient art" appeared in the Renaissance, when the beautiful creations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome used to be considered exemplary, classic for the whole of European culture.

The unity of the ancient art of common due to the aesthetic ideal. The image of the ideal of beauty and harmoniously developed person, a citizen, a valiant warrior and a devoted patriot, in which the beauty of a trained athletic body combined with moral purity and spiritual wealth, embodied in sculpture, painting and crafts. Greek masters studied the structure of the human body, the proportionality of its proportions, plastic movements, especially during the famous Olympic Games. Artists sought realistically truthful image of the person in Greek vase painting (Black-figure and red-painted), and sculpture, which has acquired the plastic freedom and life conviction (Myron "Discus Thrower" Polycleitus "Doryphoros" Phidias - the statue for the Acropolis of Athens).

Invaluable contribution to the art world have ancient Greek architects. They have created a severe and majestic type of the church square, surrounded on all sides by columns (peripter), and a strict, logical, system of relations between the bearing parts of the building and carried by {order).

The monuments of ancient Greek art give us aesthetic pleasure and the bright idea of unity, the fusion of architecture and sculpture.

In place of the classical tradition from the end of the IV. BC. Oe. comes more sophisticated understanding of the world, exacerbated by an interest in the disclosure of man's inner world, the powerful energy transmission, the dynamics of the image, its veracity (sculpture Scopas, Praxiteles, Leohara, Lysippus). As a consequence, the art of this period is marked enthusiasm for multi-figure compositions, and colossal size statues.

The last three centuries of Greek civilization is called the Hellenistic era.

Heir to the artistic culture of the Hellenic civilization was Ancient Rome, which took place over eight centuries of successful conquest of the historical path of a small town to the capital of the huge state - the mighty Roman Empire. The Romans appreciated the science, literature, theater, architecture and sculpture of ancient Greece and contributed to the further development of the artistic culture of the ancient world.

They built magnificent roads, bridges and aqueducts, created a special system of construction of large public buildings through the use of the construction of arches, domes and concrete, allowing to significantly increase the width of the slab. In II. the first time in the construction of a round temple in terms of the dome was used. Thus, to the IV. formed the basic types of Christian church - basilica and the central dome structure.

Of particular note is the art of Roman sculpture portrait, which differs accurate measure of verisimilitude and life patterns. The power of the Roman emperors glorified numerous monuments raised in their honor, the triumphal arch, erected in honor of their victories. Well-planned urban ensembles, famous imperial baths - thermal baths, the largest amphitheater of the ancient world - Colosseum, a column of Emperor Trajan, the Temple of all the gods of the Roman Empire - the Pantheon, the fresco paintings and mosaics discovered during the excavations of Pompeii - a kind of biography of the era, captured in a unique artistic images.

The ancient art of the most powerful way influenced the development of subsequent eras of art, it is difficult to overestimate its importance for the development of Western civilization (see Baroque, Classicism, Empire).