How Did Art And Architecture Influence Ancient Greek Society

In my final paper we will look at the ways that art and architecture from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic period responded to the needs and aspirations of the ancient Greeks and their society. In this essay we will cover topics starting from the Bronze Age including the beginning of settlements across ancient Greece to the more advanced structures of the city states that eventually began to spread throughout Greece. I will also be discussing some influential people from this time and lightly touch on the topics of how Greece and their democratic society helped shape and influence our western world we live in today. We will also be looking at how the art and architecture has changed throughout each period of time and what exactly these
changes represented for the people of ancient Greece.
When a person thinks of ancient Greece and their art and architecture the things that usually pop into their hands at first are the famous monuments of the Acropolis and the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.
These are monuments that mark the beginnings of a culmination in the developments of art and show us how the early civilizations of Greece was a civilization that was full of great achievements. It is in Greece that our western foundations are begun. The many great historians, artist, poets, sculptors, architects, and philosophers of Greece still influence the way we think today. In the fifth century B.C. the Greeks were being entertained with the dramatic plays of Euripides and Sophocles and the comedic shows written by Aristophanes. Meanwhile Socrates was in the background learning and piecing together his philosophies and the great Acropolis was being worked on by the magnificent architect Iktinos. In some areas of Greece people who lived in settlements out in the open would build walls of their homes with timber and stakes woven with twigs and tree branches. They would also use wooden posts to hold up their roofs. These people would also create small wooden figurines that often times represented Mother Goddess. This lets us know that this was a society whose beliefs were firmly rooted into the miracles of birth and growth whether it is from humans or plants of the
land.
There was a lot of movement happening with populations of people during 3000 B.C.
This date is somewhat related to the beginning of the Bronze Age. This is when people began to collect fruits and grains such as grapes, olives, and cereal for themselves to start making more of and using for food. These little developments of cultivating food is what encourages the accumulation of the ancient Greeks wealth and this also prompted growth of social hierarchies. The earliest phase we will cover on ancient Greece is the early Minoan period two. This was a phase that produced the greatest amount of activity with Greece. The houses they built were erected on hilltops and were stone built. They looked more like cells and storage areas than actual rooms. The people who lived in these dwellings would grow crops and wheat like barley and olives. They also made it a point to begin raising domesticated animals on their land. They would raise cattle, goats, and pigs. The people who lived here would make pots from terracotta and little figurines for worship. They would sew and weave their own fabrics and decorate them. They buried their dead in what was called a cist grave. These were graves that were built above ground and were rectangular shaped and dug into the earth. The tholas tomb was also another popular way to bury people who passes away during this time. Pottery was another popular type of art during the early Minoan period. It is probably the most recognized of this time. The style
of Minoan pottery that is most common was the visilike ware. The Minoan style can be described as the sense of movement. It has also been known to convey the sense of freedom of decoration. Minoan style is supposed to make underlying implications of the freedom and movement of society, itself.
However, rapid change occurs at the end of third millennium. Crete rises at this point in time and as it grew more prosperous the art and architecture begin to grow with it as well. The palaces that were built in Crete show the mass amount of change that occurred within Crete politically as well as socially at the end of the third millennium. The fact that there is a spike in the amount of palaces being built may suggest that politically power that control Crete was being spread across the land. The villages that surround these palaces to become massive regional centers. Because this was happening it might suggest that the palaces in these areas had strict control over the economy and the agricultural systems that existed at this time.