The Greece of the Archaic period was experiencing a rapid recovery after the hiatus of the Dark Ages and the first cultural renaissance of the 8th century BC. A new form of government was developed, structured in the city-state, the
polis, the economy was strengthened and a movement of wide colonial expansion began, increasing trade with peoples of a vast region bordering the
Mediterranean and the
Black Sea, creating a feeling of unity and cultural strength that disseminated the Hellenic culture throughout that territory, a culture that fraternized in and was consecrated in the
Panhellenic Games, held in the metropolis.
Literature experienced a resurgence and found its first great exponents in
Hesiod and
Homer, and
philosophy researched new ways to understand the world and man under a rationalist viewpoint, in which supernatural explanations for the phenomena of nature were abandoned in search of more scientific causes. It was also where the most important artistic progress took place. The transfer of power to the assembly of hereditary aristocrats, who held most of the wealth and owned most of the land, naturally made the principles of this class dominant, while they were concerned with maintaining the
status quo through despotic methods of exploiting the lower classes. In the 6th century BC, the power of this
oligarchy began to be dissolved with the rise of the
tyrants, with the assimilation to the government of smallholder families alien to the circle of the landowning aristocrats, and with the emergence of a self-sufficient
middle class that survived and began to grow rich through trade, social strata that were morally justified by defending the value of work, considered a valid way to obtain the prizes that Homer thought reserved for heroes: wealth, glory and the favor of the gods. The social context was thus restructured, and conducive to a full restoration of cultural activity, fostered by a rich and cultured ruling class, which debated philosophy and literature in the
symposium, took great interest in art, practised
patronage and allowed artists freedom for formal research, adapting the influence of Eastern art to the different context of the polis, a freedom that was essential for a socially significant filling of the artistic vacuum of the Dark Ages. Then, from the end of the 8th century BC, when the Archaic period begins, a true figurative explosion takes place, after its virtual extinction in the previous phase. It is assumed that the resurgence of writing was driven by a desire to fix in the collective memory the heroic deeds of the past and the religious traditions, in a phase in which the relations between past and present became central to the culture, reading the myths as sources of instruction for the solution of new problems of everyday life. The theme of the Archaic poets revolved around this, just as it was an inspiring motif for vase painting and sculpture. It must also be remembered that if several generic traits are evident in Archaic culture – and this summary works in this direction – none of the various regions of Greece in this period can be considered typical and fully representative, and it must be pointed out that the artistic and cultural evolution of the so-called "Greece" of that time took place mostly in the center-south, where the model of the polis flourished, while the north remained comparatively underdeveloped and living in the regime of the ancient
tribes and
clans, the
ethnos.
Kouros and kore Stylistically the Archaic period begins with a phase called Dedalic or Orientalizing which, as this name suggests, betrays the influx of elements from the
East. From there, Greek craftsmen learned to produce terracotta reliefs in series from molds, a practice that defined stereotyped formal solutions for the representation of the human figure that would become the basis for the organization of full-figure statuary as well. The scheme of these works was strictly standardized, homogenizing the entire production of figurative sculpture and eliminating all traces of creative freedom and naturalism found in the statues of the times of the Egyptian cultures. The bodies assume a hieratic posture, in a frontal position, arms hanging down at their sides or one folded at the chest, one leg in advance suggesting movement, with long curly hair and facial expression fixed in a smile outline. Following the example of the geometric bronzes, the men are naked, and the women are dressed in elaborate costumes. and would be definitely consolidated from c. 650 BC, acquiring a monumental dimension possibly inspired by the example of Egyptian statuary, known by the Greeks who established some colonies there and by travelers. and
Khamerernebty II,
Fourth Dynasty The Egyptian influence is sometimes disputed or minimized, but the apparent similarity is obvious, and modern studies have found consistent identity between the proportions of most of the
kouroi with the Second Canon of the
26th Egyptian dynasty, a canon that with minor variations was practically the same as the one that had been in use since the time of the great
pyramids millennia ago. This formal identity confirms a reference that had been made by
Diodorus, even though the foreign model was adapted on several points, mainly regarding costume and structural support bases. ,
kore from the Dedalic period, c. 640–630 BCE, Crete. Modern copy with reconstructed polychromy. The
kouroi and
korai are found in bronze, terracotta and ivory, but by far the most usual is stone. Their dimensions vary from small statues to giants such as the
kouroi of
Delos and
Samos, and the unfinished colossi of
Naxos, the largest of which reach nearly 10 m. Their usual size, however, is the human size or a little smaller. They served various functions, such as cult statues,
ex-votos, monuments celebrating athletes, and funeral markers. The chronology of the works is uncertain and dates are generally approximate, because the evolution of form was fairly homogeneous throughout Greece, without the emergence of significantly differentiated regional schools, and all innovations was quickly adopted by all centers of production. The
kouros is especially important because of its nudity, which offered a free ground for research into human
anatomy. But even though this anatomy started from rather crude and elementary features at the beginning of the period, and reached a considerable degree of naturalism in the transition to the
Severe period, its representation is full of conventionalism and thought in terms of abstract planes and lines. At no time does there seem to have been a concern to establish a true resemblance to nature in the sense of a portrait. The
kouroi are not portraits, but generic and symbolic representations, and their very lack of differentiation enabled them to fill various functional niches in Archaic culture. This impersonality is explained, according to Jeffrey Hurwit, because in the Archaic world the main goal of the sculptor was to offer a convincing, rather than realistic, piece, for the most constant and pressing impulse of this art "was to formalize, to define general patterns, to recreate nature in an intelligible form," consistent with the formalist and hierarchical principles of the cultured aristocracy that commissioned these works. In this sense the kouroi are emblems of conservatism, because if, in detail, they showed clear changes over the nearly two centuries of the type's prevalence, the general pattern did not change significantly. , c. 525 BC, Anavissos At the same time, the naked
kouros became a significant typology because the public nudity of the warrior and athlete became socially accepted in certain situations, and an identification began between physical beauty and the collection of moral values known as
arete, in a broad concept called
kalos kagathos. When an athlete won a contest in the Games, the greatest of the Hellenic gatherings, his or her consecration was vested with a transcendent meaning and raised the man to the level of the divine, evoking, as we read in
Pindar, the feats of the gods and heroes. The athlete's physical qualities – strength, agility, skill, grace, and beauty – were made explicit in his or her nakedness, but eminently religious, civic, and ethical values were attributed to it. Thus nudity became an artistic motif in itself, making visible spiritual and moral virtues and forming an artistic typology of long descent, that of
heroic nudity. Just as the horrid face of the
Gorgon installed on the facades of many temples inspired sacred fear in the devotee, the bodily strength and beauty and the smile of the
kouros referred to
charis, divine grace. The same qualities were recalled to the viewer when the
kouros fulfilled the function of a memorial or votive offering. The earliest
kouroi have been interpreted by
archaeologists as images of
Apollo, a god strongly associated with beauty and youth. This theory was strengthened by the finding of a huge group of about 120 statues at the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoös in
Boeotia. But while in many cases this association may be valid, many
kouroi have been found in other contexts and dedicated to other gods. In any case, their type is clearly Apollonian, illustrating an ideal of youth and beauty, and for this reason it is also licit to assume that they were at least in part erotic representations, for in addition to Apollo's having had in the myth several
homosexual relationships, the statues bear the features desirable in a man of that time – broad shoulders, strong buttocks and thighs, thin waist, and small penis – in a male-dominated society that had institutionalized
pederasty as an honorable practice, imbued with educational values. In the case of the
korai the prototype is more varied. They are always dressed, but their poses range from ritual immobility to images that suggest dancers in action. Many of them carry offerings. The representation of dresses and sophisticated hairstyles offered yet another field for the sculptor to find diversified decorative solutions and multiple surface treatments, exploring graphics, textures, and transparency effects. While the
kouroi illustrate the conceptions and ideals of the male world, the
korai offer a sensitive portrait of the values prized in the women of Archaic society – good taste revealed in the use of clothing, jewelry, and sophisticated hairstyles, and youth, beauty, and health as symbols of the ability to bear children – and also indirectly indicated the wealth of the man with whom they were associated, giving a measure of who she was and how she was perceived in her group. One current school of thought leans toward reading
korai as objects of sexual desire, but for Hurwit their probable primary functions as offerings and cult images does not support this hypothesis. On the other hand,
korai seem to have played a unique role as instruments of social bonding when they were offered as gifts. They often bear inscriptions describing them as
agalmata, a word that in Classicism simply meant a statue of a god, but which in the Archaic period had much broader connotations, and was associated with concepts of abundance, wealth, and status, inserting the statues in a network of symbolic and material exchanges among men that mobilized sacred and profane powers and established strong bonds of interpersonal dependence. A
kore was a material possession, but its value could not be estimated in monetary terms, and if it indirectly pointed the woman as an object or instrument in a male culture, at the same time it put her in a high rank, being considered a source of prestige and holding many privileges. Only one
kouros was found as a dedication that describes it as
agalma. The
korai are also interpreted differently from the
kouroi when they are used as funeral markers. By carrying an offering in their hand, they force a visual engagement with the viewer in a sense of exchange, of dialogue, which is not the case with
kouroi, and, according to Robin Osborne, this characteristic of the
kore indicates that the woman was in fact the axis, the substance, and the main interlocutor in the whole universe of exchange in the archaic male world. File:009MAD Kore.jpg|
Kore dancer.
Delphi Archeological Museum File:Kore66.jpg|
Kore Phrasikleia, c. 540 BC, Athens File:Kouros - delphi.jpg|
Kouros statuette, c. 620 BC,
Crete File:Apollo of Tenea Glyptothek Munich 168.jpg|The famous Apollo of Tenea, a
kouros from c. 560–550 BC
Architectural decoration depicting a Gorgon in the
Knielauf (running-kneeling) pose characteristic of Archaic Greek art, c. 580 BC. , c. 505–490 BCE. In pre-Archaic times there was only a sparse use of sculpture in the decoration of buildings. In the Archaic period the
architectural orders were established, which redefined the conception of the temple and gave it a monumental dimension unprecedented in the history of
ancient Greek architecture, and decorative sculpture became much more frequent and extraordinarily important, both because of the magnitude of the compositions that were created and because they represented a much freer field of formal research than the fixed typologies of
kouros and
kore. The new Greek temple gave rise to narrative group scenes, unheard of in its time, favored anatomical and
kinesiological research, created new challenges for the conception of sets, stimulated the exploration of light and shadow effects, and made its sculptors the founders of an original way of understanding plasticity and representation. Socially, the importance of figural decoration in sacred buildings was linked to the numinous character of the environment. The friezes showing processions and religious festivals, mythological scenes, images of the gods and fantastic creatures, which together created a particular ritual atmosphere, different from that of the profane world, which deeply sensitized the visitor and prepared him psychologically for divine worship. The materials used for this were varied, ranging from bronze to terracotta, stone and
stucco, always brightly colored. It seems that in the
Orientalizing period the decorators' preference was for installing figurative groups in the areas most accessible to the eye, near the ground and on the walls. This trend suddenly changed around 630–600 BC, when the preferred locations became the upper parts of buildings, such as
pediments,
metopes, and
acroteria. The first known example of this new practice is the sanctuary of
Apollo, in
Aetolia, which inaugurates this custom with great richness and variety, including mythological scenes and a profusion of figures of animals and fantastic beings such as
mermaids,
sphinxes and
Gorgons. However, not all temples received figurative decoration. The example of this sanctuary was soon followed in other regions, which also began to explore other uses for sculpture. In the colony of
Corcyra,
antefixes with human heads and water drains in the shape of animal heads were developed, which soon reached a level of excellence in the decoration of the local temple dedicated to Hera, impressive for its continuous frieze composed of wide-eyed faces alternating with lions with open mouths. By the mid-6th century BC figurative decoration on sacred buildings was common practice throughout Greece, with important examples in several places, such as the sanctuaries of Apollo in
Aegina, of Hera in
Olympia, of
Artemis in
Ephesus, and the
Acropolis of Athens, where a
gigantomachia of colossal dimensions was erected. At the same time, similar solutions were beginning to be applied in civil constructions. In the late Archaic phase, particularly interesting are the friezes of the Treasury of Syphnos, in the sanctuary of Apollo at
Delphi, which show a very advanced degree of compositional fluency and technical skill, which in many respects prefigure Classical art. The ultimate and most brilliant flowering of Archaic architectural sculpture are the pediments of the
Temple of Aphaea at Agina, completed around 500–480 BC. Their figures are of enormous refinement and elegance in finish and lines, and the variety of postures and solutions of movement, the detailing of anatomy, and the suggestion of diversified emotional expressions, despite the invariable
Archaic smile, introduce notes of drama precursory to the developments of the psychological art of the
Severe style and of
Hellenistic sculpture. Its sculptural ensembles are considered one of the finest achievements of Greek art of all time.
Cult statues and ex-votos Closely associated with shrines and temples, cult statues were a vital part of Greek religion as vehicles of communication between deities and men. A multitude of
taboos surrounded them, and their effectiveness depended not so much on their physical features – some were almost pieces of raw material – but on the complex ritualistics they required. Some could not even be seen, others depended on special rites for their revelation, and in any case they were always charged with deep meaning. Their importance was such that they influenced, directly or through their
oracles, even in civil and military matters of vast repercussion, such as wars and alliances. Several historical accounts refer to supernatural interventions by cult statues in the imminence of the decision of some crucial collective act, and the capture of the cult statues of a given city often entailed negative consequences for its sovereignty. Similarly, the private possession of some prestigious image brought great social influence to its possessor, a cultural trait that was consistently exploited by the aristocracy to appropriate the charisma of divine power and create greater distance from the masses. Many of the cult statues were sculpted in the form of
kouroi and
korai, and their typical smile, in this context, is interpreted by Jeremy Tanner as a mirror of the stylization of the entire lives of the elites and their self-representation in the form of
agalmata, objects in which the gods could take pleasure, as the aristocracy referred to themselves as
geleontes, the smiling ones, distinguished by the gods for the wealth and prosperity they enjoyed. As ex-votos, monumental statues associated the aristocracy even more directly with the divine world, since only the wealthy could commission an important image, and the consecration of a statue implied the consecration of the offerer. At the same time, the aristocrats monopolized the priesthood, and access to the divine by the common people was dependent on concessions and conventions decided by the elite. However, not all ex-votos had the outsized dimensions of the
kouroi and
korai. There are small sculptural relics documenting popular worship, with a diversity of motifs, often imitating sacrificial objects such as cakes, loaves of bread, and animals such as roosters, oxen, and pigeons. A very common form of ex-voto was the wooden plate painted with some religious or mythological scene, called
pinax, but these have all disappeared owing to the fragility of the material, except for a handful found in
Corinth. Versions in terracotta, ivory and stone carved in relief still exist in significant numbers, however, of which the great majority are dedicated to
Asclepius. Such images are an important source of knowledge of religious practices in the Archaic period.
Other forms Enthroned figures appear quite frequently in art of the Archaic period. Typically, this posture was reserved for deities and personages of high esteem.
Strabo states that in Archaic times images of worship of
Athena were preferably represented in this position, but the relics we know of (about eighty examples) as a rule do not show enough distinctive features to identify the deity. In the origin of the type the great majority were female images; the few male ones could figure
Dionysus, magistrates or heroes. In the 6th century BC the model spread, depicting figures of both sexes, and could be found in a variety of contexts – funeral, votive-religious and commemorative. Also interesting was the typology of large equestrian figures, though limited to the regions of
Attica and its dependency Delos. Their origin is obscure; the examples of bronze and terracotta statuettes from earlier times do not suggest a direct formal descent – rather it seems that their design derived from vase painting of the early 6th century BC. The type flourished in Attica as a reflection of the aristocratic life of Athens, where several elite families had in their names components derived from
hippos 'horse'; moreover the horse was an animal associated with Athena and
Poseidon, the gods who in the founding myth of the city disputed its sovereignty, and so the depiction of knights took on special political and religious significance in the region. A fine example is the
Rampin Rider, illustrated in detail at the opening of this article. Finally, other secondary forms in Archaic sculpture are the figures of fantastic animals such as
griffins and
sphinxes, or real ones such as lions and horses, funerary stelae, commemorative columns, and some vases with sculptural elements. == Artists ==