Ancient Greek Architecture - Essay Example

Ancient Greek Architecture Hellenic people have introduced their culture in Greece along with the ancient Greek architecture. This architecture was famous because of its beautiful temples. With time further developmental changes kept on taking place in the architectural styles of Greece. There are many famous styles that appeared during first part of the seventh century B.C. including the Classical, High Classical, Hellenistic, and Archaic. All these styles have their distinct attributes and impact on the Greek architecture.

In this paper, we shall discuss the influences of Archaic on the Greek architecture. A prominent change took place in the art and architectural styles of the Greek in the mid of seventh century BC. It was the starting of the archaic period. Before the beginning of the archaic period geometrical designs were the most famous patterns of the era, but with the rise of the archaic period those geometrical patterns were beautifully replaced by naturalistic patterns that have a significant influence on the Greek architecture.

These patterns were initially taken from the Egyptian influence (Kaltsas). During this particular period artists and architects learned to utilize precious stones and gems in the buildings and other architectural pieces. They adopted various techniques to make use of precious stones, in most efficient manner for which they have learnt different styles of cutting metals and gems, along with jewelry making (Kaltsas). Furthermore, another striking change took place in the Greek architecture with the beginning of archaic period.

This change comprised of the Eastern pictorial designs along with some flowers composition and animal patterns. The Greek architects also adopted designs and patterns from foreign architectural styles that include illustrations of women figures and animals including birds, winged lions and other beasts (Raaflaub and Wees). The archaic period mainly based on the artists` practices of adopting foreign styles for introducing an innovative style of the Greek art. Furthermore, a dominating influence of this innovative style has been observed in various city states of the Greece such as, in Sparta architects and other creative artists started learning ivory carving and bronze styling in order, to utilize these motifs and designs in the stylish buildings of the new period (Raaflaub and Wees).

Additionally, artists of the Laconia and the Corinthians discovered a pattern of using small animals and floral prints and called it as silhouetted style. As this period`s main theme was associated with the natural scenes, thus Athens started demonstrating nature and methodological characters in the abstract paintings (Couprie, Hahn and Naddaf). However, during the whole period main focus of the artists remained with the innovative and natural representation of human figures specifically, children and women (Couprie, Hahn and Naddaf).

The metropolitan Museum is a self-speaking evidence of Egyptian influence on the Archaic Greek period. Other examples of the archaic period influence include two main orders of Greek art such as, Doric order of western colonies and mainland Greece and the Ionic order of the Ionic Islands (Raaflaub and Wees). Also, temples were built with the stone figures and paintings mainly reflect motion pictures of humans (Couprie, Hahn and Naddaf). Invention of red and black figures is another precious gift of archaic period to Greek architecture, which is famous because of the naturalistic attributes.

Above discussion and examples, show that archaic period has brought many changes in the Greek architecture and contributed to introduce new techniques and designs in the buildings and temples of Greece. Works Cited Couprie, D., R. Hahn and G. Naddaf. Anaximander in Context: New Studies in the Origins of Greek Philosophy. New York: SUNY Press, 2003. Kaltsas, N. Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. California: Getty Publications, 2002. Raaflaub, K and H. Wees. A Companion to Archaic Greece.

Oxford: John Wiley and Sons, 2009.