Imitation is a Form of Flattery

            As the old saying goes “imitation is a form of flattery” well in comparing ancient Greek and Roman art is surely is.  Ancient Greece is known for its astonishing statues and art through out the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods.  When the Romans started to come to power they were very influenced by Greek culture.  Ancient Greek culture in a way became the rudiments of ancient Roman culture.  The Romans even took on the same pagan gods, just changed their names.  After traveling in Greece and seeing these beautiful pieces of artworks and archeological sites I thought to myself “who could blame them”.   

            The Archaic period of ancient Greece was from about 800 BC to 480 BC. Statues, reliefs, and ceramics were created to adorn temples and burial sites.  The themes of these artworks were either from daily life or mythical.  There was also an Egyptian influence on this art.  This is seen in geometric form of the statues.  They were more concerned with the shape and form, rather than the life like quality it possessed.  This is seen in the statues Cleobis and Biton.  The two statues are brothers and as the myth goes, were granted the gift of death by the gods for being so devoted to their mother.  They are depicted in the Kourus stance another common theme for statues of this period.  This is a flat frontal pose for free-standing sculptures.  The female version of the pose is called the Kore.  The transition between archaic and classical can be seen in Aristodikos Kouros, here the statue does not have the typical Egyptian like helmet head of hair, and the muscular body is less geometric and more realistic. 

            The Classical period was from 480 BC to 323 BC.  This period had the most influence on ancient Rome and later the Renaissance.  The focus and theme was on a more natural sense of the body, rather than the shape and geometric form.  Even the architecture seemed to be less rigid and hard so to speak.  This is seen in the Parthenon and the statues, Zeus of Artemision and the Youth of Antikythera.  The Parthenon was built on the Acropolis of Athens, to worship all the gods in one temple.  The Frieze of the Parthenon depicted many victories of the gods and the city of Athens itself.  One can see the naturalistic approach to the reliefs.  The subjects are muscular, but not box like muscular, it all seems to flow together.  There is one part of it where horses are riding off into the sunset and the god holding the reins seems to compliment the horses’ bodies.  The statue of Zeus of Artemision has the same natural feel towards it.  Zeus is not depicted in the Kourus stance of the archaic period but with his legs apart from each other almost in a lung.  This would be unheard of during the archaic period, to have a front leg slightly bent and a statue’s limbs free from the body.  The statue called Youth of Antikythera really influenced Italian Renaissance art.  Here the statue is depicted in the beginning stage of the contropasto or “natural” stance a typical stance of the Renaissance.  His pose is not completely frontal like that of its archaic counterparts, but turned slightly to the right.  One leg is slightly bent to the right and its arms are free from the body.  One seems to be grabbing the air and the other almost in a fist.  The body is much more realistic sculpting more of the muscles of the body not just the ones in the abdomen and biceps.  Over all the subjects of this period are depicted in a more natural and relaxed state.   

            The Hellenistic period is from 323 BC to 146 BC.  It is sometimes considered to be a “second classical period.”  This period took the innovations of form from the classical period and enhanced them to be perfect “in-the-round” sculptures.  “In-the-round” refers to how the sculptures can be admired from all angles.  This idea greatly influenced the Italian Renaissance art work, such as the David by Michelangelo.  The statue of Aphrodite Eros and Pan does just that.  One can admire this beautiful statue from all angles.  The muscles of the two subjects’ backs are even shown.  Here Aphrodite the goddess of love is being harassed by Pan.  She is shooing him away with her sandal.  No one knows if Eros is coaxing Pan on or defending Aphrodite.  All three of these specimens are exquisitely sculpted.  Aphrodite is standing in a contropasto form with one leg bent.  One can see all of the muscles and strands of hair in all three of the subjects.  The detail is impeccable and emotion is shown as Aphrodite struggles as Pan continues to be a nuisance.  Another Hellenistic statue that epitomizes this perspective is the Laocoon.  This statue is of Laocoon a Trojan priest of Poseidon or the Roman god Neptune.  Here his perfectly muscular body is being strangled by two serpents.  The emotion of his struggle is exquisitely portrayed.  Emotion is the main difference that separates it from its classical counterparts.  Emotion was not depicted in Greece before the Hellenistic period.  In the Laocoon, one can see and feel him fighting for his life.  It connects the viewer to the statue.  No longer do statues have a cold, impassive face.  Now statues have emotion that lures the viewer in closer to make a connection to the artwork.   

            I am so very glad and grate to have seen these pieces of artwork in person.  I must say that photographs do not do any of them justice.  I was just in awe standing in front of all these pieces and many more.  It was also very interesting to see the transition from Archaic, to Classical to Hellenistic and how the ideals of those periods especially Classical and Hellenistic were brought back through the Italian Renaissance in pieces such as the David and Pieta by Michelangelo.  Those periods even influenced the Baroque style seen in the Fountain of Four Rivers by Berninni.  It is no wonder why the Romans imitated the style of ancient Greek art.                           

Day 13

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end.  This wonderful trip had to come to an end.  I am so very grateful to have an opportunity like this and to have met the amazing people that I did.  I made a lot of friends and had the time of my life I did not want to leave and go home.     

Day 12

We ported in Crete and got off the boat around 8:30 AM.  The group went to an archeological museum.  I really enjoyed this one because I thought it was so interesting to see ancient jewelry.  I wish I could own a piece of it.  After that Emily, Angela, Marie and I made our way back to the ship because we were exhausted, I took a cat nap and then met everyone up by the pool for lunch.  Around 4:30 we docked in Santorini.  There I road a donkey up the mountain.  It was so much fun!  Except the excessive amount of poop surrounding them and my donkey of course kept on crashing into the side of the wall and cut all the other donkeys off.  I just had to buy the picture of me on the donkey.  The town was beautiful with its white domes and everything else in white.  There were several stores that sold linen clothing in nothing but white.  Here is when I found “the pants”.  I was very excited to find them and also to have something clean to wear tomorrow to go home in, because I had not more clean clothes.  We had dinner as a group in the nice restaurant on the cruise ship.  The food was delicious.  It was sad to think that it would be our last meal all together.  I did not want to pack after that, but I had too.  After dinner and packing, we all went to karaoke and the disco again.  It was weird to think that it would be our last time as a group. 

Day 11

We docked early in Turkey.  Marie and I got off the ship in a hurry to walk around the bazaar and so we could say that we were in Turkey.  There is where I found “the pants” and fell in love, but I thought that they were too expensive and did not want to buy them.  The bazaar reminded me of

Canal Street

in NYC only because of all of the imitation designer things that people were selling.  On the boat that day we all had some fun in the sun on the pool deck.  I got extremely sunburned this day, luckily it later turned into a nice tan.  After that we docked in Patmos another beautiful island.  We walked around, shopped and went to the beach.  Of course the group and I had to have another gyro, we made it a tradition to have a gyro wherever we docked.  I was on the prowl for “the pants” and even got Jacky and Danielle on the hunt for them.  That night the entire group went to the disco and karaoke.  It was a lot of fun bonding with everyone.  I was exhausted though and went to sleep as the ship sailed closer to Crete.

Day 10

We parted from some of the people in the other groups and made our way to the port where we would catch the cruise ship.  The cruise was a beautiful ship.  It was a pain to get the all inclusive drink package because for some reason they were charging me and the other girls under 21 for both drink packages.  That night we ported at Mykonos, Mykonos is a gorgeous island where all of the houses and shops are white with blue shutters, doors and accents.  I had a real Greek gyro there and it was addicting it was so good.  I took a lot of seenic pictures and saw the infamous windmills.  Also the pink pelican which is like the mascot of the island.  I could not get a picture next to it, but I did end up getting a picture of it biting some stranger’s head!  At night on the ship we got dressed up and went to the disco.  There I had a lot of fun dancing and goofing around with everyone.  The all inclusive drink package definitely came in handy that night. 

Day 9

Today we had a bus tour and a walking tour of Athens.  We saw the Olympic Stadium, the Acropolis and the Parthenon.  All of it was amazing.   I am not going to lie I did dose off during the bus tour.  I enjoyed seeing the Parthenon and thought it was so interesting how, it got ruined.  First when the Romans took over and their main religion was Christianity the turned the Parthenon into a Cathedral and ruined the many pagan statues inside and on the exterior.  When the ottomans took it over, they kept their missiles inside of it and one accidentally went off, completely ruining the structure and the ceiling.  It so sad to hear how the people that enslaved the Greeks for so long did not care about this wonderful piece of history and just ended up destroying it, when it could have been in decent condition if it did not happen.  After seeing the Parthenon we went to a National Archeological museum.  We had a lot of free time when we went back to the hotel, so our group made use of the pool and got our tan on J.  That night we went to Monastiraki.  We had delicious gyros and went shopping.  I immediately went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. 

Day 8

We went to the Oracle, which was literally 2 minutes away.  We could have walked there.  It was really interesting learning about the history of it.  I could not believe that there were once 3,000 statues in, on and around the Oracle.  It kind of eerie to think that the oracle could have been some old woman or man that went a little crazy because of the fumes that the area around it was exerting.  I really wanted to break the law and go in the ancient Temple of Apollo where the oracle supposedly was.  But I refrained from possibly getting arrested and sent home, plus the up keeping around the site of the oracle was not well kept.  There were a lot of overgrown grass and weeds.  After seeing this we then went to Athens.  The hotel that we stayed at was in a sketchy part of Athens.  I was surprised to hear that the hotel last year was worse and as Tomas put it “night and day”.  At least it had a pool!  For dinner we all took the metro to an area by the Acropolis, we went to a museum that was really cool and built over an archeological sight.  This museum housed all of the objects found on the Acropolis.  There were so many, and yet the British stole a lot.  I hope one day the British give back the pieces they took years ago so then everyone can see it all as it once was.  After dinner, I returned to my rotten vegetable smelling room and hung out with my roommates Danielle and Jacky.