Reference no: EM133357382

Assignment:

Richard Neer, Greek Art and Archaeology, c. 2500-150 BCE--"Case Study: Athens and the Akropolis, c. 480-c. 404 BCE"

1. What lead to the Athenians making a "massive investment in religious architecture" in the second half of the 5thcentury?
2. What is the "paradox" of Perikles that Neer identifies?
3. What was the Themistoklean wall?
4. What is a Stoa?
5. What is significant about the so-called Painted Stoa in the Athenian agora?
6. What was stored in the "Virgin Room" and how does the contents of this room allow one to explain the intended use of the Parthenon?
7. What are some of the specific architectural design decisions made by Iktinos that leads Neer to describe the Parthenon as "strangely, subtly springy"?
8. What were the consequences of the Athenians decision to change the design of the Parthenon and add a sculpted Ionic frieze running all the way around the outside of the core building?
9. What is the decorative program of that frieze? In other words, what is the subject matter that it depicts?
10. Who was Lord Elgin?
11. Describe in a sentence or two the core issue of the "Elgin Marbles Controversy."
12. What is the Propylaia?
13. What is the function of the Temple of Athena Polias?
14. What were some of the architectural challenges faced in the design and building of the Temple of Athena Polias?
15. What are caryatids? Whom might they represent?

Questions on Marble Statue of Youth, "New York Kouros," c. 590 BCE (found today in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

1. With what period of Greek art do we associate this statue?
2. Where would you have found a statue like this in ancient Greece?
3. The scholars describe this statue as a symbol. What is it symbolizing?
4. The scholars also note that there is something "present yet absent" about this statue. How would you explain what they mean by that?

Questions on "Attic Black Figure: Exekias amphora with Ajax and Achilles playing a game," c. 540 BCE (found today in Vatican Museums, Vatican City)

1. What scene is being depicted on this amphora?
2. What details in this amphora allow us to see Ajax as tense and Achilles as relaxed?

Questions on "Artemision Zeus or Poseidon," c. 460 BCE, recovered from shipwreck off Cape Artemision, Greece in 1928 (found today in the National Archeological Museum Athens); and Polykleitos, "Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer)", c. 450-440 BCE [Roman copy]

With what stylistic period do we associate both of these sculptures?

1. Why are we not entire certain who is being represented in Artemision Zeus or Poseidon?
2. What does the fact that this (Artemision Zeus or Poseidon) is a bronze sculpture influence how the body is being represented?
3. How does the Doryphoros convey the idea of "beauty through ratio"?
4. How does the Doryphoros represent the perfection of human form? What did Greeks believe such perfection consisted of?
5. How do both of these sculptures convey ideas championed by Plato?