Influences of Classical Greek Architecture
The ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras best described the basis for his civilizations art and architecture when he stated, "Of all things the measure is man." Greek culture emphasized the beauty of the human body, and created idealized male and female forms still used today. A majority of Greek sculpture and architecture includes depictions of the human body, usually to pay homage to a particular god or goddess. The ancient Greeks placed this importance on the human body because the Gods which they worshipped were anthropomorphic, or believed to appear as people. The Greeks believed that each god was flawless, and since the gods took human form, the body which he or she inhabited could be nothing less than aesthetically perfect. Greek sculptors developed an ideal model of human proportion when they created sculptures of the gods. This idealized form can be seen in Polykleitos' sculpture, the Doriforus. Polykleitos used the canon, or a set of relationships and ratios for the human body, in his sculpture. This symmetry and proportion that existed in the idealized human form found in Greek sculpture was reflected in the civilizations architecture as well. For example, buildings such as the Parthenon in Athens show the Greek
The sophisticated Greek government produced a society that had little use for extravagant tombs and palaces. The Greek gods and goddesses were depicted as nothing less than perfect human figures, and the carefully proportioned temples built to display these sculptures capture the gods' beauty in a suggestion of the buildings contents. Greeks had no political figures equivalent to the Egyptian pharaoh, because of this they had no reason to build tombs and palaces to celebrate their rulers. Instead, all of their architectural thought was devoted to temples intended to house cult statues of the various gods. Greek temples are the first buildings that are no longer primarily functional; they are intended to be seen as beautiful objects externally, though they still succeed in creating sacred internal space. Greek architects were able to solve complex visual problems, and successfully make the Parthenon a temple worthy of the goddess that it honors, Athena. For example, the building is seven columns wide by eleven columns long, a dimension regarded as aesthetically perfect by Greek artists. The ancient Greeks also created the first democratic government, a system which promoted equality for all men in Greece. The building itself reflects the Greek focus on ratios and proportions. The ancient Greeks were the first major empire to believe that the gods they worshipped lived amongst them, and they imitated their gods' perfection in artistic creations for the world that surrounded them. Both works result in a three dimensional object that can be observed with equal interest from all sides. Greek culture created inventive works of art, and many aspects of the sculpture and architecture were not equaled until thousands of years later. Overall, the approach taken by the architects of the Parthenon mirrors the structured mathematical approach of Polykleitos, sculptor of the Doriforus. For example, when the straight lines of a building are seen from far away, such as the center of Athens, they appear to sag and distort. Buildings erected in Classical Greece were very different from major structures of other ancient cultures.
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