What were the major artistic achievements of Ancient Greece?

Ancient Greek art is an overview of European art in the true sense of the word, beginning with Ancient Greece. The geographical scope of Greek art was centered on the Aegean Sea, and therefore it is also regarded as the continuation of Aegean art. Shelley once intoned in his poem, "We are all Greeks." Greece is the birthplace and cradle of European civilization. Without Greece, it is impossible to imagine what European civilization would be like, and the traditions of Greek civilization remain everywhere in the Western world today. However, except for the citizens living on the Greek Peninsula who consider themselves Greeks, few people, like Shelley, consider themselves to be Greeks by philosophical imagination. So who were the Greeks? History shows that the Mycenaeans, conquerors of Crete and destroyers of the city of Troy, were among the earliest inhabitants of Greece. Later, they became slaves of the northern barbarians and were gradually divided into Doric and Ionian peoples, all of whom shared the same beliefs and language and were therefore called Greeks. The word "Greek" means elegant and beautiful. The Greeks, who later created many masterpieces of sculpture and art, were worthy of this name of elegance and beauty, which is true to its name. Greece is surrounded by the sea on three sides and is connected to the European continent in the north. The territory of many natural harbors, can pass through the Mediterranean Sea to all over the world, for navigation and foreign trade provides a very favorable natural environment, inland mountainous, barren land, but the abundance of marble, for the art of carving provides a very convenient material materials. Mycenae Craft Sculpture The city of Mycenae is located in the eastern part of the Peloponnese Peninsula at the southern end of the Greek Peninsula. The culture that took place in this area was named after the city of Mycenae, and is known as the "Mycenaean Culture", which became another important culture after the Cretan culture. In Homer's epic poem, Homer often used the word "golden" to describe Mycenae. In fact, it is not rich in gold, but gold and silver craft products are quite developed, which is due to the Mycenaeans and gold-producing countries, especially the Egyptians direct trade formed, the most notable is the gold masks, gold wine vessels. Today's archaeological findings in addition to the lion's door with decorative carvings, sculptural achievements are mainly expressed in the gold and silver craft products. Animal sculpture was widely used in the craft of wine vessels. The Lion's Head Wine Cup is made of gold foil, and its image is based on realism, focusing on decorative carving, concise and generalized, presenting the basic features of the lion. The most interesting is the tall "Dove Wine Cup" with double handles, which has an unusual shape. This shape of wine cup was described in the epic poem "The Iliad": "Next to it lay a wine cup, which the old man had brought from his native land. It was inlaid with gold studs, and the cup had four lifting lugs a ****, and above each of them stood a pair of golden doves, as if they were pecking; and under the lifting lugs there were two long handles." This is a true record, the "epic" is based on historical facts. Gold masks are funerary objects, made to imitate the face of the dead, usually on the face of the noble dead, these masks are actually the effigy of the clan tribal leaders. Therefore, the face of each mask has its own characteristics: some have thick eyebrows and big eyes, some have light eyebrows, and some have tightly closed lips. Mycenaean custom of this mask for the dead cover, the ancient Egyptians have long been used, and there is an obvious religious meaning: to leave an immortal face for the dead, so that the soul of the dead floating around the four directions after the soul can find their own home. Mycenaean production of masks also has this religious meaning, so far there is no historical evidence. Aegean art seems to be geographically connected to Egyptian art and Greek art, but it was never an intermediate medium between Egyptian and Greek art. Sculpture in the Aegean region has national and local characteristics, and this individuality is manifested both in the composition of art forms and in the aesthetic consciousness. Aegean art image to people's visual feeling is not as Egyptian as the worship of the gods and pharaohs, more on the gods and the king's disregard. Their art is directly linked to human beings themselves and real life, and the art form is more relaxed and natural than that of ancient Egypt, with a harmonious sense of rhythm and fluctuation. Cretan history of prosperity and decline, the Trojan War caused the destruction of Troy, the decline of Mycenae, a group of barbaric nomads Atticans south, a generation of ancient civilization in the iron hooves into a ruin. But it was on the ruins of this civilization that the ancient Greek civilization was born. In the 12th century B.C., the Aegean civilization was seriously damaged by the invasion of northern barbarians. However, the unyielding Greeks re-established the splendid Greek civilization on the ruins of this once rich civilization, which became the true ancestor of European civilization. In the Greek Peninsula, which entered the slave society, more than 200 slave city-states were established, each of which was centered on a city together with the rural areas on the outskirts of the city to form a country of varying sizes, each governing its own way. The most powerful among them were Athens and Sparta. Due to the poverty of the country and the poverty of the people, in order to survive and develop, there were constant wars between the city-states, and the weak were the strongest. In order to save themselves and plunder wealth, the city-states implemented the policy of strengthening the country and the army, practiced democratic politics within the city-states, and the free people participated in the governance of the city-states directly, and attached great importance to the exercise of the national physical qualities, so that managing the country and exercising the physical fitness were the sacred duties of every citizen. Greece native climate is pleasant, sunny, moderate temperature, in such natural conditions suitable for outdoor nude exercise and competition. As a result of the nude movement, changed people's concepts, not to show their bodies as a shame, but to bodybuilding for the glory, which caused the attention of aesthetes and artists performance, aesthetes found the beauty of the human body, artists to create the beauty of the human body. The great statesman Pericles said, "We are lovers of beauty." The Greek nation was a people who loved and created beauty. Greeks in the democratic freedom and fierce competition in the environment not only found, nurtured and created the beauty, but also created God, in the minds of the Greeks, the most perfect man is God, so the Greeks respect people, raise people to the height of God to be affirmed, the gods and people are the same shape and same sex, the Greeks see the strong body as the origin of all the goodness and beauty, and Greek myths are regarded as the spiritual source of the art, as Max pointed out: "Greek mythology is not only the source of beauty, but also the source of the art of the human body. As Max pointed out, "Greek mythology is not only the arsenal of Greek art, but also its soil". Therefore, the main achievements of Greek art were manifested in the sculptures and temple architecture which united the gods with human beings. The main features of Greek art were all-embracing harmony and regularity, as well as solemnity and stillness. Its main symbol was the beauty of the human body, and the Greeks contributed to mankind an unparalleled work of art. Greek Sculpture As the northern barbarians came south and destroyed the civilizations of Crete and Mycenae, the Greeks were forced to re-create their own civilization. Greek civilization is mainly expressed in Greek mythology, architecture and sculpture. Greek sculpture is divided into four periods, namely, the Homeric period (12th century BC-8th century), named after Homer's epic poem, which is the only written history of this period; the Archaic period (750 BC-end of the 6th century), named after the ancient and childish style of the sculpture art of this period; and the Classical period (second half of the 5th century BC -334 BC), refers to the end of the Hippocratic War to the Macedonian Alexander the Great began to invade the East; Hellenistic period (334-30 BC), refers to the historical period of Rome's fall of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt.