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Greek art has influenced and been influenced by surrounding cultures for five thousand years, and it is this rich history of cultural interaction that makes the architecture, sculpture, painting, and pottery of Greece fascinating. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to study Greek art history because it is so old, and a small fraction of what once existed survives today. However, these remnants are some of the most respected works in the world.

ARCHITECTURE

Around 600 BC, the Greeks began to build temples with iconic stone columns that would come to define Greek architecture. Like other Greek art, architecture was meant to serve a purpose. Many of the surviving buildings are temples that were dedicated to specific gods or goddesses and housed the priests and stored the offerings that the public made to those deities.

Possibly the most famous collection of Greek architecture is found upon the Acropolis in Athens. At the top of this significant hill is perched the Parthenon, a temple to the goddess Athena built around 500 B.C. Its columns are precisely spaced and the pediments were once adorned with intricately carved statues depicting Greek mythology. The Parthenon was damaged in 1687 when the Ottomans were using it as a weapons storage facility, but it still stands today as one of the most respected buildings in the world.

Two distinct styles also classify Greek architecture, known as Doric and Ionic. The Ionic form is generally more decorative and ornate. The Ionic columns are capped with scroll-like design features. The Doric is reserved for formal buildings and was often considered to symbolize an institution's trustworthiness. This perception of Doric architecture still exists today, as it is the style of many government buildings.

SCULPTURE

Over centuries, Greek sculptors refined their representation of the human body so that many ancient Greek sculptures are still considered the finest art in the world. From the kouros statues which depicted a young man taking a single step, the artists began to depict human bodies in action with increasing detail. Greeks discovered that even a statue with perfect anatomy would not look realistic if it was posed rigidly, so they developed the idea of contrapposto which reflects a person standing at rest with weight supported mostly by one leg.

A typical example of Greek sculpture is Myron's bronze Discobolos, which is a figure of an athlete in motion preparing to throw a discus. Today, it exists because there is a Roman marble

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