Historical Foundations of Visual Technology Workbook

2   Greeks and geometry
We now look at the nature and purpose visual objects created by the early Greek civilization and how it inherited many aspects of Egyptian art, then departed from these origins between 700 BCE and 400 BCE. Introducing elements of foreshortening and study of human anatomy, visual objects representing humans and deities became more lifelike, evolving a remarkable degree of perfection unrivaled for more than a millennium. We examine the identification of Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns on architecture. We consider the influence of Greek art on the visual objects of the Roman republic, the "perfect solids" identified by the ancients, and the evolution of large structure creation techniques including pyramids, Greek temples and the development of the arch. We examine the nature of monumental objects of the Roman era, Middle Eastern portraiture funerary practices, the influence of Rome on Buddhist artistic practice, and the radical changes in art brought about by the Christian conquest of Rome.

The audio chapter commentaries here provide lecture material on the indicated chapters of Gombrich's Story of Art, 16th edition. To listen to the audio lecture along with slide viewing on a computer, click the “Audio lecture” link first to start the audio, minimize any screen your sound player produces, and then click the “Slides” link to view the slides. If you only want to view the slides, just click that link. The audio file may be used separately on a portable sound player by viewing the illustrations in the Gombrich text itself, since the audio calls out page and figure numbers.

Chapter 3 – The Great Awakening

Audio lecture

Slides

Chapter 4 – The Realm of Beauty

Audio lecture

Slides

Chapter 5 – World Conquerors

Audio lecture

Slides

Note: Several of the web links below originated in Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia developed by volunteers. While Wikipedia is a commendable effort in knowledge sharing it is not respected by many as an academically credible source, since contributors are not necessarily accredited in the areas in which they write, and the review process is also a volunteer effort. Ordinarily I don't recommend citing Wikipedia in your academic work. However the items listed below appear credible to me as a well-illustrated exposure to several aspects of Greek art and architecture. I have included these here as .pdf files (copies taken from Wikipedia) because I wanted to "freeze" them in the form I reviewed them rather than chance recommending these in a possibly altered form (Wikipedia is subject to alteration at any time). If you cite these for any academic purpose make sure you state "accessed on April 4, 2008" in your bibliographic entry as well as the URL included within the printing of each item.

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