Study Questions: Biers,
Chapter 7: “THE ARCHAIC PERIOD”
Note: Answers are due Monday, March 01, 2021. Be prepared to answer the questions that end with the same number as your University of Arkansas ID number.
Illustration: Kore no 675. Acropolis Museum Athens. Biers 7.18. Note himation over chiton, with the remains of rich paint. Intentionally buried on Acropolis after the Persian destruction of 480 BCE, accounting for its good state of preservation.
1. Who was Solon? Who was Peisistratos? What did each do? Which was the “tyrant”, and which was the “lawgiver”?
2. Which Athenian was responsible for the democratic “Council of 500”, and what role did it play in the Athenian democracy?
3. In what years did the two Persian invasions of Greece take place? What happened in those wars?
4. What does Biers say about the reproduction of “the human body in stone”? Did archaic artists consciously try “to attain absolute realism” in representation?
5. Why do you think that stone temples were more expensive to make than wooden ones? Where did the first all-stone buildings appear?
6. The temple of Artemis on Corfu had columns on width and length of 8×17; the later Temple of Apollo at Corinth was 6×15; the Temple of Aphaia on Aegina was 6×12. What does this say about the way the shape and proportions of Greek temples changed over time?
7. Why did the Temple of Apollo at Corinth have two cellas?
8. How did the Temple of Apollo at Corinth anticipate some of the refinements which the Parthenon at Athens later displayed? (Be sure to use the word ‘entasis‘ and show that you understand hat it means.)
9. How were the Archaic temples of Asia Minor different from those in Greece proper?
10. What is “dipteral columniation,” and where is it found? Which two temples in our text show examples of it?
11. Why do you think that the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus “was classed as one of the wonders of the ancient world”?
12. What were “treasuries” used for? Where were they located? What did they look like? What was remarkable about the Cnidian and Siphnian treasuries at Delphi?
13. What does “agora” mean? What was in the Agora of Athens?
14. What was Athens’ “Royal Stoa” used for? What are its dates, and what did it look like?
15. Define: kouros; kore. What are the plurals for these words? Find two illustrations of each. What did they look like?
16. Whence came the main stylistic models for the kouros and kore?
17. What does Biers mean when he writes: “From the time of the New York kouros to the end of the century, an unbroken development in the rendering of the human body can be seen within the framework of the kouros pose” ?
[Andy Stewart’s definition of the kouros: Youthful, beautiful, naked, autonomous, and happy.]
18. How does Biers explain the “Archaic smile“? (p. 166)
19. What is significant about the elevation of the left buttock on the”Kritios boy“?
20. Why were kouros figures naked, but kore figures clothed?
21. Biers distinguishes between a woman’s “peplos” and “chiton“. Which did women wear on the outside, and which underneath? What garment eventually replaced the peplos?
22. What was Phrasikleia’s marital status when she died? What was unusual about how the kore was found? (169, see color plate 3, facing page 96)
23. How do we know that the peplos kore had metal decorations?
24. Where was the peplos kore found? Describe the statue. Why was it so well preserved?
25. How does “Kore no. 675” (fig. 7.18, also at the top of this web page) show “the love of contrasting surface textures”? How is it different from the Euthydikos kore (fig. 7.19)?
26. What problems faced the artist who was charged with designing sculpture for the pediment of a Greek temple? How did some of the artists solve the problem?
27. Describe the pedimental decoration from the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi (Fig. 7.21; 173-74)
28. Why is the pose of the giant in Fig. 7.23 physically impossible?
29. What is unusual about the west and east pedimental sculpture from the temple of Aphaia on Aegina?
30. What was the central theme of the figures on the François Vase? What else is on the vase?
31. In the Red Figure painting technique, what was the purpose of the “relief line“?
32. When did Red Figure style begin, and how did it compare to the black-figure style?
35. How were musculature and figure details rendered in the Red Figure style?
36. Where would you expect to find a “tondo“? Describe a tondo scene in our text.
37. What does Biers say about vase-painting subjects that are “mythical” and those which represent “everyday life”?
Everyday Life 1 Everyday Life 2 Everyday Life 3 Everyday Life 4
38. What three different techniques were used to make Archaic terra cotta figurines?
39. Where did coinage begin? What IS coinage? What Greek states were connected with the coin images of Turtle, Owl, Pegasus?
40. What years does “Archaic Greek Art” encompass? What year is convenient to end the period? What period follows it?
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