Sometimes these stances appeared to serve a purpose, while other times the reasons appeared to be insignificant or contained within a single motion, such as a satyr inspecting his tail. Currently located in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France Louvre Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 190 BC), made out of Parian marble and found in Samothrace in 1863. With these Hellenistic statues, sculptors sought to build the position on a spiraling twist so that the observer could see something interesting from all angles. secular influence.īecause not every figure was an Olympian, deity, or orator, the artists had to devise a wide range of positions to effectively reflect these new sculptural personalities. The presence of the elderly and children, individuals of various races (especially Africans), and grotesque sculptures demonstrate that diversity was not restricted to religious vs. Eros, for instance, is shown as a young boy, whereas Aphrodite is depicted naked. The libraries of Pergamon and Alexandria provided artists with accessibility to this heritage, which, along with their understanding of previous artworks, provided them with a basis from which to work with invention and inventiveness.Īs local faiths grew more secularized as a result of Grecian influence, and as those religions affected Greece, artists discovered new methods to represent their own gods. The historical curiosity that defined this era was also a significant influence on the value of the artgenerated. Grecian influences combined with native culture during these kingdoms resulted in a wide range of techniques and subjects in Hellenistic art. These kingdoms and alliances eventually disintegrated into smaller kingdoms enriched with Greek cultural characteristics. Other lands formed leagues, such as the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues. The Near Eastern Seleucids, the Egyptian Ptolemies, and the Macedonian Antigonids were all born in these countries. When Alexander led the Greeks to triumph, he split the captured regions among his commanders, the Diadochi. 3 Mosaics and Paintings of the Hellenistic Era.In ancient Greece, blue eyes and reddish-blonde hair were considered extremely beautiful.Ĭonsidering that modern Greeks share a great genetic similarity to the Greeks of antiquity, it is safe to assume that the ancients resembled contemporary inhabitants of the country where blue eyes and light hair are still uncommon. Golden-red hair considered the most beautifulįrequently, the most sought-after traits are those that are least common. Women often used blush and lipstick made of natural sources like beets and berries to add a flush of color to their faces. Known today to cause severe developmental delays, infertility, and dementia, it was used in a paste form, much like today’s foundation, to whiten the complexion and make a woman look more youthful. In the ancient world, as a matter of fact, lead was one of the most widely-used substances in makeup. There are countless ancient texts advising women to don powdery, white makeup, which was largely lead-based, on their skin to maintain a pale complexion while covering any blemishes. Women in ancient Greece would also use this to line their eyes and darken their eyelashes. Those who did not already have a unibrow were known to use kohl, or black shadow-like eyeliner, to fill in the space between their eyebrows. In ancient Greece, those with eyebrows that joined in the middle-in a so-called unibrow-were considered more symmetrical and therefore more beautiful. This devotion to symmetry even extended to eyebrows. According to this ratio, symmetrical faces are the most beautiful. Unibrows and the quest for symmetry in ancient Greeceįamously, the brilliant mathematician, Pythagoras, developed the Golden Ratio, a geometrical formula that linked balance and symmetry to beauty-and not just amongst humans but in everything. Philosophers, mathematicians, and artists in antiquity explored the topic endlessly. The nature of beauty was a topic of great debate in ancient Greece. Hesiod, an ancient Greek poet who was a contemporary of Homer, described the first woman as “kalon kakon,” or the beautiful, evil thing in his work Theogony, which describes the origins of the Greek gods. It seems that beautiful women were doomed from the start.
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