GREEK ARCHIPELAGO 



The only events which broke the 

 monotony of political warfare for 

 some time after this were the 

 murder of Delyannis (1905) and 

 a revising of the constitution 

 (1911). But in 1912 came the 

 Balkan War, in which Greece 

 joined Serbia and Bulgaria against 

 Turkey and wiped out the stain of 

 humiliation that had rested upon 

 the country since 1897. The troops 

 fought well and deserved their 

 successes, which brought an addi- 

 tion of some 16,000 sq. m. to Greek 

 territory. Further gains were made 

 at the expense of Bulgaria, against 

 whom the Greeks turned their arms 

 in 1913, with Serbia and Ru- 

 mania, owing to quarrels over the 

 partition of the Turkish spoils. 



The outbreak of the Great War 

 divided the Greek nation. Some 

 hoped that Greece might be able 

 to remain neutral. Others sup- 

 ported Venizelos, and were for 

 taking the side of Britain, France, 

 and Russia. In the end the latter 

 prevailed, and King Constantino 

 lost his throne in 1917, the Powers 

 which had guaranteed Greek inde- 

 pendence demanding his expulsion 

 from the country. Hs was succeeded 

 by his son Alexander, a young man 

 of 24, who died in Oct., 1920. 



Venizelos throughout the period 

 1917-20 was virtually dictator. 

 Const ant ine returned in Dec., 

 1920, abdicated Sept., 1922, and 

 died Jan. 11, 1923. Succeeded by 

 his son George II, the latter was 

 forced to leave the country at the 

 end of 1923. Meantime the Turks 

 made war on the Greeks in Asia 

 Minor, where in 1921-22 the latter 

 suffered defeats; the Turks cap- 

 tured Smyrna and drove the Greeks 

 from Asia Minor. In Jan , 1 924, 

 Venizelos was back in Greece as 

 premier. See Salonica ; N.V. 



Bibliography. History of Greece. 

 E. Curtius, Eng. trans. A. W. Ward, 

 1868-73 ; Epochs of Ancient His- 

 tory, ed. G. W. Cox and C. Sankey, 

 1876 ; Social Life in Greece, J. P. 

 Mahaffy, 1877 ; Thucydides, Eng. 

 trans. J. Jowett, 1881 ; Herodotus, 

 Eng. trans. G. C. Macaulay, 1890, 

 and G. Rawlinson, 1897 ; Plutarch's 

 Lives, Eng. trans. T. North, new 

 ed., 1898; Europe, vol i., G. G. 

 Chisholm, in Stanford's Compen- 

 dium of Geography and Travel, 

 1899; History of Greece, C. W. C. 

 Oman, 7th ed, 1901 ; A Smaller 

 Histcry of Greece, W. Smith, 1905; 

 Greece, J. Fulleylove and J. A. 

 McClvmont, 1906; History of 

 Greece, G. Grote, new ed. 1869-70 : 

 condensed and ed. with notes, etc. 

 J. M. Mitchell and M. O. B. 

 Caspar), 1907 ; Ancient Greece, 

 G. G. A. Murray, 1911 ; History of 

 Greece to the JDeath of Alexander 

 the Great, J. B. Bury, 1913. 



Greek Archipelago. Cluster 

 of islands in the Aegean Sea (q.v.). 



3673 



GREEK ART 



GREEK ART AND ARCHITECTURE 



H. Stuart-Jones. Camden Prof, of Ancient Hist. .Oxford, and P. J. Maclet 



Information complementary to that contained in the two following 

 articles will be found under the headings Athens ; Acropolis ; Apollo ; 

 Architecture ; Art ; Roman Art ; Sculpture ; Theatre ; the biographies 

 of the great sculptors, Apelles ; Pheidias, etc., and the names of 

 famous buildings, e.g. Erechlheum ; Mausoleum ; Parthenon. 

 See also Aegean Civilization ; Mycenae ; Troy, etc. 



Discoveries at Mycenae revealed 

 an art which, had it been shown to 

 be that of the Heroic Age of which 

 Homer sung, belonged properly to 

 the Greek race, and w? u s the earli- 

 est expression of its genius. They 

 proved, however, to be only the 

 first stage in the process by which 

 the civilization of the Aegean in 

 prehistoric times was brought to 

 light and a continuous archaeo- 

 logical record established, dating 

 from the neolithic age. 



It became clear that Crete was 

 in the earliest time the seat of a 

 great power, doubtless the kingdom 

 of Minos known to Greek tradition ; 

 and the palace of the rulers of 

 Cnossus was the centre from which 

 its artistic influence was carried 

 far and wide in the Eastern Medi- 

 terranean. Hence we now speak of 

 Minoan rather than Mycenaean art, 

 since the importance of Mycenae is 

 secondary and contemporary with 

 the later phases of the develop- 

 ment in Crete. But it is very 

 questionable whether the artists of 

 this period were in any sense 

 Greeks ; their pictographic script 

 has not, it is true, been deciphered, 

 but it seems unlikely that it was 

 used to write the Greek tongue. 



The art of the time produced 

 masterpieces of decoration, and 

 some remarkably naturalistic 

 works such as the gold cups un- 

 earthed at Vaphio ; but it lacks the 

 sobriety and symmetry of true 

 Greek art, and it seems best to 

 suppose that Aegean civilization 

 came to an end about 1000 B.C. 

 owing to the invasion of waves of 

 immigrants from the north, who 

 founded the Greek race. The older 

 art died out and left but doubtful 

 traces in that which followed. 

 Early Greek Art 



The earliest Greek art in the 

 proper sense is represented for us 

 almost entirely by pottery, at first 

 adorned with geometrical patterns 

 and a few rudely drawn figures, 

 but later borrowing from Oriental 

 models a wealth of plant and 

 animal forms usually arranged in 

 horizontal bands of decoration. 

 Corinth and Chalcis in Greece 

 proper were the main centres of 



S'oduction ; Ionia, Rhodes, and 

 elos had their own styles. Ere 

 long, subjects from myth and saga 

 began to make their appearance, 

 generally isolated scenes of com- 

 bat or exploits of heroes. 



Ionian art treats its material 

 with greater breadth, expanding it 

 so as to fill a frieze, and often dis- 

 regards the unities of time and 

 space ; Doric art concentrates 

 attention on a single motive and 

 prefers the square field. Some 

 remains of early metal work and 

 painted sarcophagi from Ionia 

 illustrate this, and the cedar-wood 

 chest covered with carvings, which 

 was dedicated at Olympia by the 

 tyrant Cypselus (q.v.) of Corinth, 

 seems to have combined both forms 

 in one. The FranQois vase, an Attic 

 work of the early 6th century B.C., 

 shows the handicraft of this time at 

 its best. There is an artistic, as dis- 

 tinct from a literary, tradition in the 

 handling of mythological subjects. 

 The Beginnings of Sculpture 



To the same period belong the 

 beginnings of Greek sculpture. 

 This was at first religious ; the 

 earliest statues were those of the 

 gods, the next those of their 

 priests or worshippers, dedicated in 

 temple-precincts. At first we have 

 rude and shapeless images such as 

 that of Apollo at Amyclae, a 

 bronze column with head, hands, 

 and feet attached ; these rough- 

 hewn pillars were called Xoana. 

 But the progress made by the 

 Greek artist in representing the 

 human form was very rapid. For 

 some time he obeyed the law of 

 frontality which prescribes that 

 the figure shall be symmetrical 

 about a straight vertical line, and 

 when this limitation was over- 

 come, he continued to represent 

 the most typical aspect of his 

 subject, or even to combine 

 typical aspects of its several parts, 

 so that we have a full-faced body 

 with the legs of a runner hi profile. 



The limits of strictly religious 

 art were passed when athletes 

 who won victories in the games 

 were permitted to dedicate their 

 statues. Hence came a powerful 

 impulse to the study of the human 

 form, and in due time to the repro- 

 duction of individual features, 

 though true portrait sculpture 

 begins at the earliest in the 5th 

 century. Ancient writers tell of a 

 mythical Daedalus as the founder 

 of a school of sculptors ; the names 

 of many of his successors are 

 historical, such as Archermus of 

 Chios, Dipoenus and Scyllis of 

 Crete, and Rhoecus and Theodorus, 

 the inventors of casting in bronze. 



