MINOAN AND MYCENAEAN ART 1650-1200 BC

MINOANS

Minoan civilization was named after the legendary King Minos, and grew up during the Bronze Age on the island of Crete

From about 3000-2500 BCE, the early Minoan people led a basic agricultural existence, but by about 2100 BC they had built up a prosperous maritime trade with countries around the Mediterranean. This included buying tin and combining it with copper from Cyprus, to make bronze - the key metal of the time. This mercantile prosperity led to the construction of a series of palaces or 'court buildings at Knossos, Phaestus, Akrotiri, Kato Zakros and Mallia,

CRETE

MYCENIANS

Mycenean culture is often used in the history of art to describe early mainland Greek art as a whole during the late Bronze Age.

MYCEANE

Mycenean arts and culture were dominated by the Minoan civilization. Minoan artists and painters visited Greece regularly, although the Mycenean artistic style became a balance between the exuberant naturalism of Crete and the formality of the mainland. Like the Minoans, the Myceneans also built palaces in which fresco painting, executed in tempera, was a common feature.

FRESCO

The art term Fresco (Italian for 'fresh') describes the method of painting in which pigments are mixed solely with and then applied directly onto freshly laid lime-plaster surface.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtCiyb3o29g

As in Egyptian art, most Mycenean painting, sculpture and precious metalwork were commissioned to glorify the rulers of the day - both in death as well as life.

As it happened, not long after the Myceneans conquered Troy, they were themselves attacked by invading Dorians and in about 1100 BCE (the start of the Greek 'Dark Ages') the city of Mycenae, along with much of its art, was destroyed.