Ancient Greek Art - Ancient Greece for Kids

Ancient Greek Art

Exekias vase
Exekias black-figure vase from Athens

Ancient Greek art is mainly in five forms: architecture, sculpture, painting, painted pottery, and music.

Greek music includes the lyre, pipes, and singing, and around 500 BC gradually developed branches like Greek plays (which always involved music) and Greek philosophy, which tried to figure out how music and numbers related to each other.

Architecture includes houses, religious buildings like temples and tombs, and public building like city walls, theaters, stadia, and stoas.

Sculpture includes small figurines and life-size statues, but also relief sculptures which were on the sides of buildings, and also tombstones.

We have very little Greek painting from the Classical period; most of what we have is from the Bronze Age. The paintings were painted on walls, as decoration for rooms, like murals or wallpaper. On the other hand, we have a good deal of painted pottery from all periods of Greek history (down to the Hellenistic).


To find out more about Greek art, check out these books from Amazon or your library:

ancient greek artgreek art

Ancient Greek Art, by Susie Hodge (1998)- for kids ages 9-12.

Greek Art and Archaeology (3rd Edition), by John G. Pedley (2002) This is NOT a children's book, but it has a lot of good information and is pretty readable. Plus, the author is really an expert in this field.

The Archaeology of Greece: An Introduction, by William R. Biers (revised edition 1996) Like Pedley's book, this is NOT a children's book, but Biers writes very clearly and has a lot of good pictures.
 

Etruscan Art page
Roman Art page
Medieval Art page
Main Ancient Greeks page
Main art page


Cite this page: Carr, Karen (PhD).

Kidipede - History for Kids. 2012.
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/art/greekart.htm