Ancient Greek Painting for Kids - from the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic period in Greece

Greek Painting

dolphins from Knossos
Although we know from written sources that the Greeks painted pictures from the Bronze Age through to the Roman conquest and beyond, most of them have been destroyed and very few of them survive. It may seem strange that more of the older paintings survived than the more recent ones. This is because some of the Bronze Age paintings were buried by volcanoes (as at Pompeii) and others were buried by earthquakes, and so they were not destroyed and archaeologists were able to dig them up. The few later paintings that survive were mostly painted on the walls of tombs, underground, and that is how they survived safely.
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minoan fresco

The earliest real paintings we have from the Greek world are from the Minoan culture on the island of Crete. They were painted on the walls of palaces where the rulers of Crete lived, around 1700-1400 BC, and when the Myceneans destroyed the palaces around 1400 BC, some of the pictures survived buried under the ruins of the palaces.

mycenaean fresco

(Notice that these pictures were not hung on the walls but painted directly on the walls: they were fresco paintings).

thera fresco

Another set of pictures, about the same time, comes from the island of Thera (also called Santorini), in the middle of the Aegean between Crete and Greece. The main city on Thera, Akrotiri, was buried by a volcanic eruption around 1600 BC (Click here for a discussion of the exact date; archaeologists disagree). This is from a house in Akrotiri.


Do you see, again, the interest in landscape and plant forms which was so important on Crete? Maybe the people of Akrotiri admired the powerful Cretans and wanted their art to look like the art on Crete.

We also have some Bronze Age paintings from the palaces of the Mycenean kings in mainland Greece.

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

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.

Ancient Greek Painting and its Echoes in Later Art, by Massimiliano David (2004) - also not for kids. Interesting analysis of the influence of Greek art on later European painters.

Bronze Age Painting
Later Painting
Main Greek Art page
Main Greeks page
Main art page




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