How does Ancient Greek Art help us understand the Greeks?
Well, ancient Greek art often serves as relics for studying the past. Popular forms of their art included Vase painting, sculpture, friezes, architecture and temples. In vase painting we can trace the development of artistic styles and tools used to create the images. What started off as very basic designs that often looked like nazi symbols (no jokes) in one color, changed over time to intricate images on white background, red figures, black figures, etc. Some of these artists, like the Ezekias painter were the celebrated artists at the time. These painters usually broke new ground, especially in realistically portraying scenes. This is the same for sculpture. As artists developed their skills, they experimented with different positions of the body, and ultimately became more adept at recreating reality. Also, the images on vase paintings illustrated waht was important at the time. Often these images portrayed gods, mythological heroes like Achilles and Ajax, or Centaurs and Dionysus
