AP® Art History review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/art-history/units/2/2-2)
Unit 2 · Topic 2.2
2.2 Interactions Within and Across Cultures in Ancient Mediterranean Art
Ancient Mediterranean cultures borrowed constantly. Greek sculptors learned from Egypt, Etruscans adapted Greek styles, Persians drew on Assyria, and Rome copied and reworked Greek art for its own goals. This topic follows those connections through nine works.
Key terms
- kouros
- contrapposto
- canon of proportions
- Roman copy
- arch and barrel vault
- engaged column
Assyria to Greece: learning from older empires
Lamassu from the citadel of Sargon II (Dur Sharrukin, modern Khorsabad, Iraq; Neo-Assyrian; c. 720–705 BCE; alabaster). A lamassu is a protective spirit with a human head, the body of a bull or lion, and wings. Pairs guarded the gates of Sargon II's palace. Each has five legs: from the front it stands still, from the side it strides forward. The horned crown marks divinity. Later, the Persians placed similar gateway beasts at Persepolis, borrowing the idea for their own empire.
Anavysos Kouros (Archaic Greek; c. 530 BCE; marble with remnants of paint). A kouros is a statue of a standing nude young man. The pose, frontal with the left foot forward and fists clenched, comes from Egyptian sculpture. But the Greek figure stands free with no back slab, is nude and has rounder, more natural muscles. It marked the grave of Kroisos, and its base asks passersby to mourn a man killed in battle. Note the Archaic smile, a slight smile used to make faces look alive.
Peplos Kore from the Acropolis (Archaic Greek; c. 530 BCE; marble, painted details). A kore is a standing clothed young woman. This one was an offering on the Acropolis. Traces of paint show the original was brightly colored, with patterned clothing. Some scholars now think she wears a goddess's costume rather than a simple peplos (a wool tunic) and may be a goddess such as Athena or Artemis.
The Greek ideal and its Roman copies
Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) (Polykleitos; original 450–440 BCE; Roman copy in marble of a Greek bronze original). Polykleitos wrote a treatise called the Canon that set ideal proportions, each body part a fixed ratio of the others, and this statue demonstrated it. It shows contrapposto: weight on the right leg, the left relaxed, hips and shoulders tilting in opposite directions. The bronze original is lost; the tree trunk and strut in the marble copy are supports that stone needs. Wealthy Romans collected copies like this one.
Augustus of Prima Porta (Imperial Roman; early first century CE; marble). Augustus, Rome's first emperor, borrowed the Doryphoros's pose and ideal proportions to look timeless and heroic. His raised arm is a gesture of addressing troops. The breastplate shows a Parthian returning Roman military standards, a diplomatic triumph. Cupid on a dolphin at his leg refers to his family's claimed descent from the goddess Venus, and his bare feet suggest the divine. His face stays youthful, though he lived into his seventies.
Etruscans, Hellenistic Greece and Rome
Sarcophagus of the Spouses (Etruscan; c. 520 BCE; terra cotta). A couple recline together on a banquet couch, with almond eyes and Archaic smiles borrowed from Greek style. But the subject is Etruscan: respectable Greek women did not dine with men, while Etruscan women did. It held the remains of the dead and was made of fired clay, a favorite Etruscan material, in sections.
Great Altar of Zeus and Athena at Pergamon (Asia Minor, present-day Turkey; Hellenistic Greek; c. 175 BCE; marble). Hellenistic means Greek art after Alexander the Great, when Greek culture spread across a huge area. The altar's frieze shows gods battling giants, carved in very high relief, with twisting bodies that spill onto the steps. Many scholars read the battle as an allegory of Pergamon's wars against the Gauls. Pergamon was presenting itself as the new Athens.
Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun (Pompeii; Republican Roman; c. 100 BCE; mosaic). A mosaic is a picture made of small pieces of stone or glass called tesserae. This one, on a wealthy Roman's floor, shows Alexander the Great charging Darius III of Persia. It probably copies a lost Greek painting, and its shading, foreshortening (shortening forms to show depth) and crowded spears show Greek painting skill. A Roman owner displayed Greek culture and a famous victory.
Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater) (Rome; Imperial Roman; 70–80 CE; stone and concrete). Roman engineering, concrete, the arch and the barrel vault (a tunnel-shaped arched ceiling), made a stadium for about 50,000 spectators. The outside wears Greek orders as decoration: engaged columns (half-columns attached to the wall) in Tuscan (Doric), Ionic and Corinthian, rising story by story. The Greek columns hold nothing up; the arches do the work. The Flavian emperors built it on land Nero had taken for his palace, a gift of public entertainment.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
A continuity-and-change paragraph
Explain how Augustus of Prima Porta both continues and changes the tradition of the Doryphoros.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Continuity: name specific shared features (contrapposto, ideal proportions, idealized face).
- Step 2: Change: name what the Romans added (portrait of a real ruler, armor with political imagery, oratorical gesture, Cupid).
- Step 3: Explain why: the Greek ideal made Augustus look timeless, while the new details served Roman politics.
Answer: Model answer: Augustus of Prima Porta continues the tradition of Polykleitos's Doryphoros by using the same contrapposto stance and ideal proportions, which present the emperor as calm, balanced and perfect. It changes that tradition by turning an ideal athlete into a political portrait: Augustus wears a breastplate showing the return of Roman standards from Parthia, raises his arm to address troops, and has Cupid at his leg to claim descent from Venus. The Greek ideal gave Augustus a timeless, godlike body, while the added imagery advertised his specific achievements and right to rule.
Common mistakes
- Saying the Doryphoros we see is by Polykleitos's own hand. It's a Roman marble copy of his lost bronze.
- Calling the kouros's pose contrapposto. The kouros stands evenly; contrapposto comes later, with the Doryphoros.
- Saying the Colosseum's columns hold the building up. They're decorative; arches, vaults and concrete carry the load.
- Missing the five legs of the lamassu, which are a favorite multiple-choice detail.
On the exam
- Continuity-and-change questions love this topic. Practice explaining a chain like Egyptian standing figure, then kouros, then Doryphoros, then Augustus, with specific visual evidence at each step.
- On attribution questions, the Archaic smile, stiff frontality and patterned hair point to Archaic Greek; twisting, dramatic bodies point to Hellenistic.
Connected topics
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Check yourself: 2.2 Interactions Within and Across Cultures in Ancient Mediterranean Art
4 questions on 2.2 Interactions Within and Across Cultures in Ancient Mediterranean Art. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
"Polycletus . . . executed . . . the statue of a youth full of manly vigour, and called the Doryphoros. He also made what the artists have called the Model statue, and from which, as from a sort of standard, they study the lineaments: so that he, of all men, is thought in one work of art to have exhausted all the resources of art. . . . A discovery which was entirely his own, was the art of placing statues on one leg."
Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book 34 (first century CE), translated by John Bostock and H. T. Riley (1855). "Polycletus" is Polykleitos.
Pliny's "Model statue," used as "a sort of standard," refers to Polykleitos's
Pliny's "art of placing statues on one leg" describes
The best-known Doryphoros today is a marble copy made in Roman times of a lost Greek bronze. Which feature of the copy is most likely a change from the original?
A marble statue shows the emperor in a decorated breastplate, raising his right arm as if addressing troops. He is barefoot. A small Cupid riding a dolphin is carved by his right leg. The center of the breastplate shows a Parthian handing back a military standard to a Roman.
The Cupid riding a dolphin beside the leg of the Augustus of Prima Porta
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