Antiquity: Greece and Rome

The Greeks made man the measure of all things, and the Romans spread their ideals across an entire empire.

In a few hundred years Greek sculpture moved from stiff kouroi to bodies that move freely. With contrapposto, in which the weight rests on one leg, statues began to seem alive. In the Classical period of the 5th century BC the Parthenon was built, and sculptors such as Polykleitos worked out the proportions of the ideal body.

In the Hellenistic age, after Alexander the Great, art became more dramatic and emotional: the Laocoön group and the Winged Victory of Samothrace are full of movement and pain. Ancient statues, incidentally, were often painted in strong colours – the whiteness we associate with antiquity came later.

The Romans admired and copied Greek art but added realistic portraits, great feats of engineering such as the Pantheon, and wall paintings like those at Pompeii. The vault, the dome and concrete made Roman architecture a model for two thousand years.

• From stiff youth to living body
• The Parthenon and its fate
• Vases, walls and mosaics
• Roman art – more than copies
• How antiquity was rediscovered
• Close reading: the Laocoön group
• The status of artists in Greece and Rome
• Marble, bronze and colour
• Theatre, home and city
• Etruscans, Celts and the North
• Antiquity – Architecture
• Fidias
• Myron
• Lysippos
• Euphranor
• Epigonus
• Laokoongruppen
• Laokoongruppen