what's new in grave markers so remember in ancient Greece we started out with the giant ceramic pot as a grave marker and then we move to Kouros figures and by 400 BCE now we've got something that's a little bit more like a headstone in a cemetery as you and I might know it today this reflects a change in artistic taste but it also is practical and a space saver so this example I'm particularly fond of but it also irritates me at the same time it's known as the head gay so steel a so a steel a is a free-standing relief sculpture that is not Illustrated on all sides it's illustrated primarily in the front we've got the artist rendering of what it would have looked like brightly painted and you can see the family name across the top and give you a sense of how it was decorated so this is about I don't know about a couple feet high and a couple of feet wide it's interesting to note that in the text it doesn't have the name of the woman who died but it says it is the daughter of proxy knows now that's not important for us to remember but what's important for us to remember is that she wasn't deemed worthy of having her own name on her own grave marker how to irritate a art history profile hmm so what is the narrative what's going on here what kind of story can you write about what you see you've got two female figures who is the deceased and what is the role of the other person in the image what is going on with that box in the center what is she holding what are the possibilities as we move to the late classic period we will see this continued evolution in depiction of the human form getting to be more and more precise and beautifully rendered in this survey we don't have enough time to go into the important innovations in theater but suffice it to say that just about all of the architectural elements that you will see in a modern-day theater can be shown back to the ancient Greek period the one thing I do want you to understand is that this is a horse is an aerial view of a Greek theater this is made from stone and it is unsupported by itself it's it's built into a hillside it is an amp you theater and so the Greek amp you theater is going to set up the design for theaters across time and culture to this day and we'll be looking for innovations we'll be looking for changes in theater design and construction when we get to the Roman period so pause the recording for a moment and see if you could list the style the technique and the iconography how'd you do well I hope you realize that this is the Greek classic period the technique it is a marble relief and so you can make a leap and say well maybe this is a steel a and in fact it is and when I tell you that it is a grave steel a it will help you understand the narrative look at the figures in this depiction what is their posture how do the figures inter relate who is the most important and how do you know so there's all kinds of hints in this image about the deceased and you're like well it must be the old guy on the right look at his facial expression look at his gesture a gesture is what does he do with your hands the gaze what where is his gaze who is gazing at us the viewer and who is looking away or somewhere else these are all tools that we use in order to determine who is a person who died and since you guys are beginners I'm gonna let you know that this is the person who has died you're like but wait a minute who's this guy then will you tell me if this is a young man who has died and this is a person who is not looking at us but his looking at the person who is looking at us this is your clue that this is perhaps his father or an uncle some elder and an elder who might be saying this is not this should not have happened my son should not have died my nephew should not have died I am the old man I should have died and so do you see how that gesture that hand motion of his hand resting on his chin is one of contemplation and sadness now let's look and see who else is here look down here crouched in the corner is this little boy and what are his emotions what is his gesture what is his gaze his gaze is down and his body is slumped over and he's so sad so maybe this is the son or maybe the little brother of the person who has died the person that he looked up to may be a mighty warrior or something like that we can even see that the family dog is here at the grave sniffing around saying where is my master where is my master so this is really a wonderful moment for me in the history of art of an image that's not as famous it's not in the the greatest hits parade grave Steeley of young hunter 340 b.c.e who is very famous is this image of Heracles our artist here is lysippos and this is one of those important stories from Greek mythology Heracles has been out on his trials you know he's got to go through a series of trials this has another name that I don't like it's also called the far Nazy Heracles because the far nazy's are the Italian family that obtained this and it's in a building that they used to own I just like wery as in tired Heracles once again Roman copy of a Greek bronze let's think about all the things that you could say about this image as we take a look at different parts of the body so these are the textbook images literally and then I'm going to show you some that I took when I got to visit this sculpture in Italy a couple of years ago so he's gone through these trials you can see he's got the Golden Fleece you see the lion head here now remember that in a bronze this wouldn't be necessary but in a marble this is so look at look at that contrapposto look at how far he leans this could never stand up on its own in marble but it could in bronze now let's take a look at his face look at the furrow in his brow look at his gaze looking down his mouth is expressionless I love these two kids here as a size reference so you see how it's up you're supposed to look up at the sculpture the details of the work are really amazing and that's the kind of thing that you only really get to understand when you see it in person of course you have this desire to kind of give him a good scrub but of course you would never do anything like that to in antiquity because the marble over the centuries the surface of the marl begins to disintegrate a little bit so what we've seen here is a real humanization of this God figure the irony of this hyperfit God who's so tired he needs to lean on something I'm so exhausted after his completion of his 12 labors this is the prime example of a sculpture that you need to walk all the way around in order to understand it it's very important when you are in a setting and sometimes the way that museums set up art you can't get all the way around it but fortunately in this one you can so we reach a time of transition we are moving to a period of turmoil and turnover the time of Alexander the Great we're not going to talk about Alexander a lot we're just gonna say that he brings big trouble he is from Macedonia he's from another area he is a warrior Lord who has some interesting ideas he's the first fella to require a unified image so he has his face on coin his face in mosaic his face in sculpture and it's always the same he hires the same artist to create his likeness so no matter where you are in the Greek world you know what Alexander looks like but Alexander is not gonna last forever