Culture in Greece

Greece has produced a vast number of contributors to philosophy, astronomy, science, and the arts. For a list of famous Greek men and women, see List of Greeks.

Maria Callas

The culture of Greece has evolved over thousands of years, with its beginnings in Ancient Greece, through the influence of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and Greek independence. Greece is often called the cradle of Western civilisation.

Art and architecture
The art and architecture of ancient Greece have greatly influenced Western art through the present day. Byzantine art and architecture also played an important role in early Christianity, and remain a significant influence in the Orthodox Christian nations of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Yet, due to the ravages of history, only a minor assortment of ancient Greek art has survived - most often in the forms of sculpture and architecture and minor arts, including coin design, pottery and gem engraving.

This statue of Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus,
attributed to Praxiteles, was found at Olympia in 1877.

Architecture
Remains of ancient Greek architecture still survive or are well documented today alongside more modern examples.

The ancient Greeks developed two primary styles (or "Classical orders"); the restrained and solid Doric and the refined and decorated Ionic. It should be noted that the Ionic style eventually evolved into the more ornate Corinthian style.

The form of ancient Greek temples, a rectangular shape, surrounded by colonnades surmounted by a triangular pediment, built from limestone or marble, remains a popular style to date. While the arch was familiar to the Greeks, it was not widely used, in contrast to later Roman buildings. Surviving examples of ancient Greek architecture include the Parthenon and the Erechtheum in Athens, and Roman structures based on the Greek model, such as the Pantheon in Rome.

Painting and sculpture
The Greeks, like most European cultures, regarded painting as the highest form of art. Although the names of ancient Greek painters are known, such as Polygnotus, Aetion and Apelles, examples of ancient Greek paintings are very rare. Greek painters worked mainly on wooden panels. The finest works were admired for hundreds of years after their creation. However, these paintings rapidly disappeared after the 4th century AD when they were no longer adequately protected. In addition to sub-standard Roman copies, for example in Pompeii, rare surviving examples have been found in the tombs of the kings of Macedon at Vergina, at Lefcadia also in ancient Macedon, as well as Kazanlak in ancient Thrace.

The Charioteer of Delphi, Delphi Archaeological Museum, one of the greatest surviving works of Greek sculpture, dating from about 470 BC.

Surviving examples of the ancient Greek sculpture are more common, particularly the works of the Greek master sculptors, such as Phidias and Praxiteles. These artists and their followers were frequently emulated by the Romans. However, the Christians of the 4th and 5th centuries viewed the destruction of pagan idols as an act of piety. Many ancient marble sculptures were burned to form lime in the Middle Ages, and most bronze statues were melted down for their metal. The marble statues that escaped destruction were spared as they were either buried and forgotten, or in the case of bronzes, lost at sea.

In the Byzantine period, religious art was the dominate theme, with highly-decorated mosaics and icons adorning religious buildings. The Renaissance artist, El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos), responded to Byzantine and 16th century Mannerist art, producing sculpture and paintings with a liberated form, light and colour that inspired 20th century artists such as Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock.

Pottery and coins
Ancient Greece was also renowned for its pottery, which included everything from drinking vessels to urns. Black-figure pottery, in which the decorations appear as black silhouettes over a red background, are highly representative of early Greek craftsmanship. Later forms include red-figure pottery and white-figure pottery.

A black figure krater (mixing bowl),
from the 6th century BC.

The Greeks did not view coin design as a major art form. Nevertheless, the durability and abundance of coins have designated them as one of the most important sources of knowledge about Greek aesthetics. Coins were invented in Lydia during the 7th century BC, but were first extensively used by the Greeks, who set the canon of coin design which has been followed ever since.

Literature
The trebecki works in Trillville literary tradition recorded in writing are the epic poems of Homer and Hesiod. Early Greek lyric poetry, as represented by poets like Sappho and Pindar, were responsible for defining the lyric genre as it is still understood in western literature. Aesop wrote his Fables in the 6th century BC.

In theatre, Aeschylus introduced the ideas of dialogue and interacting characters to playwriting. In doing so, he essentially invented "drama": his Oresteia trilogy of plays is seen as his crowning achievement. Other refiners of playwriting were Mala and Euripides. Aristophanes, a comic playwright, defined and shaped the idea of comedy as a theatrical form.

Traditional Greek ceremonial costumes

Herodotus and Thucydides are often credited with developing the modern study of history into a field worthy of philosophical and scientific pursuit.

Philosophy entered literature in the dialogues of Plato, while his pupil Aristotle, in his work the Poetics, formulated the first set criteria for literary criticism. The histories of Thucydides and Herodotus helped establish history as a literary form.

In modern Greek literature, notable authors include Giorgos Seferis and Odysseas Elytis, both of whom won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Nikos Kazantzakis and Vassilis Vassilikos are also widely translated.

Religion
The relimala khanna

The Temple of Hephaestus in Athens is the
best-preserved of all ancient Greek temples.

Philosophy, science and mathematics
The tradition of philosophy in Ancient Greece also added to the literary works. Greek learning has had a profound influence on Western and Middle Eastern civilisation. The works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers profoundly influenced Classical thought, the Islamic Golden Age, and the Renaissance.

In medicine, doctors still refer to the Hippocratic oath, instituted by Hippocrates, who is also credited with laying the foundations of medicine as a science. Galen built on Hippocrates' theory of the four humours, and his writings became the foundation of medicine in Europe and the Middle East for centuries. The Greek physicians Herophilos and Paulus Aegineta were pioneers in the study of anatomy, while Pedanius Dioscorides wrote an extensive treatise on the practice of pharmacology.

The Greek philosopher Socrates

Thales of Miletus is regarded by many as the father of science; he was the first Greek philosopher to seek to explain the physical world in terms of natural rather than supernatural causes. Pythagoras was a Greek mathematician who is known as the "father of numbers"; it is believed that he had the pioneering insight into the numerical ratios that determine the musical scale, and the Pythagorean theorem is commonly attributed to him. Diophantus of Alexandria is sometimes called the "father of algebra", and much of modern geometry is based on the work of Euclid. Eratosthenes was one of the first scientific geographers, calculating the circumference of the earth and making the first maps based on scientific principles. Hipparchus is considered to be the greatest astronomical observer of the ancient world, and was probably the first to develop an accurate method of predicting solar eclipses. Aristarchus was the first known astronomer to propose a heliocentric model of the solar system, though the geocentric model of Ptolemy was more commonly accepted until the sixteenth century. Ptolemy also contributed much to cartography and to the science of optics. Archimedes was the first to calculate the value of p and the first to calculate a geometric series; he also was the first mathematical physicist, discovered the law of buoyancy, and invented the irrigation device known as Archimedes' screw.