Article
Abaton
Article
Aberkios
Greek, 19th century, male.
Lived and worked at the monastery of Mount Athos in the middle of the 19th century.
Engraver (line-engraving).
An engraving by this Greek monk represents the Virgin enthroned, surrounded by the tribes of Jesse and a number of prophets. He is also noted for 24 small vignettes illustrating a Greek hymnal....
Article
Acestor
5th century, male.
Active at the beginning of the 5th century BC.
Born to a family originally from Cnossus.
Sculptor in bronze.
Ancient Greek.
Acestor is believed to be the father of Amphion, who was sometimes - though wrongly - credited with the Delphic Charioteer...
Article
Acestor (Son of Aeschron)
3rd century, male.
Active in Argos.
Sculptor.
Ancient Greek.
Acestor worked in collaboration with Toron, son of Apellion, also from Argos, on a votive statue from Troezen.
Article
Achilles Painter
5th century, male.
Active between 460 and 430 BC.
Painter.
Ancient Greek.
The Achilles Painter is named for his depictions of Achilles, particularly that on an amphora in the Vatican where the hero is shown armed with a lance and wearing a cuirass. He is depicted standing alone, while on the other side of the amphora is a female figure. This way of presenting single figures, one on either side of a vase, can be compared to the work of the Berlin Painter and initially had a very strong influence on the Achilles Painter. The rather exaggerated anatomical details of the early nudes is borrowed from the Berlin Painter....
Article
Acquarossa
Marco Rendeli
[It.: ‘red water’]
Modern name of an Etruscan settlement near Viterbo, Italy. It is situated on a small tufa plateau bounded on three sides by streams, one of which runs red. Excavations conducted by the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies during the 1960s and 1970s uncovered the tufa foundations of buildings that comprised various sectors of an ancient town. These provide some of the most extensive archaeological evidence relating to Etruscan domestic architecture and urban organization. The site was already inhabited in the 8th century
Article
Acrolith
Gordon Campbell
[Gr.: ‘high stone’]
Ancient Greek statue with a wooden body and the head and limbs made of stone (usually marble, sometimes limestone). This technique seems to have come into use in Greece at the end of the 6th century
While the wooden bodies of ancient acroliths are not preserved, their stone extremities have occasionally survived and can be identified through specific characteristics of their technical manufacture (acrolithic heads, for example, have flat undersides, whereas heads fashioned for insertion into stone bodies were made with convex tenons). In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the extent of stone elements can increase, so that for example the head and naked parts of the chest are made of one marble segment. The appearance of acroliths could be similar to chryselephantine (gold-ivory) statues, to which they may have offered a more cost-effective alternative, although it seems that other considerations, such as their role within the cult ritual, may have been of greater significance. Examples of surviving stone fragments from acroliths are a colossal head in the Ludovisi collection in Rome and an ...
Article
Acron (Son of Praton)
5th century, male.
Active in the second half of the 5th century BC.
Born to a family originally from Selinus (Selinunte), Sicily.
Sculptor.
Ancient Greek.
Acron's name appears at Delphi on a base for two statues ( Asclepius and Hygieia?) offered by Philistion, a devotee of Asclepius. The inscription dates from before 400 BC....
Article
Acropolis
John Camp and Reinhard Stupperich
(Athens)
In ancient Greek the term acropolis means simply the ‘upper or higher city’ or ‘citadel’, although in general usage it has become firmly associated with the unparalleled architectural and sculptural ensemble of the Classical Athenian Acropolis.
First inhabited and fortified in the Bronze Age (c. 1550–c. 1050
The impetus for the first major building phase on the Acropolis seems to have been the Peisistratid family, who ruled Athens as tyrants (absolute, but not necessarily despotic, rulers; see Peisistratos), and was apparently connected with their reorganization of the Panathenaic festival in honour of Athena around 566 ...
Article
Acroterion
A. Delivorrias
Decorative finial crowning the apex and lower angles of the pediments of ancient Greek and Roman buildings. Acroteria were normally made of terracotta, poros, limestone or marble, although bronze acroteria are mentioned in the literary sources: Pausanias (Guide to Greece V.x.4) noted gilded Victories framed by bronze cauldrons at the lower angles of the pediments of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. The bronze Victories framing Bellerophon and the Chimaera on the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis at Athens are recorded in inscriptions, and traces of their bases survive.
The stylistic development of acroteria begins in the 7th century
Article
Actium Monument
Thorsten Opper
Elaborate monument erected by Octavian (later Augustus) in 29–27
According to the historian Dio Cassius (Roman History LI.i.3), after his victory Octavian laid a foundation of square stones on the spot where he had pitched his tent, which he then adorned with the captured ships’ rams. On this foundation, according to Dio, Octavian established an open-air shrine dedicated to Apollo. Suetonius (Augustus xviii.2) and Strabo (Geography VII.vii.6) corroborate this evidence, although the trophy itself (with the ships’ rams) was, according to Suetonius, dedicated to Poseidon and Mars, presumably for their help during the battle. The hill itself was, according to Strabo, sacred to Apollo, and therefore the shrine was dedicated to him....
Article
Adamas (Son of Adamas)
2nd century, male.
Sculptor.
Ancient Greek.
According to an inscription from Delos, Adamas, an Athenian active at the end of the 2nd century BC, and his brothers Dionysodorus and Moschion made a statue ( Isis?) that was erected in Athens.
Article
Adler, (Johann Heinrich) Friedrich
(b Berlin, Oct 15, 1827; d Berlin, Sept 15, 1908).
German architect, archaeologist and writer. He was one of the leading figures of Berlin’s architectural establishment in the latter half of the 19th century. On completion of his studies in 1852, he was given the prestigious post of Bauleiter at the Neues Museum in Berlin, designed by Friedrich August Stüler. He subsequently became a lecturer and in 1861 a professor of architectural history at the Bauakademie in Berlin. Many of his church buildings used medieval motifs and elements, for example the Christuskirche (1862–8) in Berlin and the Elisabethkirche (1869–72) in Wilhelmshafen. He followed Karl Bötticher in his attempts to merge medieval and classical elements, best illustrated in his design for the Thomaskirche (competition 1862; built 1865–70), Berlin. There, Adler used Gothic structural devices embellished with rich Renaissance detail, a tendency that was also present in many of the entries for the Berlin Cathedral competition (...
Article
Adolus, Joannes
Greek, 16th century, male.
Active in Nicaea before 1588.
Painter. History painting, portraits.
According to Zani, Adolus reproduced an old Byzantine painting dating from the 14th century, the Portrait of Epiphanias, Bishop of Constance.
Article
Adyton
[Gr. ‘not to be entered’; Lat. adytum]
Most sacred inner part of a temple, accessible only to the priests (see Greece, ancient, fig. g).
S. K. Thalman: The Adyton in the Greek Temples of South Italy and Sicily (diss., U. California, Berkeley, 1976) M. B. Hollinshead: ‘"Adyton", "Opisthodomos", and the Inner Room of the Greek Temple’, Hesperia: Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 68/2 (April–June 1999), pp. 189–218...Article
Aedicula
Margaret Lyttleton
Columnar niche or shrine applied decoratively to a larger building. The word is a diminutive from the Latin word aedes (‘temple’). Summerson traced its application to Gothic architecture and drew attention to the importance of playing at being in a house for all small children; he claimed that this kind of play has much to do with the aesthetics of architecture and leads ultimately to the use of the aedicula. The earliest surviving examples of aediculae are shop-signs from Pompeii, such as that showing Mercury or Hermes emerging from a small building. Later aediculae appear extensively in wall paintings of the Fourth Style (c.
Article
Aegean Bronze Age civilizations
For the art produced during the Greek Bronze Age (c. 3600–c. 1100
Crete, §2: Sub-Minoan to Hellenistic, c 1050–67 BC...
