THE ROBERT AND RENÉE BELFER COURT
The Robert and Renée Belfer Court completed the first phase of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's renovation of the galleries of ancient Greek and Roman art. Contained within Richard Morris Hunt's plan of 1895, the Belfer Court displays prehistoric and early Greek art.
Represented on the west side of the Belfer Court are several regions--the Cycladic Islands, Crete, and the parts of the Greek mainland centered around Mycenae--where major works of art were first produced. The respective cultures, known as Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean, flourished during the prehistoric period known as the Bronze Age, between about 3200 and 1050 B.C. After a period of decline and general impoverishment, a vigorous resurgence took place. Between about 1050 and 700 B.C. an artistic style known as Geometric prevailed over most of Greece.
The east side of the Belfer Court is devoted to the succeeding Archaic period of about 700 to 480 B.C. The emphasis is on works that display the colorful, complex multiplicity that characterized the Greek world for more than two centuries rather than on works that represent a succession of cultures that came to the fore over a long period. This side of the Court highlights the art of eastern and western Greece (the Greek colonies in western Asia Minor and those of southern Italy and Sicily, respectively), of Crete, and of various areas on the mainland that flourished at this time: Corinth, Lakonia, Boeotia, and Euboea. Artists from these areas shared such features as great proficiency in working bronze and clay and an iconographical repertory that favors animals and stylized plant motifs as well as the exploits of the gods and heroes of mythology. Archaic Greece met the challenge of the Persian invasion that ended in 479 B.C., assuring the continuity of its traditions.
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