 Throughout the sixth century B.C., Greek artists made great strides in achieving naturalistic representation of the human figure in a style now known as Archaic. This distinctly Greek endeavor is a watershed in the history of European art. Two types of freestanding, large-scale sculpture predominate: the male kouros, or standing nude youth, and the female kore, or standing draped maiden. Among the earliest examples of the type, the New York Kouros reveals Egyptian influence in its pose and proportions. Erected in sanctuaries and cemeteries outside the city walls, these large-scale stone statues served as dedications to the gods or as grave markers. Expensive funerary monuments were frequently erected in Athens and its environs, especially for aristocrats who had died in the flower of their youth. Such monuments could also take the form of a stele (tall shaft), often decorated with relief sculpture, crowned by a capital and a finial. Like all ancient marble sculpture, funerary statues and grave stelai were brightly painted, and extensive remains of red, black, blue, and green pigment can still be seen.
Sanctuaries were a focus of artistic achievement and served as major repositories of works of art. The two main orders of Greek architecture–the Doric order of mainland Greece and the western colonies and the Ionic order of the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor and the Ionian islands–were well established by the beginning of the sixth century B.C. Temple architecture continued to be refined throughout the century by a process of vibrant experimentation, often through building projects initiated by such tyrants as Peisistratos of Athens. Temples and other public buildings were frequently embellished with sculptural figures of stone or terracotta, paintings (now mostly lost), elaborate moldings, and vegetal motifs. Powerful images intended to avert evil, such as lions attacking bulls, were especially popular. True narrative scenes in relief sculpture appeared in the latter part of the sixth century B.C. as artists became increasingly successful at showing figures in motion. Four Panhellenic sanctuaries, each with its own newly instituted or revised athletic and musical competitions, became preeminent: Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, and Isthmia. Victory in the Panhellenic games brought honor to the victor, his family, and his city-state. Statues of victors were erected as dedications to the gods. About 566 B.C., Athens established the Panathenaic games. Among the honors accorded the victors at the Panathenaic games were free meals at public expense and the award of a large quantity of olive oil in amphorae. Trophy amphorae were decorated with the event in which the athlete had triumphed. Other sanctuary dedications included bronze statuettes, vessels, and armor of exquisite quality, as well as more common handmade and molded terracotta votives.
Creativity and innovation took many forms in sixth-century B.C. Greece. The earliest known Greek scientist, Thales of Miletos, demonstrating the cycles of nature, successfully predicted a solar eclipse and the solstices. Pythagoras of Samos, famous today for the theorem in geometry that bears his name, was an influential and forward-thinking mathematician. The lawgiver and poet Solon instituted ground-breaking reforms in Athens and established a written code of laws that everyone knew and obeyed. Athenian potters mastered Corinthian techniques; and by 550 B.C., Athenian black-figure pottery dominated the export market throughout the Mediterranean region. Athenian vases of the second half of the sixth century b.c. provide a wealth of iconography illuminating numerous aspects of Greek culture, including funerary rites, daily life, the symposium (drinking party), athletics, warfare, gods, heroes, and myths. Some vase-painters and potters are known to us from their signatures; others remain anonymous and have been given names of convenience by modern scholars. Among the great painters of Attic black-figure vases are Sophilos, Kleitias, Nearchos, Lydos, Exekias, and the Amasis Painter. Vase-painters experimented with a variety of techniques to overcome the limitations of black-figure painting with its emphasis on silhouette and incised detail. The consequent invention of the red-figure technique, which offered greater opportunities for drawing and eventually superseded black-figure, is conventionally dated about 530 B.C.and attributed to the workshop of the potter Andokides.
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