Gender and Sexuality in Ancient Art

          Early Greek artwork lacks the refinement that is seen in the formal styles found in the later Classical Greek period, but themes begin to emerge that can be used to draw some conclusion about the daily lives of those that created it. The oldest pieces often employ an extremely stylized form to represent the world, and the simplistic figures are barely above the status of symbols, like one might expect to see in pictographs. In many ways, they can be viewed in linguistic terms and they can almost be read like a page.

          For example, the geometric krater from the Diphlon cemetery shows, in two horizontal registers not altogether different from Egyptian hieroglyphs, the story of the internment of a figure, starting in the lower register with a procession of soldiers and chariots.¹ The soldiers in the procession, traveling from left to right, are recognizable by the figure-of-eight shields and weapons. The upper register focuses to a central image of a frontal figure horizontally displayed above what is likely a bier.² The form of the figures are nearly identical, except that on the second register females a denoted by having two small dots on one side of their bodies, believed to be breasts, and the central horizontal figure, a thin line from his upper thigh that represented his penis.³ From this depiction, it may be concluded that the Athenians placed an importance on the death of this individual, but also that death was dealt with using what appears to be a fair amount of public ritual, having such a procession of soldiers in addition to the attending mourners. The most important cultural clue from this piece is that the artist took the time to individuate the sex of each figure even though the primitive style otherwise depicted them as identical. The roles that the sexes are shown in seem to be exclusive, women in morning, and men in procession. This is not the first work to display both sexes nearly identically, but separated by artistic convention and role.

          About seven hundred years before the geometric krater was made, the bull-leaping fresco in the palace at Knossos, Crete, used skin coloration to distinguish the male figure from the two accompanying women, a “widely accepted ancient convention”.⁴ The three figures are nearly identical in idealized shapes and proportions, while the female figures are heavily lined, the male figure is not.⁵ It is likely that the darker pigment used for the skin-tone make the thick lining unnecessary to convey the form, and that pigmentation was at least partially observational: men living in the public sphere would be exposed to the sun on a more regular bases, leading to a darkening of the skin. As with the later kraters, this fresco also shows a separation between the roles each sex plays; the male's spry activities, leaping onto the back of a charging bull, a clearly dangerous sport, places the male at the center of the frame, attention, and action. The female figures flanking the bull appear to be set aside as if to indicate a supporting role in the activity. While there are some representations of females as central to the art object, like the Snake Goddess, scenes that portray daily life seem to exclude women from an active role in society.⁶ The pattern of division of the roles males and females are shown doing in the art work likely represents a division between the sexes in Greek everyday life.

          As with the early stylized forms, it is possible to learn about other parts of Greek life as the artistic techniques were refined into more naturalistic depictions. From Exekias' black-figure depiction of Achilles and Ajax playing a dice game, we see the combination of two seemingly contradictory themes temporarily holding each other in an uneasy balance: leisure and duty.⁷

Between the two figures an act of play unfolds, while signs of conflict completely surround them. A figure-of-eight shield and circular aspis flank the figures on either side, greaves worn on their legs, helmets either resting atop the head or within easy reach, and clutching two dorys, long broad-tipped spears, the two appear to be fully prepared for battle, but instead they engage in play. The combination of the two activities, having reached the highest idealized state of being the role of legendary figures, likely shows what Greek men were aspiring to be.

        

Even in Euthymides' experimental red-figure piece of the Three Revelers, the activity of men, the movement of their bodies, and the apparent lively interactions among them comes through very clearly.⁸ While the men's placement, and odd posturing is most likely a series of figure studies, the stances are at the same time playful and aggressive.⁹ The central figure, twisting around to look at the harp player, over-handedly raises a crooked stave, perhaps part of a dance, perhaps to strike with it, or a combination of the two as a form of mock or play fighting. The exact reason is lost with the intentions of the long-dead artist, but the result is a tension similar to Achilles and Ajax. What this suggests is that within the role of men was packaged both the public pleasure and the duty of preparedness to use violence.

        

Contrasting that role with the scenes in the grave stele of Hegeso, and the Achilles Painter's warrior taking leave of his wife, a pattern can be traced in Greek sexual roles.^10,11 In “the secluded women's quarters of a Greek house, from which Hegeso rarely would have emerged”, she is attended by her maid, and she gazes at what was once a piece of jewelry painted onto the stone.¹² The significance is in the contrast with other grave markers, like the warrior departing his wife that shows a man, adorned with the trappings of a solider, and his seated wife, apparently before he departs her presumably secluded presence and enters the Greek male public life.

So, while both appear peaceful, and both are depictions relating to the death of the subjects, the movement of the women is from the chair to the grave, while the warrior stands ready for battle, and perhaps glory before he meets death. Most importantly, only after death is Hegeso seen in a public space, but the warrior departs into the public sphere with shield in hand; he is identified by his markers as a solider, while she is associated with nothing more than a piece of jewelry.

          However, as in the early period of Greek art, there are depictions of women shown in other roles, like the Venus de Milo, but along with the Snake Goddess, they are almost always shown in mythological settings.¹³ 

A major exception to that is the Old market woman, which is a detailed rendering of an aged woman, with deeply lined face and sagging breasts, carrying a heavy load.

¹⁴ Her labored pose, and disheveled appearance leaves no traces of the idealism present in most other depictions, including the explicitly erotic sleeping satyr, Barberini Faun.¹⁵ The satyr's reclined pose echos the leisure of other depictions of men, but the tension of conflict has been replaced by a sexual tension. The contrast suggests that women not seen as godess-like had no aesthetic appeal, while the masculine tension, even while at rest, was inherently sexual, especially with the absence of depictions of explicitly sexualized women, or old men.

          It seems that in Greek art an early dichotomy of sexual roles was established separating men as active participants in life, risks, and sexuality of the public sphere, from women, the passive ornamentation. When a woman's beauty had faded with age, her telos seems to be lost and she is reduced to laboring. The best description of this arrangement is a strictly patriarchal society, but beyond that, one that does not seem to follow the 20^th century’s invented heterosexual / homosexual division, even while symbolically annihilating women from their culture.

Bibliography

Achilles Painter. “Warrior Taking Leave of His Wife, (white-ground lekythos), from Eretria, Greece,” white-ground on ceramic, c. 440 BCE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-46. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

Alexandros of Antioch-On-The-Meander. “Aphrodite (Venus de Milo), from Melos, Greece,” marble, c. 150-125 BCE (Musee du Louve, Paris). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-56. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

“Bull-leaping, from the palace at Knossos (Crete), Greece,” fresco, c. 1400-1370 BCE (Archaeological Museum, Herakleion). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-5. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

Euthymides. “Three revelers (red-figure amphora), from Vulci, Italy,” red-figure on ceramic, c. 510 BCE (Staatliche Antikensammlunge, Munich). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-26. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

Exekias. “Achilles and Ajax playing a dice game (detail of a black-figure amphora), from Vulci, Italy,” black-figure on ceramic, c. 540-530 BCE (Musei Vaticani, Rome). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-24. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

“Geometric krater, from the Dipylon cemetery, Athens, Greece,” ceramic, c. 740 BCE (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-14. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

“Grave stele of Hegeso, from the Dipylon cemetery, Athens, Greece” marble, c. 400 BCE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-45. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

Kleiner, Fred. Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

“Old Market Woman,” marble, c. 150-100 BCE (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-58. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

“Sleeping Satyr (Barberini Faun) from Rome, Italy,” marble, c. 230-200 BCE (Glyptothek, Munich). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-57. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

“Snake Goddess, from the palace at Knossos (Crete), Greece,” faience, c. 1600 BCE (Archaeological Museum, Herakleion). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-5. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013.

Notes

1  “Geometric krater, from the Dipylon cemetery, Athens, Greece,” ceramic, c. 740 BCE (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-14. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 56.

2  Ibid., pg. 56.

3  Fred Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 56.

4  Ibid., pg. 51.

5  “Bull-leaping, from the palace at Knossos (Crete), Greece,” fresco, c. 1400-1370 BCE (Archaeological Museum, Herakleion). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-5. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 51.

6  “Snake Goddess, from the palace at Knossos (Crete), Greece,” faience, c. 1600 BCE (Archaeological Museum, Herakleion). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-5. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 53.

7  Exekias, “Achilles and Ajax playing a dice game (detail of a black-figure amphora), from Vulci, Italy,” black-figure on ceramic, c. 540-530 BCE (Musei Vaticani, Rome). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-24. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 62.

8  Euthymides, “Three revelers (red-figure amphora), from Vulci, Italy,” red-figure on ceramic, c. 510 BCE (Staatliche Antikensammlunge, Munich). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-26. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 63.

9  Kleiner, 63.

10  “Grave stele of Hegeso, from the Dipylon cemetery, Athens, Greece” marble, c. 400 BCE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-45. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 75.

11  Achilles Painter, “Warrior Taking Leave of His Wife, (white-ground lekythos), from Eretria, Greece” white-ground on ceramic, c. 440 BCE (National Archaeological Museum, Athens). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-46. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 75.

12  Kleiner, 74.

13  Alexandros of Antioch-On-The-Meander, “Aphrodite (Venus de Milo), from Melos, Greece,” marble, c. 150-125 BCE (Musee du Louve, Paris). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-56. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 82.

14  “Old Market Woman,” marble, c. 150-100 BCE (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-58. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 83.

15  “Sleeping Satyr (Barberini Faun) from Rome, Italy,” marble, c. 230-200 BCE (Glyptothek, Munich). In Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 3^rd ed., by Fred Kleiner, Figure 2-57. (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013), 83.