Alexander the Great

Examples of Alexander the Great in the following topics:

• Egyptian Art After Alexander the Great

  • Hellenistic art, richly diverse in subject matter and in stylistic development, characterized culture after Alexander the Great.
  • The Ptolemaic Kingdom (332–30 BCE) in and around Egypt began following Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BCE and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BCE.
  • For the first time, there were museums and great libraries, such as those at Alexandria and Pergamon.
  • When Alexander the Great arrived, he established Alexandria on the site of the Persian fort of Rhakortis.
  • Portrait of Alexander the Great, said to be from Alexandria, Egypt.

• Paintings, Macedonian Court Art, and the Alexander Mosaic

  • Alexander the Great was a talented general who conquered territory from the Mediterranean to India and maintained power through use of art.
  • The head of Alexander the Great demonstrates Alexander's portrait style .
  • The Alexander Mosaic is a Roman floor mosaic from 100 BCE that was excavated from the House of the Faun in Pompeii.
  • The mosaic depicts the Battle of Issus that occurred between the troops of Alexander the Great and King Darius III of Persia.
  • Discuss how Alexander the Great used artists to legitimize his political rule

• Late Classical Period

  • The Late Classical period covers the last decades of the Classical periods in the fourth century BCE before the conquest of Greece by Philip II of Macedon and the beginning of the Hellenistic period following the death of Alexander the Great.
  • The weakened state of the heartland of Greece coincided with the Rise of Macedon, led by Philip II.
  • Alexander, son and successor of Philip, continued the war.
  • Alexander defeated Darius III of Persia and completely destroyed the Achaemenid Empire, annexing it to Macedon and earning himself the epithet 'the Great'.
  • When Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, Greek power and influence was at its zenith.

• Introduction to Ancient Greece

  • The culture was centered on trade and production, and the Minoans were great seafarers on the Mediterranean Sea.
  • The population in Greece began to rise and the Greeks began to colonize along the coasts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
  • However, peace and stability in Greece was not achieved until it was conquered and united by Macedonia under the leadership of Philip II and Alexander the Great in the mid-third century BCE.
  • The Hellenistic period began with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, and ended with the Roman victory at the Battle of Actium in 30 BCE.
  • New centers of Hellenic culture flourished through Greece and on foreign soil, including the cities of Pergamon, Antioch, and Alexandria, the capitals of the post-Alexander the Great empires of the Attalids, Seleucids, and Ptolemies.

• Painting in the Greek High Classical Period

  • Alexander III of Macedonia (356-323 BCE), better known as Alexander the Great, very carefully controlled and crafted his portraiture.
  • The Alexander Mosaic is a Roman floor mosaic from approximately 100 BCE that was excavated from the House of the Faun in Pompeii.
  • The mosaic depicts the Battle of Issus that occurred between the troops of Alexander the Great and King Darius III of Persia.
  • The two main characters of the battle are easily distinguishable and this portrait of Alexander may be one of his most recognizable.
  • Alexander is depicted in profile at the far left.

• Roman Sculpture under the Republic

  • It is one of the earliest reliefs sculpted in continuous narration, in which the viewer "reads" from left to right the recording of the census, the purification of the army before the altar of Mars, and the levy of the soldiers.
  • The portraits of Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar, two political rivals who were also the most powerful generals in the Republic, began to change the style of the portraits and their use.
  • Pompey borrowed a specific parting and curl of his hair from Alexander the Great.
  • This similarity served to link Pompey visually with likeness of Alexander and to remind people that he possessed similar characteristics and qualities.
  • Portraits of Pompey combine a degree of verism with an idealized hairstyle reminiscent of Alexander the Great.

• Art and Architecture of the Achaemenid Empire

  • The extraordinary architectural legacy of the Achaemenids is best seen in the ruins of the opulent city of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire.
  • The largest hall in the complex is the audience hall of Apadana.
  • In 330 BCE, the Macedonian emperor Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) captured the city and allowed his troops to loot the palace.
  • Inscriptions describe a great fire that engulfed "the palace" but do not specify which palace.
  • Decorative frieze from the palace of Darius the Great at Susa, ca. 510 BCE

• Soviet Constructivism

  • At the heart of the movement was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art.
  • The term Construction Art was first used as a derisive term by Kazimir Malevich, an artist of the Suprematist movement, to describe the work of Alexander Rodchenko in 1917.
  • After deposing its first chairman, Wassily Kandinsky, for his "mysticism," The First Working Group of Constructivists (including Liubov Popova, Alexander Vesnin, Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, and the theorists Alexei Gan, Boris Arvatov, and Osip Brik) would develop a definition of Constructivism as the combination of faktura – the particular material properties of an object – and tektonika, its spatial presence.
  • A striking instance was the proposed festival for the Comintern congress in 1921 by Alexander Vesnin and Liubov Popova, which resembled the constructions of the OBMOKhU exhibition as well as their work for the theater.
  • There was a great deal of overlap during this period between Constructivism and Proletkult, the ideas of which concerning the need to create an entirely new culture struck a chord with the Constructivists.

• Development of Photography

  • Camera photography was invented in the first decades of the 19th century.
  • However, his process took a great deal of time, up to eight hours were needed to expose a single image.
  • While the first half of the century introduced expensive daguerreotypes, the latter half of the century is defined by the development of cheaper photographic techniques.
  • Since the earliest photographic developments many scientists and artists have taken great interest in its inherent abilities.
  • This print by Alexander Gardner depicts bodies of Confederate artillerymen near Dunker church.

• Other Forms of Cubism

  • Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century .
  • Constructivism had a great impact on modern art movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends such as Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement.
  • The First Working Group of Constructivists (including Liubov Popova, Alexander Vesnin, Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, and the theorists Aleksei Gan, Boris Arvatov and Osip Brik) developed a definition of Constructivism as the combination of faktura: the particular material properties of an object, and tektonika, its spatial presence.
  • Following a visit to Paris in 1911, the Futurist painters adopted the methods of the Cubists.
  • The adoption of Cubism determined the style of much subsequent Futurist painting.