Aegean art displays several themes such as an established political system, religion, environmental relations and creativity. Aegean art has shown the existence of a political system that was used to govern the people. The existence is made evident by the presence of a palace at Knossos displayed as a large urban complex with many spaces and rooms that served as storages, workshops, meeting, and ceremony places among others. The presence of sculptures and artwork in what is referred to as the palace main room or ‘Queen’s Megaron’ such as the dolphin frescos shows artwork and creativity set apart to impress rulers or appreciation for their good work (Hemmingway, 2000). The theme of religion can be traced to the bull- leaping and the pictorial evidence of the tombs designed uniquely. The bull leaping activity has been interpreted by many scholars as a symbol of a ceremony related to religion the leaping compared to heavenly constellations depicting their ideas of afterlife occurrence shown by the mask of Agamemnon (Hemmingway, 2000). Environment relationships is explored in the Aegean art where they invested their time in observing the environment around them and captured it on ceramic through painting .An example is the octopus flask or the warrior crater bowl that captures marching men with shield and armor, activities in their immediate environment (Higgins, 1981).
The Aegean artwork depicts creativity and beauty portrayed in their sculptures and images of people who use paint to display the beauty and at the same time bring out their creativeness in face painting and art, for example, the girl gathering crocus. Aegean art consists of various cultures such as the Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean and the Helladic cultures each arising to incorporate the practices of the other or invent new cultures (Higgins, 1981). They mainly engaged in farming fishing and sea trade. These activities influenced their arts where their sculpture and walls depicted images drawn from these activities. For example, the pendant of gold bees could have been derived from farming activities from beekeeping and the octopus flask derived from fishing and other sea activities.
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References
Hemingway, Colette, and Seán Hemingway (2000) “Mycenaean Civilization.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/myce/hd_myce.htm (October 2003)
Higgins, Reynold. (1981) Minoan and Mycenaean Art . Rev. Ed. New York: Oxford University Press
