The history of Greece begines with the disfasciment of the Cretan and Miceneic civilizations and with the Doric invasion, coming from the North through the Balkans around 1200 B.C and bearing the iron civilization.

The Doric world, based on a hard, military, disciplinated civilization, pushed the Greeks towards the shores of Anatalia, where their coastal settlements gave life to the cities of Epheso and Mileto.

Through the amalgam between these two quite different worlds was very slow at the end prevailed the common conciense of beloning to the same civilization, for the language, the culture, the religion, customs and life values: the Greek civilization.

During this period of transition, the art was extremely poor; the only expression of relief was the ceramics, widely employed for practical needs.

Only in the IX century B.C, the pre-eminent geometric style was diffused and starting from the VII century B.C, mainly in Athens and Corinth, such art deeply felt the oriental, Syrian influence, due to the intense trades between Greece, the Aegean islands, Rhodes, Cyprus and Crete.

The main characteristics of this oriental fantasy are the employment of precious materials, colour techniques and motives of animals and interlaced monsters.

Between 650 B.C and 480 B.C, known as the “archaic period“, the Greek temple was born, built on a rectangular platform (stylobate), with columns erected on the four sights, creating a porch all around the inner cell.

In this architecture, without arches or vaults, the carrying structure maid of columns, that support the architrave and which lays on a slope-roof, like in the remote Mycenae megaton.

This new monument, with imposing size and proportions, was meant to be a place dedicated to the divinities, honoured by the people with gifts and sacrifices, rather than a site for praying.

This kind of structure follows two different styles, known as” Doric“and” ionic“.

The farmer prevails in continental Greece, in Magna Grecian, in Sicily: later on in the east of the Aegean and in the Ionian Sea.

The distinctive elements are the columns with it's capital and the architrave.The Doric columns have no base, they rest directly on the stylobate; they have a capital made of a circle echino tapped by a square ebaco(in which lays the architrave).

The shaft (tall part of the column) is plain and has 20 sides, and it is more narrow than it’s base.

Ionic shafts are taller than Doric anes and rest on a base, this makes them look slender then the Doric power full-looking ones.

They have curvet lines into them from top to bottom (usually called flutes) and like entasies, which in a little bulge in the columns in order to make them look straight. The capital commits of above due the shaft.

The second element is the architrave in Doric style; it has a flat lower part and alternating metapes and triglyphs on top.

The metape is a plane section between triglyphs which are a pattern of three vertically carved lines.

The Ionic architrave consists of a continuous ornamental frieze.

Also sculpture undergoes a full development during the” archaic period”, with the creation of the Kouros,naked of a young man, and the Kore,statue of a young woman wearing a falling dress with fold. The best known Kouros are in the museums of Athens and Delfi, in the archeological museum of Florence, and the Apollo of Tenea in the Glittoteca of Monaco; while the most famous Kore is the Era of Samo,in the museum of Louvre.

Examples of Doric temples, that enjoyed a wider spread than ionic ones, include the Temple of Zeus in Olympia (today completely destroyed), the Temple of Poseidon at Paestum, the Temples of Selinunte (destroyed) and of Agrigento.

The V century is also known as the” century of Pericles“,since under Prickles, Athens regained it's pride with the victories over the Persians; the Acropolis devastated by the Persian pilages,and Parthenon were rebuilt employing white marble and new monuments were inserted in the urbanity plan of the city.

During the IV century, the most important architectonic realizations were the theaters, consisting of steep rise of semicircular rows of steps. The best known examples are: the Theater of Dionis in Athens (below the Acropolis) and in west the Theater of Syracuse.

During the same period, a new architectonic order was born deriving from the Ionic one; The Corinthian order. The Ionic capital is replaced by a high capital decorated with haves of Acanthus below a small scroll.

After the Peloponnesian War that ended in the total defeat of Athens by the Spartans, and also the catastrophic expedition to Syracuse a long period of decadens and anarchy began.

It ended only when Philiph of Macedon forein sovereign,imposed his power to continental Greece,alltrought exalting the values of Greek civilization.

Greek art keeps flourishing also under Alexander the Great; the most permanent sculptures of this period are: The Appoxyiomenos by Lisippo (Rome, Vatican museums), la Nike (Vittoria) of Samtracia (Paris, museum of Louvre)...etc

The last moment of Greek art is the Hellenistic period that begins in 323B.C, after the premature death of Alexander the Great and defacement of the immense Macedonian empire and end with the beginning of the Christian Age.

From an artistic point of view,allthrought the Romans politically conquered Greece, Greek art and culture was exalted even more by conquerors and many Greek artists and masters settled in Rome;Orazio had written:“...the defeated Greece made prisoner the rude winner...“