For over twenty centuries, Greek art has been influencing art all over the world. When the Romans ruled with their large empire, they looked back to Greek society as perfect, and they modeled their art and culture on the Greek. And this kind of modeling can be traced through time to today's art and culture in our modern world. We still use the techniques they did to make pottery and to tell stories. The two main ways that ancient Greek civilization has influenced today's civilization is through the Homeric epics of the time period, and their art work - mainly the potteries, and both of these qualities show in the vase that I am making.
Homer's epic tales played a big part in ancient Greek society. This relation can be easily seen in the vast number of artifacts that have been recovered from the ancient Greek time period which depict scenes from The Odyssey and The Iliad. Also, the fact that these epic tales themselves survived to be translated into modern English shows how important they were to the people of Homer's time, and to us. Homer's tales were seen as more than just stories. The people in ancient Greece actually felt the weight of the Trojan War, and they were with Odysseus all the way on his seven year journey. I can tell this because I have been drawn into the Trojan War over the past few weeks. I am with the Acheans every step of the way. I feel every death of the great warriors in the battle. In my own way, I can feel it the way the people of ancient Greece must have felt it as a traveling bard entertained them for a few nights. Homer truly was a man among men, and I hereby salute him for entertaining countless people over thousands of years.
Art was an important aspect of ancient Greek culture. Though some areas chose not to contribute much, such as Sparta, the culturally advanced areas such as Athens produced many beautiful pieces of art. Much of the ancient art has been lost or destroyed, because wood decomposes, and bronze and other metals were melted down and re-used.