Art of the Hellenistic Age and the

Hellenistic Tradition
See works of art

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Between 334 and 323 B.C.,

Alexander the Great

and his armies conquered much of the known world, creating an
empire that stretched from Greece and Asia Minor through Egypt
and the Persian empire in the Near East to India. This
unprecedented contact with cultures far and wide disseminated
Greek culture and its arts, and exposed Greek artistic styles to a
host of new exotic influences. The death of Alexander the Great in
323 B.C. traditionally marks the beginning of the Hellenistic period.
Alexander’s generals, known as the Diadochoi, that is,
“successors,” divided the many lands of his empire into kingdoms
of their own. New Hellenistic dynasties emerged—the

Seleucids
in the Near East, the
Ptolemies in Egypt

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and the Antigonids in Macedonia. However, some Greek city-
states asserted their independence through alliances. The most
important of such alliances between several city-states were the
Aetolian League in western central Greece and the Achaean
League based in the Peloponnesos.

During the first half of the third century B.C., smaller kingdoms
broke off from the vast Seleucid kingdom and established their
independence. Northern and central Asia Minor was divided into
the kingdoms of Bithynia, Galatia, Paphlagonia, Pontus, and
Cappadocia. Each of these new kingdoms was ruled by a local
dynasty lingering from the earlier

Achaemenid Persian empire

, but infused with new, Greek elements. The Attalid royal family of
the great city-state of Pergamon reigned over much of western
Asia Minor, and an influential dynasty of Greek and Macedonian
descent ruled over a vast kingdom that stretched from Bactria to
the Far East. In this greatly expanded Greek world, Hellenistic art
and culture emerged and flourished.

Hellenistic kingship remained the dominant political form in the

Greek East for nearly three centuries following the death of
Alexander the Great. Royal families lived in splendid palaces with
elaborate
banquet halls
and sumptuously decorated rooms and gardens. Court festivals
and
symposia
held in the royal palaces provided opportunities for lavish displays
of wealth. Hellenistic kings became prominent patrons of the arts,
commissioning public works of architecture and sculpture, as well
as private luxury items that demonstrated their wealth and taste.
Jewelry
, for example, took on new elaborate forms and incorporated rare
and unique stones. New precious and semiprecious stones were
available through newly established trade routes. Concurrently,
increased commercial and cultural exchanges, and the greater
mobility of goldsmiths and silversmiths, led to the establishment of
a koine (common language) throughout the Hellenistic world.

Hellenistic art is richly diverse in subject matter and in stylistic

development. It was created during an age characterized by a
strong sense of history. For the first time, there were museums and
great libraries, such as those at Alexandria and Pergamon (

1972.118.95
Hellenistic artists copied and adapted earlier styles, and also made
great innovations. Representations of
Greek gods
took on new forms
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The
popular
image of a nude Aphrodite, for example, reflects the increased
secularization of traditional religion. Also prominent in Hellenistic
art are representations of Dionysos, the god of wine and legendary
conqueror of the East, as well as those of Hermes, the god of
commerce. In strikingly tender depictions, Eros, the Greek
personification of love, is portrayed as a young child (
43.11.4

One of the immediate results of the new international Hellenistic

milieu was the widened range of subject matter that had little
precedent in earlier Greek art. There are representations of
unorthodox subjects, such as grotesques, and of more
conventional inhabitants, such as children and elderly people (

09.39
These images, as well as the portraits of ethnic people, especially
those of
Africans
describe a diverse Hellenistic populace.

A growing number of art collectors commissioned original works of

art and

copies of earlier Greek statues

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Likewise, increasingly affluent consumers were eager to enhance
their private homes and gardens with luxury goods, such as fine
bronze statuettes, intricately carved furniture decorated with
bronze fittings, stone sculpture, and elaborate pottery with mold-
made decoration. These lavish items were manufactured on a
grand scale as never before.

The most avid collectors of Greek art, however, were the Romans,
who decorated their town houses and

country villas
 with Greek sculptures according to their interests and taste. The
wall paintings from the villa at
Boscoreale
some of which clearly echo lost Hellenistic Macedonian royal
paintings, and exquisite bronzes
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in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection testify to the refined
classical environment that the Roman aristocracy cultivated in their
homes. By the first century B.C., Rome was a center of Hellenistic
art production, and numerous Greek artists came there to work.

The conventional end of the Hellenistic period is 31 B.C., the date

of the Battle of Actium. Octavian, who later became the emperor
Augustus, defeated Marc Antony’s fleet and, consequently, ended
Ptolemaic rule. The Ptolemies were the last Hellenistic dynasty to
fall to Rome.

Interest in Greek art and culture remained strong during the

Roman Imperial period

, and especially so during the reigns of the emperors Augustus (r.
27 B.C.–14 A.D.) and Hadrian (r. 117–138 A.D.). For centuries,
Roman artists continued to make works of art in the Hellenistic
tradition.
Colette Hemingway
Independent Scholar
Seán Hemingway
Department of Greek and Roman Art, The Metropolitan Museum of
Art
April 2007