Early Greek Architectural Decoration as Functional Art

This paper discusses the motivation and purposes of architectural sculpture and painted figural decoration among the Greeks of the Early Archaic period. Its emphasis is on the metope series with mythological scenes. Far from being an invention of the West, this form of decoration is found to have been the common property of all Greeks employing the Doric order. It found its most significant development, however, in programs which gave mythological definition to individual cults or to civic pantheons in cities on the frontiers of Sicily and Magna Graecia.