Worldview of the Ancient Greeks

The desire of the ancient Greeks for the ideal, perfection, harmony, characteristic of their worldview, very strongly influenced all aspects of culture, including the artistic one. Whatever hand of the ancient Greek master, be it an amphora, a table or some other object of everyday life, did not touch – everything became an art object, although it retained its everyday function.

Plasticity is the basis of the Greek world outlook; therefore the Greeks preferred plastic arts, namely, architecture and sculpture.

The unifying beginning of all artistic creativity was his humanistic orientation, the perception of man as the main aesthetic value.

It was believed that it was not the environment, not the way of life, or external circumstances that formed the person, but on the contrary, the reasonableness of man, the plastic beauty of his body, the expedient social and political activity brings harmony and beauty to the world. It was such a person who found expression in artistic creation. In the image of man, the Greek artist noticed common features, the so-called “human in man”, i.e., his nature, the body shell. Hence the so active and diverse search for the correspondence of man as a being of the natural with the world of things and the world of ideas (the sculptures of Phidias, Myron, Policlet). Hence the first sculptors showing a naked body in all its plastic beauty (sculptors Praxitel). The perfect proportions of the human body were determined and transmitted in plastic. The strict orientation of the Greek sculpture to harmony and balance made it possible to depict a person as he should be.

The spirit-free Greek saw the ideal not only in the sculptural image, but also in his own improvement: the harmony of the human body and spirit, the harmony of man and the world around him. The value character of the ancient world outlook and worldview manifested itself in a category that organically combined the beautiful and the good – the calocagathia. The flourishing of ancient culture is associated with the emergence and flourishing of the “single, basic and original social form of the ancient world” – the polis.

Polis comes to replace the clan in the 7th century BC. E. After the collapse of the power of the tribal landed aristocracy as a new social, political and economic structure. The policy or city-state consisted of the city itself, which was the center of the state, and the territory adjacent to the city, which is the property of free citizens.

But the place of the policy was not limited to such a narrow understanding as a city with its territorial, administrative structure; in the Greek consciousness this concept had a deeper content.

The main means of production of Greece was land. And only the owner of the land was considered a full citizen. Blood relatives (the owner of the land) were the core of the family, but there were also people who depend on the head of the family – the periphery. But not only had this determined the autonomy of the family. This association also carried sacred significance. Each community had its own deity, patron and, therefore, a cult, which also set it apart as an independent whole. It was from such groups interacting with each other that the policy consisted.

Thus, people connected with social and cultural ties constituted a closed community, that is, one cannot be a citizen outside the collective, and a person could feel full only as a part of the common. At the same time, this collective existed not as a vast state entity, but as an intimate, close environment, as something of its own, customary.

Man, being a member of the civil community, whose life was regulated by norms based on the idea of ​​justice, was protected from arbitrariness.

The citizen-owner at the same time was also a warrior, ensuring the inviolability of the policy, and therefore of his property. Therefore, the supreme prowess of a citizen was to protect his policy. Another feature is connected with the economic life of the policy. The economy was based on agriculture, cattle breeding, viticulture. The main principle of the economy was the idea of ​​self-reliance, which can be regarded as the economic basis of freedom.