Introductory Studies in Greek Art

Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928) was a prominent classical scholar who is remembered chiefly for her influential studies of Greek religion, archaeology, literature and art. Introductory Studies in Greek Art (1885) was Harrison’s second book, published after a period spent studying archaeology at the British Museum under Sir Charles Newton and writing and lecturing on the subject of Greek vase painting. In her preface to the book Harrison claims that Greek art is distinguished by what she calls ‘ideality’, a term she defines as a ‘peculiar quality … which adapts itself to the consciousness of successive ages … a certain largeness and universality which outlives the individual race and persists for all time.’ The book covers topics including Chaldaeo-Assyria, Phoenicia, Pheidias and the Parthenon, and the altar of Eumenes at Pergamos.