Please excuse the lateness of this post, I was absent the day of the assignment and just remembered I had to do it.
The preeminent form of Greek art was sculpture. The Greek style was characterized by a respect for the human anatomy, body, and spirit. It was marked by a freedom of movement, expression, and a respect for man as a force in his own right. Artists in this time period experimented both with sculpting an ideal form of man or woman and sculpting humans in their natural state, with imperfections, such as the lack of complete body symmetry.
In order to produce accurate looking sculptures, the Greeks had to have a relatively (for their era) advanced understanding of human anatomy. The Greeks understood opposing muscle groups, which we now call antagonistic pairs, and realized that human movement resulted from a combination of tension of certain muscles and relaxation of others.
Greek art was a change from thousands of year of tradition in which supernatural or unknown objects, such as religious figures, were pre eminent in art. Although the Greeks did not refrain from sculpting divine figures, even sculptures of Gods appeared human, and reflected the Greek aesthetic of considering the human body as something beautiful. This aesthetic philosophy is important; not every culture considers the human body to be a beautiful thing, and such a culture would certainly not be able to produce the magnificent works of art that the Greeks did.
Among the best known Greek sculptures if the Venus de Milo, which is considered by many to be the epitome of the Western conception of beauty. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Venus_de_Milo_Louvre_Ma399_n4.jpg
Michelangelo drew heavily on the Greek style when he sculpted his King David. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/David_von_Michelangelo.jpg
