Cycladic Art Museum

The culmination of forty years of effort and avid collecting went in to the unique selection of Cycladic and Ancient Greek art.

Courtesy of Mr and Mrs Yiannis Goulandris, who had spent considerable time and funds in assembling one of the finest such collections in the world in the Museum of Cycladic and Ancient Greek Art.

The Cycladic culture spanned a glorious heyday of about a thousand years from 3200 to 2000 BC the third millennium BC when the Cycladic islands were the home of something altogether original and distinctive and new.

The simple lines and expressions of the artefacts and figurines, sculptures and vases are easy to interpret. Credit for the collection should also go to Lambros Eftaxias, founder of the Museum of the City of Athens, whose donation contained fine bronzes from the Classical and Hellenistic periods.

The Cycladic art collection contains more than 200 important objects from the period 3000-2000 BC, and the museum also houses ancient Greek art spanning 2000 years from Minoan and Mycenaen pottery to late Roman glass.

The ancient Greeks called the small islands of the central Aegean "Kyklades" because they imagined them as scattered in a circle, a kyklos, around the sacred island and ancient sanctuary of Apollo, Delos. This onomatopoeia is very evident today as one' s view from the island of Delos shows Mykonos to the east, Tinos to the north, Syros to the west and Naxos and Paros to the south.

Early Cycladic pottery is distinguished by its coarse clay and poor firing, although a gradual improvement of technique is noticeable during this period. The shapes are simple, most objects come of grave sites from the early Cycladic period. Cycladic sculptures are distinct from their white, almost iridescent marble, and simple, almost modern appearance. Simplistic lines telling very vividly the story behind the figure, whether sitting or standing.

The Cycladic Art Museum is a light and airy building and

connects through an atrium corridor to the equally delightful New Wing housed in one of the best examples of neo-classic buildings in the city.

The Stathatos mansion is as it was when the Stathatos family lived there and houses not only an incredible further collection of Cycladic Art, but has the chandeliers, and furniture of the period in very good order.

The mansion was designed by Austrian Architect Ernst Ziller who was responsible for some of the most magnificent buildings in Athens like, the Municipal Theatre, the palace at Tatoi, the House of Ilium and many other buildings including theatres in Zakynthos and churches in Aegio.

The Cycladic Art Museum is a delightful walk back into ancient history when artists of the millennium found expression in austere but artful works which give an insight into how they lived on the sun drenched islands of their day.