Sculpture greece authors and titles. Legendary Greek statues
1.1 Sculpture in Ancient Greece. Prerequisites for its development
Among all the fine arts of ancient civilizations, the art of Ancient Greece, in particular, its sculpture, occupies a very special place. The living body, capable of all muscular work, the Greeks put above everything. No one was shocked by the lack of clothes. Everything was treated too simply to be ashamed of anything. And at the same time, of course, chastity did not lose from this.
1.2 Sculpture of Greece of the Archaic era
The archaic period is the period of the formation of ancient Greek sculpture. The sculptor's desire to convey the beauty of the ideal human body, which was fully manifested in the works of a later era, is already understandable, but it was still too difficult for the artist to move away from the form of a stone block, and the figures of this period are always static.
The first monuments of ancient Greek sculpture of the archaic era are defined by the geometric style (VIII century). These are schematic figurines found in Athens, Olympia , in Boeotia. The archaic era of ancient Greek sculpture falls on the 7th - 6th centuries. (early archaic - about 650 - 580 BC; high - 580 - 530; late - 530 - 500/480). The beginning of monumental sculpture in Greece dates back to the middle of the 7th century. BC NS. and is characterized by orientalizing styles, of which the most important was Dedal's, associated with the name of the semi-mythical sculptor Daedalus . The circle of "Dedal's" sculpture includes a statue of Artemis of Delos and a female statue of Cretan work, kept in the Louvre ("Lady of Auxerre"). The middle of the VII century. BC NS. the first kouros are also dated . The first sculptural decoration of the temple dates back to the same time. - reliefs and statues from Prinia in Crete. In the future, the sculptural decoration fills the fields highlighted in the temple by its very structure - pediments and metopes v Doric temple, continuous frieze (Zophorus) - in Ionic. The earliest pediment compositions in ancient Greek sculpture come from the Athenian Acropolis and from the Temple of Artemis on the island of Kerkyra (Corfu). Tombstone, dedicatory and cult statues are represented in the archaic by the type of kouros and bark . Archaic reliefs adorn the bases of statues, pediments and metopes of temples (later on, a round sculpture comes to the place of reliefs in the pediments), gravestone steles . Among the famous monuments of archaic round sculpture are the head of Hera, found near her temple in Olympia, the statue of Cleobis and Biton from Delph, Moschophor ("Taurus") from the Athenian Acropolis, Hera of Samos , statues from Didima, Nikka Archerma et al. The last statue demonstrates the archaic scheme of the so-called "kneeling run" used to depict a flying or running figure. In archaic sculpture, a number of conventions are also adopted - for example, the so-called "archaic smile" on the faces of archaic sculptures.
The sculptures of the archaic era are dominated by statues of slender naked youths and draped young girls - kuros and barks. Neither childhood nor old age attracted the attention of artists at that time, because only in mature youth the vital forces are in their prime and balance. Early Greek art creates images of Man and Woman in their ideal form. In that era, spiritual horizons were unusually widened, a person seemed to be standing face to face with the universe and wanted to comprehend its harmony, the secret of its integrity. The details escaped, the ideas about the concrete "mechanism" of the universe were the most fantastic, but the pathos of the whole, the consciousness of universal interconnection - that was the strength of philosophy, poetry and art of archaic Greece *. Just as philosophy, then still close to poetry, shrewdly guessed the general principles of development, and poetry - the essence of human passions, the fine arts created a generalized human appearance. Let's look at the kouros, or, as they are sometimes called, the "archaic Apollo". It is not so important whether the artist really intended to portray Apollo, or a hero, or an athlete; the man is young, naked, and his chaste nakedness does not need shameful coverings. He always stands upright, his body permeated with a willingness to move. Body construction is shown and emphasized with utmost clarity; you can immediately see that long, muscular legs can bend at the knees and run, the abdominal muscles can strain, the chest can swell in deep breathing. The face does not express any specific experience or individual character traits, but the possibilities of various experiences are hidden in it. And the conventional "smile" - slightly raised corners of the mouth - only the possibility of a smile, a hint of the joy of being inherent in this, as if just created, person.
The Kouros statues were created mainly in areas where the Dorian style prevailed, that is, on the territory of mainland Greece; female statues - barks - mainly in the Asia Minor and island cities, hearths of the Ionian style. Beautiful female figures were found during excavations of the archaic Athenian Acropolis, erected in the 6th century BC. e., when Peisistratus ruled there, and destroyed during the war with the Persians. For twenty-five centuries marble barks were buried in the "Persian rubbish"; at last they were taken out, half-broken, but not losing their extraordinary charm. Some of them may have been performed by Ionian masters invited by Peisistratus to Athens; their art influenced Attic plastic, which now combines the features of Doric rigor with Ionian grace. In the crust of the Athenian Acropolis, the ideal of femininity is expressed in its pristine purity. The smile is bright, the gaze is trusting and, as it were, joyfully amazed at the spectacle of the world, the figure is chastely draped with a peplos - a veil, or a light robe - a chiton (in the archaic era, female figures, unlike male ones, were not yet depicted naked), hair streaming down his shoulders in curly strands. These barks stood on pedestals in front of the temple of Athena, holding an apple or a flower.
Archaic sculptures (as well as classical ones) were not as uniformly white as we imagine them now. Many have preserved traces of coloring. The hair of the marble girls was golden, cheeks pink, eyes blue. Against the background of the cloudless sky of Hellas, all this was supposed to look very festive, but at the same time strict, thanks to the clarity, composure and constructiveness of forms and silhouettes. There was no excessive flowery and variegation. The search for the rational foundations of beauty, harmony based on measure and number, is a very important point in the aesthetics of the Greeks. The Pythagorean philosophers strove to catch regular numerical relationships in musical consonances and in the arrangement of heavenly bodies, believing that musical harmony corresponds to the nature of things, the cosmic order, "the harmony of the spheres." Artists were looking for mathematically verified proportions of the human body and the "body" of architecture. In this, early Greek art is fundamentally different from Crete-Mycenaean, alien to any mathematics.
Very lively genre scene: Thus, in the archaic era, the foundations of ancient Greek sculpture, directions and options for its development were laid. Even then, the main goals of sculpture, the aesthetic ideals and aspirations of the ancient Greeks were clear. In later periods, the development and improvement of these ideals and the skill of ancient sculptors took place.
1.3 Sculpture of Greece of the Classical Era
The classical period of ancient Greek sculpture falls on the 5th - 4th centuries BC. (early classic or "strict style" - 500/490 - 460/450 BC; high - 450 - 430/420 BC; "rich style" - 420 - 400/390 BC; late classic - 400/390 - OK. 320 BC BC NS.). At the turn of two eras - archaic and classical - there is a sculptural decoration of the temple of Athena Aphaia on the island of Aegina . The sculptures of the western pediment date from the foundation of the temple (510 - 500 BC BC BC), sculptures of the second eastern, replacing the previous ones, - to the early classical time (490 - 480 BC). The central monument of ancient Greek sculpture of the early classics is the pediments and metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (about 468 - 456 BC BC NS.). Another significant work of the early classics - the so-called "Throne of Ludovisi", decorated with reliefs. A number of bronze originals also came down from this time - "Delphic charioteer", statue of Poseidon from Cape Artemisium, Bronze from Riace . The largest sculptors of the early classics - Pythagoras Regian, Calamides and Myron . We judge the work of the famous Greek sculptors mainly from literary testimonies and later copies of their works. High classics are represented by the names Phidias and Polycletus . Its short-term flowering is associated with works on the Athenian Acropolis, that is, with the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon (pediments, metopes and zophoros reached, 447 - 432 BC). The pinnacle of ancient Greek sculpture was apparently chrysoelephantine statues of Athena Parthenos and Zeus of Olympic by Phidias (both have not survived). "Rich style" is characteristic of the works of Callimachus, Alkamen, Agorakritus and other sculptors of the end of the 5th century BC Its characteristic monuments are the reliefs of the balustrade of the small temple of Nika Apteros on the Athenian Acropolis (about 410 BC) and a number of gravestone steles, among which the most famous is the stele of Gegeso . The most important works of ancient Greek sculpture of the late classics - decoration of the Temple of Asclepius at Epidaurus (circa 400 - 375 BC), Temple of Athena Alei in Tegea (about 370 - 350 BC), the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (about 355 - 330 BC) and the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus (c. 350 BC), on the sculptural decoration of which Scopas, Briaxides, Timothy worked and Leohar . The latter is also attributed to the statues of Apollo Belvedere and Diana of Versailles . There are also a number of bronze originals of the 4th century. BC NS. The largest sculptors of the late classics are Praxitel, Skopas and Lysippos, in many ways anticipated the subsequent era of Hellenism.
Greek sculpture has been partially preserved in debris and fragments. Most of the statues are known to us from Roman copies, which were performed in great numbers, but did not convey the beauty of the originals. Roman copyists roughened and dried them, and, converting bronze items into marble, disfigured them with clumsy props. The large figures of Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, Satyr, which we now see in the halls of the Hermitage, are only pale retellings of Greek masterpieces. You pass them almost indifferently and suddenly stop in front of some head with a broken nose, with a damaged eye: this is a Greek original! And the amazing force of life will suddenly blow from this fragment; the marble itself is different from that in Roman statues - not deathly white, but yellowish, transparent, luminous (the Greeks still rubbed it with wax, which gave the marble a warm tone). So gentle are the melting transitions of light and shade, so noble is the soft sculpting of the face that one involuntarily recalls the raptures of the Greek poets: these sculptures really breathe, they are really alive *. In the sculpture of the first half of the century, when there were wars with the Persians, a courageous, austere style prevailed. Then a statuary group of tyrannicides was created: a mature husband and a young man, standing side by side, make an impetuous movement forward, the younger brings the sword, the older covers it with a cloak. This is a monument to historical figures - Harmodius and Aristogiton, who killed the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus several decades earlier, - the first political monument in Greek art. At the same time, it expresses the heroic spirit of resistance and love of freedom that flared up in the era of the Greco-Persian wars. “They are not mortals' slaves, they are not subject to anyone,” says the Athenians in Aeschylus's tragedy “The Persians”. Battles, fights, heroic deeds ... The art of the early classics is full of these warlike subjects. On the pediments of the temple of Athena in Aegina - the struggle of the Greeks against the Trojans. On the western pediment of the temple of Zeus in Olympia - the struggle of the Lapiths with the centaurs, on the metopes - all twelve labors of Hercules. Another favorite set of motives is gymnastic competitions; in those distant times, physical fitness and mastery of body movements were of decisive importance for the outcome of battles, so athletic games were far from just entertainment. The themes of hand-to-hand fights, equestrian competitions, running competitions, and discus throwing taught sculptors to depict the human body in dynamics. The archaic stiffness of the figures was overcome. Now they are acting, moving; complex poses, bold camera angles, grand gestures appear. The brightest innovator was the Attic sculptor Miron. Myron's main task was to express the movement as fully and strongly as possible. Metal does not allow such precise and delicate work as marble, and perhaps that is why he turned to finding the rhythm of movement. The balance, the stately "ethos", is preserved in the classical sculpture of the austere style. The movement of the figures is neither erratic, nor overly agitated, nor too impetuous. Even in the dynamic motives of the fight, running, falling, the feeling of “Olympic calmness”, integral plastic completeness, and self-isolation is not lost.
Athena, which he made by order of Plataea and which cost this city very dearly, strengthened the fame of the young sculptor. A colossal statue of the patroness of Athena was commissioned to him for the Acropolis. She reached 60 feet in height and exceeded all the surrounding buildings; from afar, from the sea, she shone with a golden star and reigned over the whole city. It was not acrolite (composite), like the Plateia, but it was all cast in bronze. Another Acropolis statue, Virgin Athena, made for the Parthenon, consisted of gold and ivory. Athena was depicted in a combat suit, in a golden helmet with a high-relief sphinx and vultures on the sides. In one hand she held a spear, in the other a figure of victory. A snake curled at her feet - the guardian of the Acropolis. This statue is considered the best assurance of Phidias after his Zeus. It has served as the original for countless copies. But the height of perfection of all the works of Phidias is considered to be his Olympian Zeus. It was the greatest work of his life: the Greeks themselves gave him the palm. He made an irresistible impression on his contemporaries.
Zeus was depicted on the throne. In one hand he held a scepter, in the other - an image of victory. The body was ivory, the hair was gold, the mantle was gold, enameled. The throne included ebony, bone, and precious stones. The walls between the legs were painted by Phidias' cousin, Panen; the foot of the throne was a miracle of sculpture. The admiration of the Greeks for the beauty and wise arrangement of the living body was so great that they aesthetically thought it only in statuary completeness and completeness, which made it possible to appreciate the majesty of posture, the harmony of body movements. But still, the expressiveness was not so much in the expressions of the faces as in the movements of the body. Looking at the mysteriously serene moirae of the Parthenon, at the swift, frisky Nika, untie a sandal, we almost forget that their heads are beaten off - so eloquent is the plasticity of their figures.
Indeed, the bodies of the Greek statues are unusually spiritualized. The French sculptor Rodin said about one of them: "This headless youthful torso smiles happily at the light and spring than eyes and lips could do." Movement and posture in most cases is simple, natural and not necessarily associated with something sublime. The heads of Greek statues, as a rule, are impersonal, that is, little individualized, reduced to few variations of the general type, but this general type has a high spiritual capacity. In the Greek type of face, the idea of "human" triumphs in its ideal form. The face is divided into three parts equal in length: forehead, nose and lower part. Correct, gentle oval. The straight line of the nose continues the line of the forehead and forms a perpendicular line drawn from the beginning of the nose to the opening of the ear (right facial angle). Oblong section of rather deeply seated eyes. A small mouth, full protruding lips, the upper lip is thinner than the lower one and has a beautiful, flowing cupid-like cutout. The chin is large and round. Wavy hair softly and tightly wraps around the head, without interfering with seeing the rounded shape of the skull. This classic beauty may seem monotonous, but, being an expressive "natural appearance of the spirit", it lends itself to variation and is capable of embodying various types of the antique ideal. A little more energy in the lips, in the protruding chin - before us is a strict virgin Athena. More softness in the outlines of the cheeks, the lips are slightly half-open, the eye sockets are shaded - before us is the sensual face of Aphrodite. The oval of the face is closer to the square, the neck is thicker, the lips are larger - this is already the image of a young athlete. And the basis is still the same strictly proportional classic look.
After the war…. The characteristic pose of a standing figure changes. In the archaic era, the statues stood completely straight, frontally. Mature classics animate and animate them with balanced, fluid movements, maintaining balance and stability. And the statues of Praxiteles - the resting Satyr, Apollo Saurocton - with lazy grace lean on the pillars, without them they would have to fall. The thigh is very strongly arched on one side, and the shoulder is lowered towards the thigh - Rodin compares this body position to a harmonica, when the bellows are compressed on one side and apart on the other. External support is required for balance. This is a dreamy resting pose. Praxiteles follows the traditions of Polycletus, uses the motives of movements he found, but develops them in such a way that a different inner content shines through in them. The "wounded Amazon" Polycletai also leans on a half-column, but she could have resisted without it, her strong, energetic body, even suffering from a wound, stands firmly on the ground. Apollo Praxiteles is not struck by an arrow, he himself aims at a lizard running along a tree trunk - the action, it would seem, requires volitional concentration, nevertheless, his body is unstable, like an oscillating stem. And this is not an accidental particularity, not a whim of a sculptor, but a kind of new canon, in which a changed view of the world finds expression. However, not only the nature of movements and postures changed in the sculpture of the 4th century BC. NS. Praxiteles has a different circle of favorite themes, he moves away from heroic plots into the "light world of Aphrodite and Eros". He sculpted the famous statue of Aphrodite of Cnidus. Praxitel and the artists of his circle did not like to depict the muscular torsos of athletes, they were attracted by the delicate beauty of the female body with soft flow of volumes. They preferred the type of adolescent, distinguished by "the first youthful beauty, effeminate." Praxitel was famous for its special softness of sculpting and mastery of material processing, the ability to transmit the warmth of a living body in cold marble2.
The only surviving original of Praxiteles is considered to be the marble statue "Hermes with Dionysus" found in Olympia. Naked Hermes, leaning on a tree trunk, where his cloak is carelessly thrown, holds on one bent hand a little Dionysus, and in the other - a bunch of grapes, to which a child is reaching (the hand holding the grapes is lost). All the charm of the pictorial processing of marble is in this statue, especially in the head of Hermes: the transitions of light and shadow, the subtlest "sfumato" (haze), which, many centuries later, was achieved in Leonardo da Vinci's painting. All other works of the master are known only from references to ancient authors and later copies. But the spirit of Praxiteles' art blows over the 4th century BC. e., and best of all it can be felt not in Roman copies, but in small Greek sculptures, in Tanager clay figurines. They were produced in large numbers at the end of the century, it was a kind of mass production with the main center in Tanagra. (A very good collection of them is kept in the Leningrad Hermitage.) Some figurines reproduce well-known large statues, others simply give various free variations of a draped female figure. The living grace of these figures, dreamy, pensive, playful, is an echo of Praxiteles' art.
1.4 Sculpture of Greece of the Hellenistic era
The very concept of "Hellenism" contains an indirect indication of the victory of the Hellenic principle. Even in remote areas of the Hellenistic world, in Bactria and Parthia (present-day Central Asia), peculiarly transformed ancient forms of art appear. And Egypt is difficult to recognize, its new city of Alexandria is already a real enlightened center of ancient culture, where both exact and humanitarian sciences, and philosophical schools, originating from Pythagoras and Plato, flourish. Hellenistic Alexandria gave the world the great mathematician and physicist Archimedes, the geometer of Euclid, Aristarchus of Samos, who, eighteen centuries before Copernicus, argued that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The cabinets of the famous Library of Alexandria, designated in Greek letters, from alpha to omega, kept hundreds of thousands of scrolls - "works that shone in all fields of knowledge." There stood the grandiose Pharos lighthouse, ranked among the seven wonders of the world; there the Museion was created, the palace of the muses - the prototype of all future museums. Compared to this wealthy and lush port city, the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, the cities of the Greek metropolis, even Athens, probably looked humble. But these modest, small cities were the main sources of those cultural treasures that were kept and revered in Alexandria, those traditions that they continued to follow. If Hellenistic science owed much to the heritage of the Ancient East, the plastic arts retained a predominantly Greek character.
The basic formative principles came from the Greek classics, the content became different. There was a decisive demarcation of public and private life. In the Hellenistic monarchies, the cult of a sole ruler, equated to a deity, is established, similar to what was in the ancient Eastern despotism. But the similarity is relative: a “private person” who is not touched by political storms or only slightly touches him is far from being as impersonal as in the ancient eastern states. He has his own life: he is a merchant, he is an entrepreneur, he is an official, he is a scientist. In addition, he is often Greek by origin - after the conquests of Alexander, the mass resettlement of Greeks to the East began - he is not alien to the concepts of human dignity brought up by Greek culture. Even if he is removed from power and state affairs, his isolated private world demands and finds artistic expression for itself, the basis of which is the traditions of the late Greek classics, reworked in the spirit of greater intimacy and genre. And in art "state", official, in large public buildings and monuments, the same traditions are processed, on the contrary, in the direction of pomp.
Pomp and intimacy are opposite traits; Hellenistic art is full of contrasts - gigantic and miniature, ceremonial and everyday, allegorical and natural. The world has become more complex, more diverse aesthetic needs. The main tendency is a departure from the generalized human type to understanding a person as a concrete, individual being, and hence the growing attention to his psychology, interest in eventfulness, and a new vigilance towards national, age, social and other personality signs. But since all this was expressed in a language inherited from the classics, which did not set themselves such tasks, then in the innovative works of the Hellenistic era a certain inorganicity is felt, they do not achieve the integrity and harmony of their great forerunners. The portrait head of the heroized statue of Diadochus does not fit with his naked torso, which repeats the type of a classic athlete. The drama of the multifigured sculptural group "Farnese Bull" is contradicted by the "classical" representativity of the figures, their postures and movements are too beautiful and fluid to believe in the truth of their experiences. In numerous park and chamber sculptures, Praxiteles' traditions are diminished: Eros, “the great and powerful god,” turns into a playful, playful Cupid; Apollo - in the flirtatious, pampered Apollino; the strengthening of genre is not good for them. And the well-known Hellenistic statues of old women carrying provisions, a drunken old woman, an old fisherman with a flabby body lack the power of figurative generalization; art masters these new types for it externally, without penetrating into depth, - after all, the classical heritage did not give a key to them. The statue of Aphrodite, traditionally called the Venus of Milos, was found in 1820 on the island of Melos and immediately became known worldwide as the perfect creation of Greek art. This appreciation was not shaken by many of the later finds of Greek originals - Aphrodite of Milos occupies a special place among them. Executed, apparently, in the II century BC. NS. (by the sculptor Agesandr or Alexander, as the half-erased inscription on the plinth says), it bears little resemblance to her contemporary statues depicting the goddess of love. Hellenistic aphrodites most often went back to the type of Aphrodite of Cnidus Praxiteles, making her sensually seductive, even slightly cutesy; such is, for example, the famous Aphrodite of the Medici. Aphrodite of Milo, naked only half, draped to her thighs, stern and sublimely calm. She personifies not so much the ideal of female charm as the ideal of a person in a general and highest sense. The Russian writer Gleb Uspensky found an apt expression: the ideal of a "straightened man". The statue is well preserved, but its arms are beaten off. There have been many speculations about what these hands were doing: was the goddess holding an apple? or a mirror? or was she holding the hem of her clothes? No convincing reconstruction has been found, in fact, there is no need for it. Over time, the “handlessness” of Aphrodite of Milo has become, as it were, her attribute; it does not in the least interfere with her beauty and even enhances the impression of the majesty of the figure. And since not a single intact Greek statue has survived, it is in this, partly damaged state that Aphrodite appears before us as a "marble riddle", envisioned by antiquity, as a symbol of distant Hellas.
Another remarkable monument of Hellenism (of those that have come down to us, and how many have disappeared!) Is the altar of Zeus in Pergamum. The Pergamon school more than others gravitated towards pathos and drama, continuing the traditions of Scopas. Its artists did not always resort to mythological subjects, as they did in the classical era. On the square of the Pergamon Acropolis there were sculptural groups that perpetuate a true historical event - the victory over the "barbarians", the Gaul tribes who besieged the Pergamon kingdom. Full of expression and dynamics, these groups are also notable for the fact that the artists pay tribute to the vanquished, showing them both valiant and suffering. They depict a Gaul killing his wife and himself in order to avoid captivity and slavery; depict a mortally wounded Gaul reclining on the ground with his head lowered. From the face and figure it is immediately clear that this is a "barbarian", a foreigner, but he dies a heroic death, and this is shown. In their art, the Greeks did not demean themselves to the point of humiliating their opponents; this feature of ethical humanism comes out with particular clarity when the opponents - the Gauls - are depicted realistically. After Alexander's campaigns, in general, much has changed in relation to foreigners. As Plutarch writes, Alexander considered himself the reconciler of the universe, "forcing everyone to drink ... from the same cup of friendship and mixing together lives, customs, marriages and forms of life." Morals and forms of life, as well as forms of religion, really began to mix in the era of Hellenism, but friendship did not reign and peace did not come, strife and wars did not stop. The wars of Pergamon with the Gauls are only one episode. When finally the victory over the Gauls was finally won, an altar of Zeus was erected in her honor, which was completed in 180 BC. NS. This time, the long-term war with the "barbarians" appeared as a gigantomachy - the struggle of the Olympic gods with giants. According to the ancient myth, the giants - giants who lived far in the west, the sons of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Heaven) - rebelled against the Olympians, but were defeated by them after a fierce battle and buried under volcanoes, in the deep bowels of mother earth, from there they remind of themselves by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. A grandiose marble frieze, about 120 meters long, executed in the technique of high relief, encircled the base of the altar. The remains of this structure were excavated in the 1870s; thanks to the painstaking work of the restorers, it was possible to combine thousands of fragments and form a fairly complete picture of the overall composition of the frieze. Mighty bodies pile up, intertwine like a tangle of snakes, shaggy-maned lions torment the defeated giants, dogs gnaw, horses trample underfoot, but the giants fight fiercely, their leader Porfirion does not retreat before the thunderer Zeus. The mother of the giants, Gaia, begs for mercy on her sons, but they do not heed her. The battle is terrible. There is something foreshadowing Michelangelo in the tense camera angles, in their titanic power and tragic pathos. Although battles and fights were a frequent theme of ancient reliefs, starting with the archaic, they were never depicted as on the Pergamon altar - with such a shuddering feeling of cataclysm, battles for life and death, where all cosmic forces, all demons are involved earth and sky. The structure of the composition has changed, it has lost its classical clarity, it has become swirling, confused. Let us recall the figures of Skopas on the relief of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. They, with all their dynamism, are located in one spatial plane, they are separated by rhythmic intervals, each figure has a certain independence, masses and space are balanced. Another thing is in the Pergamon frieze - for those who fight here it is cramped, the mass suppressed space, and all the figures are so intertwined that they form a stormy mess of bodies. And the bodies are still classically beautiful, “now radiant, now formidable, living, dead, triumphant, dying figures,” as IS Turgenev said about them *. The Olympians are beautiful, and their enemies are also beautiful. But the harmony of the spirit fluctuates. Faces distorted by suffering, deep shadows in the eye orbits, serpentinely scattered hair ... The Olympians still triumph over the forces of the underground elements, but this victory is not for long - elemental beginnings threaten to blow up a harmonious, harmonious world. Just as the art of the Greek archaic should not be judged only as the first precursors of the classics, and Hellenistic art as a whole cannot be considered a late echo of the classics, underestimating the fundamentally new that it brought. This new thing was associated with the expansion of the horizons of art, and with its inquisitive interest in the human person and the concrete, real conditions of her life. Hence, first of all, the development of the portrait, the individual portrait, which the high classics almost did not know, and the late classics were only on the approaches to it. Hellenistic artists, even making portraits of people who have not been alive for a long time, gave them a psychological interpretation and sought to reveal the uniqueness of both external and internal appearance. Not contemporaries, but descendants left us the faces of Socrates, Aristotle, Euripides, Demosthenes and even the legendary Homer, an inspired blind storyteller. The portrait of an unknown old philosopher is surprising in realism and expression - as you can see, an implacable passionate polemicist, whose wrinkled face with sharp features has nothing to do with the classical type. Previously, it was considered a portrait of Seneca, but the famous Stoic lived later than this bronze bust was carved.
For the first time, a child with all the anatomical features of childhood and with all the charm peculiar to him becomes the subject of plastic surgery. In the classical era, small children, if they were portrayed, were more likely to be miniature adults. Even in Praxiteles in the Hermes with Dionysus group, Dionysus bears little resemblance to a baby in terms of his anatomy and proportions. It seems that only now they noticed that the child is a very special creature, playful and crafty, with its own special habits; noticed and were so captivated by them that the god of love himself, Eros, began to be represented as a child, laying the foundation for a tradition that had been established for centuries. Plump, curly-haired kids of Hellenistic sculptors are busy with all sorts of antics: ride a dolphin, tinker with birds, even strangle snakes (this is baby Hercules). Especially popular was the statue of a boy fighting a goose. Such statues were placed in parks, were decoration of fountains, were placed in the sanctuaries of Asclepius, the god of healing, and sometimes were used for tombstones.
Conclusion
We examined the sculpture of Ancient Greece throughout the entire period of its development. We saw the whole process of its formation, prosperity and decline - the whole transition from strict, static and idealized forms of archaism through the balanced harmony of classical sculpture to the dramatic psychologism of Hellenistic statues. The sculpture of Ancient Greece was rightfully considered a model, ideal, canon for many centuries, and now it does not cease to be recognized as a masterpiece of world classics. Nothing of the kind has been achieved either before or since. All modern sculpture can be considered, to one degree or another, a continuation of the traditions of Ancient Greece. The sculpture of Ancient Greece in its development has passed a difficult path, paving the way for the development of plastics of subsequent eras in various countries. At a later time, the traditions of ancient Greek sculpture were enriched with new developments and achievements, while the antique canons served as the necessary basis, the basis for the development of plastic art in all subsequent eras.
The sculpture of ancient Greece, like all ancient art, is a special example, standard skill and a kind of ideal. Ancient Greek art, and especially the sculpture of Ancient Greece, had a very significant impact on the development of world culture. It was the foundation on which European civilization later grew. The beautiful statues of Greek sculptors were made of stone, limestone, bronze, marble, wood and were decorated with magnificent items made of precious metals and stones. They were installed in the main squares of cities, on the graves of famous Greeks, in temples and even in rich Greek houses. The main principle of sculpture in Ancient Greece was a combination of beauty and strength, idealization of a person and his body. The ancient Greeks believed that only a perfect soul can be in a perfect, ideal body.
The development of sculpture in Ancient Greece can be divided into three significant stages. This is archaic - VI-VII century BC. Classics, which, in turn, can be divided into periods of the early - beginning of the 5th century BC, high classics - the end of the 5th century BC, and late - the 6th century BC. And the last stage is Hellenism. Also, from the descriptions of ancient historians, one can understand that there was a sculpture of Homeric Greece, but only small figurines and vessels decorated with painting have survived to our times. Each of these stages of Greek culture has its own unique features.
Archaic period
During this period, ancient Greek artists strove to create the ideal image of a man and a woman. The sculpture was dominated by the figures of naked young warriors called kuros. They had to show the valor, physical health and strength of a person, which were acquired in sports of that time. The second example of art from this period was the bark. These are girls draped in long clothes, in which the ideal of femininity and primordial purity was expressed. At this time, the so-called "archaic smile" appeared, which inspired the faces of the statues.
Prominent examples of surviving sculptures from the Archaic period are the Kouros of Piraeus, which adorns the Athens Museum today, and the Goddess with the Pomegranate and the Goddess with the Hare, which are kept in the Berlin State Museum. The sculpture of the brothers Cleobis and Biton from Argos is quite famous, which delight the eyes of lovers of Greek art in the Delphic Museum.
During the archaic times, monumental sculpture also plays an important role, in which relief plays the main role. These are rather large sculptural compositions, often depicting events described in the myths of Ancient Greece. For example, on the pediment of the temple of Artemis, the actions taking place in the story of Medusa the Gorgon and the brave Perseus, known to everyone from childhood, were depicted.
Early classics
With the transition to the classical period, the immobility, one might say, the static nature of archaic sculptures, is gradually replaced by emotional figures captured in motion. The so-called spatial movement appears. The poses of the figures are still simple and natural, for example, a girl untie a sandal, or a runner preparing for the start.
Perhaps one of the most famous statues of that period is the "Discobolus" by the author Myron, who made a very significant contribution to the art of the early classics of Greece. The figure was cast in bronze in 470 BC and depicts an athlete preparing to throw a disc. His body is perfect and harmonious, and ready to throw the next second.
Another great sculptor of that time was Polycletus. The most famous today is his work called "Dorifor", created between 450 and 440 BC. This is a spearman, powerful, reserved and full of dignity. He is filled with inner strength and, as it were, shows the desire of the Greek people of those times for sublimity, harmony and peace. Unfortunately, the originals of these sculptures of Ancient Greece, cast in bronze, have not survived to this day. We can only admire their copies made from various materials.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, a bronze statue of the god Poseidon was found at the bottom of the sea near Cape Artemision. He is depicted as majestic, formidable, holding his hand in which he held a trident. This statue, as it were, marks the transition from the early to high classical period.
High classic
The direction of high classics pursued a double goal. On the one hand, to show all the beauty of movement in sculpture, and, on the other hand, to combine the external immobility of the figure with the inner breath of life. The great sculptor Phidias succeeded in uniting these two aspirations in his work. He is famous, in particular, for decorating the ancient Parthenon with a beautiful marble sculpture.
He also created a magnificent masterpiece "Athena Parthenos", which, unfortunately, died in ancient times. In the National Museum of Archeology of the city of Athens, you can see only a smaller copy of this statue.
The great artist has created many more masterpieces during his creative life. This is the statue of Athena Promachos in the Acropolis, which amazes with its enormous size and grandeur, and, no less colossal, the figure of Zeus in the temple of Olympia, which was later ranked among one of the amazing seven wonders of the world.
It can be bitterly admitted that our vision of ancient Greek sculpture is far from the truth. It is almost impossible to see the originals of statues from that era. Many of them were destroyed during the redistribution of the Mediterranean world. And yet another of the reasons for the destruction of these greatest monuments of art was their destruction by fanatically believing Christians. We are left with only their copies of the Roman masters of the 1st-2nd centuries AD and descriptions of ancient historians.
Late classic
In the times related to the late classics, the sculpture of Ancient Greece began to be characterized by the plasticity of movements and the elaboration of the smallest details. The figures began to be distinguished by grace, flexibility, the first nude female bodies began to appear. One of the striking examples of this splendor is the statue of Aphrodite of Cnidus by the sculptor Praxiteles.
The ancient Roman writer Pliny said that this statue was considered the most beautiful statue of those times, and many pilgrims flocked to Cnidus, wishing to see it. This is the first work in which Praxitel depicted a naked female body. The interesting story behind this statue is that the sculpture created two figures - a naked and a clothed one. The inhabitants of Kos, who ordered the statue of Aphrodite, chose the dressed goddess, being afraid to risk it, despite all the beauty of this masterpiece. And the nude sculpture was acquired by the inhabitants of the city of Cnidus, located in Asia Minor, and thanks to this, they became famous.
Another prominent representative of the late classics was Skopas. He strove to express violent passions and emotions in his sculptures. Among his famous works are the statue of Apollo Kifared, also Ares of Villa Ludovisi, and a sculpture called the Niobids dying around their mother.
Hellenistic period
The time of Hellenism is characterized by a rather powerful influence of the East on all the art of Greece. This fate did not escape the sculpture. Sensuality, oriental temperament and emotionality began to penetrate into the majestic poses and sublimity of the classics. Artists began to complicate foreshortenings, to use luxurious draperies. Nude female beauty has ceased to be something unusual, blasphemous and defiant.
At this time, a huge number of different statues of the naked goddess Aphrodite or Venus appeared. One of the most famous statues to this day remains Venus de Milo, created by the master Alexander sometime in 120 BC. We are all accustomed to seeing her images without hands, but it is believed that initially the goddess held her falling clothes with one hand, and in the other hand she held an apple. Her image combines tenderness, strength, and beauty of the physical body.
Also very famous statues of this period are Aphrodite of Cyrene and Laocoon and his sons. The last work is filled with strong emotions, drama and extraordinary realism.
The main theme of the sculptural work of Ancient Greece, apparently, was a person. Indeed, man was nowhere more appreciated than in that very ancient Greek civilization.
With the development of culture, sculptors tried to convey more and more human feelings and emotions through their works. All these majestic masterpieces, created tens of hundreds of years ago, still attract the attention of people, and affect modern art lovers in a bewitching and incredibly impressive way.
Conclusion
It is difficult to single out any one period in the development of ancient Greek culture, and not to find in it the rapid flowering of sculpture. This kind of art was constantly developing and improving, reaching special beauty in the classical era, but after it did not fade away, still remaining the leading one. It is certainly possible to correlate the sculpture and architecture of ancient Greece, but only in comparison, it is unacceptable to identify them. And this is impossible, because a sculpture is not a monumental structure, but a skillfully sculpted masterpiece. Most often, ancient sculptors turned to the image of a person.
In their works, they paid special attention to postures, the presence of movement. They tried to create living images, as if not a stone in front of us, but living flesh and blood. And they did it well, mainly due to a responsible approach to business. Knowledge of anatomy and a general understanding of the human character allowed the ancient Greek masters to achieve what many modern sculptors still cannot comprehend.
Ancient Greek sculpture occupies a special place among the variety of cultural heritage masterpieces belonging to this country. In it, the beauty of the human body, its ideal, is sung and embodied with the help of pictorial means. However, not only the smoothness of lines and grace are the characteristic features that marked the ancient Greek sculpture. So great was the skill of its creators that they managed to convey even in a cold stone a gamut of emotions, to give a deep, special meaning to the figures, as if breathing life into them. Each ancient Greek sculpture is endowed with mystery, which is still attracting to this day. The creations of the great masters leave no one indifferent.
Like other cultures, it experienced different periods in its development. Each of them was marked by changes in all types of visual arts, including sculpture. Therefore, it is possible to trace the main stages of the formation of this type of art by briefly describing the features of ancient Greek sculpture in different periods of the historical development of this country.
Archaic period
Time from 8th to 6th century BC. Ancient Greek sculpture at this time had a certain primitiveness as a characteristic feature. It was observed because the images embodied in the works did not differ in variety, they were too generalized, called kora, young men - kuros).
Apollo of Shadow
The statue of Apollo of the Shadow is the most famous of all the figures of this era that have come down to our time. In total, several dozen of them are known now. It is made of marble. Apollo is depicted as a young man with his hands down, his fingers clenched into fists. His eyes are wide open, and his face reflects the archaic smile typical of sculptures from this period.
Female figures
The images of women and girls were distinguished by wavy hair, long clothes, but they were attracted most of all by the elegance and smoothness of lines, the embodiment of grace, femininity.
Archaic ancient Greek sculptures were somewhat disproportionate and schematic. Each work, on the other hand, is attractive with restrained emotionality and simplicity. For this era, the depiction of figures of people is characterized, as we have already noted, a half-smile, which gives them depth and mystery.
Today in the Berlin State Museum, the "Goddess with the Pomegranate" is one of the best-preserved archaic sculptures. With the "wrong" proportions and external roughness of the image, the hands, brilliantly executed by the author, attract the attention of the audience. An expressive gesture makes the sculpture especially expressive and dynamic.
"Kuros from Piraeus"
Located in the Athens Museum, "Kouros of Piraeus" is a later, therefore more perfect creation, made by an ancient sculptor. A young powerful warrior appears before us. and a slight tilt of the head speaks of the conversation he is having. The disturbed proportions are no longer so striking. Archaic ancient Greek sculptures, as we have already mentioned, have generalized facial features. However, in this figure it is not as noticeable as in the works of the early archaic period.
Classic period
The classical period is from the 5th to the 4th century BC. The works of ancient Greek sculpture at this time underwent some changes, which we will now tell you about. Among the sculptors of this period, one of the most famous figures is Pythagoras of Regia.
Features of sculptures of Pythagoras
His creations are characterized by realism and liveliness, which were innovative at the time. Some works by this author are considered even too daring for this era (for example, a statue of a boy taking out a splinter). Agility of mind and extraordinary talent allowed this sculptor to study the meaning of harmony using mathematical methods of calculation. He conducted them on the basis of the philosophical and mathematical school, which he also founded. Pythagoras, using these methods, explored harmony of different nature: musical, architectural structure, human body. There was a Pythagorean school according to the principle of number. It was this that was considered the foundation of the world.
Other sculptors of the classical period
The classical period, in addition to the name of Pythagoras, gave world culture such famous masters as Phidias, Polycletus and Myron. The works of ancient Greek sculpture by these authors are united by the following general principle - the display of the harmony of the ideal body and the beautiful soul contained in it. It is this principle that is the main one that guided various masters of that time when creating their creations. Ancient Greek sculpture is the ideal of harmony and beauty.
Myron
Great influence on the art of Athens in the 5th century BC NS. provided by the works of Miron (just remember the famous Discobolus, made of bronze). This master, unlike Polycletus, about whom we will talk later, loved to depict figures in motion. For example, in the above statue of the Discobolus dating back to the 5th century BC. e., he portrayed a handsome young man at the moment when he swung in order to throw a disc. His body is tense and bent, captured by the movement, like a spring ready to unfold. The trained muscles bulged under the firm skin of the arm that was pulled back. Forming a reliable support, we went deep into the sand. This is the ancient Greek sculpture (Discobolus). The statue was cast in bronze. However, only a marble copy made by the Romans from the original has come down to us. The image below shows a statue of the Minotaur by this sculptor.
Polyclet
The ancient Greek sculpture of Polycletus has the following characteristic feature - the figure of a man standing with his hand raised up on one leg is inherent in balance. An example of its masterful embodiment is the statue of Dorifor the spear-bearer. Polyclet in his works sought to combine ideal physical data with spirituality and beauty. This desire inspired him to publish his treatise entitled "Canon", which, unfortunately, has not survived to our time.
The statues of Polycletus are full of intense life. He loved to portray athletes at rest. For example, "Spearman" is a man of mighty build, who is full of self-esteem. He stands motionless in front of the viewer. However, this peace is not static, inherent in ancient Egyptian statues. As a man easily and skillfully owning his own body, the spearman slightly bent his leg, shifting the weight of the body to the other. It seems that a little time will pass, and he will turn his head and step forward. Before us appears a handsome, strong man, free from fear, restrained, proud - the embodiment of the ideals of the Greeks.
Phidias
Phidias can rightfully be considered a great creator, creator of sculpture, dating back to the 5th century BC. NS. It was he who was able to master the skill of casting from bronze to perfection. Phidias cast 13 sculptural figures, which became worthy adornments of the Delphic Temple of Apollo. Among the works of this master is also the statue of Athena the Virgin in the Parthenon, which is 12 meters high. It is made of ivory and pure gold. This technique of making statues was called chryso-elephantine.
The sculptures of this master especially reflect the fact that in Greece the gods are the images of the ideal person. Of the works of Phidias, the best preserved is the 160-meter marble strip of the frieze relief, which depicts the procession of the goddess Athena on her way to the Parthenon temple.
Statue of athena
The sculpture of this temple was badly damaged. Even in ancient times, died This figure stood inside the temple. Phidias created it. The ancient Greek sculpture of Athena had the following features: her head with a rounded chin and a smooth low forehead, as well as her arms and neck were made of ivory, and her helmet, shield, clothing and hair were made of sheets of gold.
There are many stories associated with this figure. So famous and great was this masterpiece that immediately Phidias had a lot of envious people who tried in every possible way to annoy the sculptor, for which they looked for reasons to accuse him of something. This master, for example, was accused of allegedly hiding part of the gold intended for the sculpture of Athena. Phidias, as proof of his innocence, removed all the golden objects from the statue and weighed them. This weight exactly matched the amount of gold given to him. Then the sculptor was accused of atheism. Athena's shield was the reason for this. It depicted a scene of a battle with the Amazons of the Greeks. Phidias among the Greeks portrayed himself, as well as Pericles. The public of Greece, despite all the merits of this master, nevertheless opposed him. The life of this sculptor ended with a cruel execution.
Phidias' achievements were not limited to sculptures made in the Parthenon. So, he created a bronze figure of Athena Promachos, which was erected around 460 BC. NS. in the Acropolis.
Statue of Zeus
Phidias became truly famous after this master created a statue of Zeus for the temple located in Olympia. The height of the figure was 13 meters. Unfortunately, many originals have not survived, only their descriptions and copies have survived to this day. In many ways, this was facilitated by the fanatical destruction by Christians. The statue of Zeus also did not survive. It can be described as follows: a 13-meter figure was seated on a golden throne. The head of the god was decorated with a wreath of olive branches, which was a symbol of his peacefulness. The chest, arms, shoulders, face were made of ivory. Zeus's cloak is thrown over his left shoulder. The beard and crown are of glittering gold. Such is this ancient Greek sculpture, briefly described. It seems that God, if he gets up and straightens his shoulders, will not fit in this vast hall - the ceiling will be low for him.
Hellenistic period
The stages of development of ancient Greek sculpture are completed by the Hellenistic. This period is the time in the history of Ancient Greece from the 4th to the 1st century BC. Sculpture at this time was still the main purpose of decoration of various architectural structures. But it also reflected the changes taking place in the management of the state.
In sculpture, which at that time was one of the main forms of art, in addition, many directions and schools arose. They existed in Rhodes, Pergamon, Alexandria. The best works presented by these schools reflect the problems that worried the minds of the people of this era at that time. These images, in contrast to the classical calm purposefulness, carry passionate pathos, emotional tension, dynamics.
The late Greek antiquity is characterized by a strong influence of the East on all art in general. New features of ancient Greek sculpture appear: numerous details, exquisite draperies, complex foreshortenings. The temperament and emotionality of the East penetrates into the greatness and tranquility of the classics.
The "Aphrodite of Cyrene" located in the Roman Thermal Museum is full of sensuality, some coquetry.
"Laocoon and his sons"
The most famous sculptural composition from this era is Laocoon and His Sons, by Agesander of Rhodes. This masterpiece is now kept in the Vatican Museum. The composition is full of drama, and the plot presupposes emotionality. The hero and his sons, desperately resisting the serpents sent by Athena, as if they understand their terrible fate. This sculpture was made with extraordinary precision. The figures are realistic and plastic. The faces of the heroes make a strong impression.
Three great sculptors
In the works of sculptors dating back to the 4th century BC. e., the humanistic ideal is preserved, but at the same time the unity of the civilian collective disappears. The ancient Greek sculptures and their authors are losing the sense of the fullness of life and the wholeness of their perception of the world. Great masters who lived in the 4th century BC e., create art that reveals new facets of the spiritual world. These searches were most vividly expressed by three authors - Lysippos, Praxiteles and Scopas.
Scopas
Skopas became the most prominent figure among the other sculptors working at the time. Deep doubt, struggle, anxiety, impulse and passion breathe in his art. This native of the island of Paros worked in many cities in Hellas. The skill of this author was embodied in a statue called "Nika of Samothrace". This name was received in memory of the victory in 306 BC. NS. Rhodes fleet. This figure is installed on a pedestal resembling a ship's bow in design.
"Dancing Menada" by Scopas is presented in a dynamic, complex perspective.
Praxitel
They had a different creative principle. This author sang the sensual beauty of the body and the joy of life. Praxiteles enjoyed great fame and was rich. This sculptor is best known for the statue of Aphrodite, made by him for the island of Cnidus. She was the first in Greek art to depict a naked goddess. The beautiful Phryne, the famous hetaira, the beloved of Praxiteles, served as a model for the statue of Aphrodite. This girl was accused of blasphemy, and then acquitted by the judges admiring her beauty. Praxiteles is a singer of feminine beauty, which was revered by the Greeks. Unfortunately, Aphrodite of Cnidus is known to us only from copies.
Leohar
Leochares is an Athenian master, the greatest of Praxiteles' contemporaries. This sculptor, working in various Hellenic cities, created mythological scenes and images of the gods. He made several portrait statues in the chryso-elephantine technique, depicting members of the king's family. After that he became the court master of Alexander the Great, his son. At this time, Leochares created the statue of Apollo, which was very popular in antiquity. It was preserved in a marble copy made by the Romans, and received world fame under the name of Apollo Belvedere. Leohar demonstrates masterly technique in all his creations.
After the reign of Alexander the Great, the era of Hellenism became a period of rapid flowering of portraiture. Statues of various orators, poets, philosophers, military leaders, statesmen were erected on city squares. The masters wanted to achieve external resemblance and at the same time emphasize the features in the appearance that turn a portrait into a typical image.
Other sculptors and their creations
Classical sculptures became examples of various creations of masters who worked in the Hellenistic era. Gigantomania is clearly visible in the works of that time, that is, the desire to embody the desired image in a huge statue. It manifests itself especially often when ancient Greek sculptures of gods are created. The statue of the god Helios is a prime example of this. It was made of gilded bronze and stood at the entrance of the Rhodes harbor. The height of the sculpture is 32 meters. Hares, a student of Lysippos, worked on it for 12 years, tirelessly. This work of art has taken its rightful place in the list of wonders of the world.
After the capture of Ancient Greece by the Roman conquerors, many statues were taken out of this country. Not only sculptures, but also masterpieces of painting, collections of the imperial libraries and other cultural objects suffered this fate. Many people working in the field of education and science were captured. In the culture of Ancient Rome, thus, intertwined, having a significant impact on its development, various elements of the Greek.
Conclusion
Of course, different periods of development that Ancient Greece went through made their own adjustments to the process of sculpture formation, but one thing united the masters belonging to different eras - the desire to comprehend spatiality in the art, the love of expression with the help of various plastic techniques of the human body. The ancient Greek sculpture, the photo of which is presented above, unfortunately, has only partially survived to this day. Marble was often used as a material for figures, despite its fragility. This was the only way to convey the beauty and grace of the human body. Bronze, although it was a more reliable and noble material, was used much less often.
Ancient Greek sculpture and painting are original and interesting. Various examples of art give an idea of the spiritual life of this country.
Ancient Greek sculpture is a leading standard in the world of sculptural art, which continues to inspire contemporary sculptors to create artistic masterpieces. Frequent themes of sculptures and stucco compositions by ancient Greek sculptors were battles of great heroes, mythology and legends, rulers and ancient Greek gods.
Greek sculpture was especially developed in the period from 800 to 300 BC. NS. This area of sculptural art nourished early inspiration from Egyptian and Middle Eastern monumental art and, over the centuries, evolved into a unique Greek vision of the shape and dynamics of the human body.
Greek painters and sculptors reached the pinnacle of artistic excellence that captured the elusive features of a person and displayed them in a way that no one else has ever been able to show. Greek sculptors were particularly interested in the proportion, poise and idealized perfection of the human body, and their stone and bronze figures have become some of the most recognizable works of art ever produced by any civilization.
The origin of sculpture in ancient Greece
From the 8th century BC, Archaic Greece saw an increase in the production of small solid figures from clay, ivory, and bronze. Undoubtedly, wood was also a widely used material, but its susceptibility to erosion prevented mass production of wood products, as they did not show the required durability. Bronze figures, human heads, mythical monsters, and in particular griffins, were used as decoration and handles for bronze vessels, cauldrons and bowls.
In style, Greek human figures have expressive geometric lines that can often be found on pottery of the time. The bodies of warriors and gods are depicted with elongated limbs and a triangular torso. Also, ancient Greek creations are often decorated with animal figures. Many of them have been found throughout Greece in places of refuge such as Olympia and Delphi, indicating their common function as amulets and objects of worship.
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The oldest Greek limestone sculptures date back to the middle of the 7th century BC and were found in Thera. During this period, bronze figures also appear more and more often. From the point of view of the author's intention, the plots of the sculptural compositions became more and more complex and ambitious and could already depict warriors, scenes from battles, athletes, chariots and even musicians with instruments of that period.
Marble sculpture appears at the beginning of the 6th century BC. The first life-size monumental marble statues served as monuments dedicated to heroes and noble persons, or were located in sanctuaries, in which symbolic services to the gods were carried out.
The earliest large stone figures found in Greece depicted young men dressed in women's clothing, accompanied by a cow. The sculptures were static and rough, as in the Egyptian monumental statues, the arms were straight at the sides, the legs were almost together, and the eyes looked straight ahead without any particular facial expression. These rather static figures have slowly evolved through the detailing of the image. Talented craftsmen focused on the smallest details of the image, such as hair and muscles, thanks to which the figures began to come to life.
A characteristic pose for Greek statues was the position in which the arms are slightly bent, which gives them tension in the muscles and veins, and one leg (usually the right) is slightly advanced forward, giving the impression of a dynamic movement of the statue. This is how the first realistic images of the human body in dynamics appeared.
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Painting and staining of ancient Greek sculpture
By the early 19th century, systematic excavations of ancient Greek monuments revealed many sculptures with traces of multicolored surfaces, some of which were still visible. Despite this, influential art historians such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann objected so strongly to the idea of painted Greek sculpture that proponents of painted statues were labeled eccentrics and their views were largely suppressed for over a century.
Only in the published scientific articles of the German archaeologist Vindzenik Brinkmann in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the discovery of a number of famous ancient Greek sculptures was described. Using high-intensity lamps, ultraviolet light, specially designed cameras, plaster castings and some powdered minerals, Brinkmann proved that the entire Parthenon, including its main body, as well as the statues, were painted in different colors. He then chemically and physically analyzed the pigments of the original paint to determine its composition.
Brinkmann created several copies of the Greek statues, painted in different colors, which went on tour around the world. The collection featured copies of many works of Greek and Roman sculpture, thereby demonstrating that the practice of painting sculpture was the norm and not the exception in Greek and Roman art.
The museums in which the exhibits were exhibited noted the great success of the exhibition among visitors, which is due to some discrepancy between the usual snow-white Greek athletes and those bright statues that they really were. Exhibition locations include the Glyptotek Museum in Munich, the Vatican Museum and the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. The collection made its American debut at Harvard University in the fall of 2007.
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Formation stages of Greek sculpture
The development of sculptural art in Greece has gone through several significant stages. Each of them reflected on the sculpture with its own characteristic features, noticeable even to non-professionals.
Geometric stage
It is believed that the earliest incarnation of Greek sculpture was in the form of wooden cult statues, first described by Pausanias. No evidence of this has survived, and their descriptions are vague, despite the fact that they have probably been objects of veneration for hundreds of years.
The first real evidence of Greek sculpture was found on the island of Euboea and dated to 920 BC. It was a statue of a Lefkandi centaur hand of an unknown sculpture in terracotta. The statue was reassembled piece by piece as it was deliberately smashed and buried in two separate graves. A centaur has a distinct mark (wound) on its knee. This allowed researchers to speculate that the statue may represent Chiron wounded by an arrow from Hercules. If so, it can be considered the earliest known description of a myth in the history of Greek sculpture.
The sculptures from the Geometric Period (c. 900 to 700 BC) were small figurines of terracotta, bronze, and ivory. Typical sculptural works of this era are represented by many examples of equestrian statue. However, the plot repertoire is not limited to men and horses, as some of the found examples of statues and stuccoes from that time depict images of deer, birds, beetles, hares, griffins and lions.
There are no inscriptions on geometric sculpture of the early period until the appearance of the statue of Manticlos "Apollo" from the beginning of the 7th century BC, found in Thebes. The sculpture is a figure of a standing man, at the feet of which an inscription is inscribed. This inscription is a kind of instruction to help each other and respond with good for good.
Archaic period
Inspired by the monumental stone sculpture of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Greeks began carving in stone again. The individual figures share the hardness and frontal stance characteristic of oriental models, but their forms are more dynamic than those of Egyptian sculpture. Examples of sculptures from this period are the statues of Lady Auxerre and the torso of Hera (early archaic period - 660-580 BC, exhibited in the Louvre, Paris).
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Such figures had one characteristic feature in their facial expressions - an archaic smile. This expression, which has no specific relevance to the person or situation being portrayed, may have been an artist's tool to give figures animation and "liveliness."
During this period, three types of figures predominated in sculpture: a standing naked youth, a standing girl dressed in traditional Greek attire, and a seated woman. They highlight and summarize the basic features of the human figure and show an increasingly accurate understanding and knowledge of human anatomy.
Ancient Greek statues of naked youths, in particular the famous Apollo, were often presented in huge sizes, which was supposed to show power and masculine strength. These statues show much more detail of the musculature and skeletal structure than in the early geometric works. The dressed girls have a wide range of facial expressions and postures, as in the sculptures of the Athenian Acropolis. Their draperies are carved and painted with the delicacy and care that characterizes the details of the sculpture of this period.
The Greeks decided very early on that the human figure was the most important subject of artistic endeavors. It is enough to remember that their gods have a human appearance, which means that there was no difference between the sacred and the secular in art - the human body was both secular and sacred at the same time. A male nude without being tied to a character could just as easily have become Apollo or Hercules, or portray a mighty Olympian.
As with ceramics, the Greeks did not produce sculpture for artistic display only. The statues were created to order either by aristocrats and nobles, or by the state, and were used for public memorials, for the decoration of temples, oracles and sanctuaries (which is often proved by ancient inscriptions on the statues). Also, the Greeks used sculptures as monuments for graves. Statues in the archaic period were not intended to represent specific people. These were images of perfect beauty, piety, honor, or sacrifice. This is why sculptors have always created sculptures of young people, from adolescence to early adulthood, even when they were placed on the graves of (presumably) senior citizens.
Classic period
The classical period made a revolution in Greek sculpture, sometimes associated by historians with radical changes in social and political life - the introduction of democracy and the end of the aristocratic era. The classical period brought with it changes in the style and function of sculpture, as well as a dramatic increase in the technical skill of Greek sculptors in depicting realistic human forms.
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The poses also became more natural and dynamic, especially at the beginning of the period. It was during this time that Greek statues increasingly began to depict real people, rather than vague interpretations of myths or entirely fictional characters. Although the style in which they were presented has not yet evolved into a realistic portrait form. The statues of Harmodius and Aristogateon, created in Athens, symbolize the overthrow of aristocratic tyranny and, according to historians, become the first public monuments that show the figures of real people.
The classical period also saw a flourishing of stucco art and the use of sculptures to decorate buildings. Characteristic temples of the classical era, such as the Parthenon in Athens and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, used relief molding for decorative friezes, walls and ceilings. The complex aesthetic and technical challenge faced by the sculptors of that period contributed to the creation of sculptural innovations. Most of the works of that period have survived only in the form of separate fragments, for example, the stucco decoration of the Parthenon is today partly in the British Museum.
Funeral sculpture made a huge leap during this period - from the hard and impersonal statues of the archaic period to the very personal family groups of the classical era. These monuments are commonly found in the suburbs of Athens, which in ancient times were cemeteries on the outskirts of the city. Although some of them depict "ideal" types of people (a melancholy mother, an obedient son), they increasingly become the personification of real people and, as a rule, show that the departed leaves this world with dignity, leaving the family. This is a noticeable increase in the level of emotions in relation to the archaic and geometric eras.
Another notable change is the flourishing of creativity of talented sculptors, whose names have gone down in history. All information known about sculptures in the archaic and geometric periods is focused on the works themselves, and is rarely paid attention to their authors.
Hellenistic period
The transition from the classical to the Hellenistic (or Greek) period took place in the 4th century BC. Greek art became more and more diverse under the influence of the cultures of the peoples involved in the Greek orbit, the conquests of Alexander the Great (336-332 BC). According to some art historians, this led to a decrease in the quality and originality of the sculpture, however, people of the time may not have shared this opinion.
It is known that many sculptures, previously considered geniuses of the classical era, were actually created in the Hellenistic period. The technical capabilities and talent of the Hellenistic sculptors are evident in such major works as the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Pergamon Altar. New centers of Greek culture, especially sculpture, developed in Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamum and other cities. By the 2nd century BC, the growing power of Rome had also absorbed much of the Greek tradition.
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During this period, sculpture again experienced a shift towards naturalism. The heroes for creating sculptures were now ordinary people - men, women with children, animals and domestic scenes. Many of the creations from this period were commissioned by wealthy families to decorate their homes and gardens. Realistic figures of men and women of all ages were created, and sculptors no longer felt obligated to portray people as ideals of beauty or physical perfection.
At the same time, new Hellenistic cities that arose in Egypt, Syria and Anatolia needed statues depicting the gods and heroes of Greece for their temples and public places. This led to the fact that sculpture, like ceramic production, became an industry with subsequent standardization and some reduction in quality. That is why many more Hellenistic creations have survived to this day than the era of the classical period.
Along with the natural shift towards naturalism, there has also been a shift in the expression and emotional embodiment of the sculptures. The heroes of the statues began to express more energy, courage and strength. An easy way to appreciate this shift in expression is to compare the most famous creations created during the Hellenistic period with those of the classical period. One of the most famous masterpieces of the classical period is the Delphi Carrier sculpture, which expresses humility and humility. At the same time, the sculptures of the Hellenistic period reflect strength and energy, which is especially clearly expressed in the work "Jockey of Artemisia".
The most famous Hellenistic sculptures in the world are the Winged Victory of Samothrace (1st century BC) and the statue of Aphrodite from the island of Melos, better known as Venus de Milo (mid-2nd century BC). These statues depict classical plots and themes, but their execution is much more sensual and emotional than the harsh spirit of the classical period and its technical skills allowed.
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Hellenistic sculpture was also subject to an increase in scale, culminating in the Colossus of Rhodes (late 3rd century), which historians believe was comparable in size to the Statue of Liberty. A series of earthquakes and looting destroyed this legacy of Ancient Greece, like many other major works of this period, the existence of which is described in the literary works of contemporaries.
After the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greek culture spread to India, as shown by the excavations of Ai-Khanum in eastern Afghanistan. Greco-Buddhist art represented an intermediate stage between Greek art and the visual expression of Buddhism. Discoveries made since the late 19th century about the ancient Egyptian city of Heraclem have revealed the remains of a statue of Isis dating back to the 4th century BC.
The statue depicts an Egyptian goddess in an extraordinarily sensual and subtle way. This is not typical for the sculptors of that area, because the image is detailed and feminine, which symbolizes the combination of Egyptian and Hellenistic forms during the time of Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt.
Ancient Greek sculpture is the progenitor of all world art! Until now, the masterpieces of Ancient Greece attract millions of tourists and art lovers seeking to touch the beauty and talent that is not affected by time.
As a rule, statues at that time were carved from limestone or stone, after which they were covered with paint and decorated with beautiful precious stones, elements of gold, bronze or silver. If the figurines are small, then they were made of terracotta, wood or bronze.
Ancient greek sculpture
The sculpture of Ancient Greece in the first centuries of its existence experienced a rather serious influence of the art of Egypt. Almost all works of ancient Greek sculpture were half-naked men with lowered hands. After some time, Greek sculptures began to experiment a little with clothes, postures, and they began to give individual features to their faces.
During the classical period, sculpture reached its heights. The masters have learned not only to give the statues natural poses, but even to depict the emotions that a person supposedly experiences. It could be thoughtfulness, detachment, joy or severity, as well as fun.
During this period, it became fashionable to depict mythical heroes and gods, as well as real people who held important positions - statesmen, military leaders, scientists, athletes, or simply rich people who wanted to perpetuate themselves for centuries.
Much attention was paid at that time to the naked body, since the concept of good and evil that existed at that time and in that area was interpreted as a reflection of the spiritual perfection of a person.
The development of sculpture, as a rule, was determined by the needs, as well as the aesthetic demands of the society that existed at that time. It is enough to look at the statues of that time and you can understand how colorful and vibrant art was at that time.
Great sculptor Myron created a statue that had a huge impact on the development of the visual arts. This is the famous statue of the Discus thrower - the discus thrower. The person is captured at the moment when his hand is thrown back a little, there is a heavy disk in it, which he is ready to throw into the distance.
The sculptor was able to capture the athlete at the very climax, which portends the next one, when the projectile is soared high into the air and the athlete straightens up. In this sculpture, Miron mastered the movement.
Was popular at other times master - Polycletus, which the established the equilibrium of the human figure in a slow step and at rest... The sculptor strives to find the perfectly correct proportions on which the human body can be built when creating a sculpture. Ultimately, an image was created that became a certain norm and, moreover, an example to follow.
Polyclet, in the process of creating his works, mathematically calculated the parameters of all parts of the body, as well as their relationship to each other. Human height was taken as a unit, where the head was one-seventh, the hands and face were one-tenth, and the feet were one-sixth.
Polycletus embodied his ideal of an athlete in the statue of a young youth with a spear. The image very harmoniously combines ideal physical beauty, as well as spirituality. The sculptor very vividly expressed in this composition the ideal of that era - a healthy, versatile and whole personality.
The 12-meter statue of Athena was created by Phidias. In addition, he created a colossal statue of the god Zeus for the temple in Olympia.
The art of the master Skopas breathes impulse and passion, struggle and anxiety, as well as profound events. The best piece of art by this sculptor is the statue of the Maenad. At the same time, Praxitel was working, who in his creations sang the joy of life, as well as the very sensual beauty of the human body.
Lissip created approximately 1,500 bronze statues, among which are simply colossal images of the gods. In addition, there are groups that reflect all the exploits of Hercules. Along with the mythological images in the sculptures of the master, the events of that time were also displayed, which then went down in history.