- Introduction
Greek sculpture is often what people think of when they consider the idea of “classical” sculpture. Greek and Roman sculpture has long been considered some of the most influential to the western art world; these pieces, particularly from the High Classical period, are still influential on artists today. This discussion will focus on the High Classical period of Athenian Greek sculpture, notably from the years 449 BCE- 404 BCE.
Earlier Athenian sculpture took many cues from Near Eastern and Egyptian art. Greek artists began, however, to focus more heavily on form and realism as time went on, and after 600 BCE, had begun to move significantly towards the realism and hyper-realism that their sculpture would become known for throughout the centuries.
Athenian sculptors, as time went on, became hyper-focused on the issues of proportion and perfection; they became heavily focused on creating the perfect, ideal human form. Although Athenian art initially began with the production of figures in clay, ivory, and rough-hewn stone, the Greeks became well known for their sculpture in marble and bronze. Over time, marble and bronze have withstood the elements more readily than many of these other forms of sculpture; thus, more examples of these remain and the Greeks have become more well-known for these types than others. In addition to types of materials, thematic interests also evolved over time-- geometric designs gave way to the more intricate pictographic scenes that are present in many Greek artifacts of the High Classical era.
- History: 449 B.C.E.- 404 B.C.E.
Understanding the concepts contained within Greek sculpture at this time is reliant upon understanding the social context in which Athens existed during that time. In the years following the Persian War and preceding the Peloponnesian War, Athens was suffering from a near-continuous onslaught of aggression from Sparta, and a collection of allied city-states that felt Athens to be too powerful. This conflict continued for many decades, and a number of Athenian children grew up in a culture plagued by constant, low-level conflict, as well as infrastructure damage and a devastating outbreak of disease that caused havoc in the city.
During this time, and slightly earlier than the Persian War, Athens also faced a very radical move-- a move into democracy. This move gave rise to a particular aristocrat in Athenian society; a man named Pericles. While his main political opponent is away in Sparta with the army, Pericles leveraged his power with the assembly and used a majority in the people's assembly to pass resolutions restricting the Areopagus, the oligarchical, powerful minority. He worked to ensure that the legislative power contained by these individuals was passed on to the citizens, cementing the formation of a direct democracy . It is Pericles who finally negotiates a Thirty-Year Treaty with Sparta in 446 B.C.E.
In short, during this time period, Athens was facing a number of significant changes and upheavals, both in terms of political power of the masses, as well as with the ongoing conflict between Athens and other nearby nations. The city-state of Athens is still incredibly wealthy and powerful, but these changes are reflected in the art of the time. Where sculpture and portraiture was always trending towards realistic, the obsession with the ideal form becomes something that is focused on more than ever before by High Classical Greek artists.
- Materials of High Classical Greek Sculpture
High Classical Greek sculpture is often associated with bronze and marble, but there are a number of materials used by the Ancient Greeks to create high classical sculpture. However, because bronze was so important as a medium, it is important to first consider bronze in the context of ancient Greece.
Not many examples of bronze Greek sculpture still exist today. Ceil (n.d.) writes: Greek artists of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. attained a manner of representation that conveys a vitality of life as well as a sense of permanence, clarity, and harmony. Polykleitos of Argos was particularly famous for formulating a system of proportions that achieved this artistic effect and allowed others to reproduce it. His treatise, the Canon, is now lost, but one of his most important sculptural works, the Diadoumenos, survives in numerous ancient marble copies of the bronze original. Bronze, valued for its tensile strength and lustrous beauty, became the preferred medium for freestanding statuary, although very few bronze originals of the fifth century B.C. survive. What we know of these famous sculptures comes primarily from ancient literature and later Roman copies in marble.” Despite the fact that these sculptures were lost, art historians can still track their progression because so many of them were copied into marble, a material that lasted significantly longer than bronze.
The reason more bronze did not survive is not because bronze and marble break at a different rate, but because bronze was often melted down and reused for a variety of different purposes. Marble, the Greek’s other favorite type of material to work with, had little value once the sculpture was broken, and thus, more pieces of marble sculpture survived than bronze. According to some researchers, the beauty and flawlessness of the currently-existing bronze sculpture may not be indicative of the quality of all bronze sculpture during the High Classical era of Greek sculpture.
- Stylistic Choices
Before the High Classical period of Greek art, there was a sudden increase in a style that has been termed the “severe style. This style was a breakdown of what is commonly considered to be indicative of Greek art-- the style harkened back to its roots in Egyptian and Near-Eastern art. This style was characterized by stylization in the face and body; sculpture was traditionally depicted in the round, and reliefs were flatter, with less attention to the idealized human form.
However, immediately following the growth of the severe style of Greek sculpture, there was a backlash against it. Art began to trend towards the idealized and hyper-realistic form again; poses became less stiff and more naturalistic, and sculpture began to be used more heavily in architectural elements, like friezes. Many scholars associate this change in Greek art to a change in the democratic system of government that Athens adopted at the time.
Works in clay were also still utilized heavily during this time period, although pottery is not necessarily sculpture. However, noting trends in pottery is also important, as the themes expressed in pottery were also often examined in the sculpted pieces of the same time period. Indeed, pottery allowed the sculptor to tell a significantly more detailed narrative than resorting to sculpture; multiple steps could easily be depicted.
During this time period, the Greeks also became much more adept at creating grave markers; this became one thing that the High Classical period of Athenian Greek art and architecture was known for. Grave markers were generally made by artisans as a way to glean commissions; many of these markers remain to this day.
During this period, Greek sculptors truly began to explore the limits of their materials-- notably bronze and marble. Marble was an interesting medium for sculptors, as it allows them unprecedented control over the outcome of the piece-- marble could be carved into some of the most intricate designs imaginable, in miniature, life-sized, and gigantic proportions. It was this innovation that spurred the Greeks forward.
During this time period, action and drama became more important in Greek sculpture. When examining the limits of marble, the sculptors discovered that they could create amazing effects with the stone: Pendlay writes, “figures become sensuous and appear frozen in action; it seems that only a second ago they were actually alive. Faces are given more expression and whole figures strike a particular mood. Clothes too become more subtle in their rendering and cling to the contours of the body in what has been described as ‘wind-blown’ or the ‘wet-look’. Quite simply, the sculptures no longer seemed to be sculptures but were figures instilled with life and verve.” These stylistic choices were a distinct and intentional movement away from the previous “severe” style of art and architecture into a newer, more hyperrealistic form of art. The human figure, during this time, was the focus of the piece; the body could be shown in a number of different ways, and the sculptor seemed intent on reporting the magnificence of the human form to the viewer.
During this particular phase of Athenian art, the Greeks tried to apply a Platonic ideal-- or a Platonic canon-- to the proportions of their figures. In terms of realism and proportion, Greek painting had not caught up to the three-dimensional world of sculpture, which was heavily focused on the idealized proportions of the human body. During this time, sculptors adopted a stance called a contrapposto stance, which depicted the subject with his or her weight resting on one foot, rather than the static forms that had previously been utilized by sculptors, painters and artists of all stripes.
- Thematic Choices
There are a number of different thematic choices that the Greeks made in their art during this time period. Sculpture during the High Classic era often dealt with mythological themes; much of the Greek art structure was still built about the mythological themes from the reigning folklore of the time. For instance, pottery often depicted images of Leda and the swan, a mythological account of a mortal woman that was seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan, and bears a number of children, including the famous Helen of Troy. Scenes such as this one were not uncommon, nor were pieces depicting the great deeds of heroes like Hercules.
However, another interesting type of art was taking hold in Athens during this time as well: more and more members of the aristocratic class were choosing to have statues and other forms of art made to commemorate them. These commemorative pieces were often in the same idealized style that the images of the gods and goddesses were depicted, meaning that it was normal to consider these individuals to be godlike in their stature.
In the red figure stage of pottery, individuals are often shown participating in mythological narratives or telling stories of everyday life in Greece. This pottery is called red-figure pottery because the figures are red on a black background. Ancient Greek pottery makers were severely limited in their ability to make certain paint colors and glazes stay on the clay; hence, they were limited to a certain number of color schemes and vase sizes and shapes when creating pottery.
- Notable Pieces
Although much of the bronze sculpture from this period is lost, the bronze sculpture that does remain is some of the best in the world. Although lost today, the sculpture of Zeus at the Parthenon was considered to be one of the biggest wonders of the ancient world; the statue would have been massive, and continues to interest art historians to this day.
The bronze sculptures in question are also very important. Most historians believe that there are fewer than twelve of these sculptures still in existence today, and all of them are extremely close to perfect. Over the years, these pieces have been used as models in the hopes that someone else will turn out to have the ability to sculpt like the old masters.
- Lasting Influences
One of the most important things that Greek art of this time period gifted to the world is the contrapposto stance of standing. When the subject leans all his or her weight onto one foot, the muscles in the body contract differently than they would if the subject is standing up straight or sitting in an unnatural manner. The use of this pose allows sculptors and painters alike to depict people in more lifelike, dynamic poses than many of the poses that were used prior to the Athenian development of the pose.
In addition, the lifelike and hyper-real style of the marble sculpture at this time period became a template by which the Romans and then later the Renaissance artists began to consider sculpting with marble. Marble is an amazingly easy material to sculpt into a variety of different forms, and because of this versatility, later sculptors began to adopt many of the techniques for carving marble that were used during Greek and Roman times. To cast bronze, the Greeks used a technique called the “lost wax” technique, and this technique has been developed and used extensively to cast bronze since the fall of the Greek empire.
- Discussion and Conclusion
High classical Greek sculpture marked the end of one reign and the beginning of another. Leaving the severe style of art and architecture in the past, the Greeks began to focus on an individual’s poise, posture, muscle and bone structure to help the artist to create an image that is truly beyond the scope of reality.
Most Greek sculptures from this time period are, for lack of a better phrase, larger than life. They are physically larger and more imposing than an individual, and each image seems as though it could come to life at any moment. This strange dynamism in Greek art comes to be a calling card for those interested in Greek art; it is also what remains as the Renaissance artists try to bring back a classical cultural era.
References
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Ceil, Chenoy. N.d. 'Greek Art: The Classical Age'. SSRN Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2030875.
Lazenby, Francis D., and Gisela M. A. Richter. 1953. 'Three Critical Periods In Greek Sculpture'. The Classical Weekly 46 (12): 187. doi:10.2307/4343405.
Marchand, Suzanne L. 1996. Down From Olympus. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Pedley, John Griffiths. 1993. Greek Art And Archaeology. New York: H.N. Abrams.
Scranton, Robert. 1962. Greek Architecture. New York: G. Braziller.
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