Prominent sculptors of ancient Greece

Features of ancient Greek sculpture The main theme is the image of man, admiration for the beauty of the human body.

Archaic sculpture: Kouros - naked athletes. Installed near temples; Embodied the ideal of male beauty; They look alike: young, slender, tall. Kouros. 6th century BC

Sculpture of the archaic: Kora - girls in chitons. Embodied the ideal of female beauty; Similar to each other: curly hair, enigmatic smile, the epitome of sophistication. Bark. 6th century BC

GREEK SCULPTURE OF THE CLASSICS Late 5th-4th c. BC e. - the period of the stormy spiritual life of Greece, the formation of the idealistic ideas of Socrates and Plato in philosophy, which developed in the struggle against the materialistic philosophy of the Democrat, the time of addition and new forms of Greek fine art. In sculpture, the masculinity and severity of images of strict classics are replaced by an interest in peace of mind of a person, and his more complex and less straightforward characteristic is reflected in plastic.

Greek sculptors of the classical period: Policlet Myron Skopas Praxiteles Lysippus Leochar

Polykleitos Polikleitos. Doryfor (spearman). 450-440 BC Roman copy. National Museum. Naples The works of Polykleitos have become a real hymn to the greatness and spiritual power of Man. Favorite image - a slender young man with an athletic physique. There is nothing superfluous in it, “nothing beyond measure”, the Spiritual and physical appearance is harmonious.

Doryphoros has a complex posture, different from the static posture of the ancient kouros. Polikleitos was the first to think of giving the figures such a setting that they rested on the lower part of only one leg. In addition, the figure seems to be mobile and lively, due to the fact that the horizontal axes are not parallel (the so-called chiasmus). "Dorifo?r" (Greek ????????? - "Spearman") - one of the most famous statues of antiquity, embodies the so-called. Canon of Polikleitos.

The canon of Polykleitos Doryphoros is not an image of a specific winning athlete, but an illustration of the canons of a male figure. Poliklet set out to accurately determine the proportions of the human figure, according to his ideas about ideal beauty. These proportions are numerically related to each other. "They even assured that Poliklet performed it on purpose, so that other artists would use her as a model," a contemporary wrote. The composition of the Canon itself had a great influence on European culture, despite the fact that only two fragments have survived from the theoretical work.

The Canon of Polycletus If we recalculate the proportions of this Ideal Man for a height of 178 cm, the parameters of the statue will be as follows: 1. neck - 44 cm, 2. chest - 119, 3. biceps - 38, 4. waist - 93, 5. forearms - 33 , 6. wrists - 19, 7. buttocks - 108, 8. thighs - 60, 9. knees - 40, 10. lower legs - 42, 11. ankles - 25, 12. feet - 30 cm.

Polykleitos "The Wounded Amazon"

Myron Myron - Greek sculptor of the middle of the 5th century. BC e. The sculptor of the era immediately preceding the highest flowering of Greek art (K. VI - early V century) embodied the ideals of the strength and beauty of Man. He was the first master of complex bronze castings. Miron. Discus thrower.450 BC Roman copy. National Museum, Rome

Miron. "Discobolus" The ancients characterize Myron as the greatest realist and expert in anatomy, who, however, did not know how to give life and expression to faces. He depicted gods, heroes and animals, and with special love reproduced difficult, transient postures. His most famous work, "Discobolus", an athlete intending to start a discus, is a statue that has come down to our time in several copies, of which the best is made of marble and is located in the Massami Palace in Rome.

"Discobolus" Miron in the Botanical Garden of Copenhagen

Discus thrower. Myron

Sculptural creations of Skopas Skopas (420 - c. 355 BC), a native of the island of Paros, rich in marble. Unlike Praxiteles, Skopas continued the traditions of the high classics, creating monumental-heroic images. But from the images of the 5th century. they are distinguished by the dramatic tension of all spiritual forces. Passion, pathos, strong movement are the main features of the art of Scopas. Also known as an architect, he participated in the creation of a relief frieze for the Halicarnassus Mausoleum.

In a state of ecstasy, in a violent outburst of passion, Menada is depicted by Scopas. The companion of the god Dionysus is shown in a swift dance, her head is thrown back, her hair has fallen to her shoulders, her body is curved, presented in a complex foreshortening, the folds of a short tunic emphasize the violent movement. Unlike the sculpture of the 5th century. Maenad Scopas is already designed for viewing from all sides. Scopas. Maenad Sculptures of Scopas

Scopas. Battle with the Amazons Sculptural creations of Scopas Also known as an architect, he participated in the creation of a relief frieze for the Halicarnassus mausoleum.

Praxiteles Born in Athens (c. 390 - 330 BC) Inspirational singer of female beauty.

The statue of Aphrodite of Knidos is the first depiction of a nude female figure in Greek art. The statue stood on the shores of the Knidos peninsula, and contemporaries wrote about real pilgrimages here to admire the beauty of the goddess, preparing to enter the water and dropping her clothes on a nearby vase. The original statue has not survived. Sculptures of Praxiteles Praxiteles. Aphrodite of Knidos

Sculptural creations of Praxiteles In the only marble statue of Hermes (the patron of trade and travelers, as well as the messenger, the "courier" of the gods) that has come down to us in the original of the sculptor Praxiteles, the master depicted a beautiful young man, in a state of peace and serenity. Thoughtfully, he looks at the baby Dionysus, whom he holds in his arms. The masculine beauty of an athlete is being replaced by a somewhat feminine, graceful, but also more spiritual beauty. Traces of ancient coloring have been preserved on the statue of Hermes: red-brown hair, a silver-colored bandage. Praxiteles. Hermes. Around 330 BC e.

Sculptures of Praxiteles

Lysippus the Great sculptor of the 4th c. BC. (370-300 BC). He worked in bronze, because. sought to capture images in a fleeting impulse. He left behind 1,500 bronze statues, including colossal figures of gods, heroes, and athletes. They are characterized by pathos, inspiration, emotionality. The original has not reached us. Court sculptor A.Macedonsky Marble copy of the head of A.Macedonsky

Lysippos. Hercules fighting a lion. 4th century BC Roman copy Hermitage, St. Petersburg In this sculpture with amazing craftsmanship the passionate intensity of the duel of Hercules with the lion is conveyed. Sculptures of Lysippus

Sculptural creations of Lysippus Lysippus sought to bring his images as close to reality as possible. So, he showed an athlete not at the moment of the highest tension of forces, but, as a rule, at the moment of their decline, after the competition. This is how his Apoxyomenos is represented, cleaning off the sand after a sports fight. He has a tired face, hair matted with sweat. Lysippos. Apoxyomenos. Roman copy, 330 BC

The captivating Hermes, always fast and lively, is also represented by Lysippus, as if in a state of extreme fatigue, briefly crouched on a stone and ready to run further in his winged sandals the next second. Sculptures of Lysippus Lysippus. "Resting Hermes"

Lysippus created his own canon of proportions of the human body, according to which his figures are taller and slimmer than those of Polykleitos (the size of the head is 1/9 of the figure). Sculptures of Lysippus Lysippus. "Hercules of Farnese"

Leohar Leohar. Apollo Belvedere. 4th century BC Roman copy. Vatican Museums His work is a fine attempt to capture the classical ideal of human beauty. In his works, not only the perfection of images, but the skill and technique of execution. Apollo is considered one of the best works of Antiquity.

Sculptural masterpieces of the Hellenistic era

Greek Sculpture So, in Greek sculpture, the expressiveness of the image was in the whole body of a person, his movements, and not just in the face. Despite the fact that many Greek statues did not retain their upper part (as, for example, Nike of Samothrace or Nike Untying Sandals came to us without a head, we forget about this when looking at the integral plastic solution of the image. Since the soul and the body was thought by the Greeks in inseparable unity, then the bodies of Greek statues are unusually spiritualized.

Nike of Samothrace Nike of Samothrace 2nd century BC Louvre, Paris Marble The statue was erected on the occasion of the victory of the Macedonian fleet over the Egyptian in 306 BC. e. The goddess was depicted, as it were, on the prow of a ship, announcing victory with the sound of a trumpet. The pathos of victory is expressed in the rapid movement of the goddess, in the wide flapping of her wings.

Nike of Samothrace

Nike untying her sandal The goddess is shown untying her sandal before entering the Temple of Marble. Athens

Venus de Milo On April 8, 1820, a Greek peasant from the island of Melos named Iorgos, digging the ground, felt that his shovel, with a dull clinking, came across something hard. Iorgos dug nearby - the same result. He took a step back, but even here the spade did not want to enter the ground. First Iorgos saw a stone niche. It was about four or five meters wide. In a stone crypt, to his surprise, he found a marble statue. This was Venus. Agesander. Venus de Milo. Louvre. 120 BC

Laocoön with his sons Agesander, Athenodorus, Polydorus

Laocoön and his sons Laocoön, you did not save anyone! Neither the city nor the world is a savior. The mind is powerless. Proud Three mouth is a foregone conclusion; the circle of fatal events closed in the suffocating crown of serpentine rings. Horror on the face, the plea and groans of your child; another son was silenced by poison. Your fainting. Your wheezing: "Let me be..." (...Like the bleating of sacrificial lambs Through the haze and piercingly and subtly!..) And again - reality. And poison. They are stronger! Anger flares powerfully in the snake's mouth... Laocoön, and who heard you?! Here are your boys... They... are not breathing. But in each Troy they are waiting for their horses.

Phidias and the Friezes of the Parthenon

Statue of Zeus by Phidias at Olympia

His images are sublime and beautiful. Phidias

Phidias Phidias. Statue of Athena

check yourself

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 AD BC e.). 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 back to the time of the foundation of the temple (510 - 500 years BC e.), sculptures of the second eastern, replacing the former 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 e.). Another significant work of the early classics is the so-called "Throne of Ludovisi", decorated with reliefs. A number of bronze originals also came from this time - "Delphic Charioteer", statue of Poseidon from Cape Artemisium, Bronzes from Riace . The largest sculptors of the early classics - Pythagoras Rhegian, Calamis and Myron . We judge the work of the famous Greek sculptors mainly by literary evidence and later copies of their works. High classics is represented by the names of Phidias and Polykleitos . Its short-term heyday is associated with work on Athenian Acropolis, that is, with the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon (the pediments, metopes and zophoros came, 447 - 432 BC). The pinnacle of ancient Greek sculpture was, apparently, chrysoelephantine statues of Athena Parthenos and Zeus Olympus by Phidias (both have not been preserved). "Rich style" is characteristic of the works of Callimachus, Alkamen, Agoracritus and other sculptors of the 5th century. BC e .. Its characteristic monuments are the reliefs of the balustrade of the small temple of Nike Apteros on the Athenian Acropolis (about 410 BC) and a number of tomb stelae, among which the Gegeso stele is most famous . The most important works of ancient Greek sculpture of the late classics are the decoration of the temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus (about 400 - 375 BC), the temple of Athena Alei in Tegea (about 370 - 350 BC), the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (about 355 - 330 BC) and the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus (c. 350 BC), on the sculptural decoration of which Skopas, Briaxides, Timothy worked and Leohar . The statues of Apollo Belvedere are also attributed to the latter. and Diana of Versailles . There are also a number of bronze originals of the 4th century BC. BC e. The largest sculptors of the late classics are Praxitel, Skopas and Lysippus, largely anticipating the subsequent era of Hellenism.

Greek sculpture partially survived in fragments and fragments. Most of the statues are known to us from Roman copies, which were performed in many, but did not convey the beauty of the originals. Roman copyists coarsened and dried them, and turning bronze products 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 rehashings 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 power of life suddenly wafts from this fragment; the marble itself is different than in Roman statues - not dead 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 chiaroscuro, so noble is the soft sculpting of the face, that one involuntarily recalls the delights of Greek poets: these sculptures really breathe, they really are alive * * Dmitrieva, Akimov. Antique art. Essays. - M., 1988. S. 52.

In the sculpture of the first half of the century, when there were wars with the Persians, a courageous, strict style prevailed. Then a statuary group of tyrannicides was created: a mature husband and a young man, standing side by side, make an impulsive movement forward, the younger one raises the sword, the older one shields it with a cloak. This is a monument historical figures- Harmodia and Aristogeiton, who killed the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus a few decades earlier, is 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 slaves to mortals, they are not subject to anyone,” says the Athenians in the tragedy of Aeschylus “Persians”.

Battles, skirmishes, exploits of heroes... The art of the early classics is full of these warlike plots. On the pediments of the temple of Athena in Aegina - the struggle of the Greeks with the Trojans. On the western pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia - the struggle of the Lapiths with the centaurs, on the metopes - all the twelve labors of Hercules. Another favorite complex of motives is gymnastic competitions; in those distant times, physical fitness, mastery of body movements were of decisive importance for the outcome of battles, so athletic games were far from just entertainment. Since the 8th century BC. e. in Olympia, gymnastic competitions were held every four years (the beginning of them later began to be considered the beginning of the Greek chronology), and in the 5th century they were celebrated with special solemnity, and now they were attended by poets who read poetry. The temple of Olympian Zeus, the classic Doric peripter, was in the center of the sacred district where the competitions took place, they began with a sacrifice to Zeus. On the eastern pediment of the temple, the sculptural composition depicted a solemn moment before the start of the horse races: in the center is the figure of Zeus, on either side of it are the statues of the mythological heroes Pelops and Enomai, the main participants in the upcoming competition, in the corners are their chariots drawn by four horses. According to the myth, the winner was Pelops, in whose honor the Olympic Games, resumed later, as the legend said, by Hercules himself.

The themes of hand-to-hand fights, equestrian competitions, running competitions, discus throwing taught the sculptors to depict the human body in dynamics. The archaic stiffness of the figures was overcome. Now they are acting, moving; complex poses, bold angles, and sweeping gestures appear. The brightest innovator was the Attic sculptor Myron. Miron's main task was to express the movement as fully and strongly as possible. Metal does not allow for such precise and fine work as marble, and perhaps that is why he turned to finding the rhythm of movement. (The name of rhythm means the total harmony of the movement of all parts of the body.) Indeed, the rhythm was excellently captured by Miron. In the statues of athletes, he conveyed not only movement, but the transition from one stage of movement to another, as if stopping the moment. Such is his famous Disco Thrower. The athlete leaned over and swung before the throw, a second - and the disk will fly, the athlete will straighten up. But for that moment, his body froze in a very difficult position, but visually balanced.

The balance, the majestic "ethos", is preserved in classical sculpture of a strict style. The movement of the figures is neither chaotic, nor overly excited, nor too swift. Even in the dynamic motives of a fight, running, falling, the feeling of "Olympic calmness", integral plastic completeness, self-isolation is not lost. Here is a bronze statue of the Charioteer, found at Delphi, one of the few well-preserved Greek originals. It belongs to the early period of the strict style - about 470 BC. e .. This young man stands very straight (he stood on a chariot and drove a quadriga of horses), his feet are barefoot, the folds of a long chiton remind of the deep flutes of Doric columns, his head is tightly covered by a silver bandage, inlaid eyes look like they are alive. He is restrained, calm and at the same time full of energy and will. From this bronze figure alone, with its strong, cast plasticity, one can feel the full measure of human dignity as the ancient Greeks understood it.

Their art at this stage was dominated by masculine images, but, fortunately, a beautiful relief depicting Aphrodite emerging from the sea, the so-called “Ludovisi Throne” - a sculptural triptych, the upper part of which has been broken off, has also been preserved. In its central part, the goddess of beauty and love, "foam-born", rises from the waves, supported by two nymphs, who chastely protect her with a light veil. She is visible to the waist. Her body and the bodies of the nymphs shine through transparent chitons, the folds of clothes flow in a cascade, a stream, like jets of water, like music. On the side parts of the triptych are two female figures: one naked, playing the flute; the other, wrapped in a veil, lights a sacrificial candle. The first is a hetaera, the second is a wife, the keeper of the hearth, as if two faces of femininity, both under the auspices of Aphrodite.

The search for surviving Greek originals continues today; From time to time, happy finds are found either in the ground or at the bottom of the sea: for example, in 1928, in the sea, near the island of Euboea, they found an excellently preserved bronze statue of Poseidon.

But the general picture of Greek art of the heyday has to be mentally reconstructed and completed, we know only accidentally preserved, scattered sculptures. And they existed in the ensemble.

Among the famous masters, the name of Phidias overshadows all the sculpture of subsequent generations. A brilliant representative of the age of Pericles, he said the last word plastic technique, and so far no one has dared to compare with him, although we know him only by hints. A native of Athens, he was born a few years before the Battle of Marathon and, therefore, became just a contemporary celebration of victories over the East. Speak first l he as a painter and then switched to sculpture. According to the drawings of Phidias and his drawings, under his personal supervision, Periclean buildings were erected. Fulfilling order after order, he created marvelous statues of the gods, personifying the abstract ideals of deities in marble, gold and bone. The image of the deity was developed by him not only in accordance with his qualities, but also in relation to the purpose of honoring. He was deeply imbued with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat this idol personified, and sculpted it with all the strength and power of a genius.

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 patron Athena was commissioned for him for the Acropolis. It reached 60 feet in height and exceeded all the neighboring buildings; from a distance, from the sea, she shone like a golden star and reigned over the whole city. It was not acrolithic (composite), like Plataean, but all cast in bronze. Another statue of the Acropolis, Athena the Virgin, made for the Parthenon, consisted of gold and ivory. Athena was depicted in a battle 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. At her feet was a snake, the guardian of the Acropolis. This statue is considered the best assurance of Phidias after his Zeus. It served as the original for countless copies.

But the height of perfection from 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 a throne. In one hand he held a scepter, in the other an image of victory. The body was made of ivory, the hair was golden, the mantle was golden, enameled. The composition of 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 marvel of sculpture. The general impression was, as one German scientist rightly put it, truly demonic: for a number of generations, the idol seemed to be a true god; one glance at him was enough to satisfy all sorrows and sufferings. Those who died without seeing him considered themselves unfortunate * * Gnedich P.P. World History of Art. - M., 2000. S. 97 ...

The statue died no one knows how and when: it probably burned down along with the Olympic temple. But her charms must have been great if Caligula insisted at all costs to transport her to Rome, which, however, turned out to be impossible.

The admiration of the Greeks for the beauty and wise structure of the living body was so great that they aesthetically thought of it only in statuary completeness and completeness, allowing one to appreciate the majesty of posture, the harmony of body movements. Dissolving a person in a formless crowd, showing him in a random aspect, removing him deep, plunging him into a shadow would be contrary to the aesthetic creed of the Hellenic masters, and they never did this, although the basics of perspective were clear to them. Both sculptors and painters showed a person with the utmost plastic distinctness, a close-up (one figure or a group of several figures), trying to arrange the action on foreground, as if on a narrow stage parallel to the background plane. The language of the body was also the language of the soul. It is sometimes said that Greek art was alien to psychology or did not grow up to it. This is not entirely true; perhaps the art of the archaic was still non-psychological, but not the art of the classics. Indeed, it did not know that scrupulous analysis of characters, that cult of the individual, which arises in modern times. It is no coincidence that the portrait in ancient Greece was relatively poorly developed. But the Greeks mastered the art of conveying, so to speak, typical psychology—they expressed a rich range of spiritual movements on the basis of generalized human types. Distracting from the nuances of personal characters, Hellenic artists did not neglect the nuances of emotions and were able to embody a complex system of feelings. After all, they were contemporaries and fellow citizens of Sophocles, Euripides, Plato.

But still, expressiveness was not so much in facial expressions as in body movements. Looking at the mysteriously serene moira of the Parthenon, at the swift, frisky Nika untying her sandal, we almost forget that their heads have been beaten off - the plasticity of their figures is so eloquent.

Each purely plastic motif - be it the graceful balance of all members of the body, reliance on both legs or on one, transfer of the center of gravity to an external support, head bowed to the shoulder or thrown back - was conceived by the Greek masters as an analogue of spiritual life. Body and psyche were realized in inseparability. Describing the classical ideal in Lectures on Aesthetics, Hegel said that in the “classical form of art the human body in its forms is no longer recognized only as a sensual existence, but is recognized only as the existence and natural appearance of the spirit.”

Indeed, the bodies of Greek statues are unusually inspired. The French sculptor Rodin said about one of them: "This youthful torso without a head smiles more joyfully at light and spring than eyes and lips could do" * * Dmitrieva, Akimova. Antique art. Essays. - M., 1988. S. 76.

Movements and postures are in most cases simple, natural and not necessarily associated with something sublime. Nika unties his sandal, the boy takes out a splinter from his heel, the young runner at the start is getting ready to run, the discus thrower Miron throws the discus. Miron's younger contemporary, the illustrious Poliklet, unlike Miron, never depicted fast movements and instantaneous states; his bronze statues of young athletes are in calm poses of light, measured movement, undulating over the figure. The left shoulder is slightly advanced, the right is retracted, the left thigh is leaning back, the right is raised, the right leg is firmly on the ground, the left is somewhat behind and slightly bent at the knee. This movement either does not have any "plot" pretext, or the pretext is insignificant - it is valuable in itself. This is a plastic hymn to clarity, reason, wise balance. Such is the Doryphorus (spear-bearer) of Polikleitos, known to us from marble Roman copies. He seems to be walking, and at the same time maintains a state of rest; the positions of the arms, legs and torso are perfectly balanced. Poliklet was the author of the treatise "Canon" (which has not come down to us, it is known from the mentions of ancient writers), where he theoretically established the laws of the proportions of the human body.

The heads of Greek statues, as a rule, are impersonal, that is, little individualized, reduced to a few variations of the general type, but this general type has a high spiritual capacity. In the Greek type of face, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200b"human" triumphs in its ideal. The face is divided into three parts of equal 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 to the line drawn from the beginning of the nose to the opening of the ear (right facial angle). Oblong section of fairly deep-seated eyes. A small mouth, full bulging lips, the upper lip is thinner than the lower and has a beautiful smooth neckline like a cupid's bow. The chin is large and round. Wavy hair softly and tightly fits the head, without interfering with the rounded shape of the skull.

This classical beauty may seem monotonous, but, being an expressive "natural image of the spirit", it lends itself to variation and is able to embody Various types ancient ideal. A little more energy in the warehouse of the lips, in the protruding chin - we have before us a strict virgin Athena. There is 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 a square, the neck is thicker, the lips are larger - this is already the image of a young athlete. And the basis remains the same strictly proportional classic look.

However, there is no place in it for something, from our point of view, very important: the charm of the uniquely individual, the beauty of the wrong, the triumph of the spiritual principle over bodily imperfection. The ancient Greeks could not give this, for this the original monism of the spirit and the body had to be broken, and the aesthetic consciousness had to enter the stage of their separation - dualism - which happened much later. But Greek art also gradually evolved towards individualization and open emotionality, concreteness of experiences and characterization, which becomes obvious already in the era of the late classics, in the 4th century BC. e.

At the end of the 5th century BC. e. the political power of Athens was shaken, undermined by the long Peloponnesian War. At the head of the opponents of Athens was Sparta; it was supported by other states of the Peloponnese and provided financial assistance by Persia. Athens lost the war and were forced to conclude an unfavorable peace; they retained their independence, but the Athenian Maritime Union collapsed, cash reserves dried up, and the internal contradictions of the policy intensified. Athenian democracy managed to resist, but democratic ideals faded, free expression of will began to be suppressed by cruel measures, an example of this is the trial of Socrates (in 399 BC), which sentenced the philosopher to death. The spirit of cohesive citizenship is weakening, personal interests and experiences are isolated from public ones, and the instability of life is more disturbing. Critical sentiments are on the rise. A person, according to the testament of Socrates, begins to strive to "know himself" - himself, as a person, and not just as part of a social whole. To knowledge human nature and characters, the work of the great playwright Euripides is directed, in whom the personal principle is much more accentuated than in his older contemporary Sophocles. According to Aristotle, Sophocles "represents people as they should be, and Euripides as they really are."

In the plastic arts, generalized images still predominate. But the spiritual fortitude and vigorous energy that breathes the art of early and mature classics gradually give way to the dramatic pathos of Scopas or the lyrical, with a touch of melancholy, contemplation of Praxiteles. Skopas, Praxiteles and Lysippus - these names are associated in our mind not so much with certain artistic individuals (their biographies are unclear, and almost no original works of them have been preserved), but with the main currents of the late classics. Just like Myron, Policlet and Phidias personify the features of a mature classic.

And again, indicators of changes in attitude are plastic motives. The characteristic posture of the standing figure changes. In the archaic era, the statues stood completely straight, frontally. A mature classic revitalizes and animates them with balanced, flowing movements, maintaining balance and stability. And the statues of Praxiteles - the resting Satyr, Apollo Saurocton - lean with lazy grace on pillars, without them they would have to fall.

The hip is very strongly arched on one side, and the shoulder is lowered low towards the hip - Rodin compares this position of the body with a harmonica when the bellows are compressed on one side and moved apart on the other. For balance, an external support is needed. This is the pose of dreamy relaxation. Praxiteles follows the traditions of Polykleitos, uses the motives of movements found by him, but develops them in such a way that a different inner content already shines through in them. The “wounded Amazon” Polikletai also leans on a half-column, but she could stand without it, her strong, energetic body, even suffering from a wound, stands firmly on the ground. Apollo of Praxiteles is not struck by an arrow, he himself aims at a lizard running along a tree trunk - the action, it would seem, requires strong-willed composure, nevertheless, his body is unstable, like a swaying stalk. And this is not an accidental detail, not a whim of the sculptor, but a kind of new canon in which the 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. e. Praxiteles' circle of favorite topics becomes different, he moves away from heroic plots into the "light world of Aphrodite and Eros." He carved the famous statue of Aphrodite of Cnidus.

Praxiteles 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 flowing volumes. They preferred the type of youth, - distinguished by "the first youth with effeminate beauty." Praxiteles was famous for the special softness of modeling and the skill of processing the material, the ability to convey the warmth of a living body in cold marble2.

The only surviving original of Praxiteles is the marble statue of Hermes with Dionysus, found in Olympia. Naked Hermes, leaning on a tree trunk, where his cloak was carelessly thrown, holds little Dionysus on one bent arm, and in the other a bunch of grapes, to which a child reaches (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, Leonardo da Vinci achieved in painting.

All other works of the master are known only from references to ancient authors and later copies. But the spirit of Praxiteles' art wafts over the 4th century BC. e., and best of all it can be felt not in Roman copies, but in small Greek plastic, in Tanagra clay figurines. They were made at the end of the century in large quantities, 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 the well-known large statues, others simply give various free variations of the draped female figure. The living grace of these figures, dreamy, thoughtful, playful, is an echo of Praxiteles' art.

Almost as little remains of the original works of the chisel Scopas, an older contemporary and antagonist of Praxiteles. The wreckage remains. But the wreckage says a lot. Behind them rises the image of a passionate, fiery, pathetic artist.

He was not only a sculptor, but also an architect. As an architect, Skopas created the temple of Athena in Tegea and he also supervised its sculptural decoration. The temple itself was destroyed long ago, still by the Goths; some fragments of sculptures were found during excavations, among them a wonderful head of a wounded warrior. There were no others like her in the art of the 5th century BC. e., there was no such dramatic expression in the turn of the head, such suffering in the face, in the gaze, such spiritual tension. In his name, the harmonic canon adopted in Greek sculpture is violated: the eyes are set too deep and the break in the superciliary arches is discordant with the outlines of the eyelids.

What was the style of Scopas in multi-figured compositions, show partially preserved reliefs on the frieze of the Halicarnassus mausoleum - a unique structure, ranked in antiquity among the seven wonders of the world: the peripter was hoisted on a high plinth and crowned with a pyramidal roof. The frieze depicted the battle of the Greeks with the Amazons - male warriors with female warriors. Skopas did not work on it alone, together with three sculptors, but, guided by the instructions of Pliny, who described the mausoleum, and by stylistic analysis, the researchers determined which parts of the frieze were made in the workshop of Scopas. More than others, they convey the intoxicating fervor of battle, "rapture in battle", when both men and women give themselves to him with equal passion. The movements of the figures are impetuous and almost lose their balance, directed not only parallel to the plane, but also inward, into depth: Scopas introduces a new sense of space.

The Maenad enjoyed great fame among contemporaries. Scopas depicted a storm of Dionysian dance, straining the whole body of Maenad, convulsively arching her torso, throwing back her head. The statue of Maenad is not designed for frontal viewing, it must be viewed from different sides, each point of view reveals something new: either the body is likened to a stretched bow with its arch, or it seems to be curved in a spiral, like a tongue of flame. One cannot help thinking: the Dionysian orgies must have been serious, not just entertainment, but really “crazy games”. The Mysteries of Dionysus were allowed to be held only once every two years and only on Parnassus, but at that time the frantic Bacchantes threw aside all conventions and prohibitions. To the beat of tambourines, to the sounds of tympanums, they rushed and whirled in ecstasy, driving themselves into a frenzy, loosening their hair, tearing their clothes. Maenad Skopas held a knife in her hand, and on her shoulder was a goat torn to pieces by her 3.

The Dionysian festivities were a very ancient custom, like the cult of Dionysus itself, but in art the Dionysian element had never erupted with such force, with such openness, as in the statue of Scopas, and this is obviously a symptom of the times. Now clouds were gathering over Hellas, and the reasonable clarity of the spirit was violated by the desire to forget, to throw off the fetters of restrictions. Art, like a sensitive membrane, responded to changes in the social atmosphere and transformed its signals into its own sounds, its own rhythms. The melancholic languor of the creations of Praxiteles and the dramatic impulses of Scopas are just a different reaction to the general spirit of the times.

The circle of Skopas, and possibly himself, owns a marble tombstone of a young man. To the right of the young man is his old father with an expression of deep thought, it is felt that he is wondering: why did his son leave in the prime of his youth, and he, the old man, remained to live? The son looks in front of him and no longer seems to notice his father; he is far from here, in the carefree Champs Elysees - the abode of the blessed.

The dog at his feet is one of the symbols of the underworld.

Here it is appropriate to say about Greek tombstones in general. There are relatively many of them, from the 5th, and mainly from the 4th century BC. e.; their creators are usually unknown. Sometimes the relief of the tomb stele depicts only one figure - the deceased, but more often his relatives are depicted next to him, one or two who say goodbye to him. In these scenes of farewell and parting, strong sorrow and grief are never expressed, but only quiet; sad thought. Death is rest; the Greeks personified it not in a terrible skeleton, but in the figure of a boy - Thanatos, the twin of Hypnos - sleep. The sleeping baby is also depicted on the young man's tombstone, in the corner at his feet. The surviving relatives look at the deceased, wanting to capture his features in memory, sometimes they take him by the hand; he (or she) himself does not look at them, and in his figure one feels relaxation, detachment. In the famous tombstone of Gegeso (end of the 5th century BC), a standing maid gives her mistress, who is sitting in an armchair, a box of jewels, Gegeso takes a necklace from it with a habitual, mechanical movement, but she looks absent and drooping.

Authentic tombstone of the 4th century BC. e. the work of the Attic master can be seen in the State Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin. This is the gravestone of a warrior - he holds a spear in his hand, next to him is his horse. But the posture is not at all militant, the members of the body are relaxed, the head is lowered. On the other side of the horse stands the one saying goodbye; he is sad, but one cannot be mistaken as to which of the two figures depicts the deceased, and which the living, although they seem to be similar and of the same type; Greek masters knew how to make the transition of the deceased into the valley of shadows feel.

Lyrical scenes of the last farewell were also depicted on funeral urns, where they are more laconic, sometimes just two figures - a man and a woman - shaking hands.

But even here it is always clear which of them belongs to the realm of the dead.

There is some special chastity of feeling in Greek tombstones with their noble restraint in expressing sadness, something completely opposite to Bacchic ecstasy. The young man's headstone attributed to Skopas does not break this tradition; it stands out from the others, in addition to its high plastic qualities, only by the philosophical depth of the image of the thoughtful old man.

For all the opposition of the artistic natures of Skopas and Praxiteles, both of them are characterized by what can be called an increase in picturesqueness in plastic - the effects of chiaroscuro, thanks to which marble seems to be alive, which is emphasized every time by Greek epigrammatists. Both masters preferred marble to bronze (whereas bronze prevailed in the sculpture of the early classics) and achieved perfection in the processing of its surface. The strength of the impression produced was facilitated by the special qualities of the marble varieties used by the sculptors: translucence and luminosity. Parian marble let light through by 3.5 centimeters. Statues made of this noble material looked both human-alive and divine-incorruptible. Compared with the works of the early and mature classics, the late classical sculptures lose something, they do not have the simple grandeur of the Delphic Charioteer, there is no monumentality of the Phidian statues, but they gain in vitality.

History has preserved many more names of outstanding sculptors of the 4th century BC. e. Some of them, cultivating lifelikeness, brought it to the edge beyond which genre and characterization begin, thus anticipating the tendencies of Hellenism. Demetrius of Alopeka was distinguished by this. He attached little importance to beauty and consciously sought to depict people as they are, without hiding large bellies and bald spots. Portraits were his specialty. Demetrius made a portrait of the philosopher Antisthenes, polemically directed against the idealizing portraits of the 5th century BC. e., - Antisthenes is old, flabby and toothless. The sculptor could not spiritualize ugliness, make it charming, such a task was impossible within the boundaries of ancient aesthetics. Ugliness was understood and portrayed simply as a physical handicap.

Others, on the contrary, tried to maintain and cultivate the traditions of mature classics, enriching them with great elegance and complexity of plastic motifs. This path was followed by Leohar, who created the statue of Apollo Belvedere, which became the standard of beauty for many generations of neoclassicists until the end of the 20th century. Johannes Winckelmann, author of the first scientific History of the Art of Antiquity, wrote: "The imagination cannot create anything that would surpass the Vatican Apollo with his more than human proportionality of a beautiful deity." For a long time this statue was regarded as the pinnacle of ancient art, the "Belvedere idol" was synonymous with aesthetic perfection. As is often the case, excessively high praises over time caused the opposite reaction. When the study of ancient art advanced far ahead and many of its monuments were discovered, the exaggerated assessment of the statue of Leochar was replaced by an underestimation: it began to be found pompous and mannered. Meanwhile, the Apollo Belvedere is a truly outstanding work in its plastic merits; the figure and gait of the lord of the muses combine strength and grace, energy and lightness, walking on the ground, he at the same time soars above the ground. Moreover, its movement, in the words of the Soviet art critic B. R. Vipper, “is not concentrated in one direction, but, as it were, diverges in different directions in rays.” To achieve such an effect, the sophisticated skill of the sculptor was needed; the only trouble is that the calculation of the effect is too obvious. Apollo Leohara seems to invite you to admire its beauty, while the beauty of the best classical statues does not declare itself publicly: they are beautiful, but do not show off. Even Praxiteles, Aphrodite of Cnidus, wants to hide rather than demonstrate the sensual charm of her nakedness, and the earlier classical statues are filled with a calm self-contentment that excludes any demonstrativeness. Therefore, it should be recognized that in the statue of Apollo Belvedere the ancient ideal begins to become something external, less organic, although in its own way this sculpture is remarkable and marks a high level of virtuoso skill.

A big step towards "naturalness" was made by the last great sculptor Greek classics - Lysippus. Researchers attribute it to the Argive school and assure that he had a completely different direction than in the Athenian school. In essence, he was a direct follower of her, but, having accepted her traditions, he stepped further. In his youth, the artist Evpomp answered his question: “Which teacher to choose?” - answered, pointing to the crowd crowding on the mountain: "Here is the only teacher: nature."

These words sunk deep into the soul of the young man of genius, and he, not trusting the authority of the Polykletian canon, took up the exact study of nature. Before him, people were sculpted in accordance with the principles of the canon, that is, in full confidence that true beauty consists in the proportionality of all forms and in the proportion of people of average height. Lysippus preferred a tall, slender figure. His limbs became lighter, taller.

Unlike Scopas and Praxiteles, he worked exclusively in bronze: fragile marble requires stable balance, while Lysippus created statues and statuary groups in dynamic states, in complex actions. He was inexhaustibly diverse in the invention of plastic motifs and very prolific; it was said that after the completion of each sculpture, he put in a piggy bank gold coin, and in total in this way he accumulated one and a half thousand coins, that is, he allegedly made one and a half thousand statues, some of very large sizes, including a 20-meter statue of Zeus. None of his works have survived, but a fairly large number of copies and repetitions, dating back either to the originals of Lysippus or to his school, give an approximate idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe style of the master. In terms of plot, he clearly preferred male figures, as he liked to portray the difficult exploits of husbands; Hercules was his favorite hero. In understanding the plastic form, the innovative conquest of Lysippus was the turn of the figure in the space surrounding it from all sides; in other words, he did not think of the statue against the background of any plane and did not assume one, the main point of view from which it should be viewed, but counted on going around the statue. We have seen that Scopas' Maenad was built on the same principle. But what was the exception with earlier sculptors became the rule with Lysippus. Accordingly, he gave his figures effective poses, complex turns and processed them with equal care not only from the front side, but also from the back.

In addition, Lysippus created a new sense of time in sculpture. The old classical statues, even if their postures were dynamic, seemed unaffected by the flow of time, they were outside of it, they were, they were at rest. The heroes of Lysippus live in the same real time as living people, their actions are included in time and transient, the presented moment is ready to be replaced by another. Of course, Lysippus had predecessors here too: one can say that he continued the traditions of Myron. But even the Discobolus of the latter is so balanced and clear in its silhouette that it seems to be “staying” and static compared to Lysippus Hercules fighting a lion, or Hermes, who for a minute (just a minute!) sat down to rest on a roadside stone, in order to continue later flying on their winged sandals.

Whether the originals of these sculptures belonged to Lysippus himself or to his students and assistants is not exactly established, but it is indisputable that he himself made the statue of Apoxyomenes, a marble copy of which is in the Vatican Museum. A young naked athlete, stretching his arms forward, scrapes off the adhering dust with a scraper. He was tired after the fight, slightly relaxed, even as if staggering, spreading his legs for stability. Strands of hair, treated very naturally, stuck to a sweaty forehead. The sculptor did everything possible to give maximum naturalness within the framework of the traditional canon. However, the canon itself has been revised. If we compare Apoxyomenes with Doryphorus Polykleitos, we can see that the proportions of the body have changed: the head is smaller, the legs are longer. Doryphorus is heavier and stockier compared to the flexible and slender Apoxyomenos.

Lysippus was the court painter of Alexander the Great and made a number of his portraits. There is no flattery or artificial glorification in them; the head of Alexander, preserved in the Hellenistic copy, is executed in the traditions of Scopas, somewhat reminiscent of the head of a wounded warrior. This is the face of a person who lives hard and hard, who does not easily get his victories. The lips are half open, as if breathing heavily, on the forehead, despite his youth, wrinkles lie. However, the classical type of face with proportions and features legitimized by tradition has been preserved.

The art of Lysippus occupies the border zone at the turn of the classical and Hellenistic eras. It is still true to classical concepts, but already undermines them from within, creating the ground for a transition to something else, more relaxed and more prosaic. In this sense, the head of a fist fighter is indicative, belonging not to Lysippus, but, possibly, to his brother Lysistratus, who was also a sculptor and, as they say, was the first to use masks removed from the model’s face for portraits (which was widespread in Ancient Egypt, but completely alien to Greek art). It is possible that the head of the fist fighter was also made with the help of a mask; it is far from the canon, and far from the ideal ideas of physical perfection, which the Hellenes embodied in the image of an athlete. This fist fight winner is nothing like a demigod, just an entertainer for an idle crowd. His face is rough, his nose is flattened, his ears are swollen. This type of "naturalistic" images later became widespread in Hellenism; An even more unsightly fist fighter was sculpted by the Attic sculptor Apollonius already in the 1st century BC. e.

That which had previously cast shadows on the bright structure of the Hellenic world outlook came at the end of the 4th century BC. e .: the decomposition and death of the democratic policy. The beginning of this was laid by the rise of Macedonia, the northern region of Greece, and the actual capture of all Greek states by the Macedonian king Philip II. In the battle of Chaeronea (in 338 BC), where the troops of the Greek anti-Macedonian coalition were defeated, Philip's 18-year-old son, Alexander, the future great conqueror, participated. Starting with a victorious campaign against the Persians, Alexander advanced his army further east, capturing cities and founding new ones; as a result of a ten-year campaign, a huge monarchy was created, stretching from the Danube to the Indus.

Alexander the Great in his youth tasted the fruits of the highest Greek culture. His tutor was the great philosopher Aristotle, court painters - Lysippus and Apelles. This did not prevent him, having captured the Persian state and taking the throne of the Egyptian pharaohs, to declare himself a god and demand that he and in Greece be given divine honors. Unaccustomed to Eastern customs, the Greeks, chuckling, said: "Well, if Alexander wants to be a god, let him be" - and officially recognized him as the son of Zeus. The orientalization that Alexander began to instill was, however, a matter more serious than the whim of a conqueror intoxicated with victories. It was a symptom of the historical turn of ancient society from slave-owning democracy to the form that existed in the East from ancient times - to the slave-owning monarchy. After the death of Alexander (and he died young), his colossal, but fragile state fell apart, his military leaders, the so-called diadochi - successors, divided the spheres of influence among themselves. The states that arose under their rule were no longer Greek, but Greek-Oriental. The era of Hellenism has come - the unification under the auspices of the monarchy of Hellenic and Eastern cultures.

I found a curious hypothesis regarding the ancient Greek miracle in the blog of the sculptor Nigel Konstam: he believes that the ancient statues were casts from living people, since otherwise it is impossible to explain such a rapid transition from the manufacture of static Egyptian-type statues to the perfect realistic art of transferring movement, which occurs in the interval from 500 to 450 BC.


Nigel confirms his hypothesis by examining the feet of ancient statues, comparing them with plaster prints and wax castings made from modern sitters standing in a given pose. The deformation of the material on the feet confirms his hypothesis that the Greeks did not make statues, as before, but began to use casts from living people instead.
For the first time, Konstama learned about this hypothesis from the film "Athens. The Truth About Democracy", searched for material on the Internet and found this.

Nigel made a video explaining his hypothesis regarding antique casts and can be viewed here http://youtu.be/7fe6PL7yTck in English.
But let's look at the statues themselves first.

An antique statue of a kouros from an archaic era, circa 530 BC. seems constrained and tense, then contrapposto was not yet known - the free position of the figure, when the balance of rest is created from movements opposite to each other.


Kouros, figure of a youth, early 5th century BC looks a little more dynamic.

Warriors from Riace, statues from the second quarter of the 5th century BC 197 cm high - the rarest find of original Greek sculpture of the classical period, most of which is known to us from Roman copies. In 1972, snorkeling Roman engineer Stefano Mariottini found them at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Italy.

These bronze figures are not entirely cast, their parts were fastened like a designer, which allows you to learn much more about the technique of creating sculptures of that time. Their pupils are made of gold paste, their eyelashes and teeth are made of silver, their lips and nipples are made of copper, and their eyes are made using bone and glass inlay techniques.
That is, in principle, changed several times, as scientists found out, some details of the statues were casts from living models, albeit enlarged and improved, they could well have been.

It was in the process of studying the gravity-deformed feet of the Riace Warriors that the sculptor Konstam came up with this idea of ​​casts, which may have been used by ancient sculptors.

When watching the film "Athens. The Truth About Democracy" I was interested in how the rather fluffy sitter felt, from whom the plaster mold was removed, because many who had to wear the plaster complained that it was painful to remove it, because they had to tear off their hair.

On the one hand, there are sources from which it is known that in ancient Greece, not only women, but also male athletes removed body hair.
On the other hand, it was hairiness that distinguished them from women. It is not for nothing that in Aristophanes' comedy "Women in the People's Assembly" one of the heroines who decided to take power away from men says:
- And so the first thing I threw a razor
Away, to become rough and shaggy,
Don't look a bit like a woman.

It turns out that if the men's hair was removed, then most likely those who were professionally involved in sports, and it was precisely such sitters that the sculptors needed.

Nevertheless, I read about gypsum and found out that even in ancient times there were ways to combat this phenomenon: when masks and casts were made, the body of sitters was smeared with special oil ointments, thanks to which the gypsum was removed painlessly, even if there was hair on the body. That is, the technique of making casts not only from a dead, but also from a living person in ancient times was indeed well known back in Egypt, however, it was the transfer of movement and copying of a person that was not considered beautiful there.

But for the Hellenes, the beautiful human body, perfect in its nakedness, seemed to be the greatest value and object of worship. Perhaps that is why they did not see anything reprehensible in using casts from such a body to make works of art.


Phryne in front of the Areopagus. JL Gerome. 1861, Hamburg, Germany.
On the other hand, they could well accuse the sculptor of impiety and insulting the gods because he used a hetaera as a model for the statue of the goddess. In the case of Praxiteles, Phryne was accused of godlessness. But would a non-hetaera agree to pose for him?
The Areopagus acquitted her in 340 BC, however, after during a speech in her defense, the orator Hyperides presented the original - naked Phryne, pulling off her tunic and rhetorically asking how such beauty could be guilty. After all, the Greeks believed that beautiful body has a wonderful soul.
It is possible that even before him Praxiteles of the goddesses was depicted naked, and the judges could consider it impiety that the goddess was too similar to Phryne, as if one to one, and the accusation of the hetaera herself of godlessness was only a pretext? Maybe they knew or guessed about the possibilities of working with plaster casts from a living person? And then an unnecessary question could arise: who do they worship in the temple - Phryne or the goddess.

With the help of photography, a modern computer artist "revived" Phryne, that is, of course, the statue of Aphrodite of Cnidus, and more specifically, her copy, since the original has not reached us.
And, as we know, the ancient Greeks painted the statues, so it may well be that the getter could look like this if her skin was slightly yellowish, for which, according to some sources, she was nicknamed Phryne.
Although in this case, our contemporary competes with Nicias, an artist, of course, and not a commander, to whom an incorrect reference is made in Wikipedia. After all, when asked which of his works Praxiteles considers the best, according to legend, he answered that those that were painted by Nikias.
By the way, this phrase remained mysterious for many centuries for those who did not know or did not believe that the finished Greek sculptures were not white.
But it seems to me that the statue of Aphrodite itself was hardly painted that way, because scientists say that the Greeks painted them quite colorfully.

Rather, something like the coloring of Apollo from the exhibition Motley Gods "Bunte Götter".

And imagine how strange the sitter felt when he saw how people worship him in the form of a god.
Or not to him, but to his copy, which the artist proportionally enlarged, brightly colored and corrected minor physical inconsistencies and shortcomings in accordance with the canon of Poliklet? This is your body, but bigger and better. Or is it not yours anymore? Could he believe that the statue made of him is a statue of a god?

In one of the articles I also read about huge number plaster blanks in an ancient Greek workshop for copies prepared for shipment to Rome, which were discovered by archaeologists. Maybe it was including casts from people, and not just from statues?

I will not insist on Konstam's hypothesis, which interested me: of course, specialists know better, but there is no doubt that ancient sculptors, like modern ones, used casts from living people and parts of their bodies. Is it really possible to think that the ancient Greeks were so stupid that, knowing what gypsum is, they would not have guessed?
But do you think making copies of living people is art or a hoax?

Ancient Greek sculpture is the leading standard in the world of sculptural art, which continues to inspire modern sculptors to create artistic masterpieces. Frequent themes of sculptures and stucco compositions of ancient Greek sculptors were the battles of great heroes, mythology and legends, rulers and ancient Greek gods.

Greek sculpture received particular development in the period from 800 to 300 BC. e. This area of ​​sculpture drew early inspiration from Egyptian and Near Eastern monumental art and evolved over the centuries into a unique Greek vision of the form 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 could ever show. Greek sculptors were particularly interested in proportion, balance, and the idealized perfection of the human body, and their stone and bronze figures became some of the most recognizable works of art ever created 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 in clay, ivory and bronze. Undoubtedly, wood was also a widely used material, but its susceptibility to erosion did not allow mass production of wooden products, as they did not show the necessary durability. Bronze figures, human heads, mythical monsters, and in particular griffins, were used as decorations and handles for bronze vessels, cauldrons and bowls.

In style, Greek human figures have expressive geometric lines, which can often be found on ceramic products of that time. The bodies of warriors and gods are depicted with elongated limbs and a triangular torso. Also often ancient Greek creations are decorated with animal figures. Many 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 stone sculptures made of limestone 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, battle scenes, athletes, chariots, and even musicians with instruments of that period.

Marble sculpture appears at the beginning of the 6th century BC. The first monumental life-sized marble statues served as monuments dedicated to heroes and noble persons, or were located in sanctuaries in which symbolic service to the gods was held.

The earliest large stone figures found in Greece depicted young men dressed in women's clothes, who were accompanied by a cow. The sculptures were static and crude, as in Egyptian monumental statues, the arms were placed straight at the sides, the legs were almost together, and the eyes looked straight ahead without any particular facial expression. These rather static figures slowly evolved through the detailing of the image. Talented masters 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 one) is slightly advanced forward, giving a sense of the 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 coloring of ancient Greek sculpture

By the early 19th century, systematic excavations of ancient Greek sites had unearthed many sculptures with traces of multicolored surfaces, some of which were still visible. Despite this, influential art historians such as Johann Joachim Winckelmann objected to the idea of ​​painted Greek sculpture so strongly that proponents of painted statues were labeled eccentrics and their views were largely suppressed for over a century.

Only in the published scientific papers of the German archaeologist Vindzenik Brinkmann in the late 20th and early 21st century, the discovery of a number of famous ancient Greek sculptures was described. Using high-intensity lamps, ultraviolet light, specially designed chambers, plaster casts, and some powdered minerals, Brinkmann proved that the entire Parthenon, including its main body, as well as the statues, were painted in different colors. Next, he chemically and physically analyzed the pigments of the original paint to determine its composition.

Brinkmann created several color-painted replicas of Greek statues that went on tour around the world. The collection included 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. Venues include the Glyptotek Museum in Munich, the Vatican Museum and the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. The collection staged its American debut at Harvard University in the fall of 2007.

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Stages of the formation of Greek sculpture

The development of sculptural art in Greece went through several significant stages. Each of them was reflected in the sculpture with its 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 descriptions of them are vague, despite the fact that they were probably 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 by the hand of an unknown terracotta sculpture. The statue was pieced together as it was deliberately smashed and buried in two separate graves. The centaur has a distinct mark (wound) on his knee. This allowed the researchers to suggest that the statue may depict Chiron, wounded by the arrow of Hercules. If true, this could be considered the earliest known description of the myth in the history of Greek sculpture.

The sculptures of the Geometric period (approximately 900 to 700 BC) were small figurines made of terracotta, bronze and ivory. Typical sculptural works of this era are represented by many examples of equestrian statues. However, the plot repertoire is not limited to men and horses, since some examples of statues and stucco found from that time depict images of deer, birds, beetles, hares, griffins and lions.

On geometric sculpture early period there are no inscriptions until the early 7th century BC statue of Manticlos "Apollo" found in Thebes. The sculpture is a figure of a standing man with an inscription at his feet. This inscription is a kind of instruction to help each other and return kindness for kindness.

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. An example of the sculptures of 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 facial expression - an archaic smile. This expression, which has no specific relevance to the person or situation depicted, may have been an artist's tool to give animation and "liveness" to the figures.

During this period, sculpture was dominated by three types of figures: a standing naked youth, a standing girl dressed in traditional Greek attire, and a seated woman. They emphasize and generalize the main 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 enormous size, which was supposed to show power and masculine strength. In these statues, the details of the musculature and skeletal structure than in earlier geometric works. The dressed girls have a wide range of facial expressions and postures, as in the sculptures of the Athenian Acropolis. Their drapery is carved and painted with the delicacy and meticulousness characteristic of 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 endeavour. Suffice it to recall 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 figure, without reference to a character, could just as easily become Apollo or Hercules, or portray a mighty Olympian.

As with ceramics, the Greeks did not produce sculpture just for artistic display. 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 ancient inscriptions on statues often prove). The Greeks also used sculptures as monuments for graves. Statues in the archaic period were not meant to represent specific people. These were images of ideal beauty, piety, honor or sacrifice. That is why sculptors have always created sculptures of young people, ranging from adolescence to early adulthood, even when they were placed on the graves of (presumably) elderly citizens.

classical 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 began to increasingly depict real people, rather than vague interpretations of myths or entirely fictional characters. Although the style in which they were presented has not yet developed into a realistic form of portraiture. The statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, 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 Classic period also saw the flourishing of stucco art and the use of sculptures as decorations for buildings. Characteristic temples of the classical era, such as the Parthenon at Athens and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, used relief molding for decorative friezes, wall and ceiling decoration. The complex aesthetic and technical challenge facing 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 rigid and impersonal statues of the archaic period to the very personal family groups of the classical era. These monuments are usually 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 yearning mother, an obedient son), they are increasingly becoming the personification of real people and, as a rule, show that the departed leaves this world with dignity, leaving his family. This is a noticeable increase in the level of emotions relative to the archaic and geometric eras.

Another notable change is the flourishing of the creative work 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, with little attention given to their authors.

Hellenistic period

The transition from the classical to the Hellenistic (or Greek) period occurred 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 that 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 ability and talent of the Hellenistic sculptors is evident in such major works as the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Pergamon Altar. New centers of Greek culture, especially in sculpture, developed in Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamon and other cities. By the 2nd century BC, the growing power of Rome had also swallowed up much of the Greek tradition.

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During this period, sculpture again experienced a shift towards naturalism. Heroes for creating sculptures were now ordinary people- men, women with children, animals and domestic scenes. Many of the creations from that 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 compelled to portray people as ideals of beauty or physical perfection.

At the same time, the new Hellenistic cities that sprang up in Egypt, Syria, and Anatolia needed statues depicting the gods and heroes of Greece for their temples and public spaces. This led to the fact that sculpture, like ceramic production, became an industry with subsequent standardization and some decrease in quality. That is why much more Hellenistic creations have survived to this day than the epochs of the classical period.

Along with the natural shift towards naturalism, there was also 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 best-known creations of 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 pronounced in the work "The 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 subjects 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 robberies destroyed this heritage of Ancient Greece, like many others. major works this period, the existence of which is described in literary works contemporaries.

After the conquests of Alexander the Great, Greek culture spread to India, as evidenced by the excavations of Ai-Khanoum in eastern Afghanistan. Greco-Buddhist art represented an intermediate stage between Greek art and the visual expression of Buddhism. Discoveries made since the end of the 19th century regarding the ancient Egyptian city of Heracles have revealed the remains of a statue of Isis dating back to the 4th century BC.

The statue depicts an Egyptian goddess in an unusually 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 conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great.

Ancient Greek sculpture is the progenitor of all world art! Until now, the masterpieces of Ancient Greece attract millions of tourists and art lovers who seek to touch the beauty and talent that is not subject to time.

1.1 Sculpture in Ancient Greece. Prerequisites for its development

Among all the visual arts of ancient civilizations, the art of ancient Greece, in particular, its sculpture, occupies a very special place. The living body, capable of any muscular work, the Greeks put above all. The lack of clothes shocked no one. 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 in the archaic era

The archaic period is the period of the formation of ancient Greek sculpture. The desire of the sculptor to convey the beauty of the ideal human body, which was fully manifested in the works of a later era, is already clear, 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 determined 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 e. and is characterized by orientalizing styles, of which highest value had a Daedalian, associated with the name of the semi-mythical sculptor Daedalus . The circle of "Dedalian" sculpture includes a statue of Artemis of Delos and a female statue of Cretan work, stored in the Louvre ("Lady of Oxer"). The middle of the 7th century BC e. dated and the first kuros . The first sculptural temple decoration dates back to the same time. - reliefs and statues from Prinia in Crete. In the future, the sculptural decoration fills the fields allocated in the temple by its very design - the pediments and metopes in Doric temple, continuous frieze (zophor) - 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, dedication 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 round sculpture replaced reliefs in pediments), tomb steles . Among the famous monuments of archaic round sculpture is the head of Hera, found near her temple in Olympia, the statue of Cleobis and Beaton from Delph, Moskhofor ("Taurus") from the Athenian Acropolis, Hera of Samos , statues from Didyma, Nikka Archerma and others. The last statue shows an archaic scheme of the so-called "kneeling run", used to depict a flying or running figure. In archaic sculpture, a number of other conventions are adopted - for example, the so-called "archaic smile" on the faces of archaic sculptures.

The sculpture of the archaic era is dominated by statues of slender naked youths and draped young girls - kouros and bark. Neither childhood nor old age then attracted the attention of artists, because only in mature youth are the vital forces in their prime and balance. Early Greek art creates images of Men and Women in their ideal form. In that era, spiritual horizons expanded extraordinarily, a person, as it were, felt himself standing face to face with the universe and wanted to comprehend its harmony, the secret of its integrity. Details eluded, ideas about the specific "mechanism" of the universe were the most fantastic, but the pathos of the whole, the consciousness of universal interconnection - this was what constituted the strength of the 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, fine art created a generalized human appearance. Let's look at the kouros, or, as they are sometimes called, the "archaic Apollos." 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 bashful covers. He always stands straight, his body is permeated with readiness to move. The construction of the body is shown and emphasized with the utmost clarity; it is immediately clear that long muscular legs can bend at the knees and run, the abdominal muscles can tense up, 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 conditional "smile" - slightly raised corners of the mouth - is only the possibility of a smile, a hint of the joy of being, inherent in this, as if a newly created person.

Kouros statues were created mainly in areas where the Dorian style dominated, that is, on the territory of mainland Greece; female statues - kora - mainly in Asia Minor and island cities, centers of the Ionian style. Beautiful female figures were found during excavations of the archaic Athenian Acropolis, built in the VI century BC. e., when Pisistratus ruled there, and destroyed during the war with the Persians. For twenty-five centuries marble crusts were buried in the "Persian rubbish"; finally they were taken out of there, half-broken, but not having lost their extraordinary charm. Perhaps some of them were performed by Ionic masters invited by Peisistratus to Athens; their art influenced Attic sculpture, which now combines the features of Doric austerity with Ionian grace. In the bark 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 peplo - a veil, or a light garment - a chiton (in the archaic era, female figures, unlike male ones, were not yet depicted naked), hair flowing over the shoulders with curly strands. These kora stood on plinths in front of the temple of Athena, holding an apple or a flower in their hand.

Archaic sculptures (as well as classical ones, by the way) were not as uniformly white as we imagine them now. Many have traces of paint. The marble girls' hair was golden, their cheeks pink, their eyes blue. Against the background of the cloudless sky of Hellas, all this should have looked very festive, but at the same time strict, thanks to the clarity, composure and constructiveness of forms and silhouettes. There was no excessive flamboyance and variegation. The search for rational foundations of beauty, harmony based on measure and number, is a very important moment in the aesthetics of the Greeks. The Pythagorean philosophers sought to capture the natural 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 adjusted proportions of the human body and the "body" of architecture. In this, early Greek art is fundamentally different from the Cretan-Mycenaean art, which is alien to any mathematics.

Very lively genre scene: Thus, in the era of the archaic, the foundations of ancient Greek sculpture, the 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 more late periods there is a development and improvement of these ideals and the skill of ancient sculptors.

1.3 Classical Greek sculpture

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 AD BC e.). 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 back to the time of the foundation of the temple (510 - 500 years BC BC), sculptures of the second eastern, replacing the former 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 e.). Another significant work of the early classics - the so-called "Throne of Ludovisi", decorated with reliefs. A number of bronze originals have also come from this time - the Delphic Charioteer, statue of Poseidon from Cape Artemisium, Bronzes from Riace . The largest sculptors of the early classics - Pythagoras Rhegian, Calamis and Myron . We judge the work of the famous Greek sculptors mainly by literary evidence and later copies of their works. High classics is represented by the names of Phidias and Polykleitos . Its short-term heyday is associated with work on the Athenian Acropolis, that is, with the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon. (the pediments, metopes and zophoros came, 447 - 432 BC). The pinnacle of ancient Greek sculpture was, apparently, chrysoelephantine statues of Athena Parthenos and Zeus Olympus by Phidias (both have not been preserved). "Rich style" is characteristic of the works of Callimachus, Alkamen, Agoracritus and other sculptors of the 5th century. BC e .. Its characteristic monuments are the reliefs of the balustrade of the small temple of Nike Apteros on the Athenian Acropolis (about 410 BC) and a number of tomb stelae, among which the Gegeso stele is most famous . The most important works of ancient Greek sculpture of the late classics are the decoration of the temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus (about 400 - 375 BC), the temple of Athena Alei in Tegea (about 370 - 350 BC), the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (about 355 - 330 BC) and the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus (c. 350 BC), on the sculptural decoration of which Skopas, Briaxides, Timothy worked and Leohar . The statues of Apollo Belvedere are also attributed to the latter. and Diana of Versailles . There are also a number of bronze originals of the 4th century BC. BC e. The largest sculptors of the late classics are Praxitel, Skopas and Lysippus, largely anticipating the subsequent era of Hellenism.

Greek sculpture partially survived in fragments and fragments. Most of the statues are known to us from Roman copies, which were performed in many, but did not convey the beauty of the originals. Roman copyists coarsened and dried them, and turning bronze products 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 rehashings 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 power of life suddenly wafts from this fragment; the marble itself is different than in Roman statues - not dead 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 chiaroscuro, so noble is the soft modeling of the face, that one involuntarily recalls the delights of Greek poets: these sculptures really breathe, they really are alive *. In the sculpture of the first half of the century, when there were wars with the Persians, a courageous, strict style prevailed. Then a statuary group of tyrannicides was created: a mature husband and a young man, standing side by side, make an impulsive movement forward, the younger one raises the sword, the older one shields it with a cloak. This is a monument to historical figures - Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who killed the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus a few 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 slaves to mortals, they are not subject to anyone,” says the Athenians in the tragedy of Aeschylus “Persians”. Battles, skirmishes, exploits of heroes... The art of the early classics is full of these warlike plots. On the pediments of the temple of Athena in Aegina - the struggle of the Greeks with 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 complex of motives is gymnastic competitions; in those distant times, physical fitness, 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, discus throwing taught the sculptors to depict the human body in dynamics. The archaic stiffness of the figures was overcome. Now they are acting, moving; complex poses, bold angles, and sweeping gestures appear. The brightest innovator was the Attic sculptor Myron. Miron's main task was to express the movement as fully and strongly as possible. Metal does not allow for such precise and fine work as marble, and perhaps that is why he turned to finding the rhythm of movement. The balance, the majestic "ethos", is preserved in classical sculpture of a strict style. The movement of the figures is neither chaotic, nor overly excited, nor too swift. Even in the dynamic motives of a fight, running, falling, the feeling of "Olympic calmness", integral plastic completeness, 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 patron Athena was commissioned for him for the Acropolis. It reached 60 feet in height and exceeded all the neighboring buildings; from a distance, from the sea, she shone like a golden star and reigned over the whole city. It was not acrolithic (composite), like Plataean, but all cast in bronze. Another statue of the Acropolis, Athena the Virgin, made for the Parthenon, consisted of gold and ivory. Athena was depicted in a battle 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. At her feet was a snake, the guardian of the Acropolis. This statue is considered the best assurance of Phidias after his Zeus. It served as the original for countless copies. But the height of perfection from 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 a throne. In one hand he held a scepter, in the other - the image of victory. The body was made of ivory, the hair was golden, the mantle was golden, enamelled. The composition of 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 marvel of sculpture. The admiration of the Greeks for the beauty and wise structure of the living body was so great that they aesthetically thought of it only in statuary completeness and completeness, allowing one to appreciate the majesty of posture, the harmony of body movements. But still, expressiveness was not so much in facial expressions as in body movements. Looking at the mysteriously serene moira of the Parthenon, at the swift, frisky Nika untying her sandal, we almost forget that their heads have been beaten off - the plasticity of their figures is so eloquent.

Indeed, the bodies of Greek statues are unusually inspired. The French sculptor Rodin said of one of them: "This youthful torso without a head smiles more joyfully at light and spring than eyes and lips could do." Movements and postures are in most cases simple, natural and not necessarily associated with something sublime. The heads of Greek statues are, as a rule, impersonal, that is, little individualized, brought to a 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" in its ideal version triumphs. The face is divided into three parts of equal 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 fairly deep-seated eyes. A small mouth, full bulging lips, the upper lip is thinner than the lower and has a beautiful smooth neckline like a cupid's bow. The chin is large and round. Wavy hair softly and tightly fits the head, without interfering with the rounded shape of the skull. This classical beauty may seem monotonous, but, being an expressive "natural image of the spirit", it lends itself to variation and is able to embody various types of the ancient ideal. A little more energy in the warehouse of the lips, in the protruding chin - we have a strict virgin Athena in front of us. There is more softness in the outlines of the cheeks, the lips are slightly half-open, the eye sockets are shaded - we have before us the sensual face of Aphrodite. The oval of the face is closer to a square, the neck is thicker, the lips are larger - this is already the image of a young athlete. And the basis remains the same strictly proportional classic look.

After the war .... The characteristic posture of a standing figure changes. In the archaic era, the statues stood completely straight, frontally. A mature classic revitalizes and animates them with balanced, flowing movements, maintaining balance and stability. And the statues of Praxiteles - the resting Satyr, Apollo Saurokton - lean with lazy grace on pillars, without them they would have to fall. The hip on one side is very strongly arched, and the shoulder is lowered low towards the hip - Rodin compares this position of the body with a harmonica, when the bellows are compressed on one side and moved apart on the other. For balance, an external support is needed. This is the pose of dreamy relaxation. Praxiteles follows the traditions of Polykleitos, uses the motives of movements found by him, but develops them in such a way that a different inner content already shines through in them. The “wounded Amazon” Polikletai also leans on a half-column, but she could stand without it, her strong, energetic body, even suffering from a wound, stands firmly on the ground. Apollo of Praxiteles is not struck by an arrow, he himself aims at a lizard running along a tree trunk - the action, it would seem, requires strong-willed composure, nevertheless, his body is unstable, like a swaying stalk. And this is not an accidental detail, not a whim of the sculptor, but a kind of new canon in which the 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. e. Praxiteles' circle of favorite topics becomes different, he moves away from heroic plots into the "light world of Aphrodite and Eros." He carved the famous statue of Aphrodite of Cnidus. Praxiteles 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 flowing volumes. They preferred the type of youth, - distinguished by "the first youth with effeminate beauty." Praxiteles was famous for the special softness of modeling and the skill of processing the material, the ability to convey the warmth of a living body in cold marble2.

The only surviving original of Praxiteles is the marble statue of Hermes with Dionysus, found in Olympia. Naked Hermes, leaning on a tree trunk, where his cloak was casually thrown, holds little Dionysus on one bent arm, and in the other a bunch of grapes, to which a child reaches (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, Leonardo da Vinci achieved in painting. All other works of the master are known only from references to ancient authors and later copies. But the spirit of Praxiteles' art wafts over the 4th century BC. e., and best of all it can be felt not in Roman copies, but in small Greek plastic, in Tanagra clay figurines. They were made at the end of the century in large quantities, 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 the well-known large statues, others simply give various free variations of the draped female figure. The living grace of these figures, dreamy, thoughtful, playful, is an echo of Praxiteles' art.

1.4 Sculpture of Hellenistic Greece

The very concept of "Hellenism" contains an indirect indication of the victory of the Hellenic principle. Even in the remote regions of the Hellenistic world, in Bactria and Parthia (present-day Central Asia), ancient forms of art appear in a peculiar way. And Egypt is hard to recognize, its new town Alexandria is already a real enlightened center of ancient culture, where exact sciences, the humanities, and philosophical schools, originating from Pythagoras and Plato, flourish. Hellenistic Alexandria gave the world the great mathematician and physicist Archimedes, geometer Euclid, Aristarchus of Samos, who eighteen centuries before Copernicus proved that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The cabinets of the famous Library of Alexandria, marked with Greek letters, from alpha to omega, kept hundreds of thousands of scrolls - "writings that shone in all areas of knowledge." There stood the grandiose Pharos lighthouse, ranked among the seven wonders of the world; Museyon was created there, the palace of the muses - the prototype of all future museums. Compared to this rich and opulent port city, the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, the city of the Greek metropolis, even Athens must have looked modest. But these modest, small cities were the main sources of the cultural treasures that Alexandria kept and revered, those traditions that continued to be followed. If Hellenistic science owed much to the heritage of the Ancient East, then the plastic arts retained a predominantly Greek character.

The main formative principles came from the Greek classics, the content became different. There was a decisive demarcation of the state and privacy. In the Hellenistic monarchies, the cult of the sole ruler, equated with a deity, is established, similar to how it was in the ancient Eastern despotisms. But the resemblance is relative: the “private person”, whom political storms do not touch or only slightly touch, 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 of Greek origin - after the conquests of Alexander, the mass migration of Greeks to the east began - he is not alien to the concepts of human dignity, brought up by Greek culture. Let him be removed from power and state affairs - his isolated private world requires and finds for itself an artistic expression, the basis of which are the traditions of the late Greek classics, reworked in the spirit of greater intimacy and genre. And in the art of "state", official, in large public buildings and monuments, the same traditions are processed, on the contrary, in the direction of pomposity.

Pomp and intimacy are opposite traits; Hellenistic art is full of contrasts - gigantic and miniature, ceremonial and domestic, allegorical and natural. The world has become more complex, more diverse aesthetic demands. The main trend is a departure from a generalized human type to an understanding of a person as a concrete, individual being, and hence the increasing attention to his psychology, interest in events, and a new vigilance to national, age, social and other signs of personality. But since all this was expressed in a language inherited from the classics, which did not set itself such tasks, a certain inorganism is felt in the innovative works of the Hellenistic era, they do not achieve the integrity and harmony of their great forerunners. The portrait head of the heroized statue of the Diadochus does not fit with his naked torso, which repeats the type of a classical athlete. The drama of the multi-figured sculptural group "Farnese Bull" is contradicted by the "classical" representativeness of the figures, their poses and movements are too beautiful and smooth to be believed in the truth of their experiences. In numerous park and chamber sculptures, the traditions of Praxiteles become smaller: Eros, “the great and powerful god,” turns into a playful, playful Cupid; Apollo - in the coquettishly pampered Apollono; strengthening the genre is not going to their advantage. 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 types, new to it, outwardly, without penetrating into the depths - after all, the classical heritage did not give a key to them. The statue of Aphrodite, traditionally called the Venus de Milo, was found in 1820 on the island of Melos and immediately gained worldwide fame as a perfect creation of Greek art. This high assessment was not shaken by many later finds of Greek originals - Aphrodite of Milos occupies a special place among them. Executed, apparently, in the II century BC. e. (by the sculptor Agesander or Alexander, as the half-erased inscription on the plinth says), she bears little resemblance to her contemporary statues depicting the goddess of love. Hellenistic Aphrodites most often ascended to the type of Aphrodite of Cnidus Praxiteles, making her sensually seductive, even slightly cutesy; such, for example, is the well-known Aphrodite of Medicea. Aphrodite of Milos, only half naked, draped to the hips, is strict and sublimely calm. She embodies not so much the ideal of female beauty, but the ideal of a person in a general and higher sense. The Russian writer Gleb Uspensky found a good expression: the ideal of a “straight man.” The statue is well preserved, but its arms are broken off. Much speculation has been made about what these hands were doing: Was the goddess holding an apple? or a mirror? or did she hold the edge of her garment? A convincing reconstruction has not been found, in fact, there is no need for it. The "handlessness" of Aphrodite of Milo over time 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 been preserved, it is in this partially damaged state that Aphrodite appears before us, like a “marble riddle”, conceived 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 Pergamon. The Pergamon school, more than others, gravitated toward pathos and drama, continuing the traditions of Scopas. Its artists did not always resort to mythological subjects, as was the case in the classical era. On the square of the Pergamon Acropolis, there were sculptural groups that immortalized a genuine historical event - the victory over the "barbarians", the Gallic tribes who besieged the Kingdom of Pergamon. Full of expression and dynamics, these groups are also notable for the fact that the artists pay tribute to the defeated, 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 bowed low. It is immediately clear from his face and figure that he is a “barbarian”, a foreigner, but he dies a heroic death, and this is shown. In their art, the Greeks did not stoop 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 the campaigns of Alexander, in general, much has changed in relation to foreigners. As Plutarch writes, Alexander considered himself the reconciler of the universe, "making everyone drink ... from the same cup of friendship and mixing together lives, morals, 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, discord and war did not stop. The wars of Pergamum with the Gauls are only one of the episodes. When finally the victory over the Gauls was finally won, in honor of her, the altar of Zeus was erected, completed in 180 BC. e. This time, the long-term war with the "barbarians" appeared as a gigantomachy - the struggle Olympic gods with giants. According to an ancient myth, giants - giants who lived far to 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 volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. A grandiose marble frieze, about 120 meters long, made 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 connect thousands of fragments and get a fairly complete picture of the overall composition of the frieze. Mighty bodies pile up, intertwine, like a ball of snakes, defeated giants are tormented by shaggy-maned lions, dogs dig in their teeth, horses trample underfoot, but the giants fight fiercely, their leader Porfirion does not retreat before Zeus the Thunderer. The mother of the giants, Gaia, begs for mercy on her sons, but she is not heeded. The battle is terrible. There is something foreshadowing Michelangelo in the tense angles of the bodies, in their titanic power and tragic pathos. Although battles and skirmishes have been a frequent theme in ancient reliefs since the archaic, they have never been depicted in the way they are on the Pergamon altar - with such a shuddering sense of cataclysm, life-and-death battles, 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, confusing. Let us recall the figures of Scopas on the relief of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. They, with all their dynamism, are located in the same spatial plane, they are separated by rhythmic intervals, each figure has a certain independence, masses and space are balanced. The Pergamon frieze is different - those who fight closely here, the mass has suppressed space, and all the figures are so intertwined that they form a turbulent mess of bodies. And the bodies are still classically beautiful, “sometimes radiant, sometimes formidable, living, dead, triumphant, perishing figures,” as I. S. Turgenev said about them *. Beautiful Olympians, beautiful and their enemies. But the harmony of the spirit fluctuates. Faces distorted by suffering, deep shadows in the orbits of the eyes, serpentine hair... The Olympians still triumph over the forces of the underground elements, but this victory is not for long - the elemental principles threaten to blow up a harmonious, harmonious world. Just as the art of the Greek archaic should not be evaluated only as the first forerunners 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 was associated with the expansion of the horizons of art, and with his inquisitive interest in the human person and the specific, real conditions of her life. Hence, first of all, the development of the portrait, the individual portrait, which was almost unknown to the high classics, and the late classics were only on the outskirts of it. Hellenistic artists, even making portraits of people who had 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 amazing in its realism and expression - apparently, an irreconcilable 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 sculpted.

For the first time, a child with all the anatomical features of childhood and with all the charm inherent in him becomes the subject of plastic surgery. In the classical era, young children were depicted, if at all, as miniature adults. Even in Praxiteles, in the Hermes with Dionysus group, Dionysus bears little resemblance to a baby in his anatomy and proportions. It seems that only now they noticed that the child is a very special creature, frisky and crafty, with his own special habits; noticed and so captivated by him that the very god of love Eros began to be represented as a child, laying the foundation for a tradition that has established itself for centuries. Chubby curly kids of Hellenistic sculptors are busy with all sorts of tricks: they ride a dolphin, fiddle with birds, even strangle snakes (this is little Hercules). The statue of a boy fighting a goose was especially popular. Such statues were placed in parks, were the 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, flourishing and decline - the whole transition from strict, static and idealized archaic forms through the balanced harmony of classical sculpture to the dramatic psychologism of Hellenistic statues. The sculpture of Ancient Greece was rightfully considered a model, an ideal, a canon for many centuries, and now it does not cease to be recognized as a masterpiece of world classics. Nothing like this has been achieved 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 went through 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 ancient canons served as the necessary basis, the basis for the development of plastic art in all subsequent eras.