THe HIgh classical sculpture

(c. 400 – 450 bce)

Notes. The text you are going to read deals with The High Classical sculpture. Before reading study the following.

The Transitional period, with its mature Doric architecture and its Severe Style sculpture, is sometimes also called the Early Classical,preceding as it does the High Classical of the second half of thecentury. The High Classical period is known above all for the newbuildings put up on the Acropolis at Athens, with their sophisticated architecture and rich sculptural decoration. Athens, of course, is not the whole of Greece, but it was the most creative center of cultural activity.

Pre-reading taSks

Answer the following questions.

1. What is the High Classical period known for?

2. Where are caryatids located?

3. What statues were favoured during the High Classical period?

 

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following.

Erechtheum [ɪ'rɛkθɪəm]; Phidias ['fɪdɪas]; Nike ['nʌɪki]; Parthenon ['pɑːθɪnən]; Achilles [ə'kɪliːz]; muscles ['mʌslz]; caryatid [ˌkærɪ'ætɪd];rhythm ['rɪð(ə)m]; Hermes ['hɜːmiːz];axis ['æksɪs]; muscles ['mʌslz];torso ['tɔːsəu]; balustrade [ˌbæləs'treɪd];sinew ['sɪnjuː]; Pausanias [pɔː'seɪnɪəs]; Attica ['ætɪkə]; tranquil ['træŋkwɪl]; Archaic [ɑː'keɪɪk]; Myron ['mʌɪ(ə)rən]; flamboyant [flæm'bɔɪənt].

 

Expand on the words given in exercise 2.

Read and translate the following text.

TEXT

The most reliable index to sculpture of the High Classical period is the sculpture from the Parthenon. There are the pedimental figures with the new, deeply carved and revealing drapery which are designed to show a graduated response, physical and psychological, to the events at the center. There are the metopes with sometimes flamboyant compositions and sometimes still Severe Style theatrical expressions. And there is the frieze, with its varied rhythms and its mastery of figures, which display great variety of pose, gesture, dress, and hairdo, as well as typically expressionless heads. For the standing female type, the caryatids of the Erechtheum are also exemplary. Yet the many bases for freestanding statues that are now lost reveal how limited our overall perception is. The favored material was bronze, and while Roman copies give an idea of some aspects (such as the posture, gesture, and expression) of these originals, only the bronzes from Riace suggest the power and brilliance of the many bronze freestanding figures of the High Classical time. In the absence of the originals, we are forced to turn to Roman copyists, adapters, and commentators.

The most illustrious sculptor of the period, alongside Phidias, was Polykleitos. As well as practicing sculpture, Polykleitos wrote a book called the Kanon, which investigated the ideal proportions of the standing male figure. These proportions were thought to depend on the ‘symmetria’ (commensurability) of the various parts of the body, but this term's exact meaning remains hazy: Did symmetria mean volume, shape, length, breadth, or height of body parts, or some equation involving these dimensions? Polykleitos is said to have made a statue to exemplify his ‘kanon’. More than fifty copies of this bronze, the Doryphoros (Spear Carrier), have survived and are easily recognizable. The literary sources do not reveal the identity of this figure, but many these days incline to the view that it is a representation of Achilles. The ‘doru’ (spear) after all was a mighty, heroic, war weapon, and Achilles is seen on a contemporary vase with just such a heavy spear. The original was made about 440 bce. The figure vigorously explores the reaction of the body to the weight leg/free leg pose. The free leg is placed both laterally and behind, the heel raised off the ground. This has been called the ‘walking stance’, and motion forward is evidently implied
by the balanced figure. Is he standing still or walking? The horizontal axis through the hips tilts as the free leg is withdrawn, and contracted muscles set the torso in motion. The head turns to the same side as the firmly planted weight leg and holds the figure still. The expression is the distanced, tranquil High Classical look, seen in many figures of the Parthenon frieze. The tree trunk and the supportive strut are the contributions
of the Roman marble copyist. These would not have been necessary when the statue was a bronze.

Throughout the body, tensed forms balance relaxed ones. Reading the statue vertically, relaxed right arm with weight leg balances tensed left arm (originally holding the spear) with free leg; reading horizontally, weight leg and free leg balance free arm and tensed arm. The term contrapposto is often used to describe this pose of poise and counterpoise in spatial freedom. Realism of bone and muscle, sinew and vein, and hair and flesh of this athletic figure is integrated into a concept of the ideal, which is dependent somehow on a system of mathematical proportions. Thus a figure that represents the ideal is also the most visually accurate, the most real. The ambiguity of whether the Doryphoros is walking or standing still is matched by the ambiguity of whether he is more real or ideal. Polykleitos thus continued Greek sculptors' quest for idealized male beauty. He was inspired perhaps by the belief that human minds could grasp the nature of divinity, and that the gods were anthropomorphic. Nudity seems to have been a key element in sculptors' attempts at the representation of perfection. Did the nude male become the model for every male Greek aspiration: for military and athletic excellence, civic responsibility, or for immortality? Polykleitos evidently strove for perfected images that could represent either gods or men. Another work by Polykleitos was the Diadoumenos (the youth binding a fillet round his hair), again recognizable in Roman marble copies of the original bronze. The posture, anatomical detail, and shape of the head are close to those of the Doryphoros. The more aggressive turn of the head and richer, more plastic treatment of the hair may suggest, however, that the original of the Diadoumenos was a later work, perhaps of about 430 bce.

Two of Phidias's pupils deserve mention. Agorakritos made the cult statue for the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnus on the east coast of Attica. Alkamenes made numerous statues, according to the ancient sources. His most influential may have been a Hermes Propylaios (literally, ‘in front of the gates’). This statue was a ‘herm’—an oblong block surmounted by a head and with a phallus in front. It was stylistically both retrospective, with an Archaic hairdo, and contemporary, as witnessed by the beard and face. There are many copies, but it may have been Alkamenes' original that Pausanias says he saw at the Propylaia to the Acropolis.

AFTER-reading taSks