Greek Sculpture: Evolution and Influence on Western Art
The Evolution of Greek Sculpture: Fundamentals of Greek Art and Its Projection in the Western World
No one can deny the important role played by the Greek civilization in Western culture. Philosophy, history, and democracy were born in Greece, and great advances were made in mathematics and artistic creation. Its aesthetic principles have endured to this day, playing a key role in Rome, the Renaissance, and Neoclassicism. Works of art have been valued for their proximity or remoteness to Greek aesthetic ideals, the ideal of classical language. This led to a disinterest in the creations of peoples or historical moments that did not use the same scale of values. Therefore, the positive reaction in the twentieth century challenged a single model based in Greece, although its importance is undeniable. The foundations of civilization and Hellenic art are:
- Anthropocentrism: “Man is the measure of all things,” as Protagoras said. This is reflected in all its cultural manifestations; even the gods are seen and represented as human beings, with their flaws and passions.
- Geographical Environment: Greece is fragmented by many mountains and countless islands, united by the sea. Poor in resources, it needs the sea to extract wealth through trade and the colonization of new lands. The Mediterranean climate shapes its way of life, open to the street with extensive public activity.
- Political Organization: Unlike the major eastern states, with a power that suppresses individual freedom, the Greeks were organized into city-states (Polis), which competed and fought among themselves. Their political ideal of democracy, achieved after evolution and based on equality and the rule of the people (but excluding large segments of the population), required public spaces and buildings to develop their political activity.
- Rational Thought: Their interest in knowing the origin of all things led them to submit to reason, including their artistic creations.
- Religiosity: In Greece, religion is not dogmatic, nor is it dominated by the clergy or political power. They live it as a human experience, without intermediaries, making it, along with language, an element of cohesion between the polis. The great shrines are a meeting place for all Greeks.
Greek Sculpture: General Characteristics
The general characteristics of Greek civilization condition the sculpture. Anthropocentrism leads them to give the human figure an importance unknown in Oriental art. Even the gods are represented with human shapes and feelings. Their sense of democracy makes them break the hierarchy (not carving higher beings larger), make memorial groups extolling the virtues of citizens, and raise the status of the artist, who signs his work and reaches key positions in the city. Rational thought leads to the pursuit of ideal beauty, as in architecture, which is found in number and proportion and expressed in the canon. The results in religious statuary, directly or indirectly, have a religious significance.
Greek sculpture receives contributions from pre-Hellenic cultures of the second millennium BC (Crete and Mycenaean) and Egyptian sculptural models. From these premises, thanks to major innovations and creative imagination, a development takes place that sets the classical language and forms the basis of Western art. The evolution is developed in three stages: Archaic (eighth to sixth centuries BC), which created the foundations of art; Classical (fifth and fourth centuries BC), a stage of technical mastery; and Hellenistic (from 323 BC to the creation of the Roman Empire).
Key Features of Greek Sculpture
- Predominance of the Human Figure: The most common theme, whether mythological beings (gods, heroes, fantastic creatures, etc.), athletes, portraits (from the fourth century BC), or scenes of everyday life, which are widespread in Hellenism.
- Use of Different Materials: Wood at first; stone, especially marble, was the preferred material. Bronze and gold and ivory were used together in chryselephantine art. Small clay sculptures featured in popular character, the “Tanagras,” and glass was used only in the eyes. They received a fine finish and were polished and multicolored, including marble, with colors that were more naturalistic.
- Round and Relief Work: Related to architecture in spandrels, friezes, and metopes, or with a range up to now unknown, especially free-standing sculpture.
- Volume and Multiple Views: Shows more concern for volume than Oriental art, breaking the frontal and evolving to achieve multiple views.
- Idealized Naturalism: The sculpture, figurative, seeks to reproduce reality, evolving from the schematic and rigid to naturalism, as reflected in the anatomy, movement, expression of feelings, and clothing. But it is an idealized naturalism, to reach perfection, among other things, through the “canon” (harmonious relationship between various body parts).
- Roman Copies: Most known works are Roman copies, which modify materials, delete or change color positions, so they should be viewed with some reservations. The only originals preserved are Archaic.