Ancient Greek statues. What are the features of ancient Greek sculpture? Zeus from Cape Artemision

Almost none of the works of Greek sculptors have reached us. We only know their descriptions and Roman copies of them. But a copy, even a skillfully made one, distorts the original. More often than not, there are several copies of a missing original available. Then you have to painstakingly put together the sculpture in parts that are better preserved in one or another copy. As a result, today we admire a certain generalized image of ancient Greek sculpture.

The periodization of ancient Greek art is divided into archaic (VIII - VI centuries BC), classical (V - IV centuries BC) and Hellenistic (IV - II centuries BC) periods.

The Greek people are the son of a land almost entirely rocky. And from this land, Greek artists extracted the most beautiful material for sculpture - marble. Sculpture developed on the islands of the Aegean Sea - rich deposits of marble were discovered here, especially on the island of Paros. In addition, Greek craftsmen created sculptures from limestone, wood, ivory and baked clay.

Both in architecture and in sculpture, two directions in creativity emerged: Doric and Ionian. In the Doric regions, the sculptural schools in Argos and Corinth were famous, in the Ionian lands - the island schools in Naxos and Paros by Kazimierz Kumanecki. Cultural history of ancient Greece and Rome. With. 83.

As already mentioned, Greek sculpture reflects two worlds: mythological and real.

The archaic period is the period of the formation of art, in particular sculpture. This was the time of embodiment of the mythological ideas that existed among the masses. At this time, images of gods, heroes and mythological events were created for the first time, which is one of the features of the art of this period. Temple sculpture is characterized by mythological themes. The essence of the composition was a display of divine power; dynamic scenes reflected mythological stories about victory over evil forces. The statues were carved by a bold, but still inexperienced hand. In monumental marble sculptures, the features of convention in the image are striking, making one recall the art of ancient Egypt. These were planar compositions; linear view the contours of the figures, the movement of the folds of clothing and other details created a special charm of the archaic art of M. M. Kobylin. The role of tradition in Greek art. With. 23. The figures of the characters are squat, solid and made in a somewhat naive manner.

Archaic art gave exceptional preference to two types: kouros - a naked youth and kore - a dressed girl Andre Bonnard. Greek civilization. 1992. p. 46, 55..

By creating kouros, sculptors embodied a certain ideal image, unencumbered by either doubts or individual traits of an individual. Sometimes another name for kouros is found in literature - Apollo. By this, the Greeks sought to give the idealized image some divine features. The statues of young beardless athletes were created under the impression of the appearance of living people; in one case or another, several different young men could serve as models.

The kouros posture statistics were supposed to indicate the strength of gait and fortitude. The left leg was depicted necessarily put forward, the face was illuminated with a distant, mysterious smile (the so-called “archaic smile”). All the attention of the authors of the works was focused on the careful sculpting of the head, abdominal muscles, kneecaps and on the main relief lines.

The kors came from the Ionian regions and were distinguished by their emphasized severity and elegance of lines. They are made of Parian marble, whose texture is capable of conveying a certain transparency of female skin, as well as the finest shades and color changes, and which lends itself to the finest processing, which made it possible to convey all the curves of the figure, curls of hair, folds of clothing. The Ionians did not show much attention to the proportions of the human body, but cared about the smoothness of outlines and the soft interpretation of draperies. The koras were used to support the temple roof, but were sometimes mounted separately and depicted holding an apple or pomegranate as a gift to the deity.

During the reign of the Pisistratids, Ionian sculptors expanded their activities to Athens. However, Attic sculpture is distinguished by a certain severity: the curls skillfully “curled” with a chisel disappear, an unusual solemnity appears in the posture of the figures, whimsical draperies are replaced by simple lines of flowing robes. The Athenian barks are full of grace and grace, the heads are decorated with curls, the statues themselves are richly colored with many colors; at the same time, the seriousness and dignity of Kazimierz Kumanecki is visible in their figures. Cultural history of ancient Greece and Rome. With. 84.

In the archaic era, the sculptor could not imagine the body in motion. In the VI century. BC e. he was still far from accurately capturing the play of muscles on the human body. Not a single turn to the right or left, not the slightest tilt of the head, the anatomy is the most elementary. The artist did not set out to make the statue resemble a living person, Andre Bonnard. Greek civilization. 1992. p. 55, 58..

By the end of the archaic era, masters had achieved an amazing ability to create details, very expressive fragments of statues, especially hands and heads. The accuracy and sophistication in depicting parts of a figure among archaic sculptors is much higher than among masters of the classical period, but the statues are perceived as dismembered, lacking harmony and integrity.

The classical period is a time of prosperity. A. Bonnard defined classicism as a combination of features, forms and poses chosen by the artist, based on true realism. This era is more humane; she is no longer completely imbued with the divine; it represents man exalted to the level of a god. During this era, there is a break with archaic symmetry: the lines cease to be horizontal, they are not symmetrical in relation to each other.

In the 5th century BC e. the sculpture has undergone significant changes. Its main themes remained the same: the image of deities and heroes - patrons of the polis, “beautiful and valiant” citizens and winning athletes, as well as tombstones of the deceased. But now the god is a simple naked youth, the goddess is a girl, beautifully dressed and with a pleasant face.

There was now no frozen numbness in these images; the schematism of archaic sculptures is overcome. In the sculptures of the classical period, an attempt was made to overcome immobility and convey living movement. The new harmony of the classical period is built on contrast: thanks to the tension of the right leg and left arm and the conscious removal of the load from the left leg and right arm, the figure is harmonious, filled with calm, grandeur, freedom Kumanetsky K. History of the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome: Transl. from floor - M.: Higher school, 1990. p. 119. Realism is based on an accurate knowledge of the structure of the skeleton and the play of muscles. There is a humanization of the image of the deity, a softening of ideal features and emphasizing purely human qualities. Courage now manifests itself in a calm face. This equanimity is a sign of achieved mastery over one’s personal passions, a sign of spiritual strength, the perfection of the spirit, which the gods once possessed.

This was successfully conveyed by the sculptor Myron from Eleuthera (Central Greece) in his “Discobolus” (mid-5th century BC, a little earlier than 450). It is worth noting that this is a statue of a man, not a god. The figure of the athlete is presented in a difficult position at the moment of throwing the discus. The body is bent by the movement that has captured it, the toes of the left foot rest on the ground to give a very tense person in an unstable position a strong point of support, right hand- holding the disc - thrown back, but the next moment will be thrown forward to throw its load, the left arm and right leg appearing inactive, but in fact involved in the action. Thus, “Disco Thrower” is the embodiment of the Andre Bonnard movement. Greek civilization. 1992. p. 63.

The greatest role in the creation of classical sculpture fell to the lot of Polykleitos, a Peloponnesian master of the middle and second half of the 5th century. BC e. He sought to create a typical image of the citizen athlete. Polykleitos knew about the importance of numbers in the structure of living beings and said: “The success of a work of art depends on many numerical relationships, and every little thing matters” Andre Bonnard. Greek civilization. 1992. p. 68. Therefore, he understood his task as the creation of a canon - certain mathematical relationships on the basis of which the human body should be built. According to this canon, the length of the foot should be 1/6 of the length of the body, the height of the head - 1/8 Kumanetsky K. History of culture of Ancient Greece and Rome: Trans. from floor - M.: Higher school, 1990. p. 119. He sought to create the illusion of continuity of movement. His statue “Doriphoros” (Spear-bearer) appears to be walking, transferring the entire weight of his body to his right leg, extended forward, while the left one is slightly moved back and touches the ground with only his toes. A more bent knee, a more contracted hip on the left side corresponds to a more raised shoulder and vice versa.

Another sculptor, Phidias, according to A. Bonnard, allowed humanity to blossom in divine forms. The gods of Phidias are present in nature, they are natural. A good example- a frieze in the temple depicting a host of gods. But Hephaestus, the god of fire and crafts, and Athena, the goddess of crafts, are depicted standing next to each other. Here they talk to each other simply and friendly, like workers at the end of the working day. There is nothing supernatural in these gods, but there is humanity elevated to the highest level of perfection. This is a feature that characterizes the era of early classicism.

A rigid orientation towards the ideal, harmony and balance could not reign supreme. In the 4th century. BC e. majesty, dignity and seriousness came with purely aesthetic needs, which became decisive in the work of the sculptor.

We can see this in the sculptures of Praxiteles. From under his incisor emerged new, slender and graceful, soft and gentle faces and figures of gods and goddesses. The smooth and flexible lines of his statues mark the offensive new era. Full of charm and sincerity, Paraxiteles' style is intimate: for the first time in the history of Greek sculpture, he depicts Aphrodite in her beautiful and sublime nudity.

The great sculptor Lysippos (IV century BC) left to his descendants not only a beautiful bust of Alexander the Great (preserved only in a Roman copy), but also developed a new plastic canon that replaced the canon of Polykleitos. Describing his activities, Lysippos said: “Polykleitos represented people as they really are, and I represented people as they seem.” His statues differ in proportions: they have very long slender legs, a thin graceful figure and a very small head. This is a new plastic ideal of beauty Kumanetsky K. History of culture of Ancient Greece and Rome: Trans. from floor - M.: Higher school, 1990. p. 141.

During this period, not only the proportions of the figures became new, but above all, the unprecedented freedom in depicting the volumes of the human body. Only now the works of sculpture became three-dimensional, plastically perfect.

The Greek masters of classical times learned to convey in solid material many shades of human conditions, their statues are full of life and movement.

Hellenism is considered a time of crisis in sculpture. The main feature of this period was the mixing of archaic traditions with the achievements of Hellenic art. The reason for this is acquaintance with foreign cultures through the expansion of trade routes and cultural ties. The works of this period were of a semi-handicraft nature. In them there is oblivion of the original traditional type of images, and distortions of the archaic school are found. At the same time, many replicas of the same plot of varying quality of execution appear.

Hellenism brought to the fore new centers of sculptural creativity, such as Pergamon, Rhodes and Antioch.

The art of sculpting experienced a particularly significant flourishing during this period. Now the statues were made in a naturalistic manner, emphasizing the individuality of the person depicted. Sculptors created statues and reliefs of people of different ages- from babies to decrepit old men and women and carefully emphasized ethnic and ethnographic features.

Hellenic sculptors created and glorified the ideal of the citizen, which realistically reflected the political and social dominance of the middle classes of citizenship. Hellenistic sculptors created statues and statuary groups depicting physical and mental suffering, struggle, victory and death. An image of the landscape and everyday details also appeared as the background against which the main plot of the work unfolded.

Several schools can be traced in the sculpture of this time.

In Athens and Alexandria, plots and techniques were developed, dating back to Praxiteles, designed for the tastes of wealthy people who wanted to enjoy life and saw works of art as objects of admiration.

The Rhodesian school dates back to Lysippos. Sculptors depicted powerful athletes, warriors, and scenes of struggle. But now this is not a calm and valiant athlete - a citizen of classical times, but a ruler with an imperious, arrogant look, betraying enormous power will. This school owns the famous 31 meter long Colos of Rhodes and the statue of the benevolent seated female goddess Tyche.

The Pergamon school, dating back to Scopas, is full of drama. This school is characterized by a high intensity of feelings. This can be seen in the sculptures of a dying Gaul, a Gaul who killed his wife and stabbed himself to avoid being captured, etc., in which we see pathos: the torment of dying warriors, the suffering of conquered barbarians.

Towards the end of the Hellenistic period, the pathos of Hellenistic sculpture began to degenerate into an excessive passion for terrible subjects and mannerisms.

In the second half of the Hellenistic period, the desire to return to the idealized forms of the classics intensified in sculpture. The monument of this school is the statue of Aphrodite de Milo, which combines the ideality of classical forms and new achievements in posing the figure.

During the Hellenistic period, sculptures decorated private houses, public buildings, squares, acropolises, crossroads, and park areas. The abundance of statues was typical even for such small towns as Therm. But this abundance led to mass artistic production. The subject of such production was terracotta figurines - small-sized works of statuary art, which were cast in specially prepared forms. These are, as a rule, elegant figurines of an everyday nature that have independent artistic value Blavatsky V.D., Pikus N.N. History of Ancient Greece. Ed. V. I. Avdiev and N. N. Pikus. Moscow - 1962 p. 485. They depicted ordinary citizens and everyday scenes, were cheap and accessible, and were very loved by ordinary residents of Hellenic cities. One of these cities was the city of Tanagra. Therefore, these figurines are often called Tanagra terracottas. But mass production, in turn, led to the extinction of creativity.

Hellenistic masters refused to develop images of the beautiful and valiant, somewhat idealized citizen. The attitude towards the gods also became different. Now the deity is not a calm, beautiful, powerful and kind creature, but a capricious and formidable force.

Outstanding sculptors of Ancient Greece

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

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

Archaic sculpture: Kory - girls in tunics. They embodied the ideal of female beauty; They look alike: curly hair, a mysterious smile, the epitome of sophistication. Bark. 6th century BC

GREEK CLASSICAL SCULPTURE End of V-IV centuries. BC e. - the period of the turbulent spiritual life of Greece, the formation of the idealistic ideas of Socrates and Plato in philosophy, which developed in the fight against the materialistic philosophy of the Democrat, the time of the formation of new forms of Greek fine art. In sculpture, the masculinity and severity of the images of strict classics is replaced by an interest in the spiritual world of man, and a more complex and less straightforward characteristic of it is reflected in plastic.

Greek sculptors of the classical period: Polykleitos Myron Scopas Praxiteles Lysippos Leochares

Polykleitos Polykleitos. Doryphoros (spearman). 450-440 BC Roman copy. National Museum. Naples The works of Polykleitos became a real hymn to the greatness and spiritual power of Man. The favorite image is a slender young man with an athletic build. There is nothing superfluous in him, “nothing in excess”; his spiritual and physical appearance are harmonious.

Doryphoros has a complex pose, different from the static pose of the ancient kouroi. Polycletus was the first to think of posing the figures in such a way that they rested on the lower part of only one leg. In addition, the figure seems mobile and animated, due to the fact that the horizontal axes are not parallel (the so-called chiasmus). “Doripho?r” (Greek ????????? - “Spear-bearer”) - one of the most famous statues of antiquity, embodies the so-called. Canon of Polykleitos.

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

Canon of Polykleitos 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 volume - 44 cm, 2. chest - 119, 3. biceps - 38, 4. waist - 93, 5. forearms - 33 , 6. wrists - 19, 7. buttocks - 108, 8. hips - 60, 9. knees - 40, 10. shins - 42, 11. ankles - 25, 12. feet - 30 cm.

Polykleitos "Wounded Amazon"

Myron Myron - Greek sculptor of the mid-5th century. BC e. The sculptor of the era immediately preceding the highest flowering of Greek art (6th century - early 5th 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. “Disco thrower” 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 he reproduced difficult, fleeting poses. His most famous work is “The Discus Thrower,” an athlete intending to throw a discus, a statue that has survived to this day in several copies, of which the best is made of marble and is located in the Massami Palace in Rome.

"Disco thrower" by Myron at the Copenhagen Botanical Garden

Discus thrower. Miron

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 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 Skopas’ art. 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, the Maenad is depicted by Scopas. The companion of the god Dionysus is shown in a rapid dance, her head is thrown back, her hair has fallen to her shoulders, her body is curved, presented in a complex angle, the folds of her short chiton emphasize the violent movement. Unlike the sculpture of the 5th century. The Skopas maenad is designed to be viewed from all sides. Skopas. Maenad Sculptural creations of Skopas

Skopas. Battle with the Amazons Sculptural creations of Skopas 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 shore of the Knidos peninsula, and contemporaries wrote about real pilgrimages here to admire the beauty of the goddess preparing to enter the water and throwing off her clothes on a nearby vase. The original statue has not survived. Sculptural creations 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, “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. He looks thoughtfully at the baby Dionysus, whom he holds in his arms. The masculine beauty of an athlete is replaced by a beauty that is somewhat feminine, graceful, but also more spiritual. The statue of Hermes retains traces of ancient coloring: red-brown hair, a silver bandage. Praxiteles. Hermes. Around 330 BC e.

Sculptural creations of Praxiteles

Lysippos the Great sculptor of the 4th century. BC. (370-300 BC). He worked in bronze, because sought to capture images in a fleeting rush. 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 of A. Macedonian Marble copy of the head of A. Macedonian

Lysippos. Hercules fighting a lion. 4th century BC Roman copy Hermitage, St. Petersburg This sculpture conveys with amazing skill the passionate intensity of the duel between Hercules and the lion. Sculptural creations of Lysippos

Sculptural creations of Lysippos Lysippos sought to bring his images as close as possible to reality. Thus, he showed athleticism 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 exactly how his Apoxyomenos is represented, cleaning off the sand from himself after a sports fight. He has a tired face and his hair is matted with sweat. Lysippos. Apoxyomenos. Roman copy, 330 BC

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

Lysippos 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). Sculptural creations of Lysippos Lysippos. "Hercules of Farnese"

Leohar Leohar. Apollo Belvedere. 4th century BC Roman copy. Vatican Museums His work is an excellent attempt to capture the classical ideal of human beauty. His works contain not only the perfection of images, but also 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 entire human body, his movements, and not just in the face. Despite the fact that many Greek statues did not preserve their upper part (for example, “Nike of Samothrace” or “Nike Untying Sandals” came to us without a head, we forget about this when looking at the holistic plastic solution of the image. Because the soul and the body was thought of by the Greeks as an indivisible 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 if on the bow of a ship, announcing victory with the sound of a trumpet. The pathos of victory is expressed in the swift movement of the goddess, in the wide flap of her wings.

Nike of Samothrace

Nike Untying her Sandal The goddess is depicted untying her sandal before entering the Marble Temple. Athens

Venus de Milo On April 8, 1820, a Greek peasant from the island of Melos named Iorgos, while digging the ground, felt that his shovel, clinking dully, came across something solid. 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 to five meters wide. In the stone crypt, to his surprise, he found a marble statue. This was Venus. Agesander. Venus de Milo. Louvre. 120 BC

Laocoon with his sons Agesander, Athenodorus, Polydorus

Laocoon and his sons Laocoon, you have not saved anyone! You are not a savior of either the city or the world. Reason is powerless. Proud Three's mouth is destined; the circle of fatal events closed in a suffocating crown of snake coils. Horror on the face, the pleas and groans of your child; the other son was silenced by poison. Your fainting. Your wheezing: “Let me be...” (...Like the bleating of sacrificial lambs Through the darkness, both piercing and subtle!..) And again - reality. And poison. They are stronger! In the snake's mouth, anger blazes powerfully... Laocoon, and who heard you?! Here are your boys... They... are not breathing. But every Troy has its own horses.

Phidias and the Parthenon friezes

Statue of Zeus by Phidias at Olympia

His images are sublime and beautiful. Phidias

Phidias Phidias. Athena statue

check yourself

The classical period of ancient Greek sculpture falls on the V - IV centuries BC. (early classic or “strict style” - 500/490 - 460/450 BC; high - 450 - 430/420 BC; “rich style” - 420 - 400/390 BC; Late Classic -- 400/390 - OK. 320 BC e.). At the turn of two eras - archaic and classical - stands the sculptural decor of the Temple of Athena Aphaia on the island of Aegina . The sculptures of the western pediment date back to the founding of the temple (510 - 500 BC BC), sculptures of the second eastern, replacing the previous ones, - to the early classical time (490 - 480 BC). The central monument of ancient Greek sculpture of the early classics is the pediments and metopes of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (about 468 - 456 BC e.). Another significant work of the early classics - the so-called “Throne of Ludovisi”, decorated with reliefs. A number of bronze originals have also survived from this time - “The Delphic Charioteer”, statue of Poseidon from Cape Artemisium, Bronze from Riace . The largest sculptors of the early classics - Pythagoras Regian, Kalamid and Miron . We judge the work of famous Greek sculptors mainly from literary evidence and later copies of their works. High classicism 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 (Pediments, metopes and zophoros survived, 447 - 432 BC). The pinnacle of ancient Greek sculpture was, apparently, chrysoelephantine Athena Parthenos statues and Zeus of Olympus by Phidias (both have not survived). “Rich style” is characteristic of the works of Callimachus, Alcamenes, Agorakrit 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 funerary steles, among which the most famous is the Hegeso stele . The most important works of ancient Greek sculpture late classic-- decoration of the Temple of Asclepius in Epidaurus (about 400 - 375 BC), temple of Athena Aley in Tegea (about 370 - 350 BC), the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (about 355 - 330 BC) and the Mausoleum in Halicarnassus (c. 350 BC), on the sculptural decoration of which Scopas, Briaxides, Timothy worked and Leohar . The latter is also credited with the statues of Apollo Belvedere and Diana of Versailles . There are also a number of bronze originals from the 4th century. BC e. The largest sculptors of the late classics - Praxiteles, Scopas and Lysippos, in many ways anticipating the subsequent era of Hellenism.

Greek sculpture partially survived in rubble and fragments. Most of the statues are known to us from Roman copies, which were made in large numbers, but did not convey the beauty of the originals. Roman copyists roughened and dried them, and when converting bronze items into marble, they disfigured them with clumsy supports. The large figures of Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, Satyr, which we now see in the halls of the Hermitage, are only pale rehashes of Greek masterpieces. You walk past 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 wafted from this fragment; the marble itself is different from that in Roman statues - not deathly white, but yellowish, see-through, luminous (the Greeks also rubbed it with wax, which gave the marble a warm tone). So gentle are the melting transitions of light and shade, so noble is the soft sculpting of the face, that one involuntarily recalls the delights of the Greek poets: these sculptures really breathe, they really are alive* * Dmitrieva, Akimova. Ancient art. Essays. - M., 1988. P. 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 statuette group of tyrannicides was created: a mature husband and a young man, standing side by side, make an impetuous movement forward, the younger raises his sword, the older shades him with his cloak. This is a monument to historical figures - Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who killed the Athenian tyrant Hipparchus several decades earlier - the first political monument in Greek art. At the same time, it expresses the heroic spirit of resistance and love of freedom that flared up during the era of the Greco-Persian wars. “They are not slaves to mortals, they are not subject to anyone,” says the Athenians in Aeschylus’s tragedy “The Persians.”

Battles, skirmishes, exploits of heroes... The art of the early classics is replete with these warlike subjects. 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 there is a struggle between the Lapiths and the centaurs, on the metopes there are all twelve labors of Hercules. Another favorite set of motifs is gymnastic competitions; in those distant times, physical fitness and mastery of body movements were decisive for the outcome of battles, so athletic games were far from just entertainment. Since the 8th century BC. e. Gymnastic competitions were held in Olympia once every four years (their beginning was later considered the beginning of the Greek calendar), and in the 5th century they were celebrated with special solemnity, and now poets who read poetry were also present at them. The Temple of Olympian Zeus - the classic Doric peripter - was located in the center of the sacred district, where competitions took place, they began with a sacrifice to Zeus. On the eastern pediment of the temple sculptural composition depicted a solemn moment before the start of the horse lists: in the center - the figure of Zeus, on either side of it - statues mythological heroes Pelops and Oenomaus, 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 were established, which were later resumed, as legend has it, by Hercules himself.

Themes of hand-to-hand combat, equestrian competitions, running competitions, and discus throwing competitions taught sculptors to depict the human body in dynamics. The archaic rigidity of the figures was overcome. Now they act, they move; complex poses, bold angles, and broad gestures appear. The brightest innovator was the Attic sculptor Myron. Myron’s main task was to express the movement as fully and powerfully as possible. Metal does not allow for such precise and delicate work as marble, and perhaps that is why he turned to finding the rhythm of movement. (The name rhythm refers to the overall harmony of the movement of all parts of the body.) And indeed, the rhythm was perfectly captured by Myron. In the statues of athletes, he conveyed not only movement, but the transition from one stage of movement to another, as if stopping a moment. This is his famous “Discobolus”. The athlete bent over and swung before throwing, a second - and the disc will fly, the athlete will straighten up. But for that second his body froze in a very difficult, but visually balanced position.

Balance, a stately "ethos", is preserved in classical sculpture of a strict style. The movement of the figures is neither erratic, nor overly excited, nor too rapid. Even in the dynamic motifs of fighting, running, and falling, the feeling of “Olympic calm,” holistic plastic completeness, and self-closure is not lost. Here is a bronze statue of “Auriga”, found at Delphi, one of the few well-preserved Greek originals. It refers to early period strict style - approximately around 470 BC. e.. This young man stands very straight (he stood on a chariot and drove a quadriga of horses), his legs are bare, the folds of a long chiton are reminiscent of the deep flutes of Doric columns, his head is tightly covered with a silver-plated bandage, his inlaid eyes look as if they were alive. He is restrained, calm and at the same time full of energy and will. From this bronze figure alone, with its strong, cast plastic, 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 “throne of Ludovisi”, 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. It is visible from the waist up. Her body and the bodies of the nymphs are visible through transparent tunics, the folds of clothes flow in a cascade, a stream, like streams of water, like music. On the side parts of the triptych there are two female figures: one nude 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, like two faces of femininity, both under the protection of Aphrodite.

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

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

Among famous masters the name of Phidias eclipses all the sculpture of subsequent generations. A brilliant representative of the age of Pericles, he said the last word in plastic technology, and until now no one has dared to compare with him, although we know him only from hints. A native of Athens, he was born a few years before the Battle of Marathon and, therefore, became just a contemporary of the 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, the Periclean buildings were erected. Fulfilling order after order, he created marvelous statues of 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 honor. He was deeply imbued with the idea of ​​what this idol represented, and sculpted it with all the strength and might 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. He was commissioned to create a colossal statue of Athena the patroness for the Acropolis. It reached 60 feet in height and was taller than all the surrounding buildings; From afar, from the sea, it shone like a golden star and reigned over the entire city. It was not acrolitic (composite), like the Plataean one, but was entirely cast in bronze. Another Acropolis statue, Athena the Virgin, made for the Parthenon, was made of gold and ivory. Athena was depicted in a battle suit, wearing a golden helmet with a high relief sphinx and vultures on the sides. In one hand she held a spear, in the other a piece of victory. A snake curled at her feet - the guardian of the Acropolis. This statue is considered the best assurance of Phidias after his Zeus. It served as the original for countless copies.

But the height of perfection of all the works of Phidias is considered to be his Olympian Zeus. This was the greatest work of his life: the Greeks themselves gave him the palm. He made an irresistible impression on his contemporaries.

Zeus was depicted on the throne. In one hand he held a scepter, in the other - an image of victory. The body was made of ivory, the hair was gold, the robe was gold and enameled. The throne included ebony, bone, and precious stones. The walls between the legs were painted cousin Phidias, Panenom; the foot of the throne was a marvel of sculpture. The general impression was, as one German scientist rightly put it, truly demonic: to a number of generations the idol seemed to be a true god; one look at him was enough to satisfy all sorrows and suffering. Those who died without seeing him considered themselves unhappy* * Gnedich P.P. World Art History. - M., 2000. P. 97...

The statue died unknown how and when: it probably burned down along with the Olympic temple. But her charms must have been great if Caligula insisted on transporting her to Rome at all costs, 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 them to appreciate the majesty of posture and the harmony of body movements. To dissolve a person in a shapeless crowd, to show him in a random aspect, to remove him deeper, to immerse him in the shadows 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 extreme plastic clarity, close-up (one figure or a group of several figures), trying to place the action in the foreground, as if on a narrow stage parallel to the background plane. Body language was also the language of the soul. It is sometimes said that Greek art was alien to psychology or had not matured 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 that arises in modern times. It is no coincidence that portraiture 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 mental movements based on generalized human types. Distracting from the shades of personal characters, Hellenic artists did not neglect the shades of experience 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 lay not so much in facial expressions as in body movements. Looking at the mysteriously serene Moira of the Parthenon, at the swift, playful Nike untying her sandal, we almost forget that their heads have been cut off - the plasticity of their figures is so eloquent.

Every purely plastic motif - be it the graceful balance of all members of the body, support on both legs or one, transfer of the center of gravity to an external support, the head bowed to the shoulder or thrown back - was thought by the Greek masters as an analogue of spiritual life. The body and psyche were perceived as inseparable. Characterizing the classical ideal in his 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 sensory existence, but is recognized only as the existence and natural appearance of the spirit.”

Indeed, the bodies of Greek statues are unusually spiritual. The French sculptor Rodin said about one of them: “This headless youthful torso smiles more joyfully at the light and spring than eyes and lips could do.”* * Dmitrieva, Akimova. Ancient art. Essays. - M., 1988. P. 76.

Movements and postures in most cases are simple, natural and not necessarily associated with anything sublime. Nika unties her sandal, a boy removes a splinter from his heel, a young runner at the start line prepares to run, and Myrona the discus throws a discus. Myron's younger contemporary, the famous Polykleitos, unlike Myron, never depicted rapid movements and instantaneous states; his bronze statues of young athletes are in calm poses of light, measured movement, running in waves across the figure. The left shoulder is slightly extended, the right is abducted, the left hip is pushed back, the right is raised, the right leg is firmly on the ground, the left is slightly 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. This is Doryphoros (spearman) Polykleitos, known to us from marble Roman copies. He seems to be walking and at the same time maintaining a state of rest; the positions of the arms, legs and torso are perfectly balanced. Polykleitos was the author of the treatise “Canon” (which has not come down to us, it is known from mentions of ancient writers), where he theoretically established the laws of 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 a general type, but this general type has a high spiritual capacity. In the Greek type of face, the idea of ​​the “human” in its ideal version triumphs. The face is divided into three parts of equal length: forehead, nose and Bottom 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 (straight facial angle). Oblong section of rather deep-set eyes. A small mouth, full convex lips, the upper lip is thinner than the lower and has a beautiful smooth cut like a cupid's bow. The chin is large and round. Wavy hair softly and tightly fits the head, without interfering with the visibility of the rounded shape of the skull.

This classical beauty may seem monotonous, but, representing the expressive “natural appearance of the spirit,” it lends itself to variation and is capable of embodying various types of the ancient ideal. A little more energy in the shape of the lips, in the protruding chin - before us is the strict virgin Athena. There is more softness in the contours 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. But the basis remains the same strictly proportional classical appearance.

However, there is no place in it for something that, from our point of view, is 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 spirit and body had to be broken, and 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 Athens's opponents was Sparta; it was supported by other states of the Peloponnese and provided financial assistance by Persia. Athens lost the war and was forced to conclude an unfavorable peace; they retained their independence, but the Athenian Maritime Union collapsed, monetary reserves dried up, and the internal contradictions of the policy intensified. Athenian democracy managed to survive, 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 imposed a death sentence on the philosopher. The spirit of cohesive citizenship is weakening, personal interests and experiences are isolated from public ones, and the instability of existence is felt more alarmingly. Critical sentiment is growing. A person, according to Socrates’ behest, begins to strive to “know himself” - himself as an individual, and not just as a part of the social whole. Towards knowledge human nature and characters are the focus of the work of the great playwright Euripides, in whom the personal element is much more emphasized than in his older contemporary Sophocles. According to Aristotle's definition, Sophocles “represents people as they should be, and Euripides as they really are.”

In the plastic arts, generalized images still predominate. But the spiritual resilience and cheerful energy that breathes the art of early and mature classics gradually give way to the dramatic pathos of Skopas or the lyrical, tinged with melancholy, contemplation of Praxiteles. Scopas, Praxiteles and Lysippos - these names are associated in our minds not so much with certain artistic individuals (their biographies are unclear, and almost no original works of theirs have survived), but with the main trends of the late classics. Just like Myron, Polykleitos and Phidias personify the features of a mature classic.

And again, indicators of changes in the worldview are plastic motives. The characteristic pose of the standing figure changes. In the archaic era, statues stood completely straight, frontally. Mature classics enliven and animate them with balanced, smooth movements, maintaining balance and stability. And the statues of Praxiteles - the resting Satyr, Apollo Saurocton - rest with lazy grace on pillars, without them they would have to fall.

The thigh on one side is arched very strongly, and the shoulder is lowered low towards the thigh - Rodin compares this position of the body with a harmonica, when the bellows are compressed on one side and spread apart on the other. External support is required for balance. This is a dreamy rest position. Praxiteles follows the traditions of Polykleitos, uses the motives of movements he found, but develops them in such a way that a different internal content shines through in them. “The Wounded Amazon” Polykletai also leans on a half-column, but she could have stood without it, her strong, energetic body, even suffering from a wound, stands firmly on the ground. Praxiteles' Apollo is not hit by an arrow, he himself aims at a lizard running along a tree trunk - an action that would seem to require strong-willed composure, yet his body is unstable, like a swaying stem. And this is not a random detail, not a whim of the sculptor, but a kind of new canon in which a changed view of the world finds expression.

However, not only the nature of movements and poses changed in sculpture of the 4th century BC. e. For Praxiteles, the range of his favorite topics becomes different; he moves away from heroic subjects into the “light world of Aphrodite and Eros.” He sculpted the famous statue of Aphrodite of Knidos.

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 the soft flow of volumes. They preferred the type of youth, distinguished by “first youth and effeminate beauty.” Praxiteles was famous for his special softness of modeling and skill in processing the material, his ability to convey the warmth of a living body in cold marble2.

The only surviving original of Praxiteles is considered to be the marble statue “Hermes with Dionysus”, found in Olympia. Naked Hermes, leaning on a tree trunk where his cloak has been carelessly thrown, holds little Dionysus on one bent arm, and in the other a bunch of grapes, to which the child is reaching (the hand holding the grapes is lost). All the charm of pictorial marble processing is in this statue, especially in the head of Hermes: transitions of light and shadow, the finest “sfumato” (haze), which, many centuries later, was achieved in painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

All other works of the master are known only from mentions of ancient authors and later copies. But the spirit of Praxiteles’ art lingers 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 produced 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 famous 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 the art of Praxiteles.

Almost as little remains of the original works of the chisel Skopas, an older contemporary and antagonist of Praxiteles. Debris remained. But the wreckage also speaks volumes. 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, by the Goths; Some fragments of sculptures were found during excavations, among them a remarkable 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 mental tension. In his name, the harmonic canon adopted in Greek sculpture was violated: the eyes are set too deep and the break in the brow ridges is dissonant with the outlines of the eyelids.

What Skopas' style was in multi-figure compositions is shown by partially preserved reliefs on the frieze of the Halicarnassus Mausoleum - a unique structure, ranked in ancient times as one of the seven wonders of the world: the peripterus was erected on a high base and topped 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 stylistic analysis, the researchers determined which parts of the frieze were made in Skopas’ workshop. More than others, they convey the drunken fervor of battle, the “ecstasy in battle,” when both men and women surrender to it 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: Skopas introduces a new sense of space.

"Maenad" enjoyed great fame among his contemporaries. Skopas depicted a storm of Dionysian dance, straining the entire body of the Maenad, convulsively arching her torso, throwing back her head. The statue of the Maenad is not designed for frontal viewing, it needs to be viewed from different sides, each point of view reveals something new: sometimes the body is likened in its arch to a drawn bow, sometimes it seems bent in a spiral, like a tongue of flame. One cannot help but think: the Dionysian orgies must have been serious, not just amusement, but truly “mad 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 discarded all conventions and prohibitions. To the beat of tambourines, to the sound of tympanums, they rushed and whirled in ecstasy, driving themselves into a frenzy, letting down their hair, tearing their clothes. The maenad of Skopas held a knife in her hand, and on her shoulder was a kid that she had torn to pieces 3.

Dionysian festivals were a very ancient custom, like the cult of Dionysus itself, but in art the Dionysian element had not previously broken through with such force, with such openness as in the statue of Skopas, and this is obviously a symptom of the times. Now clouds were gathering over Hellas, and reasonable clarity of spirit was disrupted by the desire to forget, to throw off the shackles 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 Praxiteles' creations and the dramatic impulses of Scopas are just different reactions to the general spirit of the times.

The young man’s marble tombstone belongs to Skopas’s circle, and perhaps to himself. To the right of the young man stands his old father with an expression of deep thought; one can feel that he is asking the question: why did his son leave in the prime of his youth, and he, the old man, remained to live? The son looks ahead 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 afterlife.

Here it is appropriate to talk about Greek tombstones in general. There are relatively many of them preserved, from the 5th, and mainly from the 4th century BC. e.; their creators are, as a rule, unknown. Sometimes the relief of a tombstone stele depicts only one figure - the deceased, but more often his loved ones are depicted next to him, one or two, who say goodbye to him. In these scenes of farewell and parting, strong grief and grief are never expressed, but only quiet; sad thoughtfulness. Death is peace; the Greeks personified her not in a terrible skeleton, but in the figure of a boy - Thanatos, the twin of Hypnos - a dream. The sleeping baby is also depicted on the Skopasovsky tombstone of the young man, in the corner at his feet. The surviving relatives look at the deceased, wanting to capture his features in their memory, sometimes they take him by the hand; he (or she) himself does not look at them, and one can feel relaxation and detachment in his figure. In the famous tombstone of Gegeso (late 5th century BC), a standing maid gives her mistress, who is sitting in a chair, a box of jewelry, Hegeso takes a necklace from it with a familiar, mechanical movement, but she looks absent and drooping.

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

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 with each other.

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

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

Despite all the contrast in the artistic natures of Scopas 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 the marble seems alive, which is what the Greek epigrammatists emphasize every time. Both masters preferred marble to bronze (whereas bronze predominated in early classical sculpture) and achieved perfection in processing its surface. The strength of the impression made was facilitated by the special qualities of the types of marble that the sculptors used: translucency and luminosity. Parian marble transmitted light by 3.5 centimeters. Statues made of this noble material looked both humanly alive and divinely incorruptible. Compared with the works of early and mature classics, late classical sculptures lose something, they do not have the simple grandeur of the Delphic “Auriga,” or the monumentality of Phidias’ 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 life-likeness, brought it to the point beyond which genre and specificity begins, thus anticipating the tendencies of Hellenism. Demetrius of Alopeka was distinguished by this. He attached little importance to beauty and consciously sought to portray people as they were, without hiding large bellies and bald spots. His specialty was portraits. Demetrius made a portrait of the philosopher Antisthenes, polemically directed against the idealizing portraits of the 5th century BC. e., - His 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 defect.

Others, on the contrary, tried to support and cultivate the traditions of mature classics, enriching them with greater grace and complexity of plastic motifs. This was the path followed by Leochares, who created the statue of Apollo Belvedere, which became the standard of beauty for many generations of neoclassicists until the end of the twentieth century. Johann Winckelmann, author of the first scientific History of 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, over-the-top praise over time caused the opposite reaction. When the study of ancient art advanced far and many of its monuments were discovered, the exaggerated assessment of the statue of Leochares gave way to an understated one: it began to be found pompous and mannered. Meanwhile, Apollo Belvedere is a truly outstanding work in its plastic merits; the figure and gait of the ruler of the muses combines 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 if rays, diverge in different directions.” To achieve such an effect required the sophisticated skill of a sculptor; the only trouble is that the calculation for the effect is too obvious. Apollo Leochara seems to invite one to admire his beauty, while the beauty of the best classical statues does not publicly declare itself: they are beautiful, but they do not show off. Even Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Cnidus wants to hide rather than demonstrate the sensual charm of her nudity, and earlier classical statues are filled with a calm self-satisfaction, excluding any demonstrativeness. It should therefore 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.

The last great sculptor of the Greek classics, Lysippos, took a big step towards “naturalness”. Researchers attribute him to the Argive school and claim that he had a completely different direction than the Athenian school. In essence, he was her direct follower, but, having adopted her traditions, he stepped further. In his youth, the artist Eupomp answered his question: “Which teacher should I choose?” - answered, pointing to the crowd crowded on the mountain: “Here is the only teacher: nature.”

These words sank deep into the soul of the brilliant young man, and he, not trusting the authority of the Polykleitan 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 lies in the proportionality of all forms and in the proportion of people of average height. Lysippos preferred a tall, slender figure. His limbs became lighter, his stature taller.

Unlike Scopas and Praxiteles, he worked exclusively in bronze: fragile marble requires stable balance, and Lysippos created statues and statuary groups in dynamic states, in complex actions. He was inexhaustibly varied in the invention of plastic motifs and very prolific; they said that after completing each sculpture he put a gold coin in the piggy bank, and in this way he accumulated one and a half thousand coins, that is, he allegedly made one and a half thousand statues, some very large sizes, including a 20-meter statue of Zeus. Not a single work of his has survived, but a fairly large number of copies and repetitions, dating back either to the originals of Lysippos or to his school, give an approximate idea of ​​the master’s style. In terms of plot, he clearly preferred male figures, as he loved to depict the difficult exploits of husbands; His favorite hero was Hercules. In understanding plastic form, Lysippos' innovative achievement was the reversal of the figure in the space surrounding it on all sides; in other words, he did not think of the statue against the background of any plane and did not assume one, main point of view from which it should be viewed, but counted on walking around the statue. We have seen that Skopas' Maenad was already built on the same principle. But what was the exception with previous sculptors became the rule with Lysippos. Accordingly, he gave his figures effective poses, complex turns, and treated them with equal care not only from the front side, but also from the back.

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

Whether the originals of these sculptures belonged to Lysippos himself or his students and assistants has not been established precisely, but undoubtedly he himself made the statue of Apoxyomenes, a marble copy of which is in the Vatican Museum. A young naked athlete, with his arms outstretched, uses a scraper to remove the accumulated dust. He was tired after the struggle, relaxed slightly, even seemed to stagger, spreading his legs for stability. Strands of hair, treated very naturally, stuck to the 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 you compare Apoxyomenes with Doryphorus of Polykleitos, you can see that the proportions of the body have changed: the head is smaller, the legs are longer. Doryphoros is heavier and stockier compared to the flexible and slender Apoxyomenes.

Lysippos was the court artist of Alexander the Great and painted a number of his portraits. There is no flattery or artificial glorification in them; The head of Alexander, preserved in a Hellenistic copy, is executed in the traditions of Skopas, somewhat reminiscent of the head of a wounded warrior. This is the face of a man who lives a tense and difficult life, whose victories are not easy to achieve. The lips are half-open, as if breathing heavily; despite his youth, there are wrinkles on his forehead. However, the classic type of face with proportions and features legitimized by tradition has been preserved.

The art of Lysippos occupies the border zone at the turn of the classical and Hellenistic eras. It is still true to classical concepts, but it is already undermining them from the inside, creating the basis 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 Lysippos, but, possibly, to his brother Lysistratus, who was also a sculptor and, as they said, was the first to use masks taken 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 a fist fighter was also made using the mask; it is far from the canon, far from the ideal ideas of physical perfection that the Hellenes embodied in the image of an athlete. This winner in a fist fight is not at all 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 subsequently became common in Hellenism; an even more unsightly fist fighter was sculpted by the Attic sculptor Apollonius already in the 1st century BC. e.

What had previously cast shadows on the bright structure of the Hellenic worldview came at the end of the 4th century BC. e.: decomposition and death of the democratic polis. This began with the rise of Macedonia, the northern region of Greece, and the virtual seizure of all Greek states by the Macedonian king Philip II. The 18-year-old son of Philip, Alexander, the future great conqueror, took part in the Battle of Chaeronea (in 338 BC), where the troops of the Greek anti-Macedonian coalition were defeated. 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 tasted the fruits of the highest Greek culture in his youth. His teacher was the great philosopher Aristotle, and his court artists were Lysippos and Apelles. This did not prevent him, having captured the Persian state and taken the throne of the Egyptian pharaohs, from declaring himself a god and demanding that he be given divine honors in Greece as well. Unaccustomed to eastern customs, the Greeks, laughing, 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 more serious matter 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 had existed since ancient times in the East - to the slave-owning monarchy. After the death of Alexander (and he died young), his colossal but fragile power disintegrated, the spheres of influence were divided among themselves by his military leaders, the so-called diadochi - successors. The states that emerged again under their rule were no longer Greek, but Greco-Eastern. The era of Hellenism has arrived - the unification under the auspices of the monarchy of Hellenic and Eastern cultures.

Ancient Greek sculpture is a perfect creation ancient culture along with epic, theater and architecture and in many ways still retains the meaning of a norm and model. Marble and bronze statues of the masters of Ancient Hellas, bas-reliefs and high reliefs, multi-figure compositions that decorated the pediments of Greek temples make it possible to imagine the dawn of European civilization.

Ancient Greece Map

We are accustomed to seeing ancient images nobly calm in their marble whiteness. For the Russian viewer big role This is played by the famous plaster casts made according to ancient models for educational purposes on the initiative of I.V. Tsvetaeva and laid the foundation for the meeting State Museum Fine Arts named after. A.S. Pushkin. In fact, most ancient Greek sculptures were brightly painted, and the parts (reins, reins of horses, small decorations on clothing) were made of gilded bronze. Therefore, the procession of Athenian citizens on the day of the holiday of the great Panathenaia on the bas-relief frieze of the Parthenon should rather remind the modern viewer of a multi-colored gypsy camp, in which chariots, horsemen, gods were mixed - simple and accessible, like people, and Hellenes - beautiful, like gods (1).

(1) Phidias. Water carriers. V century BC. Acropolis Museum, Athens

But even without paint, these marble reliefs (one meter high), taken to museums around the world, evoke admiration. No wonder Professor B. Farmakovsky compared them to music. At a lecture at St. Petersburg University in 1909, he said: “The beauty of the Parthenon frieze will amaze all centuries and peoples; it transcends place and time, like the beauty of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Mozart’s Requiem.”

Modern ideas about Greek sculpture are incomplete; many monuments were destroyed during the Mediterranean redistribution of the world, so we can only judge them by the copies of Roman masters from the heyday of the empire (1st–2nd centuries AD), with which the Romans decorated their homes and temples. And although statues of muscular Olympic athletes by Myron and Praxiteles were often placed in public places (for example, in baths), the sculpture created by Praxiteles of a resting graceful and lazy Satyr was most in demand (2) , is more Roman and imperial in character than democratic Greek.

(2) Praxiteles. Resting Satyr.
IV century BC. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

Relay race for the preservation of ancient Greek art Ancient Rome Italy adopted the Renaissance. At this time, collecting ancient monuments began. And in mid-18th century V. German educator J. Winckelmann published the work “History of Ancient Art” - the first scientific study of monuments of ancient sculpture.

IN early XIX century, especially during the period of Napoleonic campaigns in Italy and Africa, interest in ancient art flared up again. The main museums of antiques are being created in Europe. Numerous excavations are being carried out not only in the layers covering ancient cities, but also in the sea. Bronze statues - Greek originals - are still being recovered from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

Information about ancient Greek sculptures can also be obtained using numismatics. The sculptural group “Athena and Marsyas” by Myron for the Athenian acropolis was able to be reconstructed based on the relief on an ancient Athenian coin.

main topic

In the history of sculpture of Ancient Greece, four periods can be distinguished: archaic (VII–VI centuries BC); early classical, or strict, style (first half of the 5th century BC); classical (second half of the 5th – beginning of the 4th century BC); Late Classical (IV century BC). The boundaries of the periods are vague, because the work of sculptors could both “overtake” their time and “lag behind” it. The main thing is that Greek sculpture developed in a single direction - realistic. The ancient master in his work thought in concrete images on the principle of imitation of nature (according to Aristotle). Due to the continuity of periods, sculpture changed, but retained specific stylistic features.

An attentive viewer will always identify milestones in the history of Greek sculpture and will not confuse the decorativeness of archaic kora and kouros with the strict analytical statues of Polykleitos, or the harmony of the high classics of Phidias with the late classical passionate works of Skopas.

The main theme of the plastic art of Ancient Greece - man - was developed and brought to perfection by Greek sculptors. Sculpture, as a rule, was of a public nature. When receiving an order for a statue, the master sought to embody in it an aesthetic ideal that was understandable to all his contemporaries.

The logical construction of the artistic image contributed to the ease of its understanding, which, in turn, dictated the strict rhythm and clarity of the composition. This is how art arose, which was fundamentally more rationalistic than emotional, although feelings were added with each new period.

Combining ideality of form and sublimity of content in their works, Greek masters preferred legendary subjects, and scenes of everyday life and labor processes were less often depicted.

The source of Greek sculpture, with some reservations (too little material evidence remains), can be called the Cretan-Mycenaean culture. According to legend, the first sculptors of Greece were the Daedalids, students of Daedalus, a skilled architect and sculptor of King Minos. A slab with a relief of the Lion Gate of the Mycenaean acropolis is the only example of monumental stone sculpture in the art of the Aegean world (3) .

(3) Lion Gate at Mycenae. XIV century BC.

(4) Zeus in the form of a hoplite. VII century BC.

Since the advent of sculpture (around 670 BC), processing has been improved art material. The statues were cast from bronze (4) , carved from sandstone, limestone, marble, carved from wood, sculpted from clay and then fired (so-called terracotta). The statues were engraved, eyes, lips, and nails were false. Chrysoelephantine technique was used (5) .

(5) Head of a girl (deity?) in the chrysoelephantine technique.
550–530 BC. Archaeological Museum, Delphi

The most common type of archaic statue is that of standing male and female figures draped in long robes. They represented gods, goddesses or sacrificers, whose names were inscribed on the bases or the sculptures themselves. In the VI century. Such sculptures adorned temples, squares, and necropolises in large numbers. Their authors were Ionian masters from the cities of Asia Minor or from the islands of the Ionian archipelago.

(6) Goddess with a hare. First half of the 6th century Pergamon Museum, Berlin

Using the example of statues of women found on the island of Samos - “Hera of Samos” and “Goddess with a Hare” (both sculptures were preserved without heads) - one can trace the characteristic features of archaic sculpture. The figure of the “Goddess with a Hare” is frontal and motionless; small folds of the chiton, like the flutes of a column, emphasize this motionlessness. But the figurine of the hare was rendered freely and vividly by the Greek master. This combination of conventional forms with living details is characteristic of archaism. The statue was not a depiction of a goddess, it represented a priestess or a simple woman, going with gifts to the goddess Hera from a rich man who bore the Asian name Kheramius, inscribed on the folds of the tunic (6) .

Kouros, kors, caryatids

Kouros statues ( Greek. - young man) were created in all centers of the Greek world. The meaning of these sculptures, also called archaic Apollos, still remains a mystery. Some of the kouros had in their hands the attributes of the god Apollo - a bow and arrows, others depicted mere mortals, and still others were placed over burials. The height of the kouros figures reached three meters. The type of naked youth was also common in small bronze sculptures.

The kouros were beardless and long-haired (the mass of hair flowing down the back was modeled in a geometric pattern), with sharply emphasized muscles. The kuros stood in the same static poses, with one leg extended forward, arms extended along the body with palms clenched into fists. Facial features are stylized and lack individuality. The statues were processed from all sides.

The type of archaic kouros follows the traditional pattern of Egyptian standing figures. But the Greek artist pays more attention to the structure of the body than the Egyptian; he carefully depicts the feet and fingers, which seems unexpected in the general conventional scheme of archaic plastic art.

(7) Funerary kouros of Anavissia.
OK. 530 BC National Museum, Athens

The depiction of kouros as equally young, slender and strong is the beginning of the Greek state program associated with the glorification of health, physical strength and the development of sports games (7) . The stylistic analogy of kurosu is the kora ( Greek. – maiden), female archaic statue. The Koras are dressed in chitons or heavy peplos. The folds are laid out in a pattern of parallel lines. The edges of the clothing are decorated with a colored woven border, painted on marble. The girls have fancy hairstyles on their heads, built from ornamental motifs. There is a mysterious, so-called archaic smile on their faces (8, 9) .

(8) Antenor. Bark No. 680. About 530 BC Acropolis Museum, Athens

By the end of the 6th century. BC. Greek sculptors gradually learned to overcome the static nature initially characteristic of their works.

(9) Bark. 478–474 BC. Acropolis Museum, Athens

The caryatids continued the core theme in sculpture. Six caryatids carry on their heads the architrave of the southern portico of the Acropolis temple of the Erechtheion. All the girls stand frontally, but, compared to the archaic kora, their poses, thanks to the slightly bent knee, are more free and lifelike.

Gradually, Greek sculptors overcame the convention of a motionless figure and made the modeling of the body more lively. Striving for true portrayal a living moving figure develops in a struggle with a conventional scheme borrowed from the court art of the Ancient East.

Formula of beauty

It was in the first half of the 5th century. BC. Greek philosophers and artists, each in his own field, developed a form for expressing the multifaceted, dynamic, limitless and eternal life. Based on what general plan works must be embodied as a harmonious and rational whole, they derived the formula of beauty as a balance between form and content. In a plastic solution, aesthetic beauty became an expression of moral beauty, as in the works of the Athenian sculptors Critias “Young Man” and Nesiot “Group of Tyrant Fighters.”

A rare example of bronze (rather than stone) sculpture from the early classics was the "Charioteer" (10) . He stood on a chariot, holding the reins in his hands. The chariot and horses (probably there were four of them) are lost. Most likely, the group was staged by a Sicilian from the city of Gela in honor of the victory at the Pythian games during the chariot race in 476 BC. The author of the sculpture managed to show the solemnity of the moment without pathos, using artistic techniques, using the harmony of the silhouette and the internal balance of all sculptural lines. The figure is frontal, but a slight turn of the shoulders frees her from stiffness and gives the pose a natural look. The driver's facial features are harmonious, calm and dispassionate. The sculptor created the ideal of a valiant and beautiful person. The curls of hair, conveyed by chasing, are intercepted by the braid of the headband. The eyes are inlaid with colored stone; the thinnest bronze plates of eyelashes framing the eyelids have survived.

(10) Charioteer. 478–474 BC. Archaeological Museum, Delphi

(11) Zeus (or Poseidon) from Cape Artemision.
Mid-5th century BC. National Museum, Athens

The next step on the path to the plastic perfection of Greek sculpture is the bronze statue of Zeus (or Poseidon) from Cape Artemision on the island of Euboea (11) . The figure of the god captures that very moment of movement, which will become a distinctive feature of the statues of athletes Myron of Elefther, an innovator in solving the problem of movement in sculpture, a master of complex bronze castings. Not a single sculpture of Myron has survived to this day in its original form, but his work was so popular in Rome that many copies of his works and reviews of his works, including critical ones, remain. Pliny the Elder (1st century), for example, said: “Although Myron was interested in the movement of the body, he did not express the feelings of the soul.”

Sculpture of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia

The sculptural decoration of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia by unknown masters (perhaps one of them was Ageladus of Argos) is considered a great achievement of the Early Classical period and a milestone in the development of ancient Greek sculpture.

The relief metopes of the eastern and western friezes of the temple depicted scenes of the twelve labors of Hercules. The best preserved metope is the image of Atlas bringing Heracles apples from the garden of the Hesperides. (12) . Features characteristic of the early classical period (complete, clear composition, simplicity of revealing the plot, archaic depiction of details) in this and other metopes are combined with signs of classical art - all three figures are depicted in different plans: Athena in front, Hercules in profile, Atlas in three quarters.

(12) Metope of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.
First half of the 5th century BC. Museum in Olympia

The main artistic value of the sculptures of the Olympic Temple are the monumental pediment groups on mythological subjects. On the eastern façade there is a scene from the myth of the chariot race between the heroes Pelops and Oenomaus; in the west - “centauromachy”: the battle of the centaurs with the lapiths.

The plots of the pediments are related to the equestrian theme (centaurs are half-humans, half-horses), which symbolized fate and the inevitability of fate among the ancient Greeks. The reconstruction of these pediments is the subject of scientific debate. Complex multi-figure compositions inscribed in the corners of the pediments are a feature of the Olympic sculptures. On the east pediment there are reclining male figures, probably personifying the rivers in the Olympia Valley; on the western pediment there are figures of women watching the battle.

The Temple of Zeus at Olympia completes the austere style in the development of Greek sculpture. Twenty years after its construction, Phidias created for the temple a statue of Zeus made of gold and ivory, which in ancient times was considered one of the seven wonders of the world (“Art” No. 9/2008).

Phidias, friend of Pericles

The classical era in the art of Ancient Greece began with the victorious wars with the Persians, when Attica became the main one in the Mediterranean. Burdened with civic responsibility, sculptors sculpted not only statues of gods and heroes to decorate temples, but also statesmen and Olympic winners for temple squares, palaestra buildings, markets and theaters.

For the Greeks, nakedness represented the greatest dignity. For a Hellene, the body was a semblance of a perfect cosmos, and he perceived the entire world around him by analogy with himself in an ideal, statue-like form. The statues, with their dispassion and harmony, approached the images of the gods.

The art of Phidias united all the achievements that Greek art had accumulated until the middle of the 5th century. BC. He gave life and movement to perfect nature. His sculptures were majestic and sublime, befitting the Athenian democratic republic and the era of Pericles.

(13) Phidias. The fight between the centaur and the lapith. Metope of the Parthenon.
British Museum, London

Under the leadership of Phidias, numerous complex plastic decorations of the Parthenon and the Temple of Athena Parthenos on the Acropolis were executed. In compositional terms, they are similar to the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, although they are freer in arrangement, and in detail they are more vital and dynamic. It is immediately noticeable that the next period in the history of ancient sculpture includes high reliefs in metopes with scenes of the struggle of centaurs with lapiths (13) ; an image in the corners of the pediment of the sun god Helios, restraining his horses, and the moon goddess Selene, descending on a chariot and disappearing over the horizon. The surviving head of a horse from Selene's harness is considered one of the best sculptural images of a horse in the world. (14) .

(14) Horse's head from the east pediment of the Parthenon

A masterpiece of classical art, the goddess statues on the eastern pediment represent a masterpiece. Phidias’s characteristic way of skillfully making the folds of their thin chitons was called “wet clothing.” (15) .

(15) Hestia, Dione and Aphrodite.
Second half of the 5th century. BC. British Museum, London

The statue of Athena Parthenos (13 m high), created for the temple, is described in the guidebook of Pausanias: “Athena herself is made of ivory and gold... The statue depicts her in full height in a tunic down to the very feet. On her chest is the head of Medusa made of ivory. In her hand she holds an image of Nike, approximately four cubits long, and in the other a spear. At her feet lies a shield, and near her spear is a serpent; this snake is probably Erichthonius.” Gold worth 40 talents and colored ivory covered the wooden frame of the statue.

The name Phidias, along with the name of Michelangelo, is a symbol of genius in sculpture. His fate was tragic. Malice, envy, and political opponents haunted Phidias, who enjoyed the complete trust of Pericles. When the Athena Parthenos was completed, he was accused of stealing gold and ivory. The slandered Phidias died in prison in 431 BC, when the glory of Pericles was already beginning to fade.

Change of interests

The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) between democratic Athens and the aristocratic Peloponnesian League led by Corinth and Sparta aggravated the crisis of the Greek polis and led to social conflicts. But during this same period, idealistic philosophy flourished. The time has come for Socrates and Plato.

A characteristic feature of the era is a decrease in interest in public affairs; art sets the task of reflecting the inner spiritual world. The art of portraiture is emerging, city squares are decorated with statues of philosophers, orators, and statesmen. The images of the gods become more earthly and lyrical.

These sentiments are most fully reflected in the work of the sculptor Praxiteles from Athens (c. 370–330 BC). Praxiteles depicted heroes, gods, and athletes in a state of rest. His work is characterized by the composition of a standing figure: the soft, smooth line of the curved torso always emphasizes lazy grace. The idyllic and lyrical creativity of Praxiteles had noticeable influence for all ancient art. His sculptures were copied and varied in all industries artistic craft the ancient world.

A contemporary of Praxiteles, the Ionian Scopas (c. 380–330 BC) also created an original school of sculpture. His works reflected a new desire for Greek art to express strong, passionate feelings and to depict energetic movement. Skopas is known to have worked as an architect and sculptor in the Temple of Athena at Tega (in the Peloponnese). The western pediment represented the battle of Achilles with Telephus (Trojan War). In the surviving original - the hero's head - suffering is conveyed by the shadow of the protruding brow ridges, a half-open mouth with drooping corners of the lips.

Skopas managed to create two very attractive different female images: the goddess Nike untying her sandal (16) , and a dancing bacchante. The graceful pose of the goddess, clothes falling in careless folds, emphasize the shape of the body, giving the entire figure an intimate character. Behind her shoulders appear the soft contours of large, outstretched wings. Dionysus's companion, the bacchante, on the contrary, threw her head back in a wild dance, her hair scattered along her back.

(16) Relief of the balustrade of the Temple of Nike.
End of the 5th century BC. Acropolis Museum, Athens

Scopas's plastic art is not distinguished by the subtlety of modeling of details that is inherent in Praxiteles, but sharp shadows and energetically protruding forms create the impression of living life and eternal movement.

The depiction of movement in sculpture has changed over time. In archaic sculpture, the type of movement could be called “movement of action,” justified by the motive of this action: heroes run, compete, threaten with weapons, hold out objects. There is no such action - the archaic statue is motionless. In the classical period, starting with the sculptures of Polykleitos, the so-called. “spatial movement” (as defined by Leonardo da Vinci), meaning movement in space without a visible goal, a specific motive (as in the statue of Doryphoros). The body of the statue moves either forward or around its axis (“The Bacchae” by Skopas) (17) .

(17) Bacchante. IV century BC. Roman copy. Albertinum, Dresden

Looking back, we see how the sculptors of Ancient Greece managed in just two centuries to breathe life, like Pygmalion, into the mysterious, silent, cold cores and turn them into sensual, whirling bacchantes.

REFERENCES

Alpatov M.V. Artistic problems of the art of Ancient Greece. – M.: Art, 1987.

Whipper B.R. An introduction to the historical study of art. – M.: AST-Press, 2004.

Voshchinina A.I. Ancient art. – M.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Arts, 1962.

DICTIONARY FOR THE ARTICLE

Architrave- a beam lying on the capitals of the columns.

Bas-relief– low relief, in which the convex image protrudes above the background plane by no more than half its volume.

Himation- outerwear in the form of a quadrangular piece of woolen fabric, worn over a tunic.

Hoplite- a warrior in heavy weapons.

High relief– high relief, in which the image protrudes above the background plane by more than half of its volume.

Caryatids– standing female statues that serve as support for beams in the building. Perhaps the noble women of Caria, given into slavery to the Persians to save the inhabitants.

Ludovisi- an Italian aristocratic family that rose to prominence at the beginning of the 17th century, when Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi became Pope Gregory XV in 1621.

Metope- a slab decorated with sculpture, part of a Doric frieze.

Palaestra- a private gymnastics school where boys from 12 to 16 years old studied. On about. Samos was a palaestra for grown men.

Panathenaea- in ancient Attica, festivals in honor of the goddess Athena (great - once every four years, small - annually). The program included: a procession to the acropolis, a sacrifice and competitions - gymnastics, equestrian, poetic and musical.

Peplos- women's long clothing made of wool, pinned at the shoulders, with a high slit on the side.

Poros– soft Attic limestone.

Strong- a fertility deity in the retinue of Dionysus.

Triglyph- an element of the frieze of the Doric order, alternating with metopes.

Chiton– long, straight men's and women's clothing.

Chrysoelephantine (Greek– made of gold and ivory) technique– mixed technique. The wooden figure was covered with thin gold plates, and the face and hands were carved from ivory.