Greek Sculpture: Hellenistic Period
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Greek Sculpture: Hellenistic Period |
Hellenistic Greek Sculpture (c.323-27 BCE)The Hellenistic Styles After Daedalic sculpture then Archaic sculpture, followed by Early Classical, High Classical and Late Classical sculpture, the Hellenistic period, which stretches from Alexander to Augustus or for conventional precision from (say) 323 to 27 BCE, encompasses a time-span nearly as long as that of all earlier Greek sculpture.
Since it was no longer in fashion when serious
academic study began and is also bewilderingly diverse, its course is much
less understood. At the beginning there was some continuation and development
of Late Classical trends, in the middle the so-called Pergamene school
shows an originality that may loosely be described as baroque, and towards
the end a Classicizing movement became strong. But these distinct styles
are not confined each to one part of the period and there is much more that
has to be fitted in. Nor can the confusion be explained away by different
local traditions: although Athens, it seems, tended to be conservative and
at Alexandria some use was made of stucco, a material which invites soft
modelling, still sculptors travelled as much as or more than before and
Athenians, for example, could work in the full Pergamene style. 'Pergamene',
incidentally has here a stylistic and not a local sense. The Hellenistic
kings of Pergamum, who grabbed much of western Asia Minor, were patrons
of sculpture, collecting old works and commissioning
new ones; and the style of the most famous of their new monuments has been
called after them, though that style was not peculiar to Pergamum nor the
only style fostered there. Portraiture flourished more freely. This enlargement of the sculptor's repertory and aims is often said to reflect the spiritual changes that followed Alexander's conquest of the Persian Empire. Big centralized monarchies superseded independent city states, the centres of power and wealth shifted from European Greece to the new capitals in Asia and Egypt, old notions of political equality gave way to a more rigid stratification of classes, and ordinary people turned from civic to personal interests. Yet there is no reason to suppose that the course of Greek sculpture would have been much different if the old order had continued. The Hellenistic rulers were determined for political reasons to spread traditional Greek culture. In Greece itself, the city states (which still kept considerable autonomy) looked conscientiously towards the past, and sculptors had a bigger market for their work. Nor does it seem that demand for sculpture in private houses affected the creation of new types and versions. The Boy with a Goose may look as if it was designed specifically for domestic enjoyment. Yet according to Herondas, who was writing in the first half of the third century, a statue at least of this type was on view in a sanctuary of Asklepios. And around 100 BCE the statues fashionable in houses on Delos included copies of reputable old masters. A style as confident and powerful as that of Classical sculpture is likely to have had its own momentum, and the Hellenistic styles can he explained as proceeding from the Classical tradition by evolution or reaction. After all, tendencies to naturalism, expression of emotion, and sentimentality are visible already in the fourth century. Whatever one may think of the aesthetic
value of their products, the leading Hellenistic sculptors were more accomplished
than their Classical predecessors and added substantially to the knowledge
they inherited. They improved the understanding of anatomy, both in the
detailed configuration of the surface of the body and also in its response
to tension and relaxation, but this understanding was used selectively
according to the subject and character of the work. In the late fourth
and early third centuries the followers of Praxiteles achieved an even
softer modelling of flesh, which continued to be a favourite technique
where sensuous or sentimental effects were wanted - for instance, in female
nudes, hermaphrodites and small children. Other early
In the rendering of anatomy, Hellenistic sculptors did not often escape from Classical formulas, since these were already fairly true to nature and there was no need to make a fresh start. Nor did they alter the systems of proportions for the male figure, though soon an alternative female canon was accepted, with narrower shoulders, higher waist and broader hips. In drapery there was more radical change. Here High Classical sculptors had worked out a system of devices which elucidated the forms and action of the body but, while optically effective, did not conform closely to nature. And this system remained valid in the fourth century, in spite of tendencies to arrange folds more naturally and to give the drapery importance in itself. These tendencies were taken further by some early Hellenistic sculptors, and there seems even to have been a deliberate rejection of Classical standards, perhaps more for novelty than from artistic principle. In a favourite scheme, still popular in late Hellenistic statuary, the female figure is dressed in a chiton, often hiding the feet, and a fine tightly stretched cloak which runs diagonally from below one knee to above the other, is gathered in at the hip, and either rolls up across the waist or chest or - more often - covers the shoulders and sometimes the head as well. This cloak is patterned with thin sharp ridges, in part radiating from the hip, in part erratic and casually interrupted; and if there is a roll, it is usually narrow and twisted like a rope. In contrast the folds of the chiton are mostly close and vertical and, with a dexterity that becomes hackneyed, they are prolonged to show, suitably a little blurred, through the cloak that covers them. At the same time a basically Classical tradition persisted, especially in statues of gods. This tradition was re-used eclectically by sculptors of the Pergamene style and revived with more fidelity by the Classicizers of the later second and the first centuries. The Classical masters had preferred to suggest emotion by simple gestures and, though by the middle of the fourth century some intensity of aspect was allowed, it was left to the minor craftsmen who carved grave reliefs to show faces contorted with grief. Hellenistic sculptors had other standards. In work of traditional character they kept the old impassivity, but where the aim was naturalistic or dramatic they enjoyed their virtuosity. Pain, fear, pleasure, amusement, drunkenness, lassitude, sleep and death were within their range by the second century, so too were all the gradations of age and, when they wanted, they could produce plausibly differentiated racial types. As might be expected, portraiture became more vivid, though of course some regard for dignity was usually expected by the customer.
The wider range of subjects needed a wider
range of poses. So there appear sprawling, crouching and lying figures;
for upright figures momentary or trivial attitudes become more usual.
And in the Pergamene style violent contortions were welcomed. Many of
these poses had been used by Classical or even Archaic sculptors in pediments,
but not in free-standing statuary, where the standard of decorum had been
strict. Groups too became commoner and more systematically designed. But
the most radical innovation was in composition. Classical statues had
normally been constructed from a front and a side elevation, so that they
presented four distinct principal views. And though during the fourth
century, there was some tentative variation of the strictly frontal view,
as in the Apoxyomenos, this was managed primarily by the placing
of the arms. Hellenistic sculptors thought more deeply. Their first solution
was to give a spiral twist to the figure, so that from any point of view
some important part of it appeared more or less in frontal or profile
elevation. Yet, effective as it is, so strong a twist is not easily justified,
if one expects the action of a statue to have a logical purpose. Dancing
and fighting offer satisfactory reasons, but for some spiralling Hellenistic
figures the only excuse is flippant, as in Aphrodite lifting her skirt
to contemplate her bottom or the young Satyr who tries to inspect his
tail. By the beginning of the second century a more sophisticated formula
had been found, by which the spiral is reversed or stopped at the waist.
The Venus de Milo
is the most famous example here. Still, at all times most Hellenistic
statues were designed in the old way, with emphasis on the frontal view. For copies of stone sculpture (mainly marble), a pointing process was in use by the early first century. The copyist set up an open framework round his model and an identical one round the block he was working on, measured the distance from the framework of chosen points on his model and again by measurement marked their position on or in his block, and then carved by eye the surfaces between the points, more or less completing one part of the figure before going on to the next. Since ancient copyists used far fewer points than their modern counterparts, the accuracy of the detail was less. There are a few excellent marble copies, but most are hackwork, harshly neglecting all subtleties in the modelling of the surface. Presumably for cheapness, bronze originals were often reproduced in marble, with some consequent adjustments. Since the lashes of the eye cannot be carved in marble, the edges of the lids were made heavier, tufts of hair tended to be flattened, and probably the musculation was given higher relief. Possibly too, some poses were modified, though the copyists were free enough in their use of struts and stumps, as much for safety in transport as to give stability to the figure or to prevent outstretched parts from breaking by their unsupported weight. To judge by the location of their originals and by the kinds of marble that were used, most of the earlier copies were made in Greece and the Aegean, particularly at Athens.
Hellenistic sculptors made no change in
the technique of carving marble, except for the new procedure for working
from a model, which may in the first century have been used for some original
works as well as for copies. At its best, the standard of finish was still
equal to that of Classical work, though the marks of the running drill
often show more obtrusively. With minor sculpture much more negligence
was tolerated, in design as well as in execution, partly perhaps because
the Italian and Roman customers, who were becoming important in the later
second century had little artistic experience or discrimination. For the
colouring of marble there is evidence from sarcophagi and caskets (or
'urns') made in Etruria and
Carthage, and from Greek statues and reliefs found in Delos and Alexandria.
As might be expected, practice was not uniform; some sculpture was fully
coloured, some more discreetly, and it seems that the two systems were
concurrent. There was also more gilding of marble, especially for hair.
In bronze statuary the only innovation claimed, is that in some bronze
portrait heads the features show the effects of modelling rather than
of carving, and from this it has been inferred that a softer medium than
before was used in the preliminary work.
A little help, especially for draped female statues, can be obtained from comparisons with terracotta figurines found in datable contexts, and there is some vague utility in the style of lettering on bases of statues and for architectural sculpture in the style of the buildings they adorned. All considered it is not surprising that, at present, experts may differ by a hundred years or more in their dating of particular pieces, and because of the character of much Hellenistic production it would even be suspicious if there was ever full agreement. Resources Sculpture
of Ancient Greece (Introduction) |
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• For the origins and evolution of
three-dimensional art, see: Sculpture
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