What is the name of this famous antique statue? Statues of Greek Gods - world sculptural heritage

Ancient Greek myths have passed through the centuries, and have survived to this day as the greatest storehouse of wisdom and deep philosophical meaning. It was the cults and divine figures of ancient Greek culture that inspired the first ancient sculptors to create their magnificent masterpieces, which captivated art lovers around the world.

Until now, unique sculptural statues of various Greek Gods are presented in different parts of the planet, many of which at one time were the subject of worship and are recognized as real masterpieces of world sculpture. Let's consider the features of the sculptural image of the Gods of Ancient Greece and remember the most famous works of the great masters.

Zeus - God of sky and thunder. The ancient Greeks considered Zeus the king of all Gods and worshiped him as the most powerful divine being. His name is often compared to that of his Roman equivalent, Jupiter.

Zeus is the youngest of the children of Kronos and Rhea. In classical mythology, it is believed that Zeus was married to the goddess Hera, and as a result of this union, Ares, Hebe and Hephaestus were born. Other sources called Dione his wife, and the Iliad claims their union culminated in the birth of Aphrodite.

Zeus is notorious for his erotic antics. This led to numerous divine and heroic descendants, including Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Hercules and many others.

Traditionally, even Gods who were not directly related to Zeus respectfully addressed him as a father.

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Sculptural images of Zeus are always combined with his classical symbols. The symbols of Zeus are lightning, eagle, bull and oak. Sculptors have always depicted Zeus as a powerful middle-aged man with a thick beard, who holds a lightning bolt in one hand, justifying his title of thunderer.

The figure of Zeus is usually depicted as quite warlike, since it is known that it was he who was considered the organizer of the bloody Trojan War. At the same time, the face of Zeus always radiates nobility and virtue.

The most famous statue of Zeus was erected in the 5th century BC in Olympia and is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The giant sculpture was made of gold, wood and ivory and amazed contemporaries with its incredible scale.

The statue depicted Zeus sitting majestically on a huge throne. In his left hand he held a large scepter with an eagle, while in his second hand he held a miniature sculpture of the goddess of victory Nike. The throne was decorated with numerous bas-reliefs and frescoes depicting lions, centaurs, and the exploits of Theseus and Hercules. Mighty Zeus was clothed in golden robes and glorified by numerous contemporaries in many literary and historical accounts.

Unfortunately, the last mention of this statue dates back to the 5th century AD. e. According to historical data, the third wonder of the world was destroyed by fire in 425.

Poseidon in ancient Greek mythology is considered one of the supreme sea gods. Along with Zeus and Hades, Poseidon is one of the three most powerful Olympian gods. According to myths, Poseidon, his wife the goddess Amphitrite and his son Triton live in a luxurious palace on the ocean floor, surrounded by various sea mythical creatures and deities.

The powerful and great God of the sea, Poseidon, inspired many sculptors to create great statues and bas-reliefs. One of the most famous and recognized statues of Poseidon, “Poseidon from Cape Artemision”, is a bronze antique Hellenistic statue.

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The statue was discovered in the Aegean Sea off Cape Artemision and brought to the surface as one of the greatest surviving legacies of antiquity. The sculpture depicts a full-length Poseidon, raising his hand to throw a weapon that was never found. Scientists suggest that this is a trident.

Also, numerous statues and sculptures of Poseidon can be found on the streets of ancient European cities - Copenhagen, Florence, Athens, etc. However, this God received the greatest artistic response when creating fountains. There are hundreds of magnificent sculptural fountains in the world, in the center of the artistic composition of which is Poseidon, surrounded by fish, dolphins, snakes and sea monsters.

The Great Olympian Goddess Demeter is considered the goddess of fertility, agriculture, grain, and bread. This is one of the most revered deities of the Olympic pantheon, patronizing farmers. The goddess Demeter, like many other Greek deities, has two sides - dark and light.

According to legends and myths, her daughter Persephone was kidnapped by the god of the underworld and the brother of Demeter herself, Hades, making her his wife and queen of the kingdom of the dead. Angry, Demeter sent a famine to Earth, which began to take the lives of people. However, having come to her senses and having mercy, she sent the hero Triptolemos to the people to teach them how to properly cultivate the land.

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In sculptural and artistic embodiment, Demeter is depicted as a middle-aged woman, usually crowned and holding ears of wheat in one hand and a burning torch in the other. The most famous Statue of the goddess Demeter is today kept and exhibited in the Vatican Museums. This marble statue is only a copy of a Greek statue from the Roman period 430-420. BC.

The goddess is depicted as majestic and calm and dressed in traditional ancient Greek attire. The figure acquires a special monumentality thanks to the symmetrically distributed ends of the chiton overlap.

Apollo is one of the most important and revered Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and mythology. Apollo was the son of Zeus and the Titanide Leto and the twin brother of Artemis. According to legend, Apollo became the personification of the Sun and light, while his sister Artemis was associated by the ancient Greeks with the moon.

First of all, Apollo is considered the god of light, as well as the patron of musicians, artists and doctors. As the patron saint of Delphi, Apollo was an oracle - a prophetic deity. Despite the many virtues of the god Apollo, he was also described as a god who could bring ill health and a deadly plague.

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One of the most famous sculptures of Apollo is the Apollo Belvedere. This marble sculpture is an exact copy of the bronze prototype, which was created by the ancient Greek sculptor Leochares in 330-320. BC e. The sculpture depicts the god in the form of a young, slender youth who appears completely naked before the audience.

The support for the right hand of the god is a tree trunk. The young man’s face depicts determination and nobility, his gaze is directed into the distance, and his hand extends forward. Today the sculpture "Apollo Belvedere" is exhibited in the Vatican Museums.

Artemis was one of the most revered ancient Greek goddesses. Her Roman equivalent is called Diana. Homer mentions her under the name Artemis Agrotera as "the patroness of wild nature and mistress of animals." The Arcadians believed that she was the daughter of Demeter and Zeus.

However, in classical Greek mythology, Artemis was usually described as the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of the hunt and wild animals. Moreover, it was Artemis that the ancient Greeks considered the patroness of young girls, the guardian of virginity and an assistant in childbirth.

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In sculptural incarnations, Artemis was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows. The main symbols of Artemis were the cypress and the deer. The most famous sculpture in the world dedicated to the goddess Artemis is Diana of Versailles or Diana the Huntress. This marble statue was made in the 1st or 2nd centuries. BC e. an unidentified early Hellenistic sculptor. The sculpture depicts a young, slender girl with her hair tied up and dressed in a classic short Greek robe.

Aphrodite is the ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation. She is identified with the planet Venus, which is named after the Roman goddess Venus, considered the prototype of Aphrodite in Roman mythology.

The main symbols of Aphrodite are myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely based on the cult of the Phoenician goddess Astarte (Sumerian culture). The main cult centers of Aphrodite were Cyprus, Corinth and Athens. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, which has led scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution" for some time. Currently, this concept is considered erroneous.

The most famous sculptural statue of Aphrodite is the world-famous statue of Venus de Milo. The figure is believed to have been created around 300 BC. e. by a now unknown sculptor.

In the spring of 1820, a Greek peasant from the island of Milos dug up this magnificent sculpture of a young and beautiful girl in his garden. To emphasize that Aphrodite is the goddess of love, her figure is depicted by the master as incredibly feminine and attractive. A special feature of this magnificent creation was the absence of hands.

After lengthy debate, the restorers decided that they would not restore the beauty’s hands and would leave Venus unchanged. Today, this magnificent sculpture, made of snow-white marble, is exhibited in the Louvre and annually attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world.

Hermes is one of the youngest among the Olympian gods. He is considered the son of Zeus and the Pleiades Maia. Hermes is a rather controversial god. On the one hand, he is considered the god of trade, profit, dexterity and eloquence, but according to legend he had no equal in theft and deception. According to the famous myth, Hermes committed his first theft in infancy.

The myth says that he escaped from the cradle and stole a whole herd of cows, which at that time was herded by Apollo. To prevent the cows and him from being identified by their steps on the sand, he tied tree branches to the animals’ hooves, which removed all traces. Hermes also patronizes speakers and heralds, and is considered the god of magic and alchemy.

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Perhaps the most famous and talented work of sculptors depicting the image of Hermes was the statue of Parian marble “Hermes with the baby Dionysus”. The figure was discovered by Ernst Curtius in 1877 during excavations of the Temple of Hera at Olympia. The first thing that surprises the viewer when looking at the statue is its enormous size. Together with the podium, the height of the statue is 370 cm.

Another magnificent sculpture dedicated to this god is Hermes Belvedere. For a long time this sculpture was confused with the statue of Antinous. The statue depicts the snow-white figure of a naked young man with his head bowed. The traditional Greek cape casually falls off his shoulder. Until now, many scientists believe that the sculpture of Hermes Belvedere in marble is just a copy of the lost bronze original.

Dionysus - in ancient Greek mythology, is the youngest of the Olympian gods, the god of wine and the patron saint of winemaking. The second name of this deity is Bacchus. Interestingly, in addition to viticulture, Dionysus also patronized the theater and was considered the god of inspiration and religious ecstasy. Rituals associated with the veneration of Dionysus were always accompanied by rivers of drunk wine, frantic dancing and exciting music.

It is believed that Dionysus was born from the vicious relationship of Zeus and Semele (daughter of Cadmus and Harmony). Having learned about Semele's pregnancy, Zeus's wife Hera became angry and moved the girl away from Olympus. However, Zeus still found his secret lover and tore the child from her belly. Next, this baby was sewn into Zeus’ thigh, where he successfully carried it out. In this unusual way, according to Greek myths, Dionysus was born.

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The most famous statue of Dionysus was created by the greatest world-famous sculptor - Michelangelo. In an effort to emphasize his personality, the master depicted Dionysus naked with a cup in his hand. His hair is decorated with grapes and vines. Next to the main character, Michelangelo placed the Satyr, who inevitably pursues people suffering from various addictions, including alcoholism.

The myths and legends of Ancient Greece played a decisive role in the creation of unique sculptural compositions around the world. All of the above masterpieces of world sculpture should definitely be visited and seen with your own eyes.

The fifth century in the history of Greek sculpture of the classical period can be called a “step forward.” The development of sculpture in Ancient Greece in this period is associated with the names of such famous masters as Myron, Polyclene and Phidias. In their creations, the images become more realistic, if one can say, even “alive,” and the schematism that was characteristic of . But the main “heroes” remain the gods and “ideal” people.

Myron, who lived in the mid-5th century. BC e, known to us from drawings and Roman copies. This brilliant master had an excellent command of plasticity and anatomy, and clearly conveyed freedom of movement in his works (“Discobolus”). His work “Athena and Marsyas” is also known, which was created on the basis of the myth about these two characters. According to legend, Athena invented the flute, but while playing she noticed how ugly the expression on her face changed; in anger, she threw the instrument and cursed everyone who would play it. She was watched all the time by the forest deity Marsyas, who was afraid of the curse. The sculptor tried to show the struggle of two opposites: calm in the face of Athena and savagery in the face of Marsyas. Modern art connoisseurs still admire his work and his animal sculptures. For example, about 20 epigrams on a bronze statue from Athens have been preserved.

Polykleitos, who worked in Argos, in the second half of the 5th century. BC e, is a prominent representative of the Peloponnesian school. The sculpture of the classical period is rich in his masterpieces. He was a master of bronze sculpture and an excellent art theorist. Polykleitos preferred to portray athletes, in whom ordinary people always saw an ideal. Among his works are the famous statues of "Doryphoros" and "Diadumen". The first job is that of a strong warrior with a spear, the embodiment of calm dignity. The second is a slender young man with a competition winner's bandage on his head.

Phidias is another prominent representative of the creator of sculpture. His name resounded brightly during the heyday of Greek classical art. His most famous sculptures were the colossal statues of Athena Parthenos and Zeus in the Olympic Temple made of wood, gold and ivory, and Athena Promachos, made of bronze and located on the square of the Acropolis of Athens. These masterpieces of art are irretrievably lost. Only descriptions and small Roman copies give us a faint idea of ​​the magnificence of these monumental sculptures.

Athena Parthenos, a striking sculpture from the classical period, was built in the Parthenon Temple. It had a 12-meter wooden base, the body of the goddess was covered with ivory plates, and the clothes and weapons themselves were made of gold. The approximate weight of the sculpture is two thousand kilograms. Surprisingly, the gold pieces were removed and weighed again every four years, since they were the gold fund of the state. Phidias decorated the shield and pedestal with reliefs on which he depicted himself and Pericles in battle with the Amazons. For this he was accused of sacrilege and sent to prison, where he died.

The statue of Zeus is another masterpiece of sculpture from the classical period. Its height is fourteen meters. The statue depicts the supreme Greek deity seated with the goddess Nike in his hand. The statue of Zeus, according to many art historians, is the greatest creation of Phidias. It was built using the same technique as when creating the statue of Athena Parthenos. The figure was made of wood, depicted naked to the waist and covered with ivory plates, and the clothes were covered with gold sheets. Zeus sat on the throne and in his right hand he held the figure of the goddess of victory Nike, and in his left there was a rod, which was a symbol of power. The ancient Greeks perceived the statue of Zeus as another wonder of the world.

Athena Promachos (circa 460 BC), a 9-meter bronze sculpture of ancient Greece, was built right among the ruins after the Persians destroyed the Acropolis. Phidias “gives birth” to a completely different Athena - in the form of a warrior, an important and strict protector of her city. She has a powerful spear in her right hand, a shield in her left, and a helmet on her head. Athena in this image represented the military power of Athens. This sculpture of ancient Greece seemed to reign over the city, and everyone who traveled by sea along the shores could contemplate the top of the spear and the crest of the statue’s helmet sparkling in the rays of the sun, covered in gold. In addition to the sculptures of Zeus and Athena, Phidias creates bronze images of other gods using the chrysoelephantine technique, and takes part in sculpting competitions. He was also the leader of large construction works, for example, the construction of the Acropolis.

The sculpture of ancient Greece reflected the physical and inner beauty and harmony of man. Already in the 4th century, after the conquest of Alexander the Great in Greece, new names of talented sculptors became known, such as Scopas, Praxiteles, Lysippos, Timothy, Leochares and others. The creators of this era begin to pay more attention to the internal state of a person, his psychological state and emotions. Increasingly, sculptors are receiving individual orders from wealthy citizens, in which they ask to depict famous personalities.

A famous sculptor of the classical period was Scopas, who lived in the mid-4th century BC. He introduces innovation by revealing the inner world of a person, trying to depict emotions of joy, fear, and happiness in sculptures. This talented man worked in many Greek cities. His sculptures of the classical period are rich in images of gods and various heroes, compositions and reliefs on mythological themes. He was not afraid to experiment and depicted people in various complex poses, looking for new artistic possibilities for depicting new feelings on the human face (passion, anger, rage, fear, sadness). A wonderful creation of round sculpture is the statue of the Maenad; a Roman copy of it has now been preserved. A new and multifaceted relief work can be called the Amazonomachy, which adorns the Halicarnassus mausoleum in Asia Minor.

Praxiteles was a prominent sculptor of the classical period who lived in Athens around 350 BC. Unfortunately, only the statue of Hermes from Olympia has reached us, and we know about the rest of the works only from Roman copies. Praxiteles, like Scopas, tried to convey the feelings of people, but he preferred to express “lighter” emotions that were pleasant to the person. He transferred lyrical emotions, dreaminess to sculptures, and glorified the beauty of the human body. The sculptor does not form figures in motion. Among his works, it should be noted “The Resting Satyr”, “Aphrodite of Cnidus”, “Hermes with the Child Dionysus”, “Apollo Killing the Lizard”.

The most famous work is the statue of Aphrodite of Knidos. It was made to order for the residents of the island of Kos in two copies. The first is in clothes, and the second is naked. The inhabitants of Kos preferred Aphrodite in clothing, and the Cnidians acquired a second copy. The statue of Aphrodite in the Knidos sanctuary remained a place of pilgrimage for a long time. Scopas and Praxiteles were the first to dare to depict Aphrodite in the nude. The goddess Aphrodite in her image is very human, she prepared for a swim. She is an excellent representative of the sculpture of ancient Greece. The statue of the goddess was a model for many sculptors for more than half a century.

The sculpture "Hermes with the Child Dionysus" (where he entertains the child with a grapevine) is the only original statue. The hair took on a red-brown hue, the robe was bright blue, like Aphrodite’s, setting off the whiteness of the marble body. Like the works of Phidias, the works of Praxiteles were placed in temples and open sanctuaries and were cultic. But the works of Praxiteles did not personify the former strength and power of the city and the valor of its inhabitants. Scopas and Praxiteles greatly influenced their contemporaries. Their realistic style has been used by many artists and schools over the centuries.

Lysippos (second half of the 4th century BC) was one of the greatest sculptors of the classical period. He preferred to work with bronze. Only Roman copies give us the opportunity to get acquainted with his work. Famous works include Hercules with a Hind, Apoxyomenos, Hermes Resting and The Wrestler. Lysippos makes changes in proportions, he depicts a smaller head, a drier body and longer legs. All his works are individual, and the portrait of Alexander the Great is also humanized.

1.1 Sculpture in Ancient Greece. Prerequisites for its development

Among all the fine arts of ancient civilizations, the art of Ancient Greece, in particular its sculpture, occupies a very special place. The Greeks valued the living body, capable of any muscular task, above all else. The lack of clothes shocked no one. They treated everything too simply to be ashamed of anything. And at the same time, of course, chastity did not lose from this.

1.2 Archaic Greek sculpture

The Archaic period is the period of formation of ancient Greek sculpture. The sculptor’s desire to convey the beauty of the ideal human body, which was fully manifested in the works of a later era, is already understandable, but it was still too difficult for the artist to move away from the shape of the stone block, and the figures of this period are always static.

The first monuments of ancient Greek sculpture of the archaic era are determined by the geometric style (8th century). These are sketchy figurines found in Athens, Olympia , in Boeotia. The archaic era of ancient Greek sculpture falls on the 7th - 6th centuries. (early archaic - about 650 - 580 BC; high - 580 - 530; late - 530 - 500/480). The beginning of monumental sculpture in Greece dates back to the middle of the 7th century. BC e. and is characterized by orientalizing styles, of which the most important was the Daedalian style, associated with the name of the semi-mythical sculptor Daedalus . The circle of “Daedalian” sculpture includes a statue of Artemis of Delos and a female statue of Cretan work, stored in the Louvre (“Lady of Auxerre”). Mid-7th century BC e. The first kouroses also date back . The first sculptural temple decoration dates back to the same time. - reliefs and statues from Prinia on the island of Crete. Subsequently, the sculptural decoration fills the fields highlighted in the temple by its very design - pediments and metopes V Doric temple, continuous frieze (zophorus) - in Ionic. The earliest pediment compositions in ancient Greek sculpture come from the Athenian Acropolis and from the Temple of Artemis on the island of Kerkyra (Corfu). Funerary, dedicatory and cult statues are represented in the archaic by the type of kouros and kora . Archaic reliefs decorate the bases of statues, pediments and metopes of temples (later, round sculpture takes the place of reliefs in the pediments), and tombstones . Among the famous monuments of archaic round sculpture are the head of Hera, found near her temple at Olympia, the statue of Kleobis and Beaton from Delphi, Moschophorus (“Taurus Bearer”) from the Athenian Acropolis, Hera of Samos , statues from Didyma, Nikka Arherma and others. The last statue shows the archaic design of the so-called “kneeling run”, used to depict a flying or running figure. In archaic sculpture, a whole series of conventions are also adopted - for example, the so-called “archaic smile” on the faces of archaic sculptures.

The sculpture of the Archaic era is dominated by statues of slender naked youths and draped young girls - kouros and koras. Neither childhood nor old age attracted the attention of artists then, because only in mature youth are vital forces in full bloom and balance. Early Greek art creates images of Man and Woman in their ideal form. In that era, spiritual horizons expanded unusually; man seemed to feel himself standing face to face with the universe and wanted to comprehend its harmony, the secret of its integrity. Details eluded, ideas about the specific “mechanism” of the universe were the most fantastic, but the pathos of the whole, the consciousness of universal interconnection - this was what constituted the strength of philosophy, poetry and art of archaic Greece*. Just as philosophy, then still close to poetry, shrewdly guessed the general principles of development, and poetry - the essence of human passions, fine art created a generalized human appearance. Let's look at the kouros, or, as they are sometimes called, "archaic Apollos." It is not so important whether the artist really intended to depict Apollo, or a hero, or an athlete. The man is young, naked, and his chaste nakedness does not need shameful coverings. He always stands straight, his body is imbued with a readiness to move. The body structure is shown and emphasized with utmost clarity; You can immediately see that the long muscular legs can bend at the knees and run, the abdominal muscles can tense, the chest can swell with deep breathing. The face does not express any specific experience or individual character traits, but the possibilities of various experiences are hidden in it. And the conventional “smile” - slightly raised corners of the mouth - is only the possibility of a smile, a hint of the joy of being inherent in this seemingly newly created person.

Kouros statues were created mainly in areas where the Dorian style dominated, that is, on the territory of mainland Greece; female statues - kora - mainly in Asia Minor and island cities, centers of the Ionian style. Beautiful female figures were found during excavations of the archaic Athenian Acropolis, built in the 6th century BC. e., when Pisistratus ruled there, and destroyed during the war with the Persians. For twenty-five centuries marble crusts were buried in “Persian garbage”; Finally they were taken out of there, half broken, but without losing their extraordinary charm. Perhaps some of them were performed by Ionic masters invited by Pisistratus to Athens; their art influenced Attic plasticity, which now combines the features of Doric severity with Ionian grace. In the barks of the Athenian Acropolis, the ideal of femininity is expressed in its pristine purity. The smile is bright, the gaze is trusting and as if joyfully amazed at the spectacle of the world, the figure is chastely draped with a peplos - a veil, or a light robe - a chiton (in the archaic era, female figures, unlike male ones, were not yet depicted naked), hair flows over the shoulders in curly strands. These kora stood on pedestals in front of the temple of Athena, holding an apple or flower in their hand.

Archaic sculptures (as well as classical ones) were not as monotonously white as we imagine them now. Many still have traces of painting. The marble girls' hair was golden, their cheeks were pink, and their eyes were blue. Against the background of the cloudless sky of Hellas, all this should have looked very festive, but at the same time strict, thanks to the clarity, composure and constructiveness of the forms and silhouettes. There was no excessive floweriness or variegation. The search for the rational foundations of beauty, harmony based on measure and number, is a very important point in the aesthetics of the Greeks. Pythagorean philosophers sought to grasp the natural numerical relationships in musical harmonies and in the arrangement of heavenly bodies, believing that musical harmony corresponds to the nature of things, the cosmic order, the “harmony of the spheres.” Artists were looking for mathematically verified proportions of the human body and the “body” of architecture. In this, early Greek art was fundamentally different from Cretan-Mycenaean art, which was alien to any mathematics.

Very lively genre scene: Thus, in the archaic era, the foundations of ancient Greek sculpture, directions and options for its development were laid. Even then, the main goals of sculpture, aesthetic ideals and aspirations of the ancient Greeks were clear. In later periods, these ideals and the skill of ancient sculptors developed and improved.

1.3 Classical Greek sculpture

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 BC. 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 of the late classics - the 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*. 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 is the struggle of the Lapiths with the centaurs, on the metopes 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. 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. 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.

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 by Phidias's cousin, Panen; the foot of the throne was a marvel of sculpture. The admiration of the Greeks for the beauty and wise structure of the living body was so great that they aesthetically thought of it only in statuary completeness and completeness, allowing them to appreciate the majesty of posture and the harmony of body movements. 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 broken off - the plasticity of their figures is so eloquent.

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.” Movements and postures in most cases are simple, natural and not necessarily associated with anything sublime. 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 lower part. Correct, gentle oval. The straight line of the nose continues the line of the forehead and forms a perpendicular to the line drawn from the beginning of the nose to the opening of the ear (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 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.

After the war….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 - with lazy grace lean 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 pushed 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.

1.4 Sculpture of Hellenistic Greece

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

The basic formative principles came from the Greek classics, the content became different. There was a decisive demarcation between public and private life. In Hellenistic monarchies, a cult of a single ruler was established, equated to a deity, similar to what was in the ancient Eastern despotisms. But the similarity is relative: the “private man,” who is not affected by political storms or is only slightly affected, is not nearly as impersonal as in the ancient eastern states. He has his own life: he is a merchant, he is an entrepreneur, he is an official, he is a scientist. In addition, he is often Greek by origin - after the conquests of Alexander, the mass migration of Greeks to the east began - the concepts of human dignity, brought up by Greek culture, are not alien to him. Even if he is removed from power and government affairs, his isolated private world requires and finds artistic expression, the basis of which is the traditions of the late Greek classics, reworked in the spirit of greater intimacy and genre. And in “state” art, official art, in large public buildings and monuments, the same traditions are processed, on the contrary, towards pomp.

Pomp and intimacy are opposite traits; Hellenistic art is full of contrasts - gigantic and miniature, ceremonial and everyday, allegorical and natural. The world has become more complex, and aesthetic needs have become more diverse. The main trend is a departure from the generalized human type to an understanding of man as a concrete, individual being, and hence the increasing attention to his psychology, interest in events, and a new vigilance to national, age, social and other signs of personality. But since all this was expressed in a language inherited from the classics, which did not set themselves such tasks, a certain inorganicity is felt in the innovative works of the Hellenistic era; they do not achieve the integrity and harmony of their great predecessors. The portrait head of the heroic statue “Diadochi” does not fit with his naked torso, which repeats the type of a classical athlete. The drama of the multi-figure sculptural group “Farnese Bull” is contradicted by the “classical” representativeness of the figures; their poses and movements are too beautiful and smooth to believe in the truth of their experiences. In numerous park and chamber sculptures, the traditions of Praxiteles are diminished: Eros, “the great and powerful god,” turns into a playful, playful Cupid; Apollo - into the flirtatious and effeminate Apollo; strengthening the genre does not benefit them. And the famous Hellenistic statues of old women carrying provisions, a drunken old woman, an old fisherman with a flabby body lack the power of figurative generalization; art masters these new types externally, without penetrating into the depths - after all, the classical heritage did not provide the key to them. The statue of Aphrodite, traditionally called the Venus de Milo, was found in 1820 on the island of Melos and immediately gained worldwide fame as the perfect creation of Greek art. This high assessment was not shaken by many later discoveries of Greek originals - Aphrodite de Milo occupies a special place among them. Apparently executed in the 2nd century BC. e. (by the sculptor Agesander or Alexander, as the half-erased inscription on the base says), it bears little resemblance to contemporary statues depicting the goddess of love. Hellenistic aphrodites most often went back to the type of Aphrodite of Cnidus by Praxiteles, making her sensually seductive, even slightly cutesy; such, for example, is the famous Aphrodite of Medicine. Aphrodite of Milo, only half naked, draped to the hips, is stern and sublimely calm. She personifies not so much the ideal of female beauty as the ideal of man in a general and highest sense. The Russian writer Gleb Uspensky found a successful expression: the ideal of a “straightened man.” The statue was well preserved, but its hands were broken off. There have been many speculations about what these hands were doing: was the goddess holding an apple? or a mirror? or was she holding the hem of her robe? No convincing reconstruction has been found; in fact, there is no need for it. The “armlessness” of Aphrodite of Milo over time has become, as it were, her attribute; it does not in the least interfere with her beauty and even enhances the impression of the majesty of her figure. And since not a single intact Greek statue has survived, it is in this partially damaged state that Aphrodite appears before us as a “marble riddle”, given to us by antiquity, as a symbol of distant Hellas.

Another wonderful monument of Hellenism (of those that have come down to us, and how many have disappeared!) is the altar of Zeus in Pergamon. The Pergamon school, more than others, gravitated towards pathos and drama, continuing the traditions of Skopas. Its artists did not always resort to mythological subjects, as was the case in the classical era. On the square of the Pergamon Acropolis there were sculptural groups that perpetuated a genuine historical event - the victory over the “barbarians”, the Gaul tribes that besieged the kingdom of Pergamon. Full of expression and dynamics, these groups are also notable for the fact that the artists pay tribute to the vanquished, showing them both valiant and suffering. They depict a Gaul killing his wife and himself to avoid captivity and slavery; depict a mortally wounded Gaul reclining on the ground with his head bowed low. It is immediately clear from his face and figure that he is a “barbarian,” a foreigner, but he dies a heroic death, and this is shown. In their art the Greeks did not stoop to humiliate their opponents; This feature of ethical humanism comes out with particular clarity when the opponents - the Gauls - are depicted realistically. After Alexander's campaigns, much changed in general in attitudes towards foreigners. As Plutarch writes, Alexander saw himself as the reconciler of the universe, “causing all to drink... from the same cup of friendship, and mixing together lives, manners, marriages, and forms of life.” Morals and forms of life, as well as forms of religion, really began to mix in the Hellenistic era, but friendship did not reign and peace did not come, strife and war did not stop. The wars of Pergamum with the Gauls are only one of the episodes. When the victory over the Gauls was finally won, the altar of Zeus was erected in her honor, completed in 180 BC. e. This time, the long-term war with the “barbarians” appeared as a gigantomachy - a struggle between the Olympian gods and the giants. According to ancient myth, the giants - giants who lived far in the west, the sons of Gaia (Earth) and Uranus (Sky) - rebelled against the Olympians, but were defeated by them after a fierce battle and buried under volcanoes, in the deep bowels of mother earth, from where they remind us of themselves with volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. A grandiose marble frieze, about 120 meters long, made using the high relief technique, encircled the base of the altar. The remains of this structure were excavated in the 1870s; Thanks to the painstaking work of restorers, it was possible to connect thousands of fragments and get a fairly complete picture of the general composition of the frieze. Mighty bodies are piled up, intertwined, like a ball of snakes, the defeated giants are tormented by shaggy-maned lions, dogs bite their teeth, horses trample under their feet, but the giants fight fiercely, their leader Porphyrion does not retreat before the thunderer Zeus. The mother of the giants, Gaia, begs to spare her sons, but they do not listen to her. The battle is terrible. There is something prescient of Michelangelo in the tense angles of the bodies, in their titanic power and tragic pathos. Although battles and fights were a frequent theme in ancient reliefs, starting with the archaic, they were never depicted as on the Pergamon Altar - with such a shuddering feeling of a cataclysm, a battle for life and death, where all cosmic forces, all demons participate earth and sky. The structure of the composition has changed, it has lost its classical clarity and has become swirling and confusing. Let us remember the figures of Skopas on the relief of the Halicarnassus mausoleum. They, with all their dynamism, are located in the same spatial plane, they are separated by rhythmic intervals, each figure has a certain independence, masses and space are balanced. It’s different in the Pergamon frieze - those fighting here are cramped, the mass has suppressed the space, and all the figures are so intertwined that they form a stormy mess of bodies. And the bodies are still classically beautiful, “sometimes radiant, sometimes menacing, living, dead, triumphant, dying figures,” as I. S. Turgenev said about them*. The Olympians are beautiful, and so are their enemies. But the harmony of the spirit fluctuates. Faces distorted by suffering, deep shadows in the eye sockets, snake-like hair... The Olympians are still triumphant over the forces of the underground elements, but this victory is not for long - the elemental principles threaten to blow up the harmonious, harmonious world. Just as the art of the Greek archaic should not be assessed only as the first harbingers of the classics, so Hellenistic art as a whole cannot be considered a late echo of the classics, underestimating the fundamentally new things that it brought. This new thing was associated both with the expansion of the horizons of art and with its inquisitive interest in the human personality and the specific, real conditions of its life. Hence, first of all, the development of the portrait, the individual portrait, which was almost unknown to the high classics, and the late classics were only on the approaches to it. Hellenistic artists, even making portraits of people who had long been dead, gave them a psychological interpretation and sought to reveal the uniqueness of both external and internal appearance. Not contemporaries, but descendants left us the faces of Socrates, Aristotle, Euripides, Demosthenes and even the legendary Homer, an inspired blind storyteller. The portrait of an unknown old philosopher is amazing in its realism and expression - apparently, an irreconcilable passionate polemicist, whose wrinkled face with sharp features has nothing in common with the classical type. Previously, it was considered a portrait of Seneca, but the famous Stoic lived later than this bronze bust was sculpted.

For the first time, a child with all the anatomical features of childhood and with all the charm characteristic of him becomes the subject of plastic surgery. In the classical era, if small children were depicted, it was more like miniature adults. Even in Praxiteles’s group “Hermes with Dionysus,” Dionysus bears little resemblance to a baby in his anatomy and proportions. It seems that only now have they noticed that the child is a completely special creature, playful and crafty, with his own special habits; noticed and were so captivated by him that the god of love Eros himself began to be represented as a child, marking the beginning of a tradition that has been established for centuries. The plump, curly children of Hellenistic sculptors are busy with all sorts of tricks: riding a dolphin, messing with birds, even strangling snakes (this is baby Hercules). Particularly popular was the statue of a boy fighting a goose. Such statues were placed in parks, decorated fountains, were placed in the sanctuaries of Asclepius, the god of healing, and were sometimes used for tombstones.

Conclusion

We examined the sculpture of Ancient Greece throughout the entire period of its development. We saw the entire process of its formation, flourishing and decline - the entire transition from strict, static and idealized archaic forms through the balanced harmony of classical sculpture to the dramatic psychologism of Hellenistic statues. The sculpture of Ancient Greece was rightfully considered a model, an ideal, a canon for many centuries, and now it never ceases to be recognized as a masterpiece of world classics. Nothing like this has been achieved before or since. All modern sculpture can be considered to one degree or another a continuation of the traditions of Ancient Greece. The sculpture of Ancient Greece went through a difficult path in its development, preparing the ground for the development of sculpture in subsequent eras in various countries. In later times, the traditions of ancient Greek sculpture were enriched with new developments and achievements, while the ancient canons served as the necessary foundation, the basis for the development of plastic art in all subsequent eras.

What are the features of ancient Greek sculpture?

When confronted with Greek art, many outstanding minds expressed genuine admiration. One of the most famous researchers of the art of ancient Greece, Johann Winckelmann (1717-1768) speaks about Greek sculpture: “Connoisseurs and imitators of Greek works find in their masterful creations not only the most beautiful nature, but also more than nature, namely its certain ideal beauty, which... is created from images sketched by the mind.” Everyone who writes about Greek art notes in it an amazing combination of naive spontaneity and depth, reality and fiction. It, especially in sculpture, embodies the ideal of man. What is the peculiarity of the ideal? Why did he charm people so much that the aged Goethe cried in the Louvre in front of the sculpture of Aphrodite?

The Greeks always believed that only in a beautiful body can a beautiful soul live. Therefore, harmony of the body and external perfection are an indispensable condition and the basis of an ideal person. The Greek ideal is defined by the term kalokagathia(Greek kalos- wonderful + agathos Kind). Since kalokagathia includes the perfection of both physical constitution and spiritual and moral makeup, then at the same time, along with beauty and strength, the ideal carries justice, chastity, courage and rationality. This is what makes the Greek gods, sculpted by ancient sculptors, uniquely beautiful.

http://historic.ru/lostcivil/greece/gallery/stat_001.shtmlThe best monuments of ancient Greek sculpture were created in the 5th century. BC. But earlier works have also reached us. Statues of the 7th-6th centuries. BC are symmetrical: one half of the body is a mirror image of the other. Shackled posture, outstretched arms pressed to the muscular body. Not the slightest tilt or turn of the head, but the lips are open in a smile. A smile seems to illuminate the sculpture from within with an expression of the joy of life.

Later, during the period of classicism, statues acquired a greater variety of forms.

There have been attempts to conceptualize harmony algebraically. The first scientific study of what harmony is was undertaken by Pythagoras. The school that he founded examined issues of a philosophical and mathematical nature, applying mathematical calculations to all aspects of reality. Neither musical harmony nor the harmony of the human body or architectural structure were exceptions. The Pythagorean school considered number the basis and beginning of the world.

What does number theory have to do with Greek art? It turns out that it is the most direct, since the harmony of the spheres of the Universe and the harmony of the entire world is expressed by the same ratios of numbers, the main of which are the ratios 2/1, 3/2 and 4/3 (in music these are the octave, fifth and fourth, respectively). In addition, harmony presupposes the possibility of calculating any correlation of parts of each object, including sculpture, according to the following proportion: a / b = b / c, where a is any smaller part of the object, b is any larger part, c is the whole. On this basis, the great Greek sculptor Polykleitos (5th century BC) created a sculpture of a young spearman (5th century BC), which is called “Doriphorus” (“Spearman”) or “Canon” - after the title of the work sculptor, where he, discussing the theory of art, considers the laws of depicting a perfect person. It is believed that the artist’s reasoning can be applied to his sculpture.

The statues of Polykleitos are full of intense life. Polykleitos liked to depict athletes in a state of rest. Take the same “Spearman”. This powerfully built man is full of self-esteem. He stands motionless in front of the viewer. But this is not the static peace of ancient Egyptian statues. Like a man who skillfully and easily controls his body, the spearman slightly bent one leg and shifted the weight of his body to the other. It seems that a moment will pass and he will take a step forward, turn his head, proud of his beauty and strength. Before us is a man strong, handsome, free from fear, proud, reserved - the embodiment of Greek ideals.

Unlike his contemporary Polykleitos, Myron loved to depict his statues in motion. Here, for example, is the statue “Discobolus” (5th century BC; Thermal Museum, Rome). Its author, the great sculptor Miron, depicted a beautiful young man at the moment when he swung a heavy disc. His body, caught in motion, is curved and tense, like a spring ready to unfold. Under the elastic skin of the arm pulled back, trained muscles bulged. The toes, forming a reliable support, pressed deep into the sand. The statues of Myron and Polykleitos were cast in bronze, but only marble copies of ancient Greek originals made by the Romans have reached us.

The Greeks considered Phidias the greatest sculptor of his time, who decorated the Parthenon with marble sculpture. His sculptures especially reflect that the gods in Greece are nothing more than images of an ideal person. The best preserved marble strip of the relief of the frieze is 160 m long. It depicts a procession heading to the temple of the goddess Athena - the Parthenon.

The Parthenon sculpture was badly damaged. And “Athena Parthenos” perished in ancient times. She stood inside the temple and was incredibly beautiful. The goddess's head with a low, smooth forehead and rounded chin, neck and arms were made of ivory, and her hair, clothes, shield and helmet were minted from sheets of gold. The goddess in the form of a beautiful woman is the personification of Athens.

http://historic.ru/lostcivil/greece/gallery/stat_007.shtmlMany stories are associated with this sculpture. The created masterpiece was so great and famous that its author immediately had many envious people. They tried in every possible way to insult the sculptor and looked for various reasons why they could accuse him of something. They say that Phidias was accused of allegedly concealing part of the gold given as material for the decoration of the goddess. To prove his innocence, Phidias removed all the gold objects from the sculpture and weighed them. The weight exactly coincided with the weight of the gold given for the sculpture. Then Phidias was accused of atheism. The reason for this was Athena's shield. It depicted the plot of the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. Among the Greeks, Phidias depicted himself and his beloved Pericles. The image of Phidias on the shield became the cause of the conflict. Despite all the achievements of Phidias, the Greek public was able to turn against him. The life of the great sculptor ended in a cruel execution.

The achievements of Phidias in the Parthenon were not exhaustive for his work. The sculptor created many other works, the best of which were the colossal bronze figure of Athena Promachos, erected on the Acropolis around 460 BC, and the equally huge ivory and gold figure of Zeus for the temple at Olympia. Unfortunately, the original works no longer exist, and we cannot see with our own eyes the magnificent works of art of Ancient Greece. Only their descriptions and copies remain. This was largely due to the fanatical destruction of statues by Christian believers.

This is how one can describe the statue of Zeus for the temple at Olympia: A huge fourteen-meter god sat on a golden throne, and it seemed that if he stood up, straightened his broad shoulders, he would feel cramped in the vast hall and the ceiling would be low. The head of Zeus was decorated with a wreath of olive branches - a sign of the peacefulness of the formidable god. The face, shoulders, arms, chest were made of ivory, and the cloak was thrown over the left shoulder. The crown and beard of Zeus were made of sparkling gold.

Phidias endowed Zeus with human nobility. His handsome face, framed by a curly beard and curly hair, was not only stern, but also kind, his posture was solemn, stately and calm. The combination of physical beauty and kindness of soul emphasized his divine ideality. The statue made such an impression that, according to the ancient author, people, depressed by grief, sought consolation in contemplating the creation of Phidias. Rumor declared the statue of Zeus one of the “seven wonders of the world.”

The works of all three sculptors were similar in that they all depicted the harmony of a beautiful body and the kind soul contained in it. This was the main trend at the time.

Of course, norms and guidelines in Greek art changed throughout history. Archaic art was more straightforward; it lacked the deep meaning-filled understatement that delights humanity in the period of the Greek classics. In the Hellenistic era, when man lost his sense of the stability of the world, art lost its old ideals. It began to reflect the feelings of uncertainty about the future that reigned in the social trends of that time.

One thing united all periods of the development of Greek society and art: this, as M. Alpatov writes, was a special passion for plastic arts, for spatial arts. Such a predilection is understandable: huge reserves of a variety of colors, noble and ideal material - marble - provided ample opportunities for its implementation. Although most Greek sculptures were made in bronze, since marble was fragile, it was the texture of marble with its color and decorativeness that made it possible to reproduce the beauty of the human body with the greatest expressiveness. Therefore, most often “the human body, its structure and pliability, its harmony and flexibility attracted the attention of the Greeks; they willingly depicted the human body both naked and in light transparent clothing.”

Ancient Greek sculpture is a perfect creation of 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, a big role in this is played by the famous plaster casts, made according to ancient models for educational purposes on the initiative of I.V. Tsvetaev and laid the foundation for the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts. 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

Renaissance Italy took over the baton for preserving ancient Greek art from Ancient Rome. At this time, collecting ancient monuments began. And in the middle of the 18th century. German educator J. Winckelmann published the work “History of Ancient Art” - the first scientific study of monuments of ancient sculpture.

At the beginning of the 19th 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). Thanks 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), the processing of artistic material has been improved. 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. The desire for a truthful depiction of a living moving figure develops in the fight against 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 the fact that the general concept of the work must be embodied as a harmonious and rational whole, they derived a formula for 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, matching 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 a noticeable influence on all ancient art. His sculptures were copied and varied in all branches of the artistic craft of 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.