Ancient Greek Sculpture.

Images

Arhcaic –

Peplos Kore – lifesize – 530 BC

Sounion Kouros – 3m – 600BC

Moscophoros – lifesize – 530s

Classical

Kritias Boy – 480BC – smaller than life size

Harmodius and Astrogeiton, larger than lifesize, 477bc

Hellenistic

Ptolemy soter 1 – head – late 4th

Victory of Samothrace, larger than life, 3rd BC

Woman selling vegetables, 3rd bc

Is split into 3 major periods spanning 4 centuries

- Archaic 7th Century BC

- Classical 5th century
- Hellenistic 4th to 1st century

The archaic period sees the dissemination of ideas between different cultures, with ideas from
Ancient Egypt being spread amongst Greek artists. Most notably how the sculptures stand, they are
very similar to Egyptian styles. <picture on “travel brochure” with Egyptian sculpture and archaic
sculpture> their poses tend to be unnatural and static, legs straight and feet apart and flat.

The smile is the most easily recognisable characteristic of archaic sculpture – known as the “archaic
smile”. As with the rest of archaic sculpture, it is unnatural and flat and possibly used by artists to
suggest their subject is alive. Details in earlier archaic sculpture tended to be roughly incised on.
Generally, sculpture in the archaic period depicts religious imagery such as deities or votive
offerings.

From 480 onwards, Greek sculpture tends towards naturalism as opposed to the clunky archaic
period. Poses are far more naturalistic, with sculptures in naturally relaxed poses or depicting
movement and human anatomy is explored further rather than incised but subjects are depicted in
an idealised, youthful fashion.
This period introduces images of real people as opposed to myth and votive offerings, with the
tyrannicides thought to be the earliest depictions of real people. This is also the period where artists
start signing their work and we can group sculptures by their artists.

This period is followed by the Hellenistic period following the death of Alexander the great in 323BC.
It shares many features with the Classical period with a looking towards increasing naturalism and
subject type. Subjects such as common people, children and animals become more commonplace
during this period. Sculpture gets more dramatic in this period with bodies contorted into overtly
expressive positions and intense facial expressions. There is also a shift towards realistic portraiture
over the idealised youth.