Ancient Greek sculptors names. Sometimes I think

The art of Ancient Greece became the support and foundation on which the entire European civilization grew. The sculpture of Ancient Greece is a special topic. Without ancient sculpture there would be no brilliant masterpieces of the Renaissance, and the further development of this art is difficult to imagine. In the history of the development of Greek ancient sculpture, three large stages can be distinguished: archaic, classical and Hellenistic. Each one has something important and special. Let's look at each of them.

Archaic

This period includes sculptures created from the 7th century BC to the beginning of the 5th century BC. The era gave us figures of naked young warriors (kuros), as well as many female figures in clothes (koras). Archaic sculptures are characterized by some sketchiness and disproportion. On the other hand, each work of the sculptor is attractive for its simplicity and restrained emotionality. The figures of this era are characterized by a half-smile, which gives the works some mystery and depth.

"Goddess with Pomegranate", which is kept in the Berlin State Museum, is one of the best preserved archaic sculptures. Despite the external roughness and “wrong” proportions, the viewer’s attention is drawn to the hands of the sculpture, executed brilliantly by the author. The expressive gesture of the sculpture makes it dynamic and especially expressive.

"Kouros from Piraeus", which adorns the collection of the Athens Museum, is a later, and therefore more advanced, work of the ancient sculptor. Before the viewer is a powerful young warrior. A slight tilt of the head and hand gestures indicate a peaceful conversation that the hero is having. The disturbed proportions are no longer so striking. And the facial features are not as generalized as in early sculptures of the archaic period.

Classic

Most people associate sculptures of this particular era with ancient plastic art.

In the classical era, such famous sculptures as Athena Parthenos, Olympian Zeus, Discobolus, Doryphorus and many others were created. History has preserved for posterity the names of outstanding sculptors of the era: Polykleitos, Phidias, Myron, Scopas, Praxiteles and many others.

The masterpieces of classical Greece are distinguished by harmony, ideal proportions (which indicates excellent knowledge of human anatomy), as well as internal content and dynamics.

It is the classical period that is characterized by the appearance of the first nude female figures (the Wounded Amazon, Aphrodite of Cnidus), which give an idea of ​​the ideal of female beauty in the heyday of antiquity.

Hellenism

Late Greek antiquity is characterized by a strong Eastern influence on all art in general and on sculpture in particular. Complex angles, exquisite draperies, and numerous details appear.

Oriental emotionality and temperament penetrates the calm and majesty of the classics.

Aphrodite of Cyrene, decorating the Roman Museum of Baths, is full of sensuality, even some coquetry.

The most famous sculptural composition of the Hellenistic era is Laocoon and his sons of Agesander of Rhodes (the masterpiece is kept in one of). The composition is full of drama, the plot itself suggests strong emotions. Desperately resisting the snakes sent by Athena, the hero himself and his sons seem to understand that their fate is terrible. The sculpture is made with extraordinary precision. The figures are plastic and real. The faces of the characters make a strong impression on the viewer.

D The sculpture of Ancient Greece from the Classical era, the heyday of the polis, is characterized by the following features. The main object of the image is still the human figure. But compared to archaic sculpture, the image becomes more dynamic and anatomically correct. But the figures and faces of the sculptures are still devoid of individual features: these are generalized, abstract images of heavily armed warriors, athletes, athletes, gods and heroes.

Famous sculptors of Ancient Greece

The development of sculpture is directly related to the names of three famous sculptors of Ancient Greece - Myron, Polykleitos and Phidias.

Miron- sculptor of Ancient Greece of the 5th century. BC. worked in bronze. As an artist, his main task was to capture the moments of transition from one movement to another, to notice the culminating moments in these movements. For your famous "Disc thrower", with which we are familiar from a late Roman marble copy, is characterized by a careful, but somewhat generalized rendering of the anatomy of the human body, and the cold beauty of the lines of the figure. In it, Myron completely abandoned the solemn stillness of his model.

Another work of Miron is a group composition "Athena and Silenus Marsyas", installed on the Acropolis of Athens. In it, the artist tried to convey the culminating points of the movement of the human body: Athena, standing in a calm pose, throws the flute she invented, and the wild forest demon is shown in motion, he wants to grab the flute, but Athena stops him. The dynamics of the movement of Marcia's body are suppressed by the immobility and stiffness of the pose of the figure of the goddess Athena.

Polykleitos- another ancient Greek sculptor who also lived in the 5th century BC, he worked in Argos, Athens and Ephesus. He owns numerous images of winning athletes in marble and bronze. In his sculptures, Polykleitos was able to convey the appearance of idealized and courageous hoplite warriors, members of the civil militia of the polis. Polycletus also belongs "Diadumen"- a statue of a young man tying a winner's bandage around his head.

Another theme of his work is images of young warriors who embodied the idea of ​​valor as a citizen. For the heraion in Argos he created an ivory image of the goddess Hera. The sculptures of Polykleitos are characterized by proportionality, which was recognized by contemporaries as a standard.

Phidias- famous sculptor of Ancient Greece of the 5th century BC. He worked in Athens, and... Phidias took an active part in reconstruction in Athens. He was one of the leaders in the construction and decoration of the Parthenon. He created a 12 meter high statue of Athena for the Parthenon. The base of the statue is a wooden figure. Ivory plates were placed on the face and naked parts of the body. Clothing and weapons were covered with almost two tons of gold. This gold served as an emergency reserve in case of unforeseen financial crises.

The pinnacle of Phidias' creativity was his famous statue, 14 meters high. It depicted the Thunderer sitting on a richly decorated throne, his upper torso naked and his lower torso wrapped in a cloak. In one hand Zeus holds a statue of Nike, in the other a symbol of power - a rod. The statue was made of wood, the figure was covered with ivory plates, and the clothes were covered with thin gold sheets. Now you know what kind of sculptors there were in Ancient Greece.

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 a 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.

The 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 ones 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 spear-bearer (5th century BC), which is called "Doriphoros" ("Spear-bearer") or "Canon" - by name the works of the sculptor, where, discussing the theory of art, he 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 deeply 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.

Many 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 his 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.”

Literature:
1. Children's Encyclopedia, volume 12, second edition, M., "Enlightenment", 1968.
2. Bystrova A. N. “The world of culture, the foundations of cultural studies”
3. Polikarpov V.S. Lectures on cultural studies - M.: "Gardarika", "Expert Bureau", 1997
4. http://www.uic.ssu.samara.ru/~ancient/rus/g42s.htm - High classics. Sculpture.

Ancient Greece.

The first, archaic period of Ancient Greece is the VIII - VI centuries. BC. The sculpture of this period represented still imperfect forms: snubnoses - marble statues of young men with wide-open eyes, lowered hands, clenched into fists, also called archaic Apollos; kora - figures of graceful girls in long clothes and with beautiful curls on their heads. Only a few dozen such static sculptures by nameless authors have reached us.

The second, classical period in development is the V - IV centuries. BC. The sculptures and their Roman copies of the innovative sculptors of this time have been preserved. Pythagoras of Regia overcame staticity; his figures are characterized by emancipation and fixation of two movements - the initial one and the one in which they will find themselves in a moment. His works were vital and truthful, and this delighted his contemporaries. His famous sculpture “Boy Taking out a Splinter” (Palazzo in Rome) amazes with its realism and beauty of plasticity. We can judge about another great sculptor Myron only from a very damaged Roman copy of the bronze “Discobolus”. But Polykleitos went down in the history of the art of sculpture as a great innovator. He studied the human body for a long time and carefully, and in a toga, with mathematical precision, he calculated the proportions of its ideal, harmonic form and wrote a large treatise on his research called “The Canon.” According to the “Canon”, the length of a person’s foot should be a sixth of the height of the leg, the height of the head should be an eighth of the height, etc. As a sculptor, Polykleitos devoted his work to the problem of depicting movement in a moment of rest. The sculptures of a spearman (Doriphorus) and a youth with a victory ribbon (Diadumen) demonstrate the balance of energy created by chaism, another discovery of Polykleitos. Chaism – in Greek means “cruciform arrangement”. In sculpture, this is a standing human figure with the weight of the body transferred to one leg, where the raised hip corresponds to the lowered shoulder, and the lowered hip corresponds to the raised shoulder.

The ancient Greek sculptor Phidias became famous during his lifetime for creating a 13-meter statue of Zeus sitting on a cedar throne, and known as one of the seven wonders of the world. The main material used by Phidias was ivory; the body of the god was made from it, the cloak and shoes were made from pure gold, and the eyes were made from precious gems. This unsurpassed masterpiece of Phidias was destroyed in the fifth century AD by Catholic vandals. Phidias was one of the first to master the art of bronze casting, as well as the chryso-elephantine technique. He cast thirteen figures from bronze for the temple of Apollo of Delphi, and made the twenty-meter-tall Virgin Athena in the Parthenon from ivory and gold (chryso-elephantic sculpting technique). The third, Hellenistic period, covered the 4th-1st centuries. BC. In the monarchical system of the Hellenistic states, a new worldview arose, and after it a new trend in sculpture - portrait and allegorical statues.

Pergamon, Rhodes, Alexandria and Antioch became centers of sculptural art. The most famous is the Pergamon school of sculpture, which is characterized by pathos and emphasized dramatic images. For example, the monumental frieze of the Pergamon Altar depicts the battle of the gods with the sons of the Earth (giants). The figures of the dying giants are full of despair and suffering, while the figures of the Olympians, on the contrary, express calmness and inspiration. The famous statue of the Nike of Samothrace was erected by the sea on a cliff on the island of Samothrace as a symbol of the victory of the Rhodes fleet in the battle of 306 BC. The classical traditions of sculptural creativity are embodied in the statue of Agesander “Aphrodite de Milo”. He managed to avoid affectation and sensuality in the depiction of the goddess of love and show high moral strength in the image.

The island of Rhodes was glorified by the sculpture “Laocoon”, the authors of which were Agesander, Athenadorus and Polydorus. The sculptural group in their work depicts a pathetic scene from one of the myths of the cycle. The 32-meter gilded bronze statue of the god Helios, which once stood at the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes and was called the “Colossus of Rhodes,” is also called one of the seven wonders of the world. Twelve years were spent creating this miracle by Lysippos' student Chares. Lysippos, by the way, is one of the sculptors of that era who very accurately knew how to capture a moment in human action. His works have reached us and become known: “Apoximen” (a young man removing dirt from his body after a competition) and a sculptural portrait (bust). In “Apoximenos” the author showed physical harmony and inner refinement, and in his portrait of Alexander the Great - greatness and courage.

Greece reached its highest point of economic, political and cultural growth in the middle of the 5th century. BC. after the victory won by the alliance of Greek cities over powerful Persia.
The style of Greek classics combines sensual spontaneity and rationality.
"We love beauty without whimsicality and wisdom without effeminacy"- said Pericles. The Greeks valued rationality, balance and moderation, but at the same time they recognized the power of passions and sensual joys.
When we now say “ancient art,” we imagine museum halls filled with statues and the walls hung with fragments of reliefs. But then everything looked different. Although the Greeks had special buildings for storing paintings (pinakotheks), the vast majority of works of art did not lead a museum lifestyle. The statues stood in the open air, illuminated by the sun, near temples, in squares, on the seashore; processions and festivals and sports games took place near them. As in the archaic era, the sculpture became colorful. The world of art was a living, bright world, but more perfect.

Greek sculpture partially survived in debris and fragments. Most of the statues are known to us from Roman copies, which were made in large numbers, but often did not convey the beauty of the originals. The Romans converted bronze items into snow-white marble, but the marble of Greek statues itself was different - yellowish, luminous (it was rubbed with wax, which gave it a warm tone).
Battles, skirmishes, exploits of heroes... The art of the early classics is replete with these warlike subjects. For example, famous examples of Greek sculpture in treasury of Sifnos at Delphi. The northern frieze of which is dedicated to gigantomachy: the battle of the gods with the Giants. Hephaestus blows a forge to raise the winds against the Giants, Cybele drives a chariot drawn by lions, one of which torments the Giant. Twins Artemis and Apollo fight side by side...

Another favorite set of motives is sports competitions. Themes of hand-to-hand combat, equestrian competitions, running competitions, and discus throwing taught sculptors to depict the human body in dynamics. Now complex poses, bold angles, and sweeping gestures appear. The brightest innovator was Attic sculptor Myron.This is his famous "Discus thrower". The athlete bent over and swung before throwing, a second - and the disc will fly, the athlete will straighten up. But for that second his body froze in a very difficult, but balanced position.

Bronze statue "Auriga", found at Delphi, is one of the few well-preserved Greek originals. It dates from the early period of the strict style - approximately ca. 470 BC This young man stands very straight (he stood on a chariot and drove a quadriga of horses), his legs are bare, the folds of his long chiton are reminiscent of the deep flutes of Doric columns, his head is tightly covered with a silvered bandage, his inlaid eyes look as if they were alive. He is restrained, calm and at the same time full of energy and will. Like any outstanding sculpture, "Auriga" from different angles reveals completely different degrees of concentration and facets of conveying emotions. In this one bronze figure with its strong, cast plastic one can feel the full measure of human dignity, as the ancient Greeks understood it.

Their art at this stage was dominated by masculine images, but, fortunately, a beautiful relief depicting Aphrodite emerging from the sea was preserved - a sculptural triptych, the upper part of which was broken off.

In the central part, the goddess of beauty and love, “foam-born,” rises from the waves, supported by two nymphs, who chastely protect her with a light veil. It is visible from the waist up. Her body and the bodies of the nymphs are visible through transparent tunics, the folds of clothes cascade like streams of water, like music. On the side parts of the triptych there are two female figures: one nude, playing the flute; the other, wrapped in a veil, lights a sacrificial candle. The first is a hetaera, the second is a wife, the keeper of the hearth, like two faces of femininity, both under the protection of Aphrodite.

The Greeks' admiration for the beauty and wise structure of the living body was great. Body language was also the language of the soul. The Greeks mastered the art of conveying “typical” psychology; they expressed a rich range of mental movements based on generalized human types. It is no coincidence that portraiture in Ancient Greece was relatively poorly developed.

The great mastery achieved by Greek art in the 5th century is still alive in the 4th century, so that the most inspired artistic monuments of the late classics are marked with the same stamp of supreme perfection.

Scopas, Praxiteles and Lysippos- the greatest Greek sculptors of the late classics. In terms of the influence they had on the entire subsequent development of ancient art, the work of these three geniuses can be compared with the sculptures of the Parthenon. Each of them expressed their bright individual worldview, their ideal of beauty, their understanding of perfection, which through the personal, revealed only by them, reach eternal - universal, peaks. Moreover, again, in the work of each, this personal thing is in tune with the era, embodying those feelings, those desires of his contemporaries, which most corresponded to his own. The spiritual resilience and vigorous energy that breathes the art of early and mature classics gradually give way to the dramatic pathos of Skopas or the lyrical contemplation of Prakitel.
Artists of the 4th century attracted for the first time by the charm of childhood, the wisdom of old age, the eternal charm of femininity.

Praxiteles was famous for his special softness of sculpting and skill in processing the material, his ability to convey the warmth of a living body in cold marble. The only surviving original of Praxiteles is considered to be a marble statue "Hermes with Dionysus", found in Olympia.
There are almost as few original works of the chisel Skopas left, but even behind these fragments one breathes passion and impulse, anxiety, struggle with some hostile forces, deep doubts and sorrowful experiences. All this was obviously characteristic of his nature and at the same time clearly expressed certain moods of his time. The reliefs of the frieze of the mausoleum in Halicarnassus (Asia Minor) have been partially preserved.

"Maenad" enjoyed great fame among his contemporaries. Skopas depicted a storm of Dionysian dance, straining the entire body of the Maenad, arching her torso, throwing back her head. The Mysteries of Dionysus were allowed to be held only once every two years and only on Parnassus, but at that time the frantic bacchantes discarded all conventions and prohibitions.
These celebrations were a very ancient custom, like the cult of Dionysus itself, but in art the elements had not previously broken through with such force and openness as in the statue of Skopas, and this, obviously, was a symptom of the times.

Lysippos created sculptures in complex movements, counting on walking around the statue in a circle, processing their surfaces with equal care. The reversal of a figure in space was an innovative achievement of Lysippos. He was inexhaustibly diverse in the invention of plastic motifs and very prolific. Working exclusively in bronze, Lysippos preferred male figures in terms of subject matter; His favorite hero was Hercules.
Not a single original work of the sculptor has survived, but there are quite a large number of copies and repetitions that give an approximate idea of ​​the master's style.
Other sculptors tried to maintain the traditions of mature classics, enriching them with greater grace and complexity.

This was the path followed by Leochares, who created the statue of Apollo Belvedere. For a long time, this sculpture was assessed as the pinnacle of ancient art; the “Belvedere idol” was synonymous with aesthetic perfection. As often happens, the high praise over time caused the opposite reaction. They began to find her pompous and mannered. Meanwhile Apollo Belvedere- the work is truly outstanding in its plastic merits; the figure and gait of the ruler of the muses combines strength and grace, energy and lightness, walking on the ground, he at the same time soars above the ground. To achieve such an effect, the sculptor's sophisticated skill was needed; the only trouble is that the calculation for the effect is too obvious. Apollo Leochara seems to invite one to admire his beauty, and even in the era of late classics, virtuoso performance was highly valued.