Famous Greek sculptures. Sometimes I think

An interesting hypothesis regarding the ancient Greek miracle was found on the blog of sculptor Nigel Konstam: he believes that the ancient statues were casts of living people, since otherwise it is impossible to explain such a rapid transition from the production of static statues of the Egyptian type to the perfect realistic art of transmitting movement, which occurs between 500 and 450 BC.



Nigel confirms his hypothesis by examining the feet antique statues, comparing them with plaster prints and wax casts made from modern sitters standing in a given pose. The deformation of the material on the feet confirms his hypothesis that the Greeks did not make statues as before, but began to use casts of living people instead.
Konstama first learned about this hypothesis from the film “Athens. The Truth about Democracy,” searched for material on the Internet and this is what she found.

Nigel made a video explaining his hypothesis regarding the ancient casts and it can be viewed here http://youtu.be/7fe6PL7yTck in English.
But let's first look at the statues themselves.

Antique kouros statue from the archaic era, approximately 530 BC. seems constrained and tense, then contrapposto was not yet known - the free position of the figure when the balance of rest is created from movements opposite to each other.



Kouros, figure of a youth, early 5th century BC. looks a little more dynamic.

Warriors from Riace, statues from the second quarter of the 5th century BC. 197 cm tall - a rare find of original Greek sculpture from the classical period, most of which is known to us from Roman copies. In 1972, Roman engineer Stefano Mariotini, who was snorkeling, found them at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Italy.

These bronze figures were not cast entirely; their parts were fastened together like a construction set, which allows us to learn much more about the technique of creating sculptures of that time. Their pupils are made of gold paste, their eyelashes and teeth are made of silver, their lips and nipples are made of copper, and their eyes are made using bone and glass inlay techniques.
That is, in principle, as scientists have found out, some details of the statues could have been altered several times by casts from living models, albeit enlarged and improved.

It was in the process of studying the gravity-deformed feet of the Warriors from Riace that the sculptor Konstam came up with this idea of ​​​​casts that may have been used antique sculptors.

When watching the film "Athens. The Truth about Democracy" I was interested in how the rather fluffy sitter felt when the plaster mold was removed, because many who had to wear the plaster complained that it was painful to remove because they had to tear off their hair.

On the one hand, there are sources from which it is known that in Ancient Greece not only women, but also male athletes removed body hair.
On the other hand, it was their hairiness that distinguished them from women. It is not for nothing that in Aristophanes’ comedy “Women in the National Assembly” one of the heroines who decided to take away power from men says:
- And the first thing I did was throw away the razor.
Farther away, so that I can become rough and shaggy,
Don't look a bit like a woman.

It turns out that if men had their hair removed, it was most likely by those who were professionally involved in sports, and it was precisely such sitters that the sculptors needed.

However, I read about plaster and found out that even in ancient times there were ways to combat this phenomenon: when masks and casts were made, the sitters’ bodies were smeared with special oil ointments, thanks to which the plaster was removed painlessly, even if there was hair on the body. That is, the technique of making casts not only from a dead, but also from a living person in ancient times was indeed well known in Egypt, however, it was precisely the transfer of movement and copying of a person that was not considered beautiful there.

But for the Hellenes it’s beautiful human body, perfect in its nakedness, seemed to be the greatest value and object of worship. Perhaps that is why they did not see anything reprehensible in using casts from such a body to make works of art.



Phryne in front of the Areopagus. J.L. Jerome. 1861, Hamburg, Germany.
On the other hand, they could well accuse the sculptor of impiety and insulting the gods because he used a hetera as a model for the statue of the goddess. In the case of Praxiteles, Phryne was accused of atheism. But would a non-heterosexual agree to pose for him?
The Areopagus acquitted her in 340 BC, however, after, during a speech in her defense, the orator Hyperides presented the original - naked Phryne, pulling off her chiton and rhetorically asking how such beauty could be guilty. After all, the Greeks believed that a beautiful body has an equally beautiful soul.
It is possible that even before Praxiteles, goddesses were depicted naked, and the judges could have considered it wickedness that the goddess looked too much like Phryne, as if one to one, and accusing the hetaera herself of atheism was only a pretext? Maybe they knew or guessed about the possibilities of working with plaster casts of a living person? And then an unnecessary question could arise: who do they worship in the temple - Phryne or the goddess.

Using photography, a modern computer artist “revitalized” Phryne, that is, of course, the statue of Aphrodite of Knidos, and more specifically, her copy, since the original has not reached us.
And, as we know, the ancient Greeks painted statues, so it may well be that the hetaera could have looked like this if her skin had been slightly yellowish, for which, according to some sources, she was nicknamed Phryne.
Although in this case our contemporary is competing with Nicias, an artist, of course, and not a commander, to whom there is an incorrect link on Wikipedia. After all, when asked which of his works Praxiteles considered the best, according to legend, he answered that those painted by Nicias.
By the way, this phrase remained mysterious for many centuries for those who did not know or did not believe that completed greek sculptures were not white.
But it seems to me that the statue of Aphrodite itself was unlikely to be painted that way, because scientists claim that the Greeks painted them quite colorfully.

Rather, approximately the same way Apollo is painted from the exhibition The Motley Gods "Bunte Götter".

And imagine how strange the sitter felt when he saw people worshiping him in the form of a god.
Or not him, but his copy, which the artist proportionally enlarged, brightly colored and corrected minor physical inconsistencies and shortcomings in accordance with the canon of Polykleitos? It's your body, but bigger and better. Or is it no longer yours? Could he believe that the statue made of him was a statue of a god?

In one of the articles I also read about a huge number plaster blanks in an ancient Greek workshop for copies prepared for shipment to Rome, which were discovered by archaeologists. Maybe these were also casts of people, and not just statues?

I will not insist on Konstam’s hypothesis, which interested me: of course, specialists know better, but there is no doubt that ancient sculptors, like modern ones, used casts of living people and parts of their bodies. Can you really think that the ancient Greeks were so stupid that, knowing what gypsum was, they would not have guessed?
But do you think making copies of living people is art or deception?

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 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” - after the name of the sculptor’s work, where he, reasoning about the theory of art, examines 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. Goddess in the form beautiful woman- 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 magnificent works 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 of understatement that delights humanity in the period 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.”

Considering that sculpture is the oldest form of art, its connection with the cult of antiquity is inextricable. Perhaps the vast majority of surviving plastic images of the Stone Age are in one way or another connected with the cult and can be called “sculptures of the gods.” Later, when totemism replaced animism, sculptural images of gods became clearer and more pronounced.

Sculptural images of pagan gods are most often made in stone or carved from wood. Unfortunately, there is not much evidence of pagan culture left on the territory of Russia. Most often, in the museums of our country there are only individual specimens that are not very well preserved. Among them, the so-called Great Shigir Idol, made in the 8th millennium BC, is especially valuable. The date is impressive because the sculpture is older than the figures of the Egyptian gods, as well as sculptures from Mesopotamia.

Sculptures of Egyptian gods are known to everyone from pictures in school textbooks. The most monumental of them were once located in the temples of Luxor and Karnak, in the rock temples of the Nile Valley. full of all kinds of figurines and small sculptures of Anubis, Set, Horus, Isis, Osiris, etc. According to Egyptian tradition, all sculptures are depicted either sitting or taking a step forward (step into eternity). Ideally symmetrical faces, body proportions are strictly defined by the canon. Huge eyes (the Egyptians believed that one of the human souls lives in the eyes) make Egyptian sculptures expressive and spiritual.

Perhaps it was ancient culture that gave world culture the most highly artistic sacred sculptures. It is worth mentioning two masterpieces of the great Phidias - the sculptures of Athena Parthenos and Olympian Zeus. The second figure was preserved only in marble copies, which give an idea only of the appearance of the sculpture, devoid of its former grandeur and realism. The original statues of Athena and Zeus were made in the complex chrysoelephantine technique (a wooden base covered with thin gold plates (hair, clothing and weapons) and thin ivory plates (naked body parts)). The use of ivory made the sculpture unusually realistic, conveying the texture of white, translucent skin in warm shades, and the golden luster imparted majesty and a sense of the boundless power of the gods.

Sculptures of ancient gods decorate. you can see sculptures of Venus and Nike. Both sculptures were created in the second century BC. Different authors, different interpretations of images, different approaches. But the overall harmony, plasticity and skill make these sculptures masterpieces of ancient sculpture.

Interesting figure of resting Hermes ( National Museum Naples). Free, relaxed posture, peace and detachment on the face. There is nothing “divine” in the figure; only the winged sandals indicate that this is the god of trade, the patron of swindlers.

The Archaeological Museum in Athens is rightfully proud of the unique bronze sculpture of Poseidon, perfectly preserved in the sea, near Cape Artemison. This image, created in the Hellenistic era, is characterized by energy, internal tension and dynamics. A certain emotionality inherent in all Hellenistic sculptures makes the monument interesting for detailed study.

In terms of aesthetics and content, the sculptures of the Ancient gods actually repeat the works of Greek masters. The only merit of the Romans in sculpture is the realism of the images. Since most of the emperors were deified, in many sculptures of Mars, Jupiter and Neptune one can recognize some of the august rulers of the great empire.