There are many common features that interrelated the art of various fields, from the 4th to the 1st century BC. In those ancient times, it embodied a new idea of the greatness of the world, which also found its manifestation in the sculpture of ancient Hellas.
By the end of the 4th century BC, the ancient world, in which internal contradictions were present, practically outlived its usefulness. Borders, peoples and cultures changed - a new era was dawning. The times of ancient Hellas are known for their fantastic projects: mountains turned into cities, such giants as the copper Colossus of Rhodes appeared in the bay of the island of Rhodes. The desire to comprehend the world of the gods, to go beyond a simple human understanding - one of the most characteristic features of the sculpture of that era.
The Hellenes, in their cultural development, followed an independent path, which is why the sculptural and architectural images they created were so sincere and sublime. The mythological basis of the sculpture of ancient Greece was a close connection with the ordinary life of ordinary free citizens. She had an educational and ennobling orientation. Many masters of that time were excited by the idea of a perfect, beautiful, harmoniously developed man and his image in art. This is, first of all, felt in the ancient sculptures created by one of the greatest masters - Polycletus of Argos. In the works of Polycletus, the main stylistic features of the sculpture of ancient Hellas are their true embodiment: calmness, stability of poses, large planes, collection of images.
In his works, Polycletus is rather restrained. The images in his sculptures are intimate, slightly provincial. Such is his statue of Kinisk, the victorious youth of Kinisk, who froze, putting on his head the laurel wreath he received as a reward. Such portrait compositions have something in common with philosophical reflections on the character of the ideal person. The sculptors of ancient Hellas expressed wisdom and perfection through plastics. The talent of Polykleitos could be fully revealed in the statue of Dorifor the Spear-bearer. In the composite image of a warrior, athlete and just a valiant citizen.
This one presents a young man, the winner of the competition. He is depicted with a long spear on his shoulder in a calm standing position. The sculpture does not contain the features of symmetry of the ancient Apollo, who timidly stepped forward with their left foot. Realized his strength and perfection, which became a solid support for him. Quite mature, one might even say serial, the work of Polycletus conveys the ideas of high classicism of sculpture in ancient Greece. Turning to the popular in those days image of the winner in throwing javelins, just like Miron in his sculpture of the Discobolus, he created a non-individualized portrait of an athlete. Despite the fact that in the image of Dorifor the sculptor started from the image of a completely real person (an athlete who won the competition), he managed to create a typed monument that carries the idea of victory.
Dorifor became an example for many sculptors of ancient Greece in depicting a person. During the work on the sculpture, the master was able to reveal the proportionality of forms, which is inherent in the structure of the male figure. It is believed that the basis of the proportions of the spear-bearer Polycletus put a certain modular value, a certain number of times fit into various elements of the sculpture - arms, legs, head, torso. This module was either the phalanx of the spearman's finger, or the width of his palm, no one can reliably establish this today. Thanks to the use of the module, Polycletus managed to create a sculpture with ideal, in the opinion of his ancient contemporaries, proportions. Based on the Roman copies that have come down to us, this statue seems somewhat heavy, and sometimes even too stocky compared to the Greek sculptures of subsequent centuries. It was in this that the hand of the master of sculpture of ancient Hellas manifested itself, in the ancient monuments left to us forever, the courage and physical perfection of a person was emphasized.
One of the recognized masterpieces of ancient Hellas is the group of sculptures "Laocoon and His Sons", created by three sculptors: Athenodorus, Agesander, and Polydorus. The gods sent two huge snakes to the Trojan priest Laocoon and his offspring. Laocoon tries to rip off his serpentine chains, poison spreads over his body. The ancient sculpture is masterly executed. The anatomy of the human body (father) is carefully conveyed, it sometimes comes to naturalism, and the figures of his offspring resemble pitiful adults.
Another masterpiece of the art of ancient Greece is the sculpture of the goddess - this is Nike of Samothrace, created in the second century BC. The sculpture is depicted flying off the pedestal in the form of the stern of the ship. Her beautiful body in wet clothes is shown in a half-turn, which was widely used at that time. The goddess's powerful wings flutter, each feather carved with great care. By the poetry of the image, this ancient sculpture surpasses all previously created.
In addition to ideas about the greatness and grandeur of the world, the sculpture of ancient Hellas also developed in a different direction. The best example of this kind of sculpture is "Venus de Milo", found on the territory of the modern peninsula of Melos. The sculpture depicts a half-naked goddess, her clothes enveloping her legs and torso, her arms are shown in motion. In the era of ancient Greece, Aphrodite was the most beloved goddess. She was portrayed as flirtatious, then brooding, and sometimes even playful. Aphrodite from the island of Melos is strict and restrained, her hair is gathered in a hairstyle with a clear straight parting, and the sculptor's beautiful face and figure are shown in a rather generalized way. Her whole posture, facial expression and gaze evoke peace and tranquility.
MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY OF PRINT
Faculty of Artistic and Technical Design of Printed Products
"Antique sculpture"
Department of History and Cultural Studies
Lecturer: Assoc. Bobrova V.D.
Student: Mikhailova A.P. 1 course, group 2
Moscow 2002
INTRODUCTION
Antique (from the Latin word antiques-ancient) was called by the Italian humanists of the Renaissance the Greco-Roman culture, as the earliest known to them. And this name has been preserved for her to this day, although more ancient cultures have been discovered since then. Preserved as a synonym for classical antiquity, that is, the world in the bosom of which our European civilization arose. Preserved as a concept that precisely separates the Greco-Roman culture from the cultural worlds of the Ancient East.
The creation of a generalized human image, elevated to the perfect standard of the unity of his bodily and spiritual beauty, is almost the only theme of art and the main quality of Greek culture as a whole. This provided Greek culture with a rare artistic force and key importance for world culture in the future.
Ancient Greek culture had a huge impact on the development of European civilization. Achievements Greek art partially formed the basis of the aesthetic representations of subsequent eras. Without Greek philosophy, especially Plato and Aristotle, the development of either medieval theology or the philosophy of our time would have been impossible. The Greek education system has survived to this day in its basic features. Ancient Greek mythology and literature has inspired poets, writers, artists, composers for many centuries. It is difficult to overestimate the influence of antique sculpture on the sculptors of subsequent eras.
The significance of ancient Greek culture is so great that it is not for nothing that we call the times of its flourishing the “golden age” of mankind. And now, thousands of years later, we admire the ideal proportions of architecture, unsurpassed creations of sculptors, poets, historians, scientists. This culture is the most humane, it still gives people wisdom, beauty and courage to this day.
Periods into which it is customary to divide the history and art of the ancient world.
Ancient period- Aegean culture: III millennium-XI century. BC e.
Homeric and early archaic periods: XI-VIII centuries. BC e.
Archaic period: VII-VI centuries. BC e.
Classic period: from the V century. until the last third of the 4th century. BC e.
Hellenistic period: the last third of the 4th-1st centuries. BC e.
The period of development of the tribes of Italy; Etruscan culture: VIII-II centuries. BC e.
The royal period of ancient Rome: VIII-VI centuries. BC e.
Republican period of Ancient Rome: V-I centuries. BC e.
The imperial period of ancient Rome: I-V centuries. n. e.
In my work, I would like to consider Greek sculpture of the archaic, classical and late classical periods, sculpture of the Hellenistic period, as well as Roman sculpture.
Greek art developed under the influence of three very different cultural streams:
the Aegean, apparently still retaining vitality in Asia Minor and whose light breath met the spiritual needs of the ancient Hellene at all periods of his development;
Dorian, conquering (generated by the wave of the northern Dorian invasion), inclined to introduce strict adjustments in the tradition of the style that arose in Crete, to moderate the free imagination and unrestrained dynamism of the Cretan decorative pattern (already greatly simplified in Mycenae) with the simplest geometric schematization, stubborn, rigid and imperious;
eastern, which brought young Hellas, as before to Crete, samples of the artistic creativity of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the complete concreteness of plastic and pictorial forms, its remarkable fine art.
For the first time in the history of the world, the artistic work of Hellas established realism as the absolute norm of art. But not realism in exact copying of nature, but in the completion of what nature could not accomplish. So, following the outlines of nature, art should strive for that perfection, which she only hinted at, but which she herself did not achieve.
At the end of the 7th-beginning of the 6th century. BC e. A famous shift is taking place in Greek art. In vase painting, the main attention is paid to a person, and his image takes on more and more real features. The plotless ornament is losing its former meaning. At the same time - and this is an event of great importance - a monumental sculpture appears, the main theme of which is, again, a person.
From that moment on, Greek fine art firmly embarks on the path of humanism, where it was destined to win unfading glory.
On this path, art for the first time acquires a special purpose inherent only in it. Its purpose is not to reproduce the figure of the deceased in order to provide a salutary shelter for his "Ka", not to assert the inviolability of the established power in monuments that exalt this power, not to magically influence the forces of nature embodied by the artist in concrete images. The goal of art is to create beauty that is equivalent to good, is equivalent to the spiritual and physical perfection of a person. And if we talk about the educational value of art, then it grows immeasurably. For the ideal beauty created by art gives rise to a striving for self-improvement in a person.
To quote Lessing: "Where beautiful statues appeared thanks to beautiful people, these, the latter, in turn, impressed the former, and the state owed beautiful statues to beautiful people."
The first surviving Greek sculptures still clearly reflect the influence of Egypt. Frontality and at first timid overcoming of stiffness of movements - with the left leg extended forward or with the hand applied to the chest. These stone statues, most often of marble, which Hellas is so rich in, have an inexplicable charm. They show a youthful breath, inspired by the impulse of the artist, touching his belief that by persistent and painstaking effort, constant improvement of his skills, one can completely master the material provided to him by nature.
On a marble colossus (early 6th century BC), four times the height of a man, we read a proud inscription: "All of me, the statue and the pedestal, were removed from one block."
Whom do the antique statues represent?
These are naked young men (kuros), athletes, winners in competitions. These are bark - young women in tunics and raincoats.
A significant feature: even at the dawn of Greek art, sculptural images of gods differ, and even then not always, from images of a person only by emblems. So in the same statue of a young man, we sometimes tend to recognize either just an athlete or Phoebus-Apollo himself, the god of light and arts.
... So, the early archaic statues still reflect the canons worked out in Egypt or Mesopotamia.
Frontal and imperturbable is the tall kouros, or Apollo, sculptured around 600 BC. e. (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art). His face is framed by long hair, cunningly woven "in a cage", like a hard wig, and it seems to us that he stretched out in front of us for show, flaunting the excessive width of the angular shoulders, the straight motionlessness of the arms and the smooth narrowness of the hips.
Statue of Hera from the island of Samos, executed, probably at the very beginning of the second quarter of the 6th century. BC e. (Paris, Louvre). In this marble, we are captivated by the majesty of the figure, sculpted from the bottom to the waist in the form of a round pillar. Frozen, calm majesty. Life is hardly guessed under the strictly parallel folds of the tunic, under the decoratively arranged folds of the cloak.
And this is what else distinguishes the art of Hellas on the path he discovered: the amazing speed of improving the methods of depiction together with a radical change in the style of art itself. But not like in Babylonia, and certainly not at all like in Egypt, where the style changed slowly over the millennia.
Mid-6th century BC e. Only a few decades separate "Apollo of the Shadow" (Munich, Glyptotek) from the previously mentioned statues. But how much more lively and graceful the figure of this young man, already illuminated by beauty! He had not yet moved from his place, but he was already all ready to move. The contour of the hips and shoulders is softer, more measured, and his smile is perhaps the most radiant, innocently exultant in the archaic.
The famous "Moschophor" which means "calf-bearer" (Athens, National Archaeological Museum). This is a young Hellene bringing a calf to the altar of a deity. Hands holding the legs of an animal resting on his shoulders to his chest, a cruciform combination of these hands and these legs, a meek muzzle of a doomed calf, a pensive gaze of a donor filled with indescribable words of significance - all this creates a very harmonious, internally inseparable whole that delights us its complete harmony, musicality sounded in marble.
"Rampen's Head" (Paris, Louvre), named after its first owner (the Athens Museum keeps a separate headless marble bust, which seems to fit the Louvre head). This is the image of the winner in the competition, as evidenced by the wreath. The smile is a little strained, but playful. Very carefully and elegantly designed hairstyle. But the main thing in this image is a slight turn of the head: this is already a violation of frontality, liberation in movement, a timid harbinger of true freedom.
The "Strangford" kouros of the end of the 6th century is magnificent. BC e. (London, British Museum). His smile seems triumphant. But is it not because his body is so slender and almost freely appears before us in all its courageous, conscious beauty?
We were more fortunate with the barks than with the kuros. In 1886, fourteen marble barks were excavated from the earth by archaeologists. Buried by the Athenians during the destruction of their city by the Persian army in 480 BC. e., the barks partially retained their color (variegated and by no means naturalistic).
Together, these statues give us a visual representation of Greek sculpture second half of the 6th century BC e. (Athens, Acropolis Museum).
Either mysterious and soulful, now ingenuous and even naive, now the barks are obviously smiling coquettishly. Their figures are slender and stately, their pretentious hairstyles are rich. We saw that the statues of the kouros of their day are gradually being freed from their former stiffness: the naked body has become more lively and harmonious. Progress is no less significant in the female statues: the folds of the robes are arranged more and more skillfully in order to convey the movement of the figure, the thrill of life of the draped body.
Persistent perfection in realism - this is what is perhaps the most characteristic of the development of all Greek art of that time. His deep spiritual unity overcame the stylistic characteristics of the various regions of Greece.
The whiteness of marble seems to us inseparable from the very ideal of beauty embodied in Greek stone sculpture. The warmth of the human body shines for us through this whiteness, miraculously revealing all the softness of modeling and, according to the idea rooted in us, ideally in harmony with the noble inner restraint, the classical clarity of the image of human beauty created by the sculptor.
Yes, this whiteness is captivating, but it is generated by time, which restored the natural color of marble. Time changed the appearance of the Greek statues, but did not disfigure them. For the beauty of these statues, as it were, pours out from their very soul. Time only illuminated this beauty in a new way, subtracting something in it, and something involuntarily and emphasizing. But in comparison with those works of art that the ancient Hellene admired, the antique reliefs and statues that have come down to us in something very significant are still deprived of time, and therefore our very idea of Greek sculpture is incomplete.
Like the nature of Hellas itself, Greek art was bright and colorful. Bright and joyful, it festively shone in the sun in a variety of its color combinations, echoing the gold of the sun, purple of the sunset, blue warm sea and the greenery of the surrounding hills.
The architectural details and sculptural decorations of the temples were brightly colored, which gave the whole building an elegant and festive look. The rich coloring enhanced the realism and expressiveness of the images - although, as we know, the colors were not chosen in exact accordance with reality, - attracted and amused the eye, made the image even clearer, more understandable and close. And almost all antique sculpture that has come down to us has completely lost this color.
Greek art of the late 6th and early 5th century BC e. remains essentially archaic. Even the majestic Doric temple of Poseidon in Paestum, with its well-preserved colonnade, built of limestone already in the second quarter of the 5th century, does not show the complete liberation of architectural forms. Massiveness and stockiness, characteristic of archaic architecture, determine its general appearance.
The same applies to the sculpture of the Temple of Athena on the island of Aegina, built after 490 BC. e. Its famous pediments were decorated with marble statues, some of which have come down to us (Munich, Glyptotek).
In earlier pediments, sculptors arranged the figures in a triangle, changing their scale accordingly. The figures of the Aeginian pediments are of one scale (only Athena herself is higher than the others), which already marks significant progress: those closer to the center stand at full height, the side ones are depicted kneeling and lying. The plots of these harmonious compositions are borrowed from the Iliad. The individual figures are beautiful, such as the wounded warrior and the bowstring archer. Undoubted success has been achieved in the emancipation of movements. But it is felt that this success was given with difficulty, that this is just a test. An archaic smile still wanders strangely on the faces of the fighting. The whole composition is not yet coherent enough, too emphatically symmetrical, not inspired by a single free breath.
THE GREAT FLOWER
Alas, we cannot boast of a sufficient knowledge of Greek art of this and subsequent, most brilliant period. After all, almost all Greek sculpture of the 5th century. BC e. died. So, according to the later Roman marble copies from the lost, mainly bronze, originals, we are often forced to judge the work of great geniuses, equal to whom it is difficult to find in the entire history of art.
We know, for example, that Pythagoras of Regia (480-450 BC) was the most famous sculptor. By the emancipation of his figures, which include, as it were, two movements (the original and the one in which part of the figure will appear in a moment), he powerfully contributed to the development of the realistic art of sculpting.
Contemporaries admired his finds, the vitality and truthfulness of his images. But, of course, the few Roman copies of his works that have come down to us (like, for example, “The Boy Taking Out a Thorn.” Rome, Palazzo of the Conservatives) are insufficient to fully appreciate the work of this courageous innovator.
The now world famous "Charioteer" is a rare specimen of bronze sculpture, an accidentally surviving fragment of a group composition performed around 450 BC. A slender youth, like a column that has taken on a human form (the strictly vertical folds of his robe further enhance this resemblance). The straightness of the figure is somewhat archaic, but its general late nobility already expresses the classical ideal. This is the winner of the competition. He confidently leads the chariot, and such is the power of art that we guess the enthusiastic cries of the crowd that amuse his soul. But, full of courage and courage, he is restrained in his triumph - his beautiful features are imperturbable. A modest, albeit aware of his victory, a young man, illuminated by glory. This image is one of the most captivating in world art. But we don't even know the name of its creator.
In the 70s of the XIX century, German archaeologists undertook excavations of Olympia in the Peloponnese. In ancient times, there were common Greek sports events, the famous Olympic Games, according to which the Greeks reckoned. The Byzantine emperors banned the games and destroyed Olympia with all its temples, altars, porticoes and stadiums.
The excavations were enormous: for six years in a row, hundreds of workers uncovered a huge area covered with centuries-old sediment. The results exceeded all expectations: one hundred and thirty marble statues and bas-reliefs, thirteen thousand bronze objects, six thousand coins / up to a thousand inscriptions, thousands of clay products were excavated from the ground. It is gratifying that almost all the monuments were left in place and, although dilapidated, now flaunt under their usual sky, on the same land where they were created.
The metopes and pediments of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia are undoubtedly the most significant of the surviving sculptures of the second quarter of the 5th century. BC e. To understand the huge shift that has taken place in art in this short time - only about thirty years, it is enough to compare, for example, the western pediment of the Olympic temple and the Aegina pediments, which are quite similar to it in terms of the general compositional scheme, which we have already considered. Both here and there - a high central figure, on the sides of which small groups of fighters are evenly located.
The plot of the Olympic pediment: the battle of the Lapiths with the centaurs. According to Greek mythology, centaurs (half-humans, half-horses) tried to kidnap the wives of the mountain inhabitants of the Lapiths, but they saved the wives and destroyed the centaurs in a fierce battle. This plot has already been used more than once by Greek artists (in particular, in vase painting) as the personification of the triumph of culture (represented by the Lapiths) over barbarism, over the same dark power of the Beast in the image of the finally defeated kicking centaur. After the victory over the Persians, this mythological battle took on a special sound on the Olympic pediment.
No matter how mutilated the marble sculptures of the pediment are, this sound completely reaches us - and it is grandiose! Because, unlike the Aeginian pediments, where the figures are not organically welded together, everything here is imbued with a single rhythm, a single breath. Along with the archaic style, the archaic smile has completely disappeared. Apollo reigns over the hot battle, leading the outcome. Only he, the god of light, is calm in the midst of a storm raging nearby, where every gesture, every face, every impulse complement each other, making up a single, indissoluble whole, beautiful in its harmony and full of dynamism.
The majestic figures of the eastern pediment and the metope of the Olympic temple of Zeus are also internally balanced. We do not know the exact name of the sculptors (there were, apparently, several) who created these sculptures, in which the spirit of freedom celebrates its triumph over the archaic.
The classical ideal is victoriously affirmed in sculpture. Bronze becomes the sculptor's favorite material, for metal is more submissive than stone and in it it is easier to give a figure any position, even the most daring, instantaneous, sometimes even “fictitious”. And this by no means violates realism. After all, as we know, the principle of Greek classical art is the reproduction of nature, creatively corrected and supplemented by the artist, who reveals in it somewhat more than what the eye sees. After all, Pythagoras of Regia did not sin against realism, capturing two different movements in a single image! ..
The great sculptor Miron, who worked in the middle of the 5th century. BC. in Athens, created a statue that had a huge impact on the development of the visual arts. This is his bronze "Discobolus", known to us from several marble Roman copies, so damaged that only a combination of them
allowed to somehow recreate the lost image.
A discus thrower (otherwise, a discus thrower) is captured at the moment when, throwing back his hand with a heavy disk, he is ready to throw it into the distance. This is the culmination moment, it visually foreshadows the next, when the disc flies up in the air, and the figure of the athlete straightens in a jerk: an instant gap between two powerful movements, as if connecting the present with the past and the future. The muscles of the disco ball are extremely tense, the body is bent, and meanwhile his young face is completely calm. Wonderful creative daring! A tense facial expression would probably be more believable, but the nobility of the image is in this contrast of physical impulse and peace of mind.
"Just as the depth of the sea remains always calm, no matter how much the sea rages on the surface, in the same way the images created by the Greeks reveal a great and firm soul among all the excitements of passion." This is what the famous German art historian Winckelmann, the true founder of the scientific study of the artistic heritage of the ancient world, wrote two centuries ago. And this does not contradict what we said about the wounded heroes of Homer, who filled the air with their groans. Let us recall Lessing's judgments about the boundaries of fine art in poetry, his words that "the Greek artist did not depict anything but beauty." So it was, of course, in the era of great prosperity.
But what is beautiful in the description may seem ugly in the image (the elders looking at Elena!). And therefore, he also notes, the Greek artist reduced his anger to severity: with the poet, an angry Zeus throws lightning bolts, with the artist, he is only strict.
The tension would distort the features of a disco ball, would violate the bright beauty of the ideal image of an athlete confident in his strength, courageous and physically perfect citizen of his polis, as Miron presented him in his statue.
In the art of Myron, sculpture has mastered movement, no matter how complex it may be.
The art of another great sculptor - Polycletus - establishes the balance of the human figure at rest or at a slow pace with an emphasis on one leg and, accordingly, a raised hand. An example of such a figure is his famous
"Dorifor" - a youth-spear-bearer (marble Roman copy from a bronze original. Naples, National Museum). In this image there is a harmonious combination of ideal physical beauty and spirituality: the young athlete, who, of course, also personifies a beautiful and valiant citizen, seems to us deep in his thoughts - and his whole figure is full of purely Hellenic classical nobility.
This is not only a statue, but a canon in the exact sense of the word.
Polyclet set out to accurately determine the proportions of the human figure, consistent with his idea of ideal beauty. Here are some of the results of his calculations: head - 1/7 of the total height, face and hand - 1/10, foot - 1/6. However, to his contemporaries, his figures seemed "square", too massive. The same impression, in spite of all its beauty, is made on us by his "Dorifor".
Polycletus expounded his thoughts and conclusions in a theoretical treatise (which has not come down to us), to which he gave the name "Canon"; the same name in ancient times and the very "Dorifor", sculpted in strict accordance with the treatise.
Polycletus created relatively few sculptures, all absorbed in his theoretical works. In the meantime, he studied the "rules" that determine the beauty of man, his younger contemporary, Hippocrates, the greatest physician of antiquity, devoted his whole life to the study of the physical nature of man.
To fully reveal all the possibilities of man - this was the goal of art, poetry, philosophy and science of this great era. Never before in the history of the human race has the consciousness entered so deeply into the soul that man is the crown of nature. We already know that a contemporary of Polycletus and Hippocrates, the great Sophocles, solemnly proclaimed this truth in his tragedy "Antigone".
Man crowns nature - this is what the monuments of Greek art of the heyday claim, depicting man in all his valor and beauty.
Voltaire called the era of the greatest cultural prosperity of Athens "the age of Pericles". The concept of "century" here should not be understood literally, because we are talking only about several decades. But in terms of its significance, this short period in terms of history deserves such a definition.
The highest glory of Athens, the radiant radiance of this city in world culture is inextricably linked with the name of Pericles. He cared about the decoration of Athens, patronized all the arts, attracted the best artists to Athens, was a friend and patron of Phidias, whose genius probably marks the highest stage in the entire artistic heritage of the ancient world.
First of all, Pericles decided to restore the Athenian Acropolis, destroyed by the Persians, or rather, on the ruins of the old Acropolis, still archaic, to create a new one, expressing the artistic ideal of completely liberated Hellenism.
The Acropolis in Hellas was the same as the Kremlin in Ancient Rus: an urban stronghold that enclosed churches and other public institutions within its walls and served as a refuge for the surrounding population during the war.
The famous Acropolis is the Athenian Acropolis with its Parthenon and Erechtheion temples and the Propylaea buildings, the greatest monuments of Greek architecture. Even in their dilapidated form, they still make an indelible impression to this day.
This is how the famous Russian architect A.K. Burov: “I climbed the zigzags of the approach ... passed through the portico - and stopped. Straight ahead and somewhat to the right, on the blue marble rock, covered with cracks, billowing up the hill - the platform of the Acropolis, the Parthenon rose and floated towards me, as if from boiling waves. I do not remember how long I stood motionless ... The Parthenon, remaining unchanged, continuously changed ... I came closer, I walked around it and went inside. I stayed near him, in him and with him all day. The sun was setting in the sea. The shadows fell perfectly horizontally, parallel to the seams of the marble walls of the Erechtheion.
Green shadows thickened under the Parthenon's portico. The last time a reddish sheen slipped away and faded away. The Parthenon is dead. Together with Phoebus. Until next day. "
We know who destroyed the old Acropolis. We know who blew up and who destroyed the new one, erected by the will of Pericles.
It is terrible to say that these new barbaric acts, which aggravated the destructive work of time, were not committed at all in ancient times and not even out of religious fanaticism, such as, for example, the savage defeat of Olympia.
In 1687, during the war between Venice and Turkey, which then ruled over Greece, a Venetian cannonball that flew to the Acropolis blew up a powder magazine set up by the Turks in ... the Parthenon. The explosion caused terrible destruction.
It is also good that thirteen years before this disaster, a certain artist accompanying the French ambassador who visited Athens managed to sketch the central part of the western pediment of the Parthenon.
The Venetian shell hit the Parthenon, perhaps by accident. But a completely systematic attack on the Athenian Acropolis was organized in the very early XIX century.
This operation was carried out by the "most enlightened" connoisseur of art, Lord Elgin, a general and diplomat who served as the English envoy in Constantinople. He bribed the Turkish authorities and, using their connivance on Greek soil, did not hesitate to damage or even destroy the famous architectural monuments, just to take possession of especially valuable sculptural decorations. He caused irreparable damage to the Acropolis: he removed almost all the surviving pediment sculptures from the Parthenon and broke part of the famous frieze from its walls. The pediment collapsed and crashed. Fearing popular outrage, Lord Elgin took all his booty to England at night. Many Englishmen (in particular, Byron in his famous poem "Childe Harold") severely condemned him for his barbaric treatment of great monuments of art and for unseemly methods of acquiring artistic values. Nevertheless, the British government acquired a unique collection of its diplomatic representative - and the sculptures of the Parthenon are now the main pride of the British Museum in London.
Having robbed the greatest monument of art, Lord Elgin enriched the art criticism lexicon with a new term: such vandalism is sometimes called "Elginism".
What amazes us so much in the grandiose panorama of marble colonnades with broken friezes and pediments, towering over the sea and over the low houses of Athens, in mutilated statues that still flaunt on the steep rock of the Acropolis or are exhibited in a foreign land as a rare museum value?
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who lived on the eve of the highest flowering of Hellas, owns the following famous saying: “This cosmos, which is the same for everything that exists, was not created by any God or any man, but it has always been, is and will be an eternally living fire, measures that ignite , by measures that are extinct. " And he
said that "the divergent accords by itself", that from opposites the most beautiful harmony is born and "everything happens through the struggle."
The classical art of Hellas accurately reflects these ideas.
Is it not in the play of opposing forces that the general harmony of the Doric order (the ratio of the column and the entablature) arises, as well as the statues of Dorifor (the verticals of the legs and hips in comparison with the horizontals of the shoulders and muscles of the abdomen and chest)?
The consciousness of the unity of the world in all its metamorphoses, the consciousness of its eternal regularity inspired the builders of the Acropolis, who wished to affirm the harmony of this never-created, always young world in artistic creation, giving a single and complete impression of the beautiful.
The Acropolis of Athens is a monument proclaiming a person's faith in the possibility of such an all-reconciling harmony not in an imaginary, but in a completely real world, faith in the triumph of beauty, in a person's vocation to create it and serve it in the name of good. And that is why this monument is eternally young, like the world, it eternally excites and attracts us. Its unfading beauty is both consolation in doubts and a bright appeal: evidence that beauty visibly shines over the fate of the human race.
The Acropolis is a radiant embodiment of the creative human will and human mind, which affirm a harmonious order in the chaos of nature. And therefore the image of the Acropolis reigns in our imagination over all nature, as it reigns under the sky of Hellas, over a shapeless block of rock.
The wealth of Athens and their dominant position provided Pericles ample opportunities in the construction he planned. To decorate the famous city, he drew funds at his own discretion from the temple treasuries, and even from the general treasury of the states of the maritime union.
Mountains of snow-white marble, mined very close, were delivered to Athens. The best Greek architects, sculptors and painters considered it an honor to work for the glory of the generally recognized capital of Hellenic art.
We know that several architects were involved in the construction of the Acropolis. But, according to Plutarch, Phidias was in charge of everything. And we feel in the whole complex the unity of design and a single leading principle, which has left its mark even on the details of the most important monuments.
This general design is characteristic of the entire Greek attitude to the world, for the basic principles of Greek aesthetics.
The hill on which the monuments of the Acropolis were erected is uneven in its outlines, and its level is not the same. The builders did not come into conflict with nature, but, having accepted nature as it is, they wished to ennoble and decorate it with their art in order to create an equally bright artistic ensemble under the bright sky, clearly outlined against the background of the surrounding mountains. The ensemble, in its harmony, is more perfect than nature! On uneven hills, the integrity of this ensemble is perceived gradually. Each monument lives in it its own life, is deeply individual, and its beauty is again revealed to the eye in parts, without disturbing the unity of the impression. Climbing the Acropolis, even now, despite all the destruction, you clearly perceive its division into precisely delimited areas; You survey each monument, walking around it from all sides, with every step, with every turn you discover in it some new feature, a new embodiment of its general harmony. Separation and community; the brightest individuality of the particular, smoothly integrating into the single harmony of the whole. And the fact that the composition of the ensemble, obeying nature, is not based on symmetry, further enhances its inner freedom with the impeccable balance of the components.
So, Phidias ordered everything in the planning of this ensemble, equal to which in terms of artistic value, perhaps, was not and does not exist in the whole world. What do we know about Phidias?
A native Athenian, Phidias was born probably around 500 BC. and died after 430 g. The greatest sculptor, undoubtedly, greatest architect since the entire Acropolis can be revered as his creation, he pursued asceticism as a painter.
The creator of huge sculptures, he, apparently, also succeeded in plastic of small forms, like other famous artists of Hellas, not hesitating to express himself in a variety of art forms, even those revered as minor ones: for example, we know that he minted figurines of fish, bees and cicadas.
A great artist, Phidias was also a great thinker, a true exponent in art of the Greek philosophical genius, the highest impulses of the Greek spirit. Ancient authors testify that in his images he managed to convey superhuman greatness.
Such a superhuman image was, apparently, his thirteen-meter statue of Zeus, created for the temple at Olympia. She died there along with many other precious monuments. This ivory and gold statue was considered one of the "seven wonders of the world." There is information, apparently coming from Phidias himself, that the greatness and beauty of the image of Zeus was revealed to him in the following verses of the Iliad:
Rivers, and in the banner of black Zeus
shake eyebrows:
Quickly hairs are fragrant up
rose from Kronid
Near the immortal head, and shook
Olympus is many hills.
Like many other geniuses, Phidias did not avoid malicious envy and slander during his lifetime. He was accused of embezzling part of the gold intended to decorate the statue of Athena in the Acropolis, as opponents of the Democratic Party sought to discredit its head, Pericles, who instructed Phidias to recreate the Acropolis. Phidias was expelled from Athens, but his innocence was soon proven. However - as they said then - after him ... the goddess of peace Irina herself "left" from Athens. In the famous comedy "Peace" by the great contemporary Phidias Aristophanes, it is said on this occasion that, obviously, the goddess of peace is close to Phidias and "because she is so beautiful that she is related to him."
Athens, named for the daughter of Zeus, Athena, was the main center of the cult of this goddess. The Acropolis was erected to her glory.
According to Greek mythology, Athena came out fully armed from the head of the father of the gods. This was the beloved daughter of Zeus, whom he could not refuse in anything.
Eternally virgin goddess of a clear, radiant sky. Together with Zeus, he sends thunder and lightning, but also heat and light. A warrior goddess who deflects attacks from enemies. Patroness of agriculture, popular gatherings, citizenship. The embodiment of pure reason, the highest wisdom; goddess of thought, science and art. Light-haired, with an open, typically attic rounded-oval face.
Climbing the hill of the Acropolis, the ancient Hellene entered the kingdom of this many-sided goddess, immortalized by Phidias.
A student of the sculptors Gegius and Agelada, Phidias fully mastered the technical achievements of his predecessors and went even further than them. But although the skill of Phidias the sculptor marks the overcoming of all the difficulties that arose before him in the realistic depiction of a person, it is not limited to technical perfection. The ability to convey the volume and emancipation of figures and their harmonious grouping by themselves do not yet give rise to a true flap of wings in art.
The one who "without the frenzy sent down by the Muses approaches the threshold of creativity, in the confidence that thanks to one skill he will become a hefty poet, he is weak," and everything created by him "will be overshadowed by the creations of the frenzied." This is how one of the greatest philosophers of the ancient world, Plato, spoke.
Above the steep slope of the sacred hill, the architect Mnesicles erected the famous white marble buildings of the Propylaea, with Doric porticos at different levels, connected by an inner Ionic colonnade. Striking the imagination, the stately slenderness of the Propylaea, the solemn entrance to the Acropolis, immediately introduced the visitor to the radiant world of beauty, asserted by human genius.
On the other side of the Propylaea, a giant bronze statue of Athena Promachos, which means the warrior Athena, was carved by Phidias. The fearless daughter of the Thunderer personified here, on the Acropolis Square, the military power and glory of her city. From this square, vast distances opened to their gaze, and the navigators, circling the southern tip of Attica, clearly saw the high helmet and spear of the warrior goddess sparkling in the sun.
Now the square is empty, for from the whole statue, which caused in antiquity indescribable delight, there was a trace of the pedestal. And to the right, behind the square, is the Parthenon, the most perfect creation of all Greek architecture, or, rather, what has survived from the great temple, under the canopy of which another statue of Athena once stood, also sculptured by Phidias, but not a warrior, but the Athena-virgin: Athena Parthenos.
Like Olympian Zeus, it was a chryso-elephantine statue: made of gold (in Greek - "chryso") and ivory (in Greek - "elephas"), enclosing a wooden frame. In total, it took about one thousand two hundred kilograms of precious metal to make it.
Under the hot gleam of golden armor and robes, ivory burned on the face, neck and on the arms of the deceased majestic goddess with a winged Nika (Victory) in human height in her outstretched palm.
Testimonies of ancient authors, a small copy (Athena Varvakion, Athens, National Archaeological Museum) and coins and medallions depicting Athena Phidias give us some idea of this masterpiece.
The goddess's gaze was calm and clear, and her features were illuminated with an inner light. Her pure image expressed not a threat, but a joyful consciousness of victory, which brought prosperity and peace to the people.
The chryso-elephantine technique was revered as the pinnacle of art. Applying gold and ivory plates to wood required the finest craftsmanship. The great art of the sculptor was combined with the painstaking art of the jeweler. And as a result - what shine, what radiance in the twilight of the cella, where the image of the deity reigned as the highest creation of human hands!
The Parthenon was built (447-432 BC) by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates under the general direction of Phidias. In agreement with Pericles, he wished to embody the idea of triumphant democracy in this largest monument of the Acropolis. For the goddess he glorified, a warrior and a virgin, was revered by the Athenians as the first citizen of their city; according to ancient legends, they themselves chose this celestial woman as the patroness of the Athenian state.
The pinnacle of ancient architecture, the Parthenon was already recognized in antiquity as the most remarkable monument of the Doric style. This style was extremely improved in the Parthenon, where there is no longer a trace of the Doric squat and massiveness so characteristic of many early Doric temples. Its columns (eight on the facades and seventeen on the sides), lighter and thinner in proportion, are slightly inclined inward with a slight convex curvature of the horizontals of the basement and ceiling. These subtle deviations from the canon are of decisive importance. Without changing its basic laws, the Doric order here, as it were, absorbs the effortless grace of the Ionic, which creates, on the whole, a powerful, full-blown architectural chord of the same impeccable clarity and purity as the virgin image of Athena Parthenos. And this chord acquired an even greater sound thanks to the bright coloring of the relief decorations of the metopes, which stood out harmoniously against the red and blue backgrounds.
Four Ionic columns (which have not come down to us) towered inside the temple, and a continuous Ionic frieze stretched on its outer wall. So, behind the grandiose colonnade of the temple, with its powerful Doric metopes, the hidden Ionic core was revealed to the visitor. A harmonious combination of two styles, complementing each other, achieved by combining them in one monument and, what is even more remarkable, by their organic fusion in the same architectural motive.
Everything suggests that the sculptures of the Parthenon pediments and its relief frieze were made, if not completely by Phidias himself, then under the direct influence of his genius and according to his creative will.
The remains of these pediments and frieze are perhaps the most valuable, the greatest that has survived to this day from all Greek sculpture. We have already said that today most of these masterpieces are adorned, alas, not by the Parthenon, of which they were an integral part, but by the British Museum in London.
The sculptures of the Parthenon are a true storehouse of beauty, the embodiment of the highest aspirations of the human spirit. The concept of the ideological nature of art finds in them, perhaps, the most striking expression. For the great idea inspires every image here, lives in it, defining all of its being.
The sculptors of the Parthenon pediments praised Athena, claiming her high position in the host of other gods.
And here are the surviving figures. This is a round sculpture. Against the background of architecture, ideally in harmony with it, the marble statues of the gods stood out in their entirety, measuredly, without any effort, being placed in the triangle of the pediment.
A reclining youth, hero or god (perhaps Dionysus), with a battered face, broken hands and feet. How freely, how naturally he settled down on the section of the pediment assigned to him by the sculptor. Yes, this is complete emancipation, a triumphant triumph of the energy from which life is born and a person grows. We believe in his power, in the freedom he has acquired. And we are enchanted by the harmony of the lines and volumes of his nude figure, we are joyfully imbued with the deep humanity of his image, qualitatively brought to perfection, which indeed seems to us superhuman.
Three headless goddesses. Two are sitting, and the third is spread out, leaning on the knees of a neighbor. The folds of their robes accurately reveal the harmony and slenderness of the figure. It is noted that in the great Greek sculpture of the 5th century. BC e. the drapery becomes a "body echo." You can say - and "the echo of the soul." Indeed, in the combination of folds, physical beauty breathes here, generously revealing itself in the wavy haze of vestments, as the embodiment of spiritual beauty.
The Ionian frieze of the Parthenon, one hundred and fifty-nine meters long, on which more than three hundred and fifty human figures and about two hundred and fifty animals (horses, sacrificial bulls and sheep) were depicted in low relief, can be considered one of the most remarkable monuments of art created in the century illuminated by the genius of Phidias.
The plot of the frieze: Panathenaic procession. Every four years, Athenian girls solemnly presented to the priests of the temple the peplos (cloak) they had embroidered for Athena. All the people participated in this ceremony. But the sculptor depicted not only the citizens of Athens: Zeus, Athena and other gods accept them as equals. It seems that no line has been drawn between gods and people: both are equally beautiful. This identity was, as it were, proclaimed by the sculptor on the walls of the sanctuary.
It is not surprising that the creator of all this marble splendor felt himself equal to the celestials he depicted. In the scene of the battle on the shield of Athena, Parthenos Phidias engraved his own image in the form of an old man lifting a stone with both hands. Such unparalleled audacity put a new weapon in the hands of his enemies, who accused the great artist and thinker of godlessness.
The fragments of the Parthenon frieze are the most precious heritage of the culture of Hellas. They reproduce in our imagination the entire ritual panathenaic line, which in its endless variety is perceived as a solemn procession of humanity itself.
Famous wrecks: "Horsemen" (London, British Museum) and "Girls and Elders" (Paris, Louvre).
Horses with upturned muzzles (they are depicted so truthfully that it seems we can hear their sonorous whinnying). On them sit young men with straight outstretched legs, making up, together with the camp, a single, now straight, now beautifully curved line. And this alternation of diagonals, similar but not repetitive movements, beautiful heads, horse muzzles, human and horse legs, directed forward, creates a kind of unified rhythm that captures the viewer, in which a steady forward impulse is combined with absolute regularity.
Girls and elders are straight figures of striking harmony facing each other. In girls, a slightly protruding leg reveals forward movement. It is impossible to imagine human figures that are clearer and more laconic in composition. The smooth and elaborate folds of the vestments, like the flutes of the Doric columns, give the young Athenians a natural dignity. We believe that this is a worthy representative of the human race.
The expulsion from Athens, and then the death of Phidias did not diminish the radiance of his genius. He warmed all the Greek art of the last third of the 5th century. BC. The great Polycletus and another famous sculptor - Kresilai (the author of the heroized portrait of Pericles, one of the earliest Greek portrait statues) - were influenced by him. The whole period of Attic pottery is named Phidias. In Sicily (in Syracuse) remarkable coins are minted, in which we clearly recognize the echo of the plastic perfection of the Parthenon sculptures. And in our northern Black Sea region, works of art have been found, perhaps most clearly reflecting the impact of this perfection.
To the left of the Parthenon, on the other side of the sacred hill, stands the Erechtheion. This temple dedicated to Athena and Poseidon was built after Phidias left Athens. The most elegant masterpiece of the Ionian style. Six slender marble girls in peplos - the famous caryatids - act as columns in its southern portico. The capital resting on their heads resembles a basket in which the priestesses carried sacred objects of worship.
Time and people did not spare this small temple, a repository of many treasures, which was turned into a Christian church in the Middle Ages, and into a harem under the Turks.
Before we say goodbye to the Acropolis, let's take a look at the relief of the balustrade of the temple of Niki Apteros, i.e. Wingless Victory (wingless so that it never leaves Athens), just before the Propylaea (Athens, Acropolis Museum). Executed in the last decades of the 5th century, this bas-relief already marks the transition from the courageous and stately art of Phidias to the more lyrical, calling for a serene enjoyment of beauty. One of Victories (there are several of them on the balustrade) unties the sandal. Her gesture and raised leg excite her robe, which seems wet, so it softly envelops the whole camp. We can say that the folds of the drapery, now spreading in wide streams, then running one over the other, give rise to the most captivating poem of female beauty in the shimmering chiaroscuro of marble.
Each genuine rise of human genius is unique in its essence. Masterpieces can be equal, but not identical. Another such Niki will no longer be in Greek art. Alas, her head is lost, her arms are broken off. And, looking at this wounded image, it becomes creepy at the thought of how many unique beauties, unprotected or deliberately destroyed, have perished for us irrevocably.
LATE CLASSIC
The new era in the political history of Hellas was neither bright nor constructive. If V century. BC. was marked by the flourishing of the Greek city-states, then in the IV century. their gradual disintegration took place along with the decline of the very idea of the Greek democratic statehood.
In 386, Persia, utterly defeated by the Greeks under the leadership of Athens in the previous century, took advantage of the civil war, which weakened Greek cities-states, in order to impose peace on them, according to which all the cities of the Asia Minor coast came under the control of the Persian king. The Persian power became the main arbiter in the Greek world; national unification of the Greeks, she did not allow.
The internecine wars showed that the Greek states were not able to unite on their own.
Meanwhile, unification was an economic necessity for the Greek people. The neighboring Balkan power was able to fulfill this historical task - Macedonia, which had become stronger by that time, whose king Philip II defeated the Greeks at Chaeronea in 338. This battle decided the fate of Hellas: it turned out to be united, but under foreign rule. And the son of Philip II, the great commander Alexander the Great, led the Greeks on a victorious campaign against their ancient enemies - the Persians.
This was the last classical period of Greek culture. At the end of the IV century. BC. the ancient world will enter an era that is usually called not Hellenic, but Hellenistic.
In the art of the late classics, we clearly recognize new trends. In an era of great prosperity, the ideal human image was embodied in the valiant and beautiful citizen of the city-state.
The collapse of the polis has shaken this notion. Proud confidence in the all-conquering power of man does not completely disappear, but sometimes it seems to be glossed over. Reflections arise that give rise to anxiety or a tendency to serene enjoyment of life. Interest in the individual world of man is growing; ultimately it marks a departure from the mighty generalization of earlier times.
The grandiosity of the worldview, embodied in the sculptures of the Acropolis, gradually diminishes, but the general perception of life and beauty is enriched. The calm and dignified nobility of the gods and heroes, as Phidias portrayed them, gives way to the identification of complex experiences, passions and impulses in art.
Greek V century. BC. appreciated strength as the basis of a healthy, courageous beginning, strong will and vitality - and therefore the statue of an athlete, a winner in competitions, personified for him the assertion of human power and beauty. Artists of the IV century. BC. attract for the first time the charm of childhood, the wisdom of old age, the eternal charm of femininity.
The great skill achieved by Greek art in the 5th century is still alive in the 4th century. BC, so that the most inspired artistic monuments of the late classics are marked with the same seal of the highest perfection.
The 4th century also reflects new trends in its construction. Greek architecture of the late classics is marked by a certain striving at the same time for splendor, even grandeur, and for lightness and decorative grace. A purely Greek artistic tradition intertwines with oriental influences from Asia Minor, where Greek cities are subject to Persian rule. Along with the main architectural orders - Doric and Ionic, the third - Corinthian, which arose later, is increasingly used.
The Corinthian column is the most magnificent and decorative. The realistic tendency in it overcomes the primordial abstract-geometric scheme of the capital, dressed in the Corinthian order in the flowering robe of nature - with two rows of acanthus leaves.
The isolation of the policies was eliminated. For the ancient world, an era of powerful, albeit fragile, slave-owning despotism began. The architecture was assigned different tasks than in the age of Pericles.
One of the most grandiose monuments of Greek architecture of the late classics was the tomb that has not come down to us in the city of Halicarnassus (in Asia Minor), the ruler of the Persian province of Kariy Mavsol, from which the word "mausoleum" originated.
All three orders were combined in the Halicarnassus mausoleum. It consisted of two tiers. The first housed the funeral chamber, the second - the funeral church. Above the tiers was a high pyramid topped with a four-horse chariot (quadriga). The linear harmony of Greek architecture was found in this huge monument (it apparently reached forty - fifty meters in height), with its solemnity reminiscent of the funeral structures of the ancient eastern rulers. The mausoleum was built by architects Satyr and Pythias, and its sculptural decoration was entrusted to several masters, including Skopas, who probably played a leading role among them.
Scopas, Praxiteles and Lysippos are the greatest Greek sculptors of the late classics. In terms of the influence that 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 his vivid individual perception of the world, his ideal of beauty, his understanding of perfection, which through the personal, revealed only by them, reach the eternal - universal, heights. And again, in the work of everyone, this personal is consonant with the era, embodying those feelings, those desires of contemporaries that most answered his own.
In the art of Skopas, passion and impulse, anxiety, a struggle with some hostile forces, deep doubts and sorrowful experiences breathe. All this was obviously characteristic of his nature and, at the same time, vividly expressed certain moods of his time. By temperament, Scopas is close to Euripides, how close they are in their perception of the sad destinies of Hellas.
A native of the marble-rich island of Paros, Skopas (c. 420 - c. 355 BC) worked in Attica, and in the cities of the Peloponnese, and in Asia Minor. His creativity, extremely extensive both in the number of works and in the subject matter, perished almost without a trace.
From the sculptural decoration of the temple of Athena in Tegea, created by him or under his direct supervision (Skopas, who became famous not only as a sculptor, but also as an architect, was also the builder of this temple), only a few fragments remain. But it is enough to look at least at the mutilated head of a wounded warrior (Athens, National Archaeological Museum) to feel the great power of his genius. For this head with curved eyebrows, eyes directed upward and a slightly open mouth, a head, all in which - both suffering and grief - as it were, expresses the tragedy not only of Greece of the 4th century. BC, torn apart by contradictions and trampled by foreign invaders, but also the primordial tragedy of the entire human race in its constant struggle, where victory still follows death. So, it seems to us, little is left of the bright joy of being that once illuminated the consciousness of the Hellenic.
Fragments of the frieze of the tomb of Mavsol, depicting the battle of the Greeks with the Amazons (London, British Museum) ... This is undoubtedly the work of Scopas or his workshop. The genius of the great sculptor breathes in these wrecks.
Let's compare them with the wreckage of the Parthenon frieze. And there, and here - the emancipation of movements. But there emancipation pours out into a stately dimension, and here - into a real storm: the angles of the figures, the expressiveness of gestures, widely flowing clothes create a violent dynamism unprecedented in ancient art. There, the composition is based on the gradual coherence of parts, here - on the sharpest contrasts.
And yet the genius of Phidias and the genius of Scopas are related in something very essential, perhaps the main thing. The compositions of both friezes are equally slender, harmonious, and their images are equally specific. After all, it was not for nothing that Heraclitus said that the most beautiful harmony is born from contrasts. Scopas creates a composition whose unity and clarity are as flawless as Phidias. Moreover, not a single figure dissolves in it, does not lose its independent plastic meaning.
That's all that remains of Scopas himself or his students. Others related to his work are later Roman copies. However, one of them gives us probably the most vivid idea of his genius.
Parian stone - Bacchante.
But the sculptor gave the stone its soul.
And, like intoxicated, jumping up, rushed
into the dance she.
Having created this maenad, in a frenzy,
with a killed goat,
You have done a miracle with a worshiping chisel,
Scopas.
This is how the unknown Greek poet praised the statue of Maenad, or Bacchante, about which we can judge only from a reduced copy (Dresden Museum).
First of all, we note a characteristic innovation that is very important for the development of realistic art: in contrast to the sculptures of the 5th century. BC, this statue is fully designed for viewing from all sides, and you need to walk around it in order to perceive all aspects of the image created by the artist.
Throwing back her head and bent over with her whole body, the young woman rushes in a stormy, truly Bacchic dance - to the glory of the God of wine. And although the marble copy is also just a fragment, there is, perhaps, no other piece of art that conveys with such force the selfless pathos of fury. This is not a painful exaltation, but a pathetic and triumphant one, although the power over human passions has been lost in her.
So in the last century of the classics, the powerful Hellenic spirit was able to preserve all its original greatness in the fury generated by seething passions and painful dissatisfaction.
Praxiteles (a native Athenian, worked in 370-340 BC) expressed a completely different beginning in his work. We know a little more about this sculptor than about his brothers.
Like Scopas, Praxiteles neglected bronze, creating his greatest works in marble. We know that he was rich and enjoyed a resounding fame that at one time eclipsed even the glory of Phidias. We also know that he loved Phryne, a famous courtesan, accused of blasphemy and acquitted by the Athenian judges, who admired her beauty, which they recognized as worthy of popular worship. Phryne served as his model for statues of the goddess of love Aphrodite (Venus). The Roman scholar Pliny writes about the creation of these statues and their cult, vividly recreating the atmosphere of the era of Praxiteles:
“... Above all the works of not only Praxiteles, but generally existing in the Universe, is Venus of his work. To see her, many swam to Cnidus. Praxiteles simultaneously made and sold two statues of Venus, but one was covered with clothes - it was preferred by the inhabitants of Kos, who had the right to choose. Praxiteles charged the same amount for both statues. But the inhabitants of Kos recognized this statue as serious and modest; which they rejected was bought by the Cnidians. And her fame was immeasurably higher. The king Nicomedes later wanted to buy it from the Cnidians, promising to forgive the Cnidians state for all the huge debts they owe. But the Cnidians preferred to endure everything than to part with the statue. And not in vain. After all, Praxiteles with this statue created the glory of Cnidus. The building where this statue is located is all open, so that it can be viewed from all sides. Moreover, they believe that the statue was erected with the benevolent participation of the goddess herself. And on one side, the delight caused by it is no less ... ".
Praxiteles is an inspired singer of female beauty, so revered by the Greeks of the 4th century. BC. In the warm play of light and shadow, as never before, the beauty of the female body shone under his incisor.
The time has long passed when a woman was not portrayed nude, but this time Praxiteles bared not just a woman, but a goddess in marble, and this at first caused a startled censure.
Aphrodite of Cnidus is known to us only by copies and by borrowings. In two Roman marble copies (in Rome and in the Munich Glyptotek), it has come down to us in its entirety, so that we know its general appearance. But these solid copies are not top-notch. Some others, albeit in fragments, give a more vivid picture of this great work: the head of Aphrodite in the Paris Louvre, with such sweet and soulful features; her torsos, also in the Louvre and in the Museum of Naples, in which we guess the enchanting femininity of the original, and even a Roman copy, taken not from the original, but from a Hellenistic statue, inspired by the genius of Praxiteles, "Venus Khvoshchinsky" (named after the Russian who acquired it collector), in which, it seems to us, marble radiates the warmth of the beautiful body of the goddess (this fragment is the pride of the antique department of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts).
What so admired the sculptor's contemporaries in this image of the most captivating of the goddesses, who, having thrown off her clothes, prepared to plunge into the water?
What fascinates us even in broken copies that convey some features of the lost original?
With the finest modeling, in which he surpassed all his predecessors, enlivening the marble with shimmering light reflections and giving the smooth stone a delicate velvety with virtuosity unique to him, Praxitel captured the goddess in the smoothness of the contours and ideal proportions of the body of the goddess, in the touching naturalness of her pose, in her gaze, "Moist and shiny", according to the ancients, those great beginnings that Aphrodite expressed in Greek mythology began eternal in the consciousness and dreams of the human race: Beauty and Love.
Praxiteles is sometimes recognized as the brightest exponent in ancient art of that philosophical trend, which saw in pleasure (whatever it may be) the highest good and the natural goal of all human aspirations, i.e. hedonism. Yet his art already foreshadows a philosophy that flourished at the end of the 4th century. BC. "In the groves of Epicurus," as Pushkin called that Athenian garden where Epicurus gathered his students ...
The absence of suffering, a serene state of mind, the liberation of people from the fear of death and fear of the gods - these were, according to Epicurus, the main conditions for genuine enjoyment of life.
Indeed, by its very serenity, the beauty of the images created by Praxiteles, the gentle humanity of the gods sculptured by him, affirmed the beneficialness of liberation from this fear in an era that was by no means serene and not merciful.
The image of an athlete, obviously, did not interest Praxiteles, just as he was not interested in civil motives. He strove to embody in marble the ideal of a physically beautiful youth, not as muscular as that of Polycletus, very slender and graceful, smiling joyfully but slightly slyly, not particularly afraid of anyone, but not threatening anyone, serenely happy and full of the consciousness of the harmony of all his creatures.
Such an image, apparently, corresponded to his own perception of the world and therefore was especially dear to him. We find indirect confirmation of this in an entertaining anecdote.
The love relationship between the famous artist and such an incomparable beauty as Phryne was very interesting for his contemporaries. The lively mind of the Athenians was sophisticated in speculation about them. It was narrated, for example, that Phryne asked Praxiteles to give her her best sculpture as a token of love. He agreed, but left the choice to her herself, slyly concealing which of his works he considered the most perfect. Then Phryne decided to outwit him. Once a slave sent by her ran to Praxiteles with the terrible news that the artist's workshop had burned down ... "If the flame destroyed Eros and Satyr, then everything was lost!" - Praxitel exclaimed in grief. So Phryne found out the assessment of the author himself ...
We know from reproductions these sculptures, which enjoyed great fame in the ancient world. We have survived at least one hundred and fifty marble copies of The Resting Satyr (five of them are in the Hermitage). Do not count antique statues, statuettes made of marble, clay or bronze, gravestone steles and all kinds of handicrafts inspired by the genius of Praxiteles.
Two sons and a grandson continued in sculpture the work of Praxiteles, who himself was the son of a sculptor. But this family continuity, of course, is negligible compared to the general artistic continuity going back to his work.
In this respect, Praxiteles' example is especially indicative, but far from exceptional.
Let the perfection of a truly great original and unique, but a work of art, which is a new "variation of the beautiful", is immortal even in the event of its death. We do not have an exact copy of either the statue of Zeus at Olympia or the Athena Parthenos, but the greatness of these images, which determined the spiritual content of almost all Greek art of the heyday, clearly shows through even in miniature jewelry and coins of that time. They would not have been in this style without Phidias. As there would be no statues of carefree youths lazily leaning on a tree, or the naked marble goddesses captivating with their lyrical beauty, in a great variety of nobles who adorned villas and parks in the Hellenistic and Roman times, just as there would be no Praxitelean style, Praxitelean sweet bliss at all, so long held in ancient art, - do not be a genuine "Resting Satyr" and a genuine "Aphrodite of Cnidus", now lost, God knows where and how. Let's say again: their loss is irreplaceable, but their spirit lives even in the most ordinary works of imitators, and therefore lives for us. But if these works were not preserved, this spirit would somehow flicker in human memory in order to shine again at the first opportunity.
Perceiving the beauty of a work of art, a person is enriched spiritually. The live connection between generations is never completely cut off. The ancient ideal of beauty was resolutely rejected by medieval ideology, and the works that embodied it were mercilessly destroyed. But the victorious revival of this ideal in the age of humanism testifies that it has never been completely destroyed.
The same can be said about the contribution to art of every truly great artist. For a genius who embodies a new, born image of beauty in his soul, enriches humanity forever. And so from ancient times, when those formidable and majestic animal images were first created in a Paleolithic cave, from which all the fine arts originated, and into which our distant ancestor put his whole soul and all his dreams, illuminated by creative inspiration.
Brilliant ups and downs in art complement each other, introducing something new that never dies. This new thing sometimes leaves its mark on an entire epoch. So it was with Phidias, so it was with Praxiteles.
Did everything, however, perish from what was created by Praxiteles himself?
According to the ancient author, it was known that the statue of Praxiteles "Hermes with Dionysus" stood in the temple at Olympia. During excavations in 1877, relatively little damaged marble sculptures of these two gods were found there. At first, no one had any doubts that this was the original of Praxiteles, and even now his authorship is recognized by many experts. However, a careful study of the marble processing technique itself has convinced some scholars that the sculpture found at Olympia is an excellent Hellenistic copy, replacing the original, probably removed by the Romans.
This statue, which is only mentioned by one Greek author, apparently was not considered a masterpiece of Praxiteles. Nevertheless, its merits are undeniable: amazingly subtle modeling, soft lines, wonderful, purely Praxitelean play of light and shadow, a very clear, perfectly balanced composition and, most importantly, the charm of Hermes with his dreamy, slightly absent-minded look and the childlike charm of baby Dionysus. And, however, in this charm there is a certain sweetness, and we feel that in the whole statue, even in the amazingly slender figure of a very well-curled god in its smooth bend, beauty and grace slightly cross the line beyond which beauty and grace begin. The art of Praxiteles is very close to this edge, but it does not violate it in its most spiritualized creations.
Color, apparently, played a large role in the general appearance of the statues of Praxiteles. We know that some of them were painted (by rubbing in melted wax paints that gently revived the whiteness of the marble) by Nikias himself, the then famous painter. The sophisticated art of Praxiteles acquired even greater expressiveness and emotionality thanks to color. The harmonious combination of the two great arts was probably realized in his creations.
Let us add, finally, that in the Northern Black Sea region, near the mouths of the Dnieper and Bug (in Olbia), a pedestal of a statue was found with the signature of the great Praxiteles. Alas, the statue itself was not in the ground.
Lysippos worked in the last third of the 4th century. BC e., at the time of Alexander the Great. His creativity, as it were, completes the art of the late classics.
Bronze was the sculptor's favorite material. We do not know his originals, so we can only judge about him by the surviving marble copies, which are far from reflecting all of his work.
There is an immense number of monuments of art of Ancient Greece that have not come down to us. The fate of Lysippos' enormous artistic heritage is a terrible proof of this.
Lysippos was considered one of the most prolific masters of his time. They claim that he set aside a coin from the reward for each completed order: after his death, there were as many as fifteen hundred of them. Meanwhile, among his works were sculptural groups, numbering up to twenty figures, and the height of some of his statues exceeded twenty meters. With all this, people, elements and time dealt with mercilessly. But no power could destroy the spirit of Lysippos' art, erase the trace left by him.
According to Pliny, Lysippos said that, unlike his predecessors, who portrayed people as they are, he, Lysippos, sought to portray them as they seem. By this he affirmed the principle of realism, which had long triumphed in Greek art, but which he wanted to bring to full completion in accordance with the aesthetic principles of his contemporary, the greatest philosopher of antiquity, Aristotle.
Lysippos' innovation consisted in the fact that he discovered in the art of sculpting huge, before him, realistic possibilities. And in fact, his figures are not perceived by us as created "for show", they do not pose for us, but exist on their own, as they were captured by the artist's eye in all the complexity of the most diverse movements reflecting this or that emotional impulse. Bronze, which easily assumes any shape during casting, was most suitable for solving such sculptural tasks.
The pedestal does not isolate the figures of Lysippos from environment, they truly live in it, as if protruding from a certain spatial depth, in which their expressiveness manifests itself equally clearly, albeit in different ways, from any side. They are, therefore, completely three-dimensional, completely liberated. The human figure is constructed by Lysippos in a new way, not in its plastic synthesis, as in the statues of Myron or Polycletus, but in a certain fleeting aspect, exactly as it presented itself (seemed) to the artist at this moment and what it has not been in the previous and already will not be thereafter.
The amazing flexibility of the figures, the very complexity, sometimes the contrast of movements - all this is harmoniously ordered, and this master has nothing that, at least in the slightest degree, resembles the chaos of nature. Transmitting, first of all, a visual impression, he subordinates this impression to a certain system, once and for all established in accordance with the very spirit of his art. It is he, Lysippos, who violates the old, Polycletian canon of the human figure in order to create his own, new, much lighter, more suitable for his dynamic art, which rejects all inner immobility, all ponderousness. In this new canon, the head is no longer 1.7, but only 1/8 of the total height.
The marble repetitions of his work that have come down to us give, in general, a clear picture of the realistic achievements of Lysippos.
The famous "Apoxyomenus" (Rome, Vatican). This young athlete, however, is not at all the same as in the sculpture of the previous century, where his image radiated a proud consciousness of victory. Lysippos showed us the athlete after the competition, diligently cleaning the body of oil and dust with a metal scraper. Not at all a sharp and seemingly insignificant movement of the hand is echoed in the whole figure, giving it exceptional vitality. He is outwardly calm, but we feel that he has experienced great excitement, and in his features we can see fatigue from extreme tension. This image, as if snatched from the ever-changing reality, is deeply human, extremely noble in its complete ease.
"Hercules with the Lion" (St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum). This is the passionate pathos of a life-and-death struggle, again as if seen from the side by the artist. The entire sculpture is, as it were, charged with a violent intense movement, irresistibly merging into one harmoniously beautiful whole the powerful figures of man and beast.
We can judge what impression the sculptures of Lysippos made on contemporaries from the following story. Alexander the Great was so fond of his statuette "Feasting Hercules" (one of its repetitions is also in the Hermitage) that he did not part with it in his campaigns, and when his last hour, ordered to put it in front of you.
Lysippos was the only sculptor whom the famous conqueror recognized as worthy of capturing his features.
"The statue of Apollo is the highest ideal of art among all the works that have survived to us from antiquity." Winckelmann wrote this.
Who was the author of the statue, which so admired the famous ancestor of several generations of scientists - "antiquities"? None of the sculptors whose art shines most brightly to this day. How so and where is the misunderstanding?
The Apollo of which Winckelmann speaks is the famous Apollo of Belvedere: a marble Roman copy of a bronze original by Leochares (last third of the 4th century BC), so named after the gallery where it was exhibited for a long time (Rome, Vatican) ... This statue once aroused much admiration.
We recognize in the Apollo Belvedere a reflection of the Greek classics. But just a reflection. We know the frieze of the Parthenon, which Winckelmann did not know, and therefore, for all its undoubted showiness, the statue of Leochares seems to us internally cold, somewhat theatrical. Although Leochares was a contemporary of Lysippos, his art, losing the true significance of its content, smacks of academicism, marks a decline in relation to the classics.
The fame of such statues sometimes gave rise to misconceptions about all Hellenic art. This idea has not faded to this day. Some artists are inclined to reduce the significance of the artistic heritage of Hellas and turn in their aesthetic searches to completely different cultural worlds, in their opinion, more in tune with the worldview of our era. (Suffice it to say that such an authoritative exponent of the most modern Western aesthetic tastes as the French writer and art theorist André Malraux, in his work "The Imaginary Museum of World Sculpture", there are half as many reproductions of the sculptural monuments of Ancient Hellas than the so-called primitive civilizations of America, Africa and Oceania !) But I stubbornly want to believe that the stately beauty of the Parthenon will triumph again in the consciousness of mankind, affirming in it the eternal ideal of humanism.
Concluding this brief overview of Greek classical art, I would like to mention one more remarkable monument stored in the Hermitage. This is the world famous Italian vase of the 4th century. BC e. , found near the ancient city of Kuma (in Campania), named for the perfection of composition and richness of decoration "The Queen of Vases", and although probably not created in Greece itself, reflects the highest achievements of Greek plastic art. The main thing in the black-and-lacquer vase from Qom is its truly impeccable proportions, slender contour, general harmony of forms and strikingly beautiful multi-figured reliefs (retaining traces of bright coloring) dedicated to the cult of the goddess of fertility Demeter, the famous Eleusinian mysteries, where the darkest scenes were replaced by rainbow visions, symbolizing death and life, eternal wilting and awakening of nature. These reliefs are echoes of monumental sculpture by the greatest Greek masters of the 5th and 4th centuries. BC. So, all the standing figures resemble the statues of the Praxiteles school, and the seated ones resemble the Phidias school.
SCULPTURE OF THE PERIOD OF HELLINISM
With the death of Alexander the Great, the era of Hellenism begins.
The time for the establishment of a single slave-owning empire had not yet come, and even Hellas was not destined to rule over the world. The pathos of statehood was not its driving force, so it even failed to unite itself.
The great historical mission of Hellas was cultural. Leading the Greeks, Alexander the Great fulfilled this mission. His empire collapsed, but Greek culture remained in the states that arose in the East after his conquests.
In previous centuries, Greek settlements spread the radiance of Hellenic culture in foreign lands.
In the centuries of Hellenism, there were no foreign lands, the radiance of Hellas was all-embracing and all-conquering.
A citizen of a free polis gave way to a "citizen of the world" (cosmopolitan), whose activities took place in the universe, "ecumene", as it was understood by then mankind. Under the spiritual leadership of Hellas. And this, despite the bloody feuds between the "diadochi" - the insatiable successors of Alexander in their lust for power.
It's like that. However, the newly-minted "citizens of the world" were forced to combine their high calling with the fate of the powerless subjects of the equally newly-minted rulers who ruled in the manner of Eastern despots.
The triumph of Hellas was no longer disputed by anyone; it hid, however, deep contradictions: the bright spirit of the Parthenon turned out to be both victor and conquered.
Architecture, sculpture and painting flourished throughout the vast Hellenistic world. Urban planning on an unprecedented scale in the new states asserting their power, the luxury of the royal courts, the enrichment of the slave-owning nobility in the rapidly flourishing international trade provided artists with large orders. Perhaps, as never before, art was encouraged by those in power. And in any case, never before has artistic creation been so vast and varied. But how can we evaluate this creativity in comparison with what was given in the art of the archaic, the heyday and the late classics, the continuation of which was the Hellenistic art?
The artists were to spread the achievements of Greek art in all the territories conquered by Alexander with their new multi-tribal state formations, and at the same time, in contact with the ancient cultures of the East, keep these achievements pure, reflecting the greatness of the Greek artistic ideal. Customers - kings and nobles - wanted to decorate their palaces and parks with works of art, as similar as possible to those that were revered as perfection in the great era of Alexander's power. It is not surprising that all this did not entice the Greek sculptor on the path of new searches, prompting him to only "make" a statue that would seem no worse than the original Praxiteles or Lysippos. And this, in turn, inevitably led to the borrowing of an already found form (with adaptation to the inner content that this form expressed from its creator), i.e. to what we call academism. Or to eclecticism, i.e. a combination of individual features and findings of art of various masters, sometimes impressive, effective due to the high quality of the samples, but devoid of unity, inner integrity and does not contribute to the creation of one's own, namely, one's own - expressive and full-fledged artistic language, one's own style.
Many, very many statues of the Hellenistic period reveal to us to an even greater extent precisely those shortcomings that the Belvedere Apollo already foreshadowed. Hellenism expanded and, to a certain extent, completed the decadent tendencies that manifested themselves at the end of the late classics.
At the end of the II century. BC. A sculptor named Alexander or Agesander worked in Asia Minor: not all letters have been preserved in the inscription on the only statue of his work that has come down to us. This statue, found in 1820 on the island of Milos (in the Aegean Sea), depicts Aphrodite-Venus and is now known all over the world as "Venus Milles creeping". This is not even just a Hellenistic, but a late Hellenistic monument, which means that it was created in an era marked by some decline in art.
But this "Venus" cannot be put in a row with many other, modern or even earlier, statues of gods and goddesses, testifying to a fair amount of technical skill, but not to the originality of the idea. However, there seems to be nothing particularly original in it, something that was not already expressed in previous centuries. A distant echo of Aphrodite Praxiteles ... And, however, in this statue everything is so harmonious and harmonious, the image of the goddess of love, at the same time, so regal and so captivatingly feminine, her whole appearance is so pure and the wonderfully modeled marble glows so softly that it seems to us : the chisel of the sculptor of the great era of Greek art could not have carved anything more perfect.
Does it owe its glory to the fact that the most famous Greek sculptures that aroused the admiration of the ancients were irrevocably lost? Statues like Venus de Milo, the pride of the Parisian Louvre, were probably not unique. No one in the then "ecumene", nor later, in the Roman era, sang it in verse, either in Greek or Latin. But how many enthusiastic lines, grateful outpourings are dedicated to her
now in almost all languages of the world.
This is not a Roman copy, but a Greek original, albeit not of the classical period. This means that the ancient Greek artistic ideal was so high and mighty that under the chisel of a gifted master it revived in all its glory even in the days of academism and eclecticism.
Such grandiose sculptural groups as "Laocoon with Sons" (Rome, Vatican) and "Farnese Bull" (Naples, Roman National Museum), which aroused the endless admiration of many generations of the most enlightened representatives of European culture, now, when the beauty of the Parthenon was discovered, they seem to us overly theatrical overloaded, crushed in detail.
However, probably belonging to the same as these groups, the Rhodes school, but sculptured by an unknown artist in more early period Hellenism "Nika of Samothrace" (Paris, Louvre) - one of the heights of art. This statue stood on the bow of the stone monument ship. In the flap of her mighty wings, Nika-Pobeda rushes uncontrollably forward, cutting through the wind, under which her vestments sway noisily (as it were, we hear it). The head is beaten off, but the immensity of the image reaches us completely.
The art of portraiture is very common in the Hellenistic world. “Eminent people” are multiplying who have succeeded in the service of the rulers (diadochi) or who have been promoted to the top of society thanks to the more organized exploitation of slave labor than in the former fragmented Hellas: they want to capture their features for posterity. The portrait is becoming more and more individualized, but at the same time, if we are faced with the highest representative of power, then his superiority, the exclusiveness of the position he occupies, is emphasized.
And here he is, the main ruler - Diadoch. His bronze statue (Rome, Therme Museum) is the brightest example of Hellenistic art. We do not know who this ruler is, but at first glance it is clear to us that this is not a generalized image, but a portrait. Characteristic, sharply individual features, slightly squinted eyes, not at all ideal physique. This person is captured by the artist in all the originality of his personal features, full of the consciousness of his power. He was probably a skilled ruler who knew how to act according to circumstances, it seems that adamant in pursuit of the intended goal, maybe cruel, but maybe sometimes magnanimous, quite complex in nature and ruled in an infinitely complex Hellenistic world, where the primacy of Greek culture was to be combined with respect for the ancient local cultures.
He is completely naked, like an ancient hero or god. The turn of the head, so natural, completely relaxed, and the hand held high, resting on the spear, give the figure a proud dignity. Sharp realism and deification. The deification of not an ideal hero, but the most concrete, individual deification of the earthly ruler, given to people ... by fate.
The general orientation of the art of the late classics lies at the very foundation of Hellenistic art. It sometimes successfully develops this direction, even deepens it, but, as we have seen, sometimes it grinds or takes it to the extreme, losing the gracious sense of proportion and impeccable artistic taste, which marked all Greek art of the classical period.
Alexandria, where the trade routes of the Hellenistic world crossed, is the focus of the entire Hellenistic culture, the "new Athens".
In this huge for those times city with half a million population, founded by Alexander at the mouth of the Nile, science, literature and art flourished, which were patronized by the Ptolemies. They founded the "Museum", which for many centuries became the center of artistic and scientific life, the famous library, the largest in the ancient world, numbering more than seven hundred thousand scrolls of papyrus and parchment. Hundred and twenty-meter Alexandrian lighthouse with a tower lined with marble, eight faces of which were located in the directions of the main winds, with statues-weather vane, with a dome crowned with a bronze statue of the ruler of the seas Poseidon, had a system of mirrors that intensified the light of the fire lit in the dome, so that he was seen at a distance of sixty kilometers. This lighthouse was considered one of the "seven wonders of the world". We know it from the images on ancient coins and from the detailed description of an Arab traveler who visited Alexandria in the 13th century: a hundred years later, the lighthouse was destroyed by an earthquake. It is clear that only exceptional advances in precise knowledge made it possible to erect this grandiose structure, which required the most complex calculations. After all, Alexandria, where Euclid taught, was the cradle of geometry named after him.
Alexandrian art is extremely diverse. The statues of Aphrodite date back to Praxiteles (two of his sons worked as sculptors in Alexandria), but they are less dignified than their prototypes, emphatically graceful. The Gonzaga cameo features generalized images inspired by classical canons. But completely different tendencies are manifested in the statues of old people: light Greek realism here turns into an almost frank naturalism with the most ruthless transfer of flabby, wrinkled skin, swollen veins, everything irreparable that old age introduces into a person's appearance. Caricature flourishes, hilarious but sometimes stinging. The genre of everyday life (sometimes with a bias towards the grotesque) and the portrait are becoming more widespread. Reliefs with cheerful bucolic scenes appear, charming images of children, sometimes reviving a grand allegorical statue with a regally reclining husband, similar to Zeus and personifying the Nile.
Diversity, but also the loss of the inner unity of art, the integrity of the artistic ideal, often reducing the significance of the image. Ancient Egypt is not dead.
Experienced in the politics of government, the Ptolemies emphasized their respect for his culture, borrowed many Egyptian customs, erected temples to Egyptian deities and ... themselves ranked themselves among the host of these deities.
And Egyptian artists did not betray their ancient artistic ideal, their ancient canons, even in the images of the new, foreign rulers of their country.
A notable monument of art of Ptolemaic Egypt is a statue of Queen Arsinoe II made of black basalt. Arsinoe, mortified by her ambition and beauty, whom her brother Ptolemy Philadelphus married according to the Egyptian royal custom. Also an idealized portrait, but not in the classical Greek, but in the Egyptian way. This image goes back to the monuments of the funeral cult of the pharaohs, and not to the statues of the beautiful goddesses of Hellas. Arsinoe is also beautiful, but her figure, constrained by an ancient tradition, is frontal, seems frozen, as in the portrait sculptures of all three Egyptian kingdoms; this constraint naturally harmonizes with the inner content of the image, quite different from that in the Greek classics.
Above the queen's forehead are sacred cobras. And perhaps the soft roundness of the forms of her slender young body, which seems completely naked under a light, transparent robe, somehow reflects with its hidden bliss, perhaps, the warming breath of Hellenism.
The city of Pergamum, the capital of the vast Asia Minor Hellenistic state, was famous, like Alexandria, for its richest library (parchment, in Greek "Pergamon skin" is a Pergamon invention), for its artistic treasures. high culture and splendor. Pergamon sculptors have created wonderful statues of slain Gauls. These statues date back to Scopas in inspiration and style. The frieze of the Pergamon altar also goes back to Scopas, but this is by no means an academic work, but a monument of art, marking a new great flap of wings.
The fragments of the frieze were discovered in the last quarter of the 19th century by German archaeologists and brought to Berlin. In 1945 they were taken out by the Soviet Army from burning Berlin, then kept in the Hermitage, and in 1958 they returned to Berlin and are now exhibited there in the Pergamon Museum.
A hundred and twenty-meter sculptural frieze lined the plinth of a white marble altar with light Ionic columns and wide steps that rose in the middle of a huge P.-shaped structure.
The theme of the sculptures is "gigantomachy": the battle of the gods with giants, allegorically depicting the battle of the Hellenes with the barbarians. It is a very high relief, almost circular sculpture.
We know that a group of sculptors worked on the frieze, among whom were not only Pergamon. But the unity of design is obvious.
We can say without reservations: in the whole of Greek sculpture there was no such grandiose picture of battle. A terrible, merciless battle for life and death. The battle is truly titanic - both because the giants who rebelled against the gods, and the gods themselves, conquering them, are of superhuman growth, and because the whole composition is titanic in its pathos and scope.
The perfection of form, the amazing play of light and shadow, the harmonious combination of the sharpest contrasts, the inexhaustible dynamism of each figure, each group and the entire composition are consonant with the art of Scopas, are equivalent to the highest plastic achievements of the 4th century. This is the great Greek art in all its glory.
But the spirit of these statues sometimes carries us away from Hellas. Lessing's words that the Greek artist humbled the manifestations of passions in order to create serenely beautiful images do not apply to them in any way. True, this principle was already violated in the late classics. However, even as if filled with the most violent impulse, the figures of warriors and Amazons in the frieze of the tomb of Mavsol seem to us restrained in comparison with the figures of the Pergamon "gigantomachy".
Not the victory of the light principle over the darkness of the underworld, from where the giants escaped, is the real theme of the Pergamon frieze. We see the triumph of the gods, Zeus and Athena, but we are shaken by something else that involuntarily captures ourselves when we look at this whole storm. Into the fight, wild, selfless - this is what the marble of the Pergamon frieze glorifies. In this ecstasy, the giant figures of the fighting frantically grapple with each other. Their faces are distorted, and it seems to us that we hear their cries, furious or exultant roars, deafening screams and groans.
As if some kind of elemental force was reflected here in marble, a force untamed and indomitable, which loves to sow horror and death. Is it not the one that since ancient times appeared to man in the terrible image of the Beast? It seemed that it was done with him in Hellas, but now he is clearly resurrecting here, in Hellenistic Pergamum. Not only with their spirit, but also with their appearance. We see lion's faces, giants with wriggling snakes instead of legs, monsters, as if generated by a heated imagination from the awakened horror of the unknown.
To the first Christians, the Pergamon altar seemed like "the throne of Satan"! ..
Didn't Asian masters, who were still subject to the visions, dreams and fears of the Ancient East, participate in the creation of the frieze? Or did the Greek masters themselves become imbued with them on this earth? The latter assumption seems more likely.
And this is the interweaving of the Hellenic ideal of a harmonious perfect form, conveying the visible world in its majestic beauty, the ideal of a man who realized himself as the crown of nature, with a completely different attitude, which we recognize in the paintings of Paleolithic caves, forever imprinting a formidable bull's strength, and in the unsolved faces of stone the idols of Mesopotamia, and in the Scythian "animal" plaques, perhaps for the first time finds such an integral, organic embodiment in the tragic images of the Pergamon altar.
These images are not as comforting as the images of the Parthenon, but in subsequent centuries their restless pathos will be consonant with many of the highest creations of art.
By the end of the 1st century. BC. Rome asserts its dominion over the Hellenistic world. But it is difficult to designate, even conditionally, the final facet of Hellenism. In any case, in its impact on the culture of other peoples. Rome adopted the culture of Hellas in its own way, and itself turned out to be Hellenized. The radiance of Hellas did not fade either under Roman rule, or after the fall of Rome.
In the field of art for the Middle East, especially Byzantium, the legacy of antiquity was largely Greek, not Roman. But that's not all. The spirit of Hellas shines in ancient Russian painting. And this spirit illumines in the West great era Renaissance.
ROMAN SCULPTURE
Without the foundation laid by Greece and Rome, there would be no modern Europe either.
Both the Greeks and the Romans had their own historical vocation - they complemented each other, and the foundation of modern Europe is their common cause.
The artistic heritage of Rome meant a lot in the cultural foundation of Europe. Moreover, this legacy was almost decisive for European art.
In conquered Greece, the Romans initially behaved like barbarians. In one of his satyrs, Juvenal shows us a rude Roman warrior of those times, "to appreciate the art of the Greeks who did not know how", who, "in the usual proportion", smashed the "cups of the work of glorious artists" into small pieces to decorate his shield or shell with them.
And when the Romans heard about the value of works of art, the destruction was replaced by plunder - rampant, apparently, without any selection. From Epirus in Greece, the Romans took out five hundred statues, and having broken the Etruscans even before that, two thousand from Wei. It is unlikely that all of these were the same masterpieces.
It is generally accepted that the fall of Corinth in 146 BC. the actual Greek period of ancient history ends. This blooming city on the shore Ionian Sea, one of the main centers of Greek culture, was razed to the ground by the soldiers of the Roman consul Mummy. From the burned down palaces and temples, consular ships took out countless artistic treasures, so that, as Pliny writes, literally all of Rome was filled with statues.
The Romans not only brought in a great number of Greek statues (in addition, they also brought Egyptian obelisks), but copied the Greek originals on a large scale. And for this alone, we should be grateful to them. What, however, was the actual Roman contribution to the art of sculpture? Around the trunk of Trajan's column, erected at the beginning of the 2nd century. BC e. at the Forum of Trajan, above the very grave of this emperor, a relief winds in a wide ribbon, glorifying his victories over the Dacians, whose kingdom (present-day Romania) was finally conquered by the Romans. The artists who made this relief were undoubtedly not only talented, but also well acquainted with the techniques of the Hellenistic masters. Yet this is a typical Roman work.
Before us is the most detailed and conscientious narration... It is a narrative, not a generalized image. In Greek relief, the story of real events was presented allegorically, usually intertwined with mythology. In the Roman relief, from the time of the republic, one can clearly see the desire to be as accurate as possible, more specifically convey the course of events in its logical sequence along with characteristic features persons participating in them. In the relief of Trajan's column, we see Roman and barbarian camps, preparations for a campaign, storming fortresses, crossings, merciless battles. Everything seems to be really very precise: the types of Roman soldiers and Dacians, their weapons and clothing, the type of fortifications - so this relief can serve as a kind of sculptural encyclopedia of the military life of that time. By its general design, the entire composition, rather, resembles the already known relief narratives of the abusive exploits of the Assyrian kings, but with less pictorial power, although with a better knowledge of anatomy and the ability to place figures more freely in space from the Greeks. The low relief, without the plastic revelation of the figures, may have been inspired by the paintings that have not survived. The images of Trajan himself are repeated at least ninety times, the faces of the soldiers are extremely expressive.
These very concreteness and expressiveness constitute a distinctive feature of all Roman portrait sculpture, in which, perhaps, the originality of the Roman artistic genius was most clearly manifested.
The purely Roman share, included in the treasury of world culture, is perfectly defined (just in connection with the Roman portrait) by the greatest connoisseur of ancient art, O.F. Waldhauer: “... Rome exists as an individual; Rome is in those austere forms in which ancient images were reborn under its dominion; Rome is in that great organism that spread the seeds of ancient culture, giving them the opportunity to fertilize new, still barbaric peoples, and, finally, Rome is in the creation of the civilized world on the basis of cultural Hellenic elements and, modifying them, in accordance with new tasks, only Rome and could create ... the great era of portrait sculpture ... ".
The Roman portrait has a complex background. Its connection with the Etruscan portrait is obvious, as well as with the Hellenistic one. The Roman root is also quite clear: the first Roman portraits in marble or bronze were just an exact reproduction of a wax mask removed from the face of the deceased. It is not yet art in the usual sense.
In subsequent times, precision has been preserved at the heart of the Roman artistic portrait. Precision, inspired by creative inspiration and remarkable craftsmanship. The legacy of Greek art certainly played a role here. But it can be said without exaggeration: the art of a brightly individualized portrait, brought to perfection, completely exposing the inner world of a given person, is, in essence, a Roman achievement. In any case, in terms of the scope of creativity, in the strength and depth of psychological penetration.
The Roman portrait reveals before us the spirit of Ancient Rome in all its aspects and contradictions. A Roman portrait is, as it were, the history of Rome itself, told in persons, the history of its unprecedented rise and tragic death: “The whole history of the Roman fall is expressed here with eyebrows, foreheads, lips” (Herzen).
Among the Roman emperors there were noble personalities, major statesmen, there were also greedy ambitious, there were monsters, despots,
Maddened by unlimited power, and in the consciousness that everything was allowed to them, who shed a sea of blood, were gloomy tyrants who, by killing their predecessor, reached the highest rank and therefore destroyed everyone who inspired them the slightest suspicion. As we have seen, the morals born of the deified monarchy sometimes pushed even the most enlightened to the most cruel acts.
During the period of the greatest power of the empire, a well-organized slave system, in which the life of a slave was put into nothing and treated like a working cattle, left its imprint on the morality and life of not only emperors and nobles, but also ordinary citizens. And at the same time, encouraged by the pathos of statehood, there was an increase in the desire to streamline social life in the Roman style throughout the empire, with full confidence that there could not be a more durable and beneficial system. But this confidence turned out to be untenable.
Continuous wars, internecine feuds, provincial uprisings, the flight of slaves, the consciousness of lawlessness with each century more and more undermined the foundation of the "Roman peace". The conquered provinces showed their will more and more decisively. And in the end they undermined the unifying power of Rome. Provinces destroyed Rome; Rome itself turned into a provincial city, similar to others, privileged, but no longer dominant, ceased to be the center of the world empire ... The Roman state turned into a gigantic complex machine exclusively for sucking the juices from its subjects.
New trends coming from the East, new ideals, the search for a new truth gave birth to new beliefs. The decline of Rome came, the decline of the ancient world with its ideology and social order.
All this is reflected in Roman portrait sculpture.
In the days of the republic, when morals were more severe and simpler, the documentary accuracy of the image, the so-called "verism" (from the word verus - true), was not yet balanced by the Greek ennobling influence. This influence manifested itself in the age of Augustus, sometimes even to the detriment of truthfulness.
The famous full-length statue of Augustus, where he is shown in all the splendor of imperial power and military glory (statue from Prima Porta, Rome, Vatican), as well as his image in the form of Jupiter himself (Hermitage), of course, idealized ceremonial portraits, equating the earthly ruler to the celestials. And yet they feature the individual traits of Augustus, the relative poise and the undoubted significance of his personality.
Numerous portraits of his successor, Tiberius, are also idealized.
Let's look at the sculptural portrait of Tiberius in his youth (Copenhagen, Glyptotek). Ennobled image. And at the same time, of course, individual. Something unsympathetic, obnoxiously withdrawn can be seen in his features. Perhaps, placed in different conditions, this person would outwardly live his life quite decently. But eternal fear and unlimited power. And it seems to us that the artist captured in his image something that even the shrewd Augustus did not recognize when he appointed Tiberius his successor.
But for all its noble restraint, the portrait of Tiberius's successor - Caligula (Copenhagen, Glyptotek), a murderer and torturer, who was eventually stabbed to death by his entourage, is already completely exposed. His gaze is eerie, and you feel that there can be no mercy from this very young ruler (he ended his terrible life for twenty-nine years) with tightly compressed lips, who loved to remind him that he could do anything: and with anyone. We believe, looking at the portrait of Caligula, all the stories about his countless atrocities. “He forced the fathers to be present at the execution of their sons,” writes Suetonius, “for one of them he sent a stretcher when he tried to evade due to ill health; another he immediately after the spectacle of the execution invited him to the table and with all sorts of pleasantries forced him to joke and have fun. " And another Roman historian, Dio, adds that when the father of one of those being executed "asked if he could at least close his eyes, he ordered the death of his father as well." And also in Suetonius: “When the cattle, which were used to feed wild animals for spectacles, grew in price, he ordered to throw them at the mercy of criminals; and, going around the prison for this, he did not look who was to blame for what, but directly ordered, standing at the door, to take everyone ... ”. The low-browed face of Nero, the most famous of the crowned fiends of Ancient Rome (marble, Rome, National Museum), is ominous in its cruelty.
The style of the Roman sculptural portrait changed along with the general attitude of the era. Documentary truthfulness, splendor, reaching deification, the sharpest realism, the depth of psychological penetration, alternately prevailed in him, or even complemented each other. But as long as the Roman idea was alive, the pictorial power did not dry out in it.
Emperor Hadrian earned the glory of a wise ruler; it is known that he was an enlightened connoisseur of art, an ardent admirer of the classical heritage of Hellas. His features, carved in marble, a thoughtful look, together with a slight touch of sadness, complement our idea of him, as his portraits complement our idea of Caracalla, truly capturing the quintessence of bestial cruelty, the most unbridled, violent power. On the other hand, Marcus Aurelius appears as a true "philosopher on the throne", a thinker filled with spiritual nobility, preaching stoicism in his writings, a detachment from earthly goods.
Truly unforgettable in their expressiveness images!
But the Roman portrait resurrects before us not only the images of the emperors.
Let us stop at the Hermitage in front of a portrait of an unknown Roman, executed probably at the very end of the 1st century. This is an undoubted masterpiece, in which the Roman accuracy of the image is combined with the traditional Hellenic craftsmanship, the documentary character of the image - with the inner spirituality. We do not know who the author of the portrait is - is it a Greek, who gave Rome with its worldview and tastes his talent, a Roman or another artist, an imperial subject, inspired by Greek models, but firmly rooted in the Roman soil - as the authors are unknown (in the majority, probably, slaves) and other remarkable statues from the Roman era.
This image depicts an elderly person who has seen a lot in his lifetime and has experienced a lot, in whom you guess some kind of nagging suffering, perhaps from deep thoughts. The image is so real, truthful, snatched so tenaciously from the midst of humanity and so skillfully identified in its essence that it seems to us that we met this Roman, are familiar with him, that's exactly how - albeit unexpectedly our comparison - as we know, for example , heroes of Tolstoy's novels.
And the same persuasiveness in another well-known masterpiece from the Hermitage, a marble portrait of a young woman, conventionally named after the type of face "Syrian".
This is already the second half of the 2nd century: the depicted woman is a contemporary of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
We know that this was an era of revaluation of values, intensified Eastern influences, new romantic moods, maturing mysticism, foreshadowing the crisis of Roman great-power pride. “The time of human life is a moment,” wrote Marcus Aurelius, “its essence is an eternal flow; feeling vague; the structure of the whole body is perishable; the soul is unstable; fate is mysterious; glory is unreliable. "
Melancholic contemplation, characteristic of many portraits of this time, breathes the image of the "Syrian". But her brooding dreaminess - we feel it - is deeply individual, and again she herself seems to us for a long time familiar, almost even dear, so the sculptor's vital chisel with sophisticated work extracted her enchanting and soulful features from white marble with a gentle bluish tint.
And here again the emperor, but a special emperor: Philip the Arab, who came to the fore at the height of the crisis of the III century. - bloody "imperial leapfrog" - from the ranks of the provincial legion. This is his official portrait. The soldier's severity of the image is all the more significant: that was the time when, in general ferment, the army became the bulwark of the imperial power.
Frowning brows. A formidable, wary look. Heavy, fleshy nose. Deep wrinkles of the cheeks, forming a kind of triangle with a sharp horizontal line of thick lips. A mighty neck, and on the chest there is a wide transverse fold of the toga, which finally gives the entire marble bust a truly granite massiveness, laconic strength and integrity.
Here is what Waldgauer writes about this remarkable portrait, also kept in our Hermitage: “The technique has been simplified to the extreme ... The facial features are developed by deep, almost rough lines, with a complete rejection of detailed surface modeling. The personality, as such, is mercilessly characterized, highlighting the most important features. "
New style, monumental expressiveness achieved in a new way. Is this not the influence of the so-called barbarian periphery of the empire, increasingly penetrating through the provinces that became rivals of Rome?
In the general style of the bust of Philip the Arab, Waldhauer recognizes features that will be fully developed in medieval sculptural portraits of French and German cathedrals.
Ancient Rome became famous for its loud deeds, achievements that surprised the world, but its decline was gloomy and painful.
A whole historical era was ending. The outmoded system was to give way to a new, more advanced one; slave society - to be reborn into a feudal one.
In 313, the long-persecuted Christianity was recognized in the Roman Empire as the state religion, which at the end of the 4th century. became dominant throughout the Roman Empire.
Christianity, with its preaching of humility, asceticism, with its dream of paradise not on earth, but in heaven, created a new mythology, the heroes of which, the ascetics of the new faith, who took the martyr's crown for it, took the place that once belonged to the gods and goddesses who personified the life-affirming principle , earthly love and earthly joy. It spread gradually, and therefore, even before its legalized triumph, the Christian doctrine and the social moods that prepared it fundamentally undermined the ideal of beauty, which once shone with full light on the Athenian Acropolis and which was perceived and approved by Rome throughout the world under its control.
The Christian Church tried to clothe in a concrete form of unshakable religious beliefs a new attitude, in which the East, with its fears of the unsolved forces of nature, the eternal struggle with the Beast, found a response among the disadvantaged throughout the ancient world. And although the ruling elite of this world hoped for a new universal religion to weld the decrepit Roman state, the worldview, born of the need for social transformation, shook the unity of the empire along with that ancient culture from which the Roman statehood arose.
The twilight of the ancient world, the twilight of the great ancient art. Throughout the empire, according to the old canons, majestic palaces, forums, baths and triumphal arches are still being built, but these are only repetitions of what was achieved in previous centuries.
A colossal head - about one and a half meters - from the statue of Emperor Constantine, who transferred the capital of the empire to Byzantium in 330, which became Constantinople - the "Second Rome" (Rome, Palazzo of the Conservatives). The face is built correctly, harmoniously, according to Greek patterns. But the main thing in this face is the eyes: it seems that if you close them, there would be no face itself ... The fact that in the Fayum portraits or the Pompeian portrait of a young woman gave the image an inspired expression is taken to the extreme here, has exhausted the whole image. The ancient balance between spirit and body is clearly violated in favor of the former. Not a living human face, but a symbol. A symbol of power, captured in the gaze, power that subjugates everything earthly, dispassionate, unyielding and inaccessibly high. No, even if portrait features have been preserved in the image of the emperor, this is no longer a portrait sculpture.
The impressive triumphal arch of Emperor Constantine in Rome. Its architectural composition is strictly sustained in the classical Roman style. But in the relief narrative glorifying the emperor, this style disappears almost without a trace. The relief is so low that the small figures appear flat, not sculpted, but scratched out. They are monotonously lined up in a row, molded to each other. We look at them in amazement: this is a world completely different from the world of Hellas and Rome. No revival - and the seemingly forever overcome frontality is resurrected!
A porphyry statue of the imperial co-rulers - the tetrarchs who ruled at that time over certain parts of the empire. This sculptural group marks both the end and the beginning.
The end - for it is decisively done away with the Hellenic ideal of beauty, the smooth roundness of forms, the slenderness of the human figure, the grace of composition, the softness of modeling. That coarseness and simplification, which imparted special expressiveness to the Hermitage portrait of Philip the Arab, became here, as it were, an end in itself. Almost cubic, clumsy carved heads. There is not even a hint of portraiture, as if human individuality is no longer worthy of being depicted.
In 395, the Roman Empire split into Western - Latin and Eastern - Greek. In 476 the Western Roman Empire fell under the blows of the Germans. A new historical era has come, called the Middle Ages.
A new page has opened in the history of art.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Britova N.N.Roman sculptural portrait: Essays. - M., 1985
- Brunov N.I. Monuments Athenian Acropolis... - M., 1973
- Dmitrieva N.A. Short story arts. - M., 1985
- Lyubimov L. D. Art the ancient world... - M., 2002
- Chubova A.P. Antique Masters: Sculptors and Painters. - L., 1986
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abstractOutstanding sculptors of Ancient Greece
Timergalina Alfina
Plan
Introduction
1. Sculpture of the Homeric period of the XXI-VIII centuries.
2. Sculpture of the 7th-3rd centuries.
Conclusion
Introduction
An increasing number of people realize that familiarization with the historical past is not only an acquaintance with the masterpieces of world civilization, unique monuments of ancient art, not only a school of education, but also morality and an artistically integral part of modern life.
The largest civilization of the ancient world was the ancient Greek civilization. The civilization had a developed culture.
It can be considered indisputably proven that class society and the state, and with it civilization, arose on Greek soil twice with a large gap in time: first, in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. and again in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Therefore, the entire history of ancient Greece is now usually divided into two large eras: 1) the era of the Mycenaean, or Cretan-Mycenaean, palace civilization and 2) the era of the ancient polis civilization.
1. Sculpture of the Homeric period of the XXI-VIII centuries.
Unfortunately, practically nothing has come down to us from the monumental sculpture of the Homeric period. Xoan was, for example, a wooden statue of Athena of Dreros, decorated with gilded plates depicting details of clothing. As for the surviving sculptural specimens, small ceramic figurines from Tanagra dating back to the 7th century are of undoubted interest. BC e., but made under the clear influence of the geometric style. Interestingly, the same influence can be traced not only in painted ceramics (which is not difficult to imagine: the figurines are simply painted with certain patterns or figures repeating in shape), but also in bronze sculpture.
2. Sculpture of the 7th-3rd centuries
In the VII - VI centuries. BC. sculpture is dominated by two types: the nude male figure and the draped female figure. The birth of the statuesque type of the nude figure of a man is associated with the main trends in the development of society. The appearance of the relief is mainly associated with the custom of erecting tombstones. Subsequently, reliefs in the form of complex multi-figured compositions became an indispensable part of the entablature of the temple. Statues and reliefs were usually painted.
Sculpture and painting of Greece in the 5th century. BC. developed the traditions of the previous time. Images of gods and heroes remained the main ones. ancient greek sculpture statuary Homeric
The main theme in the art of the Greeks in the archaic period is the man, represented in the form of a god, hero, athlete. This man is beautiful and perfect, with power and beauty he is like a deity, confident authority is guessed in calmness and contemplation. These are the numerous marble sculptures of the late 7th century. BC. naked youths-cables.
If earlier it was considered necessary to create an abstract embodiment of certain physical and mental qualities, an average image, now sculptors showed attention to a specific person, his individuality. The greatest successes in this were achieved by Scopas, Praxitel, Lysippus, Timofey, Briaxides.
There was a search for means to convey the shades of the movement of the soul, mood. One of them is represented by Skopas, a native of Fr. Paros. Another, lyrical direction was reflected in his art by Praxiteles, a younger contemporary of Scopas ("Aphrodite of Cnidus", Artemis and Hermes with Dionysus). The desire to show a variety of characters was characteristic of Lysippos (statue of Apoxyomenos, "Eros with a bow", "Hercules fighting a lion").
Gradually, the numbness of the figures and the schematism inherent in archaic sculpture are overcome, the Greek statues become more realistic. The development of sculpture is also connected in the 5th century. BC. with the names of the three famous masters Miron, Polycletus and Phidias.
The most famous of Myron's sculptures is "Discobolus" - an athlete at the moment of throwing a discus. The perfect body of an athlete at the moment of the highest tension is Myron's favorite theme.
The most famous, revered and incomparable sculptor of the period of mature (also called "high") classics was Phidias, who led the reconstruction of the Athenian Acropolis and the construction of the famous Parthenon and other beautiful temples on it. Phidias created three statues of the Athenian patron goddess for the Acropolis. In 438 BC. e. he completed the twelve-meter statue of Athena Parthenos, specially made of wood, gold and ivory for interior decoration Parthenon. In the open air, on a high pedestal towered another Athena by Phidias - the bronze Athena Promachos ("Warrior"). The goddess was depicted in full armor, with a spear, the gilded tip of which shone so brightly in the sun that it replaced the ships sailing in Piraeus with a coastal lighthouse. There was another Athena, the so-called Athena Lemnia, which was inferior in size to other works of Phidias and, like them, has come down to us in rather controversial Roman copies. However, the greatest fame, which eclipsed even the glory of Athena Parthenos and all other Acropolis works of Phidias, was enjoyed in ancient times by the colossal statue of Olympian Zeus.
Conclusion
A characteristic feature of early Greek culture was the amazing unity of its style, brightly marked by originality, vitality and humanity. Man occupied a significant place in the worldview of this society; moreover, the artists paid attention to representatives of various professions and social strata, the inner world of each character. The peculiarity of the culture of early Hellas is reflected in the surprisingly harmonious combination of motives of nature and the requirements of style, which are revealed by the works of its best masters of art. And if initially the artists, especially the Cretan ones, strove more towards embellishment, then already from the 17th-16th centuries. the creativity of Hellas is full of vitality. In the XXX-XII centuries. the population of Greece passed difficult path economic, political and spiritual development. This segment of history is characterized by an intensive growth of production, which created conditions in a number of regions of the country for the transition from a primitive to an early class system. The parallel existence of these two social systems determined the originality of the history of Greece in the Bronze Age. It should be noted that many of the achievements of the Hellenes of that time were the basis of the brilliant culture of the Greeks of the classical era and together with it entered the treasury of European culture.
Then, for several centuries, called the "Dark Ages" (XI-IX centuries) in their development, the peoples of Hellas, due to hitherto unknown circumstances, can be said to be thrown back to the primitive communal system.
The "Dark Ages" is followed by the Archaic period - this is the time of the emergence, first of all, of writing (based on the Phoenician), then of philosophy: mathematics, natural philosophy, then the extraordinary wealth of lyric poetry, etc. The Greeks, skillfully using the achievements of the previous cultures of Babylon, Egypt, create their own art, which had a huge impact on all subsequent stages of European culture.
Nothing is known about the monumental painting of the archaic period. It is obvious that it existed, but for some reason it did not survive.
Thus, the archaic period can be called a period of a sharp leap in the cultural development of Greece.
The archaic period is followed by the classical period (V-IV centuries BC).
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