ARTICLE
DEITIES &
DESIGN: PART II
A
By Jonathan Costas
s the ancient Greeks strive to improve and
create the perfect rendition of the human
body by the end of the Archaic Period, we enter
the Classical Period. What we learned about the
Archaic Period in the last issue was the difference
in sculptures from the first and second half. By the
second half, sculptures resembled a proportionally
correct human from the neck down. Two major
missing factors from the Archaic period is a realistic
face and non rigid, natural posture. Luckily, this is
where the Classical Period comes in. Putting aside
the first two Periods, Greece now enters an era of
masterful craftsmanship in terms of art. Years upon
years of hard work and persistence finally pays off
and now a proper tribute to the gods can be made.
The Classical Period ushered in new styles and
functions of sculptures, along with a drastic increase
of technical skills of Greek artists in creating the
human form. As I mentioned before, poses become
more organic, fluid, and natural which started to
appear early on during the beginning of the Period.
Later on during the Classical Period (around 500
BC), statues began to increasingly depict real
people. Real people as in not any generic human,
more like a realistic form of a portrait, if you will.
Archaic has generic Kouros and Kore which does not
depict an actual person. The statues of Harmodius
and Aristogeiton are often said to be the first
public monument to actually show individuals in
the Classical Period. It’s often said that the Greek
sculptor Lysistratus was the first to use plaster
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