Defining Beauty: the Body in Ancient Greek Art

Defining Beauty: the Body in Ancient Greek Art

 

By Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis

History Today

Posted 17th June 2015, 8:43

Marble statue of a naked Aphrodite crouching at her bath, also known as Lely’s Venus. Roman copy of a Greek original, 2nd century AD. Height 120cm. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015

 

Defining Beauty: the Body in Ancient Greek Art explores depictions of the human body in Greek sculpture and, to a lesser extent, vase painting, predominantly 500-300 BC. It is a story of the gradual change in style from the stiff Archaic through idealized Classical naturalism to the realism of the Hellenistic period. The exhibition and accompanying literature emphasize how innovative was this depiction of the naked body, and the distinctively Greek idea of the connection of physical and moral beauty. This is a well-established interpretation; the exhibition is not innovative, but carries off what it does with panache. The display is visually arresting but not overpowering, spread over six rooms. It creates new combinations of well-known sculptures, and this generates a fresh and stimulating way of seeing pieces that are so familiar, but to which we are almost immune. Perhaps the most exciting element is to see five fragments of the Parthenon sculptures displayed next to other important pieces, including part of the Telephos frieze from the Pergamon altar from Berlin and a Neo-Assyrian relief from northern Iraq now in the British Museum. In this way, the vexed question of ownership of the Parthenon sculptures which frequently overshadows them is successfully sidestepped and instead the visitor can see them within the broader context of Greek and Near Eastern sculpture.

 

The tone is set in the first room which introduces female and male naked idealized Classical forms – the crouching Aphrodite from the British Museum (inset) and a stunning bronze athlete from Croatia – and places together on a platform three naked male sculptures associated with the names of three top Classical sculptors: Pheidias, Polykleitos and Myron. This is traditional art history focusing on big names and placing on a pedestal what has been identified as the height of Classical art from the very outset of the discipline of Classical Art in the writings of J.J. Winckelmann in the 18th century. The physical presence of these pieces is overwhelming, both to those first encountering ancient Greek art and to those who are familiar with these iconic sculptures in isolation and usually in a two-dimensional photograph. Although this is not made explicit the display also offers the opportunity for considering the way that we often come to Greek sculpture through copies: three out of the five pieces are copies of the Classical originals (two are Roman and one is from the 19th century).

 

Next is the use of colour and gilding in Greek statuary; although this practice has been known since the 18th century it is still frequently overlooked and the use of painted plaster casts in the display is highly effective.

 

The underlying Greek cultural ideology in the depiction of the body is also covered, a highlight of which is the display of an Egyptian male sculpture, a Cypriot youth, a Greek Archaic kouros and a little beyond a copy of a Classical athlete, which underlines the enormous changes in the depiction of naked anatomy, posture and interior psychology, otherwise known as Greek naturalism. From there we move to the body in key rites of passage (childhood, marriage, sex and death), followed by the Greek view of the bodies of hybrids and foreigners together with the new trends in realism and portraiture which occurred in the Hellenistic period, and finally the influence of Greek art through space aissance onwards.

 

And time – on Gandharan art and on the Western tradition from the RenaThe emphasis of the exhibition is exclusively on the development of the depiction of the body and the establishment of an ideal, while function and context of use of these objects are largely ignored. For example, pottery is displayed for its painted or moulded decoration of the human body, and the context of use which varied from the drunken symposium to the cold grave, is hardly referred to. Arguably this limits the potential for understanding the meanings carried by these depicted bodies, although the richly illustrated catalogue does offer further details including function. The final room offers a stunning visual dialogue between Dionysos from the Parthenon pediment and the Belvedere torso from the Vatican, mediated by drawings of Michelangelo and Haydon. This is an inspired and forward-looking closure to a traditional but beautifully executed exhibition.

 

Dr Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis is Lecturer in Classical Art and Archaeology King’s College London and Corpus Christi College Oxford.