The Late Classical Period 4 th Century BCE

The Late Classical Period, 4 th Century BCE

Democracy begins in the early 5 th century BC in Athens, c. 500 BCE. Meanwhile the Athenians fight the Persians. In 480 BC Athens loses, and the Persians sack the ancient acropolis of the city. Later in the same year the Athenians and their allies beat the Persians in an important naval victory. Athenian confidence soars. Pericles uses money from the Delian League to rebuild the acropolis, including the Parthenon, beginning in 447 BC. But by 431, the Peloponnesian War has begun. Look at the map & read the next slide (both from Wikipedia) to understand.

(Get the general gist of this; you don’t have to know every detail. ) From Wikipedia: The Peloponnesian War (431– 404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. In the first phase, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese attempting to suppress signs of unrest in its empire. This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the. Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive expeditionary force to attack. Syracuse in Sicily; the attack failed disastrously, with the destruction of the entire force, in 413 BC. This ushered in the final phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War. In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from Persia, supported rebellions in Athens' subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia, undermining Athens' empire, and, eventually, depriving the city of naval supremacy. The destruction of Athens' fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year. Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved but Sparta refused. The Peloponnesian War reshaped the ancient Greek world. On the level of international relations, Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war's beginning, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta became established as the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece; poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity. [1][2] The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society; the conflict between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, each of which supported friendly political factions within other states, made civil war a common occurrence in the Greek world. Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth century BC and the golden age of Greece. [3]

The previously described events lead to a sense of political upheaval and chaos in the 4 th century BCE, the Late Classical Period. If art of the 5 th century BCE was about community, ideals and a faith in rationality, art of the 4 th century was about the individual and more emotional expression. Sculpture becomes more sensual, introspective and at times, psychologically intense. Three major sculptors work in this century: Praxiteles, Scopas and Lysippos.

Praxiteles, Aphrodite of Knidos, Roman marble copy of the original, c. 350 BCE. Praxiteles carves the first female nude sculpture in Greek art – a very big deal. There had been some female nudity in Greek vase painting prior to this work, but those images had depicted courtesans and prostitutes. This is a goddess. The ancient world went nuts for this sculpture. There are many accounts of people praising it, falling in love with it, travelling to Knidos just to see it, etc. It became a famous work in its own time. The original marble work by Praxiteles is lost, but it spawned many copies and really changed western art. This “modest” pose is used again and again, and the depiction of a nude woman, unaware, doing something ordinary like preparing to take a bath, has been repeated for many centuries. Although this work isn’t the original (and isn’t as good) it gives us some sense of Praxiteles’ style as it is described in ancient accounts: the proportions are longer and more slender, her flesh is very smooth and would have been highly polished, there is a gentle S curve to her pose, and her expression is rather dreamy.

Praxiteles, Hermes and the Infant Dionysos, marble copy of an original, c. 340 BCE Although this work is a copy too, it’s thought to be a very high quality copy, possibly by a Hellenistic artist (a Greek) vs. a Roman. It has all the Praxiteles qualities: sensuality, slender and long, S curve, and a tender moment.

This MAY be our only existing work made directly by Praxiteles or his workshop, and it’s in Cleveland. There’s a lot of dispute about all of this, however. It is now thought to be a work from the 4 th century BCE, rather than a forgery. But how the Cleveland Museum of Art acquired the work and whether it is truly a work by Praxiteles is still be debated.

From the Cleveland Museum of Art: Although Praxiteles was more successful, and therefore more famous for his marble sculptures, he nevertheless also created very beautiful works in bronze. He made a youthful Apollo called the Sauroktonos (Lizard-Slayer), waiting in ambush for a creeping lizard, close at hand, with an arrow. Pliny the Elder, 1 st century ad This statue of the Apollo Sauroktonos may be the one Pliny the Elder saw in the 1 st century ad. The complete sculpture most likely showed the young god pulling back a slender laurel tree with his raised left hand, while holding an arrow at waist level with his right, poised to strike the lizard creeping up the tree. Two Roman marble copies preserve the complete composition: one in the Louvre, the other in the Vatican. The museum's sculpture is the only known life-size bronze version of the Apollo Sauroktonos. Technical features such as the way the sculpture was cast and repaired in antiquity, the copper inlays of the lips and nipples, and the stone insert for the right eye (the left is a restoration) are consistent with a date in the 4 th century bc. However, technically it may have been possible to produce such a work in the Hellenistic period. The Apollo Sauroktonos is thought to have been created by Praxiteles about 350 bc. Androgynous sensuality and languid, gracefully curved poses are hallmarks of his style. The finest large classical Greek statues were bronzes, but few have survived. If this sculpture is a product of Praxiteles' workshop, it is the only large Greek bronze statue that can be attributed to a Greek sculptor. Praxiteles was widely popular in his day. His famous Aphrodite of Cnidus (late 360 s bc) introduced the life-size nude female figure to Western art.

Here is the Cleveland Apollo with two Roman copies, one from the Louvre and one from the Vatican. There is no dispute that these copies are of an Apollo figure by Praxiteles, but whether or not the Cleveland piece is that figure is still being debated. In any case, you can see the full composition. Following are more details of the Cleveland work. Does it seem to fit the style of Praxiteles?

Style of Skopas, Grave Stele of a Young Hunter, c. 340 BCE This work isn’t by Skopas but has the hallmarks he was famed for, especially a heightened sense of psychology and emotion. The nude young man looking out at the viewer is the deceased. At his feet are a young boy (a servant perhaps, or a brother? ) and his dog and both hang their heads in sorrow. The older man is thought to be the hunter’s father. It’s easy to imagine the father in mourning for a lost child, mulling over the bitter ironies of life. Compare this more vivid sense of grief with the High Classical Stele of Hegeso in the next slide. Note the difference in the depth of the carving as well, and the composition which seems to bring us closer to the space of the scene.

High Classical

Lysippos, Weary Herakles, Roman marble copy after a bronze original, c. 320 BCE. The Weary Herakles by Lysippos was popular and copied repeatedly. This version was oversized and made for the Baths of Caracalla , an extravagant public bath house made during the reign of Roman Emperor Caracalla. The sculpture was unearthed in Rome in 1546. Lysippos was known for figures that moved more fully into three dimensional space. Herakles’ left hand hangs forward, while his right hand is hidden behind his back, encouraging the viewer to move around him. In his hand are the apples he has stolen from the Hesperides, his 11 th labor. Most notable is the exaggerated lean of his gesture, and the contrast between the obvious power of Herakles’ immense body and his utter exhaustion. We see the physical and psychological toll of being a hero.

Early Classical, c. 480 BCE Late Classical, c. 320 BCE

High Classical, c. 440 BCE Late Classical, c. 320 BCE