Blog

For more on the why and how of the Sculpture Synopsis, see the first post in this series. The series is also available as a playlist on my YouTube Channel.

Characteristic examples of Archaic Greek sculpture

• New York Kouros, ca. 590 BC. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• Peplos Kore, ca. 530 BC. Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Dates of the Archaic Period

Circa 650-500 BC, for life-size and monumental free-standing sculpture. Archaic art in other media (figurines, vase paintings) appears as early as 800 BC.

Location

Mainland Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea, as well as areas where Greek-speaking cities were established as trading outposts, including coastal areas of the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

Media

Stone – often marble. Originally brightly painted (polychrome): see the reconstruction of the Peplos Kore above.

Subjects

• Typically nude males (the kouros type) or fully clothed females (the kore type). The figures are always young and attractive.
• Architectural sculpture: figures for pediments and metopes.

• Most sculpture was made for religious purposes: decoration on temples, offerings to gods (often after victory in an athletic contest), or grave markers. As opposed to Egyptian sculpture, these Greek works were visible to the public, which is extremely important for transmission of knowledge.

Dominant ideas among Greeks of the Archaic period

• Men are fascinating: worthy of study and accurate representation.
• Life on earth is important.
• Philosophy: Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes attempt to explain the world by reason, rather than magic or religion. Pythagoras argues that nature is organized on mathematical principles.

Style

• Rapid improvement in anatomical accuracy, from a style very like Egyptian (see last week’s post) to a much more life-like representation of bones, muscles, eyes, etc.
• By the end of the period, ca. 500 BC, only a few details – notably the “archaic smile” – are are still executed as they were ca. 600 BC.

Innovations in this period

• Interest in details of anatomy, and rapid improvement in ability to show it accurately.

Big names in art

None known from this period.

Other important examples

• Pedimental sculptures of the Temple of Artemis at Corfu, ca. 600-580 BC. The “pinwheel stance” to represent a running figure is common at this time.

• Berlin Goddess, ca. 580-560 BC
• Antenor Kore, ca. 530-520 BC. The “swallowtail folds” (symmetrical zigzags) of the drapery are characteristic of the late Archaic period.
• Aristodikos Kouros, ca. 500 BC

• Pedimental sculptures of Temple of Aphaia at Aegina, west end, ca. 490 BC

Where to see the originals

• Acropolis Museum, Athens
• National Museum, Athens
• Delphi Archeological Museum: Kleobis & Biton, twin early kouros sculptures

Further reading

• John Boardman, Greek Sculpture of the Archaic Period: A Handbook, 1978.
• Gisela Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art.
• Sandra Shaw, Windows on Humanity.
• Durante, Innovators in Sculpture, Chapter 2.
• For fun: Mary Renault, The Praise Singer, 1978. Renault, one of the great writers of historical fiction, set many of her works in Ancient Greece. The main character in The Praise Singer is Simonides of Keos (ca. 556-469 BC), a lyric poet in the period when mainland Greece and the Greek colonies in Ionia (Turkey) were still under the rule of tyrants. One of my favorite passages: “Tell a man what he may not sing, and he is still half free; even all free, if he never wanted to sing it. But tell him what he must sing, take up his time with it so that his true voice cannot sound even in secret – there, I have seen, is slavery.”

More

• Want wonderful art delivered weekly to your inbox? Check out my Sunday Recommendations list and rewards for recurring support: details here. For examples of favorite recommendations from past years, click here. The blurb above on Renault’s The Praise Singer is from one of the Sunday Recommendations.