Saturday, October 8, 2016

Hellenistic art

I really enjoyed studying the Hellenistic sculptures. I like these a lot more than the Hellenic sculptures because they are more realistic. They focus a lot less on idealism and more on realism. They even show bodily imperfections and deformities unlike the Hellenic period which only sculpt "perfect" humans. I like how the Hellenistic sculptures also convey how the person is feeling by their facia expressions.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I think it is important to note that they became more focused on the body. They were moving away from focusing on the gods and more on secular ideas. This is also when athletic competitions started, and there was a focus on movement of the body. Discobolus is a good example of Late Classical art. It focuses on movement and is mostly realistic, excluding a few proportional mistakes. It was interesting to see the progression of Hellenistic art over hundreds of years.

Unknown said...

I think it's also worth noting that sculptures of gods still looked very perfect in comparison to the now blemished human statues. Even though they moved away from religion an focused more on humanism, they still respected the gods by forming them as perfect. I think it's also worth noting that statues such as the old woman was the first time we're seeing everyday women incorporated into the art world. It's clear a huge movement was taking place but they still clung onto a few past ideals.

Unknown said...

We studied multiple Hellenistic pieces which also focus on sports. The Charioteer was a Hellenistic piece which was created around the time of the first Olympic Games. The sculpture Is of a man who is participating in the Olympic Games as a competitor. The piece celebrates not only greecian nationality, but athletics, and the body. Although the body of the man is not perfect (his legs are out of perportion) movement can be seen through the draping of his clothes. The realistic draping is another important facet of Greecian art which is specific to this period