Encyclopedia Britannica

The History of Western
Sculpture

High Classical period (c. 450-400 BC).

Since Roman times, Greek art of the second half of the 5th century BC
has been generally regarded as the high point in the development of the
Classical tradition. It was the most refined expression of the Greek view
of their gods as men and of their men as partaking of the divine. The
aesthetic result of this concept was that the bestial or supernatural was
abjured in representations of the divine; thus, even a Greek monster, such
as the centaur, seems plausible as an image combining humanity and
divinity. To some degree, the idealization of human figures was facilitated
by the Greeks' traditional concern with proportion and pattern. As a
result of the value placed on the ideal image, the representation of
extremes (of age or youth, for example, or of deep emotion) and of
individuality was ignored or little practiced. Even figures engaged in
violent or painful action have a calm, detached expression that modern
observers may find chilly and unfeeling. Another reflection of the value
placed on the ideal image is an increasing preoccupation with the "heroic
nude." From an early phase of Greek art, the artist had shown his interest
in man as man rather than as individual. In the Archaic period, the artist
studied the visual pattern of the naked male body. When anatomical
competence was complete, it was still the abstraction, the pattern, that
dictated that his subjects be nude; for it is certain that the average Greek
dressed for everyday life and for battle and that only in the exercise
ground or the racetrack was the naked body freely revealed.

During the high Classical period, Athens resumed a position of
importance as an artistic centre of the Greek world after years of
inactivity. Once most of the Greek homelands were secure from the
Persian threat, the funds that had been provided to Athens by the Greek
states to lead their defense were turned by the statesman Pericles to the
embellishment of Athens itself, and a program of rebuilding temples in the
city and countryside was begun. This task attracted sculptors, masons,
and other artists to Athens from all over the Greek world. It is largely the
work of these artists, under the guidance of Athenian masters, that
determined what is now recognized as the high Classical style.


Of the several types of sculpture that flourished during the high Classical
period, major statuary is least represented in surviving examples. Phidias,
the most influential sculptor of the period, made two huge cult images
plated with gold and ivory, the statue of Athena for the Parthenon and a
seated statue of Zeus for the temple at Olympia that was one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world. These works amazed and overawed
viewers through all antiquity, but no adequate copies survive.

Another important sculptor of the period, whose work can be seen
through copies, was Polyclitus, from Argos. Polyclitus embodied his
views on proportion in his "Doryphoros" ("Spear Bearer"), called "The
Canon" because of its "correct" proportions of one ideal male form.

Unlike freestanding statues, architectural sculpture from the high
Classical period has survived in abundance. The Parthenon sculptures
must have been executed by many different hands, but, because the
overall design was by Phidias, the composition and details undoubtedly
reflect his style and instructions. The pedimental figures and frieze,
especially, display the Classical qualities of idealization. These allow an
approximate assessment of Phidias' style and the importance of his
contribution to the establishment of the Classical idiom. About the time
that full employment for sculptors in Athens on the Parthenon came to an
end, there began a distinguished series of carved relief gravestones for
Athenian cemeteries. The general type had been familiar in Archaic
Athens, and the practice continued in other parts of Greece through the
early Classical period, mainly in the islands and in Boeotia. The new
Attic series, with calm and dignified groups of figures in generalized
settings of domesticity or leave-taking, exploited effectively the rather
impersonal calm in figure and features of the Classical conventions.

The other important class of sculpture, much of which has survived in the
original, is the dedicatory--votive reliefs or major works like the "Nike"
("Victory") found at Olympia, made by Paeonius. This work, and others
that belong to the last years of the century, such as the frieze from the
balustrade of the temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis at Athens, give
a clear indication of progress and change in sculptural style. In the
representation of the female body, never before a subject of particular
interest to the sculptor (with the distinguished exception of the Olympia
Master), true femininity was at last achieved through observation; in these
works the figures are no longer like male bodies with the more obvious
female characteristics added, which had generally been true of earlier
works. Drapery, which had for its patterns been an important element of
female figures in the Archaic period, has a heaviness, almost a life of its
own in the Parthenon sculptures. By the end of the century, in the Nike
balustrade, it is shown pressed tight against the body revealing the forms
of the limbs and torso clearly beneath, with brittle, dramatic folds
standing clear of the surface. This last style, together with the new
approach to the rendering of women's bodies, led quickly to a
deliberately sensual effect in statuary and hastened the decline of the
unemotional Classical conventions.