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New Valuations in Greek Art

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

In Greek art we have a conspicuous example of a twofold character that belongs only to the greater types of creative expression. This character is both permanent and fluid. On the one hand, it can never go out of fashion, because it embodies principles of life that respond to the aspirations, if not the capacities, of intelligent humanity in every age. On the other hand, being far too vital to be merely static, it continually allows of fresh and powerful re-interpretation, so that natural lovers of art can always see and enjoy it at first hand through the aesthetic consciousness of their own time.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1931

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References

NOTE

Five of the illustrations are of works mentioned in the article. The Berlin Maiden (III a) is over 6 ft. in height and retains much of its colour. A recent archaeological work disparages the technique of this statue: modern artists see in it both the monumental and the implicit qualities which signify its deeply religious character. The tip of the beard, in the Aristion relief (IV a), was of metal. The bronze Zeus (III c) is of more than life-size. The back view of the Egyptian Scribe (IV c) shows close affinity to modern ideas of plastic and solid form, which appear also in the Maillol figure (III d) and in the remarkable Pigeon by a contemporary Hungarian sculptor (IV d).

Readers who care to follow the connexion of modern art and its appreciation with a new view of antiquity will find good material in Mr. S. Casson's two books on modern sculptors, published by the Clarendon Press (Some Modern Sculptors and Twentieth-Century Sculpture): also, as regards the whole change of outlook, in MrWilenski's, R. H.The Modern Movement in Art (Faber & Gwyer).Google Scholar A good cheap book on the Olympia sculptures is Olympische Kunst by Hamann, R. (Univ. of Marburg, 1923)Google Scholar with many of the fine illustrations that appear in more lavish form in Buschor and Hamann's great and expensive volume.

There is urgent need of a finely illustrated new book on Greek art before 460, omitting all historical and archaeological matter, and presenting the works themselves from a strictly aesthetic standpoint.