fall in confidence and darker vision. They even questioned the value of modernism itself, a challenge that would continue to the end of the century in the work of the post-modernists, who found in Dada a spiritual forerunner.
The abstract features of modernist thinking were also challenged by the Pop Artists in the 1950s and 1960s, who used everyday objects (or facsimiles of them) to comment on, among other things, modern consumer society.
Indeed, today’s sculpture often finds expression in the form of ephemera that are raised to the level of high art: the found object of the early twentieth century is being renewed in the art of contemporary installations.
What is needed now is for architectural sculpture to return. Long banished by most modern architects, sculptural ornamentation has all but disappeared, to the detriment of society. The sense that form should follow function leaves little room for sculptural ornamentation, which had long been the jewel in crown of architectural construction. Perhaps a new generation of architects will once again embrace the use of carved or moulded ornament as a way to convey a sense of grace, beauty, and nobility.
Antiquity
1. Anonymous. Iris, west pediment, Parthenon, Athens (Greece), c. 438–432 B.C.E. Marble, h: 125 cm. The British Museum, London (United Kingdom). Greek Antiquity.
As the ancient Greek city-states grew and evolved, the literary arts developed somewhat in advance of painting and sculpture. At about the time Homer was creating his epics, Greece saw the flourishing of the stylistic era identified as the Geometric period, lasting from about 950 to 750 B.C.E., a style dominated by rigid forms and in which the fluidity of the human figure was only just beginning to show itself. As the Greeks were increasingly exposed to foreign customs and material culture through trade, they were able to adapt and alter other artistic styles. The art of the Near East and of the Egyptians helped to shape Greek art of the Archaic period (c. 750 B.C.E. to 480 B.C.E.). During this time the Greeks began to infuse their figures with a greater sense of life, as with the famous “archaic smile” and with a new subtlety of articulation of the human body.
The remarkable evolution of Greek sculpture during the fifth century B.C.E. is unparalleled in artistic history. Innovations achieved during that time shaped stylistic development for thousands of years, and belong not to a people in one moment but to all of humankind. The development of weight-shift in a single standing figure and the concomitant torsion and subtlety of bodily stance were major aspects of this new style, but equally significant were the perfection of naturalistic forms, the noble calm, the dynamic equilibrium of movement, the harmony of parts, and the regulated proportions. All of this came to characterise the art of what we know as Classicism. The sculptors Polykleitos, Phidias (the sculptural master of the Parthenon project), and Myron worked in slightly divergent but compatible modes to achieve an art of moderation and perfection.
The fourth century B.C.E. saw an expansion of the artistic goals of the previous generations of Greek sculptors. Lysippos and Praxiteles softened the human form, and a nonchalant grace informs their figures. Artists in this period humanised the gods and added an element of elegance to their movement and expression. Sculptors of the fourth century B.C.E. increased the spatial complexity of the viewing experience: arms sometimes protrude into our space, groups are more dynamic in arrangement, and we benefit from walking around these sculptures and taking in the varied viewpoints.
The changes of the fourth century B.C.E. can hardly prepare us for the explosion of styles that occurred in the Hellenistic period, a time of exaggerations: extreme realism in rendering details and in capturing moments of daily life; great elegance of the female form, as we see in the memorable Venus de Milo and Nike of Samothrace; and extreme muscularity of male figures in action. The beauty and refinement of the Belvedere Apollo, now in the Vatican collection, stand as a refined continuation of the earlier Greek ideals. On the other hand, the high relief figures from the altar of Pergamon, showing the battle of the gods and giants, are powerful in physique and facial expression, with deep-set eyes, thick locks of waving hair, and theatrical gestures. Later, Michelangelo and Bernini would draw inspiration from the Hellenistic works known to them from Greek originals and Roman copies.
The Romans always remained to some extent under the sway of the Greeks, but developed their own modes of sculptural expression. The most striking of their early modes, not uninfluenced by Hellenistic models, was during the Republican period (until the second half of the first century B.C.E.). In an unforgettable development of the portrait type, Roman sculptors rendered searing details of facial particulars and created works conveying a strong sense of moral character, representing such virtues as wisdom, determination, and courage.
Around the time of Augustus a new kind of idealisation entered into Roman art, exemplified by the harmonious and flowing compositional arrangement of the reliefs on the Ara Pacis Augustae. A marble, standing figure of Augustus, the Augustus Prima Porta, is a Romanised version of Greek tradition, with the contrapposto (weight-shift) stance and the idealised, youthful face of the ruler. Less Greek in conception are the details of his armour and the heavy drapery style. Through the rest of the duration of the Roman Empire, there was a continuous artistic struggle, without resolution, between idealism and realism. The background to this battle was formed by the flood of Greek originals and Roman copies of them that filled the gardens, courtyards, and fora of the Romans, and these works ranged in style from the archaic to the Hellenistic.
Aside from any dependence on the Greeks, the Romans developed their own traditions, and were especially inventive in arriving at new stylistic expressions in their public monuments. The vigorous narrative and variety of the reliefs on the Arch of Titus still impress, and it is not surprising that they inspired Renaissance artists. No less remarkable are the intricate reliefs on the Column of Trajan and Column of Antoninus Pius. With scroll-like compositions, hundreds of figures adorn these columns in reliefs, showing military and – even more prominently – technological feats of the Roman armies. The figures seem large compared to their architectural surroundings, and the beginning of the “medieval” relationship of the figure to its spatial circumstances begins here.
The decline and fall of the Roman Empire formed a dramatic backdrop to the change of artistic style, including sculpture itself. By the late Empire of the third and fourth centuries A.D., at the time of the short-lived barracks emperors and during the experience of a host of troubles, portraiture achieved an extreme expression, sometimes capturing fear or cunning, and corresponding to the tenor of the times. The subjective question of the decline in style arises in a consideration of the Arch of Constantine (see no. 166): the side-by-side placement of earlier reliefs alongside those of the fourth century is telling in the squat proportions and repetitions of type and stance of the latter. Thus, even before the advent of Christianity, a decline in style and taste was present. This is no more evident than in the art of portraiture; the noble facial expression and the bodily idealism and harmony of the classical style have disappeared, and one sees instead nude figures with smaller heads and flat, broad chests.
The Christians, whose rise altered the character of Roman life, inherited the sculptural styles of the late Romans. Even some iconographic types were re-utilised; for example, Apollo-like features were given to Christ. Characteristic sculptural materials included an expansion of working in ivory, which remained a widespread medium in the Middle Ages. The Early Christian iconographic innovations were substantial, and a whole new range of subjects appeared in art. In the Eastern half of the fallen Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire would survive and persevere. Its sculptors retained features adapted from the late Roman style, and eventually the Byzantines would help to re-introduce some of the ancient Mediterranean artistic ideas into late medieval and proto-Renaissance Italy.
2. Anonymous. Portrait of Julius Caesar, c. 30–20 B.C.E. Marble, 56 × 19 × 26 cm. Musei Vaticani, Vatican City (Italy). Roman Antiquity.
Julius Caesar began his political leadership as the head of the traditionally Republican government of Rome, but ended it as a murdered dictator. Caesar had taken control over the vast empire of Rome, eschewing the practice of sharing power with the Senate. He was both revered for his strong leadership and resented for