Tuesday, April 4, 2023

A Superior Character, or an Habitual Politeness

Ancient Greek Culture
Wounded Amazon
400-350 BC
marble relief
(from the Temple of Artemis, Ephesus)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Naiskos with Enthroned Woman and Attendant
100 BC
marble relief
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
The Victorious Youth
300-100 BC
bronze statue
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Stele of Family Group
360 BC 
marble relief
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
Tiepolo Aphrodite
2nd century BC
marble statue
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Naiskos of Young Woman
360 BC
marble relief
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
Figure of a Young Man
200 BC
marble relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greek Culture
Nereid
390-380 BC
marble statue
(from the Nereid Monument, Lycia)
British Museum

Ancient Greek Culture
Youth from Ionia
1st century BC
marble statue
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Ancient Greek Culture
Hermaphrodite
2nd century BC
marble statuette
Princeton University Art Museum

Ancient Greek Culture
Alexander the Great as a Hunter
250-100 BC
bronze statuette
British Museum

Ancient Greek Culture
Alexander the Great
2nd century BC
marble statuette
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Stele of Dionysios and Melitinec
125-100 BC
marble relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Stele of Youth and Slave
375-350 BC
marble relief
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Ancient Greek Culture
River Ilissos
440 BC
marble statue
(from the west pediment of the Parthenon)
British Museum

"The design of the ancients is distinguished by an union in the proportions, a simplicity of contour, and excellence of character.  Of the first I have said as much as I might do without venturing too far into the mechanics of the art; but as I have only hinted at the others, some more particular remarks may not be improper.  There is no one excellence of design from which we receive such immediate pleasure as from a gracefulness of action.  If we observe the attitudes and movements of the Greek statues, we shall mark that careless decency and unaffected grace which ever attend the motions and gestures of men unconscious of observation.  There is a prodigious difference between those movements which flow from nature and those which are directed by art.  The ancients knew this well, and hence followed that singular simplicity which characterises their works.  For though at times – as in the Venus of Medicis and daughters of Niobe – they rise to an assumed gracefulness and even profess a desire to please, yet this is confined to so simple a contour, it is so little above the measure of ordinary action, that it appears less the effect of study than the natural result of a superior character, or an habitual politeness."

– Daniel Webb, from An Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting (1760)