Greek Sculpture

Sculpture does not come down in the true descent from geometric bronzes, though the earliest forms of Greek sculpture and of those early bronzes are in many respects closely akin. Sculpture in stone begins suddenly and in many places in Greece and the islands. It was produced by different causes in different places and under different external stimuli.

The beautiful architectural decoration consisting of a formal pattern that runs below the frieze of the horsemen provides definite evidence for the use of a tool which now appears for the first time in the history of Greek sculpture. Nor, as will be seen later, does it remain long in use. That tool can best be described as a cutting compass and consisted of a powerful compass of which one leg ended in a point or spike and the other in a knife-blade. Its use can be most clearly seen in the delineation of the half circles that form the upper part of the design in question.

Almost without exception students of and writers on Greek sculpture describe the archaic series of limestone sculptures found on the Acropolis at Athens as being made of 'poros'. The particular stone which is indicated by this term is in fact the dark yellowish limestone which is the natural formation of many parts of the Athens district, particularly at Peiraeus and Munychia. It is sometimes almost bright yellow in color and is of a soft texture, in strong contrast to the very hard blue limestone of which the Acropolis and Areopagus are made. Fresh from the quarry it must have been even softer and almost as cuttable as a hard tufa.

It will thus be seen that marble and hard stone were not, when first used in the seventh century, immediately treated with the technique best suited to such material. There was a definite period of technical transition. Soft stone does not necessarily precede hard stone in date always. It is true enough that most of the earliest Greek sculpture extant1 is in soft stone, but when hard stones came into fashion they did not oust soft stone from popularity. Indeed in some places, such as Cyprus , the use of soft limestones continued throughout the whole history of sculpture.

It is, in fact, evident that in Attica , perhaps more than in any other place, this technique was used to its full extent in the seventh and early sixth centuries. Unfortunately the gaps in our knowledge of the history of Greek sculpture are so serious that we are unable to explain how such mature and relatively sophisticated masterpieces as the Dipylon head have no antecedents in stone that are as yet known. For they have no parallel except the figures in ivory, also from the Dipylon. The latter are earlier in date, but they throw no sort or kind of light upon stone technique, since the manner of their making belongs to the craft of carving in soft materials.

For the Attic poros faces are in some small degree quite definitely representational. In contrast the Peloponnesian artist is not interested in faces as individual things but only in faces in general in so far as they contribute to design. This fundamental characteristic of western Greek sculpture is perceptible for a long period in the development of Greek sculpture as a whole. And, in the same way, the hair is patternized and there is no attempt in the mouth to express individuality. Attic sculpture even in the seventh century had patternized its faces, most notably in the Dipylon head, yet there remained, even at that early date, some feeling of distinction, some aiming at expression, which marks out the earliest Attic work from this less lively Peloponnesian style.