The Doryphoros, by Polykleitos, paradigm of the classical male canon. Copy in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples
Classical Greek sculpture has long been regarded as the highest point in the development of sculptural art in Ancient Greece, becoming almost synonymous with "Greek sculpture". The Canon, a treatise on the proportions of the human body written by Polykleitos around 450 B.C., is generally considered its starting point, and its end marked with the conquest of Greece by the Macedonians in 338 B.C., when Greek art began a great diffusion to the East, from where it received influences, changed its character, and became cosmopolitan. This phase is known as the Hellenistic period. In this period, the tradition of Greek Classicism was consolidated, with Man being the new measure of the universe.
The sculpture of Classicism developed an aesthetic that combined idealistic values with a faithful representation of nature, while avoiding overly realistic characterization and the portrayal of emotional extremes, generally maintaining a formal atmosphere of balance and harmony. Even when the character is immersed in battle scenes, their expression shows to be hardly affected by the violence of the events.[1][2]
Classicism raised Man to an unprecedented level of dignity, at the same time as it entrusted him with the responsibility of creating his own destiny, offering a model of harmonious life, in a spirit of comprehensive education for an exemplary citizenship. These values, together with their traditional association of beauty with virtue, found in the sculpture of the Classical period with its idealized portrait of the human being, a particularly apt vehicle for expression, and an efficient instrument of civic, ethical and aesthetic education. With it, a new form of representation of the human body - influential to this day - began, being one of the cores of the birth of a new philosophical branch, Aesthetics, and the stylistic foundation of later revivalist movements of importance, such as the Renaissance and Neoclassicism. Thus, Classicism had an enormous impact on Western culture and became a reference for the study of Western art history. Apart from its historical value, Classicism's intrinsic artistic quality has had great impact, the vast majority of ancient and modern critics praising it vehemently, and the museums that preserve it being visited by millions of people every year. The sculpture of Greek Classicism, although sometimes the target of criticism that relates its ideological basis to racial prejudices, aesthetic dogmatism, and other particularities, still plays a positive and renovating role in contemporary art and society.[3][4][5]
^"Western Sculpture: Ancient Greek – The Classical period – Early Classical (c. 500–450 bc)". Encyclopaedia Britannica On line
^BOARDMAN, John. "Greek Art and Architecture". In BOARDMAN, John; GRIFFIN, Jasper & MURRAY, Oswin. The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World. Oxford University Press, 1991. pp. 330–331
^HERSEY, George. "Beauty is in the eye of a Greek chisel holder". The Offer, 31 May 1996.
^THOMAS, Carol G. "Introduction". In THOMAS, Carol G. (ed). Paths from Ancient Greece. BRILL, 1988. pp. 1–5
^GARDNER, Percy. "The Lamps of Greek Art". In LIVINGSTONE, R. W. The Legacy of Greece. Kessinger Publishing. pp. 353
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