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Origins of Greek Sculpture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

R. M. Cook
R. M. Cook
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Cambridge
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Extract

These notes on the beginnings of Greek sculpture contain little that has not been said before, but aim at applying a severer logic to the evidence and the conclusions drawn from it. The problems may be defined as what models were used by early Greek sculptors, why they chose those models, where the choice was made, and what the impulse was that induced them to take up this new art.

The earliest surviving Greek sculpture worth the name is of the Daedalic style, which Jenkins has analysed neatly in his Dedalica. This style began in the second quarter of the seventh century and continued into the last quarter. So much is fairly generally accepted.

The artistic influence of Egypt on Greece has been propounded since the eighteenth century, and there are still many students who see its effects in sculpture. Usually their arguments are very general, asserting similarity of types and technical methods rather than of style. Of the Archaic Greek types the kouros is most apparently comparable to Egyptian—an upright, four-square figure with arms held to its sides and one foot in front of the other. Except for the stance this is the most obvious pose for a standing figure, and there are essential specific differences, well defined by Schrader. The stock Egyptian male has a support behind the forward leg, tilts backwards, and wears a kilt; the Greek kouros stands free, has a more mobile poise and is naked (except in the Daedalic style for a belt). As for resemblances in detail, Richter and Carpenter single out the roll of stone clenched in the hand of some Greek kouroi; this does not seem a regular or very early feature, and it may be a technical coincidence to avoid hollowing the inside of the closed fist. The ‘layer wig’ of course, though of Egyptian origin, is not so common in Egyptian sculpture and was already naturalised in Phoenician and Syrian art.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 87 , November 1967 , pp. 24 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1967

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References

1 Some students disapprove of the term ‘Daedalic’ as implying a fallacious connexion with the sculptor Daedalus; but it is convenient and clear, and till Daedalus is brought down to earth cannot confuse even pedants.

2 Schrader, H., Archaische gr. Plastik 17–18.Google ScholarCf. Himmelmann-Wildschütz, N., Bemerkungen zur geom.Plastik 22.Google Scholar

3 Richter, G. M. A., Kouroi 22.Google Scholar

4 Carpenter, Rhys, Greek Sculpture 10.Google Scholar

5 It is generally impossible to demonstrate whether details of Egyptian origin reached Greece directly or indirectly, but there is one very clear instance of indirect transmission. This is the appendage below the sphinx's forelegs on Cycladic amphorae of the Heraldic group, datable probably to the early seventh century (Délos xvii, pl. 5.7a and 8a). As Kunze, observed (Kr. Br. 249–50)Google Scholar, the original Egyptian form is a kilt, which in Phoenicia is changed into a hanging palmette; the Greek form follows the Phoenician.

6 Heidenreich, R., die Antike xiv (1938) 349Google Scholar (I have not seen this review). R. J. H. Jenkins in Dedalica and T. J. Dunbabin in the Greeks and their Eastern Neighbours seem by their silence to exclude Egyptian influence.

7 Richter, G. M. A., Kouroi 22–3 and 28.Google ScholarMatz, F., Gesch. der gr. Kunst i 106–10 and 183–4.Google ScholarAlscher, L., Gr. Plastik i 115.Google ScholarLullies, R. (and Hirmer, M.), Greek Sculpture 15.Google ScholarBoardman, J., Greek Art 64–6Google Scholar, the Cretan Collection 152 and the Greeks Overseas 160–4.K. Levin, , AJA lxviii (1964) 13–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar (but allowing a second stage of contact after 580).

8 Knoblauch, P., Studien zur archaisch-griechischen Tonbildnerei 44 n. 115 and 109.Google ScholarKaro, G., Greek Personality in Archaic Sculpture 103–4.Google ScholarWedeking, E. Homann, die Anfänge der gr. Grossplastik 130–1.Google ScholarCarpenter, R., Greek Sculpture 5–16 and 22Google Scholar (where he unobtrusively makes the Nikandre statue contemporary with the New York kouros). Akurgal, E., Orient und Okzident 176Google Scholar, sees Egyptian influence in the Nikandre statue, but a stronger influence at the end of the seventh century.

9 References in Richter, op. cit. 26–27. Curiously, though she describes these Daedalic males as kouroi, she excludes them—as ‘forerunners’—from her catalogue of kouroi.

10 Though there are no earlier Greek finds in Egypt, that does not exclude earlier Greek acquain tance with Egypt, since one would be lucky to find traces of occasional visitors; but presumably close relationship began with Naucratis.

11 Op. cit. 74–5.

12 Attic kouroi of the sixth century belong generally to the tradition represented by Cleobis and the assimilation can be considered as beginning in the Sunium kouros (cf. Homann-Wedeking, op. cit. 82–4), even if—or so I suspect—its face has been restored with Cleobis in mind. Though the influence of the New York kouros has been discerned in the next generation of Attic sculpture or even longer (cf. Payne, H. and Young, G. M., Archaic Marble Sculpture from the Acropolis 2–3Google Scholar) yet I doubt if without the New York statue and its companions such a preliminary stage would have been suspected in Attic sculpture. There is more in Homann-Wedeking's contention that they affected development in the Cyclades (op. cit. 86–91).

13 Notably the terracotta sphinx from the Ceramicus, (AA 1933, 271Google Scholar fig. 6; Homann-Wedeking, op. cit. fig.17).

14 The New York kouros is usually said to be a few years older than Cleobis but its stylistic peculiarities make close chronological comparisons hazardous. E. P. Harrison has now proposed a later dating of the New York, Dipylon and Sunium kouroi, but brings down Cleobis, too (Ath. Agora xi, 3–5, 12).Google Scholar

15 These characteristics are still more strongly marked in the Dipylon, head, to which Harrison has attributed other fragments (Hesp. xxiv [1955] 290–304).Google Scholar Harrison suggests that, contrary to the usual view, the Sunium kouros may be earlier than the New York and Dipylon kouroi and shows that the stylistic criteria are not compelling. If (as is generally agreed) these three figures are by one sculptor or from one workshop, this would mean that the first stage was the more orthodox and the later the more original, a development that seems to me reasonable.

16 How much thought early sculptors gave to aesthetic proportion and balance can be seen very clearly in the length of arm of these two statues.

17 i 98.9.

18 Cf. Homann-Wedeking, op. cit. 68–70. The date of the lions is probably around 600 B.C.

19 A general canon derived from Egypt is asserted by Karo (op. cit. 109), Carpenter (op. cit. 9 and 99–100), Boardman, (the Greeks Overseas 161–2)Google Scholar, and perhaps Iversen, E. (Mitt. Kairo 1957, 134–47).Google Scholar Iversen examines the New York kouros, which is of course later than Daedalic, finds that it conforms with the Saite Egyptian grid vertically (though not horizontally), and concludes that early Greek sculptors used a canon, but were independent in ‘style, taste and mode of expression’. Levin doubts any ‘consistent or fixed Greek use of the Egyptian canon’ (op. cit. 19).

20 i 98.5–9.

21 G. Kaschnitz-Weinberg proposed an Argive master for Cleobis with a Cycladic (‘Ionian’) pupil for Biton, (Studies presented to D. M. Robinson i, 525–31)Google Scholar and Homann-Wedeking concurs (op. cit. 8). They seem to me to have exaggerated the differences between the two statues; but even if the modelling of Biton is less firm than that of Cleobis, this could be because the practice of copying was unfamiliar.

22 Adam, S. A., the Technique of Greek Sculpture 7–8.Google ScholarBlümel, C., Gr. Bildhauerabeit 48–51Google Scholar, nos. 1, 2, 4, 5.

23 Blümel, Greek Sculptors at Work, figs. 2–4.

24 As Adam says (op. cit. 8), a standard canon for blocking out by quarrymen, unsupervised by the sculptor, would certainly not have been practicable for statues of the Classical period, when economic organisation was more advanced.

25 Op. cit. 4, 7, 8–9, 13–16. This, I suppose, is why (ignoring Jenkins's demonstration) he makes the Nikandre statue no earlier than the New York kouros (op. cit. 22): Egyptian influence appears with the New York kouros, but Nikandre's statue is already of marble. He leaves himself a further way out, by postulating transmission of Egyptian influence through lost Samian and Milesian statuary (op. cit. 13–16); yet Samos has been prolific of Archaic statues and evidently the Daedalic style was current there (Buschor, E., Altsam. Standbilder v, 76–81Google Scholar).

26 Op. cit. 12 and 28. Blümel, allows a choice between Egyptian and Asiatic influence (Greek Sculptors at Work 26).Google Scholar

27 Carpenter, who seems wide awake to the difficulties of his position, shrugs this one off (op. cit.8–9).

28 If the relief from Paros (see n. 32) is Late Geometric, marble was in use before Daedalic sculpture began.

29 Matz, op. cit. 183–4 (he derives the seated figure too from Asia). Schrader allows only a vague connexion, transmitted through minor arts (op. cit. 25–26). Carpenter finds the origin of the kore in Egypt (op. cit. 20).

30 Richter, op. cit. 2–3. V. Poulsen in Lindos iii 2, 540, mentions the belt, but does not derive it specifically from sculpture.

31 Lippold, G. (Gr. Pl. 14)Google Scholar, Matz (op. cit. 85) and Lullies (op. cit. 14) assert without argument the importance of earlier figures. Homann-Wedeking's opinion is not clear to me (op. cit. 94). No one, it is pleasant to record, urges an influence of surviving Mycenaean work, such as the relief of the Lion Gate at Mycenae.

32 (1) The crude limestone figure found casually near Levidhi in Arcadia (Burr, D. [Thompson, ], AJA xxxi [1927] 169–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar) has to be dated on style: it is usually thought earlier than Daedalic, though Carpenter suggests a Medieval date (op. cit. 3–4) and it might even—I suppose—be a rustic version of Daedalic (cf. Grace, F. R., AJA xlvi [1942] 342 n. 1Google Scholar). (2) The rudimentary limestone stele from Kimolos, unfortunately headless, has some vague Late Geometric context (Kondoleon, N. M., Θεωρία 129–37Google Scholar). (3) A marble stele found in Paros with a seated figure silhouetted in very shallow relief looks from the illustration as if it might be Late Geometric (Zaphiropulos, A., A. Delt. xvi B, 245, pl. 215Google Scholar—he suggests the beginning of the seventh century). (4) The lower part of a limestone statue from Megara Hyblaea might also be of around 700 B.C. (Orsi, P., BCH xix [1895] 312a–7aGoogle Scholar, fig. 4; cf. Homann-Wedeking, op. cit. 123).

33 The Hera of Cheramyes should have more affinity than Nikandre's statue to a wooden tradition in sculpture, though I imagine that the Hera's approximation to cylindrical form comes by way of ivory figurines from the natural shape of the elephant's tusk. For the relation of the Hera to the Hawk Priestess from Ephesus cf. Homann-Wedeking, op. cit. 29.

34 The standard study is Jenkins' Dedalica, supplemented for the Corinthian school by his contribution in Payne, H., Perachora i, 191–203Google Scholar, and for Cretan, by the illustrations in ASA xxxiii–iv (1955–1956) 207–88Google Scholar and by Boardman, , the Cretan Collection 139–44Google Scholar and passim. For lowering of the initial date of Daedalic, which Jenkins based on the finds from the site of Artemis Orthia at Sparta (Dedalica 61; BSA xxxiii [1932–33] 78–9), note Boardman, , BSA lviii (1963) 1–7.Google Scholar

35 Knoblauch (op. cit. 17) and Higgins, R. A. (Cat. of Terracottas in the B.M. i, 11)Google Scholar consider it a universal Greek style. This seems to me to be truer of more expensive work such as sculpture and ivories than of terracotta figurines.

36 Homann-Wedeking cites a few Daedalic pieces from Athens (op. cit. 71–2 and figs. 33–35).

37 Ohly, D., AM Lxvi (1941) 25–47Google Scholar; the style of the terracottas is more dilutethan that of the Peloponnese, but there are ivories of stronger Daedalic, character (AM lxxiv [1959] 48–56, Beil. 87–93Google Scholar; AM lx–lxi [1935–6] pl. 99.2)

38 There are Daedalic terracotta figurines from Ephesus (Higgins, op. cit. 144–6, pl. 71) and Miletus, (1st. Mitt. vii [1957] pl. 43).Google Scholar

39 One Daedalic head from Naxos has been published (AA 1940, 284, fig. 86; Homann-Wedeking, op. cit. fig. 29; Matz, op. cit. pl. 93b), and three from Thera, (AM lxxiii [1958] Beil. 83 and 105).Google Scholar There are also the heads on gold jewellery from Melos (Higgins, R. A., Greek and Roman Jewellery 106Google Scholar, pl. 17A).

40 Very few pieces have been proposed as transitional, e.g. a moulded head from Sparta (Jenkins, , BSA xxxiii [1932–1933] 68, pl. 7.2Google Scholar; Matz, op. cit. pl. 65b) and the Mantiklos Apollo (Richter, op. cit. figs. 9–11; Matz, op. cit. pl. 66); these could as well be hybrids. The Perachora sphinx (Dunbabin, , Perachora ii, pl. 171Google Scholar; Matz, op. cit. pl. 65a; Homann-Wedeking, op. cit. fig. 32) seems to me unambiguously Daedalic.

41 E.g. Jenkins, , Dedalica 27 and 62Google Scholar; Knoblauch, op. cit. 107 and 109; and perhaps Boardman, , the Cretan Collection 140Google Scholar (but cf. 109).

42 See Riis, P. J., Berytus ix, 69–90Google Scholar (an important survey of the Astarte plaques);Homann-Wedeking, op. cit. 116; and more definitely Dunbabin, , the Greeks and their Eastern Neighbours 50–51.Google Scholar

43 See the references in Riis, op. cit. It is significant that the plaque Corinth MF. 4039 is considered Greek of the Corinthian School by Jenkins (op. cit. 62, pl. 2.10) and Levin (op.cit. 26, pl. 9.19), but Syrian by R. V. Nicholls and Dunbabin (op. cit. 37, pl. 8.4–5; cf. JHS lxxiv [1954] 225).

44 Carpenter allows the Nikandre statue (and presumably other Daedalic statues) to grow out of the figurines, but does not count it as sculpture or even as a stage towards sculpture (op. cit. 5–6 and 22).

45 Karo is refreshingly frank on this: he describes the Daedalic style as essentially sculptural and postulates Protodaedalic sculpture of stone (op. cit. 89).

46 The Early Daedalic seated figure from Malles, is particularly instructive (ASA ii [1915] 312–4, figs. 1–3Google Scholar; Jenkins, op. cit. 32): so shallow a side view would hardly have been produced deliberately by anyone who thought of sculpture as an independent art of constructing free-standing figures, but is intelligible (if inexcusable) in figurines made in shallow moulds (cf. ASA xxxiii–iv [1955–56] 255, fig. 51). Jenkins has another explanation, more witty than convincing, of the flat frontality of Daedalic statues (op. cit. 18).

47 Such frontal views occur on the Prinias relief with riders, the Mycenae relief of a woman, and the Gortyn triad of a male and two females (ASA xxxiii–iv [1955–56] 301, fig. 17). In terracotta plaques too of Daedalic style heads are sometimes illogically frontal—e.g. the ‘Peleus and Atalante’ plaque from Tegea (Jacobsthal, P., die Melischen Reliefs 91, pl. 68Google Scholar; Jenkins, , BSA xxxiii [1932–1933] 73–4)Google Scholar—though the profile view is more usual (Jenkins, , Dedalica 10Google Scholar). Further, there is the relief head from Malessina, (Mon Piot xx [1913–1916] pl. 3Google Scholar; Jenkins, op. cit. 71); a head detached from a body—as here—is abnormal in Greek sculpture, but frequent in the small terracotta production of Daedalic style.

48 The shallowness of the side views of statues might be attributed to the influence of reliefs, or frontal faces in reliefs to the influence of statues; but both explanations cannot fairly be used together.

49 Cf. Jenkins, op. cit. 16.

50 Jenkins takes the opposite view (op. cit. 17).

51 On experiments see Boardman, , the Cretan Collection 109Google Scholar, and for illustrations ASA xxxiii–iv (1955–56) 207–88.

52 Op. cit. 20–21.

53 Cf. Knoblauch, op. cit. 44 n. 115, though perhaps one should omit the Mantiklos (Tyszkiewicz) bronze: further examples—handle supports for kraters—are cited by Kunze, E. in OlB vii, 153–4.Google Scholar Mr A. G. Woodhead has suggested to me that stability in mounting may have been another reason for using this stance for naked male statues: it may be relevant that generally with draped statues a similar stance is introduced when their drapery no longer reaches the ground to serve as a support. Yet it still remains possible that the stance of the kouros was taken from small Egyptian figurines or imitations of them. It might help if we could discover whether Greek male statues acquired the wide stance suddenly or gradually: anyhow the Delphi bronze figurine, like the pre-Daedalic supports and unlike the normal Egyptian types, has its feet fairly close together.

54 ASA xxxiii–iv (1955–56) 301, fig. 17.

55 Technical convenience was evidently the reason why the kouros continued to keep its arms by its sides. Projecting forearms were permitted, as on the Apollona colossus (see n. 23) and the Phigaleia kouros (Richter, op. cit. figs. 144–6); but they were economical only where, as on the later korai, the projection could be a separate piece with the join masked by drapery.

56 The Malles, relief (ASA ii [1915] 312–14Google Scholar, figs. 1–3; Jenkins, op. cit. 32).

57 E.g. ASA xxxiii–iv (1955–56) 255, fig. 51.

58 For example the styles imitated or adapted by the Dipylon ivories, the bronze cauldron attachments, and the ivories from Ephesus (for a new and particularly instructive piece of this class see Greifenhagen, A., Jb. Berliner Mus vii [1965] 125–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Antike Kunstwerke 2, pl. 1). Boardman, (the Greeks Overseas 80–100Google Scholar) gives a good conspectus of Oriental imports. It is important to remember that Greek craftsmen could adopt details at different times and combine details from different sources.

59 Cf. n. 33.

60 So Richter (op. cit. 28–29) finds the home of Greek sculpture in the Cyclades and the East Greek region: Karo (op. cit. 98 and 318 n. 4) has Daedalic art begin in the Argolid and marble sculpture in Naxos; Matz (op. cit. 183) thinks the first monumental sculpture Peloponnesian and probably Corinthian; Homann-Wedeking (op. cit. 67 and 118)assigns the invention of marble and life-size statues to the Cyclades (with a preference for Naxos); Alscher (op. cit. 114) also speaks of the North-East Peloponnese; and Carpenter (op. cit. 15–16) deduces the precedence of Samos and Miletus. Earlier, Jenkins (op. cit. 29) considered that the Daedalic style originated in Crete, according to the theory of Cretan pre-eminence that was current in the thirties;so too Lippold, (Gr. Plastik 18).Google Scholar

61 The Mistra figure (Jenkins, , BSA xxxiii [1932–1933] 69–70, pl. 8.6Google Scholar) and the Malles, relief (ASA ii [1915] 312–14, figs. 1–3)Google Scholar, classed by Jenkins, as Early Daedalic (Dedalica 32)Google Scholar: both are of limestone.

62 Though monumental architecture—that is building of careful design and execution—began at much the same time as sculpture, the circumstances were not the same. Architecture was not only much more expensive but apparently reserved for civic buildings, and so presumably depended on civic spirit and funds.

63 The first sculptors can hardly have been economically independent artists who were able to ignore their clients.

64 So an increase in prosperity cannot either be a sufficient explanation for the emergence of sculpture.

65 Or carpenter (subject to the proviso made above); but stone had the advantage of greater durability, especially out of doors. Bronze-workers can be excluded, since the technique of hollowcasting large objects was not yet in use and hammering is not satisfactory; one need only look at the stovepipe effect of the Dreros figures.

66 Such a craftsman could not have afforded to risk more than an occasional and relatively inexpensive essay in sculpture without an order from a client.

67 In the seventh century anyhow only those craftsmen could afford to experiment or amuse themselves occasionally who produced objects that cost little in labour and material. Among such craftsmen were vase-painters, the painters of small wooden plaques (if they were different persons), and the makers of terracotta figurines (though the use of the mould encouraged a rather mechanical attitude as well as practice). So one should expect that vase-painting was an unusually lively art and not be too ready to look in it for imitation of other arts.