Themes - Summary 8

Question 1

Effect of Alexander’s conquest on the old centers of Greek culture

Answer 1

Brief prosperity in early 3rd century, as all the newly founded settlements wanted products from the old world. However, new centers soon emerged and the old centers declined (with exception of Athens): Alexandria, Pergamon, Antiocheia, Rhodes.

Question 2

Early Hellenistic artistic tendencies

Answer 2

330-230. Strong reaction to/against the opening of the figure to space as in Lysippos. Works like the statues of Demosthenes and Themis are strictly frontal. Other statues that negate frontality and emphasize diagonal axes are closed against the viewer (Tyche, Young Girl)

Question 3

High Hellenistic artistic tendencies

Answer 3

230-150. Acquires once more the three-dimensionality that the sculpture from late 4th century had. Figures and groups demand viewing from multiple perspectives and often follow pyramidal forms, with some details occasionally trying to escape (Faun Barberini and Drunken Old Woman). Also even images that emphasize frontality have an interesting exploration of the frontal vertical axis - Nike from Samothrace

Question 4

Late Hellenistic artistic tendencies

Answer 4

150-30. Eclecticism: images following both traditions of 5th and 4th century (esp. divine images such as the statues from Melos), or of the High Hellenistic period (complicated groups). Common features: frontality, flatness, and academic dryness in the use of former styles - Aphrodite from Melos is a rather academic repetition of the Capua Aphrodite.

Question 5

Genre sculpture of the Hellenistic portraits

Answer 5

Introduction of ethnic and social diversity, as well as ugliness. Old people, hard working persons of the lowest social strata, foreigners such as Gauls. Characterised by harsh, over-accentuated realism that creates the illusion of photographic rendering of people, but this exaggeration is a form of idealism as well.