Religion and Art in Ancient GreeceGardner, Ernest Arthur
Religion
Religion and Art in Ancient Greece
Gardner, Ernest Arthur
Art and religion -- Greece; Art, Greek; Greece -- Religion; Mythology, Classical, in art
The information we have as to Daedalus is of two kinds; on the one hand,
we find tales of a mythical craftsman and magician, to whose invention
many of the most typical improvements in early Greek sculpture are
attributed; on the other hand, we have records of many statues of the
gods, extant in historical times in various shrines of Greece, which
were attributed to him. Such attributions are not really of greater
historical value than the traditions of dedication in the heroic age
which we find elsewhere. The name of Daedalus having once become famous
in this connection, it was natural that many statues of primitive style
and unrecorded origin should be attributed to him. More importance may
be attached to the fact that the sculptors who actually made some of the
early statues of the gods in Athens and in the Peloponnesus are
described as the pupils or by some as the sons or companions of
Daedalus. In this way his name is associated with some of the early
schools that had the greatest influence in Greece, especially on the
representation of the gods in sculpture. There are other traditions of
early schools of sculptors, the marble workers of Chios, the bronze
founders of Samos, who devoted themselves mainly to making statues of
the gods, some of which survived throughout historical times. When we
turn from tradition and consider the early examples of statues of gods
that may still be seen or are recorded by extant copies, we find that
these fall into two classes. On the one hand, there are more or less
exact repetitions of the primitive stock or stone, the cylindrical
tree-trunk or the rectangular block cut from the quarry, with the rudest
indication of head and arms and feet, deviating as little as possible
from the original shape of the block. When images of this sort were, as
was often the case, of wood, they have, of course, disappeared; but we
can sometimes recognise copies of them upon reliefs or in stone. On the
other hand, we find another class of images which approximate more to
the attainments of Daedalus as described by rationalising writers of
later date. These images are completely in human form, and, if male, are
usually nude. They have their legs separated in a short stride, the left
foot being usually advanced; their arms are either set close to their
sides, or one or both of them is raised from the elbow; their whole
shape suggests a rigid system of proportions and a more or less
conventionalised form. These images have no resemblance to the
modifications of the primitive stocks and stones, and could not well be
directly derived from them; they are found in great numbers upon many
sites of early sanctity in Greece itself and in Greek settlements around
the Levant, notably in Cyprus, Rhodes, and Naucratis in Egypt. Sometimes
they seem to represent the god, sometimes the dedicator; but all alike
show the attempt of the early Greek craftsman to imitate the products of
more advanced and finished art which he saw around him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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