The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

inconsistent style. That of Vermeule, in contrast, with its focus on the non-naturalistic
aspects of the statue, may appear that it does, especially when he calls the non-naturalistic
elements of the statue “misunderstandings,” but, as the previous discussion of statues of
lions has suggested, this is a superficial interpretation of style in connection with animal
sculpture.
Turning to the fourth century, a marble statue of a dog that was found in the
funerary precinct of Lysimachides in the Athenian Kerameikos (Fig. 1), and will be
discussed in more detail shortly, has been also considered a representative of the
problematic style of Classical Greek animal sculpture. Kawami, for example, maintains
that the heavy shoulders, thick legs, large paws, and tense watchfulness of the dog are all
powerful naturalistic details. 187 But the statue also shares, she says, subtle leonine
qualities, such as “the heavy, compact chest, the well-sprung almost barrel-like rib cage,
and the carefully modeled toes with prominent claws.” 188 In an attempt to explain why
the contradictory style of the Kerameikos dog is based on such a combination of canine
and leonine characteristics, Kawami suggests that:
[It] reflects the common apotropaic functions of the two species in both the
Aegean and the Near East. The combination of canine and leonine forms in a
guardian animal has further parallels in Asia, not only in Chinese guardian
sculpture but in the development of the shih-tzu-kou (lion dogs) whose
diminutive versions are known to us now as the Pekingese, among other East
Asian dog breeds. 189
In a way that is in essence identical with Hurwit’s line of thinking on the Hekatompedon
lion, Kawami attributes, not unreasonably, apotropaic significance to the contradictory
style of the Kerameikos dog. What is different in her case, however, is that she supports
187 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 262.
188 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 262.
189 Kawami, “Greek Art and Persian Taste” 262.
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