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

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turn, shaped by contemporary ideas about the represented subjects. <strong>The</strong>re is every<br />

reason, therefore, to th<strong>in</strong>k that the <strong>Classical</strong> style <strong>in</strong> Greek art is <strong>in</strong>dependent <strong>of</strong> the notion<br />

<strong>of</strong> a development <strong>in</strong> artistic techniques <strong>and</strong> materials. Further, the study argues that the<br />

existence <strong>of</strong> a clearly contradictory attitude toward animals comprised the conceptual<br />

model for the adoption <strong>of</strong> an equally contradictory style by contemporary animal<br />

sculpture. This adoption <strong>in</strong>dicates that the phenomenon <strong>of</strong> naturalistic style <strong>in</strong> <strong>Classical</strong><br />

Greek art was directly related to the conceptual context <strong>in</strong> which it was formulated.<br />

<strong>The</strong>refore, conflict<strong>in</strong>g ideas about animals <strong>in</strong> <strong>Classical</strong> Greek life are responsible for the<br />

contradictory style <strong>of</strong> representations <strong>of</strong> animals <strong>in</strong> contemporary sculpture. <strong>The</strong><br />

adoption <strong>of</strong> contradiction not as an essentially negative feature but <strong>in</strong>stead as a model for<br />

both render<strong>in</strong>g animals <strong>in</strong> art <strong>and</strong> also th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g about them <strong>in</strong> real life is not far removed,<br />

at least conceptually, from the existence <strong>of</strong> a duality <strong>in</strong> contemporary l<strong>in</strong>guistic usage<br />

which suggests that along with its usual mean<strong>in</strong>g <strong>of</strong> “animal,” the word zw|~on was also a<br />

term <strong>of</strong> the pr<strong>of</strong>essional vocabulary <strong>of</strong> the arts. Representations <strong>of</strong> animals thus <strong>of</strong>fer<br />

value to the phenomenon <strong>of</strong> naturalistic style by provid<strong>in</strong>g useful <strong>in</strong>sights <strong>in</strong>to the Greek<br />

conception <strong>of</strong> this style.<br />

9

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