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

The literary, epigraphical, and sculptural evidence gathered in this study suggests
a new paradigm for considering the problematic style of Classical Greek animal art as
rooted in fundamental sets of inconsistencies, incongruities, and contradictions that are
reflected in other treatments of animals throughout Greek culture. There is strong
evidence that in ancient Greek art, the notion of combining differing, specifically
naturalistic and non-naturalistic, elements should be understood as the underlying
principle of style. The study of the problematic style of Classical animal sculpture is only
one part of a much larger situation. In acknowledging and essentially furthering the
observation of existing scholarly works that the problematic, specifically inconsistent,
style of Greek animal sculpture extends also into the Archaic period, this study considers
the notion of mixing traits that are different in essence as the binding element in the
conception of style in both Archaic and Classical Greek animal art. Further by
highlighting that the tendency of “non-matching” extends also to representations of the
human form, this study suggests that there is a continuum to this tendency as the principle
that drove the conception of style in Archaic and Classical Greek art. In view of this
evidence, this study suggests that the change in style from the Archaic to Classical Greek
art could be seen not so much as a progression or improvement in artistic practice as a
shift in the balance of elements and, in turn, of the ideas that sustain the underlying logic
of style.
The principle of combining differing elements that eventually shape the style of
Classical Greek art can be best understood not as an isolated phenomenon, but as one
directly influenced by the broad conceptual context of the society that formulated it.
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