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

of the later (Hellenistic) development of this type of female figures in sculpture runs as
following:
The phenomenal progression from conventionalized to more naturalistic
renderings which was attained during the almost 200 years that we have
contemplated was to have a long future. For the first time, not only in Greek art,
but in all other arts, the representation of the human figure had been freed from
age-old conventions. The evolution which ensued in all branches of Greek art is
well known. Here we will only, by way of an epilogue, recall a few characteristic
examples of the standing, draped figure in the succeeding periods, and watch the
increasing freedom in the renderings of the stance and in the drapery—for they
were made possible by the achievements of the sculptors of our korai. 35
Similarly, her study of 1974, Perspective in Greek and Roman Art, purports to
describe, at least for its Greek part, “the progress made from period to period” as the
Greeks made “groping attempts…to understand and solve the manifold problems
involved in “true” representation. 36
The perception of Greek naturalism (also called realism) as increasing over time
until it reached the greatest possible accuracy in representing the human body in the
Classical period is linked to the view of the concept as the principal virtue of ancient
Greek art. A proponent of this view is Rhys Carpenter, whose study of 1962, Greek Art.
A Study of the Formal Evolution of Style, starts from the premise that “Greek
representational art in all its aspects is subject to unremitting pressure toward realism.” 37
Later, his idea of the evolution of sculptural (human) form, particularly of the Classical
period, is conceived in terms of a process which he characterizes as:
[T]horoughly consistent, almost undeviatingly continuous, and is susceptible of
being epitomized in a single and simple formula. Persistent and increasingly
35 G. M. A. Richter, Korai. Archaic Greek Maidens. A Study of the Development of the Kore Type in Greek
Sculpture (London, 1968) 109; for an additional discussion of Richter’s passage and its connection to
naturalism, see Donohue, Greek Sculpture and The Problem of Description (Cambridge and New York,
2005) 22-23, n. 5.
36 G. M. A. Richter, Perspective in Greek and Roman Art (London, 1974) 21.
37 R. Carpenter, Greek Art. A Study of the Formal Evolution of Style (Philadelphia, 1962) 20.
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