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

more accurate observation and rendering of real forms, a definition which qualifies the
concept as a stronger version of realism. On the basis of this reasoning, his designation
of the Classical style as “generally realistic” reveals his conception of realism as general
conformity to nature. 60 Childs’s limitation of realism and naturalism to these meanings is
not idiosyncratic, but rather reminiscent of the meanings of these terms in modern
German. As Fritz Novotny maintains, in this language, realism is used for the more
general meaning of any sort of fidelity to nature—including the subject matter of works
of art, whereas naturalism is reserved for works in which realism is carried to the
extreme, for example, in the treatment of detail. 61 When juxtaposed to Pollitt’s
definitions of these concepts, those of Childs appear to be the exact reverse.
The examples of Childs and Pollitt reveal that, in the study of Greek art, the
concepts of naturalism and realism are not always used with consistent meanings in mind.
They also reveal that the perceived difference in the meanings of these terms is one of
degree identified as an increase in exactitude or accuracy. The problem here is that no
one wishes to state clearly where exactly this designation of degree begins or ends. As a
result, naturalism and realism emerge as two highly ambiguous, and thus, problematic
concepts for the study of Greek art.
Although not in reference to Greek art, current, art-historical discourse highlights
the existence of still another semantic difference between naturalism and realism. David
60 It has to be noted that Childs also points to specific visual features (e.g., veins, muscles) of
representations of the human form in Classical Greek sculpture; therefore his argument is not simply a
semantic game.
61 Novotny, “Naturalism in Art,” in Wiener, ed., Dictionary of the History of Ideas III, 339.
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