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

prevalence of naturalism in his view of the development of Greek art. In this respect,
they are very much aligned with Löwy’s and Gombrich’s theories. In alliance also with
these theories is Boardman’s emphasis on Greek dissatisfaction with existing images—
implicitly identified here with those inherited from Egypt—as the driving force behind
the development of Greek sculpture. His subscription especially to Gombrich’s ideas is
seen in his recognition of a revolution in fifth-century Greek art in terms of “realism,”
and of the human body as the principal subject of representation through which this
revolution was realized. What appears to be firmly stressed now is the idea of the Greek
absorption of “alien techniques” as fueling the development of Greek art in terms of
naturalism, and therefore of his view of this development as a primarily technical
phenomenon.
A more succinct summary of the idea of technical improvement appears in the
conclusion of his Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period, which opens with the following
statement:
The pictures and text of this book offer a view of the development of Greek
sculpture over nearly three hundred years, from miniaturist works in the formal
conceptual style of Geometric Greece, through periods in which the east, then
Egypt, suggested new techniques and possibilities, to the sixth century in which
the sculptor’s own search for improved expression of canonic forms led him to
the point at which he wished consciously to take life as his model. 83
The statement clearly shows the idea that Greek sculpture undergoes technical
improvement as it moves through its course of development. It also shows clear traces of
Gombrich’s ideas. These traces are found in the outline of the development of Greek
sculpture as a shift from conceptual images to those reproducing the sensible world, in
and the Origins of Greek Art (American Classical Studies 15; Atlanta, 1988) 195-205, for ancient traditions
and theories recorded by authors, such as Pausanias (7.22.4; 9.24.3; 30.20.9) and Callimachus (Diegesis to
Callimachus, Aetia IV, fr. 100) about the beginning of Greek statuary.
83 Boardman, Greek Sculpture. The Archaic Period 169.
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