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

Having expressed this idea, he presents next his analysis of each stylistic phase
separately. In the early classical phase, he says, “naturalistic detail is represented (for
example veins) but there is no study of the real interaction of the elements of the body at
rest or in movement.” 96 Thus, Myron’s Discobolos expresses the idea of throwing the
discus, but the artist does not depict how the body actually functions in the activity. 97
In the high classical phase, attention shifts to the depiction of nuances in regard to the
functions of the body. As Polykleitos’s Doryphoros demonstrates, a real understanding
of two different states of the muscles—represented on one side of the body at rest and on
the other flexed—is achieved. 98 Such “a true though theoretical reality of the two
characteristics of the states of the muscles,” Childs states, indicates a new, “precise,
objective and even near-scientific realism that is laid over the traditional idealized
form.” 99 According to him, another novelty of the high classical style “is the creation of
a greater number of variations from the strict ideal and thus the creation of a more
descriptive vocabulary” as evidenced, for example, by the figures K, L, and M from the
east pediment of the Parthenon (437-432 B.C.), whose clinging drapery sets them apart
from earlier statuary. 100 This wish for variety is carried on into the late high classical
phase, when new images, such as the Sandal-binder of the Nike parapet on the Athenian
Acropolis, heighten the action depicted by being explicitly descriptive. As for the late
classical phase of Greek art, it renders, Childs says, “the knowable form of physical
reality,” and also the artists’ impression of visible appearances. It stands therefore for the
96 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13
97 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 11.
98 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13. For a detailed discussion of this subject, see also G. V. Leftwich,
“Polykleitos and Hippokratic Medicine,” in W. G. Moon, ed., Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition
(Madison, 1995) 38-51.
99 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13.
100 Childs, “The Classic as Realism” 13 and 12, fig. 4.
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