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

Critias states explicitly that convincing images in art—about which no one cared—did
not concern only the human form, but equally applied to all other subjects of the sensible
world. Such evidence contrasts with the modern insistence on the human form as the
only window onto the topic of naturalism in Greek art. In addition, Critias reveals the
existence of two different attitudes towards the convincing representation of human and
other subjects in art based on the degree of preexisting knowledge of them: intolerance of
any omission of “all the points of similarity” regarding depictions of the human figure,
with which all humans are well acquainted, but satisfaction with “even a small degree of
likeness” or “an inexact and deceptive sketch,” of all other subjects. These phrases are of
crucial importance for they suggest that exactitude or accuracy, which, as already seen,
defines the problematic, modern concepts of naturalism and realism, was not a leading
concern when it came to judging convincing artistic representations of non-human
subjects in Classical Greece. Such evidence does not remove the notion of accurate
representation from the realm of Greek art, but implies that animals, when featured as
subjects of art, were not devalued for not being exact reproductions of physical models.
As such, animals can be a useful guide to the ancient Greek understanding not of
“naturalism” and “realism,” but rather of “lifelikeness” in art, a concept, which the
American Heritage Dictionary defines as accurate representation of real life. 102
The following essay begins with a discussion of literary sources which show that
lifelikeness was a valued quality of works of art in Classical Greece. It further presents
literary evidence that refers to ancient discussions of lifelikeness in art. The picture of
the discourse on lifelikeness that emerges from the ancient sources does not exclude
102 A. H. Soukhanov, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (third edition;
Boston and New York, 1992) 1039, s.v. lifelike.
58