Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

Pleasure and Leisure 285
experts. Although the artist may ultimately become something of
a public institution, he or she often remains a fashionable outsider.
Finally, although some artists receive state sponsorship in the form
of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in the United
States or from the Arts Council of Great Britain, not everyone agrees
that this is an appropriate or valuable use of public funds.
Greek art shared nothing in common with the picture drawn
above. It was never purchased as an investment. Other than perhaps
in the minor arts, the connoisseur had no equivalent. The only
“expert” was the community as a whole. The Greeks did not regard
costly works of art to be symbols of status and wealth. To our best
knowledge, not a single marble or bronze statue ever graced a private
home until the Roman era, which then witnessed a veritable
craze for Greek statuary. Most major works of art were commissioned
by the state and served a religious function, whether as
temples, dedications to the gods, or monuments erected in commemoration
of victorious athletes or the dead. Greek artists often
found themselves in the pay of the state and had to work to a very
strict set of specifications and guidelines. Greece never developed
anything equivalent to the modern cult of the artist. We know the
names of very few artists and virtually nothing about their private
lives.
Sculpture
Greek sculpture originated around the middle of the seventh
century b.c.e. Its initial inspiration owes much to Egypt. Marble,
limestone, bronze, terra-cotta, wood, or a combination of gold and
ivory known as chryselephantine were the chief materials. The 36foot-high
statue of Athene Parthenos, housed inside the Parthenon
and designed by the sculptor Pheidias, was covered in ivory and
gold to represent flesh and clothing. Stone statues were painted,
which lent them a very vivid appearance. Accessories such as armor
and jewelry and eyes were often reproduced in a different material.
Statues were not cheap to purchase. It is reckoned that a bronze
statue would have cost 3,000 drachmas, which is why very few have
survived—most of them were melted down for reuse.
The Greeks did not make the same clear-cut distinction between
reality and artistic illusion that we do, as the following anecdote
makes plain. The statue of a famous athlete called Theagenes was
erected in his honor on the island of Thasos. One of Theagenes’
rivals was so incensed by this that he began to flog the statue at