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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

IX. CLASSICAL CIVILIZATION

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

The Classical City   * Education and the Condition of Children   * Marriage and the Position of Women   * The Home and Private Life   * Amusements   * Slavery   * Greek Literature   * Greek Philosophy   * Roman Literature   * Greek Architecture   * Greek Sculpture   * Roman Architecture and Sculpture   * Artistic Athens   * Artistic Rome

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GREEK SCULPTURE

THE GREEK GENIUS IN SCULPTURE

The greatest achievement of the Greeks in art was their sculpture. Roman artists surpassed them in the creation of massive architectural works; modern artists have surpassed them in painting. In sculpture the Greeks still remain unexcelled.

LOSS OF THE MASTERPIECES

The existing remains of Greek sculpture are very scanty. The statues of gold and ivory vanished long ago. The bronze statues, formerly numbered by thousands, have nearly all gone into the melting pot. Sculptures in marble were turned into mortar or used as building materials. Those which escaped such a fate were often ruined by wanton mutilation and centuries of neglect. The statues which we still possess are mainly marble copies, made in Roman times from Greek originals. It is as if the paintings by the old masters of Europe, four centuries ago, were now known only in the reproductions by modern artists of inferior powers.

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy