GREEK SCULPTURE.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17807, 5 July 1923, Page 11

GREEK SCULPTURE.

FIFTH CENTURY IDEALS. There was again a largo attendance at Canterbury College lasE evening when Professor H. Stewart delivered the third in his series of 6ix lectures on Greek art and sculpture, Tho subject for the third lecture was "Fifth Century Sculpture." Professor btewart said that never in history had such a leap in civilisation been made as the progress by Greece in the fifth century B.C. It was the same with philosophy and literature as with art. Technical difficulties had been surmounted. It was left for .the fifth century artists to. effect a complete harmony, of form and matter. The progress made in the period was most closely associated with Athens. This city had only 30,000 free inhabitants. It was not under a fostering, despot, but enjoyed extreme democracy. The artistic achievement was nil the more remarkable. Two general reasons were the intellectual and artistic qualities of. the Greeks in general and the Athenians in particular, and the advantages enjoyed by a brilliant society based on a slave system. Special causes were the result of the Persian war, which had pushed AtKens into the first rank, and the conversion of their confederacy of allies into an empire which yielded the Athenians large revenues. .

Professor Stewart proceeded, to show and comment on sixty beautiful slides illustrating the technique ana principles, of Phidias and Polyclitus, the two great artists of the period, and the decorative work on the Parthenon and other buildings. The masterpieces of Phidias were his sculpture of Zeus and Athene, and of these two the former was considered by the ancienfs as the greatest work of art in the world. The sculptures in the Parthenon bore the imprint of the genius of Phidias, if. they were not his work. The bulk of this sculpturing had been brought to England, and was_ now m • the British Museum. Polyclitus of Argos was a type of academic sculptor. The restful harmony and beauty of his work was very characteristic. In conclusion, Professor Stewart said that in the Archaic . period, 600-4CQ 8.C., various schools developed technique and evolved artistic types. In the Transitional Period, 480-460 8.C., rapid progress was made, but skill was sometimes more considered than subject. In the.Grand-Age,. 46CR10Q 8.C., skill was not an.end in itself,-but a means for expressing ideals. The most typical works, were religious in character. The chief features of,fifth century art were complete masterv of technique, freedom from (vigour coupled with grace, and delicacy without affectation, and especially breadth and nobility in the .•"ype - .«h'd. pose of the figures, in the composition of the groups and in the ideas, expressed. In the fourth century which was to be dealt '. with in the succeeding lecture the religious ideas were gradually rationalised, idealism,was replaced by individualism, grandeur and sublimity by grace and sentiment.