If so, it would be the earliest known depiction of myth in the history of Greek sculpture. The centaur has an intentional mark on its knee, which has led researchers to postulate that the statue might portray Cheiron, presumably kneeling wounded from Herakles' arrow. The statue was constructed in parts, before being dismembered and buried in two separate graves. The first piece of Greek statuary to be reassembled since is probably the Lefkandi Centaur, a terracotta sculpture found on the island of Euboea, dated c. No such statues survive, and the descriptions of them are vague, despite the fact that they were probably objects of veneration for hundreds of years. It is commonly thought that the earliest incarnation of Greek sculpture was in the form of wooden or ivory cult statues, first described by Pausanias as xoana. Development of Greek sculptures Geometric References to painted sculptures are found throughout classical literature, including in Euripides's Helen in which the eponymous character laments, "If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect/The way you would wipe color off a statue." Some well-preserved statues still bear traces of their original coloration and archaeologists can reconstruct what they would have originally looked like. Īncient Greek sculptures were originally painted bright colors they only appear white today because the original pigments have deteriorated. This color restoration shows what a statue of a Trojan archer from the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina would have originally looked like. ĭespite appearing white today, Greek sculptures were originally painted.
Many statues were given jewellery, as can be seen from the holes for attaching it, and held weapons or other objects in different materials. Ĭhryselephantine sculptures, used for temple cult images and luxury works, used gold, most often in leaf form and ivory for all or parts (faces and hands) of the figure, and probably gems and other materials, but were much less common, and only fragments have survived. Plaster or stucco was sometimes used for the hair only. Ordinary limestone was used in the Archaic period, but thereafter, except in areas of modern Italy with no local marble, only for architectural sculpture and decoration. Many copies of the Roman period are marble versions of works originally in bronze. As bronze always had a significant scrap value very few original bronzes have survived, though in recent years marine archaeology or trawling has added a few spectacular finds, such as the Artemision Bronze and Riace bronzes, which have significantly extended modern understanding. 2650)īoth marble and bronze are easy to form and very durable as in most ancient cultures there were no doubt also traditions of sculpture in wood about which we know very little, other than acrolithic sculptures, usually large, with the head and exposed flesh parts in marble but the clothed parts in wood. Athena in the workshop of a sculptor working on a marble horse, Attic red-figure kylix, 480 BC, Staatliche Antikensammlungen (Inv.
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