4. The Realm of Beauty

(E.H.Gombrich/The Story of Art)

-Greece and the Greek world, fourth century BC to first century AD

-めきめきと進化を遂げるギリシア文化とそれに続くヘレニズム文化。それまでの宗教的な意味合いはもはや薄れ、理想化された美の表現が追求されていく。風景画の概念も誕生。アレキサンダー大王によって広がる世界。

There is no living body quite as symmetrical, well-built and beautiful as those of the Greek statues.[...]They started by carefully copying the appearance of a real man, and then beautified it by omitting any irregularities or traits which did not conform to their idea of a perfect body.(83)

The heads of Greek statues or paintings of the fifth century, of course, are not expressionless in the sense of looking dull or blank, but their features never seem to express any strong emotion. It was the body and its movements which were used by these masters to express what Socrates had called ‘the workings of the soul’.(85)

The fact is probably that by this time, the period of Hellenism, art had largely lost its old connection with magic and religion.(88)

Even landscapes paintings existed there. This was perhaps the greatest innovation of the Hellenistic period. Ancient Oriental art had no use for landscapes except as settings for their scenes of human life or of military campaigns. For Greek art at the time of Pheidias or Praxiteles, man remained the main subject of the artist’s interest.(90)