Classical Greek sculpture

Classical Greek sculpture has long been regarded as the highest point in the development of Ancient Greek sculpture. Classical Greece covers only a short period in the history of Ancient Greece, but one of remarkable achievement in several fields. It corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC; the most common dates are from the fall of the last Athenian tyrant in 510 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. The Classical period in this sense follows the Greek Dark Ages and Archaic period and is in turn succeeded by the Hellenistic period.^[1]

The sculpture of Classical Greece developed an aesthetic that combined idealistic values with a faithful representation of nature, while avoiding overly realistic characterization and the portrayal of emotional extremes, generally maintaining a formal atmosphere of balance and harmony. Even when the character is immersed in battle scenes, their expression shows to be hardly affected by the violence of the events.^[2][3]

Classicism raised Man to an unprecedented level of dignity, at the same time as it entrusted him with the responsibility of creating his own destiny, offering a model of harmonious life, in a spirit of comprehensive education for an exemplary citizenship. These values, together with their traditional association of beauty with virtue, found in the sculpture of the Classical period with its idealized portrait of the human being, a particularly apt vehicle for expression, and an efficient instrument of civic, ethical and aesthetic education. With it, a new form of representation of the human body - influential to this day - began, being one of the cores of the birth of a new philosophical branch, Aesthetics, and the stylistic foundation of later revivalist movements of importance, such as the Renaissance and Neoclassicism. Thus, Classicism had an enormous impact on Western culture and became a reference for the study of Western art history. Apart from its historical value, Classicism's intrinsic artistic quality has had great impact, the vast majority of ancient and modern critics praising it vehemently, and the museums that preserve it being visited by millions of people every year. The sculpture of Greek Classicism, although sometimes the target of criticism that relates its ideological basis to racial prejudices, aesthetic dogmatism, and other particularities, still plays a positive and renovating role in contemporary art and society.^[4][5][6]