Hellenistic sculpture

Hellenistic sculpture represents one of the most important expressions of Hellenistic culture, and the final stage in the evolution of Ancient Greek sculpture. The definition of its chronological duration, as well as its characteristics and meaning, have been the subject of much discussion among art historians, and it seems that a consensus is far from being reached.^[1] The Hellenistic period is usually considered to comprise the interval between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, and the conquest of Egypt by the Romans in 30 BC.^[2] Its generic characteristics are defined by eclecticism, secularism, and historicism, building on the heritage of classical Greek sculpture and assimilating Eastern influences.^[3]

Among his original contributions to the Greek tradition of sculpture were the development of new techniques, the refinement of the representation of human anatomy and emotional expression, and a change in the goals and approaches to art, abandoning the generic for the specific. This translated into the abandonment of the classical idealism of an ethical and pedagogical character in exchange for an emphasis on everyday human aspects and the directing of production toward purely aesthetic and, occasionally, propagandistic ends. The attention paid to man and his inner life, his emotions, his common problems and longings, resulted in a realist style that tended to reinforce the dramatic, the prosaic, and the moving, and with this appeared the first individualized and verisimilitude portraits in Western art. At the same time, a great expansion of the subject matter occurred, with the inclusion of depictions of old age and childhood, of minor non-Olympian deities and secondary characters from Greek mythology, and of figures of the people in their activities.^[4][5]

The taste for historicism and erudition that characterized the Hellenistic period was reflected in sculpture in such a way as to encourage the production of new works of a deliberately retrospective nature, and also of literal copies of ancient works, especially in view of the avid demand for famous classicist compositions by the large Roman consumer market. As a consequence, Hellenistic sculpture became a central influence in the entire history of sculpture in Ancient Rome. Through Hellenized Rome, an invaluable collection of formal models and copies of important pieces by famous Greek authors was preserved for posterity, whose originals eventually disappeared in later times, and without which our knowledge of Ancient Greek sculpture would be much poorer.^[6] On the other hand, Alexander's imperialism towards the East took Greek art to distant regions of Asia, influencing the artistic productions of several Eastern cultures, giving rise to a series of hybrid stylistic derivations and the formulation of new sculptural typologies, among which perhaps the most seminal in the East was the foundation of Buddha iconography, until then forbidden by Buddhist tradition.^[7]

For the modern West, Hellenistic sculpture was important as a strong influence on Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical production.^[8] In the 19th century Hellenistic sculpture fell into disfavor and came to be seen as a mere degeneration of the classical ideal, a prejudice that penetrated into the 20th century and only recently has begun to be put aside, through the multiplication of more comprehensive current research on this subject, and although its value is still questioned by resistant nuclei of the critics and its study is made difficult for a series of technical reasons, it seems that the full rehabilitation of Hellenistic sculpture among scholars is only a matter of time, because for the general public it has already revealed itself to be of great interest, guaranteeing the success of the exhibitions where it is shown.^{[9][10][11][12]}