Impelled by the love of balance, proportion and an untiring desire to understand the human form, one of the greatest evolutions in the history of sculpture occurred over a span of a thousand years in Ancient Greece. From the Archaic period figures in rigid frontal poses, to Classical figures that stand upright with ease, to those of the Hellenistic period that seem to move unrestrained in space, Greek artists expressed the human body with a magnificence and beauty that has moved people for centuries, inspiring some of the great artists of the world, including Michelangelo.
Learning about the sculpture of ancient Greece, a subject I love, had a profound effect on the Art History students I taught at LaGuardia High School for Music & Art, using the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method. In his essay “What Is Art For,” the 20th century educator and founder of Aesthetic Realism, Eli Siegel, explained that “Ancient art showed a desire to like the world by making the inert and the moving one.” How true this is about the sculpture of ancient Greece! My students, who can feel inert and restless themselves, were affected to learn that art has a vital message for our lives. That message is in this groundbreaking principle of Aesthetic Realism, which I am fortunate to use as the basis of my teaching:
“All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”
We looked at a great work of the Archaic period, Hera of Samos of 580 BC. There is a quiet dignity in this figure. At first the students felt that it appeared to be only still. Her vertical form, similar to that of a Greek column, has rigidity; and her arms close to the body and feet together, accent the immobile. But the more we looked, we saw motion astir. The upper garment resting heavily upon her shoulders seems inert, but look at how it curves, rises, and sweeps diagonally across her body. Typical of Archaic period figures, her weight is distributed equally on both feet, but she is not stuck nor static. There is motion in how her form gracefully widens and narrows; how the garment falls to the ground, spreads out and curves over her toes that come forward.
Hera of Samos, 580 BC Doryphoros, 440 BC
Then, with the next century, something new occurred. Greek artists, ever striving to comprehend the human body, came to understand the concept of contrapposto. In our textbook Art Across Time, Laurie Schneider Adams defined this as: “a stance of the human body in which one legs bears the weight, while the other is relaxed, creating an asymmetry in the hip-shoulder axis.” This, I told my students, enabled a greater, more beautiful relation of movement and stability to be expressed in Classical period sculpture. We looked at a masterful achievement of contrapposto from 440BC, Doryphoros, The Spear Bearer by Polykleitos. This figure stands firmly and moves! The right leg bears his weight, as the left, with bent knee and flexed toes, has flexibility and momentum. As weight is shifted to one leg, a series of subtle and dynamic asymmetrical movements occur throughout the figure. My students observed this in how the hips and shoulders diagonally tilt in opposing directions. The straight leg and arm on the right balance and counter the forward thrust of the opposite bending knee and elbow. Every detail, including the slight turn of his head and thoughtful gaze, is a beautiful oneness of the inert and moving, solidity and flexibility! My 21st century students were in awe of this 5th century BC work. We can ask, does it have the energy and repose, the motion and stability young people long to feel? It does!
In classrooms across America there is great concern about the way students can go from inertia to wild energy. I once saw no relation between the way I could feel bored and stuck in myself and also be in frantic motion. I learned from Aesthetic Realism that the central debate in every person is between the desire to respect the world, to know it—this is the deepest purpose of our lives and of education itself—and the desire to have contempt which is “the addition to self through the lessening of something else.” Feeling the world doesn’t make sense, young people without knowing it, can harden themselves to the meaning of other people and things, and also lash out in anger. I am grateful to tell my students that art is the greatest opponent to contempt, because it arises from a person wanting to have large feeling about reality—respect it, see meaning and beauty in it. Glorious respect is what impelled the great sculptors of ancient Greece.
We then looked at a masterpiece of the Hellenistic period, The Winged Victory of Samothrace, 190 BC. Carved in marble, 8 feet high, this figure is now moving freely in space. Her wings are spread wide, and we feel the air moving the drapery about her body. Is she grounded or airborne? This work is an utter oneness of the inert and moving, dynamic, sweeping motion AND stability with form! My New York City high school students—even the most cynical and jaded—were swept by this great sculpture. It does magnificently what they want to do, put opposites together. Studying the sculpture of ancient Greece gave my students hope, which is why Kyla was able to write: The Winged Victory of Samothrace moved me! The folds of her flowing dress, the way the wind seems to blow her away...yet [she is] firmly on the ground with so much grace and beauty… These are qualities I want in myself! The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method enables art, and every subject, to be a means of meeting our deepest hope to like the world, which is the very purpose of education.
This article appeared in ArtBeat, the magazine of the Art Educators of New Jersey, Volume 7, Fall 2017, p. 7
