Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

Art is among humankind’s earliest inventions, existing long before the first planted seed and giving us clues to forgotten lives and cultures. Of the various kinds of artworks, sculptures standout. Their construction from durable materials often facilitates their survival for millennia rather than centuries or decades. Their three-dimensionality allows them to be approached from multiple angles, distances and viewing conditions. And especially in the case of human sculptures, their corporeality invites not only the gaze but the touch of a viewer drawn to a forgotten past. While the oldest human carvings date back tens of thousands of years, it is with the Ancient Greeks that sculptures of the human form reach a pinnacle of detail, craftsmanship and authenticity that has dominated the Western World for generations and that continues to serve as a standard for how art is produced, experienced and judged. This pinnacle, however, did not arise ex nihilo; it steadily developed through the Archaic and the Classical Periods. In this article, I focus on the developments in 6th and 5th Centuries BC, outlining the gradual attainment of realism in human sculpture and its rapid abandonment for an idealism within a generation. In the subsequent sections I consider three explanations. The first is a contemporary account offered by the neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran. Next I consider a Platonic-inspired account that, like the neuroaesthetic account, is unsatisfactory. Finally, I offer an alternative, social-based account inspired by the Greek notion of kalokagathia.