Natasha Nagle

Art and Archaeology

Professor Diamont
9 April 2015

The Nature of a Stone

The ebb and flow of the tide, the seasons, the human breadth and extent of all life. Each
of these individual pieces of nature are intertwined, inexplicably intrinsic to one another and
inseparable; living one without and yet remaining within one another. Separated and yet one
piece within the whole, without either the whole would not exist as we recognize it and the piece
would not maintain the same force of meaning.
It is within these flows, the natural paths of energy and how they choose to manifest
themselves that we find our comfort alongside our ability to manipulate them for our own
benefit. Despite our tenacity and determination to continuously move forward with our works,
constantly improving, we also reside under the movement and containments of these paths. In
attempting to override them, we merely follow their waves, consistently moving forward only to
return to where we once were, whether through our own conscious actions or the happenings of
forces much removed from ourselves. It is much in this way that our conceptions of art and
artistry have evolved and changed. We inherently identify these shifts within our own minds,
wanting to move forward, but at the same time wanting to keep safely protected within the
shroud that is our understanding. We disguise our forward momentum with a yearning for what
is past, a certain veneer which holds us still within its sway. The past is fascinating, for it is what
we know and yet there is still much to be discovered and understood within it. As it is within our
minds so it is within that which we visualize and so, are able to bring to fruition. Within each
step towards the future there are reminders of the past.
Due to this tendency to canonize the past and that which we associate with it, we often
idealize the past as a time when everything was simpler and therefore attempt to return to the
safety and comfort of the mindset we once held. In doing so, we take the concepts and ideas
formed during this time and antiquate them, making them appear more wholesome and of better
value and higher importance because their memory has survived the tests of time, the tests which
reduce others to mere echoes in the minds of a few, hardly able to sustain the same pressure upon
the society which they were once able. Thereby, antiquated ideas and methods are often referred
to in times of distress, when the current modes of thought seemingly no longer uphold the same
promise of forward movement as they had upon their inception. It is for this very reason we are
able to look back and identify the significance which Homeric epics had upon subsequent
literature and those who wrote it. Its formulaic composition became glamorized by future
authors who sought to imitate the style in hopes of receiving at least some of the same popularity,
benefits, and praise in order to elevate their own works to the levels of Homer who was able to
create a literary work around which ancient Greek culture wrapped itself and which was also
equally affected by the culture into which it was placed. The nostalgia such a process inflicts is a
powerful tool with which we are reminded of our simpler past through the ability to identify a
situation, individual, or action through simplified characteristics which remain unified
throughout a wider region and period of time. In this process everything has a meaning, a proper
place, and a reason, and because of this we find familiarity comforting in a world which is
otherwise chaotic and ever changing.
Much in the same way we identify works of literature, we also identify physical antiques
as nostalgic items which can speak of heavy wealth or eccentric interest combined with a proper
veneration of the past, the use of the identifier archaios, or antiquated, does not necessarily
indicate inability to progress or lack of talent. In fact, in many cases it may be seen as a mark of
skill and ability which can transcend differences in time and popular taste, occasionally kindled
by rapid technological and ideological advancements. An object identified as archaios may fit
into the chronology as its aspects would have one believe at first glance, however, it may also
merely indicate a preference of style as opposed to lack of ability. Perhaps our belief that an
object, such as a statue, should be labeled as archaic, and therefore automatically believed to be
older, merely on account of the lack of the appearance of life, which was slowly perfected within
sculpture throughout the ages, and judged by the appearance of the presence of life within later
sculptures, thereby automatically and unequivocally degrading the ability of past artisans, should
be reevaluated. Perhaps archaic sculptors were not necessarily seeking to breath life into stone,
and were instead striving to communicate a situation or action to the viewer through a series of
commonly understood frames and additions to the sculpture, much like how later stained glass
sought to communicate the stories of Christianity to the illiterate, not attempting to appear
particularly lifelike, but serving their purpose as a snapshot of a particular event or individual,
nonetheless.
 Several indicators used to compare the appearance of these korai and kouroi and to
determine the relations in time between their achieved styles. While archaic statues may be
recognized for their lavish yet organic inanimate ornamentation, typically the votive offerings
created in a more archaic style utilized the existence of set rigid patterns to draw significant
definition to the different sections of the body as well as to indicate the portions of the sculpture
which the creator deemed to be most important to what the statue was meant to portray, and
exemplify a detailed intricacy which manages to stand out and yet fade into the background
composition illustrating the tale of the piece simultaneously (Hurwitt). In addition, there was
usually a clear relation between the material from which the offering was carved and the carving
itself, often preserving the original shape of the material and integrating the surface of the stone
into the piece itself, as it was with Nikandre, thereby choosing to work with the innate limitations
of the material and integrating it into the finished product (Hurwitt). This characteristic not only
indicates the acceptance of the material as a necessary and important part of the statue, but it also
leads to the existence of the illuminated foreground into which the patterns were carved, and
eventually from, the parallel planes of the block used, as well as lending the statue the
appearance of having portions of the body which are meant to disrupt that plane on an actual
human being stuck onto, or protruding from, the remaining relatively flat planes of the sculpture.
This appearance of having portions of the anatomy placed upon the planes of the sculptures,
instead of belonging to them, is known as paratactic composition, and as sculpture began to
move closer to the severe style of the Classical period this type of composition was gradually
phased out in favor of more anatomically correct proportions and displays of movement.
The use of paratactic composition to create the kore offerings greatly increased the extent
of limitations imposed upon the statue by its material. Paratactic composition further served to
negate the existence of demonstrating generous amounts of movement, thus contributing to the
limited range of poses into which these sculptures could be made, thereby adding to limiting
chances of further individual expression through interaction with its surroundings beyond the
costume in which the statue is clothed and the props it holds. The use of parataxis limits
movement due to its inability to connect the individual parts of the statue together as in this way
the sums of their parts are not able to equal a totally realized whole. This also facilitates the idea
of the archaic smile as it is much easier to carve a face in tension then one which is more static
and lax.
 Nikandre, as one of the earliest known life-sized statues of the human form made of
stone, displays characteristics which clearly identify her as having been created in the archaic
style. Her anatomical features are clearly and uniformly placed into the articulated foreground,
which are then further separated from one another through the use of basic geometric shapes
such as a cube, triangle, and rectangle to depict the head, upper body, and lower body
respectively. These distinctions are also aided through the use of the sharp lines of the hair and
belt, as well as the use of the appearance of feet to identify the bottom of the dress from the
ground upon which she stands. Due to this need, the feet are pushed much farther forward than
would be anatomically correct, thereby adding to the incorrect placement of the ears as they are
pressed forward upon the head and the longer than usual legs when in comparison to the upper
body. It may also be duly noted that the lines from which the cloth of the dress is carved acts as
the silhouette of her body, creating a one to one ratio between clothing and form of the body
further identifying her as being archaic in style. The lack of patterns is surprising for the use of a
more archaic sculpting style though it does properly advocate for her existence as one of the very
first life-sized humanoid statues, as does her extreme lack of personality indicating her possible
representation of the goddess Artemis to whom she was dedicated or of the woman who
dedicated her.
The kouros figure made as a dedication to Poseidon at the Sanctuary at Sounion
wonderfully expresses the importance and emphasis of patterns within archaic sculpture. These
patterns also serve to enable the viewer to better identify the sharp distinctions between the
portions of the kouros body through drawing the eye across the sculpture and to the most
important portions such as the thighs, chest, back, knees, and eyes. This is done through the use
of the shadows created by these incised patterns which are able to draw a much sharper contrast
across the planes of the statue, as the sun moves across them, in order to give the aura of strength
and ability to the hero. Whereas his self awareness is expounded upon through the implications
of the first thoughts of taking a step, as evidenced by one foot slightly forward and the arms
slightly bent away from the trunk of the body, as well as the plays between the shadows, the self
awareness of later less archaic votive statues, such as Phrasikleia and the Peplos kore, is
explained through their causal relationships between themselves and their surroundings as well
as between the individual parts of their bodies. The typical archaic stylized face of the Sounion
kore, combined with the placement and appearance of the ears and relatively simply patterned
hair, also expounds upon the similarities between its face and that of Phrasikleia and the slow
movement towards the interconnectedness of the features which can be clearly seen in the Peplos
kore.
The Pomegranate kore has yet to advance beyond the simple relation of the dress which
she wears doubling as the body of the woman herself. Her Doric style dress of a peplos over
chiton paired with a shawl, limited distancing between the arms and the bodice, the maintenance
of the shape of the block from which she was initially carved, her simply styled and uniform hair,
paratactic nature of anatomical relations, and the uniformly illuminated foreground also all work
to indicate a more archaic style of sculpture.
Despite the retention of the paratactic nature of composition concerning the anatomical
features of the Lyons kore, we are able to see more of a definition being drawn between the
features themselves and the clothing which she is wearing. The appearance of the Ionic chiton
would generally indicate a later style of sculpture, while allowing it to be made clear she is
taking a step with one leg moving forward and the large amount of diagonal lines facilitating this
concept of movement. In doing this, she is no longer being constrained to the formulaic archaic
stance of having even weight distribution between feet occasionally with one slightly ahead of
the other and so is determined to be making progress towards a less archaic style, despite the
ridge and groove patterns, symmetry of her face, and basic geometric construction indicating a
more archaic style.
Altogether, the Antenor Kore is much different than any of these previous korai and
kouroi for a number of reasons. Not only is she breaking the traditional stabilized archaic stance
by having her weight upon her front foot with her back foot slightly raised, mimicking the later
stance of the severe style Diadoumenos, but her outstretched left hand is not just serving to break
the horizontal plane but also serves to indicate that she was carved from a single block of marble,
as opposed to having the outstretched arm attached later, thus making her a powerful statement
of the ability of the sculptor and the technological prowess of the day. Like the Lyons kore she is
shown stepping forward and the features of her body are increasingly visible beneath the cloth.
The causal relations between the movement of her body and the movement of the clothing is
much more interrelated, with diagonal lines towards the hem indicating the correct response of
the fabric as she is pulling it up and her legs and torso are visible underneath the entire three
hundred and sixty degrees around the statue, making it one of the most three dimensional
representations to this date. However, her hair maintains the flat and patterned appearance of
more archaic statuary while the presence of decorative patterns harks back to the traditional
archaic patterns seen on the Sounion kouros.
The Aristodikos kouros is generally recognized as the last kouros figure, and for good
reason. In fact, merely the existence of the typical archaic stance, despite being given the illusion
of taking a step, is what enables him to be considered a kouros figure at all. His anatomical
features, such as his ears, musculature, knees, and facial features are no longer paratactic in
nature, nor are they etched onto the relatively flat planes of his body. Instead, each feature seems
to take up a plane of its own, and in fact creates new ones through which each of the other planes
interact and play off one another, thus ushering in complete three dimensional studies of the
human figure. He also no longer maintains the archaic smile and the bones of the upper body and
face are able to be clearly distinguished from the rest of the statue, without relying on the
radiating grid-like pattern the archaic sculptors relied upon. In addition, there is absolutely no
evidence of patterning anywhere on the statue, thereby officially crossing out of archaic territory.
The Aristodikos kouros defines the very boundary between archaic and severe style statuary and
with him a new era of artistic stylization is ushered in which is largely connected to the classical
period and the great expanse of artistic expression which it encompassed.
Though such advancements within the appearance and expression available to statuary
were made in such rapid leaps and bounds, all contained within a period of a few hundred years,
this was not always a consistent advancement on account of the nostalgia for that which is past.
It is for this reason that we are able to view votive offerings and grave markers which combine
elements of less archaic styles directly alongside that which is attributed to more archaic styles,
as is demonstrated through the Phrasikleia and Peplos korai.
The funerary monument for a young unmarried girl, named Phrasikleia, is interesting in
and of itself as it seems to begin to challenge the typical ideas of archaic design. Phrasikleias left
arm is drawn up, folded over her chest, and grips a flower bud which has yet to bloom, while her
right arm has a significant amount of space carved out between it and the side of her body
indicating advancement from the very basics of posture attributed to Nikandre, in addition to the
increased daring of the sculptor. The appearance of separation of the sleeve from her left arm
combined with her right hand pulling at her skirt and the slight draping of the dress over the belt
demonstrate the beginnings of the differentiation between the costume which is worn and the
body over which it lies. Despite several of the the manly characteristics of the kore, this
identification of the clothing as a separate entity indicates the beginning of the process of
illuminating the anatomy beneath the cloth the process of which is also viewed to an extent with
the Lyons kore.
Regardless of these small, but important, advancements in working to accurately depict
life through the medium of stone, Phrasikleia still maintains her connections to the older and
more archaic methods of interpreting the human form. While Phrasikleia begins to demonstrate
movement as her one hand pulls at the side of her dress, despite the fact that the hem of the dress
does not respond correctly to this pull on its gravity, thereby aiding the argument of the
disassociation of the diagonal lines along the bottom of her dress from their usual intention to
depict movement, as they do in the dresses of the Lyons kore and the Antenor kore. These
diagonal lines instead appear to be acting in tandem with the feet pushed past the front hem of
the dress to differentiate the end of the dress from the beginning of the base upon which the
figure stands. While her hair clearly exhibits the use of a patterned form, it generally remains
consistent, each strand looking the same as the next, without definition and volume given
through undercutting the strands as is done with Antenor, Pomegranate, and Lyons korai.
Through these aspects of Phrasikleia, in addition to the creation of her body using basic
geometric shapes such as a cube for the head, triangle for the upper body, a rectangle for her
waist and legs, which are also longer than proper anatomical proportions would dictate, and the
existence of the clear defining lines between these regions of the body we are able to draw strong
parallels to the statue of Nikandre. Phrasikleias even distribution of her weight indicates less of
a likelihood that she will be moving any time soon.
Phrasikleia also maintains the archaic stylized facial features where the nose is
centralized and all other features radiate out from the central point. This signals the remaining,
though less severe, existence of paratactic composition in regards to the anatomical features of
the face as well as the rest of the body paralleling those of the Sounion kore. Her eyes maintain
the typical archaic shape, rounded at the top and flat at the bottom, while her ears remain
relatively two dimensional, patterned with ridges and grooves, and pushed back on the skull so
as to hold back the hair. Both lips also remain on one plane with the ridge groove pattern, do not
meet in the corners and are frozen in the archaic smile.
 The Peplos Kores head in and of itself aids in identifying the votive offering as less
archaic in style. Instead of using the basic outline of a cube upon which to attach the facial
features and hair the head of the Peplos Kore is more anatomically correct in that it not only
looks more like the head of a human being but its ears are less stylized and more three
dimensional, even though they retain their function of holding back the hair, the cheekbones
appear to be shown through the planes of the face rather than plastered onto it, furthering the idea
of illuminating the structures under the surface of the body and stone, much along the lines of the
Aristodikos kore, despite the retention of the archaic smile. Also despite this movement in the
direction of proper illumination, the Peplos kore acts as a type of stepping stone to this final
occurrence through showing evidence of negative carving where areas around the cheeks and
mouth are chipped away to make the cheeks emerge like islands and giving the whole face a
pinched cheek appearance (Ridgway 107). Her lips are also placed on two separate planes, her
eyes are more rounded along the bottom, with the nose not acting as the central point from which
all other features radiate. Her hair tends to follow the curvatures of her body and is undercut to
give the impression of three dimensional individual strands, augmenting and highlighting the
slight differences between them. The shape of her body is not so easily linked to specific simple
geometric shapes, as the body of Nikandre is, and her other features are certainly not paratactic
additions as can be attested by the appearance of movement which the figure seems to be
conveying. Her left arm is lifted up at a perpendicular to her body in order to display the offering
she held in her hand, thereby not only breaking the traditional flat foreground plane of the
archaic style, but also breaking the horizontal planes of the figure as lifting her hand raises her
left shoulder while dropping the right. Her right arm is also slightly bent at the elbow and visibly
separated from her side. In addition, her head is tilted slightly to the left and downwards as
though she is looking at and engaging with the object she is holding in her hand indicating
further examples of life through self awareness and engagement with her surroundings. She also
has clear definition between her body and her dress around the bottoms of the sleeves as well as
in the bottom of the skirt with lines in the front and back, indicating a sculpture illuminated from
all sides, used to identify the presence of both legs under the cloth, harking to the distancing
from the truly archaic concept of the one to one ratio between the body and clothing.
According to each of these attributes it may be determined that the Phrasikleia kore is
more relevant to the archaic tradition than the Peplos Kore. This can largely be ascribed to the
differentiation between clothing styles as well as the general shapes of their bodies and the
aspects to which attention is drawn. Though the Peplos Kore is recognized as wearing a peplos
over a chiton with a himation slung over one shoulder, which is considered Doric dress, with the
chiton worn alone as Ionic dress introduced later, her form of Doric dress can be compared to
that of Phrasikleias to determine that Phrasikleias is the more traditionally archaic of the two
(Ridgway 91). Longstanding and widespread evidence of the Doric peplos being commonly
depicted in archaic statuary can be connected to popularity of the style, as well as the possibility
that it was much simpler to demonstrate within a stone medium, the heavier woolen fabric being
less likely to necessitate folds and display movement of the fabric as much as the thinner cotton
Ionic chiton would. This reduction in the number of diagonal lines necessary and could be
interpreted as a complete lack of movement by modern scholars. Alternately, however, the
thinner fabric of the chiton made it much more likely that the artist would be able to capture the
figure, and by extension movement, the body underneath the fabric
The style of dress worn by the statue of Phrasikleia can be determined not only by the
lack of buttons on her sleeve, which would indicate the presence of an Ionic chiton, but also in
the way in which the fabric is belted and bulges only slightly, and seems to hang, along with the
free edges of the sleeves, in a heavier way than a simple cotton chiton would especially
considering the lack of movement where the skirt is being pulled up slightly (Ridgway 99). The
lack of severe bunching throughout the garment also facilitates the idea that her dress was
created out of a heavier wool fiber. However, it is thought that this indication could also be used
to place Phrasikleia right before the advent of the Lyons kore as she too displays
misunderstanding over the correct reaction of the material as she pulls at it. Even so, the use of
the strip down the center of Phrasikleias dress was not only used to draw the eye upwards across
the vertical plane of the statue, but is also recognized as being very similar to the squarish-rear
kolpos typical of a kore from Chios combined with other Parian details to create a relatively
unique style of dress (Ridgeway 98).
It is largely the movement towards further indication of movement, when combined to
the gradual disappearance of paratactic composition, and therefore of the life which accompanies
it, and all the factors which aid in the reverberation of its effects throughout the duration of the
archaic art movement into the beginnings of the severe Classical style, as exemplified by the
casually lifelike, serene Diadoumenos, the causal relationships between each of his parts having
been fully realized, which helps to determine which of the two kore are more archaic in style.
The attention paid to the gradual alteration and gradations of shadows upon the human figure
also increased as the severe style began to come to fruition, thereby adding more details which
would enable a sculptor to bring an inanimate piece of stone to life.
While each kore and kouros statue has the ability to integrate more modern techniques or
related to the time of their creation with techniques typically assigned to older eras in artistic
creation, it was entirely the decision of the sculptor, and to some extent the patron if designated
before the actual shaping of the material, which elements of each style he chose to include. In
this way artistic license is truly epitomized. Perhaps so called archaic art was not trying to be
an pre-imitation of the strict rationality associated with Classical Greece and seen within the
serene faces of the Diadominos and the Acropolis Riders, but rather attempting to capture an
abstract rationality in the way they drew their differences to the way things were and the way in
which they wanted to see them. As a result, the use of archaic artistry styles throughout later
periods can merely be referred to as being a little old fashioned, and demonstrating the yearning
for the days of yore which may still be used to characterize humanity.
 Works Cited

J. Boardman, Archaic Sculpture

J. Hurwitt, Art and Culture of Early Greece

H. Payne, Archaic Sculpture from the Acropolis

B. Ridgway, Archaic Sculpture