What are the Beauty Canons of Classical Art?

Classical Greece has always been a benchmark in terms of beauty. Gombrich himself, in his immortal work art history He falls into one of these topics when he states that, during the Periclean century, “the great awakening of art” began. In this sense, the eminent theoretician is carried away by the belief, so usual in the West, that Greece was the height of art and beauty.

Is this really so? Can we categorically affirm, as Gombrich does, that during classical Greece there was a wake up? Yes and no. If we stick strictly to the birth of a naturalist art, yes, Athens was the benchmark. But is it that we can reduce art to a naturalistic copy of reality?

Beauty canons of classical art

The classical era also has its artistic clichés, oddly enough. In his case, and unlike medieval art (more reviled), these topics come rather from the idealization that was carried out during the 18th century, when the supposed classical canons were recovered and The academy.

In today's article we are going to briefly review what they are

the canons of beauty on which classical Greek art was based and how they were recovered during Neoclassicism.

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The observation of nature

The Greek art we have in mind corresponds only to a certain period in the history of Greece; exactly, the years that elapse from the so-called "Century of Pericles" (s. Goes. C.) and the Hellenistic period (s. IV a. c.). But the artistic journey of the Greek polis began, of course, much earlier.

If we take the first manifestations of Greek sculpture, the so-called archaic style, we will observe that the canons of beauty are very similar to the Egyptian ones.. Clear prototypes of this art are the Kuroi and the Korai (kuros and kore singular), sculptures of boys and girls who have been considered athletes and priestesses, respectively. In all of them, we observe rigid and symmetrical canons, very close to the statuary of the country of the Nile.

Both korai Like the kuroi they invariably meet head-on, with a majestic aura in which there is hardly a hint of movement. The volumes are forceful and static, and the anatomy is barely outlined. They correspond, like their Egyptian counterparts, to an idealized image of a concept or a character.

After the wars with the Persians and the cultural activation of Athens, something begins to change. The sculptures undergo a "naturalization"; It is no longer a question of “dogmatic” representations of men and women, but of blatant attempts to copy actual human anatomy, with an in-depth study of the muscles, bones, tendons and all the elements necessary to build a believable body. This is what Gombrich refers to when he says "the awakening of art": for the first time in history, human beings realistically copy nature.

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An absolutely idealized body

However, do the bodies of the sculptures from the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. c. to real human beings? The answer is no. Because despite the fact that the Greeks of that time began an evident study of the natural, the final representations are not representations of specific men and women. They correspond to an ideal of beauty, which the Greeks achieved through the observation of many anatomies and through a selection of the most "beautiful" elements.

In this sense, we could say that classical Greek art is equally idealized, in line with its Egyptian and Oriental companions; only that its idealization is constructed in a different way. While these are based on an idea that they later try to capture plastically, the Greeks of the time classical observe the anatomy and select those elements that should appear in a body ideally perfect.

For it, the Greeks do not hesitate to adapt his work to the viewer's vision so that it is more beautiful. The columns of the Parthenon are purposely "crooked" so that, when looking at them, the eye interprets them as perfectly aligned. Otherwise, if the architect had raised them straight, our gaze would deform them. On the other hand, and as Umberto Eco maintains in his work history of beauty, the artist is not intimidated when it comes to adapting a shield to the sight of whoever is looking at it, precisely so that the latter does not perceive it as excessively flat.

That is to say, that the Greek artists knew the errors of the human gaze and perspective and, in honor of beauty, did not hesitate to change the real forms. Therefore, to say that the Greeks "copied nature" is as big an error as to say that "in the Middle Ages there was no type of naturalism." Things, as always, are not black or white.

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Ethos and pathos

Proportion and harmony are key during the classical period to understand their concept of beauty. In the human body, Polykleitos establishes the canon of the seven heads as perfect measurements., which brings us back to what was stated above: that, contrary to what is believed, the Greeks also raised an "idealized" art, not at all realistic.

On the other hand, during Classical Greece we find as a predominant element in artistic creation the ethos, which, despite the fact that it would strictly come to mean "conduct", in artistic terms is used to express containment. Just as it was written on the walls of the Delphi temple: "You're welcome." This is the premise that perfectly summarizes the classical ideal: harmony as containment of the always troublesome chaos.

For this reason, when in 1506 the sculpture of the laocoon, the humanists of the time were truly amazed. What was this shapeless mass of flesh that moved and struggled and contracted? Where was he ethos in that statue?

What the discoverers of laocoon What they were unaware of was that this creation belonged entirely to another period, the Hellenistic one, where, following Nietzsche's theories, Dionysus replaced Apollo. In other words; in the late Greek period, which corresponds to the Macedonian conquests of Alexander the Great, the sense of harmonious contention gives way to the turmoil of emotions, to the pathos more genuine. The sculptures, therefore, lose that almost miraculous balance and begin to "move" and show their inner ups and downs. Dionysus, the god of chaos, of the night, of the party, has replaced the always calm Apollo.

feminine ideals and masculine ideals

It is a commonly accepted idea that nudes in the history of art have always featured women. This is not true, at least in the first centuries of art. In fact, if we take Greek statuary, we will surely find countless male nudes, and practically none female.

Let us remember that Greek society was eminently misogynistic. The women lived secluded in the gynoeces of the houses and did not have access to any type of social activity, much less political. The woman's body was a real taboo, but not the man's. In fact, since archaic times we find male nudes (the famous kuroi, for example), which surely represent deified athletes. The participants of the games competed naked, and the men played naked in the arenas of the gymnasiums. The beauty of the male nude is constantly evoked, but not that of the female.

We will have to wait for Praxiteles (s. IV a. C.), already from the Hellenistic period, to find the most splendid female nudes in Greece, the famous Aphrodites, which embody, like the masculine statuary (like the Apollo Belvedere or the Hermes of Praxiteles) the ideal of the female body. However, unlike his classmates, the Aphrodites They don't show her entire body; often the genitals and legs are covered with tunics, leaving only the upper part of the trunk visible. Other times, Aphrodite modestly covers herself with her hands and arms, in what is known as the modest Venus.

It is in modern times, and especially during the 18th and 19th centuries, when the female nude reaches its peak., thanks to the recovery of classical art and the emergence of the academy. By the way, Neoclassicism made a particular interpretation of classical Greek art. To begin with, she embodied the idea of ​​the "purity of marble"; immaculately white sculptures that thus enhanced his silhouette. Could not be farther from the truth. Because the Greeks, like the medieval ones, gave polychromy a capital importance. In the same way that the Middle Ages were not dark, classical Greece was not white. It was a splendid apotheosis of colors, born in the midst of that forceful and magnificent ethos.