leads the eye into an inner focus (C.300-C.240 B.C.); the High Hellenistic phase, characterized by grandeur and pathos (C.240-C.
150 B.C.); and the Late Hellenistic phase, in which open form and one-sided compositions reminiscent of earlier styles prevailed (c.
150-c. 100 B.C.). This and similar systems are however dependent upon a few datable works, chiefly from one or two main centres,
and make too many presumptions about works for which the dating evidence is slim or nonexistent; so they can at best be regarded
as no more than a broad guide. It remains safer and more satisfactory to review the achievements of Hellenistic sculpture in general
terms, category by category.
One category in which distinctive trends were developed was the draped figure. Alongside the high-waisted, narrow-shouldered look
of the Tanagra ladies and many full-size statues, a look which was a condition of contemporary haute mode as much as of sculptural
style, there are works which show a conscious virtuosity on the part of the sculptor. A favourite device was the stretching of the
drapery across the body to create a pattern of taut and loose folds almost independent of the form beneath: good examples are
provided by the statue of Tyche of Antioch (soon after 300 B.C.), known only from Roman copies, and a bronze statuette of a veiled
dancer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Another device, cultivated especially in the cities of western Asia Minor
during the last two centuries B.C., was the exploitation of different textures, and especially the rendering of the mantle to produce
the effect of a silken shawl, through which the folds of the dress are clearly visible. But the finest of Hellenistic draped statues, the
Nike (Victory) of Samothrace, employed a more traditional style, contrasting clinging folds over the breasts, abdomen, and left leg
with deep-cut swathes in other areas. Here, however, the contrasts are more exaggerated than they had been in fifth-century Athenian
sculptures, and the folds over the advanced right leg are used in an impressionistic manner, swinging this way and that without
rhyme or reason to suggest the force of the wind as the winged goddess comes in to land. It is characteristic of the Hellenistic age
that the Nike served a semi-decorative role as the crowning ornament of a triumphal ship-monument and that this monument was
merely the centrepiece of a landscaped composition of rocks and water: more varied functions and more pictorial settings were one
result of the new kinds of patronage.
Nike (Victory) From Samothrace (c.200 BC), a statue set up in the sanctuary of the Great Gods in commemoration of a naval
victory, perhaps by the Rhodians. The goddess is shown alighting on the prow of a ship, which was originally set in a rock-filled
pool-the kind of landscape composition which seems to have been especially popular in Hellenistic Rhodes. She probably held a
bronze victory-wreath in her right hand.