4

POETRY AND SCULPTURE OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

The Human   Figure  in  Archaic Art

Lyric   Poetry  of  Archaic Greece

The Archaic Period (eighth through sixth centuries BC) is the time when many of the defining features of
Classical Greek civilization began to take shape. This chapter will concentrate on two of those features,
the centrality of the human figure in the visual arts and the emphasis on personal self-expression in the
lyric poetry of the period. Archaic sculpture is characterized by the creation of life-size statues
representing young men and women, which were used either as dedicatory offerings or as grave markers.
The pose of the male statues, or kouroi, and the techniques used in their creation were adopted from the
Egyptians. But, in contrast to the Egyptian statues, which are intended as representations of specific
individuals, Greek kouroi depict young men in the nude, with no defining attributes. Similarly, statues of
young women, or korai, represent unidentified women of considerable means, as is indicated by their
opulent clothing and costly jewelry. These are, then, idealized depictions of beautiful young men and
women who represent the model citizen of the Archaic polis. In contrast, the small-scale lyric poetry of
the Archaic Period, which survives often in only a fragmentary state, allows the poet to express (or affect
to express) his – or her – own individual personality and to sing of specific, named members of his or her
own community. Archaic poets sing of their love for this or that young man or woman, revile their
personal enemies by name, and urge their fellow citizens on to acts of bravery in the new, communal style
of warfare that developed in the eighth century BC, replacing the individualized, “heroic” combat
celebrated in the Homeric epics.

The tensions    we  have    seen    in  chapter 3   between the conflicting claims  of  individuality   and

uniformity can be seen working themselves out also in the visual arts of the Archaic Period. This is the
name conventionally given to the period from the middle of the eighth to the beginning of the fifth century
BC. It is a particularly unfortunate name, as it gives the impression that the Greeks of the time were
stalled in some sort of holding pattern awaiting the full flowering of their civilization in an age that we
call the “Classical” Period, using a word derived from a Latin root. There is nothing “archaic” or old-
fashioned about this period of Greek civilization, except of course in retrospect. On the contrary, it is a
period of renewal, experimentation, and discovery. It is conventional to consider the Archaic Period to
have begun precisely with the year 776 BC, the traditional date of the first Olympic games and,
supposedly, the earliest securely dated event in Greek history. We are no longer as confident as we once
were that the ancient Greeks had reliable grounds for dating the start of the Olympic games to 776 BC;
that may only be the earliest date for which the Greeks were able to supply the name of an Olympic victor.
What is not in doubt is that the eighth century BC in general was a period in which notable changes
occurred in the Greek world. Nor is there any doubt that the beginning of the fifth century BC marks a
decisive turning-point for Greek civilization, namely because of the overwhelming effects of the Persian
Wars, which occurred at just that time. In any event, the name and the concept of the Archaic Period are so
well established that it would be perverse to abandon them. In this chapter, we will consider some