OLD MARKET WOMANThe realistic bent of much of Hel-
lenistic sculpture—the very opposite of the Classical period’s ideal-
ism—is evident above all in a series of statues of old men and women
from the lowest rungs of the social order. Shepherds, fishermen, and
drunken beggars are common—the kinds of people pictured earlier
on red-figure vases but never before thought worthy of monumental
statuary. One of the finest preserved statues of this type depicts a hag-
gard old woman (FIG. 5-86) bringing chickens and a basket of fruits
and vegetables to sell in the market. Her face is wrinkled, her body
bent with age, and her spirit broken by a lifetime of poverty. She car-
ries on because she must, not because she derives any pleasure from
life. No one knows the purpose of these statues, but they attest to an
interest in social realism absent in earlier Greek statuary.
Statues of the aged and the ugly are, of course, the polar oppo-
sites of the images of the young and the beautiful that dominated
Greek art until the Hellenistic age, but they are consistent with the
period’s changed character. The Hellenistic world was a cosmopoli-
tan place, and the highborn could not help but encounter the poor
and a growing number of foreigners (non-Greek “barbarians”) on a
daily basis. Hellenistic art reflects this different social climate in the
depiction of a much wider variety of physical types, including differ-
ent ethnic types. The sensitive portrayal of Gallic warriors with theirshaggy hair, strange mustaches, and golden torques (FIG. 5-80and
5-81) has already been noted. Africans, Scythians, and others, for-
merly only the occasional subject of vase painters, also entered the
realm of monumental sculpture in Hellenistic art.
DEMOSTHENESThese sculptures of foreigners and the urban
poor, however realistic, are not portraits. Rather, they are sensitive stud-
ies of physical types. But the growing interest in the individual be-
ginning in the Late Classical period did lead in the Hellenistic era to
the production of true likenesses of specific persons. In fact, one of the152 Chapter 5 ANCIENT GREECE5-87Polyeuktos,Demosthenes. Roman marble copy of a
bronze original of ca. 280 bce, 6 71 – 2 high. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek,
Copenhagen.
One of the earliest Hellenistic portraits, frequently copied, was
Polyeuktos’s representation of the great orator Demosthenes as a
frail man who possessed great courage and moral conviction.1 ft.5-86Old market woman, ca. 150–100 bce.Marble, 4^1 – 2 high.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Consistent with the realism of much Hellenistic art, many statues
portrayed old men and women from the lowest rungs of society.
They were never considered suitable subjects in earlier Greek statuary.1 ft.