Greek Sculpture (BBC: How Art Made The World)

How greek art created something more human than human.

Excerpt from the BBC documentary "How Art Made The World" concerning greek sculpture.
Presented by Dr Nigel Spivey (University of Cambridge).
Music: "Enfer (La Double Vie De Veronique)" by Zbigniew Preisner.

(instrumental music)

- [Voiceover] But Egypt's rigid style

wasn't good enough for the Greeks.

Their culture still
demanded realistic statues.

So they did something that
no artists had done before.

They used their eyes.

They studied every
detail of the human body.

Bit by bit, they strived
to understand exactly

how to reproduce it in their art.

Ears started to look like ears,

real torsos began to appear.

Each artist building on
the progress of others.

And this explosive period,
within just a few generations,

produced what no civilization on earth

had ever produced before.

This is Kritian Boy, and he's a milestone

in the history of art.

He's carved from marble, and yet his skin

appears to be taut over muscles.

His thighs look like
they're bearing weight,

his back undulates over his spine

which curves down perfectly
in a relaxed stance.

Greek artists had created
precisely what their

society had urged them to.

A truly realistic human body.

And yet, this is the
final clue in our story

not because it's realistic,

but because of the effect this
realism had on the Greeks.

- This exquisite statue
gives us an absolutely

historic moment.

For the very first time, man
creates an image of himself

that's fully nude and truly lifelike.

So for the Greeks this
was like the pinnacle

of artistic achievement.

They'd reached their goal.

Art as the perfect imitation of life.

Now they could carry on producing

gorgeous statues like this forever.

But that's just it, they didn't.

- [Voiceover] Within a generation,

the Greeks stopped making
realistic statues like this.

But why?

Why when their culture had made them

strive for reality, did
they almost immediately

abandon it?

The answer reveals something fundamental

about us as human beings.

When it comes to images of the body,

we're driven not just by culture,

but also by something we thought existed

only in the earliest humans.

It's that primeval instinct to exaggerate.

As observed by professor Ramachandran

in the Venus of Willendorf.

The instinct, he argues, is
hardwired into the brains

of all humans.

Even if in some cultures
it was suppressed.

- The principle of exaggeration must be

something that is hardwired.

The neural machinery, the visual pathways

in the brains of every human being.

And when you speak of universals,

you have to realize that what's universal

is the propensity to do this,

but this can be overridden by culture.

The problem with the Kritian
Boy is it was too realistic,

And that makes it boring.

If art's about realism,
why do you need art?

You can just go around looking at things.

They quickly realized
that this was boring.

That they had to do interesting things

with the image, distorted
in specific ways,

not randomly distorted,
but lawfully distorted

in order to exaggerate the brain's

aesthetic response to that body.

- So the Greek's
dissatisfaction with reality

was perfectly natural.

They couldn't know it, but
they were pre programmed

to want more.

Like the Nomads thousands
of years before them,

they were hankering after
something more human

than human.

- [Voiceover] Many exaggerating
muscles wasn't enough.

They had to discover their equivalent

of the red striped stick.

And at about 450 BC, a
sculpture and mathematician

called Polykleitos made the breakthrough

that would help them achieve just that.

Polykleitos wanted to find a way

of showing the physical
potential of an athlete.

He wanted a body that was both relaxed

and yet appeared ready to move.

He created a series of theoretical rods

passing through key points of the body.

He also divided the body down the center,

and across the middle.

With these four quarters marked out,

he began to move his
figure in specific ways.

He bent one knee and moved the same foot

to ensure that it bore little
or none of the body's weight.

He bent one arm, and
left the other relaxed.

He rotated the body so the hips and head

faced one way, and the chest the other.

Now the body was divided
into clear quarters,

top and bottom mirrored each other.

One side in motion, the other at rest.

The angles of the body,
which were once horizontal,

now opposed and also
complemented each other.

So Polykleitos captured an
athlete poised for action.

But for other artists, it was also the key

to understanding how they could at last

represent physical perfection.

Everything had been leading to this,

the moment when ancient
Greece created something

more human than human.

(opera music)

They are known as the Riace Bronzes.

They are what Stefano
Mariottini found on the sea bed.

Now displayed in Reggio,
on the southernmost tip

of Italy, but relatively
unknown to the world at large.

Polykleitos did indeed want to divide

the sections of the body clearly,

but here it's been taking to extremes.

The division between top and bottom

has been exaggerated by a crest of muscle

across the waist that's more defined

than it ever could be on a real human.

The legs have been made artificially long

to match perfectly the
length of the upper body.

To stress the symmetry and
separation of the two sides,

there's an unplausibly deep groove

running up the center of the chest.

And while the chest muscles
are totally relaxed,

the muscles in the back are tense

and impossible well defined.

The central channel of the spine

is deeper than you'd
ever see on a real human.

And to improve the line on their back,

these men have no coccyx bone

at the base of their spine.

These are unrealistic bodies.

Realities being exaggerated,

and that's why they're so overwhelming.

The instinct to do this had been alive

in the brains of early humans,

and had now been revived.

The first civilization capable of realism

had used exaggeration to go further.

And it's that instinct
which still dominates

our world today.