Читать книгу A History of Sculpture онлайн

13 страница из 75

If this explanation is correct, the image would be an object of awe on account of the very artlessness which is surprising in a race so gifted as the Greeks. We escape the difficulty of believing that such a temple image as the “Hera of Samos,” in the Louvre, was the highest stage that the craftsmanship and the imagination of the Greek sculptor could then attain.

The Ionic Colonies in Asia Minor were the first of the Greek-speaking races to acquire material prosperity, and it was there that the sculptor first began to shake off the old conventional shackles. The Ionians were in touch with the civilisations of Babylonia and Egypt, and merchandise from the East flowed through their markets for Greece and the Grecian Colonies in the far west. Sculpture, in which the Oriental influence was strongly marked, flourished there considerably earlier than in Argos or Attica. About the middle of the seventh century b.c. these Ionian Colonies began to influence Greece strongly, and Athens in particular. This is evidenced by the manner in which the Ionic linen chiton, or sleeved tunic, gradually superseded the woollen peplos which the Athenians had worn earlier.