All language subtitles for Treasures of Ancient Greece 2of3 The Classical Revolution 810p_Subtitles01.ENG

In August 1972,
a holiday-maker from Rome

was snorkelling off the southern
coast of Italy.

At a depth of about seven metres,

he saw what he believed was a human
hand sticking out of the seabed.

When he touched it, he realised it
was the hand of a statue.

There was another buried nearby.

When the statues were
hauled up to dry land,

it was plain that he'd discovered
something amazing -

two perfect, life-sized
Ancient Greek bronze warriors.

These two magnificent bronze
warriors are unmistakably Greek.

Naked, athletic,
sensuous male bodies,

with an aura of heroism
and grandeur.

Staggering workmanship,
total mastery of technique.

And they were made
nearly 500 years before Christ,

when our ancestors in Britain were
still living in wooden huts.

Yet what is even more astonishing
is that just one generation earlier

sculptures like these simply
weren't possible.

Greek artists weren't capable of
producing such top-quality,

closely observed works of art.

And then, suddenly, they were.

So how did the Ancient Greeks
get so good so fast?

In the 5th century BC,

something extraordinary
occurred in Greece

that would change
the course of Western culture.

This was the golden age
of Classical art.

A time of dazzling advances
in technique,

from casting in bronze...

..to carving in marble.

From painting to pottery.

At its heart was
a passion for the human figure

and a new sense of what art could do.

We're still feeling
the effects of what happened here

2,500 years later.

The art of Classical Greece
coming, it seems, out of nowhere

is more dazzling, more realistic and
more beautiful than ever before.

It's been called
the Greek Revolution.

But how and why
did that revolution happen?

The answer is more surprising,
much stranger

and more exciting than we imagine.

These are the remains

of some of the finest temples
in the Ancient Greek world.

But they're not in Greece,
they're in Sicily, at Agrigento,

in the so-called
Valley of the Temples.

Once, they formed part of
one of the most powerful cities

in the Greek world.

A world that extended further and
further beyond the shores of Greece.

The Greek philosopher Plato

once compared the independent
communities of Greeks

scattered along the shores
of the Mediterranean

to "frogs around a pond".

By the 5th century BC,

Greece was not so much a country
in the modern sense

as an extensive network
of hundreds of rival colonies

and powerful city-states,

all of them trading, bickering,

but also sharing vital customs,
attitudes and religious beliefs

as well as language.

The Greeks at Agrigento
were proud of their city.

They built no fewer than
seven monumental temples,

dedicated to different gods,
overlooking the sea.

Around the sides of temples
like these,

Greek craftsmen carved
scenes from the lives of the gods.

But in the 5th century BC they
began to do things very differently.

A visit to the archaeological
museum in Palermo

gives you a sense of
how radical that change was.

Here's the old way of doing things.

This relief from a temple nearby
shows Zeus, the king of the gods,

in the shape of a bull,
carrying off the beautiful Europa

with whom he has fallen in love.

It was carved in the 6th century BC,
around the year 550.

Like a lot of Greek art at this time,

the scene is presented in
a strong yet simple fashion.

The figures occupy the same plane

as the surface of
the original block of stone

and almost everything
is presented in profile.

Except for the bull's head, which
is turned impossibly to the front.

To modern eyes, art like this
can look naive, even primitive.

The shapes are blocky and crude

and though poor old Europa's
being dragged away by force,

there's precious little emotion
on her face.

Then just 100 years later
and the stone leaps into life.

In this temple relief, something
really remarkable is happening.

It depicts a moment from
a very grisly myth,

when the hunter Aktaion
is torn apart by his own hounds

after offending the goddess Artemis.

Aktaion is bowing his head,
succumbing to this brutal fate,

as one animal already
crunches its jaws into his side.

And on the right,
semi-throttled by Aktaion,

while still clawing at his
shoulder and his flank,

is this bravura piece of carving,

a frenzied, sharp-fanged hound,

imagined at the maximum moment
of bloodlust,

one aerodynamic ear flattened
by the speed of his attack.

What we're witnessing

is a sharp contrast with
the art of 100 years before -

movement, psychological tension,
expression, and a sense of drama.

Just what caused this shift

is a question that has challenged
art historians for centuries.

One motivating factor was
undoubtedly competition,

the fierce desire of the Greeks
in places like Sicily

to outshine rival city-states
in the wider Greek world

in art, in building,
at athletic competitions.

One activity brought out this
competitive streak like no other.

This little silver coin
gives us a clue.

It dates from around 470BC and
it's from this part of the world -

the western colonial
frontier of Ancient Greece.

It shows a charioteer
competing in one of the games.

He's wearing an ankle-length robe
and he's driving these horses.

We know they must be thoroughbred
racing horses because they have

beautifully elegant, thin legs
and these manicured manes.

Four-horse chariot racing was the
most prestigious and expensive sport

of the Ancient Greek athletic games.

It's been called
the Formula 1 of its day.

And Sicilian rulers were
obsessed with it.

They loved to compete but,
even more, they loved to win

and they recorded their victories
on coins like these.

It was a simple but ostentatious way
of signalling their elite status,

showing off that they were more Greek

than the Greeks back
home in the old world.

The tiny island of Motya
lies off Sicily's western coast.

In 1979, archaeologists made
a discovery here that laid bare

that spirit of creative competition.

They found a work that,
in the 5th century BC,

dramatically raised
the bar of artistic ambition.

Only one word begins to do justice
to the effect of this sculpture -

swagger.

We are looking at
an aristocrat and an athlete,

probably a victorious charioteer.

He's fully aware of his vigour,

his physical power
and sexual charisma.

He's revelling in his recent
triumph.

As a figure, he's dripping with
attitude and brazen self-display,

like a strutting peacock.

And, like a peacock,
he is something of a dandy.

Because, artistically,

the secret weapon of this
statue is what he's wearing -

this high-belted, diaphanous robe,

shrink-wrapping
his still-sweaty muscles

and revealing every last
contour and swelling,

leaving very little indeed
to the imagination.

All those swooping, darting,
sinuous folds and crinkles,

which have been carved

with such a breathtaking
new naturalism and subtlety

so that they cascade down his
body with the ease of water,

they all caress and, therefore,
emphasise his form,

like underlining the most
important passages in a book.

This is no god but a wealthy,
successful individual,

one with the money to pay
an artist for something very special.

Victory statues like this

would spur Greek sculptors to
push their skills to the limit

In terms of art history,

the Motya charioteer seems to have
come out of nowhere -

this glorious apparition, a messenger

announcing the sudden victory
of the revolution with a flourish.

Once announced,
there could be no going back.

Greek art would be fired
into striving

for greater and greater realism...

..and a new sense
of dramatic possibility.

There are many possible
causes for the Greek Revolution,

but one of the strongest candidates
has to be technique.

The question is - did Greek artists
begin to create lifelike images

simply because they wanted to?

Or did new techniques encourage
artistic experimentation?

What's certain is that in the
competitive atmosphere of the time,

new ways of creating art were
developing at astonishing speed.

Take a remarkable technique that
was perfected sometime around 500BC.

A way of casting life-size statues
in bronze

known as the lost wax technique.

Hello. Alastair. Vassilis.
Vassillis, hi. Petros. Petros.

Great to meet you both.

'Vassilis and Petros
have agreed to show me

'how to make a bronze statue
the Ancient Greek way.

'First, the statue
is modelled in clay

'and encased in plaster
to make a mould.'

Part of the mould comes off
quite easily. Very easily.

'Inside the mould is the imprint
of the statue.'

You've made your model with clay,
you've got all of your moulds,

what's the next part of the process?

TRANSLATION:

'This plaster cast will be used to
make a hollow wax statue.

'The wax is poured out,

'leaving a film of wax clinging to
the inside of the mould.

'When the model has set,

'the mould comes off to release
the hollow wax model inside.'

So...now we have one wax warrior,

and he's hollow.

Amazing. It's really very ingenious
indeed.

'The hollow wax figure will be filled

'with sand and plaster
to make a solid core inside.

'A second mould, in plaster,
is made to encase the model.

'When it's fired in a kiln,
the wax melts away,

'leaving a thin, statue-shaped cavity
between the two moulds

'and into that cavity goes
the molten bronze.

'It is then left to cool.

'After a couple of hours,
the mould is chipped away

'and the sculpture revealed.

'Finally, it can be cleaned
and polished,

'the end of a long
and sometimes uncertain process.'

The whole process, this bit,
is unbelievably dramatic!

Do you still find it very
exciting to watch it?

Though the process looks complicated,
the technique is a gift to artists.

Bronze is a much more fluid
and forgiving medium than marble,

and better suited for achieving
tiny, refined details on the surface,

so it allowed sculptors to experiment
and innovate like never before.

Some time in the 5th century BC,
the Ancient Greeks

took bronze casting to a dazzling new
level of artistry.

For proof, let's look again at those
enigmatic figures

found on the seabed
some 40-odd years ago.

If the Motya charioteer is a tease,

then these warriors
are a revelation.

The best works
of art have a palpable charisma.

Sometimes it's hard to explain why,

but you know it when you see it

and these two have got that X-factor.

The details of both
sculptures are extraordinary.

Veins snaking across muscles,

intricate locks of curling hair...

..copper nipples,

copper lips with silver teeth...

..and those inlaid eyes with
delicate foil lashes.

And crucially,
they're not identikit warriors,

spewed from some workshop
assembly line.

Instead,
each figure has a distinct identity.

This one, he is vigorous,
alert, tense, toned,

the height of manliness with his
shoulders back, his teeth bared.

He is practically growling.

His companion has a much more
droopy quality.

Look at the sloping shoulders,

the slightly soft musculature...

..a much more languid, sinuous pose,

and just a hint of a depressive
expression.

Inside the contours of this guy,
there's something new,

a quivering sense of psychology -

hesitant, a touch melancholic
perhaps.

Looking at these two figures,

it seems self-evident that

unprecedented accomplishments
in bronze casting

must have been a driving force
behind the Greek Revolution,

or at least an intimate part of it.

The subtlety, the fluidity
and the speed of bronze

allowed Greek artists to experiment.

And the forms they created were
radically dynamic.

The Greek Revolution wasn't
confined to the sculptor's studio.

It would become part of daily
Greek life...

..and find expression in a much
lowlier, more everyday art form.

In fact, it may even have started
here, with pots.

Pots, like all of these vases,
drinking cups and storage jars,

they weren't high-status objects
in antiquity, unlike sculptures.

A simply decorated pot
might have cost

the equivalent of two or three
days' wages in the 6th century.

But the funny thing is that
the highly competitive artists

who made and decorated these pots

may have been in the vanguard
of the Greek Revolution,

blazing a trail for
the sculptors who followed.

Since the 7th century BC,

there had been a standard way
of decorating pots.

The scene was painted on in clay
that, when fired, turned black,

then details were cut into it
with a sharp instrument.

This was known as black-figure.

It's a style that's bold,
linear, graphic.

But then, as with bronze,
new developments in technique

offered exciting possibilities.

Around 530BC,

one Athenian vase painter decided
to try something different,

to become experimental.

This is one of his pots.

On one side, there's a scene in a
straightforward black-figure style,

showing Ajax and Achilles silhouetted
in black against a red background

as they are playing dice.

But if you turn the pot around...

..then there's another scene
on the other side of it,

this time a different moment
from mythology

showing Herakles battling a lion.

But the technique is entirely new.

The artist here has created
the figures using the red,

and the background has become black.

We don't know what inspired this
artist to try out this new technique.

It's possible that he just wanted
to stand out from his rivals.

But a bilingual pot,
as this is known,

would have been a way

of demonstrating that technique
for customers.

And the new technique would
liberate vase-painting

to new levels of sophistication.

With red-figure vases,

the details of
the image are painted on,

not scratched on with a metal point.

Watching one being made,
before it's fired,

you can see how delicate
and expressive the artist can be.

This technique gives her a new,
painterly freedom,

particularly when describing the
human figure.

She's embellished the figures
with a fine brush.

Now she's filling in the background,

that watered-down clay will turn
black when fired in a kiln.

She adds details.

This man's curly ringlets...

or slender curving strokes to suggest
the muscles on this warrior's leg.

Here it is once it's been fired.

It shows Greek warriors
slaughtering the citizens of Troy.

That's blood on their bodies.

But look, too, at the way that this
sleeve falls on this man's arm,

it's transparent, almost like gauze.

And compared to the flat
blocks of black-figure painting,

the effect is much more realistic,
almost three dimensional.

This new freedom of technique

allowed artists to expand
their subjects.

And it's exactly about this time
that artists begin to experiment.

Not just the old heroic
stories from mythology,

but now scenes of everyday life.

Even scenes of drunken debauchery, in
honour of the wine god Dionysus...

..a gathering otherwise
known as a symposium.

Now if a symposium to you suggests
earnest philosophers debating

the point of existence, forget it.

A symposium was
a male drinking session.

Nothing brought out the darker
side of the Greek imagination

like the symposium.

By day, Apollo guided the Greeks,

presiding over everything
that was orderly and rational.

But by night, it was the turn
of Dionysus and the irrational.

With booze came the promise of sex.

And to help get the party going,

Greek artists developed a racy new
art form - the symposium pot.

Symposium pots were
a real gift to artists

because they offered endless
creative possibilities

for all sorts of ambiguity, role
playing, puns, double meaning.

Mischief essentially.

But there was a catch - you had to
drink to the bottom of the bowl

to discover what was painted there.

And, of course,
I've now obscured entirely

the painting that's at the bottom of
the pot but I'll give it a go.

It does encourage quite big gulps,
it's a very wide bowl.

There is am important point here.

Too often,
we look at art in a detached way

and it's important to remember
that ancient artworks,

objects like these, were made
for purpose, they had a function.

So to really understand them,
arguably,

you have to try and use them,
like this.

Maybe that's part of the point
of these works of art.

They are meant to be a surprise.

You come into the room,
lie down on your couch,

you're handed one of these bowls,
it's full of liquid

and you get down to the bottom
and, by the time you have,

it's like looking into a mirror,
you see a reflection and what

you're looking at is your Dionysiac
self writ large, kind of literally.

Here the picture is,

the painting at the bottom,

a satyr with a large erection,

a horse's tail to one side,

and he has amorous desires clearly,
he's chasing a woman,

a maenad I guess,
a follower of Dionysus

because she's wearing a panther
skin and not much else.

She's got this rather large stick...

looks like a kind of mop,
I think it's known as a thyrsus,

which she's using
to tickle the satyr.

And, although she's resisting,
it's still a bit of a come-on.

Clearly the whole mood
evoked by this

is that there's going to be
a happy ending to the evening.

The Greek Revolution -

a bold shift of style towards
a more lifelike kind of art -

spanned the full range
of human experience.

From the foibles of sexual desire

to the highest aspirations
of the spirit.

And they found common ground in the
Greek obsession with the human body.

The Greeks put man at
the very centre of the universe.

You can see it in their visual arts

where their gods and goddesses
resemble splendid men and women.

In idealising the human body,
the Greeks felt

that they could come close to
achieving artistic perfection.

One sculptor certainly thought so.

His name was Polykleitos.

Working in the middle
of the 5th century BC,

he would have a profound effect
on Greek art

and, indeed,
on all later Western art.

You can't have a discussion
about the ideal male Greek nude

without considering this fellow -

the Doryphoros, or spear-bearer,
of Polykleitos.

He must be one of the most carefully

and subtly conceived
sculptures ever created.

He looks like a virile youth
with a large head.

But he is more than just
a straightforward illusion

of flesh and blood.

He is also an essay in order and
proportion,

a meticulously composed scheme,

a blueprint, if you like,
for how the nude youth should look

in order to be as pleasing
as possible for the Greek eye.

The pose is crucial.

It's known as contrapposto,
a figure at rest,

with the weight shifted
onto one leg,

so that one hip rises up assertively

while the other one dips
under gravity.

All of the elements of the body

are arranged in this complex
system of balance and tension.

The arm above the slack leg is tense,

while the one above
the weight-bearing leg is relaxed,

creating a sort of compositional X.

The anatomy is very symmetrical,
architectural,

rigid, even, like a breastplate,
rather than true to life.

The penis is modest and restrained.

And the gaze is calm and detached,

as though we've left behind
the real world

and entered some lofty realm of art.

But the most influential innovation
of all was this.

It's a lifted heel.

Something that implies spontaneity,
in-the-moment relaxation,

which was absent from, say,
the flat-footed Riace bronzes.

This heel was Polykleitos's
masterstroke.

For some tastes, the Doryphoros
is that little bit too contrived,

just a touch self-conscious,

but Polykleitos did manage
to codify and distil

a large number of complex elements
into a single, elegant composition,

like a beautiful piece of algebra.

Polykleitos believed he'd discovered
the exact proportions of the body

that expressed artistic perfection.

"Perfection," he said,

"comes about little by little
through many numbers."

He even wrote down his
calculations in a treatise

that unfortunately hasn't survived.

It's a really significant
moment in the history of art -

an artist reflecting on what he does
and then theorising about it.

It's as if Polykleitos
was interested in art,

the pursuit of perfection,
for its own sake.

Thanks to him, it was now legitimate

to consider people making images
in the ancient world

not as craftsmen, but as artists.

Polykleitos became known as
the man who defined Classical art,

an art based on ideals of restraint,
proportion and harmony.

This fascination with the idealised
male body was a powerful factor

in the Greek Revolution.

It led to a kind of heightened
naturalism never seen before.

The Classical style had arrived

and would become the bedrock
of Western art.

If Polykleitos was the man who
codified the art of Classical Greece,

then the place where it found
its highest expression

was the city-state of Athens.

In the 5th century BC,

Athens dominated Greek art and
philosophy, drama and politics.

The Athenians pioneered a new
and unique system of government -

democracy.

They were extremely,
even fanatically, proud of it,

though the only people allowed to
vote were free men.

They were even prouder
of their military power.

They had just driven out
their mortal enemies, the Persians.

In 480BC, the Persians had trashed
the sacred heart of the city -

the Acropolis.

The site lay untouched for years,
an Athenian Ground Zero.

And when they rebuilt it,
it was with reborn ambition.

Everything about
the extensive building project

on the Acropolis was grandiose.

It was a showpiece, really,

that expressed the wealth and power
of the Athenian empire.

Elaborate artworks adorned the
temple-cum-treasury of the Parthenon.

At either end, in the pediments,

there were grand sculptures
portraying the gods.

And, wrapped around the exterior
of the building,

there were dramatic sculpted panels
showing mythological scenes.

Even in antiquity,
the Parthenon was recognised

as perhaps the most perfect Greek
temple ever built, bringing together

all the Classical ideals of order,
symmetry and geometrical proportion.

But running around the building's
inner block was something new -

an elaborate frieze
that was 160 metres long.

Some of the Parthenon's sculptures
are just breathtaking.

Was there ever a horse's head with
as much nervous energy as this one?

Look at this goddess,
probably Aphrodite,

her clothes cling to her in
sensuous folds that beguile the eye.

But there's a mystery to
much of what is here.

The really surprising thing
about the Parthenon sculptures

is that no-one knows
what they represent.

There are lots of theories,
some more outlandish than others.

But this is arguably the most famous
work of Ancient Greek art

and it still leaves us perplexed.

Take the frieze.

We can see that it dramatises
a great procession,

mingling citizens and also gods,

yet its precise significance
is still elusive.

But in a broad sense,

the overriding message of
the frieze is pretty clear.

The giveaway is the manner in which
the figures have been sculpted.

Look at the faces of
these skilled horsemen

who once thundered along
the northern side of the temple.

They are all so similar -

strangely blank, uniformly beautiful,
and idealised.

They're certainly not
portraits of individuals.

But, cumulatively, they offer
a vision of a well-drilled community

with a really powerful
sense of its own identity.

So this is art as a glorious
statement of political togetherness.

The Classical style has become the
servant of Athenian self-confidence.

In this sense, a social revolution
had stimulated an artistic one.

These identikit citizens seem to be
riding towards a glorious future.

Democratic Athens lavished money

on huge public projects
like the Parthenon.

But there's another side to Greek
art, less well known, perhaps,

but, to me, equally beautiful.

One that has nothing to do

with the triumphalist carvings
up there on the Acropolis.

This is the site
of the Kerameikos cemetery.

It's where 5th-century Athenians
buried their dead.

And when democratic Athens
was at its self-promoting height,

it banned grave monuments that were
considered too ostentatious,

so no big statues,
no great sarcophagi.

Ordinary people were now buried here,
not just the elite,

and space was confined.

Some Athenians developed a much more
modest, more intimate way

of remembering their loved ones.

One artist in particular pioneered

a new, restrained and
melancholy sort of art.

If you think all Greek pots
look the same, then look again

because works of art like this

with their exquisite draughtsmanship

and colour against a white background

are unusual.

One of the masters of the genre
was the man who painted this

and he specialised
in simple, serene scenes.

Intimate, domestic moments
like this one

where we see a wife
and her husband taking his leave.

Look at the subtle use of colour
to evoke that delicacy,

the transparency of
the top worn by the woman.

And that woman, she's beautiful.

She's almost imperious, empowered,

because her expression looks
yearning, perhaps even reproachful,

but she emits poise with that relaxed
arm slung over the back of her chair.

There's no question this woman
is the equal of her partner.

And as he holds out his helmet,
just look down at the bottom

where, sweetly, they are playing
this game of footsie.

Crucially, her foot is on top of his.

What a telling, powerful,
psychological detail.

It's so sad.
She doesn't want to let him go.

It's a really tender note,

everything that the big,
public monuments

of Classical Athens were not,

as this couple prepare for
departure, for war, and beyond.

For centuries, art historians
argued that the Greek Revolution

grew directly out of the triumph
of Athenian democracy.

But surely it's much more
complex than that.

The truth is it was more a question
of everything coming together

at the same extraordinary moment.

Political power of course but, also,
new techniques in making art,

a novel, sensuous awareness
of the human body,

terrific competitiveness
between artists and craftsmen,

and an exhilarating sense
of unique Greek identity.

The great age of Athens would
last for a century and a half.

But Greek city-states
were frequently at war.

Athenian might would eventually
fall to a hostile power.

From Greece's mountainous northern
region known as Macedonia

came a dynasty of warrior kings.

By the middle of the 4th century BC,

Athens and most of Greece had been
brought under their sway.

Here in 1977, archaeologists
made an extraordinary discovery.

Deep in a hillside near
the small town of Vergina,

they unearthed the royal burial
site of Macedon,

including the tomb of Philip II,
father of Alexander the Great.

The tomb, and what was found
inside it, told a powerful story

about a new ideology of royal power.

Dominating the facade of Philip's
tomb is this extraordinary survival -

a rare original painting
from Ancient Greece.

Of course, now,
it's withered over time,

but you still get a strong sense
of its subtlety and complexity.

We see a group of young men,
some of them on horseback,

out hunting wild beasts
in a forested landscape.

The first time, as far as we know,

that landscape appeared
with such prominence in Greek art,

almost as a subject in its own right.

The landscape gives us
a sense of depth.

These are figures occupying
a believable space,

the effect being enhanced
by clever details

like the horse rearing up
on its hind legs

and its neck veers off
towards the distance,

momentarily drawing us that way.

The shafts of the men's spears, they
structure the composition as well,

pointing us towards the quarry
of the men, what they're hunting -

a lion, a deer, a boar and a bear.

This is a painting
that's glamorous and elegant,

recording a favourite
pastime of the Macedonian elite

and it might even
feature Alexander himself -

the youth on horseback
in the middle, wearing a wreath,

charging in for the kill.

But the striking thing about this
is that you can still see

the skill with which
it's been constructed.

The tree trunks act like
punctuation marks,

giving the whole thing
poise and structure

so that there is a sense of the
frenzy, the excitement of the hunt,

but we're never lost amid
the fog of the action.

Today, the condition of the painting

has a distinctly foggy quality
itself.

Above all, it's rather sad.

A tantalising work of art,

a glimpse of the many riches of
Greek painting which have been lost.

Inside the complex of royal tombs

excavators found
a series of dazzling treasures.

In an antechamber,
they discovered this gold casket

containing the remains
of a woman, Philip's queen.

Nearby lay the gold crown
of Philip himself,

made to resemble an oak wreath, with
a dramatic mesh of leaves and acorns.

It looks light as gossamer,
but weighs more than a kilogram.

But the treasure that
thrills me most is this.

This diadem that's just so delicate.

This carefully composed flurry
of tendrils and spirals,

leaves and petals and flowers.

The workmanship is detailed,
but it's just exquisitely done.

The whole thing feels like
it's been spun out of light.

This is a new kind of Greek art,

different from anything
we have seen.

It isn't the religious art
of the temple,

or the humanist art
that celebrated the naked body.

But art that glorifies
an all-conquering hero.

This set of ivory figures
was found inside Philip's tomb.

Just look at that face - he's wily,
wrinkled, supremely self-assured,

a nugget of concentrated charisma.

It is probably a portrait
of Philip himself.

And if it is, it represents
a sea change in Greek art

because the restrained,
almost blank facial expressions

of earlier Classical art
have disappeared,

replaced with something
approaching an actual likeness.

The triumph of the individual

over the old communal identity
of the city-state.

That sense of individualism
touched the artists themselves.

With self-glorifying rulers came a
new generation of celebrity artists,

men who cultivated
their image, broke the rules

and occasionally liked to shock.

The most celebrated artist of all
was called Praxiteles.

And, amazingly, he was listed among
the 300 richest men in Athens.

He didn't make art to order,
pandering to clients.

Instead, people came to him

and clamoured to buy
whatever he decided to make.

Praxiteles relished scandal.

His girlfriend was
a famous courtesan.

And there's an irreverent wit
to everything he does.

His sculpture took the Classical
style in a direction all his own.

No-one would exploit the sensual
appeal of marble like Praxiteles.

Praxiteles's vision
of male beauty wasn't macho

but softer, more androgynous.

Rather than magnificent athletes,
he wanted to portray the gods

and in a way that had
never been seen before.

He certainly didn't inject
much shock and awe

into his depictions of divinity.

Here, we see Apollo, almost boyish,

an indolent adolescent,

idling away his time

by languidly threatening
a passing lizard with an arrow.

If the gods were
the film stars of the ancient world,

this is a young heart-throb caught
off duty in a moment of informality.

And there's real boldness in
that new spirit of irreverence

because we're left with something
very charming, teasing,

even ironic

and, in the 4th century BC,

that must have felt very
sophisticated and modern.

It was here, among
the scattered ruins of Olympia,

that another statue
believed to be by Praxiteles

was excavated in the 19th century.

Like the Apollo with the lizard,

it shows a Greek god engaged in an
ordinary, rather mundane activity.

Hermes playing with
the infant Dionysus.

In his missing right hand,

Hermes probably once dangled
a bunch of grapes.

After all, Dionysus would grow up
to be the god of wine.

It's a lovely, witty
and ironical conceit

in which innocence is
perversely being tempted

by the pleasures of experience.

What's so appealing about Praxiteles

is that he was such
a deft and nimble artist.

He enjoyed teasing,
toying with conventions

in order to foreground
his own light-footed genius,

rather than just shackling it in
simple service to Greek religion.

This is as much about the artist
as it is about the gods.

This gleaming sculpture

gets to the heart of what
Praxiteles was all about.

Gone are the awe-inspiring,
rugged Olympian gods

imagined by earlier
Classical artists.

In their place is a new vision,

something sleeker, more sinuous
and graceful, even effeminate,

something that champions the smooth
polish of shining Parian marble

over the effects of bronze,

though without losing
some of the subtlety

that bronze had added to Greek art.

There is a softness here,

a blurriness to the transitions of
the muscles across Hermes's torso,

as well as his face.

And that old Polykleitan idea
of the contrapposto pose,

here it's been distorted, exaggerated
to an off-balance extreme,

because Hermes is thrusting out
one hip in this exaggerated,

almost camp fashion.

We've come a long, long way from the
virile ideal of the Riace bronzes.

Is it ever possible to explain

exactly why a culture suddenly
becomes capable of such excellence?

It's been called the Greek Miracle.

Perhaps it was just a perfect storm

of ambitious artists
and demanding clients...

..of technical innovation

and fast-growing skills...

..of dynamic social change...

..and the freedom to experiment.

To us, the artistic achievement
of Classical Greece

seems almost overwhelming.

And yet the strange thing is,

the Greeks didn't necessarily think

that art would be their
greatest legacy.

The Athenian leader Pericles
supposedly said

that Athens would be remembered
for ruling more Greeks

than any other Greek state.

He was wrong.

As well as its empire,

it was the art of Athens and
the wider world of Ancient Greece

that secured its immortality.

The irony is that Greek artists
were just so good, so successful

and achieved so many breakthroughs,
that their revolutionary creations

became the benchmark
not only for the Greeks,

but also for the entire
tradition of Western art.

Next time.

The astonishing afterlife
of Greek art.

How, for 2,000 years,

a handful of masterpieces
held the world in thrall.