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Religion and Art in Ancient Greece.
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Hardcover
First published March 28, 2007
About the author
Ernest Arthur Gardner
52 booksErnest Arthur Gardner (16 March 1862 – 27 November 1939) was an English archaeologist. He was the director of the British School at Athens between 1887 and 1895.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 20, 2025
The author was a distinguished academic and archaelogist, much of whose life was spent in Greece. During the First World War he was a naval intelligence officer in Salonika and ensured the preservation of many threatened Greek archaeological treasures, for which he was later decorated by the Greek government. His daughter was a suffragette who fell in love with Rupert Brooke: a doomed romance in more ways than one. This book is interesting but too old (1909) and too short (144 pages) to be of much real use.
Ruskin thought that Greek art, unlike Florentine, had no individuality: “there is no personal character in true Greek art. Abstract ideas, yes – but no individuality.” Gardner disagrees. I think the point that Ruskin was making is that Greek art was focussed on ideal qualities of youth and beauty which don’t have the kind of characterisation of inner depth that a sculptor like Donatello was so good at bringing forth from the bronze or marble. But Gardner says – I think rightly – that no one can look at the best work of sculptors like Praxiteles and say this. He thinks Ruskin was misled by inferior later Roman copies, and also by a misunderstanding of how the Greeks understood youth and beauty in the first place.
Ultimately, one suspects Ruskin felt Greek art was not quite right because Greek religion was wrong. Health, youth and beauty are all, for the pious Christian, unimportant incidentals: for the Greek pagan, they were the very esse of spiritual truth and power.
These are some interesting ideas but they are not clearly developed and Gardner himself is as much a product of his time as Ruskin. For example, there is a suggestion – veiled in some rather obscure prose – that nude youths were a common and noble sight in ancient Greece but nude women were not. Although this is true, Gardner’s inference – that all nude women that Greek men did encounter were essentially tarts – seems like a Victorian attitude rather than a Greek one. (See Degas’s painting “Les Jeunes Filles Spartaniques” for a different and more convincing – to my eyes – nineteenth century take).*
Growing up in the English boarding school system, we were always unconcerned with being nude in front of each other or even in front of Matron. But we would have been mortified had Matron appeared nude in front of us. Matron had some estimable qualities, but youth and beauty were not amongst them. We did not expect to see any female naked outside the precincts of the marital boudoir (unless she was a tart). So maybe I am as bad as Ruskin and Gardner. These days, one never sees anyone naked: everyone in public changing rooms is as swathed in drapery as Pallas Athene, unaware that doing the towel dance is far more undignified than dressing en plein air with regal unconcern.
* But Degas is also making the point that the Spartans were unusual in allowing women the freedom to be nude in public – and this was as much a cause of scandal to the other Greeks as it would have been to Ruskin. It’s complicated….
Ruskin thought that Greek art, unlike Florentine, had no individuality: “there is no personal character in true Greek art. Abstract ideas, yes – but no individuality.” Gardner disagrees. I think the point that Ruskin was making is that Greek art was focussed on ideal qualities of youth and beauty which don’t have the kind of characterisation of inner depth that a sculptor like Donatello was so good at bringing forth from the bronze or marble. But Gardner says – I think rightly – that no one can look at the best work of sculptors like Praxiteles and say this. He thinks Ruskin was misled by inferior later Roman copies, and also by a misunderstanding of how the Greeks understood youth and beauty in the first place.
Ultimately, one suspects Ruskin felt Greek art was not quite right because Greek religion was wrong. Health, youth and beauty are all, for the pious Christian, unimportant incidentals: for the Greek pagan, they were the very esse of spiritual truth and power.
These are some interesting ideas but they are not clearly developed and Gardner himself is as much a product of his time as Ruskin. For example, there is a suggestion – veiled in some rather obscure prose – that nude youths were a common and noble sight in ancient Greece but nude women were not. Although this is true, Gardner’s inference – that all nude women that Greek men did encounter were essentially tarts – seems like a Victorian attitude rather than a Greek one. (See Degas’s painting “Les Jeunes Filles Spartaniques” for a different and more convincing – to my eyes – nineteenth century take).*
Growing up in the English boarding school system, we were always unconcerned with being nude in front of each other or even in front of Matron. But we would have been mortified had Matron appeared nude in front of us. Matron had some estimable qualities, but youth and beauty were not amongst them. We did not expect to see any female naked outside the precincts of the marital boudoir (unless she was a tart). So maybe I am as bad as Ruskin and Gardner. These days, one never sees anyone naked: everyone in public changing rooms is as swathed in drapery as Pallas Athene, unaware that doing the towel dance is far more undignified than dressing en plein air with regal unconcern.
* But Degas is also making the point that the Spartans were unusual in allowing women the freedom to be nude in public – and this was as much a cause of scandal to the other Greeks as it would have been to Ruskin. It’s complicated….
July 12, 2016
TinInteresting presentation of art and Ancient Greek religion
This book is worth reading and presents the growth of belief in the Gods of ancient Greece along with the artistic depiction in each age. The only fault within the book is an overt insinuation that idolatry brought about the death of the GODS of ANCIENT GREECE. The cult of christianity is the culprit for this destruction effort. They failed the religion of ancient Greece has survived via the art and talent of her many sculptors and writers. Hellenismos is resurrecting from the ashes of its adversary.
This book is worth reading and presents the growth of belief in the Gods of ancient Greece along with the artistic depiction in each age. The only fault within the book is an overt insinuation that idolatry brought about the death of the GODS of ANCIENT GREECE. The cult of christianity is the culprit for this destruction effort. They failed the religion of ancient Greece has survived via the art and talent of her many sculptors and writers. Hellenismos is resurrecting from the ashes of its adversary.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews