The Greek Body

by Ian Jenkins, Victoria Turner

More than any other ancient civilization, the Greeks placed the human body at the center of their culture. To them, the sculpted human figure was both an object of sensory delight and an expression of an intelligent mind. In the modern popular imagination, mention of the ancient Greeks is likely to conjure up an image of idealized and naked youth, and it is true that the ideal nude, both male and female, is a striking feature of Greek sculpture. However, in later Greek art, sculptors and their patrons became increasingly interested in human diversity, experimenting with the representation of ethnicity, age, social standing, and character.
The marble, bronze, and terra-cotta sculptures presented in this volume--outstanding highlights drawn from over six centuries of artistic production--demonstrate the diversity of Greek figural forms, from the idealized beauty of the Classical era to the individualized portraits of the Hellenistic period. Large, stunning details testify to the artists' skills in portraying cold, hard materials as warm, human flesh.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Art

144 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2009

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Difficult book to rate - the illustrations are beautiful and the opening chapter is good as a simple introduction to the way that male and female bodies were used to illustrate everything from civic pride, the ideal of what a young man should be as citizen or soldier or both (to be honest women didn't get a look in except as Goddesses - they had no public role) but that attempt to place within a context of culture and history ended with the introduction and when more chapters looked at other areas such as children, etc. the content of the introduction was less than helpful.

Also the items were beautifully photographed but they are almost exclusively drawn from the collections of the British Museum (the exceptions are almost exclusively there for comparison purposes) so there is a question of whether this is book has something worth saying - or is simply a collection of beautiful photographs which is there as a way to raise money for the museum.

My problem is that the text really doesn't get to grips with trying to present a reality of what the society in which these works of art were created and displayed was like or operated. We hear about the young men going off to the gymnasium to make their bodies perfect and then going off to 'symposiums' in private houses. But at no point do the authors address who exactly these young men are - we know all free (i.e. no slaves) men (no women) Athenian (no foreigners) were citizens but who exactly were the boys chatting philosophy and exercising? It is unlikely that they were drawn from the sons of fishermen or those who produced all those beautiful pots or spent their days cutting the stones for all those temples on the Acropolis - so exactly who could or could not be admitted to the gymnasia? Was it money? was it class? is it that we don't know? - it wouldn't surprise me - there is a huge amount about how ancient Green cities worked we don't know - it appears we have a great deal of literary evidence but that is only from Athens but there were over 1,000 city-states with the main poleis being Athína (Athens), Spárti (Sparta), Kórinthos (Corinth), Thíva (Thebes), Siracusa (Syracuse), Égina (Aegina), Ródos (Rhodes), Árgos, Erétria, and Elis. Each city-state ruled itself. and had widely varying traditions and taboos - and they often looked with horror and disgust at the way their neighbors down the road organised things.

Of course that was in the 'classical' period but whether things remained the same, as historians tend to let you believe is doubtful. We know so little - often we are lead to believe that the way things were in Periclean Athens were the eternal norm - but that is like saying that everything in England remained fixed between the death of Elizabeth I in the late 1500's and halfway through the reign of George II in 1750! Very unlikely and it seems wrong that these simplistic presentations of Ancient Greece are still foisted upon us.

For example how many people know that all of the Greek painted pottery that we know and love comes not from Greece, but Italy were it was buried in Etruscan tombs. So what we are basing our understanding of Greek pottery on is from export ware. Imagine making pronouncements about Chinese art based exclusively on what they produced for export in the 19th century?

I do think ancient Greece was a fascinating, complex and varied culture and that we have huge gaps in our knowledge, but I think it is about time that our limits were acknowledge and the idea of variety beyond the Athenian norm be acknowledged.

One final critique - the authors repeatedly refer to infibulation with regards to men which caused me to raise my eyebrows in confusion because my understanding related entirely to the genital mutilation of women and if you feed the word into a search engine that it is the result that comes up. You have to be pretty specific to discover what it meant for young male Greek athletes (I leave the pleasure of discovering that to my readers, if any). I find sheltering behind such academic formality somewhat absurd in this day and age - it reminds of the days when all the fun and sexy bits about Tiberius on Capri was relegated in Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' to footnotes and only presented in the original Latin.

Beautiful photography, and a disappointing and unsatisfying text - I can only give the book two stars.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provides a nice (though brief) introduction to Greek sculpture. The first chapter surveys the general trends in Greek art from the Archaic period through to the Hellenistic. The writing is clear and easy-to-follow, and the important developments are illustrated with fine examples from the British Museum's own collection of sculpture. However, I was a bit disappointed to find that the photo-dense chapters that followed did little to nuance or further the points made in Chapter 1. If this book only aspires to the level of a coffee table book, then it is a fine one. It certainly provides a number of helpful illustrations of Greek aesthetic trends.

[Kalliope Ormond · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a coffee table book for Greek art boffins than a reference book. Lots of excellent photography, with a little text for each sculpture, and an informative introduction.

If you know nothing about Greek art, this is a good beginning, as the small amount of text makes it an easy read. The pictures are very fine, showing the art of the human body in all its glory. There is a small section in the back for further reading on the subject, which was very helpful.

Overall, 3.5 stars.

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning. Excellent pictures of a very high quality. Fantastic content written in a very fluid style, giving more than just the basic info one would expect, without ever sounding patronising or academic. An absolute marvel of a book.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greek Treasures from the British Museum

The British Museum Press and The J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles have produced one of the more elegant and eloquent books on the Greek sculpture collection of the British Museum. Authors Ian Jenkins and Victoria Turner have curated this collection to be presented in book format and the result is well designed and reproduced selection of full images as well as important detail images of this magnificent boy of art. The book is divided into sections: Introduction - The Beautiful and the Good; The Male Body Beautiful; The Female Body; The Divine Body; Heroes and Monsters; The Face; and Character and Realism. Few other documents explore the variety of emotion and meaning of the sculptures of ancient Greece as thoroughly as does this fine book.

The photography of the statues and fragments, al in full color, are by Dudley Hubbard and Stephen Dodd assisted by Jon Williams and Ivor Kerslake. Rarely has marble been captured so artistically. Each statue and accompanying detail is explained as to time of creation and reference to origin in a manner that reads like a novel about Greek times. An excellent art book and an immeasurably important resource for student of history and of sculpting.

Grady Harp

[Max Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable, if basic, photo-log overview of Greek sculpture through the lens of the British Museum's collection. It's a lovely light read and ideal coffee table book for those interested in Greek art.

It is in no way comprehensive, and has no intention of being so, but the information in the initial chapters is a reasonable and interesting overview of the development of Greek sculpture and the cultural context behind the portrayal of the male and female forms, as well as other sub genres (beasts, etc). It also has a great bibliography at the back with some good suggested reads for those interested in delving more deeply into the subject.

The photos are superb, with some really jumping off the page and begging to be touched. If anything it will really inspire you to go to the BM the next chance you get, and challenge you not to get too tactile with the collections!

My only criticism is that a small number of the photos are close ups, that although very beautiful in their own right, left me wanting to see a fuller shot of the object in order to really appreciate what the text was telling me.

[Melodie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.