Recently Discovered Archaic Sculptures

• Published in: The Journal of Hellenic studies 1887-11, Vol.8, p.159-193
• Main Author: Gardner, Ernest A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Art education; Bronzes; Draperies; Excavations; Facial expressions; Hair; Sculptors; Sculpture; Statues
• ISSN: 0075-4269; 2041-4099
• DOI: 10.2307/623456

The last year has been most fruitful of results to the archæologist. Excavations on many Greek sites have supplied abundant material for new work and speculation. But important as may be the gains to other branches of archæology, none are so brilliant as those that have so greatly increased our knowledge of the early history of Greek sculpture. It must be many years before archæologists are agreed on the exact position and import of the new statues in relation to the early history of art; longer still before all that those statues can teach us shall have been learnt. In the present paper no attempt can be made to criticise and discuss fully the many difficult questions to which their discovery has given rise— much less to assign finally to each of them its place in the history of religion and sculpture. Many of the early chapters of that history must be reconsidered and in part rewritten before all the statues we now possess find their due place in a recognised and unbroken series of monuments of various ages and of various local schools. Meanwhile it may be well to indicate the directions in which the influence of our newly-acquired knowledge is likely to be felt, and to endeavour to estimate the meaning and the importance of the new material that the science of archæology has acquired.