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Hellenistic art is the art of the Classical period dating from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the emergence of ancient Rome as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC〔(Art of the Hellenistic Age and the Hellenistic Tradition. ) Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013. Retrieved 27 May 2013. (Archived here. )〕 and the subsequent conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt in 30 BC.〔(Hellenistic Age. ) Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013. Retrieved 27 May 2013. (Archived here. )〕 A number of the best-known works of Greek sculpture belong to this period, including Laocoön and his Sons, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The term ''Hellenistic'' is a modern invention; the Hellenistic World not only included a huge area covering the whole of the Aegean, rather than the Classical Greece focused on the Poleis of Athens and Sparta, but also a huge time range. In artistic terms this means that there is huge variety which is often put under the heading of "Hellenistic Art" for convenience. There has been a trend in writing the history of this period to depict Hellenistic art as a decadent style, following of the ''Golden Age'' of Classical Athens. Pliny the Elder, after having described the sculpture of the classical period says: ''Cessavit deinde ars'' ("then art disappeared").〔Pliny the Elder, ''Natural History'' (XXXIV, 52)〕 The 18th century terms Baroque and Rococo have sometimes been applied, to the art of this complex and individual period. The renewal of the historiographic approach as well as some recent discoveries, such as the tombs of Vergina, allow a better appreciation of this period's artistic richness. == Architecture == One of the defining characteristics of the Hellenistic period was the division of Alexander the Great's empire into smaller dynastic empires founded by the diadochi: the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Seleucids in Mesopotamia, Persia, and Syria, the Attalids in Pergamon, etc. Each of these dynasties practiced a royal patronage which differed from those of the city-states. In the architectural field, this resulted in vast urban plans and large complexes which had mostly disappeared from city-states by the 5th century BC. This city planning was quite innovative for the Greek world; rather than manipulating space by correcting its faults, building plans conformed to the natural setting. One notes the appearance of many places of amusement and leisure, notably the multiplication of theatres and parks. The Hellenistic monarchies were advantaged in this regard in that they often had vast spaces where they could build large cities: such as Antioch, Pergamon, and Seleucia on the Tigris. Pergamon in particular is a characteristic example of Hellenistic architecture. Starting from a simple fortress located on the Acropolis, the various Attalid kings set up a colossal architectural complex. The buildings are fanned out around the Acropolis to take into account the nature of the terrain. The agora, located to the south on the lowest terrace, is bordered by galleries with colonnades (columns) or ''stoai''. It is the beginning of a street which crosses the entire Acropolis: it separates the administrative, political and military buildings on the east and top of the rock from the sanctuaries to the west, at mid-height, among which the most prominent is that which shelters the monumental Pergamon Altar, known as "of the twelve gods" or "of the gods and of the giants", one of the masterpieces of Greek sculpture. A colossal theatre, able to contain nearly 10,000 spectators, has benches embedded in the flanks of the hill. It was the time of gigantism: thus it was for the second temple of Apollo at Didyma, situated twenty kilometers from Miletus in Ionia. It was designed by Daphnis of Miletus and Paionios of Ephesus at the end of the fourth century BC, but the construction, never completed, was carried out up until the 2nd century AD. The sanctuary is one of the largest ever constructed in the Mediterranean region: inside a vast court (21.7 metres by 53.6 metres), the ''cella'' is surrounded by a double colonnade of 108 Ionic columns nearly 20 metres tall, with richly sculpted bases and capitals. == Sculpture == repeats the innovations of the "second classicism": perfect sculpture-in-the-round, allowing the statue to be admired from all angles; study of draping and effects of transparency of clothing; suppleness of poses. Thus, Venus de Milo, even while echoing a classic model, is distinguished by the twist of her hips. One seeks, above all, expressibility and atmosphere. This search is particularly flagrant in the portraits: more than the precision of the traits represented, the artist seeks to represent the character of his/her subject. In the great statuary, the artist explores themes such as suffering, sleep or old age. One such is the Barberini Faun of Munich, representing a sleeping satyr with relaxed posture and anxious face, perhaps the prey of nightmares. The ''drunk woman'', also at Munich, portrays without reservation an old woman, thin, haggard, clutching against herself her jar of wine. Laocoön, strangled by snakes, tries desperately to loosen their grip without affording a glance at his dying sons. Pergamon did not distinguish itself with its architecture alone: it was also the seat of a brilliant school of sculpture called Pergamene Baroque. The sculptors, imitating the preceding centuries, portray painful moments rendered expressive with three-dimensional compositions, often V-shaped, and anatomical hyper-realism. Attalus I (269-197 BC), to commemorate his victory at Caicus against the Gauls — called Galatians by the Greeks — had two series of votive groups sculpted: the first, consecrated on the Acropolis of Pergamon, includes the famous Gaul killing himself and his wife, of which the original is lost (the best copy is in the (Massimo alle Terme ) museum of Rome, see illustration); the second group, offered to Athens, is composed of small bronzes of Greeks, Amazons, gods and giants, Persians and Gauls. (Artemis Rospigliosi ) of the Louvre is probably a copy of one of them; as for copies of the Dying Gaul, they were very numerous in the Roman period. The expression of sentiments, the forcefulness of details — bushy hair and moustaches here — and the violence of the movements are characteristic of the Pergamene style. These characteristics are pushed to their peak in the friezes of the Great Altar of Pergamon, decorated under the order of Eumenes II (197-159 BC) with a gigantomachy stretching 110 metres in length, illustrating in the stone a poem composed especially for the court. The Olympians triumph in it, each on his side, over Giants – most of which are transformed into savage beasts: serpents, birds of prey, lions or bulls. Their mother Gaia comes to their aid, but can do nothing and must watch them twist in pain under the blows of the gods. Another phenomenon appears in Hellenistic sculpture: privatization, which involves the recapture of older public patterns in decorative sculpture. This type of retrospective style also exists in ceramics. Portraiture is tinged with naturalism, under the influence of Roman art. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hellenistic art」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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