Early Classical (c. 500–450 bce)

This brief period is more than a mere transition from Archaic to Classical; in the figurative arts a distinctive style developed, in some respects representing as much of a contrast with what came afterward as with what went before. Its name—Severe style—is in part an indication that the stylization of Archaic art, with its patterns of drapery and its decisive action, has been replaced by calm and balance. In vase painting and in sculpture, this new tone is evident in the composition of scenes and in details such as drapery, where the fastidious pleats of the Archaic chiton give place to the heavy, straight fall of an outer robe called the peplos. The finest artists transformed the verve of the late Archaic style into more delicate expressions of emotion, and some were clearly checking their work more deliberately against the living model.

The early Classical period saw an impressive series of sculptural works that were excellent in their own right and significant in the continuing development of technical expressive skill and naturalism such as the relief carvings of the so-called Ludovisi Throne. Moreover, for the first time individual artists—and their contributions to technical and stylistic development—can in some cases be positively identified through Roman copies and written descriptions of their works.

The finest examples of early Classical architectural sculpture are the works of the Olympia Master, an unidentified artist who decorated the pediments and frieze of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. In the east pediment, which shows men and women preparing for a chariot race, his figures display the sobriety and calm characteristic of the early Classical period. The men stand in the new, relaxed pose (the weight of the body being carried mainly by one leg) that was to be used by most sculptors throughout the period; and the women wear the peplos, its broad, heavy folds lending severity to the static composition. The west pediment, with a scene of struggling men and centaurs, has something of the rigid formality of the Archaic spirit, but here—and in the metopes that show the labours of Heracles—the artist has acutely observed differences of age in the human bodies and differences of expression—pain, fear, despair, disgust—in the faces. This was something new in Greek sculpture, and, in fact, cannot be readily matched in other works of this period.

In freestanding sculpture—at this time, more commonly bronze than marble—the works of Myron (of Eleutherae, in Attica), identified through copies, were among the most celebrated of the period. Myron’s most famous work is the Discobolos (“Discus Thrower”), of which a Roman copy survives. Another of Myron’s works surviving in copy is a sculpture of Athena with the satyr Marsyas. The interplay of mood and action between the figures in this freestanding group is new, foreshadowed only by the now lost group of Harmodius and Aristogeiton erected in Athens at the end of the 6th century.

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Because bronze was often looted and corrodes easily, the majority of freestanding sculptures from this period have been lost. Some, however, have been rediscovered in the 20th century, the Zeus (or Poseidon) and the Charioteer from Delphi, for instance, although they have been eclipsed in fame by the still more remarkable pair of warriors dredged from the sea in 1972 and displayed in the Museo Nazionale, Reggio di Calabria. The finer of these latter bronzes, although it probably represents a mortal, has a supernatural glamour and a ferocity quite unlike the calm solemnity conventionally admired in Classical works. This derives partly from the glowing surface of the swelling musculature and the use of inlay for eyes, teeth, and lips.