Greek Sculpture c.600 - 300 BC

Greek statues and reliefs in marble and bronze retain today a strong visual impact, and our knowledge of the subject is being constantly improved and revised by dramatic new discoveries, from excavation and shipwrecks. The course studies the emergence and uses of large marble statues in the archaic period, the development of bronze as a large-scale medium, and the revolution in seeing and representing that brought in the new visual system that we know as ‘classical’, in the fifth and fourth centuries. The Cast Gallery, located behind the Ashmolean, has an excellent collection of plaster casts of major sculptures from this period. Practical classes are given in the Cast Gallery on ways of assessing and interpreting ancient statues and reliefs.