Hellenistic Sculpture II

The second century BCE is one of the most prolific periods in the production of Greek and Hellenistic art, but it is a period extremely vexing to scholars. Very few of the works traditionally cited as examples of this century's art can be dated with certainty, and those that plausibly belong to it reflect no general trends in function, iconography or style. In the second of Ridgway's three planned volumes on Hellenistic sculpture, she takes on the challenge of interpreting and dating the art of this complex and lively century. During this period, artistic production was stimulated by the encounter between Greece and Rome and fuelled by the desire of the kings of Pergamon to emulate the past glories of 5th-century Athens. Statuary in relief and in the round, often at monumental scale, was created in a variety of styles. Ridgway attempts to determine what can be securely considered to have been produced during the second century BCE. In the course of her exploration, she critically scrutinizes most of the best-known pieces of Greek sculpture, ultimately revealing a tentative but plausible picture of the artistic trends of 200-100 BCE.