Archaic – Early Classical Stele carvings.

A Stele?• Freestanding relief sculptures.• Grave markers or• Votive offerings.• Very popular in Attica.• Rectangular sculptural field- narrow

and tall.• Grave markers often topped with

decorative elements (sphinx, gable, etc)

Youth with Young girl.

Attica.550BC

Discus thrower. c550 BC

Hero and Consort

approached by two

worshippers.

Laconia550 – 540

BC

Aritsion• Marble.• Attica.• 510 BC.• Memorial to a

warrior.• Signed by

Aristokles

• Beard tip attached separately.

• Depth.

Old Man offering a locust to a dog.

Limestone.Boeotia490 BC

Mourning Athena.

• Found on Acropolis.

• c470.• H 0.48.• Pentellic marble.• Background

painted blue.• Reading list of

dead?

Demeter gives corn

to Triptolemo

s.Eleusis.440-430

BC

The technical stuff.• Usually pentelic marble.• Deep relief. Figures almost in the

round.• Drapery thicker and more

enveloping – less linear.• Figures heavy and square.• Craftmanship varies in quality

between sculptors.• Set within an architectural frame.

Emotion in stone

• Relationships expressed through touching, yearning, reaching hands.

• Tender expressions.• Figures portrayed as physically

perfect.• Often engaged in everyday activities-

poignant. Won’t be doing that again.• Women usually seated.

Ilissos stele. c350-325BC

• Found in river Ilissos, Athens.• Grave marker of young man.• Young man perfect – prime of life.• Weeping slave boy, sad dog.• Sad, mournful old man.• Dreamlike expression of deceased.• No physical contact between characters.• Poignant, sorrowful, heartbreaking,

ghostly.