From Architecture to Graves: The Development of Emotion in Ancient Greek Sculpture

This paper will examine the development of emotion in Greek sculpture; beginning with its overall absence in the Late Archaic period and continuing through its inception in the Early Classical period and its zenith during the Hellenistic Age. My chapters will each focus on a different style of sculpture and how emotion developed in each of them. I begin with architectural sculpture, tracing how emotion was first utilized on the Temple of Aphaia in Aegina during the Early Classical period before being used with greater prominence in later centuries, as seen in the works of Skopas and on the Great Altar of Pergamon. From there I discuss emotion in freestanding sculpture, beginning with the Early Classical statue of Prokne and Itys before moving on to examine statues such as Eirene and Ploutos, the Lysippos Herakles, and the Terme Boxer. Finally, I assess emotion’s presence in relief sculpture, focusing primarily on grave reliefs. In this chapter pieces such as Mourning Athena, the Mnesagora and Nikochares stele, and the Ilissos stele are examined. Overall, I argue that emotion is used in sculpture first to differentiate between Greeks and Romans, before later being used to incite a particular reaction in viewers.