What Art Reveals About Societies

[♥ Lily ♥]

Want to know the difference between the Ancient Greeks and the Ancient Romans? Just look at their statues.

Art always tells you what a society wants to believe about itself.

So, from the Soviet Union to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, here's what art says about who we are...

[♥ Lily ♥]

We begin in Ancient Greece, with an Athenian statue from the 5th century BC.

Here is the victor of an athletic contest. What do we see?

This is not a specific individual; it is a generic, idealised face and body.

[♥ Lily ♥]

The same is true for many Greek statues from the 5th and 4th centuries BC.

Their faces and bodies are not intended to be those of real people. Rather, they represent the Greek ideal of what a human being can be, and what a human ought to aspire to become.

[♥ Lily ♥]

And even when a specific person is portrayed, and we can clearly see the features of a recognisable individual, they are still idealised.

Lysippos' bust of Alexander was praised for how it maintained his appearance and personality while also giving it a god-like countenance.

[♥ Lily ♥]

Now, for contrast, look at statues from the Ancient Roman Republic, in this case from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.

The difference is striking. There is no idealisation here, no attempt to portray human beauty. These are the real faces of real people, warts and wrinkles and all.

[♥ Lily ♥]

And this makes sense. For the Ancient Romans poverty was a virtue. They thought of themselves as hard-headed, honest, vigorous people.

To have a weatherbeaten face, worn with age and work, was a sign of wisdom and of virtue.

The ideal Roman was simple, not beautiful.

[♥ Lily ♥]

And so the Romans were uneasy about the Greeks.

When Ancient Greek art first arrived in Rome, along with Greek philosophy, many people called it decadent, luxurious, and corrupting.

But, in the end, Greek culture won and the Romans were thoroughly Hellenised.



It may be true that the Romans weren't *actually* the sort of honest, down-to-earth people they wanted to seem like in their art.

But this makes it more interesting: these statues reflect what they *wanted* to be, even more than what they really were.

And this doesn't stop with the Greeks and the Romans.

It has always been true that we can trust a society's art more than what they said about themselves to figure out who they were and what was important to them.

First and foremost through *what* it depicts...

[♥ Lily ♥]

The art of Ancient Mesopotamia was filled with bulls and sheep; we may conclude that this was an agricultural society.

In Ancient Egypt, meanwhile, we find monumental statues of Pharaohs; it seems clear that these were figures who possessed almost unimaginable power.

[♥ Lily ♥]

In the lead up to the French Revolution there was a major shift in French art.

Throughout the 18th century it was rather frivolous, hedonistic depictions of the aristocracy that had dominated art, as in the work of Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

[♥ Lily ♥]

But soon it was scenes from Ancient Roman history that became popular, as in the work of Jacques-Louis David.

Notice too the stylistic shift: from bright colours and loose brushwork to harsh lines and more severity.

Times were clearly changing — revolution followed.