Translation of Vom Sinn der griechischen Standbilder.

Includes bibliographical references.

"Ernst Buschor (1886-1941) was a German classical archaeologist and cultural historian. This book, perhaps his most important work, concerns periodicity in art. Published originally in German in 1942, its central subject is the highly expressive nature of Greek sculpture. Bushor expands on the notion of distinct phases, or periods, through which Greek sculpture evolved. These phases, he argues, are so deeply embedded in human consciousness that the aims of craftsmen-sculptors in other ages and cultures must be seen as taking part in the same inevitable drama. Other scholars have, of course, noted this parallelism and a recent critic has extended it even farther afield geographically (Joseph Alsop, "How Did Art Collecting Begin?" in The New York Review of Books, December 21, 1978). But whereas this generally is treated as an intellectual observation or notion, it yields to Buschor on overall thematic connection among the various ages which can help us to see that our own age is not merely a spectator of history but involved in it. Buschor approaches his subject in two ways. First, he succinctly describes each succeeding phase in terms of the size, use, and spiritual meaning of its sculptural objects. Then in a series of detailed annotations accompanying forty-five photographs of Greek, Mesopotamian-Egyptian, and European sculpture, he compares parallel developments and locates characteristic differences, period by period, in the sculpture of these three widely separated cultures. Written at a time of increasing scholarly specialization, Buschor's work ran counter to fashion, presenting a daring aesthetic and spiritual approach to the particulars of art. J.L. Benson's translation makes this unusual book available in English for the first time. His critical introduction to the text discusses Buschor's importance as an interpreter of Greek sculpture and his place in the study of periodicity in art." --,Dust Jacket.

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Translation of Vom Sinn der griechischen Standbilder.

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