page_title: Ancient Greek sculpture
section_title: Classical period
hierarchical_section_title: Ancient Greek sculpture / Classical period
context_page_description: Ancient Greek sculpture is the sculpture of Ancient Greece. There are three major stages. Sculpture was used to show the battles, mythology, and rulers of the area known as Ancient Greece.
context_section_description: The Classical period saw better Greek sculpture. There was a big improvement in producing realistic human forms. Poses became more naturalistic, notably during the beginning of the period (see the Charioteer of Delphi for an example of the transition to more naturalistic sculpture).
  From about 500 BC, Greek statues began increasingly to depict real people. The statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, set up in Athens mark the overthrow of the aristocratic tyranny, are said to be the first public monuments to show actual individuals.
  Also, we begin to see references to the sculptors themselves in writings of the period. Examples include Phidias, known to have overseen the design and building of the Parthenon, and Praxiteles, whose nude female nude sculptures were the first to be considered artistically respectable.
  The Classical period also saw an increase in the use of statues and sculptures as decorations of buildings. The temples of the Classical era included the Parthenon in Athens, and the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. They had relief sculpture for decorative friezes, and sculpture in the round to fill the triangular fields of the pediments. Most of these works survive only in fragments, for example the Parthenon Marbles, roughly half of which are in the British Museum.
caption: The Acropolis of Athens
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