In this wide-ranging study, Richard Neer offers a new way to understand
the epoch-making sculpture of classical Greece. Working at the
intersection of art history, archaeology, literature, and aesthetics, he
reveals a people fascinated with the power of sculpture to provoke
wonder in beholders. Wonder, not accuracy, realism, naturalism or truth,
was the supreme objective of Greek sculptors. Neer traces this way of
thinking about art from the poems of Homer to the philosophy of Plato.
Then, through meticulous accounts of major sculpture from around the
Greek world, he shows how the demand for wonder-inducing statues gave
rise to some of the greatest masterpieces of Greek art. Rewriting the
history of Greek sculpture in Greek terms and restoring wonder to a
sometimes dusty subject, The Emergence of the Classical Style in Greek
Sculpture is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in the art of
sculpture or the history of the ancient world.