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Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea

Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea David Konstan, Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 262 pp. A German professor once tested my understanding of Greek sculpture by inviting me to stand up and adopt the pose of Polyclitus's Doryphoros statue--a very good exercise in balance, as well as of one's memory of images. In physical terms and especially in art, symmetry and a balance of proportions have long been admitted as criteria of beauty. "Pose" is not among Polyclitus's "Kanon" of proportions for the human figure in art, but it has long since been added to our own. In literature as in life, the morally good can sometimes be included also--as in modern Greek, kalo eine means "that's fine" or "fit for the end intended." Then there is the problem of the use of the concept and word beauty in nonhuman contexts--for nonfigural monuments, for colors, for ideas. The Roman word pulcher does not often mean more than "well made"; the Hebrew has much the same association of the "good" and the "beautiful" as does the Greek. Beauty is only skin deep--maybe, but we set great store by it, and so did the ancient Greeks, whose http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Common Knowledge Duke University Press

Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea

Boardman, John
Common Knowledge , Volume 22 (2) – May 1, 2016
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Duke University Press
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Copyright © Duke Univ Press
ISSN
0961-754X
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1538-4578
DOI
10.1215/0961754X-3487784
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Abstract

David Konstan, Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 262 pp. A German professor once tested my understanding of Greek sculpture by inviting me to stand up and adopt the pose of Polyclitus's Doryphoros statue--a very good exercise in balance, as well as of one's memory of images. In physical terms and especially in art, symmetry and a balance of proportions have long been admitted as criteria of beauty. "Pose" is not among Polyclitus's "Kanon" of proportions for the human figure in art, but it has long since been added to our own. In literature as in life, the morally good can sometimes be included also--as in modern Greek, kalo eine means "that's fine" or "fit for the end intended." Then there is the problem of the use of the concept and word beauty in nonhuman contexts--for nonfigural monuments, for colors, for ideas. The Roman word pulcher does not often mean more than "well made"; the Hebrew has much the same association of the "good" and the "beautiful" as does the Greek. Beauty is only skin deep--maybe, but we set great store by it, and so did the ancient Greeks, whose

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Common Knowledge – Duke University Press

Published: May 1, 2016

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