South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c10.8

c10.8

In their love and care of the human body they created an image of man hardly superior to man himself. Even in the statues of the Greek gods of the early periods, apart from their attributes, there is hardly any attempt to distinguish gods from men. "Perhaps the earliest class of statues in which we find any attempt to give artistic expression to super-human power is that in which we see the god in vigorous action, often striking with his characteristic weapon: Zeus with his thunderbolt, Posidon with his trident or Athena advancing rapidly with brandished spear and shield advanced. But even these figures, apart from their divine attributes, show no essential distinction from human combatants. It is a significant fact that it is still a matter of dispute whether one of the most famous statues of the early fifth century "the Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo" represents a god or an athlete. Such a typical or normal human form is, in fact, the logical expression of anthropomorphism in its most literal sense—the making of gods after man's image." For the ordinary Greek believed that the gods actually existed in human form and even in their characters, passions and moods were like human beings.