Tombstone of Hegeso {The Story of Art}

Grave of Hegeso. Athens, Greece. 420 B.C

“Every Greek work from that great period [from 7th to 5th century B.C.] shows… wisdom and skill in the distribution of figures, but what the Greeks of the time valued even more was something else: the newfound freedom to represent the human body in any position or movement could be used to reflect the inner life of the figures represented. We hear from one of his disciples that this is what the great philosopher Socrates, who had himself been trained as a sculptor, urged artists to do. They should represent the ‘workings of the soul’ by accurately observing the way ‘feelings affected the body in action.’”

Ernst H. Gombrich, “Chapter 3: The Great Awakening,” The Story of Art, 15th edition