From December to March, however, a temporary exhibition of Greek Masterpieces from the Louvre was on display in the basement. I visited it in January and found it inspiring. The artwork was very well displayed, with much room in the spacious underground gallery between the pieces, which were enhanced by a very effective, although subdued, lighting.
A few pieces dated from the Classical Greek period (5th - 4th centuries BCE), but many, although ancient, actually were copies of masterpieces of that period made in the Roman era (2nd - 3rd centuries CE).
Art of this period is refreshing to the jaded eye of the modern museum goer because it is not self-focused. What matters is not the process of creation, or the originality of the outcome, but the subject matter chosen by the artist, which is always representational. More broadly, the subject of this exhibition was the enormous and fundamental contributions to Western Culture made by the Classical Greek period.
I delighted in walking around portraits (sculpted in marble stones) of the founders of Western philosophy: Socrates
his pupil, Plato
Aristotle (tutor of Alexander the Great).
(It has been said that all of Western philosophy is but footnotes to Plato and Aristotle)...
of the founders of the theater: Euripides, the great Athenian tragic poet
Sophocles (on the left) and Aristophanes (on the right), linked in this Roman style double portrait as the complementary fathers of Tragedy and Comedy
of poets: Archilochus
and Anacreon
of the gods: Ares, the violent and irascible god of warlike frenzy, son of Zeus and Hera and lover of Aphrodite
Apollo
Aphrodite
Eros, son of Aphrodite, the god of Love
Hermes, Orpheus and Eurydice in a relief of a funerary monument that may have been erected during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE)
A mask of Dionysus
Pan, the son of Hermes and a nymph
The Milo Amphora, an Attic red figure amphora of circa 410-400 BC
And this sumptuous bronze drinking cup (kantharos)
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