In this period, we also see the claw chisel used in the vertical mode, in which it functions more like a bush chisel, more frequently than in subsequent eras, which further argues that the steel was marginal.
In a few more words, The Allegory of the Cave, given in The Republic, compares reality to flickering shadows on the wall of a dim cave, and Forms to that unseen thing behind us, that casts the shadows we see, but which itself can only be inferred by our ruder natures.
The Middle Platonist identification of the Forms with a single divinity accorded well with Christian theology, which subsequently incorporated a large dose of Neoplatonism when Saint Augustine systematized Christian theology in the Fourth Century CE. During the Middle Ages, the original texts were lost in the West, as was Greek itself as a scholarly language, and were almost entirely unknown until the reintroduction of Plato in Florence, in 1438. The reintroduction of Plato initiated an epochal resurgence of interest ancient Greek philosophy and art. Western thought, at the time inseparable from theology, was revolutionized by the wholesale re-introduction of fresh streams of Greek philosophy and culture.
In the Classical Period, the painters of sculpture were as highly regarded and sought after as the sculptors themselves[Richter 70]. Also, because the stone was intended to be painted, the ancients also routinely assembled marble sculpture from multiple pieces, a practice that horrified Michelangelo
coatespt@gmail.com