Alexandros of Antioch

Louvre photo of Venus by Chosovi

The Venus from Melos, gesturing toward Cupid, shows the apotheosis of the ideal sculptural style under the stewardship of Hellenistic Greece, as produced by the superb Alexandros, who with a handful of colleagues cruelly leave the ruins of their works, deistic and profane (e.g. Nike of Samothrace, the Apollo Belvedere, the head of Alexander, the Altar of Zeus, the Laocoon) to shame and humiliate the abject poverty and sloppiness of all efforts in the plastic arts in the 22 hundred years since.

We are near the ninth circle of hell in respect of the plastic arts today.   Exhibit A: the work of Jeffrey Koons.  Exhibit B: the various repulsive statues of sporting stars multiplying outside stadia the world over, some of which (see Twickenham or Adelaide Oval) appear to have been hastily constructed from burnt, blackened hebel.