Next to the incunabules of the all-round sculpture are the incunabules of the relief, both of the not very protruding one, such as the procession of tiny knights on very high steeds and the series of beautiful figures of the temple A of Prinià, and of the very high one, such as the funerary steles of Tanagra, Dermi and Citilo. In the century The current of Ionian-Asian art can be perceived with peculiar characters.

Various monuments can be adduced: the statues of the Branchids seated on the sacred way that led to Didimeo, the relief of Karakoí near Miletus, the statue of Ajax of Samos and the standing of a dressed character, also of Samos, the sculptures of the columns caelatae dell’antico Artemisio di Efeso, i rilievi del tempio di Asso, l’Afrodite di Marsiglia, ora al museo di Lione, la kórē di Clazomene, la testa giovanile da Rodi del Museo di Costantinopoli, il rilievo di Taso con Eracle arciere, i rilievi di Cizico con bighe in corsa. Si aggiunga il monumento delle Arpie, di Xanto in Licia.

According to Nexticle.net, the characters of this Ionic-Asian sculpture are given by the thickness and the softness, at the same time, of the shapes and the free and agitated patterns in the moving figures. The scarce and arid literary tradition gives us the names of the two samî artists, Reco and Theodore, of Baticle of Magnesia, the author of the famous throne of Apollo in Amicles, near Sparta, of Bione of Miletus. The exuberance and relaxation of the Asian-Ionian production becomes precision, refinement with more agile forms in the Ionian-island sculpture. This production of the islands Chio, Naxos, Sifno) can be studied above all in Delphi and Athens, where the artists of these islands worked.

In Delphi there is, as an archaic product, the Sphinx dedicated by the Nassî in the Apollonian sanctuary: muscular and nervous strength is in the monster with a flattened body and a very elongated face, in which very large eyes stand out. At Delphi there are also the elongated metopes of the treasure already believed to be of Sicyon, and now attributed to Syracuse; but if these metopes also belong to the treasure of Syracuse, there is in their reliefs, which illustrate episodes of the myth, the refinement of the Ionic-island current, which in Delphi has the typical monument, which constitutes its highest and most complete expression, that is the Sifnî treasure: both with the relief of the zoofóros in mythological scenes, and with those of the tympanum, and with the two kórai in architectural function. Especially in the relief of the zooforosit is ease of moves, expression of feelings and characters, complexity of composition.

In Athens, the insular current, and precisely Chiota, is affirmed in some of the kórai that came to light on the Acropolis, and which are part of the embankment made on the hill, already devastated by the Persians, at the return of the Athenians after the battles of Salamis (480 a. C.) and of Platea (479 BC).

Typical is a kóre, recently reconstructed, very elegant in its Ionic clothing, with the slender forms of the person, with the pointed features of the face, in which the amygdaloid eyes are oblique, and in which is the stereotypical conventional smile. Similar figures, more or less fragmented, come from Delos, perhaps due to the Chiota school of Bupalus and Athenis, whose activity in Delos is mentioned by Pliny (N. H., XXXVI, 11). One of the last works of this Ionian current of the islands, prior to 480 BC. C., is the relief decoration of the entrance of the prytaneum of Thasos with the figures of Nymphs and Charites, of Apollo and Hermes: there is the refinement now transformed into affectation, except in the figure of Apollo represented in front, which is of more vigorous art.

Ionism also penetrates the Peloponnese, softening the brutal vigor of the Cretan-Peloponnesian current; in the first half of the century. Street. C. dates back to the relief, perhaps votive, of Chrysáfa (Sparta), very flat and sharply cut out in the background. There is a mixture of Dorism and Ionism; but Dorism completely prevails in the sculptures of the pediment of Artemis in Garítsa (Corfu) with the frightening Gorgon, of massive forms. From Corfu we go further west, to Sicily, where, in Selinunte, we have the two small metopes of a very archaic temple (Europa sul Toro, the Sphinx) and the three metopes of temple C with stunted human forms, with stunned faces. But refined Ionism also penetrates into Magna Graecia, to which perhaps the imposing, and at the same time meticulous, smiling goddess enthroned in Berlin belongs. With this statue we are already in the century. V.

In Athens, thanks to the enlightened tyranny of the Pisistratids, a sculptural art of great value was established, so that Athens became the main center of this art, already from the beginning of the century. V. On the trunk of the Attic art represented by the sculpture in póros (the so-called Typhon of a pediment of the ancient Hekatómpedon is famous) robust, violent, Ionic island art is grafted; then the essentially bronze art of Aegina exerts its influences. You have the kórai seriesand the other sculptures of the acropolis (gigantomachy of the new Hekatómpedon, male statues), there are the funeral steles (e.g. stele of Aristion, the work of Aristocles, bases in relief with scenes of games), and the metopes of the treasure of Athens in Delphi. Ionic refinement, full of delicate grace, blends with the vigor of the ancient local current; from the moschoforos and the kóre in Attic dress one reaches the kóre through the kóre chiota and the Athena of the bronze sheetfirst of Antenore, tall and solemn, then to the one dedicated by Eutidico, to the head of the blond ephebe, to the naked young man, where the smile is now erased in the face, replaced by an expression of almost disdainful severity. The series of archaic Attic works closes with the group of muscular Tyrannicides, Armodio and Aristogitone, perhaps due to Critio and Nesiote and known to us through the marble copy of the Naples museum. Attic art is also found on the island of Euboea: an example is the group of Theseus and Antiope of Eretria. Already advanced a lot in the Attic works of the incipient century. V is the anatomy, even more than the treatment of the drapery, metallic in its hardness. Two other centers of sculpture are Sicyon and Aegina, where bronze sculpture is preferably cultivated. In Sicyon, and, with Sicyon, in Argos, athletic sculpture was essentially cultivated with statues of winners in competitions, especially Olympic ones. Agelada in Argo, Canaco and his brother Aristocles were the main sculptors.