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The Classical period of Ancient Greece produced some of the most exquisite sculptures the world has ever seen. The art of the Classical Greek style is characterized by a joyous freedom of movement, freedom of expression, and it celebrates mankind as an independent entity (atomo). During this period, artists begin to expand the formal aesthetic boundaries while they worked in expressing the human figure in a more naturalistic manner. They were able to replace the strict asymmetry of the figure with a free flowing form more true to life, while they approached an ideal aesthetic vision through stone and bronze.

The form of classical sculpture became fluid and natural and the stylization of the archaic art gave way to realistic figures which emanated the illusion of moving through space. For the first time in human history, human anatomy was deemed worthy of being immortalized in stone or bronze, and the humble and laborious forward step of the kouros statues was replaced by poses that commanded their space with effortless movement. During the classical period the Greek artists replaced the stiff vertical figures of the archaic period with three-dimensional snap shots of figures in action. While the archaic sculptures appeared static the classical statues held dynamic poses bursting with potential energy. The overall patterns of immobile muscles were developed into a complex universe of tension and relaxation. The ancient Greek sculptors had finally achieved balance through the opposing action of the human muscle groups.

It was the first time in human history that the human body was studied for its aesthetic values, and was treated as an autonomous universe. The object of art became the human itself as the focus of the artist revolved around ordinary subjects like the the weight shift during the forward step at the moment before the release of the thunder, the tying of a ribbon around ones head, or just the shift of the pelvis when one...