GeoCo Rocks

Since it was no longer in fashion when serious academic study began and is also bewilderingly diverse, its course is much less understood. At the beginning there was some continuation and development of Late Classical trends, in the middle the so-called Pergamene school shows an originality that may loosely be described as baroque, and towards the end a Classicizing movement became strong. But these distinct styles are not confined each to one part of the period and there is much more that has to be fitted in. Nor can the confusion be explained away by different local traditions: although Athens, it seems, tended to be conservative and at Alexandria some use was made of stucco, a material which invites soft modelling, still sculptors travelled as much as or more than before and Athenians, for example, could work in the full Pergamene style. ‘Pergamene’, incidentally has here a stylistic and not a local sense. The Hellenistic kings of Pergamum, who grabbed much of western Asia Minor, were patrons of sculpture, collecting old works and commissioning new ones; and the style of the most famous of their new monuments has been called after them, though that style was not peculiar to Pergamum nor the only style fostered there.

In the rendering of anatomy, Hellenistic sculptors did not often escape from Classical formulas, since these were already fairly true to nature and there was no need to make a fresh start. Nor did they alter the systems of proportions for the male figure, though soon an alternative female canon was accepted, with narrower shoulders, higher waist and broader hips. In drapery there was more radical change. Here High Classical sculptors had worked out a system of devices which elucidated the forms and action of the body but, while optically effective, did not conform closely to nature. And this system remained valid in the fourth century, in spite of tendencies to arrange folds more naturally and to give the drapery importance in itself. These tendencies were taken further by some early Hellenistic sculptors, and there seems even to have been a deliberate rejection of Classical standards, perhaps more for novelty than from artistic principle. In a favourite scheme, still popular in late Hellenistic statuary, the female figure is dressed in a chiton, often hiding the feet, and a fine tightly stretched cloak which runs diagonally from below one knee to above the other, is gathered in at the hip, and either rolls up across the waist or chest or – more often – covers the shoulders and sometimes the head as well. This cloak is patterned with thin sharp ridges, in part radiating from the hip, in part erratic and casually interrupted; and if there is a roll, it is usually narrow and twisted like a rope. In contrast the folds of the chiton are mostly close and vertical and, with a dexterity that becomes hackneyed, they are prolonged to show, suitably a little blurred, through the cloak that covers them. At the same time a basically Classical tradition persisted, especially in statues of gods. This tradition was re-used eclectically by sculptors of the Pergamene style and revived with more fidelity by the Classicizers of the later second and the first centuries.

The Classical revival of Greek art during the later second century not only produced new interpretations and adaptations of Classical forms, such as the Venus di Milo, but led also to an industry of copying that lasted through the era of Roman art till the fourth or even the fifth century CE. From the Archaic period onwards, duplicates had been made, like Cleobis and Biton, and the Penelopes, but the habit of reproducing masterpieces of the past seems to have started in the early or middle second century, when the kings of Pergamum, who were the first great collectors of works of Greek art, supplemented the acquisition of earlier originals by commissioning copies. Their example was followed by private individuals, including many Romans and Italians, who were in sympathy with the Classicizing trend but hankered after old masters. The copies found at Pergamum, even when in spirit fairly true to the originals, render detail freely and in a contemporary manner and were evidently carved by sculptors capable of independent work. But later, a more mechanical style and technique became regular, with craftsmen working from a master copy. Master copies could be made either from memory and sketches, as must have been those of the cult statue of Athena in the Parthenon; or, if the original was accessible, molds might be taken from it, whether partial or complete, and casts made from the molds. For copies of bronze sculpture, this system could, by recasting, provide exact replicas of the original, and for that reason it is difficult or impossible – and probably unimportant – to distinguish by style between an original and a good copy.

Presumably for cheapness, bronze originals were often reproduced in marble, with some consequent adjustments.

I am a big Athena fan.
I am completely unaware of any lack of Hellenistic sculptures of Athena.
You might want to try any search engine.