For centuries there has been a note of yearning in our feelings about ancient Greek and Roman art. We can’t help mourning for what has irretrievably vanished. In 1764 Johann Joachim Winckelmann wrote that we have ‘nothing but a shadowy outline left of the object of our wishes, but that very indistinctness awakens only a more earnest longing for what we have lost’.
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‘Defining beauty: the body in ancient Greek art’ is at the British Museum until 5 July. ‘Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World’ is at the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, until 21 June.
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