During the Hellenistic age, Greek culture flourished throughout the vast region conquered by Alexander. Athens fell into decline, as other cities around the eastern Mediterranean became the new leaders of Greek culture. Hellenistic sculptors tended to embrace dynamism and extravagance, in sharp contrast to the calm, restrained majesty of Classical statues (see Western Aesthetics).1
No statue better illustrates the typical Hellenistic style than the group sculpture Laocoön and his Sons. This work depicts a scene from Homer's Iliad, in which the Trojan priest Laocoön and his two sons are killed by sea serpents (at Athena's bidding) when he attempts to warn his people about the Trojan horse.
The most famous Hellenistic work may be Winged Victory of Samothrace, another masterpiece of dynamism. Victory's robes are dramatically ruffled as though she were facing into a storm.