Having recently taken up the study of the Middle Ages (hence the username) and Ancient Rome, I would like to know one thing pertaining to the art of these periods.
Why do medieval sculptures often appear not as realistic, accurate, or detailed as the sculptures we may see that originate from Ancient Rome and Greece? Is this because the skills and methods were lost after the Fall of Rome? Was this because art was taking a shift towards the more symbolic, or a general shift in taste?
EDIT: Thank you for all the informative answers.
This is my first comment to this subreddit and if it's not up to par feel free to delete it please.
Looking back into what's called the Archaic era of Greek Sculpture you see sculpture that's much less like what's associated with Classical Greek style. In fact Archaic Greek sculpture looks decidedly Egyptian in style. Over the period of a couple hundred years or so a shift in philosophy and a few new ideas led the Greeks to gradually evolve Their sculpture into what we think of today. Craftsmen in Greece had different objectives for creating sculpture than say Assyrian or Egyptian sculptures. The pursuit of the perfect form insinuated itself into all sorts of Greek styles of thinking and it's this unique philosophy that led to the hyper detailed, realistic sculpture. After all its hard to depict perfection with ancient styles of sculpture, ancient sculpture to this point never concerned its self with the way cloth flows on the body, it wanted to depict important events and people for some purpose.
I'm glossing somewhat over gritty details but the Romans were great borrowers. The pedigree Greek art had accrued over time made it an attractive target for the Romans to express in their own culture. We see this in architecture such as the Pantheon's facade but also comes through in Roman sculpture like the Augustus of Prima Porta. However the Romans being the Romans twisted what they borrowed from the Greeks to suit their purposes. Usually some form of propaganda or boast about the Roman state. The ancient world outside these two states were not using art for the same objectives, look at other culture's sculpture from the same time as Greek Classicism and it'll look pretty similar to what it had looked like for thousands of years. So after the fall of Rome and notably the rise of Christianity the objective of sculpture was no longer Greek or Roman in nature but Christian. This changed the style away from hyper realistic and highly Idealized. The methods and skills were not the issue, there wasn't lost knowledge, the objectives behind the art changed and it's new style reflected that.
I study art history, I know that's frowned upon here as a source but seeing as you had no replies I thought I'd at least try to reply.
Here are three sculpted depictions of the Adoration of the Magi. All three were used as decoration for churches in a similar geographic area (France/Northern Italy) and were made within one hundred years of each other. As the diversity of styles and mediums of these works shows, Medieval societies in general did not have the consistent aesthetic priorities that your question implies. Often it emulated and reused earlier sculpture, which may explain why the simplicity and abstraction of Romanesque sculpture (11th-12th c.) may appear in the same style as Migration period sculpture (4th-7th c.), or Proto-Renaissance sculptors like Nicola Pisano and Arnolfo di Cambio (13th c.) may appear in the same style as classical Roman sculpture (2nd-5th c.). In other words Medieval sculpture is not a monolithic area of study that is defined by an aesthetic slump between Antiquity and the Renaissance.
We actually have a whole section on realism in art in our FAQ: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/art#wiki_why_wasn.27t_ancient_art_realistic.3F
The way oversimplified explanation is that art has symbolic value, as well as literal, and "realistic" art hasn't always been valued as "better" or "worse" than symbolic art.
There already are excellent answers providing examples, but I just wanted to add a particularly impressive one: the tomb of Inés de Castro. Some good pictures of it here: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tomb-of-ines-de-castro
There's also Peter Parler's self-portrait: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Peter_Parler_triforium_bust.01.jpg
And all the magnificent funerary effigies of the 14th and 15th centuries, like Hugh Le Despenser's and John Beaufort's, pictured here: http://www.corbisimages.com/images/Corbis-AH001420.jpg?size=67&uid=a8e7a4b1-e842-45e1-941c-66cd348c0274
Just to say, in some ways medieval sculptors, particularly in the medium of wood were unparalleled. Take for instance this early 14th century Deacon note the detail on the hands or these very elaborate and difficult to carve robes. As for stone, take this piece from the 1430s or this 1350s evangelist with really complex stone folds. The quick point i'm trying to make is that the premise of your question is a bit off. Medieval sculpture, in both wood and stone could be incredibly detailed and realistic.
