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Greek sculpture analysis
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Marble statue of a kouros (youth), Greek, Attic, ca. 590-580 B.C. Fletcher Fund, 1932. Accession number: 32.11.1
The statue is made of marble, instead of the bronze statue. This statue is one of the earliest marble statues of a human figure carved in Attica. The statue is a kind of symbol; he does not in any way a likeness. This is my first expression when I saw the statue: the statue is showing me a simple, clear action that was used by Greek youth sculptures throughout this period. Looking at this statue, he expanded into 3D space, because he is standing straight and facing forward without any exaggerated movements, thus the post makes him look closed-off and a column his limbs are locked in space. Therefore, the standing posture, the
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The artists to describe different roles of men commonly used nudity. To the Greeks, nude men were the mark of a hero. From the size of the statue, it is a life-sized sculpture or larger. The statue shows me a man’s characteristic within the Greek art. He is rigidly frontal, standing in a weird striding walking post due to his arms and hands clenched at the side, his left foot forward and the right one behind. He is standing without any benefit and support; he stands upright in the gallery on his own two legs. On the contrary, the Egyptian sculptures have stones between two legs and the back so that the sculpture can stand more steadily. As for the texture, he is standing there plainly, but it is clear for me to look at, there is nothing decorative that is shown on the …show more content…
Looking down I found that he has very long toes and his legs were as strong as his thigh. Looking even more carefully, I found that he does not have an obvious pelvis and the waistline was smooth. Although some of the details were missing, looking up and down this unclothed body, I can see the lines on his body showing where the muscles texture belong. The slightly engraved muscles on his chest embedded in him have a broad shoulder and slim waist. Obviously, the strong muscles were not appeared on his body because the sculptor does not engrave on it. Unlike the Egyptians, they like to engrave human muscle lines very clearly to show the musculature. Some lines on his back also shows he belongs to the lean body type. For example, the back of his shoulder seems like a flat plane, no muscles line, and only has a slim body. The sculptor does not engrave muscles very deeply and carefully, just engraved some muscle lines slightly. His hips and thigh is stronger than his upper part of the body, though it seems like it is not at the same scale. Continuing to look at the statue, his arms are very close to his body, but still have a gap between his each side of the waist that shows his waist was pretty slender. It also has a gap between both feet. The left foot and the clenched hands show that the Egyptian was impacted by Greek art, the archaic early classic. During the earlier
J. Boardman, 1975, Athenian Red Figure Vases, The Archaic Period (London: Thames and Hudson), 121, ill. 170
The first glance you’ve taken at those two statues, you just see a man standing there. They are not doing anything in particular, just standing there. That was only in the first glance of course. Now take a good look at each one. In the archaic Greek kouros figure, the pose of the figure is very frontal. The entire figure is relatively stiff with the exception of the left leg, which is in front of the body giving it the early contrapposto pose. Even though it does have a much more natural pose to it with the one leg out, the rest of the body is not in a pose as if the weight of the body was put into one leg. The head is stiff with the hair being geometric and with the hair falling back on the body. The physical stature of the body is moderately realistic. The muscles are not quite as well defined but they are still semi-realistic. They are portrayed as if they were tense. The arms are also at the side.
In Ancient Greek and Roman times, Romans often made replicas of Greek statues. The Greek were extremely good at art and the Romans wanted to possess the art themselves and thus, created copies of the most famous and beautiful Greek sculptures. However, it seems to be for the better since most Greek statues were created in bronze and were later repurposed for war. The Roman duplicates of these statues remained, due to their stone medium. What there is to ponder, however, is if there are any differences between a Greek and a Roman statue. “The Seated Boxer” is a famous work of Greek sculpture that remained preserved so that we might be able to view it
The color of the stone of the statue of Kouros I would describe it as beige. The repairs to the statue are all over the body. It has cracks all over the arms, chest, back, etc. his headband is fastened by some thing on his head that looks like beads with spaces throughout them. It is from 590-580b.c during the archaic period. It stands pretty tall and also has a little staggered going on with his right foot back and his left foot up.
The marble Statuette of Youthful Dionysos stands about 30 inches tall. The arms, legs, nose, and
The Statue of a kouros represents a Greek male. With one foot forward, the statue at the same time, represents movement and is able to stand on it own. This also gives the over life size figure, visible weight. In this early figure, geometric forms seem to predominate, and anatomical details, such as the chest muscles and pelvic arch, are presented with somewhat of exaggerated lines. Although the exaggerated lines show where these muscles belong, the detail is still missing. Looking up and down this nude body, at this miss proportioned and lacking of detail body, the hair is what grabs my attention. The hair is carved with detail not noticeable in the rest of the body. As well, although the fists are clinched and still bonded to the body, the legs and elbows are separated. The ability to move around and inspect the statue makes a big difference than if it was up against a wall, or just looking at its picture. The legs, which support the weight of the statue, have a visible strength which is seen in the knees. The head is what carried the most detail, the ears although to far back, are intricately designed. It is the ability to walk around the entire statue that allows me to see the different aspects and places where attention to detail was placed. However, he does not expand into three dimensional space; he has a closed-off, column-like appearance
...e of Knidos, created by Praxiteles, can only be found in copies today, but at the time was the first sculpture of a goddess nude. He had transformed marble into the soft and radiant flesh of the goddess of love and taking on a worldly sensuousness. Originally located in a rotunda where it could be seen from all angles. Female nudity was very rare to the Greeks, especially that of a goddess. The sculptor made it look like Aphrodite’s nudity was nonchalant, which made it more sensuous with a welcoming look on her face. With several copies, all being found to be slightly different, all still capture the goddess’s womanly beauty that is not too sexually aggressive. With he hourglass torso, sloped shoulders, large hips and thighs, slim calves and ankles, and small feet and hands, this statue is the polar opposite of any manly figure, which is why it is known to be luring.
Sculpture is a medium that artists in ancient Greek commonly used to express spoken truths in an unspoken form. Every piece of ancient Greek sculpture has more than what the eye sees to explain the story behind the [in this case] marble.
And just like the Greek the statue are both big and almost human size. A great example of this is the “Augustus of Primaporta, 1st century C.E. (Vatican Museums).” It truly shows the evolution of art sculpting. It is a full size very detailed sculpture of Augustus. It very detailed from his hair showing every curl and split to the small details in his armor that also depicts a story as well is shows the god of the sky looking down on him and the goddess of the earth looking up towards him as they watch the Parthians surrender to him and returning the standards shows the great power that Augustus has, and not just that but also the sculpture itself is a symbol for how Augustus wanted everyone to see him as, as god like. And it even has a little small cupid on the side which is also detailed which shows that Augusts is decedent from a
Around the time 530 bce a statue was carved out of marble and given the name Anavyos Kouros. It represents a male figure completely nude. It is a sculpture in the round and stands a height of six foot four inches. Starting from the top we see the man's head. His hair looks odd to that of a normal human, it does not look like it belongs on his head. Looking at his facial structure his eyes are large similar to art of ancient Egypt. His nose, lips, cheeks, and ears are well defined and proportional. His body is muscular and he looks to be in great shape. The sculptor who made this paid close
The Egyptians created Ramesses’ statue 1279-1212 B.C. using granodiorite. The statue is currently being exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Its dimensions withouts a base are 59 3/4 x 23 1/2 x 30 inches (seems bigger than life-size). One must look at the statue from various sides in order to see its entirety. Ramesses II, known also as Ramesses the Great, ruled Egypt for over sixty years. there are thousands of statues made in his honor to proclaim his power and divinity.
Doryphoros by Polykleitos was originally a Greek bronze made around 450-40B.C. The only way we can see it today is through the Roman marble copies (which is common of many Greek statues.) Some supports had to be added for the change in material, resulting in the addition of the form resembling a tree trunk, the support on the left foot, and the small bar bridging the gap between his right wrist and hip. Doryphoros was originally holding a spear in his left hand; appropriate, given that his name means, literally, “spear-bearer.” The sculpture is a well-known and early example of classical Greek contrapposto (the shifting of weight onto one leg and off-axis shoulders and arms.) One leg nearly appears to be lifting off the ground, giving the effect of movement. The perceived weight shift adds more dynamism to the piece, and contributes to the realism of the figure. The resulting slight “s-curve” of the figure is true to what we might see in life, and reflects an interest in proportion and anatomy, as seen with many Greek sculptures of the age. This is made particularly clear in the defined muscle groups of the figure and attention to details such as the structure of the knees, hands, and feet. Polykleitos sculpted many athletic male bodies in the nature of his personal aesthetic canon, which we can see exemplified here through the intense attention to the mathematics of the human body. The contours of the figure are visually interesting and although the figure does not hold much facial expression, his body language and presence speak volumes of his existence as the epitome of masculinity.
This is a copy of the sculpture of Athena Parthenos, dressed in battle attire, that was originally created by Phidias during the period of 447-39 B.C. The statue of Athena Parthenos was to be constructed, not of bronze, but of gold and ivory. The face, arms, and feet of the statue were to be made of ivory and the clothing, of thickly plated gold. The statue was an enormous size that towered thirty-three feet tall. The costly nature of the materials out of which it was designed was intended to overwhelm the viewer, creating a sense of religious awe.
"Statuette of a standing maiden [Etruscan] (17.190.2066) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art." The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.
Perhaps one of the most defining and easily identifiable aspects of the ancient Greek culture was the immortalization of humans and gods in sculpture. Sculpture had existed in the world for thousands of years before the ancient Greeks made their stake in the art, but the Greeks added an entirely new set of aspects to their sculptures. Unlike the Egyptian and Mesopotamian sculpture centuries earlier, the Greeks set forth not just to capture the image of a man but to capture that which made him a man. The Greeks set in place three base tenants to display the tone of a sculpture. Through the use of Humanism, Realism, and Idealism the ancient Greeks were able to capture humans and gods forever in marble.