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Ancient greek sculpture and human form
Greek architectural sculptures college essay
Greek architectural sculptures college essay
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--What is perfect? The spear-bearer is. -- Well, the ancient Greeks thought the human body was unflawed. For them, it was not the individual that was flawless; it was the almost mathematical precisions where the proportions of every part of the body were perfect in relationship to the others; the artist thought-out to demonstrate just that. The Doryphoros, another name for the piece, was created by the groundbreaking Greek sculptor, Polykleitos, circa 450-440 BCE. Thus the original cast bronze was lost, roman marble copies still remain. The strong Hellenic identity and idealized mindset of the period nurtured the artist to create such a testament to human kind; one of the greatest examples of classical Greek art.
Doryphoros means spear-bearer, the name originates because the sculpture would have held a bronze spear originally. Nowadays, the preferred name is Polikleitos’ Doryphoros. However, the artist apparently called it Canon, not to mean a piece of armor –cannon-- but a kind of idealized form that could be studied and replicated, that shaped a set of ideas. The idea of the creat...
The Nike Adjusting Her Sandal was added to the Temple of Athena Nike in 410 BCE after the completion of the the entire Acropolis. The intricate carvings and elaborate nature of this piece illustrate a tremendous amount of skill on behalf of the unknown artist. In this sense, even though Pericles had died by the time the relief was carved, the sculpture was still a continuation his desire to show Athens’ power, strength, and wealth through elaborate construction and ornamentation. However, the Nike Adjusting Her Sandal’s historical significance goes beyond a desire to show skill. The relief was carved during the Athenian’s battle against Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. Athens had already suffered several defeats which placed the fate of their empire in jeopardy. Thusly, the low relief carvings on the parapet of The Temple of Athena Nike was a sort of political propaganda. The parapet’s various depictions of Nike symbolized victory, and thusly, served as a method of reminding the Athenians of their past victories along with the fact that the goddess of victory was on their side—lifting their spirits and encouraging them to fight on. The second aspect of the Nike Adjusting Her Sandal that makes the piece so significant in the world of art history, is the fact that it hints at the presence of a new artistic era. The Acropolis’ reconstruction was in the height of the Classical Period in Greece. During this time, the Greek believed that mathematics manifested itself in beauty. Thusly, all the art produced was obsessed with idealizing bodies through the canon of proportion. A perfect example of this is Polykleitos’ Doryphoros, which set the standard for Greek art in the era due to its perfection of the human form and serene appearance through a relaxed
The Statue of a kouros depicts a Greek man in the nude. Although he looks like a man, the large scale, and the miss proportioned features makes it unnaturalistic. The toes are too long, the genetalia is unrealistically small, and the joint lines are exaggerated.
Viewing the Lansdowne Hermes with a naked eye and what you will see is a larger than life-size statue depicting a man with an ideal body leaning with the majority of his weight on his right foot. His right arm is resting on his right buttock in an almost effortless pose. The left side of his body tells a different story. His left foot has barely any weight on it, and his left arm is supporting a pretty large portion of cloth wrapped so it perfectly wraps around the shoulder and rests just above the wrist. It appears that he was at one time holding some sort of sword or stick. To the naked eye that is what this sculpture seems to be, accepting a sculpture as a piece of art. Glancing at the Lansdowne Hermes you can appreciate beauty of art for beauty of art. However the sculptor had much more in mind when he created this figure from a large unscathed piece of marble.
Anticipated similarities exist between the Roman copy of Doryphorus and Donatello’s David, for the former replicates a product of Classical Greece while the latter is reminiscent of this artistic epoch (The Renaissance was a “re-birth” of this classical form). However, though formal qualities of Classical Greece may be present in David, they are uncharacteristically fashioned; therefore, major degrees of difference are established in terms of characterization. While Doryphorus is a typical example of reconciling idealism and naturalism, Polykleitos does not provide a depth of narrative subtext to this figure. On the other hand, Donatello overtly characterizes David through his effeminate if not androgynous form to deliver a powerful narrative (Duro). From the stance and posture of each sculpture to the use of nudity, Polykleitos’s Doryphorus and Donatello’s David present similarities accountable for in a historical context; however, the obvious structural differences must be
Artistically, Apoxyomenos deviates from the standard Classical representation of male athletes. The majority of Classical sculptors portrayed athletes actively engaged in competition. However, this figure is gazing into the distance while removing oil and dirt from his body using a strigil (Stokstad, 165). This practice was commonly associated with athletes in ancient Greece and, thereby, communicated to the viewer that this was a piece pertaining to athletics.
This sculpture is quite spectacular. According to the display plaque, the sculpture shows four events happening all at once. On the far left is St. Peter who has just cut off the ear of Malchus (the servant of the high priest and seated in front of St. Peter) is "sheathing" his sword. He seems to be very content with what he has just done, but then if you look closely at the right side of Malchus' head, you can see a hand holding his ear. That seems to be Ch...
The Krytios Boy of 480 BCE is an example of this Greek glorification of the young male body. The quest to create this figure into a realistic form proves to accomplish itself in the figure's contrappasto stance, the curved spin...
Lysippos’s Weary Hercules is sculpted from marble and stands an impressive ten feet, five inches tall.(Farnese Herakles). Herakles is depicted as an extremely muscular human-like and god-like being. He has the body of a god and the weariness of a human. Herakles,exhausted, leans on his club for support after completing the last task of The Twelve Labour's. He holds in his right hand the apples of the Hesperides behind his back, and draped over his club is a lion skin.(,,,) This statue was loved by the Romans and this copy was made for the Baths of Caracalla.(…) Romans saw this statue as an inspiration to exercise, and the closer they got to this image the closer they could be compared to gods. Herakles is still a mortal and we know this because of the nudity in the statue,and it was this human aspect which inspired the Romans to achieve this ideal form. Since the creation of the Weary Hercules (Farnese Herakles) sculpture men have pursued this cultural ideal of the perfect man. The pursuit of the idyllic masculine body has had an interesting journey.
Almost always, when we look at Greek sculptures, they are copies of Roman originals. These copies have are made of marble unlike the originals that had been sculpted out of bronze. Very rare is it that original Greek sculptures are found. One such original was the ‘Boxer of Quirinal’, sometimes simply termed as ‘The Boxer’. This sculpture dates back to the Greek Hellenistic period (300’s B.C). Hellenistic refers to the period just after the rule of Alexander the Great and typically it is considered as the last phase of ancient Greek art. The sculpture was discovered on the Quirinal Hill of Rome in 1885 near the Baths of Constantine. It was assumed for a long time that the sculpture was buried in antiquity with the Hellenistic prince in order to protect him.
The Greek believed the human body was the measure of all things, therefore the artists created sculptures in a very detailed fashion which made them very life-like although the size of
The sculpture is a Roman copy of the original Greek bronze made by artist Polykleitos in 450BC. It is recorded that he made the Doryphoros as an example of perfect proportion. He wrote a book to accompany the statue called, "The Cannon of Proportion, " and countless artists copied the statue because of its perfection. This regal figure was named Doryphoros (Greek for "spearbearer") because it originally held a long spear in its left hand.
The primary focus of ancient Greek sculptures was that of the human body. Almost all Greek sculptures are of nude subjects. As the first society to focus on nude subjects, Greek sculptors attempted to "depict man in what they believed was the image of the gods and so would come to celebrate the body by striving for verisimilitude or true – likeness (realism and naturalism!)."(Riffert) Not only did the Greeks celebrate the human form in their art but also in everyday life. (Riffert) One of the favorite topics for sculptors was that of the athlete. In Greek culture athletes were described as "hero–athletes". (Riffert) This shows that athletes were revered and looked upon as heroes. The influence of athleticism is evident in many famous sculptures. I will attempt to show how the human form influenced Greek art. It is important to note that many of the Greek sculptures discussed do not exist in their original form but rather in Roman copies of the original bronze sculptures. (Riffert)
Many sculptors had many different techniques during the classical period in Greece. Praxiteles, the great one, the “inventor” of nude sculptures, created an astonishing and fascinating sculpture Hermes carrying the infant Dionysos. And only after seeing this work of art in person, and analyzing it have I realized it’s truly a great work of art. With it’s dramatic eyes, fascinating stance, and change in line from painterly and smooth to linear and drastic, this work of art definitely shows why Praxiteles was considered so great in the early centuries. Hermes carrying the infant Dionysos was definitely enlightening to learn about and more interesting to look at and enjoy.
One of the best examples of classical Greek art, showcasing the ideal beauty of balance, harmony, proportion and also showing freedom of movement would definitely be the Discobolos “the discus thrower” (Fig. 1) by Myron in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome . Whose art has flourished between 470-440 BC and the sculpture set an example for Hellenistic era due to the twisted, contorted pose_ .The figure head have been wrongly restored, and should be turned to look towards the discus _. The sculpture is popular in the classical time and with no doubt due to its representation of the athletic ideal _. Disc throwing is the first element in a pentathlon of that age, and a pentathlete’s physique is widely
Even the few sculptor’s names known to us, usually by chance, from the imperial period are Greek names and seem to confirm the assumption that these artists’ work should be regarded simply as a late phase of Greek art” (Hanfmann, 12). The Greeks were the first western culture to figure out how to accurately depict the human form which they did through the use of geometric ratios. It is also widely accepted that it was even Greek artists who first made marble portraits for the Romans as the Romans originally had no skill with the stone. “It was certainly at first Greek artists who were entrusted by eminent Romans with the execution of portraits of themselves and of important personalities in the Roman state, just as it was Greeks who depicted Aemilius Paulus victory at Pydna and later were largely responsible for the portraits of the emperors” (Kahler 16). The Romans mainly used terracotta for their sculptures and it was only when Augustus reigned that the marble quarries at Carrara were opened and marble was used on a large scale. The Romans inherited the use of realistic proportions, the sense of movement (contrapposto), and the overall beauty of Greek sculptures. A great example of Roman sculpture that was clearly carved by a Greek artist who was familiar with the Hellenistic styles of Greece, is the Relief of the Wedding of Amphitrite and Neptune. It “shows a mythological