Greek Sculpture (yes I'm bored)

Massive Image here
The New York Kouros (590BC-580BC)
Basically, as you can see its pretty basic.
Early Greek sculptures had influences from Egyptian sculpture, where the statue was often not free standing, adopting the same stance as this kouros, but with the back and trailing leg supported by a decorated pillar, artistically and technically, this an improvement, but feeble attempts have been made replicating human anatomy, indicated by the pair of v shaped lines on his torso, designating his chest, and the start of his legs, along with a wavy line to show his pectoral muscles.

Although it is at the face where the statue fails most of all, with big wide eyes that look like they are off a alien, a blank expression to match, and hair that can be described as stylistic at best.

The anatomical look of the Kouros is rounded off by the pose that it is left foot in front of the right, as if a attempt at a striding pose, but the arms held rigidly at his sides, quite simply, the sculpter can't seem to decide if the statue is at rest, in stride or standing to attention.

As a result, the statue seems to lack any meaning outside of a poor representation of the human form.

honourable mention

Kleobis and Biton (580BC~)

Achieved arguably the same things the statue above, but has some meaning, in the fact the statues are of brothers, and there is an attempt to show some unity between them.

The Kritios Boy (480BC)
This come under the early classic period of sculpture, for a number of reasons, firstly the face. The so called "Archaic smile", that you see on archaic statues like this one, in an attempt to give them life, is gone, replaced with a more realistic rendering, along with the other features of the face, the hair is shown as if it was banded, with curls popping out underneath, and the eyes are no longer cold dead protruding orbs, but more sunken and life like, and would have contained painted marble spheres.

The most dramatic change however is in the composition of the statue, the rigid stance of old is gone, replaced with a subtle hip drop causing the upper body to be slightly rotated from the viewer, and allowing the statue hold the stance of a youth at rest, with all his weight placed on his back left leg, which in turns forms a more naturalistic pose. In addition, the marble has been sculpted smoother, to give the surface of the statue a quality more akin to skin of a nubile youth.

This, like other naturalistic statues, the aim and meaning of the statue is to accurately depict the human body.


The Zeus/Posiden of Artemision (460BC)
Another naturalistic statue, only this time in bronze, relatively well accomplished, except the beard is pointy and stiff, and the chest is unresponsive to the powerful movements of the arms, which while I'm on them are out of proportion.

One important thing to note with this statue is that its the birth of showing things with not just the potential for movement, but the actuality, as they have been frozen in time, and when unfrozen, they will have no choice but to throw their lightning bolt/trident/discus.

Apollo Sauroktonos (350 BC)(Praxiteles)
There are a fuck ton of statues featuring Apollo, doing what ever, (There is a reason why statues of Alexander the great look strikingly similar to statues of a Apollo) basically the Greeks loved to make statues of him, and this is one of more famous ones. Sculptures in this period usually all share one similar aim, to tell a story, or a message, and this one is no different. It depicts Apollo as a young boy, and in terms of looks the sculptor pretty much has that down, so I won't bother with that, the real thing of interest is what he is doing, or what he is about to do.

If you haven't guessed already, the "sauroktonos" in the statues name means lizard slayer, and like many small boys, he is going to have some playful fun with the local wildlife before he squashes it.
But the real message here is about Apollo's future, because I forget the details, but all you need to know is that he goes on to kill a lizard thing, and the lizard here is clearly representative of the lizard he fights later on in life. (another thing to note is the depiction of a deity as a small boy, this is a trend known as humanising the gods)

Moving on,


The Aphrodite of Knidos (300BC~)(Praxiteles)
All the pictures of this statue I could find are terrible, as is the way with many statues, thousands of copies exist, some worse than others, but the general idea of this sculpture primarily of humanisation, depicting Aphrodite stepping out after bathing and being seen naked, and then displaying embarrassment even shame at being caught naked, this statue was also a breakthrough in terms of being the earliest depiction of a women naked in Greek sculpture, in a role that didn't require them to be naked, i.e. the worlds oldest profession.

Eirene and Ploutos (370BC)(Kephisodotos)
Perhaps my favourite sculpture, this group shows the matronly Eirene, the goddess of peace amongst other things, carrying a baby who identified as the god of wealth and money etc.
Unlike statues of old which displayed clothed women with almost no hint of the female form underneath, the artist has done away with this, using where the fabric meets skin to show the female form, and like most statues of the period there have been very little advances in the technical quality of the sculpture since the early classical period, again more important is the message that its trying to convey. Through the gaze that both Eiriene and Ploutos have on each other, you can assume that they are mother and son, and since a mother's purpose is nurture and help her son grow, the overall message of the statue becomes obvious, when there is peace, wealth will grow, which is quite apt considering that this was placed in the Agora.