alt="Photo depicts Marble Kouros statue from Attica."/>
Fletcher Fund, 1932 / The Metropolitan Museum of Art
FIGURE 7-2: Marble Kouros statue from Attica (Athens and surrounding area).
But there are differences. The kouros is completely naked. Pharaohs were never represented nude; in fact, only Egyptian children were routinely shown in the buff.
The female version of the Archaic statue is called a kore, which means “maiden.” Kores are never nude. Only Greek men were allowed to prance around town in the altogether. Greek women usually stayed indoors to do the sewing and cooking (except in Sparta). When they went out to collect water, for example, they wore long gowns.
The Greeks gradually shed strict Egyptian symmetry for a more subtle form of balance. The kouros in Figure 7-3, sculpted circa 525 BC, about 60 years after the kouros at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is much more realistic, though he’s still stuck in the same Egyptian pose. Notice how much more lifelike the finely modeled curves of the shoulders, arms, and thighs are than in the earlier version. The older statue looks like a stone man. The later one is nearly a flesh-and-blood athlete; he’s almost ready to learn to walk.
Lefteris Papaulakis / Shutterstock
FIGURE 7-3: Although still at attention like a frozen soldier, this later kouros, called Kroisos, shows the Greek progression toward naturalistic sculpture (making stone look like real flesh).
But giving statues the semblance of motion took another hundred years. First, sculptors had to learn to depict the body in a relaxed rather than rigid posture.
The Classical period
In the Classical period (480 BC–400 BC), Kritios Boy (named after the artist who may have sculpted him) has learned to take it easy (see Figure 7-4). The artist has redistributed his weight. The left hip is now slightly higher than the right, and Kritios Boy’s bulk rests comfortably on his left foot instead of both feet as in the kouros (see the preceding section). The contours of the graceful thighs are utterly lifelike, as is the gentle swelling of the belly. The face, too, is more human than kouros faces; its still-masklike appearance is due to the holes where inlaid eyes used to be.
The bronze Charioteer of Delphi (circa 470 BC) is stiffer than Kritios Boy, but his upright posture would have helped him to be seen standing in a chariot atop a tall monument. The concentrated look in the charioteer’s face and the elegant, naturalistic folds of his robe are characteristic of early fifth-century Greek realism, also known as the severe style. The statue was commissioned to celebrate an athletic victory, a chariot race. Sports events were a big deal in Greece. During the Olympics, all warfare ceased so the Greeks could compete for laurel leaves instead of fighting for money and power.
The fact that the athlete was cast in bronze shows how highly the Greeks regarded sports heroes. They had godlike status, especially in their hometowns, where they were given a pension and free meals for the rest of their lives.
Tarker / Bridgeman Images
FIGURE 7-4: Greek statues begin to get comfortable around 480 BC. Kritios Boy is the turning point. The sculptor has learned to turn the body just enough to give him a relaxed look.
Golden Age sculptors: Myron, Polykleitos, and Phidias
The high classical style began in about 450 BC, when Greek sculptors learned to suggest motion and fill their marble flesh with the appearance of life force. For example, Myron involved the entire body of Discobolus (“Disk Thrower”; see Figure 7-5) in a single, compressed action. The statue appears wound up, his energy ready to burst forth. Yet his classically serene face and the faraway look in his eyes contrast with the action of his body, giving the athlete a timeless quality, as if he were throwing his discus into eternity.
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FIGURE 7-5: This is a marble Roman copy of Myron’s original bronze Discobolus.
Creating balance and proportion
The artist Polykleitos created a feeling of balance with contrasting tensions that also suggest motion. The off-center pose that gives this relaxed but balanced look is called contrapposto. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (circa 535 BC–475 BC) summed up the concept: “Opposition brings concord.”
You can see the contrapposto effect in a Roman copy of Polykleitos’s Doryphoros (“Spear Bearer”; see Figure 7-6):
The cocked left arm contrasts with the straight or engaged right leg, while the straight right arm offsets the bent left leg.
The left leg seems to propel the figure forward.
Opposite forces preserve the feeling of balance while creating a sense of tension and action.
Almost 2,500 years after he was carved, Doryphoros still has the glow of Greece’s Golden Age (circa 450 BC–440 BC). Polykleitos wrote a book of rules of proportion called the Canon; it was followed by succeeding generations of Greek and Roman sculptors. He cast his original Doryphoros in bronze to demonstrate the principles of the Canon. The many surviving marble copies of Doryphoros attest to its popularity and to the respect that Roman copyists had for the Canon of Polykleitos.
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FIGURE 7-6: This Roman copy of Polykleitos’s Doryphoros is at ease and tense at the same time.
Sculpting art that is glorious and timeless
If the proverbial “glory of Greece” rested on two men’s shoulders, it would be Pericles and Phidias. Phidias
