The statue of a youth: the perfect ideal image of the young Greek man. He works out...totally. Upon further examination, however, we can see that he greatly resembles statues from ancient egypt. Strange? Not Quite. Greece was fond of other art styles, including ones from other conquered countries. See here:
As we can infer, it is truely stolen from the Egyptians. Let's call them out on the plagerism. The statue of the youth was found in Kouros. The sculpture it sel in called a scilpture in the round since it is carved in three dimentions all the way around from marble. The Greeks were famous for this. It is also one of the earliest Greek statues found. Found these images here and here, respectively. Enjoy!!!
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It shows our lovely statue of a youth become a man. How lovely. Appaerently he outgrew his clothes. He seems to be striking a counterpose or controposto: meaning oneknee bent and one hip up. This was the archaic statue style for the Greeks. We can see his rage in the final evolved form. I found these images here and here.
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We now come to the Venus de Milo, or if you still speak Greek, the goddess Aphrodite. Love and beauty was her name and this statue was her fame. It does appear to be armless...that's what happens when you get old, your limbs start to fall off. It is, in fact, another statue in the round. The clothes were so realistically carved because the models were actually wearing wet clothes, so it would conform to the body and drape. I found this here.
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Next we have the goddess Nike of Samathrace. This is a truely interesting piece not because of the statue itself, but because of the negative space. The statue would have been "landing on a ship while calling out Nike," but weathering had other plans. I found this image here.
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This is a Gaul. Gaul is dying. See Gaul die. Die Gaul die. As we can see, this is The Dying Gaul. Gaul = Celt. How sad this Celt is, he has died in battle, and been over-romantisized at the same time. This is actually the Roman copy of the Greek bronze, however. Gauls were said to be the fiercest warriors of all time. Look at this one:
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We now move on to the amphora, a very necessary part of everyday Greek life. This was a two-handled jar to store liquids. The early verions had red clay with black paintings while the later ones had black clay with red paintings. This one has two gods playing a nice...freindly....game (probably betting money...cause they can).
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Lets move on to some architecture. OK!!!!!! Here are three very recognized pieces of architecture:
What do all these have in common? "I don't know Nick, give me your insight!" They can all be found on the Achropolis: a mountain cut into a platue used as the center of the city of Athens. The picture on the far left is the Parthenon. It was once a temple of Athena, goddess of war, and probably still is thanks to cults and other wierd people. Thank you wierd people for being wierd. It is made up of 70,000 pieces of stone and all fit together using a post and lintel system. It is of Doric style encompassing pillars, stylabite, pediment, and interior. It once had a Christian church, a mosque, and even was attempted to be restored, but did even more damage. It was built in eight years!!!! Amazing!!!!! It is even bowed to make the temple look staight, but really, it has no straight lines at all. It is 101' wide by 228' long and about 70' high. Over its history, it has taken damage from Spartans, Persians, and even Napolian. It is currently being restored today.
The picture on the far right is of the three goddesses commemorating the birth of Athena. They are slightly larger than life and were mounted on the pediment (roof) of the parthenon. It is said that they were once painted bright colors along with the rest of the parthenon.
Lastly, we have the middle picture. This is the Porch of Maidens found on the Erechtheum on the Acropolis. The female figures themselves are called Caryatids, and they replace the columns. I found all these pictures here, here, and here from left to right.
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The last thing we have in our Hellenic era of art history is the three different types of classical architecture: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. And here they are:
I found this here. Thank you for reading all this I know it is a lot. Please post comments on anything you liked and disliked, and remember the Greeks.
