The Greek Sculpted Male Form Essay Example
The Greek Sculpted Male Form Essay Example

The Greek Sculpted Male Form Essay Example

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  • Pages: 3 (571 words)
  • Published: April 18, 2022
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Introduction

Sculpting, as an art, involves working with bronze, stone, and woods by chipping them to form a beautiful piece of artwork. The sculpting art started thousands of years ago during the Stone Age period. During the Stone Age times, people made the sculptures with different intentions. They would be used to praise their gods, goddesses, queens and kings. Some people also made sculptures of animals which they believed would protect them from the harm of other animals. Other people made the sculptures which were used as idols for their worship. In the 6th century BC, the Greeks made unique sculptures. They made the face of a person with a smile, eyes, arms, and rigid legs. They wanted statutes and stories of their gods meant to decorate their buildings and places of worship. This paper give

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s emphasize on the male form of the sculpture in the ancient times.

Naming a few of the sculptors, the most famous of all was Phidias. He created the gigantic chryselephantine statues of Zeus and Athena which were later considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Others were Kresilas, who made the portrait of Pericles and Praxiteles, who made Aphrodite, the first female nude. The earliest large stone of male youths were rigid as in monumental statues of Egypt with arms fixed straight at the sides. Later, the feet were made nearly together and both eyes stared directly but without any facial expression. A good example of this figure is the kouroi of Argos. The figure was believed to develop through and with more advancements done to the muscles and hair. The figures began to come to life. Wit

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time, the arms looked slightly bent, and the sculptors believed that they gave some muscular tensions. They modified the sculptures further, and one of the legs was slightly placed forward. The modification gave a sense of dynamic movement to the male statue.

Later, more advancements were made to the last male figure. The figure became more life-like. More weight was based on the left side although I tend to think that the weight should be balanced on both sides. The sculptors made the hips lower and the buttock relaxed further. The head was not much rigid, and a modification of signs of a smile on the sculpture was done. The ancient Greek sculptures felt that man was far better than a woman and emphasized on putting the favorable traits on man as compared to the woman. In my opinion, the two kinds of statues are a representation of human beings and such differences should not be put in the sculptures. Both men and women were equally created. The Greek sculptors, finally, started breaking away from the solid principles of old conceptual art. Finally they began to produce what they exactly observed in the real life by 500 BCE.

Conclusion

The lifeless and hard material was somehow magically transformed into such intangible qualities as poise, grace, and mood to create great masterpieces of world art. To achieve such realism, different tools and materials were employed using sculptors’ techniques to transform the raw materials used into real art. The sculptures were in porous limestone and bronze most of the times. Although the bronze seems not to have lost fashion, marble was the preferred stone. The stone was chosen for its

workability rather than its decoration. The majority of the Greek sculpture was not polished but painted.

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