Masked and veiled dancer is a bronze from Hellenistic period in Greek culture. It is a statuette, much smaller than life size. The motion of the dancer is quite complicated. Several layers of dress cover her body and a mantle covers her head. The mantle, however, goes over her head and the body as well by the pressure forms her right arm, left hand and right leg. Her half face is concealed behind veils. In general, the woman is really charming and in precise proportion. Audience can find many curves over the volume. Her activity is so impressive that it remind me of the real performance I watched before in East country (although the sculpture is from Greek culture). Generally, it is a really infectious figure. She is identified as one of the professional entertainers, a combination of mime and dancer.
Mourner is a sculpture made of alabaster, so the color of the figure is totally different from the Dancer. It is a little higher than the Dancer. The sculptor in Spain invested time and energy in taking advantage of the white and smooth features of the material to carve out the sadness of the figure both on the face and body language. This sculpture is a gift of Irwin Untermyer in 1964 and comes from the tomb of Fernando de Antequera, king of Aragon, in the royal pantheon at the abbey of Poblet near Barcelona. Obviously, as many carving works during that specific period, the Mourner is applied into a funerary use.
Take more further observations on these two pieces of work, I find more attractive things to compare. First of all, the most fascinating thing to me is drapery carved to cover both figures. Thanks to the drapery, different figures have their own activity features. When I was observing them in the museum, I was totally...
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...e's Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece. London: Classical Press of Wales, p. 64, figs. 72, 73, and frontispiece.
Hemingway, S. 2007. "From Gods to Grotesques: Hellenistic Bronze Sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum." Apollo 166 (May): 50, 52, fig. 2.
Picón, C. A., et al. 2007. Art of the Classical World in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 451, no. 237, ill. pp. 202-3.
Schultz, P. and R. von den Hoff, eds. 2007. Early Hellenistic Portraiture: Image, Style, Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 65, n. 14.
This sensitively carved mourner comes from the tomb of Fernando de Antequera, king of Aragon (d. 1416), in the royal pantheon at the abbey of Poblet near Barcelona. In 1417 the Catalan sculptor Pere Oller, who was also active at the cathedrals of Gerona and Vich, was commissioned to carve the tomb.
J. Boardman, 1975, Athenian Red Figure Vases, The Archaic Period (London: Thames and Hudson), 121, ill. 170
sculpture of Dionysos, it tells us about a little bit of culture. The unclothed Dionysos indicate a common
An analysis of Mycerinus and Kha-merer-nebty II and Augustus of Primaporta, reveals that there are many similarities, but also many differences between these two pieces of sculpture. These similarities and differences are found in the subject, style, and function of both works of art.
A Hellenistic masterpiece, she is caught at the very moment in which she alights on the prow of a warship. Right leg outstretched, her hips bend left and her shoulders twist back to the right, creating a beautiful sense of torsion through the contrapposto technique. Her massive wings are blown back by the speed of her flight and the ship, possibly in the moment just before she furls them. Damp from the spray of the sea, her tunic is plastered tightly around her body by the driving wind, held in place with two belts, one around her waist and the other beneath her breasts. A second piece of cloth called a himation has slipped from around her waist and streams out on either side behind her, blown tightly against her thighs. Both garments exhibit virtuoso handling of the drapery—the wet folds of the fine cloth can be felt by the viewer, cool in the misty gusts, and the transitions to where her skin can be seen underneath is flawless.
To better compare the sunken relief of Horus and the Torso of Aphrodite, the backgrounds of these pieces must be first taken into account. Each piece of artwork can be broken down into two parts: the type of art which it is and its subject matter. The sunken reli...
Stebbins, Elinor. "Athena." Sweet Briar College { History of Art Program }. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. .
In my examination of the works, I came across a particular sculpture that portrayed both beauty and craftsmanship. A 15th century sculpture (1490), made in Venice, Italy by Tullio Lombardo, shows a life-size figure of Adam. Titled Adam, the work is the most prominent in the gallery mostly because of its 6-foot standing. It immediately caught my attention and gave me a very realistic impression. One beige color and made of marble, Adam is depicted simply, yet the statue has intense emotions. His meaningful glance is seen in the upward and tilted head position. Adam has almost lifeless looking eyes and seems to be staring into the distance. With these sagging eyes, parted lips, and lacking posture I feel Adam’s guilt is displayed in this figure.
To recall another relic of ancient Greece, Plato had strong opinions on artwork, even that which was created during his time. Plato believed tha...
Conlin, Diane Atnally. The artists of the Ara Pacis: the process of Hellenization in Roman relief sculpture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. (P. 4)
The primary function of monumental portraits in Ancient Rome was to honor political figures of power through repeating social and political themes. The Romans expressed these themes through a form of “realism”. Relics of this era were found depicting the elderly conservative nobility that lived through civil disruptions and war, elaborately individualized through detail of the face expression. Through the features of grimacing heaviness, wrinkles, and effects of old age, the Romans were able to express the reality of their political situation felt by the people whose faces were sculptured into stone. Furthermore, Nodelman discusses the use of sculpture portraits to depict the ideology behind Roman conservative aristocracy. Artists would portray the virtues of gravitas, dignities, and fides, through the use to physical expression and symbolic meaning, rather than through words. A statue of Augustus, for instance, displays the militaristic, powerful, godly perception of the conservative ideology through the use of symbolic detail. The decorative, rich, military outfit on Augustus, represents the power of the military and Augustus’s role as imperator in it. The freely held masculine arm and pointing gesture towards the horizon are Rome’s expanding dreams, clashing with the overall powerful and sturdy stance of the body. The bare feet bring about the impression
Both Man Without Ties and Diskobolos , as mentioned, portray a vigorous, athletic figure, dancing theatrically in dramatic actions and gestures. Whereas Diskobolos is rendered in sculptural, life-size, three-dimensional form, Man Without Ties is rendered in a two-dimensional, black-and-white photograph. Nevertheless, both mediums further express Greek High Classical and Hellenistic arts' concern for a more expressionistic figure, one that conveys and appeals directly to the senses through this lustrous glistening of surfaces and emotions.
Boardman, John, Jasper, Griffin, and Oswyn Murray. The Oxford History of the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986
Both the shape and body of the Reclining Woman sculpture totally tear down our standards as Golden Age Greeks. Not at all can I make out whom this sculptor is representing. Sure I can make out the basic female figure. However the head is way too small in proportion the rest of the body. Maybe Henry Moore has not yet finished this piece. Did he make a mistake in the development of the chest area? This could be the case. If still this is a finish piece of “art” in no terms by us Greeks' is this considered Art.
Larmann, R., & Shields, M. (2011). Art of Renaissance and Baroque Europe (1400–1750). Gateways to Art (pp. 376-97). New York: W.W. Norton.
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