isn't that a gorgeous grecian hunk of man meat! btw, this is a roman copy as evident by the supporting block between his hand and thigh. the romans were turning out these copies at a mad pace and didn't have time to make sure all the sculptures were perfect and wouldn't fall over or apart without braces. those romans loved them some cheap grecian knock offs. actually, we know a lot of greek sculptures only through their roman copies because the greeks were always at war and melted their bronze and ground their marble sculptures for battle related needs. especially the bronze ones. which is why we have only a small handful of orginal greek bronze statues. and now you've learned something new. don't you feel better about yourself?now who could forget Praxiteles' famed Aphrodite of Knidos:
she's sassy isn't she? her posture seems to say "excuse me, i'm trying to bathe. would you please go away!" but her facial express says "seriously, go away. if you don't leave i'm going to use my goddess powers to turn you into a frog (or other small, slimy creature)". of course, that's not the academically accepted interpretation (and also not the one i put in my essay) but whatever. and here's your official historical tidbit about this artwork: the Aphrodite of Knidos was the first artwork to represent a nude woman in the history of western art (at least as far as we know). this little lady was the start of a long....long...long parade of art representing nude women. i'm not going to go off on a feminist rant or anything because i have mixed feelings about it, but i just thought you might like to know. alright, that's it for the art history lesson today. i hope you enjoyed it :)
No comments:
Post a Comment