Art History Honors
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Essay #1
Classical Greek Art is characterized by the emerging need among artists to imitate and perfect the ideal human form through idealized naturalism. The Classical period is marked by the introduction of the contrapposto position first seen in the Kritios Boy (ca 480 BC). The function of sculptures during this period was mostly to glorify gods and athletes usually depicted as male nudes. One of the most renowned sculptures of an athlete from that period is Polykleitos' Doryphoros a bronze original (ca 450 BC) that now only exists in marble copies. Polykleitos made it to serve as a standardization for future sculptures. He intended to perfect the human being using the contrapposto pose as well as measuring the body to be able to fit eight heads stacked on top of each other as the dimensions of the ideal. The flexed limbs and the relaxed limbs oppose each other diagonally, with right arm and left leg relaxed while left arm and right leg are......
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Approximate Word Count: 1856
Approximate Pages: 8 (260 words per double-spaced page) |