Ancient Grecian and Roman Sculpture - AP Art History

The Siren Vase is a type of vessel known as stamnos and is decorated with red and black images. One of the most famous examples of ancient Greek pottery, the Siren Vase (c. 475 BCE) depicts the hero Odysseus battling sirens, enchanting female creatures who lured sailors to their deaths with hypnotic songs. This hero appears in the Homeric epics The Odyssey and The Iliad; none of the other authors were ancient Greek writers.

One of the most famous examples of ancient Greek pottery, the Siren Vase (c. 475 BCE) is a major example of Attic red-figure pottery. This type of work became common in the mid-500s BCE and is characterized by red figures on a black background (as opposed to black-figure pottery, which depicts black figures on a red or yellow background). Terracotta pottery is similarly red-colored but typically unpainted.

The statue's name is Winged Victory or Nike. In comparison to other statues at this time, this statue is significant due to the fact that the figure is in action or mid movement. The sense of motion and the swift movement of the figure are distinctive to this statue as well as the idea of the Nike brand.

The Riace Warriors, also known as the Riace bronzes, are a pair of life-size nude male warrior statues. They were discovered in the sea in the 1970s, and, while they are primarily made of bronze, they also feature details in other materials: copper lips and ivory eyes, for example. Teak, ivory, and cement were not otherwise common materials for large statues in ancient Greece.

(Image taken from the public domain: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Reggio\_calabria\_museo\_nazionale\_bronzi\_di\_riace.jpg)

The Riace Warriors are an excellent example of Early Classical sculpture. Their use of contrapposto and their slightly idealized forms distinguish them from earlier Archaic work, as do their elaborately worked beards and hair. Their makers are unknown, and the statues are thought to have been buried underwater after a shipwreck of uncertain date.

(Image taken from the public domain: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Reggio\_calabria\_museo\_nazionale\_bronzi\_di\_riace.jpg)

While these statues may well have held weapons once, the term contrapposto denotes a specific technique first used in ancient Greek sculpture. It describes a posture wherein most of a statue’s weight rests on one foot, leading to a more natural, relaxed pose. Contrapposto also usually results in a more lifelike stance for the torso and arms as well.

(Image taken from the public domain: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Reggio\_calabria\_museo\_nazionale\_bronzi\_di\_riace.jpg)

From the Archaic period on, many ancient Greek bronze statues were created using the complex, multi-step lost-wax casting process. In this process, a series of molds are created using wax and clay and molten bronze is poured into the final set of molds. This technique continues to be used today, and it often allows for greater creativity than earlier sculpting methods.

(Image taken from the public domain: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Reggio\_calabria\_museo\_nazionale\_bronzi\_di\_riace.jpg)

Greek sculptures modeled their sculptures after young, Green athletes. The athletes competed in their sports naked, allowing the sculpture to see their strong, muscular, athletic form in motion.

Phidias is one of the most well-known Greek sculptors. Phidias was responsible for the strategy behind the decoration of the Parthenon. One of his masterpieces was the gold statue of Athena inside the Parthenon.

This statue, the Augustus of Prima Porta, is a classic Roman sculpture of the Emperor Augustus Caesar. Carved in marble, the statue presents Augustus in the armor of Roman General, but posed and shaped in a way as to evoke the Roman gods. The Romans had a belief that the Caesars became gods upon their death, a belief fostered by the construction of temples by their successors.

Image accessed through Wikipedia Media Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue-Augustus.jpg

The Dying Gaul is a statue from the third century BCE and is among the most famous pieces of Roman artwork. The statue is remarkable for its tension and lines in the prone figure, who is slouching into repose from his wounds. Additionally, the face conveys an astonishing amount of pathos and misery, while also showing a perfect form in the figure's body.

Black-figure vases such as this one by Exekias depicting Ajax and Achilles playing dice are emblematic of Athenian ceramic production during the Greek Archaic period (c. 600–480 BCE).

Image: Ajax and Achilles Playing a Game, by Exekias (potter and painter), c. 540-530 BCE. Black-figure painting on a ceramic amphora.

Exekias \[Public domain, CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)\], via Wikimedia Commons.

This sculpture is called Peplos Kore, and has been dated back to 530 BCE, during the Archaic period of Ancient Greek sculpture. The sculpture showcases one of the archetypal figures of Archaic sculpture: the standing draped woman. The subject also showcases what is known as the "Archaic smile," a bland, smiling facial expression born by nearly all Archaic Greek sculptures after 575 BCE.

This sculpture, the Venus Braschi by Praxiteles, is a textbook example of the Classical period of Ancient Greek sculpture. The subject is calm, and has her weight shifted onto one foot, which is commonly seen in other sculptures of the same period. The sculpture has realistic, yet idealized proportions and body shape. It is also made of marble, which was not used for sculptures during the Archaic period.

The Hellenistic period consisted of a lot of movement, emotion and dynamism. As this sculpture's subject is a calm, idealized, very symmetrical female, this would not be a good representation of Hellenistic sculpture.

This sculpture, called Laocoön and His Sons, is a clear example of late Hellenistic Greek sculpture. It is less focused on symmetry and beauty, and is more focused on the emotion and movement of the scene it is illustrating. The facial expressions and panicked and angry, as opposed to serene or neutral, as seen in Archaic and Classical sculpture. Also, this sculpture features children, which are not often found in Classical and Archaic Greek Sculpture.

The Byzantine period was not a period of Ancient Greek sculpture.

Having been sculpted around 100 BCE, the Venus de Milo is a famous sculpture dating to the Hellenistic era. It was originally thought to have been sculpted during the Classical era, but its elaborate draping, spiral composition, revival of classical touches, and perfect three-dimensionality make it a quintessential example of Hellenistic sculpture.

Image citation: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Venus\_de\_Milo\_Louvre\_Ma399\_n2.jpg

Like many Hellenistic sculptures, the Venus de Milo is made of marble. Specifically, it was carved from white marble believed to have been quarried in Paros, Greece. Ivory and plaster of Paris were not materials used in ancient Greek sculpture.

Image citation: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Venus\_de\_Milo\_Louvre\_Ma399\_n2.jpg

The Venus de Milo is generally agreed to represent Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. (A small minority of scholars believe that the statue in fact represents Amphitrite, a goddess of the sea.) Gods and goddesses such as Zeus, Hades, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite were very popular subjects of not only Hellenistic but also Archaic and Classical Greek artworks.

Image citation: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Venus\_de\_Milo\_Louvre\_Ma399\_n2.jpg

The Venus de Milo displayed in Paris’s Louvre museum is famously missing its original marble arms and plinth. It’s also missing the polychromatic paint and gold or silver jewelry that would have adorned it. A cartouche, on the other hand, is an oval engraving containing hieroglyphs that spell out a person’s name, and it is specific to the art of ancient Egypt.

Image citation: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Venus\_de\_Milo\_Louvre\_Ma399\_n2.jpg