Kritios Boy: An Innovative Sculpture
Kritios Boy is one of the most important sculptures of the Classical Greek art. It was made around 480 BC, as one of the earliest pieces of art of this period in Greek history, by presumably artist named Kritios. The importance of the Kritios Boy lies in the innovative features that it brought to the future representation of the human body in the art. The time before the Classical Period, namely the Archaic and the Dark Ages had a very different artistic expression. This all changed with the flourishing period of the Classical Period, not only in art, but in Greek society as the whole (Martin 2013).
Innovative Features of Kritios Boy
These innovative features in Kritios Boy include the beginning of the naturalistic representation of the human body, and the more important, the spontaneity and the naturalism of the movement, as well as the natural proportions of the human body (Cunningham, Lawrence 2013). Kritios Boy is famous for his posture – the casual standing position, resting his weight on one leg, while the rest of the body is relaxed and very naturalistically represented. This marked a huge shift in artistic representation in the Ancient Greek art, as a transition from rigid, and stiff and canonic representation to a naturally inspired one.
The Evolution of Naturalistic Representation
The evolution of naturalistic representation of the human body in the Greek art continued during the next periods. Such progress can be seen in the further elaboration of human posture, proportions, movement and depicting emotional state. Such is the example of Duying Gaul. The sculpture was made during the Hellenistic period, around 220 BC. The sculpture depicts a Gaul, which is obvious even despite him being nude – the face with the mustache and the torque are revealing his ethnicity. The body posture shows an exhausted man, during the last moments of his life. He is in an almost lying position, his upper body leaning towards the ground, his left arm gently leaning on his knee, and the right arm supporting the rest of his body weight. The face of the man shows the reconciliation and the calmness, but also a great pain. The name of the man is not known, but the expression and the emotion this sculpture represents can easily be compared to everyone, showing the deep and true emotions, recognizable to any human being. The representation of a Gaul has probably been inspired by the invasion of Galatian tribes which were conquered by Attalus I. The sculpture thus had both the artistic and deep social message at the time it was made. The original sculpture was made in bronze. However, the sculpture was so important and striking in its artistic depiction of the body and the emotion, that it was copied throughout the ancient world as well, since the sculpture that remained to the present times is the Roman copy of the original Greek sculpture (The Dying Gaul).
Works cited
:Cunningham, Lawrence S., Reich, John j, Fichtner-Rathus, Lois, Classical Greece and the Hellenistic period, Chapter 3, In Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities, Cengage Learning, 2013. http://www.tep.engr.tu.ac.th/files/Class_Material/2_2017/TU110/1. %20Classical%20Greece%20and%20the%20Hellenistic%20Period.pdf
The Dying Gaul, An Ancient Roman Masterpiece from the Capitoline Museum, Rome, National Gallery of Art, October 15, 2013 – January 26, 2014. https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/exhibitions/pdfs/2013/dyinggaulfinalbrochure.pdf
Thomas, Martin, Ancient Greece, From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times, Second Edition, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2013. http://elibrary.bsu.az/books_163/N_23.pdf
