The Kouroi Essays - Visual Arts, Sculpture, Kouroi, Kouros, Naxos

The Kouroi Essays - Visual Arts, Sculpture, Kouroi, Kouros, Naxos The Kouroi I. Introduction The pair of sculptures studied in this essay are more similar than their first appearances would suggest. The first sculpture, named Marble Statue of a Kouros , depicts a nude young man in marble, and it was made in Attica around 580 BCE. The other statue entitled Kouros , on the other hand, is a huge marble sculpture made by the abstract expressionist artist Isamu Noguchi in 1945. In this paper, both pieces will be analysed , then compared and contrasted against each other. Although the first impression of the pieces is that they are completely different, some of their surprising similarities will be discussed. II. Marble Statue of a Kouros This is an archaic scu lpture of a nude young man. According to the nameplate, it was created between 590-580 BCE in Attica, and it marked the grave of an aristocrat. It is made of white marble and life-sized, standing slightly taller than 6 feet. This piece is composed of a hea d, torso, and limbs, but otherwise, the sculpture is more representational than naturalistic. This statue reminiscent of linear early Egyptian art in several ways. First, the man is posed in a formulaic and somewhat unnatural pose. He is looking straight a head with his fists clenched at his side and his left leg slightly forward as if he were in the middle of a step. However, no other part of his body appears to be taking this step, so the figure feels quite stiff. Other than the left leg taking a step forw ard, the body is symmetrical over the y-axis of the figure. Finally, every individual shape feels stiff. Each part of the body has a soft curve, almost emulating the organic qualities of muscles, but anatomical details are inscribed as opposed to incorpora ted into the shape of the figure. The proportions are not quite accurate to a real man. For instance, the shoulders are very broad while the waist is quite narrow. In fact, the torso looks feminine due to its curvature, like a top-heavy hourglass. Anato mical details are etched on this shape to suggest the pectorals, abdominals, and obliques . There are also subtle indents for the clavicles and a marking for the navel. On the back, there are lines to mark the spine, shoulder blades, and buttocks. The bas ic shapes of the legs are the thighs and calves. The thighs are quite full, from both the front and side view. From the front, their fullest point is wider than the hips, and from the back, the thickest part of the thighs stick out as much as the buttocks. The calves are also quite full. Their widest point, from the front, is nearly as wide as the thighs; however, the calves taper off more drastically than the thighs. In addition, the front of the calves meet at an angle, so the front is not smooth. The cal ves look like plate armor. The detail that is etched on the legs is concentrated around the knees, both the knee caps and the back of the knee. The knee caps look like a pentagon with a thick wavy line on top, reminiscent of Egyptian representations of kne ecaps. The back of the knees shows slight markings of 2 tendons, but no "knee pit." The legs flow into the feet, but not in a natural way. The bones in the ankle do not jut out, for instance. The feet themse lves are round, concave blocks with toes and toen ails carved into them. The arms are composed of the upper arms and forearms. There are markings on the back of the arms for the elbows and wrist bones, and there is a slight indent in the front forearms to suggest muscles. The back of the lower arms meet at an angle like the calves. The hands are one of the least naturalistic parts of the figure; they are chunky and bold, like rounded cubes with the suggestion of fingers etched into them. The hands are not completely separated from the torso either. The l ast part of this sculpture is the head, and the most detail is concentrated here, perhaps to individualize