Greek sculpture is famous throughout the world, celebrated in museums and galleries and, through reproductions, appearing in squares and parks in cities, towns and villages.
But what are The 5 most famous Greek sculptures, Why, and where can you see them in person? That's what we'll talk about in our article today.
Greek sculpture
Of course, Greek sculpture does not appear out of nowhere, nor is it the first civilization to turn to this three dimensional art with mastery.
The truth is that sculpture in ancient Greece, between 800 and 300 AD He took his inspiration from the Egyptians and the monumental art of the so-called Near East., but it evolved with its own vision.
Greek artists managed to capture the human form in a truly unique way as They paid special attention to the proportions, pose and idealized figure of the human body.
Whether in bronze, marble or stone, Greek figures became, even after the end of civilization itself, the most recognized pieces of art ever produced by a civilization. In fact, the Greek vision of the human body was the most copied of all those created by human art throughout its history.
Finally, luckily many of the Greek statues that have come down to us are signed, so the names of the most famous artists: Phidias, Polykleitos, Kresilas, Praxiteles, Kallimachos…
Sculptors generally found employment in the great sanctuaries, and excavations have revealed some of their workshops, from which much has been learned about the making of statues.
Knowing all this, as an introduction, let us now look at the works of art of Greek sculpture, the 5 most famous Greek sculptures.
Aphrodite of Milos
Our list of the 5 most famous Greek sculptures is headed by the famous "Venus del Milo", whose real name is Aphrodite of Milos.
This sculpture It was created by Alexandros of Antioch, y It is believed to represent Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty.. Date of Hellenistic Period and it is made with Paros marble, a fine, semi-translucent, pure white marble quarried from Mount Parpessa on the island of Paros. It thus leaves behind the frequent use of bronze in the same period.
The sculpture It was discovered in Milos, one of the Cyclades Islands, but although it is supposed to be Aphrodite there is no certainty and many also think that it is the goddess of the sea and not the goddess of love.
Today the statue It is in the Louvre, in Paris, France.
Myron's Discus Thrower
Our list of the 5 most famous Greek sculptures also includes the «discus thrower», work that It is attributed to the Athenian sculptor Myron. Belongs to classical period of Greek art, 5th century BC, and although the original was made of bronze That piece has been lost in time. What has survived are the Roman copies that were made a posteriori.
The original, or the copies, what they manage to do is represent very well, capture masterfully, a young and athletic discus thrower, the pose, the muscles working, the rhythm that is like it is encapsulated in that pose. The wonderful thing about how something as static as a statue can still convey movement and harmony.
You can see this statue in the British Museum, London.
The boy Kritios
The statue It was sculpted by Kritios around 490 BC. and marks the beginning of the classical era of Greek art. It was carved towards the end of the Archaic period (800 BC – 480 BC), and that it is barely smaller shows a turn away from hyperrealism.
Being like It is a hinge between two artistic periodsThe so-called Child of Kritios foreshadows innovative trends that will define the new era, such as a face with sharper features or the concept of "contrapposto", a very distinctive curve of the spine in the future.
Today you can see the sculpture in the Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece.
Victory of Samothrace
The goddess Nike or the Victory of Samothrace It is a sculpture Made by Pythocritos, son of Timocharis of Rhodes, around 190 BC, during the Hellenistic Period. It is a monumental statue, almost five and a half meters high, depicting the goddess Nike on the prow of a ship, with outstretched wings, very dramatic and expressive.
The sculpture It is made of Paros marble and Lartos marble., and you can see it in the Louvre Museum, Paris.
Hermes of Praxiteles
This famous Greek sculpture It represents Hermes, one of the most venerated Greek gods, together with a child Dionysus, god of festivities.d.
The sculptor, Praxiteles, sculpted it in the year 4 BC, but archaeologists found it in 1877, among the ruins of the Temple of Hera. It is known that it was made during the so-called Classical Period, and it is quite representative of that time, if we observe how it idealizes the human figure.
If we also take the time to observe the sculpture from different angles we will see that Hermes seems to have different facial expressions, from the left sadness, from the right joy and from the middle, a neutral expression.
Such ambiguity makes her face dynamic and speaks to the strong desire of Greek sculptors of this period to capture movement in necessarily static portraits. This sculpture It is in the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, Greece.
So far these are The 5 most famous Greek sculptures, who their authors are and where you can see them today.
In summary, Greek sculptors worked with marble, bronze, stone and terracotta, but there are also works in gold and ivory. The vast majority of Greek sculptures were lost over time, but it was the Romans who allowed us to discover them., since they knew how to create many copies of the most famous Greek sculptures.
Roman sculptures covered many fields and themes, from mythological figures, through athletes, historical figures or ordinary people, but they were His copies of Greek sculptures played a very important role in preserving Greek artistic traditions. Furthermore, having worked more with marble than with bronze, they were less destroyed than the Greek ones, resisting fire or melting better to become coins or ammunition.
Roman replicas were not always just that, replicas. They were sometimes adaptations that reflected Roman tastes, styles and conventions more than Greek ones. And over time, idealized forms gave way to more realistic and natural styles, moving away from the Greek idea that the human body reflected divine beauty, and that their own sculptures were the means to realize that.