ARHI 30120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Kritios Boy, Oenomaus, Kritios
Michael Moynihan
11/7/17
ARHI 30120
Lecture 20
Sculpture
- How should the figures be approached? How are they monumental? What is the
boundary?
- Function: gift to the sanctuary, part of the experience of approach
- Function: some were still grave markers
- How do we describe the ways in which the Kritios boy is more ‘human’ that the other
Kouroi?
- Movement - acts like a human body (interacts with the space around it like a
human being would)
- The other figures are entirely frontal (thus emblematic)
- What does the turning of the head in the Kritios boy do?
- Makes it less confrontational
- Not directly interacting with the audience or narrative scene
- Thus, it must be interacting with itself (thinking!)
- Thinking implies narrative, we would ask ourselves, what
is thinking about?
- This engages the audience, not through the confrontation
we have previously seen, but rather through the question
that it brings to our minds
- Transformation from conceptual (geometric designs on four planes) to naturalistic
- This implies that the boundaries are more and more humanized
Pediments
- They follow a similar track to the one outlined above
- The first monumental Greek temple, the Temple of Artemis at Corfu - like
conceptual/geometric sculpture, whereas the Temple of Zeus - like the Kritios Boy
- In the temple of Zeus, the head is tilted out, like in the Kritios boy, begging the
question rather than that direct confrontation of the Gorgon on the temple of
Artemis
- The story on the Temple of Zeus: the chariot race of Pelops and Oinomaos (King
of Ilos) at the sanctuary of Olympia
- Oinomaos had a daughter, Hippodamia, who he promised to whoever
could beat him in a race. If they couldn’t, he would kill them. Pelops, the
Eponymous hero of the Peloponesus, decides to race Oinomaos for
Hippodamia. He is warned that Oinomaos has a chariot from Ares that is
unbeatable. Being poneros (tricky), he goes to olympia and bribes the
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Document Summary
Function: gift to the sanctuary, part of the experience of approach. How do we describe the ways in which the kritios boy is more human" that the other. Movement - acts like a human body (interacts with the space around it like a human being would) The other figures are entirely frontal (thus emblematic) Not directly interacting with the audience or narrative scene. Thus, it must be interacting with itself (thinking!) This engages the audience, not through the confrontation we have previously seen, but rather through the question that it brings to our minds. Transformation from conceptual (geometric designs on four planes) to naturalistic. This implies that the boundaries are more and more humanized. They follow a similar track to the one outlined above. The first monumental greek temple, the temple of artemis at corfu - like conceptual/geometric sculpture, whereas the temple of zeus - like the kritios boy.
