The use of color on early Mesopotamian sculpture

Researchers using ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy have discovered ancient Mesopotamian art, like classical art of Greece and Rome, was often brightly colored although studies have shown the number of colors used appears to be limited to shades of red and black.  

"Red pigments consist almost entirely of haematite, black is either bitumen or a carbonized product. White is almost non-existent (white lead, gypsum), apart from rare cases where it is used as color lightener for the skin. We did not find either blue or green. It is difficult to judge whether this lack reflects an ancient reality or not. On statues, as well as in most wall paintings, pigments were hardly ever mixed. This seems to be a conscious choice, as mixing pigments is not technically difficult." - Astrid Nunn, Adjunct Professor for Near Eastern Archaeology (retired) at the University of Würzburg.

However, scholars noted distinct shifts in color intensity over time.  Skin color in the third millennium was depicted as orange, yellowish brown, red brown, and brown but in the second millennium, there was a general change to bright red and red brown.  By the first millennium, skin color became notably darkened.

Reading this, I couldn't help but wonder about any correlation between changes in skin tone depictions and recorded migrations and conquests by different groups.  However, Professor Nunn does not mention any studies of that nature.  However, she does point out that skin color was derived from a combination of realism mixed with artistic conventions and social determinants, which in turn are subject to symbolic meaning.

This is further complicated by the ancients descriptions of color including textures and other characteristics.

"Taking the materiality of colors (and not simply their hue and chroma) as a starting point enables us to understand why ancient terms that are translated as dazzling, shining, lustrous, brilliant and translucent, or, inversely, dark, poorly lit, dim and dull, must be considered a – positive or negative – color category," Nunn observes. "In Akkadian literature, red on the body, especially on the face, was very positive...However, in Sumerian and Akkadian texts, gods (in particular the sun god Utu), heroes and kings sport beards referred to as lapis lazuli. Thus these words also mean bright and shiny. Despite the reference to lapis lazuli (blue) being conceivable, the shininess of the beard was just as important as its hue."

Of course I have seen objects such as the bull-headed lyres recovered from the royal cemetery of Ur, dated to 2550-2450 CE, with beards literally made of lapis lazuli so describing beards in this way could have been quite precise if the statues of the gods were thought to represent the gods themselves.

Surprisingly, researchers found that even sculpture crafted of expensive, imported stone like diorite was often painted over, despite the lustrous beauty of the stone itself.

Read more about it:  https://www.asor.org/anetoday/2021/05/mesopotamian-sculpture 

 

Millenium, Gypsum, that I photographed at University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia

Reconstructed color on the statue of a man with similar garment now in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, courtesy of Astrid Nunn.

Bull-headed lyre recovered from the royal cemetery of Ur, Iraq, 2550-2450 BCE, Gold, with Lapis Lazuli beard that I photographed at University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia

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Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins exhibit now open at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California

The Getty Villa has reopened and is now hosting the special exhibit "Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins."  Some of the objects are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  Others are on loan from The Louvre and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Ancient Mesopotamia, centered in present-day Iraq, occupies a unique place in the history of human culture. It is there, around 3400–3000 BC, that all the key elements of urban civilization first appear in one place: cities with monumental infrastructure and official bureaucracies overseeing agricultural, economic, and religious activities; the earliest known system of writing; and sophisticated architecture, arts, and technologies. For some three thousand years, Mesopotamia remained the preeminent force in the Near East. In 539 BC, however, Cyrus the Great captured Babylon and incorporated Mesopotamia into the Persian Empire. Periods of Greek and Parthian rule followed, and by about AD 100 Mesopotamian culture had effectively come to an end. 

Closeup of a Head of Prince Gudea, Ruler of Lagash, Neo-Sumerian 2120 BCE, Diorite, that I photographed at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in Santa Barbara, California. The sculpture of this prince at the Getty exhibit is from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Elamite Head of a Ruler Iran (?) 2300-2000 BCE Arsenical copper that I photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The headdress seems related to Elamite works of southwestern Iran and resembles another bronze head of the late third millennium BCE found at Nineveh.

Although you will see a statuette of a Neo-Sumerian human-headed bull dated 2150-2000 BCE from The Louvre at the exhibit, this is an image I took of a very similar sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is identified as Kursarikku associated with the sun god Shamash Reign of Ur-Ningirsu of Lagash 2150-2100 BCE, crafted of Serpentine. This serptentine (lizardite) sculpture is from southern Mesopotamia, probably Tello (ancient Girsu). The inscription proclaims the sculpture is dedicated to the goddess Nanshe for the life of the Sumerian ruler Ur-Ningirsu.

Statuette of the Demon Panzuzu, Neo-Assyrian, 934-610 BCE Bronze now in the collections of The Louvre, image courtesy of the museum

Plaque with King Gilgamesh killing the monster Humbaba, Amorite, 2000 - 1600 BCE, terracotta, now in the collections of the Louvre, image courtesy of the museum

Statuette of a dog dedicated to the goddess Ninisina, Amorite, 1894-1866 BCE, steatite, now in the collections of The Louvre, image courtesy of the museum.

Wall fragment with a man's head, Neo-Assyrian 850-650 BCE now in the collections of The Louvre, image courtesy of the museum.

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The Tiwanaku (Tiahuanacu) Empire

The Tiwanaku (Tiahuanacu) Empire was a Pre-Columbian polity in western Bolivia based in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin.  Its capital, Tiwanaku, was founded around 110 CE during the Late Formative Period, when there were a number of growing settlements in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin. Between 450 and 550 CE, other large settlements were abandoned, leaving Tiwanaku as the pre-eminent center in the region. 

Beginning around 600 CE its population grew rapidly, probably due to a massive immigration from the surrounding countryside, and large parts of the city were built or remodeled. Tiwanaku was a multi-cultural "hospitality state" that brought people together to build large monuments, perhaps as part of large religious festivals. This may have been the central dynamic that attracted people from hundreds of kilometers away, who may have traveled there as part of llama caravans to trade, make offerings, and honor the gods. Tiwanaku grew into the Andes' most important pilgrimage destination.  By 800 CE, Tiwanaku was one of the continent's largest Pre-Columbian cities, reaching a population of 10,000 to 20,000.

Outside of the state's core area in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin, there were Tiwanaku colonies on the coast of Peru, where highland people imitated Tiwanaku temples and ceramics, and cemeteries in northern Chile with elaborate grave goods in the Tiwanaku style. Despite the clear connections to these enclaves, there is little evidence that the state controlled the territory or people in between, that is, its territory was not contiguous. With a few important exceptions, the state's influence outside the Lake Titicaca Basin was "soft power" that blossomed into a powerful, widespread, and enduring cultural hegemony.

Remains of Tiwanaku culture includes carved monoliths, temples and standardized polychrome pottery produced on a massive scale.  Archaeologists discovered some statues in Tiwanaku were taken from other regions and placed in subordinate positions to the local gods as a display of power over other states and regions.  Examinations of burials revealed the practice of artificial cranial deformation.

Tiwanaku ceramics suddenly stopped being produced and the urban core of the capital abandoned about 1000 CE. One theory was that severe drought rendered the raised-field systems ineffective, food surplus dropped, and with it, elite power, leading to state collapse. Other scholars suggest the society's own social dynamics caused its decline due to evidence of intentional destruction that included the monolithic Gates of the Sun and Moon as well as the burning of temple complexes and smashing of food storage jars.

Tiwanaku head wrappings, 500-1000 CE, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Pablo Trincado.

Tiwanaku sculpture, 110-1000 CE, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Alexson Scheppa Peisino.

Tiwanaku anthropomorphic vase displayed in the "Tiwanaku Museum" at La Paz, Bolivia courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Christophe Meneboeuf.  

Tiwanaku mummy mask, 600 - 1000 CE, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Helvetiker.

Shell ear pegs, mother-of-pearl, turquoise and shell mosaic on wood, Peru, northern coastal region of Tiahuanaco/Huari, 800-1200 CE courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Helvetiker.

Gateway of the Sun, Tiwanaku, Bolivia courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Mhwater.

Monumental sculpture in Tiwanaku, 110 - 1000 CE courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Chuspa, a pouch used to carry coca and cocoa leaves from the Tiwanakota period, 500-1000 CE, at the Marc Museum in Rosario, Argentina courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor davidsonn.

Gold Tiwanaku Pendant, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Tony Hisgett.

Closeup of carved stone tenon head embedded in wall of Semi-subterranean Temple, Tiwanaku, Bolivia by Wikimedia Commons contributor, Alfonso F. del Granado Rivero.

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Women in ancient Assyria

 During the Middle Assyrian Period, the social position of women in Assyria became lower than that of neighboring societies. Men were permitted to divorce their wives with no compensation paid to the latter. If a woman committed adultery, she could be beaten, have her ears or nose cut off, her nipples torn off, her eyes gouged out, or put to death. It's not certain if these laws were seriously enforced, but they appear to be a backlash against some older documents that granted things like equal compensation to both partners in divorce.

A law code dating from the reign of King Tiglathpileser I (1115 - 1076 BCE), a particularly misogynistic ruler,  in which punishments were especially severe, especially for women, reveals a woman could be punished not only for their individual transgressions, but also for crimes committed by their relatives under the principle of ius talionis (an eye for an eye).

‘If a man forcibly seizes and rapes a maiden who is residing in her father’s house... the father of the maiden shall take the wife of the rapist of the maiden and give her over to be raped. He shall not return her to her husband, he shall take her (for himself).'

'If a woman has procured a miscarriage by her own act, when they have prosecuted her and convicted her, they shall impale her on stakes without burying her. If she died in having the miscarriage, they shall impale her on stakes without burying her.’ 

`If a woman has crushed a gentleman’s testicle in a brawl, they shall cut off one finger of hers. If the other testicle has become affected along with it by catching the infection, even though a physician has bound it up, or she has crushed the other testicle in a brawl, they shall tear out both her eyes.’ 

The women of the king's harem and their servants were also subject to harsh punishments, such as beatings, mutilation, and death. Scholars have pointed out that this suppression of women's rights appears to have corresponded to the rise of monotheism in Assyrian theology. As the Assyrians conquered more and more peoples and elevated their god, Ashur, from a local god to supreme god over all and far removed from the natural world, women, with their critical role in the natural world as life bearer, became diminished. A man who saw a woman behaving in any way deemed unacceptable had to report that woman to the authorities instantly or risk 50 lashes, mutilation, and enslavement for a month.

However, during the Neo-Assyrian Period (883-608 BCE) royal women, at least, became independently wealthy and could buy land based on letters that have been recovered.  There are records of female officials who had important roles running the households of royal ladies and possibly others as well. Women outside the royal household also worked as priestesses and prophetesses.  But, no evidence of temple prostitution has been discovered and is thought to have been merely invented by later Greek authors to illustrate the moral decline of Babylon.

The Assyrian word harimtu, which was once translated as prostitute is now thought to refer to just a single woman without a husband or father and not tied to an institution. Although the term was used derogatorily in several texts as an insult, it was not defined as such universally.

The status of women in Assyria probably differed little from women throughout the patriarchal societies of the ancient Near East.  The brutality used to enforce the social order was the exception.

Assyria, in general, had much harsher laws than most of the region. Executions were not uncommon, nor were whippings followed by forced labor. Some offenses allowed the accused a trial under torture or duress. One tablet that covers property rights has brutal penalties for violators. A creditor could force debtors to work for him, but not sell them. Sex crimes were punished identically whether they were homosexual or heterosexual. An individual faced no punishment for penetrating a cult prostitute, someone of an equal or lower social class, such as slaves, or someone whose gender roles were not considered solidly masculine. Such sexual relations were even seen as good fortune. However, homosexual relationships with royal attendants, between soldiers, or with those where a social better was submissive or penetrated were either treated as rape or seen as bad omens, and punishments applied.

Read more about women in ancient Assyria at:

https://lb.boell.org/en/2017/02/09/women-fundamentalism-and-terror-echoes-ancient-assyria

and more about Tiglath Pileser I at:

https://www.ancient.eu/Tiglath_Pileser_I/

Image: Head of a female figure ca. 8th–7th century B.C.E. Assyrian at the Metropolitan Museum of Art courtesy of the museum.

This female head, carved in the round, was found in the Burnt Palace at Nimrud and may have originally been part of a composite statuette made of various materials and overlaid with gold foil. A square mortise cut into the bottom of this piece suggests that a tenon would have secured it to a now lost body. Part of the head has been damaged, but several features that remain, including the large, originally inlaid eyes, prominent ears, hooked nose, small mouth, and receding chin, are characteristic of North Syrian ivories. The hair falls in long individual locks, crowned by a diadem of rosettes and inlaid discs (the original colored glass or semiprecious stone inlays are now lost) tied at the back of the head. - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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Less stylized Amarna portraiture

 Less stylized Amarna portraiture

During Akhenaten's reign, royal portraiture underwent dramatic change, often depicting the pharaoh in an androgynous and highly stylized manner. Artists showed subjects with  elongation and narrowing of the neck and head, sloping of the forehead and nose, a prominent chin, large ears and lips as well as lowered eyelids. Each figure was also illustrated with a more elongated body than previous representations. In the new human form, the subject had more fat in the stomach, thigh, and breast region, while the torso, arm, and legs were thin and long like the rest of the body. The skin color of both male and female is generally dark brown (contrasted with the usual dark brown or red for males and light brown or white for females). Figures in this style are shown with both a left and a right foot, contrasting the traditional style of being shown with either two left or two right feet and fingers and toes are depicted as long and slender and are carefully detailed to show nails. 

The Brooklyn Museum points out that the unusual, elongated skull shape often used in portrayal of the royal family "may be a slightly exaggerated treatment of a hereditary trait of the Amarna royal family  given that "the mummy of Tutankhamun, presumed to be related to Akhenaten, has a similarly shaped skull." Some scholars, though, suggest that the presentation of the human body as imperfect during the Amarna period is in deference to Aten while others interpret this unprecedented stylistic break from Egyptian tradition to be a reflection of the Amarna Royals' attempts to wrest political power from the traditional priesthood and bureaucratic authorities.

However, some less stylized portrait sculpture has survived from this period including these portrait heads of Akhenaten and Nefertiti that I photographed at the Neues Museum in Berlin back in 2016. Although Akhenaten's portrait does feature the lowered lids, the skull shape and more normal anatomical appearance of the facial structures would seem to discount the presence of some of the more severe genetic disorders that have been proposed.

After Akhenaten's death, the new capital was abandoned, and traces of his monuments elsewhere defaced. Remains of Amarna art are therefore concentrated in Amarna itself, but some remains have been found at Karnak, where large reliefs in the style were dismantled, and the blocks turned round to face inwards when a later building was constructed using them. These were only rediscovered in recent decades. 

Image: Portrait heads of the royal couple Akhenaten and Nefertiti, 18th Dynasty, Egypt, 1340 BCE that I photographed at the Neues Museum in Berlin, Germany in 2016.

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The contentious relationship between ancient Cyprus and Persia

 The early documented history of Cyprus begins with an inscribed stele commemorating a victory by Sargon II (722–705 BCE) of Assyria there in 709 BCE.  Assyrian domination of Cyprus appears to have begun earlier than this, though, during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BCE), and ended with the fall of the Neo Assyrian Empire in 609 BCE, whereupon the city-kingdoms of Cyprus gained independence once more. Following a brief period of Egyptian domination in the sixth century BCE, Cyprus fell under Persian rule. Royal palaces excavated on Cyprus resemble the architecture of Achaemenid examples like Persepolis, with audience chambers, open courtyards, bathhouses, and stores.  Town fortifications and houses were built of mudbrick walls on stone foundations.

Early Greek influence is reflected in Cypriot sculpture, however.  Archaic Greek art with its attractive smile on the face of the statue is found on many ritual pieces dating between 525–475 BCE although portrait sculptures began to exhibit more realism.  Ionian influence on sculptures intensified and copies of Greek korai appear, as well as statues of men in Greek dress. Naked kouroi, however, although common in Greece, are extremely rare in Cyprus, while women are always presented dressed with rich folds in their garments. The pottery in Cyprus retained its local influences, although some Greek pottery was imported at this time.

Cyprus supplied armies and ships for Persia's foreign campaigns including Xerses' invasion of Greece in 480 BCE where Cyprus contributed 150 ships to the expedition. Despite this, Cyprus took part in the Ionian Revolt in 499 BCE led by the brother of the king of Salamis.  But the Persians crushed the Cypriot armies after a five-month siege. 

However, when Evagoras I of Salamis dominated Cypriot politics for forty years,  he favored Athens during the closing years of the Peloponnesian War, elicited Persian support for the Athenians against Sparta and urged Greeks from the Aegean to settle in Cyprus. At the beginning of the 4th century BCE, he took control of the whole island of Cyprus and within a few years was attempting to gain independence from Persia with Athenian help. 

Following resistance from the kings of Kition, Amathus and Soli, who fled to the great king of Persia in 390 BC to request support, Evagoras received less help from the Athenians than he had hoped for and in about 380 BCE, a Persian force besieged Salamis and Evagoras was forced to surrender. In the end, though, he remained king of Salamis until he was murdered in 374 BCE, but only by accepting his role as a vassal of Persia. Together with Egypt and Phoenicia, Cyprus rebelled against Persian rule again in 350 BCE, but the uprising was crushed by Artaxerxes III in 344 BCE. 

Cyprus finally gained political independence  when, hearing of Alexander's great victory over the Persians at Issus, the Cypriots rose up against their Persian overlords yet again and made available to Alexander the fleet of ships formerly in the service of Persia.  These ships and Cypriot engineers were instrumental in Alexander's successful siege of Tyre in 332 BCE.

When I saw these portraits of Cypriot men at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I thought their faces reflected this independent nature.  

Terracotta head of a man wearing a wreath Cypriot Late Classical 4th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Male Head Cypriot Hellenistic period 3rd-2nd centuries BCE Limestone photographed at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, California.

Closeup of a limestone grave marker depicting men reclining at a banquet Cypriot Classical Period 4th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Limestone figure of a young beardless man of high rank probably in service to a deity Cypriot Archaic early 6th c. BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Closeup of limestone male figure in Egyptian dress Cypriot Archaic 3rd quarter of the 6th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Limestone head of a bearded man wearing a conical cap indicating high rank Cypriot Archaic early 6th century BCE photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Colossal votive terracotta head of a man with full beard and helmet with upturned cheekpieces 600-500 BCE from the sanctuary of Salamis-Toumpa excavated in 1890 Cyprus photographed at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.

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The Olmecs: One of the earliest Mesoamerican cultures

The Olmecs were the earliest known major Mesoamerican civilization. Following a progressive development in Soconusco, they occupied the tropical lowlands of the modern-day Mexican states of Veracruz and Tabasco. It has been speculated that the Olmecs derived in part from the neighboring Mokaya or Mixe–Zoque cultures. The Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies.

The antiquity of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mexico only became apparent with the advent of radiocarbon dating in the middle of the twentieth century. Olmec artists mastered an array of media and produced representations that range from refined miniatures in precious jadeite or wood, to monumental works in basalt. Now considered the first great sculptural tradition in the ancient Americas, these images remind us that naturalism is not necessarily the result of an evolution: Olmec sculptures often demonstrate a striking degree of physiognomic fidelity. Well known for their "colossal heads"—probably ruler portraits, carved from basalt boulders—Olmec sculptors also represented individuals on a smaller scale, such as these figures of both adults and children, the muscled arms and strong legs seemingly ready to spring into action.

Colossal head from Monument 4 Veracruz Mexico Omec 1200-900 BCE Basalt photographed at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, California

Colossal head from Monument 4 Veracruz Mexico Omec 1200-900 BCE Basalt photographed at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, California

Crawling Baby Earthenware Olmec Culture 1200-900 BCE Mexico photographed at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, California

Seated baby holding a ball earthenware Olmec Culture 1200-900 BCE Veracruz Mexico photographed at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, California

Olmec Jadeite photographed at the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas.

Seated and reclining hunchbacks Mexico Puebla Olmec style Early-Middle Formative Period 1000-500 BCE Ceramic photographed at the Dallas Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas.

Seated hollow Baby Mexico Veracruz Tenenexpan Gulf Coast Olmec Early Formative Period 1100-900 BCE Ceramic photographed at the Dallas Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas.

Seated ruler in ritual pose Mexico Puebla San Martin Texmelucan Highland Olmec culture Middle Formative Period 900-500 BCE Serpentine and cinnabar photographed at the Dallas Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas.

Seated figure Earthenware Olmec Culture 1200-900 BCE Mexico photographed at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon.

Baby Figure Mexico Olmec 12th-9th century BCE Ceramic photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Kneeling Bearded Figure 900–400 B.C.E. Olmec, Mexico, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Agrigento Youth Fruit of International Collaboration

The Agrigento Youth, a wonderful example of international collaboration between a major museum and a national ministry of culture, went on display yesterday at the Getty Villa.  The Museo Archeologico Regionale Di Agrigento in Sicily has loaned the rare statue of a kouros, or idealized nude young man, to the Getty  in exchange for assistance with the construction of a custom seismic isolation base and pedestal for the sculpture.

The Agrigento Youth is the second major loan to arise from a 2010 agreement between the Getty and the Sicilian Ministry of Culture and Sicilian Identity. The Gela Krater, a monumental red-figure volute-krater (wine mixing vessel) attributed to the Niobid Painter, was on view at the Villa since June before it was returned this month, also with a new, custom-designed seismic isolator base and pedestal.

“We are pleased to have these objects on view at the Getty Villa where they can serve as fine examples of Sicily’s cultural offerings, helping to create broader awareness for our collections and heritage,” explains Dr. Giuseppe Castellana, the director of the Parco Archeologico e Paesaggistico della Valle dei Templi. “It is also wonderful that both objects will return to us with new bases that make them more secure.”

Sicily is home to Mt. Aetna, Europe's largest active volcano, so protecting artifacts from seismic activity there is an ongoing problem for its museum curators.   Virgil gave a poetic description of an eruption of Mt. Aetna in his epic The Aeneid:

A spreading bay is there, impregnable
To all invading storms; and Aetna's throat
With roar of frightful ruin thunders nigh.
Now to the realm of light it lifts a cloud
Of pitch-black, whirling smoke, and fiery dust,
Shooting out globes of flame, with monster tongues
That lick the stars; now huge crags of itself,
Out of the bowels of the mountain torn,
Its maw disgorges, while the molten rock
Rolls screaming skyward; from the nether deep
The fathomless abyss makes ebb and flow.
- The Aeneid, lines 569 – 579 of the Theodore C. Williams translation of 1908.

 Statues of the kouros type were used by ancient Greeks as dedications to the gods or to commemorate a particularly heroic individual as part of his funerary ritual.  So many have been found in temples of Apollo that at one time they were thought to be representations of the god himself.

Some scholars, such as Eleanor Guralnick, have suggested that kouroi are the result of Greek imitation of Egyptian sculptors.  She applied stereophotogrammetric measurement and cluster analysis to a number of Greek and Egyptian statues and found the correlation between the Second Canon of the 26th Dynasty and Greek kouroi to be widely distributed though not universal.

Scholar Gisela Richter has categorized the wide array of kouroi types into six groups with distinctive artistic differences.  The earliest kouroi dating to the late seventh century are highly stylized with an emphasis on geometric proportion rather than realism.  The art form evolves over time incorporating an increasing amount of human anatomical realism until by the early 5th century, examples like the Agrigento Youth are far more proportionate. 

"The Agrigento Youth was carved by an unknown artist around 480 B.C., just at the artistic turning point between the archaic and classical periods. The style has been termed by scholars the Severe Style due to the solemn facial features and erect stance favored at this time. Under life size at 1.02 meters (40 inches) in height, The Agrigento Youth is comparable to the highest quality contemporary Athenian kouroi, with whom it shares many traits, such as the sensitively rendered modeling of the anatomy, the erect stance with one leg forward, and the serene and straightforward gaze. Unlike the majority of those statues, this figure’s right arm is raised as if holding out an object. The stone from which it was carved is a white marble imported from Greece, which indicates that The Agrigento Youth was an expensive and noteworthy dedication.
The sculpture is also distinguished by certain features which call attention to its Sicilian origins. The structure of the head is long and the face is oval, with prominent cheekbones, heavy-lidded eyes and a prominent lower lip. Sharply patterned hair is a feature common to all kouroi, but in Sicily the treatment is even more pronounced, with delineated strands of finely carved locks forming into a cap and rolled into a thick coil of hair banded by a simple diadem. Residues of the red pigment indicating the hair’s original color are clearly visible." - Getty Press Release

Related articles

• Agrigento Youth at the Getty (rogueclassicism.com)
• Theater review: 'Elektra' at the Getty Villa (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

Kouroi: Archaic Greek Youths. A Study of the Development of the Kouros Type in Greek Sculpture

     

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