Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Greek, Roman, and Egyptian Art

In this Egyptian painting we see what seems to be three women with Egyptian clothing and head dresses. in the painting you see the women holding and smelling flowers in one hand and in the other hand they have an oval shaped object. They wear blue dresses which to me symbolizes the water like the Nile river. Behind them you see there are hieroglyphics. Those hieroglyphics contains their sphinx, anthropomorphic art and many more. They  had many different types of head gear, such as the royal vulture crown but they wear something similar to Diadems. Diadems consisted of a metal headband to which a Uraeus was attached.

This is an Archaic Greek sculpture of a Sphinx. As you can see it is an anthropomorphic statue of the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the head of a human. This statue is from around 540-530 B.C. According to Greek mythology Sphinx were sent to the town of Thebes for punishment of a crime and those who were unable to solve the riddle of the Sphinx would perish. the Sphinx is a sign of protection in a way because anyone who didn't know the answer to the riddle was an outsider. It was also an emblem of the ancient city-state of Chios, and appeared on seals and the obverse side of coins. As you can see, on the wings of this creature there are carvings pointing out and her tail is that of a serpent.   

This is a sculpture of Augustus Caesar it is referred to as Augustus of Prima Porta. It was a high marble sculpture founded in April 1863.  Augustus was the commander of an army. This sculpture shows his leadership and identity. I believe he raised his right in order to signal his troops into battle. He is wearing warrior like clothing which symbolizes the warrior Achilles. This sculpture is close to a Hellenistic culture than it is to a Roman portrait. He looks bold and efficient. His armor contains different little high relief sculptures of what seems to be horses and people.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Loodmee- Your essay is good, but your second example is not Greek- it is a painting done in the 15th or 16th century. Please review the qualities of Greek art and remember to look at the date that the artwork was made.
    Prof Harmon

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