Why Are Most Ancient Greek Replicas Created In Marble

The scarcity of greek bronze discoveries and a century s forced reliance on presumed replicas in marble have given the extant bronzes an allure and mystique that has propelled a few of them into popular culture.

Why are most ancient greek replicas created in marble.

Doryphoros translated from greek as spear bearer was a statue created during the 5th century bc. Ancient roman sculptors are predominantly known for two types of marble sculptures. The sculpture of ancient greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient greek art as with the exception of painted ancient greek pottery almost no ancient greek painting survives. This article is a brief description of the marbles of ancient times and the wonder is many of them are still being be used today.

Our artists are among the most talented carvers in the world. At all periods there were great numbers. During the republican era artists carved realistic portraits of people including political leaders military officials and historians from the chest or neck up known as busts these life sized works are celebrated for their impressively. All the marble statues in the central area of the mary and michael jaharis gallery at the metropolitan museum are copies made.

Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone. The bust was the most commonly used medium for official portraits inspired by roman examples. As an ancient civilisation with so many memorable monuments and sculptures bequeathed to the world and use of marble providing a testimony of its glorious past it is but natural to ask the question what were the greek marbles used in antiquity. If you look at their art you may think so.

Since most ancient bronze statues have been lost or were melted down to reuse the valuable metal roman copies in marble and bronze often provide our primary visual evidence of masterpieces by famous greek sculptors. Portraits or busts and marble copies of greek bronzes. The original was made out of bronze approximately 440 bce. The fine detail for an idealized human anatomy and natural pose of this statue inspired romans to create several copies and lucky for us some of the replicas have survived until today.

Skeptics of polychromy question why greek and roman artists would have sculpted with such beautiful materials parian marble which was commonly used has a prized translucence and then painted. Most bronze statues from ancient greece have been lost so the creation of marble copies was a common practice for the. The original statue and treatise have not yet been found. The parthenon in centennial park in nashville tennessee is a full scale replica of the original parthenon in athens it was designed by confederate veteran william crawford smith and built in 1897 as part of the tennessee centennial exposition.

None are more famous than the two riace bronzes pulled out of the sea off calabria in 1972. The archaic from about 650 to 480 bc classical 480 323 and hellenistic. However several roman copies in marble survived and they convey the essential form of polykleitos work.