Eros Sleeping

Introduction Throughout the development of the art community, different theories of art arose for analyzing the artistic quality of different works. These theories diverged to emphasize certain aspects of a piece. In this paper, the images of two pieces of work, “Eros Sleeping” and “Composition V” by Wassily Kandinsky will be analyzed using five different theories, which include formalism, two expression theories and two contextual theories. The chosen expression theories are Leo Tolstoy’s view based on his text “What is Art?” and the expression theory of O. K. Bouwsma laid out in his writing “Philosophical Essays”. For the contextual theories, Marxist Aesthetics and Danto’s theory of art will be used. In each section, “Eros Sleeping” will be discussed first, then “Composition V”.

Formalism “Eros Sleeping” is a Greek statue from the Hellenistic period composed of a bronze figure on a marble surface. The piece weights 124.7 kg and is 41.9cm x 35.6 cm x 85.2 cm1. Eros is portrayed as an infant child, evident in the small stature of the figure, as well as the smooth curves used to define the limbs, torso, and face. These curves create a chubby appearance, masking any possible muscle definition common to Greek adult figures, such as “Terme Boxer2”, another Hellenistic piece. The hair of the figure is intricately sculpted into curly locks which snake randomly, a common style for male statues from this period. Wings protrude from the back of the child, which the feathered
In this work, Tolstoy clearly lays out his definition for good art, which amounts to three main points: the content of the art needs to be new and important, the content should be clearly expressed for easy understanding, and the motivation for the creation of the art should come from within, meaning external factors such as money do not play a