Kouros Analysis

Kouros is a marble statue from an unknown artist. The 6’ 4” statue is from the Archaic Period in Greece, and currently located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York. The representational, closed statue shows a naked man. His hair is a little longer than shoulder length, and has his arms at his side, fists clenched. His left foot is in front of the other. The entire statue is on a square marble base. This is a representational styled statue showing a Greek man roughly from 600 BCE. From this statue, symmetry, lines, repetition, and proportion can be detected. The most obvious art element seen is symmetrical balance. The statue is vertically symmetrical . If you were to cut the statue in half, starting at the top of its
The shape of the face may differ, but the smile will always be the same. The sculpture could be of a warrior dying, but they would still have the smile. The last attribute is naturalism. The Greeks loved naturalism, especially in the human body. They loved the beauty of nature, but they loved idealism as well. So they made a realistic person, but they would be in the best possible condition. Kouros is an athlete, so they made them appear in the most quintessential manner possible. Even though the Archaic period is not realistic as possible, it is a major upgrade to the previous period, the Geometric period. The Geometric period was Ancient Greece in 900 to 700 BCE. This period is called the Geometric period due to the art works having geometric shapes. They were made up of simple shapes, such as squares, triangles, and ovals. The men had sharp, triangular torsos, and oval legs. The hair were cylinders, and the arms were thick lines, with no definition. They were very open, meaning that there were plenty of spaces between parts of the sculpture. The arms were away from the torso, the feet separated. The Archaic period greatly increased its realism in art, but the Greeks