Marble Statue Of A Wounded Warrior Analysis
Marble Statue of a Wounded Warrior
Marble Statue of a Wounded Warrior is a Roman statue, crafted in the second century A.D., as a copy of a bronze Greek statue cast between 460 and 450 B.C. Though sculpted with obvious technical aptitude, Wounded Warrior is riddled with anatomical imprecision and is inhibited by a reluctance to depict the unsightliness of injury in combat. The first time I laid my eyes on this exquisite artifact, I was astonished by its fierce presence. The orientation of the gallery encourages the viewer to approach Marble Statue of a Wounded Warrior from the rear. Startlingly colossal and dignified, the statue seems likely to reveal a paradigmatic Greek warrior upon being seen from the front. A raised right arm …show more content…
A walk around the front, however, gives an entirely different impression. After circumambulating the work, the viewer is unsettled by the warrior’s footing. He stands, evidently, on uneven terrain: perhaps a downward-sloping hill of some sort. He distributes the weight of his massive body onto his front foot in his stance, and yet his right leg remains cautiously tucked behind it, with his right foot sticking out at roughly a sixty-degree angle to his forward-facing left. It is clear from the position of the right arm that the warrior is about to throw a spear; how he planned to do so effectively, however, remains ambiguous. The feet are positioned awkwardly close together for a warrior descending downhill and are inappropriately oriented for the ominous strike that one senses is about to occur. One suspects that he would take much larger strides in the aggressive rhythm of battle, and that his muscular legs would appear significantly more stressed in funding the energy of such a heated charge. The only meaningful indication of exertion on the warrior’s body is the definition of his right bicep, which is itself an inconclusive hint at either pain or vigor. A right-profile view of the statue, though, reveals that the majority of the man’s
Marble Statue of a Wounded Warrior is a Roman statue, crafted in the second century A.D., as a copy of a bronze Greek statue cast between 460 and 450 B.C. Though sculpted with obvious technical aptitude, Wounded Warrior is riddled with anatomical imprecision and is inhibited by a reluctance to depict the unsightliness of injury in combat. The first time I laid my eyes on this exquisite artifact, I was astonished by its fierce presence. The orientation of the gallery encourages the viewer to approach Marble Statue of a Wounded Warrior from the rear. Startlingly colossal and dignified, the statue seems likely to reveal a paradigmatic Greek warrior upon being seen from the front. A raised right arm …show more content…
A walk around the front, however, gives an entirely different impression. After circumambulating the work, the viewer is unsettled by the warrior’s footing. He stands, evidently, on uneven terrain: perhaps a downward-sloping hill of some sort. He distributes the weight of his massive body onto his front foot in his stance, and yet his right leg remains cautiously tucked behind it, with his right foot sticking out at roughly a sixty-degree angle to his forward-facing left. It is clear from the position of the right arm that the warrior is about to throw a spear; how he planned to do so effectively, however, remains ambiguous. The feet are positioned awkwardly close together for a warrior descending downhill and are inappropriately oriented for the ominous strike that one senses is about to occur. One suspects that he would take much larger strides in the aggressive rhythm of battle, and that his muscular legs would appear significantly more stressed in funding the energy of such a heated charge. The only meaningful indication of exertion on the warrior’s body is the definition of his right bicep, which is itself an inconclusive hint at either pain or vigor. A right-profile view of the statue, though, reveals that the majority of the man’s