Marble Statue Of A Youthful Hercules Analysis
The developments of sculpture are closely associated with the emergence of human society. A sculpture is the history of human identity recording the thoughts, culture, and aesthetic concept of the people at that age, and also reflects the worship of one generation to another. The Marble Statue of a Youthful Hercules, a Roman marble sculpture from A.D. 69 to 98, Flavian dynasty, depicts the Greek Mythology hero: Hercules . In contrast, Commemorative Portrait of a Chief (Lefem), an African wood sculpture from 19th to early 20th century, is an portrayal of one of the rulers of Bangwa chiefdoms . Both sculptures contain concepts of the power and strength using the idealized male figure and reflect the physical perfection of the beauty of the ideal
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In the Marble Statue of a Youthful Hercules, the over-life-sized scale shows an idealized body size of a godlike hero, whereas the scale of the Lefem is smaller than life size in representing a mortal figure. Hercules’s body is about the seven heads tall, the perfect proportion of ideal human form that developed by Greek sculptors in the fourth century BCE . Unlike the Hercules the head of which is proportional to the rest of his body, the Lefem has a larger scaled head and making the Lefem looks abstractive and gives the sense of motion. Even though the Lefem doesn’t approach the same ideal human form as Youthful Hercules, his bent arms and open legs make the figure symmetrically balanced. Since the Lefem’s body lacks the balanced contrast of tense and relaxed musculature, the figure appears less lively and stands in an unnatural way. However, Hercules’ left hip is slightly raised outward to the right, and his right leg is reached out to form a gentle S-shape curve, creating the distinctive stance of an off-balanced position, the classical Greece contrapposto pose. This harmonious proportion of the body gives Hercules a naturalistic sense of motion. Though this naturalism “reflected every wrinkle and imperfection of the skin” and “composed of generic bodies onto which realistic form”, it is used to depict a superhuman godlike person . The naturalistic beauty of physical human proportion and idealized body size shows the realistic style in Roman sculpture differ from the abstract style of the African
In the Marble Statue of a Youthful Hercules, the over-life-sized scale shows an idealized body size of a godlike hero, whereas the scale of the Lefem is smaller than life size in representing a mortal figure. Hercules’s body is about the seven heads tall, the perfect proportion of ideal human form that developed by Greek sculptors in the fourth century BCE . Unlike the Hercules the head of which is proportional to the rest of his body, the Lefem has a larger scaled head and making the Lefem looks abstractive and gives the sense of motion. Even though the Lefem doesn’t approach the same ideal human form as Youthful Hercules, his bent arms and open legs make the figure symmetrically balanced. Since the Lefem’s body lacks the balanced contrast of tense and relaxed musculature, the figure appears less lively and stands in an unnatural way. However, Hercules’ left hip is slightly raised outward to the right, and his right leg is reached out to form a gentle S-shape curve, creating the distinctive stance of an off-balanced position, the classical Greece contrapposto pose. This harmonious proportion of the body gives Hercules a naturalistic sense of motion. Though this naturalism “reflected every wrinkle and imperfection of the skin” and “composed of generic bodies onto which realistic form”, it is used to depict a superhuman godlike person . The naturalistic beauty of physical human proportion and idealized body size shows the realistic style in Roman sculpture differ from the abstract style of the African