Greek Doryphoros – The Classical Idea In The Visual Arts

Ancient Greece is recognized as one of the many domineering nations that existed. Even though time has shifted, the influence of their humanities can be observed today. The people of ancient Greece had evolved, which inspired the modern people to admire and adapt to their artistic concepts. The outstanding thing about Greek people was that they strived to depict true perfection in their drawings and sculptures.

This was accomplished by the principles of rationalism, idealism and humanism. The Doryphoros was an enhancement of the Riace Warriors, to accomplish this the artist Polykleitos embodied the principle of rationalism. He used the concept of symmetry, where all the sections of the body are in an equivalent relationship to the entire body. He had adapted the simple approaches of geometry which would be ratio, proportion and symmetry. Greeks had a firm assumption that beauty was expressed in the proportion of the body parts. To measure beauty the artist had used the Fibonacci sequence which was numbers in the sequence being equivalent to the sum of the previous two numbers. Also, he had incorporated the chiasmus method. The chiasmus principle, “is created by two lines, one line is straight while the second line is curved. ” (world art vista) In the sculpture, the right arm is relaxed, the left arm is angled, which is tense, the right leg is stiff, upholding the weight of the body. This stance affects the arrangement of the hips and shoulders. The right shoulder and the hip are lifted, which indicates that the entire right side of the representation is constricted.

At the left side, the left shoulder is lifted but the hip is reduced, this results in a wide line on the body. The components that make this a chiasmus is the lifted left shoulder complementing the lifted right hip, the right decreased shoulder corresponding the left hip. Another way the Doryphoros is enhanced is through the concept of humanism. Polykleitos had made this sculpture based upon human scale which resembles us. It has physical characteristics of man in form, which means that god had created something based upon the physical world. He has male genitals which is present in the physical world. Since, the form has fallible joints it is associated with natural stylization. The representation can walk and hold objects, which is classified as a human trait. We cannot have knowledge of things such as the eye color due to variation in physical world. Lastly, the artist enhanced Doryphoros by adapting the principle of idealism. This sculpture was inspired from the ideal features that people in Greece admired. The representation was anatomically accurate compare to the sculptures that came before it. “Within the pieces from the Classical Age, there is a great amount of idealism. creating eyes without pupils or iris, making the sculptures have a lack of focus. ” The people of Greece established a flat nose and forehead in their representations. Also, many representations were created with a technique known as exaggerated contrapposto, that compensated for the absent of emotion in the face. Even though the face doesn’t demonstrate expression, the body reveals the emotion the representation is conveying. It was common for the representation to be nude because it glorified the abdomen and chest area that was not eminent in the other eras.

Furthermore, the Riace Warriors were discovered in a shipwreck. The Riace representations had “attracted particular attention, because of their exceptionally realistic rendering and owing to the rarity of ancient bronze statues. ” (The Bronzes of Riace) They are a perfect example of the transition between the Archaic and Classical eras and their sculpturing techniques. The bodies of the warriors take the principle of idealism, are dynamic representations, have a contrapposto modification in the weight, and their heads are shifted which depicts motion. There are constructed by bronze, which could have been an issue because the representations were melted to create bullets. While the Doryphoros was made from marble which implied that it could be a forever lasting representation.