Essay - Through Different Eyes Egyptian, Greek, and Roman Sculpture Different Cultures...

Through Different Eyes

*****, Greek, and Roman Sculpture

Different cultures see the world in different ways. Religion, society, and even politics, shape our views, and give form to our human environment. Architecture, music, literature, dress—all are visible manifestations of a people's values. This is no less true in the realm of sculpture. A religious people will create works of art that express its most deeply held spiritual beliefs; a cerebral people, ********** that capture humankind's highest ideals, while the politically minded turn out statues and busts that represent their world's movers and shakers. Styles can range from the formal and ***** symbolic, ***** the ideal ***** ***** real. Each serves its cultural purpose. As all peoples have done, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans produced sculptures that testify to the beliefs of their respective societies.

Ancient Egypt was a fund*****mentally ***** *****. The axis of its world *****ed around the ***** ***** a god-king who endlessly re-enacted the drama of his father the sun's journey across ***** sky and through the under*****. Life after death was central ***** Egyptian belief, as was the necessity of preserving the body intact. A world so regulated ***** repetitive required an art that expressed order and stability. The canons ***** Egyptian society and its art ***** aptly displayed in the towering Colossi of Rameses at Abu Simbel. Here as in all depictions of the king, individual characteristics count for little. "The greatness ***** the ***** gods [is] *****ed by the images of the divine king ***** his family." (Schulz and Seidel p.214) In each of ***** four identical statues, the Pharaoh is represented as a m*****jestic giant, ***** hands resting calmly by his sides as he sits motionless on his eternal throne. His enormous size is a reflection ***** his import*****nce, his wife but a tiny doll-like figure at his feet. Fixed eyes, slightly muscular chest, clenched fists, and narrow waist: his *****m is the same ***** those of the pharaohs before him. Nor has the costume been varied, for he wears t***** same shor***** royal skirt, beard, ***** crown ***** his ancestors of centuries before. (Shaw, p.299) It is the pose and ***** insignia of royalty ***** mark ***** as king. ***** mammoth figures are ***** one with the rock from which they were carved - the god*****king is as much a p*****rt of the n*****ural ***** of things ***** the cliff itself.

In contrast to the ***** ***** ***** al***** timeless world, the Classical ***** valued rational inquiry. Their sculptures reflected the ***** ideals to which man should aspire. Hermes and the Child Dionysos by Praxiteles shows two gods as human beings in normal proportion. Rather than being ***** representations of all-powerful, unchanging *****, they are ***** ***** two seeming *****, if very perfect individuals. It is this perfection of the ***** form and its application to both gods and men that is ***** hall***** of Greek Classical art. For ***** th***** time, the *****s had worked out a system of