Kouros X: Melos Kouros (BC. 550)

Over size life kourus, typical island artwork exhibiting the slenderness, delicacy and grace of Cycladic art.

The Greek kouroi emulate the stance of Egyptian statues. In both Egypt and Greece, the figure is rigidly frontal with the left foot advanced slightly. The quest to establish that early Greek statues used the Egyptian system for proportioning human figures stems from a combination of two factors: (1) the approximate synchronism of the earliest Greek statues in stone and the resumption of direct contacts between Greece and Egypt around the middle of the seventh century B.C.E.; and (2) the visual resemblance between Greek kouroi and Egyptian statues. Standing male figures in both Greece and Egypt face forward, hold their arms alongside their thighs, and advance the left leg. These factors have suggested that Greeks learned sculptural techniques from the Egyptian.

This sculpture belongs to a set of archaic kouroi considered particularly close to the Egyptian canons. Among these sculptures must be included the Tenea Kouros (550 BC) housed in Munich Glyptothek and the Thera Kouros exhibited in Athens National Archaeological Museum.

 

Carter J.B. and Steinberg L.J. “Kouroi and Statistics”

 

Archaic statue

Naxian marble

Height 214 cm

c. 550 BC

From Melos, Cyclades Islands, Greece

Athens, National Archaeological Museum

 

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