Perfect Male Body As Canon Of Human Figure – Greek Severe Style Or Early Classic Style

Perfect Male Body As Canon Of Human Figure – Greek Severe Style Or Early Classic Style

With the Greek Severe Style – or the Early Classic Style – we are still in the BC time. You can even call it a transitional period in Greek art, but a transition very important – that's when the first idea of Contrapposto in art was born. 

It took only 40 years – from 490 to 450 BC – for the art history to "switch" from the Archaic art to Classical style. 40 years of experiments, searches, studies and inventions. And the result? –   

Michelangelo's David with his standing pose is one of the results of the 40 years of the Severe Style period. – The world-famous Contrapposto.

Why is it called Severe Style?

The term "severe style" means exactly what it says – "strict", "rigorous", "extremely accurate". The proportions of the human body were studied, described and these new studies and discoveries were to be strictly followed and executed only this way, without any excuse. Strict. Severe.

 

Contrapposto

Contrapposto. Of course, all those experiments and discoveries that were made during that period concerned exclusively sculpture. The Greek artists were searching for a perfect standing position for their sculptures. This position should look natural, relaxed and real. It was just the beginning of the search for Contrapposto – they were successful figuring it out with the position of the hips (the correct inclination) but not yet with the position of the shoulders. And also, there was still the lack of the correct/realistic alternation of the muscles' flexion and tension of the limbs. 

"Contrapposto" means an asymmetrical arrangement of the human figure in which the line of the arms and shoulders contrasts with, while balancing, those of the hips and legs.

In this photo below is David of Michelangelo (early 1500) in the pose of the ideal Contrapposto and Doryphoros of Polykleitos (ca. 440 BC) as an early example of classical Contrapposto which still will have to evolve and be finalized later.

 

No more Archaic smile

The Archaic smile is gone. Yes, if you look at the statutes created during the Archaic Style you will notice that all of them have blissful smiles. These smiles of the Archaic art period are called "Archaic smiles". Well, during the 40 years of the Severe Style these smiles were gone. 

 

Tree Trunk Stump

Tree trunk stump. Whenever you see a marble statue with a tree trunk supporting the figure and preventing it from falling, you can almost always be sure that this is not an original statue but a copy. The original was probably made out of bronze and could support itself (weight-wise). 

 

The Canon

Canon. The same Greek sculptor  Polykleitos – who passionately worked on creating the perfect depiction of an ideal beauty of the male body – is known for developing the concept and the principles of the ideal proportions of the human figure. That concept was based on mathematical ratios and was called by its author – the "Canon" (Greek for "Rule"). 

 

Seven Heads

Seven heads – yes, the measurement of the human body became finally know. The length of the ideal body in standing position is exactly 7 heads – from head to tow. This too was discovered back then during the Severe Style.    

 

The main rule of the male beauty Canon is the rule of seven heads . – Today, this rule is known and used by ALL artists in the world.

 

40 years seem insignificant in the big picture of art history. It's only a transitional period. But still... without those 40 years of Severe Style literally no future art would've been possible! – The contemporary art is an amazingly harmonious result of all steps that artists took in the past. 

 

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