The Influence of Egyptian Sculpture on Greek Artists
Transcript
Female Narrator: This panel shows some of the ways Egyptian sculpture influenced Greek art. Dr. Robert Bianchi, chief curator of the Fondation Gandur in Geneva, Switzerland, tells us how.
Dr. Bob Bianchi: In the seventh century BC the Greeks started to send colonies out all over the Mediterranean and those colonization and travels led them to Egypt. They saw these large-scale colossal standing statues and decided to create their own versions thereof.
Female Narrator: The most popular type of statue was a striding male figure…
Dr. Bob Bianchi:…an image of a figure an official or a pharaoh who was standing erect, with his left foot forward, and his arms held parallel to the body, the fist resting on the area of the thigh. And that became the model for the Greek kouros, or naked striding male figure in Greek art.
Female Narrator: The Greeks approached this figure type a bit differently than the Egyptians.
Dr. Bob Bianchi: The Egyptians had an aversion to nudity. So most of their striding male figures were wearing a kilt. Greek images on the other hand were completely naked. Another important detail to recognize is that in the fisted hands of the Egyptian statues there was an object…
Female Narrator: a kind of ceremonial staff…
Dr. Bob Bianchi: …that was to be able to fill the space in the fist. The Greeks however very cleverly rotated the thumb so that the space was covered by the thumb of the figure.
Female Narrator: One final thing. If you look at just about any striding figure’s face, Greek or Egyptian, you’ll notice a little half-smile. In the Egyptian examples, it’s a little stiff. But scholars think the Greeks, who were interested in anatomy, depicted their figures nude, using the smile to show how the muscles of the face, just like the muscles of the body, adapted to movement as the figure strode forward.