Some of the loveliest works of Archaic art were the Athenian koraimdash;sculptures of beautiful young women presenting offerings to the goddess Athena that stood on the Acropolis. Sculpted in the sixth and early fifth centuries B.C.; they served as votives until Persians sacked the citadel in 480/79 B.C. Subsequently; they were buried as a group and forgotten for nearly twenty-four centuries; until archaeologists excavated them in the 1880s. Today; they are among the treasures of the Acropolis Museum.Mary Stieber takes a fresh look at the Attic korai in this book. Challenging the longstanding view that the sculptures are generic female images; she persuasively argues that they are instead highly individualized; mimetically realistic representations of Archaic young women; perhaps even portraits of real people. Marshalling a wide array of visual and literary evidence to support her claims; she shows that while the korai lack the naturalism that characterizes later Classical art; they display a wealth and realism of detail that makes it impossible to view them as generic; idealized images. This iconoclastic interpretation of the Attic korai adds a new dimension to our understanding of Archaic art and to the distinction between realism and naturalism in the art of all periods.
#478136 in eBooks 1997-10-16 1997-10-16File Name: B00FF76SQS
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy RIFA beautiful play about the struggles; victories and comic tragedies of being a woman.