The archaic smile was used by sculptors in

Archaic Greece Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from circa 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period. In the archaic period, Greeks settled across the ...

, especially in the second quarter of the 6th century BCE, possibly to suggest that their subject was alive and infused with a sense of well-being. One of the most famous examples of the archaic smile is the

Kroisos Kouros The Kroisos Kouros ( grc, κοῦρος) is a marble kouros from Anavyssos (Ανάβυσσος) in Attica which functioned as a grave marker for a fallen young warrior named Kroisos (). Overview The free-standing sculpture strides forward with t ...

, and the

Peplos Kore The Peplos Kore is one of the most well-known examples of Archaic Greek art. Kore is a type of archaic Greek statue that portray a young woman with a stiff posture looking straight forward. Although this statue is one of the most famous examples ...

is another. By the middle of the Archaic Period of

ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

(roughly 800 BCE to 480 BCE), the art that proliferated contained images of people who had the archaic smile, ''A Brief History of the Smile'', Angus Trumble, 2005, , p.11, Google Books link:
books-google-AT11
"Archaic smile", Britannica Online Encyclopedia, 2009, webpage:
-->Archaic-smile EB-Smile
as evidenced by statues found in excavations all across the Greek mainland, Asia Minor, and on islands in the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi (Greek language, Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish language, Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It ...

. The significance of the convention is not known although it is often assumed that for the Greeks, that kind of smile reflected a state of ideal health and well-being. It has also been suggested that it is simply the result of a technical difficulty in fitting the curved shape of the mouth to the somewhat-blocklike head typical of Archaic sculpture. Richard Neer theorizes that the archaic smile may actually be a marker of status, since aristocrats of multiple cities throughout Greece were referred to as the ''Geleontes'' or "smiling ones". There are alternative views to the archaic smile being "flat and quite unnatural looking".

John Fowles John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. Aft ...

describes the archaic smile in his novel '' The Magus'' as "full of the purest metaphysical good humour ..timelessly intelligent and timelessly amused. ..Because a star explodes and a thousand worlds like ours die, we know this world is. That is the smile: that what might not be, is ..When I die, I shall have this by my bedside. It is the last human face I want to see." There is a visual connection between the Greek archaic smile and the smiles found on

Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy *Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization **Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities ** Etrusca ...

artworks during the same time period nearby on the east side of the Italian peninsula. An example of this commonly featured in art history texts is the

Sarcophagus of the Spouses The ''Sarcophagus of the Spouses'' (Italian: ''Sarcofago degli Sposi'') is considered one of the great masterpieces of Etruscan art. The Etruscans lived in Italy between two main rivers, the Arno and the Tiber, and were in contact with the An ...

, a terracotta work found in the

necropolis A necropolis (plural necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'', literally meaning "city of the dead". The term usually im ...

Cerveteri Cerveteri () is a town and ''comune'' of northern Lazio in the region of the Metropolitan City of Rome. Known by the ancient Romans as Caere, and previously by the Etruscans as Caisra or Cisra, and as Agylla (or ) by the Greeks, its modern name de ...

. It features a smiling couple reclined seemingly at a banquet. The slight geometric stylization, level of realism and physical scale are also strikingly similar to Greek works from this period featuring the archaic smile. File:Kouros of Tenea 560-550 BC, Glyptothek Munich 168 120292x.jpg,

Kouros of Tenea The grave statue of a youth from Tenea known as the ''Kouros of Tenea'' (formerly ''Apollo of Tenea'') is now located in the Glyptothek in Munich, Germany.Caskey, L. D. 1924. "The Proportions of the Apollo of Tenea." American Journal of Archaeology ...

, 560-550 BCE, Glyptothek Munich Image:0008MAN-KourosHead2.jpg, Head of a

kouros kouros ( grc, κοῦρος, , plural kouroi) is the modern term given to free-standing Ancient Greek sculptures that depict nude male youths. They first appear in the Archaic period in Greece and are prominent in Attica and Boeotia, with a less ...

in the

National Archaeological Museum of Athens The National Archaeological Museum ( el, Εθνικό Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο) in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is ...

Image:Moscophoros22.jpg, The ''

Moscophoros Moschophoros (Greek: μοσχοφόρος "calf-bearer") is an ancient Greek statue of the Archaic period, also known in English as ''The Calf Bearer''. It was excavated in fragments in the Perserschutt in the Acropolis of Athens in 1864. The sta ...

'' of the

Acropolis An acropolis was the settlement of an upper part of an ancient Greek city, especially a citadel, and frequently a hill with precipitous sides, mainly chosen for purposes of defense. The term is typically used to refer to the Acropolis of Athens, ...

, ca 570 BCE File:Marble Sphinx Acropolis Museum 630.jpg, Votive

sphinx A sphinx ( , grc, σφίγξ , Boeotian: , plural sphinxes or sphinges) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of a falcon. In Greek tradition, the sphinx has the head of a woman, the haunches of ...

from the Acropolis File:Aphaia pediment head W-III Glyptothek Munich 75.jpg, Warrior from the west pediment of the

Temple of Aphaia The Temple of Aphaia ( el, Ναός Αφαίας) or Afea is located within a sanctuary complex dedicated to the goddess Aphaia on the Greek island of Aigina, which lies in the Saronic Gulf. Formerly known as the Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, ...

, Glyptothek Munich

References

{{Commons category, Archaic smile

External links

The Dying Warrior from the Temple of Alphaisa

Archaic Greek sculpture Iconography Visual motifs

See also

References

External links