The large, grave statue of a youth from

Attica Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean S ...

known as the ''Munich Kouros'' is located in the

Glyptothek The Glyptothek () is a museum in Munich, Germany, which was commissioned by the Bavarian King Ludwig I to house his collection of Greek and Roman sculptures (hence γλυπτο- ''glypto-'' "sculpture", from the Greek verb γλύφειν ''glyphe ...

Munich, Germany Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, under inventory number 169. The Kouros was acquired by the Glyptothek in 1910.

History

The Munich kouros is one of the earliest examples of the Ptoon 12 group, and therefore dates to around a decade before the creation of the

Siphnian Treasury The Siphnian Treasury was a building at the Ancient Greek cult centre of Delphi, erected to host the offerings of the polis, or city-state, of Siphnos. It was one of a number of treasuries lining the "Sacred Way", the processional route throug ...

frieze in 525 BC. It originally stood in Athens, but was taken down and buried relatively soon after – perhaps in 480 BC by the Persian army during the destruction of Athens. After its rediscovery, it was acquired in 1910 by the Munich Glyptothek.

Description

The Munich kouros is made of

Parian marble Parian marble is a fine-grained semi translucent pure-white and entirely flawless marble quarried during the classical era on the Greek island of Paros in the Aegean Sea. It was highly prized by ancient Greeks for making sculptures. Some of the ...

, and is 2.08 metres high (2.11 m including the plinth). The surface of the stone has been stained red-brown from being buried in iron-rich soil. The statue with its heavy proportions and the short hair portrays an athletic ideal. The face is full and round-oval, and in the side view it reaches a depth unknown in older statues. The archaic smile typical of statues of the time, plays around the lips. The eyes are almond-shaped and, in contrast to older statues, the ears are realistically reproduced. The face is framed by three-dimensional, hanging spiral curls that split over the middle of the forehead, unlike earlier

kouroi 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 ...

which have shoulder-length hair. The broad shoulders are on the same level. The freely worked out arms hang down parallel to the body, the forearms are angled slightly forward, the hands clenched into fists. Only in the area of the inside of the fist were the forearms connected to the body by means of small marble bridges. The treatment of the back, with its schematic furrows which indicate different muscle parts running from the backbone to the flanks as well as the shoulder blades, is based on older models. The left leg is placed forward, the right step back slightly, without reproducing a motive for movement. The position of the legs hardly affects the design of the pelvis, which only imperceptibly indicates that the left side is raised or the right is lowered. Due to its stylistic features, the kouros is dated around 540–30 BC. He is close to 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 ...

, who also comes from Attica.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Munich Kouros in the Museum of Classical Archaeology Databases
{{Commonscat, Munich Kouros Archaic Greek sculptures 6th-century BC Greek sculptures Kouroi Collection of the Glyptothek