How Do You Think Polyclitus Portrays The Human Form

The Greek portrays the human form naturally and realistically, they slowly develop standardized representations of the human form sculptor to reflect the aesthetic preferences of the period in which they are created. In the classical period, Greek artists create naturalistic representations of the human form. Focusing particularly on the ideal male body, sculptors carved figures that reflected their concern with the principles of harmony, order, symmetry and proportions. Polyclitus a Greek sculptor (450 BC) developed a break-through technique that allows human form sculptures to be created showing physical potential of an athlete, something both relaxes and yet ready to move. They mastered this technique on marble and began creating human form …show more content…
Thus the purpose of art became the glorification of God, and artists collaborated in the production of such enormous projects such as the Gothic cathedrals. Human form in the painting were hierarchic, they were often ranked in size on an ascending scale starting from the highest ranking religious fixtures. The catholic church of the day considered the human body as sinful, for this reason human form were unisex, only hairstyles and the color of clothing betray one gender or another. They are always draped in long, heavy looking robes, only face and hands were shown. For example Human forms such as the Madonna and Baby Jesus, they evolve from large heads on smaller bodies in Early Christianity to abstract forms in the Romanesque era. In the Gothic era, the Madonna and Child are more naturalistic with tall, bony figures. Even the facial features of the Madonna and Child changed from the Gothic era, Mary had an approachable, warm expression, signaling the Church’s recognition that images should attract people instead of intimidating