Youth statue. The "Kritios Boy"
The statue was dubbed the "Kritios Boy", after the name of the sculptor believed to have created it. It depicts a standing naked boy with a solemn expression and hair tightly gathered around a ring. The bodyweight is carried on his left leg, while the right one remains relaxed, in the characteristic posture of the so-called “Severe Style”, a sculptural development that emerged after the Persian Wars of 480 BC.
The aftermath of the devastating, but victorious wars against the Persians brings about changes in the society, thought process, and art of Athens. Sculptors now study human body language and try to show the inner world of man. In place of the rigid torso of Archaic-era statues, they juxtapose a more naturalistic stance, with accurate body rendering and plasticity.
The "Kritios Boy", perhaps the earliest creation in the “Severe Style”, is considered a landmark in the history of sculpture, since it marks the transition from Archaic to Classical art. It most likely represents an athlete, the winner of an event in the Panathenaic Games.
- Acropolis Museum, inv. n. Acr. 698
- After 480 BC
- H. 1.22 m.
- Marble from Paros Island
- Provenance: Athenian Acropolis
Bibliography
- Adornato, G. (2019). Kritios and Nesiotes as Revolutionary Artists? Ancient and Archaeological Perspectives on the So-Called Severe Style Period, American Journal of Archaeology 123, pp. 575-576, 579, 581, fig. 17.
- Ridgway, B. S. (1970). The Severe Style in Greek Sculpture, pp. 31-33, 38, fig. 41, 43-44. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Stewart, A, (2008). The Persian and Carthaginian Invasions of 480 B.C.E. and the Beginning of the Classical Style: Part 1, The Stratigraphy, Chronology, and Significance of the Acropolis Deposits, American Journal of Archaeology 112, pp. 377-412, no. 10.
