Parian marble sculpture at The Louvre an Example of the Topic Arts Essays by

Parian marble sculpture at The Louvre The Winged Victory of Samothrace is one of the most celebrated visual art sculptures in the world from the Hellenistic era. The sculpture depicts the goddess Nike as she descends from the sky with outstretched wings over her shoulders. It originally formed part of the Samothrace temple that was an homage to the gods. Victory was situated at the prow of the ship in her triumphant pose. Before this statue of Nike lost her arms, they were cupped around her mouth in an effort to announce the Greek victory at Lartos. Need essay sample on "Parian marble sculpture at The Louvre" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed This statue is notable of the Hellenistic era due to its naturalistic pose and the way her garment appears to be flowing so effortlessly. The wind blown garment gives the impression of motion and movement, as if being blown by the breeze of the sea. Given that she was placed at the prow of the ship, the sculpture was a stunning and emphatic symbol for reestablishing the grandeur of Greek civilization after the struggles and battles of the Peloponnesian War that involved all of the Greek city-states, including Athens. In the wake of the poverty following the war, Greek art had very little resources to finance many sculptures. In this way, the sculptures that were created tended to reflect the changing state of affairs in Greek society. The most notable trend during the Hellenistic era was the portrayal of individual gods and goddesses in natural poses that displayed a great range of emotions. It is unknown who actually created the Winged Victory of Samothrace, but whoever it was continued this trend and expanded upon it with the insertion of the flowing garments and the wings. Nike's body is in a state of returning from motion and her left leg is strong and shown bare out the side of the garment. Her chest is pressed out in a posture of confidence and femininity and you can almost see through the garments enough to make out the shape of her skin and the contours of her stomach. Her head is absent on her shoulders and has never been found, although other portions of her body that have fallen off have been recovered. This statue demonstrates the mastery of movement and form being perfected during this era, despite its current incompleteness. This piece of infamous art embodies the return to reality following a devastating period of violence and war. Greek artists sought to capture the human form in all of its naturalness, expressing the emotions and postures that came to define this era. Winged Victory of Samothrace continues and expands this style of the Hellenistic age with its emphasis of grace and beauty in the flowing attire of the goddess Nike returning from the sky with the message of Victory. Works Cited Antiquites grecques, etrusques et romaines. The Louvre Museum. Retrieved 7 April 2009, from cnt_" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp?CONTENTcnt_

Leonardo da Vincis Study of Hands

Leonardo da Vincis Study of Hands This beautiful sketch of three hands is in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle exemplifies Leonardo da Vincis intense attention to, even fascination with, anatomical correctness and the effects of light and shadow. At the bottom, one hand is folded underneath another, more developed one, as if resting in a lap. That lightly-sketched hand seems to be the ghost of the top hand, which holds a sprig of some sort of plant   the outline of the thumb is nearly identical. These two highly developed hands are worked up with dark crosshatchings and white chalk highlights, creating a sense of mass even on a sheet of paper. In each, everything from the muscles of thumb-pads to the wrinkles of skin along the joints of the fingers is depicted with the utmost care. Even when Leonardo lightly sketches the rest of the forearm or the ghost hand, his lines are deft and confident, showing how much he strove to depict the human form correctly. Although the first instance of his studies of anatomy and dissection is not until 1489, in the Windsor manuscript B,  his interest in the subject would no doubt have been bubbling just beneath the surface, and it is certainly evident in this sketch. Leonardo seemed to draw his ideas and notes as they came to him, and in this vein, we also see a lightly sketched head of an old man in the upper left corner; perhaps one of those quick caricatures of a man whose peculiar features struck him as he passed. Many scholars take this sketch as a preliminary study for  The Portrait of a Lady,  who could very possibly be the famous Renaissance beauty Ginevra de Benci, in the National Gallery, Washington, D.C. Although Giorgio  Vasari tells us that Leonardo did indeed create a portrait of Ginevra- an extremely beautiful painting, he tells us- there is no outright evidence that she is, indeed, Ginevra. Additionally, while there is clear evidence that the portrait had been cut down,  there is no further documentation or other drawings that would definitively allow us to say that these hands are hers. Nevertheless, the National Gallery has created a composite image of the sketch and the portrait. Ginevra de Benci is an important Renaissance figure, and John Walker  of the National Galler has argued convincingly that she is the subject of Leonardos portrait. Born into an extremely wealthy and well-connected Florentine family,  Ginevra was a talented poet and friends with Lorenzo de Medici himself. If this is indeed Ginevra, the portrait is further complicated by its patron. While it could have possibly been commissioned in celebration of her marriage to Luigi Niccolini, there is also a possibility that it was commissioned by her possibly platonic lover Bernardo Bembo.  Indeed, no less than three poets, including the aforementioned Lorenzo de Medici himself, wrote of their affair.  There is another sketch dubiously attached to the Ginevra portrait,  Young Woman Seated in a Landscape with a Unicorn, in the Ashmolean Museum; the unicorns presence, like the credo on the verso of the painting (beauty adorns virtue), speak to her innocence and virtue. Sources and Further Reading Giorgio Vasari, The Life of Leonardo da Vinci, Florentine Painter and Sculptor,  The Lives of the Artists, trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 293.Walker, John. Ginevra de Benci  by Leonardo da Vinci.  Report Studies in the History of Art.  Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1969: 1-22.