Getty Museum

Head of a Kouros

Date

about 510 B.C.

Medium

Marble

Culture

Greek

Department

Sculpture

Institution

Getty Museum

This head is broken from a full statue through the middle of the neck. The roundness of the face and the lack of articulation around the jaw line suggest that this was once part of a statue of a kouros (the ancient Greek word for a male youth). The face has been so badly damaged that it is difficult to distinguish facial features. Of the original carved surfaces only the corners of the mouth and areas on the forehead, under the eyes, jaws and neck remain intact. The hair is a smooth, undifferentiated cap, rolled up at the back and held in place by a simple fillet (ribbon), half-round in profile. The style of this head is that of kouroi carved in a transition period between the Archaic and Classical periods. The pose of statues of the Greek Archaic period follows a convention of standing frontally with the left leg forward, arms at the sides, and the head perfectly aligned with the body and eyes looking straight ahead. The Getty’s head is set squarely upon the neck, and the frontality of the face is maintained. However, the physiognomy has a greater naturalistic appearance than kouroi carved earlier. Called by modern scholars either the Severe or Bold style, there is no firm chronology for this type, and dates for individual works are approximate, falling at some point between 525 and 480 B.C. The more stolid appearance of the Getty’s head, the sharp demarcation between the head and neck, and the hairstyle place it at the end of the sixth century B.C. The hair style of the head is similar to that on a kouros found in the sanctuary of Apollo on Mount Ptoon in Boeotia dated about 500 B.C. This rolled-up hairstyle tied with a thin ribbon is also worn by the young men playing stick ball on the front of a base for the statue of a funerary kouros found in the Kerameikos cemetery in Athens and dated about 510-500 B.C.

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