Kritios Boy

The found on the Acropolis in Athens during excavations in 1866 called Kritios - boy is usually attributed to the workshop of the sculptor Kritios and Nesiotes, who also created the sculpture group of tyrannicide. The 1.17 -meter-high marble statue is located in the Acropolis of Athens. She has the inventory number 698 The torso was found among the so-called Persian debris. In the immediate vicinity and under the Persian debris was among other things, the calf support and the Angelitos Athena. The Kritios - boy is in the spätarchaisch - early classical period, shortly before 480 BC, dated and still stands in the tradition of the archaic Kouroi. The statue depicts a blond young man, such as paint residues show the hair. It was erected as a votive offering on the Acropolis in honor of a young competition winner.

The fact that the statue belongs in an art-historical transition period, which is also known as Severe style, evidenced by the uniformly shaped curls approach, which is typical for this time. Good comparison examples for this are the Apollo of Olympia or even those familiar blonde head from the Acropolis and Da Costa from the Museum of Agrigento. The legs are not stiff like the archaic Kouroi in a simulated walking posture, such as at the giant statue of the so-called Sounion warrior. The body weight rests on the left leg ( leg ) here; the right one is slightly angled as a game leg. However, a significant tilt of the pelvis does not call forth the still, so that the basin resigns from the vertical axis. It is also the case with the simultaneous ephebes of Agrigento. Here it is only hinted at what was to become much more clearly prevails. This contrast pillar - free leg a stronger inclination positioning of the pelvis ( ponderation or contrapposto ) is later effected from Polykleitos. In the school of Polykleitos is raised to the canon. Also for subsequent schools of sculpture as that of Praxiteles or Lysippus this canon of Polykleitos is again decisive.