Dr. Steven Zucker: We're in the
National Archaeological Museum in Athens and we're
looking at a great bronze sculpture of a striding god.
Dr. Beth Harris: You didn't even have
to tell me it was a god.
He's so powerful, he looks so in control.
We look at him and we know that this is
a god who controls the fates of human beings.
Dr. Steven Zucker: We're pretty sure he's
either Poseidon or Zeus.
Dr. Beth Harris: Now, Poseidon's the god of the sea.
Dr. Steven Zucker: And his brother, Zeus,
is the god who rules all of the
Olympian gods from Mount Olympus.
The way that we would be able to determine
which it was, is dependent on what he was holding.
Dr. Beth Harris: If he was holding a trident,
he would be Poseidon and if he was
holding a thunderbolt, he would be Zeus.
Now, sadly, his attribute is lost.
Dr. Steven Zucker: Most art historians
tend to think it's Zeus.
A thunderbolt was short and it would not
have obscured the face the way that a
trident would have, which was much longer.
In addition, if you look at the gap in his hand,
it's a wide grasp, much wider than it
would be if it was the narrow handle of a trident.
Dr. Beth Harris: A thunderbolt was
Zeus's weapon of choice,
he's referred to as, "The Hurler of Thunderbolts."
Now, this is bronze, it's important to talk about what this
would have looked like in 460 BCE when it was created.
It would have gleamed, it would have shined in the light.
Dr. Steven Zucker: It's so rare that we
have an original Greek bronze and the only reason
we have this one, is that it was
recovered from an ancient shipwreck.
What happens is, the bronze doesn't rust unless
there is air and water that alternate.
Underwater, it gets encrusted with lots of barnacles
and sea creatures, but it actually can be
quite well preserved as it is the case here.
Dr. Beth Harris: That gleaming, shining,
radiant effect goes with the idea of this being Zeus.
Dr. Steven Zucker: Especially since we think
that the eye brows, perhaps the beard and certainly
the thunderbolt, would have been inlaid with silver.
You would have had that gleaming warm color of
the bronze against those brilliant flashes of silver.
Dr. Beth Harris: His eyes would have been inlaid with
glass and so you have this amazing figure,
not only gleaming, but also striding toward us,
depending on where we stand of course.
Dr. Steven Zucker: Look at the way he occupies space,
we don't want to stand in front of him,
we would be the victim of that thunderbolt.
His focus is extraordinary, we have that incredible
extension that is more than six feet of one hand to the
other and he's steadying himself,
but also aiming with that hand before him.
Dr. Beth Harris: He's shifting as you would
need to do in order to hurl something like a thunderbolt,
although it's hard to imagine hurling a thunderbolt.
Dr. Steven Zucker: That's right, he's pushing off
with his right leg and his left leg, the toes are up as if
that foot is readying itself to bear
the weight of the body as he steps forward.
Dr. Beth Harris: Now, if you think back just a hundred
years to the Archaic Period, Greek sculptors
were making sculptures out of marble and they were
very contained, that is the limbs were close to the body.
We see during this early classical period-
Dr. Steven Zucker: Sometimes known as the Severe style.
Dr. Beth Harris: An interest in figures that are
more open, where you have limbs that are apart,
figures that move into the space of the viewer
and this is possible because of the use of bronze.
Dr. Steven Zucker: We don't need the struts,
we don't need the bridges that are
required in a marble sculpture.
Here, the tensile strength of the bronze
is great enough so that those arms can be out
and give that kind of extraordinary vitality to this
figure and invite us to walk around it.
Dr. Beth Harris: There are really three distinct views
of this sculpture, the front and the back make the figure
look very flat, very schematic, very silhouetted.
We see the full body, we see both legs, the torso-
Dr. Steven Zucker: It's almost like a drawing.
Dr. Beth Harris: The arms stretched out.
Dr. Steven Zucker: The arms, especially the left arm
are a little longer than they would be naturally.
Dr. Beth Harris: When we move to the side,
that sense of flatness changes and we get a figure
that seems to occupy space in all directions.
Dr. Steven Zucker: We see the depth of the torso,
we can see a little bit of twist
in the hips and the upper body.
We see this figure breaking out from
that kouros tradition dramatically.
Dr. Beth Harris: What seems like silhouette,
actually exists in depth.
Dr. Steven Zucker: Look, for instance, at the angle
of the hole in the right hand.
We can see that the thunderbolt or the trident
was not held parallel with the hand,
but would have swung around because
it's at a little bit of an angle.
Dr. Beth Harris: The remarkable thing to me
is that he looks powerful, he looks super human,
but still human in his nudity.
Dr. Steven Zucker: The Greeks understanding the male
human body as this receptacle for all of its ideals.
Plato talked about the idea that the gods were
the perfect manifestation and that we work a kind of
inferior reflection of that perfection.
Here we see the Greek setting up this idealized
human male body and we are just a reflection of that.