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"Why me? Why did I have to go so soon? I could have done more with
my life. Who is going to take care of the children?" These are thoughts
that could have poured through the mind of the woman in the marble
stele. The chosen piece is a marble grave marker from the mid-fourth
century B.C. It depicts a woman sitting to the right side, with her
left side facing the world, in a chair with her head half covered by a
shawl of some sort.
The stele, which is made of marble, is forty-eight and one eighth
inches high, and it was found sometime before 1827 in Acharnae, Menidi,
in Attica. There isn't much known as to who carved it, or as to whom it
is a carving of. This could be because in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, a great deal of great artifacts, especially sculptures were
gathered up and collected by Europeans (Art of the Western World). This
caused some statues to be damaged during their transports, and many of
them have lost pieces of their histories due to the harvesting of these
artworks en masse. This piece in particular was donated to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1948, as part of the Harry Brisbane Dick
Fund (MMA postcard). Its purpose is the only thing that is really
known, and that is that it is a grave marker. However, it is still
beautiful and charming nonetheless.
Based on the Story of Art, the untitled marble stele would be
classified as a Classical piece of art. This means that the Greeks of
the time tried to capture true human essence by portraying people as
beautiful, but trying to portray real positions of people at the same
time. The artists tried to break away from the stiffness of the archaic
style. It infuses ideality with reality.
The woman, proportionally, looks like the size of an average woman,
but she has a beauty to her. Her face is smooth, and her nose, although
it is broken, is the ideal size. Her nose, mouth and eyes are all
properly distanced from each other. Perhaps this is what the woman who
died looked like at her prime in life, or maybe this is how she looked
before she died. Yet, it may not even be the person for whom the grave
marked. Perhaps it is supposed to be a goddess watching over one of her
priests or a mother looking down on her poor, dead son.
Whoever wrote the information at the museum was reminded of a quote
by Aristotle that pertains to death. The quote reads, "In addition to
believing that those who have ended this life are blessed and happy, we
also think that to say anything false or slanderous against them is
impious, from our feeling that it is directed against those who have
already become our betters and superiors" ("Of the Soul," quoted in
Plutarch, A Letter to Apollonius 27). This passage accurately describes
the emotion that emanates from the piece.
The stele is a sandy, marble, not a bright, sun-bleached one. It has
been eroded and damaged over time, but the viewer can still imagine
what it looked like when it was first carved all those years ago. The
artist of this piece definitely didn't struggle with the use of
movement. The way this piece flows together expresses that clearly. The
woman is draped in a shawl or robe, and it covers the majority of her
body. With her right hand, she is holding some of the material away
from her face so that it can be seen. This also exposes some of her
hair, which is braided across the top of her forehead, creating a
border between her face and hair. Her nose has been chipped off, but
this hardly disturbs the tranquility and harmony of the piece. It just
makes the woman appear even more somber.
Her gaze is one of reflection too. It is a question of what she is
reflecting upon, her own life or another's. This evokes a sense of
sadness or heartbreak possibly. Her eyes, although they are only a
sandy-white marble without further detail, tell her viewers that she is
serious, and they try to produce empathy.
The woman is missing body parts though, and it is unsure whether the
sculptor ever gave them to her. Her absence of legs adds to her sad
look. If she did have legs at one point, they could have added to the
mood of the piece. If they were crossed, the woman could have looked
more relaxed. If the were straight, she could've looked more majestic.
And, if they were strewn about, she may have looked more in thought. It
looks as though she did have legs at one time and they were broken off.
Her ears are also not visible, and this is slightly puzzling.
Although, from the angle of the viewer, only her left ear would have
been visible anyway. This may have been an oversight on the part of the
sculptor, but the ear was probably intentionally put under the cloth.
The lack of an ear or any other small detailed object on the left side
of the face may be to show the smoothness of the marble or the flowing
curvature of the face.
Her chair is hardly that of a peasant, and the artist crafted the
chair with exquisite detail to ensure that the viewers knew the status
of the woman. When looking closely at the chair, it can be interpreted
as being more of a throne. She has a cushioned seat, which if colored,
would probably be a majestic purple or a crimson red maybe. The back of
the chair is a flat back that rises up to right below the shoulder
blades of the woman, and it is meant to be sat in using good posture.
Even the armrest is very straight and rigid, and the base of it was
decorated exquisitely at one time it appears. There was some kind of
small ornamental sphinx or other winged creature that adorned the
chair. It connected the armrest and the base of the chair, but it, like
the woman's nose, couldn't stand the test of time. It has, since the
time of its carving, been broken at the head, so it is not determinable
exactly what the creature was meant to be. However, what remains of it
implies that it had a meaning of royalty or power because the wings of
the statuette are all that remain, but they are finely detailed. The
base of the chair, too, is rigid and uncomfortable looking, but it
suggests power or wealth. It is constructed from two cylindrical posts
that are connected by a rectangular piece. Although it is plain
looking, it has a sense of stability as well.
Her gown looks very feminine, almost mother like. She wraps herself
up in it as though it is protecting her from something, maybe death or
the pained death of a loved one. She uses it like a security blanket,
shielding her from whatever horror or sadness that befalls her. It is
although the material is part of her skin, especially on her left arm
and upper back. This shows how fine and smooth the artist was trying to
portray the cloth as being.
Her gown's fluidity, as it covers her head and the majority of her
body, greatly contrasts the straightness and the rigidity of the chair.
It is as though the gown is part of the woman, and the chair is the
frame. When saying the chair is the frame, it is only meant that the
majority of the emotion is in the woman herself. The chair is more of a
clue as to her status, and how people lived during the time of the
sculptor. The way this piece can be interpreted is like an egg. The
hard protective part being the chair, and the woman in the chair being
the most important part, like the yolk. She is the soft, emotional
part, and the chair is almost void of emotion, if it weren't for the
way she is interacting with it. She is slouching in it and staring at
the ground, as though she is in deep thought. Her body doesn't directly
mimic the straightness of the chair. She is breaking away from the
discipline that the chair tries to provide.
Historically, this statue shows us that the Greeks did care about
their dead, and that it was customary to respectfully dispose of the
dead. We, today, still popularly use statues in cemeteries as grave
markers. The woman also expresses a sense of misunderstanding of death
but at the same time, an appreciation for whatever is to come
afterward. The feelings she conveys are not much different from the
ones that people today still feel when a loved one dies. This piece
shows that we, as humans, haven't changed emotionally since the
mid-fourth century B.C. Today, that woman could be sitting in a
designer business suit in a tall wooden chair in a funeral home, and
she could still have the same exact expression and posture. The
American society of today isn't really that much different from the
society of the Ancient Greeks, and our ideas of what is beautiful,
ugly, happy and painful are still basically the same.
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