The fragments of a marble statue of Diadoumenos (youth trying a fillet around his head)

The fragments of a marble statue of Diadoumenos (youth trying a fillet around his head) is located in the Met museum in the Roman and Greek exhibition across from Marble statue of a wounded Amazon. The statue stands around 6 feet tall, about the size of an average person and is made out of marble. The Diadoumenos statue was created around ca. A.D. 69–96 by Polykleitos who was an ancient Greek sculptor. He is considered to many as one of the greatest sculptor of the Classical period. One of his many famous sculpture is the bronze male nude known as the Doryphoros. It is from the late Archaic to early Classical Period. Both Polykleitos and the Greeks were thoughtful of the proportion of the human body. They apply genomic ratio to get the proportion and the true anatomy of the human body. Many Greek artists follow one rule where they celebrated the human body by representing it very youthful and in nude.

The Diadoumenos statue depicts the Classical Greek pose of contrapposto where one leg is the weight bearing legs while the other is relax. This statue left ankle which is a part of the relax leg is higher than the weight bearing leg ankle, while the knee is in opposition to the ankles, the hips are parallel and the shoulder is in opposition to the hips. In this statue the left fingers and band that is suppose go across his back and around his head is missing from the statue. This is known because a piece of the band is still visible around his and the Met had a drawing on the wall text of how the statue originally looked. The figure is looking down with both of his hands up, which suggested that he was tying the band around his head. The band on the statue was given to athlete during the Olympics.

Each part of the body is perfect in relation to the other parts of the body. This statue is the idealistic of a male’s body. The statue is also representative of the Greek style where they feel that the human body was beautiful and they celebrate the athletic of the human body. This is represents in the fact that Polykleitos did not make the figure with clothes on. The statue also shows that the Greek understood the human anatomy, where they express the body as idealize but yet naturalistic. The marble statue of diadoumenos also shows that the Greeks have moved past representing the human body as symmetry and now shows the body asymmetry, which is true to human body. The face is also very youthful. There is no presents of wrinkle. His eye lids poke out of his head and his hair is very full and curly.

The musculature and athleticism of the figure the main focus of the figure. His upper body muscle is very define while his facial features if of a 20 year old. There is also an expression of movement in the statue, as if the statue was made while the figure was moving. This figure is representative of the Greek style because it is nude, idealized and youthful from head to toe.

                                                Citation

“Fragments of a Marble Statue of the Diadoumenos (Youth Tying a Fillet around His Head) | Copy of Work Attributed to Polykleitos | 25.78.56 | Work of Art | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/25.78.56/.

" Fragments of a marble statue of the Diadoumenos (youth tying a fillet around his head)." Met museum. 1000 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10028. 04 November 2016.