Myron, Discobolus (Discus Thrower), Roman copy of an ancient Greek bronze from c. 450 B.C.E.

Myron, Discobolus (Discus Thrower), Roman copy of an ancient Greek bronze from c. 450 B.C.E. (Palazzo Massimo alle Terme)
More free lessons at: http://www.khanacademy.org/video?v=OhJKDqZgNXg

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris & Dr. Steven Zucker

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Closed Caption:

[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: Ancient Greek
sculptures, bronze or marble,
are frozen.
But that doesn't mean
that the ancient Greeks
didn't want to convey movement.
SPEAKER 2: In this case,
movement that you couldn't even
see with the naked eye.
SPEAKER 1: What
we're looking at,
is a sculpture by an
artist whose name is Myron.
We've lost his original, but
we have a later Roman marble
copy of the "Discus Thrower."
SPEAKER 2: The original was in
bronze from the fifth century
BCE.
SPEAKER 1: About 450, 460.
SPEAKER 2: And what
we're looking at
is one of many Roman copies.
In fact, there's one
next to the other
in this museum, a
testament to how popular
these were among the Romans.
SPEAKER 1: The
sculpture shows a man
who is at that moment where
his body is fully wound.
Look at the way
that his right leg
is bearing the
weight of his body.
His left leg, the toes are
bent under, dragging slightly,
and he's about to
throw that discus.
This is a moment of
tremendous tension,
but it's also this moment
stasis, of stillness,
right before the action.
SPEAKER 2: Athletes
and art historians
have debated whether this
is even an actual pose
that the discus thrower
takes in the process.
SPEAKER 1: It's so interesting,
because when we think back
about the history
of the Greek figure,
we think first of the
Archaic Kouros, who
is so stiff and so stylized.
And then we have the
tremendous breakthroughs
of people like
Polykleitos who developed
an understanding of the body,
and showed in a contrapposto.
But here we have
something that's
so dynamic, and so
complex, I mean just
look at the arc of the
shoulders and the arms,
and the way that
they reverse the arc
of the twist of the hips.
SPEAKER 2: That is
the overriding concern
of Myron, the sculptor, to
capture the aesthetic qualities
here.
The sense of
balance and harmony,
and the beauty in the
proportions of the body.
SPEAKER 1: There is
kind of anti-realism
here, for all of its
careful naturalism.
There is no real
strain within the body.
It is absolutely at
rest, and ideal, even
in this extreme pose.
SPEAKER 2: If you
think about a figure
from much later, but in a
similar pose of movement,
of athletic energy,
like Bernini's "David."
SPEAKER 1: Well, that's got
all this torsion, absolutely.
SPEAKER 2: That
figure expresses all
of the physical
power in the face.
He's clenching his teeth, right?
SPEAKER 1: That's true.
And his brow is
really knit forward.
But here, the face
is absolutely serene.
And it reminds me
of the consistency
with which the Greeks always
maintain their nobility, even
in battle, even in terrible
situations with monsters.
And here, even at
this moment when
he's about to
release the discus.
SPEAKER 2: Right, that
nobility, that calm in the face,
is a sign of a nobility
of the human being.
SPEAKER 1: Well,
this is a sport,
and the man is naked, which
is what the Greeks did.
But there was a
real logic there.
Why would you
cover up the beauty
of the body in sport, which
is, of course, a celebration
of what the human
body can achieve.
This is really a way to remind
ourselves of the Greeks concern
with the potential of humanity,
the potential of the mind,
and the potential of the body.
SPEAKER 2: Taking
that extra step
to become even more ideal,
more heroic, more noble,
than even the finest athlete.
SPEAKER 1: It is a perfect form.
[MUSIC PLAYING]