Worlds best statue
What is the world's best statue?
Has to be something from the Italian Renaissance, some thing by Michelangelo, David? Has to be, so perfect that on our recent trip to Carrara we were told that an extremely rich American citizen has created an exact copy with the same marble used for the original.
Trouble is he might have copied the wrong one.
For those in the know the world's best statue, or statues, are the Bronzes from Riace in Calabria.
A wonderful BBC television program coincided with our return from Carrara and built a convincing argument.
Firstly, the Greek world represented their Gods in human form. The ancient Egyptians didn't. But the Egyptians knew how to work stone on a massive scale. The Greeks applied the techniques and created life sized human forms. Eventually perfectly. Too perfectly in fact and they strove for an even more human representation. They managed it by exaggerating slightly the human body and pose to render it more dynamic. Art was never the same and we've been exaggerating the human form for our own visual please ever since, including Michelangelo.
So get yourself to the National Museum of Reggio Calabria and see the Riace Bronzes close up.
What is the world's best statue? It's Italian for sure. For me, it would rather be the Lamborghini Countach.
Posted by: Marco Italian | October 15, 2007 at 12:08 PM