Classical Art at the Met the Large

Classical Art at the Met

The large octagon at the center of the Lod Mosaic contains:

A Tiger (lower left of the octagon)

An Elephant (center right of the octagon)

A Giraffe (backing nervously away from the elephant)

OBJECT # 1 ROOM 150

ACCESSION NUMBER 1997.145.1

TITLE Bronze Rod Tripod Stand

MEDIUM Bronze

CULTURE Greek

DATE Early 6th Century BCE

The sculpted figures on the top of the tripod are uncanny -- they alternate abstract horse's heads which might have come from a sleek twentieth-century chess set, rearing high, alongside strange, much shorter sphinxes with disproportionately huge heads, seemingly braided hair, and giant bug eyes. The facial features look robotic and abstracted, the bodies of the sphinxes are recognizably leonine but remarkably small with features not clearly defined. As representational art it is abstract in a way that I'm much more accustomed to from early 20th century primitivism -- the Picasso works that imitate African masks. This piece stands about two and a half feet high -- the bronze is heavily patinaed so the work appears green in color. The strange modernism of the ornamental figures on the top is weirdly offset by the ornamental fleurs-de-lis or rosette looking designs that hang from the arches of the tripod's three legs: the legs at the base end in claw feet like a Victorian bathtub.

OBJECT 2 ROOM 151

ACCESSION NUMBER 17.190.2072

TITLE Statuette of a Man and a centaur

MEDIUM Bronze

CULTURE Late Geometric Greek

DATE approx 750 BCE

COMMENTARY

This rather futuristic-looking piece of mini-statuary is actually from the eighth century BCE. It seems typical of the geometric art on view in the initial three galleries here (Rooms 150-152, aka the Robert and Renee Belfer Court of the Metropolitan Museum of Art). The figures depicted seem manneristically distorted: they wear strangely ornamental hats, and their bodies look gangly with bulbous heads, like space aliens. They have rather prominent genitalia, closely rendered -- although weirdly the centaur has his genitals not where a horses would be, but where a man's would be -- front and center. The tail of the centaur also reaches the ground, providing a fifth leg for the statue effectively. The base has a geometric zigzag pattern enclosed within a larger pattern of regular concentric rectangles. The piece is only a few inches high. The bronze has a patina in some places which mottles it with a vibrant Kelly green, but otherwise it has the dull reddish hue of terracotta: its surface texture is what seems most metallic, especially where it is rough.

OBJECT # 3 ROOM 152

ACCESSION NUMBER 26.59.2

TITLE Gold Stater

MEDIUM Gold

CULTURE Lydian Greek

DATE approx 560-546 BCE

COMMENTARY