History of Western Art Comparison 1

A Progression of Idealistic Perfection in Sculpture: Khafre Enthroned to Kritios Boy Early Egyptian art from the Old Kingdom, ca. 2575-2134 BCE, demonstrates uniform structure. Egyptian artists and sculptors adhered to a system of strict rules known as canon to create this consistency. The Egyptian canon suggested perfection to be a rigid, ageless idealization of reality. Roughly 1,500 years later, a progressive canon emerged in Greek art reflecting new ideals of perfection. Greek art beginning in the Early Classical Period, ca. 80- 450 BCE, digressed from the acceptance of formula (influenced by Egyptian canon) to reflect greater naturalism, an adherence to close observation of reality. Greek perfection was achieved through rational ordering of the world, in which the canon was based on a mathematical system of proportion. A comparison of two sculptures, Khafre Enthroned from the Egyptian Old Kingdom Period and Kritios Boy from the Greek Early Classical Period, illustrates a progression of desire to achieve perfection from Egyptian ideals of knowledge and completeness to Greek ideals of vision and the natural.

These sculptures represent an advancement of artistic technique from set formula to fluid rationality, both with a shared desire for excellence. The granite sculpture of Khafre Enthroned from Gizeh, Egypt, ca. 2500 BCE was recovered from the valley temple of pharaoh Khafre. Functioning as a funerary statue, it provided a substitute for the pharaoh’s soul, or ka. Khafre wears a plain kilt and displays Egyptian royalty with headdress and false beard. His flawless, muscular body sits upright with one hand clenched in a fist.

In addition to rigid posture, Khafre’s face is emotionless yet serene. Iconography of divine rule and unification embellish the sculpture; with lion’s bodies and papyrus plants decorating the throne, and a falcon sheltering pharaoh’s head. Like the immortality of the soul, Khafre appears to be timeless without regard to his real age or appearance. Khafre Enthroned aims to represent the divine nature of Egyptian rule as idealization of human form to a god-like perfection. The marble sculpture of Kritios Boy from Greece, ca. 80 BCE marks an influential point of stylistic evolution. In contrast to Khafre Enthroned, The Kritios Boy was created for a public audience. The Kritios Boy’s standing pose represents a freedom in his figure that divorces the solidity of the stiffly seated Khafre. Rather than emanating timelessness, this naturalistic sculpture seems to capture a specific moment in time. Mirroring a normal human stance of balance and weight shift onto one leg, his stature is contrapposto.

Furthermore, the Kritios Boy’s physical composition maintains a smooth contour to his natural musculature. His head is slightly turned with hair that seems to fall effortlessly in place. He is completely naked, wearing only a relaxed expression on his face. With no indication of identity, the Kritios Boy exemplifies naturalism in Greek drive to order to analyze form into constituent parts and represent the specific in light of the generic. The figure sculptures of Khafre Enthroned and Kritios Boy exhibit a start and end point in an evolution of artistic technique.

Although a single male figure is the subject of both works, canon clearly develops from Khafre Enthroned to Kritios Boy. Both works express a desire for perfection with the use of contrasting ideals. Egyptian artists prized completeness and timeless to achieve a god-like representation. Later, artistic form advances as Greeks sought naturalism and rationality. The culmination of both early rigid and fluid canons formed Greek ideals of balance between the timeless and present. This drive to order led to foundations of Greek art that dramatically influenced art history from that point on.