Doryphoros Michelangelo Analysis

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Polykleitos’ Doryphoros versus Michelangelo’s David

Compare the Donatello’s David with Michelangelo’s version of the same subject. How does the difference between these two indicate the stylistic difference between their two respective periods?
Polykleitos is known as the best sculptor of men, with the primary subjects of his works being male athletes with idealized body proportions. He was interested with the mathematical proportions of the human form, which led him to write an essay the Kanon, on the proportions of humans. The Doryphoros is an illustration of his writings in Kanon on the symmetria between the body parts. Polykleitos achieved a balance between muscular tensions and relaxation due to the chiastic principle that he relied on. “Scholars agree that Polykleitos based his calculations on a single module, perhaps …show more content…

and 440 B.C. by the sculptor, Polykleitos. It is the finest of the five known copies of the entire body of this famous masterpiece that have survived relatively intact.1 Representing an athlete (or possibly Achilles), this harmonious, balanced figure with idealized proportions, typifies art from the Classical period of Greece.
This replica of the Doryphoros has been dated to the 1st century B.C. because of the high quality of the work and the almost total lack of drillwork, typical of this particular period. The rendition of the hair and the form of the support (the stump) also assist us in dating this piece because they can be linked stylistically to other known objects from specific Roman periods.
The Doryphoros and other Roman copies of Greek sculpture are extremely valuable because no bronze sculpture made by a famous Greek artist has survived to the present day. . Roman copies, therefore, provide us with the only visual documentation available of Classical Greek