The art piece that I chose for this assignment is a sculpture entitled “Bronze Statue of Eros Sleeping (43.11.4).” I was immediately attracted to this piece after seeing it out of the corner of my eye during our class tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The dark metallic sheen of the bronze figure contrasts with the matte white stone base upon which it rests. This contrast in both color and medium works in a way that drew me to the sculpture, and ultimately led me to pick it for this assignment. I have always been very intrigued by Greek art and architecture. Growing up, my siblings and I would read about Greek mythology in picture books as we discussed which gods we would want to be the most. Because of this, I knew there was a good chance going into this assignment that I would pick an object within Greek history.
The “Bronze Statue of Eros Sleeping” realistically depicts Eros, god of love and son of Aphrodite, naturally positioned in bronze to be resting peacefully on a stone base. The extremely detailed nature of this sculpture makes historians believe it must have been made through first-hand observation. The statue is able to be viewed from all angles and when you walk around to the back, each feather on Eros’ wings is meticulously rendered. This feature adds to the realism of the piece even more. The stone base is not a part of the original statue, but modern historians believe it to be as close to the original base as possible. The statue in its original state also depicted Eros with a bow in his hand. As time passed, this piece became disattached from the sculpture. However, if you look closely you can still see a faint outline on Eros’ body of where the arrow used to lie.
The statue was made through a complicated process known as the indirect lost-wax method. In this process, a clay model is made and molds are formed around sections which, once dry, ae each coated with thin layers of beeswax. The exterior molds are then removed and covered entirely with clay. Attached funnels and vents allow melted wax to flow out of the molds when the clay is heated. The molds are heated again to fire the clay, and once more after pouring bronze into each mold. The molds are then broken open to reveal detailed, cast sections of bronze statue which are later each joined together to create the final piece.
Eros is best known in ancient Greek history to be the personification of love. This statue in its prime was most likely set up in a public or private garden or sanctuary. This could have been a private, or even royal, garden owned by a wealthy art patron, or belonged to a public sanctuary dedicated to Aphrodite and Eros. This statue is the finest of its kind, and one of the only surviving ancient Greek statues made of Bronze. This detailed, realistic piece gives us insight to the possibilities of Bronze as a medium. It also allows us to understand what the rest of the sculptures lost to history from this time period might have looked like. Most bronze sculptures known today are successful Roman copies of Greek work. Seeing an original Greek bronze sculpture such as this one is a true rarity.
The exact location of the origin of the “Bronze Statue of Eros Sleeping” is unknown, although it is known to be Greek and is most commonly said to be from the Island of Rhodes. This piece was made in the third to second century B.C. during what is known as the Hellenistic period of Greek art and architecture. Art historians named four separate, successive stages in the development of ancient Greek art. These stages are known as the Geometric, Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic periods.
Greece was flourishing at the time of the Hellenistic period both culturally and artistically. This period is known for having a diverse pool of subject matter and stylistic tendencies. Hellenistic art shifted Greek focus from the ideal to the individual. The Greek gods began to be depicted as more mortal than immortal, as evident in the “Bronze Statue of Eros Sleeping (43.11.4).” Subjects would often be shown as children or elderly people, in contrast to the idealistic forms the gods were exclusively shown as before. Eros was actually a quite common subject to be depicted at this time, and was mostly rendered as a young child, as evident in this sculpture.
The Hellenistic period is actually my favorite Greek period of art. I admire this era’s honesty in their subject matter, as well as how realistically the figures are rendered. The sculptures of this time mostly abandon the idealism of early Greek art movements. Instead, artists began to reveal even the smallest details such as wrinkles and other imperfections. I also never realized before this assignment how politics during ancient Greece played such a huge role in the evolution of cultural and artistic styles. For example, Alexander the Great’s death marks the start of the Hellenistic period. This period is also best known to have ended after a battle where Octavian ended Ptolemaic rule.
Traditionally, art during the Hellenistic period is made mostly out of marble and stone. Therefore, this bronze statue interestingly reminds me more of Roman sculpture than Greek sculpture. Through researching this piece I learned that just because there are not as many surviving Bronze sculptures from ancient Greece, it cannot be assumed every semi-realistic bronze statue belongs to the Romans. I also see this piece as a perfect example of how Greek art developed over time. It allows the viewer to see how heavily Rome was inspired by the culture of ancient Greece, specifically the Hellenistic period. This is most likely because the Hellenistic period was the last main ancient Greek art period before the Roman empire took over.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
ID Label
Bronze Statue of Eros Sleeping (43.11.4)
“The Hellenistic period introduced the accurate characterization of age. Young children enjoyed great favor, whether in mythological form, as baby Herakles or Eros, or in genre scenes, playing with each other or with pets. This Eros, god of love, has been brought down to earth and disarmed, a conception considerably different from that of the powerful, often cruel, and capricious being so often addressed in Archaic poetry. One of the few bronze statues to have survived from antiquity, this figure of a plump baby in relaxed pose conveys a sense of the immediacy and naturalistic detail that the medium of bronze made possible. He is clearly based on firsthand observation. The support on which the god rests is a modern addition, but the work originally would have had a separate base, most likely of stone.
“This statue is the finest example of its kind. Judging from the large number of extant replicas, the type was popular in Hellenistic and, especially, Roman times. In the Roman period, Sleeping Eros statues decorated villa gardens and fountains. Their function in the Hellenistic period is less clear. They may have been used as dedications within a sanctuary of Aphrodite or possibly may have been erected in a public park or private, even royal, garden.”
