One must love the human body passionately to lavish so much care upon sculpting this beautiful bronze kouros. Classical sculptures called kouroi, singular kouros, are godlike bodies of warriors and athletes that represent the ideal models of heroic calm and controlled energy which is exquisitely portrayed in this graceful athlete. The Greeks were not shy about nudity; they regularly watched and enjoyed the spectacle of athletes exercising in the hot Mediterranean sun. They had a keen appreciation of male bodies not only as evidence of their military potential, but also for erotic pleasure. This Greek kouros displays the very subtle combination of movement and stability that the great classical sculptors understood and depicted in their harmonious rendering of the human figure from within, not just a matter of reproducing the shape of muscles and bones, but of a higher understanding of the human anatomy as a whole. This running athlete probably made on Samos displays movement in a manner not seen in monumental sculpture until the 460’s B.C. when such works as Myron’s Discobolus were created. The anatomy of the abdomen is sensitively managed so that we can sense the tilt in the axis of the hips; that tilt translates into a curve in the spine, which is then fed into the shoulder and upper chest. The muscular arms reveal the absolute strength of the Greek male ideal and show the athlete’s freedom of action. His animated body twisted in running foreshadows the end of Archaic rigid frontality. All these subtle movements are harmoniously integrated and they reach their conclusion in the twist of the neck and a slight turn of the head. These details and his bodily proportions strengthen an attribution to Samos. It is no wonder why we tend to think like the Greeks in sculpture and architecture; their vision continuously remains as a permanent inspiration and challenge. - (FZ.328)

Antiquities
Ancient Greek