When the art in Mesopotamian, Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman art are looked at together, you can identify the change from art depicting worship of Gods to art depicting the high potential of human beings, to verism. There is also evidence of each of these civilizations influencing one another showing the slow change towards humanism.
Let’s start with Mesopotamia. There are one example of art depicting worship is the Statue of Gudea in 2150 BCE in Neo-Sumeria. It is a small stone figure built in such a way that it is built to be durable and last. It is the depiction of a ruler sitting down, praying to a God. Its eye wide open and arms clamped together show a devoted worshipper.
The next example is is an art piece from Ancient Egypt. This was still a time of God worship, but large statues of rulers like the Pharaoh are pretty common. These rulers were considered the link between their people and the Gods. They were in a sense worshiped like Gods themselves. Menkaure and Queen from 2490-2472 BCE is the Pharaoh and the Queen standing next to each other. It is also blocky like the Statue of Gudea but human sized. It is built to last and it’s reflected by the platform and the block it is connected to their backs.
In Greek art, the first statue showing signs of Greek humanism is Kouros from 600 BCE. Greek humanism is to desire explanation for events in the nature world and to open up new possibilities for speculation. It mainly valued humanity and placed human experience as the center of events.
This is reflected in the statue because it is clearly the depiction of a standing man. But it still is not a naturalized human form. It is the idealized man with sense of perfection. It is not recognizable as a specific person. And it still has similarities to Mesopotamia and Egypt. Like the two pieces I mentioned, it is built to last and be durable. It is in a stiff standing pose that gives the stone strength, when you look at it closely the statue is very blocky that strengthens the stone even more.
A statue that represents humanism is the Roman copy of Polykleitos, Doryphoros from 450-440 BCE. This would have been made of bronze. I had a very natural standing pose, the detail of the statue isn’t blocky, it has a fleshy quality. It is still trying to show the idealized man in a humanistic way.
Lastly, there is Roman art. Their art was not the depiction of an idealized man. It was the depiction of a man in the truest sense, this is called Roman Portraiture. The example of this is a portrait bust of a man in 1st century B.C. This bust is clearly an old man with his wrinkles in full view. This because Roman portraiture features a accurate portrayal of a person’s’ face, a value in old age because it reflects wisdom, and that looking as you are is completely fine and not shameful at all.
