Love

I just went through all my Italy photos on facebook and saved my favorites to my computer. I think this is my absolute favorite photograph that I took:


It's a detail of a Greek bronze from the Hellenistic period called the Boxer. This is the full image:


The entire sculpture is incredible for its veracity, right down to the cauliflower ears that modern boxers still get from being beaten about the head so much, and also for its emotional intensity (a hallmark of the Hellenistic style). The expression on his face is evocative, even if you can't figure out exactly what he's feeling--is it just exhaustion from the fight? Is he turning his head to speak to an admirer, or be heckled by a critic?

I love the close-up I took of his face because you can see the effort the sculptor put into to making this a realistic image. The bloody wounds and red lips are actually cast in a copper alloy which gives them a different color from the rest of the sculpture. The missing eyes would have been made of glass or stone, attached by hooks on the interior of the eyelids. I think I like it better without the eyes, with just those gaping, dark holes giving nothing away.

This sculpture, perhaps more than any other I saw in Rome, seemed to me like a living, breathing figure, a man who has turned his head briefly for a word or two, and who in a moment will finish unwrapping his hands, get up, and make his weary way home.