The Colossus of Constantine

     The Colossus of Constantine statue is broken up between a head, elbow, foot, finger, knee, and shin. The remains are made up of colossal marble. It was originally made to be 40 feet high; the broken down pieces of it are huge. It fell to a public space and the sculpture was found in a niche. Michelangelo brought it to the Capitoline Hill. This was the government center. 

The Colossus of Constantine (video) | Khan Academy

    Constantine is certainly a Roman Emperor. He really ushered Christianity and all the change that was happening in Italy and the ending of a former empire. He eventually moved the capital of the empire to Constantinople. This began the decline of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages. 

Colossus of Constantine - Wikipedia    

    All Roman Emperors idealized to the sculptures to greater or lesser extents, they made them very divine or godlike. On the other hand, Constantine was neither realism nor idealism, his sculpture was unique, unlike any of the others. His statue is looking beyond and into the horizon, which is related to Christianity and the Heavenly. Throughout the city, naturalism was represented everywhere. 


Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "The Colossus of Constantine," in Smarthistory, December 9, 2015, accessed September 20, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/the-colossus-of-constantine/. 

Comments

  1. Sara YaunSeptember 21, 2020 at 6:58 PM

    I liked reading your blog, it was very easy to follow! It's so cool how the sculptor made the face of the Colossus of Constantine look so soft. How these artists give life to the sculptures is so mind-blowing to me. I wrote my blog about the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and Emperor Constantine was the father of the emperor who started the build. It's fun to make a slight connection between blogs.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Comparison Indrajit & Utagawa

Image
  To start off I have chosen to compare "I ndrajit meets with Ravana, then binds Rama and Laksmana with magic serpents; Sita is told they are dead " and "Utagawa Kunisada." To start off with a little information about the artworks, Indrajit is a scene that is a part of a larger story, the Ramayana. The story focuses on the dispute of good and evil. The characters in the scene experience love, loss, loyalty, conflict, fear, and friendship. These encounters highlight one’s meaning. Utagawa is a picture, there is a woman wearing a kimono, whom is standing by a vacant carriage. Her kimono is green that matches the carriage symbolizing a connection. Her robe and headscarf indicate it is cold outside. The whole artwork represents modern beauties.  “Indrajit meets with Ravana, then binds Rama and Laksmana with magic serpents; Sita is told they are dead,” folio from the  Yuddha Kanda  of the  Ramayana , by Sahib Din, Udaipur, c. 1650-52, watercolor on paper, approximately 9
Read more

The Pueblo Revolt and The Virgin of Macana

Image
           To start off with the background of The Virgin of Macana, it was created in the 18th century which was 1680. In the painting, Mary is a statue, she is bleeding from the forehead. She is wearing a crown and is holding a Macana, which is a wooden weapon embedded with obsidian blades commonly used by the Nahua people of central Mexico.  The Virgin of the Macana , second half of the 18th century, oil on canvas (History Collections New Mexico History Museum)           The Virgin of Macana is telling a story of the fight of the Spaniards and the Puebloians, during the Pueblo revolution in 1680. In the middle right side of the painting it shows the natives attacking the statue, I believe is historically in accurate because historians have questioned, "why are the pueblo people shown as violent, barbaric aggressors in the painting?" This shows that it is biased towards the Spaniards. The painting is intended to convey that it is one-sided because of the questions asked abo
Read more

The Great Enclosure Zimbabwe

Image
The Great Enclosure     The Great Zimbabwe Enclosure was completed approximately 1450. I t was a wall structure punctuated with turrets and monoliths to form the earlier Hill Ruin. Turrets were a small tower on top of a larger tower. A monolith was a single piece of stone standing upright and usually large, it served as a  monument  or a pillar. T here is a massive outer wall that is 32 feet high. On the  inside the enclosure is smaller, the walls are parallel to the exterior wall creating a tight passageway leading to large towers.  There are three sections the first is the Hill complex, the second is the Great Enclosure which is obviously the most exciting, and the last is the Valley ruins.   Great Enclosure Map        Starting with the first section the Hill complex, it is a structural ruins that sits at the top of the steepest Hill of the site. It is a religious center and the oldest part of great Zimbabwe it was built around 900 C.E.       T he second section is The Great Enclosur
Read more