Tuesday 29 July 2014

Inguinal crease in Ancient Greece


Dear Reader,
After all those boring (not to me, of course!) pots I posted about a fortnight ago, I thought you might like something a bit sexier. So here goes...

Yesterday, I went to see the movie Hercules (the trailer in this link has all the best bits of the film, but Wikipedia is more informative). It was research, you understand, background for my writing. As I drove us home, my companion said a strange thing: 'Not a single inguinal crease on show, even though it’s about Herakles.' 
'How true,' said I, nodding sagely. As soon as I got home, I looked up inguinal crease on the internet. And sure enough, Herakles (Hercules in Latin) is often depicted as naked or nearly naked, showing a pronounced inguinal crease (if you don't know what it is yet, Jess Cartner-Morley explains below).
Herakles (Hercules in Latin) and
Athena (Minerva)
in the museum at Ancient Olympia

You may have noticed it without noticing, so to speak, especially if you've been watching the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, where the beauty of perfectly toned athletic bodies is constantly on show. And if you study anything to do with Ancient Greece or Rome, you will see them everywhere anyway. It seems it's the must-have-for-men in the beauty stakes this year. 


I find I have in fact been featuring the inguinal crease on this blog (without realising its vital importance and the homage that is its due), in such pictures as …

... this charming but
arrogant young man
(No, it's not the bow!)




... and these older men training for spear throwing
J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California

... and even the Zeus (or Poseidon)
in the National Archaeological
Museum of Athens.












This is how Jess Cartner-Morley introduces it in the Guardian (on 5th July) as part of her ‘Guide to contemporary exposure protocol’:

David Gandy (from the Guardian)


"One for the boys. Popeye biceps and Chippendale pecs are so very over. The trophy body part for the 2014 male is the inguinal crease: the v-shaped dip between the waist and groin. This is nothing new – Michelangelo's David had it going on – but after a slow buildup (think D'Angelo, and Brad Pitt in Fight Club, and David Gandy modelling Dolce & Gabbana), this year they are everywhere. (See: David Beckham's underwear adverts.) What's interesting is that this is not a muscle, but a ligament – in other words, to expose it requires not building muscle, but losing fat. Men's Health magazine reports that for an optimal inguinal crease, you need to get down to between 5% and 8% body fat. The inguinal crease craze is, in other words, the size zero scandal reinvented for men."

I remember, a long time ago, noticing a line on a ‘Kouros’ style statue in the Athens National Archaeological Museum.

I was looking at the sculpture from the side, and was first amazed at the depth of the thighs (deeper than the chest – part of its stylisation, perhaps?) And then I noticed that there was a line that almost looked as though the legs had been made separately and added to the torso. Little did I know then that it would be turn out to be the definitive symbol of sexy masculinity in 2014.

Cycladic, c2000 BC, 25 cms,
from L'Art des Cyclades
by Christian Zervos
Marble, c490 BC,
life size, British Museum

Marble Attic  kouros,
c600 BC, 300 cms
But of course it's actually nothing new, and has been represented in art from at least Cycladic times (more than 3000 years ago) to the present, becoming ever more life-like with the passing of time and the introduction of new technologies.

copy of a Doryphorus (spear carrier)
(hundreds made) from c200 BC,
Ancient Messene museum



Leonardo da Vinci's
Proportions of the Human Figure, after Vitruvius
Venice Academy
















The Youth of Antikythira
in the National Archaeological
Museum of Athens.
Photo by Ricardo André Frantz
Last but not least in this gallery of gorgeousness, I'd like to draw attention to the much-renovated statue whose head we used for the cover of The Boy with Two Heads. He has an inguinal crease to die for. 

As you probably know by now, he is called the Youth of Antikythira. I have always felt that his face is too young for his body, which is why we used it for my Boy who is twelve, but I have recommended that my movie-going companion has a look at the rest of him, seeing that Hercules in the movie was such a disappointment. Mind you, to my eyes, Dwayne Johnson, who plays Hercules, has even more impressive muscles than the drawings in the comic books that the film is based on. 

But of course that, dear Reader, is not why I went to see it ...












Sunday 13 July 2014

Ancient Pueblan vs Ancient Greek pots ...



On my latest travels I visited Utah and Arizona in the United States. Among other incidental excitements (like the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, and Bryce Canyon - wow!), I saw some of the pottery made by the Kayenta and Navajo peoples about a thousand years ago. I was reminded of other pots I’ve seen from Ancient Greece. 


Assuming you are as geeky as I am about such things, dear reader (Themis, my Boy with Two Heads, was a painter on terracotta as well as an athlete...), I thought you might be amused by a picture puzzle. Can you tell which of the pots in the pictures below are from what is now the USA, and which are from various periods in Ancient Greece and Etruria? I wouldn't have been sure of all of them if I hadn’t already known, so to speak. The explanations are below the last picture.

It's pleasing to know that human beings can make simple but elegant things whatever their culture.

1

2
3
4







5
6

7
9

11
8


10
                                                                                   
12

Captions:


1
Large bowl about 35cms diametre, Kayenta? black on white, c900AD. Tusayan Museum, Arizona (link 1)

2
Barrel-shaped jug, Cyprus, c1000BC, terracotta decorated in white and black. British Museum.

3
Jar in ‘white on red’ chequer pattern, Etruscan, made in Etruria about 700BC. British Museum.

4
Large vessel about 30cms diametre, Kayenta? black on red, c900AD. Tusayan Museum, Arizona (link 2 - youtube amateur video of a very hurried visit with almost no pots shown, but worth a quick look for the timeline at about 1min 30 seconds in)

5
Bowl or cup about 15cms diametre, Kayenta black on white, c900AD. Tusayan Museum, Arizona

6
Bowl or cup, Cyprus ?1300BC, sometimes called a ‘milk bowl’, terracotta coated in white ‘slip’ and decorated with dark brown. Art Institute of Chicago

7
Bowl or cup about 20cms diametre, Kayenta black on white, c900AD. Tusayan Museum, Arizona

8
Large pottery cup, Minoan c1500BC, from Gulf of Mirabello in northern Crete. British Museum

9
Pottery jug with dark on light decoration, Minoan c2000BC, found at Knossos in Crete. British Museum. (see this link for more sophisticated variant)

10
Vessel about 30cms diametre, Kayenta? black on red, Tusayan Museum, Arizona

11
Bowl, ?Cyprus ?800BC. British Museum

12
Large bowl about 35cms diametre, Kayenta? black on white, c900AD. Tusayan Museum, Arizona


photographs all © Julia M Newsome