Essay Example: Work of Art from the Getty Villa and My Experience

Sarcophagus with Scenes from the Life of Achilles is an art in form of curving that has some elements of sculpture on it. This curving found at Getty Villa with an anonymous artist who not even the museum knows about is titled, Sarcophagus with Scenes from the Life of Achilles, just like the name is called. The piece of art crafted in the 180 - 220 AD has a dimension of 52 by 83 by 57 and has been preserved well and has some few damages for instance left and right sides are a bit scratched. The main pieces of the art are images of people who seem to be of both genders. The high-relief and pleasant art are made out of marbles, mixed up with sculpture elements. The main aim of this study is to vividly look at the piece of art in the museum and describing it in various perspectives like the subject matter.

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When viewed by anyone, one will be able to identify a female with a long hair following a rounded face then several men with whom some of them are not clothed and are masculine and bearded. All the sides of the curve are entailed with the same images of men some with long clothes and some are not well clothed since their private parts can be observed. All these details present a Sarcophagus which is an ancient stone coffin that was being used in the ancient Rome for big families.

From the title of the art; Sarcophagus with Scenes from the Life of Achilles the main theme in this piece of art is the life of a heroic person which according to the guide person, Achilles was a hero in the ancient Rome Trojan war. He was a mythical and a philosopher who through his words he battled the authority through criticizing its operations. Achilles according to the myth was supposed to be killed as a result of this. His mother Thetis is trying to rescue her son as seen in the earth from being killed and therefore she pleads for her. She sent her son to Lykomedes which was on an island called Skyros where Achilles used to hind oppressed young girls before he was under detention.

From all the observations and descriptions, it is clear that the main theme of this art is the Historic struggle for truth and independence of expression. Achilles what to be executed for this and his friend Hector, get killed instead. The art, therefore, is a historic preservation of Rome identifying the people who struggled to shape the nature of leadership and authority by promoting independence in decisions and mind.

In a simple but clear way, the artist of this artwork is able to bring out very legible images that can describe what happened during that period. When curving he makes sure that every single person who was in the mythical description of Achilles was in the sculpture by applying the carving and modeling style to bring out the models on the marble surface. This artwork is simple since no many complications like colors are applied to it. It appears to have a natural marble color thus the artist applied no mixture f colors to come up with the image. It's soft when touched meaning that after the entire process of designing and carving it, the artist might have furnished it using brush and oil. The fact that there is no color applied to the artwork, it appears to be dull when viewed and with a mixture of small colors that don't change the vision of the of the entire dullness of the sculpture.

Looking at the entire art, the contents which are the images on the sides of the sculpture, a realistic image is drawn in a person's mind. The images seemed to be realistic as from the view, or just by anyone looking at the art he or she will be able to conclude that there is some kind of war or rumbling going on. It is indeed true according to the mythical story of Achilles that the entire rumbling was going on during that period when Achilles' mother tried to rescue him. One thing about historical artwork, it must be realistic since it presents what really happened or believed to have happened before. An artist thus cannot forge just images to represent an event that happened. The art, therefore, is indeed realistic and not abstract. It, however, appears to be obscene following some of the scenes of naked men among the images.

Comparing this creative piece of art to those seen in the textbooks previously, there is a similarity since there is an element of historic preservation and culture promotion. Just like in this art where the artist tries to promote some themes and the history, the art viewed in the books are as well thematic. The style with which this work is presented with and the size is as well common making several similarities.