Contrapposto

[Oracle of Delphi]

Contrapposto is an Italian term used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs. This gives the figure a more dynamic, or alternatively relaxed appearance. It can also encompass the tension as a figure changes from resting on a given leg to walking or running upon it (so-called ponderation). Contrapposto is less emphasized than the more sinuous S Curve.

[Oracle of Delphi]

Contrapposto has been used since the dawn of classical western sculpture. According to the canon of the Classical Greek Sculptor Polykleitos in the fourth century B.C., it is one of the most important characteristics of his figurative works and those of his successors, Lysippos, Skopas, etc. The Polykletian statues for example Discophoros (discus-bearer) and Doryphoros (spear-bearer) are idealized athletic young men with the divine sense, and captured in contrapposto. In these works, the pelvis is no longer axial with the vertical statue as in the archaic style of earlier Greek sculpture until the Ephebe-statue of Kritios ca. 480 B.C.

[Oracle of Delphi]

A marble copy of the Doryphoros of Polyclitus, an early example of classical contrapposto. The original bronze is lost.

[Oracle of Delphi]

Contrapposto can be clearly seen in the Roman copies of the statues of Hermes and Heracles. A famous example is the marble statue of Hermes with the infant Dionysus in Olympia by Praxiteles. It can also be seen in the Roman copies of Polyclitus' amazon.

Classical contrapposto was revived in the Renaissance by the Italian artists Donatello and Leonardo da Vinci, followed by Michelangelo, Raphael and other artists of the High Renaissance. One of the major achievements of the Italian Renaissance was the re-discovery of contrapposto, although in Mannerism it became greatly over-used.

[Oracle of Delphi]

Contrapposto was an extremely important sculptural development for it is the first time in Western art that the human body is used to express a psychological disposition. The balanced, harmonious pose of the Kritios Boy suggests a calm and relaxed state of mind, an evenness of temperament that is part of the ideal of man represented. From this point onwards Greek sculptors went on to explore how the body could convey the whole range of human experience, culminating in the desperate anguish and pathos of Laocoön and his Sons (1st century AD) in the Hellenistic period.

[Oracle of Delphi]

David, by Michelangelo. The shoulders of the figure are seen to angle in one direction, the pelvis in another.

[Oracle of Delphi]

Leda and the Swan, copy by Cesare Sesto after a lost original by Leonardo da Vinci, 1515-1520, Oil on canvas, Wilton House, England.

[Oracle of Delphi]

Hermes bearing the good person by Praxiteles. Parian marble, H. 2.15 m (7 ft. ½ in.). Archaeological museum of ancient Olympia, Greece. From the German excavations of the Heraion at Olympia, 1877.