Description
The large white marble sculpture—2.24 m (7.3 feet) high—depicts the Greek god Apollo as a standing archer. The complex contrapposto of the work has been much admired; it appears to position the figure both frontally and in profile. Although there is no agreement as to the precise narrative detail being depicted, the conventional view has been that the god has just overtaken the serpent Python, the chthonic serpent of Delphi. The arrow has just left his bow and the effort impressed on his musculature still lingers. His hair, lightly curled, flows in ringlets down his neck and rises gracefully to the summit of his head, which is encircled with the strophium, a band symbolic of gods and kings. His quiver is suspended across his left shoulder. He is entirely nude except for his sandals and that his robe (chlamys) is clasped at his right shoulder and is turned up only on his left arm and thrown back.
The lower part of the right arm and the left hand were missing when discovered and were restored by Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli (1506–63), a sculptor and pupil of Michelangelo.
Read more about this topic: Apollo Belvedere
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