Kouros - Attributes and Meaning

Attributes and Meaning

Kouroi are beardless, take a formulaic advancing posture, and are most often nude. A small number of early kouroi are belted around their waists, a practice that died out at the turn of the sixth century. Such belts have traditionally been assumed to be an abbreviated symbol of a more complex costume, however fully clothed contemporary figures also exist, suggesting that it was not just a sculptor's shorthand for clothing but a signifier in itself. Art historian Brunilde Ridgway suggests in her 1977 The Archaic Style in Greek Sculpture that this may have been an attribute of Apollo, athleticism or magical powers, though its iconography remains obscure. Further, there is the question of the nudity of the kouros and if this is also an attribute. Again this may have represented athletic or heroic nudity – immortalising the youth as he appeared in the palaestra, but no examples have been found at Olympia nor do they bear any allusion to athletic equipment.

As well as being found in the sanctuaries of Apollo at Delphi, Delos and Mt. Ptoion, kouroi have been found dedicated at the sanctuaries of Hera at Samos, and of Athena and Poseidon at Sounion, so the contention that they depict Apollo is at the very least problematic. However, the majority are from Apollonian sites and dedicated to that god, which has led Ridgway to suggest that the early, belted form of the kouros-type statue was introduced in the late seventh century as a replacement for the colossal representation of Apollo. Over time, the votive and funerary functions of the sculpture became divorced whilst its attributes were shed and its form became more generic until, in the late sixth century, it could serve a number of uses depending on context and location. This 'polyvalent' argument, initially put forth by historian Jean Ducat, was elaborated by art historian Andrew Stewart, who contends the distribution of kouroi coincides with city-states where the aristocracy were in ascendancy and that this alternation between the divine and the memorial was an identification of aristocratic arete with the immortal.