Day 138 - Etruscan cuirass
March 22, 2019
Galley 370 is the first of eleven galleries devoted to arms and armor. While the topic is of limited interest to me (or at least so I think at this point, anyway), I see that the next gallery over has many visitors of all ages. My first impression is that there are more young men there than elsewhere. And little kids seem fascinated, too.
This introductory gallery, appropriately, contains the museum's earliest specimens of arms and armor, dating from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. The very oldest objects in the gallery are stone "bifaces" of flint and quartzite made between 700,000 and 200,000 B.C.E. and found in what is now France. Bifaces (rocks shaped into thin triangles and chipped away at the sides) were, a placard informs me, useful for digging, chopping, and butchering. But these particular examples are so large, well-preserved, and carefully shaped to have symmetrical edges that they may have had other purposes. Yet again the question arises: Is the making of art -- including the transformation of objects from the merely functional to the refined and beautiful -- a general human impulse? The latest items in the gallery are equestrian items -- bits and spurs, mostly -- from the 2nd and 3rd centuries C.E.
I can see that I am going to broaden my vocabulary during these visits. "Greaves" I know (shin guards) and "cuirass" I can guess at -- a covering for the torso. But what's a "snaffle bit," and how does it differ from a "curb bit"? (With the curb bit, you can give a horse more subtle rein cues than with a snaffle bit, it seems.) And what is a "cavesson"? (A bitless bridle, it turns out.)
Today's object is a lifesize bronze and silver cuirass made in Etruria in the Late Archaic-Early Classical period (late 5th- early 4th century B.C.E.). It's described as an "anatomical" cuirass, depicting the anatomy of a nude male torso. But what an anatomy! This guy is ripped beyond belief -- his chest is powerful, his ribs clearly delineated, his belly perfectly flat. The sign notes the power of armor to adorn and idealize the male body, and this cuirass does just that. It certainly draws my attention, as well as that of a woman 50 years my junior.
This introductory gallery, appropriately, contains the museum's earliest specimens of arms and armor, dating from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. The very oldest objects in the gallery are stone "bifaces" of flint and quartzite made between 700,000 and 200,000 B.C.E. and found in what is now France. Bifaces (rocks shaped into thin triangles and chipped away at the sides) were, a placard informs me, useful for digging, chopping, and butchering. But these particular examples are so large, well-preserved, and carefully shaped to have symmetrical edges that they may have had other purposes. Yet again the question arises: Is the making of art -- including the transformation of objects from the merely functional to the refined and beautiful -- a general human impulse? The latest items in the gallery are equestrian items -- bits and spurs, mostly -- from the 2nd and 3rd centuries C.E.
I can see that I am going to broaden my vocabulary during these visits. "Greaves" I know (shin guards) and "cuirass" I can guess at -- a covering for the torso. But what's a "snaffle bit," and how does it differ from a "curb bit"? (With the curb bit, you can give a horse more subtle rein cues than with a snaffle bit, it seems.) And what is a "cavesson"? (A bitless bridle, it turns out.)
Today's object is a lifesize bronze and silver cuirass made in Etruria in the Late Archaic-Early Classical period (late 5th- early 4th century B.C.E.). It's described as an "anatomical" cuirass, depicting the anatomy of a nude male torso. But what an anatomy! This guy is ripped beyond belief -- his chest is powerful, his ribs clearly delineated, his belly perfectly flat. The sign notes the power of armor to adorn and idealize the male body, and this cuirass does just that. It certainly draws my attention, as well as that of a woman 50 years my junior.
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