Wide Ivory Woman :: Antigone Sophocles Plato Statue Papers

Wide Ivory Woman You are a wide woman sculpted out of one large solid block of ivory colored, lightly butterscotch speckled stone; you are distinctly and beautifully human, yet larger than life. I look up at you but do not know precisely what it is that you urge me to question. You are a maiden of Menedi, a statue presumably molded of Greek hands in the mid-fourth century B.C. You are seated at a thickly cushioned throne fashioned of the same ivory marble as that of your body, your head titled downward, your figure slightly crouched. Your profiled torso and the throne together are about four feet in height and two in width; your throne rests on a pedestal that I estimate to be still another two feet high. To take you in, then, I must tilt my head upward, as I do now. I can see that you are clearly distinguishable from the uncut granite behind you; your surface is smooth, as is that of the throne. You are veiled and wear over your frame a single covering, cut quite low on the neck, which flows over the crevices of your broad body. You make shadows with your veil, which creases and folds and drapes over your limbs and the throne itself. You are ample in feature and abundantly large, even imposing, in stature; you are maidenly, silent, reservedly pensive. You appear rounded, while the throne at which you sit is austerely rectangular. Your right breast protrudes through your clothing, very round, the nipple palpable and huge. Your distinctiveness is not one of elaborate detail: your face has no eyeballs, your skin no wrinkles, your body no bones. I stand before you and, humbled, read that you once presided over the grave of a warrior, but I cannot comprehend what you mean to war. You are too tranquil for spears and blood and armor, sitting there on your softly padded throne in that otherworldly gentle manner of yours. I see, then, that you are larger than war. I see that you tell of what comes of battle, of the ancient Greek concept of afterlife, of classical women and deity and strength. Your white eyes without their eyeballs are huge and empty, but very open; your slightly parted lips are thick. You are dressed in a long, flowing garment that ripples over your flawlessly smooth body. Features such as these are characteristic of Egyptian royal and divine iconography of the Hellenistic period, the era that produced you. Wide Ivory Woman :: Antigone Sophocles Plato Statue Papers Wide Ivory Woman You are a wide woman sculpted out of one large solid block of ivory colored, lightly butterscotch speckled stone; you are distinctly and beautifully human, yet larger than life. I look up at you but do not know precisely what it is that you urge me to question. You are a maiden of Menedi, a statue presumably molded of Greek hands in the mid-fourth century B.C. You are seated at a thickly cushioned throne fashioned of the same ivory marble as that of your body, your head titled downward, your figure slightly crouched. Your profiled torso and the throne together are about four feet in height and two in width; your throne rests on a pedestal that I estimate to be still another two feet high. To take you in, then, I must tilt my head upward, as I do now. I can see that you are clearly distinguishable from the uncut granite behind you; your surface is smooth, as is that of the throne. You are veiled and wear over your frame a single covering, cut quite low on the neck, which flows over the crevices of your broad body. You make shadows with your veil, which creases and folds and drapes over your limbs and the throne itself. You are ample in feature and abundantly large, even imposing, in stature; you are maidenly, silent, reservedly pensive. You appear rounded, while the throne at which you sit is austerely rectangular. Your right breast protrudes through your clothing, very round, the nipple palpable and huge. Your distinctiveness is not one of elaborate detail: your face has no eyeballs, your skin no wrinkles, your body no bones. I stand before you and, humbled, read that you once presided over the grave of a warrior, but I cannot comprehend what you mean to war. You are too tranquil for spears and blood and armor, sitting there on your softly padded throne in that otherworldly gentle manner of yours. I see, then, that you are larger than war. I see that you tell of what comes of battle, of the ancient Greek concept of afterlife, of classical women and deity and strength. Your white eyes without their eyeballs are huge and empty, but very open; your slightly parted lips are thick. You are dressed in a long, flowing garment that ripples over your flawlessly smooth body. Features such as these are characteristic of Egyptian royal and divine iconography of the Hellenistic period, the era that produced you.