The Caryatid

1. The Caryatid Barn Kiddle

2. What is a Caryatid? • A caryatid is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. • The Greek term karyatides literally means "maidens of Karyai", an ancient town of Peloponnese. Karyai had a famous temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her aspect of Artemis Karyatis: • As Karyatis she rejoiced in the dances of the nut-tree village of Karyai, those Karyatides, who in their ecstatic round-dance carried on their heads baskets of live reeds, as if they were dancing plants

3. We will be focusing on this one... The Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis at Athens Pedro’s Mum and Aunt

4. It is located on the north side, • Also called the"Porchof the Maidens", with six draped each sculpted in a manner different from the rest and engineered in such a way that their slenderest part, the neck, is capable of supporting the weight of the porch roof while remaining graceful and feminine.

6. The porch was built to conceal the giant 15-ft beam needed to support the southwest corner over the metropolis, after the building was drastically reduced in size and budget following the onset of the Peloponnesian war.

7. Around 420 BC • Beginning of the Classical Period

9. Repetition of hair suggests connotations to the Archaic Period • Lack of Archaic Smile • However the eyes are slightly oversized

10. But what really sets this piece away from the Archaic Period and into the Classical period is the detail on the chitons • The creases in the sculptures is a noticeable improvement from the Archaic Korai where the chitons would have little detail.

11. Woodford: • The drapery gathered to form the pouch here describes a sweeping curve over the belly and the hips, and falls, like that over the weight-bearing right leg, in minute folds. Illogically, the drapery over the bosom and the left leg looks so thin as to appear transparent