Initial Museum Visit

Going to the Acropoli Museum was very interesting as I got to see sculptures that are centuries old. I noticed in my time here that older sculptures tended to use a subtraction method of sculpting and, most noticeably, a relief method. Most of the older pieces were just a big block of marble with a figure subtracted into them. I must admit that overall most pieces that I saw on Thursday were created with a subtraction method. In fact, in the entire museum, I only remember seeing one that I believe was created with an additive process (the snake-looking one in picture 2 of my notes). As I went through all the museum pieces, I kept my 2b.2 and
2b.4notes open on my phone as there were no available guides at the time of my visit. Although I did not have an expert companion with me, my notes helped me understand the pieces and analyze the sculpting method used to make them.

I was trying to find pieces that matched all the different styles of sculpting I learned in my novice research. I think I was somewhat successful with that because I was able to identify pieces that used the negative space concept, pieces that were partially full round, relief, and full round. The full round sculptures that I recognized were bigger than the relief sculptures. Something interesting that I identified is that those massive full-round sculptures were mostly of goddesses, like Atenas. When it comes to clothing, most full-round sculptures were either using none of it or dresses (if they were women). Something that I think was not as successful in my visit to the museum is that I could not understand the meaning behind most pieces, as my knowledge of sculptures and the ancient greek times is quite limited. In my novice learning, I learned that to truly understand what a piece means, one must understand the context of when it was created and who created it. This is something that I lack because I have little to no knowledge of ancient greek lifestyle, religion, and sculpting artists. If I were to compare Mexican and greek sculptures, I would say they are pretty different but similar in the same concept. Both Mexican and greek ancient sculptures have a big emphasis on tributing goddesses and important religious figures. In Greece, for example, they would give tribute to the goddess Atena while in ancient Mexico, they would build sculptures of religious figures like Quetzalcoatl. Something different is the materials that they utilize. I feel that in Greece, sculptures used mostly marble stones. In Mexico, I believe that was quite rare. I think that obsidian, metals, and other rocks were more
popular.