Dying Guy- Midterm

One of my favorite works of art that we have seen so far is the statue of the Dying Gaul at the Capitoline Museum. It is one of those works of art that I find very intriguing. It is the sort of work I could stare at for a long time and still get more out of it the next time I see it. It was created to commemorate the Greek victory over the Gauls who invaded Asia Minor in 239 BC. It is a marble Roman copy. It is thought that the original was sculpted in Greek bronze. The statue is larger than life, and is meant to show the Gauls as worthwhile adversaries while displaying their defeat for all to see.

It is interesting to think about the time in which this statue was duplicated. The Romans purpose in creating replicas of Greek work is one that I do not fully understand. Regardless of your respect for the art of a given culture, and your desire to preserve its history, I cannot understand how you can feel ok about simply copying their artwork and basically passing it off as your own. However, it was so good that the Romans did this as artwork such as this might never have been preserved. However, this is the first thing that showed where Roman culture was at the time, they were searching for improvement. The Roman Republic valued learning from the past and this is why there were so many Roman copies of Greek artwork.

I suppose this work reflects more of the history of Greece at the time of its original creation, than the marble copy we all know reflects upon Rome. It shows how the Greeks valued being great warriors and wanted to make that statement known to all who were in their kingdom. The Greeks respected the opponents they defeated, even if they otherwise saw them as barbaric and unsophisticated. It is not clear to me from anything I’ve read, how a Gaul would have felt about seeing this statue. Even more so it is unclear how a Gaul would’ve felt about seeing this statue again in the Roman Empire. They realized that the greater they made the enemy they defeated look, the better they made themselves look. Economically, the time and effort put into this artwork shows an amount of leisure time from abundant resources that would be unheard of in many other parts of Europe at the time. As for the consumer, I really feel that this artwork as timeless. It tells a story of defeat so well that one cannot help but be awestruck by it. I have always loved this piece of artwork even when I simply read about it in a textbook. It was a privilege to get to see it.