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Course: The J. Paul Getty Museum > Unit 1
Lesson 3: An ancient Greek sculpture of a musicianVideo
Created over 4,500 years ago, the Harp Player is an excellent example of Cycladic art and sculpture. It displays the importance of music in this ancient era. But what was its actual purpose? Created by Getty Museum.
Video transcript
A long time ago... No, even further back. Okay, not that far. Our story begins in 2,500
BCE on the Cycladic Islands of Greece where some of the earliest sculptures
of musicians were created. Carved from marble,
here is a male harp player sitting on a four-legged stool
with his head tilted up in song. Though perhaps many were made,
only around 12 carved harp figures are known to have survived today,
making them very rare. This sculpture is one of the largest
found intact created using a subtractive
sculptural method. To be exact: made by grinding down
a solid piece of marble using an emery or pumice stone. It takes, scientifically speaking, a heck of
a lot of time and elbow grease to do, allowing the marble to be carved
and incised into a sculpture. Most Cycladic figures
were found in graves. So, many scholars believe
that these highly abstract sculptures may have had a religious
or funerary purpose. Perhaps for the afterlife. But who knows? What other ways have
objects been used to honor the dead?