Colossus

sculpture

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Oct 5, 2023 - 05:01

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The Daibutsu (Great Buddha), cast in bronze by Ono Goroemon in 1252 and a Japanese national treasure, Kamakura, Japan

colossus, statue that is considerably larger than life-size. They are known from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and Japan. The Egyptian sphinx (c. 2550 bc) that survives at al-Jīzah, for example, is 240 feet (73 m) long; and the Daibutsu (Great Buddha; ad 1252) at Kamakura, Japan, is 37 feet (11.4 m) high.

Colossus of Rhodes

The ancient Greeks made a number of colossi that are presently known purely through historical texts and echoes in figurines and coins, such as the archaic Apollo of Delos and Phidias’ chryselephantine (gold and ivory) figure of Athena Parthenos. Chares’ statue of Helios in Rhodes was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. More than 100 feet (30 m) high, it took 12 years to complete. The Romans also erected large statues; Pliny reports, for example, that Zenodorus made a 106-foot (32-metre) colossus of Nero.

“Cristo Redentor,” also called “Christ of the Andes,” by Mateo Alonso, 1902; in the Uspallata Pass on the border between Argentina and Chile, roughly equidistant from Santiago, Chile, and Mendoza, Arg. Dedicated in 1904, the statue commemorates a number of treaties between Chile and Argentina.

Colossal sculpture continued through the European Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as evidenced by the “St. Christopher” at Notre-Dame de Paris (28 feet [8.5 m]) and Michelangelo’s “David.” Among the many modern examples are the “Christ of the Andes,” by Mateo Alonso, between Argentina and Chile (26 feet [7.9 m] high), and the Statue of Liberty, by the French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, in New York Harbor (about 305 feet [93 m] high).