The nude sculptures of the ancient Greeks depict what they believed to be the perfect human form, and the results still dazzle and move us thousands of years on, as the British Museum’s latest exhibition demonstrates.
Defining Beauty is a stunning array of sculptures and ceramics that includes some of the most familiar works of Greek antiquity.
The exhibition also compares how other cultures treated the human form and their attitudes to nudity, from the Mayans to the Assyrians.
Photo : AFP PHOTO/LEON NEAL
“The Greeks invented the human being,” Ian Jenkins, the exhibition’s curator, said, pointing to Greek philosophy, mythology and democracy, not just the aesthetics of the sculptures that dominate the exhibition.
The exhibition opens with the striking view of a nude goddess Aphrodite from behind. When visitors walk around the statue, they are met with her guarded, threatening gaze.
Though Greek in origin, she is a Roman copy. So is the discus thrower, Myron’s Diskobolos, a study in the perfect “balance of opposites,” and some of the other statues in the exhibition.
But the museum does display its own prized Greek originals which are the source of a long-running dispute with Greece. Athens has repeatedly called for the return of marble statues from the Parthenon, known as the Elgin Marbles, which were taken from Greece in 1816.
The Greek government protested angrily at the end of last year when the museum loaned one of them to Russia.
Officials at the British Museum acknowledge the difficulty in managing relations with Greece, who did not loan any items to the museum for the exhibition.
Part of the Parthenon’s frieze and the statue of Ilissos, recently returned from Russia, are on display and are a highlight of the exhibition.
Its last piece is Pheidias’s Dionysos, the Greek god of wine, theatre and religious ecstasy. The statue is placed next to a red chalk drawing of a man, drawing attention to the resemblance between the two reclining figures.
The sketch in question is Study for Adam by Michelangelo as he prepared to paint his famous fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Next to Dionysos, it is clear where the Italian master drew his inspiration from, consciously or not, more than a millennium later.
July 1 to July 7 Huang Ching-an (黃慶安) couldn’t help but notice Imelita Masongsong during a company party in the Philippines. With paler skin and more East Asian features, she did not look like the other locals. On top of his job duties, Huang had another mission in the country, given by his mother: to track down his cousin, who was deployed to the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II and never returned. Although it had been more than three decades, the family was still hoping to find him. Perhaps Imelita could provide some clues. Huang never found the cousin;
Once again, we are listening to the government talk about bringing in foreign workers to help local manufacturing. Speaking at an investment summit in Washington DC, the Minister of Economic Affairs, J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), said that the nation must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high end manufacturing by 2040 to offset the falling population. That’s roughly 15 years from now. Using the lower number, Taiwan would have to import over 25,000 foreigners a year for these positions to reach that goal. The government has no idea what this sounds like to outsiders and to foreigners already living here.
Over the past year, a peculiar phrase has begun to litter Asian women’s social media accounts: “Oxford study.” An Asian woman vlogging about her dating life — and particularly about dating white men — gets commenters reacting to her updates with the words “Oxford study.” A young Asian student showing off her prom dress with her white boyfriend sees “obligatory Oxford study comment” on her TikTok. “I can already hear the oxford study comments coming,” one Asian woman captions a video of her dancing with her white partner. The phrase “Oxford study” refers to just that: an academic study out of Oxford
In spite of the next local elections being over two years away, there is already considerable intrigue and jockeying for position by politicians and their supporters. The local press runs quite a bit of content, mostly speculative, on who will run in what races and what the outcomes might be. This is an overview for English language readers to get a taste of the state of play. Four races in particular are drawing a lot of heat, those of mayors of New Taipei City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung because in all four the incumbent mayors will be term-limited out. In