Marble torso of a youth

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Beginning in the first century B.C., statues were created in a classicizing style that incorporated or combined elements typical of Greek sculpture of the fifth century B.C. The relative stiffness and lack of organic clarity in this torso suggest that it may be such a work rather than a true copy of a classical Greek statue. The flat, softly rendered planes and polished surface are often found in statues of the Hadrianic and early Antonine periods.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art