Көне Этруск өнері: Ареццо химерасы

Ancient Etruscan artwork

The Chimera of Arezzo is regarded as the best example of ancient Etruscan art. The British art historian David Ekserdjian described the sculpture as "one of the most arresting of all animal sculptures and the supreme masterpiece of Etruscan bronze casting". Made entirely of bronze and measuring 78.5 cm high with a length of 129 cm, it was found alongside a small collection of other bronze statues in Arezzo, an ancient Etruscan and Roman city in Tuscany. The statue was originally part of a larger sculptural group representing a fight between a chimera and the Greek hero Bellerophon. This sculpture is likely to have been created as a votive offering to the Etruscan god Tinia and is held by the National Archaeological Museum, Florence.

Typical iconography of the Chimera myth depicts the warrior Bellerophon as he confronts the Chimera, or rides atop or alongside it. This iconography began to appear upon Greek vessels in 600 BCE.

In the 3rd millennium BCE ancient foundry workers discovered by trial and error that bronze had distinct advantages over pure copper for making artistic statuary. Bronze stays liquid longer when filling a mold due to its lower melting point. Bronze is a superior metal to copper for sculpture casting because of its higher tensile strength. The island of Cyprus supplied most of the bronze used for artistic purposes throughout the ancient Mediterranean region. The earliest forms of Greek bronze sculptures were simple, hand worked sheets of bronze known as sphyrelaton (literally, "hammer driven"). July 16, 2009 – February 8, 2010 at the Getty Villa