Contrapposto

The Doryphoros of Polyclitus, an early example of classical contrapost.

File:Hermes by Praxiteles.jpg

Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus, by Praxiteles

Classical Contrapost (or (ital.)Classical Contrapposto) is a term most commonly used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs. This gives the figure a more relaxed and less stiff appearance. It can also encompass the tension as a figure changes from resting on a given leg to walking or running upon it (so-called ponderation).

Contrapost has been used since the dawn of classical western sculpture. According to the canon of the Classical Greek Sculptor Polyclitus in the fourth century B.C., it is one the most important characteristics of his figurative works and those of his successors, Lysippos, Skopas, etc. The Polycletian statues for example Discophoros and Doryphoros are idealized athletic young men with the divine sense, and captured in contrapost. In these works, the pelvis is no longer axial with the vertical statue as in the archaic style of earlier Greek sculpture until the Ephebe-statue of Kritios ca. 490-480 B.C.

Contrapost can be clearly seen in the Roman copies of the statues of Hermes and Heracles. A famous example is the marble statue of Hermes with the infant Dionysus in Olympia by Praxiteles. It can also be seen in the Roman copies of Polyclitus' amazon.

Classical contrapost was revived in the Renaissance by the Italian artists Michelangelo and Donatello, as well as Leonardo da Vinci. One of the major achievements of the Italian Renaissance was the re-discovery of contrapposto.

The term should not be confused with the very similar musical term contrapunto.

Contrapposto was an extremely important sculptural development for it is the first time in Western art that the human body is used to express a psychological disposition. The balanced, harmonious pose of the Kritios Boy suggests a calm and relaxed state of mind, an evenness of temperament that is part of the ideal of man represented. From this point onwards Greek sculptors went on to explore how the body could convey the whole range of human experience, culminating in the desperate anguish and pathos of Laocoön and his Sons (1st century AD) in the Hellenistic period.

see Greek statue