MARCUS AURELIUS

Introduction:
The artwork of the image is called
Marcus Aurelius, It is a piece of
sculpture made of gilded bronze.
The sculpture belongs to Roman art
and concretely it is a Roman portrait
from the High empire (1st to 3rd
centuries AD). The sculpture is
located in the museum of the
capitol.

Analysis:
In the image, we can see Marcus
Aurelius on a horse, so it is an
equestrian portrait. Marcus Aurelius
is depicted as a military man
encouraging the troops. We can also
appreciate that he is dressed as a
philosopher. The horse has the
contrapposto pose, which was used
to give more naturalism and
dynamism to the portrait, so it seems the horse is advancing. The statue is made of
gilded bronze, that's why it has this golden color in some parts of the artwork. Marcus
Aurelius is barefoot, which represents divinity.

Commentary:
This portrait is a philosophical portrait, and as commented, Marcus Aurelius is dressed
as a philosopher. It was made using a mold of wox. They used wox because it was
easily moldable and they could give it the form of the statue very easily. Later they
covered the wox with the gilded bronze in order to create the sculpture. Finally, they
heated the statue to melt the wox inside and they made a hole in order to take the wox
out. This is one of the few statues that were not melted by the christians. This was due
to a misunderstanding, the christians thought it was a statue of Constantine I.

Conclusion:
The Marcus Aurelius is an equestrian portrait from the high empire. Marcus Aurelius
is depicted as a military addressing to the citizens. One of the reasons for its
importance is that the sculpture is one of the statues that survived from that period,
due to a misunderstanding.