Rock On, Hubertus
So stands the statue that enchants the world-
The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.
-James Thomson (1700-1748)
He is the brawny warrior with serpentine curls, almond-shaped eyes, aquiline nose, and rounded, bee-stung lips. He is the Olympian god of light and divination. He is the Apollo Belvedere – and for a thousand years people journeyed to the oracle of Delphi, housed in his temple, to admire his beauty. (The marble Apollo that now resides in the Vatican is a Roman copy of a Greek bronze original that was created between 350-325 B.C.) He was discovered in 1503 on the old road to Mariano (near to Rome) and was first placed in the garden of a Cardinal. Naked except for the cloak draped over one arm, Apollo’s elegant bearing quickly catapulted him to life at the courts. The statue became so famous that he was taken on several grand tours of Europe and, five hundred years later he made his debut at the MOMA in New York City. In true “rock star” fashion.
Greek statues, like the Apollo Belevede, tell the square-inch-by-square-inch history of how stone has become surrogate for flesh. The very apogee of Olympic visions, statues of ideal bodies transport us.
When it came to the Olympian Games, first held in 776 B.C., the ancient Greeks played hard and fast. It was the ancient Greeks who elevated masculine beauty to a new god-like standard by removing the contestant’s clothes. Back then, there were no team sports, no torch marathons, no female athletes. Just well-chiselled, oil-glistening, buck-naked, male bodies. Victory was represented in the form of a winged female figure known as Nike, who had the cushy job of flying down and placing a laurel wreath (which would be the equivalent of today’s gold medal) on the head of the god-chosen winner.
Fast forward to 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver.
Enter Prince Hubertus of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. The buff Olympic skier from Mexico is also a photographer, an entrepreneur, and a pop star known as Andy Himalay. Did I mention that he is polylingual? Five languages to be exact. (That’s what happens when you have descended from the reigning dynasty of a former principality in what is now Germany.) And, that’s not all….the rock-solid, 51-year-old Hubertus was the oldest athlete to compete at the Vancouver Winter Games.
Cut to 1504,Florence, Italy
It was all very tantalizing – The impact of the male statuary on the history of taste was nothing less than revolutionary. Carved from a huge block of pure white unflawed Carrara marble, the “Giant,” as the four-meter statue was commonly called, is filled with heroism keeping with classical colossal statues – from the outstretched foot all the way up to the bedroom hair he is the largest and most widely admired sculpture of masculine nudity in the history of post-classical art. Michelangelo was the first artist since the ancient Greeks to restore proportionate genitals to the male figure. (Still, the citizens of Florence still mired in Medieval morality were so offended they stoned the nude Giant when he was first unveiled in public.)
Mypoint? Gazingat glistening marble statues and watching Olympic athletes like Hubertus, we are in awe of the beauty and power of age.
Certainly nude statues and Olympic athletes are the embodiment of physical perfection, but they also exist in the realm of dreams and intellect. If we are to learn anything from them it is that we ourselves are mutable. In other words, we all rock!
ShareThis
