Cycladic+Art

Cycladic Art

The best-known art of this period are the marble figures. Perhaps the most famous of these figures are musicians: one a harp-player the other a pipe-player. The majority of these figures, however, are highly stylized representations of the female human form, typically having a flat, geometric quality which gives them a striking resemblance to today's modern art. A majority of the figurines are female, depicted nude, and with arms folded across the stomach. They are representative of a Great Goddess of nature, in a tradition continuous with that of Neolithic female figures such as the Venus of Willendorf. Archeological evidence suggests is that these images were regularly used in funerary practice: they have all been found in graves. Yet at least some of them show clear signs of having been repaired, implying that they were objects valued by the deceased during life and were not made specifically for burial. The figures were buried equally with both men and women yet such figures were not found in every grave.