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| Roman Empire Snake-legged Giant ca. AD 180-220 bronze statuette Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
"In Greek mythology the giants, children of Ge (Earth) and Uranus (Sky), tried to overthrow the Olympian gods in a mighty battle. This young giant, identified by his snaky legs, was originally shown in combat with a now-missing opponent. He raises his right arm, wrapped in an animal skin, to ward off a blow. The giant's unkempt hair and the clumps of body hair sprouting from his chest, belly and shoulders emphasize his wildness and barbarity. The battle between the Olympian gods and the giants was extremely popular in Greek art; after the Persian War, it became an allegory for battles between Greeks and barbarians. The giant's twisting pose, the intense pathos of his expression, and the choice of the subject itself were deeply influenced by the style of art developed in the Greek city of Pergamon in the 100s BC, a style that saw a resurgence in Roman art of the late 100s AD. This figure may originally have been part of a large group depicting the battle. In the Roman period, groups of small bronzes were often used as decorative elements on objects such as furniture or chariots; the attachment hole on the giant's "knee" suggests this usage."
– curator's notes from the Getty Museum
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| Hellenistic Greece Giant hurling a Rock ca. 200-175 BC bronze statuette Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Giuseppe Nicola Nasini Jupiter subdues the Giants 1691-92 ceiling fresco Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence |
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| Anonymous Artist of the Roman-Bolognese school Fall of the Giants 17th century drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Giovanni Ghisolfi Jupiter battling the Giants before 1683 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Jacopo Zucchi Jupiter fighting the Giants before 1596 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Fall of the Giants, with Jupiter mounted on Eagle 16th century drawing British Museum |
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| Bartolomeo Coriolano after Guido Reni Fall of the Giants 1638 chiaroscuro woodcut (assembled from four printed sheets) British Museum |
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| Pietro Santi Bartoli after Giulio Romano Giants crushed by Boulders ca. 1680 etching (after fresco at Palazzo del Te, Mantua) British Museum |
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| Domenico Zanetti Fall of the Giants before 1712 wash drawing Morgan Library, New York |
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| Lisette Model Sculpture Fragments at Musei Capitolini, Rome (at left, the hand of the Colossus of Constantine) 1953 gelatin silver print National Gallery of Canada |
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| Henry Fuseli The Artist moved by the Grandeur of Antique Fragments (hand and foot of the Colossus of Constantine) 1778-79 drawing Kunsthaus, Zürich |
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| Roman Empire Colossus of Constantine (fragments) AD 312-315 marble Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini, Rome |
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| Roman Empire Colossus of Constantine (fragment) AD 312-315 marble Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini, Rome |
"One other feature emerges in the art of this time: the creation of portraits – and other works of art, for that matter – of greatly increased size. This had been a heritage of Rome from Hellenistic taste and seems to have been particularly popular with emperors of authoritarian bent – the most famous colossus had been that of Nero, while Gallienus is reported to have left unfinished a colossal portrait of himself as Helios, for example. Still there seems no real precedent for the quantity of overscaled – that is over life-size – works produced for the Constantinian dynasty. Not only are there the fragments of a thirty-foot seated statue of Constantine [above] for his basilica but also a comparably huge bronze head now in the Museo dei Conservatori, Rome. Reports of other enormous images come from other places in his empire; yet these all are merely the most exceptional works, rising over an army of lesser colossi only once or twice life-size. This taste must be marked as one of the distinctive traits of the Constantinian period, one which its founder passed on to his heirs – particularly Constantius II – along with the Antonine-derived Hellenism of his later imagery. A reaction to this extravagance seems to have set in soon after Constantine's death, and, after the passing of Constantius II, the counterdirection became dominant."
– Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century, edited by Kurt Weitzmann – catalogue of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1978)