Home >> Carving Stone >> Four Seasons Marble Statues Set

The Four Seasons are an ancient decorative motif. Usually each season is represented as an allegorical figure bearing traditional iconographic symbols. The Romans typically represented the seasons as voluptuous goddesses known as the Horae. This imagery carried over into neoclassical art and later and became especially popular as garden sculpture. Putti (re-popularized in the Renaissance) became common allegorical figures and often took over the role of the Horae, as here.

Spring is shown with profuse flowers because it is the season when most flowering plants blossom. Summer holds a sheaf of wheat and wears a cloth headband to illustrate the labor and product of the wheat harvest, which is done in the summer. Wheat can either be planted in the winter ("winter wheat") or the spring ("spring wheat"), to be harvested at the beginning or very end of summer, respectively. Autumn is the season in which most fruits become ripe. Since grapes are harvested in the fall, wine is also made in the fall. This is alluded to by the goblet. Winter is shown without produce and striving to warm himself because the temperate winter is cold and rather barren.

The four sculptures are similar in size, color, and sculptural style. Each is carved from a single block of marble. Each figure stands on a small, square base and is structurally supported by a carved tree stump.

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