30 Millennia of Sculpture - Patrick Bade 30 Millennia

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Leda and the Swan, copy after a Greek original created during the first half of the 5th century BCE by Timotheus. Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 132 cm. Musei Capitolini, Rome.

      145. Anonymous, Youth Clad in Tight Long-Fitting Tunic, called the Charioteer of Motya, c. 470 BCE. Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 181 cm. Museo Joseph Whitaker, Motya (Italy).

      146. Anonymous, Apollo, called the Apollo Parnopios, copy after a Greek original created around 450 BCE by Phidias. Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 197 cm. Staatliche Museen, Kassel.

      Apollo was the god of music, poetry, medicine, archery, and prophecy, and was always shown as young and beautiful. Here, he has the idealised body of a young male athlete. The naturalism of his anatomy, with its sculpted muscles and graceful movement, is expressed through the relaxed, contrapposto stance. His expression is thoughtful but emotionless. This classic 5th-century BCE statue type is transformed into Apollo by the addition of the elaborately curled long hair, and his attributes, the bow and laurel wreath, which he would have held in each hand.

PHIDIAS(C. 488 BCE, ATHENS – C. 431 BCE, OLYMPIA)

      Son of Charmides, universally regarded as the greatest of Greek sculptors, Phidias was born in Athens. We have varying accounts of his training. Hegias of Athens, Ageladas of Argos, and the Thasian painter Polygnotus, have all been regarded as his teachers.

      The earliest of his great works were dedications in memory of Marathon, from the spoils of the victory. On the Acropolis of Athens he erected a colossal bronze image of Athena, visible far out at sea. Other works at Delphi, at Pellene in Achaea, and at Plataea were appreciated; among the Greeks themselves, however, the two works of Phidias which far outstripped all others – providing the basis of his fame – were the colossal figures in gold and ivory of Zeus at Olympia and of Athena Parthenos at Athens, both of which belong to about the middle of the 5th century.

      Plutarch gives in his life of Perikles a charming account of the vast artistic activity that went on at Athens while that statesman was in power. For the decoration of his own city he used the money furnished by the Athenian allies for defence against Persia. “In all these works,” says Plutarch, “Phidias was the adviser and overseer of Perikles.” Phidias introduced his own portrait and that of Perikles on the shield of his Parthenos statue. And it was through Phidias that the political enemies of Perikles struck at him.

      It is important to observe that in resting the fame of Phidias upon the sculptures of the Parthenon we proceed with little evidence. What he was celebrated for in antiquity was his statues in bronze or gold and ivory. If Plutarch tells us that he superintended the great works of Perikles on the Acropolis, this phrase is very vague.

      Of his death we have two discrepant accounts. According to Plutarch he was made an object of attack by the political enemies of Perikles, and died in prison at Athens. According to Philochorus, he fled to Elis, where he made the great statue of Zeus for the Eleans, and was afterwards put to death by them. For several reasons the first of these tales is preferable.

      Ancient critics take a high view of the merits of Phidias. What they especially praise is the ethos or permanent moral level of his works as compared with those of the later “pathetic” school. Demetrius calls his statues sublime and at the same time precise.

      147. Anonymous, Bust of Perikles, copy after a Greek original created around 425 BCE. Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 48 cm. The British Museum, London.

      148. Anonymous, Farnese Heracles, copy after a Greek original created during the 5th century BCE. Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 313 cm. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

      Here, Heracles rests after obtaining the apples of the Hesperides, which he holds in his right hand. The sculpture is a Roman copy in marble of a Greek bronze original, usually attributed to Lysippos, a sculptor of the 4th century BCE. The weight of the figure is borne almost completely by Heracles’ right leg and by the club, covered with his signature lion skin, on which he leans. The exaggerated contrapposto, or shift in weight, that results is typical of 4th century BCE sculpture. However, the heavy, muscled form is not. The uncharacteristic weightiness of the figure may be due to the subject, the notoriously strong Heracles. Or, it may be an exaggeration created by the Roman copyist, in response to the aesthetic ideals of the Roman audience. The weighty realism of this piece inspired artists of the Italian Renaissance and later periods after it was discovered in the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome in the 16th century.

      149. Anonymous, Marsyas, copy after a Greek original created around 450 BCE by Myron. Ancient Greek. Marble. Museo Gregoriano Profano, Vatican.

      Like Myron’s Discobolus (fig. 150), his Marsyas, pictured here, is shown in a dramatic stance that marks an important departure from the stiff, frontal poses of Archaic statues. The Roman copy in marble requires a strut for support, but the bronze original would have appeared even more dynamic, delicately balanced on the balls of his feet. The subject has been identified as Marsyas, a satyr, who at the moment shown, has spotted a reed instrument upon the ground, discarded by Athena. He is poised in motion, recoiling in surprise at his good luck, but momentarily fearful of taking the precious item. He will pick it up and become of a master of the instrument, but in the way of Greek tragedy, his gift will be his downfall. Hubris, or pride, leads him to challenge the god of music, Apollo, to a contest. He loses, of course, and is flayed alive as punishment.

      150. Anonymous, Discobolus, copy after a Greek original created around 450 BCE by Myron. Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 148 cm. Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome.

      In Myron’s Discobolus, we see the human form freed from the standing, frontal pose of earlier statues. Here, the artist is clearly interested not only in the body of the athlete, but in the movement of the discus thrower. His muscles tense and strain in preparation for his throw, his face focused on his activity. While the pose, with the arms forming a wide arc, is revolutionary, the piece is still meant to be viewed from the front. It would not be until the following century that artists began to conceive of sculpture that could be viewed from all sides.

MYRON(ACTIVE DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE 5TH CENTURY BCE)

      In the middle of the 5th century BCE Greek sculptor, Myron worked almost exclusively in bronze. Though he made some statues of gods and heroes, his fame rested primarily upon his representations of athletes, for which he proved revolutionary by introducing greater boldness of pose and a more ideal rhythm. His most famous works, according to Pliny, were a cow, Ladas the runner, who fell dead at the moment of victory, and a discus-thrower, Discobolus (fig. 150). The cow seems to have earned its fame largely by serving as a peg on which to hang epigrams, which tells us nothing of the animal’s pose. Of the Ladas, there is no known copy; we are fortunate, however, in possessing several copies of the Discobolus. The athlete is represented at the moment he has swung back the discus with the full stretch of his arm, ready to hurl it with all the weight of his body. His face is calm and untroubled, but every muscle in his body is focused in effort.

      Another marble figure, almost certainly a copy of a work of Myron’s, is a Marsyas eager to pick up the flutes Athena had thrown away. The full group is copied on coins of Athens, on a vase and in a relief representing Marsyas as oscillating between curiosity and fear of Athena’s displeasure. His face of the Marsyas is almost a mask; but from the attitude we gain a vivid impression of the passions affecting him.

      The ancient critics say of Myron that, while he succeeded admirably in giving life and motion to his figures, he failed in rendering the mind’s emotions. To a certain degree this agrees with the existing evidence, although not perfectly. The bodies of his men are of far greater excellence than

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