Sun-god and others; many of these were colossal figures in bronze. Among heroes he was particularly attracted by the mighty physique of Heracles. The Heracles Farnese of Naples, though signed by Glycon of Athens, and a later and exaggerated transcript, owes something, including the motive of rest after labour, to Lysippos. Lysippos made many statues of Alexander the Great, and so satisfied his patron, no doubt by idealising him, that he became the king’s court sculptor; the king and his generals provided numerous commissions. Portraits of Alexander vary greatly, and it is impossible to determine which among them go back to Lysippos.
As head of the great athletic school of Peloponnese, Lysippos naturally sculptured many athletes; a figure by him of a man scraping himself with a strigil was a great favourite of the Romans in the time of Tiberius; it has usually been regarded as the original copied in the Apoxyomenos of the Vatican (fig 55).
44. Anonymous, Apollo Sauroktonos, Hellenistic copy after a Greek original created by Praxiteles, 4th century BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 149 cm. Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican.
45. Anonymous, Venus and Cupid, Roman copy after a Greek original, 4th century BCE.
Restored at the end of the 17th century CE by Alessandro Algardi. Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 174 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Aphrodite became a common subject for Greek sculptors in the 4th century BCE and later, because her renowned beauty provided an acceptable excuse for an erotic representation of the female body. She is sometimes shown, as here, with her son Eros, known to the Romans as Cupid, and in later art as “putti,” the winged babies symbolising earthly and divine love. In Roman art and mythology, Aphrodite became Venus, goddess of love. To the Romans she had a more elevated status, seen as the progenitor of the line of Caesar, Augustus, and the Julio-Claudian emperors, and by extension, as an embodiment of the Roman people. This playful depiction of Aphrodite and Eros, or Venus and Cupid, is more suggestive of the Greek view of Aphrodite, who saw her not only as the symbol of sensual beauty, but also as occasionally silly and humorous.
46. Anonymous, Wounded Amazon, Roman copy after a Greek original created by Polykleitos, c. 440–430 BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 202 cm. Musei Capitolini, Rome.
47. Anonymous, Aphrodite of Knidos, copy after a Greek original created by Praxiteles, c. 350 BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble. Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican.
Greek sculptor, Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephissodotus, is considered the greatest of the 4th century BCE Attic sculptors. He left an imperishable mark on the history of art.
Our knowledge of Praxiteles received a significant contribution, and was placed on a satisfactory basis with the discovery at Olympia in 1877 of his statue of Hermes with the Infant Dionysos, a statue that has become world famous, but which is now regarded as a copy. Full and solid without being fleshy, at the same time strong and active, the Hermes is a masterpiece and the surface play astonishing. In the head we have a remarkably rounded and intelligent shape, and the face expresses perfect of health and enjoyment.
Among the numerous copies that came to us, perhaps the most notable is the Apollo Sauroktonos, or the lizard-slayer (fig. 44), a youth leaning against a tree and idly striking with an arrow at a lizard, and the Aphrodite of Knidos of the Vatican (fig. 47), which is a copy of the statue made by Praxiteles for the people of Knidos; they valued it so highly they refused to sell it to King Nicomedes, who was willing in return to discharge the city’s entire debt, which, according to Pliny, was enormous.
The subjects chosen by Praxiteles were either human or the less elderly and dignified deities. Apollo, Hermes and Aphrodite rather than Zeus, Poseidon or Athena attracted him. Under his hands the deities descend to human level; indeed, sometimes almost below it. They possess grace and charm to a supreme degree, though the element of awe and reverence is wanting.
Praxiteles and his school worked almost entirely in marble. At the time the marble quarries of Paros were at their best; for the sculptor’s purpose no marble could be finer than that of which the Hermes is made.
48. Anonymous, Aphrodite of Knidos, Roman copy after Praxiteles, c. 350 BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 122 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
49. Anonymous, Meleager, copy after a Greek original created by Skopas, c. 340 BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 123 cm. Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge (United States).
Probably of Parian origin, Skopas was the son of Aristander, a great Greek sculptor of the 4th century BCE. Although classed as an Athenian, and similar in tendency to Praxiteles, he was really a cosmopolitan artist, working largely in Asia and Peloponnesos. The existing works with which he is associated are the Mausoleum of Halicarnassos, and the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. In the case of the Mausoleum, though no doubt the sculpture generally belongs to his school, it remains impossible to single out any specific part of it as his own. There is, however, good reason to think that the pedimental figures from Tegea are Skopas’ own work. They are, unfortunately, all in extremely poor condition, but appear to be the best evidence of his style.
While in general style Skopas approached Praxiteles, he differed from him in preferring strong expression and vigorous action to repose and sentiment.
Early writers give a good deal of information on the works of Skopas. For the people of Elis he made a bronze Aphrodite riding on a goat (copied on the coins of Elis); a Maenad at Athens, running with head thrown back was ascribed to him. Another type of his was Apollo as leader of the Muses, singing to the lyre. The most elaborate of his works was a great group representing Achilles being conveyed over the sea to the island of Leuce by his mother Thetis, accompanied by Nereids.
Jointly with his contemporaries Praxiteles and Lysippos, Skopas may be considered to have completely changed the character of Greek sculpture; they initiated the lines of development that culminated in the schools of Pergamum, Rhodes and other great cities of later Greece. In most modern museums of ancient art their influence may be seen in three-quarters of the works exhibited. At the Renaissance it was especially their influence which dominated Italian painting, and through it, modern art.
50. Anonymous, Athenian Tombstone, c. 340 BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 168 cm. National Archaeological Museum of Athens, Athens.
51. Anonymous, Phalli, 300 BCE.
Delos (Greece). Private collection.
52. Anonymous, Dionysos and Ariadne (detail from the Derveni Krater), c. 340–330 BCE.
Ancient
