So far few references to the portrait sculptures of Greece either
in the fifth or fourth century have been necessary. We have now,
however, to redeem the promise to make clear the use Lysippus and
his school made of realistic detail in this department of art. The
opportunity suggests a few general remarks upon Hellenic portrait
sculpture generally. Before the latter half of the fourth century
there was no portraiture in Greece, in the modern sense of the word.
That is to say, the sculptor made no effort to produce a realistic
representation of the sitter. He rather sought to present a type
suggested by the individual. Take, for instance, the British Museum
bust of “Pericles”—probably a copy of the statue by Cresilas dedicated
after the revolt of Samos (440 B.C.). This stood on the Acropolis,
hard by the Lemnian “Athena” of Phidias, on the right-hand side as
the Athenian passed up through the Propylæa. Even such a well-known
figure as the warrior statesman is not highly individualised. The
clear-cut brow and the broad mouth tell of the profound judgment and
sober will needful to the man who gave Athenian policy its deepest
and most imaginative characteristics. The voluptuous lips tell of the
passionate emotionalism which brought Pericles into sympathy with his
fellow countrymen, and which every true Athenian would have considered
it inhuman to crush. But these characteristics are rather those of the
ideal statesman which the Athenian system sought to produce. Every
trait applicable to Pericles alone has been removed.
Much the same may be said of the well-known “Sophocles,” or the
so-called “Phocion” in the Vatican, two of the finest Greek portraits
of the best style extant. Both have all the strongly idealistic
qualities of Hellenic portraiture before the Alexandrian age. Neither
the “Sophocles” nor the “Phocion” can be termed portraits in the sense
that the Roman busts are portraits. Both represent ideal types rather
than individual personalities. The Greek thinker desired to look at
everything from the universal point of view. He sought to form general
abstract conceptions about humanity and nature, applicable to any
and every part of the universe. The task of the Greek sculptor was,
therefore, to produce figures embodying these types. Phocion was to
him the incorruptible statesman. Sophocles was the typical Athenian
gentleman—sound in body as in mind.
So when Lysippus set out to carve a portrait statue such as that
preserved in the marble bust of “Alexander” in the British Museum, he
did not picture the man or the king of Macedon, but the descendant of
Achilles, whose mission it was to conquer the world. He abstracted
every trait that endured but for the moment, and sought only to
express the heroic side of the Macedonian character. Plutarch (“Life
of Alexander”) tells of the impression this method made upon Alexander
himself. We read:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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