when fallen in the front of the battle.”
[Illustration: Fig. 8. Statue by an Argive Sculptor. Delphi. (_Greek
Sculpture_, Fig. 134.)]
We have seen how there arose in the sixth century a demand for athletic
statues, and how the early artists endeavoured to express trained
strength by the careful treatment of the muscles of the body, especially
those of the chest and abdomen. The early athletic statues must have
been of the type of those archaic figures which are rightly or wrongly
classed under the name of Apollo, and which, whether they represent a
god or a man, are certainly inspired by athletics. Though we see in all
the same evident desire to express strength yet we find considerable
variety of physical type, far more so, in fact, than we find in the
fifth century, which was dominated by a more or less definite ideal of
physical beauty and proportion. In the sixth century the artists were
experimenting, and therefore we may suppose were influenced more by
local or individual characteristics. Thus the slim, long-limbed Apollo
of Tenea (Fig. 7), with his well-formed chest, spare flanks, and
powerful legs is the very type of the long-distance runner. These long,
lean, wiry runners are often depicted on Panathenaic vases, and suggest
inevitably these day-runners (ἡμεροδρόμοι), who acted as scouts or
couriers in the Persian wars. Quite different is the type of the early
Argive statues found at Delphi (Fig. 8). Square and thickset, with
powerful limbs and massive heads, they seem naturally to lead up to the
type of the Ligourio bronze and of Polycleitus, and suggest that such a
build was characteristic of Argolis. Between the two extremes comes an
extensive series of statues from Boeotia, one of which shows strong
signs of Aeginetan influence.[103] In the fifth century we look in vain
for such divergences of type, and the reason is that Greek art was
tending more and more towards an ideal, and neither the typical runner
nor the typical strong man quite fulfils the artist’s ideal. Vase
paintings afford an interesting illustration of this change. The
wrestling groups on the black-figured vases show far greater variety and
originality, a more realistic imitation of the manifold positions of
wrestling than we find on the red-figured vases of the fifth century,
where only such types are preserved as commended themselves to the more
highly-trained artistic sense of the later craftsmen.
[Illustration: Fig. 9. Choiseul-Gouffier Apollo. British Museum.]
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Figure from E. pediment at Aegina. Munich.
(_Greek Sculpture_, Fig. 41.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 11. Bronze Statuette from Ligourio. Berlin. (_Greek
Sculpture_, Fig. 39.)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account