Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic ArtHyde, Walter Woodburn
History
Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art
Hyde, Walter Woodburn
Olympics; Sculpture, Greek; Sports -- Greece
8B, = Statue A).[839] This Polymedes may have been
one of the predecessors acknowledged by Eutelidas and Chrysothemis,
among the first victor statuaries known to us by name, in the epigram
preserved by Pausanias from the base of the monument of Damaretos and
his son Theopompos at Olympia.[840] The epigram, in any case, implies
that the reputation of the Argive school in athletic sculpture was
already well established by the end of the sixth century B. C. These
massively built statues, dating from the beginning of the sixth century
B. C., outline the muscles to a certain extent, even showing the line
of the false ribs by incised lines. They display, however, but little
detail in modeling, except in the knees, where the artist has tried to
indicate the bones and muscles. The features of the large heads are
without expression; the large eyes are flat and not convex, as in the
example from Tenea, though the Argive artist was, perhaps, later than
the Corinthian one, and a long distance removed from the later artist
of the Ligourió bronze (Fig. 16), to be discussed later.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.—Statues of so-called _Apollos_ from Mount
Ptoion. National Museum, Athens.]
[Illustration: PLATE 8A
A. Statue of so-called _Apollo of Tenea_. Glyptothek, Munich.]
[Illustration: PLATE 8B
B. So-called _Argive Apollo_ from Delphi. Museum of Delphi.]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.—Statue known as the _Strangford Apollo_. British
Museum, London.]
In all these “Apollos,” which have been found all over the Greek world
from Naukratis in Egypt to Ambrakia, and along the Asian coast and
on the Aegean Isles, the archaic artists have attempted, by their
modeling of the muscles, especially of the chest and abdomen, to
express trained strength. The heavy Argive examples, which may be said
to be the prototypes of the Ligourió bronze and of the _Doryphoros_
of Polykleitos (Pl. 4 and Fig. 48), are in strong contrast with the
lighter type best represented by the example from Tenea. In the former,
with their big heads and shoulders and their powerful arms and legs,
we may see early boxers or pancratiasts; in the latter a long-limbed
runner, with powerful chest, but slim and supple legs. In the _Apollo
of Tenea_ there is no flabbiness nor softness, and yet no emaciation.
We see very similar runners on Panathenaic vases. Between the two
extremes we have a long series, those from Mount Ptoion and elsewhere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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