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
pose is seen on the stele of Aristion in the National Museum at Athens,
the work of the sculptor Aristokles, which represents a warrior with
a spear in the left hand.[977] Another torso of an ephebe in the
Akropolis Museum represents Ionic work from Paros.[978] Another head,
the so-called Rayet head in the Jakobsen collection in Copenhagen, one
of the most remarkable specimens of Greek archaic art[979] (Fig. 22),
somewhat later in date than the Rampin head, represents quite a different
tendency in Attic art. While the Rampin head represents Ionic
influence, this head represents pure Attic work untrammeled by foreign
influence, a true development of the old Attic sculpture in _poros_,
the best examples of which are to be found in the decorative sculptures
of the Old Temple of Athena on the Akropolis, enlarged by the
Peisistratidai. Comparing it with the head of the _Athena_ of the gable
of that temple,[980] we see great similarity in the simple execution
and reserve in the treatment of details—characteristics of pure Attic
sculpture—especially in the deep lines on either side of the mouth in
the Jakobsen head. The hair is pictorially treated like a cap, traces
of red appearing on it as well as on the lips and eyes. The Copenhagen
and Rampin heads, together with the famous portrait head in the old
Sabouroff collection,[981] and the head of a woman in the Louvre,[982]
form our best examples of old Attic art outside of the museums of
Athens.[983] The swollen ears of the Jakobsen head show that it is from
the funerary statue of a victor, perhaps a boxer. Furtwaengler wrongly
classed it as a portrait head.[984] A much discussed Attic work is the
archaic relief of a charioteer in the Akropolis Museum (Fig. 63).[985]
This was formerly thought (_e. g._, by Schrader) to be a block from the
later Ionic frieze of the old Hekatompedon which many believe survived
the Persian sack, but it is more likely a part of a frieze belonging
to a small shrine or altar. It represents a draped person entering a
two-horse chariot with the left foot, the hands outstretched to hold
the reins, the head and body leaning forward. Because of the _krobylos_
treatment of the hair, fitted for both sexes, and the long flowing
robe, the sex has been needlessly doubted, some calling it an Apollo or
a mortal charioteer, others an Athena or a Nike, even though the line
of the breast, so far as it is visible, shows no fullness, and the long
chiton is common in representations of male charioteers.[986] However,
for the appreciation of the relief it is of no consequence whether the
figure is male or female. It may be merely a dedicatory offering of
a Panathenaic victor in chariot racing, very possibly assimilated to
the type of Apollo,[987] as the god often appears in vase-paintings of
the same period in similar costume mounting a chariot.[988] We shall
discuss its interpretation more fully later on.[989] While Ionism was
prone to represent richly draped figures which concealed the form of
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