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
By the beginning of the fifth century B. C., if not earlier, boxers
were represented in violent motion, as we saw in the case of the statue
of the boy boxer Glaukos, by the Aeginetan sculptor Glaukias,[1712]
represented in the act of sparring (σκιαμαχῶν). Whether he was
represented as facing an imaginary antagonist or as merely punching
a bag we can not say, though the latter seems the more probable. The
motive is depicted in many art works, notably in the figure of a youth
punching a bag which hangs from a tree on the Ficoroni cista in the
Museo Kircheriano, Rome,[1713] and in that of another represented
on the so-called Peter cista in the Museo Gregoriano Etrusco of the
Vatican, whose engraved scenes show exercises of the palæstra.[1714]
The same motive is seen also in a statuette in the Museo Chiaramonti of
the Vatican, which is proved to be that of a boy boxer by the glove on
the right hand.[1715] Here the boy is represented with the right foot
far advanced and rising on the toes of both feet, the right shoulder
being drawn back, the right forearm raised, and the left extended
forwards. The marble torso of a copy of the same original on a large
scale is in Berlin.[1716] While Amelung believes that the original of
both statuette and torso was a bronze of the second half of the fourth
century B. C., Furtwaengler thought that the torso went back to the
severe style of the fifth century, and that this original once stood in
Olympia, where it might have served as the inspiration for a carelessly
worked bronze statuette of a boxer found there, which repeats the
motive of the torso and similarly belongs to the fifth century B. C.
(Fig. 2).[1717] The Olympia statuette also has the right foot advanced,
the upper part of the body leans backward, and the left arm with open
palm is outstretched for defense, while the right with balled fist
is held up ready to strike. It certainly is a votive offering of an
Olympic victor—doubtless one of the small reductions, which were not
uncommonly erected for economy’s sake.[1718] Whether the Aeginetan
Glaukias also made victor statues in repose is doubtful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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