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
At first this head was ascribed with surprising unanimity to the
school of Praxiteles,[2061] and subsequently, after the discovery of
the Tegea heads, with almost equal unanimity to that of Skopas. Treu,
who first published the head,[2062] pointed out its near relationship
to the _Hermes_ of Praxiteles, which appeared to him to be obvious,
notwithstanding the injured condition of the chin, nose, mouth, and
brows. He found the general proportions, the shape of the cranium
and forehead, and the form of the cheeks and mouth the same in both,
while the differences, such as the deeper cut and wider opened eyes
with their γοργόν expression, the hair, and the fact that the head
is harder, leaner, and bonier than that of the _Hermes_, were all
explained by the different character given to the statue of a victor
or Herakles. Many other archæologists, as Boetticher,[2063] Laloux and
Monceaux,[2064] and Furtwaengler,[2065] have also seen sure signs of
the hand of Praxiteles or his school in the graceful attitude, delicate
chiseling, and finish of the work. Still others,[2066] however, found
every characteristic of Skopas in this head. Even Treu in his later
treatment of the head found it more Skopaic than Praxitelian, and yet,
by a careful analysis,[2067] he conclusively showed that the formation
of the eyes, the opening of the mouth, and the treatment of the hair
were so different in the heads from Tegea (and especially in that of
the _Herakles_, Fig. 73) as to preclude the possibility of assigning
them and the head from Olympia to the same sculptor, and so declared
for some independent sculptor among the contemporaries of Skopas.
However, he did not see Lysippos in this allied but independent artist,
though he admitted the resemblance of the head in question to that of
the _Agias_, as also Homolle,[2068] Mahler,[2069] and other critics
have done.
THE OLYMPIA HEAD AND THAT OF THE AGIAS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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