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
A detailed comparison of this head with that of the _Agias_ will show
wherein the wonderful resemblance—so striking at first glance—consists
and will disclose its Lysippan character. Neither head is a portrait,
nor even individualized; the _Agias_ could be no portrait, for Agias
was the great-grandfather of Daochos, who enlisted the services of his
contemporary Lysippos in erecting his statue, and he won his victory
in the pankration more than a century before this statue was set
up.[2070] A glance at the head from Olympia also clearly discloses its
ideal character; for it is no portrait of Philandridas, but the victor
κατ’ ἐξοχήν in the pankration. The small head of the _Agias_—under
life-size—first arrests attention as the chief characteristic of the
whole statue and (taken with the other proportions of the body) as the
chief mark of its Lysippan origin. As Homolle says, it is not that
small heads are not found outside the school of Lysippos or before
his day—for Myron can furnish examples of them—but it is only with
Lysippos and after him that we see a conscious intention of having the
proportions thus reduced. Now the head from Olympia is also less than
life-size,[2071] but as the head alone is preserved, we can only assume
that the proportions it bore to the body were similar to those we see
in the statue of Agias. The conformation of the crania of both is, as
in Attic works, round, with small, only slightly projecting occiputs,
as opposed to the squareness of Polykleitan heads, which are longer
from front to back and flatter on top—showing how Lysippos in this
respect departed from the creator of the _Doryphoros_. This cranial
conformation is almost identical in the two heads, as is clearly shown
in Fig. 70, where one is drawn in profile over the other.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.—Profile Drawings of the Heads of the _Agias_
and the _Philandridas_.]
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