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
belonged to Lysippos also, though to a less degree, since the energy
of the Tegea heads was absent from the features of the _Agias_ and
their fierceness was here replaced by a look of quiet melancholy. The
study of such allied works as the beautiful and excellently preserved
_Lansdowne Herakles_ (Pl. 30 and Fig. 71), the athlete on the Pentelic
marble stele found in the bed of the Ilissos in 1874, and now in the
National Museum in Athens (Fig. 74),[2146] the so-called _Meleager_
in the Vatican (Fig. 75),[2147] and other copies of the same original
(_e. g._, Figs. 76, 77), also shows how closely the type of Lysippos
approached that of Skopas. Long ago I expressed the view[2148] that
these and similar works should be assigned to Lysippos rather than
to Skopas, to whom most critics had referred them. Thus, after the
discovery of the Tegea heads, scholarly opinion began to follow the
arguments of Furtwaengler in bringing the _Lansdowne Herakles_ into the
sphere of Skopas.[2149] But Michaelis, as far back as 1882, commenting
on the characteristically small head, short neck in comparison with
the mighty shoulders, and long legs in proportion to the thick-set
torso, had declared: “Without doubt the statue offers one of the finest
specimens, if not absolutely the best, of a Herakles according to the
conception of Lysippos.”[2150] Now opinion varies again; only those
who believe that the _Agias_ is Lysippan class the _Herakles_ as a
Lysippan work.[2151] Of the _Meleager_, Graef[2152] gives eighteen
copies besides the one in the Vatican. This number shows how common
an adornment it was of Roman villas and parks. Some of these copies
have a chlamys thrown over the arm, _e. g._, the Vatican example, and
belong to imperial times, while others without the mantle, _e. g._, the
torso in Berlin,[2153] are older. In addition to the Vatican example
we reproduce two other copies, the beautiful Parian marble head now
placed on the trunk of a Praxitelean _Apollo_ in the gardens of the
Medici in Rome (Fig. 76),[2154] and the statue without arms or legs
and without the chlamys, found in 1895 near Santa Marinella, 30 miles
from Rome, and since 1899 in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University
(Fig. 77),[2155] one of the most beautiful of the many replicas. At
first the original of these copies was supposed to be Lysippan, being
identified with the _Venator_ at Thespiai mentioned by Pliny as the
work of Euthykrates, the son and pupil of Lysippos,[2156] but after the
discovery of the Tegea heads it was almost universally referred to
Skopas.[2157] Here again the Skopaic group of Graef has been broken by
P. Gardner[2158] and others, and the _Meleager_, like the _Herakles_,
has been given to Lysippos.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.—Head of the so-called _Meleager_. Villa Medici,
Rome.]
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