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
Let us analyze a little further wherein the difference between the
closely allied art of Skopas and Lysippos lies. We saw that it
was chiefly the formation of the eye and its surroundings which
characterized Skopaic work—the depth of the balls in their sockets,
and the heavy masses of flesh above the outer corners. This was in
harmony with the breadth of brow and the massive build of the Tegea
heads. In the _Agias_ and similar works the treatment of the eye is
somewhat different. The head of the _Agias_ is of slighter proportions
than the heads from Tegea; in conformity with the Lysippan canon it
is below life-size, and consequently has no such heavy overshadowing
of the outer corners of the eyes. Moreover, as we shall see, this
overshadowing is also relatively less in the statue of the Delphian
athlete. The formation of the eye is thus described by E. A. Gardner:
“The inner corners of the eye are set very deep in the
head and very close together; the inner corners of the
eye-sockets form acute angles, running up close to one
another and leaving between them only a narrow ridge for
the base of the nose; thus they offer a strong contrast
to the line of the brow, arching away in a broad curve
from the solid base of the nose and forming an obtuse
angle with it, such as we see in the Skopaic heads.”[2159]
[Illustration: FIG. 77.—Torso of the so-called _Meleager_. Fogg Art
Museum, Cambridge, U. S. A.]
The resultant expression is therefore somewhat different from that of
the heads from Tegea; while we still see animation and even intensity
in the face of the _Agias_, we see it in a modified degree. The
far-away look of the Tegea heads is still present, but it appears to
be fixed on a nearer object, and so the look of intensity is tempered;
it is also lightened by the fact that the overshadowing of the eyes at
the outer corners is less heavy. But even this latter so-called Skopaic
trait, though it is absent in the _Agias_, is certainly present in
other Lysippan heads. Besides being prominent in representations
of Alexander the Great on coins,[2160] it is seen in busts of the
conqueror, especially in the splendid one from Alexandria in the
British Museum.[2161] In the latter example we see just such heavy
rolls of flesh as we note in the Skopaic heads. It shows that this
trait, introduced by Skopas, was used at times with equal effect by
Lysippos. We have already noted how in one example, at least, Skopas
himself laid it aside—in the _Atalanta_. Its presence on Lysippan heads
shows that too much stress can be laid on this feature in deciding
whether a given piece of sculpture is to be referred to Skopas. This
trait complicates the whole problem of the style of the two masters.
THE SPARTA HEAD COMPARED WITH THAT OF THE PHILANDRIDAS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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