The Glory That Was Greece: a survey of Hellenic culture and civilisationStobart, J. C. (John Clarke)
History
The Glory That Was Greece: a survey of Hellenic culture and civilisation
Stobart, J. C. (John Clarke)
Art, Greek; Greece -- Civilization -- To 146 B.C.
In many of the bronzes of our museums we can trace very clearly the new
influence of Lysippus. A fine example is provided by the figure of a
youth[93] recently dredged up under romantic circumstances off the
island of Cythera (Cerigo), which lies at the extreme southerly point of
Laconia, This was part of a cargo of spoils from Greece looted by the
Roman general Sulla and shipwrecked off Cape Matapan. No satisfactory
guess has yet been made as to the name of the statue or the motive of
its attitude. In my opinion the upstretched arm in readiness to grasp
seems to indicate an athlete playing a game of “catch.” “The Praying
Boy,” one of the treasures of Berlin, is a singularly perfect bronze,
full of grace, probably the work of Boethos, a famous sculptor of the
early part of the third century.[94] The Ludovisi Ares[95] is a marble
copy of an original which shows unmistakable influence of Lysippus, and
the restful attitude of the handsome war-god, so free from any trace of
ferocity, is characteristic of the manner in which the fourth century
civilised and humanised all its topics. So is the Rondanini Medusa,[96]
a Gorgon’s head translated into terms of decorative beauty--it might be
a design for a door-knocker. The snakes are there, and the chilly
glance, but there is nothing terrible in the face. The lovely winged
head, which originally belonged to a full-length statue of Hypnos
(Sleep), is one of the most striking bronzes in the British Museum.[97]
It is clearly related to the period which produced that figure of Death,
“the brother of Sleep,” on the Ephesian column. This example has been
covered by exposure to the air with a beautiful green patina,
[Illustration:
_Bruckmann_
FIG. 1. THE “RONDANINI” MEDUSA
_Mansell & Co._
FIG. 2. RELIEF FROM THE MAUSOLEUM
PLATE LXXIII]
often imitated with the application of acids by modern bronze-workers.
But the Herculaneum bronzes, which had been preserved for eighteen
centuries in an airproof casing of lava, are to-day in much the same
condition as when they left the studio. Though they were made, no doubt,
in Roman times, Lysippus is again the artist whose influence is most
clearly visible, as, for example, in the vivid Pair of Wrestlers, or the
Seated Hermes.
I have already said that the old cities of Greece were mostly too
impoverished to undertake great architectural works in this period.
Ephesus, however, had her great temple of Artemis burned down by an
enterprising individual with the very modern ambition of getting his
name before the public. For fear of increasing his success I will not
repeat it here, but when Alexander the Great offered to rebuild the
temple out of his own pocket the Ephesians declined, possibly on the
ground that their temple had already advertised a malefactor and they
did not desire it to be a further advertisement for a benefactor. So
they rebuilt it themselves with such splendour that it became one of the
Seven Wonders of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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