Hellenistic Greece 4

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Hellenistic Greece 4

• CNE/ART 354
• 4/20/06

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Hellenistic Sculpture

• Closed pose popular at this time.
• Owes much to the style of Lysippos
• Uses contrasting axes, torsion, projecting arms
  and knees to create a sense of spatial freedom.

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Hellenistic Sculpture

• The crossing of the legs creates thrusts and
  major surfaces to the left and right of the
  figure the movement on the left is counteracted
  by the movement of the river god.

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Hellenistic Sculpture

• The strong diagonal created by the stretching of
  drapery from the left hand to the right shoulder
  is counteracted by the turn of the head to the
  viewers right.
• These internal forces seem to make the energy of
  the goddess radiate in many directions and invite
  the viewer to study the statue from many angles.

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Lysippos Mini-Review

• Single most creative and influential artist of
  the Hellenistic period.
• Contemporary of Praxiteles in late Classical
  period, one of the creators of Hellenistic art.
• During the first 75 years of the period, he and
  his school created new types of monuments and
  made stylistic innovations that would be used in
  Hellenistic art for centuries.

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Lysippos Innovations

• Modified Polykleitos canons his heads were
  smaller, bodies leaner (example Apoxyomenos from
  340/330).
• His innovations were concentrated in 3 areas
• Continuing theatricality (manipulation of scale
  for effect brought colossal sculpture back into
  vogue, made a bronze Zeus statue 18 meters (54
  feet) high.
• Exploration of emotional expressionism (started
  in his portraits of Alexander).
• Expanded interest in symbolism and allegory.

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Tanagra Figurines

• New class of miniature terracottas arise in
  Boiotia c. 330-200 BCE, a town 12 miles east of
  Thebes.
• Figurines discovered through grave robbing in the
  late 1800s, from late 4th-3rd c. graves.
• 8,000-10,000 graves were robbed.

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Tanagra Figurines

• Victorians fell in love with these sculptures and
  competed to collect them.
• Many forgeries were created.
• Mold-made and painted figurines.
• Used chiefly as grave goods, so many survive with
  paint relatively intact.

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Woman in Blue

• High artistic quality
• Artists used 2 molds to make them, one for the
  front, 1 for the back.
• Sectional molding was also used in the best
  pieces so that heads, arms, legs could be
  attached at slightly different angles, giving
  each piece individuality.

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Tanagra Figurines

• Standing woman pose was most popular.
• Chitons and cloaks were tightly wrapped around
  the body and brightly colored.
• Blue and purplish pink were popular colors.
• Some wear a broad conical hat (sun?), likely worn
  in everyday life, if seldom seen in art.

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A Large Miniature

• This is a very tall Tanagra figurine, standing at
  33 centimeters.

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Other Poses

• Veiled dancer

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Compare Veiled Dancer from Alexandria

• In the 5th c., artists represented the body
  through drapery.
• Hellenistic artists represented drapery through
  drapery.
• Miniature bronze statuette c. 250-150, double
  twist pose.

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Tanagra Aphrodite and Eros
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Open Pose Dancing Faun

• Roman copy of 3rd c. Greek original. Found in
  Pompeii.
• 71 cm height
• Extraordinary example of open composition. Fills
  all 3 dimensions. Wild abandon of limbs, arms
  flung out. Natural representation of anatomy.

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Dancing Faun

• Dramatically twisted pose.
• Leads the eye, motivates the viewer to walk
  around the statue to take in the different angles.

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Other Types of Sculpture

• Aphrodite of Melos (Venus de Milo).
• Head very classical small mouth, smooth brow,
  marked nose ridge (5th-4th c. precedents) stuck
  on a characteristically open style pose of
  Hellenistic baroque.
• Carving and finish emphasize the softness of the
  skin.

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Venus de Milo

• Discovered in 1820 in bits by a local peasant.
• Turks and French tussled over it French won.
• Claims
• A broken inscription naming the artist
  (Ages?andros son of Menides, from Antioch on
  the river Maeander) had been found, then lost
  artist too obscure.
• Another inscription said that it had been the
  gift of a local benefactor to a civic gymnasium
  (it stood in a niche unfinished back).
• One of its arms did survive, with an apple in its
  hand.

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Reactions

• Rodin Behold, the marvel of marvels . . . The
  work is the expression of the greatest antique
  inspiration it is voluptuousness regulated by
  restraint, ti is the joy of life cadenced,
  moderated by reason.
• Now thought to be of the 2nd of 1st c. BCE.

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Art Historical Puzzle

• What were her arms doing?
• Lots of reconstructions.

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Capitoline Venus, Copy of 3rd c. Greek Original

• From the early 19th c theory that such
  sculptures became progressively more nude from
  the Knidian Aphrodite on. Here we see her
  having dropped the robe entirely. Pose covers
  (draws attention to?) her breasts and pubic area.

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Aphrodite and Pan

• Delos, c. 100 BCE
• Found in a club house of a group of merchants
  from Beirut - Beard and Henderson speculate
  motel art for businessmen? They also claim it
  is one of the most disliked statues in
  scholarship.
• Seen by some scholars as an allusion to
  prostitution via display of her sandal.
  Prostitutes had the word follow picked out on
  the sole of one of their sandals,
• Thus she is welcoming, not resisting, Pans
  advances.

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Orestes and Electra

• 1st c. CE based on 1st c. BCE prototypes.
• Deliberately archaizing.
• Susan Woodford unimaginative adaptation . . . A
  dry work, an unattractive pasting together of two
  unrelated older statues . . . The side views are
  worthless . . . Romans displayed such statues
  against walls, designed for one view only.

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Laocoon

• Roman statue, altering Hellenistic Greek
  original.
• Found in 1509 in Rome, now in Vatican.
• Details of suffering, depiction of dramatic
  moment - typical of Hellenistic baroque style.
• But scholars now think it is not from this
  period, but rather a revival of it in the 1st c.
  CE.

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Laocoon

• Pliny preserves the names of its sculptors
  Hagesandros, Polydoros Athenodoros of Rhodes
• Has strong connections in both style and
  conception with the Gigantomachy on the Pergamene
  Altar moment of maximal agony and violence
  chosen to sum up the story.
• Serpents twine around the humans, just as they do
  on Altar. Laokoon screams, struggles contorted
  face, open mouth, massive wreath of hair all call
  to mind the giants on the Altar.

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Comparison

• Similar tilt of head, anguished expression, arm
  angle
• But Laokoon is carved using different drill
  techniques.

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Laokoon Restorations
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The Fascination of the Piece

• 1510 competition to see which of 4 famous
  artists could make the best copy.
• Judge Raphael.
• Winning copy immortalized in bronze. Spin-off
  copies proliferated.
• Vatican acquired it for its new sculpture
  gallery Napoleon carted it off 300 years later
  for the Louvre later returned to the Vatican.

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Sperlonga

• Sculptures in the cave discovered in 1957.
• The grotto here held many sculptures made by the
  same sculptors of the Laokoon (?), bought by the
  Roman emperor Tiberius.
• Highlight of a sea-side dining room attached to a
  luxury villa.

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Caveat

• The Sperlonga sculptures were found in tiny
  pieces, having been smashed up and dumped into
  the central pool (by early Christians?).
• Came to light during the construction of a
  coastal road. Chief engineer explored the cave.
• Jigsaw puzzle of reconstruction.
• Lots of other sculptures (small and large) have
  been found there carved prow of ship in rock
  with glass mosaic - Argo.

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Odysseus with Statue of Athena
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Blinding Polyphemos
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Another Light
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Skylla
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Skylla Group Reconstruction
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Sailor Caught by Skylla
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Comparison
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Skopas of Paros

• Meleager, c. 340
• Exponent of the pathos idiom. Exploration of
  personal experience.
• Active in the mid 4th century sculptor and
  architect.
• Used facial expressions to generate psychological
  tension/excitement.
• Deeply cut eyes (concentrated gaze), head and
  neck turned to one side (attention suddenly
  called to something) head tilted, lips slightly
  parted.

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Bronze Portrait Head, early 1st c. BCE

• Found in the palaistra at Delos, probably part of
  a statue of a standing male figure wearing a
  himation.
• His glance reflects an interior world full of
  anxiety uncertainty.

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Another View
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Horse and Jockey, Bronze, c. 200 BCE

• Recovered from a shipwreck off the coast of
  Artemision.
• Athlete shown in throes of competition rather
  than victorious, after (Charioteer at Delphi,
  etc.). Extreme tension depicted in both boy and
  horse.
• Tremendous speed of horse mirrored in the blowing
  folds of the boys chiton.

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Comparison Stele with Horse and Boy, late 4th c.

• Found in Athens in 1948.
• Carved in deep relief probably from the last
  Attic stelai before the law forbidding them in
  317.
• Consists of 2 blocks, but at least one more is
  missing.
• Ethiopian groom attempts to control a large
  horse, offering it some kind of food.
• Head of horse projects away from the block, while
  the body remains attached to it.

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Drunken Old Woman Hellenistic realism

• Pergamon, c. 200 BCE
• Original reputedly by Myron, but not likely.
• One proposed context
• Votive in Temple of Dionysos, for the
  Lagynophoria, a cult occasion when even
  respectable people could get drink, from huge
  jars (lagynoi) of wine?

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Reception

• Found sometime before 1700 given as a gift to
  Germany in early 18th c.
• 1830 not put in the new Sculpture Gallery in
  Munich
• 1895 finally displayed publically, but
  segregated from the Greek masterpieces, put into
  the Roman section.
• Now has star rating

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Farnese Heracles

• Marble version of a Lysippean type of c. 320 BCE,
  by sculptor Glykon of Athens c. 3rc c. CE (?).
  10 ft. 5 in for baths of Caracella. Found in the
  16th century there.
• Pollitt Lysippos seems to have been the
  instigator of . . . Hellenistic shock tactics
  in the use of scale. There is something
  intrinsically astounding about either extreme
  bigness or smallness, and L. in his Herakles
  figures seems to have exploited both.

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Weary Herakles

• Lysippos sparked the renewed interest in colossal
  statues
• Popular in the archaic period
• Rejected in the classical period except for a few
  cult statues
• Popular in Hellenistic period
• Here contrast between heavily muscled body and
  the tired pose (barely able to stand). Holds
  Apples of the Hes.
• When discovered lacked a left hand both legs
  below the knee. Michelangelo asked a pupil to
  make replacement legs these were so good that,
  when the originals were found not long
  afterwards, no one could bear to make the
  substitution. Originals put back in 1787.

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Terme Boxer (c. 10050 BCE)

• Realistic representation broken nose,
  cauliflower ears, bleeding wounds, swelling
  muscles.
• Breaks idealism of classical athletes

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Bronze Dwarves (c. 150-100)

• Part of what is called Alexandrian
  grotesquerie interest in the unusual, whether
  mythological (Cyclops) or real (dwarves,
  hunchbacks, handicapped people, etc.).
• Such representations were thought to avert the
  evil eye.

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Pottery Developments Gnathian Ware

• Review by the 4th century on the mainland,
  figured decoration of pottery disappears. Black
  Glaze ware.
• Gnathian Ware is in use until c. 200 BCE black
  slip with gold and white painted on. Pots are
  textured with scallops molded in the clay.

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Centuripe Ware

• Good for dating a site, since it was only in use
  for 25 years, from 300-275 BCE.
• Named after an inland town in Sicily.
• Lots of decorations in 3 dimensions polychrome
  painted decoration done after firing. Depicted
  elegant women in quiet domestic settings.
  Contained cremations.

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How Rome Became Involved in Greece

• Begins in the early 2nd c. BCE.
• In 168, evidence of 1st Roman conquests in
  Greece. First symbol of Roman supremacy on Greek
  soil.
• Aemilius Paulus erected a monument in Delphi to
  celebrate his victory at the battle of Pydna and
  the ensuing Roman domination of northern Greece.
• Pillar with a horseman on top, 30 feet high.
  Frieze at top depicts battles between the
  Macedonians and the Romans, style borrowed from
  Greeks vs. Barbarians. Who is the barbarian?

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How Rome Became Involved in Greece

• 146 BCE Rome decided to teach Greece a lesson.
  Destroyed Corinth.
• 88 BCE Roman general Sulla attacked and sacked
  Athens, removing all the citys art to Rome.
• 69 BCE Crete was taken over by the Romans.
• 44 BCE Caesar rebuilt Corinth, established it as
  the capital of the Roman province of Achaea.

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Athenian Agora

• 2nd c. CE
• West side pretty much unchanged.
• Basilica built by Hadrian (117-138) a large 3
  aisled hall used for markets, administration,
  lawcourts. Here administrative.

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Athenian Agora

• 15 BCE Agrippa, son-in-law of Augustus, built an
  Odeion right in the middle of the agora. Had a
  huge span of 25 m with no internal supports over
  the auditorium, which seated 1,000. Stood several
  storeys high, dominated the agora.

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Odeion
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Market of Caesar Augustus

• Formal marketplace to the east of the Agora,
  behind the Stoa of Attalos.
• Started in the 50s, finished c. 11-9 BCE.
• Series of shops all around a peristyle court.
  This was now the open center the Romans filled
  the old agora with the Odeion and temple of Ares.