Late Classic Art of Ancient Greece

Introduction to the Late Classical Period

By the end of the Classical period Athens, Sparta, and their mutual allies were embroiled in the Peloponnesian War, a bitter conflict that lasted for several decades and ended in 404 BCE. Despite continued military activity throughout the “Late Classical Period” (400-323 BCE), artistic production and development continued apace.

In addition to a new figural aesthetic in the fourth century known for its longer torsos and limbs, and smaller heads (for example, the Apoxyomenos), the first female nude was produced. Known as the Aphrodite of Knidos, c. 350 BCE, the sculpture pivots at the shoulders and hips into an S-Curve and stands with her right hand over her genitals in a pudica (or modest Venus) pose. Exhibited in a circular temple and visible from all sides, the Aphrodite of Knidos became one of the most celebrated sculptures in all of antiquity.

By the end of the High Classical style, the development of Greek sculpture had been mainly uniform. Afterwards, because of the success of that style, even leading masters tended to look back to it – and its exemplary works, such as the Parthenon – as a sort of standard, repeating its formulas in varying degree, and making equally selective use of the innovations of their contemporaries. Since also there are few usefully dated originals or copies either, the history of the Late Classical style has not yet been worked out in convincing detail and historians disagree widely on the chronology and assessment of important pieces.

The High Classical tradition in Greek art remained dominant till the 370s BCE, sometimes fairly pure and sometimes in a mannered exaggeration, but later new trends asserted themselves more insistently. These trends were not ubiquitous nor were they all combined in any one work, but on the whole, their direction was towards a closer imitation of nature in the flesh, facial expression, drapery and pose, though the requirements of ideal art were not forgotten. The end of the Late Classical style is usually put at the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, but the most significant changes may have occurred some thirty or forty years earlier and perhaps the conventional periods of Greek sculpture ought to be revised.

By the end of the fourth century, so Pliny says, some sculptors were taking plaster casts from human models, but advances in superficial anatomy had of course been appearing earlier. The Aberdeen head, which should not be much later than 350 BCE, is an admirable example of a successful new type. The face has become rounder and the flesh is more delicately and credibly modelled, so much so that one might expect the cheeks to quiver if the statue was shaken; the eyes are more deep-set, the lower eyelid merges imperceptibly into the cheek, and the brow above is padded comfortably with fat. The lips are slightly parted and the hair is tousled and more deeply carved. The effect, though still ideal, is softer and more sensuous than that of any fifth-century face, and the expression suggests an intensity of feeling that High Classical sculptors would have thought embarrassing. The Marathon Boy is also softly modelled, though – partly because of its material – less palpably than the Aberdeen head, but here the treatment of the body can be studied. While the linear definition of the parts is still clear, the transitions between them are smoother and more fluid. Yet in other figures of this period, the modelling of bodily forms keeps an old-fashioned emphatic firmness. For a movement away from naturalism there is the Apoxyomenos, or the grave relief from Rhamnus, where a new canon of proportions makes the head noticeably smaller, one eighth instead of one-seventh of the total height of the figure: the aim like that of the Berlin painter more than a century earlier was greater elegance.

 

Late Classical Sculptures

Of original Late Classical works, most are again reliefs – architectural, on gravestones or votive, though the two last categories are mostly poor in quality. A few fragments from pediments survive along with a number of fairly complete free-standing statues (some of them made for architectural settings) and also several good heads. Copies from Roman art are numerous, but not altogether representative. Athletic statues, in particular, are comparatively few, presumably because the later purchasers of copies preferred High Classical versions of the type. There are also four or five good originals in bronze.

 

Standing Male Nudes

Standing male nudes differ widely. The Hennes of the column base from Ephesus, which can hardly be earlier than 350 BCE, follows such High Classical models as the Doryphorus both in pose and in structure of the body, though the face is softer. The Marathon Boy, usually dated about 340 BCE, is more progressive. It is an original bronze four feet three inches high, which was fished up from an ancient wreck off Marathon, and is designed with an emphatically frontal view, but the modelling is softer and the pose is more sinuous so that the figure’s centre of gravity falls near the slack right foot and its balance appears to be only momentary. The lateral sway is even more pronounced in other works of the time and often the figure has to have a support to lean on, a device occasionally used by High Classical masters, though more discreetly. This type of pose, so copies show, was exploited by Praxiteles and may have been his invention, but others used it too. What the Marathon Boy was represented as doing can only be guessed. Originally some object, at which he was looking, was secured by a pin to his left palm, but the position of the right arm and of its fingers should also have some active intention.

Draped Female Statues

Sinuous poses are much rarer for standing statues of draped goddesses and women, perhaps because they would have disturbed the effects desired in drapery or from prejudice against indolent attitudes in women. Generally, the progressive Late Classical sculptors were more interested in the drapery than the body. Among minor works, some small statues of ‘Bears’ (or young girls) from Brauron are curious as precocious essays in sentimentality. Draped male statues too usually stand erect, some – like the famous ‘portrait’ of Sophocles – with more than a suggestion of posturing. Still, to the Greeks, it was an essential sign of good breeding to wear their un-tailored dress with correct formality and Sophocles, though a poet, was a gentleman.

Adapted from “Boundless Art History” http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/anti…cal-period.htm License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

Antikythera Shipwreck

The Antikythera Youth, 340-330 B.C.E., bronze, 1.96 m high (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

The Antikythera Youth, 340–330 B.C.E., bronze, 1.96 m high (National Archaeological Museum, Athens; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Map showing the location of the Antikythera shipwreck

Map indicating the location of Antikythera and the wreck off its northeast coast (source: Alison Mackey/Discover/NASA)

In 1900, sponge divers working off the northeast coast of the Greek island of Antikythera made one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the century. Dispersed along the seafloor, at a depth of 42–52 meters (about 137–171 feet), were the remains of wooden planking from the hull of an ancient freighter and an impressive array of objects that never made it to their intended destination. This discovery, which catalyzed the development of the discipline of underwater archaeology, was the first of a series of ancient shipwrecks to be identified in the Eastern Mediterranean over the course of the 20th century. Its historical significance cannot be overstated.

Left: Photographs taken aboard the oceanographic vessel Calypso. Left: the bathyscape. Right: Albert Falco, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and Lazaros Kolonas presenting bronze statuettes found in the 1976 salvage campaign; right: Official footage from the 2019 expedition of the Return to Antikythera project (photo: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports)

Left: the bathyscape photographed aboard the oceanographic vessel Calypso. Right: Albert Falco, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, and Lazaros Kolonas presenting bronze statuettes found in the 1976 salvage campaign. Below, footage from the 2019 expedition of the Return to Antikythera project (photo: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports)

Most of the salvaged portions of the ship and its contents were recovered in two separate campaigns: the first by Greek and foreign divers in 1900–1901; and the second with the additional deployment of a vacuum pipe and bathyscape carried aboard Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s research vessel Calypso in 1976. Expert examination of the finds has refined our knowledge about many aspects of the ancient Mediterranean world, from shipbuilding techniques and seaborne trade in art and other commodities to the state of scientific knowledge in the tumultuous final decades of the Hellenistic period (323–31 B.C.E.).

Despite these herculean efforts, an uncertain proportion of the wreck still lies at the bottom of the sea. In 2014, a third campaign of exploration was launched with the goal of using advanced technologies to map the site and to rescue additional artifacts from the depths.

Video of the 2019 Return to Antikythera expedition

This project (Return to Antikythera), in conjunction with the ongoing scientific investigation of the famous Antikythera Mechanism (see below), promises to enhance our understanding of this fleeting moment of ancient Mediterranean history—a moment that would be irretrievably lost were it not for an ill-fated storm.

The Mediterranean and long-distance trade

When we imagine the ancient sea, we should populate its waters with hundreds, even thousands, of oar- and sail-propelled vessels of different kinds and sizes, ranging from small fishing skiffs to large cargo ships, crisscrossing one another in route to one of the Mediterranean’s innumerable ports and harbors. In addition to its coastline, which stretches over 46,000 km (28,000 miles) and three continents, the Mediterranean is dotted by thousands of islands and islets, some separated only by a few miles. Some sea travel was relatively short: a skip down the coast or perhaps darting from one island to another in the same cluster. Other voyages were more extended and thus riskier.  As they were charting their course, ancient navigators drew upon their common knowledge of sea currents, tidal flows, seasonal weather patterns, and underwater hazards. Then as today, boats would have taken similar routes to similar destinations. Communities living along these well-trafficked routes would have regularly observed the passage of ships, especially from spring to autumn (when the sea conditions were most favorable).

Gold earrings with inlaid semi-precious stones and pearls and pendant figures of Eros, 2nd–1st century B.C.E. (photo: Kostas Xenikakis/National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Gold earrings with inlaid semi-precious stones and pearls and pendant figures of Eros, 2nd–1st century B.C.E. (photo: Kostas Xenikakis/National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Archaeologists around the globe have turned up evidence of long-distance trade in the form of materials and objects whose physical properties or stylistic features indicate a distant origin. Take, for example, two earrings found in the Antikythera Shipwreck. Although originating from two different pairs, they exhibit similar technical and decorative features that suggest a common cultural origin. Most notable are the small pendant figurines of Eros, the Greek god of love and sexual desire, shown playing a stringed instrument or supporting an opened folding mirror above the head. The adornment of the jewels with this god (and cosmetic elements like the mirror) correspond to Greek cultural ideas and attitudes about the role that bodily adornment plays in feminine beauty. Yet, these earrings could not have been made without access to raw materials: gold, pearls, garnets, and emeralds (or prase). These materials cannot be found in a single location in the Eastern Mediterranean and indeed some are scarce or absent in lands inhabited by Greeks. The jewelers who made these objects had to acquire materials from various, non-local sources. Indeed, the Hellenistic period saw an influx of (semi-)precious stones from points east. Archaeologists and art historians therefore pay equal attention to the materiality of objects, as it may also reveal (as with the earrings) trade across geographic and even cultural boundaries and thus enhance our appreciation of objects’ significance or value.

In some contexts, such as Mesopotamia and Egypt, more granular documentation of trade in administrative archives or business letters and accounts have been preserved on clay tablets or papyri. But in most cases, the trade process itself leaves little direct trace in the archaeological record. When it does, it is usually thanks to a disaster that fixes a fleeting moment in time and space. Seafaring entailed many hazards to a ship’s crew, cargo, and the merchant’s bottom line: delays (such as inclement weather), piracy, and wrecks. In the case of the ship off the coast of Antikythera, it was likely caught in an intense storm that drove it aground. The seas in this area are notoriously temperamental.

Thousands of shipwrecks have thus far been identified, at varying depths, in the Mediterranean. Despite their elevated number, these wrecks represent but a small fraction of the ships that plied the seas over the millennia. Based on their associated finds, shipwrecks seem to have been most frequent between the 1st century B.C.E. and the 1st century C.E. This suggests that maritime trade also reached its peak in these centuries. It is to this period—and more specifically to 60–50 B.C.E.—that the Antikythera shipwreck belongs.

Schematic map showing the territorial expansion of Rome from the Middle Republic to the death of the Emperor Trajan (map: Varana, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Schematic map showing the territorial expansion of Rome from the Middle Republic to the death of the Emperor Trajan (map: Varana, CC BY-SA 3.0)

A taste for Greek art

The first century B.C.E. was one of tumult and dramatic change. It saw the Roman Republic endure through a series of civil wars while leveraging its political, military, and commercial power to eclipse its remaining rivals in the Hellenistic East (especially the Pontic kingdom of Mithridates VI Eupator and Egypt under the famous Ptolemaic ruler Cleopatra VII Philopator) and ultimately establish imperial rule over them. Through exposure to the steady stream of loot into Rome as a result of military conquests, Roman elites had acquired a keen appetite for art and luxury goods produced in the Eastern Mediterranean, to be displayed or consumed in their villas as a mark of their status and cultural sophistication. This appetite drove the importation of all manner of items to Italy and the development of a market for reproductions or “historicizing” reinterpretations of well-known Classical and Early Hellenistic sculptural works or types.

Elites could purchase luxuries on the open market or charter their own shipments. The published letters of the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero reveal that this famous orator entrusted his friend Titus Pomponius Atticus to act as his agent in acquiring Greek artworks for one of his villas. [1] Cicero’s correspondence with Atticus is roughly contemporary with the Antikythera shipwreck; it is possible that the ship that wrecked off Antikythera was a private charter of goods.

Among the identified shipwrecks from this era, most carry a homogeneous cargo of transport amphorae or other ceramic storage vessels that were valuable for what they contained: grain, oil, wine, perfumes and ointments, or condiments like fermented fish sauce. These more typical cargos testify to the existence of an extensive trade in staple and luxury foods and items of personal care. But a few exceptions, like the wreck off Antikythera, yielded additional artifacts of interest: works of art and the unparalleled Antikythera Mechanism—the world’s oldest known analog computer.

Objects found in the Antikythera shipwreck. Left: fragment of the metal revetment from the side end of a couch headrest, 150–100 B.C.E. (photo: Giovanni Dall’Orto). Center: Assorted glass bowls, first half of the 1st century B.C.E. (photo: Kostas Xenikakis/National Archaeological Museum, Athens). Right: Assortment of intact and fragmentary transport amphorae from varying origins (Ephesus, Kos, and Rhodes), first half of the first century B.C.E.(photo: Kostas Xenikakis/National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Objects found in the Antikythera shipwreck. Left: fragment of the metal revetment from the side end of a couch headrest, 150–100 B.C.E. (photo: Giovanni Dall’Orto). Center: Assorted glass bowls, first half of the 1st century B.C.E. (photo: Kostas Xenikakis/National Archaeological Museum, Athens). Right: Assortment of intact and fragmentary transport amphorae from varying origins (Ephesus, Kos, and Rhodes), first half of the first century B.C.E. (photo: Kostas Xenikakis/National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Objects from the Antikythera Shipwreck

Scholars have assigned the objects from the Antikythera Shipwreck to four general categories:

  1. Marble sculpture (Herakles?) from the Antikythera Shipwreck (photo: Gary Todd, public domain)

    Marble sculpture (Herakles?) from the Antikythera Shipwreck (photo: Gary Todd, public domain)

    Parts of the ship, which show that it was a large freighter constructed in the shell-first technique and that its wooden planks were lined with lead to insulate it from the water and wood-boring microorganisms; estimated carrying capacity: 300 tons!

  2. Personal effects of crew members or passengers, which offer a precious glimpse into life on the seas; these included things like fishing gear, cooking pots and dishes (some with signs of use), forms of entertainment (a musical instrument and game pieces), jewelry, coinage, and even human bones belonging to at least four different individuals: two adult men, perhaps one adult woman, and an adult of uncertain sex.
  3. Large- and small-format bronze and marble statues; these constituted the most significant proportion of the cargo in mass and number, and thus were probably the main attraction of the shipment
  4. Other luxury or specialty items, such as the Antikythera Mechanism, bronze couches/beds, silver and glass vessels and utensils, red-slipped dish ware, and organic foods and substances (which are implied by the presence of ceramic containers appropriate for their storage and transport)

Objects found in the Antikythera shipwreck

Red-slipped hemispherical cup and red-slipped plate of the Eastern Sigillata A type. These and other red-slipped dishware from the wreck are dated generally to the 1st century B.C.E., but the presence of a thin orangish slip that is easily worn away and a horizontal darker red streak (from double-dipping the vessels into the slip) suggests that these vessels date to the third quarter of the 1st century and probably closer to 50 B.C.E., when red-slipped dishware reaches its greatest geographic distribution (National Archaeological Museum, Athens; photo: Kostas Xenikakis)

Many of the objects in the cargo have been traced back to production centers in the Hellenistic East (Syria, Alexandria, and perhaps Pergamon and Ephesus). While this might suggest that the boat made several stops before heading to its final destination, the goods were probably loaded all at once at a major commercial port like Pergamon, Ephesus, or Delos (where goods from all over converged). If the shipwreck indeed dates to after 69 B.C.E.—as suggested in particular by the red-slipped tableware (dated to as late as the mid-first century)—then Delos is a less attractive candidate. In spite of the tax-free status that Delos had enjoyed since 167 B.C.E., the island’s standing diminished after its pillaging for a second time by pirates during the Third Mithridatic War (73–63 B.C.E.). The comparative scarcity of objects from the Roman West among the ship’s contents is additional evidence that the voyage embarked from somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean and was bound for an Italian port, probably Puteoli near the modern city of Naples. At the time of the shipwreck, Puteoli was the principal commercial port in Roman Italy, owing to its natural harbor that could accommodate great numbers of ships, including large freighters. Its proximity to the luxurious Campanian villas of the Roman elite only added to its convenience and appeal.

Antikythera Youth, 340-330 B.C.E., bronze, 1.96 m high (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Antikythera Youth, 340–330 B.C.E., bronze, 1.96 m high (National Archaeological Museum, Athens; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

An over-life-size bronze sculpture

Antikythera Youth photos before restoration Antikythera Youth, 340-330 B.C.E., bronze, 1.96 m high (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Antikythera Youth photos before restoration, 340–330 B.C.E., bronze, 1.96 m high (National Archaeological Museum, Athens; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Easily the most iconic work of art to emerge from the wreck is a nearly complete, (now) restored bronze known as the Antikythera YouthThis over-life-size sculpture was one of roughly four dozen bronze and Parian marble representations of gods, heroes, mortals, and horses that were uncovered in varying degrees of fragmentation and material degradation.

Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper), Roman copy after a bronze statue from c. 330 B.C.E., 6' 9" high (Vatican Museums)

Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper), Roman copy after a bronze statue from c. 330 B.C.E., 6′ 9″ high (Vatican Museums; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

While most of these sculptures are contemporary Late Hellenistic creations, the stylistic and technical features of the Youth suggest that it was an original work of the Late Classical period (340–330 B.C.E.). While the heavy musculature in the Youth’s torso and the manipulation of the contrapposto bodily scheme suggest a derivation from the style of the High Classical sculptor Polycleitus, the figure’s proportionately smaller head and thinner legs, deeper set eyes, and more spatially dynamic pose correspond to trends observed in later fourth-century works (like those by Praxiteles, Scopas, and Lysippos). As was typical of large-scale Greek bronzes, the Youth was made of separately hollow-cast components that were soldered together and enhanced with additional embellishments (like inlaid eyes of glass or colored stones). As additional corroboration of the Late Classical dating, a scientific test of the chemical composition of the bronze determined that it consisted of an 86/14 alloy of copper and tin. No traces of lead–which is irregular in Greek bronzes prior to the Hellenistic period–were detected. The proposed date of 340–330 B.C.E. would make the Antikythera Youth the oldest known artifact from the cargo—a nearly three-hundred-year-old antique when it was loaded into the hull!

Scholars have never reached a consensus on the identity of this nude Youth. The objects that he once held would have served as iconographic attributes. The two most popular identifications are Paris presenting the Apple of Discord or Perseus clutching the severed head of Medusa. However, neither of these identifications are entirely convincing because other salient elements of their respective iconographies are absent: for example, Paris’s Phrygian cap and Perseus’ winged sandals and the helm of invisibility lent to him by Hades.

Antikythera machine (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

Antikythera machine, recovered fragments (National Archaeological Museum, Athens; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The Antikythera Mechanism

Antikythera Mechanism, hypothetical digital reconstruction (photo: Tony Freeth)

Antikythera Mechanism, hypothetical digital reconstruction (photo: Tony Freeth)

Equally famous, on account of its technological and scientific sophistication and uniqueness, is the Antikythera Mechanism. Ongoing investigation of this fascinatingly complex object by the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project has yielded new insights that have transformed or nuanced our understanding of its origins and purpose. According to the current reconstruction, the Mechanism consisted of a wooden housing mounted with inscribed copper alloy plate displays on two opposite faces, the dials and indicators of which were moved by an intricate interior network of hand-powered metal gears and axles (using a crank or knob). The user could input a particular date in the calendrical year and the Mechanism would calculate and display synchronous astronomical information, like the positions of the sun and moon (or vice versa). While a later second-century B.C.E. construction date has often been favored, more recent examination of the Greek inscriptions on its face plates suggests that the Mechanism dates to no more than a few decades before the wreck. Whatever the dating, the Mechanism is an eloquent attestation of the state of Greek engineering, mathematics, and astronomical science in the Late Hellenistic era.

Statuette of a Nude Youth. Source: Kostas Xenikakis/National Archaeological Museum, Athens; Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports

Statuette of a Nude Youth, late 2nd century B.C.E., found in the Antikythera Shipwreck (National Archaeological Museum, Athens; Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports; photo: Kostas Xenikakis)

A spinning statuette

A fitting coda to this brief exploration of the Antikythera Shipwreck is a bronze statuette of a young man that was found along with its nesting cylindrical plinth and cubic base. This classicizing nude male evidently could be made to spin by means of a crank installed in its base! Here we find the marriage of the sculptural art of the Antikythera Youth and the basic rotary mechanics of the Antikythera Mechanism (though here perhaps predating the latter!). Hellenistic- and Roman-era literature speaks of three-dimensional works of art that—much to the amazement of their audiences—appeared to move on their own. Famous examples of such automata—like the bizarre mechanical snail that the tyrant Demetrius of Phalerum had constructed for a religious procession in 309/308 B.C.E., or the diverse contraptions described in the treatises of the engineer Heron of Alexandria (Pnuematica and Automatopoetica)—do not survive. [2] Although the scale and technical complexity of the Antikythera statuette are much more modest, the work nevertheless reflects the Hellenistic flair for a peculiar form of illusionistic artifice that was enabled by advances in engineering and the mechanical sciences. Clearly, the Roman client(s) for whom this and the other objects were destined was/were well-versed in the prevailing tastes of their time.

Footnotes

[1] Letters to Atticus 1.8.2 and 1.9.2

[2] For more on the mechanical snail, see Polybius’s Histories 12.13.11

Cite this page as: Dr. Michael Anthony Fowler, “The Antikythera Shipwreck,” in Smarthistory, August 11, 2021, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/the-antikythera-shipwreck/.

The Antikythera Youth, 340–330 B.C.E., bronze, 1.96 m high (National Archaeological Museum, Athens), an ARCHES video. Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “The Antikythera Youth,” in Smarthistory, July 19, 2020, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/antikythera-youth/.

Aphrodite of Knidos

From the era of Early Classical Greek sculpture onwards, reliefs and figurines had occasionally represented the female nude, but it was not accepted as a subject for full-size statues till about the middle of the fourth century. Perhaps the first and certainly the most famous example was Praxiteles’ Aphrodite of Knidos, which Pliny, a knowledgeable if insensitive judge, described as the greatest statue in the world.The original, which is known through copies, was of marble, about six feet nine inches high, and designed to be seen only from the front and the back. The goddess stands upright and quite naked, with thighs together and the slack left leg slightly turned out. The left arm is dropping her clothing onto a water jar, the head is turned to the left, and the right hand is brought across in front of the pudenda – a gesture that from repetition now seems prudish or banal, though here there is no hint of self-consciousness. Unfortunately, the numerous copies are too poor to show the quality of the treatment of surface detail, which must have given the original most of its sensuous effect. The Knidian Aphrodite fixed the sculptural canon for the Greek female nude, with mature figure and, to the anatomist, startlingly immature breasts – in these particulars following earlier Greek tradition – but there was more variation in the pose. An early example was the half-naked figure, where the drapery has slipped down almost to the groin; this allowed contrast of texture and perhaps freer movement of the legs without offence to current standards of decency. The Leconfield head comes from one of these naked or half-naked figures. It is life-size, of Parian marble, and probably an original – even, some claim, a late work of Praxiteles himself. Certainly, the grave, calm expression, which avoids both the sensual and the sentimental, is characteristic of that master. So too, though are the soft modelling and the impressionistic treatment of the hair.

Adapted from “Boundless Art History” http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/anti…cal-period.htm License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike


Capitoline Venus (copy of the Aphrodite of Knidos)

Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, emerges from her bath, but what did her nudity mean to the Greeks?

Capitoline Venus, 2nd century C.E., marble, 193 cm (Capitoline Museums, Rome) (Roman copy of the Aphrodite of Knidos, a 4th century B.C.E. Greek original by Praxiteles)

Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Cite this page as: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, “Capitoline Venus (copy of the Aphrodite of Knidos),” in Smarthistory, April 5, 2016, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/capitoline-venus-copy-of-the-aphrodite-of-knidos/.

Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper)

The Apoxyomenos, or man scraping himself, is a mediocre marble copy, almost six feet nine inches high, of a presumably bronze statue of about 330 BCE and perhaps by Lysippus. The dullness of the detail, which shows especially in the expression of the face, may be the fault of the copyist, but primarily the Apoxyomenos seems to be an exercise in composing a statue that is no longer dependent on the four cardinal elevations – front, two sides and back. This is done by extending both arms in a direction noticeably different from that of the trunk, so that it is not immediately obvious which front view is intended as the principal one. To modern spectators the pose may seem purposeless and contrived; but originally the left hand held a strigil, a sort of long thin scoop of bronze with which athletes scraped themselves clean after exercise, and the Apoxyomenos is using it on his right arm. This is an obviously momentary, though balanced, pose and the position of the feet are in harmony. In its proportions, the Apoxyomenos follows the new system, attributed to Lysippus, of smaller heads and long legs, so making the figure appear more elegant. Indeed, if one looks separately at the Doryphorus and the Apoxyomenos – or casts of them – the usual impression is that the Apoxyomenos is taller, though by measurement – excluding the plinth – their height is almost exactly the same.

Adapted from “Boundless Art History” http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/anti…cal-period.htm License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike


Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper)

Ancient Greek athletes cleaned themselves with oil. This sculpture shows one athlete’s bathing ritual.

Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper), Roman copy after a bronze statue from c. 330 B.C.E., 6′ 9″ high (Vatican Museums)

Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper),” in Smarthistory, December 11, 2015, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/lysippos-apoxyomenos-scraper/.

How an ancient Greek bronze ended up in the Vatican

Farnese Hercules

Weary from his labors, Hercules leans on his club, with hints of his heroic trials hidden in plain sight.

 

Lysippos, Farnese Hercules, 4th century B.C.E. (later Roman copy by Glycon) (Archaeological Museum, Naples)

Cite this page as: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “Lysippos, Farnese Hercules,” in Smarthistory, December 9, 2015, accessed May 29, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/lysippos-farnese-hercules/.

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History of Art: Prehistoric to Gothic Copyright © by Dr. Amy Marshman; Dr. Jeanette Nicewinter; and Dr. Paula Winn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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