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Epigonos, Ludovisi Gaul,
Roman copy.
Capitoline Museum, Rome
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THEATRICAL SCENES
One striking aspect of Hellenistlc art was that of deep
introspection. Once under the control of monarchie states,
individuals were forced to live in an environment that offered
fewer guarantees of democratie idependence. The people's need to
defend themselves and give meaning to their existence led on the
one hand to philosophical attempts at clarifying the distinction
between the private and public personas of individuals, and on
the other to a theatrical ambiguity between existence and
appearance. Menander's comedies were a source of inspiration for
Kalates' small paintings, known from numerous replicas. One of
two mosaics at Pompeii signed by Dioscorides of Samos is taken
from Kalates' Women at Dinner, a popular subject in Italy; a
similar scene occurred m Cistellaria, by the Roman playwright Plautus. In the mosaic. beams of light enter a dining room from
the left the old procuress and her prostitute daughter sit next
to the young woman who has invited them, with a maid at the
side. Chiaroscuro provides a contrast between figures and
background, a deceptive suggestion of shadows. and the "shot"
effect of the silk in the clothing and cushions.
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Mosaic signed by Dioscorides of Samos,
copy after Kalates, Villa di Cicero, Pompeii.
National Archaeological Museum, Naples |
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Similar to this
was Euboulides' ecstatic figure of the Mulier Admirans.
Euboulides' signature is scratched on the base of a beaker
discovered in the founding pits at the foot of the Acropolis at
Rhodes. These pits, with thin brick cladding and efficient
drainage channels for the wax, were used to create works up to
three metres (nine feet) tall. The statue of Tyche, Good
Fortune, by Lysippos" son Eutychides (c.300bc). was commissioned
by Seleucus I to symbolize Antioch and was even more complicated
than the Meditating Herakles, another colossus from Tarentum.
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A local style asserted itself in Pergamum after 282bc. when its
ruler Philetaerus, achieved political independence. This was
characterized by eccentric shapes. irregular gestures, and
figures that had no central anchorage and seemed to embrace the
void. Space became a challenge, an opportunity to capture the
onlooker. Work produced during the evolutionary period. which
elsewhere preceded the liberation of sculpture from the earlier
"Mannerist"
school, was concentrated at the court of Eumenes I (263-241bc)
by exponents of the two main schools of the classical era - the
Athenian and the Sikyonian.
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Horseman, bronze, Cape Artemision |
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The sculptors Phyromachos, Niceratos,
and Xenocrates were responsible for the rapid maturity of
Pergamene sculpture and for creating the "Baroque" style
destined to achieve universal and lasting success. Advances in
knowledge of anatomy were demonstrated in the powerful modelling
of
musculature and bones, exemplified by the Artemision Horse, the
Artetnision Jockey, and the Fighting Man of Delos. The sculptor
Epigonos gave new prominence to the peripheral in his series of
statues known as the Dying Gauls (c.235bc), whose figures seem
to challenge the boundary between art and life by invading the
space occupied by the onlooker. Signatures found on the base of
statues in Rhodes distinguish the designers of the base from the
modellers, revealing a
specialization which encouraged mass production. Barter was replaced by credit and a banking System, which increased the
flow of goods, now represented by numerical amounts that
everyone understood. Cities were now being planned on a grand
scale, and sculptors favoured a style in which figures were set
against a
deep background, with perspective used to portray distant
objects. For the artists of Rhodes, space was inseparable from
distance. The background was no longer the city, such as
Pergamum, with its porticoed squares, but rocks, caves, water,
greenery, and sky. In the Stoic philosophy, morality was the
"fruit of a garden" and nymphaeums (grottos, temples, or
sanctuaries) became filled with images conducive to meditation,
involving punishments meted out by the gods to re-establish the
divine equilibrium and symbolic representations of human
courage. In Epigonos' disturbingly powerful Torment of Dirce,
the subject lies with her head turned away, gazing into the
terrifying eye of the bull rearing over her. Sculptural groups
became increasingly complicated and less and less linked to
everyday life, almost as though they were governed by the most
primitive laws of mankind. To understand them, the viewer must
recapture the primeval fascination that the artist drew on in
order to endow each of his creations with their own strength and
impact. The dense fog that Menander tried to pierce with his
gaze, the darkness that concealed the flight of Ulysses and
Diomedes, the spring welling up at the feet of Dirce, and the
ancestral
cavern of the Cyclops ail create different excitements and fears
in the viewer as he or she contemplates the work. Similarly, the
Palladium torn from its shrine, the thyrsus (staff) of Dirce,
the hapless bacchant abandoned on the rock; the banquet cup
bloodied by the Cyclops and thrown on the ground - each image
evokes previously buried emotions and sensations. The marble
statue of the Victory in Samothrace and the Altar of Zeus
(189-182bc) erected in Pergamum commemorate the victories at
Rhodes, Pergamum, and of their Roman allies over Antiochus III
of Syria. The giants writhe alongside the steps of the altar in
a magnificent frieze depicting a battle between gods and
giants.
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Epygonos, Dying Gaul,
Roman copy.
Capitoline Museum, Rome |
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The Victtory of Samothrace.
Musee du Louvre, Paris
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Drunkenness of Polyphemus,
fragmentary Roman sculptors Agesander,
Athenodoros, and Polidoro
from the Grotto of tiberius at Sperlonga, first century bc.
National Archaeological Museum, Sperlonga, Italy |
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Torment of Dirce,
fragmentary Roman copy of Rhodian original,
from the Baths of Caracalla, Rome.
National Archaeological Museum, Naples |
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Barberini Faun,
Roman copy of an original from Pergamum,
Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome.
Glyptothek, Munich |
BAROQUE ANCIENT AND MODERN
Although this marble statue was once attributed to Myron, by
Pliny, it has since become clear that this attribution arose
from a confusion over the name of the subject, Maronis. The
original definition was: "Maronis, an old Jewish woman, at
Smyrna. one of the most famous works". It was made famous in
about 250bc by Leonidas of Tarentum, the first man to write of
this indulgent personification of an old woman's drunkenness:
''the lover of wine. the wringer of jars, lies here, an old
woman. An Attic cup rests on her tomb.
And she moans underground. not for her children, not for her
husband whom she left in penury, not for any of this, but
because her cup is empty." A century later, Antipater of Sidon
returned to the subject: "This is the tomb of the white-haired
Maronis, a lover of undiluted wine and always talkative." Her
age, her love of drink suggested by the prominence of her
throat, her garrulousness expressed by her open mouth, and the
jug of undiluted wine are ail recurring features of Roman copies
of the Maronis sculpture. The mystical interpretation is that
she has forgotten her earthly family in order to embrace god in
the guise of wine: the flagon is crowned with ivy, like the
infant Dionysos. The wav her head is
thrown back gives her the appearance of a maenad (a female
member of the orgiastic cult of Dionysos), while her skeletal
body reveals how close she is to death. Her ecstatic smile reflects the transcendental jov, the link
between physical decay and the flowering of the spirit, and thus
death with rebirth: her tomb will be hallowed by the cup of the
gods. In the 17th century, the Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo
Bernini worked on the restoration of a statue of a sleeping
satyr known as the Barberini Faun, dating from the second
century bc. He went on to recreate the drunken pose of the satyr
in his sculpture Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, in Santa Maria della
Vittoria, Rome.
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Maronis,
Roman copy of an Asiatic original,
Via Nomentana, Rome.
Capitoline Museum, Rome |
Gian Lorenzo Bernini,
Ecstasy of Saint Theresa,
Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.
1644-1652 |
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Old Fisherman,
Roman copy of an Alexandrian original,
the Esquiline, Rome.
Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome
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THE FARNESE TAZZA
The Farnese Tazza is one of the largest known pieces of sardonyx.
Since ancient times, it has passed from court to court, through
the castles of Federico, the treasury of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, the Farnese collection, and, finally, to the Naples
Museum, where it resides today. The tazza (shallow cup) was
created for the offerings of Nile water made every year by the
Ptolemies at the start of the floods. The brown and white veins
of the crystal were incorporated in a fascinating engraving of
nature, history, and myth. The cup seems to embody Egypt
herself, the unformed crystal mass symbolizing the stability and
security of the country. The king is represented as the Pharaohs
once were - as a sphinx with a lion's body and a human head
adorned with the
royal regalia - and the stoutness of Ptolemy VIII ( 145—1 16bc)
is in keeping with the majesty of the gods. Lying on the sphinx
is the figure of the queen, Cleopatra III. whose diadem crowning
her curly hair is typical of Demeter, Greek goddess of
fertility. The old seated man, his arm resting on a sycamore
trunk, represents the Nile. and two young girls on the opposite
side are allegories for the main seasons of agricultural Egypt.
At the side flies Wind, while, above, the airy curve of the robe
worn by Sky matches the roundness of the sphinx and crowns the
microcosm contained within the tazza. At the centre, a young man
grips the yoke of a plough: a sack of seed hangs from his arm
and his hand grasps a sickle, a compendium of the farming cycle,
from ploughing to sowing to harvesting. In Greek mythology, he
is Triptolemus (patron of agriculture) but could equally
represent the Horus (falcon-god) of Egyptian tradition. Clear
symbolism links the ears of wheat of the woman. the cornucopia
of the old man. and the plough of the youth. Ail are aligned
with each other, indicating that the fortunes of the country depend on
the fertility of the Nile and
on the work of man. The farmer is the incarnation of the
Egyptian people, those rural workers who were favoured by
Ptolemy VIII over the citizens of Alexandria.
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Allegory of Egypt,
base of the sardonyx cup known as the Farnese Tazza.
National Archaeological Museum, Naples |
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