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The Art of the Greeks
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PERGAMUM AND THE ACROPOLIS
The stoa (covered walkway) at the Acropolis. given by Attalus II
of Pergamum in c.145bc, celebrates the mythical and historical
victories of order over chaos. The passage of time is
depicted in the victims' agony -for example, a horse collapsed
under a falling Amazon, a child stroking its still warm mother
-marking the relentless approach of the death that will destroy
the aggressors. The sense of disquiet conveyed by these
fragments
springs from the contrasting values of form and composition that
each figure preserves from the overall design, like snatches of
an epic poem. The isolated copies now on pedestals in museums
have lost their original coherence, for it was the serial nature
of the scenes of slaughter, the disjointed bodies that looked as
if they had been violently pushed in a frantic scuffle, that
endowed the works with a feeling of metaphysical truth. The
result was to present the vanquished in a primitive, idealized
light, which gave the
drama a sense of totality that had been lost when the classical
ideal was abandoned. The clearly defined figures of giants,
Amazons. Persians, and Gauls stand out against the dazzling
background. with no evidence of physical authenticity. Each
episode is a pretext for the reinvention of the battle, in which
the character of the combatants is filtered through an imaginary
veil that binds them ail together in a spell, freezes them in
static poses, astonished by their wounds, and rendered
motionless by death.
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Fallen Giant,
Baths of Alexander Severus, Rome.
National Archaeological Museum, Naples |
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Hippolyta Dying with the Young Theseos,
drawing made before the restoration
of a group statue in the
National Archaeological Museum, Naples.
Kupferstichkabinett, Basel, Switzerland |
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Diadumenos,
copy by a Neo-Attic artist a
fter Polycleitos, Delos.
National Archaeological Museum, Naples
THE OASIS PAINTER
By marrying his half-sister Arsinoe in 278bc, Ptolemy II
established the Egyptian cult of rulers known as Theoi Adelphoi.
It was their love for each other that inspired the name
Philadelphia, given to the colony founded in the Fayum oasis as
part of a far-reaching agrarian policy under the supervision of
Zeno of Kaunos. The papyri in Zeno's archive detail the care
taken by the Alexandrine Greeks to create an environment in
keeping with their civic aspirations. In 256bc, Zeno
commissioned Theodorus, an Alexandrine painter, to decorate the
houses according to strict specifications. The following year,
Theodorus tackled the house of Diothimus. the
"vice-administrator" of Philadelphia. The decoration consisted
of large areas of different colour with a broader central band,
the same format that appears in some Alexandrine tombs, with the
master undertaking to decorate the ceiling of the main room in
accordance with the agreed model. The papyri also reveal that
the artist made panel paintings: mention is made of "strong"
sinope red, suitable for use on wood, as well as wax and glue
from Busiris (an ancient city of Lower Egypt), technical
elements that were later used in funerary portraits from the
same Fayum region. For his encaustic paintings (using paint
mixed with soft wax) Theodorus used a heated metal spatula. His
last letter to Zeno reveals a yearning for his Alexandrine
workshop: "Since the commission from you is finished and there
is no more work, I have no money. If you still have some
paintings that need to be done, please be so kind as to give me
the job so that I may have enough to live on. If you cannot
offer me any work, please send me money for travelling expenses
so that I can return to my brothers in the city."
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Roman Restoration
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Laocoon and His Two Sons
Hagesandrus, Polydorus, and Athenodorus
Ist century BC
Vatican Museums, Rome
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The arrival of the Romans in in Greece in 167bc signalled a
nostalgic reversion by Greek artists to forms of the past. They
looked back to the distant days of classical form and more
recent Hellenistic works for inspiration. In 166bc. a free port
was opened by the Athenians at Delos, an event that led to the
economic decline of Rhodes and a crisis for its school of
bronze-workers, whose final works included the mournful groups
of Scylla and Laocoon. Thanks to commissions from the Roman
ruling class, work produced by families of
traditional Athenian sculptors was revived. Likenesses of
Italic merchants at Delos were placed on statues carved in the
old aristocratie style. A small painting on marble from the city
of Herculaneum, Girls Playing Knucklebones (derived from a work
by Zeuxis and signed by Alexander as copyist) was delicately
coloured according to classical rules. At Pergamum, Rhodes, and
Antioch, the importance of the space around a sculpture
diminished, in deference to the Athenian style, while a
Neo-Egyptian style appeared at the court of the Ptolemies,
giving visual form to the religious reconciliation foisted on
Egypt by their Macedonian invaders. The realistic style used to
raise social awareness by earlier generations was exaggerated in
the realism of Alexandrine artists. The result verged on the
romantic, but was a reminder of and a comment on social
injustices. It marked the slide from Utopian ideals to
disenchantment, and the beginnings of civilization on a mass
scale.
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Giris Playing Knucklebones,
painting on marble signed by the Athenian Alexander,
copy after Zeuxis,
Herculaneum.
National Archaeological Museum, Naples |
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Venus de Milo
The Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek statue and one
of the most famous pieces of ancient Greek
sculpture. It is believed to depict Aphrodite
(called Venus by the Romans), the Greek goddess of
love and beauty . It is a marble sculpture, slightly
larger than life size at 203 cm (80 inches) high,
but without its arms and its original plinth. From
an inscription on its now-lost plinth, it is thought
to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch; it was
earlier mistakenly attributed to the master sculptor
Praxiteles. The statue dates to about 130 BC.
Despite this relatively late date, its composition
is a mixture of earlier styles from the Classical
period of Greek sculpture. It is not known exactly
what aspect of Venus the statue originally depicted.
It is generally thought to have been a
representation of Venus Victrix holding the golden
apple presented to her by Paris of Troy (see also
the Judgement of Paris). This would also have served
as a pun on the name of the island Melos, which
means "apple" in the Greek language. A fragment of a
forearm and hand with an apple were found near the
statue and are thought to be remnants of its arms.
After the statue was found, numerous attempts were
made to reconstruct its pose, though it was never
restored.
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(From Wikipedia)
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Venus de Milo
Parian marble,
150-120 bc.
Musee du Louvre, Paris
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Diogenes,
statuett from Rome.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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PORTRAITS OF THE CYNICS
The best way to appreciate fully the many different variations
in Greek painting style is to compare portraits of the same
person executed at different times. An original effigy of
Antisthenes. the philosopher and founder of the Cynic sect, was
moulded in Athens shortly after his death (366nc). However, he
can also be seen in more recent copies by Phyromachus
(c.290-245bc), another Athenian who worked at the court at
Pergamum. Phyromachus' dynamic contrasts and chiaroscuro
unshackle the figure's polemical spirit — his very name
indicated an attitude of obstinate opposition. A sullen old man,
according to Lucian. the Greek rhetorician and satirist, "with
his unkempt beard and furrowed eyebrows, his Titan's glare and
ruffled hair at the front". Of Diogenes, the most famous Cynic
philosopher, there are replicas both of the portrait dedicated
in Athens during his life (he died in about 325bc) and of a
statuette conceived in Alexandria as an ornament for the Library
(120-100bc). The more ancient busts of these thinkers reveal an
affinity with portraits of Socrates.
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Antisthenes,
bronze attributed to Silanion
Provincial Museum, Brindisi, Italy
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Antisthenes,
Roman copy of the bust by Phyromachos.
Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican City |
Diogenes,
Roman copy.
Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome |
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