Lysippos
Lysippos | |
---|---|
Born | c. 390 BC |
Died | c. 300 BC (aged around 90) Sicyon, Greece |
Occupation | sculptor |
Relatives | Lysistratus (brother) |
Lysippos (/laɪˈsɪpɒs/; Greek: Λύσιππος)[1] was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC. Together with Scopas and Praxiteles, he is considered one of the three greatest sculptors of the Classical Greek era, bringing transition into the Hellenistic period. Problems confront the study of Lysippos because of the difficulty of identifying his style among the copies which survive. Not only did he have a large workshop and many disciples in his immediate circle,[2] but there is understood to have been a market for replicas of his work, supplied from outside his circle, both in his lifetime and later in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.[3] The Victorious Youth or Getty bronze, which resurfaced around 1972, has been associated with him.
Biography
Born at
His pupil, Chares of Lindos, constructed the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. As this statue does not exist today, debate continues as to whether its sections were cast in bronze or hammered of sheet bronze.
Career and legacy
Lysippos was successor in contemporary repute to the famous sculptor
Canon of Lysippos
Lysippos developed a more
Lysippos and Alexander
During his lifetime, Lysippos was personal sculptor to Alexander the Great; indeed, he was the only artist whom the conqueror saw fit to represent him.[10] An epigram by Posidippus, previously only known from the Anthology of Planudes (APl 119), but also found on the recently discovered Milan Papyrus (65 Austin-Bastianini), takes as its inspiration a bronze portrait of Alexander:
And similarly, an epigram by Asclepiades (APl 120):
Lysippus modelled Alexander's daring and his whole form.
How great is the power of this bronze! The brazen king
seems to be gazing at Zeus and about to say:
"I set Earth under my feet; thyself, Zeus, possess Olympus."[12]
Lysippos has been credited with the stock representation of an inspired, godlike Alexander with tousled hair and lips parted, looking upward
The Victorious Youth
In 1972, the
The Getty Bronze is believed by some to be Lysippos's work, or at least a copy, because the detail on it is consistent with his style of work and his
See also
- Lysistratus, another Greek sculptor
Notes
- ^ Latinized Lysippus (/laɪˈsɪpəs/) is less used today, even in English.
- ^ His son Euthyktates worked in his style, according to Pliny, and, in the next generation, Tysikrates produced sculpture scarcely to be distinguished from his. (Natural History xxxiv. 61-67).
- ^ The rediscovered Agias, dedicated by Daochos at Delphi, was a contemporary marble copy of a bronze. The original was at Farsala in Thessaly.
- ^ Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History: Ancient Art. Prentice Hall, 2011.
- ^ Charles Waldstein, PhD. (December 17, 1879). Praxiteles and the Hermes with the Dionysos-child from the Heraion in Olympia (PDF). p. 18.
The canon of Polykleitos was heavy and square, his statues were quadrata signa, the canon of Lysippos was more slim, less fleshy
- ^ Pliny the Elder. "XXXIV 65". Historia Naturalis. cited in Waldstein (1879)
- FRCS. "Lysippos and Macedonian Art". A manual of ancient sculpture: Egyptian–Assyrian–Greek–Roman(PDF). p. 193.
- ^ Walter Woodburn Hyde (1921). Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art. Washington: the Carnegie Institution of Washington. p. 136.
- ^ "Hercules: The influence of works by Lysippos". Paris: The Louvre. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
In the fourth century BCE, Lysippos drew up a canon of proportions for a more elongated figure that that defined by Polykleitos in the previous century. According to Lysippos, the height of the head should be one-eighth the height of the body, and not one-seventh, as Polykleitos recommended.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Alexander, iv
- ^ Translation taken from C. Austin and G. Bastianini, Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia, Milan 2002, p. 89.
- ^ Translation taken from W.R. Paton's Loeb edition, The Greek Anthology V, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1918, p. 227.
- ^ The Search for Alexander, a 1976 exhibition catalogue, illustrates several examples and traces the development of the type.
- ISBN 0-89236-039-9.
- ISBN 0-89236-039-9.
- ^ "Lysippos: Ancient Greek Sculptor, Biography". www.visual-arts-cork.com. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
- ^ "Hercules". louvre.fr. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
According to Lysippos, the height of the head should be one-eighth the height of the body, and not one-seventh, as Polykleitos recommended.
References
- A. F. Stewart, "Lysippan Studies" 2. Agias and Oilpourer" American Journal of Archaeology 82.3 (Summer 1978), pp. 301–313.
Further reading
- Gardner, P. 1905. 'The Apoxymenos of Lysippos', JHS 25:234-59.
- Serwint, N. 1996. 'Lysippos', in The Dictionary of Art vol. 19: 852–54.
- Stewart, A.F. 1983. 'Lysippos and Hellenistic sculpture', AJA 87:262.
- Vermeule, C.C. 1975. 'The weary Herakles of Lysippos', AJA 79:323–32.