Polykleitos

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Polyclitus (sculptor)
)
For other people named Polyclitus, see Polyclitus (disambiguation).
Polykleitos's Doryphoros, an early example of classical contrapposto. Roman marble copy in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples

Polykleitos (

male body shape
.

None of his original sculptures are known to survive, but many marble works, mostly Roman, are believed to be later copies.

Name

National Archaeological Museum of Athens

His Greek name was traditionally Latinized Polycletus, but is also transliterated Polycleitus (

Ancient Greek: Πολύκλειτος, Classical Greek Greek pronunciation: [polýkleːtos], "much-renowned") and, due to iotacism in the transition from Ancient to Modern Greek, Polyklitos or Polyclitus. He is called Sicyonius (lit. "The Sicyonian", usually translated as "of Sicyon")[3] by Latin authors including Pliny the Elder and Cicero, and Ἀργεῖος (lit. "The Argive", trans. "of Argos") by others like Plato and Pausanias. He is sometimes called the Elder, in cases where it is necessary to distinguish him from his son
, who is regarded as a major architect but a minor sculptor.

Early life and training

As noted above, Polykleitos is called "The Sicyonian" by some authors, all writing in Latin, and who modern scholars view as relying on an error of Pliny the Elder in conflating another more minor sculptor from

city state he must have received his early training,[a] and a contemporary of Phidias (possibly also taught by Ageladas
).

Works

Townley Marbles Discophoros, British Museum

Polykleitos's figure of an

Discus-bearer"), Diadumenos ("Youth tying a headband")[4] and a Hermes at one time placed, according to Pliny, in Lysimachia (Thrace). Polykleitos's Astragalizontes ("Boys Playing at Knuckle-bones") was claimed by the Emperor Titus and set in a place of honour in his atrium.[5] Pliny also mentions that Polykleitos was one of the five major sculptors who competed in the fifth century B.C. to make a wounded Amazon for the temple of Artemis; marble copies associated with the competition survive.[6]

Diadumenos

The statue of Diadumenos, also known as Youth Tying a Headband is one of Polykleitos's sculptures known from many copies. The gesture of the boy tying his headband represents a victory, possibly from an athletic contest. "It is a first-century A.D. Roman copy of a Greek bronze original dated around 430 B.C."[4] Polykleitos sculpted the outline of his muscles significantly to show that he is an athlete. "The thorax and pelvis of the Diadoumenos tilt in opposite directions, setting up rhythmic contrasts in the torso that create an impression of organic vitality. The position of the feet poised between standing and walking give a sense of potential movement. This rigorously calculated pose, which is found in almost all works attributed to Polykleitos, became a standard formula used in Greco-Roman and, later, western European art."[4]

Doryphoros

Another statue created by Polykleitos is the Doryphoros, also called the Spear bearer. It is a typical Greek sculpture depicting the beauty of the male body. "Polykleitos sought to capture the ideal proportions of the human figure in his statues and developed a set of aesthetic principles governing these proportions that was known as the Canon or 'Rule'.[7] He created the system based on mathematical ratios. "Though we do not know the exact details of Polykleitos’s formula, the end result, as manifested in the Doryphoros, was the perfect expression of what the Greeks called symmetria.[7] On this sculpture, it shows somewhat of a contrapposto pose; the body is leaning most on the right leg. The Doryphoros has an idealized body, contains less of naturalism. In his left hand, there was once a spear, but if so it has since been lost. The posture of the body shows that he is a warrior and a hero.[4][7] Indeed, some have gone so far as to suggest that the figure depicted was Achilles, on his way to the Trojan War, as a similar depiction of Achilles carrying a shield is seen on a vase painted by the Achilles Painter at around the same time.[8]

Style

Apollo of the "Mantua type", marble Roman copy after a 5th-century-BC Greek original attributed to Polykleitos, Musée du Louvre

Polykleitos, along with Phidias, created the Classical Greek style. Although none of his original works survive, literary sources identifying Roman marble copies of his work allow reconstructions to be made. Contrapposto, a pose that visualizes the shifting balance of the body as weight is placed on one leg, was a source of his fame.

The refined detail of Polykleitos's models for casting executed in clay is revealed in a famous remark repeated in Plutarch's Moralia, that "the work is hardest when the clay is under the fingernail".[9]

The Canon of Polykleitos and "symmetria"

Further information: Mathematics and art

Polykleitos consciously created a new approach to sculpture, writing a treatise (an

Ancient Greek Κανών (Kanṓn) 'measuring rod, standard') and designing a male nude exemplifying his theory of the mathematical basis of ideal proportions. Though his theoretical treatise is lost to history,[10] he is quoted as saying, "Perfection ... comes about little by little (para mikron) through many numbers".[11]
By this he meant that a statue should be composed of clearly definable parts, all related to one another through a system of ideal mathematical proportions and balance. Though his Canon was probably represented by his Doryphoros, the original bronze statue has not survived, but later marble copies exist.

References to the Kanon by other ancient writers imply that its main principle was expressed by the Greek words symmetria, the Hippocratic principle of isonomia ("equilibrium"), and rhythmos. Galen wrote that Polykleitos's Kanon "got its name because it had a precise commensurability (symmetria) of all the parts to one another."[12] He also wrote that the Kanon defines beauty "in the proportions, not of the elements, but of the parts, that is to say, of finger to finger, and of all the fingers to the palm and the wrist, and of these to the forearm, and of the forearm to the upper arm, and of all the other parts to each other."[13]

The art historian Kenneth Clark observed that "[Polykleitos's] general aim was clarity, balance, and completeness; his sole medium of communication the naked body of an athlete, standing poised between movement and repose".[14]

Conjectured reconstruction

Illustration of the phalanges of a human hand

Despite the many advances made by modern scholars towards a clearer comprehension of the theoretical basis of the Canon of Polykleitos, the results of these studies show an absence of any general agreement upon the practical application of that canon in works of art. An observation on the subject by Rhys Carpenter remains valid:[15] "Yet it must rank as one of the curiosities of our archaeological scholarship that no-one has thus far succeeded in extracting the recipe of the written canon from its visible embodiment, and compiling the commensurable numbers that we know it incorporates."

— Richard Tobin, The Canon of Polykleitos, 1975.[16]

In a 1975 paper, art historian Richard Tobin

National Archaeological Museum of Naples.[21]

Followers

Polykleitos and Phidias were among the first generation of Greek sculptors to attract

Lysippus
are among the best-known successors of Polykleitos.

Polykleitos's son, Polykleitos the Younger, worked in the 4th century BCE. Although the son was also a sculptor of athletes, his greatest fame was won as an architect. He designed the great theatre at Epidaurus.

Gallery

Roman copies or interpretations of lost original works attributed to Polykleitos
  • Doryphoros, Minneapolis Institute of Art
    Doryphoros, Minneapolis Institute of Art
  • Bronze statue of an athlete from Ephesus cleaning his strigil; 1st century CE copy of a possible original by Polykleitos
    Bronze statue of an athlete from Ephesus cleaning his strigil; 1st century CE copy of a possible original by Polykleitos
  • Pan with flute, Roman copy of a possible original by Polykleitos
    Pan with flute, Roman copy of a possible original by Polykleitos

Notes

  1. ^ That a "school of Argos" existed during the fifth century is minimized as "marginal" by Jeffery M. Hurwit, "The Doryphoros: Looking Backward", in Warren G. Moon, ed. Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition, 1995:3-18.
  2. ^ Richard Tobin holds a doctorate in Art History from Bryn Mawr College. Since April 2016, he is director of Harwood Museum of Art at the University of New Mexico.[17]

References

  1. ^ Blumberg, Naomi. "Polyclitus". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
  2. ^ Andrew Stewart (1990). "Polykleitos of Argos". One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works. New Haven: Yale University Press.
  3. Natural Histories
    34.19.23
  4. ^ a b c d "Statue of Diadoumenos (youth tying a fillet around his head)". Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 24 June 2015.
  5. Naturalis Historia
  6. ^ "Statue of a wounded Amazon". Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 24 June 2015.
  7. ^
    Annenberg Learner
    . Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  8. ^ "Greek vases 800-300 BC: key pieces". www.beazley.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  9. ^ Plutarch, Quaest. conv. II 3, 2, 636B-C, quoted in Stewart.
  10. Annenberg Learner
    . Retrieved 15 September 2020. we are told quite unequivocally that he related every part to every other part and to the whole and used a mathematical formula in order to do so. What that formula was is a matter of conjecture.
  11. ^ Philo, Mechanicus, quoted in Stewart.
  12. ^ Galen, De Temperamentis.
  13. ISBN 0-15-503769-2
    .
  14. ^ Clark 1956:63.
  15. ^ Rhys Carpenter (1960). Greek Sculpture : a critical review. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 100. cited in Tobin (1975), p. 307
  16. ^ a b Tobin (1975), p. 307.
  17. ^ "Tobin appointed director of UNM's Harwood Museum of Art" (Press release). 22 April 2016. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  18. ^ Tobin (1975), p. 309.
  19. ^ Tobin (1975), p. 310.
  20. ^ Tobin (1975), p. 313.
  21. ^ Tobin (1975), p. 315.

Sources

  • Pausanias (1911) [143-176]. Description of Greece. Translated by W H S Jones. London: Heinman.
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Polyclitus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 22–23.
  • Tobin, Richard (1975). "The Canon of Polykleitos". American Journal of Archaeology. 79 (4): 307–321.
    S2CID 191362470
    .

External links

Media related to Polykleitos at Wikimedia Commons

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