Lysippos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roman copy of Eros Stringing the Bow from the Capitoline Museum.

Lysippos was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC. Lysippos, Skopas and Praxiteles are considered the three great sculptors of the Classical Greek era, bringing transition into the Hellenistic era. Taken together, the large workshop of Lysippos, the demand for replicas of his work in his lifetime^[1] and later among Hellenistic and Roman connoisseurs, the number of disciples directly in his circle^[2] and the survival of his works only in copies, pose problems of method for the student.

In his contemporary reputation he was the successor of the famous sculptor Polykleitos. Among the works attributed to him are the so-called Horses of Saint Mark; Eros Stringing the Bow (various copies exist; the best is in the British Museum); Agias (known from a marble copy found and preserved in Delphi); the similar Oilpourer (Dresden and Munich); the Farnese Herakles which was originally placed in the Baths of Caracalla, though the surviving marble copy is in the Naples National Archeological Museum) and Apoxyomenos or The Scraper (known from a Roman marble copy in the Vatican Museums).

Hermes of Atalante, a Roman marble copy of a lost bronze attributed to Lysippos (National Archaeological Museum, Athens)

He was born at Sikyon around 390 BC. A worker in bronze in his youth, he taught himself the art of sculpture, later becoming head of the school of Argos and Sikyon. He produced, according to Pliny the Elder, more than 1,500 works, all of them in bronze. Commentators noted his grace and elegance, the symmetria or coherent balance of his figures, which were leaner than the ideal of Polyclitus and with proportionately smaller heads, giving them the impression of greater height; he was famous for his attention to details of eyelids and toenails.

His pupil, Chares of Lindos, constructed the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. Since this statue does not exist today, debate continues as to whether the statue was cast bronze or hammered of sheet bronze.

During his life Lysippos was the personal sculptor of Alexander the Great. A recently discovered epigram of Posidippus, in the anthology represented in the Milan Papyrus, was inspired by a bronze portrait of Alexander:

Lysippus, Sikyonian sculptor, daring hand, learned artisan,

your bronze statue has the look of fire in its eyes,

that one you made in the form of Alexander. The Persians deserve

no blame. We forgive cattle for fleeing a lion.

Herm bust of Alexander, Roman marble reflecting an original by Lysippos (Louvre Museum)

Lysippus can be credited with the stock representation of an inspired, godlike Alexander with tousled hair, lips parted, looking upward;^[3] one fine example, an early Imperial Roman copy found at Tivoli, is conserved at the Louvre Museum.

[edit] Notes

^ The rediscovered Agias dedicated by Daochos at Delphi was a contemporary marble copy of a bronze, the original of which was at Pharsalos in Thessaly.
^ 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 Search for Alexander, exhibition catalogue, 1976, illustrates several examples and traces the development of the type.