Scopas

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Roman marble head of Meleager, after Scopas, on a restored bust (British Museum).
This article is about the ancient sculptor. For the ancient writer whose name appears in some manuscripts as "Scopas", see Agriopas.

Scopas or Skopas (Ancient Greek: Σκόπας; c. 395 BC-350 BC) was an Ancient Greek sculptor and architect, born on the island of Paros. Scopas worked with Praxiteles, and he sculpted parts of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, especially the reliefs. He led the building of the new temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. Similar to Lysippus, Scopas is in his art a successor of the Classical Greek sculptor Polykleitos. The faces of the heads almost in quadrat with deeply sunken eyes and a slightly opened mouth are specific characters in the figures of Scopas.

Works after Scopas are preserved in the British Museum (reliefs) in London; fragments from the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens; the celebrated Ludovisi Ares in the Palazzo Altemps, Rome; a statue of Pothos restored as Apollo Citharoedus in the Capitoline Museum, Rome; and a statue of Meleager, unmentioned in ancient literature but surviving in numerous replicas, perhaps best represented by a torso in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

One of many Roman copies of Pothos (Desire), a statue by Scopas, restored here as Apollo Kitharoidos (Apollo, the Cithara-player)

Pothos

Pothos, or Desire, was a celebrated and much imitated statue by Scopas. Roman copies featured the human figure with a variety of props, such as musical instruments and fabrics as depicted here,[1] in an example that was in the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani

Literature

  • Andreas Linfert: Von Polyklet zu Lysipp. Polyklets Schule und ihr Verhältnis zu Skopas v. Paros. Diss. Freiburg i. B. 1965.
  • Andrew F. Stewart: Skopas of Paros. Noyes Pr., Park Ridge, N.Y. 1977. ISBN 0-8155-5051-0
  • Andrew Stewart: Skopas in Malibu. The head of Achilles from Tegea and other sculptures by Skopas in the J. Paul Getty Museum J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, Calif. 1982. ISBN 0-89236-036-4

References

  1. Steven Lattimore, "Scopas and the Pothos", American Journal of Archaeology Vol.91 No.3 (July 1987), pages 411-420 journal preview
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