1000 Erotic Works of Genius. Victoria Charles

awe and reverence is wanting.

      Praxiteles and his school worked almost entirely in marble. At the time the marble quarries of Paros were at their best; for the sculptor’s purpose no marble could be finer than that of which the Hermes is made.

      34. Anonymous, Diomedes, c. 430 B. C. E. Marble, h: 102 cm. Glyptothek, Munich (Germany).

      35. Anonymous, Hermes Tying his Sandal, Roman copy after a Greek original created by Lysippos, 4th century B. C. E. Marble, h: 161 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris (France).

      LYSIPPOS

      (c. 395 – c. 305 B. C. E.)

      The Greek sculptor, Lysippos, was head of the school of Argos and Sicyon in the time of Philip and Alexander of Macedon. His works, some colossal, are said to have numbered 1500. Certain accounts have him continuing the school of Polykleitos; others represent him as self-taught. He was especially innovative regarding the proportions of the human male body; in contrast to his predecessors, he reduced the head size and made the body harder and more slender, producing the impression of greater height. He also took great pains with hair and other details. Pliny and other writers mention many of his statues. Among the gods he seems to have produced new and striking types of Zeus, the Sun-god and others; many of these were colossal figures in bronze. Among heroes he was particularly attracted by the mighty physique of Heracles. The Heracles Farnese of Naples, though signed by Glycon of Athens, and a later and exaggerated transcript, owes something, including the motive of rest after labour, to Lysippos. Lysippos made many statues of Alexander the Great, and so satisfied his patron, no doubt by idealising him, that he became the king’s court sculptor; the king and his generals provided numerous commissions. Portraits of Alexander vary greatly, and it is impossible to determine which among them go back to Lysippos.

      As head of the great athletic school of Peloponnese, Lysippos naturally sculptured many athletes; a figure by him of a man scraping himself with a strigil was a great favourite of the Romans in the time of Tiberius; it has usually been regarded as the original copied in the Apoxyomenos of the Vatican.

      36. Anonymous, Meleager, copy after a Greek original created by Skopas, c. 340 B. C. E. Marble, h: 123 cm. Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge (United States).

      SKOPAS

      (Active during first half of the 4th century B. C. E.)

      Probably of Parian origin, Skopas was the son of Aristander, a great Greek sculptor of the fourth century B. C. E. Although classed as an Athenian, and similar in tendency to Praxiteles, he was really a cosmopolitan artist, working largely in Asia and Peloponnesos. The existing works with which he is associated are the Mausoleum of Halicarnassos, and the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea. In the case of the Mausoleum, though no doubt the sculpture generally belongs to his school, it remains impossible to single out any specific part of it as his own. There is, however, good reason to think that the pedimental figures from Tegea are Skopas’ own work. They are, unfortunately, all in extremely poor condition, but appear to be the best evidence of his style.

      While in general style Skopas approached Praxiteles, he differed from him in preferring strong expression and vigorous action to repose and sentiment.

      Early writers give a good deal of information on the works of Skopas. For the people of Elis he made a bronze Aphrodite riding on a goat (copied on the coins of Elis); a Maenad at Athens, running with head thrown back and a torn kid in her hands, was ascribed to him. Another type of his was Apollo as leader of the Muses, singing to the lyre. The most elaborate of his works was a great group representing Achilles being conveyed over the sea to the island of Leuce by his mother Thetis, accompanied by Nereids.

      Jointly with his contemporaries Praxiteles and Lysippos, Skopas may be considered to have completely changed the character of Greek sculpture; they initiated the lines of development that culminated in the schools of Pergamum, Rhodes and other great cities of later Greece. In most modern museums of ancient art their influence may be seen in three-fourths of the works exhibited. At the Renaissance it was especially their influence which dominated Italian painting, and through it, modern art.

      37. Anonymous, Athenian Tombstone, c. 340 B. C. E. Marble, h: 168 cm. National Archaeological Museum of Athens, Athens (Greece).

      38. Anonymous, Aphrodite of Knidos, copy after a Greek original created by Praxiteles, c. 350 B. C. E. Marble. Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican (Italy).

      39. Anonymous, Aphrodite of Knidos, Roman copy after a Greek original created by Praxiteles, c. 350 B. C. E. Marble, h: 122 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris (France).

      40. Anonymous, Crouching Venus, Roman copy after a Greek original created in the 3rd century B. C. E. Marble, h: 96 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris (France).

      41. Anonymous, Dionysos and Ariadne (detail from the Derveni Krater), c. 340–330 B. C. E. Copper, h: 91 cm. Archeological Museum, Thessaloniki (Greece).

      42. Anonymous, Venus and Cupid, Roman copy after a Greek original, 4th century B. C. E. Restored at the end of the 17th century C. E. by Alessandro Algardi. Marble, h: 174 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris (France).

      Aphrodite became a common subject for Greek sculptors in the fourth century B. C. E. and later, because her renowned beauty provided an acceptable excuse for an erotic representation of the female body. She is sometimes shown, as here, with her son Eros, known to the Romans as Cupid, and in later art as “putti,” the winged babies symbolising earthly and divine love. In Roman art and mythology, Aphrodite became Venus, goddess of love. To the Romans she had a more elevated status, seen as the progenitor of the line of Caesar, Augustus, and the Julio-Claudian emperors, and by extension as an embodiment of the Roman people. This playful depiction of Aphrodite and Eros, or Venus and Cupid, is more suggestive of the Greek view of Aphrodite, who saw her not only as the symbol of sensual beauty, but also as occasionally silly and humorous.

      43. Anonymous, Capitoline Venus, Roman copy after a Greek original created by Praxiteles, 3rd century B. C. E. Marble, h: 193 cm. Musei Capitolini, Rome (Italy).

      44. Anonymous, Wounded Amazon, Roman copy after a Greek original created by Polykleitos, c. 440–430 B. C. E. Marble, h: 202 cm. Musei Capitolini, Rome (Italy).

      45. Anonymous, Belvedere Apollo, Roman copy after a Greek original created by Leochares, c. 330 B. C. E. Marble, h: 224 cm. Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican (Italy).

      The Belvedere Apollo has long enjoyed fame, known as the prototypical work of Greek art. This fame springs from its rediscovery during the Renaissance of the fifteenth century. At that time, wealthy Italian nobles began to collect ancient sculpture that was being discovered in the ruins of Roman Italy. The Belvedere Apollo went to the collection of the Pope, and was displayed in the courtyard of the Belvedere villa in the Vatican. There, it was seen by countless visitors and visiting artists, who sketched the piece. Copies were made for various courts of Europe. The proud, princely bearing of the figure, along with the delicate beauty of Apollo’s face, had great appeal among the aristocratic classes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and to the Romantics of the eighteenth and nineteenth