A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture

by Clara Erskine Clement Waters

Fig. 48.—Monument of Lysicrates.
Athens.

This monument was erected B.C. 334, when Lysicrates was choragus—that is, when it was his office to provide the chorus for the plays represented at Athens. This was an expensive office, and one that demanded much labor and care. He had first to find the choristers, and then bring them together to be instructed, and provide them with proper food while they studied. The choragus who gave the best musical entertainment received a tripod as his reward, and it was the custom to build a monument upon which to place the tripod, so that it should be a lasting honor to the choragus and his family. The street in which these monuments were erected was called "the street of the Tripods."

It was also the custom to dedicate each tripod to some special divinity, and this of Lysicrates was dedicated to Bacchus, and had a frieze with sculptures telling the story of that god and the Tyrrhenian robbers who bore him off to their ship. In order to revenge himself he changed the oars and masts into serpents and himself into a lion; music was heard, and ivy grew all over the vessel; the robbers went mad and leaped into the sea, and changed into dolphins.

In the frieze, however, it is represented that the god is on shore quietly amusing himself with the lion (Fig. 49), while satyrs and sileni punish the robbers by beating them with sticks and chasing them with fury, while they are turning gradually into dolphins and rushing into the sea. The design is so fine that it might easily be attributed to one of the best sculptors; but the execution is careless, and this is not strange when we remember that it was all done at the expense of one man, and he a private citizen.

Fig. 49.—Bacchus and Lion.
From the Lysicrates Monument.

We will return now to the Peloponnesian school, of which Polycleitus was the head in its earliest period. After his time the sculptors of his school continued to prefer the subjects in which he excelled, and represented youthful heroes and victors with as much industry as the artists of Athens bestowed upon their statues of womanly grace and beauty. The subjects of the Peloponnesian school were especially suited to the use of bronze, and the chief sculptor of his time, Lysippus, whose works are said to have numbered fifteen hundred, worked entirely in bronze. In order to keep a record of the number of his works, he adopted the plan of putting aside one gold coin from the price of every statue, and at his death his heirs are said to have found the above number of these coins thus laid away. His home was at Sicyon, and his time of work is given as B.C. 372-316. This seems a long period for active employment as a sculptor; but the number of his works accords well with this estimate of his working years.