Hellenistic Sculpture

by Guy Dickins

We have already suggested that the Hellenistic art of Rhodes began under the dominant influence of the athletic school of Lysippos. We must first examine the character and achievements of this school. Daippos, Boedas, and Euthykrates are said to have been sons and pupils of the great Sikyonian. Of these Euthykrates was the best known, and Pliny tells us that he followed his father’s carefulness rather than his elegance, and that his style was more severe than genial (‘constantiam potius imitatus patris quam elegantiam austero maluit genere quam iucundo placere’).[64] His works were mainly athletic or equestrian, with a few female subjects, and his pupil Tisicrates was a faithful copyist of the style of Lysippos, so much so, in fact, that his works could hardly be distinguished from the master’s. Daippos made a perixyomenos or athlete scraping himself,[65] and Boedas made an adorans or praying figure.[66]

Pliny’s description is important, because it assures us of the faithfulness with which the pupils of Lysippos kept to their master’s style. This is the basis for the argument of those who see in the Apoxyomenos of the Vatican a work of the pupil Daippos rather than the master; but the argument is two-edged, if Lysippos’ own style is to be found in the Agias, since the two statues have little in common. The mention of the adorans enables us to connect two well-known bronzes with this school—the Praying Boy of Berlin ([Fig. 27]) and the Resting Hermes of Naples ([Fig. 28]). The Praying Boy is a subject unparalleled elsewhere, and belongs to the early Hellenistic age. He can hardly be other than a copy of the statue of Boedas. The slender proportions and small head follow the Lysippic canon, and the easy swing of the body proves its chronological position. This figure and the others, which we shall subsequently notice, show a new growth of naturalism by less insistence on the outlines of the torso muscles. The average body in repose does not show the massive muscles of Pheidian or even of Lysippic art, and the post-Lysippic sculptors of the third century tend to soften and naturalize the torso to a considerable extent. The Pergamene Dying Gaul is a good example of this fine restraint, which was utterly abandoned by the later Pergamene school and even by the late Rhodians, but which in all third-century art of Rhodes is noteworthy. The Resting Hermes is a fine copy of a post-Lysippic original, which stood in close connexion with the Praying Boy. The torso, slender, restrained, and full of vitality, shows the same treatment, and must belong to the Lysippic school.

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Eutychides of Sikyon, another pupil of Lysippos, is known to us only from his Antioch.[67] This figure, even in its poor copy, is of great importance, since it is almost the only certified draped female figure of the Lysippic school. Our whole theory of Lysippic and early Rhodian drapery must, therefore, rest upon it. A comparison with the Herculaneum figure[68] in Dresden will show at once a considerable resemblance in treatment, so much so, in fact, that it has caused the attribution of the Dresden figure to the Lysippic school. This cannot be allowed because of the greater resemblance to Attic grave-reliefs and the Mantinean basis, which demonstrates the origin of the type in the school of Praxiteles.[69] But it is sufficient to show that the new scheme of the school of Praxiteles was adopted in the main by the pupils of Lysippos; their faithfulness to their teacher will incline us to the belief that Lysippos used it also. This type of drapery shows a tendency to an artificially effective or artistic arrangement rather than to complete simplicity of naturalism like the drapery of Praxiteles himself, but it is important to notice that it does not become purely artificial or stereotyped till much later, and that all the early examples preserve a considerable share of freer naturalism. The characteristic of the drapery is an opposition of folds in many differing directions, so as to counteract the uniformity of the older Pheidian type. The folds themselves are quite natural; it is only in their arrangement that we find the element of art.

The Antioch permits us to assume the tall figure swathed in a long thin cloak as the female type of the Lysippic school, and therefore of the early Rhodian school, while the Praying Boy and the Resting Hermes give us the male type. The close connexion postulated rests on the fact that Chares of Lindos, the author of Rhodes’ most famous statue, the great Colossus, was himself a member of the Sikyonian school and a pupil of the master. But the Colossus itself is unknown to us in any certain copy, and therefore we cannot speak with full knowledge of his art. Some statuettes in bronze in marked Lysippic style may well reproduce the statue, but we cannot feel the necessary certainty in their identification.

There is a group of athletic statues of the third century which carry out the Lysippic tradition to its logical conclusion, and which consequently we are practically bound to attribute to Rhodian artists. But until we have a definite copy of Chares’ work we must argue backwards to the first Rhodian school, of which we have no direct information, from the later Rhodian school, of which we know a great deal. The Laocoon[70] and the Farnese Bull[71] are certified works of Rhodian art of the first century B.C., and they show us a type of male figure which is quite distinct from the types of Pergamene and Alexandrian art. We are, therefore, entitled to argue back to the Rhodian school of the third century, and to attribute to it such athletic sculpture as is clearly of the earlier date while offering distinct technical and stylistic resemblances to the later groups. The male figures of this later period differ from the Pergamene works, with which they are most easily compared, in certain well-defined points. The heads are smaller and rounder and the hair is rougher and less carefully arranged. The eyebrows have a tendency to form sharp angles with the nose instead of the broad straight curves of the Pergamene brows. This makes the bridge of the nose thinner and usually substitutes vertical forehead wrinkles for the swelling frontal sinus of Pergamene work. Except in cases of great strain the torso muscles are treated with more restraint, but the veins receive more careful attention, especially on the abdomen. In the back a more broken-up system of muscles replaces the great upright rolls on either side of the backbone, which mark Pergamene work. Finally, the proportions are slighter and more Lysippic.

These considerations apply most powerfully to two great statues of the Louvre, whose third-century date is almost certain: the Borghese Warrior[72] and the Jason ([Fig. 30]). The former statue is by Agasias of Ephesos, an artist whom we can date with some degree of certainty in the middle of the third century. The Jason comes so close to the Lysippic type of Poseidon on the one hand and to the Fighter of Agasias on the other, that the Lysippic-Rhodian origin of the two is fairly well established. The analogies of the Borghese Warrior with the Apoxyomenos have been often pointed out, but his resemblances to the Laocoon and the Farnese groups require an equal recognition. Both the Louvre statues show the influence of a later generation on the Lysippic type. While reproducing the general proportions, each develops Lysippic innovations to a further degree. Lysippos made a distinct advance in anatomical skill, but both these statues show a more exact scientific knowledge. While their torso muscles are less prominent, they reveal new details in abdomen, groin, and the inner side of the thighs, unknown to the earlier sculptor. They also develop much further the Lysippic substitution of an all-round figure for a merely frontal one. Each of them can be regarded effectively from any point of view, and neither has any real front. They, therefore, represent a distinct technical advance. But at the same time they show a decline in artistic feeling, for there is perhaps too much science about them. They belong to a school immensely interested in detail, and tending, therefore, to lose its grasp on the general treatment. The anatomical structure of the male form cannot be rendered more perfectly than in the statue of Agasias, so well known to all art students, but the statue affects us with a feeling of strain and discomfort from its want of unity and repose. All the athletic statues of the Rhodian school seem to be restless and unsatisfied. There is none of the calm repose about them that marked earlier Greek art. The desire to display newly acquired scientific knowledge invariably demands a strained and therefore disquieting motive. As we shall see when we come to examine the Laocoon later, the influence of the stage appears to be affecting sculpture. Poses are histrionic, and expression begins to depend upon grimaces and action rather than upon more subtle indications of feeling.