Adoration and Prayer.
Prayer was a common motive represented in votive monuments. Pliny mentions many such works by Greek sculptors.[996] The custom of raising the arms in prayer is found all through Greek literature, from Homer down.[997] Pausanias says that the people of Akragas made an offering in the form of bronze statues of boys placed on the walls of the Altis, προτείνοντάς τε τὰς δεξιὰς καὶ εἰκασμένους εὐχομένοις τῷ θεῷ, these statues being the work of Kalamis.[998] In the Athenian Asklepieion there were many τύποι καταμακτοὶ πρὸς πινακίῳ, among which were representations of men and women in the praying attitude.[999] The motive was used at Olympia in victor statues, representing the victor as raising the hand in prayer to invoke victory.[1000] The statue of the wrestler Milo, already discussed at length, shows that this motive was employed at Olympia in the improved “Apollo” type in the second half of the sixth century B. C.[1001] From the next century we may cite the statue of the Spartan chariot victor Anaxandros, which was represented as “praying to the god,”[1002] and the statues of the Rhodian boxers Diagoras and Akousilaos, as we learn from a scholion on Pindar,[1003] which is based on a fragment of Aristotle[1004] and on one of Apollas.[1005] Of the statue of Diagoras it says: τὴν δεξιὰν ἀνατείνων χεῖρα, τὴν δὲ ἀριστερὰν εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἐπικλίνων; of that of Akousilaos: τῇ μὲν ἀριστερᾷ ἱμάντα ἔχων πυκτινόν, τὴν δὲ δεξιὰν ὡς πρὸς προσευχὴν ἀνατείνων.[1006] The bronze statue from Athens, now in the Antiquarium, Berlin,[1007] which represents a nude boy with the right hand raised as if in prayer and the left lowered and holding a leaping-weight—therefore a pentathlete—seems to correspond with this description of the statue of Akousilaos. The same motive may have been used in the statue of the chariot victress Kyniska, a princess of Sparta, whose statue along with that of her charioteer and the chariot was the work of the sculptor Apellas.[1008] This is the interpretation of Furtwaengler,[1009] based on a passage in Pliny, which mentions statues of adornantes se feminas[1010] by Apellas, which he reads adorantes feminas. However, adornantes may be right, for in another passage, Pliny speaks of Praxiteles’ statue of a ψελιουμένη, i. e., of a woman clasping a bracelet on her arm.[1011] Two notable bronze statues will illustrate this motive of Olympic victor statues. The statue found in 1502 at Zellfeld in Carinthia, now in Vienna,[1012] has been interpreted both as a Hermes Logios and a votive statue in the attitude of prayer,[1013] which latter interpretation the inscription on the leg, giving a list of dedications,[1014] favors. However, Furtwaengler believes it a free imitation of an Argive victor statue, though not in the Polykleitan style. Because of its similarity to the Idolino (Pl. [14]), he has ascribed its original to the sculptor Patrokles. From technical considerations he believes it is not a Greek original dedicated by Romans of a later period, but a Roman work (after Patrokles) of the period of the inscription.[1015] The bronze statue of the Praying Boy in Berlin[1016] (Pl. [10]) is one of our most beautiful Greek bronzes and comes from the circle of Lysippos.[1017] We now know that the uplifted arms of this statue, in which most scholars saw the Greek attitude of prayer, are restorations which were probably made in the time of Louis XIV, when the statue was in France. Of the original motive we only can say that the action of the shoulders shows that both arms were raised, but we do not know how far, or the position of the hands. Monumental evidence shows that the hands in prayer should have the palms turned away from the face instead of upwards, as in the present statue, since the Greek position was the outgrowth of an old apotropaic gesture, i. e., one directed against an evil spirit. Mau’s idea[1018] that the figure represented a player catching a ball is certainly inconsistent with the calm attitude of the statue. Furtwaengler rejected it,[1019] and he has restored the arms and hands on the basis of a Berlin gem[1020] and an ex voto relief found by the French excavators at Nemea in 1884.[1021] On this relief a youth crowned with a woolen fillet is represented. On both relief and gem the figures are in the same attitude, the arms raised over the head manibus supinis, which confirms the restoration of the Berlin statue. Many other monuments give the more usual attitude of prayer, not as in the relief and gem discussed, but with only one hand extended as high as the breast. Older writers thought that such monuments did not represent the gesture of adoration, but one of adlocutio,[1022] an opinion disproved by Pausanias’ statement about the bronze statues of the Akragantines at Olympia, already mentioned. We may cite a relief from Kleitor, now in Berlin,[1023] and a fine one of the fourth century B. C. from Lamia (?),[1024] as well as a red-figured Etruscan stamnos in Vienna representing, probably, Ajax praying before committing suicide.[1025] We shall mention also two little statuettes in New York which represent youths in the praying attitude.[1026] The first, dating from the second half of the fifth century B. C., and showing Polykleitan influence, represents a nude youth standing erect with the forearms bent, showing that the two hands were extended in prayer. The second, which dates from the first half of the fifth century B. C. (after the date of the Myronian Diskobolos), represents a nude youth standing with the right hand raised to the lips in an attitude usual in saluting a divinity, while the left is by the side, with the palm to the front.
PLATE 10
Bronze Statue of the Praying Boy. Museum of Berlin.
Anointing.
Various familiar motives from the everyday life of the gymnasium and palæstra were reproduced in the statues of athletes. One of the commonest methods was to represent the victor anointing his body with oil. The use of oil was indispensable in all athletic exercises, in order to make the body and limbs more supple, and especially in wrestling and the pankration, to make it difficult for one’s antagonist to get a grip.[1027] Pliny mentions a painting by Theoros, representing a man se inunguentem,[1028] which appears to have been a votive portrait of an athlete. The motive was common in vase-paintings and statuary. Several red-figured vases of the severe style, antedating the statues to be considered, show from realistic representations of palæstra scenes that it was customary for athletes to hold a round aryballos high in the right hand and pour oil from it into the left, which was placed across the body horizontally.[1029] The same motive appears with variations in statues.[1030] Thus the statue of an ephebe in Petworth House, Sussex, England,[1031] a statue, as Furtwaengler says, to be praised more for its excellent preservation than for its workmanship, represents an athlete, who holds a globular aryballos in his right hand raised over the shoulder, while the left arm is held across the abdomen. On the nearby tree-trunk are small cylindrical objects which seem to be boxing pads. This statue, and especially its head, have been regarded by Michaelis and Furtwaengler as unmistakably Polykleitan in style.[1032] Several other copies of original statues representing athletes pouring oil have been wrongly classed as replicas of one original,[1033] though they merely have essential features alike, due chiefly to the subject. First is the famous statue in the Glyptothek known as the Oelgiesser (Oil-pourer), a Roman copy of an Attic bronze of about the middle of the fifth century B. C. (Pl. [11]).[1034] Though the right arm and left hand are lost, it is clear that the athlete held in his raised right hand an oil flask, as in the Petworth statue.[1035] Notwithstanding that the head resembles the Praxitelian Hermes,[1036] this does not show that the statue is of fourth-century origin, for its original is older; it merely shows that the art of Praxiteles was deeply rooted in that of his fifth-century
Fig. 23.—Head of so-called Oil-pourer. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. predecessors. Because of its Attic affiliations, Klein tried to identify it with the Ἐγκρινόμενος of Alkamenes mentioned by Pliny,[1037] by amending that title to Ἐγχριόμενος, the “Anointer.” Brunn, however, rightly saw the analogy of the body forms to Myron’s Marsyas,[1038] and Furtwaengler and Bulle have ascribed it to Lykios, the son and pupil of that master, who worked about 440 B. C., the approximate date of the original of the statue. A fragmentary head in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Fig. [23]),[1039] formerly in private possession in England, is a copy of the same original as the Munich statue. Its special interest is that it is not an exact copy of the original, as the Munich statue is, but a freer one, showing a fuller mouth, fleshier cheeks, and deeper-set eyes. While the Munich statue is the dry work of a Roman copyist of Augustus’ time, this head is by a far abler Greek copyist of the second century B. C. A torso in the Albertinum in Dresden, without a head,[1040] is similar to the Munich statue, but hardly a replica. It probably goes back to an original by an Attic master of the end of the fifth or beginning of the fourth century B. C. Other under life-size statues related to this torso show the same motive.[1041] A black-marble statue found at Porto d’Anzio in 1758, and now in the Glyptothek,[1042] has the Polykleitan standing motive. The left arm, which is stretched out, holds an oil flask in the hand, while the right arm is lowered. The band, which the position of the fingers shows that the right hand probably held, indicates it is the statue of a victor. A bronze statuette from South Italy, now in the British Museum,[1043] represents a nude youth holding an alabastron in his right hand, while the left has the palm open to receive the oil. The hair fashion (κρωβύλος) seems to point to an Attic sculptor of about 470 B. C.[1044] The same motive is found on terra-cotta statuettes from Myrina,[1045] on reliefs,[1046] and on gems.[1047]