Giacobbe Giusti, The Louvre portrait of Alexander the Great

Giacobbe Giusti, The Louvre portrait of Alexander the Great

Roman marble sculpture

About 1st – 2nd Cent. AA.

From Tivoli, Rome

Original bronze sculpture attributed to Lysippos

About 330 BC.

Paris, Musée du Louvre

 

About 1st – 2nd Cent. AA.

From Tivoli, Rome

Original bronze sculpture attributed to Lysippos

About 330 BC.

Paris, Musée du Louvre

 

https://www.google.it/search?q=The+Louvre+portrait+of+Alexander+the+Great&biw=853&bih=439&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMI2L6Pmf7sxgIVxp9yCh0Y4goC#imgrc=e1mHSBHwzXkhmM%3A
http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Egyptian hieroglyphs

Giacobbe Giusti, Egyptian hieroglyphs

Name of Alexander the Great in Egyptian hieroglyphs (written from right to left), c. 330 BC, Egypt. Louvre Museum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Alexander the Great

Giacobbe Giusti, Alexander the Great

 

 

Statue of Alexander the Great

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_Archaeology_Museums

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Power and Pathos

Giacobbe Giusti, Power and Pathos

potere

         

6

 

Head of Apollo, First century BCE–first century CE, bronze, 51 x 40 x 38 cm. Salerno, Museo Archeologico Provinciale.

By Alain.R.Truong

FLORENCE.- From 14 March to 21 June 2015, Palazzo Strozzi in Florence will be the first venue to host the major exhibition entitled Power and Pathos. Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World organised and produced in conjunction with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Soprintendenza Archeologica della Toscana, Tuscany’s directorate general for archaeology. After Florence, the exhibition will travel to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles from 28 July to 1 November 2015 and then to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, from 6 December 2015 to 20 March 2016.

1

Statue Base signed by Lysippos, End of fourth–beginning of third century BCE, blue-grey limestone, 30 x 70.5 x 70,5 cm. Corinth, 37th Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities.

This important joint venture reinforces Palazzo Strozzi’s international reputation for excellence. The exhibition will showcase – for the first time in Florence – some of the greatest masterpieces of the ancient world from such leading Italian and international museums as the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion (Crete), the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Vatican Museums and the Musei Capitolini in Rome.

1

Portrait Statue of Aule Meteli (Arringatore), Late second century BCE, bronze, 179 cm. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

Power and Pathos features about 50 extraordinary sculptures in bronze and tells the story of the artistic achievements of the Hellenistic era (4th to 1st centuries BC), when new bronze-working techniques were developed, new forms of expression were explored, and a first globalized language of art emerged in the Mediterranean and beyond. In this cosmopolitan climate, Greek art, in effect, became an international phenomenon.

2

Statuette of Alexander the Great on Horseback, First century BCE, bronze, with silver inlays, 49 x 47 x 29 cm. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

The vast Hellenistic empire founded by Alexander the Great stretched from Greece and the borders of Ethiopia to the Indus Valley, embracing Egypt, Persia, and Mesopotamia. Thus its astonishing output in the fields of art, history and philosophy enjoyed extensive dissemination. While the Classical Greek world was based essentially on the polis, or citystate, now art served more than the cities and their citizens and focused instead on the courts of Alexander’s successors. Artists devoted their skills to celebrating the rulers and their achievements, adopting and adapting Classical modes of expression to suit new needs.

2

Horse Head (“Medici Riccardi” Horse), Second half of the fourth century BCE, bronze, 81 x 95 x 40 cm. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

The exhibition owes its unique character to bronze, an alloy of copper, tin, and often lead, so significant in ancient technology and art that Pliny the Elder dedicated an entire book to this medium. Bronze works are extremely rare today, and the vast majority of large bronzes from the ancient world are lost because they have been melted down over the centuries so that the metal could be used to mint coins and to manufacture arms. Immediately after casting, bronze was so dazzling that it resembled gold.

2

Head of a Man with Kausia, Third century BCE, bronze, faïence or alabaster, 32 x 27.9 cm. Pothia, Archaeological Museum of Kalymnos.

One of the reasons this show is an unprecedented, once-in-a-lifetime event is that it will allow visitors to admire works never before seen together: the bronze Apoxyomenos from Vienna alongside the Uffizi’s marble version used in its restoration; the two archaising Apollo-Kouroi from the Louvre and from Pompeii. Although all of these “pairs” have frequently been shown together in photographs, this is the very first time that any of them have been displayed side by side. A large number of the bronzes surviving to this day were found in the sea rather than on dry land. Spectacular underwater finds include the figure of a General (Lucius Aemilius Paullus?) found in the sea off Brindisi in 1992, and the Head of a Man with Kausia (discovered in the Aegean off the island of Kalymnos in 1997).

2

Portrait of a Diadoch (Demetrios Poliorketes?), 310–290 BCE, bronze, 45 x 35 x 39 cm. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado.

The discovery of the head of Apollo in the sea off Salerno in December 1930 was poetically described by Nobel Prize laureate Giuseppe Ungaretti: “Night had almost fallen and the anchovy fishermen were returning to port in single file. Gathering up their nets, one of the fishermen found […] a head of Apollo in his net. Holding it up in the palm of his lined hand and seeing it now imbued with new life in the light and appearing to bleed – where it had been severed at the neck – in the fire of the setting sun, the fisherman thought he was looking at St. John the Baptist. I myself have seen it at the Museum in Salerno; it may be by Praxiteles or possibly Hellenistic […] its indulgent and quivering smile hinting at an ineffable song of youth restored to life!”

2

Portrait of Arsinoë III, Late third century–early second century BCE, bronze, 30 x 20 x 30 cm. Mantua, Museo Civico di Palazzo Te.

Unlike Classical artists, who sought to convey a sense of balance and serenity, Hellenistic sculptors aimed to capture the full range of human feelings, from anger and passion to joy and anguish. They typically emphasised pathos, or lived experience, in the figures they depicted, and we find this also in the portraits of the men who rose to power in Alexander’s wake. Such portraits were designed to bolster the sitters’ legitimacy and dynastic connections through a combination of individual features both dramatic and idealised. Statues of athletes such as the so-called Apoxyomenos—a figure shown after the competition, holding a small curved instrument called a strigil used to scrape off sweat and dirt from the body— focus on the nude male body in its various forms. Artists no longer represent wholly idealised forms, as in the Classical era, but depict momentary details that vividly express physical and emotional states.

2

Statue of a Man, Second century BCE, bronze, 127 x 75 x 49 cm h. 30 cm (head). Brindisi, Museo Archeologico Provinciale “F. Ribezzo”.

Curated by Jens Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of the Hellenistic bronze sculpture in its larger archaeological, cultural and geographical environments.

2

Portrait of a Man, First century BCE, bronze, 29.5 x 21.5 x 21.5 cm. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum.

Monumental statues of gods, athletes, and heroes will be displayed alongside portraits of historical figures—including select sculptures in marble and stone—in a journey allowing visitors to explore the fascinating stories of these masterpieces’ discovery, often at sea (Mediterranean, Black Sea) but also in the course of archaeological digs, thus setting the finds in their ancient contexts. Those contexts could be a sanctuary where they were used for votive purposes, a public space where they celebrated personalities or events, a home where they fulfilled a decorative function, or a cemetery where they commemorated the deceased. A unique feature of the Palazzo Strozzi exhibition is that it sets the works in context by also probing and exploring the production and casting processes and the finishing techniques adopted.

3

Statuette of a Ruler as Hermes or Perseus, First century BCE–first century CE, bronze, with base 80 x 30 x 25.4 cm. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

3

Statue of a Young Man, Third–fourth century BCE, bronze, 152 x 52 x 68 cm. Athens, Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities.

3

Statuette of Hermes, c. 150 BCE, bronze, 49 x 20 x 15 cm. London, The British Museum.

3

Statuette of the Weary Herakles, Third century BCE or first century CE (?); copy of a fourth-century BCE bronze by Lysippos, bronze, silver, 35.9 x 17.5 x 14 cm h. 39 cm with base. Chieti, Museo Archeologico Nazionale d’Abruzzo.

3

Statuette of an Artisan, Mid-first century BCE, bronze, silver, 40.03 x 13 x 10.8 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

3

Statuette of Herakles Epitrapezios (Herakles seated), First century BCE–first century CE, bronze, limestone, 75 x 67 x 54 cm h. 95 cm with base. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

3

Statue of Eros Sleeping, Third–second century BCE, bronze, 41.9 x 85.2 x 35.6 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

4

Portrait of a Man, End of second–beginning of first century BCE, bronze, glass paste, black stone, 32.5 x 22 x 22 cm. Athens, National Archaeological Museum.

4

Portrait of a Bearded Man, c. 150 BCE, marble, 40.7 x 25 x 31.7 cm. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum.

4

Head of a Votive Statue, 375–350 BCE, bronze, 24.3 x 15.5 x 15.5 cm.London, The British Museum.

4

Portrait of a Man, Late fourth–third century BCE, bronze, copper, glass paste, 26.8 x 21.8 x 23.5 cm. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

4

Portrait Statue of a Young Ephebe, First half of the first century BCE, bronze, with base 140 x 57.2 x 45.1 cm. Heraklion, Archaeological Museum.

4

Portrait Statue of an Aristocratic Boy, Augustan period (27 BCE–14 CE), bronze, 132.4 x 50.8 x 41.9 cm. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

4

Portrait of a Man, First century BCE, bronze, 43 x 26 x 25 cm. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

4

Bust of a Man (Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus Pontifex), Late first century BCE–early first century CE, 46 x 28 x 23 cm. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

4

Portrait of a Man, 50–25 BCE, bronze, copper, marble, 32 x 22 x 22 cm h. 22.5 cm (head). Copenaghen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

5

Statue of an Athlete (Apoxyomenos from Ephesos), 1–50 CE, bronze, 205.4 x 78.7 x 77.5 cm. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

5

Head of an Athlete (Ephesos Apoxyomenos type), Second century BCE–first century CE, bronze, 29.2 x 21 x 27.3 cm h. 51.4 cm with base. Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum.

5

Statue of an Athlete (Ephesos Apoxyomenos type), Second century CE, marble, h. 193 cm. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi.

5

Torso of an Athlete (Ephesos Apoxyomenos type), First century CE, basanite, h. 110 cm. Castelgandolfo, Musei Vaticani, Villa Pontificia, Antiquarium.

5

Herm of Dionysos (Getty Herm), Workshop of Boëthos of Kalchedon (attributed), Second century BCE, bronze, copper, calcitic stone, 103.5 x 23.5 x 19.5 cm. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum.

6

Athena (Minerva of Arezzo), 300–270 BCE, bronze, copper, 155 x 50 x 50 cm. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

6

Medallion with the Bust of Athena, c. 150 BCE, bronze, white glass paste, 27.2 x 27.1 x 19 cm. Thessaloniki, Archaeological Museum.

6

Head of Aphrodite (?), First century BCE, bronze, 37x 30.5 x 29 cm. London, The British Museum.

7

Statue of Apollo (Piombino Apollo), 120–100 BCE, bronze, copper, silver, 117 x 42 x 42 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

7

Statue of Apollo (Kouros), First century BCE–first century CE, bronze, copper, bone, dark stone, glass, 128 x 33 x 38 cm. Pompeii, Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Pompei, Ercolano e Stabia.

7

Torso of a Youth (The Vani Torso), Second century BCE, bronze, 105 x 45 x 25 cm. Tbilisi, Georgian National Museum.

7

Herm Bust of the Doryphoros, Apollonios (active late first century BCE), Late first century BCE, bronze, 58 x 66 x 27 cm. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

7

Ephebe (Idolino from Pesaro), c. 30 BCE, bronze, copper, lead, h. 148 cm h. 300 cm with base. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale.

7

Bust of an Ephebe (Beneventum Head), c. 50 BCE, bronze, copper, 33 x 23 x 20 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

7

Spinario (Spinario Castellani), c. 25–50 CE, marble, cm 69 x 40,5 x 35. London, The British Museum.

https://francescarachelvalle.wordpress.com/2015/03/15/firenze-potere-e-pathos-bronzi/

http://alaintruong.canalblog.com/archives/2015/03/14/31700771.html

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Puissance et Pathos, bronzes du monde hellénistique

Giacobbe Giusti, Puissance et Pathos, bronzes du monde hellénistique

Allestimento di Potere e pathos
Allestimento di Potere e pathos

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Puissance et Pathos, bronzes du monde hellénistique

Giacobbe Giusti, Puissance et Pathos, bronzes du monde hellénistique

Di: Palazzo Strozzi (Firenze)

Florence – Heureux les tempêtes et les naufrages qui ont conservé ces quelques unes des merveilles de l’art de la sculpture en bronze. La mer nous a donné non seulement le Bronzes de Riace, chefs-d’œuvre de grec classique, mais aussi de nombreuses autres œuvres plus ou moins intactes les siècles qui ont vu le grand projet impérial d’Alexandre le Grand. Nous sommes dans une période de grandes contaminations créatifs entre l’Occident et l’Orient grec mésopotamienne et perse, un vaste territoire qui a fait jusqu’à l’Indus pour limiter la force expansive du Macédonien. Des siècles d’expérimentation artistique nouvelle, séries de Périclès classique, que l’exposition “Puissance et Pathos, bronzes du monde hellénistique “, ouvert au public depuis hier 14 Mars au Palazzo Strozzi, documents avec 50 parmi les mieux conservés de bronze fonctionne dans les grands musées du monde: par Archéologique de Florence, Naples, Athènes, Thessalonique, Crète, al British Museum, Prado, la Galerie des Offices, il Metropolitan di New York, Louvre, le Kunsthistorisches Museum de Vienne et le Vatican.

 

 

L’impact de la rencontre avec ces pièces en grande partie retournés de la mer est vaste intellectuel et émotionnel. Jusqu’à présent, il ne était pas possible de les voir tous ensemble, comme à Florence, triés dans une exposition cohérente et bien illustré par les légendes (sept sections thématiques, divisé par sujet, changements de style et de sensibilité artistique et le potentiel de la technique de bronze) sous le chiffre conceptuelle exprimées droit: puissance et pathos. Décédé à la force d’innovation des cités grecques, commence L’impact de la rencontre avec ces pièces en grande partie retournés de la mer est vaste intellectuel et émotionnel. Jusqu’à présent, il ne était pas possible de les voir tous ensemble, comme à Florence, triés dans une exposition cohérente et bien illustré par les légendes (sept sections thématiques, divisé par sujet, changements de style et de sensibilité artistique et le potentiel de la technique de bronze) sous le chiffre conceptuelle exprimées droit: puissance et pathos. Décédé à la force d’innovation des cités grecques, commence l’ère des rois, ouverte Alexandrie aventure exceptionnelle. L’art abandonne le pouvoir archaïque de l’humanité qui a pris possession de son existence et de l’équilibre, en harmonie avec la divinité et de la nature, pour représenter l’image de la puissance héroïque et dramatique et, à la fois, les multiples facettes de la beauté qui devient de plus en plus une expression des émotions et des sentiments. Sentiments qui sont lus sur les visages de beaucoup de charme que celui de Diadoque, générale et héritier d’Alexandre (peut-être Démétrius Poliorcète) zone à cheval sur la quatrième et troisième siècles avant JC. têtes S portrait du premier siècle ou même le buste de Lucius Calpurnius Piso, le Pontife. Du point de vue de la compréhension technique et artistique, la pièce la plus intéressante est celle de ‘Apoxyomenos, l’athlète strigile, l’outil pour nettoyer le corps par la sueur, pas pris dans une fixité parfaite, mais le débit instantané de l’action. La statue complete conservé à Vienne est comparé à plusieurs répliques dans différents matériaux, comme la version en marbre Uffizi, ou pierre sombre. –

 

                                        Apoxyomenos (frontale)

La troisième section, dédiée à «corps idéaux, organismes extrêmes “, illustre les changements de style et la recherche de nouveaux sujets tirés de la vie quotidienne. La dynamique du corps est étudiée avec une grande précision de détails dans les personnages très différents de Kouroi classique puissante mais essentiellement immobiles, le modèle de qui retourne dans le goût fin de l’hellénisme. Reproduction peau parfaite, le mal rasé, Ride, la conception des muscles et les veines sont quelques-unes des possibilités que les subventions de bronze artiste

Organisée par Jens Daehner et le J. Paul Getty Museum de Los Angeles Kenneth Lapatin, L’exposition sera ouverte au Palazzo Strozzi jusqu’au 21 Juin. Ensuite, il déménager à Los Angeles (28 Juillet – 1 Novembre) de mettre fin à son voyage à la National Gallery of Art de Washington (6 Décembre – 20 Mars 2016).

– See more at: http://www.stamptoscana.it/articolo/cultura/bronzi-ellenistici-in-mostra-il-volto-del-potere-il-potere-dei-volti?lang=fr#sthash.VaEmpwzE.dpuf

 

Allestimento di Potere e pathos

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Apollo of Piombino

Giacobbe Giusti, Apollo of Piombino

 

 

 

 

 

In 1977 a similar statue of an archaising Apollo was found at Pompeii in the villa of C. Julius Polybius, and based on photographs the two were soon ‘associated’ … the slight scandal of the Pompeian piece is that it was excavated with tendrils which probably held a wooden tray, and so its nature as a piece of decorative furniture in a fancy Roman house could not be denied.

 

Apollo of Piombino

Lithograph of the Piombino Apollo from Bulfinch Mythology, 1908

The Apollo of Piombino or the Piombino Boy is a famous Greek bronze statuette[1] in late Archaic style that depicts the god as a kouros or youth, or it may be a worshipper bringing an offering.[2] The bronze is inlaid with copper for the boy’s lips, eyebrows and nipples. The eyes, which are missing, were of another material, perhaps bone or ivory.

It was found in 1832 at Piombino (Roman Populonia), in Etruria, in the harbor off the southwest point and was purchased for the Musée du Louvre in 1834. Its archaic style led scholars like Reinhard Lullies and Max Hirmer[3] to date it in the 5th century BCE and place its facture in Magna Graecia, the Hellenic culture area of southern Italy; Kenneth Clark illustrated it in The Nude (1956),[4] Karl Schefold included it in Meisterwerke Griechischer Kunst 1960[5] and casts of it were to be found in university and museum study collections; one made by the Louvre has been returned to Piombino.[6] Instead, B.S. Ridgeway (Ridgeway 1967) proved it to be— not simply an archaising sculpture of the 1st century BCE, of the kind designed to appeal to a Roman with refined tastes— but a consciously fabricated Roman forgery, with a false inlaid inscription of silver in archaic lettering on the left leg. The inscription dedicates this Apollo to Athena, an anomaly.[7] The two sculptors responsible could not resist secreting inside the sculpture a lead tag inscribed with their names, which was found when the sculpture was conserved in 1842.[7] One was a Tyrian émigré to Rhodes. The Louvre’s website adds that a comparable work uncovered in 1977 in Pompeii, in the villa of C. Julius Polybius, corroborates the hypothesis of an archaising pastiche, made for a Roman client in the 1st century BCE.[7]

 

Apollon de Piombino.jpg

The study of ancient Greek sculpture in the last decades has moved away from the traditional practice of identifying sculptures based on brief literary descriptions and attempting to recognize the characteristic manner of some famous names as reflected in reproductions of their work and variants based on their style, to concentrate instead on the socio-political world in which sculpture was created and other less subjective criteria.[8]

 

  1.  1.15 m.
  2.  The latter suggestion is made, for example, by Jaś Elsner, “Reflections of the ‘Greek Revolution’ in art”, in Simon Goldhill and Robin Osborne, eds. Rethinking Revolutions Through Ancient Greece 2006:71; of the bronze ephebe found in the House of the Bronze Ephebe, and identified by Dorothy Kent Hill as having held a lamp (Hill, “Roman domestic garden sculpture”, in Elisabeth B. MacDougall, et al., Ancient Roman Gardens 1981:89); Hill observes “today we can recognize many lamp-bearers of the same ephebe type”, instancing the Apollo of Piombino first among others.
  3.  Lullies and Hirmer, Greek Sculpture, 1960.
  4.  Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, 1960, fig 23, p. 60; Clark expressed his reserves with the sculpture in his text, but attributed the “uneasiness” to its archaic stiffness.
  5.  Plate 235.
  6. According to Thomas Hoving, False Impressions: the hunt for big-time art fakes 1996:34; Hoving quotes his previously unpublished impressions of first viewing the Apollo in the early 1960s: “…a simpering Cupid…. the stomach is a muddy landscape of flesh…”
  7.  Musée du Louvre: Apollo of Piombino.
  8. Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway characterized the new directions scholarship in this field was taking in “The Study of Ancient Sculpture” American Journal of Archaeology 86.2 (April 1982), pp. 155-157. A response and dialogue appeared in William Hood, “In Defense of Art History: A Response to Brunilde Ridgway” The Art Bulletin 68.3 (September 1986), pp. 480-482, with a rejoinder by Mrs Ridgeway.

http://phdiva.blogspot.it/2015/03/hellenistic-bronzes-pride-and-prejudices.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_of_Piombino

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Classical Sculpture

Giacobbe Giusti, Classical Sculpture

Classical Sculpture The body beautiful

Classical Sculpture: The body beautiful

Classical sculpture is the focus of a series of exhibitions this spring, one of them at the new Rem Koolhaas-designed Fondazione Prada in Milan. Claire Wrathall reports

‘This is the body people want to have,’ said Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, of the Belvedere Torso, the powerfully muscled trunk and thighs carved from marble during the first century B.C. and signed by the Athenian sculptor Apollonios. He was speaking at the launch of Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art (26 March– 5 July), one of several major surveys of classical sculpture opening this spring. This, the work on which Michelangelo based his depiction of Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling and which usually resides in the Vatican, will be a highlight.

Ilissos. Marble statue from the West pediment of the Parthenon. Designed by Phidias, Athens, Greece, 438BC-432BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

In these body-conscious times, perhaps it’s not so surprising that a fashion brand would want to launch the new HQ of its arts foundation with a celebration of classical statuary. Hence Miuccia Prada’s decision to open the new Fondazione Prada — Rem Koolhaas’s radical reinvention of a derelict, century-old distillery in Milan’s Largo Isarco — with Serial Classic (9 May–24 August). The show, curated by the distinguished archaeologist Salvatore Settis, explores ideas of imitation, multiples and editioning in Greek and Roman sculpture.

So committed to the idea of celebrating antiquity is Prada that it is staging a second, concurrent show, Portable Classic (9 May–13 September), at Ca’ Corner della Regina in Venice, which will explore miniaturisation and portability through 90 artworks. It, too, will feature versions of the Belvedere Torso: a 16th- century bronze just 20cm tall from the Bargello Museum, and a 19th-century plaster cast from the Museum of Classical Art at the Sapienza University of Rome, which is approximately the size of the original, a monumental 1.59m high.

A figure of a naked man, possibly Dionysos. Marble statue from the East pediment of the Parthenon. Designed by Phidias, Athens, Greece, 438BC-432BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Left:The bronze statuette of Ajax. Greece, 720BC-700BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum Right:Bronze vessel in the form of the head of a young African woman. Hellenistic, 2nd century BC-1st century BC. Funded by The Art Fund. © The Trustees of the British Museum

As the Vatican’s catalogue points out, the work — currently thought to depict Ajax as he contemplates suicide — was probably inspired by a bronze from the first half of the second century B.C. According to Jens Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin of the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the curators of Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (Until 21 June), this medium ‘allowed artists to impart an unprecedented level of dynamism to their full-figure statues and of naturalism to their portraits, where psychological expression became a hallmark of the style’.

Left: Marble statue of a discus-thrower (discobolus) by Myron. Roman copy of a bronze Greek original of the 5th century BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum Right: Marble statue of a naked Aphrodite crouching at her bath, also known as Lely’s Venus. Roman copy of a Greek original, 2nd century AD. Lent by Her Majesty the Queen

Left: Pottery: black-figured amphora: the death of Priam. Greek, 550BC-540BC (circa). Vulci, Lazio, Italy. © The Trustees of the British Museum Right:Marble statuette of Socrates. A Hellenistic original of the 2nd century BC, or a Roman copy, Alexandria, Egypt. © The Trustees of the British Museum

One can only wonder at how expressive the original bronze sculpture might have been, although even in marble and without its head, the Vatican Torso communicates extraordinary tension and strength, even anguish. As Michelangelo wrote of it: ‘This is the work of a man who knew more than nature.’

Belevedere Torso. Photograph © 2015 Scala, Florence

 


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Classical Sculpture: The body beautiful

Classical sculpture is the focus of a series of exhibitions this spring, one of them at the new Rem Koolhaas-designed Fondazione Prada in Milan. Claire Wrathall reports

‘This is the body people want to have,’ said Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, of the Belvedere Torso, the powerfully muscled trunk and thighs carved from marble during the first century B.C. and signed by the Athenian sculptor Apollonios. He was speaking at the launch of Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art (26 March– 5 July), one of several major surveys of classical sculpture opening this spring. This, the work on which Michelangelo based his depiction of Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling and which usually resides in the Vatican, will be a highlight.

Ilissos. Marble statue from the West pediment of the Parthenon. Designed by Phidias, Athens, Greece, 438BC-432BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

In these body-conscious times, perhaps it’s not so surprising that a fashion brand would want to launch the new HQ of its arts foundation with a celebration of classical statuary. Hence Miuccia Prada’s decision to open the new Fondazione Prada — Rem Koolhaas’s radical reinvention of a derelict, century-old distillery in Milan’s Largo Isarco — with Serial Classic (9 May–24 August). The show, curated by the distinguished archaeologist Salvatore Settis, explores ideas of imitation, multiples and editioning in Greek and Roman sculpture.

So committed to the idea of celebrating antiquity is Prada that it is staging a second, concurrent show, Portable Classic (9 May–13 September), at Ca’ Corner della Regina in Venice, which will explore miniaturisation and portability through 90 artworks. It, too, will feature versions of the Belvedere Torso: a 16th- century bronze just 20cm tall from the Bargello Museum, and a 19th-century plaster cast from the Museum of Classical Art at the Sapienza University of Rome, which is approximately the size of the original, a monumental 1.59m high.

A figure of a naked man, possibly Dionysos. Marble statue from the East pediment of the Parthenon. Designed by Phidias, Athens, Greece, 438BC-432BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Left:The bronze statuette of Ajax. Greece, 720BC-700BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum Right:Bronze vessel in the form of the head of a young African woman. Hellenistic, 2nd century BC-1st century BC. Funded by The Art Fund. © The Trustees of the British Museum

As the Vatican’s catalogue points out, the work — currently thought to depict Ajax as he contemplates suicide — was probably inspired by a bronze from the first half of the second century B.C. According to Jens Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin of the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the curators of Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence (Until 21 June), this medium ‘allowed artists to impart an unprecedented level of dynamism to their full-figure statues and of naturalism to their portraits, where psychological expression became a hallmark of the style’.

Left: Marble statue of a discus-thrower (discobolus) by Myron. Roman copy of a bronze Greek original of the 5th century BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum Right: Marble statue of a naked Aphrodite crouching at her bath, also known as Lely’s Venus. Roman copy of a Greek original, 2nd century AD. Lent by Her Majesty the Queen

Left: Pottery: black-figured amphora: the death of Priam. Greek, 550BC-540BC (circa). Vulci, Lazio, Italy. © The Trustees of the British Museum Right:Marble statuette of Socrates. A Hellenistic original of the 2nd century BC, or a Roman copy, Alexandria, Egypt. © The Trustees of the British Museum

One can only wonder at how expressive the original bronze sculpture might have been, although even in marble and without its head, the Vatican Torso communicates extraordinary tension and strength, even anguish. As Michelangelo wrote of it: ‘This is the work of a man who knew more than nature.’

Belevedere Torso. Photograph © 2015 Scala, Florence

 


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