Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient bronze sculptures comes to Getty Museum

Giacobbe Giusti, Ancient bronze sculptures comes to  Getty Museum

The Pompeii Apollo”

 

 

Kenneth Lapatin, associate curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum, gestures toward a sculpture which is part of the “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of Hellenistic World” exhibit in Los Angeles, Monday, July 27, 2015. (AP / Nick Ut)

John Rogers, The Associated Press
Published Tuesday, July 28, 2015 9:35AM EDT

LOS ANGELES — It’s almost as if the dozens of exquisitely detailed, often perfectly intact bronze sculptures on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum disappeared into an ancient witness-protection program — and decided to stay there for thousands of years.

“Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World,” which opened at the museum Tuesday, brings together more than 50 bronzes from the Hellenistic period that extended from about 323 to 31 B.C.

Many of them, like the life-size figure of an exhausted boxer, his hands still bandaged from a match, brow cut and bruised, are stunning in their detail. So is the “The Medici Riccardi Horse,” a horse’s head complete with flaring nostrils and a detailed mane. “Sleeping Eros” shows an infant sprawled out sound asleep on a pedestal. One arm is draped across the child’s chest, his tousled hair in gentle repose.

Perhaps even more stunning, however, is the fact that any of these things survived.

Thousands of such beautifully detailed bronzes were created during the Hellenistic Age. Larger works were assembled piece-by-piece and welded together by artisans working in almost assembly line fashion and displayed in both public places and the homes of the well to do.

But most, say the exhibition’s co-curators, Kenneth Lapatin and Jens Daehner, were eventually melted down and turned into something else like coins.

“We know Lysippos made 1,500 bronzes in his lifetime, but not one survives,” Lapatin said of the artist said to be Alexander the Great’s favourite sculptor. “They’ve all been melted down.”

To this day, roads, fields and other public places across Greece and much of the rest of the Mediterranean are dotted with empty stone bases where bronze statues once stood, added Daehner during a walk-through of the stunning, hilltop museum ahead of the exhibition’s opening.

Which is why you rarely see more than one or two when you visit most any museum, said J. Paul Getty Director Timothy Potts.

The nearly 60 that will be on display at the J. Paul Getty until Nov. 1 are believed to represent the largest such collection ever assembled. They have been contributed by 32 lenders from 14 countries on four continents.

“Many of these are national treasures,” Potts said. “They are the greatest works of ancient art that these nations possess. So it’s been an extraordinary act of generosity for them to be lent to us.”

Many are completely intact, so much so that several still have their eyes, made of tin and glass. The result, they can stare right back in eerie fashion at museum visitors who go to check them out.

That they survived was in most cases the result of simple good fortune on their part, if not their owners’.

“It’s only through shipwrecks, through being buried in the foundations of buildings, being buried by a volcano at Pompeii or landslides that most of these pieces have survived,” said Lapatin.

“Herm of Dionysus,” for example, was believed to have been commissioned by a wealthy Roman homeowner. The detailed work of a bearded man with hat and animated eyes was found in a shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia in 1907.

The sculpture of an athlete raising an arm in victory was uncovered in the Adriatic Sea by Italian fishermen in the 1960s.

“The Pompeii Apollo” was discovered in 1977 in the dining room of a house in Pompeii that had been buried by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

It is believed to have been used, in a very ungodlike fashion, to hold the room’s lights. That’s something that inspired Lapatin to refer to it as the equivalent of a modern-day lawn jockey.

The exhibition featuring it and the other pieces was organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It opened at the Palazzo Strozzi earlier this year. After it leaves the Getty, will go on display Dec. 6 at the National Gallery of Art.

It will also be the subject of study when the 19th International Congress on Ancient Bronzes convenes in Los Angeles in October.

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Giacobbe Giusti, Power and Pathos at the Getty Center

Giacobbe Giusti, Power and Pathos at the Getty Center

The Getty Center

Portrait of Seuthes III, about 310-300 B.C., bronze, copper, calcite, alabaster, and glass. National Institute of Archaeology with Museum, BAS. Photo: Krasimir Georgiev

GETTY CENTER

Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World

GETTY CENTER

Daily, through November 1

Exhibitions Pavilion

Free | No ticket required

During the three centuries between the reigns of Alexander the Great and Augustus, artists around the Mediterranean created innovative, realistic sculptures of physical power and emotional intensity. Bronze—with its tensile strength, reflective effects, and ability to hold the finest detail—was employed for dynamic compositions, dazzling displays of the nude body, and graphic expressions of age and character. This unprecedented international loan exhibition unites about fifty significant bronzes of the Hellenistic age.

This exhibition was organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington with the participation of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana. It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

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Giacobbe Giusti: Jens M Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin, the co-curators of Power and Pathos

Giacobbe Giusti: Jens M Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin, the co-curators of Power and Pathos

 

1. Head of Athlete Holding a Strigil (Ephebe Apoxyomenos from Ephesos),
AD 1-50. 205cm x 78.7cm x 77.5cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

 

Jens M Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin, the co-curators of Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, explain the thinking behind their stunning
new exhibition

In the winter of 2000, two bronze statues in the Berlin Antikensammlung, the so-called Praying Boy and the headless Salamis Youth, were joined by two other bronzes lent from Florence and Los Angeles, the statue of an ephebe called the Idolino and the victorious athlete known as the Getty Bronze. They had been brought to Germany to undergo scientific testing at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (Bundesanstalt für Materialprüfung, BAM), particularly CT scanning to measure and visualise the thickness of the casts. While they were there, the curators in Berlin seized the rare opportunity to display these four sculptures, two Greek and two Roman, side by side in the rotunda of the Altes Museum.

2. Bronze portrait head of a man,
1st century BC. 29.5cm x 21.6cm x 21.6cm.
The J Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection.

3. Ephebe (Idolino from Pesaro) circa 30 BC, bronze with copper inlays and lead. National Archaeological Museum, Florence.

4. Apollo-Kouros, 1st century BC to 1st century AD, bronze, copper, bone, dark stone, glass.
128cm x 33cm x 38cm.
5. The head of Apollo-Kouros.Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Pompei.

The coming together of four life-size male nudes in bronze was unprecedented, inviting direct comparison­ – exploration without scientific equipment – in which topics such as the body as rendered in bronze, various depictions of age and degrees of realism, and the Classical versus classicising, all powerfully came to the fore. The two Greek athletes from around 300 BC and the two Roman youths of the Augustan age, produced three centuries later, made a quartet framing the beginning and the end of the Hellenistic epoch, yet depicting
very much the same subject in the same medium. This temporary installation in Berlin also highlighted persistent challenges in comparing large-scale ancient bronzes: as rare survivors from antiquity, they usually exist in ‘splendid isolation’ at their home institutions, which seldom possess more than one in their collections. Such statues are usually granted a questionable status as unique masterpieces of ancient art. This means being able to see and study more than one or two bronze sculptures at a time is exceptional, but in our exhibition visitors are able to do just that.
Marble sculpture, by contrast, exists in relative abundance, filling galleries and storerooms in museums worldwide. There is a solid, highly evolved set of critical methods for comparing and making sense of marbles, based on the quantity of available specimens and centuries of perceptive experience with the medium that is shared by lay and expert viewers. An equivalent ‘toolbox’ for seeing and understanding bronze statues in direct juxtaposition does not exist, or, simply put, we lack the familiarity of seeing them side by side. This affects not only aesthetic questions such as the assessment of style, but also the interpretation of bronze-specific surface phenomena such as corrosion, intentional patinas ­– both ancient and modern – and the cleaning methods employed in earlier restorations.
One of bronze’s principal characteristics is that, like any metal, it can be melted down and reused. Ancient bronze statues therefore survive in numbers far smaller than their counterparts in more dur-able marble. In fact, with the exception of very few sculptures that seem never to have been lost and subsequently recovered, the ancient bronze images that are so greatly admired today have been preserved largely by chance – whether they were discovered accidentally or unearthed during carefully planned and executed scientific excavations. Given the law of supply and demand, the rarity of ancient bronzes has elevated their value and status. So, although scarce in museum galleries, they are prevalent both in our textbooks and in popular consciousness.
Greek and Latin literary sources and the fact that bronzes were transported as booty, but also as scrap, leave no doubt that the statues were valued. But were they valued more highly than those fashioned from other materials? Certainlynot more than images of gold and ivory, whose materials alone placed them in a different class altogether. But since the Renaissance, when scholars sought to connect surviving artefacts with works mentioned in ancient texts, bronze statues have come to be prized as ‘originals’, frequently in contrast to marble ‘copies’, and they have frequently been considered Greek rather than Roman.

6. Bronze statuette of Alexander the Great on horseback, 1st century BC. 49cm x 47cm x 29cm. National Archaeological Museum, Naples.

There are several paradoxes here: first, the devaluing of marble, which was a primary, natural, local medium for the Greeks and always had to be carved by hand. Second, and more significantly, that bronze, a material that lends itself to the serial reproduction of similar, if not identical statues through the use of moulds and the indirect lost-wax technique, should be regarded as the premier material for the creation of unique, original works of art.
Such is the allure of ancient bronzes that there has been an irresistible urge among scholars to attribute them to famous sculptors – a trend that continues to this day in an almost predictable pattern: the head of a boxer from Olympia has been attributed to Silanion; the Getty Athlete and the Terme Boxer, both to Lysippos; and the Mazara Satyr declared to be an original by Praxiteles. The latest example is the bronze version of the Apollo Sauroktonos in Cleveland, also believed by some to have been cast by Praxiteles himself, or at least by
his workshop.
Indeed, scholars hardly agree on what distinguishes a direct from an indirect casting or how to determine whether surface details were executed in the wax or as part of the cold work after casting. Yet these distinctions are often considered particularly important in the hope of establishing how original a given bronze is, and deemed crucial in any effort to find Greek sculptural ‘originals’.
The number of statue bases whose cuttings indicate that they supported bronze statues preserved in cities and sanctuaries across the Mediterranean world certainly demonstrates the popularity and status of bronze as a medium, as do their inscriptions and other ancient documents recording with varying specificity what achievements those depicted had accomplished or benefactions they had granted in order to merit such
an honour.

7. Bronze head of Apollo, 1st century BC to 1st century AD. 51cm x 40cm x 38cm. Provincial Archaeological Museum, Salerno.

But was bronze always to be preferred over marble? Surviving statues demonstrate that Hellenistic marble carvers were no less skilled than their colleagues who modelled wax and cast bronze, even if the inherent characteristics of bronze, including its greater tensile strength, allowed sculptors to achieve dramatic visual effects less readily realised in other materials. Marbles, too, were enhanced by added colour, and extreme poses could be depicted.
The truth of the matter is that throughout antiquity marble appears to have remained the preferred material for images of gods, for funerary statues, and, as we might expect, for architectural sculpture. But in the Hellenistic period, as the social currency of honorific statuary became even more important than it had been in preceding centuries, bronze became pre-eminent, and the metal contributed its own economic, mythological, and ideological qualities to its unique physical ones.
Exaggerated or not, the fact that Lysippos is credited with having made 1500 bronze statues (Pliny, Natural History, 34.37), of which not one has survived, is a cogent reminder of the known unknowns regarding bronze sculpture at the very outset of the Hellenistic period. More than a Socratic statement of ignorance, the empty statue base from Corinth – inscribed with the name of Lysippos and with cuttings for the feet of a bronze figure – emphasises not only the pervasive loss of Hellenistic bronze statuary, but also the difficulties of reconstructing the original functions of those works that have survived in secondary if not tertiary contexts such as shipwrecks, warehouses, or intentional burials. Wherever statues have escaped re-melting and recycling, the ancient markets for art and metal have often ‘interfered’ in their lives and thus complicated the record. Ironically, it is largely due to the trade in works of art – and the accidents that occurred during such transitions – that bronzes have survived at all.
The relatively small corpus of large-scale Hellenistic bronze sculptures known today has grown slowly but steadily over the past centuries. To this day, however, there is no comprehensive survey of the material, comprising physical, iconographical, and textual evidence. Despite manageable quantities of works and fragments, the obvious challenges lie in defining ‘large scale’ and identifying what belongs to the Hellenistic period, including the vexed question of what may be casts of earlier models or Roman casts after Hellenistic models.
Our exhibition, Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, features both Hellenistic works and Roman bronzes in a Hellenistic tradition, including some representative medium and small-scale examples. So it seems worthwhile to offer some historiographical perspective and mention some of the landmark discoveries that have shaped our current knowledge and understanding of Hellenistic bronze statuary.
Excavated in the 1750s, the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum has yielded the largest number of ancient bronzes ever found at a single site and almost overnight catapulted the study of bronzes from antiquarian pastime to art-historical discipline. Outnumbering the villa’s marble statuary by a ratio of almost 3:1 (63:22), the bronzes belonged to the superlative sculpture collection of late-Republican and Augustan patrons, which included statues and herm busts of gods, heroes, and athletes; portraits of rulers, citizens, and intellectuals as well as animal sculptures and small-scale fountain decorations. Many of these are replicas of opera nobilia of Classical Greek art; others, particularly some of the portraits, reproduce works of the Hellenistic period, yet there are also creations in the Archaic and Severe styles of the early 5th century BC: not actual ‘antiques’ but deliberate imitations, if not outright forgeries. The decorative programme of the villa thus encapsulates many of the aspects relevant to research into Hellenistic bronze explored in this exhibition: replication, imitation, retrospective styles, originality, and the challenges of dating, as well as the tradition of Hellenistic art in a 1st-century BC Roman context.
When two over-life-size statues, known today as the Terme Ruler and the Terme Boxer, were discovered on the Quirinal hill in 1885, it immediately became clear that they survived intact not by chance, but because they were­­ – for reasons still unknown – carefully deposited in antiquity. The find, if not the circumstances of burial, illuminates the fate of many Greek bronzes that were removed from their original locations and transferred to Italy, beginning with the Roman conquests of the Eastern Mediterranean in the mid-2nd century BC. Although we can easily imagine the Quirinal bronzes installed in a Greek sanctuary or civic space, we can only speculate about their function and display in Rome. They may have been part of the city’s collection of Greek works of art, admired by Romans much as we admire them today. In fact, nothing associates these two Greek bronzes within their new cultural context beyond their extraordinary artistic and conceptual qualities. Since the moment of their discovery, the ruler’s heroic image of power and the boxer’s graphically rendered pathos have helped crystallise in the modern mind two paramount phenomena of Hellenistic art.
Like many bronzes found underwater in the Mediterranean, the cache of statues found – on land – at Athens’ port, Piraeus, in 1959 were sculptures in transition. Packed tightly together in two crates, the five bronzes – Athena, Apollo-Kouros, two statues of Artemis, and a tragic mask – must have been destined for shipment from a warehouse in the ancient harbour that burned down in the early 1st century BC. The group highlights the existence of a vibrant market for Greek bronzes, yet how old exactly they are in this case has not been properly determined. The Apollo in Archaic style, now considered a Hellenistic creation, if not an actual Archaic bronze, is the extreme in the group, while the goddesses have been dated either on the face value of their style (with little consideration that they could be bronze copies of older works) or as contemporary casts of a single commission. Regrettably, since their discovery 56 years ago, the Piraeus bronzes have not been systematically analysed or had their casting techniques examined.
But the seductive opportunities to look inside the hollow-cast bronzes with endoscopes and through their walls with x-rays have, at least for a time, sidelined efforts to make sense of their exteriors and of the medium’s specific aesthetics. We know a lot about the chemistry of man-made alloys, minute details of casting, cold-working, and repairs, but still very little about bronze’s role in artistic development, how its use impacted style, or why it was chosen for particular subjects, genres, or iconographic categories. That bronze as an artistic medium has been studied largely from a technological point of view, perhaps more so than other metals, has to do with its complex metallurgy as a copper alloy and the sophistication of the casting process.

8. Bronze portrait head of Arsinoë III Philopator, late 3rd century to early 2nd century BC.
30cm x 20cm x 30cm. Civic Museum, Palazzo Te, Mantua.

Rarely, however, has technical or analytical data allowed us to narrow the date of a bronze sculpture beyond what could be – and mostly had been already – established on stylistic grounds. In no period of Greek and Roman art is this more apparent than in the Hellenistic age: some of the period’s signature bronze sculptures can be placed, with persuasive stylistic arguments, at various points within a 300-year window spanning the entire period, while none of the intensive scientific investigations have yielded viable arguments in favour of an earlier or later date. Like certain styles in Hellenistic sculpture, bronze-casting technologies cannot (so far) be pinned to particular phases or excluded from others within this long period. Even less so once we recognise that some artists not only imitated earlier styles but also chose old-fashioned techniques. Thus the three Hellenistic artists who left their names on lead tablets inside the Piombino Apollo fashioned their statue, basically an Archaic kouros, with copper inlays for the eyebrows – a typical treatment for Archaic bronzes – and silver inlays for the antiquated letters of the dedicatory inscription.
Either our data on the alloys and techniques of Hellenistic bronze sculpture is too limited for making better distinctions, or the casting process and other metallurgical traditions did not change all that much during the period. So unless the decision is between an actual Archaic bronze and an archaistic cast 500 years younger, many analytical test results are found to be merely ‘not inconsistent’ with a Hellenistic attribution of the object
in question.
Of course, technological and metallurgical diagnostics ought not to be reduced to the issue of chronology or authenticity: we do understand bronze sculptures better because the analytical lens allows us to comprehend how they were made. As mentioned above, this kind of manufacturing data, like simple measurements, is increasingly becoming part of the common infrastructure for the serious study of ancient bronzes. Yet the investigations could go significantly further when the methodical juxtaposition of actual works – through loans, exhibitions, or parallel conservation treatments – creates opportunities for comparative inquiries, generating and fuelling future analytical questions. In fact, some recent and current analytical explorations already go hand in hand with a new art-historical interest in the aesthetics of bronze surfaces.

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9. Herm of Dionysos (Getty Herm), from the workshop of Boëthos of Kalchedon, bronze, copper, calcitic stone, 2nd century BC. 103cm x 23.5cm x 19.5cm. The J Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection.

The challenges of chronology in Hellenistic sculpture often seem to get compounded when dealing with bronze. In our exhibition, the artworks follow only a broad chronological framework: the image of Alexander – represented not by a contemporary bronze portrait (which has not survived) but by a 1st-century BC equestrian statuette – and portraits of subsequent rulers, among which only the heads of Arsinoë III and Seuthes III of Thrace are plausibly (though not indisputably) identified and hence dated.
The subsequent thematic sections each cut across time and geography. Their topics are a blend of iconographical and aesthetic categories ­– portraiture, the body, realism, imitation, and replication – setting up a framework to correlate bronze sculpture to cultural trends, artistic tendencies, and stylistic developments in the Hellenistic age. The idea is to identify and describe phenomena specific to bronze and to bring out what bronze as a medium contributes to the period’s sculpture, be it as a vehicle for tradition or a catalyst for change. How are the expression and the expressiveness of portraits impacted by the use of bronze as opposed to marble? How do surface finishes, such as patinas or polychrome details, affect the question of realism?
Particular emphasis is placed on the aspect of replication. The one phenomenon that distinguishes bronze from other media is its reproducibility through casting. Several examples of multiple versions of the same statue are shown in the catalogue, the extraordinary case being the Apoxyomenos of the Ephesos type, for whom there are three bronze versions, all of them probably late Hellenistic or early Roman Imperial copies of a 4th-century BC athlete holding a strigil. The number of bronze replicas extant has now compelled experts to reassess that
work’s attribution.
Bringing these three bronzes together for the first time in the exhibition will provide an opportunity for comparative study, looking not only at casting and finishing techniques, but also at proportions, details, and styles in order to understand the bronzes’ relation both to one another and to their obviously famous prototype. The two herms of Dionysos, one of which is signed by the 2nd-century BC sculptor Boëthos of Kalchedon, may present a case of multiples produced by the same workshop. The evidence is less clear on this issue for the two archaistic Apollo-Kouroi from Piombino and Pompeii. Although often compared in print, till now neither of these two pairs has previously been displayed side by side.
The idealised sculptures, Idolinos such as the Florentine statue, were made around the time of Augustus, reproducing, refashioning, and sometimes mixing the severe and high-Classical styles of Greek sculpture in the 5th century BC. The Vani torso from ancient Colchis – cast in a local workshop, probably at the height of the Hellenistic period, but in the early Classical idiom of at least 300 years earlier – reminds us that Classicism and other retrospective modes of representation are neither Roman inventions nor exclusive to Italy. Established in Hellenistic art, they fed into the taste for what looks like a Greek revival at the very beginning of the Roman Empire. Bronze certainly was the material of choice that made this period an early ‘age of mechanical reproduction’.

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Giacobbe Giusti, MONTE FALTERONA, ‘IL LAGO DEGLI IDOLI’

Giacobbe Giusti, MONTE FALTERONA, Il lago degli idoli”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

votive figure; Etruscan; 425BC-400BC; Chiusi; Falterona, Mount ,  British museum

 

votive figure; Etruscan; 400BC-350BC; Italy; Falterona, Mount , British museum

 

figure-fitting; Etruscan; 420BC-400BC; Italy; Falterona, Mount , British museum

figure; Etruscan; Italy; Falterona, Mount , British museim

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?place=34986&plaA=34986-3-1

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Kouros
bronzo – h. 18 cm
Etruria, prov. Falterona – secondo quarto del V secolo a.C.
Parigi, Musée du Louvre

Parigi, Musée du Louvre 
 stipe materiale: bronzo
dimensioni: cm 14 

votiva del Falterona: offerente femminile
I bronzi degli Etruschi
Istituto Geografico De Agostini
Milano, 1985

 

FALTERONA, THE “LAKE OF IDOLS”.
“Nullus enim fons not sacer”
(Servius, ad Aen, 7, 84)
One day (in May 1838) In the woods
Monte Falterona a shepherdess saw emerge
on the shores of Lake of Ciliegeta (approximately
1,400 meters above sea level) the first piece of a
great archaeological discovery.
The shepherdess perhaps had not recognized
the bronze statue, which his hands had
extracted from the ground, Hercle (the Heracles – Hercules
classical mythology) but he understood that
it was a precious object.
Following this discovery it was organized in Stia
a society of “amateurs” local order
to organize further research.
The excavations led to the drying up
of the water and the discovery of
one of the richest in the world votive
Etruscan, he did take to the site
name “Lake of Idols”
(FORTUNA GIOVANNONI, 11 et seq .; DUCCI 2003
11 et seq.).
“In only one day on the banks it was
well found 335 bronzes and public
after other material is added, so as to
forming in a short time the exceptional
discovery of more than 600 pieces, including statues
Human complete, small heads, parts
anatomical (busts, eyes, arms, breasts,
legs, feet), animal figures, different
fibulas, some 1,000 pieces of aes rude (pieces
bronze irregular used as rudimentary
currency), a few pieces of aes signatum
(Pieces of cast bronze to form generally
ovoid with rough signs indicating the value) and
of aes grave (the very first coin form
round with figures that identify value
and origin) “, a coin, probably
Roman, portrayed with Janus and a temple,
“Over 2,000 arrowheads, several
fragments of iron weapons and pottery ”
(DUCCI 2003, 11).
These findings are not the flower
cap of some museum Tuscan.
Unfortunately, after being unnecessarily
Granducali offered Authority, the “members
researchers “got permission to sell
to third parties. The rich collection was sold in
block and cheaply. It was edited
an exhibition in December 1842 at
the German Archaeological Institute in Rome
and this is the last news we have of the
stipe complete.
At the British Museum the seven bronzes
from the Lake of Idols occupy a
place of honor; others are in the Louvre;
one in Baltimore and one bronze sheet is to
National Library in Paris (FORTUNA
GIOVANNONI, 16-18; DUCCI 2003, 13-15). The rest
dispersed who knows where, except, perhaps, those
which should be in stores
Hermitage in St Petersburg. The
recognition of the origin of some
finds it has been possible thanks to the descriptions
and drawings that had published the Micali
(1844).
The revival of interest in the lake
Idols coincided with the emergence of
so-called “archeology of the cult” in which
recent years is attracting attention
scholars, from prehistoric to pre-classic.
“The custom, probably
background ritual or votive, to throw in the waters
metallic objects of prestige or a redemption
close to them is a phenomenon that,
at least as regards Europe, it seems
involve all prehistoric societies and
protostoriche. Recent studies, in fact, reveal
that this particular rite, linked to water
(Rivers, streams, lakes, swamps, bogs) has
lasted quite long, that age
Copper (3,400 BC) comes up to the second
Iron Age (the second half of the first millennium
BC) with a peak in the late Bronze Age
(XIII – the first half of the twelfth century
A.C..). More recent surveys show,
then, that the weapons (swords, daggers, tips
spear, ax) are almost exclusive during
the Bronze Age, while towards the end of
this period and in the Iron will
or make an appearance alongside other
objects, such as pins, knives, razors, helmets,
pruning hooks, rings, bronze and pottery. ”
“The memory of this ancient
rite remains, however, with the end
of society classic. To evoke the ties
with these practices and prehistoric
protostoriche are just two examples:
Breton myth of Excalibur, the magic sword
King Arthur (now at death), which must
be thrown in the water and returned to the
Lady of the Lake; or, coming to our
time, the coins thrown into the fountain
Trevi in ​​Rome, ‘… if late and playful’ (for
In the words of the philologist Walter Burkert)
‘Sacrifice for immersion …’ “(Swans
Sun, 47-48).
In the wake of the discovery of three more
bronzes very deteriorated, in 1972 it was decided
by the then Superintendent of Antiquities
Etruria a limited test excavation under the
direction of Francesco Nicosia (Profile of a
Valley, 52). But – as we learn from your site
the City of Stia – “the gods disturbed
They expressed their impatience with a
persistent rain, despite being full
August. ”
The recent project “Lake of Idols”
He foresaw the systematic excavation with
recovery of the material omitted from the excavations
nineteenth century, the study of the site, with analysis
pollen, stratigraphic and geomorphological:
work completed in September 2006. The results,
presented at a conference held in the Poppi
the end of the same month, have shown
the Lake of Idols appears to be the stipe
Votive that returned the highest number of
findings. E ‘provided for the restoration of the mirror
water of the lake, “to offer again
that image of the visitor magical place,
that the ancient Etruscans reached with
devotion and effort “(DUCCI 2003, 18, DUCCI
2004, 6-8). The results of the excavation
2003 conducted by Luca Fedeli were
presented in the exhibition “Sanctuaries in the Etruscans
Casentino “of 2004.
The pond, still in some papers
eighteenth century seems to indicate which source
Arno, although today is referred to as
“Capo d’Arno” the source which is about 500
meters from the site; “Some scholars was
It speculated that in ancient was also considered
the source of the Tiber, since the two rivers
still united through the dense network of canals
formed the Valdichiana “(DUCCI 2003, 16;
FORTUNA GIOVANNONI, 45-48: “Falterona, and Arno
Tiber “).
The sacredness of the Falterona not drift
only from the sources but, despite the
if not excessive height of the top
compared with those mountain (1,654 meters),
from the mountain of a dominant
wide area of ​​Tuscany and neighboring regions.
Visible from the Florentine plain as
Arezzo and from which you can gaze on
a large part of the Apennine Mountains and valleys
adjacent. Near he was to pass a
Apennine road linking Etruria
internal and Etruria Padana as bronzes
found were attributed to factories
Etruscan Po Valley area, as well as Orvieto,
Umbrian and Greek (FORTUNA GIOVANNONI, 31-
36, DUCCI 2003, 14-15). Still at the end of
VII sec. B.C. Casentino was the
offshoot’s northernmost territory
Etruscan, in direct contact with two of
people who lived long ago Italy
Central: the Ligurians in the north and the east of Umbria
(DUCCI 2003 4 THE BRIDGE 1999 Profile of a
valley).
“As for the name of the mountain in
Specifically, Devoto (in ‘Studies Etruscans’, XIII,
1939, p. 311 et seq.) It considers derived from a
plural Etruscan FALTER or faltar, (…)
adds that FALTER derives his
Once a root PAL-FAL, which took
expansions in -T (FALT-, in fact), in -AT
(PALAT-, from which ‘palatium’, the ancient name
Palatino) or -AD (FALAD-, from which
‘Falado’, adaptation of a voice Etruscan
meant ‘sky’ second Festus v. M.
Pallottino, ‘Witness the tongue Etruscae’,
1968 n. 831). Also according to the Devoto, the
PAL-root / Falzone had to indicate ‘a
round shape or a shape object
unspecified which has the function of cover ‘, from
where the more specific meaning of ‘time’,
‘Dome’. The Falterona would be that ‘a
set of domes’. ”
“It ‘should be noted, however, that the current form has a
Termination (-NA) of Etruscan own (not
attested in those that would phases
according to previous language
reconstruction of Devoto) can not be excluded
namely, that the etymology today is an adaptation
min a form with that Etruscan
termination. And ‘perhaps too simplistic
think of a compound name forever from
root Falzone, ‘dome’, ‘time (blue)’ and
Truna (etymology Etruscan according Hesychius
He corresponded to greek ARKE ‘=’ power ‘,
‘Principle’) that would mean Falterona
‘Principle of heaven’? “(Fortuna in FORTUNA
GIOVANNONI, 37 n. 2).
So also in the name of the Falterona
She recalls its ties with the sacred.
“The sacredness is
their places
dark and shadowy,
in the twilight
thought it collects
and tempers
unfold according
facets of
heart.
Evocations
need
places elected and
forest, the kingdom of
darkness and silence,
It is a perfect place for
excellence.
And if the desert,
hermitage of
holy, it is the place of the truth because there
shadows are, in equal measure the wood is
place the enigma of life, where the shadows
a teeming multiplicity transform
landscape in a constant metamorphosis and
where the soul escaped the constraints of time and
Space unfolds according to natural rhythms
in a kind of empathy with nature, in violation
codes of communication usual. ”
“The forest has since ancient place
sacred and initiation. In the Celtic tradition
Druids celebrate their rites in the forest
where some trees, considered sacred, defined
spaces reserved for ceremonies. Even among
Germans the oldest sanctuaries were
probably natural woodland. In
symbolism of the forest come together two
elements: on one hand the opening towards the
sky, home of the divine, the other clear,
definition of a protected and secret,
where the rites were held. The sacredness extended
then also the cult of the trees (…). ”
“The forest is also the place where it was
kept the primordial knowledge and place
the initiation tests “(Maresca, 7).
The sacred grove is a lucus, but with lucus
etymologically he was intended to “clear”.
As also noted on the border between Dumézil
the two meanings is not absolute and
probably the passage of the meanings is
It took place in a stadium of the ancient language
(Dumézil 1989, 46). Perhaps it is good to remember that
concepts sacrum, sanctum and religiosum
They are not interchangeable. “The same can res
be ‘sacred’ as consecrated to the gods,
‘Holy’ as subject to sanction of law,
‘Religious’ as to violate it are offended
the gods “(BRIDGE 2003).
The sacred groves, although recognized
property of a god given (or not), were
under certain conditions accessible to action
profane (economic exploitation). Before
cut a part of the forest, according to the
ancient prayers handed down by Cato, the
farmer sacrificed a porco1 turning to
1 It is worth mentioning that “a requirement for the
validity of the offer and of the ritual that the
victim manifested in some way its
consent. For this reason the animal could not
be conducted in force at the altar, as this would
It represented a very bad omen for the success of
sacrifice “(SINI 2001, 200).
god or goddess of the place “anyone” 2. And for
the gods of the woods you get to talk to
“Fauns” and “sylvan” (Etruscan Selvans) to
plural forms of the ancient Latin Italic
Lord of the Animals (BRIDGE 1998 162-
163).
“Nullus lucus sine source, nullus fons
not sacer “reminds us Servius (ad Aen, 7, 84)
a natural association and sacredness
of one automatically switches to the other. But
what will be the divinity of the Lake of Idols? The
Roman calendar celebrates October 13
Fontinalia, devoted to natural sources in
which were thrown crowns and crowned the
wells, dedicated to Fons (Source) son of Janus
and Juturna (Juturna, Diuturna) (DEL PONTE
1998, 66, Dumézil 1977 339-340, Dumézil 1989
25-44, BEST 1981 14 SABBATUCCI, 29-30 and
328-329 [Which highlights, too, the link between
Fontinalia, festivity spring water, and meditrinalia,
October 11, one of the wine festivals, in their aspects
“Medicated”]). As part of Janus (I
I like to recall that the two-faced god is only
in the pantheon Latin Ianus, and in that
Etruscan Culsans), the “good owner” of the
Carmen Saliare, include sources, not
only as the father of the god-Fons and river
Tiber, for having saved Rome from
Sabine assailants doing gush before
them a hot spring them
frightened and routed them, but also because
patron of beginnings (BRIDGE 1992 and 1998
Dumézil 1977 D’ANNA).
Not taking into account these
characteristics, the currency found in Giano
pond might seem the result of
some random fact but also the spread
of hydronyms derived from the name of DIO3
It helps to prove otherwise.
Especially near the name “Mount
2 Cato, De agr. 139: Locum conlucare Roman Opinions more
sic oportet: pig piacolo facito, verba sic conceived:
“It deus, you goddess es quorum illud sacrum est, ut tibi ius
east hog piacolo illiusce sacred coercendi ergo
harumque rerum ergo, sive ego sive quis iussu meo
fecerit, uti id recte factum siet, eius rei te hoc ergo
pig piacolo immolating bonas preces precor uti sies
volens Propitius mihi, domo familiaeque meae
liberisque meis, harumce rerum ego Macte hoc porcum
piacolo immolating esto “(SINI in 1991, 114, n. 97).
3 Fatucchi A., Janus on the trail of the cult of the Sun in
Arezzo area, Arezzo S.A., cited in FORTUNA
GIOVANNONI 1989, 40 n. 5.
Gianni “vulgar corruption of the Latin” Mons
Iani “(Apparently, in fact, still in the nineteenth century cha
the location was called Monte di Giano,
although the popular mispronunciation beginning
to indicate its present name) making
conceivable “that even the patronage of
god involve the entire Monte and
considering the name of the township
casentinese the same way as the Latin oronimo
Falterona “(Profile of a valley, 105 FORTUNA
GIOVANNONI, 39-40 and relevant bibliography).
“Macrobius (1, 11) evoked, among
insights of the ancient world of investigators
archaic, one that brightly in -anscorgeva
the ‘heaven’ “recalls Semerano
referring to said component within the
names Culsans and Ianus (123). A Further
relationship between Janus and Falterona?
Excluding the currency with the two-faced god, the only
This deity is Hercules (the famous
bronze now in the British Museum and in another
now lost but played between designs
Micali, probably produced umbra)
suggesting that it was the tutelary deity
the sanctuary.
The cult of Hercules was widespread
in ancient Italy, he traveled back with
the oxen of Geryon or in search of
Garden of the Hesperides, among the various peoples of the
Saturnia Tellus (BRIDGE 2003
MASTROCINQUE 1994). “Elected deity
patron of spring water, and worshiped
as patron saint of travelers, shepherds and
merchants: the presence of images of
animals, cattle, sheep and poultry, reproduced in
miniaturization in place of the real,
suggests the protection required to
god from pastors who probably
with their flocks migrated along the pass
Apennine restaurant nearby. The remains of
numerous weapons, together with the representation
warriors and armed youths, recall
instead the request for protection by
military, which in large numbers must be
passed near the lake. Lastly, the presence
anatomical parts of the human body seems
addressing the request for a pardon or
votive offering to the god of a body part
where it could have happened a healing “(
DUCCI 2003, 16).
But Hercules was also the ancestor
“Common” of the Etruscans and Romans.
“Son of Hercules and Omphale was
Tirreno (Dion.Hal.I.28; Paus.II.21.3; Hygin., Fab.
274), or the king Tuscus (Fest., P.487 L .;
Paul.Fest., P. 486 L), founders of the Tirreni ”
(MASTROCINQUE 1993, 23). While according to
some traditions Ercole with the daughter of Fauno
begot Latino (MASTROCINQUE 1993 and 23-41
relevant bibliography). As he wrote
the scholar Giovanni Nanni Annio in bloom
humanism, Hercules would divinity
protect Arno (FORTUNA GIOVANNONI
1989, 27-28, n. 17).
We hope to see again in the coming years
in Casentino, during a show in
programming, the “Idols” Falterona
dispersed throughout the world, at least those
identified, along with the latest discoveries.
Mario Enzo Migliori

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Falterona

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Falterona

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Falterona

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Click to access 2007-MarioEnzoMigliori-FalteronaLagoDegliIdoli.pdf

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘The Dying Galatian’

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘The Dying Galatian’

The Dying Galatian[1] is a Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic work of the late 3rd century BC. Capitoline Museums, Rome.

The Dying Gaul—also called The Dying Galatian^[1] (in Italian: Galata Morente) or The Dying Gladiator—is an ancient Roman marble copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture thought to have been executed in bronze.^[2] The original may have been commissioned some time between 230 and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatians, the Celtic or Gaulish people of parts of Anatolia (modern Turkey). The identity of the sculptor of the original is unknown, but it has been suggested that Epigonus, court sculptor of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon, may have been the creator.

The copy was most commonly known as The Dying Gladiator until the 20th century, on the assumption that it depicted a wounded gladiator in a Roman amphitheatre.^[3] Scholars had identified it as a Gaul or Galatian by the mid-19th century, but it took many decades for the new title to achieve popular acceptance.

Description

The white marble statue which may have originally been painted depicts a wounded, slumping Celt with remarkable realism and pathos, particularly as regards the face. A bleeding sword puncture is visible in his lower right chest. The figure is represented as a Celtic warrior with characteristic hairstyle and moustache and has a torc around his neck. He lies on his fallen shield while his sword, belt, and a curved trumpet lie beside him. The sword hilt bears a lion head. The present base was added after its 17th-century rediscovery.

Discovery and expatriation

Back of the sculpture.

The Dying Galatian is thought to have been rediscovered in the early 17th century during some excavations for the foundations of the Villa Ludovisi, then a suburban villa in Rome. It was first recorded in a 1623 inventory of the collections of the powerful Ludovisi family. The villa was built in the area of the ancient Gardens of Sallust where, when the Ludovisi property was built over in the late 19th century, many other antiquities were discovered,^[4] most notably the “Ludovisi Throne“. By 1633 it was in the Ludovisi Palazzo Grande on the Pincio. Pope Clement XII acquired it for the Capitoline collections. It was then taken by Napoleon’s forces under the terms of the Treaty of Tolentino, and displayed with other Italian works of art in the Louvre Museum until 1816, when it was returned to Rome.

Portrayal of Celts

Detail showing his neck torc.

The statue serves both as a reminder of the Celts’ defeat, thus demonstrating the might of the people who defeated them, and a memorial to their bravery as worthy adversaries. The statue may also provide evidence to corroborate ancient accounts of the fighting style—Diodorus Siculus reported that “Some use iron breast-plates in battle, while others fight naked, trusting only in the protection which nature gives.”^[5] Polybius wrote an evocative account of Galatian tactics against a Roman army at the Battle of Telamon of 225 BC:

“The Insubres and the Boii wore trousers and light cloaks, but the Gaesatae, in their love of glory and defiant spirit, had thrown off their garments and taken up their position in front of the whole army naked and wearing nothing but their arms… The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life.”^[6]

The Roman historian Livy recorded that the Celts of Asia Minor fought naked and their wounds were plain to see on the whiteness of their bodies.^[7] The Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus regarded this as a foolish tactic: “Our enemies fight naked. What injury could their long hair, their fierce looks, their clashing arms do us? These are mere symbols of barbarian boastfulness.”^[8]

Detail showing the face, hair style and torc of the sculpture.

The depiction of this particular Galatian as naked may also have been intended to lend him the dignity of heroic nudity or pathetic nudity. It was not infrequent for Greek warriors to be likewise depicted as heroic nudes, as exemplified by the pedimental sculptures of the Temple of Aphaea at Aegina. The message conveyed by the sculpture, as H. W. Janson comments, is that “they knew how to die, barbarians that they were.”^[9]

Influence

The Dying Galatian became one of the most celebrated works to have survived from antiquity and was engraved^[10] and endlessly copied by artists, for whom it was a classic model for depiction of strong emotion, and by sculptors. It shows signs of having been repaired, with the head seemingly having been broken off at the neck, though it is unclear whether the repairs were carried out in Roman times or after the statue’s 17th century rediscovery.^[11] As discovered, the proper left leg was in three pieces. They are now pinned together with the pin concealed by the left kneecap. The Gaul’s “spiky” hair is a 17th-century reworking of longer hair found as broken upon discovery.^[12]

During this period, the statue was widely interpreted as representing a defeated gladiator, rather than a Galatian warrior. Hence it was known as the ‘Dying’ or ‘Wounded Gladiator’, ‘Roman Gladiator’, and ‘Murmillo Dying’. It has also been called the ‘Dying Trumpeter’, because one of the scattered objects lying beside the figure is a horn.

The artistic quality and expressive pathos of the statue aroused great admiration among the educated classes in the 17th and 18th centuries and was a “must-see” sight on the Grand Tour of Europe undertaken by young men of the day. Byron was one such visitor, commemorating the statue in his poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage:

I see before me the gladiator lie
He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low—
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one…^[13]

It was widely copied, with kings,^[14] academics and wealthy landowners^[15] commissioning their own reproductions of the Dying Gaul. Thomas Jefferson wanted the original or a reproduction at Monticello.^[16] The less well-off could purchase copies of the statue in miniature for use as ornaments and paperweights. Full-size plaster copies were also studied by art students.

It was requisitioned by Napoleon Bonaparte by terms of the Treaty of Campoformio (1797) during his invasion of Italy and taken in triumph to Paris, where it was put on display. The pieced was returned to Rome in 1816.^[16] From December 12, 2013 until March 16, 2014 the work was on display in the main rotunda of the west wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.. This temporary tenure marked the first time the antiquity had left Italy since it was returned in the second decade of the nineteenth century.^[16]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘Power and Pathos’

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘Power and Pathos’

 

Horse Head (“Medici
Riccardi” Horse)
Second half of the fourth century BCE
bronze
Florence, Museo Archeologico
Nazionale
This head, an original Greek work
which can be dated to between the late
Classical and early Hellenistic periods
and is part of a life size equestrian
statue, is a rare example of an ancient
bronze.
Most such items are now lost after
being melted down for metal in the
Middle Ages. The statue is known
to have formed part of Lorenzo the
Magnificent’s collection in the garden
of Palazzo Medici in Florence, though it
may formerly have belonged to Cosimo
the Elder as Donatello, who was in
charge of antiquities for the Medici

The restoration of the Horse
Head (“Medici Riccardi”
Horse) from the Museo
Archeologico Nazionale in
Florence was made possible
through the generous support
of the Friends of Florence
Foundation.

Click to access booklet-inglese-bronzi.pdf

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘KRAFT AND PATHOS:BRONZEN DER HELLENISTISCHEN WELT

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘KRAFT AND PATHOS:BRONZEN DER HELLENISTISCHEN WELT

KRAFT AND PATHOS:BRONZEN DER HELLENISTISCHEN WELT

 

Die Ausstellung im Palazzo Strozzi, erzählt die künstlerischen Entwicklungen der hellenistischen Zeit (IV-I Jahrhundert vor Christus), durch außergewöhnliche Bronzestatuen. Zu sehen sind einige der größten Meisterwerke der Antike von den wichtigsten archäologischen Museen italienischen und internationalen.

Monumentale Statuen von Göttern, Sportler und Führungskräfte sind mit Porträts historischer Persönlichkeiten gepaart, den Weg, der den Besucher in der Analyse der Produktionstechniken führen wird, Gießen und Veredelung aus Bronze und entdecken Sie die Geschichten von den Ergebnissen dieser Meisterwerke.

In sieben thematische Abschnitte unterteilt, öffnet sich die Ausstellung mit der großen Statue von Arringatore, ein Teil der Sammlung von Cosimo I. de ‘Medici und der Sockel der Statue von Lysippos, im Jahre 1901 in Korinth gefunden.

Setzt sich mit der Übersicht über die Portraits der Macht, die die Bildnisse der einflussreichsten Menschen der Zeit bietet. Ausgestellt außergewöhnliche Beispiele, wie die Figur von Alexander dem Großen zu Pferde, der Kopf-Porträt von Arsinoe III Philopator, die eines Diadochus und die einer wahrscheinlichen General.

Der vierte Abschnitt mit dem Titel “Realismus und Ausdruck” analysiert die einzelnen Porträts, die Verwendung von Inlays und Farbe, um ein natürliches Aussehen zu erhalten und betont das Pathos und andere Formen der Charakterisierung, wie wir in dem Bild des jungen Aristokraten und viele andere zu sehen Heads-Porträt männlich.

Der fünfte Abschnitt “Replicas und Mimesis”, wollen die Idee von der Kapazität der Bronze geben mehrere “Original” zu schaffen, hat in der Tat, Reproduktionen von hellenistischen Werken in den Folgeperioden, die Nachahmung der Bronze in der dunklen Stein und andere Aufbewahrungs Bronzen auf See von den in der Erde gefunden.

Der sechste Abschnitt “Divinity”, mit Werken von außergewöhnlicher Schönheit, einschließlich der Minerva Arezzo, das Medaillon mit der Büste der Athena und dem Kopf der Aphrodite.

Schließlich ist der siebte Abschnitt “Stile der Vergangenheit”, will ein neues Interesse an den archaischen und klassischen Modellen zusammen mit dem Stilmix späthellenistischen entdecken. Zu den wichtigsten Beispiele für die so genannte Idolino Pesaro und dem Apollo der Louvre in Paris.

PALAZZO STROZZI

14. März 2015 – 21. Juni 2015

 

Buchen: Made of Tuscany Reiseveranstalter Florenz

Palazzo Strozzi
Piazza Strozzi
Florence – Italie

http://de.madeoftuscany.it/de/ereignisse-florenz/kraft-and-pathosbronzen-der-hellenistischen-welt_210/#!prettyPhoto

-Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy
March 14 – June 21, 2015
http://www.palazzostrozzi.org
-J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
July 28 – November 1, 2015
http://www.getty.edu
-National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
December 6, 2015 – March 20, 2016
http://www.nga.gov
http://www.artcover.com/index.adml?id=1700&h=2
http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Puissance et Pathos

Giacobbe Giusti, Puissance et Pathos

Le Palazzo Strozzi accueille une exposition majeure intitulée majeure “Puissance et Pathos. Sculptures en bronze du monde hellénistique”, conçue et produite en collaboration avec le J. Paul Getty Museum de Los Angeles, la National Gallery of Art de Washington et de la Surintendance aux Biens Archéologiques de Toscane, la direction générale de Toscane pour l’archéologie. L’exposition présente une foule d’ exemples remarquables de la sculpture en bronze pour raconter l’histoire des développements artistiques spectaculaires de l’époque hellénistique (4ème-1er siècles av.J.-C.), lorsque de nouvelles formes d’expression ont commencé à prévaloir dans tout le bassin méditerranéen et au-delà, à cheval d’un bond extraordinaire dans l’évolution technologique pour former la première instance de la mondialisation de la langue de l’art dans le monde connu. L’utilisation de bronze, avec ses caractéristiques uniques, a permis aux artistes pour conférer un niveau de dynamisme à leurs statues en chiffre et le naturalisme sans précédent pour leurs portraits dans laquelle l’expression psychologique devenue une caractéristique du style.
L’exposition accueille certains des plus importants chefs-d’œuvre du monde antique de beaucoup de musées archéologiques leaders mondiaux

Palazzo Strozzi in Florence is hosting a major exhibition entitled Power and Pathos. Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, devised and produced in conjunction with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana, Tuscany’s directorate general for archaeology. The exhibition showcases a host of outstanding examples of bronze sculpture to tell the story of the spectacular artistic developments of the Hellenistic era (4th to 1st centuries BCE), when new forms of expression began to prevail throughout the Mediterranean basin and beyond, riding on the back of an extraordinary leap forward in technological development to form the first instance of globalisation of the language of art in the known world. The use of bronze, with its unique characteristics, allowed artists to impart an unprecedented level of dynamism to their full-figure statues and naturalism to their portraits in which psychological expression become a hallmark of the style.
The exhibition hosts some of the most important masterpieces of the ancient world from many of the world’s leading archaeological museums including the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Galleria degli Uffizi and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, the Georgian National Museum, the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the Vatican Museums. Monumental statues of gods, athletes, and heroes stand alongside portraits of historical figures to take visitors on a breathtaking journey exploring the fascinating stories of these masterpieces’ discovery, often at sea but also in the course of archaeological digs, thus setting the findings in their ancient contexts like sanctuaries, private houses, cemeteries, or public spaces.

Palazzo Strozzi
Piazza Strozzi
Florence – Italie

De 9h à 20h
Jusqu’à 23h le jeudi

-Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy
March 14 – June 21, 2015

Home

-J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
July 28 – November 1, 2015
http://www.getty.edu
-National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
December 6, 2015 – March 20, 2016
http://www.nga.gov
http://www.artcover.com/index.adml?id=1700&h=2
http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti. ‘Power and Pathos’

Giacobbe Giusti. ‘Power and Pathos’

Apollonius, Boxer at Rest, c. 100 B.C.E., bronze, Hellenistic Period (Palazzo Massimo, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome).

http://willyorwonthe.blogspot.it/2008/08/favorite-boxer.html

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Apollonius, Boxer at Rest, c. 100 B.C.E., bronze, Hellenistic Period (Palazzo Massimo, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome).

http://willyorwonthe.blogspot.it/2008/08/favorite-boxer.html

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Apollonius, Boxer at Rest, c. 100 B.C.E., bronze, Hellenistic Period (Palazzo Massimo, Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome).

http://willyorwonthe.blogspot.it/2008/08/favorite-boxer.html

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

The statue is a masterpiece of Hellenistic athletic professionalism, with a top-heavy over-muscled torso and scarred and bruised face, cauliflower ears, broken nose, and a mouth suggesting broken teeth. R.R.R. Smith believes that the statue does not show a true portrait: this is genre realism, individuality removed in favour of a generic character of “boxer”.^[2]

In 1989 both bronzes were meticulously conserved by Nikolaus Himmelmann, in preparation for their exhibition at the Akademisches Kunstmuseum in Bonn.^[3] The sculpture is soldered together from eight segments, separately cast through the lost-wax process; the joins have been filed and finished to be virtually invisible. The lips and wounds and scars about the face were originally inlaid with copper, and further copper inlays on the right shoulder, forearm, caestus and thigh represented drops and trickles of blood. The fingers and toes were worn from being rubbed by passers-by in ancient times, which has suggested that the Boxer was carefully buried to preserve its talismanic value, when the Baths were abandoned after the Goths cut the aqueducts that fed them.^[4]

The statue was displayed in the United States for the first time from June to July 2013 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as part of the “Year of Italian Culture in the United States”.^[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_at_Rest

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘Power and Pathos’

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘Power and Pathos’

The J. Paul Getty Museum

19th International Congress on Ancient Bronzes
October 13-17, 2015

J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa (top) and the Getty Center (bottom). Image in banner: Herm of Dionysos (detail), attributed to the Workshop of Boethos of Kalchedon, Greek, Asia Minor, 100-60 B.C., bronze and stone. Archaeologists, art historians, conservators, curators, scientists, and students will convene at both the Getty Villa in Malibu and the Getty Center in Brentwood to investigate the artistry, craftsmanship, production, conservation, and science of ancient bronzes. The Congress is organized to coincide with, and be energized by, the exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World on view at the Getty Center July 28 through November 1, 2015. The exhibition will provide an extraordinary opportunity to see important new finds and many of the best-known ancient bronzes displayed side-by-side for the first time. THEME Artistry in Bronze: The Greeks and their Legacy The study of large-scale ancient bronzes has long focused on aspects of technology and production. Analytical work regarding casting cores, alloys, joins, and patinas has significantly advanced our understanding of materials, processes, and techniques involved in this medium. Most recently, the restoration history of bronzes has established itself as a distinct area of investigation. How does this scholarship bear on the understanding of bronzes within the wider history of ancient art? How do these technical data relate to our ideas of styles and development? How has the material bronze affected ancient and modern perceptions of form, value, and status of works of art? CALL FOR PAPERS (CLOSED) The 2015 Congress, held in conjunction with an unprecedented exhibition of Hellenistic bronze statuary, invites presentations of new research with an emphasis on art-historical, aesthetic, and chronological issues regarding Greek bronze sculptures, as well as questions of their reception in later periods and cultural contexts, beginning with the Hellenistic and its disparate centers of bronze working. Presentations addressing other topics are also welcome. Submission process and guidelines for paper and poster presentations »

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The Getty Villa The Getty Villa is located at 17985 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, approximately 25 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. Plan your visit.The Getty Center The Getty Center is located at 1200 Getty Center Drive in Los Angeles, California, approximately 12 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Plan your visit.

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