Giacobbe Giusti, Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World

 

The J. Paul Getty Museum

Giacobbe Giusti,  Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World

Boy Removing a Thorn from His Foot, “The Spinario,” about 50 B.C., bronze and copper. Musei Capitolini, Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Sala dei Trionfi – foto Zeno Colantoni

July 28–November 1, 2015, Getty Center

During the Hellenistic period from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. until the establishment of the Roman Empire in 31 B.C., the medium of bronze drove artistic innovation. Sculptors moved beyond Classical norms, supplementing traditional subjects and idealized forms with realistic renderings of physical and emotional states. Bronze—surpassing marble with its tensile strength, reflective effects, and ability to hold fine detail—was employed for dynamic compositions, dazzling displays of the nude body, and graphic expressions of age and character.

Cast from alloys of copper, tin, lead, and other elements, bronze statues were produced in the thousands: honorific portraits of rulers and citizens populated city squares, and images of gods, heroes, and mortals crowded sanctuaries. Few, however, survive. This unprecedented exhibition unites fifty significant bronzes of the Hellenistic age. New discoveries appear with works known for centuries, and several closely related statues are presented side by side for the first time.

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.

Bank of America is the National Sponsor of this touring exhibition. The Los Angeles presentation is also supported by the Getty Museum’s Villa Council, Vera R. Campbell Foundation, and the A. G. Leventis Foundation.

http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/power_pathos/

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

 

Giacobbe Giusti, Defining beauty the body in ancient Greek art

Giacobbe Giusti, Defining beauty the body in ancient Greek art

 

 

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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. Royal Collection Trust/Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015.

 

26 March – 5 July 2015

Defining beauty: the Body in Ancient Greek Art at the British Museum gives visitors quite an eyeful

by Hugh Montgomery

Saturday 21 March 2015

From fitness magazines to dating apps, you don’t have to look far for evidence of our modern society’s obsession with the body beautiful. But for all the think-piece chatter, this veneration of the toned and chiselled is hardlya 21st-century phenomenon: get a load of those Ancient Greeks, as you can at the British Museum’s spring blockbuster exhibition Defining Beauty.

Bringing together around 150 pieces from the Museum’s own collections and beyond, it will show how, from the fifth century BC on, Greek sculptors revolutionised the representation of the human form. Channelling the humanism that was at the core of the new Athenian democracy – the idea, as Protagoras said, that “man was the measure of all things” – they sought to celebrate the human form by depicting it in a radically naturalistic but idealised state.

And in doing so, lost the clothes, of course: the Greeks’ attitude towards naked male flesh, at least, was “exceptional and unique” within the ancient world, as curator Ian Jenkins points out. Rather than maintain the traditional associations of nakedness with shame and vulnerability, they re-conceived it as heroic. “When a young man took off his clothes in the gymnasium, he wore the uniform of the righteous,” says Jenkins.

Indeed, if today’s body-beautiful culture seems predicated on envy and aspiration, the exhibition’s marble, bronze and terracotta specimens will leave visitors in rather more sublime a state, hopes Jenkins. “The Greeks placed man at the centre [of their world] and elevated him to be uniquely self-determining … and the body is the illustration of that conviction … I want [people] to come out feeling more intelligent and beautiful than when they went in,” he says.

And if that’s not incentive enough, then here, as an appetite-whetter, are six of Jenkins’s pulchritudinous highlights:

1) Figure of a River God, (circa 438-432BC) – one of the Parthenon Sculptures or ‘Elgin Marbles’

Figure of a river god, one of the ‘Elgin Marbles’ (British Museum)
I have put this first among the six, because it is a Greek original; many of the others are Roman copies. It comes from the west pediment of the Parthenon, and is thought to represent the river Ilissos. To  get a figure to fit the space of a pediment’s raking cornice, you have to make it miniature or have it recline, and once you’ve got the figure to lie, it becomes a good subject for representing water, as it “flows” into the corner. The piece has about it that shifting indefinable quality of breathing vitality; cold marble is made lissom and languid by a process of almost magical alchemy and turned into warm flesh and flowing drapery, which is then converted again into water.

2) Bronze statuette of Zeus (1st-2nd century AD)

A bronze statuette of Zeus (British Museum)
This representation of the great Lord Olympus, some 20cm high, is an extraordinary piece: macho, commanding, erotically inspiring, all the things that the male body can be. It came into the British Museum collection in the mid 19th century having been in the collection of Dominique Vivant Denon, the first director of the Louvre. It is the quality of the piece that is so remarkable: as a French commentator said at the end of the 19th century, one could imagine in this statue that it were a colossus: it has such a major impact on the eye and when you look at it close up, it looks as though the detail could only be achieved on something of a much greater scale.

3) Aphrodite crouching at her bath, aka Lely’s Venus (2nd century AD)

‘Lely’s Venus’ a Roman copy of the lost Greek original (Royal Collection Trust/Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015)
She’s a truly exceptional piece of carving and composition who represents the danger of getting too close to goddesses: the idea is that you approach her from behind and you see her broad flat back, her head looking forcefully down over her right shoulder, and her right arm reaching over her left shoulder and seeming to play with our attention and beckon us to move closer. So we do first a quarter turn, and then a three-quarter turn, but finally our expectations are denied because we do not get an intimate view of her sexual parts and instead what we get is an intimidating stare. A piece that seems at first welcoming is in fact, very threatening.

4) Marble statue of a boy athlete, aka the Westmacott Athlete (1st century AD)

The ‘Westmacott Athlete’ (British Museum)
This representation of a young athlete fulfils an idea of the beautiful male athletic body that is much spoken of in texts of the time. He is the epitome of youth: standing firm but looking away from us demurely. This is a copy of a lost Greek original from around the time of Socrates, and I like to think of him as from Plato’s Charmides, a dialogue in which a beautiful boy is admired and interrogated by Socrates, who determines that he is not only beautiful but morally sound: he is drawn even more to him because he demonstrates “charis” or grace. You can also see here how the sexuality of the athletic nude is reduced by the downsizing of the genitals – and there’s no thrusting as you find with the goal-scoring footballers of today.

5) Statuette of a veiled and masked dancer, aka the Baker Dancer (3rd-2nd century BC)

‘The Baker Dancer’ (British Museum)
This is an object which I first fell in love with when I went to The Met in New York aged 24. It’s a virtuoso, almost dazzling display of modelling, first of all in clay and then cast in bronze, of a female dancer using her drapery to suggest the body beneath, which she’s clearly very proud of. It’s a great example of the use of drapery as sexual innuendo by sculptors in a society where the depiction of the  female body was more problematic than the male.

6) The Belvedere Torso (1st century BC to 1st century AD)

The ‘Belvedere Torso’ (British Museum)
It is a privilege to have this on loan from the Vatican; it’s the first time it has travelled to the UK. This piece was much praised by Michelangelo, and inspired The Creation of Adam; when asked by the Pope to restore it, he refused on the grounds it was an inimitable work of art which, though broken, possessed the ideal principles of Greek sculpture. I think it’s probably a representation of Hercules, after his labours, awaiting divinity, though there are a few different theories – there is a suggestion that he’s Ajax – and what’s so remarkable about it is the articulation of the different planes of the body; it’s like a cubist painting by Picasso.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/defining-beauty-the-body-in-ancient-greek-art-at-the-british-museum-gives-visitors-quite-an-eyeful-10123257.html
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/past_exhibitions/2015/defining_beauty.aspx?fromShortUrl
http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Bronze Sculpture Discovered in Georgia Goes on Display in Los Angeles

Giacobbe Giusti, Bronze Sculpture Discovered in Georgia Goes on Display in Los Angeles

An ancient statue dating back to the Bronze Age and discovered in Georgia goes on a display among the ancient world’s masterpieces in Los Angeles.

After the long term collaboration of the Georgian National Museum and J. Paul Getty Museum unidentified bronze statue named Torso of a Youth dated 2nd – 1st century BC, discovered in Vani settlement, wester Georgia were available to go on a display at the exhibition in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

A major exhibition named Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World was open at the Los Angeles Getty Museum on July 28 and will last until November 1.

Before moving to Los Angeles, following exhibition was presented at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and after Getty Museum, exposition will move to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Other pieces which are exhibited at the Los Angeles Getty Museum are from world’s leading ancient museums, such are 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 Musйe du Louvre in Paris, and the Vatican Museums.

The exhibition in Los Angeles is 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 Tuscany’s directorate general for archaeology and it represents one of the largest expositions of this kind.

National Museum of Georgia is temporary housing of the statue, but as soon as Otar Lordkipanidze Vani Museum-Reserve will finish its large scale reconstruction works in 2016 the bronze torso of a youth will be returned at the original place.

 

 

 

Georgian National Museum currently takes part in one of the most important international cultural event. From 14 March to 21 June 2015, 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).

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 Musée du Louvre in Paris, the Vatican Museums and the Georgian National Museum, which  represented bronze torso of a youth dated 2nd – 1st century BC, discovered in Vani settlement (Georgia).

Participation at the exhibition is due to the long term collaboration of Georgian National Museum and J. Paul Getty Museum. After the exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi, all exponents will be showcased at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2016.

As soon as Georgian National Museum Otar Lordkipanidze Vani Museum-Reserve will finish its large scale reconstructive works, bronze torso of a youth will be returned at the original place.

http://museum.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=72&info_id=13315

http://georgiatoday.ge/news/938/Bronze-Sculpture-Discovered-in-Georgia-Goes-on-Display-in-Los-Angeles

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

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.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/ancient-bronze-sculptures-comes-to-l-a-s-getty-museum-1.2490939

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Found in the Salento Minerva Aeneid: the statue confirmed the landing of Enea

Giacobbe Giusti, Found in the Salento Minerva Aeneid: the statue confirmed the landing of Enea

 

 

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“These days the temperature reaches the threshold of 35 degrees, if not more. It is a charming place, where the Adriatic sea is the backdrop to the streets where a bright light is combined with limestone houses. A land with strong tourist, rich in culture and history. Meeting the head of the construction site, the archaeologist Amedeo Galati, on Cathedral Square and walk along the short stretch that separates the square from the site of the archaeological excavations. We are stopped a few times by locals trying to know the latest news about the findings. We feel the excitement in the country, because in those ancient stones is reliving a distant history millennia now, the time when the lands of Puglia rang the native language of the Mediterranean: the greek.

They are in Castro because again the epics are borne out in the archaeological finds. Or so it seems. An ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, would be found in Salento, where now stands Castro. That would be the “fortress with the temple of Minerva” where, in the legend told nell”Eneide ‘, Virgil placed the landing of the Trojan hero Aeneas, fleeing the city destroyed by the Achaeans.

From Book III dell”Eneide ‘, “the breezes hanker grow and become closer to open the port and the fortress appears the Temple of Minerva”.
The city, in Roman times, had its name Castrum Minervae.

Area of ​​excavations, which is near the Cathedral, spoke recently in a book, ‘Castrum Minervae’ (Farewell, Galatina 2009), Professor Francesco D’Andria, professor of archeology and director of the graduate school in classical and medieval archeology at the University of Lecce. In the text they were collected the results of excavations of 2007-2008. The current excavations, begun years ago, have recovered thanks to a project called “In the footsteps of Aeneas” and that is the implementation of an archaeological park over the area Comunale.

Just in recent weeks, the surprise. In the yard directed by the archaeologist Amedeo Galati, the important discovery of the torso, evidence of the presence on the site of a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, already in age messapica. That is the time when the South was integrated into Italian culture magnogreca.

The hypothesis that the artifact represents Athena is corroborated by the correspondence between the setting of the arms on the chest and found that observed in the iconography typical dell’Atena Iliac, the Messapian period, with a strong Eastern influence (see photo for comparison). That is confirmed by the previous discovery, always in the excavations at Castro, in town huts, a bronze statuette depicting the goddess Athena, now housed and displayed in the town museum, housed in the impressive castle, however, very well preserved.

The statuette has a Phrygian cap, a clear denunciation of inspiration iconographic Eastern. Moreover, the first settlement in the area affected by messapico gravitated Taranto, Spartan colony. Only in Roman times, the town messapica initially called – in all probability – Lik, would be renamed Castrum Minervae. The ancient name of Castro, Lik, is confirmed by the so-called map of Soleto, a fragment in black paint which is the oldest geographical map from western classical antiquity, currently preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Taranto and depicting the southern Salento. There they read clearly an indication of the Gulf of Taranto and the position of the city of Otranto (Hydruntum).

The torso found in the excavations at Castro, in town Capanne, has a size of 1.10mx0.90m, suggesting that the whole body should reach about 2.5m high, excluding the base, which are most probably attributed decorations found in the excavations.

Also carry a pretty picture of the time when the body is removed from the floor of the excavation, I had the chance to see, in their stratigraphic complexity, right next to a door of the old city, dating back to IV-III century. B.C.

Castro4- excavations

In recent days, they were also found her hand and left forearm. This gives hope that other surprising discoveries can emerge in further excavations. The history of these lands thousands of years continues to speak.

Below, an aerial image with legend of the excavations in which is found the bust attributed to the goddess Athena.”

http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2015/07/18/castro-ritrovata-la-statua-di-minerva-nella-citta-dove-approdo-enea/1882886/

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, ‘Fragmentary horse’

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘Fragmentary horse’

English: Fragmentary horse from the colossal four-horses chariot group which topped the podium of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassos. Français : Cheval fragmentaire. Faisait partie du groupe colossal du chariot à quatre chevaux qui surmontait le podium du Mausolée d’Halicarnasse.
Dimensions	H. 2.33 m (7 ft. 7 ½ in.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_at_Halicarnassus
http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘Found statue of Minerva, the mythical goddess described in the Aeneid’

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘Found  statue of Minerva, the mythical goddess described in the Aeneid’

 

 

 

An extraordinary discovery to these days in Salento. Researchers may have found the statue of Minerva, the goddess told by Virgil in the Aeneid. The statue was found in the historic center of the city of Castro, at a depth of three meters under the ground, the archaeological team led by Amedeo Galati, who for six years working on the site. History and myth intertwine again. Below is the image gallery.

The work dates back presumably to the fourth century BC and may represent the goddess Minerva, thus confirming the hypothesis of the discoverers of the find, although the format for short kilt that would assume that this is un’Artemide. In this connection it will be useful the investigations carried out in the near future, in collaboration with the Superintendence of Archaeological Heritage, the University of Salento and the City of Castro. Kept three meters from the ground to the center of Castro, the statue is devoid of the head and other anatomical details, but shows exceptional traces of purple. The continuing discoveries: archaeologists have discovered also the phalanx of a finger and arm, and we hope to find out in time the other elements missing. The measurements of the statue in its original and not damaged had to be impressive, it is estimated about 4 meters.

Crediti Fotografie: Pasquale Rizzo

The exact spot where it was found the statue

 

In addition to the historical side of the story the discovery reopens an old debate about taste location of the place that was home to the myth of Aeneas. As informs leccenews24, who is constantly following the developments on the discovery, excavation, financed by the European Union, will continue under the supervision of the University of Salento and the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage.

If that Aeneas is a legend or not does not matter, the discovery now allows us to date and circumscribe a place really existed and described more than two thousand years ago, linked to the most fascinating episodes narrated in the Aeneid: the return of the Trojan hero in Italy .

http://www.ufoonline.it/2015/07/05/statua-di-minerva-eneide/

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘Augustus’

Giacobbe Giusti, ‘Augustus’

                           

 

Augusto di Via Labicana

Portrait of Augustus as Pontifex Maximus, statue created post-12 BCE.

Because there are entire books and web sites devoted to portraits of Augustus, I have included here only the portrait most similar to Augustus’ portrait on the Ara Pacis. The image on the Ara Pacis is a relief showing Augustus in a procession, whereas the Via Labicana Augustus is a fully rounded, free-standing statue of Augustus alone. Yet both are approximately life-size portraits of the entire figure, showing Augustus in his role as Pontifex Maximus, the highest religious office, robed, his head veiled for a sacrifice. In both, his right hand is extended, possibly holding a patera, a sacrificial cup or offering plate. In both portraits, Augustus is represented in a classicising Greek style rather than with the remarkable verism of the most original Roman portraits. In both Augustus face is slightly more mature than in his most youthful portraits.

Although the carving of the body and toga are merely conventional, a standard workshop job, carved from a large block of Italian Luna marble, the head is the work of a master, one of the most refined examples of Augustan portrait carving. The head and remnant of a forearm are carved from more expensive Greek marble, giving a warmer tone to Augustus’ complexion. In comparison with  other portraits of Augustus, the head is slightly too small for the body.  In some of the photographs below, the separateness of the finely carved neck from the surrounding robe is clear.

This slightly over-life-size statue was rediscovered in 1910 on the slopes of Oppian Hill in the Via Labicana. It is now handsomely displayed in the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme of the National Museum of Rome.

Perceptive readings of this portrait in the evolution of Augustus’ portrait types are given by Galinsky (1996, pp.164-179) and Kleiner (1992).

1000 gray-scale photographs of portrait sculpture of Augustus, most of the highest professional quaity, with authoritative text and catalogue, are reproduced in Boschung, 1993.
250 some photos of “Sculpted Portraits of Augustus” are available on Joe Geranio’s photostream.

Via Labicana Augustus photo May 2010	Via Labicana Augustus photo May 2010	Via Labicana Augustus photo May 2010
Via Labicana Augustus photo May 2010	Via Labicana Augustus photo May 2010	Via Labicana Augustus photo May 2010
Typically, Augustus’ portrait has almond shaped eyes, an aquiline nose, and rounded mouth. photo May 2010	The most distinctive feature of most portraits of Augustus are the pincer-like locks on his forehead. photo May 2010	Typically, Augustus’ head is shaped from a broad cranium to a narrow chin. photo May 2010
Via Labicana Augustus photo May 2010	Via Labicana Augustus photo May 2010	Via Labicana Augustus photo May 2010

http://cdm.reed.edu/ara-pacis/altar/related-material/portrait-of-augustus/

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com

Giacobbe Giusti, Antikythera Ephebe

Giacobbe Giusti, Antikythera Ephebe

 

 

 

 

The Antikythera Ephebe is a bronze statue of a young man of languorous grace that was found in 1900 by sponge-divers in the area of the ancient Antikythera shipwreck off the island of Antikythera, Greece. It was the first of the series of Greek bronze sculptures that the Aegean and Mediterranean yielded up in the twentieth century which have fundamentally altered the modern view of Ancient Greek sculpture.^[1] The wreck site, which is dated about 70–60 BC, also yielded the Antikythera Mechanism, an astronomical calculating device, a characterful head of a Stoic philosopher, and a hoard of coins. The coins included a disproportionate quantity of Pergamene cistophoric tetradrachms and Ephesian coins, leading scholars to surmise that it had begun its journey on the Ionian coast, perhaps at Ephesus; none of its recovered cargo has been identified as from mainland Greece.^[2]

The Ephebe, which measures 1.94 meters, slightly over lifesize, was retrieved in numerous fragments. Its first restoration was revised in the 1950s, under the direction of Christos Karouzos, changing the focus of the eyes, the configuration of the abdomen, the connection between the torso and the right upper thigh and the position of the right arm; the re-restoration is universally considered a success.^[2]

                         

The Antikythera Ephebe

The Ephebe does not correspond to any familiar iconographic model, and there are no known copies of the type. He held a spherical object in his right hand,^[3] and possibly may have represented Paris presenting the Apple of Discord to Aphrodite; however, since Paris is consistently depicted cloaked and with the distinctive Phrygian cap, other scholars have suggested a beardless, youthful Heracles with the Apple of the Hesperides.^[2] It has also been suggested that the youth is a depiction of Perseus holding the head of the slain Gorgon.^[2] At any rate, the loss of the context of the Antikythera Ephebe has stripped it of its original cultural meaning.

The Ephebe, dated by its style to about 340 BC, is one of the most brilliant products of Peloponnesian bronze sculpture; the individuality and character it displays have encouraged speculation on its possible sculptor. It is, perhaps, the work of the famous sculptor Euphranor, trained in the Polyclitan tradition, who did make a sculpture of Paris, according to Pliny:

“By Euphranor is an Alexander [Paris]. This work is specially admired, because the eye can detect in it at once the judge of the goddesses, the lover of Helen, and yet the slayer of Achilles.“^[4]

The Antikythera Ephebe is conserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.^[5]

Notes

1. Other well-known underwater bronze finds have been retrieved, generally from shipwreck sites: the Mahdia shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia, 1907; the Marathon Boy off the coast of Marathon, 1925; the standing Poseidon of Cape Artemision found off Cape Artemision in northern Euboea, 1926; the horse and Rider found off Cape Artemision, 1928 and 1937; the Getty Victorious Youth found off Fano, Italy, in 1964; the Riace bronzes, found in 1972; the Dancing Satyr of Mazara del Vallo, near Brindisi, 1992; and the Apoxyomenos‘ recovered from the sea off the Croatian island of Lošinj in 1999.
2.  Myers 1999
3.  Minute fragments of bronze adhere to the fingers (Myers 1999).
4.  Natural Histories, 34.77: Euphranoris Alexander Paris est in quo laudatur quod omnia simul intelliguntur, iudex dearum, amator Helenae et tamen Achillis interfector.
5.  Inv. no. 13396.

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

http://www.giacobbegiusti.com