DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.37251#0076
44
SALA DEI TRIONFI 2
and bent forward with the head lowered to look closely at the foot. As
a result the face is practically invisible, except from below or from the
side : it is therefore possible that the figure was set up in antiquity upon
a base of about six feet in height, similar to those discovered on the
Acropolis of Athens, though the unsightly bulge on the lower surface of
the r. thigh near the rock is not in favour of this supposition. The skull
is round, the chin finely modelled, the mouth straight, the lips slightly
parted and dimpled at the corners. The cheeks are flat as in pre-Par-
thenon art, without any variations of surface, but the upper eyelid overlaps
the lower at the outer corner. The hair is combed down from the crown
(which is on the r. of the head and not, as normally, in the centre *) and
lies round the neck in rich curls, while above the forehead it is twisted
into a small knot and tucked under. It is rendered with minute care,
without either monotony or disordered variety: each large strand follows
a wavy course and ends in a curl, while it is subdivided by minute inci-
sions which follow the line of the larger strand and do not twist round it.
At the same time the movement of the hair in the present position of
the head defies the law of gravity in a way which has been considered
impossible in a work of the middle of the fifth century, a period to which
the statue has been referred; though in works such as the female head of
Polyclitan style in the B. M. (Waldstein in yi FA A. xxi (1901), p. 3), and
one of the bronze girls from Herculaneum (Naples, GFAA?, p. 210,
no. 847), the front curl, which passes from the parting across the fore-
head and to the side of the head in front of the ear without any attach-
ment, is equally artificial, though less obviously so.
The forms of the body are simple and young, with only slight
delineation of muscle : the chest and stomach are firm, but well covered.
The navel is barely indicated by a slight flattening of a transverse fold
with a small circle in the centre; the creases of the abdomen are natural-
istically rendered. The well-modulated surface of the back is of par-
ticular beauty, and expresses in perfection the firm smooth flesh of youth.
The arms and legs are slender ; the feet, on which the veins are not
indicated, have high insteps and are short and broad, with big and
second toes of equal length ; their shape has not the thin nervous
elegance of archaic art, but resembles that of Hellenistic works such as
FIAroA, no. 1.
Before attempting to discover the school to which the Spinario
belongs, it will first be necessary to glance at the opinions which it has
called forth. Kekule gives a rFrzwzF of the earlier criticism of the
statue in yBirA ZV/. xli (1883), pp. 229-49. The earlier critics, from
Winckelmann to Brunn, used to class it with the Boy and Goose of
Boethus as a magnificent piece of Hellenistic genre-work. Friederichs
(AaMyAz'w, i, p. 289) was the first to give it a pre-Alexandrian, and E. Q.
Visconti a pre-Lysippic date. KekuM, however, at first reverted to a late
period and attributed it, because of its supposed ^<?727*<? character, to the
school of Pasiteles working on ancient models, and this view found sup-
porters in Robert (H727M/2' (1876), p. 124), Michaelis, Auerbach, and
others, until the discoveries at Olympia afforded, it was thought, proof of
the archaic character of the type. In point of fact it had already been
1 A similar arrangement is found e.g. on the so-called Dionysns-Plato (Eumolpus ?)
of the Naples Museum (CMfiVa, p. 213, no. 857)-
SALA DEI TRIONFI 2
and bent forward with the head lowered to look closely at the foot. As
a result the face is practically invisible, except from below or from the
side : it is therefore possible that the figure was set up in antiquity upon
a base of about six feet in height, similar to those discovered on the
Acropolis of Athens, though the unsightly bulge on the lower surface of
the r. thigh near the rock is not in favour of this supposition. The skull
is round, the chin finely modelled, the mouth straight, the lips slightly
parted and dimpled at the corners. The cheeks are flat as in pre-Par-
thenon art, without any variations of surface, but the upper eyelid overlaps
the lower at the outer corner. The hair is combed down from the crown
(which is on the r. of the head and not, as normally, in the centre *) and
lies round the neck in rich curls, while above the forehead it is twisted
into a small knot and tucked under. It is rendered with minute care,
without either monotony or disordered variety: each large strand follows
a wavy course and ends in a curl, while it is subdivided by minute inci-
sions which follow the line of the larger strand and do not twist round it.
At the same time the movement of the hair in the present position of
the head defies the law of gravity in a way which has been considered
impossible in a work of the middle of the fifth century, a period to which
the statue has been referred; though in works such as the female head of
Polyclitan style in the B. M. (Waldstein in yi FA A. xxi (1901), p. 3), and
one of the bronze girls from Herculaneum (Naples, GFAA?, p. 210,
no. 847), the front curl, which passes from the parting across the fore-
head and to the side of the head in front of the ear without any attach-
ment, is equally artificial, though less obviously so.
The forms of the body are simple and young, with only slight
delineation of muscle : the chest and stomach are firm, but well covered.
The navel is barely indicated by a slight flattening of a transverse fold
with a small circle in the centre; the creases of the abdomen are natural-
istically rendered. The well-modulated surface of the back is of par-
ticular beauty, and expresses in perfection the firm smooth flesh of youth.
The arms and legs are slender ; the feet, on which the veins are not
indicated, have high insteps and are short and broad, with big and
second toes of equal length ; their shape has not the thin nervous
elegance of archaic art, but resembles that of Hellenistic works such as
FIAroA, no. 1.
Before attempting to discover the school to which the Spinario
belongs, it will first be necessary to glance at the opinions which it has
called forth. Kekule gives a rFrzwzF of the earlier criticism of the
statue in yBirA ZV/. xli (1883), pp. 229-49. The earlier critics, from
Winckelmann to Brunn, used to class it with the Boy and Goose of
Boethus as a magnificent piece of Hellenistic genre-work. Friederichs
(AaMyAz'w, i, p. 289) was the first to give it a pre-Alexandrian, and E. Q.
Visconti a pre-Lysippic date. KekuM, however, at first reverted to a late
period and attributed it, because of its supposed ^<?727*<? character, to the
school of Pasiteles working on ancient models, and this view found sup-
porters in Robert (H727M/2' (1876), p. 124), Michaelis, Auerbach, and
others, until the discoveries at Olympia afforded, it was thought, proof of
the archaic character of the type. In point of fact it had already been
1 A similar arrangement is found e.g. on the so-called Dionysns-Plato (Eumolpus ?)
of the Naples Museum (CMfiVa, p. 213, no. 857)-