DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.37251#0198
166
SALA DEGLI ORTI MECENAZIANI 18
Florence (Amelung, 68), known as the Arrotino or Slave sharpen-
ing his knife, is now generally accepted as having been grouped with the
red type. The Arrotino is, like the Marsyas, a work of the Pergamene
age, and, moreover, he is clearly dependent on another figure at which he
looks up. It is clear, on the other hand, that the twitching mouth of the
red Marsyas implies some external action, which is supplied by the noise
of the grinding of the flayer's knife as it strikes the wretched victim's ear,
and we may therefore accept with some confidence the group theory for
the red or Pergamene type though not, it would seem, for the earlier
white type, which is a self-contained composition. It has further been
suggested that the group involved a third figure—namely a watching
Apollo, and this figure Klein and others discover in a torso found in
Pergamon and now in Berlin (Amelung, H/., fig. 17). Schober (Ac.
rz'h), who points out that the figure seems intended for a fully frontal
view, suggests that it formed the centre of a group with Apollo seated
(type of the Pergamon-Berlin torso) on the r. and the crouching flayer
on the 1., and places the whetstone, on which the Scythian sharpens his
knife, in the exact centre immediately at the feet of Marsyas, to knit up
the composition and to account for the agonized twitching of the victim.
For the three figures Schober compares the altar in Arles, Esperandieu,
Fay-TY/A/s- Az (rzzzzA Ao77Mz'7z^, i, p. 117, no. 138. Bulle, on the other
hand (in Arndt-Amelung, 1441), and Lippold (Glyptothek Ny-Carlsberg,
p. 212) explain the variations in the red type by attributing all these
replicas to one copyist's workshop where an attempt was made to invest
the subject with fresh interest by employing a rare marble with realistic
effect. This theory, however, does not account for the twitching mouth,
only explained by the presence of the torturer.
The red Marsyas, though only known from copies, must rank as
a masterpiece surpassing the Laocoon in the intensity of its pain, which
is felt to spring from spiritual defeat as much as from dread of approach-
ing torture. The theatrical expression which in the Laocoon, as often in
the art inspired by Pergamene models, does duty for the ecstasy of
martyrdom, is absent here. The red Marsyas touches a chord of senti-
ment to which the antique rarely made appeal and betrays a sense of pity
almost unknown to pre-Christian art.
NoTE.—Since the writing of the above, Lippold (AL^zAz zzzztA AL^z'AA
2272^72, pp. 109 ff.) has put forward the theory that although the red type
is admittedly a development of the white, the white type is Pergamene
and the red late Hellenistic ; that the white type was grouped with Apollo
and the slave, and the red intended to stand singly, the twitching mouth
being introduced to suggest to the spectator the presence of a figure
which was no longer there. His conclusion rests on the imitative nature
of the red type, which he thinks unworthy of an artist responsible for such
a masterpiece as the original of the Scythian slave, on the difference in
style between the slave and the red type, and on the hypothesis that the
original of the slave was in bronze and that of the red type in ^zzzzwzzz^^/A.
To these arguments Amelung replies (letter of August 1924) that
the difference in style between the white type and the slave (which
Lippold minimizes) is just as serious as that between the slave and the
red type; but it is the red type which is characteristically Pergamene
(the white being simply Hellenistic), and we know from surviving statues
SALA DEGLI ORTI MECENAZIANI 18
Florence (Amelung, 68), known as the Arrotino or Slave sharpen-
ing his knife, is now generally accepted as having been grouped with the
red type. The Arrotino is, like the Marsyas, a work of the Pergamene
age, and, moreover, he is clearly dependent on another figure at which he
looks up. It is clear, on the other hand, that the twitching mouth of the
red Marsyas implies some external action, which is supplied by the noise
of the grinding of the flayer's knife as it strikes the wretched victim's ear,
and we may therefore accept with some confidence the group theory for
the red or Pergamene type though not, it would seem, for the earlier
white type, which is a self-contained composition. It has further been
suggested that the group involved a third figure—namely a watching
Apollo, and this figure Klein and others discover in a torso found in
Pergamon and now in Berlin (Amelung, H/., fig. 17). Schober (Ac.
rz'h), who points out that the figure seems intended for a fully frontal
view, suggests that it formed the centre of a group with Apollo seated
(type of the Pergamon-Berlin torso) on the r. and the crouching flayer
on the 1., and places the whetstone, on which the Scythian sharpens his
knife, in the exact centre immediately at the feet of Marsyas, to knit up
the composition and to account for the agonized twitching of the victim.
For the three figures Schober compares the altar in Arles, Esperandieu,
Fay-TY/A/s- Az (rzzzzA Ao77Mz'7z^, i, p. 117, no. 138. Bulle, on the other
hand (in Arndt-Amelung, 1441), and Lippold (Glyptothek Ny-Carlsberg,
p. 212) explain the variations in the red type by attributing all these
replicas to one copyist's workshop where an attempt was made to invest
the subject with fresh interest by employing a rare marble with realistic
effect. This theory, however, does not account for the twitching mouth,
only explained by the presence of the torturer.
The red Marsyas, though only known from copies, must rank as
a masterpiece surpassing the Laocoon in the intensity of its pain, which
is felt to spring from spiritual defeat as much as from dread of approach-
ing torture. The theatrical expression which in the Laocoon, as often in
the art inspired by Pergamene models, does duty for the ecstasy of
martyrdom, is absent here. The red Marsyas touches a chord of senti-
ment to which the antique rarely made appeal and betrays a sense of pity
almost unknown to pre-Christian art.
NoTE.—Since the writing of the above, Lippold (AL^zAz zzzztA AL^z'AA
2272^72, pp. 109 ff.) has put forward the theory that although the red type
is admittedly a development of the white, the white type is Pergamene
and the red late Hellenistic ; that the white type was grouped with Apollo
and the slave, and the red intended to stand singly, the twitching mouth
being introduced to suggest to the spectator the presence of a figure
which was no longer there. His conclusion rests on the imitative nature
of the red type, which he thinks unworthy of an artist responsible for such
a masterpiece as the original of the Scythian slave, on the difference in
style between the slave and the red type, and on the hypothesis that the
original of the slave was in bronze and that of the red type in ^zzzzwzzz^^/A.
To these arguments Amelung replies (letter of August 1924) that
the difference in style between the white type and the slave (which
Lippold minimizes) is just as serious as that between the slave and the
red type; but it is the red type which is characteristically Pergamene
(the white being simply Hellenistic), and we know from surviving statues