DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0544
LYSIPPOS' GENERAL CHARACTER. 509
((zrarius).1002 He is said to have been encouraged to undertake an artistic
career, by a remark of his celebrated fellow-countryman, the Sikyon painter
Eupompos; who, being asked which among his predecessors he had taken as his
model, pointed to a crowd gathered near at hand, and exclaimed, " Nature her-
self is to be followed, not any artist! " I003 But Lysippos did not study nature
alone; he made the works of the older-masters his study as well. Varro re-
ports of him, that he copied not the failings of the earlier men, but their best
attainments ; and Cicero says, more definitely, that he called Polycleitos' Canon
his instructor; and the fact that he worked exclusively in bronze seems to
indicate affinities with his great Peloponnesian forerunner. 10°4 But Lysippos
was an innovator in the traditional method of representing the human form.
Pliny says, that, for the further development of art, Lysippos accomplished great
things, in that he expressed the character of the hair, made the heads smaller
than the older masters, and the bodies more slender and lean, so that his stat-
ues seemed taller. " The Latin," he adds, " has no word for the symmetry which
Lysippos most carefully observed, and by which, in a new way, he changed the
square (quadrata) statues of the ancients. Of these older masters, Lysippos
used to say, that they represented man as he is, but that he himself represented
man according to his appearance; or [following another translation] as he should
be." ,005 Again, we read of the elegance of his work, and of the finenesses, even
in the least details.1006 Quintilian emphasizes his truth to nature, coupling his
name with Praxiteles; and Propertius speaks of the life-likeness, or anima, of
his works, thus using a term frequently applied also to Myron. IO°7 From being
a humble worker in metal, Lysippos advanced to the fore-front in the art-ranks
of his day, furnishing colossal statues to distant lands, and, indeed, becoming
Alexander's chosen sculptor. It is believed that his artistic career commenced
early in the century, perhaps soon after 372 B.C., when Troilos, for whom he
executed a statue, won at Olympia; but Pliny places Lysippos' prime at 328
B.C. (Olymp. U3).IooS In an epigram, he is spoken of as an aged, gray-haired
man; and late in the century, after Alexander's death, he was still employed
by the Macedonian rulers, having designed for Cassander, after the founding of
Cassandreia, 316 B.C. (Olymp. 116. 1), peculiar vases for the famous wine of the
neighborhood.100? In this long period of activity, extending over well-nigh
sixty years, he is said by Pliny to have produced more works than any other
master, and of such excellence that any one of them would have made him
celebrated.1010 The story is, that, after securing the pay for each completed
work, Lysippos laid aside from it one gold denarius; and that after his death,
when the box was broken open by his heirs, the number of pieces found was
fifteen hundred. Such incredible activity can only be accounted for by the
fact that this master worked exclusively in bronze, for which he would need to
prepare only the models, leaving their casting to his large school of assistants.
Of this army of bronze statues, many of those in Greece were removed tc
((zrarius).1002 He is said to have been encouraged to undertake an artistic
career, by a remark of his celebrated fellow-countryman, the Sikyon painter
Eupompos; who, being asked which among his predecessors he had taken as his
model, pointed to a crowd gathered near at hand, and exclaimed, " Nature her-
self is to be followed, not any artist! " I003 But Lysippos did not study nature
alone; he made the works of the older-masters his study as well. Varro re-
ports of him, that he copied not the failings of the earlier men, but their best
attainments ; and Cicero says, more definitely, that he called Polycleitos' Canon
his instructor; and the fact that he worked exclusively in bronze seems to
indicate affinities with his great Peloponnesian forerunner. 10°4 But Lysippos
was an innovator in the traditional method of representing the human form.
Pliny says, that, for the further development of art, Lysippos accomplished great
things, in that he expressed the character of the hair, made the heads smaller
than the older masters, and the bodies more slender and lean, so that his stat-
ues seemed taller. " The Latin," he adds, " has no word for the symmetry which
Lysippos most carefully observed, and by which, in a new way, he changed the
square (quadrata) statues of the ancients. Of these older masters, Lysippos
used to say, that they represented man as he is, but that he himself represented
man according to his appearance; or [following another translation] as he should
be." ,005 Again, we read of the elegance of his work, and of the finenesses, even
in the least details.1006 Quintilian emphasizes his truth to nature, coupling his
name with Praxiteles; and Propertius speaks of the life-likeness, or anima, of
his works, thus using a term frequently applied also to Myron. IO°7 From being
a humble worker in metal, Lysippos advanced to the fore-front in the art-ranks
of his day, furnishing colossal statues to distant lands, and, indeed, becoming
Alexander's chosen sculptor. It is believed that his artistic career commenced
early in the century, perhaps soon after 372 B.C., when Troilos, for whom he
executed a statue, won at Olympia; but Pliny places Lysippos' prime at 328
B.C. (Olymp. U3).IooS In an epigram, he is spoken of as an aged, gray-haired
man; and late in the century, after Alexander's death, he was still employed
by the Macedonian rulers, having designed for Cassander, after the founding of
Cassandreia, 316 B.C. (Olymp. 116. 1), peculiar vases for the famous wine of the
neighborhood.100? In this long period of activity, extending over well-nigh
sixty years, he is said by Pliny to have produced more works than any other
master, and of such excellence that any one of them would have made him
celebrated.1010 The story is, that, after securing the pay for each completed
work, Lysippos laid aside from it one gold denarius; and that after his death,
when the box was broken open by his heirs, the number of pieces found was
fifteen hundred. Such incredible activity can only be accounted for by the
fact that this master worked exclusively in bronze, for which he would need to
prepare only the models, leaving their casting to his large school of assistants.
Of this army of bronze statues, many of those in Greece were removed tc