DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0698
66o
SCULPTURE UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
cates that Heracles is here represented; but it has been hotly discussed,
whether as fatigued and mourning over his labors, or as rejoicing at the meal
of the gods with wine-cup upraised, or as grouped with Hebe. Its massiveness
calls to mind the tremendous forms of the Pergamon giants ; but their fresh,
vigorous muscularity, and splendid rendering of skin and veins, is lacking.
YVinckelmann, to whom it was not granted to see greater works, poetically
imagined these defects to be due not to mannerism or inability, but to the
sculptor's desire to represent the hero as transfigured, —
a heavenly body, and one through whose veins blood did
not flow.
Another Apollonios, son of Archias from Athens, has
inscribed his name on a bronze bust, discovered in Hercu-
laneum, and now in Naples. This somewhat stern head,
with hair in very fine locks, was long falsely called Augus-
tus ; but, put alongside of the heads of Polycleitos' Dory-
phoros, there is no question that Apollonios has copied
that great masterpiece, inscribing his own name under-
neath. The shape of the letters gives us the age as about
the time of Augustus, when an imitative spirit must have
prevailed among Athenian masters. A Cleomenes, son
of Cleomenes, has put his name on the portrait-statue of
some Roman, perhaps a senator or speaker, which is now
in the Louvre, and is falsely called Germanicus. The
shape of the letters shows that this sculptor lived also
in the Augustan age, and had taken as his pattern an older
type of Hermes, probably as the god of eloquence, which
seems indicated by the tortoise. This statue is a lively
witness to portrait-art as practised by the Athenians in
Rome, but is frigid in its execution. One Diogenes of Athens decorated the
Pantheon with architectural sculptures about 25 B.C. ; but, according to Pliny,
being high up, they were not fully appreciated. His caryatides, however, were
prized as few other works. Several caryatides in Rome, copies of the Erechtheion
maidens, one in the Vatican restored (Fig. 269), another in the Villa Ludovisi,
and a third, neglected in a Roman palace-court, were long supposed to be the
very works by Diogenes; but this is improbable, since his works stood, as we
are told, between the pillars of the Pantheon, and hence could not have been
like these architectural supports. I25s The name of another Athenian, Anti-
ochos, is cut into the end of the mantle of a colossal Athena in the Villa
Ludovisi. The otherwise severe lines of this figure are disturbed by the re-
stored arms and parts of the helmet. That this is a copyist's work, is clear on
comparison, since it accords with other smaller replicas of Pheidias' Athena,
many of which exist in Rome in the Villa Medici, the Palazzo Borghese, Palazzo
Fig. 269. A Caryatid (.re-
stored by Ttwrwaldscn).
Vatican.
SCULPTURE UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
cates that Heracles is here represented; but it has been hotly discussed,
whether as fatigued and mourning over his labors, or as rejoicing at the meal
of the gods with wine-cup upraised, or as grouped with Hebe. Its massiveness
calls to mind the tremendous forms of the Pergamon giants ; but their fresh,
vigorous muscularity, and splendid rendering of skin and veins, is lacking.
YVinckelmann, to whom it was not granted to see greater works, poetically
imagined these defects to be due not to mannerism or inability, but to the
sculptor's desire to represent the hero as transfigured, —
a heavenly body, and one through whose veins blood did
not flow.
Another Apollonios, son of Archias from Athens, has
inscribed his name on a bronze bust, discovered in Hercu-
laneum, and now in Naples. This somewhat stern head,
with hair in very fine locks, was long falsely called Augus-
tus ; but, put alongside of the heads of Polycleitos' Dory-
phoros, there is no question that Apollonios has copied
that great masterpiece, inscribing his own name under-
neath. The shape of the letters gives us the age as about
the time of Augustus, when an imitative spirit must have
prevailed among Athenian masters. A Cleomenes, son
of Cleomenes, has put his name on the portrait-statue of
some Roman, perhaps a senator or speaker, which is now
in the Louvre, and is falsely called Germanicus. The
shape of the letters shows that this sculptor lived also
in the Augustan age, and had taken as his pattern an older
type of Hermes, probably as the god of eloquence, which
seems indicated by the tortoise. This statue is a lively
witness to portrait-art as practised by the Athenians in
Rome, but is frigid in its execution. One Diogenes of Athens decorated the
Pantheon with architectural sculptures about 25 B.C. ; but, according to Pliny,
being high up, they were not fully appreciated. His caryatides, however, were
prized as few other works. Several caryatides in Rome, copies of the Erechtheion
maidens, one in the Vatican restored (Fig. 269), another in the Villa Ludovisi,
and a third, neglected in a Roman palace-court, were long supposed to be the
very works by Diogenes; but this is improbable, since his works stood, as we
are told, between the pillars of the Pantheon, and hence could not have been
like these architectural supports. I25s The name of another Athenian, Anti-
ochos, is cut into the end of the mantle of a colossal Athena in the Villa
Ludovisi. The otherwise severe lines of this figure are disturbed by the re-
stored arms and parts of the helmet. That this is a copyist's work, is clear on
comparison, since it accords with other smaller replicas of Pheidias' Athena,
many of which exist in Rome in the Villa Medici, the Palazzo Borghese, Palazzo
Fig. 269. A Caryatid (.re-
stored by Ttwrwaldscn).
Vatican.