DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52591#0297
MONUMENT OF THE THESSALIAN PRINCES 281
that no less a person than Lysippus, in whom the school
of Argos produced the greatest sculptor of the fourth century,
executed the statue of Agias. Probably the older statue
at Pharsalus was of bronze, the material which Lysippus
preferred to use, and the Agias statue at Delphi must be
regarded as a contemporary marble copy, executed by a
clever mason, but neither by Lysippus himself nor by
another of his prominent pupils. Whether the statue at
Pharsalus was also one of a gallery of ancestors we do not
know, but it is very probable. In a similar way the group
of the Macedonian royal family in the Philippeion at
Olympia was certainly a replica of that which stood in the
old Macedonian capital, Dion.
It must be put down to Homolle's credit that, before
the publication of the Pharsalus parallel, immediately after
the statue was found, he connected it with the art of Lysippus.
This connexion is now certain, and thus the analysis of the
figure becomes important.
The statue (fig. 139) is 1*97 metres in height, and well
preserved with the exception of the greater part of the right
arm and the left hand. Both knees are restored in plaster.
The head had been broken off, but fits on exactly.
Here is a nude youth, apparently in the usual contraposto
resting firmly on the right leg, while the left is bent at the
knee. And yet it is not the quiet εύρυθμία. we know in the
Doryphorus of Polycleitus, the chief work of Argive art in the
fifth century (fig. 141). There the right leg, on which the
weight rests, is like a column, strengthened above the knee
by the projecting masses of the thigh muscles which crown
the lower leg, and bear witness to the strong pressure this
side has to bear, while the left knee bends lightly at an angle,
unloaded and free. This scheme runs through the whole
body. The pelvis shifts by the right hip up and outwards,
by the left down and inwards, and from the pelvis the
arched body grows up with all its curves carefully calculated
according to the distribution of weight to the legs. Every-
thing is thought out in rhythm and surfaces, as if it were a
work of engineering, e.g. the arch of a bridge, and not a
living human body, which was the artist's object.1
1 Cp. Bulle, Der schone Mensch, p. 97.
that no less a person than Lysippus, in whom the school
of Argos produced the greatest sculptor of the fourth century,
executed the statue of Agias. Probably the older statue
at Pharsalus was of bronze, the material which Lysippus
preferred to use, and the Agias statue at Delphi must be
regarded as a contemporary marble copy, executed by a
clever mason, but neither by Lysippus himself nor by
another of his prominent pupils. Whether the statue at
Pharsalus was also one of a gallery of ancestors we do not
know, but it is very probable. In a similar way the group
of the Macedonian royal family in the Philippeion at
Olympia was certainly a replica of that which stood in the
old Macedonian capital, Dion.
It must be put down to Homolle's credit that, before
the publication of the Pharsalus parallel, immediately after
the statue was found, he connected it with the art of Lysippus.
This connexion is now certain, and thus the analysis of the
figure becomes important.
The statue (fig. 139) is 1*97 metres in height, and well
preserved with the exception of the greater part of the right
arm and the left hand. Both knees are restored in plaster.
The head had been broken off, but fits on exactly.
Here is a nude youth, apparently in the usual contraposto
resting firmly on the right leg, while the left is bent at the
knee. And yet it is not the quiet εύρυθμία. we know in the
Doryphorus of Polycleitus, the chief work of Argive art in the
fifth century (fig. 141). There the right leg, on which the
weight rests, is like a column, strengthened above the knee
by the projecting masses of the thigh muscles which crown
the lower leg, and bear witness to the strong pressure this
side has to bear, while the left knee bends lightly at an angle,
unloaded and free. This scheme runs through the whole
body. The pelvis shifts by the right hip up and outwards,
by the left down and inwards, and from the pelvis the
arched body grows up with all its curves carefully calculated
according to the distribution of weight to the legs. Every-
thing is thought out in rhythm and surfaces, as if it were a
work of engineering, e.g. the arch of a bridge, and not a
living human body, which was the artist's object.1
1 Cp. Bulle, Der schone Mensch, p. 97.