Hellenistic Sculpture

Hellenistic
Sculpture
CLA 210 – Ross Scaife

Crouching Aphrodite
Cnidian Aphrodite
Roman marble copy of
original c. 250-200 BCE

4 th century Greece
• 399: Socrates sentenced to death at Athens for impiety and
corrupting the youth
• 387: Philosopher Plato writes the "Symposium"
• 384: Philosopher Aristotle born
• 359: Philip II, father of Alexander the Great, becomes regent of
Macedonia
• 351: Demosthenes delivers the first of four "Philippics" against Philip
II
• 338: Philip II defeats combined forces of Athens and Thebes
• 336: Philip II assassinated, Alexander assumes throne
• 333: Alexander defeats Persian emperor Darius at Issus
• 330: Babylon, Persepolis and Susa fall to Alexander
• 327: Alexander’s forces invade India (but later mutiny)
• 323: Death of Alexander the Great

Socrates
Aristotle
Era of protraiture
Demosthenes

Barberini Faun (Munich)
ca. 200 BCE

Satyrs (party animals)

Satyrs (ithyphallic)

Market Woman
Drunken Old Woman

The Terme Boxer
(Bronze, c. 200-50 BCE)

The Terme Boxer
(Bronze, c. 200-50 BCE)

The Terme Boxer
(Bronze, c. 200-50 BCE)

Nike of Samothrace

Nike of Samothrace
• Found in Samothrace (north Aegean), now in
Louvre, Paris.
• Likely to be Rhodian (base is of Rhodian
marble).
• Dated to ca. 190 B.C. (associated pottery).
• Probably celebrated sea victory of Rhodes v.
Antiochos IV Epiphanes (of Syria).
• Placed within an open fronted building, on a
base shaped like the prow of a ship set in
water, paved with slabs and rocks to imitate
the shore on which the victorious ship would
have landed.

Nike of
Samothrace

Nike of Samothrace
Ancient Greek marble sculpture of winged Victory (h. c. 2 m; Paris, Louvre). It may have
been made by a pupil or follower of Lysippos or Skopas and was perhaps commissioned by
Demetrios I of Macedonia between 295 and 287 bc, or it may date to c. 200 bc. It was
discovered in 1863 on the island of Samothrace during a series of excavations conducted
by Charles Champoiseau. The statue was taken to Paris, where it underwent restoration to
replace the wings and parts of the drapery, which were found in fragments. It was first
exhibited at the Musée du Louvre in the Salle des Caryatides. In 1866 another campaign of
excavations was organized on the island, but this proved fruitless. Champoiseau himself
returned to Samothrace in 1879 and found the fragments of a rostrate prow, which had
served as the pedestal of the statue. The fragments were sent to Paris, and in 1884 the
Nike, raised on the prow, was placed with great scenographic effect at the head of the
Escalier Daru, where it can still be admired. Although a later work, it has been compared to
the sculptures of the Parthenon. Much of its fame is due to its suggestive placement, which
brings out its dramatic qualities; these are perhaps emphasized by the absence of the arms
and head. Many hypotheses have been advanced concerning the position of the arms and
the objects originally held by the statue. It used to be supposed that the figure held a
trumpet or a laurel crown in the right hand. In 1950 new excavations produced fragments of
the right hand, and in the same year the thumb and part of the index finger of the same
hand were identified among some pieces found at Samothrace in 1873 and 1875 by the
Austrians and taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. These finds suggest that
the Nike was holding nothing at all in her hand, or at most a fluttering metal fillet between
the thumb and index finger. (Grove Art Online)

Laocoön

Laocoön and his sons
• Now in the Vatican, discovered in 1506 on the
Esquiline Hill in Rome.
• Dated ca. 100 CE.
• Perhaps the same statue by three Rhodian
sculptors--Hagesandros, Polydoros, and
Athenadoros, praised by Pliny (NH 36.37),
who saw it in the house of the emperor Titus.
• Shows the Trojan priest Laocoön and his two
sons, attacked at an altar by two large
serpents (for the story see Vergil, Aeneid
2.199-233).

Laocoön

Laocoön and his sons
Marble sculptural group that represents an episode recounted in Virgil's Aeneid (II.199-
231), in which a sea monster attacks the Trojan priest Laokoon and his two young sons in
front of the walls of Troy. The date and provenance of the work (Rome, Vatican, Cortile
Belvedere; h. 2.42 m) is disputed. Its identification with the Laokoon by the Rhodian
sculptors Hagesandros, Polydoros and Athenodoros, said by Pliny (Natural History
XXXVI.iv.37) to have adorned the Palace of Titus at Rome, has been questioned because
Pliny claimed that the latter was made from a single block of marble, while the extant
group is made from several. However, stylistic resemblances between the surviving group
and the sculptures in the grotto at Sperlonga actually signed by Hagesandros, Polydoros
and Athenodoros have caused many scholars to accept it as the Laokoon mentioned by
Pliny. They regard it as a work of the 1st century ad in the stylistic tradition of the
sculptures of Hellenistic Pergamon, but perhaps also inspired by statues on Rhodes. The
sculpture was discovered on 14 January 1506 in a vineyard not far from the basilica of S
Maria Maggiore in Rome, and was placed in a niche in the Cortile del Belvedere in the
Vatican. In 1797 it was moved to Paris, and later put on display in the Musée Central des
Arts until 1815; the following year it was returned to its original setting in the Vatican.
When the group was found it lacked the right arm of Laokoon and the right hands of his
sons, but during the 1530s Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli replaced the arm in terracotta,
although its position is not certain. In a copy of the group by the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli
(c. 1520-22; Florence, Uffizi) the arm is bent, as it probably was in antiquity. A terracotta
arm extending upwards, perhaps not the one by Montorsoli, remained on the sculpture
from the second half of the 16th century until it was moved to Paris. For centuries the
Laokoon enjoyed enormous fame, equal to that of the Apollo Belvedere (Rome, Vatican,
Mus. Pio-Clementino). It was not only copied by artists from the earliest days of its
discovery, but also profoundly influenced the anatomy, poses and mood of their work.
(Grove Art Online)