File:Six Greek sculptors (1915) (14596947350).jpg

Identifier: sixgreeksculptor00gard (find matches)
Title: Six Greek sculptors
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Gardner, Ernest Arthur, 1862-1939
Subjects: Sculptors Sculpture, Greek
Publisher: London : Duckworth and Co. New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
le figure and the head on a larger scale.Here we see the characteristic Polyclitan attitude in thewalking position, with the right foot advanced andfirmly planted on the ground, the left raised. But anew motive is introduced in the pillar on which the leftarm rests, though this rest hardly seems to affect thegeneral pose, and is even, perhaps, inconsistent with it.The right arm is raised and the hand touches the head,thus offering variety of composition and an excellentopportunity, as in the Diadumenus, for displaying themodelling of the chest. The head, like that of theDoryphorus, is turned towards the advanced right leg ;it is more bent than in the Doryphorus, thus resemblingthe Westmacott Athlete; but here the motive isevidently to be found in the physical exhaustion ordepression also indicated by the motive of leaningupon a support. It is not until we examine the statuemore closely that we notice a deep incised wound besidethe right breast. The Amazon is indeed standing Plate XLII
Text Appearing After Image:
HEAD OF AMAZON, IN LANSDOWNE HOUSE To fact p. 132 POLYCLITUS 133 in such a position as would strain the musclesaround the wound and so increase its pain; andit has even been suggested for this reason that thewound cannot have existed in the original, but wasintroduced into extant copies in imitation of anotherstatue which did represent a wounded Amazon. Thissuggestion can hardly be maintained, in view of theagreement of all extant copies; but it would seem thatPolyclitus, in his desire to choose a beautiful andeffective pose, has ignored the physical effect of thewound he has represented. Thus his work is in directcontrast with that of Cresilas, who was famous for hisrepresentation of a man fainting from his wounds—notto speak of his Wounded Amazon, to which we mustreturn directly—and even of Pythagoras, whose vividrendering of the Wounded Philoctetes made those whosaw it feel his pain. The contrast is probably charac-teristic both of the master and of the Argive school towhich he

Note About Images