Sculptor (5th century BC)
The greatest sculptor of antiquity following Pheidias and Praxiteles, active during the 5th century BC when Athens and the whole Hellenic world experienced the golden age. He was from the city of Argos, where he had based his sculpture workshop. A favourite of the Romans, Polykleitos was hailed as a master of his craftsmanship and the man who perfected Pheidias’ art of sculpture. His name not coincidentally means “vey glorious”.
Polykleitos was a student of Pheidias and roughly 17 years younger than him. He had achieved similar fame as his teacher in his hometown for creating the frieze and marbles of the Heraion, a temple dedicated to goddess Hera. The frieze depicted the birth of Zeus, the Titanomachy and events from the Trojan War. Upon becoming a respected sculptor in all of Greece he set workshops throughout different cities and worked by commissions. He studied next to prestigious sculptors Agelas and Myron and had met and befriended Socrates and his students while in Athens.
With a few exceptions, almost all of Polykleitos’ sculptures were made of bronze. He was known as the greatest bronze sculptor of his time with his specialty being depicting young male athletes. Rather than placing emphasis on vividness of emotional expression, Polykleitos decided to perfect the symmetry and the beauty of the human body. Nowhere is this more evident than in his sculpture Doryphoros estimated to have been created in 450 BC. It depicts a young man standing on his right leg, holding a spear on his left. This statue was the most copied statue in antiquity by the Romans and was referred to as Kanon, the prototype or standard on which’s symmetry and beauty all future sculptures would be based on as Galen had pointed out that Doryphoros‘ beauty’s lies in its proportions of mathematical accuracy. Marble copies of it exist today, the most famous one being exhibited in the Museum of Naples.
As none of Polykleitos’ original bronze statues survive today, ancient writers commemorate many of his works in their writings, among them Pliny. Some of his most important works were Diadoumenos estimated to have been sculptured around 420 BC. Its marble replica in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens depicts a young athlete tying a headband around his forehead. It exhibits all the virtues that Doryphoros conveys. The statue of Hera in the the temple of Hera of Argos was the counterpart of Pheideias’ giant statue of Zeus in Olympia. This 8 meter tall statue was the only one of Polykleitos’ statues not made of bronze but instead of golden ivory. The acclaimed geographer and historian Strabo considered the statue of Hera superior in beauty to Pheideias’ statues of Zeus and Athena in Olympia and the Parthenon respectively. Similarly the statue of the Wounded Amazon was considered as the best statue that depicted an Amazon in the entire world. The statue, which was situated in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, was awarded the first prize in Ephesus with Pheidias placing second.
Cyniscus was one of the statues that embodied Polykleitos’ expertise in crafting statues of athletes. So were the statues of famed Olympian athletes Aristion, Thersilochus, Antipatros, Xenocles and Pythocles, all of which were found in Olympia. Polykleitos sculpted athletes in various positions such as the Apoxyomenos, a young athlete cleaning himself from the dust of the Pankration, and the Astragalizontes, a pair of youths playing a game with dice. Apart from athletes, the Divine was a big part of Polykleitos’ inspiration. He sculpted the statue of Heracles Hegetor (Hercules the Leader), Heracles Hydroctonus (Hercules killing the Hydra) and the marble complex featuring Apollo, Artemis and Leto in the temple of Artemis Orthia.
When Greece became occupied by the Romans, the Greek statues were seen with immense enthusiasm by the Roman aristocracy. They were collected and exhibited in their premises while multiple copies were created and sold. Polykleitos’ name was thus very common among wealthy Roman citizens; it was said that while he may not have succeeded in portraying the humans with the magnificence of the Gods as Pheidias had done, Polykleitos achieved the perfection of the human body and made it more beautiful than it is in reality.
Bibliography:
- Theophanides, B.D. Polykleitos. Helios New Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Ioannis Passas, Athens, 1946.
- Harris, B., Zucker, S., Polykleitos, Doryphosors (Spear-Bearer). Khan Academy. Accessed on June 10th, 2020. Available at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/ancient-mediterranean-ap/greece-etruria-rome/a/polykleitos-doryphoros-spear-bearer
- Συγγραφικὴ ὁμὰς τῆς Ἀργολικῆς Ἀρχειακῆς Βιβλιοθήκης. 2009. Πολύκλειτος. Ἀργολικὴ Ἀρχειακὴ Βιβλιοθήκη Ἱστορίας καὶ Πολιτισμοῦ. Argolikivivliothiki.gr.