Polykleitos

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The Doryphoros of Polykleitos , an early example of classical contrapposto.

See also Polyclitus, a freedman in the service of the Roman emperor Nero.

Polykleitos (or Polyklitos, Polycleitus, Polyclitus; Greek Πολύκλειτος); called the Elder^[1] was a Greek sculptor in bronze of the fifth and the early fourth century BC. Next to famous Phidias, Myron and Kresilas, he is the most important sculptor of Classical antiquity: the fourth-century catalogue attributed to Xenocrates (the "Xenocratic catalogue"), which was Pliny's guide in matters of art, ranked him between Phidias and Myron (Stewart).

He was of the school of Argos, a contemporary of Phidias and in the opinion of the Greeks his equal. He made a figure of an Amazon for Ephesus which was regarded as superior to the Amazon of Phidias and Kresilas made at the same time; and his colossal Hera of gold and ivory which stood in her temple, the Heraion of Argos was ranked with the Zeus of Phidias. He also sculpted a famous bronze male nude, known as the Doryphoros, or spear-carrier, which survives in the form of numerous Roman copies. Further sculptures descibed as by Polykleitos are the Discophoros, Diadumenos (the "diadem-wearer") and a Hermes that was once at Lysimachia (Thrace), according to Pliny. His Astragalizontes ("Boys Playing a Knuckle-bones") was claimed by the Emperor Titus and set in a place of honour in his atrium (Pliny).

Polykleitos, along with Phidias, created the Classical Greek style. Although none of his original works survive, literary sources identifying Roman marble copies of his work allow us to reconstruct their appearance. An essential element of this style is the use of a relaxed and balanced pose, the shifted balance of weight known today as contrapposto, which offered the easy naturalness that was a source of Polykleitos' fame. Polykleitos was most famous for statues of gods and athletes cast in bronze, aside from the huge gold and ivory cult statue of the goddess Hera in the Argive Heraion.

Polykleitos consciously created a new approach to sculpture; he wrote a treatise, his Kanon, and even designed a male nude that set out his aesthetic theories by example, also called the Kanon of Polykleitos^[2]. The bronze has not survived, but references to it in other ancient books imply that its main principle was expressed by the Greek words symmetria, the Hippokratic principle of isonomia or "equilibrium" and rhythmos. "Perfection, he said, comes about little by little (para mikron) through many numbers" ^[3]. By this Polykleitos meant that a statue should be composed of clearly definable parts, all related to one another through a system of ideal mathematical proportions and balance, no doubt expressed in terms of the ratios established by Pythagoras for the perfect intervals of the musical scale: 1:2 (octave), 2:3 (harmonic fifth), and 3:4 (harmonic fourth). The refined detail of Polykleitos' models for casting executed in clay is revealed in a famous remark repeated in Plutarch's Moralia, that the work is hardest when the clay is under the fingernail (quoted in Stewart).

Polykleitos and Phidias were of the first generation of Greek sculptors to have a school of followers. The school of Polykleitos lasted for at least three generations, but it seems to have been most active in the late 300s and early 200s BC. The Roman writers Pliny and Pausanias noted the names of about twenty sculptors of Polykleitos' school, defined by their adherence to the principles of balance and definition set out by Polykleitos. Skopas and Lysippus are the best-known successors of Polykleitos.

His son, Polykleitos the Younger, worked in the fourth century BC. Although he was also a sculptor of athletes, his greatest fame was won as an architect. He designed the great theater at Epidaurus.

[edit] Notes

^ "The Elder" only in cases where it is necessary to distinguish him from his son, a minor sculptor and a major architect.
^ "...they derive the principles of their art, as if from a law of some kind, and he alone of men is deemed to have rendered art itself in a work of art." Pliny's Natural History, 34.55-6. His Kanon "got its name because it had a precise commensurability (symmetria) of all the parts to one another" Galen, De Temperamentis. The Kanon may be his Doryphoros.
^ Philo, Mechanicus, quoted in Stewart.

[edit] References

Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works Polykleitos of Argos, 16.72
Polykleitos, The J. Paul Getty Museum
Polyclitus, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: "Polyclitus"

Greek works mentioning Polykleitos include: