ART 245British Museum, has sparked a long running controversy in which the Greek govern-
ment seeks their return.
Sculptures of high classicism: Polyclitus; the sculptures of the
Parthenon
Art historians call the style of the early Classical sculpture (c. 4 80–450) severe, in
contrast to the more rounded and fully three-dimensional art that followed. The
discoboulos, for example, is largely two-dimensional, allowing no proper view from
the sides. Although the straight lines of Apollo’s body make a deliberate contrast with
the other figures in the Olympian pediment and are fully naturalistic, the pose is more
rigid than is usual in the developed Classical style from about 450onwards, the great
masters of which are the Athenian Pheidias and the Argive Polyclitus.
There are more than thirty copies of the most well-known statue by Polyclitus,
the doryphoros or spear-bearer (fig. 57), testifying to its fame in antiquity. The original
was in bronze and so did not need the prop provided for the marble copy. The figure,
sometimes identified as Achilles, carries the spear in his left hand so that the left
shoulder is slightly raised. The line of the shoulders is no longer horizontal as it is in
the Critian boy (fig. 47b). In fact, the freedom and flexibility have been greatly
advanced. Polyclitus has captured a moment of pause in an attitude that expresses
movement, whether the figure is imagined to be coming to a halt or starting to walk.
The asymmetrical balance of the limbs achieved in the Critian boy is now more fully
developed and combined with a torso that is more fully responsive to the tilt of the
hips in what is the developed ‘contraposto’ pose. Artists of the Renaissance admired
this pose in the Apollo Belvedere, a Hellenistic statue discovered in 1506, the fame
and reputation of which were eclipsed with the discovery of the Elgin marbles when
they were exhibited in London in the early years of the nineteenth century. The turn
of the spear-bearer’s head completes the rhythm of the statue, making an S curve
(imagine the effect if the head were straightened or turned the other way). The
flexible pose allows pleasing views from the sides, so that the figure is more fully
rounded.
The statue was famous doubtless for its beauty, but also because it was known
to be the embodiment of the consciously conceived idea of proportion that Polyclitus
set out in a book called the Canon. Because of this, Pliny tells us, the statue itself was
called the Canon:
He made also the statue that sculptors call the Canon, from which they derive art’s
precepts as though from a code of law; for he, alone of mankind, is deemed to
have put Art’s very self into a work of Art.
(Natural History, 34, 55)