Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World

"Alexander the Great on Horseback" (100-1 B.C.), Greek. Bronze and silver. Photo by Giorgio Albano

“Alexander the Great on Horseback” (100-1 B.C.), Greek. Bronze and silver. Photo by Giorgio Albano

Ancient Art, Lost and Found

Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World

If  you step up to an old bronze statue and give it a sharp rap with your knuckles it feels pretty solid, right? Even if it’s as hollow as a chocolate Easter bunny you’ll think, This baby’s gonna be around for a long time. Centuries and centuries maybe. Well, think again.

Lysippos of Sikyon was the most renowned sculptor of his day, his day being during the reign (336 to 323 BC) of Alexander the Great. It’s been said that Lysippos was responsible for 1,500 bronze sculptures but, you know what? not one remains. At least not one that scholars can point to with certainty and say, There! That’s a Lysippos!

In the catalogue for the Getty’s impressive “Power and Pathos” exhibition (through Nov. 1), a catalogue that by itself weighs as much as two or three bronze statuettes, Seán Hemingway notes that “It is clear that thousands of bronze statues circulated as war booty around the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period.” A couple of hundred pages later Claire Lyons tells us that “According to Pliny, two thousand bronze statues were plundered by Roman soldiers from the Fanum Voltumnae, the main sanctuary of the Etruscan federation, when Volsinii was sacked in 265 BC.”

From the destruction of Carthage to the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas and the ongoing dismantling of Palmyra, people – or soldiers or religious fanatics – like to blow things up. The underlying theme of loss – inescapable in the current Getty show – was also the underlying theme in their other monumental sculpture exhibition, “Cast in Bronze” (2009), which showed us what survived and what didn’t during the French Revolution.

Bronze, as a medium, is both good and bad. Good, because it can give a greater sense of realism than works in marble, but bad because it can be melted down and reused, and that’s what happened over and over during ancient and not-so-ancient times.

"Portrait of Seuthes III" (about 310-300 B.C.), Greek. Bronze, copper, calcite, alabaster, and glass. Photo by Krasimir Georgiev

“Portrait of Seuthes III” (about 310-300 B.C.), Greek. Bronze, copper, calcite, alabaster, and glass. Photo by Krasimir Georgiev

The Getty show, which contains about 50 works, is subtitled “Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World.” The Hellenistic period, following the Archaic and the Classic, ranges across three centuries, from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the reign of Emperor Augustus, or rather it “ended with the Battle of Actium in 31 BC when Octavian established the hegemony of Rome throughout the Mediterranean region” (Seán Hemingway).

The most famous Hellenistic bronze sculpture (and one of the Seven Wonders of the World) was also the largest, the 110-foot Colossus of Rhodes, created by a pupil of Lysippos named Chares of Lindos between 294 and 282 BC. Vandals didn’t knock it down, but an earthquake did just 56 years after completion. The pieces were left lying around for centuries, the fragments later sold for scrap to the Saracens who loaded up 900 camels, the caravan then disappearing in a sandstorm, or so I’d always heard, but that does sound a bit farfetched, doesn’t it? However, where those fragments ended up is anyone’s guess. Today bits and pieces of them may be in your hubcaps or wall heater.

So how is it that we have what we have today? The answer is simple: pure chance.

It seems strange to say Thank God for Vesuvius or Thank God for shipwrecks, but a statue was unlikely to be melted down if it had tumbled overboard

"Head of a Man with Kausia" (300-200 B.C.), Greek, found in the Aegean Sea near Kalynmos. Bronze, copper, glass, and stone. Image courtesy of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education, and Religious Affairs

“Head of a Man with Kausia” (300-200 B.C.), Greek, found in the Aegean Sea near Kalynmos. Bronze, copper, glass, and stone. Image courtesy of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education, and Religious Affairs

during rough weather and was lying 2,000 feet before the surface. A section of the catalogue details recent finds – from 1994 to 2009 – that were plucked from the Aegean Sea, including what is known as the Lady of Kalymnos, which resembles the Large Herculaneum Woman (formerly on loan at the Getty Villa). Another piece, pulled from the water and in the current show is the intriguing “Head of a Man with Kausia.” A kausia looks like a cross between a beret and a pancake, and is worn like a cap.

And this makes me think that as materially substantial as these works are, they’re really like ghosts dredged up through time from a long ago and lost era. A case in point – and for many visitors it will be the highlight of the show – is the “Terme Boxer” (3rd to 2nd century BC).

It’s possible, or at least possible to imagine, that the very title itself, “Power and Pathos,” derived from or was inspired by the “Terme Ruler” (power) and “Terme Boxer” (pathos), both larger-than-life statues that were discovered on the Quirinal hill in Rome in 1885. Actually, the “Terme Boxer” seems to embody both strength and vulnerability, a tired competitor now resting wearily who has pummeled and been pummeled and seems to be asking, as he looks up and around, Well, what was it all for?

Like a hard jab, the question resonates right through the ages and lands on the jaw of the viewer.

The “Terme Boxer” had been carefully placed, as if for safekeeping, in finely sifted earth, and “when first discovered,” says Seán Hemingway, “he looked as if he were just waiting to be found.” In a way, perfectly preserved, a rarity, he’s a bit of a time capsule and time traveler.

Seated Boxer, "The Terme Boxer" (300-200 B.C.), Greek, from Herculaneum. Bronze and copper. Photo: Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY

Seated Boxer, “The Terme Boxer” (300-200 B.C.), Greek, from Herculaneum. Bronze and copper. Photo: Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY

As if coming to life

Hellenistic sculpture attains something that Archaic and Classic sculpture did not, and that’s relatable human emotion or (as the other Janus head of the exhibition) pathos–pathos defined as that which in life or art evokes our pity or compassion. The classical ideal was too stiff, too iconographic, too focused on type–the perfect young athlete, the most beautiful woman, the flawless god or goddess. Generic, actually, and sterile to boot. Classical portraits were harmonious in their symmetry, but they were always impassive, stone-faced, because it was considered a sign of weakness to display an emotion.

But a gradual creeping towards a greater realism was inevitable. A passing remark late in the catalogue hits the bull’s-eye: “Realistic features and the convincing rendition of emotional states are hallmarks of Hellenistic sculpture.” Portraits of leading citizens, generals, kings, and athletes now bore some resemblance to those who were depicted. They were no longer just types.

It’s probably hard to believe, looking at these dull gray or foamy green sculptures, but bronze was the material of choice for honorific sculptures because–fresh out of the workshop, after casting residues had been scraped off and the work polished–the finished product fairly glowed and was yellow, auburn, or a golden brown (coloring varied depending on the amounts of tin or lead added to the mix).

Why they’re a far cry from that color today is due to oxidation in the open air, in which the patination turns red-brown or even black. As for those green-blue hues that collectors often prize, that’s mostly due to corrosion through being buried in the soil. Also lost for the modern audience in so many cases are the effects of other metals or the addition of stones, colored glass, or attributes (like spears or diadems) which were all in the service of making a striking visual effect on the viewer.

So what’s the best way to examine these works today? By torchlight!

First, you’ll need to pick up some firebrands at The Dollar Tree or wherever they sell them, and second you’ll need to sneak into the Getty Center at night when no one’s around or the guards are in the courtyard playing dominoes, and then you’ll need to make your way into the upstairs exhibition gallery itself. Once inside you can strike up a match and get a little flame going on your torch. Now you can stroll slowly from gallery to gallery and get a fair sense of these mighty works as if they were alive and breathing.

Tintoretto, we know, used to collect sculpture casts or small models, which he would study and draw by the light of an oil lamp in order to capture the strong shadows, but we want the more immersive experience, don’t we? and this brings to mind Goethe’s recollection of the time when, in Rome, back in 1787, he and Heinrich Meyer “made a torchlight tour of the museum of the Vatican and the Capitol, [a] memorable occasion which still floats before my mind’s eye like a beautiful, gradually fading dream.” (Italian Journey).

In the Getty at 3 a.m., no one else around. Photo

In the Getty at 3 a.m., no one else around. Photo

On the viewing of sculpture by torchlight, Meyer himself wrote that “There are several things to be said in favor of this kind of illumination: first, each work of art is seen by itself, isolated from all the others; second, in the bright light of a torch, the finer nuances of the work become more distinct, the confusing reflections (particularly annoying on highly polished statues) disappear, the shadows become more marked and the illuminated parts stand out clearer.”

That, as I mentioned, is the best way to view “Power and Pathos,” but of course I’m tugging at your leg a little, although an after-hours meander through the exhibition–with flashlights–could really be a lot of fun. Don’t you agree? But more than fun. Literally enlightening, too.

Original, or copy?

The curators, Jens Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin, tell us early in the catalogue that the exhibition “features both Hellenistic works and Roman bronzes in a Hellenistic tradition.” Those words may not seem to mean much at first, but one eventually realizes that modern day scholars have been faced with the daunting task of trying to separate originals from reproductions, imitations, and retrospective styles. The issue is largely due to “the popularity in Roman times of works attributed to Hellenistic masters” (Lapatin).

According to Christopher H. Hallett, it’s like this: Roman artists “created works that extended and varied the existing corpus of early Greek art in various ways.” That is, coming to the table a couple of centuries later, they became quasi-rivals to the ancients. “They elaborated the tradition in which they worked, in the ways in which contemporary culture wanted that tradition elaborated. They made the artistic heritage of early Greece more useful and serviceable to the aesthetic needs of the Roman present.”

Portrait of Aule Meteli, "The Arringatore" (125-100 B.C.), Greek. Bronze and copper. Image courtesy of the Soprintendenza per I Beni Archeologici della Toscana - Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Firenze

Portrait of Aule Meteli, “The Arringatore” (125-100 B.C.), Greek. Bronze and copper. Image courtesy of the Soprintendenza per I Beni Archeologici della Toscana – Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Firenze

For example, as Sophie Descamps-Lequime explains in great detail, later Greek and Roman artists patinated their new sculptures to resemble the darkened and not the original lighter polychromy of the earlier bronzes. Making something new look antiquated, we’re still doing that today.

Centuries later, it’s hard to unravel the threads. Were copies of earlier works intended as a sort of homage, or were some of these pieces simply forgeries conceived and executed with the intent of fooling a potential buyer? Also, how does the modern scholar deal with artistic forgeries from the ancient past when these forgeries have themselves become valued works of art? See, aren’t you glad you’re not a scholar of antiquities?

For all that, scholars and researchers have more and more tools at their disposal. For example, by evaluating minor and trace elements in the various alloys, they can determine whether certain sculptures were cast in the same workshop, at the same or different time, or in other workshops altogether.

Let’s go back to the beginning, to what has survived and what has disappeared. In many cases, yesterday’s scrap metal, fragments of once-whole statues, are today’s coveted finds. Many of the heads we see on view once had bodies attached to them, and vice-versa. Heads, apparently, are easy to lop off, especially when the barbarians have breached the city walls.

One of the impressive pieces on display is the Medici Ricardi horse head, which was undoubtedly part of a life-size equestrian statue. One can only imagine how splendid this work was in all its glory.

Horse head, "Medici Riccardi Horse" (second half of the fourth century B.C.), Greek. Bronze. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale

Horse head, “Medici Riccardi Horse” (second half of the fourth century B.C.), Greek. Bronze. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale

In fact, the first item we encounter as we step into the gallery is the base of a statue, but with no statue. “A bronze statue was turned into a functioning honor by its inscribed base,” R.R.R. Smith writes. “Without its inscribed base, a statue became a piece of art, often plunder, of high aesthetic value but open-ended and mute in terms of identity and purpose.”

You’ve heard the expression, “If only these stones could speak.” If only these bronze statues could tell us the stories of their creation…

The catalogue enhances the experience of the exhibition (with or without seeing it by torchlight!), although a “Synopsis for Dummies” page would have been helpful, that is to say, a glossary and a timeline for easy reference. Other than that we have plenty to mull over, and those who do so will have their lives deeply enriched.

Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World is on view through November 1 in the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. Hours, Tuesday through Friday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Free; parking $15. For more information or to learn about events related to the exhibition, call (310) 440-7300 or go to getty.edu. ER

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