Polykleitos

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Polykleitos

Polykleitos (or Polyklitos, Polycleitus, Polyclitus; Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
??????e?t??); called the Elder, was a Greek

Ancient Greece

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of History of Greece lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman Republic conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth ....
sculptor

Sculpture

Sculpture is Three-dimensional space artwork created by shaping or combining hard and or plastic material, sound, and or text and or light, commonly Stone sculpture , metal, glass, or wood....
in bronze of the fifth and the early fourth century BC. Next to Phidias

Phidias

Phidias or Pheidias; ; circa 480 BC 430 BC), was a Hellenic civilization sculptor, painter and architect, who lived in the Classical Greece, in the 5th century BC, and is commonly regarded as one of the greatest of all Classical sculptors....
, Myron

Myron

Myron of Eleutherae working circa 480-440 BC, was an Athenian sculpture from the mid-fifth century BC. He was born in Eleutherae on the borders of Boeotia and Attica, Greece....
and Kresilas

Kresilas

Kresilas was a Ancient Greece sculpture from Cydonia . He lived in the 5th century BC. He worked in Athens at the time of the Peloponnesian war, as a follower of the idealistic portraiture of Myron....
, he is considered the most important sculptor of Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome....
: the fourth-century catalogue attributed to Xenocrates

Xenocrates

Xenocrates of Chalcedon was a Ancient Greece philosopher, mathematician, and leader of the Platonic Academy from 339 to 314 BC. His teachings followed those of Plato's, which he attempted to define more closely, often with mathematical elements....
(the "Xenocratic catalogue"), which was Pliny's guide in matters of art, ranked him between Phidias and Myron.

He was of the school of Argos

Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
, a contemporary of Phidias

Phidias

Ageladas

Ageladas or Hagelaidas, was a celebrated Argos sculptor, who flourished in the latter part of the 6th century BC and the early part of the 5th century BC....
) and, in the opinion of the Greeks, his equal.

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Polykleitos (or Polyklitos, Polycleitus, Polyclitus; Greek

Greek language

Ancient Greece

Sculpture

Phidias

Myron

Myron of Eleutherae working circa 480-440 BC, was an Athenian sculpture from the mid-fifth century BC. He was born in Eleutherae on the borders of Boeotia and Attica, Greece....
and Kresilas

Kresilas

Classical antiquity

Xenocrates

Argos

Argos is a city in Greece in the Peloponnese near Nafplion, which was its historic harbour, named for Nauplius ....
, a contemporary of Phidias

Phidias

Ageladas

Amazons

The Amazons , ) are a nation of all-female warriors in Classical and Greek mythology, who were possibly historical. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatians....
for Ephesus

Ephesus

Ephesus was an ancient Greek city on the west coast of Anatolia, in the region known as Ionia during the period known as Classical Greece. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League....
was regarded as superior to those by Phidias and Kresilas

Kresilas

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It is a highly sought-after precious metal, having been used as money, as a store of value, in jewelry, in sculpture, and for ornamentation since the beginning of recorded history....
and ivory

Ivory

File:Ivory decoration.jpgIvory is formed from dentine and constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals such as the elephant, hippopotamus, walrus, mammoth and narwhal....
statue of Hera

Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
which stood in her temple the Heraion of Argos

Heraion of Argos

The Heraion of Argos was the temple in the main sanctuary in the Argolid dedicated to Hera, whose epithet "Argive Hera" is familiar to readers of Homer....
was compared with the Zeus

Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
by Phidias. He also sculpted a famous bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive, but sometimes with other chemical element such as phosphorus, manganese, aluminium, or silicon....
male nude known as the Doryphoros
Doryphoros

The Doryphoros is one of the best known Ancient Greek sculpture of the classical era in Western Art and an early example of Greek classical contrapposto....
("Spear-carrier"), which survives in the form of numerous Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
copies. Further sculptures attributed to Polykleitos are the Discophoros
Discophoros

The Discophoros, also spelled Discophorus, was a bronze sculpture by the classical Greek sculptor Polyclitus , creator of the Doryphoros and Diadumenos, and its many Roman marble copies....
("Discus

Discus

Discus may refer to:*Distilled Spirits Council of the United States , the national trade association representing producers and marketers of distilled spirits sold in the United States...
-bearer"), Diadumenos
Diadumenos

The Diadumenos , together with the Doryphoros and Discophoros, are the three most famous figural types of Polyclitus , forming three basic patterns of Ancient Greek sculpture that all present strictly idealised representations of young men in a convincingly naturalistic manner....
("Diadem

Diadem

Diadem may refer to:*Diadem , a type of crownMilitary*HMS Diadem was the lead ship of the Diadem-class of protected cruiser in the Royal Navy launched in 1896...
-wearer") and a Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
at one time placed, according to Pliny, in Lysimachia (Thrace)

Lysimachia (Thrace)

Lysimachia was an important Hellenistic Greece town on the north-western extremity of the Thracian Chersonese in what is now the Turkish Thrace Turkey, not far from the bay of Melas ....
. Polykleitos' Astragalizontes ("Boys Playing a Knuckle-bones") was claimed by the Emperor Titus

Titus

Titus Flavius Vespasianus, commonly known as Titus , was a Roman Emperor who briefly reigned from 79 until his death in 81. Titus was the second emperor of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96, encompassing the reigns of Titus's father Vespasian , Titus himself and his younger brother Domitian ....
and set in a place of honour in his atrium

Atrium (architecture)

In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within an office and usually located immediately beyond the main entrance doors....
.

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 reconstructions to be made. An essential element of his and the Classical Greek style is the use of a relaxed pose with the shifted balance of weight known today as contrapposto

Contrapposto

Contrapposto is an Italian language term meaning "counterpoise" used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs....
yielding a naturalness that was a source of his fame.

Polykleitos consciously created a new approach to sculpture; he wrote a treatise (Kanon) and designed a male nude (also known as Kanon) exemplifying his aesthetic theories

Aesthetics

Aesthetics or esthetics is commonly known as the study of senses or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste ....
. 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

Hippocrates

Hippocrates of Cos II or Hippokrates of Kos - ancient Greek: ; Hippokr?tes was an Ancient Greece physician of the Age of Pericles, and was considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine....
principle of isonomia ("equilibrium"), and rhythmos. "Perfection, he said, comes about little by little (para mikron) through many numbers". 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

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
for the perfect interval

Interval (music)

In music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitch of two notes.Intervals may be described as:*vertical if the two notes sound simultaneously...
s of the musical scale

Musical scale

In music, a scale is a group of musical note collected in ascending and descending order that provides material for or is used to conveniently represent part or all of a musical work including melody and/or harmony....
: 1:2 (octave

Octave

In music, an octave The octave is occasionally referred to as a diapason.The octave above an indicated note is sometimes abbreviated 8va, and the octave below 8vb....
), 2:3 (harmonic fifth

Perfect fifth

The perfect fifth is the musical interval between a note and the note seven semitones above it on the musical scale. For example, the note G lies a perfect fifth above C; D is a perfect fifth above G, C is a perfect fifth above F, and so on....
), and 3:4 (harmonic fourth

Perfect fourth

The perfect fourth is a musical interval which spans four diatonic scale scale degree. It consists of the note and the note five semitones above it on the musical scale....
). The refined detail of Polykleitos' models for casting executed in clay is revealed in a famous remark repeated in Plutarch

Plutarch

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 ? 120 ? commonly known in English as Plutarch ? was a Ancient Rome historian , biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonism....
's Moralia, that "the work is hardest when the clay is under the fingernail".

Polykleitos and Phidias were of the first generation of Greek sculptors to have a schools of followers

School (discipline)

A school of thought is a collection or group of people who share common characteristics of opinion or outlook of a philosophy, List of academic disciplines, belief, social movement, cultural movement, or art movement....
. Polykleitos' school 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

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
and Pausanias

Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
noted the names of about twenty sculptors in Polykleitos' school, defined by their adherence to his principles of balance and definition. Skopas and Lysippus are the best-known successors of Polykleitos.

His son, Polykleitos the Younger

Polykleitos the Younger

Polykleitos the Younger was an Ancient Greece sculpture of sportsperson. His greatest achievements, however, were as an architect. A renowned sculptor, Polykleitos the Younger was architect of the Tholos at Epidaurus....
, 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

Epidaurus

Epidaurus was a small city in ancient Greece, at the Saronic Gulf. The modern town Epidavros , part of the prefecture of Argolis, was built near the ancient site....
.

Sources

Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
, Description of Greece.

Polykleitos

Sources

External links