Marble Statue of a Wounded Warrior from the Roman, Antonine Period - Term Paper Example

Marble statue of a wounded warrior from the Roman, Antonine period, c. 138-181 A.D. Study of a Work from the Metropolitan Museum of Art IntroductionThe ‘marble statue of a wounded warrior from the Roman, Antonine period, c. 138-181’ A. D. is a beautiful example of Roman reinterpretation of Greek sculpture. This piece of work is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with a second copy on display in London at The British Museum. Roman copies of Greek art are an extension of much of the mimicry in the culture of Rome that was influenced by Greek civilization. The duplication of Greek society into Roman society has helped to inform modern scholars about both civilizations. An examination of Roman copies of Greek sculptures in concern with observations about the piece has encouraged an understanding of the meaning and position of these works in the history of art.1 Through research of relevant literature and personal observation of the statue, this paper will examine the potential meanings of the work as well as explore its visual impact. The meaning of the works of sculpture that are Roman copies of Greek statues have multiple possible interpretations and meanings that allow for an observer to come to conclusions based on histories that only give small amounts of information from which larger interpretations can be made. Overview Roman copies of Greek works of sculpture are a distinctive and unique expression of art. One piece that represents this type of mimicry of Greek works is the Marble statue of a wounded warrior from the Roman, Antonine period, c. 138-181 A.D. The piece currently is part of the works that reside at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and can be viewed in Gallery 153.2 The work is textural and expressive, although a bit stiff compared with many similar pieces. The body of the sculpture is not as dynamic as some other works, nor does it suggest the intensity of movement that is a part of so many other works of the classical period. The muscles are not in motion nor is does the work give much in the way of an indication as to the theme of the work. The work does create a sense of the original artist, the mass of the male form clearly defined and the weight of his body positioned in a realistic manner. The piece was one of three figures on the east pediment of the Temple of Aphaia.3 The piece was part of an excavation of works near Rome that occurred in the early 20th century. During the early 1920s pieces of the work, specifically the head and body, were excavated near Rome and it was then acquired by Ugo Jandolo from his uncle, Alesandro Jandolo somewhere between 1924 and 1925. The piece was then acquired by the Hewitt Fund from Ugo Jandolo on April 20, 1925. It is a current member of the works associated with the Hewitt Fund and resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.4 The Metropolitan Museum of Art description states the following about the piece of work. It is asserted that there is no subject for the stature. They do, however, suggest that there was a spear in his right hand with a shield at his left arm. Early thought on the subject was that it is the Greek hero Protesilaos who was guilty of not heeding the advice of an oracle and being the first to Greek to step on to Trojan soil. The oracle had claimed the first would be the first to die in battle. The statue is a copy of a Greek bronze statue that was created in approximately 460 BCE to 450 BCE. The British Museum of London has a more complete copy that reveals that he stands on a plank that is within carved waves which are on the plinth. This suggests that perhaps the hero was coming off of the ship and about to meet the fate which had been foretold.5 This was the initial interpretation of the piece. The interpretation of the ‘story’ of the sculpture as it relates to Protesilaos is not the only story that has been related in reference to the work. After the appearance of a wound seemed to emerge under the right arm there was a re-envisioning of the work as that of Kresilas who may have been mimicking his own work of Amazons at the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.6 Pliny wrote of a work by Kresilas that was of a mortally wounded man that was copied for Roman décor and it is highly possible that this is the piece that is being referred to in Pliny’s writings.7 This is one of the wonders of the ancient art world in that pieces have no clear interpretations from the cultures and the artists, thus it is left to the study and imaginings of modern day scholars to decide how to interpret what they see in relationship to what they have discovered academically. As well, the stories that are revealed simply through looking at the work support the idea that while the truth may never be known, the importance of the work is supported by the generation of inquiries that it inspires.8 The works of Roman sculptors as they have copied those of the Greeks provide for interesting cultural studies as well as artistic experiences in which interpretation becomes a challenging experience. Roman Adaptations of Greek Sculpture The people of Rome were collecting Greek sculpture by the third century, BCE and by 146 BCE the Greek culture had become absorbed into Rome with its culture becoming a hard influence on the growing Empire. Rome could not gather enough Greek sculpture, with Delphi rumored to have been plundered of more than 500 works of art in order to feed the Roman obsession. Many of the Roman copies were constructed in Greece in order to fill the greed for Greek sculpture, much of it done in poor methods and with little respect to the original artistry. The fashion of Greek sculpture reproductions created an atmosphere in which bronze works were copied in marble and were often not supported correctly in the new medium, or were adjusted through scale in order to accommodate decorative purposes that put the pieces out of balance compared with the originals.9 The pieces were remade to work in the décor of the Romans, irrespective of the original purposes of the works. An example of how the works were sometimes perverted can be seen through a mid-fourth century BCE piece that was a representation used for worship in Greece. While the work had meaning and religious purpose in Greece, Pliny writes of a time in which the work was duplicated so that there were mirrored replications in order to fill the spaces of niches in a house in Rome built in the Imperial period.10 There are few originals left of the Greek works from which the Roman copies were made. It is interesting to note that the emergence of what might be thought of as ‘knock-offs’ in the Roman culture constitutes some of the most amazing works of art that have survived into modern history. That the Roman works are copies of the Greek works did not mean that they were not works of art in themselves. Although the meaning with which the Greek work was created was no longer intrinsically relevant to the decorative works of the Roman, they were still created through the work of notable artists.11 Gauthier discusses the idea that the mimicry with which the Romans created their works was the beginning of true realism. He discusses the idea that they created the language of reality through comedy and satire with love being revealed realistically in the sonnets of Petrarch. Roman copies of Greek statues were an extension of the discourse on reality that Rome created, the marble works some of the finest works of art created, even though they were copies of other works.12 For the Romans, the imitation of real became their natural aesthetic and an extension of their beliefs, philosophies, and culture. The path between ancient Greece and modern European idealism, which was then transferred to the United States as a form of government, was paved through the mimicry of Rome. Greek ancient culture moved in harmony with that of the Eastern cultures, the development of ideals that become the core of Western thought having been filtered through Rome.13 Emdon and Midgley state that most knowledge about Greek culture was defined through the perception of Roman antiquities, which did not change until the late eighteenth century.14 Much of the Greek culture was salvaged through the replications and extensions that Rome created through their absorption of their beliefs, art, and philosophies, developing the foundation that would survive through the Westernization process that formed European aesthetics and thought. Radnoti discusses the proposed theory that the people of Rome created the idea of cultural traditions. She states that the development of individuality links traditions while the culturally deliberate pattern of copying and replication is bound to an awareness of tradition.15 In creating copies of works in order to absorb the trappings of the Greek culture into their own, the mimicry in Rome can be seen as a blossoming of the concept of tradition. Radnoti gives to Rome the birth of the idea of tradition, their adaptations of Greek thought and influence into their own culture a way of exploring this concept. The mimicry of the art was a large part of this adaptation to Greek ideas of framing the experience of life. The Marble statue of a wounded warrior from the Roman, Antonine period, c. 138-181 A.D. is an example of this adaptation of the Greek works into Roman culture. The piece likely represents a historical theme from Greek mythologies rather than an interpretation of Roman belief systems. The fashion of Greek works incorporated into the décor of Roman homes represents both an appreciation for the work, but also an approach to the sacred without a relationship with the sacred.16 The difference can be appreciate through the example of those who wear a simple cross to represent their belief in Christ and those who wear a cross that has been made more with a more elaborate ornamentation to represent a fashion statement. One is symbolic of a relationship with the divine, where the other is symbolic or recreating the imagery of the divine for the purpose of aesthetics. This is what the marble recreations of Greek bronze works represented within the Roman world. Sculptural Theme The Metropolitan Museum of Art lists as a suggestion on their description of the piece that the originator of the sculpture from which the Marble statue of a wounded warrior from the Roman, Antonine period, c. 138-181 A.D was copied was Kresilas. Kresilas was a sculptor in 5th century BCE from Athens, Greece who came from the city of Kydonia, a colony of Aegina. It is likely that because he originated from a colony of Aegina, his work is founded from the Aeginetan school of thought, his work then evolving into the Bold Style. His themes are primarily that of men, and because Boulter disputes the idea that Kresilas created the wounded amazon sculptures of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, he has assumed that no surviving works attributed to him portray women. Due to similarities that can be found in his work, it is likely that he was a student of Onatos, further supporting the idea that he had trained in the Aeginetan School.17 While Kresilas is sometimes associated with depictions of Amazons, Boulter disputes the idea that these works belong to his hand. Most of the works that are known to be his are male warriors, with Kurtz and Sparkes asserting that there are no athletes, cult-statues, or mythological figures attributed to him so either they did not exist or they were not noteworthy enough that writing about them would exist.18 Pliny, however, wrote that the wounded amazons of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus were done by different sculptors who competed for which of them was the best. The third place is attributed to Kresilas, thus a clear suggestion that one of the wounded statues was his work, also meaning that there is an indication that a female representation was the subject of at least one of his works.19 Comparing the marble statue of a wounded warrior to that of the Amazons creates a startling similarity between the positioning of the figure in the works. The right arm is up, exposing the armpit where the wounds on the Amazons just as was found on the male figure. Despite stating that no cult-worship or mythological figures have been associated with Kresilas, the meaning of the wound can be associated with the worship of Artemis. On the Amazons, the wounds associate them as having been injured in a battle, but it may be more accurately put into context as the wounds are associated with bloodshed, which is ritualistically given as the domain of Artemis.20 These figures can be reinterpreted as women who worshipped Artemis, the shedding of their blood through a ritualized repetition of the same wound on all of the statues representing some form of devotion to the goddess.21 All of the women wear the same form of dress and the weapons might be associated with a dance where the weapons are used as a part of the ritualized elements of worshipping Artemis.22 Observing the Piece Gazda writes that the Roman copy distracts the academic from the work of the Roman period and often disallows the idea that it survives as representative of the culture of Rome rather than merely a copy of Greek aesthetics.23 In looking at the ‘Marble statue of a wounded warrior from the Roman, Antonine period, c. 138-181 A.D, one can see a great number of details that are indicative of both the period of Roman art and the artist. The repose of the figure, the way in which the muscles are specifically not dynamically engaged suggests that the piece is sedated, either the figure responding to the wound or the artist not effectively engaging the world around the figure in an aggressive manner. The moment can be interrupted as the pause before action, his facial expression commanding attention, even in a gallery full of impressive works; this one dominates the space with a demeanor that is full of interpretive choices. The marble is rife with texture, due to its age and the damage that has pitted the surface and the erosion that has taken away the paint that most likely covered the work.24 The light where it sits is warm, similar to the light of Italy as it filters onto the world through amber glows, tones of olive somewhat visible somewhere in the peripheral. The large space in the Metropolitan Museum of Art where the piece resides balances the weight of the piece where a smaller space would overwhelm the viewer through the large scale. The work is just outside of life sized, the male figure looming as a bit of a giant against the relative size of a human viewer. Looking at the work, he would almost walk among us, but he resides just beyond human scale. The piece allows for an interesting observational study on the wound that is supposed to have been found under his armpit. Evidence of the wound was not apparent to an untrained eye, the idea of it not enough to allow for finding the indication of that wound that other more knowledgeable scholars have determined to exist. Knowing that the statue was painted, it is interesting to contemplate if the indication of the wound was enhanced through paint, the wound having more of a direct appearance in order to impress its meaning on its contemporary viewers. Of course, it is unclear if the wound would have had the same meaning to the Romans that it had to the Greeks, even though Artemis was transformed to Diana in Roman traditional mythologies, although first was worshipped under the name of Hecate.25 The transformations of the religious worship as combined with oral traditions of stories and fictions associated with the gods suggests that the meaning of the warrior and his wound may or may not have had ritualistic meaning towards the goddess, so the indication may or may not have been emphasized in the marble reproduction.26 That is the beauty of having the opportunity to study ancient works in that the answers are not written in the stone from which they are carved and require many levels of inquiry to find a satisfactory answer. Conclusion The Marble statue of a wounded warrior from the Roman, Antonine period, c. 138-181 A.D. which sits in gallery 153 is a visual experience that allows the modern viewer to feel ancient Rome from contemporary interpretations of the period. The actual work may not have had the same level of importance as the original Greek piece, nor may it have any meaning more than decorative in the Roman culture. As scholars have determined that it is likely a piece copied from a work by Kresilas and it is interesting that this work has the same stance and wound that works of the Amazon figures of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, which in turn may not be figures of Amazons at all. The meaning of works developed in the ancient period is subject to wide variances of scrutiny which provide for a multitude of interpretations. This work is no less subject to the various ideas that have emerged about its meaning and its purpose. Personal observation of the piece provides for an agreement of its artistic quality. Agreement on meaning may never be fully understood but it is a part of the romance of such ancient works of art. Bibliography Boulter, C G. Greek Art, Archaic into Classical: A Symposium Held at the University of Cincinnati April 2-3, 1982. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985. Chrisp, Peter. Ancient Rome. Chicago, Ill: Raintree, 2005. Emden, Christian, and David R. Midgley. Cultural Memory and Historical Consciousness in the German-Speaking World Since 1500: Papers from the Conference the Fragile Tradition, Cambridge 2002. Oxford: P. Lang, 2004. Feder, Lillian. The Handbook of Classical Literature. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998. Fullerton, Mark D. The Archaist Style in Roman Statuary. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990. Gauthier, Guy. Summers on the Road. New York: Xlibris, 2011. Gazda, Elaine. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Bergamo: Istituto Italiano darti grafiche, 1916. Ginsberg, Victor. Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture: 1. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006. Gruen, Erich S. Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1992. Print. Honour, Hugh, and John Fleming. A World History of Art. London: Laurence King, 2005. Keesling, Catherine. “The Hermolykos/Kresilas Base and the Date of Kresilas of Kydonia”. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. 147 (2004): 79-91. Kurtz, Donna C, and Brian A. Sparkes. The Eye of Greece: Studies in the Art of Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. North, John A. Greece & Rome: New Surveys in the Classics. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967. Pliny, H. Rackham, W H. S. Jones, and D E. Eichholz. Pliny: Natural History. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1947. Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Marble statue of wounded warrior”. Accessed 25 November 2011. http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/130012418 Radnóti, Sândor. The Fake: Forgery and Its Place in Art. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Richter, Gisela M. A. A statue of Protesilaos in the Metropolitan Museum. Metropolitan Museum Studies. 1.2 (May 1929): 187-200. Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane. Tragedy and Athenian Religion. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2002. Smart, Ninian. Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the Worlds Beliefs. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Thomas, Carol G. Paths from Ancient Greece. Leiden: Brill, 1988. Read More