Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art - Walter Woodburn Hyde - Страница 45

Prayer was a common motive represented in votive monuments. Pliny mentions many such works by Greek sculptors.996 The custom of raising the arms in prayer is found all through Greek literature, from Homer down.997 Pausanias says that the people of Akragas made an offering in the form of bronze statues of boys placed on the walls of the Altis, προτείνοντάς τε τὰς δεξιὰς καὶ εἰκασμένους εὐχομένοις τῷ θεῷ, these statues being the work of Kalamis.998 In the Athenian Asklepieion there were many τύποι καταμακτοὶ πρὸς πινακίῳ, among which were representations of men and women in the praying attitude.999 The motive was used at Olympia in victor statues, representing the victor as raising the hand in prayer to invoke victory.1000 The statue of the wrestler Milo, already discussed at length, shows that this motive was employed at Olympia in the improved “Apollo” type in the second half of the sixth century B.C.1001 From the next century we may cite the statue of the Spartan chariot victor Anaxandros, which was represented as “praying to the god,”1002 and the statues of the Rhodian boxers Diagoras and Akousilaos, as we learn from a scholion on Pindar,1003 which is based on a fragment of Aristotle1004 and on one of Apollas.1005 Of the statue of Diagoras it says: τὴν δεξιὰν ἀνατείνων χεῖρα, τὴν δὲ ἀριστερὰν εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἐπικλίνων; of that of Akousilaos: τῇ μὲν ἀριστερᾷ ἱμάντα ἔχων πυκτινόν, τὴν δὲ δεξιὰν ὡς πρὸς προσευχὴν ἀνατείνων.1006 The bronze statue from Athens, now in the Antiquarium, Berlin,1007 which represents a nude boy with the right hand raised as if in prayer and the left lowered and holding a leaping-weight—therefore a pentathlete—seems to correspond with this description of the statue of Akousilaos. The same motive may have been used in the statue of the chariot victress Kyniska, a princess of Sparta, whose statue along with that of her charioteer and the chariot was the work of the sculptor Apellas.1008 This is the interpretation of Furtwaengler,1009 based on a passage in Pliny, which mentions statues of adornantes se feminas1010 by Apellas, which he reads adorantes feminas. However, adornantes may be right, for in another passage, Pliny speaks of Praxiteles’ statue of a ψελιουμένη, i. e., of a woman clasping a bracelet on her arm.1011 Two notable bronze statues will illustrate this motive of Olympic victor statues. The statue found in 1502 at Zellfeld in Carinthia, now in Vienna,1012 has been interpreted both as a Hermes Logios and a votive statue in the attitude of prayer,1013 which latter interpretation the inscription on the leg, giving a list of dedications,1014 favors. However, Furtwaengler believes it a free imitation of an Argive victor statue, though not in the Polykleitan style. Because of its similarity to the Idolino (Pl. 14), he has ascribed its original to the sculptor Patrokles. From technical considerations he believes it is not a Greek original dedicated by Romans of a later period, but a Roman work (after Patrokles) of the period of the inscription.1015 The bronze statue of the Praying Boy in Berlin1016 (Pl. 10) is one of our most beautiful Greek bronzes and comes from the circle of Lysippos.1017 We now know that the uplifted arms of this statue, in which most scholars saw the Greek attitude of prayer, are restorations which were probably made in the time of Louis XIV, when the statue was in France. Of the original motive we only can say that the action of the shoulders shows that both arms were raised, but we do not know how far, or the position of the hands. Monumental evidence shows that the hands in prayer should have the palms turned away from the face instead of upwards, as in the present statue, since the Greek position was the outgrowth of an old apotropaic gesture, i. e., one directed against an evil spirit. Mau’s idea1018 that the figure represented a player catching a ball is certainly inconsistent with the calm attitude of the statue. Furtwaengler rejected it,1019 and he has restored the arms and hands on the basis of a Berlin gem1020 and an ex voto relief found by the French excavators at Nemea in 1884.1021 On this relief a youth crowned with a woolen fillet is represented. On both relief and gem the figures are in the same attitude, the arms raised over the head manibus supinis, which confirms the restoration of the Berlin statue. Many other monuments give the more usual attitude of prayer, not as in the relief and gem discussed, but with only one hand extended as high as the breast. Older writers thought that such monuments did not represent the gesture of adoration, but one of adlocutio,1022 an opinion disproved by Pausanias’ statement about the bronze statues of the Akragantines at Olympia, already mentioned. We may cite a relief from Kleitor, now in Berlin,1023 and a fine one of the fourth century B.C. from Lamia (?),1024 as well as a red-figured Etruscan stamnos in Vienna representing, probably, Ajax praying before committing suicide.1025 We shall mention also two little statuettes in New York which represent youths in the praying attitude.1026 The first, dating from the second half of the fifth century B.C., and showing Polykleitan influence, represents a nude youth standing erect with the forearms bent, showing that the two hands were extended in prayer. The second, which dates from the first half of the fifth century B.C. (after the date of the Myronian Diskobolos), represents a nude youth standing with the right hand raised to the lips in an attitude usual in saluting a divinity, while the left is by the side, with the palm to the front.

PLATE 10

Bronze Statue of the Praying Boy. Museum of Berlin.