Lysippus
Lysippus
Lysippos was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC. Together with Scopas and Praxiteles, he is considered one of the three greatest sculptors of the Classical Greek era, bringing transition into the Hellenistic period. Problems confront the study of Lysippos because of the difficulty in identifying his style in the copies which survive. Not only did he have a large workshop and many disciples in
"Lysippum Sicyonium Duris negat ullius fuisse discipulum, sed primo aerarium fabrum audendi rationem cepisse pictoris Eupompi responso. eum enim interrogatum, quem sequeretur antecedentium, dixisse monstrata hominum multitudine, naturam ipsam imitandam esse, non artificem."
"The art of Lysippus presents itself as a kind of Doric reaction against Attic art, which tended to lay an increasing stress on sentiment, and might be thought to incline to effeminacy and sensuality. Lysippus modified the Canon of Polycletus, that is to say, the classic tradition of the fifth century, by a more marked tendency to elegance, making his bodies nearly eight times the lenght of the head (instead of seven times), and emphasising the joints and muscles at the expense of their fleshy covering. His heads express neither reverie nor passion; they are content to be merely nervous and refined."
