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Ancient Mediterranean + Europe
Course: Ancient Mediterranean + Europe > Unit 6
Lesson 6: Late classical (4th century)Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper)
Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper, Roman copy after a bronze statue from c. 330 B.C.E., 6' 9" high (Vatican Museums). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
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Was the strigil sharp, like a razor? And did they shave their bodies in the process?(10 votes)
The strigils from archeological finds were not sharp as knives. They were not, as I know of, meant to remove body hair. The shape of a strigil lends itself relatively poorly to shaving, even if it were sharpened. http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/scraper-strigil-153253
As for the Hellenistic Greeks the only evidence I know for depilatory practice is art. Even though the young generally have less body hair than mature adults, young athletes are usually depicted/sculptured without in places where it would normally grow.
The Romans, who also used strigils, certainly went in for the removal of body hair, by evidence of contemporary literature. On the internet I have found snippets that Augustus was supposed to have been over eager with the strigil on his face and consequently had sores from it, but unfortunately I have not found a reference to the source. Until I have further evidence I believe this could be a misunderstanding, because razor knives were made of bronze too. But of course, any scraper can inflict skin damage if applied vigorously. The Romans would shave, pluck and use cosmetics hoping to make unwanted hair fall out, and it is likely that the same means were available in Hellenistic Greece as they were known to the ancient Egyptians.(21 votes)
- When was soap invented? And was this the common way to clean one self, before the invention of soap?(6 votes)
- The invention of soap is very ancient. A recipe exist from 2800 BC but in the beginning it seems not to have been used much for personal hygiene. Early soaps tended to be pretty caustic. The Roman practice of washing in water first and then oiling the body and scraping off excess oil is actually quite effective at removing dirt. "Washing" in sand is also a very old practice, most often used as a scrubbing aid in water, but sometimes for scrubbing when no water could be spared.
Washing in milk cannot have been common, although we hear of queen Cleopatra bathing in it. Any emulsion can be used instead of soap. (I used large amounts of skin care cream in a pinch once...)
In cultures where water is hard to come by especially, there is often a strong taboo about using the left hand for "clean" practices and the right hand for "dirty" ones. Washing is not always an option.(24 votes)
- Were those supports only needed when carving the statue? If so, why were the ends left on the statue? If not, how can the extremities, especially the arm, be supported? Is it just really good glue?(3 votes)
This is a Roman copy, in marble, of a earlier Greek sculpture made of bronze. Bronze is A LOT stronger than marble, and the original statue could support it's own weight. However the later Roman copy could not. Therefore the supports had to be added in to stop the sculpture shattering under it's own weight.
The arms are the most vulnerable (and least supported) part of ancient marble statues, and that is why many of the ones that survive today have lost their arms.(3 votes)
Why don't we just make more copies of originals, and paint them? The we can look at them the way the ancient people did.(3 votes)- We can, and we do. Museums just prefer to present the real statue and then have a few pictures or a movie of what it would have looked like (it's Cheaper). This is a particularly good video reconstruction:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/channel/object_stories/video_parthenon_metope.aspx
Also, someone rebuilt the Parthenon, complete with huge Athena statue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon_(Nashville)(2 votes)
- Has the original bronze sculpture of Apoxyomenos survived?
Or do we only have copies, like this?(2 votes)
Aside from a lot of ancient artifacts, such as statues, being lost to time, classical bronze sculptures are especially hard to come by as most of them were melted down in times of war to manufacture weapons. A lot of the classical bronze statues that remain today have been found on the seafloor.(3 votes)
- How do I cite this video?(1 vote)
Zucker, Steven and Beth Harris. "Lysippos, Apoxyomenos (Scraper)." Online video. Smarthistory. Web. 22 November 2015.(2 votes)
At2:43-2:44, the speaker mentions that the Greeks loved to create nude sculptures of male athletes. Why did this society obsess over creating idealized physically fit nudes in the first place, and why were these sculptures almost always male in the gender department?(1 vote)
I think that the answer to the first part of your question is that the Greeks considered the body beautiful and that in sculpture, they wanted to display it fully, without clothes. Also the Olympics were extremely important to the Greeks--while the Olympics were taking place, the Greek city-states were not allowed to be at war with each other.
I hope this helps.(2 votes)
- Why would the Lysippos,Apoxyomenos look like someone in the past?(1 vote)
Did the Romans also paint their marble statues like the Greeks did?(1 vote)- The last video was really cool!(1 vote)
One of the wonderful features of Khan Academy is the "tips and thanks" column. This comment would fit there better than here, buried among the questions where students like ourselves help each other out. I suggest that you copy it and paste it to the tips and thanks, where the people who make the videos will more likely see it, and feel good about your compliment.(1 vote)
2:43Video transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
In ancient Greece, people did not use soap and
water to wash, they used oil. And we're seeing
a sculpture called the "Scraper" or
the "Apoxyomenos" by Lysippos, which
shows just that. This is an athlete
whose body is now covered with
perspiration and dust. And what he's doing is
he's washing himself, first by covering his body with
oil, and then using a strigil to scrape all the
grime off with the oil. DR. BETH HARRIS:
Lysippos was one of the most famous sculptors
from the fourth century BCE. But, of course, we're not
looking at the actual work by Lysippos of the Apoxyomenos. We're looking at
an ancient Roman copy of marble of what was
a Greek bronze original. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: But
even though it's a copy, it can give us a tremendous
amount of information. Lysippos is known for having
changed the proportional canon that we associate with the High
Classical tradition in Greece. This is the fourth century,
and what Lysippos has done is to elongate the body and to
reduce the size of the head. DR. BETH HARRIS: And
it's very obvious, when you compare this with
a fifth-century sculpture of the Classical
period by Polycleitus, who was the sculptor who
established that canon. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
In the Doryphoros, if you look at
Polycleitus' sculpture, and you measure the size of the
head, the length of the body is seven heads tall. But Lysippos has added a
full head's worth of length. So, if you were to
measure this, this is eight head lengths tall. And because the head is
smaller, and the body is taller, it gives us a sense
of, as we look up at this sculpture on a
podium, that the figure is even taller than he is. DR. BETH HARRIS: And Lysippos
has done some other view things. He's reached the figure's arm
into space, where the figure is scraping the oil from his body. And by doing that, he breaks
out of the frontal orientation of Classical
sculpture and makes us want to move around the
figure so can see it from different directions. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: That's right. There is, perhaps, a
fairly ideal position to view this sculpture
from, his front left. But, nevertheless, I
can't see his chest. And so I do want to move around. Now, this was a
bronze originally. So that tree trunk was not
there in the original sculpture. It wasn't necessary. Bronze has enough
tensile strength, so you don't need that. And you can see that
there's actually a fragment of a
couple of bridges that were meant to first
support the marble arms, which have broken and
then been repaired. But, nevertheless, even
in the original bronze, I would have wanted
to walk around this. DR. BETH HARRIS: No question. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: But even
though Lysippos is introducing these very new innovations--
again, this change of the proportion of
the body, this breaking of the frontal plane
of the sculpture-- he's still very much embedded
in the great Greek tradition of representing
the nude athlete, this idealized human body. DR. BETH HARRIS: And, of
course, Lysippos' figure stands in contrapposto, which
was invented by the Greeks in the Classical period. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: It's
such a gorgeous example of contrapposto, and
of the body as a whole. Look at the musculature. We really feel the
power of this athlete, even though it's presumably
now after his exercises. DR. BETH HARRIS:
From sources, we hear that Lysippos
was associated with Alexander the Great, the
great military leader that conquered Greece and
spread Greek ideas throughout the Mediterranean. And he's said to have
sculpted Alexander. Too bad none of those
sculptures survive. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER: We're seeing
the sculpture in the Vatican, because antiquities were
treasured by Renaissance popes, and subsequently. But, of course, we're
looking at a structure that is pagan, and pagan
in its celebration of human achievement,
in human beauty, as opposed to the spiritual. But it is striking to see
this sculpture in such a religious institution. DR. BETH HARRIS: And so
many ancient Greek and Roman sculptures all around us
here in the Vatican museum. DR. STEVEN ZUCKER:
One last detail, which is the room in which
the sculpture is displayed apparently was a room
that Leonardo da Vinci occupied briefly. Leonardo, of course,
this stepping stone back to this reverence
for the body, even within the
Catholic tradition. [MUSIC PLAYING]