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Ancient Mediterranean + Europe
Course: Ancient Mediterranean + Europe > Unit 6
Lesson 6: Late classical (4th century)Lysippos, Farnese Hercules
Lysippos, Farnese Hercules, 4th century B.C.E. (later Roman copy by Glycon)(Archaeological Museum, Naples). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris & Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- What are the twelve labours and has anyone made a numonic/acronym to memorise them.(11 votes)
- From http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/labors.html
Labor 1: The Nemean Lion
Labor 2: The Lernean Hydra
Labor 3: The Hind of Ceryneia
Labor 4: The Erymanthean Boar
Labor 5: The Augean Stables
Labor 6: The Stymphalian Birds
Labor 7: The Cretan Bull
Labor 8: The Horses of Diomedes
Labor 9: The Belt of Hippolyte
Labor 10: Geryon's Cattle
Labor 11: The Apples of the Hesperides
Labor 12: Cerberus
This site is a good resource for information on all the labors in detail, and the story of Hercules/Herakles in general. As for an easy way to memorize them, that I'm afraid I can't help you with. Best of luck though.(22 votes)
- atwhy are the apples of the Hesperides smaller than usual apples these days? 3:38(5 votes)
- Traditionally, all fruits and vegetables that we know today, were a lot smaller. Through breeding and selection, we have created new strains of fruit, much larger (and more tasty) than the originals (wildtype). Now we are pretty much at the limit of their size - and if we need to make them bigger, we have to do it by fully understanding and artificially manipulating their genes.(10 votes)
- I was reading about ninth labour, The Belt of Hippolyte. Hippolyte was an Amazonian, so named because Amazonian meant one breasted in Greek and the Amazonians cut off one of their breasts to make fighting easier. However, this doesn't explain why the Amazon river is called The Amazon.
Any ideas?(3 votes)- The first European to explore the Amazon, in 1541, was the Spanish soldier Francisco de Orellana, who gave the river its name after reporting pitched battles with tribes of female warriors, whom he likened to the Amazons of Greek mythology. Although the name Amazon is conventionally employed for the entire river, in Peruvian and Brazilian nomenclature it properly is applied only to sections of it. In Peru the upper main stream (fed by numerous tributaries flowing from sources in the Andes) down to the confluence with the Ucayali River is called Marañón, and from there to the Brazilian border it is called Amazonas. In Brazil the name of the river that flows from Peru to its confluence with the Negro River is Solimões; from the Negro out to the Atlantic the river is called Amazonas. Source: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/18722/Amazon-River(6 votes)
- There was an legendary wrestler called Milo of Croton who lived in 6th century bc. He held a mace and lion fleece in very similar manner than Heracles did and many myths seems to be very similar. Who was original, was Hercules based on this character, or did Milo take influences with those Hercules myths?(3 votes)
- Milo would enter battle disguised as Heracles to instill fear, Heracles was first.(4 votes)
- Was this piece discovered around the same time and place that the Laocoon was discovered?(1 vote)
- From the author:These two sculptures were found about a mile and 40 years apart. The Hercules was found at the Baths of Caracalla in 1546, and the Laocoon was found just north of the forum on the Oppian Hill 40 years earlier in 1506.(7 votes)
- At, Dr. Beth notes that the statue's head is small. I can't see it. Do you have to look at a certain angle or something? Is it only a little smaller? 4:31(2 votes)
- Atyou'll see them comparing the statue to one from the classical period. The full height of a normal human body, is app. 6½ times the size of the head, whereas the body of Lysippos' statue is closer to 8 times the size of the head. 4:44(3 votes)
- How did people in Ancient Greece have the time to sculpt these artworks? It was so much harder to get food and shelter back then with all the wars and things, yet they could do this with so much detail. Today, it's hard to find handmade sculptures. People hand off the hard jobs to machines now =D, yet we can just drop by the grocery store to get food and could stop by a hotel or rest in our homes for shelter.(1 vote)
- It wasn't much different than today. Soldiers were soldiers, farmers were farmers, and artists were artists, it's how they made their living. Especially within Greek society where arts were highly prized. Plus, while working the land may have taken longer than 8 hours a day, you have to remember that there was no TV, no radio, no newspapers, no computers or internet. That frees up a lot of time in your day to undertake other pastimes and hobbies such as art.(4 votes)
- All these sculptures are amazing, but why does people back then have to make their sculptures naked?(2 votes)
- It was a way to show-off the sculptor's skills of carving. It was also a way to show how muscularly powerful a man was, or how delicate and attractive a woman was. (Hope this answers your question a little bit.)(2 votes)
- Maybe a little bit off-topic.. Dr Zucker mentioned irony -- was there really a place for irony in art history before contemporary art (postmodernism etc) ? I can't recall any example.(1 vote)
- Irony was a staple of ancient Greece literature, and I think the term originates there—if I remember correctly. Greek drama employs tragic irony.(3 votes)
- If this sculpture displays so many characteristics of the Hellenistic period (),why is it only classed in the late classical period? What is the difference between the late classical and Hellenistic period? I understand that this is a transitional period, what features need to fully evolve before the Hellenistic period actually starts? 6:10(2 votes)
Video transcript
(jazz music) Dr. Zucker: We're in Naples at the Archaeological Museum, looking at one of the most famous sculptures
from all of antiquity. Dr. Harris: It was
discovered in the Renaissance during archaeological excavations in Rome of the Baths of Caracalla. Dr. Zucker: This is the
so-called Farnese Hercules and it gets that name
because it was excavated by the Farnese family. They had been looking for
building materials to take from ancient sites to build a new palace, but what they found in the Baths were an extraordinary array
of ancient sculptures. Dr. Harris: We can
reconstruct the original site for this colossal sculpture. There were mosaic floors, walls made of different colored marble. It was an incredibly
luxurious bathing complex, used by thousands of Romans every day and it was decorated with
hundreds of sculptures, many of them colossal, like this one. Dr. Zucker: These were
really complex structures, these bathing facilities. There were the baths themselves. Some were cold, some were hot. There were rooms for
transition from one temperature to another. There were places where one could exercise and this sculpture makes perfect sense in this environment. This is a place where
you would go to work out, where you would go to exercise. You could look at this
wildly muscular figure and have a bit of a goal. Dr. Harris: Many of the
sculptures that were found in the Baths of Caracalla
were not the typical, ideal, athletic copies of Greek
sculptures that we think of, but they were especially
bulky, like the Hercules that we see here. Dr. Zucker: We know that some successful Greek athletes would
sometimes dedicate sculptures to Hercules in a way thanking
him for their successes. Dr. Harris: He was a symbol
of strength and heroism. Dr. Zucker: You can see that
here, but there's also irony in Lysippos' treatment,
because even as we see this wildly powerful figure,
this incredible musculature, we also see a figure that is exhausted. Dr. Harris: He really is. He leans almost his full weight on a club that's propped up under
his arm, so you're right, there is an irony between
the brute strength of his articulated muscles
and the languorousness of his pose. Dr. Zucker: Look at the
way in which that abdomen is articulated. Look at the strength
of his right shoulder, of his right upper arm. It's really massive. Dr. Harris: He thrusts his right hip out, so that he can fully lean
his weight on his left side. Dr. Zucker: There is this
marvelous contrapposto, although the legs seem
to be somewhat reversed, but I love the way his torso
slouches over as he leans and there's this overemphasized
turn of that torso. Dr. Harris: But the club doesn't look like a very secure support. Dr. Zucker: No, the whole
thing is slightly precarious. Dr. Harris: It seems as
if Lysippos and Glycon, who copied Lysippos'
sculpture and there are more than 80 copies of sculptures
of the weary Hercules that have survived, but
it does seem as though he's calling our attention
to Hercules' hands and Hercules is famous as
a hero who became a god and who these amazing exploits, the 12 labors of Hercules. I'm noticing the open
left hand and the way that the right hand is
brought behind his back, so we really want to
move around the sculpture to see what's in his right hand. Dr. Zucker: That's right. The artist has set us up
so that we absolutely want to walk around. The left hand is not
original, that's been lost. So what we're seeing is
a plaster reconstruction, but the right hand is
original and if you walk around the sculpture, you
actually see that he's holding the apples that he would
have gotten from one of those labors, the labor
the apples of the Hesperides. This is all part of
the legend of Heracles. Heracles was the original Greek figure and the Romans would call him Hercules. What happened was this
brute of a man, in a fit, killed his children. The gods of Mount Olympus punished him by putting this man, Heracles,
who was the son of a god and of a human, therefore a hero. They made him subservient
to a king and he had to perform whatever deeds
this king asked of him for 12 years. This was his punishment. The king asked of him
tremendously difficult tasks. The first of which was the
killing of the Nemean lion. If you look carefully,
just draped over the club, you can see the pelt of that
lion that he had slayed. This sculpture is actually referring to two of those labors. Dr. Harris: One of the things
that seems a little strange as we look up at him is
how small his head is. This is something that
Lysippos, the Greek sculptor - Dr. Zucker: The original sculptor - Dr. Harris: That this was
based on, was known for, was changing the cannon of
proportions that existed during the Classical period
in Greece in the fifth century where there was more of a sense of harmony and balance between the parts of the body. Lysippos created a new set of proportions, where the figure was taller,
the head was smaller, and they gave the figure
a new sense of elegance. Dr. Zucker: Elegance and also of height. Here, it's married, of course,
with this increased bulk. The other thing that Lysippos
is so well known for, which you mentioned
earlier, is the way in which he begins to break out of
the more restricted space that Classical figures
had generally occupied, so that by extending, for
instance, that left hand, by moving that right hand behind his back, he really does invite us to
understand this sculpture in the round, as opposed to
seeing it as a frontal object. The thing that strikes me most, though, about this sculpture, is the way in which we can understand his
feeling of exhaustion and the way that's contrasted against the potential energy
and power of that body. Dr. Harris: The things
that we're talking about, the new cannon of proportions,
the way that we're asked to move around the
sculpture, not only do I want to walk behind it to see
what's in his right hand, but I also want to walk to the place where he is looking down
to, so we can look up at his face and see the expression, the sense of empathy we have for him. These are all things that are typical of the Hellenistic period
of ancient Greek art that this copy was based on. Dr. Zucker: Clearly, something that the Romans really appreciated. (jazz music)