Weary from a fight and slumped on a seat, a seasoned boxer cast in bronze offers onlookers a portrait in contrasts: Cuts and bruises blemish his face, his nose is fractured and his hunched posture suggests both physical and mental exhaustion, and yet his brawny physique and unruffled hair and beard show him to be a Classically conceived, idealized athlete—albeit one mature in age. He looks up sharply to his right—someone across the way has his attention.
This rare fully preserved bronze statue is one of about 50 sculptures featured in Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World, a new exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Showcasing bronze statues from the Hellenistic-period (fourth–first centuries B.C.E.) Mediterranean region, Power and Pathos is an unprecedented international exhibition organized with the cooperation of major archaeological museums in 10 countries, including Greece, Italy, Spain and the United States. Before traveling to the National Gallery of Art, the exhibition was featured at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California.
During the Hellenistic period—beginning in 323 B.C.E. after the death of Alexander the Great, whose conquests spread Greek culture farther than ever before—sculptors portrayed a new realism of the human form. Hellenistic sculptors depicted what was not “beautiful”—wrinkles, potbellies, bruises. Moving beyond the psychological blankness that characterized sculpture in the preceding Classical period, sculptors sought to express the emotional state of the subject in order to evoke a response from the viewer; this technique is encapsulated in the Greek concept of pathos (“lived,” “experience”). Because of its composition and tensile strength, bronze offered sculptors the ability to depict astonishingly fine details and to form extreme poses that could not be achieved in marble.
That these Hellenistic bronzes have survived over two millennia is mostly by chance. Bronze was commonly melted down and reused. Fewer than 200 bronze statues from the Hellenistic period exist today. Many of these sculptures were recovered from the bottom of the sea—casualties of shipwrecks or scuffles at sea. Others were unintentionally preserved in the aftermath of natural disasters, such as the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 C.E.
Celebrating the physical power and emotional intensity of Hellenistic bronzes, Power and Pathos exhibits statues, statuettes and busts portraying gods, queens, athletes and everyday people.
Through March 20, 2016 National Gallery of Art Washington, DC www.nga.gov
Weary from a fight and slumped on a seat, a seasoned boxer cast in bronze offers onlookers a portrait in contrasts: Cuts and bruises blemish his face, his nose is fractured and his hunched posture suggests both physical and mental exhaustion, and yet his brawny physique and unruffled hair and beard show him to be a Classically conceived, idealized athlete—albeit one mature in age. He looks up sharply to his right—someone across the way has his attention. This rare fully preserved bronze statue is one of about 50 sculptures featured in Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic […]
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