Lysippus
- a celebrated brass-founder of Sicyon, to whom alone Alexander the Great gave permission to cast a statue of him, Cic. Fam. 5, 12, 7; id. Brut. 86, 296; Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 240; Plin. 7, 37, 38, § 125; 34, 7, 17, § 37; Quint. 12, 10, 9.
(Λύσιππος), a Lacedaemonian, was left by Agis II. as harmost at Epitalium in Elis, when the king himself returned to Sparta from the Eleian campaign, B. C. 400. During the summer and winter of that year Lysippus made continual devastations on the Eleian territory. In the next year, B. C. 399, the Eleians sued for peace. (Xen. Hell. 3.2. §§ 29, &c.; comp. Diod. 14.17; Wess. ad loc.; Paus. 3.8, where he is called Lysistratus.) [E.E]
(Λύσιππος), literary.
1. An Arcadian, a comic poet of the old Comedy. His date is fixed by the marble Didascalia, edited by Odericus, at 01. 86.2, B. C. 434, when he gained the first prize with his Καταχιῆναι; and this agrees with Athenaeus, who mentions him in conjunction with Callias (viii. p. 344e.). Besides the κάταχῆναι, we have the titles of his Βάκχαι (Suid., Eudoc.), which is often quoted, and his Θυρσοκόμος (Suid.). Vossius (de Poet. Graec. p. 227) has followed the error of Eudocia, in making Lysippus a tragic poet. Besides his comedies he wrote some beautiful verses in praise of the Athenians, which are quoted by Dicaearchus, p. 10. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. p. 215, vol. ii. p. 744; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. p. 310.)
2. Of Epeirus, wrote a κατάλογος ἀσεβῶν. which is quoted by the scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, 4.1093. (Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 464, ed. Westermann; Ebert, Diss. Sicul. p. 107; Mounier, de Diagora Melio, p. 41, Rotterd. 1838.) [P.S]
(Λύσιππος), artists.
1. Of Sicyon, one of the most distinguished Greek statuaries, is placed by Pliny at Ol. 114, as a contemporary of Alexander the Great. (H. N. 34.8. s. 19). We have no very clear intimation of how long he lived; but there is no doubt that the great period of his artistic activity was during the reign of Alexander; and perhaps Pliny has mentioned the 114th Olympiad in particular, as being that in which Alexander died. We learn from Pausanias (6.1.2) that he made the statue of the Olympic victor Troilus, who conquered in the 102nd Olympiad ; but there is abundant evidence that the statues of victors in the games were often made long after the date of their victories. On the other hand, there is an inscription on a base found at Rome, Σέλευκος βασιλεύς. Λύσιππος ἐποίει. Now Seleucus did not assume the title of King till Ol. 117. 1. But this proves nothing; for the addition of an inscription to a statue made long before, was a most frequent occurrence, of which we have many examples.
Originally a simple workman in bronze (faber aerarilus), he rose to the eminence which he afterwards obtained by the direct study of nature. It was to the painter Eupompus that he owed the guiding principle of his art; for, having asked him which of the former masters he should follow, Eupompus replied by pointing to a crowd of men, engaged in their various pursuits, and told him that nature must be imitated, and not an artist (Plin. l.c. § 6). It is not to be inferred, how ever, that he neglected the study of existing works of art: on the contrary Cicero tells us (Brut. 86), that Lysippus used to call the Doryphorus of Polycleitus his master; and there can be no doubt that the school of Lysippus was connected with the Argive school of Polycleitus, as the school of Scopas and Praxiteles was with the Attic school of Phidias; there being in each case a succession of great principles, modified by a closer imitation of the real, and by a preference for beauty above dig nity. Perhaps the great distinction between Lysippus and his predecessors could not, in a few words, be better expressed than by saying that lie rejected the last remains of the old conventional rules which the early artists followed, and which Phidias, without permitting himself to be enslaved by them, had wisely continued to bear in mind, as a check upon the liberty permitted by mere natural models, and which even Polycleitus had not altogether disregarded (Varr. de Ling. Lat. 9.18). In Lysippus's imitation of nature the ideal appears almost to have vanished, or perhaps it should rather be said that he aimed to idealize merely human beauty. He made statues of gods, it is true; but even in this field of art his favourite subject was the human hero Hercules; while his portraits seem to have been the chief foundation of his fame. He ventured even to depart from the proportions observed by the earlier artists, and to alter the robust form (τὸ τετράγωνον, quadratas veterum staturas) which his predecessors had used in order to give dignity to their statues, and which Polycleitus had brought to perfection. Lysippus made the heads smaller, and the bodies more slender and more compact (graciliora siccioraque), and thus gave his statues an appearance of greater height. He used to say that former artists made men as they were, but he as they appeared to be. His imitation of nature was carried out in the minutest details: " propriae hujus videntur esse argutiae operum, custoditae in minimus rebus," says Pliny, who also mentions the care which Lysippus bestowed upon the hair. Properties (3.7. 9) speaks of his statues as seeming to have the breath of life (animosa), and the same idea is expressed by the grammarian Nicephorus Chumnus, in an interesting but little known passage, in which he describes Lysippus and Apelles as making and painting ζώσας εἰκόνας καὶ πννῆς μόνης καὶ κινήσεως ἀπολεειπομένας. (Boissonade, Anecdot. vol. iii. p. 357.)
The works of Lysippus are said to have amounted to the enormous number of 1500; at least this is the story of Pliny, who tells us that Lysippus used to lay by a single piece of gold out of the price received for each of his works, and that, after his death, the number of these pieces was found to be 1500 (HN. 34.7. s. 17). His works were almost all, if not all, in bronze; in consequence of which none of them are extant. But from copies, from coins, and from the works of his successors, we derive valuable materials for judging of his style. The following are the chief works of his which are mentioned by the ancient authors:--
First, those of a mythological character. 1. A colossal statue of Zeus, 60 feet high, at Tarentum, which is fully described by Pliny (H. N 34.7. s. 18; comp Strab. vi. p.278; Lucil. apud Non. s. v. Cubitus). 2. Zeus in the forum of Sicyon (Paus. ii 9.6). 3. Zeus Nemeus, in an erect position, at Argos (Paus. 2.20.3). 4. Zeus attended by the Muses (Paus. 1.43.6). 5. Poseidon, at Corinth (Lucian, Jup. Trag. 9, vol. ii. p. 652, Wetst.). 6. Dionysus, in the sacred grove on Mt. Helicon (Paus. 9.30.1). 7. Eros, at Thespiae (Paus. 9.27.3; comp. Sillig in the Amalthea, vol. iii. p. 299).
As above stated, his favourite mythological subject was Hercules. The following are some of his statues of that here:--8. A colossal Hercules resting from his labours, in a sitting posture, at Tarentum, whence it was carried to Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum (Strab. vi. p.278b.; Plut. Fab. Max. 22). It was afterwards transferred to Byzantium (Nicet. Stat. Constant. 5. p. 12). It is frequently copied on gems. 9. Hercules, yielding to the power of Eros, and deprived of his weapons. The statue is described in an epigram by Geminus (Anth. Pal. App. ii. p. 655; Anth. Plan. 4.103). This also often appears on gems. 10. A small statue (επιτρα πέζιος), representing the deified hero as sitting at the banquet of the gods, described by Statius (Stat. Silv. 4.6) and Martial (9.44). The celebrated Belvedere Torso is most probably a copy of this (Meyer, Kunstgeschichte, vol. li. p. 114; Heyne, Prisc. Art. Op. ex Epigr. illust. p. 87). 11. Hercules in the forum at Sicyon (Paus. 2.9.7). 12. There were originally at Alyzia in Arcadia, and afterwards at Rome, a set of statues by Lysippus, representing the labours of Hercules (Strab. x. p.459c.). Perhaps one of this group may have been the original of the Farnese Hercules of Glycon, which is undoubtedly a copy of a work of Lysippus. (Glycon; Müller, Archäol. d. Kunst, § 129, n. 2.)
To his mythological works must be added:-- 13. A celebrated statue of Time, or rather Opportunity (Καιρος; Callistr. Stat. p. 698, ed. Jacobs, with Welcker's Excursus). 14. Helios in a quadriga, at Rhodes (Plin. Nat. 34.8. s. 19.6). 15. A Satyr at Athens (Ibid.).
Of those of his statues which were neither mythological nor strictly portraits, the following are mentioned:--16. A bather or athlete, scraping himself with a strigil, which was placed by M. Agrippa in front of his baths, and was so admired by the emperor Tiberius that he transferred it to his own chamber; the resentment of the people, however, compelled him to restore it (Plin. l.c.). From the way in which Pliny speaks of this statue, it may be conjectured that it was intended by Lysippus to be a normal specimen of his art, like the Doryphorus of Polycleitus. 17. An intoxicated female flute-player. 18. Several statues of athletes (Paus. 6.1.2, 2.1, 4.4, 5.1, 17.2). 19. A statue of Socrates (D. L. 2.43). 20. Of Aesop (Anth. Graec.. 4.33). 21. Of Praxilla. (Tatian. ad v. Graec. 52.)
We pass on to his actual portraits, and chiefly those of Alexander. In this department of his art Lysippus kept true to his great principle, and imitated nature so closely as even to indicate Alexander's personal defects, such as the inclination of his head sidewards, but without impairing the beauty and heroic expression of the figure. He made statues of Alexander at all periods of life, and in many different positions. Alexander's edict is well known, that no one should paint him but Apelles, and no one make his statue but Lysippus. The most celebrated of these statues is that in which Alexander was represented with a lance. (Plut. de Isid. 24), which was considered as a sort of companion to the picture of Alexander wielding a thunderbolt, by Apelles. The impression which it produced upon spectators was described by an epigram afterwards affixed to it,-- αὐδασοῦντι δʼ ἔοικεν ὁ χάλκεος εἰς Δία λεύσσων· γᾶν ὑπʼ ἐμοὶ τιθεμαι, Ζεῦ, σὺ δʼ Ὄλυμπον ἔχε.
(Plut. de Alex. Virt. 2.2, Alex. 4; Tzetz. Chil. 8.426.) The rest of his portraits of Alexander are described by Müller (Archäol. d. Kunst, § 129, n. 2). To the same class belongs his group of the chieftains who fell in the battle at the Granicus.
There are still some other works of Lysippus of less importance, which are described by the historians of Greek art. (Sillig, Cat. s. n.; Meyer, Kunstgeschichte; Hirt, Gesch. d. Bild. Kunst; Nagler, Künstler-Lexicon. )
2. A painter in encaustic, of the Aeginetan school, who placed on his paintings the word ἐνέκαεν. (Plin. Nat. 35.11. s. 19.)
3. A statuary of Heracleia, the son of Lysippus, who is known from an inscription on the base of a statue of Apollo at Delos:-ΑΠΟΛΛΩΝΙ ΛΥ- ΣΙΠΠΟΣ ΛΥσΙΠΠΟΥ ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ. (Welcker, in the Kunstblatt, 1827, No. 83.) [P.S]
(Λύσιππος). A native of Sicyon, and one of the most famous Greek artists, a contemporary of Alexander the Great. He was originally a worker in metal, and taught himself the art of the sculptor by studying nature and the canon of Polyclitus (q.v.). His works, which were said to amount to 1500, were all statues in bronze, and were remarkable for their lifelike characterization and their careful and accurate execution, shown particularly in the treatment of the hair. He aimed at representing the beauty and harmony more especially of the male human body; and substituted for the proportions of Polyclitus a new ideal, which kept in view the effect produced, by giving the body a more slender and elegant shape, and by making the head smaller in comparison with the trunk, than is the case with the actual average man. The most famous among his statues of gods were the colossal forms of Zeus and Heracles, at Tarentum of which the former was second in size only to that at Rhodes, while the latter was afterwards brought to the Capitol at Rome, and then to the Hippodrome at Constantinople, where it was melted down in A.D. 1022; and, lastly, the sun-god on the four-horse chariot at Rhodes (Pliny , Pliny H. N. xxxiv. 40, 63).
The first example of pure allegory in Greek art was his Καιρός, the “Favourable Moment”—a delicate youth with modest look standing on a ball, with his foot winged, and holding shears and a balance in his hands. The hair hung down in front, while it was so short behind that it could not be grasped (Anthol. Gr. ii. 49, 13; Callist. Statuae, 6).
By far the greater number of his statues were portraits. Of these the various representations of Alexander the Great from boyhood onwards were of marked excellence (Pliny , Pliny H. N. xxxiv. 64). Indeed, the king would have no sculptor but Lysippus to represent him, even as he would have no other painter than Apelles (Pliny , Pliny H. N. vii. 125; Epist. ii. 1, 240; Ad Fam. v. 12, 13).
Among his large groups were Craterus saving the life of Alexander chasing the lion (Pliny , Pliny H. N. xxxiv. 64), and the portraits of twenty-five horsemen and nine foot soldiers who fell at the first assault in the battle of the Granicus (Arrian, Anab. i. 16. 7; Plut. Alex. 16). The excellent copy in marble, at the Vatican, of the Apoxyomenos, a youth removing the dust of the palaestra with a strigil, affords an idea of his skill in representing beautiful and perfectly developed bodies of delicate elasticity and graceful suppleness (Pliny , Pliny H. N. xxxiv. 62). See Perry's Greek and Roman Sculpture, pp. 478-488.
- Paus. 1.43.6, Paus. 2.9.6, 8, Paus. 2.20.3, Paus. 6.1.5, Paus. 6.2.1, 7, Paus. 6.4.7, Paus. 6.5.1, Paus. 6.14.12, Paus. 6.17.3, Paus. 9.27.3, Paus. 9.30.1
- Olympic victor: Paus. 6.16.7