Apollo Belvedere - a symbol of the art of ancient Hellas

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Unfortunately, very few originals of ancient Greek sculpture have survived to this day. Even Apollo Belvedere, considered by many art critics to be the pinnacle of ancient culture, has survived only in a Roman marble copy. The thing is that at the dawn of Christianity, in the era of barbarian invasions, as well as in the early Middle Ages, almost all bronze statues of ancient Greek masters were mercilessly melted down. No one in those dark times thought to take care of the cultural heritage of mankind.

Marble images of cult ancient gods and mythological heroes also fell from their pedestals, and the noble stone from which they were made was often used to burn lime. During the reign of Alexander the Great, Leohar was his court sculptor. Apollo Belvedere is considered by art historians to be an exact copy of the bronze original by this master. The heyday of the work of Leochar, a representative of the academic direction of the late classical Greek school, fell on 350-320 BC. e. Approximately the statue "Apollo Belvedere" belongs to the same period, which gave researchers the opportunity to put forward a hypothesis about the authorship of Leochar. Now, twenty-five centuries later, it is hardly possible to establish the truth for certain.

The statue of Apollo Belvedere was discovered during the Renaissance (in the fifteenth century) in the possessions of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere in Anzio, who, having ascended the spiritual Catholic throne and accepted the papal rank, ordered this great creation to be installed in the place of honor of the Ottogon courtyard in Belvedere Palace of the Vatican. Hence the name of the sculpture. This place is also famous for the fact that there were at that time many of the best pearls of the papal collection of great antique works of art. Apollo Belvedere coexisted with Laocoön, the torso of Hercules, Ariadne Abandoned and other no less famous creations of brilliant masters of the past.

The evolution of attitudes towards the sculpture of Leohara (presumably) in the circles of art historians, scientists and historians is also curious. For a long time, Apollo Belvedere was regarded as a priceless masterpiece, pinnacle, apotheosis and culmination of ancient art. It was unanimously recognized as aesthetically perfect. And, as often happens, extremely pompous and lofty praises eventually gave way to a diametrically opposite reaction. The further the study of the creations of variousancient masters and the more cultural monuments of ancient civilizations appeared, the more restrained the assessments of Apollo Belvedere became.

Various critics and art scholars suddenly began to find pompous and mannered features in him. And some even noticed a lot of excessive pretentiousness, pathos and geometric flaws. Meanwhile, this work can safely be called outstanding in terms of plastic merits, elegance of lines and the flight of the author's thought. The figure and tread of Apollo combine strength with grace, indestructible energy with airy lightness. Weightlessly walking on the earth's firmament, he seems to be in a state of flight. Moreover, all the movements of this lord of the muses, brilliantly depicted by the author in a static frozen figure, are not concentrated in one single direction, but diverge as if by sunbeams in different directions.

To achieve such an effect, captured in cold marble or bronze, the sculptor had to possess not only sophisticated craftsmanship, but also a spark of genuine genius. However, it should be recognized that in the Apollo Belvedere there is too obvious a calculation for just such an impression on the contemplator. Sculpture extremely insistently demands to admire its beauty and grace of features. And the best examples of classical ancient art do not declare their merits publicly. They are beautiful without showing off. Therefore, Apollo Belvedere hides so many secrets of its origin and gives rise to more questions than it answers.

Without a doubtonly one thing: this sculpture is perhaps the most significant example of ancient art. And certainly one of the most mysterious.