Ludovisi Gaul

Last updated
Ludovisi Gaul
The Galatian Suicide
10 2023 - Palazzo Altemps, Roma, Lazio, 00186, Italia - Galata suicida (Ludovisi Gaul) - Arte Ellenistica Greca - Copia Romana - Photo Paolo Villa FO232046 ombre gimp bis.jpg
Artist Epigonus
Year2nd century AD
MediumMarble copy
Dimensions2.11 m(83 in)
LocationNational Roman Museum - Palazzo Altemps, Rome
AccessionInv. 8608

The Ludovisi Gaul (sometimes called "The Galatian Suicide") is an ancient Roman statue depicting a Gallic man plunging a sword into his breast as he holds up the dying body of his wife. This sculpture is a marble copy of a now lost Greek bronze original. The Ludovisi Gaul can be found today in the Palazzo Altemps in Rome. This statue is unique for its time because it was common to depict the victor but instead, the Ludovisi Gaul depicts the defeated.

Contents

Description

The statue depicts a Gaulish man or Galatian Celt who has just killed his wife and is holding her lifeless body in one arm and a sword in another, in an attempt to commit suicide. [1]

The sculpture is considered a good example of Hellenistic art because of its dramatic characteristics. [1] The postures of the characters are exaggerated and their bodies contort in every way. Each limb is spread out in different directions, which gives the feeling that the figures are coming to life. The statue is dramatic in many ways and represents what is known as Hellenistic Baroque art. Hellenistic sculptures incorporated three main characteristics in their work to create a more lifelike aesthetic: expressive movement, realistic anatomy and ornate detail.

The fluid motion of the bodies can be seen in how the man's arm flows in a serpentine motion into the woman's arm. [1]

When viewing this sculpture from the front, the man's face is only visible in profile. If the viewers move to the side of the statue, they can see his face but no longer the sword. He looks away as if he is ashamed of his defeat.[ opinion ] There is blood dripping from where the sword meets his chest. The dramatic posture of the bodies and spread limbs are very commonly found in Hellenistic art.

History

The Ludovisi Gaul is a Roman copy of the early second century AD, of a Hellenistic original, ca 230-20 BC. The original bronzes may have been commissioned by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatians, the Celtic or Gaulish people of parts of Anatolia. A court sculptor of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon named Epigonus is believed to be the original sculptor of the pieces. Other Roman marble copies from the same project are the equally famous Dying Gaul , and the less well-known Kneeling Gaul. [2] It is believed that these sculptures were meant to be shown together along with others to create a monument. This group of statues was believed to be displayed in Pergamon, which used to be an important capital in the Greek Hellenistic world (dating from 323 to 31 B.C.E.,) is now close to the coast of modern-day Turkey.

Ludovisi Gaul Altemps Inv8608.jpg
Ludovisi Gaul in the Gardens of Versailles Ludovisi Gaul (The Galatian Suicide).jpg
Ludovisi Gaul in the Gardens of Versailles

Monument Base

An argument regarding where the originals were placed at Pergamon started in the mid-twentieth century. [3] Massimiliano Papini believes that the statues were placed on a circular pedestal with the Ludovisi Gaul as the centerpiece. [3] [4] [5] Others argue that the sculptures were lined up on a rectangular base. [3] Both arguments are weak due to the scarce and ambiguous archaeological evidence. [3] As visitors entered the Sanctuary of Athena in the third and second centuries B.C., art historians in the book, Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World often ask the question, how would the sculptures and their staging be perceived and interpreted, as well as how we view them in the modern-day? [3]

The theory that these larger than lifesize statues were placed on a rectangle pedestal created by Epigonos, is in favor as of today. [3] It is approximated that about eighteen statues belonged on the base of the monument but unfortunately only two of them exist today. [3] There are existing fragments of the head of the Dying Persian and also the Dying Barbarian Women in the Museo Palatino in Rome that may also be a part of this sculpture group. [3]

A circular pedestal would have been rare for its time. Although there is an example of one used at Miletos/Miletus to support a gilded statue of Eumenes II dedicated to the ruler in 167-166 B.C. [3]

Provenance

After being lost for many years, the statue was rediscovered in the early 17th century. During excavations for the building of Villa Ludovisi, the sculpture was found along with The Dying Gaul . Years later when the villa was redeveloped, more antiquities were found such as the Ludovisi Throne . [1] The sculpture group made its first appearance in a Ludovisi inventory taken 2 February 1623, and was possibly found in the grounds of the Villa Ludovisi, Rome, shortly before that. The area had been part of the Gardens of Sallust (formerly owned by Julius Caesar) in Classical times, and proved a rich source of Roman (and some Greek) sculpture through the 19th century (Haskell and Penny, 282). Among the last of the finds at Villa Ludovisi, before the area was built over, was the Ludovisi Throne.

The sculpture, now in the Museo Nazionale di Roma, Palazzo Altemps, Rome, was greatly admired from the 17th century. It appeared in engravings in therepertory of sculpture in Rome by Perrier [6] and was codified by Audran [7] as one of the sculptures of Antiquity that defined the canon of fine proportions of the human body. Nicolas Poussin adapted the figure for the group in the right foreground of his Rape of the Sabine Women, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Friedlaender 19 and fig. 108). Visitors and writers of guidebooks found many subjects drawn from Roman history to account for the action: the 1633 Ludovisi inventory lists it as "a certain Marius who kills his daughter and himself", [8] drawing upon the story of a certain patrician Sextus Marius, who in seeking to protect his daughter from the lust of Tiberius, was accused of incest with her.

Giovanni Francesco Susini rendered the group in a small bronze. The marble was copied by François Lespingola for Louis XIV and may still be seen paired with the Laocoön at the entrance to the Tapis Vert at Versailles; the cast prepared in preparation for the copy was retained at the French Academy in Rome (where it remains). The Ludovisi heirs prohibited further casts, but in 1816–19 Prince Luigi Boncompagni Ludovisi sent plaster casts to the Prince Regent; the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Prince Metternich; and the diplomat at the Congress of Vienna, Wilhelm von Humboldt (Haskell and Penny 284).

Subject

It was common for victory statues to display the triumphant but instead in this piece we see a sympathetic portrait of the defeated. [1] This man is believed to represent a chieftain who is killing himself and his wife so that they would not be captured and taken as prisoners. It was also typical that the Gauls would bring their wives to battle with them. He is identifiable as a Gaul because of his thick wavy hair, and facial mustache.

History of the Celts

The expansion of the Celtic people (also known as the Galatians or the Gauls, as Romans called them, coming from their homelands in Central Europe in the south and east) was put on hold during the third century B.C. Their expansion in Balkans was brought to a halt in the winter of 279 B.C. by allies of the Greeks. The Greeks viewed the invaders as Barbarians who sought to attack Hellenic Liberty. The Gallic chief Brannos and his army had high hopes of taking the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi after having successfully overwhelmed the Greeks in a battle in Thermopylae. Here in Delphi, the Gauls were driven away by what was believed to be supernatural and mythical events that took place. A great thunderstorm took place which was believed to be created by Apollo himself with the help of Artemis and Athena. After this event, the Greeks decorated Delphi with Gallic shields they obtained from the battle, built monuments, and statues of the gods to commemorate their victory. The Greeks believed that the Gaul's unprecedented brutality should not be forgotten and that that women and children of Kallion near Delphi which they murdered should be remembered and honored.

When discovered, the two statues (Ludovisi Gaul and Dying Gaul) were believed to depict gladiators. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that these statues were connected to the works of Pliny the Elder which celebrated the victories of Pergamon over the Gauls of Asia Minor and were reinterpreted as Celtic warriors.

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Dying Gaul and Ludovisi Gaul – Smarthistory". smarthistory.org. Retrieved 2021-11-08.
  2. "Dying Gaul", Wikipedia, 2021-10-07, retrieved 2021-11-08
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A.), Picón, Carlos A. Hemingway, Seán (Seán. Pergamon and the Hellenistic kingdoms of the ancient world. ISBN   978-1-58839-587-0. OCLC   958225283.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. Liverani 1995; Paolo Liverani in Lisippo 1995, p.201, no.4.29.4
  5. Inan 1975, pp.83-85, no. 28, on Side torso and other suggested replicas. See also Stewart 1978, pp. 169-70 and n.40; Weber 1996
  6. François Perrier, Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum que temporis dentem invidium evase, 1638, pl. 32.
  7. Gérard Audran, Les proportions du corps humain mesurées sur les belles figures de l'Antiquité, 1683, pls 8 and 9.
  8. "un certo mario ch'ammazza sua figlia e se stesso" (quoted Haskell and Penny 282).

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingdom of Pergamon</span> Greek state during the Hellenistic period

The Kingdom of Pergamon, Pergamene Kingdom, or Attalid kingdom was a Greek state during the Hellenistic period that ruled much of the Western part of Asia Minor from its capital city of Pergamon. It was ruled by the Attalid dynasty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Greek sculpture</span>

The sculpture of ancient Greece is the main surviving type of fine ancient Greek art as, with the exception of painted ancient Greek pottery, almost no ancient Greek painting survives. Modern scholarship identifies three major stages in monumental sculpture in bronze and stone: the Archaic, Classical (480–323) and Hellenistic. At all periods there were great numbers of Greek terracotta figurines and small sculptures in metal and other materials.

<i>Dying Gaul</i> Greek sculpture of the 3rd century BC

The Dying Gaul, also called The Dying Galatian or The Dying Gladiator, is an ancient Roman marble semi-recumbent statue now in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. It is a copy of a now lost Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic period thought to have been made in bronze. The original may have been commissioned at some time between 230 and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatians, the Celtic or Gaulish people of parts of Anatolia. The original sculptor is believed to have been Epigonus, a court sculptor of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon.

<i>Ludovisi Ares</i> Roman marble sculpture of Mars

The Ludovisi Ares is an Antonine Roman marble sculpture of Ares, a fine 2nd-century copy of a late 4th-century BCE Greek original, associated with Scopas or Lysippus: thus the Roman god of war receives his Greek name, Ares.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical sculpture</span> Sculpture from ancient Greece and Rome

Classical sculpture refers generally to sculpture from Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, as well as the Hellenized and Romanized civilizations under their rule or influence, from about 500 BC to around 200 AD. It may also refer more precisely a period within Ancient Greek sculpture from around 500 BC to the onset of the Hellenistic style around 323 BC, in this case usually given a capital "C". The term "classical" is also widely used for a stylistic tendency in later sculpture, not restricted to works in a Neoclassical or classical style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman sculpture</span> Sculpture of ancient Rome

The study of Roman sculpture is complicated by its relation to Greek sculpture. Many examples of even the most famous Greek sculptures, such as the Apollo Belvedere and Barberini Faun, are known only from Roman Imperial or Hellenistic "copies". At one time, this imitation was taken by art historians as indicating a narrowness of the Roman artistic imagination, but, in the late 20th century, Roman art began to be reevaluated on its own terms: some impressions of the nature of Greek sculpture may in fact be based on Roman artistry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gardens of Sallust</span> Ancient Roman estate

The Gardens of Sallust was an ancient Roman estate including a landscaped pleasure garden developed by the historian Sallust in the 1st century BC. It occupied a large area in the northeastern sector of Rome, in what would become Region VI, between the Pincian and Quirinal hills, near the Via Salaria and later Porta Salaria. The modern rione is now known as Sallustiano.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museo Nazionale Romano</span> Museum in Rome, Italy

The National Roman Museum is a museum, with several branches in separate buildings throughout the city of Rome, Italy. It shows exhibits from the pre- and early history of Rome, with a focus on archaeological findings from the period of Ancient Rome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Attalus I</span> King of Pergamon, reigned 241–197 BC

Attalus I, surnamed Soter, was the ruler of the Ionian Greek polis of Pergamon and the larger Pergamene Kingdom from 241 BC to 197 BC. He was the adopted son of King Eumenes I, whom he succeeded, and was the first of the Attalid dynasty to assume the title of king, sometime around 240 to 235 BC. He was the son of Attalus and his wife Antiochis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hellenistic art</span> Art movement

Hellenistic art is the art of the Hellenistic period generally taken to begin with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and end with the conquest of the Greek world by the Romans, a process well underway by 146 BC, when the Greek mainland was taken, and essentially ending in 30 BC with the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt following the Battle of Actium. A number of the best-known works of Greek sculpture belong to this period, including Laocoön and His Sons, Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. It follows the period of Classical Greek art, while the succeeding Greco-Roman art was very largely a continuation of Hellenistic trends.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venus de' Medici</span> Sculpture by Cleomenes the Athenian

The Venus de' Medici or Medici Venus is a 1.53 m tall Hellenistic marble sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite. It is a 1st-century BC marble copy, perhaps made in Athens, of a bronze original Greek sculpture, following the type of the Aphrodite of Knidos, which would have been made by a sculptor in the immediate Praxitelean tradition, perhaps at the end of the century. It has become one of the navigation points by which the progress of the Western classical tradition is traced, the references to it outline the changes of taste and the process of classical scholarship. It is housed in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capitoline Antinous</span> Marble male nude statue found at Hadrians Villa

The Capitoline 'Antinous' is a marble statue of a young nude male found at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli, during the time when Conte Giuseppe Fede was undertaking the earliest concerted excavations there. It was bought before 1733 by Alessandro Cardinal Albani. To contemporaries it seemed to be the real attraction of his collection. The statue was bought by Pope Clement XII in 1733 and went on to form the nucleus of the Capitoline Museums, Rome, where it remains. The restored left leg and the left arm, with its unexpected rhetorical hand gesture, were provided by Pietro Bracci. In the 18th century it was considered to be one of the most beautiful Roman copies of a Greek statue in the world. It was then thought to represent Hadrian's lover Antinous owing to its fleshy face and physique and downturned look. It was part of the artistic loot taken to Paris under the terms of the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) and remained in Paris 1800–15, when it was returned to Rome after the fall of Napoleon.

<i>Castor and Pollux</i> (Prado)

The Castor and Pollux group is an ancient Roman sculptural group of the 1st century AD, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Thermopylae (279 BC)</span> 279 BCE battle between Greeks and Gauls

The Battle of Thermopylae was fought in 279 BC between invading Gallic armies and a combined army of Greek Aetolians, Boeotians, Athenians, and Phocians at Thermopylae. The Gauls under Brennus were victorious, and advanced further into the Greek peninsula where they attempted to sack Delphi but were completely defeated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ippolito Buzzi</span> Italian artist

Ippolito Buzzi (1562–1634) was an Italian sculptor from Viggiù, near Varese, in northernmost Lombardy, a member of a long-established dynasty of painters, sculptors and architects from the town, who passed his mature career in Rome. His personality as a sculptor is somewhat overshadowed by the two kinds of work he is known for: restorations to ancient Roman sculptures, some of them highly improvisatory by modern standards, and sculpture contributed to architectural projects and funeral monuments, where he was one among a team of craftsmen working under the general direction of an architect, like Giacomo della Porta - in projects for Pope Clement VIII, or Flaminio Ponzio - in projects for Pope Paul V - who would provide the designs from which the work was executed, always in consultation with the patron.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heroic nudity</span> Concept in classical sculpture

Heroic nudity or ideal nudity is a concept in classical scholarship to describe the un-realist use of nudity in classical sculpture to show figures who may be heroes, deities, or semi-divine beings. This convention began in Archaic and Classical Greece and continued in Hellenistic and Roman sculpture. The existence or place of the convention is the subject of scholarly argument.

<i>Pasquino Group</i> Group of marble sculptures

The Pasquino Group is a group of marble sculptures that copy a Hellenistic bronze original, dating to ca. 200–150 BCE. At least fifteen Roman marble copies of this sculpture are known. Many of these marble copies have complex artistic and social histories that illustrate the degree to which improvisatory "restorations" were made to fragments of ancient Roman sculpture during the 16th and 17th centuries, in which contemporary Italian sculptors made original and often arbitrary and destructive additions in an effort to replace lost fragments of the ancient sculptures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of the Caecus River</span> 3rd century BC battle between Pergamon and the Galatians

The Battle of the Caecus River or Battle of the Kaikos was a battle between an army of the Kingdom of Pergamon commanded by Attalus I, and the Galatian tribes who resided in Anatolia. The battle took place near the source of the Caecus River and resulted in a victory for the Kingdom of Pergamon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galatians (people)</span> Gallic people of central Anatolia

The Galatians were a Celtic people dwelling in Galatia, a region of central Anatolia in modern-day Turkey surrounding Ankara during the Hellenistic period. They spoke the Galatian language, which was closely related to Gaulish, a contemporary Celtic language spoken in Gaul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Greek art</span> Art of Ancient Greece

Ancient Greek art stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.

References