_Vatican Gallery, Rome_]
There is a passage in the Greek poet Aristophanes' comedy of the
Clouds, in which a speaker urges upon a young man the life of the
gymnasium. "Fresh and fair in beauty-bloom," he says, "you shall pass
your days in the wrestling-ground, or run races beneath the sacred olive
trees, crowned with white reed, in company with a pure-hearted friend,
smelling of bindweed, and leisure hours, and the white poplar that sheds
her leaves, rejoicing in the prime of spring when the plane tree
whispers to the lime." This is the kind of life typified in the figure
of our statue,[14] a side of Greek life which no one can overlook if he
would understand the genius of the Greek nation.
[14] The application of this passage to the Apoxyomenos is made by J. A.
Symonds in his _Greek Poets_.
It must not be supposed that our statue represents an actual individual.
It is not a portrait, but an imaginary typical figure. It is true that
portrait statues of athletes were made in great numbers, as we shall
note again in another chapter. It was indeed this practical experience
among athletes that led sculptors to see what a perfect human figure
ought to be. In the study of many different forms they developed an idea
of a type common to all and uniting all the perfections. Certain
sculptors figured out what they regarded as the true proportions of the
ideal human form. One of these was Lysippus, who is believed to have
executed this statue as an illustration of his theories. We note as the
special characteristics of his ideal figure that it is tall, with slim
light limbs, and a rather small head, about one eighth the total height.
We may now see how such a statue as the Apoxyomenos was a preparatory
study for statues of the gods. The gods were to be represented in the
most perfect human forms which it was possible to conceive, and by
working out typical figures like this, forms were found worthy of the
noblest subjects. Thus the proportions discovered by Lysippus were
peculiarly appropriate for the lighter, fleeter gods, as Apollo and
Hermes.
Lysippus executed his works entirely in bronze, and the statue
reproduced in our illustration is a marble copy of the original, which
was long since lost.