Lysippos and Alexander
During his lifetime, Lysippos was personal sculptor to Alexander the Great; indeed, he was the only artist whom the conqueror saw fit to represent him. A recently-discovered epigram of Macedonian Poseidippus, in the anthology represented in the Milan Papyrus, takes as its inspiration a bronze portrait of Alexander:
- Lysippos, Sicyonian sculptor, daring hand, learned artisan,
- your bronze statue has the look of fire in its eyes,
- that one you made in the form of Alexander. The Persians deserve
- no blame. We forgive cattle for fleeing a lion.
Lysippus has been credited with the stock representation of an inspired, godlike Alexander with tousled hair and lips parted, looking upward. One fine example, an early Imperial Roman copy found at Tivoli, is conserved at the Louvre.
Read more about this topic: Lysippos
Famous quotes containing the word alexander:
“Take the serious side of Disney, the Confucian side of Disney. It’s in having taken an ethos ... where you have the values of courage and tenderness asserted in a way that everybody can understand. You have got an absolute genius there. You have got a greater correlation of nature than you have had since the time of Alexander the Great.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)