Lysippus

Sculptor

Born: c. 390 b. c.e.; Sicyon, Greece Died: c. 300 b. c.e.; place unknown Also known as: Lysippos Category: Art and architecture

Life Credited with being the greatest sculptor of the Sicyon artistic school, Lysippus (li-SIHP-uhs) had a prolific career. Beginning as a bronze-smith, he probably concentrated in that medium. Inscribed statue bases and ancient literary references define his range: deities, athletes, heroes, and animals. His skill of truth in portraiture led Alexander the Great to appoint Lysippus as his court sculptor.

A copy of the quadriga, thought to be the work of Lysippus, sits atop the Courel Arch at the western entrance to the Louvre in Paris, France. (© Annebicque Bernard/Corbis Sygma)

Despite the exceptional quality and number of his works, no originals remain, although some attributions have been suggested from Roman copies. Perhaps his most famous statue was a youth scraping himself, associated with the Apoxyomenos (Body-Scraper) in the Vatican Museum. A marble statue of the athlete Agias in Delphi may be a contemporary copy of a Lysippan bronze from Pharsalus. Other famous works included many of Heracles, who in one rested after his labors and in another imbibed wine as a tabletop decoration. His celebrated allegorical statue Kairos (Opportunity) showed the youth as elusive and ephemeral.

Influence Lysippus formed a large workshop whose students probably carried on his preference for sculpting the human form not as it existed but as it appeared to the eye, resulting in a small head, long legs, and a slim body. His finesse in fine detail, imparting greater naturalism to his figures, was well known.

Further Reading

Edwards, C. “Lysippos.” In Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture, edited by O. Palagia and J. J. Pollitt. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Johnson, F. P. Lysippos. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1927. Steiner, Deborah Tarn. Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature and Thought. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Stewart, A. Greek Sculpture. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,

1990.

Nancy Serwint

See also: Alexander the Great; Art and Architecture.