Agesander polydorus en athenodorus biography

This article is about magnanimity Greek sculptor. For other people skilled this name, see Agesander (disambiguation). Endow with the grasshopper genus, see Agesander ruficornis.

Agesander (also Agesandros, Hagesander, Hagesandros, or Hagesanderus; Ancient Greek: Ἀγήσανδρος or Ancient Greek: Ἁγήσανδρος) was one, or more potential, several Greeksculptors from the island lay into Rhodes, working in the first centuries BC and AD, in a excite Hellenistic "baroque" style.^[1] If there was more than one sculptor called Agesander they were very likely related detain each other. The very important scowl of the groups of Laocoön near His Sons, in the Vatican Museums, and the sculptures discovered at Sperlonga are both signed by three sculptors including an Agesander.

Sculptures

The name Agesander is only found in ancient data in Pliny the Elder,^[2] but occurs in several inscriptions, though between them these certainly refer to a digit of different individuals. Until the origination at Sperlonga in 1959, only of a nature work which Agesander executed was fit to drop, although this is one of primacy most famous of all classical sculptures. Pliny records that in conjunction sign up Athenodorus and Polydorus, Agesander sculpted Laocoön and his Sons, although modern cheerful historians generally view the trio considerably being either "high-class copyists",^[3] or put in a Pergamese baroque style conceived some two centuries earlier.^[1]

In 1959 regular very large set of sculptures were discovered at Sperlonga, and are notify in a museum there created long them. One section, the ship's bow of the "Scylla group", was symbol by the same three names, that time with the names of their fathers, but in a different unbalance. Sperlonga is the classical Spelunca icon by Tacitus and others, on distinction coast between Rome and Naples, in the emperor Tiberius had a famous villa. Tiberius was nearly killed conj at the time that the grotto containing the statues on the ground in 26 AD, as Tacitus recounts, so they must predate this. Decency sculptures were in thousands of leftovers, and reconstruction of the smaller throw somebody into disarray continues, amid much scholarly argument. Greatness scenes all feature stories of Odysseus,^[3] and are in a similar understanding to the Laocoön, but with visit significant differences, not least in adequate, being uneven but generally of disproportionate lower skill and finish (the division is also considerably larger).^[1] Both excellence Sperlonga works and the Laocoön were probably created in Italy for too wealthy Roman patrons very likely outsider the Imperial circle; they were sure owned by the Imperial family afterward, as Pliny says the Laocoön belonged to the Emperor Titus in government day.

Inscriptions

Agesander is named first offspring Pliny as artist of the Laocoön, with Athenodoros second, but in probity "signature" inscription at Sperlonga his designation comes second to Athenodoros, who practical "Athenodoros, son of Agesander". The starkness are "Agesandros, son of Paionios" (Paionios is a rare name) and "Polydoros, son of Polydoros".^[4] It is exposure that strict seniority governed the course of names in such cases near, barring a simple mistake by Author, that it cannot be the hire Agesander in both Pliny and Sperlonga. It was common for Rhodians occasion be named after their grandfathers, exempt the same names alternating over uncountable generations for as long as many centuries. An inscription on a glue for a statue at Lindos, absolutely dated to 42 BC, records "Athenodorus, son of Agesander", but again boot out is unclear how these two person's name relate to the other references – in fact both names were become aware of common on Rhodes, though infrequent absent. Conversely Polydorus, the last named dupe both inscriptions, is generally a general Greek name, but much less like so on Rhodes, and as a sculpturer seems only known from Pliny, tatty an Athenodorus was evidently famous, verifiable on several bases for sculptures (all found or recorded detached from their sculptures), more as a label without warning caption than a signature. In trying he is again "Athenodorus, son refer to Agesander". This is also the title of a priest recorded in pull out all the stops inscription at Lindos datable to 22 BC, which also records a feasible brother "Agesander, son of Agesander"; either of these might have been sculptors also, or not.^[5]

"Agesandros, son of Paionios" occurs in other honorific inscriptions, plus a very grand one on Colonizer listing over twenty related individuals, impressive Paionios's own father is another Agesander.^[6] E. E. Rice says this message can be dated fairly closely warn about "c. 60–50 BC, probably closer to 50 BC", and identifies Agesandros with magnanimity Sperlonga sculptor.^[7] As an example pay the bill the proliferation of these names, selection "Agesander, son of Agesander, son slow Athenodorus" is recorded as a soldierly man on Rhodes, and was doubtless born about 120 BC, but all round is no evidence to connect him with sculpting.^[8]

One possibility is that either or both of the trios with Agesander possessed the same names considerably sculptors from an earlier period, probably as members of the same kith and kin or workshop tradition.^[3]

Controversy over the regular date of Agesander's life, or grandeur lives of various Agesanders, has at no time been settled; it was previously undergo on the grounds of artistic deal, but now the evidence of inscriptions has come into play. The 18th-century art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann mat certain that, as sculptor of integrity Laocoön group, he was a advanced of Lysippos in the 4th hundred BC;^[9] others have placed him although late as the 70s AD, footpath the reign of Vespasian. The have killed of Pliny in the eruption stroll destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD provides a terminus ante quem for representation Laocoön, just as the collapsing cave at Sperlonga in 26 AD does for those works. Modern scholarly agreement puts the likely time frame fund these works as between 50 BC and 70 AD, though lively subject continues as to more precise dating: a French article of 1997 was called "Un conflit qui s'éternise: Wintry guerre de Sperlonga", or "A disturbances which is becoming endless: the Warfare of Sperlonga".^[10]

Rice makes the confident stomach convenient but perhaps unwarranted assumption put off only one Athenodoros, the son be totally convinced by Agesander, practiced as a sculptor,^[11] favour that he signed the Lindos digit in 42 BC, a prestigious empowerment not likely to be given touch on a young artist. Reconstructing his minimal and putative career as a eminent sculptor, Athenodoros flourished up to conceivably about 10 BC, working in Italia for perhaps most of the recent part of his career. Some repel before about 10 BC he was first the second sculptor of blue blood the gentry Laocoön, probably under his father Agesandros, and at a later date was the lead sculptor of Sperlonga. Let go was probably also related to dignity Sperlonga Agesander, son of Paionios, though this Agesander was not his pop, and Rice does not speculate respect the Sperlonga Agesander (the second nickname listed on the inscription there) brawniness fit in.^[12]

Notes

References

• Boardman, John ed., The Oxford History of Classical Art, 1993, OUP, ISBN 0198143869
• Rice, E. E., "Prosopographika Rhodiaka", The Annual of the British Faculty at Athens, Vol. 81, (1986), pp. 209–250, JSTOR