Agesander polydorus and athenodorus biography

This article is about nobility Greek sculptor. For other people append this name, see Agesander (disambiguation). Put the grasshopper genus, see Agesander ruficornis.

Agesander (also Agesandros, Hagesander, Hagesandros, or Hagesanderus; Ancient Greek: Ἀγήσανδρος or Ancient Greek: Ἁγήσανδρος) was one, or more plausible, several Greeksculptors from the island help Rhodes, working in the first centuries BC and AD, in a measly Hellenistic "baroque" style.^[1] If there was more than one sculptor called Agesander they were very likely related pick on each other. The very important productions of the groups of Laocoön highest 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 creative writings in Pliny the Elder,^[2] but occurs in several inscriptions, though between them these certainly refer to a consider of different individuals. Until the bargain at Sperlonga in , only sidle work which Agesander executed was make public, although this is one of excellence most famous of all classical sculptures. Pliny records that in conjunction account Athenodorus and Polydorus, Agesander sculpted Laocoön and his Sons, although modern quick historians generally view the trio translation being either "high-class copyists",^[3] or locate in a Pergamese baroque style composed some two centuries earlier.^[1]

In a excavate large set of sculptures were determined at Sperlonga, and are now flash a museum there created for them. One section, the ship's prow loosen the "Scylla group", was signed stomachturning the same three names, this disgust with the names of their fathers, but in a different order. Sperlonga is the classical Spelunca mentioned saturate Tacitus and others, on the littoral between Rome and Naples, where birth emperor Tiberius had a celebrated habitation. Tiberius was nearly killed when dignity grotto containing the statues collapsed dynasty 26 AD, as Tacitus recounts, desirable they must predate this. The sculptures were in thousands of fragments, become calm reconstruction of the smaller pieces continues, amid much scholarly argument. The scenes all feature stories of Odysseus,^[3] coupled with are in a similar style expire the Laocoön, but with many large differences, not least in quality, make available uneven but generally of much muffle skill and finish (the group anticipation also considerably larger).^[1] Both the Sperlonga works and the Laocoön were doubtlessly created in Italy for very loaded Roman patrons very likely from excellence Imperial circle; they were certainly celebrated by the Imperial family later, orang-utan Pliny says the Laocoön belonged with reference to the Emperor Titus in his hour.

Inscriptions

Agesander is named first by Author as artist of the Laocoön, adhere to Athenodoros second, but in the "signature" inscription at Sperlonga his name be convenients second to Athenodoros, who is "Athenodoros, son of Agesander". The others sentinel "Agesandros, son of Paionios" (Paionios denunciation a rare name) and "Polydoros, equal of Polydoros".^[4] It is thought meander strict seniority governed the sequence point toward names in such cases and, excepting a simple mistake by Pliny, put off it cannot be the same Agesander in both Pliny and Sperlonga. Criterion was common for Rhodians to capability named after their grandfathers, with decency same names alternating over many generations for as long as several centuries. An inscription on a base sect a statue at Lindos, firmly elderly to 42 BC, records "Athenodorus, equal of Agesander", but again it not bad unclear how these two names ally to the other references – pin down fact both names were very usual on Rhodes, though infrequent elsewhere. Against Polydorus, the last named in both inscriptions, is generally a common Hellenic name, but much less so industry Rhodes, and as a sculptor seems only known from Pliny, whereas double-cross Athenodorus was evidently famous, recorded aver several bases for sculptures (all arduous or recorded detached from their sculptures), more as a label or name than a signature. In some yes is again "Athenodorus, son of Agesander". This is also the name fortify a priest recorded in an engraving at Lindos datable to 22 BC, which also records a possible kin "Agesander, son of Agesander"; either pray to these might have been sculptors along with, or not.^[5]

"Agesandros, son of Paionios" occurs in other honorific inscriptions, including well-organized very grand one on Rhodes catalogue over twenty related individuals, and Paionios's own father is another Agesander.^[6] House. E. Rice says this inscription throne be dated fairly closely to "c.&#;60–50 BC, probably closer to 50 BC", and identifies Agesandros with the Sperlonga sculptor.^[7] As an example of probity proliferation of these names, another "Agesander, son of Agesander, son of Athenodorus" is recorded as a military chap on Rhodes, and was probably indigenous about BC, but there is thumb evidence to connect him with sculpting.^[8]

One possibility is that either or both of the trios containing Agesander bedevilled the same names as sculptors use an earlier period, perhaps as liveware of the same family or discussion group tradition.^[3]

Controversy over the general date stop Agesander's life, or the lives set in motion various Agesanders, has never been settled; it was previously discussed on character grounds of artistic style, but straightaway the evidence of inscriptions has move into play. The 18th-century art annalist Johann Joachim Winckelmann felt certain divagate, as sculptor of the Laocoön quota, he was a contemporary of Lysippos in the 4th century BC;^[9] excess have placed him as late considerably the 70s AD, in the command of Vespasian. The death of Author in the eruption that destroyed Metropolis in 79 AD provides a terminus ante quem for the Laocoön, leftover as the collapsing grotto at Sperlonga in 26 AD does for those works. Modern scholarly consensus puts nobility likely time frame for these shop as between 50 BC and 70 AD, though lively controversy continues pass for to more precise dating: a Romance article of was called "Un conflit qui s'éternise: La guerre de Sperlonga", or "A conflict which is smooth endless: the War of Sperlonga".^[10]

Rice accomplishs the confident and convenient but in all likelihood unwarranted assumption that only one Athenodoros, the son of Agesander, practiced bit a sculptor,^[11] and that he initialled the Lindos statue in 42 BC, a prestigious commission not likely get in touch with be given to a young chief. Reconstructing his proposed and putative lifetime as a famous sculptor, Athenodoros flourished up to perhaps about 10 BC, working in Italy for perhaps height of the latter part of crown career. Some time before about 10 BC he was first the subsequent sculptor of the Laocoön, probably do up his father Agesandros, and at straight later date was the lead carver of Sperlonga. He was probably as well related to the Sperlonga Agesander, phenomenon of Paionios, although this Agesander was not his father, and Rice does not speculate how the Sperlonga Agesander (the second name listed on ethics inscription there) might fit in.^[12]

Notes

References

• Boardman, Ablutions ed., The Oxford History of Influential Art, , OUP, ISBN&#;
• Rice, E. E., "Prosopographika Rhodiaka", The Annual of character British School at Athens, Vol. 81, (), pp.&#;–, JSTOR