Arts & Events

This remarkable show, which runs from July 28 to November 1 at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, brings together 50 or so ancient bronzes from 34 museums in 13 countries on 4 continents. It is a traveling exhibition which opened March 14 at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, then moved to Los Angeles, and will proceed in November to the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Entitled “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World,” this show is perhaps misnamed, for although it focuses primarily on Greek and Roman works of the Hellenistic period – from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the 2^nd century AD – it also includes significant works from the 5^th and 4^th centuries BC, the so-called Classical period of ancient Greece. It offers, as one journalist noted, “the Murderer’s Row of Greek Bronzes.”  

One highlight of the show is the Seated Boxer from the Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Massimo in Rome. This astonishing Greek work from the 3^rd century BC offers a larger than life-size nude man of mature age, who appears to be resting after what one infers must have been a grueling boxing match, for he exhibits cauliflower ears, a broken nose, and a swollen right cheek disfigured by a hematoma – all rendered in hard-core realism by a magisterial handling of the medium of bronze-casting. He wears fur-lined gloves wound with sharp leather thongs, the boxing gloves of ancient Greek athletes. The intrinsic brutality of this representation of a boxer is by no means minimized. Yet somehow the brutality arouses in the viewer a certain empathy for this man who gives and receives violent blows that leave deep wounds. Presumably, before being brought to Rome this statue would have been erected in a Greek sanctuary or public place in the hometown of the athlete it commemorates. Assuming that this was a victorious boxer, one has to ask, if this is how the winner looked, can we imagine how the loser looked? 

Most Greek sculpture that has survived is carved from marble. In ancient Greece, however, bronze was more highly prized. However, bronze, unlike marble, was easily melted down for recycling in armaments and coinage, with the result that most bronze pieces have been lost to us. Some of the best-preserved ancient bronzes have been retrieved from underwater as the result of shipwrecks. The greatest of all Greek bronzes, and to my mind the greatest piece of sculpture ever created, the 5^th century BC Zeus or Poseidon hurling a javelin, was found underwater off Cape Artemesion; but it is unfortunately not included in this traveling exhibition. It remains permanently installed in The National Museum in Athens. Two other underwater finds from the 5^th century BC, the larger than life-size Riace Warriors, were included in the Florence show but did not come to the Getty Center in Los Angeles. This was a major disappointment, for I have never had a chance to visit the museum in Italy’s Reggio di Calabria where they are usually on view. Several other major works from this traveling exhibition did not make it to Los Angeles, including the famed 5^th century BC Charioteer from Delphi and the 4^th century BC Marathon Boy housed in The National Museum in Athens.  

Among the far-flung contributions to this show are a Weary Herakles from the National Museum in Baghdad, Iraq; a 4^th century BC portrait head of Seuthes III from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia; and a Citizen Woman, wearing a thin chiton and himation veiled over her head, from the Miho Museum in Shigaraki, Japan. Incidentally, this latter piece is one of the few works in the show depicting a female, whether human or divine. Of these, perhaps the finest is a statuette of the goddess Athena, which is normally housed in the Getty Villa in Malibu. Another work from the Getty Villa in this show is the famed Statue of An Athlete (or The Getty Bronze), which did not travel to Italy for the show’s opening in Florence due to its being the subject of litigation in Italian courts. Yet another piece from the Getty Villa in this show is the admirable bust of the Roman poet Menander.  

Included in the show are several versions of a nude Greek athlete holding a strigil used for scraping oil from his body. This was a popular image in ancient Greece, where it bore the title Apoxyomenos, and such images remained hugely popular well into the 2^nd century AD. A life-size Apoxyomenos from Ephesos, provided to the traveling exhibition by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, is a masterpiece of restoration, for it was discovered broken into 234 fragments in the Harbor Baths at Ephesos in 1896. A second Apoxyomenos, this one almost entirely intact, was found in 1997 at a depth of 45 meters in the waters of the Northern Adriatic off the coast of Croatia. This piece, called The Croatian Apoxyomenos, was provided to the traveling exhibition by the Ministry of Culture of Croatia in Zagreb. 

Two 2^nd century BC Herms of Dionysos are on display here, one from a shipwreck off the coast of Tunisia, provided by the Musée Nationale du Bardo in Tunis, and a second from the Getty Villa in Malibu. Metal analysis has established that both of these herms were most likely produced at the same time and in the same workshop. A nearly life-size statue of Apollo found off the coast of Piombino, Italy, is an example of the archaizing style popular in the late Hellenistic period. This particular Apollo, it has been discovered, was produced at Lindos on Rhodes by two sculptors who inscribed their names on lead tablets inserted into the interior of the statue. This work was provided by the Louvre in Paris. A statue of an Ephebe or youth, (nicknamed the Idolino), was discovered in Pesaro, Italy, and was provided for the traveling exhibition by the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence. Last but by no means least is the famed Boy Removing a Thorn from His Foot, (nicknamed the Spinario), a 1^st century BC bronze provided by the Musei Capitolini in Rome. This ingenious work depicts a nude youth seated on a rock with his left leg crossed over his right knee as he extracts a thorn from the sole of his foot. The simple, down-to-earth grace of this much-renowned work is irresistible. 

All in all, this remarkable exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see 50 or so of the remaining large-scale bronzes (perhaps 200 in total) in existence in the world’s museums. As such, it is a must-see art show, one worth catching a plane to go see, especially when it is as close-by to us in the Bay Area as Los Angeles. This show is not to be missed by anyone interested in art, especially ancient art.