Apollo from Belvedere
The Apollo von Belvedere is an ancient marble sculpture that was rediscovered in the Villa Nero in Anzio at the end of the 15th century and has since been considered an outstanding example of classical sculpture . It is located in the statue courtyard of the Vatican Belvedere and is part of the Antiquities Collection of the Vatican Museums .
The marble statue is a Roman copy of a Greek bronze work that was made between 350 and 325 BC. Was created. It is mostly assigned to the late classical sculptor Leochares . The right forearm and left hand were missing in the discovery, were added in the installation in 1532, removed again in 1929 in the course of a scientific purism , and finally added again in 2008 as recognizable additions. Of the work, which has been very famous since its discovery, there is only one further Roman copy of the head, the so-called Steinhauser head in the Antikenmuseum Basel . The ancient esteem did not reach the rank of other statues. The initial fame also waned in modern times after Anton Raphael Mengs had already recognized in the 1770s that it was not a Greek original, but a Roman copy made of Carrara marble, and this knowledge prevailed.
The statue shows Apollo as an archer in motion. He was holding the bow in his left hand, and probably an arrow drawn from its quiver in his right. He is only dressed in a chlamys that hangs around his shoulders and over his left elbow. The gaze is directed into the distance. At an angle behind the right leg, as an ingredient of the Roman copyist, a tree stump is connected to the statue as a statue support. The necessity of such a support resulted from the transfer of the bronze original in stone. A snake winds around the stump, alluding to Apollo's victory over the python .
The work, which shows the Greek god Apollo, became famous through an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi from the 1530s. Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi , known as L'Antico , had already made a wax model of the statue in order to cast a bronze copy from it in 1497/1498. This became part of the Gonzaga's collection . 1504 encountered a representation in a practically identical pose in Albrecht Dürer's The Fall of Man , so that Dürer was apparently also able to take a look at Apollo in Rome . At that time, the Apollo was probably owned by Giuliano della Rovere, later Pope Julius II , who moved the work to the open courtyard of the Belvedere in 1511 , a summer villa north of St. Peter and later connected to the papal palace complex Vatican , let spend. The statue was named after this Belvedere. The head of the statue served Michelangelo as a model for the head of the judge of the world Jesus Christ in the Sistine Chapel . For the first time, the image of Christ was presented to the beholder in an official commission from a Pope in Rome, deviating from the usual type and entirely according to a pagan deity.
reception
In the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, the Apollo of Belvedere was considered the most beautiful surviving single figure of antiquity. Plaster casts of the statue were among the most important study objects in the academic art world. Accordingly, her stand motif has influenced numerous works of sculpture and painting. For Johann Joachim Winckelmann , the Apollo von Belvedere was “the highest ideal of art among all works of antiquity”. Winckelmann's description of the work contributed to the fact that the Apollo von Belvedere particularly shaped the aesthetics of classicism . Moved, Goethe wrote to Herder in the summer of 1771:
“My whole self is shaken, you can think so, man, and it still fibrates far too much for my pen to draw steadily. Apollo von Belvedere, why do you show yourself in your nakedness that we must be ashamed of ours? "
Goethe owned a bust of Apollo von Belvedere and had also visited the Kassel Apollon . Friedrich Hebbel , who had visited Italy several times, dedicated a sonnet to the statue of the Belvedere in 1845 .
Since the end of the 19th century - with the discovery of more and more archaic Greek works of art - the art of the 4th century BC was considered. As mannered and decadent; the appreciation for the Apollo of Belvedere waned. She was also considered too androgynous in her soft muscular display.
literature
- Nikolaus Himmelmann : Apollo from the Belvedere. In: Matthias Winner , Bernard Andreae (ed.): Il Cortile delle Statue. The statue courtyard of the Belvedere in the Vatican. Files from the international congress in honor of Richard Krautheimer. Rome 21.-23. October 1992. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1998, pp. 211-225.
- Steffi Roettgen: Encounters with Apollo: on the reception history of Apollo from the Belvedere in the 18th century. In: Matthias Winner, Bernard Andreae (ed.): Il Cortile delle Statue: the statue courtyard of the Belvedere in the Vatican. Files from the international congress in honor of Richard Krautheimer. Rome 21.-23. October 1992. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1998, pp. 253-274.
- Matthias Winner: Paragone with the Belvedere Apollo: a small history of the statue's impact from Antico to Canova. In: Matthias Winner, Bernard Andreae (ed.): Il Cortile delle Statue: the statue courtyard of the Belvedere in the Vatican. Files from the international congress in honor of Richard Krautheimer. Rome 21.-23. October 1992. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1998, pp. 227-252.
Web links
- Entry in the Virtual Antique Museum with a 3D panorama
- 16th century engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi (English)
- Johann Joachim Winckelmann : Description of the Apollo and the torso in the Belvedere in Rome. Retrieved June 5, 2019 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ New look at antique bronze bodies in FAZ from January 28, 2013, page B1
- ^ Heinrich Pfeiffer SJ : The Sistine Chapel rediscovered. Belser, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-7630-2488-9 , p. 276.
- ↑ Detlev Wannagat : The poet's gaze. Darmstadt 1997, pp. 84-87.