Canon of Polyklet

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Doryphoros of Polyklet; Roman copy, National Museum, Naples

The Canon of Polyklet was an art theoretical treatise by one of the outstanding Greek sculptors of the 5th century BC. BC, Polyklet . A written treatise by Polyklet called Canon is only mentioned by Galen in the 2nd century AD. Older references can be found as early as the 3rd century BC. At Philon of Byzantium and at Plutarch around 100 AD.

The canon of Polyklet therefore contained general statements on the production process, its practice and the theoretical foundations, but in its parts specifically devoted to artistic problems it expressed itself on questions of symmetria and its calculation bases. As the work of an artist's individual, the canon was something new and, with Polyklet, introduced an art theorist into the circle of intellectual philosophers, sophists and doctors who wrote prose for the first time.

Despite methodical problems, by measuring polycletic statues, the chiastic structure of his statues , which was recognized without measuring, becomes tangible in numbers. More detailed knowledge for the written and statuary work called Canon has not yet been developed.

Written tradition

Sources

“(Chrysippos) ... but believes that beauty does not lie in the symmetry of the elements, but in that of the parts, in the symmetry of one finger to the other and all fingers to the palm and to the wrist and this to the cubit and the cubit to the Upper arm and everything to everything, as it is written in the Canon Polyklets. For in his writing Polyklet taught us all the symmetries of the body; in his work he has confirmed this doctrine by creating a statue according to the prescriptions in his treatise and then calling the statue "canon" as well as his writing. "

- Galen : De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis 5, 449

Galen's statement from the 2nd century AD is the only ancient tradition that mentions Polyklets in a written treatise and names it as such. Older references can be found as early as the 3rd century BC. In the case of Philon of Byzantium , who quotes Polyklet in his Mechanike syntaxis with the words, “that the beautiful, the good, the right come about by means of many numerical relationships. And small things make the difference. "

In addition, around 100 AD, Plutarch handed down two difficult to understand quotations with the same content from Polyklet, which are generally interpreted as taken from the work of Polyklet and say that "the work is hardest when the clay is thick with a fingernail". The work of Polyklets is also followed by Plutarch's statement that in every work the beauty is completed by "that many dimensions come into the right ratio through a certain symmetry and harmony."

Besides the traditional Galen treatise called the canon of the term is also related to a statue Polyclitus, and not only by Galen, the other in two places the gun mentioned above Statue Polyclitus. According to Pliny , in addition to Doryphorus , Polyklet also created a statue "which the artists call" canon ". Hence they derive the guidelines of their art as it were from a certain law, and he is considered the only one who created art himself through a work of art. ”Ironically, a polycletic statue called Canon of Lucian becomes the cynic Proteus compared as a comparison object.

It is therefore quite possible that Polyklet created a statue of the name which cannot be identified with Doryphorus and which has not survived in the master's posthumous work. Further evidence of the canon of Polyklet has not survived. It is entirely possible that Polyklet named his work Kanon , which actually means “reed” and derived from it “Richtscheit” or “yardstick”, but also includes the guideline for correct behavior in the moral sense, but it can only be added to the work later be. The fact that the work is only specifically mentioned once, the quotations are only brief and imprecise, that the work was not included in Vitruvius' De architectura and that Pliny was also unknown, can be interpreted as an indication that the period of the writing was not too long. Since Galen Chrysippus , who in the 3rd century BC BC acted, named as the source for the context discussed by him and this attestation possibly also refers to the explanations on the canon, furthermore, Philo, an author of the 3rd century BC, also refers to himself. Chr. Refers to Polyklet's work, it can be assumed that both had still studied the text themselves, but that it was lost in the further course and before Vitruvius.

Interpretation of the written tradition

Polyklet's canon dealt with the “symmetria” of human statues and the numerical relationships that must be taken into account in order to make a statue a success, whereby, according to the quotation from Philon, the relationships in the small are particularly decisive. The interpretation of the παρὰ μικρόν , the "from the small" or "next to the small", causes some difficulties, since Polyklet either included the smallest units in its calculation of the proportions and excluded or allowed deviations. The context of the quotation from Philon, who discusses the problems of building a catapult and uses Polyklet's work as a testimony to the need for precise work, suggests that Polyklet certainly stated that even the smallest proportions of symmetries must be taken into account.

The word Symmetria handed down by Galen for Polyklet , which was used before the 5th century BC. BC is not proven, means the proportion in which different aspects of one and the same thing are related to each other, and can refer to “damp” - “dry”, “warm” - “cold”, on building parts and structural members, but also on the limbs of a body. In contrast to asymmetria, symmetria is always the "good and correct" proportion and leads to e.g. B. on beauty, but also on health. In Polyklet, this symmetry is expressed according to Galen in the ratios “finger to finger”, “all fingers to palm and wrist”, “wrist to cubit”, “cubit to upper arm” and “each part to the whole”. Among the terms used, only δάκτυλος , "finger", and πῆχυς , "cubit", are associated with common ancient design dimensions and their units. In particular, καρπός, μετακάρπιον and βραχίον , ie "hand", "(hand to the) bones of the palm" and "upper arm", do not come from these standard units, while common units such as the foot or the width of a hand are missing. In addition, Polyklet seems to have related routes to one another, so that the information in the original work is rather taken from rules of proportion rather than depicting units of measurement. The precise proportions behind this cannot be deciphered on the basis of literary tradition.

The design process according to Polyklet, however, was characterized by great effort, because according to Philon "many dimensions had to come into the right proportion". On the one hand, this required extensive practical experience in sculpture, especially under the difficult conditions of bronze casting . On the other hand, it also involved a large number of arithmetic operations in order to determine the right measure for each limb. And the smallest deviations, as Plutarch and Philon unanimously report, could lead to major errors. Since Philo uses the word τὸ εὖ , which not only means “the good”, but also allows a moral evaluation of the “beautiful, good and right” to resonate, it can be assumed that what is flawed in art for Polyklet is also something morally flawed was. That the set of rules was not based on a rigidly applicable numerical construct is also clear from Plutarch's choice of words, who indefinitely speaks of “certain symmetries” that are achievable, but consequently have to be found anew every time.

If one adds Polyklet's remarks about the practical difficulties regarding the thickness of the clay in the production of a bronze statue, it can be stated that the Polyklet's canon contained general statements about the production process, its practice and the theoretical foundations, especially those devoted to artistic problems However, parties commented on questions relating to Symmetria and its calculation bases. As the sculptor's manual, it was in the tradition of archaic “workshop books”, which have always been shaped by metrological problems and the passing on of workshop-specific solutions and rules. As the work of an individual artist, the canon was something new and, with Polyklet, for the first time introduced an art theorist into the circle of prose-writing intellectual philosophers, sophists and doctors who, like him, in the 5th century BC. Were regarded as Technitai . With his canon, however, Polyklet wrote a work that was quoted centuries later by philosophers and doctors who wanted to underpin the general validity of their own statements.

Archaeological evidence

Methodical problem

Based on the literary tradition, classical archaeologists have been trying for more than 100 years to rediscover the few known facts in the statuary legacy of Polyklet and to determine Polyklet's design principles. The basis for this are six types of statues, some of which can be traced back to bronze statues Polyklets in numerous Roman marble copies. The investigations are based to a large extent on the type of statue of Doryphoros , who had already aroused the greatest admiration among the statues of Polyklets in antiquity and who can unite the largest number of individual mentions in ancient art scholarship. In addition, the fact that a separate type of statue that can be assigned to the Polyklets canon cannot be identified in the monuments inventory and that the tradition of Pliny, who seems to distinguish between the two statues, is imprecise and needs to be corrected, gave rise to equating Doryphoros with the canon . In Pliny 's sentence “ fecit et quem canona artificies vocant” (“and he made one which the artists call canon”) the et was deleted, with the result that Canon and Doryphorus meant the same statue (“he made a Doryphoros, which what artists call canon ”).

By measuring and analyzing Doryphoros, more rarely on the basis of other polycletic statue types, one tries to understand the design process of Polyklets in order to find clues for his system of proportions as the basis of his symmetry.

Well-known methodological problems arise from the information provided by Galen, from the material tradition, which only knows Roman copies that always differ slightly from one another, and from the definition of the measurement and reference points. After all, the system of measurement used by Polyklet is initially unknown.

Since each link is related to higher-level links and the whole, there is theoretically an almost immeasurable number of relationships and proportions to be considered. This is where sculpture differs from the classical period from that of the archaic period: it no longer followed a grid, but used the possibilities of free development in a new reference system based on the natural model, which opens up and integrates areas of tension. Since it can be assumed that the written work of Polyklet was understandable and comprehensible at least for subsequent sculptors, the rules laid down in it must have been flexible and simple, at least not too complicated, had to have been applicable to both sexes and different ages.

It is more difficult to measure using the copies. Not only do you usually have to use casts, i.e. copies of copies, which, depending on the material, turn out to be enlarged or reduced, for the measurement, but the Roman copies sometimes show not inconsiderable deviations in their dimensions. For example, the replica of Doryphorus in Naples is 2 centimeters larger than the replica in Minneapolis.

Finally, an ancient unit of measurement must be credibly determined from the copies, which can be found in the usual ancient relationships, i.e. about 4 fingers = 1 hand, 16 fingers = 1 foot, 24 fingers = 1 cubit, in the statue or the original to be reconstructed . The basis for this would be an "objective" measurement, which requires knowledge of the design process, in order not to allow arbitrariness to be drawn in when choosing the measuring points. Furthermore, the measurements taken must be transferable to an unpondered , anthropometric state of the statue, which in the case of Doryphorus extends the body size by 2% or approx. 4 centimeters.

Measurement results

The unit of measurement for the work Polyklets is assumed to be the pheidonic system of measurement with a foot length of 32 2/3 centimeters due to its origin and its time. Accordingly, the statue of Doryphorus in Naples had a pondered height of 98 fingers, an unpondered height of 100 fingers and in the area of ​​the maximum ponderation gradient a height of 96 fingers. On the free leg side , the distance between the base and the bulge of the thigh neck is therefore 48 fingers = 2 cubits = 3 feet, on the standing leg side the distance between the corresponding measuring points is 50 fingers or half the height of the statue. In the middle of the body, the base of the limbs divides the statues into two 49-finger high sections. Further distances to 48, 49 and 50 pheidonic fingers can be demonstrated, whereby a value of 48 fingers is always supplemented by a value of 50 fingers, in the case of the free leg side, i.e. the distance from the base to the thigh of 48 fingers, a distance from the thigh to the vertex of 50 Fingers follows.

The chiastic structure of Doryphorus , which was already recognized without measurement, becomes tangible in numbers . The first signs of how Polyklet worked on the design are emerging. More detailed knowledge for the written and statuary work called Canon has not yet been developed.

Remarks

  1. ^ Translation by Norbert Kaiser: Written sources on Polyklet. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 74 f.
  2. ↑ Galen's work About the doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato was probably also known to Avicenna , the author of the Canon of Medicine ; see Gotthard Strohmaier : Avicenna. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-41946-1 , p. 114.
  3. ^ Philon of Byzantium, Mechanike syntaxis 4, 1, 49; Translation after Norbert Kaiser: Written sources on Polyklet. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 50 f.
  4. ^ Plutarch, Moralia 86 a and 636 c; for discussion see Hanna Philipp : On Polyklet's writing »Canon«. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 143 f.
  5. ^ Plutarch, Moralia 45 c – d.
  6. ^ Galen, de temperamentis 1, 9 and de usu partium 1 (352 Kühn ).
  7. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 34, 55; Translation by Norbert Kaiser: Written sources on Polyklet. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 59.
  8. ^ Lukian, De morte Peregrinus 9.
  9. ↑ Hanna Philipp: On Polyklet's writing »Canon«. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 136.
  10. ^ Felix Heinimann : Measure - Weight - Number. In: Museum Helveticum. Vol. 32, 1975, pp. 183-196 note 9; Adolf Borbein : Polykleitos. In: Olga Palagia, Jerome Jordan Pollitt (eds.): Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture. Cambridge 1996, p. 85 f.
  11. ^ Andrew F. Stewart: The Canon of Polykleitos. A Question of Evidence. In: Journal of Hellenic Studies . Vol. 98, 1978, p. 126.
  12. ↑ Hanna Philipp: On Polyklet's writing »Canon«. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 137 f.
  13. ↑ Hildebrecht Hommel : Symmetry in the mirror image of antiquity. Meeting reports of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class, 5th report, 1986, p. 21 f. Note 32.
  14. ↑ Hanna Philipp: On Polyklet's writing »Canon«. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 139.
  15. ^ Philon of Byzantium, Mechanike syntaxis 4, 1, 49; Plutarch, Moralia 45 c – d.
  16. ↑ Adolf Borbei: Canon and ideal. Critical aspects of the high class. In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute. Athenian Department. Vol. 100, 1985, p. 257.
  17. ↑ Hanna Philipp: On Polyklet's writing »Canon«. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 141.
  18. ^ Ernst Berger , Brigitte Müller-Huber, Lukas Thommen : The artist's design. Sculpture canon in ancient and modern times. Antikenmuseum Basel and the Ludwig Collection, Basel 1992, pp. 14–24; Werner Fuchs , Josef Floren : The Greek sculpture I. The geometric and archaic sculpture. (= Handbuch der Archäologie 9. 6) Gabriel, Munich 1987, pp. 87-91; Eleanor Guralnik: The Proportions of Kouroi. In: American Journal of Archeology . Vol. 82, 1978, pp. 173-182; Eleanor Guralnik: The Proportions of Korai. In: American Journal of Archeology. Vol. 85, 1982, pp. 269-280.
  19. ^ Adolf Borbein: Polykleitos. In: Olga Palagia, Jerome Jordan Pollitt (eds.): Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture. Cambridge 1996, p. 85; Felix Preisshofen: On the formation of theories in building planning and building theory. In: Building planning and building theory of antiquity. Report on a colloquium in Berlin from 16. – 18. November 1983. Wasmuth, Berlin 1984 (discussions on ancient building research, 4), pp. 26–30.
  20. ↑ Pliny, Naturalis historia 34, 55.
  21. ↑ Herbert Oppel: ΚΑΝΩΝ. On the history of the meaning of the word and its Latin equivalents (regula - norma). Leipzig 1937, pp. 48-50; Christoff Neumeister : Polyklet in Roman literature. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 436.
  22. ↑ Hans von Steuben: The canon of Polyklet. Doryphoros and Amazon. Wasmuth, Tubingen 1973; Richard Tobin: The Canon of Polykleitos. In: American Journal of Archeology. Vol. 79, 1975, pp. 307-321; Andrew F. Stewart: The Canon of Polykleitos. A Question of Evidence. In: Journal of Hellenic Studies. Vol. 98, 1978, pp. 122-131; Ernst Berger: On the canon of Polyklet. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. Pp. 156-184.
  23. ↑ Ernst Berger: To the canon of Polyklet. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 160.
  24. ↑ Ernst Berger: To the canon of Polyklet. In: Beck, Bol, Bückling (Ed.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. P. 157 and 160 f.

literature

  • Ernst Berger : On the canon of Polyklet. In: Herbert Beck , Peter C. Bol , Maraike Bückling (eds.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. Exhibition in the Liebieghaus-Museum Alter Plastik Frankfurt am Main . Zabern, Mainz 1990, ISBN 3-8053-1175-3 , pp. 156-184.
  • Adolf Borbein : Polykleitos. In: Olga Palagia, Jerome Jordan Pollitt (eds.): Personal Styles in Greek Sculpture. Cambridge 1996, pp. 66-90.
  • Norbert Kaiser: Written sources on Polyklet. In: Herbert Beck, Peter C. Bol, Maraike Bückling (eds.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. Exhibition in the Liebieghaus-Museum Alter Plastik Frankfurt am Main . Zabern, Mainz 1990, ISBN 3-8053-1175-3 , pp. 48-78.
  • Hanna Philipp : On Polyklet's writing »Canon«. In: Herbert Beck, Peter C. Bol, Maraike Bückling (eds.): Polyklet. The sculptor of the Greek classical period. Exhibition in the Liebieghaus-Museum Alter Plastik Frankfurt am Main . Zabern, Mainz 1990, ISBN 3-8053-1175-3 , pp. 135-155.
  • Hans von Steuben : The canon of Polyklet. Doryphoros and Amazon. Wasmuth, Tubingen 1973.