3/18/2023 0 Comments Apollo gaia projectIn 1504, Michelangelo met the challenge posed by antiquity with a boldly confident, 17-feet-high statue of David. The first life size marble nude of the Renaissance, Tullio Lombardo’s Adam, wasn’t made until c. Renaissance and Baroque artists often despaired of equaling the works created by the ancients. It is part of the story of Apollo and Daphne. The Belvedere Apollo’s antagonist is most often assumed to be the Python, the first powerful creature that Apollo vanquished. Mattusch ( “Naming the ‘Classical’ Style,” 2004) reproduces the statue without restorations and raises the possibility that it could be an original Roman creation. Consequently, the statue was originally restored with a bow, as depicted in an ink drawing made when it was in the Belvedere Courtyard (see Laurie Porstner’s article “Restoring ancient sculpture in Baroque Rome,” which also illustrates the Laocoön and a Bernini restoration that are discussed below.) That bow is now removed, though the restored lower right arm and left hand and wrist remain (as in the above illustration). The statue is generally thought to depict Apollo just after he has shot an arrow, presumably against a mighty foe. (For a short critical history, see entry in The Classical Tradition, 2010.) The statue’s reputation never recovered from this over-valuation, though it is still referenced as a touchstone of male beauty, from the Journal of British Orthodontics to an analysis of People magazine’s “Most Beautiful” people to critiques of longstanding Eurocentric norms. It was even more highly regarded during the Neo-classical period, when it was declared the pinnacle of classical beauty and majesty. Though it was discovered in the late 15 th century, the Apollo Belvedere received little attention until it was moved to the Vatican in the early 16 th century, where it served as the primary antique reference for images of Apollo and became one of the most influential classical works during the Renaissance. Let us begin with the Apollo Belvedere, a Roman marble likely based on a Greek bronze. 330-320 B.C., marble, 7.3 feet (2.24 meters) high, Vatican Museums, Vatican City. Roman, Apollo Belvedere, probably reign of Hadrian, 117-138, probably a copy of a Greek or Hellenistic bronze, possibly by Leochares from c.
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