Identifier: appreciationofsc00stur (find matches)
Title: Appreciation of sculpture; a handbook by Russell Sturgis ...
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Sturgis, Russell
Subjects: Sculpture
Publisher: The Baker
Contributing Library: Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Metropolitan New York Library Council - METRO

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attempt is, of course, to givethe idea of very rapid motion, of headlongrunning with the goal close in view andeach one of the three runners striving toreach it first. Obviously the chief thing at-tempted is the expression, in each figure, ofsuch hold upon the ground and of suchbalanced action, one foot upon the groundduring the instant between two great leaps,that the idea of rapid running shallbe given, while still nothing hopelessly un-graceful results. The muscles of every partof the body are affected, in reality, by suchaction as this, or it would be more accurateto say that they effect such motion; everymuscle, as it were, joining in the combinedeffort made by the whole form: and thisaction has to be expressed in the modellingof the surface, even in its smallest part;for the chief thing that the artist has caredabout is that his figures shall express theidea of triumphantly swift movement inrunning. Now, in antiquity such motives forstatues or groups were uncommon, and yet(218)
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Plate LXIII.—STATUE, called the 1(0R(;HKSE gladiator, LOUVKK MlSKlM. I Recent Art Compared with Greek Standard we might compare with the group by Mr.Boucher the famous statue in the Louvre(Plate LXIII), called formerly the BorgheseGladiator, but now admitted to be theimage of a Greek engaged in a march orcharge or combat, carrying on his left arma heavy shield. If the right arm, whichwas never found and has been replaced by amodern restoration, supported the longspear, then these would be the arms of theHoplite, or heavy-armed Greek foot-soldier ;and why should not the statue represent thePyrrhicha—that ceremonial parade whichwe often call thePyrrhic Dance ? Thepiece has been variously ascribed to thepre-Phidian epoch, and to a post-Phidianepoch, even to a late one, as to the Rhodianschool; and the probability is that it isnearly contemporary with the Aphrodite ofMelos and the Belvedere Torso; but thenoticeable thing about it is that the artisthas used the action of the swiftly mo

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