The Apollo Lyceus ( el, Ἀπόλλων Λύκειος, ''Apollōn Lukeios'') type, also known as Lycean Apollo, originating with
Praxiteles
Praxiteles (; el, Πραξιτέλης) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubita ...
and known from many full-size statue and figurine copies as well as from 1st century BCE Athenian coinage, is a statue type of
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
showing the god resting on a support (a tree trunk or tripod), his right forearm touching the top of his head and his hair fixed in braids on the top of a head in a haircut typical of childhood. It is called "Lycean" not after
Lycia
Lycia (Lycian language, Lycian: 𐊗𐊕𐊐𐊎𐊆𐊖 ''Trm̃mis''; el, Λυκία, ; tr, Likya) was a state or nationality that flourished in Anatolia from 15–14th centuries BC (as Lukka) to 546 BC. It bordered the Mediterranean ...
itself, but after its identification with a lost work described, though not attributed to a sculptor, by
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer
Pamphleteer is a historical term for someone who creates or distributes pamphlets, unbound (and therefore ...
as being on show in the
Lyceum, one of the
gymnasia of
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
. According to Lucian, the god leaning on a support with his bow in his left hand and his right resting on his head is shown "as if resting after long effort." Its main exemplar is the ''
Apollino
The Apollino or Medici Apollo is a Roman copy of a Hellenistic sculpture of the adolescent god Apollo of the Apollo Lykeios type. It is now in the Uffizi, Florence.
Its head has proportions similar to those of Praxiteles's Aphrodite of Cnidus, an ...
'' in Florence or ''Apollo Medici'', in the
Uffizi,
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
.
The attribution, based on the type's "elongated proportions, elegant pose and somewhat effeminate anatomy", as
Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway
Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway (born 1929 in Chieti) is an Italian archaeologist and specialist in ancient Greek sculpture.
Life
The daughter of an Italian officer, she spent her childhood in Ethiopia and Eritrea, where her father was stationed. Afte ...
characterised it, is traditionally supported on the grounds of the type's similarity to Praxiteles's ''
Hermes
Hermes (; grc-gre, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orato ...
'' from Olympia - one replica of the ''Lycian Apollo'' even passed as a copy of the ''Hermes'' for a time. The comparison essentially rests on the ''Apollino'', whose head has proportions similar to those of the
Aphrodite of Cnidus and whose pronounced ''
sfumato
Sfumato (, ) is a painting technique for softening the transition between colours, mimicking an area beyond what the human eye is focusing on, or the out-of-focus plane. It is one of the canonical painting modes of the Renaissance. Leonardo da V ...
'' confirms the long-held idea that it is Praxitelean in style, in spite of the many differences among the extant examples.
Nevertheless, most exemplars of this type exhibit a pronounced musculature which does not resemble masculine types normally attributed to Praxiteles - it has further been proposed that it is a work of his contemporary
Euphranor, or of a 2nd-century BCE work The ''Apollino'', for its part, would thus be an eclectic creation from the Roman era, mixing several styles from the "
second classicism" (i.e. from the 4th century BC).
The famous pose with the arm resting on the head was so thoroughly identified with Apollo that it was used for the Hadrianic sculpture of
Antinous
Antinous, also called Antinoös, (; grc-gre, Ἀντίνοος; 27 November – before 30 October 130) was a Greek youth from Bithynia and a favourite and probable lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Following his premature death before his ...
as Apollo at
Leptis Magna
Leptis or Lepcis Magna, also known by other names
Other often refers to:
* Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy
Other or The Other may also refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent fil ...
. With the Hellenistic and Roman depictions of a youthful
Dionysus
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (; grc, Διόνυσος ) is the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theatre. The Romans ...
typologically not always distinguishable from Apollo, the pose seems to have been inherited by Dionysus, as in the 2nd century CE
Ludovisi Dionysus, a Roman sculpture. The pose is also used in the
Amazon statue types, and its long-established
[Ridgway 1974 .] conventional expression of lassitude identified
Sleeping Ariadne as well.
References
{{Praxiteles
Sculptures of Apollo
Sculptures by Praxiteles
Epithets of Apollo