Scopas (; born in

Paros Paros (; ; ) is a Greek island in the central Aegean Sea. Part of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos (island), Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of Piraeus. The Co ...

, fl. 4th century BCE) was an ancient Greek sculptor and architect, most famous for his statue of Meleager, the copper statue of

Aphrodite Aphrodite (, ) is an Greek mythology, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretism, syncretised Roman counterpart , desire, Sexual intercourse, sex, fertility, prosperity, and ...

, and the head of goddess Hygieia, daughter of

Asclepius Asclepius (; ''Asklēpiós'' ; ) is a hero and god of medicine in ancient Religion in ancient Greece, Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology. He is the son of Apollo and Coronis (lover of Apollo), Coronis, or Arsinoe (Greek myth), Ars ...

Early life and family

Scopas was born on the island of

. His father was the sculptor Aristander of Paros. Skopas left Paros at an early age and travelled throughout the Hellenic world.

Career

Scopas worked with Praxiteles, and he sculpted parts of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, especially the

relief Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...

s. He led the building of the new temple of Athena Alea at

Tegea Tegea (; ) was a settlement in ancient Arcadia, and it is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the Tripoli municipality, of which it is a municipal unit with an area o ...

. Similar to Lysippus, Scopas is artistically a successor of the

Classical Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archa ...

sculptor

Polykleitos Polykleitos (; ) was an ancient Greek sculptor, active in the 5th century BCE. Alongside the Athenian sculptors Pheidias, Myron and Praxiteles, he is considered as one of the most important sculptors of classical antiquity. The 4th century B ...

. The faces of the heads are almost in

quadrat A quadrat is a frame used in ecology, geography, and biology to isolate a standard unit of area for study of the distribution of an item over a large area. Quadrats typically occupy an area of 0.25 m2 and are traditionally square, but modern quad ...

. The deeply sunken eyes and a slightly opened mouth are recognizable characteristics in the figures of Scopas. Works by Scopas are preserved in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

(reliefs) in London; fragments from the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea in the

National Archaeological Museum of Athens The National Archaeological Museum () in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world and ...

; the celebrated Ludovisi Ares in the Palazzo Altemps, Rome; a statue of Pothos restored as

Apollo Citharoedus An Apollo Citharoedus, or Apollo Citharede, is a statue or other image of Apollo with a cithara (lyre). Notable examples Vatican Among the best-known examples is the ''Apollo Citharoedus'', also known as Apollo Musagetes ("Apollo, Leader of the ...

in the Capitoline Museum, Rome; and his statue of Meleager, unmentioned in ancient literature but surviving in numerous replicas, perhaps best represented by a torso in the Fogg Art Museum,

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

Pothos

''Pothos'', or ''Desire'', was a celebrated and much imitated statue by Scopas. Roman copies featured the human figure with a variety of props, such as musical instruments and fabrics as depicted here,Steven Lattimore, "Scopas and the Pothos", ''American Journal of Archaeology'' Vol.91 No.3 (July 1987), pages 411–42
journal preview
/ref> in an example that was in the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani.

Namesake

* Scopas (crater)

Gallery

File:Meleager Pio-Clementino Inv490.jpg, A Roman 1st-century AD marble ''

Meleager In Greek mythology, Meleager (, ) was a hero venerated in his '' temenos'' at Calydon in Aetolia. He was already famed as the host of the Calydonian boar hunt in the epic tradition that was reworked by Homer. Meleager is also mentioned as o ...

'' with chlamys, a free improvisation on Scopas's model, from the Fusconi-Pighini collection ( Museo Pio-Clementino, Rome) File:Archaeological museum, Athens (5615666772).jpg, Hunter stele by Scopas (National Archaeological Museum of Athens) File:Pothos Apollo Musei Capitolini MC649.jpg, One of many Roman copies of Pothos (Desire), a statue by Scopas, restored here as

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

Kitharoidos (Apollo, the

Cithara The kithara (), Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching mus ...

-player) File:MarbleHeadsScopas.jpg, Two marble heads by Scopas, National Museum Athens

Literature

* Andreas Linfert: ''Von Polyklet zu Lysipp. Polyklets Schule und ihr Verhältnis zu Skopas v. Paros''. Diss. Freiburg i. B. 1965. * Andrew F. Stewart: ''Skopas of Paros''. Noyes Pr., Park Ridge, N.Y. 1977. * Andrew Stewart: ''Skopas in Malibu. The head of Achilles from Tegea and other sculptures by Skopas in the J. Paul Getty Museum'' J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, Calif. 1982. * Skopas of Paros and his world, International Conference on the Archaeology of Paros and the Cyclades Paroikia, Paros, Greece), Katsōnopoulou, Dora., Stewart, Andrew F.

References

4th-century BC Greek sculptors Ancient Parians 4th-century BC architects Mausoleum at Halicarnassus {{Greece-sculptor-stub