APOLLO BELVEDERE: STATUE OF THE MONTH JANUARY 2020

APOLLO BELVEDERE
STATUE OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2020

Casts of the Apollo Belvedere in the fabulous Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen

In 1816, the UK Parliament appointed a Select Committee to advise on whether the state should purchase the Parthenon Marbles from Lord Elgin.  The committee called several famous painters and sculptors as expert witnesses, including Thomas Lawrence and John Flaxman.  One of the questions they were asked was whether they considered the Elgin Marbles to be in the same league as three ancient sculptures from the Vatican collections: the Laocoön, the Belvedere Torso and the Apollo Belvedere.  This article will explore how the Apollo Belvedere came to be regarded as the ‘gold standard’ against which other sculptures came to be judged.    

As a teacher of Classical art history, the Apollo Belvedere has fascinated me for many years, partly because there are so many copies of it.  Prior to the First World War, any self-respecting art school provided cast of the Apollo Belvedere for its students to draw – for example, there is an Alfred Munnings painting of students at the Norwich School of Art drawing a cast of the statue).  Even though many of these art school casts were subsequently destroyed, plaster casts, bronze casts and marble copies of this statue can still be found in stately homes, gardens and museums across the UK and Continental Europe (see list at the end of this article for some locations where you can find them).  I hope that the following discussion of the statue’s history will show what a crucial role it played in moulding popular taste in art.

How old is the Apollo Belvedere? 

Exactly where and when the Apollo Belvedere was discovered is still a mystery, although we do know that Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere acquired it sometime before being elected as Pope Julius II in 1503; Haskell & Penny, in Taste and the Antique have suggested that the statue may even have been found on the cardinal’s own land.    

Initially the Apollo was assumed to be an original Greek marble statue which had been brought to Italy, possibly from Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi.  Various theories suggested that it had been brought to Italy either by Augustus (who had credited Apollo with enabling his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium), or by Nero, during his tour of Greece (and the Greek games circuit) in AD 67.  However, in the 1770s the painter Anton Raphael Mengs pointed out that the statue was made from Italian marble, suggesting that it had been made in Italy, not Greece.  It is now widely accepted that the statue is a Roman copy – or perhaps an adaptation – of a lost Greek bronze original.  As bronze has higher tensile strength than marble, additional supports have to be included when making a marble copy of a bronze statue. Tell-tale signs on the Apollo include: the tree-trunk support, the block under the raised back foot and the way in which the drapery of the cloak is used to support the left arm.  It’s usually suggested that this Roman marble version dates to the reign of Hadrian (c AD 135).  Without Hadrian’s passion for commissioning copies of Greek masterpieces, the history of Greek sculpture would contain a lot more holes; in many cases, his copies have survived even though the originals have been lost.  

                         Self-portrait of Anton Raphael Mengs, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Most modern authorities agree, on stylistic grounds, that the original bronze statue was probably created c 330-320 BC (in art history terms, on the cusp of the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods; in historical terms, during the period of Alexander the Great’s conquests).  There are certainly elements of the sculpture which would be consistent with this date: the luxurious hair, the deep-set eyes, the ‘kissable’ lips (as Jackie magazine would have put it, back in the Seventies), a well-defined inguinal ridge around the pelvis (yet not as heavy as on High Classical statues like Polykleitos’s Doryphoros) and the willowy rather than stocky proportions (rejecting Polykleitos’s Canon) with elongated thighs. 

Textbooks on Greek sculpture usually identify the fourth century BC as the period when sculptors ‘humanised the gods’, presenting them as approachable (even sexy) beings, engaged in everyday human activities.  It’s true that the Apollo Belvedere presents Apollo engaged in a human activity – hunting with a bow – but I think this statue is much more subtle than that.  There’s a certain disdain in his flared nostrils (which Byron picked up on, in his poem Childe Harold), and of course we don’t know who or what Apollo is hunting – is he firing arrows which cause a plague, or is he (as has sometimes been suggested) engaged in attacking the children of Niobe, in revenge for her slight against his mother Leto (Niobe had boasted about being more fertile than Leto, who only had two children – Apollo and Artemis.)  In any case, I feel that fourth-century sculptors didn’t so much ‘humanise’ the gods (in the sense of making intimidating gods like Zeus, Hera and Athene more approachable) as turn their attention to the depiction of different, perhaps more nuanced gods – particularly Apollo.     

Can we identify the original Greek statue which formed the model for the Apollo Belvedere?  A common tactic is to attempt to match our statue against descriptions of sculptures by ancient authors, particularly Pliny the Elder (uncle of Pliny the obsessive letter-writer) and Pausanias, a Greek travel writer from the 2^nd century AD.  Descriptions of the Apollo Belvedere often claim that it is based on an original bronze statue by the 4^th century Greek sculptor Leochares (who also worked on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the seven ancient ‘wonders of the world’), but when we examine these ancient sources, the evidence isn’t actually very compelling. Pliny’s list of Leochares’ works in his Natural History (34.79) includes ‘an Apollo wearing a diadem’ – although this could possibly be stretched to refer to the thin ribbon (perhaps a strophion, worn by priests) encircling Apollo’s hair, this could hardly be described as the most obvious or distinctive feature of the statue as we have it.  Pausanias states that a statue of Apollo by Leochares stood outside the Temple of Apollo Patroös in the Athenian Agora, but unfortunately he doesn’t supply any details of the statue’s pose, features or props.  

What’s the subsequent history of the Apollo Belvedere? 

Pope Julius II originally displayed the statue in his private garden at San Pietro in Vincoli, but by 1509 he had moved the statue to the Vatican.  The construction of covered walkways integrating Innocent VIII’s villa, the Belvedere (‘beautiful view’) with the main complex of the Vatican created a space enclosed on four sides.  Part of this space was laid out as a sculpture court, with niches in statues could be displayed.  The Apollo was one of the first inhabitants of the Belvedere Court, which is how it acquired the name it has been known by ever since.  Pope Julius II imposed strict quality controls on the statues displayed in his courtyard, so they quickly set the standard for quality in ancient art.  By 1523 a Venetian ambassador visiting Rome could already describe the Apollo as ‘world-famous’.   

Although the statue was virtually complete when it was found, there was some damage to the hands; early drawings show much of the left forearm (the ‘bow’ hand) missing, as well as some of the right hand. As most Renaissance collectors did not appreciate fragmentary works of art, it was common for missing sections of statues to be ‘restored’.  In 1532 a sculptor called Montorsoli, who had studied under Michelangelo, was commissioned to restore several of the statues in the Belvedere Court, including the Apollo.  Although Montorsoli’s restorations were removed from the Apollo in 1924, all the plaster casts and copies still have the restored hands (as they were all manufactured between 1532 and 1924).  I have to say that aesthetically I prefer the restored version (shown below) even though I appreciate that this type of speculative restoration can be misleading.  Incidentally, the fig-leaf which appears on most casts of the statue was added when the statue was displayed in the Vatican; no Greek statue ever had its genitals covered by a fig-leaf. 

                                         Picture Credit: Belmont77 (Wikimedia Commons)

The only time the Apollo has ever left the Vatican was during the Napoleonic Wars, when it was confiscated by the French as part of the surrender terms imposed upon the Papal States by the Treaty of Tolentino in 1797.  It was displayed in Paris alongside other famous statues from the Vatican, including the Laocoön.  So many statues were removed from Italy to France that the English guidebook writer Mariana Starke (Travels in Italy, 1802), made a point of listing which famous artworks still remained in Rome, lest her readers should think that ‘all the choicest works of genius’ had been moved to Paris; she even (rather desperately) suggested that her readers might derive more enjoyment from the splendid columns and mosaic floors of the Vatican Museums, now they weren’t cluttered up with all that distracting sculpture.  The statue was returned to the Vatican in 1816, following Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.

How do we know it’s Apollo?

There is no doubt that this statue was intended as an image of Apollo – at well over seven feet (2.24m), its height alone would suggest that it’s a statue of a god - but one of the reasons why I’ve outlined the statue’s history in some detail is to demonstrate how this identification has been made more explicit through successive adaptations and restorations.  As a basic rule of thumb, Apollo is usually depicted with long hair in Greek art, whereas other young, male, clean-shaven gods (Hermes and Ares) tend to have short hair.  On this statue, Apollo’s abundant locks have been tied on top of his head in an exuberant bow, in a similar style to that used for Aphrodite’s hair in Hellenistic sculpture.  This provides with another clue to the statue’s identity, as ancient depictions of Apollo tend to be rather androgynous.  The thin strap across the chest would be to hold a quiver full of arrows, referring to Apollo’s role as god of archery (one of many roles in his bulging portfolio).  

The Roman copyist, adding a supporting tree-trunk, has used it as the habitat for a snake, referencing the myth in which Apollo slew the Python (a giant snake or lizard) which guarded the sanctuary of Delphi, in order to wrest control of the site from the earth goddess Ge.  The myth of Apollo slaying the Python was regularly re-enacted at Delphi (I often wonder whether the Python would have looked something like the dragons used in Chinese New Year parades) and there are references to it in other statues of Apollo, notably Praxiteles’s Apollo Sauroktonos (Apollo the Lizard Slayer), which will feature as a future Statue of the Month.  In restoring Apollo’s left hand, Montorsoli gave him the remains of a bow to clutch; his right hand may have been intended to hold an arrow, taken from his quiver.

Why did this statue become so influential? 

Having explored the history of the sculpture, I think we’re now in a position to identify several reasons why it became so influential, so quickly:  

1.      The place and timing of its rediscovery.  This statue came to light in the right place (the environs of Rome) at the right time (c 1500, bang in the middle of the Renaissance).  It thus obtained maximum publicity and exposure at a time of burgeoning interest in the cultural and artistic legacy of Greece and Rome. 

2.      Display.  The statue was displayed in a purpose-built niche in the stunning setting of Julius II’s Belvedere Court, complete with fountains and orange trees.  Julius’s determination to only house the very best statues in the Belvedere gave it the seal of quality (although some of his successors lacked his discriminating taste and cluttered up the Belvedere with less impressive works).

3.      Creation of casts and copies.  As word spread about Julian’s statue, other European rulers wanted their own copy.  The court at Mantua commissioned a bronze version.  In 1540 François I of France commissioned the Italian painter Primaticcio to travel to Rome to supervise the taking of moulds from the most famous statues, mostly from the Belvedere Court; most of the bronze casts made from these moulds, including the Apollo, are still on display at Fontainebleau.    The 19^th century, in particular, saw an explosion of copies in cast galleries attached to art schools and museums – for example, a corn merchant called Jonathan Hatfield donated an Apollo (supposedly from the studio of the Neoclassical sculptor Canova) to the art school at the Royal Manchester Institution - this copy of the statue is now lost or destroyed, but several student drawings of it survive.  As well as three-dimensional casts and copies, the statue also appeared in numerous prints, engravings and paintings.

4.      Endorsement of ‘influencers’.   Influential writers, including the German poets Goethe and Schiller, gushed over the beauty of the Apollo.  The most important taste-former, though, as the man who single-handedly invented the discipline of Classical art history, was Johann Joachim Winckelmann.  As secretary to Cardinal Albani, Winckelmann had access to the most important art collections in Rome, including the Vatican collections.  The Apollo (which he believed, in line with the prevailing view at that time, to be an original Greek artwork) was one of his favourite pieces, ‘clothed in an eternal spring’.  In his influential History of Ancient Art (1764) he concluded that ‘of all the works of antiquity that have escaped destruction, the statue of Apollo represents the highest ideal of art’.  In a society where homosexual desire had to be expressed in coded terms, Winckelmann saw the Apollo as the ultimate expression of male beauty, the homoerotic equivalent of Pygmalion’s statue of Galataea. 

Another crucial influencer was Lord Byron, who devoted three whole stanzas of his lengthy poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto 4. CLXI-CLXIII) to the Apollo Belvedere.  Here are the first four lines:

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow

The God of life, and poesy, and light –

The Sun in human limbs array’d, and brow

All radiant from his triumph in the fight

     

Byron went on to comment on the ‘beautiful disdain’ and ‘ideal beauty’ of the statue, suggesting that the sculptor had been inspired by the Greek gods themselves: ‘if made by human hands, is not of human thought’.  In the 21^st century it’s perhaps difficult to conceive how a poet could have had so much influence on popular taste, directing his readers which statues to look at and how to appreciate them, but British tourists regularly took a copy of Byron with them when travelling on the Continent.  As a companion to their Italian guidebooks, John Murray produced a pocket-sized edition of Bryon’s poems for travellers.  Purchasers were assured that it would ‘not encumber the portmanteau or carpet bag of the Tourist’ (James Buzard’s The Beaten Track contains an excellent discussion of this type of literature-led tourism)  

5.      Period in Paris.  The eighteen-year period (1797-1815) during which the statue was on display in Paris widened its audience.  During this time it was displayed alongside the Diane Chasseresse (Diana the Huntress), which popularised the idea that the statues had been intended as a pair – an idea repeated in many gardens.

6.      Staple of Guidebooks and Sculpture Handbooks.   Guidebooks written for Grand Tourists visiting Rome identified ‘must-see’ statues; the Apollo Belvedere was always at the top of these lists, receiving the maximum possible number of asterisks or exclamation marks.  The statue continued to feature in the Murray and Baedeker guidebooks produced during the 19^th century for a wider audience able to take advantage of railway travel on the Continent.  The statue also appeared in handbooks on sculpture, such as Edward Falkener’s Daedalus: the Causes and Principles of the Excellence of Greek Sculpture (London, 1860), which included a plate of the Apollo Belvedere.

I regularly used to take groups of sixth-form students to the Sir John Soane Museum in London, where an 18^th-century cast of the Apollo Belvedere dominates the museum’s central space.  This particular cast was originally commissioned in Rome in 1719 Rome by the Earl of Burlington for Chiswick House, the first Palladian villa in Britain (still there, and well worth a visit even though denuded of most of its sculptures).  One of the most common questions students used to ask me when they saw Soane Museum cast was ‘Is it real?’ – by which I assume they meant ‘Was it really made in Classical Greece?  Has it really survived all this time?’  Soane’s cast isn’t ‘real’, in the sense that it’s not an authentic Greek sculpture (as we’ve seen, it’s a plaster copy taken from a Roman marble adaptation of an original Greek bronze sculpture), but it is certainly ‘real’ as a landmark in the history of taste, as Chiswick House kick-started the use of the Neoclassical style in Britain. 

To sum up, despite the fortuitous timing of its discovery and the elegance of the setting in which it was displayed, I think the main reason the Apollo Belvedere came to be regarded as the ultimate statue is that it has real beauty, flair and panache.  The superbly soft drapery, with its catenary folds, adds interest and contrast, and emphasises the nudity of the rest of the statue.  Apollo is shown in a dramatic, active pose, with his raised back heel suggesting potential movement (a trick borrowed from Polykleitos’s 5^th-century statues).   It’s easy to make a fetish of authentic, original Greek art, but here I don’t think it matters that it’s not the original bronze statue -    it’s of a far higher quality than Roman copies of other Greek statues, like Polykleitos’s Doryphoros or Praxiteles’s Knidian Aphrodite.   It’s a fantastic work of art in its own right, not just because it’s a survivor from Classical antiquity – unlike other ancient statues which used to be celebrated and are now justly ignored (my particular bête noire is the godawful Marble Faun, which Nathaniel Hawthorne managed to write a whole novella about).  Indeed, perhaps the greatest accolade we can give to the Apollo Belvedere is that it’s such a good composition that it survived being transferred into different materials across hundreds of years.  It would certainly make my list of the Top Five Classical Statues.    

     
          My mini version of the Apollo Belvedere, from the now-defunct and much-lamented
                                                      'Past Times' shop

Where to See it

The Apollo Belvedere is in the Pio-Clementine Museum at the Vatican.

Plaster casts and marble copies can be found in many locations, including:

·         John Soane Museum, London (plaster cast, taken from the original marble, originally commissioned by the Duke of Burlington for Chiswick House)

·         Syon House, London (copy made by the English sculpture John Cheere in 1764; it cost £21) 

·         Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Cast Gallery (plaster cast)

·         Harris Manchester College, Oxford (marble bust)

·         Galerie des Cerfs, Chateau de Fontainebleau (bronze cast)

·         Salles des Statues, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon 

·         Royal Cast Collection, Copenhagen (plaster cast and bronze-effect bust)

·         Lakeside Pavilion, Tsarskoye Selo, St Petersburg, (copy)

·         Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Tsvetaev Cast Collection  (plaster cast)

Please let me know of copies and busts in any other locations

Paintings & Other Media

·         Alfred Munnings, The Painting Room, Norwich School of Art  (now in Norwich Castle Museum) shows art students drawing in a room full of plaster casts (including a metope from the South side of the Parthenon), dominated by a life-size cast of the Apollo Belvedere. 

·         Louis Gabriel Blanchet, The Apollo Belvedere among Dead Trees, c 1765 (Saltram, a National Trust property near Plymouth) is a grisaille (monotone) painting of the Apollo Belvedere in an imaginary setting, probably painted for John Parker MP as a souvenir of his Grand Tour of Italy in 1764.  It’s part of a set of eight paintings of famous statues in Rome, including the Farnese Hercules.  (Source: National Trust website for Saltram)

·         The head of the Apollo Belvedere appears in the logo used for the Apollo 17 space mission

References & Further Reading

James Buzard, The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature and the Ways to ‘Culture’ (Oxford University Press, 1993) - fascinating discussion of early guidebooks, including the Murray and Baedeker series

B F Cook, The Elgin Marbles (British Museum Press, 1984) - includes a list of the expert witnesses called by the Select Committee on the Elgin Marbles, and a summary of the questions they were asked

Francis Haskell & Nicholas Penny, Taste & the Antique (Yale University Press, 1981) – this article would have been impossible to write without the detailed scholarship in this book, particularly on the history of the Apollo Belvedere.  Essential reading for anyone interested in the reception of Classical statues. 

J J Pollitt, The Art of Ancient Greece: Sources & Documents (Cambridge University Press, 1990) – useful sourcebook of ancient sources relating to sculpture and architecture

‘Uncrated’ sculpture exhibition, Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester

(review to follow)