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Is Ganymede the Boy from Marathon Bay?
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Arguments pro & con, and questions about the technology, design & mythic meaning of this beautiful bronze by Praxitieles or his school.
 Boy from Marathon Bay. Bronze. Height 4 ft, 3 in. Late 4th c BC. Athens, National Museum. In the debate over who the Boy from Marathon Bay might be, the contest between Aulus Sergius and Kallistos Alexandros over Ganymede is so much fun I'm reluctant to intervene. But I do think K is now getting a bit the better of it. Whoever the boy is, mortal or immortal, and whatever he is doing, the position and action of his upraised right arm remains a puzzle. Is it really supposed to be raised overhead, and with palm facing outward? And if so, what action might it represent? Since the bronze is hollow, though the arms (and legs?) of this four-foot figure were cast separately, then joined to the head and torso, even if they were cast in sand molds rather than in a full-fledged lost-wax process, they would still have been hollow, and not so thick and heavy that the finished figure would require the external support of a pillar or tree trunk. Moreover, Aulus cannot have his "Ganymede" both ways: If his right arm originally faced outward, as it does now, he cannot have been pouring wine from a pitcher (oinochoe) or even holding one. On the other hand, if the arm and hand turned inward, it could not have been bracing the bronze boy up against a pillar or tree trunk. If it were still extended upward, it's unlikely he could have been pouring wine from that height into a wine cup in his left hand. Not even a skilled nude waiter in K's "House of the Bald Man" bar could have managed that trick, I think! Aulus still needs to show, I think, how the boy's right arm and hand could have been attached in such a way to make a pouring motion plausible. That failing, Aulus has a fallback position: that if "Ganymede" is not pouring Zeus a drink of wine, perhaps he is holding on his outstretched palm a cock -- often given as a gift by an older man to his ephebe as a tender of his affections. There are such scenes, no doubt, perhaps even of Ganymede holding such a cock. But not, I think, of him or anyone else trying to balance such a creature on his outstretched palm. Finally, there is the matter of the thorn or claw worn in their headbands by young men in the gym. And that points, I'm afraid, to Heracles or Hermes. More on that, anon. As for Kallistos' arguments for why the object in the boy's left hand is not a wine cup: They are ingenious. But not wholly convincing. What moves one toward Ganymede - or even Eros here - is surely the loving care which the Praxitelean sculptors lavished on their nude figures, so that even the young males have a charm, a grace and lassitude that borders on the effeminate. It would be nice to know more about the techniques of lost-wax bronze casting in the time of Praxiteles and his school. One thing we do know is that even when carving in marble, they were careful to integrate the figure's external supports into its overall design and meaning. They would never have created such a stocky, plug-ugly piece as the Louvre's marble Roman copy of Praxiteles' bronze statue of Apollo the Lizard- Killer. |
Library
~ Table of Contents ~
TYCHE & OEDIPUS
Adonis & Aphrodite Fatal Boar Hunts, Fatal Loves: Meleager & Adonis A Valentine for Camille Flammarion The Met returns its Euphronios vase! Camille Flammarion: Romantic Astronomer The Fountains of Enceladus The Eye of God Which satyr would you choose... The Marathon Boy and the Satyr Contrapossto from Praxiteles to Rubens and Playboy The Afternoon of a Faun The Dancing Satyr - A Lost Bronze of Praxiteles? Hermes, The Liar Who Invented the Lyre Inanna, Queen of Uruk Inanna Adored: The Uruk Vase The Moon-God Nanna-Sin Visits his Ziggurat at Ur Apollo Sauroktonos, or How the Romans Killed the Lizard-Killer Jacob's Ladder Inanna and the Harrowing of Hell Lilith: Wild Demon of Sex and Death DUMUZI FEEDS INANNA'S SHEEP The Sun God in his Dragon Boat A Stairway to Heaven: The Ziggurat at Ur Lassalle's Post-Modern Male Torso Brancusi's Torsos: Pure Platonic Forms? Brancusi on Men and Women: Take the Tate Test? Four Gods Greet the Rising Sun God Rilke's Archaic Torso of Apollo Culsu & Vanth Lead the Dead into Hades Aita, the Etruscan Hades Socrates' Apology: The Background A FATEFUL CHARIOT RACE: The STORY of PELOPS and OENOMAUS |
