Statue of a seated philosopher
Statue of a seated philosopher
3D
Published 2020-01-14T09:28:15+00:00
The portrait of Zeno and the statue of Chrysippus are the only images of Stoic philosophers of the third century that can be identified with certainty. But there exists other portraits based upon the concepts of thinking as a strenuous and laborious undertaking. For our purposes, it is not so crucial whether these actually represent Stoics, philosophers related to the Stoics, or even scholars of other kinds. Rather, we are concerned with particular paradigms for intellectual activity, as they deceloped at particular periods in time and were then translated into visual imagery.
This badly damaged statue of a philosopher, the original housed in the Palazzo Spada, found without its head, was skillfully restored in the seventeenth century and completed with an ancient head that did not originally belong to it. The baroque sculptor chose a portrait head with a pronounced "thinker's brow" to complement the pose of the statue, but unfortunately it belongs to the Early Imperial period. The motif of a man completely lost in his own thoughts, bending over and staring out, which we have already encountered in Early Hellenistic terracottas, has here taken on a new, more dramatic quality. The philosopher sits unobserved on a stone bench with carved, two-stepped base. To the ancient viewer this would signal an association with the gymnasium. The subject has drawn the crude mantle carelessly across his body. His legs are placed far apart in an almost unseemly pose, especially when compared with the dignified manner of the seated Epicurus. This is further emphasized by setting the right foot on the upper profile curve of the bench. In the bronze original, this foot probably rested only on the heel, to convey a restless, swinging motion of the leg, the psycho-motor expression of the inner tension of the thought process.
(The copyist, who was understandably concerned to protect the front part of the foot, has added a stone ledge that serves no other purpose and so spoils the composition.) The right arm is drawn toward the head, with the elbow resting squarely on the agitated leg. Nor is the left arm propped calmly on the thigh; it is caught in an involuntary movement, with the hand clenched in a fist underneath the garment, like that of Chrysippus. Tension permeates the entire body. The hand and the head have probably been correctly restored by the baroque sculptor. At any rate, the head must, like those of Zeno and Chrysippus, have expressed above all the strenuous effort of thinking.
The basic conception reminds one of the famous and ubiquitous Thinker of Rodin.
| Date published | 14/01/2020 |
| Complexity | Medium |
| Title | Statue of a seated philosopher |
| Date | 3rd Century BC |
| Dimension | 135 x 50 x 87 cm (?) |
| Accession | KAS207 |
| Period | Hellenistic |
| Medium | Plaster |
| Credit | Original: Spada Museum |
| Record | https://collection.smk.dk/#/detail/KAS207 |
| Artist | Unknown artist |
| Place | SMK - Statens Museum for Kunst |
not perfect (the arm) but still very pleased.