SCULPTURE AND ITS REPRODUCTIONS pdf

SCULPTURE
AND
ITS
REPRODUCTIONS
Edited by
Anthony Hughes and
Erich
Ranfft

SCULPTURE
AND
ITS
REPRODUCTIONS
Critical Views
In the same series
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edited by Stephen Bann
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New
Philosophy
of
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edited by Frank Ankersmit
and Hans Kellner
Parisian Fields
edited by Miehael Sheringham
SCULPTURE
AND
ITS
REPRODUCTIONS
Edited by
Anthony
Hughes
and
Erich Ranfft
,
REAKTION
BOOKS
Published
by
Reaktion Books Ltd
II
Rathbone Place
London
WIP
IDE,
UK
First published 1997

Copyright © Reaktion Books Ltd, 1997
All rights reserved.
No
part
of
this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system,
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transmitted, in any
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or
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photocopying, recording
or
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without the prior permission
of
the publishers.
Designed by Humphrey Stone
Jacket
and
cover designed by Ron Costley
Photoset by Wilmaset, Wirral, Merseyside
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
BiddIes, Guildford.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
Sculpture
and
its reproductions. (Critical views)
L Sculpture

2.
Sculpture Reproduction
I.
Ranfft, Erich
11.
Hughes, Anthony
73°
ISBN
18
6189002
8
Contents
Photographic Acknowledgements VI
Notes
on
Editors
and
Contributors
vu
Introduction
Anthony
Hughes
and
Erich
Ranfft
I
I
Roman
Sculptural Reproductions
or

Polykleitos:
The
Sequel
Miranda Marvin 7
2 Authority, Authenticity
and
Aura: WaIter Benjamin
and
the
Case
of
Michelangelo
Anthony
H ughes 29
3
Art
for
the
Masses: Spanish Sculpture in
the
Sixteenth
and
Seventeenth Centuries Marjorie Trusted 46
4
The
Ivory Multiplied: Small-scale Sculpture
and
its
Reproductions in the Eighteenth Century
Malcolm Baker 6I

5
Naked
Authority? Reproducing Antique Statuary in
the
English Academy, from Lely
to
Haydon
Martin Postle 79
6 Craft, Commerce
and
the Contradictions
of
Anti-capitalism:
Reproducing the Applied
Art
of
Jean
Baffler
Neil
McWilliam
100
7 Reproduced Sculpture
of
German
Expressionism:
Living Objects, Theatrics
of
Display
and
Practical

Options
Erich
Ranfft
113
8
Truth
to
Material: Bronze,
on
the
Reproducibility
of
Truth
Alexandra Parigoris
131
9 Venus a
Go
Go,
To
Go
Edward Allington
References
Select Bibliography
Index
15
2
168
197
201
Photographic

Acknowledgements
The
editors
and
publishers wish
to
express their thanks
to
the following sources
of
illustrative material
and/or
permission
to
reproduce it (excluding those
named
in the captions,
and
the individual essayists,
who
supplied all remaining
uncredited material):
©
Edward
Allington
and
the Lisson Gallery, London: pp. 153, 167; © 1997 ARS,
New
York/ADAGP, Paris: pp. 142, 145, IS0; © Alan
Bowness/Hepworth

Estate
(photography): p.
139; Michael Brandon-Jones: p. 107;
Harvard
University
Art
Museums, Cambridge,
MA
(Edmee Busch Greenough Fund): p.
120;
The
Art
Institutue
of
Chicago (gift
of
Margaret
Fisher in memory
of
her parents,
Mr
and
Mrs
Waiter Fisher): p. 137;
Don
Hall (courtesy the MacKenzie
Art
Gallery,
Regina, Canada) (photography);
© Bertrand Lavier: p. 159;

Robert
Hashimoto
(photography): p. 137; Friedrich Hewicker: p. 124; Bill Jacobson Studio
(photography): pp.
153, 167; Michael Le
Marchant
(Bruton Gallery): p. 134;
G.V. Leftwich: pp. 12 (top right), 16; © Les Levine (photography): p. 134;
Courtauld
Institute
of
Art, London: p. 85; Royal Academy
of
Arts, London:
p.
88; ©
The
Board
of
Trustees
of
the Victoria
and
Albert
Museum,
London
(photography): pp. 49, 58, 70, 74, 75; Paul Mellon Centre: pp. 82, 87, 9
6
, 97;
Museum

of
Modern
Art,
New
York (acquired
through
the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest;
photo:
© 1997
MoMA,
NYC): p. 144; Photo: Alexandra Parigoris: p. 145;
The
Norton
Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena (photography): p. 150;
and
Wellesley
College Museum, Jewett Arts Centre, Wellesley (gift
of
Miss
Hannah
Parker
Kimball, M. Day Kimball Memorial): p. 12 (bottom).
Notes
on
Editors
and
Contributors
EDWARD
ALLINGTON
is a sculptor based in London. His

work
has been
exhibited in museums
and
galleries including the
Museum
Hedendaagse Kunst,
Antwerp; the
Tate
Gallery, London; the San Francisco Museum
of
Modern
Art;
and
the
National
Museum
of
Modern
Art,
Tokyo.
He
has also shown in public
projects including Das Kunstprojekt Heizkraftwerk, Romerbriicken, Saarbriick-
en
(1990)
and
Quadratura
in Cambridge (1995).
He

was Gregory Fellow in
Sculpture
at
the University
of
Leeds,
He
currently teaches
at
the Slade
School
of
Art
and
is Research
at
the
Manchester
Metropolitan
University,
who
are publishing a collection
of
his essays, A
Method
for Sorting
Cows
(forthcoming).
MALCOLM
BAKER

is
Deputy
Head
of
Research
at
the Victoria
and
Albert
Museum, London.
He
has written widely
on
eighteenth-century sculpture
and
visual culture in many journals.
He
has co-written (with Anthony Radcliffe
and
Michael Maek-Gerard) Renaissance
and
Later Sculpture in the Thyssen-
Bornemisza Collection
(1991)
and
(with David Bindman) Roubiliac and the
Eighteenth-Century Monument: Sculpture
as
Theatre (1996), which was
awarded the

1996 Mitchell Prize for the History
of
Art.
He
is
currently writing
a
book
on
Roubiliac
and
the
roles
of
sculptural
portraiture
in eighteenth-century
England.
ANTHONY
HUGHES
is
Lecturer in the History
of
Art
at
the University
of
Leeds.
He
has published extensively on sixteenth-

and
seventeenth-century
art
in
Art
History, The Burlington Magazine, The Journal
of
the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes
and
The
Oxford
Art
Journal,
and
has written a
book
on
Michelangelo.
He
is
currently writing a
book
on
the theory
of
sculpture from
the
fifteenth century
to

the present day.
MIRANDA
MARVIN
is
Professor
of
Art
and
of
Greek
and
Latin
at
Wellesley
College. She was educated
at
Bryn
Mawr
College,
the
American School
of
Classical Studies in Athens
and
Harvard
University. She has excavated
at
Israel
and
Idalion, Cyprus,

and
publishes
on
Roman
sculpture.
NEIL
Mc
WILLIAM
is
Senior Lecturer in the History
of
Art
in the School
of
World
Art
and
Museology, University
of
East Anglia.
He
has published widely
on nineteenth-century French visual culture, including
A Bibliography
of
Salon
V111
NOTES
ON
EDITORS

AND
CONTRIBUTORS
Criticism in Paris from the July Monarchy to the Second Republic
1831-1850
(1991) and Dreams
of
Happiness (1993).
He
is
completing a study of Jean Baffler
and nationalist culture in the
Third
Republic.
ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS, formerly Henry Moore Lecturer
in
the History of
Sculpture Studies
at
the University of York, recently completed a PhD
on
Constantin Brancusi for the Courtauld Institute in London. She has published on
Brancusi, Pablo Picasso and ]ulio Gonzalez. Currently based in Chicago, she
is
preparing a critical edition
of
Andd: Salmon's La jeune sculpture franr:aise.
MAR
TIN
POSTLE
is

Associate Professor
of
Art History and Director
of
the
London Centre, University
of
Delaware. His publications include (with Ilaria
Bignamini)
The
Artist's Model: It's Role in British
Art
from Lely
to
Etty
(London and Nottingham, 1991) and Sir Joshua Reynolds:
The
Subject Pictures
(Cambridge, 1995).
ERICH RANFFT
is
former visiting Henry Moore Scholar in Sculpture Studies
at
the University
of
Leeds. He has published essays in Expressionism Reassessed
(1993), Visions
of
the Neue Frau (1995) and
The

Dictionary
of
Women
Artists
(London and Chicago, 1997). He has been researching modern German arts
and
cultures and the practices
of
women sculptors, and has a forthcoming PhD on
Expressionist sculpture from the Courtauld Institute in London.
MAR]ORIE TRUSTED
is
Deputy
Curator
in the Sculpture Department
of
the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She has written a number
of
articles
and
books on sculpture; her catalogue of Spanish sculpture in the Victoria and Albert
Museum was published in
1996.
Introduction
ANTHONY
HUGHES
AND
ERICH
RANFFT

Often, when the discussion
of
art
turns to reproduction, it seems nearly
exclusively
bound
by
two
dimensions.
To
take only the best-known
examples,
the
effects
of
the
hand-made
print
have been explored in
William lvin's
Prints and Visual Communication, while WaIter
Benjamin's essay
on
'The
Work
of
Art in the Age
of
Mechanical
Reproduction' (invoked by more

than
one
contributor
to
this book) has
become the single most influential piece
of
writing
on
the subject
of
reproductive photography. are no corresponding general studies
dealing
with
sculpture, although, as all practitioners, curators
and
art
historians know, facilities for reproducing three-dimensional objects
predate by several millennia any ability
to
make pictures
that
were
'exactly repeatable' (to
quote
part
of
lvins' useful formula). Technologies
associated with casting in clay
and

metal have been a traditional resource
for sculptors for so long
that
their significance has gone largely un-
remarked.
By
contrast, the relatively
abrupt
appearance
of
the
first
woodblock images during the early decades
of
the fifteenth century in
Europe and, still more dramatically, the well-documented invention
of
photography in the nineteenth, assume obvious significance, if only
because they
mark
the
kind
of
sudden discontinuity
that
seems
to
cry
out
for historical interpretation.

There
is
no
doubt
that
exploitation
of
these inventions has, as lvins
argued, transformed the dissemination
of
information (and misinforma-
tion) , producing
profound
repercussions for the perception
of
art.
However, the very continuity
of
sculptural practice should make us
wary
of
reducing accounts
of
change
to
the
of
technological innovation
alone. Very often, reproduction becomes
an

especially significant issue
because
of
transformations in
the
cultural
and
social fabric, as the essays
in this
book
clearly demonstrate. Some examples might illustrate
the
point
more graphically.
The
first concerns the authority
of
antique sculpture.
From
the
2
ANTHONY
HUGHES
AND
ERICH
RANFFT
Renaissance onwards, ancient sculptural fragments were collected,
restored
and
given currency by means

of
many reproductive processes.
Martin
PostIe's account
of
the debates concerning the role played by this
exemplary
art
in English eighteenth-century practice marks a change in
emphasis from a period in which it was routinely assumed
that
all
ancient fragments were 'authentic' to the beginning
of
an age
of
fine
discrimination between
what
was properly Greek
and
what
was a
Roman copy. Here the question
of
reproduction became crucial,
but
the
forms
of

a later archaeological scholarship based
on
the systematic
interrogation
of
Roman
sculpture for
what
it could tell us
about
lost
Greek prototypes was
not
stimulated by any technological change,
but
was rather symptomatic
of
an ideological shift observable in many types
of
historical writing and theory from Voltaire
to
Edward
Gibbon. Its
most influential voice in the field
of
the visual arts was
that
of
Johann
Winckelmann, whose History

of
Ancient
Art
provided
at
once a
systematic method for the writing
of
connoisseurial history
and
a set
of
values associated with it.
Though
Winckelmann's values were
not
as coherent as they may
at
first have seemed
and
his scholarship was certainly contested, most
memorably by Gotthold Lessing, the model he constructed in principle
provided the basis for the vast library
of
studies
that
imaginatively
sought to reconstruct Greek originals from a crowd
of
Roman

copies.
It
may be claimed
that
the subsequent invention
of
photography facilitated
this archaeological project,
but
it
is
beyond
doubt
that
the new
technology was harnessed to
an
enterprise already under way by the
time
that
photographs became a
standard
adjunct
to
scholarly argument.
In such scholarship, the
Roman
reproduction was simultaneously
exalted
and

devalued as a glass in which we may catch a glimpse
of
vanished glory - more
or
less darkly according to the evaluation
of
the
copy's quality.
As
Edward Allington's contribution to this
book
sardonically points out, modern commercial reproduction may multiply
the ironies attached to the ambivalent status
of
the
copy,
that
odd
memorial
to
loss.
It
is
often the case
that
in the present-day museum
facsimile the supposedly
'real' object
of
veneration exists only as a

phantom conjured up by means
of
a substitute for a substitute.
The
facsimile's careful fakery
of
surface texture simulates the appearance
of
the copy, the cultural value
of
which
is
held to reside
not
in any intrinsic
merit
but
in the information it supposedly offers
about
a
work
now
irretrievably lost. Within this hall
of
mirrors, it
is
a further irony
that
it
is

precisely this informational value
that
can never be substantiated.
Introduction
3
As Postle notes, rediscovery
of
works
that
are
indubitably
Greek, from
the
sculptures
of
the
Parthenon
to
the Riace Bronzes, fostered the view
of
Roman
figural sculpture as
an
industry
in large
part
given
over
to
the

manufacture
of
reproductions.
Miranda
Marvin's
essay forcefully argues,
however,
that
the
production
of
Roman
sculpture was infinitely
more
nuanced
than
such studies have suggested,
and
the
manufacture
of
facsimiles
of
Greek
masterworks
was merely
one
device in the
repertory
of

craftsmen
who
also employed reproductive practices
to
produce
variants
and
pastiches.
It
is
the
relatively
modern
preoccupation
with
authenticity
and
genius
that
has caused a
great
deal
of
Roman
material
to
be misconstrued. Like
much
art
at

any time,
Roman
sculpture
may
have
thrived
on
subtle
adjustments
and
qualifications
to
a range
of
conventional types: the pleasures it offered a viewer
must
have been
fairly refined
and
totally
at
odds
with
an
aesthetic
that
prized originality
above everything else.
Twentieth-century
anxieties concerning artistic integrity

and
commer-
cial
exploitation
provide us
with
a second example
of
the
importance
of
cultural
ambience, this time giving a faintly sensational spin
to
practices
hitherto
regarded as
unremarkable.
The
making
and
marketing
of
posthumous
Rodins (in
marble
and
in bronze) has occasioned scandal
and
caused quarrels

to
break
out
between normally well-behaved writers
on
art
(for example,
the
dispute between Albert Elsen
and
Rosalind
Krauss
on
which
Alexandra
Parigoris
comments
in
her
essay). Similar
worries have arisen in
connection
with
unauthorized
bronzes
made
from
waxes by
Edgar
Degas, the casting

of
metal sculptures by
Umberto
Boccioni,
]ulio
Gonzalez,
Constantin
Brancusi
and
many
others.
Informing these debates have been issues
of
authority
and
artistic
control
that
have recently issued in
the
drafting
of
a
code
of
practice
concerning the
production
of
posthumous

works. Parigoris' essay
demonstrates
just
how
deeply debates
on
these
matters
have been
affected by specifically
Modernist
aesthetic preferences privileging
concepts such as
'truth
to
materials'
and
form
over
other
considerations,
and
hardly
at
all by
the
technologies involved, which in
most
cases
would

have been familiar in principle
to
the ancient Greeks. Erich
Ranfft's
discussion
of
Expressionist sculpture in
Germany
before
and
after the
First
World
War
reveals
the
extent
to
which a lingering
attachment
to
the
values implied by
the
doctrine
of
'truth
to
materials' has
distorted

the
writing
of
history
to
give a false sense
of
the priorities
and
practices
that
actually prevailed in artists' studios
during
this period.
Much
discussion
on
Modernism
has also
tended
to
pass
over
in silence
4
ANTHONY
HUGHES
AND
ERICH
RANFFT

the role reproductive techniques have played in
art
since the late
nineteenth century. In
part
this relative neglect has been
an
expression
of
embarrassment with processes
that
seem
too
obviously commercial
to
receive open admittance among writers
on
art, especially during periods
and
in regions in which the
promotion
of
a
proper
standard
of
craft
practice was regarded as essential for sculpture if authorial control was
to
be maintained. Oddly, these often

authoritarian
and
elitist ideals went
hand
in
hand
with populist ideologies, creating some curious paradoxes.
One
is
studied in Neil McWilliam's essay
on
the
production
of
Jean
Baffier's ornamental tableware. Baffler, committed
to
a medievalizing
artisanal ideal,
undertook
an
enterprise
that
could only be realized by
exploiting the means
of
industrial reproduction.
McWilliam's essay also explores
the
fuzzy borderline between

'sculpture'
and
the 'applied' arts where the production
of
multiples
is
the
norm
rather
than
the exception.
Malcom
Baker admirably outlines
the importance
of
Kleinplastik
and
the way in which a sculptural motif
could be comfortably
and
almost seamlessly transmitted from the
exclusivity
of
the collector's cabinet to, say, Josiah
Wedgwood's
factory.
Indeed, eighteenth-
and
nineteenth-century statuary
must

often have been
more familiar in the form
of
porcelain, biscuit
or
Parian ware
than
it was
in monumental marble
or
bronze.
By
the
turn
of
the
twentieth century,
when sale
of
reduced replicas
of
salon pieces
or
favourite monuments
was commonplace, it might have been difficult
to
tell precisely by
what
criteria a sculpture
and

a table
ornament
were
to
be distinguished from
one another.
It
is the only half-acknowledged commercial exploitation
of
sculpture
that
sharpens the sense
of
ironic absurdity courted by Marcel
Duchamp's readymades. His 'originals' - urinal, bicycle wheel, snow
shovel and bottle rack - were
not
only themselves instances
of
industrially manufactured multiples,
but
also, as Allington reminds us,
have subsequently been
'reproduced'
in authorized versions whose status
in relation
to
the parental object is parodically uncertain.
These are cases in which reproduction has been made visible within
the relatively closed worlds

of
scholarship
and
art. In larger contexts, the
reproduction
of
imagery has been
an
important
resource
the
very
ubiquity
of
which has caused it
to
seem unremarkable. Repetition
and
dissemination
of
a
motif
or
figure have constituted one
of
the simplest
and
most effective means
of
establishing

and
reinforcing political
or
religious authority.
The
image
of
a
Roman
emperor, whether depicted
on
a coin
or
in the form
of
a cult statue, became
an
inescapable sign
of
power, though in the twentieth century there
is
perhaps
no
need
to
search
Introduction
5
out
historical

prototypes
for a practice familiar
to
the
recent
history
of
Germany
and
Eastern
Europe.
In
many
cultures, replication
of
religious
cult imagery has
often
been a
duty
of
sculptors
and,
although
this is
often
associated
with
Asian practice, it has in fact been firmly
embedded

within
the
Catholic
tradition
of
Western
Europe
for centuries.
Here,
as
Anthony
Hughes
and
Marjorie
Trusted
point
out,
replication
and
variation
of
a
cult
work
may
entail
the
assumption
that
the

copy
transmits
something
of
the
talismanic efficacy
of
the
original.
Trusted's
discussion goes
further, rightly questioning
whether
it
is
proper
to
assume
the
existence
of
an
'original'
at
all in
the
case
of
some
seventeenth-century Spanish

reliefs, which have
probably
been
made
from
a
mould
in
order
to
market
a
popular
type
of
devotional image
more
effectively.
In
this instance, the
conventional
art-historical
discrimination
between
authentic
work
and
(it is usually assumed) second-
or
even

third-rate
copy
may
be
not
merely
beside the
point
but
positively misleading.
Even
when
identifiable
'originals'
exist, reproductive strategies
are
rarely merely passive
but
may
have a
powerful
role in
providing
a
frame
within
which
the
primary
objects

are
seen.
Baker
argues
that
variation
and
reproduction
of
sculpture
have
had
important
repercussions for
the
transmission
of
reputation
and
the
establishment
of
an
oeuvre. Francis
van Bossuit, a figure considered (if
at
all)
today
as
'minor',

received
the
signal recognition
of
having
what
must
have
been
one
of
the
first
illustrated
monographs
dedicated
to
him. Baker's
argument
subtly
reveals
how
the
engravings presented these small ivories
anew
as
works
of
monumental
grandeur,

through
the
kind
of
dramatic
devices
which
photography
has
now
made
commonplace.
As editors, we
are
convinced
that
the
replication
of
sculptural
imagery
has played a
fundamental
rather
than
a
marginal
role in
the
history

of
Western art. Each
of
the essays
brought
together
here reveals a different
aspect
of
the
way
in
which
the
multiplication,
placement
and
displacement
of
that
imagery affects a variety
of
issues
that,
when
analysed,
importantly
alter
our
conception

of
how
sculptures function.
The
variety
of
approach
from
one
contributor
to
another
reveals
how
acknowledgement
of
replication, far
from
diminishing
the
interest
objects
hold
for us, as
we
might
perhaps
fear, enriches
their
fascination.

We
have certainly benefited
from
the
insights
our
contributors
have
offered.
Our
thanks
go
to
them
and
to
others
who
have
supported
us
before
and
during
the
period
in
which
the
book

was
being
produced.
They
include Ben
Read
and
Adrian
Rifkin
at
the
University
of
Leeds
and
Penelope
Curtis
of
the
Henry
Moore
Centre
for
the
Study
of
Sculpture,
6
ANTHONY
HUGHES

AND
ERICH
RANFFT
who
convened a one-day conference
at
the
Centre
on
this
theme
in
December 1994. Finally we
would
like
to
record
our
gratitude
to
Ben
Dhaliwal
who
organized
an
exhibition
on
the theme
of
reproduction

and
sculpture
to
coincide
with
that
event.
I
Roman
Sculptural Reproductions
or Polykleitos:
The
Sequel
MIRANOA
MARVIN
In
the
collection
of
the
Ny
Carlsberg
Glyptotek
in
Copenhagen
is a
nearly life-size
Roman
marble
statue

of
a
youth
in
the
style
of
the
fifth-
century
BC
Greek
sculptor
Polykleitos (p. 8).I
He
is identified as a
'diskophoros',
or
'discus-holder'.
His
left
hand
has been
restored
to
hold
something
that
looks suspiciously like a
hand-grenade,

but,
less
ana-
chronistically, seems likely
to
be a
pomegranate
(after
which,
after
all,
the
'grenade'
was
named),
or
a
misunderstood
aryballos.
If
he held
something
in his
right
hand,
it is lost.
The
label
that
identifies the

work
as
a discus-holder seems, therefore, eccentric. According
to
the
logic
that
has until recently
governed
the
identification
of
works
of
classical
sculpture, however, it is perfectly reasonable, indeed correct.
The
Ny
Carlsberg is a
major
museum
with
a long
tradition
of
scholarly
curators;
its labels reflect
the
communis opinio

of
scholarly
thinking.
2
In the case
of
the
'discus-holder'
the
label reads in its
entirety
(translated
from
the
Danish):
'OISKOPHOROS/ROMAN/COPY
AFTER
POLYKLEITOS/STH
CENTURY
BC'.
The
work
is identified,
in
other
words,
not
as a
work
of

art
but
as a
reproduction
of
one. A long-standing
scholarly consensus considers it
to
be a
copy
of
a
lost
bronze
by
Polykleitos
that
depicted a victorious athlete
holding
a discus.
That
the
Roman
work
holds
no
discus
need
not
be

explained
on
the
label since its
absence says
nothing
about
the
original,
and
only
the
original
matters.
The
importance
of
the
Copenhagen
marble
lies in
what
it
can
tell us
about
Greek
sculpture,
not
about

Roman.
The
only
date
on
the
label is
the
date
of
the
sculptor
of
the
presumed
original;
the
only
artist's
name
is
his as well.
Who
made
the
Roman
replica,
when,
where
and

for
what
purpose
are
not
questions
that
have
seemed
important
to
ask. Recently,
however,
the
consensus
about
this
work
and
others
like it has
begun
to
break
down.
The
Copenhagen
youth
now
seems

more
likely
to
be a
Roman
creation
than
a copy
of
a
Greek
bronze
and
worthy
of
a label
describing
what
the
visitor sees,
not
just
its
imagined
original.
8
MIRANDA
MAR
VIN
Figure in the manner

of
Polykleiros, second century
AD,
marble.
Ny Carlsberg Glyprotek, Copenhagen.
Much
Roman
sculpture
is
Greek in style
and
subject, and most
of
these
Greek-seeming
works
have been assumed for
at
least a century
to
be
copies
of
lost works by Greek artists. Some, like the
Copenhagen
Diskophoros (above),
now
appear
to
be

Roman
originals, and even those
that
are reproductions are today
not
believed to be mechanical ones.
The
theory
that
they were made with a pointing machine, similar
to
the
one
invented
in
the eighteenth century for making mechanically exact copies,
has been discredited.
3
Roman
replicas were
works
of
judgement
and
skill,
not
machine-made
repetition.
Many
were signed conspicuously with their

maker's
name,
not
the name
of
either the
work
or
the artist replicated."
The
pride
of
the
carver was shared
by
the purchaser
who
displayed the signed
work
for
visitors to admire.
s
The
anonymous
Carrara
craftsmen
who
today
execute marbles
that

will be signed by the artists
who
modelled the
bozzetti are
not
a
modern
equivalent to
Roman
marble-workers.
Two
anoma
lies must be admitted before discussing
Roman
sculpture
and its sources.
The
first
is
that
the
major
centre
of
marble
production
in
the
Roman
empire was the eastern

Mediterranean.
The
marble-carvers
of
Greece and Asia
Minor
never ceded
dominance
to
their
competitors
in
Italy,
and
in their
workshops
the language spoken
was
Greek.
They
are
considered to be
Roman
artists in
that
they
and
all their
patrons
were

Roman
Sculptural Reproductions
9
subjects
of
the
Roman
government
and
products
of
its
multicultural
empire. In
modern
terms,
however, few
had
ethnic
roots
in
the
city
of
Rome.
The
second
anomaly
is the ugly reality
that

all
the
works
of
Polykleitos are lost.
If
one
of
the
surviving
Greek
bronzes
in
the
museums
of
Athens, Reggio di
Calabria
or
Malibu
is his, we
do
not
recognize it.
If
any existing
Roman
marble
in Polykleitan style is a perfect copy
of

one
of
his
works,
we
do
not
recognize
that
either.
There
is
no
known
original
left
with
which
to
compare
existing replicas.
The
argument
is
not
about
proofs
but
about
more

or
less persuasive hypotheses.
The
hypothesis
adopted
on
the
Copenhagen
label,
that
the
work
is a copy, is simply less
persuasive
today
than
it used
to
be.
The
view
of
Roman
sculpture
reflected
on
the
Copenhagen
label is
usually said

to
have
originated
in
the
circle
of
Winckelmann
in
the
eighteenth century.6 As fully developed in
German
universities in
the
nineteenth century, it
holds
that
Roman
sculpture can be divided
into
two
sharply
distinct categories: historical
and
'ideal'.
Historical
sculpture
depicts historical
persons
and

events?
Public
and
private
portraiture
and
the
narrative
reliefs
that
ornamented
arches,
columns
and
buildings
throughout
the
Empire
are
its chief
exponents.
Historical
sculpture is
thought
of
as
the
place
where
Roman

sculptors
demonstrated
originality
and
creativity,
where
they
made
significant
contributions
to
the
history
of
Western
art.
Roman
ideal sculpture,
on
the
other
hand
(which takes its
name
from
the
German
Idealplastik), is
that
which

depicts deities, figures
from
myth,
personifications, allegorical figures - creatures
of
another
world,
not
ours. It includes everything
from
cult
statues
to
lamp-stands,
from
fountain
figures
to
wall plaques.
The
subject,
not
the
function,
of
the
work
defines
the
genre.

One
of
its characteristics is serial
production.
Very few
works
in this genre
are
unique.
Most
are
known
in multiples
and
belong
to
what
is
known
as a replica series: a set
composed
of
works
that
may
differ in material, size,
quality
and
iconographic
minutiae,

but
that
visibly relate
to
a
common
prototype.
The
prototypes
of
most
Roman
replica series have been
thought
to
be lost
works
by Classical
or
Hellenistic
Greek
artists.
The
Romans
are
thought
to
have
developed a
taste

for
Greek
sculpture
from
admiring
the
hundreds
of
ancient statues
brought
home
as
booty
by
their
victorious armies,
and
to
have come
to
prefer
copies
of
these
to
originals by their
own
artists.
The
copies

produced
ranged
from
exact
replicas
to
free
variations,
but
all derived
from
Greek
originals.
8
Since
Roman
literature
constantly
proclaims
the
glory
of
ancient
Greek
artists,
10
MIRANDA
MAR
VIN
it seemed only reasonable to believe

that
most
Roman
patrons
would
prefer copies
of
acknowledged ancient masterpieces
to
inferior modern
creations.
As
Franz Wickhoff
put
it
at
the
turn
of
the century:
The
principal occupation
of
every Greek sculptor in
Rome

was
to
copy
famous Greek statues in marble

The
exhaustion
of
the imagination, by
impelling the lover
of
art
who
was no longer satisfied
with
contemporary
creations
to
seek older works
of
art,
favoured this extensive copying.
9
John
Boardman
at
the end
of
the twentieth century describes the
production
of
Roman
ideal sculpture thus:
For those

who
preferred masterpieces, even in copies, a copying industry
soon emerged the result was the legion
of
marble copies

which serve as a
major source for
our
study
of
lost originals by famous artists

It
was,
of
course, always open
to
the copyist
to
introduce variants
or
create pastiches

but
obviously
no
new major
art
form developed from these classicizing works.

IQ
Boardman's more nuanced
but
still dismissive statement reflects
twentieth-century views.
He
still believes the
Roman
replicas' only
value lies in
what
they can tell us
about
lost Greek works,
but
his list
of
copies of ancient masterpieces
is
substantially smaller
than
the list
imagined by Wickhoff
and
his contemporaries. Since the
1970S
whole
classes
of
ideal works once thought

to
be copies
of
classical statuary have
been reinterpreted
on
formal grounds as classicizing
or
'classicistic'
creations, conscious reformations
of
classical prototypes by
Roman
artists.
II
Some, for example, have a strong homoerotic
and
pederastic
content - 'sexy boys' Elizabeth Bartman calls them.
I2.
The
bronze
known
as the Idolino in Florence, for example, was considered by Adolf
Furtwangler in the
1890S
to
be an original
of
the fifth century. Its

languorous elegance
and
youthful androgyny, however, betray its
Roman
origin
and
relate it unmistakably to similar figures
of
beautiful boys used
to
hold oil lamps to light
Roman
dining rooms.
I3
Many
more works have
been recognized as
Roman
creations,
and
the category
of
literal copies
from Greek masterpieces has shrunk dramatically.I4
This
is
not
to
say,
of

course,
that
they did
not
exist. Both literary
and
physical evidence demonstrates
that
the Romans made
and
displayed
copies
of
many Greek works. Casts were taken from them
and
replicas
made. In one instance, an overcast torso in the Metropolitan Museum in
New
York retains traces
of
the repairs made
to
the original from which it
was taken.
I5
At Baiae fragments
of
actual plaster casts have been found.
I6
When

Roman
patrons wanted exact copies,
Roman
artists could produce
them.
Roman
Sculptural Reproductions
'ldolino', anonymous
Roman
artist, first century
8c
/
AD,
brom
.e.
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.
11
The
hypothesis being challenged
is
that
such copies were the
normal
preference
of
most
purchasers
of
ideal sculpture. Thave argued elsewhere
that

such a view imputes to the
Romans
a post-Enlightenment notion
of
genius and a familiarity with famous works
of
art
made
po
ssible only by
modern means
of
exact reproduction (today,
of
course, extending beyond
the still camera to virtual reality in three dimensions).
X7
The
Romans
had
neither the ideology
of
individualism
nor
the technologies of reproduction
that
create the
modern
taste for replicas
of

famous works. Moreover, they
had
no academic discipline
of
art
history
or
professional schools for
artists, no encyclopaedic museums and only a rudimentary tourism
industry.
The
art
patron
of
ancient Rome had little
in
common
with
his
modern successors
who
pile into
tour
buses
in
order to see the canonical
works whose appearance they already
know
from reproductions, and
purchase

other
reproductions on the
spot
to
take
home
for the
mantelpiece.
Tn
discussing
Roman
sculpture the burden
of
proof
should shift from
I2
MIRANDA
MARVIN
(top
left) Doryphoros, in
the
manner
of
Polykleitos,
first
century
BC,
marble.
Minneapolis
Institute

of
Arts.
(top
right) Diadoumenos, in
the
manner
of
Polykleitos
, first
century
BC,
marble
.
National
Archa
e
ological
Museum,
Athens.
(above)
Figure
in
the
manner
of
Polykleitos,
first
century
AD
('),

marble
.
Wellesley
College
Museum
(jcwett
Arts
Centre),
MA.
Roman
Sculptural Reproductions
13
identifying which ancient
work
it replicates
to
establishing whether it
copies any specific Greek
work
at
all.
I8
Is
it a reproduction
of
a particular
original
or
simply a repetition
of

approved forms in a classical manner?
In the face
of
the many
Roman
variations
on
Greek styles
now
recog-
nized,
what
defines a
work
as a true copy?
How
safe is it
to
reconstruct
Greek sculpture from
Roman
replicas?
The
recent acquisition by the Minneapolis Institute
of
Arts
of
a
magnificent replica
of

Polykleitos' Doryphoros
and
an
exhibition
in
Frankfurt in 1990 devoted
to
Polykleitos have focused attention
on
works
in his style. In the publications generated by these events (including a new
and
lavishly illustrated list
of
Polykleitan replicas compiled by Detlev
Kreikenbom), the Diskophoros type
to
which
the
Copenhagen youth
belongs is still classed as a copy
of
one
of
his lost works
and
used
to
reconstruct his career.
I9

A native
of
Argos
or
Sicyon, Polykleitos was one
of
the leading
bronze sculptors
of
the fifth century
BC.
20
He
took
many pupils, and, as
was
not
uncommon
in Greece where occupations often passed from
father to son,
had
more
than
one artist
among
his descendants.
2I
His
work
is

known
from signatures
on
the
bases
of
lost statues
and
from
later literary accounts
of
his life
and
works.
22
The
most
important
source
is
Pliny the Elder who, in the first century
AD,
credited him with
major stylistic innovations
and
listed his best-known bronzes.
The
most
famous
of

these were the Doryphoros,
or
'spear-bearer',
and
the
Diadoumenos,
or
'youth
tying a fillet' (p. 12). These have been reliably
recognized from copies. Even the
name
of
the Diadoumenos was well-
enough
known
to
make
a
pun
on
it. A
Roman
named Tiberius
Octavius Diadumenus
put
a little relief
of
the Polykleitan statue instead
of
a

portrait
of
himself
on
his tombstone.
23
Both these Polykleitan
statues represent nude young men standing with their weight
on
one
leg.
The
displacement
of
weight, thrusting one hip
to
the side, sets up a
characteristic movement in the torso, usually referred
to
by the Italian
term
contrapposto.
Their
heads are slightly turned; they share similar
facial features,
an
almost architectonic musculature
and
a distinctive
rhythm

that
balances relaxed
and
contracted muscles in
an
easy,
swinging stance.
24
The
Doryphoros
poses
with
a spear; the Diadou-
menos tightens a long ribbon
around
his hair.
Among the studies in these recent volumes,
an
important
contribution
is
that
of
Gregory Leftwich.
25
He
analysed
the
anatomy
of

the
replicas
of
the Doryphoros
and
Diadoumenos
and
compared them with Classical
Greek medical treatises. Both in the details
of
anatomical knowledge
and
MIRANDA
MAR
VIN
in the conceptual
framework
defining a healthy body, the statues
and
the
medical literature coincide. Leftwich argues
that
nothing
in the
sculptures reveals either
information
or
theory foreign
to
Greek

physicians
of
Polykleitos' day. An analysis by Leftwich
of
a
Diskophoros
in the collection
of
Wellesley College, Massachusetts (p. 12), concluded
that
its
anatomy
matched the
Doryphoros
and
Diadoumenos,
known
Polykleitan works. Every significant feature
appeared
to
him
authenti-
cally Polykleitan.
26
In
the
most recently published study
of
Greek
medicine

and
sculpture,
Guy
Metraux
endorses Leftwich's conclusions.
27
The
case for identifying
the
Diskophoros
as a copy
of
a
work
by
Polykleitos has, therefore,
grown
stronger
in recent years,
not
weaker.
The
impediments
to
believing it
to
be a copy come,
not
from
any

anachronisms in the
anatomy,
but
from
the search for the original.
Evidence for
an
original proves
to
be elusive
and
suggests
that
Roman
sculptors were able
to
recreate styles from
the
past
with
greater
sophistication
and
sensitivity
than
they are usually deemed
to
possess.
Besides the approximately ten
works

listed by Pliny,
many
others
by
Polykleitos are mentioned in ancient literature.
28
Some
may
have been
made by
one
or
more
of
the later sculptors
named
after him,
but
it
is
clear
that
he
was
a prolific artist,
with
a recognizable style. Pliny
describes his
works
as all very much alike, paene ad

unum
exemplum.
29
He
is
also said
to
have
written
a treatise
on
perfect
proportions
called
the
canon,
or
'measuring
stick',
and
to
have
made
a
statue
to
exemplify
it
(usually identified
with

the Doryphoros).3
0
Kreikenbom
and
the organizers
of
the
Frankfurt
exhibition believe
that
in addition
to
the
Doryphoros
and
the
Diadoumenos,
three
additional
mature
male nudes by Polykleitos
can
be recognized from
Roman
replicas: a victor
statue
known
today
as the
Diskophoros,

a
Hermes
and
a Herakles.
The
evidence, however, for identifying these lost
works
varies
from
one
series
to
the next.
It
is
strongest for the
Diadoumenos,
where
the
singularity
of
the pose, tying
the
fillet
around
the
head,
and
the
consistency

of
the replicas, which
almost
always combine
the
same
head
and
body
types, combined
with
Ti.
Octavius
Diadumenus'
punning
stela,
make
the identification certain.
31
The
type identified as the
Doryphoros
also consistently associates the
same
head
and
body
types.
32
Of

the
sixty-seven replicas listed by Kreikenbom, only twelve
show
any significant variation
and
several
of
these
do
not
properly belong
in a replica series.
33
The
readily identifiable figure so consistently
reproduced resembles the textual accounts
of
Polykleitos'
work
and
the
Roman Sculptural Reproductions
I5
replicas
of
the Diadoumenos so closely
that
it
is
difficult

to
imagine
not
attributing it to the same sculptor.
The
attributions
of
the Hermes, Herakles and Diskophoros are less
secure,
and
trying to find an original for each leads
to
a dizzying blur
of
confused identities.
The
work
of
later restorers, who have sprinkled the
surviving heads
on
an assortment
of
ancient and modern bodies,
and,
with cheerful abandon, given ancient bodies new heads, makes the task
particularly laborious. Once the Polykleitan replicas are disentangled
from later additions, however, the grounds for the attributions emerge.
More
heads

than
bodies have been recognized, and they are grouped into
series by hairstyle. In all the
hair
strongly resembles the Doryphoros.
Hard
and
crisp,
it
lacks the puffy quality found in the hair
of
the
Diadoumenos replicas. Chiselled locks
of
neat curls descend in layers
from the crown
of
the head to frame the face in symmetrical whorls
and
tendrils. Each type, however,
is
identified by a distinctive arrangement
of
the locks
around
the face, which fall in recognizable patterns over the
brows and in front
of
the ears.
In the portraiture

of
the royal family
at
the beginning
of
the
Roman
Empire, such distinctive hair arrangements identify particular indivi-
duals.
The
men in Augustus' family are depicted as strongly resembling
the emperor
but
he
is
distinguished by a formulaic hairstyle, found
on
heads
of
very different style
and
workmanship.34
Modern
scholars have
used the technique
that
court
artists devised for identifying ruler
portraits
to identify the originals

of
ideal sculptures. They have classified all the
young, male Polykleitan heads
that
share the same arrangements
of
locks
as replicas
of
a
common
original. Applying the principles
that
work
for
one genre
to
the other, however, only points
out
the differences between
them.
The
problem can be illustrated by comparing portraits
of
Augustus
with copies
of
the Diadoumenos. Augustus was presented
to
his subjects

in many guises - seated
or
standing, wearing a toga
or
a military cuirass,
with
or
without
the attributes
of
divinity. Even the
portrait
heads could
look very different from each other.
The
heads were
of
different shapes;
sometimes the hair was modelled, sometimes
it
was flat. Within each type
were differences in the inclination
of
the head, its angle
on
the neck
and
the direction
of
the gaze.

The
formulaic hairstyle made the subject
recognizable despite differences in presentation.
Artists reproducing a
work
of
art
faced an altogether different
problem. They needed to capture the distinctive contours, characteristic
modelling
and
unchanging appearance
of
a specific image. A representa-