Leochares: Greek Sculptor, Biography

<html> <head> <title>Leochares: Greek Sculptor, Biography</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="description" content="Leochares (4th-Century BCE): Greek Sculptor Noted for The Apollo Belvedere, and Mausoleum of Halicarnassus"> <meta name="keywords" content="Leochares, Greek Sculptor, Hellenistic Sculpture of Ancient Greece, Famous Sculptures, Demeter of Cnidus, Diana of Versailles, Apollo Belvedere, Phidias, Myron, Polykleitos, Skopas, Lysippos, Praxiteles, Callimachus"> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"> <div id="fb-root"></div> <script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td> <p><font face="Verdana" size="5"><b>Leochares</b></font><br> <font face="Verdana" size="2">Biography of Famous Greek Sculptor, Noted for "The Apollo Belvedere".</font><br> <font face="Verdana" size="4"><b><a href="../site/search.htm">MAIN A-Z INDEX</a> - <a href="../site/sculpture.htm">A-Z of SCULPTURE</a></b></font></p> <div class="fb-like" data-href="http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/sculpture/leochares.htm" data-width="450" data-show-faces="true" data-send="true"></div> <p><a href="http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/" class="pin-it-button" count-layout="none"><img src="//assets.pinterest.com/images/PinExt.png" alt="Pin it" / ></a> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js"></script></p> </td> </tr> </table> <hr width="750" size="1"> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> <p><img src="../images-artistic/leochares-apollo.jpg" width="200" height="322"><br> <b><font face="Arial" size="1">Apollo Belvedere (350-325 BCE)<br> Vatican Museums.<br> Copy (140 CE) of a lost bronze made<br> by the Greek sculptor Leochares.<br> One of the most famous examples<br> of <a href="../antiquity/sculpture-ancient-greece.htm">sculpture from ancient Greece</a>.</font></b></p> <p><b><font face="Arial" size="1">For more about the plastic arts,<br> see: <a href="../sculpture.htm">Art of Sculpture</a>.</font></b></p> </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <h1><font face="Verdana" size="4"> Leochares (4th Century BCE)</font></h1> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">One of the leading figures in Athenian Hellenistic <a href="../antiquity/greek-sculpture.htm"><b>Greek sculpture</b></a> of the 4th century BCE. Leochares' main claim to fame was that he worked on the <b>Mausoleum of Halicarnassus</b> with <b><a href="skopas.htm">Skopas</a></b> - one of the <a href="../sculptors.htm">greatest sculptors</a> of <a href="../ancient-art/classical-antiquity.htm">Classical Antiquity</a>. The Mausoleum was one of the <a href="../ancient-art/seven-wonders.htm">Seven Wonders of the Ancient World</a>. Other 4th century contemporaries of Leochares included, <b><a href="lysippos.htm">Lysippos</a></b> (395-305 BCE) and <b><a href="praxiteles.htm">Praxiteles</a></b> (active 375-335 BCE). The famous sculpture of <b>Apollo Belvedere</b> (Roman copy, Vatican Museum) is attributed to Leochares.</font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><b>Biography</b></font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">Born in Athens, around 360 BCE, Leochares is mentioned in several ancient sources but remains an elusive figure. It is believed he worked with Skopas, along with two other sculptors, on the friezes at the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, but it is not possible to verify that any remaining portions stored at the British Museum in London belong to him.</font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">In about 338 BCE, King Philip II of Macedonia commissioned him to produce sculptures of the royal family. They included statues of Philip II and his son Alexander (the Great), Amyntas III (father of Philip II), Olympias (wife of Philip II), and Eurydice II (daughter of Amyntas III). The statues were made of ivory and gold, and were placed in the Philippeion, a circular building in the <b>Altis at Olympia</b>, erected by Philip II of Macedon in celebration of his victory at Battle of Chaeronea.</font></p> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> <p><font face="Arial" size="1"><b><font color="#FF0000">FAMOUS GREEK SCULPTORS</font><br> Artists not cited include:<br> <a href="phidias.htm">Phidias</a> (488-431 BCE)<br> <a href="myron.htm">Myron</a> (Active 480-444 BCE)<br> <a href="polykleitos.htm">Polykleitos</a> (5th century BCE)<br> <a href="callimachus.htm">Callimachus</a> (Active 432-408 BCE)</b></font></p> <p><font face="Arial" size="1"><b><font color="#FF0000">FORMS OF SCULPTING</font><br> For different types, see:<br> <a href="stone.htm">Stone Sculpture</a><br> Granite, limestone, sandstone<br> and other rock-types.<br> <a href="wood-carving.htm">Wood Carving</a><br> Chip carving, relief carving of<br> softwoods and hardwoods.<br> <a href="bronze.htm">Bronze Sculpture</a><br> Lost-wax (cire perdue) casting<br> method and others.</b></font></p> </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> <p><font face="Arial" size="1"><b><font color="#FF0000">CLASSICAL PLASTIC ARTS </font><br> For details of <a href="../greek-art.htm">Greek art</a>, see:<br> <a href="../antiquity/greek-sculpture-daedalic-style.htm">Daedalic Style Sculpture</a> (650-600)<br> <a href="../antiquity/greek-sculpture-archaic-style.htm">Archaic Greek Sculpture</a> (600-500)<br> <a href="../antiquity/greek-sculpture-early-classical-period.htm">Early Classical Greek Sculpture</a><br> <a href="../antiquity/greek-sculpture-high-classical-period.htm">High Classical Greek Sculpture</a><br> <a href="../antiquity/greek-sculpture-late-classical-period.htm">Late Classical Greek Sculpture</a><br> <a href="../antiquity/greek-pottery.htm">Greek Pottery</a> (Black/Red-Figure)</b></font></p> <p><font face="Arial" size="1"><b><font color="#FF0000">BEST WORKS OF SCULPTURE</font><br> For a list of the world's top 100<br> 3-D artworks, by the best sculptors<br> in the history of art, see:<br> <a href="../greatest-sculptures-ever.htm">Greatest Sculptures Ever</a>.</b></font></p> <p><font face="Arial" size="1"><b><font color="#FF0000">EVOLUTION OF SCULPTURE</font><br> See: <a href="../sculpture-history.htm">History of Sculpture</a>.</b></font></p> </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><b>Demeter of Cnidus</b> </font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">On somewhat tenuous evidence, a seated marble figure of the goddess Demeter (the <b>Demeter of Cnidus</b>, British Museum, London) has been attributed to Leochares' hand. It is considered one of the finest Greek sculptures to survive the 4th century BCE.</font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><b>Diana of Versailles</b> (c. 325 BCE), a slightly over life-sized <a href="marble.htm">marble sculpture</a> of the Greek Goddess Artemis with a deer, located at the Louvre Museum in Paris, is a Roman copy of a <a href="statue.htm">statue</a> originally attributed to him. Diana is represented as a slender but masculine hunter, in the full bloom of life. She looks to the right, perhaps at the deer she is about to kill, and draws an arrow from her quiver.</font></p> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> <p> </p> </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">Leochares appears mainly to have focused on stand-alone sculptures and statuettes, receiving many commissions for portraits. He also worked with other artists, such as Lysippos, and together they reportedly make a group bronze at Delphi representing a lion-hunt of Alexander. He also created statues of heroes and Gods, as was standard at the time, including those of Zeus, Apollo and Ares. (See also: <a href="../architecture/greek.htm">Greek architecture</a>.) A statuette in the Vatican, representing Ganymede being carried away by an eagle, although poor executed (it is a copy), corresponds to a bronze casting which the Roman writher Pliny attributed to Leochares.</font></p> <blockquote> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><b>Note About Sculpture Appreciation</b><br> To learn to evaluate Greek Hellenistic sculptors like Leochares, see: <a href="../how-to-appreciate-sculpture.htm">How to Appreciate Sculpture</a>. See review of: <a href="venus-de-milo.htm">Venus de Milo</a>.</font></p> </blockquote> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"><b>Legacy</b> </font></p> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2">Leochares remains something of a mystery in both his life and works, with opinion divided as to which sculptures can truly be attributed to him. Even so he remains a leading exemplar of the <a href="../antiquity/greek-sculpture-hellenistic-period.htm"><b>Hellenistic School of Greek sculpture</b></a>. The lightness and ease with which he and other comparable 4th-century artists applied to their work were said to have influenced the arts of the Baroque period, nearly 2,000 years later.</font></p> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td width="200" valign="top"> </td> <td width="524" valign="top"> <script type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="750" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="5" align="center"> <tr> <td> <p><font face="Verdana" size="2"> For more on the evolution of Greek classical sculpture, see: <a href="../index.htm">Homepage</a>.</font><font face="Verdana" size="2"><br>  For information about classical art from Ancient Rome, see: <a href="../roman-art.htm">Roman Art</a>.</font></p> <hr size="1"> <p align="center"><a rel="author" href="https://profiles.google.com/115076279462378566554#115076279462378566554"> <img src="http://www.google.com/images/icons/ui/gprofile_button-16.png" width="16" height="16"></a></p> <p align="center"><font face="Arial" size="1"><b><a href="../definitions/plastic-art.htm">Plastic Art</a><br> ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCULPTURE<br> © visual-arts-cork.com. 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Leochares: Greek Sculptor, Biography