Skopas of Paros and his World: Presentation of a Proceedings volume on Ancient Classical Art

Abstract

contains 63 papers by leading experts on the famous Parian marble, the location and long history of the Parian quarries from antiquity until the 19 th century AD and the accomplishments of the Parian workshops of sculpture, particularly between the 6 th and the 4 th centuries BC. The second volume of the series entitled Archilochos and his Age published in 2008, includes 30 scholarly papers dealing with the poetry and personality of the reputed Parian poet of the 7 th century BC, Archilochos, and the history and archaeology of Paros, Thasos and the Cyclades in his time.The third volume on Skopas of Paros and his World, which I have the pleasure to present here, is a collection of 34 scholarly papers announced during the Third International Conference on the Archaeology of Paros and the Cyclades held in Paroikia, the contemporary capital of Paros, on June 11-14, 2010. More than thirty colleagues from all over the world came to Paros and presented the results of their scientific work and studies on Skopas and his oeuvre. During the Conference, we organized visits to the local Archaeological Museum and its collection of unique original marble sculptures and to important archaeological sites of Paros including recently discovered sculpture workshops in Paroikia, of particular relevance to the theme of the Conference. Our visits also included the site of the famous ancient marble quarries of Paros, and especially the well known underground stoa of the Nymphs named after the carved relief above its entrance dedicated to the Nymphs, and dating to ca. mid-4 th century BC. Here we had a unique opportunity to attend an instructive outdoors seminar on sculpture by a local sculptor who keeping with ancient tradition of the island creates his own sculptures of marble from fragments collected from the quarries area, using tools of an ancient artisan.The volume is divided into four parts. Part I, entitled Skopas of Paros and Earlier Parian Sculpture, includes 8 studies on the sculptor's personality and work, and his relationship to the island and its previous sculptural output. It begins with a paper by Andrew Stewart entitled Desperately seeking Skopas presenting an overview of Skopas and his work on the basis of the literary and recent archaeological evidence relevant to the investigation of his artistic personality, and including discussion of some individual works of the artist offering new or

Pathos versus Ideal in Classical Greek Sculpture and the Parian Output

“…The particular means of expressing uneasy mood and sensuality by Praxiteles, and stronger emotions such as agony, suffering and passion by Skopas seem to have been combined so closely in some creations of the two artists, that a number of statues were uncertain already in antiquity as to who was their creator, Skopas or Praxiteles. These works according to Pliny include: the dying Niobids in the temple of Apollo Sosianus, Ianus pater (Hermes Dikephalos) brought from Egypt and dedicated in Augustus' temple, Eros holding the thunderbolt 4 in the Curia of Octavia. But the new spirit is also present in works created by the third great sculptor of the century and personal artist of Alexander, Lysippos of Sikyon.…”