Statue in Marble

The marble statue of Diadoumenos is a copy of the original bronze statue displaying a young man tying a fillet around his head. The original was created in c.a. 430 B.C. by a man called Polykleitos of Argos. Polykleitos was a Greek sculptor who worked during the mid-fifth century B.C. . he was one of the most famous artists of the ancient world. Polykleitos' figures are carefully designed with special attention to bodily proportions and stance. The statue of Diadoumenos has its thorax and pelvis tilt in opposite directions, setting up rythmic contrasts in the torso that create an impression of organic vitality. The position of the feet, (poised between walking and standing), give a sense of potential movement. These descriptions of the way Diadoumenos is positioned is called contrapposto. Contrapposto by definition is “The Classical convention of representing standing human figures with opposing alternations of tension and relaxation on each side of a central axis. This rigorously calculated pose, which is found in almost all work attributed to Polykleitos, became a standard formula used in Graeco Roman and later Western European Art. About 450 BCE Polykleitos developed a set of rules for constructing what he considered the ideal human figure, which he set down in treatise called “The Canon” (kanon is a Greek word for “measure,” “rule,” or “law”). Polykleitos' Canon included the following: The sculptures body was 8 heads tall Sculptures had godlike grandeur Sculptures emphasized weight shift also known as contrapposto. The canon also included guidelines for symmetria (“commensurability”), by which Polykleitos meant the relationship of body parts to one another.
Polyklietos inspired many other sculptors and there were two sculptors who notably took the Canon of Polykleitos and modified it to the likings of their own statues. Praxiteles is one of these sculptors. His guideline were a bit different than Polykleitos'. It included the