Polyclītus in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

1. Next to his somewhat older contemporary Phidias, the most admired sculptor of antiquity. He was a native of Argos, and, like Phidias, a pupil of Ageladas. His name marks an epoch in the development of Greek art, owing to his having laid down rules of universal application with regard to the proportions of the human body in its mean standard of height, age, etc. In close accordance with these rules he fashioned a typical figure, the "Doryphorus," a powerful youth with a spear in his hand: this figure was called the κανών, and for a long time served as a standard for succeeding artists (Pliny , Pliny H. N. xxxiv. 55). The rules which he practically applied in the canon he also set forth theoretically in a written work (Galen, in Overbeck's Schriftquellen. 958, 959). It is also said of him that when he made statues in an attitude of rest, instead of dividing the weight of the body equally between the two feet, according to the custom which had hitherto prevailed, he introduced the practice of causing them to rest upon one foot, with the other foot slightly raised, whereby the impression of graceful ease and calm repose was for the first time fully produced (Pliny , l. c. 56). Except the celebrated chryselephantine colossal statue of Heré (q.v.), which he made for the temple of the goddess at Argos (Pausan. ii. 17.4), when it was rebuilt after a fire in B.C. 423, he produced statues in bronze alone, and almost exclusively of men in the prime of youth, such as the "Doryphorus" already mentioned; the "Diadumenus," a youth of softer lineaments, who is tying a band round his head (Pliny , l. c. 55; Lucian, Philopseudes, 18); and an "Amazon," which was preferred even to that of Phidias (Pliny , l. c. 53). These statues may still be identified in copies of a later time. He also worked as an architect. The theatre at Epidaurus (of which considerable remains still exist), the circular structure called the Tholos, and the temple of Asclepius (Pausan. ii. 27), are now generally assigned to the younger Polyclitus. 2. Polyclītus the Younger, a pupil of the Argive sculptor Naucydes. Among his works was a statue of the athlete Agenor (Pausan. vi. 6.2), and of Zeus Philios at Megalopolis, in which the god was represented with some of the attributes of Dionysus (id. viii. 31.4). The statues of Zeus Meilichios at Argos (id. ii. 20.1), and those of Apollo, Leto, and Artemis on Mount Lyconé near Argos (ib. 24.5), may possibly be assigned to the elder Polyclitus (Overbeck, Schriftquellen. 941-943).

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