Apollo Belvedere - a symbol of the art of ancient Hellas

Unfortunately, up to now, there have been negligible originals of ancient Greek sculpture. Even Apollo Belvedere, considered by many art historians to be the apex of ancient culture, was preserved only in the Roman marble copy. The thing is that at the dawn of Christianity, during the era of barbaric invasions, and also during the early Middle Ages , all bronze statues of ancient Greek masters were mercilessly remelted. Nobody in those dark times thought of taking care of the cultural heritage of mankind.

Marble images of cult ancient gods and mythological heroes also fell from their pedestals, and the noble stone from which they were made was often used to burn out lime. During the reign of Alexander the Great, his court sculptor was Leohar. Apollo Belvedersky is considered an art critic by an exact copy of the bronze master of this master. The flowering of Leohar's creativity, a representative of the academic direction of the late classical Greek school, fell on 350-320 years BC. E. Around the same period, the Apollo Belvedere statue also belongs, which gave researchers the opportunity to put forward a hypothesis about the authorship of Leohar. Now, after twenty-five centuries, it is hardly possible to establish truth truthfully.

The statue of Apollo Belvedere was discovered during the Renaissance (in the fifteenth century) in the possession of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere in Anzio, who, having ascended the spiritual throne and adopting the papal order, ordered this great creation to be established at the place of honor at the Vatokan Palace in the Belvedere Palace. Hence the name of the sculpture. This place is also famous for the fact that at that time there were a lot of the best pearls of the papal collection of great antique works of art. Apollo Belvedere next to Laocoon, the torso of Hercules, Abandoned Ariadne and other equally famous creations of the brilliant masters of the past.

Curious and the evolution of the attitude towards Leohar's sculpture (presumably) in the circles of art historians, scientists and historians. For a long time Apollo Belvedere was estimated as an invaluable masterpiece, the peak, the apotheosis and the culmination of ancient art. He was unanimously recognized as aesthetically perfect. And, as is often the case, the extremely pretentious and sublime praises were replaced by a diametrically opposite reaction. The further the study of the creations of various ancient masters proceeded and the more monuments of culture of ancient civilizations appeared, the more restrained became the assessments of Apollo Belvedere.

Various critics and art historians suddenly began to find pompous and mannered features in it. And some even noticed a lot of excessive pretentiousness, pathos and geometric flaws. Meanwhile, this work can be safely called outstanding in terms of plastic virtues, elegance of lines and flight of author's thoughts. The figure and steps of Apollo combine strength with grace, ineradicable energy with airy ease. Weightlessly walking on the earth's firmament, he seems to be in a state of flight. And all the movements of this ruler of the muses, brilliantly depicted by the author in a static frozen figure, are not concentrated in one single direction, but as if the sun's rays diverge in different directions.

To achieve this effect, imprinted in cold marble or bronze, the sculptor had to possess not only sophisticated skill, but also a spark of genuine genius. However, it should be recognized that in Apollo Belvedere there is too obvious a calculation of exactly this impression of the contemplator. The sculpture urgently demands to admire its beauty and elegance of features. And the best examples of classical antique art do not state their merits in public. They are beautiful, not adorned. Therefore Apollo Belvedere hides so many secrets of his origin and generates more questions than answers.

Without any doubt, only one thing: this sculpture is, perhaps, the most significant example of ancient art. And certainly one of the most mysterious.