Satyr of Mazara del Vallo

The satyr of Mazara del Vallo is a statue Greek in Bronze, discovered at sea in 1997-1998, and representing a dancing Satyre.

Discovered

In March 1997, whereas it high-sea fishing of Mazara del Vallo, in the international water, a boat brings back in its nets the leg of a bronze statue. An electromagnetic prospection makes it possible to locate, by 480 meters basic, another part of the sculpture - the chest and the head -, which went up one year later. The important depth and the legal situation complex then prevent the excavation from continuing.

Strongly damaged by the marine organizations, the fragments are restored and re-installed by Paola Donati, of Istituto Centrale per It Restauro of Rome. The statue is exposed to the Italian House of Commons from April 1st to June 2nd, 2003, then to the Musées of Capitole from June 6th to the Installée July 6th, 2003 then in a museum with its name, in the church Sant' Egidio de Mazara del Vallo, it left there since twice: for the World Fair of Aichi, in 2005, and for the exposure Praxitèle to the Museum of Louvre, in 2007.

Description

The statue, larger than natural, represents a Satyre - recognizable with his pointed ears and its tail - drunk dancing, the reversed head, the floating hair, the half-opened mouth and the violently behind raised left leg.

The statue is out of bronze and made up of six separately melted elements: the head, the chest, legs and arms, according to any probability according to the technique of the lost Wax indirect. In the absence of trace of the ground core, the origin of work cannot be given with precision. The eyes are in Albâtre and comprise a digging where the iris and the Pupille, now lost were fixed. Only the head, the chest and the left leg survived. Thus miss part of hair, the left arm, broken on the level of the shoulder, the right-hand man to semi-biceps and the right leg, broken with semi-thigh. A metal reinforcement was placed in work during its restoration in order to return its station upright to him; it however was not possible to return fully the inversion behind of the satyr.

Bronze, thick on average 6 mm, carries seven marks on the right shoulder, with remainders of welding which had to be used for to fix an attribute. The left heel carries two clamp holes allowing the passage of a tenon, perhaps to fix an attribute, or to connect the Satyr to another statue. The left shoulder was the subject of an ancient repair; the statue also comprises tasseli intended to repair defects of surface to or hiding the jets of fusion.

Interpretation

The attitude of the satyr, dancing and in extase, is well-known in Greek art: one finds it for Pan and the satyrs in painting on vases attic of, in the decorative sculpture and the minor arts. The satyr probably dances σίκιννις / síkinnis , traditional dance of the chorus satyrs in the Drama satyric, full with jumps and entrechats, or στρόϐιλος / stróbilos , a whirling dance which one meets at Aristophane.

Because of loss of the arms, the Satyr does not carry any more attributes. On the basis of in particular a Cameo of the national archaeological Museum of Naples, one proposed it holding a thyrse in the right hand and a canthare in the left hand, with a pardalide on the left arm. On this assumption, the marks related by bronze to the right shoulder would correspond in contact with the strips of the thyrse, and the tenon on ankle left would be used to support the end of the thyrse. According to representations on sarcophagi or curbstones of well, one also restored the satyr like carrying a lagobolon (stick to drive out hares) in the right hand or a CABRI on the right-hand man.

Attribution

One proposed to see in the Satyre dancing an original of Praxitèle on the basis of interpretation new of a passage of Pline Old the mentioning “a satyr that the Greeks call periboētos ” which accompanies a Liber Lord's Prayer (Dionysos) and Méthè (intoxication). Since Winckelmann, this word is traditionally translated by “famous”, and one identifies the work quoted by Pline with the Satyre at rest or the Satyre pourer .

The new assumption, founded on a passage of a speech of Plato, proposes the direction “which shouts with frenzy”, and notes resemblances stylistics to statuaries types attached with Praxitèle. Thus, the clearness of contours would evoke the Satyre at rest , the Aphrodite de Cnide or the Apollon sauroctone . In particular, the head of the Satyr would approach, as regards the format, the mouth and the chin, the head Borghèse (My 421) of the museum of Louvre and, as regards the nose, the arcades sourcilières and the hairstyle, that of the Diane de Gabies. This satyr periboêtos would be that which Pausanias sees in the street of the Tripods with Athens and which was one of two preferred works of Praxitèle: it would be a monument choregic dedicated following the victory of the tragic poet Xénoclès, which places work towards 360 av. J. - C. It would be at the origin of all the representations of satyr in extase which one knows in Greek and Roman art.

One reproached this assumption forced bringings together stylistics, the more so as the nose of the Diane de Gabies is a modern restoration, and nonconclusive: this statue was recently left the corpus praxitélien. In a general way, the style of the Satyre dancing appeared too foreign with the known style of Praxitèle. Being the literary sources, it was announced that the Satyr seen by Pline in Rome with could hardly be that which Pausanias sees in Athens with.

It is necessary in makes strictly speaking distinguish the subject from the dancing Satyr of the bronze of Mazara del Vallo. Being the prototype, one distinguishes two schools of thought: one attaches the type to fourth century BC, without mentioning Praxitèle precisely; the other makes an néo-attic creation of it. As for bronze itself, its strong proportion out of lead and the rectangular form of the tasselli plead in favor of a Roman production: it could be a question of a bronze copy, phenomenon attested for example by the Apoxyomène d' Éphèse.

Random links: