Dancer of Pergamon

Dancer of Pergamon is the modern name for a Hellenistic statue of a woman from Pergamon, which is now kept at the Antikensammlung Berlin.

The Dancer was found in March 1886 during the German excavations of Pergamon in one of the two dining rooms of Palace V (the notes on the find location in the excavation diary speak for the dining room with the Hephaestion mosaic). From there it was accessioned to the Berlin Antikensammlung (inventory number AvP VII 43), where it formed part of the Pergamonmuseum until 2010. In 2011/12 it formed part of the special exhibition "Pergamon: Panorama of the Ancient Metropole."

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(jazz music) Dr. Zucker: We're at the Musee d'Orsay and we're looking at Carpeaux's The Dance, which had been commissioned in 1865 by Garnier for the exterior of the new opera house that was being built under Napoleon the Third. This is the moment when Paris is being reborn as the modern city that we now know it as. Dr. Harris: There's no way no to feel thrilled when looking at this sculpture. It just expresses such joyousness and pleasure. Dr. Zucker: Exuberance. Dr. Harris: Yeah, representing dance, but there's none of that sense of discipline and rigor that one would think about with classical ballet, which was what was being performed inside of the opera house. Dr. Zucker: It's almost out of control. Dr. Harris: We have this figure that represents dance that's wildly flinging his hands and arms up with a tambourine in his right hand, the genie, the allegorical figure representing dance and these five nymphs dancing in a circle around him, breaking out of the space of the sculpture in a way that I think of as very baroque in its occupation and utilization of space. Dr. Zucker: Maybe because it was baroque and it was not neoclassical, this sculpture actually received a lot of negative criticism. It was part of the naturalism and the honesty of the body and its pleasure, but also the way that it broke beyond the bounds of the space that it should be defining. Dr. Harris: You can see how it didn't look like an idealized neoclassical sculpture. The figures are grinning. There's just an emotional quality here that you don't get in neoclassical sculpture. Dr. Zucker: It's really erupting. Dr. Harris: If you look at them having such fun and their hair flying back. There's a real sense of wind and atmosphere and movement, even the way the genie of dance has wings and drapery flutter back, but this amazingly complex composition that he makes look really simple, I think. Dr. Zucker: You mentioned before that the nymphs, that these women are circling the genie and we certainly see it as a circle, but they're also brought forward, so it's not really a circle and what Carpeaux's able to do is achieve two things simultaneously. He's able to create that ring around the genie and we really do get that sense, but the same time, there's this wonderful kind of intimacy between the figures and this kind of pleasure of their bodies together and that's the collapsing of that circle. Dr. Harris: We have a figure springing forward vertically and then from the base of the sculpture, two figures that fan out diagonally. It's incredibly unstable, it comes down on that upside down pyramid. Dr. Zucker: There is a really delicate balance. The centrifugal force of the figures is in danger of throwing them outward towards us, but their hands are clasped, maybe just enough - Dr. Harris: To hold it in. Dr. Zucker: Right, so we're seeing this as an exuberant expression of pleasure and energy and the creative, the dance, but when the sculpture was first put on the building, people were upset. In fact, so upset, that somebody actually threw a bottle of ink at it. The sculpture has long since been cleaned and it was brought inside in 1964. Dr. Harris: To protect it from the elements. Dr. Zucker: That's right, because of course, the air pollution and the acids in the atmosphere were starting to wash away the sculpture and started to really dull its lines. You can sort of see, especially on the left side, some of the real damage to the sculpture, but it still retains all of its energy, all of its beauty, and all of its playfulness. (jazz music)

Description

The statue of white translucent marble is 120 cm high (114 cm excluding the base), and the head is 14.5 m high. It depicts a young woman, with her left leg forward, giving the impression that she is moving forward. Her right hand is raised. It was made from a separate piece of stone and has not survived. Her left hand reaches downwards, lightly gripping her dress. The hand and part of the lower arm are not preserved; nor are the statue base and the feet, which have been replaced by a modern creation made of imitation marble. The clothes and face are partially damaged; her nose and many pieces of her dress are missing. The maiden wears several thin layers of fabric which hug her body closely in some parts and forming deep folds of drapery in others. The lowest layer is a sleeved chiton with very fine folds, over which she wears another, armless garment. The fine, rippling fabric is framed at the neck and shoulders by a broad border. The outermost layer is a voluminous cloak, which falls in broad, deep folds. It hangs from her right shoulder, leaving her left shoulder and left breast free and recalls in its shape the cloaks worn by archaic Kore statues of the 6th century BC. The clothing enhances the dynamism of the statue rather than concealing it. The creator of the statue played with various oppositions, as with the broad-spread posture on the one hand and the torsion of the upper body on the other. Similarly, the measured forms of archaic sculpture, with its stitched folds and closely aligned pieces of fabric on the legs, contrast with the lavish cloak flowing out behind her - an entirely different form of materiality. This use of oppositions is also seen in the head and face. Thus, the face is shown with blooming cheeks, deep-set eyes, a small, full mouth, as well as long wavy hair, held back by a band on the forehead and temples. These features are answered by rigid spiral locks of hair on the neck and in front of the ears, which are carved in an archaic style.

Context

On stylistic grounds, the statue is dated to the period between 150 and 125 BC. The statue is an example of the luxurious furnishings of the Pergamene palace. The archaic stylistic features are intentional and recall the grace, "charis" of those depictions. In addition it was common at this time to use archaising forms in the Dionysiac realm (and the statue's presence in a dining room suggests a dionysiac context). As a result of the statue's lack of attributes, however, the statue's purpose can only be guessed at. Heinrich Bulle believed that it was a torchbearer and originally held a torch in the raised right arm, based on similarities with the torchbearer from the Mahdia shipwreck and torchbearer from the Villa Boscoreale. This view has been regularly affirmed, although there are no parallels among the other surviving archaising statues. The statue was probably damaged in Antiquity, either by war damage or an earthquake. As a result, there are some odd aspects of its current shape. Thus, the hair on the neck is short on the left, visible side, but on the right side it has the long, typologically correct spiral locks. It is assumed that the left side reached its current form as a result of reworking in ancient times.

Bibliography

Christiane Vorster: "Die „Tänzerin“ aus Palast V in Pergamon." in Ralf Grüßinger, Volker Kästner, Andreas Scholl (ed.): Pergamon. Panorama der antiken Metropole. Begleitbuch zur Ausstellung. Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-693-0, pp. 148–151 and pp. 508–509 (Catalogue).

External links

Online catalogue of the Berlin sculptures in the archaeological database Arachne

This page was last edited on 2 March 2024, at 22:13

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