Scopas ( grc-gre, Σκόπας; born in

Paros Paros (; el, Πάρος; Venetian: ''Paro'') is a Greek island in the central Aegean Sea. One of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of ...

, fl. 4th century BCE) was an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

sculptor and architect, most famous for his statue of Meleager, the copper statue of

Aphrodite Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion (emotion), passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman god ...

, and the head of goddess

Hygieia Hygieia is a goddess from Greek, as well as Roman, mythology (also referred to as: Hygiea or Hygeia; ; grc, Ὑγιεία or , la, Hygēa or ). Hygieia is a goddess of health ( el, ὑγίεια – ''hugieia''), cleanliness and hygiene. He ...

, daughter of

Asclepius Asclepius (; grc-gre, Ἀσκληπιός ''Asklēpiós'' ; la, Aesculapius) is a hero and god of medicine in ancient Greek religion and mythology. He is the son of Apollo and Coronis, or Arsinoe, or of Apollo alone. Asclepius represen ...

Early life and family

Scopas was born on the island of

. His father was the sculptor Aristander of Paros. Skopas left Paros at an early age and travelled throughout the Hellenic world.

Career as sculptor and architect

Scopas worked with

Praxiteles Praxiteles (; el, Πραξιτέλης) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubi ...

, and he sculpted parts of the

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus ( grc, Μαυσωλεῖον τῆς Ἁλικαρνασσοῦ; tr, Halikarnas Mozolesi) was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC in Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus, an ...

, especially the

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

s. He led the building of the new temple of

Athena Alea Alea (Ancient Greek: ) was an epithet of the Greek goddess Athena, prominent in Arcadian mythology, under which she was worshiped at Alea, Mantineia and Tegea. Alea was initially an independent goddess, but was eventually assimilated with Athen ...

Tegea Tegea (; el, Τεγέα) was a settlement in ancient Arcadia, and it is also a former municipality in Arcadia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the Tripoli municipality, of which it is a municipal unit ...

. Similar to

Lysippus Lysippos (; grc-gre, Λύσιππος) was a Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC. Together with Scopas and Praxiteles, he is considered one of the three greatest sculptors of the Classical Greek era, bringing transition into the Hellenistic pe ...

, Scopas is artistically a successor of the

Classical Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

sculptor

Polykleitos Polykleitos ( grc, Πολύκλειτος) was an ancient Greek sculptor in bronze of the 5th century BCE. Alongside the Athenian sculptors Pheidias, Myron and Praxiteles, he is considered one of the most important sculptors of classical ...

. The faces of the heads are almost in

quadrat A quadrat is a frame, traditionally square, used in ecology, geography and biology to isolate a standard unit of area for study of the distribution of an item over a large area. Modern quadrats can for example be rectangular, circular, or irregul ...

. The deeply sunken eyes and a slightly opened mouth are recognizable characteristics in the figures of Scopas. Works by Scopas are preserved in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docume ...

(reliefs) in London; fragments from the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens; the celebrated

Ludovisi Ares The Ludovisi Ares is an Antonines, Antonine Roman marble sculpture of Mars (mythology), Mars, a fine 2nd-century copy of a late 4th-century BCE Greek original, associated with Scopas or Lysippus: thus the Roman god of war receives his Greek name, ...

in the Palazzo Altemps, Rome; a statue of Pothos restored as Apollo Citharoedus in the

Capitoline Museum The Capitoline Museums ( Italian: ''Musei Capitolini'') are a group of art and archaeological museums in Piazza del Campidoglio, on top of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, Italy. The historic seats of the museums are Palazzo dei Conservatori and Pal ...

, Rome; and his statue of Meleager, unmentioned in ancient literature but surviving in numerous replicas, perhaps best represented by a torso in the

Fogg Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most ...

Pothos

''Pothos'', or ''Desire'', was a celebrated and much imitated statue by Scopas. Roman copies featured the human figure with a variety of props, such as musical instruments and fabrics as depicted here,Steven Lattimore, "Scopas and the Pothos", ''American Journal of Archaeology'' Vol.91 No.3 (July 1987), pages 411–42
journal preview
/ref> in an example that was in the collection of

Cardinal Alessandro Albani Alessandro Albani (15 October 1692 – 11 December 1779) was a Roman Catholic cardinal, but should be best remembered as a leading collector of antiquities, dealer and art patron in Rome. He supported the art historian, Johann Joachim Winckelmann ...

Namesake

* Scopas (crater)

Gallery

File:NAMA Hygie.jpg, Head of the goddess

by Scopas from the temple of

( National Archaeological Museum of Athens) File:Meleager Pio-Clementino Inv490.jpg, A Roman 1st century AD marble ''

Meleager In Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, th ...

'' with

chlamys The chlamys (Ancient Greek: χλαμύς : chlamýs, genitive: χλαμύδος : chlamydos) was a type of an ancient Greek cloak.

, a free improvisation on Scopas's model, from the Fusconi-Pighini collection ( Museo Pio-Clementino, Rome) File:Meleager Skopas BM GR1906.1-17.1.jpg, Roman marble head of Meleager, after Scopas, on a restored bust (

) File:Archaeological museum, Athens (5615666772).jpg, Hunter stele by Scopas (National Archaeological Museum of Athens) File:Pothos Apollo Musei Capitolini MC649.jpg, One of many Roman copies of Pothos (Desire), a statue by Scopas, restored here as

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

Kitharoidos (Apollo, the

Cithara The kithara (or Latinized cithara) ( el, κιθάρα, translit=kithāra, lat, cithara) was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. In modern Greek the word ''kithara'' has come to mean "guitar", a word which etymolo ...

-player) File:MarbleHeadsScopas.jpg, Two marble heads by Scopas, National Museum Athens

Literature

* Andreas Linfert: ''Von Polyklet zu Lysipp. Polyklets Schule und ihr Verhältnis zu Skopas v. Paros''. Diss. Freiburg i. B. 1965. * Andrew F. Stewart: ''Skopas of Paros''. Noyes Pr., Park Ridge, N.Y. 1977. * Andrew Stewart: ''Skopas in Malibu. The head of Achilles from Tegea and other sculptures by Skopas in the J. Paul Getty Museum'' J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, Calif. 1982. * Skopas of Paros and his world, International Conference on the Archaeology of Paros and the Cyclades Paroikia, Paros, Greece), Katsōnopoulou, Dora., Stewart, Andrew F.

References

4th-century BC Greek sculptors Ancient Greek sculptors Ancient Parians {{Greece-sculptor-stub