POL'YCLI'TUS (Lat.. from Gk. Ifni i'A? £17"‘). H Polykleitos). A Greek sculptor in bronze. e is called by Plato and other ancient writers an A r give, and was certainly the representative of that school in Greek art. The only authority for his birth at Sicyon is Pliny. who seems to have drawn on a history by a Sicyonian. who claimed for his native city the honor of the greatest Argive artist. The only certain date in his life is that of the great ehryselephantine statue of Hera at Argos. %\ hich was erected in the new temple built in place of the sanetuary burned in 11.( . 433. the nvw temple was built at once, and the statue can searcely he much later than B.c. 420. it is in ssiblc that the statue of Zeus Mei at Argos was later work, and the Amazon of Ephesus. which scents to belong with similar statues by Phidias. Cresilas. and Phrad limn, is probably a work of about n.e. 440. The gem rat character of his Doryphorus (or Spear bearer) also indicates a dale not long after the middle of the fifth century. This evidence agrees well with the aneient statements that Polyelitus was a younger contemporary of Phidias. That he was a pupil of Ageladas, the founder of the _\r give school, is very doubtful on chronological grounds. In technical skill, delicacy of finish, and beauty of line lie ranked with the greatest artists of his time, but ancient critics missed in his works the sublimity which marked the statues of Phidias. He followed in the lines already charac teristic of the Peloponnesian school. Ilk figures are marked by a powerful muscular frame, rather thick-set in proportion to the height. while the face is rather square than oval, with broad brow.
straight nose. and small chin, with the lines sharply defined, presenting a somewhat striking contrast to the tine oval \Odell is eharaeteristic of the Attie school. A eareful student of propor tions, Polyelit us embodied his theories not only in writing (if this is the meaning of the canon attributed to him), but in Ids statutes, stud es pecially in the Doryphorus, of which the best marble copy is in Naples. while the head is represented in a bronze bust from Pompeii. Of the same character, but softer in its lines. is the Diadumenos, or youth binding a fillet round his brow, which is preserved in several marble repli cas. of which the best was found in a private house on the island of Delos. his Amazon is almost .eertainly reproduced in the marlde of Berlin, and his strongly marked characteristics in form and pose render it possible to attribute to him or his school the originals of a number of other works. A younger Polyelitus, possibly a nephew of the great seulptor. flourished in the next eentury, and enjoyed a high reputation net only as a seulptor, but likewise as an architect. lie built the theatre in the sanctuary of Asele plus at Epidaurus, greatly and justly famed for the beauty of its proportions, and the Tholos. or circular building. of which the use is uncertain, at the same place.
Consult the histories of Greek sculpture cited under GREEK ART; Furtwiingler. MastIrpicees of (7r,ck Seulptur, translated by E. Sellers(Lon don and New York, 1895) ; mahier, Polykicl wnd seine ~chub- (Leipzig, 1902).