The Dying Gaul, Versailles, Eug̬ne Atget, 1923
Entitled: "Versailles, France" photographed by Eug̬ne Atget, 1923. After the Great War, Atget frequently focused on mannequins, statues, and other "substitute" actors. At Versailles, where he had worked since 1901, he came to see the sculptures not as felicitous ornaments but as characters in an immemorial play. In this picture, which represents Michael Mosnier's replica of the "Dying Gladiator" in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, Atget contrasts human pain and artistic beauty, mortal man and the immortal soul. Drawing on his long experience relating near and far objects and vistas in the gardens of Versailles, the photographer juxtaposed the statues so that the figure of Apollo in the background seems to rise like the living spirit escaping the body at death. The Dying Gaul is an ancient Roman marble copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture thought to have been executed in bronze. It may have been commissioned some time between 230 and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Galatian, the Celtic or Gaulish people of parts of Anatolia (modern Turkey). The identity of the sculptor of the original is unknown, but it has been suggested that Epigonus, court sculptor of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamon, may have been the creator. The celebrated statue was most commonly known as The Dying Gladiator until the 20th century, on the assumption that it depicted a wounded gladiator in a Roman amphitheater. Scholars had identified it as a Gaul or Galatian by the mid 19th century, but it took many decades for the new label to achieve popular acceptance.
Size: 4111px × 3300px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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