Art and Travel by Dave's video: The Complete Louvre Part 21: Rome I The Borghese Gladiator

Why is The Borghese Gladiator so influential? First off, look at the extended arm. Can you imagine the size of the marble block needed to contain such a figure from the left arm to the left leg? The Borghese Gladiator is a Hellenistic life-size marble sculpture portraying a swordsman, created at Ephesus about 100 BC. The sculpture is signed on the pedestal by Agasias, son of Dositheus, who is otherwise unknown. It was found before 1611, in the present territory of Anzio south of Rome, among the ruins of a seaside palace of Nero. It is clear that the statue represents not a gladiator, but a warrior contending with a mounted combatant. It was among the most admired and copied works of antiquity in the eighteenth century, providing sculptors a canon of proportions. It recalls the work of Lysippos, the great bronze sculptor of the fourth century BC. The musculature, however, bears the mark of the Pergamon school. The boldness of the composition, which anchors the warrior in a three-dimensional space and invites the spectator to view it from all sides, is a constant in Hellenistic art.