Articles
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2823-432X
Appreciation for ancient art in the modern era led to a particular reverence for ancient sculpture. As the process evolved, its scope and scale expanded with the discovery of new statues, the growth of contemporary collections and the emergence of new methods for reproducing classical models. The impact of copies cast in bronze or plaster could not match the popularity and reach of prints depicting ancient figures. Initially published as separate works, over time they also appeared in publishing series (e.g., publications by François Perrier, Jan de Bisschop, Joachim Sandrart, or Giovanni Pietro Bellori and Pietro Santi Bartoli).
The influence of ancient artistic traditions on Baroque artists was not uniform across Europe and depended on many factors. Silesia was not among the privileged regions in this respect, and sculptors working in the area around 1700 had limited possibilities to further their knowledge of ancient art compared to territories closer to Europe’s major artistic centres. This makes the case of Georg Leonhard Weber all the more surprising.
References to ancient art in the figurative sculpture of the Świdnica-based artist are multi-layered. These are usually paraphrases or compilations of ideas derived from several works. His oeuvre reveals numerous references to the most famous ancient statues, such as Belvedere Hermes, Laokoön, Farnese Hercules, Ludovisi Ares, as well as sculptures that are less recognisable but also immortalised in prints: Castor and Pollux, busts of Fauns, Dionysus, or Meleager. The artist acquired his knowledge of ancient works in a manner typical of artists beyond the Alps, mostly through graphic reproductions, and possibly supplemented by studies of copies made in plaster or bronze. Weber also drew on the tradition of modern art assimilating forms taken from ancient visual arts. While these mechanisms were not unusual, the outcomes are exceptional, exceeding the standards of Baroque sculpture in Silesia at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. They place the artist from Świdnica at the forefront of a small group of local sculptors of the time – in particular Thomas Weisfeldt and Johann Georg Urbansky – who consciously followed the formula of antiquity-inspired art.
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English
Język Polski
https://doi.org/10.19195/2449-9285.73.15
