Hey Dopers,
Today’s Wikipedia.org featured article of the day is Attalus I, some Greek city-state ruler. In the article it mentions the statue of “The Dying Gaul.” As I read this, I think to myself, “Hey! The Dying Gaul! That’s my favorite piece of art from my Art History 101 course. Let’s take a look at what the Wkipedians have to say about it…click…That’s not the Dying Gaul!!!”
The statue I think of when I think of “The Dying Gaul” depicts a big guy with a beard holding the limp, just-killed body of a woman in one hand and a sword pointing down into his chest in the other, his head turned over his shoulder as if to watch the enemy bearing down upon him.
I was pretty sure that was called the Dying Gaul. I guess I was wrong. Can anyone ID the statue I’m thinking of from my description? It must be pretty well known for it to be in a basic art history class.
Both statues are traditionally known as “The Dying Gaul.” Perhaps “A Dying Gaul” would have been a more sensible choice, but there you have it. The Wikipedia article’s choice is better known, but only just.
They’re both from the same monument, which glorified Attalos I of Pergamon’s victory over the Gauls, as seen in this hypothetical reconstruction. Note that your sculpture would probably have stood in the center: the Gallic chieftain (clean-shaven, actually), defiant even at the moment of his death, choosing to kill his wife and himself rather than to fall into the hands of the Greeks.
I’m not a classicist, but as an art historian I often teach surveys of ancient-to-medieval art. When I hear the “Dying Gaul,” it’s usually in reference to the Capitoline Gaul (the one which the Wikipedia entry labelled as the “Dying Gaul”–he also appears under that title in most art history books). Admittedly, though, the figures from this monument were all dying Gauls, so it’s not the most descriptive title.
Nope. I’m a modernist, actually (with my focus in late nineteenth-century art in Europe). It’s just that I’ve often had to teach the first half of the survey courses, even though I’m much, much better versed in the later half.
