BMCR 2009.03.41, A. Trofimova, Alexandr Velikiy: Put' na Vostok

A. Trofimova (ed.), Alexandr Velikiy: Put' na Vostok = Alexander the
Great. The Road to the East. Exhibition Catalogue. The State Hermitage
Museum. In Russian with English summary.  St. Petersburg:  Hermitage
Museum, 2007.  Pp. 512; ills. passim.  ISBN 5-93572-235-6.

Reviewed by Rossitza B. Schroeder ([email protected])
Word count:  4381 words
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Serendipitously or not, in 2007 Alexander the Great occupied an
important position in the imagination of European museum curators: two
exhibitions opened in Italy and Russia in the first half of the year to
reveal the impact of Alexander and his military campaign on his
contemporary world as well as on the world after him. The exhibition
held in the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica in Turin was organized on a
smaller scale and concentrated on the interactions of the Hellenic
world with the cultures in the vast Seleucid empire and the region of
Gandhara.[[1]] The Hermitage orchestrated a much grander presentation
of Alexander, utilizing its own collection to paint a multifaceted
picture of a world, both past and present, profoundly altered by the
military and political genius of this short-lived Macedonian king. A
beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated catalogue accompanied the
exhibition. Its fourteen sections follow in more or less chronological
order the history of Alexander's campaign and its effect on neighboring
and distant lands. The curators expanded the picture by following the
afterlife and transformations of Alexander's image from the Hellenistic
period through the Middle Ages up to the nineteenth century. However
spectacular they might be, I found this dizzying array of art works and
their presentation in the catalogue distracting as they frequently
complicated, and even stifled, the main theme of the exhibit. All
essays and catalogue entries are in Russian, yet the images are of such
excellent quality that they easily transcend possible linguistic
barriers.

E. D. Frolov's "Alexander the Great: the Creator of Hellenism" is the
first of a series of introductory studies which initiate the
presentation of Alexander the Great and his world. Frolov provides the
chronology and outlines the main events that shaped what we call today
the Hellenistic period. The essay is primarily concerned with the
historiography of the era and its various aspects. It concludes with a
generalizing picture of Alexander's military and political achievements
which profoundly affected the ancient world both during and after his
lifetime.

In the essay that follows, "Alexander and the East: Prehistory of a
Relationship," M. M. Dandamaeva emphasizes that the Hellenistic period
is really only one stage in the long history of contacts between the
Greeks and the East that she traces back to the second millennium
B.C.E. The author makes an important point: the exchange of literary
motifs and visual modes was a two way process--the East influenced the
West and vice versa.

A. A. Trofimova's "Face Turned to Heaven" discusses the ancient
iconography of Alexander. The essay stands out with its thorough
documentation and interpretive, rather than descriptive, approach to
the visual material. Trofimova begins by briefly recounting the main
characteristics of Alexander's portraits--his youthful beardless face,
leonine hair, wide opened eyes upturned to heaven and the slight tilt
of his head. She considers the incorporation of divine iconography in
the representations of the Macedonian king a significant innovation.
After Alexander this daring appropriation became a commonplace in royal
imagery. At the end of the essay Trofimova notes that occasionally
Alexandrian iconography could be used to represent mythological heroes
and gods, indicating an intriguing and meaningful cross-fertilization
of royal and divine subject matter during the Hellenistic period.

A. Alekseev, in an essay entitled "Alexander and the Northern Nomads",
tackles the encounter of the Macedonians with their Northern
neighbors--the Thracians, and especially the Scythians--as described in
primary sources. The topic is of utmost importance given that so many
of the exhibited artifacts were discovered in the Scythian tumuli in
the Northern Black Sea region.

A two and a half-page essay by M. B. Piotrovskiy on the image of
Alexander in the Quran and its sources follows. On one hand the essay
seems entirely out of place in this part of the catalogue (it should
have been, instead, the introductory material of the very brief Islamic
portion of the catalogue [pp 382-85]) and on another it raises a
legitimate question--why isn't there an essay on the image of Alexander
in the Medieval East, which demonstrated an uninterrupted interest in
Alexander's figure?

A. V. Ippolitov's study entitled "Stand out of My Sunlight" discusses
the variations in Western European images of Alexander from the late
Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. Ippolitov sets the beginnings of
the 'romance' of Western Europe with Alexander in the tenth century
when ps.-Callisthenes' work was translated into Latin by Leo, the
archbishop of Naples. He indicates that the literary image of Alexander
was enriched in the course of the Crusades when the West intensified
its contacts with the Byzantine and Arabic worlds. Ippolitov moves on
to discuss Renaissance images of Alexander, which by the end of the
fifteenth century were very much influenced by ancient descriptions of
the Macedonian king as well as by actual ancient statuary excavated in
and near Italian cities. Charles Le Brun occupies a special place in
Ippolitov's discussion of Alexander's visual incarnations. Le Brun
worked for Louis XIV and produced a series of influential paintings
detailing Alexander's exploits. These paintings became well-known
throughout Europe as they were engraved and systematically sent off to
other European courts as diplomatic gifts and as a way of promoting
Louis as the new Alexander. The author goes on to outline the
eighteenth-century additions to the already multilayered image of
Alexander: at that time he was perceived not only as an ideal ruler, a
successful general and a gallant lover, but also as a cruel, capricious
and anger-prone king. Ippolitov concludes that even though in the
twentieth century the interest in Alexander subsided he still had a
universal appeal for polarizing figures--thus Karel Capek identified
him as the first antifascist while Hitler's favorite sculptor Arno
Breker made a statue of him.

The greatest contribution of this catalogue is the presentation of the
Russian interpretations of Alexander. The discussion is initiated by an
essay entitled "Russian Antiquity: Romance with Alexander." The authors
D. A. Nikitin, Y. B. Balakhanova and M. N. Khimin begin their chapter
by noting that Alexander's story was already incorporated in Russian
chronicles in the twelfth century and that images of his Ascent
appeared concomitantly on a golden diadem and the southern facades of
three royally sponsored churches in Vladimir and Yurev Pol'skiy. In the
course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the translations of
the Serbian Alexandria, a version of ps.-Callisthenes' life of
Alexander, became especially important for the perceptions of Alexander
in Russia. By the seventeenth century its stories were lavishly
illustrated, but most importantly they were woven into the propaganda
of the Moscovite kingdom to represent it as a natural continuation of
Alexander's empire. The Alexandria was utilized in the education of
Russian princes, as attested by an extant copy that might have been
used by the young Peter the Great when he was learning to read. In
general, Peter I was especially interested in world chronicles that
recounted the life of Alexander and on a non-extant triumphal gate,
built on the occasion of the victory at Poltava in 1709, he was
represented in the guise of the Macedonian king. Catherine the Great,
like Peter, sought comparison with Alexander which is especially
meaningful when the attempts of Russia to expand to the East are taken
into account. Famous works of art that represent Alexander were
produced as a result of the heightened interest in his figure during
Catherine's rule. Thus in 1762 the Russian artist M. I. Puchinov
painted "Alexander and Diogenes" and had it shown in the first
exhibition of the Imperial Art Academy. Between 1781 and 1788 M. I.
Kozlovsky sculpted the famous "Vigil of Alexander." At the end of the
nineteenth and early twentieth century, paralleling wider European
trends, Alexander and his life ceased being of much interest to Russian
academic artists. This was due to reforms in education and the
development of ancient studies and art history. Alexander became more a
subject of private intellectual musings than of public display.

A chronology by A. A. Trofimova and a map outline the main events in
Alexander's eastern campaign. The catalogue follows, each section
accompanied by a brief scholarly essay. The different parts of the
catalogue are thematically associated with Alexander, but the
connection to his figure often appears very tenuous and sometimes it is
nonexistent. I frequently wondered if certain objects were included in
the exhibition in order to provide a fuller picture of the perception
of Alexander throughout time and space or to display the riches of the
Hermitage. One way or another, I imagine the audience must have been
dazzled.

The catalogue is structured chronologically and opens up with artifacts
from the classical period. Some of those are tangentially associated
with Alexander and could be tied to his interest in the mythological
figures of the Greek heroic past, and especially in Homer's Iliad (nos.
1-10). Several impressive examples of gold jewelry variously dated from
the early to the late fourth century B.C.E. are also worth mentioning
(nos. 22-34). All of these were found in tumuli in the north of the
Black Sea or were excavated at Chersonesus, and were made by Greek
artists in the Greek Black Sea colonies. The section concludes with a
series of coins of Greek city-states, most of which are published for
the first time.

The second part of the catalogue is entitled "Between Greece and the
Barbarians" and is dedicated to the history of Macedonia and her
northern neighbors before and after Alexander's military campaigns.
Most of the noteworthy artifacts were excavated in the northern Black
Sea region where they were buried together with their noble owners. The
famous golden gorytos with images from the life of Achilles (no. 58)
and a very fragmentary one with scenes from the Trojan War (no. 67),
helmets (nos. 60-63), a breastplate (no. 64), and a pair of bronze
greaves (no. 65) illustrate the military ethos of the period. Of
interest is an iron helmet decorated with silver (no. 60): this is one
of the few iron pieces of armor dated to the early Hellenistic period.
The fragments of horse bridles (nos. 68-69) bear close resemblance to
Thracian and Iranian works of art and testify to the connections that
the Scythians maintained with both neighboring and distant lands, as
well as to the larger exchange of visual modes in the world shaped by
Alexander's march east. Like the first part of the catalogue, this one
similarly concludes with a lavish presentation of Macedonian and
Thracian coins.

"The Mediterranean in the Hellenistic Period" is naturally the bulkiest
part of the book. A. A. Trofimova's essay at the beginning of the
section nicely outlines some of the main characteristics of the art of
the Hellenistic period, such as its interest in allegory, in
visualizing emotions and in creating monumental sculptural ensembles.
Forty sculptural pieces open up this portion of the catalogue. They
were carefully chosen to present the interest of Hellenistic artists
and their audience in children (no. 139), in exploring facial
expressions (nos. 140-42) and in the grotesque (no. 143). Some of the
more intriguing ones are known only from Russian publications or have
been presented here for the first time. Among these is a third to
second century B.C.E. ceramic statuette of a nude youth with traces of
paint imitating bronze (no. 123). This could be a miniature copy of the
famous but lost statue by Lysippus of Alexander appearing as
Polyclitus' Doryphorus. Newly published are an Etruscan votive head
with the features of Alexander the Great (no. 126) and a female
statuette stylistically related to the Tanagra figurines (no. 129). Of
this latter kind several were also included in the catalogue to outline
Hellenistic artists' interest in women, whether goddesses or ordinary
mortals (nos. 132-38). The catalogue entries by E. N. Khodza are
especially noteworthy, for they transcend mere descriptions, contain
additional references, and frequently offer a deeper insight into the
meaning and function of certain types of ceramic sculpture.

Several pieces of golden jewelry found mostly in the northern Black Sea
region testify to the artistic interactions facilitated by Alexander's
conquests. A beautiful golden diadem from a female burial displays the
so-called knot of Hercules (no. 154). At its center is seen an eagle
carrying a tiny Eros figure. The author of the catalogue entry did not
attempt to suggest any reasons for the choice of this unusual subject
matter and resorted to the generic observation that it may be an
iconographic variation on the story of Zeus and Ganymede.

Pieces of monumental architecture and funerary stelae from Chersonesus
were also included. These were discovered in the 1960s incorporated
into a defensive tower. An antefix in the shape of a Gorgon head from
the first century B.C.E. (no. 175) and a terracotta cornice fragment
from the fourth century B.C.E. (no. 176) are published here for the
first time. The well-known fragmentary fresco with an image of a galley
named Isis from one of the rooms of the Aphrodite-Isis sanctuary in
Nymphaion (no. 178) nicely complements the architectural fragments from
Chersonesus and adds to the overall impression of the North Black Sea
region as an integral part of the Hellenistic world.

A number of intaglios and cameos illustrate the dissemination of
Alexander's iconography across time and space and its appropriation by
his successors. The entries are mostly descriptive and frequently it is
not apparent how their subject matter relates to Alexander and his
life. Series of coins from Greek city states on the coast of Asia Minor
conclude this section of the catalogue. Most of the coins are published
for the first time, but it is unclear why so many of them were included
here, given that they frequently predate the Hellenistic era by a
century or two (nos. 199-200, 203-4, 207-9).

The essay on the Ptolemaic dynasty that initiates the Egyptian section
of the catalogue is limited in scope--it does not provide any new
information but instead reiterates what one could find in the
introductory articles. The essay is concerned exclusively with
Alexander's conquest and the first Ptolemy is barely mentioned at the
end of the piece. No chronological frame is provided for the rule of
the new dynasty and no attempt was made to tie the information in the
essay to the art included in this section.

A series of large and small scale statues opens this part of the
catalogue. Some of the pieces, such as a statuette of Harpokrates (no.
223), a bronze sculpture group of Osiris, Isis and Horus (no. 225), a
statuette of Priapus (no. 229) and two children's heads made of clay
(nos. 236-37) are seen for the first time. The catalogue entries by E.
N. Khodza again stand out with their originality and thoughtful
interest in detail and context. Series of gems engraved with the
portraits of Ptolemaic rulers are also present. Among these is the
famous 'Gonzaga cameo' with the portraits of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe
(no. 240) which changed hands several times until in 1814 Napoleon's
wife Josephine gave it as a present to the Russian emperor Alexander I.
The authors of the catalogue entry do not entertain the possibility
that a different gem with a similar double portrait in the
Kunsthistorische Museum in Vienna might be the actual 'Gonzaga
cameo.'[[2]] Ptolemaic coins, mummy portraits and papyri nicely round
out the portion on Hellenistic Egypt. Several pieces which were
intended to demonstrate the tenaciousness of the classical tradition in
the art of the Coptic Christians conclude the Egyptian section.
Textiles occupy a significant place and reveal the wide range of
mythological subjects utilized by their makers. The catalogue entries,
however, are disappointing--they are far too brief and far too
descriptive to do justice to the magnificent pieces that are shown.

The art of Achaemenid Iran is presented with fourteen objects, most of
which derive from the so-called Siberian collection of Peter the Great.
The pieces were intended to reveal Persian influences on the artistic
production of the Iranian-speaking tribes living at the outskirts of
the vast Persian empire.

The section on Seleucid Syria includes only coins, all of which appear
to be published for the first time. The artistic production of the city
of Palmyra is briefly represented by three funerary reliefs, two of
which (nos. 339-40) contain inscriptions which could have been
transcribed and translated.

G. L. Semenov's essay opens up the section that illustrates the
interactions of Central Asian peoples with Greek culture. A fascinating
silver cup tentatively dated to the fourth century C.E. and made in
Northern India presents one of the most interesting iconographic
puzzles (no. 354). The catalogue entry by M. Dandamaeva is almost
entirely descriptive; if nothing else she should have acknowledged that
in his introductory essay Semenov attempted to identify the subject
matter of the cup with an episode from an unnamed Euripidean tragedy
(p. 297). The classicizing style of the figures on the bowl could have
provided a meaningful point of departure to discuss the ways in which
Greek imagery and ideas made its way East. Already in 1943 Kurt
Weitzmann made the tantalizing suggestion that the bowl and its imagery
should be related to the Hellenistic Megarian bowls, a group of which
is illustrated with representations from epic poetry and drama.[[3]]

Two fresco fragments which could be associated with the penetration of
Western (but not necessarily Hellenic) imagery in Central Asia--one of
Aesop's fable of the goose that laid golden eggs from an aristocratic
house in Pendzhikent (no. 363) and another of the she-wolf suckling the
twins from the royal palace of medieval Ustrushana (no. 366)--remained
entirely unexplained and their connection to a Hellenistic (or Western)
source untraced.

The section of the catalogue concerned with Alexander's Indian campaign
begins with an essay that outlines the influence of Indian culture on
the Greeks and vice versa. But it is the syncretic art of Gandhara that
is at the center of the presentation, and naturally so. In the region
of Gandhara, where the contact with the Hellenic culture was intensely
felt, the adherents to Buddhism commissioned artists to create
anthropomorphic images of Buddha and bodhisattvas. The catalogue
entries for this section of the catalogue are all well written--they
are thoughtful, provide insightful details about the function of the
various sculptures presented, and most importantly, tie certain
stylistic features to their Greek sources and thus to the main theme of
the exhibition.

Byzantium occupies a deservedly large space in the catalogue, although
some of the material, among which are the coins and a sixteenth-century
metal plate from Boboshevo (no. 409), do not have much to do with the
main theme of the show. I found the presentation of the ways Byzantium
interpreted her classical heritage in general, and the image of
Alexander in particular, somewhat unsatisfactory. The introduction, for
example, should have provided more detail about the Byzantine
reinterpretations of Alexander that emphasize his importance as a model
king.

A number of objects from the early Christian period open the Byzantine
part of the catalogue. The highlight of this section are the two silver
gilt cups (nos. 405-406) and a silver gilt plate (no. 404) with
representations of Alexander's Ascent. The entry for the plate would
have benefited from a short discussion of the fact that Alexander does
not really wear the costume of a twelfth-century Byzantine emperor as
he does in a roughly contemporary enamel bowl today in Innsbruck.[[4]]
In fact, comparisons with the Innsbruck plate and with the famous
Darmstadt casket[[5]] would have been especially useful, as these
objects indicate the increasing importance of Alexander among Western,
Byzantine and Muslim rulers. The hybrid qualities of the three pieces
should have formed the focus of the catalogue entries as they clearly
point to the ways in which Alexander's image transcended the
constraints of time and space.

Two Byzantine icons with images of St. George (no. 407) and St.
Demetrios (no. 408) were no doubt intended to illustrate the long
tradition of representing horsemen. We are left with the widest
possible range of associations. The question remains: in what way are
we supposed to think of Alexander when viewing these two icons? As a
noble horseman, or a sainted warrior? The small bronze icon of St.
Demetrios is of special interest because it reveals Western
influences--the saint's shield is inscribed with the letters IES which
could be a Latinized abbreviation of Christ's name or of the city of
Jerusalem. The author of the entry, V. N. Zalesskaya, claims that this
was "the only known object in which the patron saint of the city (of
Thessaloniki) is given the attributes of a crusader." But this cannot
be true if one is to take into account a mid thirteenth-century icon of
SS Demetrios and Theodoros on Mt Sinai, made in Acre, on which the
saint sports a tunic of Western type.[[6]]

"Alexander in Western European and Russian Art" seeks to display the
multifaceted image of Alexander developed over the course of seven
centuries. The assortment of objects varies from a twelfth-century
German game token which features Alexander's Ascent (no. 464), to
engraved gems (nos. 466-72), armor with Alexandrian imagery (nos.
476-84) and a fascinating nineteenth-century Russian folk print with
representations of the foreign nations encountered by Alexander in the
course of his march east (no. 487). A series of engravings and wood
carvings reveals the influence that Charles Le Brun's Alexandrian cycle
exerted on the imagination of later artists and royal patrons (nos.
451-56, 461, 466-67). A first-century intaglio with an image of
Diogenes (no. 473) somehow made it into this part of the catalogue when
it could have been easily incorporated in the section about the
Hellenistic Mediterranean.

Of interest to specialists may be the paintings of Alexander
commissioned by the Russian imperial house. The pertinent catalogue
entries are well written and offer interesting insights into the visual
politics of Russian royalty. Noteworthy are Richard Brompton's
portraits of Catherine the Great's grandsons Alexander and Constantine,
both of whom are depicted with attributes (the Gordian knot and the
True Cross) that identify them with their famous namesakes (no. 439). A
pair of paintings that represent Alexander as a compassionate general
and a patron of the arts (nos. 440-41) were given to Prince Alexander
Pavlovich by Catherine the Great to adorn his bedroom, demonstrating
that for the Russian royalty Alexander had public as well as private
appeal.

Not only did episodes from the life of Alexander adorn the spaces where
the Russian kings dwelled but also they were reenacted, literally, by
members of the royal house. An example of these 'living paintings' is
no. 486, entitled "The Family of Darius", here published for the first
time. The composition is based on Pierre Mignard's seventeenth-century
original and was recreated on 4 February 1822 at a party given by the
empress Maria Feodorovna on the occasion of her daughter's birthday.
Other paintings from the Hermitage were similarly reenacted and were
later lithographed and collated in richly colored albums which were
given as presents to members of the imperial family who participated in
the ball. A Flemish tapestry dated to the second half of the
seventeenth century that follows Le Brun's rendition of Alexander and
Darius' family was later adorned with the Russian imperial coat of arms
(no. 475). The tapestry could have been a diplomatic gift and indicates
how Alexander's image circulated among princes in spite of their
political and religious differences. It is this international princely
ethos that encouraged the dissemination of Alexandrian imagery
throughout time and space and the authors of the catalogue should have
placed greater emphasis on this point to create a more coherent picture
of Alexander's various interpretations.

The last section of the catalogue is entitled "The 'Alexander Romance'
by ps.-Callisthenes and the Western European Literary Tradition." The
introductory essay truly belongs to the beginning of the book and the
information it provides could have easily been incorporated within
Ippolitov's piece. Printed versions of ancient and medieval historians
as well as of brief interpretations of Alexander's life and rule in
chronicles and textbooks dominate this part of the catalogue. Worth
mentioning are Quintus Curtius Rufus' (cat. nos. 493-95, 500) and
Arian's (no. 503) versions of Alexander's life, as well as a Russian
translation of the fifteenth-century chronicle by Dorotheus of
Monembasia (no. 490) as these circulated widely amongst European and
Russian intellectuals and politicians informing their knowledge of
Alexander. A seventeenth-century copy of Andrea Fulvius' Illustrium
imagines and a sixteenth-century version of Paolo Giovio's Novocomensis
episcopi were shown to illustrate the interest in Alexandrian
iconography and its ancient origins (nos. 496-97). Peter the Great
commissioned a translation into Russian of Samuel von Pufendor's
Introduction to European History which included a section on Alexander,
revealing the tsar's fascination with the figure of the Macedonian king
and his life (no. 498). Alexander takes on the center stage in one of
the seven textbooks used for the education of Catherine the Great's
grandsons (no. 499). A printed version of Pietro Trapassi's Alexander
in India demonstrates significant interest in this Italian librettist's
work, which, when turned into opera, was performed more than once in
St. Petersburg for empress Elizabeth of Russia (no. 505).
Interestingly, but somewhat awkwardly, the section concludes with a
curious glazed-tile composition which faithfully reproduces the famous
"Battle between Alexander and Darius" mosaic from Pompeii and which was
discovered in 2004 during restorations in hall no. 333 of the Winter
Palace. The composition may have been commissioned by the emperor
Nicholas I who visited Pompeii in 1845, or may have been presented to
him as a gift by the king of Naples.

The catalogue concludes with a glossary, bibliography, list of
abbreviations and an English summary of the exhibition concept and a
brief recount of the content of the introductory articles. The table of
contents is at the end of the book, both in Russian and English, which
makes it easier to navigate through its various sections.

The catalogue should be a welcome addition to any university
library--the high-quality reproductions and the breadth of the
scholarly essays provide a thorough picture of the influence Alexander
exerted upon the world during and after his lifetime. Students of the
ancient world may find it especially useful, for it nicely complements
the publication of the 2007 exhibition at the Getty about Greeks in the
Black Sea region, in which all artifacts similarly derived from the
collections of the Hermitage.[[7]]


------------------
Notes:


1.   Sulla via di Alessandro da Seleucia al Gandhara (Turin: Edizioni
Silvana Editoriale, 2007).

2.   Nancy T. de Grummond, "The Real Gonzaga Cameo," American Journal
of Archaeology 78.4 (1974): 427-29.

3.   Kurt Weitzmann, "Three 'Bactrian' Silver Vessels with
Illustrations from Euripides," Art Bulletin 25.4 (1943): 289-324.

4.   Helen Evans and William Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium. Art
and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A. D. 843-1261 (New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997), 422-23.

5.   Ibid., 227-28.

6.   Jaroslav Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, From the Third
Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187-1291 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), color pl. 5.

7.   Anna Trofimova (ed.), Greeks on the Black Sea: Ancient Art from
the Hermitage (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007).