 Astonishing artefacts feature in the Exhibition
This is a huge jaw dropping, enthralling exhibition you could spend days in .There are so many exquisite items and fascinating facts. The exhibition is direct from the State Hermitage in Russia. Brought to us by a team of twenty nine curators there are over 400 items. Beautifully presented with helpful timelines, you move through the enormous exhibition chronologically, beginning with Alexander’s childhood, moving to his famous battles, travels to India, death and legacy to this day.
The exhibition explores the question just who was Alexander ’The Great’ of Macedon? (King, god, tactician, terrorist, liberator, conqueror, tyrant, genius, alcoholic - depending on who you are talking to ). Was he a man or a myth? Alexander III of Macedon (356–323 BCE) owes his epithet ‘the Great’ to the enormous territory that he dominated: from Greece in the west to the river Indus in the east, resulting in, at the time, the largest empire in antiquity. His father was Philip of Macedon and both he and Alexander claimed divine descent.
Female rulers such as Queen Christina of Sweden and Catherine the Great of Russia were fascinated by him as was the Emperor Napoleon and Louis Xiv the ‘Sun King’ . His legacy continues to this day with his military tactics still being taught in defence academies and novels, movies and computer games based on his life .
The artefacts in the exhibition are astonishing .There are tiny coins and fragile jewellery is included .There is armour, horse straps, magnificent sculpture, tapestries, books, paintings and ceramics. With some of the coins there are enlarged photos via modern technology so you can examine them more easily.
The timelines , quotes and explanations are excellent and for some of the major battles ( eg the Siege of Tyre in 332BC there are short touch screen videos and other interactive elements covering it in great detail) .
We get a feel for his life and times and more of an understanding as to why he was called ‘The Great’. We learn of his friends and his horse Buchephalus.
There are so many ravishing highlights of the exhibition but I will mention just four:-
The first being the extraordinary gold Mantle Clock: The vigil of Alexander the Great Russia, St Petersburg (?), 1830s - 1840s almost at the end of the exhibition. This clock, made by Russian artists in bronze, is based on a well-known work, Mars, by the French master Pierre-Philippe Thomire. Instead of Mars, however, the Hermitage piece portrays the military leader and conqueror Alexander the Great (with a round shield). Having cultivated strength of will and diligence during his studies, the young Alexander would prevent himself falling asleep by holding a ball in his hand: as soon as he felt sleepy and his hand relaxed, the ball would fall into a copper cup with a crash, waking Alexander up.
Then there is the breathtakingly beautiful statue of Cleopatra V11 regarded as one of the masterpieces in the Hermitage's Ancient Egyptian collection is a black basalt statue of a Ptolemaic queen. It represents a striding woman in a long tight-fitting dress, wearing a long tripartite wig with three uraei (royal snakes) and holding a horn of plenty in her left hand and the ankh, the hieroglyph of life, in her lowered right hand. The inlayed eyes and the headdress (probably a solar disc between cow's horns) have been lost. The statue is completely finished as its surface is splendidly polished, but it is not inscribed which made dating and identification of the person represented a particular problem that was resolved in the late 1990's when further research was undertaken .
Then there is the large Tapestry: Alexander the Great and the family of Darius From the series The Story of Alexander the Great, from the paintings by Charles Le Brun; Flanders, Brussels, workshop of Jan Frans van den Hecke,(1661-1695 ) which is of wool, silk, silver thread and has both the Brussels weaver mark and the Russian coat-of-arms, woven at the St Petersburg Imperial Tapestry Factory, 1745.
And the quite large and unique Gonzago Cameo The Gonzaga Cameo portrait of Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Arsinoe II Alexandria, 3rd century BCE Triple-layered sardonyx; . An anonymous carver portrayed the deified royal couple at the moment of their 'sacred marriage'. The celebrated Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens called the cameo the finest of all European double-portrait gems. The characters are carved with virtuoso skill into the three layers of the stone: their faces are cut from the central white layer, the helmet, hair and aegis in the upper brown layer. The unevenness of the positioning and colour of the layers of stone discovered by the engraver during his work enabled him to avoid any monotony in the rendering of the faces and armour.
His skill is also observed in the variety of polishing and the richness of the relief's gradations, emphasising the three-dimensional nature of the depiction and giving it a painterly quality. Mention should be made not only of the unique dimensions and artistic qualities of the piece, but also of its history, for it has passed through the hands of many famous collectors and celebrated European rulers. The 'Gonzaga Cameo' was so named after its first known owners, the rulers of Mantua. In the 17th century the cameo was part of the collection of the queen Christina of Sweden. After Christina's death the cameo passed through the hands of numerous celebrated owners, spending time in the collection of the Odescalchi in Rome and in the Vatican. In the 19th century it was not far from Paris, at Malmaison, residence of the Empress Josephine, ex-wife of Napoleon. After the capture of Paris in 1814 she presented the gem to Alexander 1, who was a frequent visitor to Malmaison. In the autumn of that year the cameo found a permanent home in St Petersburg .
Alexander The Great 2000 Years of Treasures is at the Australian Museum conquering Sydney from 24 November. © Lynne Lancaster
24th November, 2012
Tags: Sydney Exhibitions- ALEXANDER THE GREAT- 2000 YEARS OF TREASURES, The Australian Museum, Sydney Arts Guide, Lynne Lancaster |
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