03 — ARTWORK
Mars
- MEDIUM
- Marble, height 305 cm
- TYPE
- Mythological
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 1350 × 1800 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
After 1550 the pace of Sansovino's sculptural activity slackened. Late Venetian projects, such as the tomb of Doge Francesco Venier (reg 1577-78) in San Salvatore or the huge marbleloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles. Mars and Neptune at the top of the Scala dei Giganti in the courtyard of the Doge's Palace, were largely workshop productions, designed by Sansovino.
The figures of Mars and Neptune were carved by nine men generally working in groups of three or four over a period of twelve years from 1554. They bear Sansovino's distinctive stamp nonetheless and appear as convincingly bold despite the narrowness of their original blocks. Here, too, Sansovino showed his Tuscan roots, turning to <a onclick="return OpenOther('/html/d/donatell/1_early/orsanmic/1georg_1.html')" href="/html/d/donatell/1_early/orsanmic/1georg_1.html">Donatello's St George</a> (Bargello, Florence) for the pose of Mars and to Baccio <a onclick="return OpenOther('/html/b/bandinel/1/hercule.html')" href="/html/b/bandinel/1/hercule.html">Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus</a> (Piazza della Signoriafrom the late Middle Ages, the governing body of some of the Italian city states, usually presided over by individual families., Florence) for the raw power that informs Neptune.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-rfcfd33ea8d4d0d,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Mars by SANSOVINO, Jacopo},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-07},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/sansovino-jacopo-r0c8d6b16f326bd/mars-rfcfd33ea8d4d0d},
urldate = {2026-09-07},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-07. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
