Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/379

Rh ycletus THIED FEKIOD.] and balustrade of the temple of Nike, compare Friederichs, Hausteine, i. pp. 187-193; Ross, Der Niketempel ; Kekule, Die Balustrade des Niketempels.) The treatment of the draperies has entirely lost the stiffness and formality of an early period, and become flowing, as in the style of the best times, but Avith the addition of a studied grace which seems due to a desire to elaborate more and more the sim plicity of the draped figures of the Parthenon. The most probable date as yet suggested for this temple is 407 B.C. As to the Erechtheum, we have 406 B.C., on the authority of an inscription, as a year in which a report was made concerning the amount of work that remained to be done upon it. Of its sculptures the chief remains are the statues of the Caryatides, and certain fragments of the frieze, which had this peculiarity, that the reliefs were executed in Pentelic marble, and then attached to a ground of black Eleusinian stone. Of the original six Caryatides which supported the portico, five were in position in the time of Stuart and Revett in the first half of last century; the sixth, having been broken to pieces, was recovered in 1^37. One of the five was removed by Lord Elgin, and is now in the British Museum. In the arrangement of the draperies vertical lines prevail; but only enough to show the architectural pui-pose of the figures, not to destroy their character as robes, or to affect their gracefulness. It is usual to compare with the sculptures of these two temples another series of reliefs which, though not found in Attica, are stated to have been the work of Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon. Ye refer to the frieze from the temple of Apollo at Phigalia which was discovered in 1312, and is now in the British Museum. The subjects represented are combats between Greeks and Amazons and between Centaurs and Lapithje. In the composition the old ethos has given way to pathos; but the figures are still large in conception, and obviously studied with a view to truth as well as effect, though in the execution probably by provincial hands, many minor details have been over looked. The energy of action throughout is not equalled in any other ancient sculpture now in existence, while the sense of pain in the wounded, or of fright in the helpless women who run with their infants in their arms, makes the spectator shudder. From the fact that such vigour of action and intensity of pathetic expression have not been found in the metopes of the Parthenon or the frieze of the Theseum which are devoted to the same subject, but recur in a less degree in the frieze of the Mausoleum, there is an inclination to place the Phigalian reliefs by Ictinus in as late a period as possible after the erection of the Parthenon. (Engraved, Museum Marlles, vol. v. ; Stackelberg, Der Apollotempel zu Basso;, 1828; see Friederichs, Bausteine, i. pp. 178-181.) The difference of temperament between the Athenians and Peloponnesians was strongly marked in the schools of sculpture peculiar to each. Political rivalry had its exact counterpart in artistic rivalry, in which Phidias . represented Athens, and Polycletus the Peloponnesus. The works of the latter appear to have been always chastened with an hereditary severity, to have been attractive by the purity of their style and the finish of execution, but not commanding in aspect. &quot; Non exple- visse deorum auctoritatem videtur,&quot; the judgment of Quintilian (xii. 10, 7) is endorsed by the statement, that his great work, the chryselephantine statue of Hera at Argus, yielded to the statue of Zeus at Olympia by Phidias in grandeur and imposing aspect, but out- rivalled it in finish (Strabo, viii. p. 372). Copies of the head of this statue have been identified on coins of Argus, and in three marble heads of colossal size. The first, in Naples, is severe in style, and may have been executed about the time of Polycletus; the second, in 357 the British Museum, has more freedom, but is still cha&- tened by a severe expression ; the third, in the Villa Ludovisi, bears the marks of having been executed at a still later period. It was not, how ever, in producing statues of deities that Polycletus delighted most ; and if surpassed by Phi dias in that instance, he was quite without a rival in his own province, the rendering of the form of ideal athletes. Of this class were his Diadumenus, his Doryphorus, and a third figure (unless the Doryphorus was meant by Pliny) known as the Canon. Of the first, several pre sumed copies in marble exist, two of them in the British Mu seum (fig. 7), but in no case furnishing an adequate illustra tion of his style. The same may be said of the copies of the Doryphorus. More in the nature of genre work was his bronze group of boys playing with ^ i 111 /, %  FIG. C. B.-onze statuette. Brit Knuckle- bones (acrTpayaAt4ovres), Museum. From the collection of which afterwards stood in the the late Mr Woodhouse, Corfu, palace of Titus in Rome, and was by some regarded as the most perfect work of the master. This motive occurs in several existing sculptures, in no case characterised by a trace of the hand of Polycletus. Among them are, in the British Mu seum, a small group in terra-cotta of two women playing at this game, and a marble figure of a boy, part of a group, biting his companion s hand. Coupled with his statue of Hera, that of an Ama zon, executed by him for Ephesus, in competition with the foremost of his contemporaries, and ad judged the prize, will prove that the range of his talent was by no means confined to figures of ath letes ; and this is made further apparent by his bronze statues of maidens carrying sacred vessels on their heads, afterwards in the possession of Heius the Mamertine, from whom they were taken by Verres (Cicero, In Verr., iv. 3, 5), as also by his statue of the Samian, Artemon, nicknamed 6 , FIG. 7. Diadumenus. Marble statue. Brit TTfptJpopT^TOS. Mus. Found at Vaisoii (rasio), Deft. None Of the pupils of Vaucluse, France. Polycletus arrived at distinction. On the other hand, his Pupils of style appears to have been closely followed by his younger P ol y cletl1 - contemporary, Naucydes of Argus, who executed a chrys elephantine statue of Hebe, to accompany that, of the same material, by the master already described (Pausanias, ii. 1 7, 5 ; Kekule, Hele}. A pupil of Naucydes was Poly-