Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/383

Rh FOURTH PERIODS.] proved even by the fact that he worked in the same artistic vein and spirit, with a result which rendered his style undistiuguishable from that of the older master to the eyes of Roman connoisseurs. Still, it will be safe to assume that he was largely influenced in his youth by the then favourite sculptures of Scopas. The scene of his labours was mostly Athens and the neighbouring towns. That ho accompanied Scopas to Halicamassus to assist with the sculptures of the Mausoleum, as is stated, is probably true ; but from the fact that elsewhere in place of his name occurs that of Tiniotheus, it has been inferred that he may there have abandoned his original intention, and confined himself to the execution of those statues for towns in that district of which we have records. About o40 B.C. he returned to Athens, and there remained till his death, studying, with Phryne as his model, the expression of sensual beauty in its highest type. Like Scopas, he had little taste for bronze in comparison with marble, with its surface finely sensitive to the most delicate modulation. Unsatisfied with even this, he endeavoured to soften the asperity of the marble in the crude parts by a process of encaustic, in which, or perhaps rather in the colouring of the draperies, he employed in difficult cases the contem porary painter Nicias (Pliny, N.II.,xxxv. 39, 122). That he was peculiar in thus tinting the marble, and an excep tion among other Greek sculptors, cannot be meant, in the face of so many instances as we now have of the applica tion of the circumlitio in the remains of Greek sculpture and architecture (Semper, Der Stil, i. pp. 498 and 514). The fact, however, of his being mentioned in connection with it may be taken as a proof that the process was an exceedingly refined one, since his favourite subjects were those of youthful or feminine ideal beauty, in which it is to be supposed that the tints corresponding to those in nature would appear almost evanescent in their delicacy. Of his works, the number of which was unusually large, the most celebrated were (1.) The marble statue of Aphrodite at Cnidus, of which the more or less modified copies, as the Venus of the Capitoliue Museum and the Venus de Medicis, together with the ancient records, show that the goddess was represented standing nude at the moment when she has left her bath, and, being sensitive to the air, presses her left leg against her right, and looks towards the drapery which she has already laid hold of with her left hand. Originally commissioned by Cos, but declined on account of its nudity, this statue was replaced by another of Aphrodite, with which the marble statue in the Louvre, found in Melus in 1820, has frequently been compared. But before accepting it as an illustration of the type of Aphrodite by Praxiteles, or of the more highly praised figure of the goddess by Scopas, it is necessary to bear in mind that on a base found with it, which, though now lost, is vouched for on creditable authority, was inscribed the name of the artist, Alexaudrus, son of Menides of Autioch, who must have lived after Alexander the Great (Friederichs, TJausteine, i. pp. 331-334). (2.) A statue of Aphrodite at Thespise ; beside which was placed (3) a portrait statue of Phryne; and (4), a statue of Eros, in Parian marble, of which there are two accounts, either that it was given by him to Phrync in token of his admiration, or that she contrived to obtain it by a ruse, and then dedicated it at Thespke. The figure of Eros was here not that of a boy, as in later art, but was taken from the period of youth at which love is. purely ideal, and the whole being is per vaded by an elevating ardour. Apparently exhibiting the same refinement of youthful form was his stotue known as the &quot; Celebrated Satyr,&quot; in Athens. Of his Apollo Sauro- ctonus^ several copies of inferior merit exist. His statue of Artemis Brauronia at Athens had a mouth inviting to a kiss. The ablest of the contemporaries of Scopas and Praxi- 3G1 teles were Bryaxis, Tiniotheus, and Leochares, of whom the last worked chiefly in bronze, and travelled over a wide field of conceptions, including deities, portraits, mythological and allegorical subjects. Another new type which belongs to this period is that of Serapis by Bryaxis. From the time of Philip and Alexander the Great, portrait statues furnished a large part of the occupation of sculptors, and in this they were not confined to living models, as we gather, for example, from the portraits of Sappho and Corinna by Apollodorus, a sculptor of this time, a fact from which it may be inferred that portraiture was still inclined to idealism, though doubtless a strong tendency to realism had already set in. The development of the art of sculpture in the Argive- Argive- Sicyonian school, corresponding to that just described in Slovenian the second Attic school, was begun by the Corinthian scllool&amp;gt; Euphranor, whose principal study was directed with the view of modifying the hitherto canonical proportions of Polycletus, to suit the changed tastes with which he had probably become impregnated during his long stay in Athens. To this end he introduced a smaller head and a slimness of the arms and legs which gave a greater light ness to the figure, and which, under the hand of his fol lower Lysippus, became the favourite type of ideal athletic statues. Lysippus, a native of Sicyon, and originally employed as an ordinary worker in bronze, rose by dint of study to the position of a sculptor of the first order. Nor was the quality of his work more surprising than the quantity. About 1500 statues and groups in bronze were counted as having been produced in his workshop, and among them two at least of colossal size the statue of Jupiter at Tarentum, GO feet high, and that of Hercules iu the same place. The masterpieces which he appears to have studied most were those of his townsman Polycletus. Like Euphranor, however, he was compelled to seek a new system of propor tions, to exchange the immovable dignity and repose by which the old masters suggested the pos session of physical power, for new attitudes, in which the exercise of physical power should be made apparent by its effect on the body and on the face. The colossal frame of Hercules was a favourite study with Lysippus, for this reason especially, we presume, that of all the ancient heroes he was re presented in the legends as bearing about with him always the effect of the arduousness of his labours. There was no gaiety or elasticity in his composi tion. A figure of an athlete in the act of scraping the sweat and dust from his body, Apoxyomenus, which enjoyed a high re putation in Rome, where it stood before the baths Of M. Agrippa, has an FlG 9 _ Cronze figure, onpinully applied additional interest for US a relief. Drit. Mus. Found at Tarentum. ,, ,., ,-, . I-, Apparently in the style of Lysippus. in the fact that a marble copy of it still exists, which, though of inferior work, forms an admirable illustration of the statements r&- II. 46