for their softness and charm, make us understand the saying of ancient critics that Praxiteles and Scopas were noted for the pathos of their works, as Pheidias and Polyclitus for the ethical quality of those they produced. But the pathos of Praxiteles is of a soft and dreamy character; there is no action, or next to none; and the emotions which he rouses are sentimental rather than passionate. Scopas, as we shall see, was of another mood. The discovery of the Hermes has naturally set archaeologists searching in the museums of Europe for other works which may from their likeness to it in various respects be set down as Praxitelean in character. In the case of many of the great sculptors of Greece—Strongylion, Silanion, Calamis and others—it is of little use to search for copies of their works, since we have little really trustworthy evidence on which to base our inquiries. But in the case of Praxiteles we really stand on a safe level. Naturally it is impossible in these pages to give any sketch of the results, some almost certain, some very doubtful, of the researches of archaeologists in quest of Praxitelean works. But we may mention a few works which have been claimed by good judges as coming from the master himself. Professor Brunn claimed as work of Praxiteles a torso of a satyr in the Louvre, in scheme identical with the well-known satyr of the Capitol. Professor Furtwängler puts in the same category a delicately beautiful head of Aphrodite at Petworth. And his translator, Mrs Strong, regards the Aberdeen head of a young man in the British Museum as the actual work of Praxiteles. Certainly this last head does not suffer when placed beside the Olympian head of Hermes. At Mantinea has been found a basis whereon stood a group of Latona and her two children, Apollo and Artemis, made by Praxiteles. This base bears reliefs representing the musical contest of Apollo and Marsyas, with the Muses as spectators, reliefs very pleasing in style, and quite in the manner of Attic artists of the 4th century. But of course we must not ascribe them to the hand of Praxiteles himself; great sculptors did not themselves execute the reliefs which adorned temples and other monuments, but reserved them for their pupils. Yet the graceful figures of the Muses of Mantinea suggest how much was due to Praxiteles in determining the tone and character of Athenian art in relief in the 4th century. Exactly the same style which marks them belongs also to a mass of sepulchral monuments at Athens, and such works as the Sidonian sarcophagus of the Mourning Women, to be presently mentioned.
Excavation on the site of the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea has resulted in the recovery of works of the school of Scopas. Pausanias tells us that Scopas was the architect of the temple, and so important in the case of a Greek Scopas. temple is the sculptural decoration, that we can scarcely doubt that the sculpture also of the temple at Tegea was under the supervision of Scopas, especially as he was more noted as a sculptor than as an architect. In the pediments of the temple were represented two scenes from mythology, the hunting of the Calydonian boar and the combat between Achilles and Telephus. To one or other of these scenes belong several heads of local marble discovered on the spot, which are very striking from their extraordinary life and animation. Unfortunately they are so much injured that they can scarcely be made intelligible except by the help of restoration; we therefore engrave one of them, the helmeted head, as restored by a German sculptor (Plate III. fig. 63). The strong bony frame of this head, and its depth from front to back, are not less noteworthy than the parted lips and deeply set and strongly shaded eye; the latter features impart to the head a vividness of expression such as we have found in no previous work of Greek art, but which sets the key to the developments of art which take place in the Hellenistic age. A draped torso of Atalanta from the same pediment has been fitted to one of these heads. Hitherto Scopas was known to us, setting aside literary records, only as one of the sculptors who had worked at the Mausoleum. Ancient critics and travellers, however, bear ample testimony to his fame, and the wide range of his activity, which extended to northern Greece, Peloponnese and Asia Minor. His Maenads and his Tritons and other beings of the sea were much copied in antiquity. But perhaps he reached his highest level in statues such as that of Apollo as leader of the Muses, clad in long drapery.
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| Fig. 44.—Amazon from Epidaurus. |
The interesting precinct of Aesculapius at Epidaurus has furnished us with specimens of the style of an Athenian contemporary of Scopas, who worked with him on the Mausoleum. An inscription which records the sums Timotheus, Bryaxis, Leochares. spent on the temple of the Physician-god, informs us that the models for the sculptures of the pediments, and one set of acroteria or roof adornments, were the work of Timotheus. Of the pedimental figures and the acroteria considerable fragments have been recovered, and we may with confidence assume that at all events the models for these were by Timotheus. It is strange that the unsatisfactory arrangement whereby a noted sculptor makes models and some local workman the figures enlarged from those models, should have been tolerated by so artistic a people as the Greeks. The subjects of the pediments appear to have been the common ones of battles between Greek and Amazon and between Lapith and Centaur. We possess fragments of some of the Amazon figures, one of which, striking downwards at the enemy, is here shown (fig. 44). Their attitudes are vigorous and alert; but the work shows no delicacy of detail. Figures of Nereids riding on horses, which were found on the same site, may very probably be roof ornaments (acroteria) of the temple. We have also several figures of Victory, which probably were acroteria on some smaller temple, perhaps that of Artemis. A base found at Athens, sculptured with figures of horsemen in relief, bears the name of Bryaxis, and was probably made by a pupil of his. Probable conjecture assigns to Leochares the originals copied in the Ganymede of the Vatican, borne aloft by an eagle (Plate I. fig. 53) and the noble statue of Alexander the Great at Munich (see Leochares). Thus we may fairly say that we are now acquainted with the work of all the great sculptors who worked on the Mausoleum—Scopas, Bryaxis, Leochares and Timotheus; and are in a far more advantageous position than were the archaeologists of 1880 for determining the artistic problems connected with that noblest of ancient tombs.
Contemporary with the Athenian school of Praxiteles and Scopas was the great school of Argos and Sicyon, of which Lysippus was the most distinguished member. Lysippus continued the academic traditions of Polyclitus, but he was far bolder in his choice of subjects and more innovating in style. Gods, heroes and mortals alike found in him a sculptor who knew how to combine fine ideality with a vigorous actuality. He was at the height of his fame during Alexander’s life, and the grandiose ambition of the great Macedonian found him ample employment, especially in the frequent representation of himself and his marshals.
We have none of the actual works of Lysippus; but our best evidence for his style will be found in the statue of Agias an athlete (Plate V. fig. 74) found at Delphi, and shown by an inscription to be a marble copy of a bronze original by Lysippus. The Apoxyomenus of the Vatican (man scraping himself with a strigil) (Plate VI. fig. 79) has hitherto been regarded as a copy from Lysippus; but of this there is no evidence, and the style of that statue belongs rather to the 3rd century than the 4th.
