A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture

by Clara Erskine Clement Waters

We must now leave Phidias and speak of other sculptors who were his contemporaries and pupils. Among the last Alcamenes was the most celebrated. He was born in Lemnos, but was a citizen of Athens; so he is sometimes called an Athenian, and again a Lemnian. His statues were numerous, and most of them represented the gods. One of Hephæstus, or Vulcan, was remarkable for the way in which his lameness was concealed so skilfully that no deformity appeared.

His most famous statue was a Venus, or Aphrodite, concerning which it is related that Agoracritus, another celebrated pupil of Phidias, contended with Alcamenes in making a statue of that goddess. The preference was given to Alcamenes, and Agoracritus believed this to have been done on account of his being an Athenian citizen, and not solely for the merit of the statue. The Venus of Alcamenes stood in a temple of that goddess in a garden beyond the eastern wall of Athens. This statue was very much praised for its beauty by ancient writers, who all mention with especial pride the eurythmy of the action of the wrist. This is a term frequently used in regard to sculpture, and is somewhat difficult to explain. It means a harmony and proportion of action which corresponds to rhythm in music. When a statue has the effect it should have it appears as if the motion of the figure was arrested for a moment, and would be resumed immediately. That is what we mean when we say a statue has life; and, as in life, the motion of a statue may be awkward or it may be graceful; it may be harmonious to the eye, just as music is harmonious to the ear, or it may seem out of tune and time, just as inharmonious sounds are to a correct ear for the rhythm of sound; so when we speak of the eurythmy of sculpture we mean that its apparent motion is in accord with the laws of proportion, and is harmonious and graceful to the eye.

Fig. 36.—Head of Asclepius.
In the British Museum.

While Alcamenes had this power of imparting grace to his statues, he also approached Phidias in majesty and a divine sweetness, which was the sweetness of great strength. In truth, he is recognized as the sculptor who most nearly approached the great Phidias. He represented also for the first time the god Asclepius, or Æsculapius, who was very important to the Greeks, who placed great value upon physical health. Alcamenes represented him as a sort of humanized Zeus or Jupiter. Of the Asclepius heads found at Melos we may regard this one given here as a free copy of the type of god which this great sculptor represented the god of medicine and health to be (Fig. 36).

Alcamenes was also the principal assistant of Phidias in his decoration of the temple of Jupiter at Olympia, and is said to have himself executed the relief upon the western pediment, in which the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithæ was represented with great spirit.

Agoracritus of Paros, who has been mentioned as the rival of Alcamenes, is called the favorite pupil of Phidias, and it is said that the master even gave Agoracritus some of his works, and allowed the pupil to inscribe his name upon them. For this reason the ancient writers were often in doubt as to the authorship of the statues called by the names of these sculptors. It is said that when the Venus of Alcamenes was preferred before that of Agoracritus the latter changed his mark, and made it to represent a Nemesis, or the goddess who sent suffering to those who were blessed with too many gifts. It is said that this statue was cut from a block of marble which the Persians brought with them to Marathon for the purpose of making a trophy of it which they could set up to commemorate the victory they felt so sure of gaining; in their flight and adversity it was left, and at last served a Greek sculptor in making a statue of an avenging goddess. This seems to be a striking illustration of "poetic justice."

Agoracritus sold the Nemesis to the people of Rhamnus, who had a temple dedicated to that goddess, and made a condition that it should never be set up in Athens. In the museum of the Lateran at Rome there is a small but very beautiful antique statue of Nemesis, which is thought to be a copy of this famous work. As Nemesis was the goddess who meted out fortune according to her idea of right, a measure was her symbol, and the Greek measure of a cubit was generally placed in her hand. The word cubit means the length of the forearm from the elbow to the wrist, and in this statue of which we speak this part of the arm is made very prominent, and the measure itself is omitted.