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

by Clara Erskine Clement Waters

Fig. 41—From the Frieze of the Mausoleum.

His works were always representations of gods or of sentiments as shown by some superhuman beings; he never portrayed a hero, with the exception of Hercules, and was ever busy with the ideal rather than with realities about him. He worked in marble only, which is far more suited to the elegant beauty of his style than are bronze and gold or ivory.

We are accustomed to call Praxiteles the greatest sculptor of the second school of Greek art, just as we give that place to Phidias in the first. We have no fixed dates concerning Praxiteles. We know that he was the son of a Cephisodotus, who was a bronze worker, and was thought to be a son of Alcamenes, thus making Praxiteles a grandson of the latter. Praxiteles was first instructed by his father. Later he came under the influence of Scopas, who was much older than he; and by Scopas he was persuaded to give up working in bronze and confine himself to marble. Perhaps the most authentic date we have concerning him is that given by Pliny, who says that he was in his prime from B.C. 364-360.

It is impossible to praise a sculptor more than Praxiteles was praised by the Greek authors; and, although Athens was the place where he lived and labored most, yet he was known to all Greece, and even to other countries, and the number of his works was marvellous. There are trustworthy accounts of forty-seven groups, reliefs, and statues by his hand, and it is not probable that these are all that he executed.

Praxiteles represented youth and beauty and such subjects as are most pleasing to popular taste. Thus it happened that his male figures were the young Apollo, Eros, and youthful satyrs, while a large proportion of his statues represented lovely women. Venus was frequently repeated by him, and there is a story that he made two statues of her, one being draped and the other nude. The people of Cos bought the first, and the last was purchased by the Cnidians, who placed it in the midst of an open temple, where it could be seen from all sides. It became so famous that many people went to Cnidos solely for the purpose of seeing it, and the "Cnidian Venus" acquired a reputation wherever art was known. When the oppressor of the Cnidians, King Nicodemus of Bithynia, offered to release them from a debt of one hundred talents (about $100,000) if they would give him the Venus, they refused, and declared that it was the chief glory of their State.

Fig. 42.—The Eros of Centocelle.

Another story relates that Phryne, a friend of Praxiteles, had been told by him that she could have any work which she might choose from his workshop. She wished to have the one which the artist himself considered the best. In order to find out which he so esteemed she sent a servant to tell him that his workshop was on fire. He exclaimed, "All is lost if my Satyr and Cupid are not saved!" Then Phryne told him of her trick, and chose the Cupid, or Eros, for her gift. Phryne then offered the statue to the temple of Thespiæ, in Bœotia, where it was placed between a statue of Venus and one of Phryne herself. This Cupid was almost as celebrated as the Cnidian Venus, and was visited by many people. The head given here (Fig. 42), which was found in Centocelle by Gavin Hamilton, and is now in the Vatican, is thought by many to be a copy of a Cupid by Praxiteles, and even of the Thespian statue; but we have no proof of this. The Cupid, or Eros, of the art of Scopas and Praxiteles is not the merry little creature who bears that name in later art; he is a youth just coming into manhood, with a dreamy, melancholy face, the tender beauty of which makes him one of the most attractive subjects in sculpture. Caligula carried the Thespian Cupid to Rome; Claudius restored it to its original place, but Nero again bore it to Rome, where it was burned in a conflagration in the time of Titus.

I shall say no more of Praxiteles personally, because I wish to describe to you the largest and grandest group of Greek statues which exists, or, as I should say, of which we have any copies. We do not know whether Scopas or Praxiteles made these famous figures, since they are attributed to both these sculptors; perhaps we can never positively know to whom to ascribe the fame of this marvellous work. The historian Pliny tells us that they stood in the temple of Apollo Sosianus at Rome. Sosius was the legate of Antony in Syria and Cilicia; he erected this temple in his own honor, and brought many beautiful works from the East for its decoration. It is believed that he brought the Niobe group from Cilicia, and displayed it when celebrating his victory over Judea, B.C. 35.