Delicate beauty and warmth of feeling must be ascribed to the works of Scopas, otherwise Pliny could not have placed the Aphrodite found in the Temple of Mars, near the Circus Flaminius, above that of Praxiteles. Nor can we imagine the groups at Megara—Eros, Himeros, and Pothos (Love, Yearning, and Desire)—described by Pausanias; or Aphrodite, with her priestly lover Phaethon; or Pothos, in Samothrace, to have been without these traits. The group of Leto with the nurse Ortygia carrying the children, Apollo and Artemis, as the personification of a mother’s joy and pride, must have been full of deep meaning. It is evident, from the long list of his works, that his power was many-sided: his peculiar style is best exemplified in a grand composition, the group of the Niobids, though Pliny is in doubt whether it should be ascribed to Scopas or to Praxiteles. The original of this no longer exists, and even the very unequally executed pieces—to be found chiefly in the Uffizi at Florence, and in various repetitions in different museums—are not complete; still even thus they betray the greatness and individuality of this wonderful work. Niobe, wife of King Amphion of Thebes, and mother of fourteen children, in a boastful spirit, inherited from her father Tantalos, compared herself with Leto, who had only two, and ordered sacrifices to be made to herself rather than to that goddess. For this she was terribly chastised by Apollo and Artemis, her children being all slain before her eyes by the avenging arrows of the two deities. She herself, trying in vain to protect her youngest daughter, pressing against her, makes an attempt to draw her mantle over her head to hide the expression of despairing woe which, according to the legend, in a few moments turned her to stone. The figure, in its royal nobility and motherly despair, yet so free from contortion, has wonderful effect. (Figs. 223 and 224.) The children, already wounded and hurrying towards her, show pain, fear, and need of help in different degrees, but with that dignity and fine control which render it a tragedy in the highest sense. The various struggles of feeling in the beautiful young faces; the excited wrestling with an invisible, unconquerable, relentless power, in every gesture, and in every motion of the swaying garments; the plaintive character of the lines throughout the whole composition, entirely opposed to the vertical tendency of the statuesque, and especially of the architectural art; the wavy flow which distinguishes it from the group at Ægina, and even from the quiet action of the figures in the gables of the Parthenon—are all so peculiar to this pathetic school, and so characteristic of its productions, that the Niobe will ever be considered the greatest example of its style.
In a study of the artistic character of Scopas, we must content ourselves, for the most part, with a few copies, and some not very full accounts. Still, original remains from his hand are not altogether wanting. We have seen that he was engaged in the sculptural ornamentation upon the eastern side of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassos; while upon the south and north sides his younger associates were employed—Timotheos, Bryaxis, and Leochares, the latter known to us by a copy in the Vatican of his Ganymede Carried Away by the Eagle of Zeus. But the greater part of the recognizable reliefs upon the frieze, the most important group of which represents the so often recurring battle of the Amazons, notwithstanding the wonderful beauty and pathos of the action, peculiar to the sculptured art of this period, is the work of artisans, and certainly not by the hand of a master of the first rank. (Fig. 225.) Among the numerous fragments of the statues found in the English excavations of 1856, which, from analogy with the mausoleums of the Roman emperors, may have stood between the columns, one at least, a well-preserved torso, probably of Zeus, found upon the eastern side, has been ascribed to Scopas. The others are, unfortunately, too much mutilated to allow of any reliable judgment, as the varying views of different authorities testify. At all events, these decorative works cannot be ranked with the more celebrated examples of this master.
An acquaintance with the art of Scopas is extended by the study of his younger and still more important contemporary Praxiteles. The masterpieces of this artist are similar in character, and betray all the preference of the former for the ideal beauty of youth. Not less than five statues of Aphrodite by Praxiteles are known to have existed, among which the famous statue at Cnidos was regarded as one of the wonders of the world, and was ranked with the Olympian Zeus. It was so highly prized among lovers of art that King Nicomedes of Bithynia, for instance, in vain offered to the people of Cnidos the entire amount of their State debt in exchange for it. The brow, the moist glowing eyes, and soft smile of the slightly parted lips are described as wonderful; the whole figure being so executed as to cause the marble to be forgotten and the goddess of love to appear a reality. Coins of Cnidos show the figure to have been entirely nude, the left hand holding her drapery, partly lying upon a vase, and the right shielding herself in modesty. The best in this style among the numerous remaining statues were the Braschi Aphrodite, now in the Glyptothek at Munich, and that of the Vatican, which is, however, inferior in execution, and is, unfortunately, disfigured in the lower part by hard, modern drapery. Next to that of Cnidos in nobility and beauty must have been a draped Aphrodite from Cos, provided the people of that place had any understanding of art; for, when the choice between the two was offered them by the artist, they gave the preference to this. Of the three others, less known, the Thespian was placed next to the statue of Phryne, as contrasting divine with human beauty. To Praxiteles were ascribed, also, at least two representations of Eros—blooming, youthful figures, of which the most celebrated seems to have been the Thespian or Bœotian one, which was installed between the Phryne and the Aphrodite. Epigrams and accounts describing the god as wounding not with the arrow, but the eye, appear to relate to this figure; for the second statue from Parion, in Mysia, according to the coins, showed the god unarmed, and with head uplifted.
