History of Ancient Art

by Franz von Reber

However important the school of these two masters of pathos may have been, but few among the numerous names that have been preserved became prominent. The chief exceptions are the above-mentioned assistants of Scopas upon the mausoleum, and the two sons of Praxiteles, Kephisodotos the younger, and Timarchos. Two of the greatest works of statuary, however, may be ascribed to their most vigorous scholars—the Venus of Melos in the Louvre (Fig. 229) and the so-called Ilioneus in the Glyptothek at Munich. If the doubtful inscription of the artist upon the former be credited, which, in characters of the first century B.C., designated it as the production of |Ale|xandros, son of Menides of Antioch upon the Meander, but which, together with the corresponding part of the plinth, has disappeared, we should possess in this work an inexplicable anachronism, a creation of the highest rank in art produced during a period of decided decadence. As, however, through this loss, this assumption cannot be verified, science must proceed to judge it by its style alone. Its grandeur and dignity, in contrast to the immodest coquetry of later works; the fulness of the flesh in this body of ever-blooming youth, in comparison with their attenuated grace; the mild softness of the surface beside the cold polish of the other figures of Aphrodite—would place this statue between the period of highest perfection at the time of Praxiteles, and that of the Roman reproductions. The reference of the Venus of Melos to the school of Praxiteles has found a justification not to be undervalued in the discovery of the Hermes at Olympia, this figure of manly youth forming as complete a pendant to the maidenly Venus as could be imagined. In artistic character this is far more nearly related to the Hermes than is any other statue of Aphrodite, not excepting the undoubted Roman reproduction of that of Cnidos. At any rate, it is clearly an Hellenic original, not belonging to the period of later Hellenistic art.

Unfortunately, no explanation of this statue hitherto advanced has been entirely satisfactory. The two arms are wanting, and the fallen drapery covering the lower limbs has hidden from us the only accessory evidence—namely, the object upon which the lifted left leg is supported; so that even the name of Venus is not to be applied with the usual certainty. The Roman types of Victory, also half nude, with the same garments and position, and with the shield upon which the conquest is inscribed, suggest an Aphrodite-Victory analogous to the Attic Athene-Victory. The restorations all present points of difficulty; among them may be mentioned that commonly received, where the goddess contemplates herself in the shield of Ares, supported by the analogy of a statue mentioned by Pausanias (ii. 5), an interpretation equally applicable to the Venus of Capua, now in Naples; that also of Wiesler, with the lance in the uplifted left hand; and the combination of the goddess in a group with Ares by Quatremère de Quincy.

It is even less easy to find a reliable explanation of the beautiful torso in the Glyptothek at Munich, formerly held, falsely, to be Ilioneus among the Niobids, and even believed to be an original. As the Venus of Melos is an illustration of ripened womanly beauty, the entirely nude, cowering figure, without head or arms, represents the perfection of youth; and the position suggests a subject equal in pathetic import to that of the children of Niobe.

As the works of Scopas and Praxiteles frequently found their way to the islands of the Ægean Sea, and as the former, at least, had certainly dwelt for some time in Asia Minor, the influence of these two masters appears to have extended eastward, and their style to have had decided sway even longer there than in Greece proper. The farthest outlying examples are presented by the fragmentary statues of the Nereids from the Monument of Xanthos, to which they have given the name.

At that period, even in Athens, some highly esteemed artists not only partially followed their own ways, but in these surpassed the former masters, and pursued aims which did not become generally prevalent until the middle of the fourth century, and then in quite other localities. These were Silanion of Athens and Euphranor of the Isthmos. The first devoted himself chiefly to portraits and representations of victors, and was so especially successful in the former as to make them a real embodiment of personal character; as, for instance, the portrait of the passionate sculptor Apollodoros was made to appear a personification of sudden rage. Silanion distinguished himself from Praxiteles in the subjects of his art, in which he had much in common with Lysippos. Euphranor was also, perhaps in a still greater degree, a painter, and, in the coarser power of his creations, was opposed to the delicate style of Praxiteles, showing more affinity with Lysippos, so far, at least, as we can judge of his sculptures by the accounts of his paintings.

Similar to the transitional position between Pheidias and Scopas, held by the elder Kephisodotos, was the position taken by these two sculptors between the art of Scopas and Praxiteles and that of Lysippos, for whom the studies and innovations in the canons of human proportions prepared the way. Though self-taught, for as a youth he had been a hand-worker in brass, and from this had raised himself to the position of an artist, he was still not without connection with the schools, since he took as his model the Doryphoros of Polycleitos, the academic pattern mentioned above, and also worked in bronze, the material most favored by Polycleitos and the artists of the Peloponnesos. He cannot, however, be called a direct scholar of Polycleitos, whose canon he corrected and even replaced by a new one, better adapted to the artistic aims of the younger masters. The model of Polycleitos was the human body, but Lysippos felt that he must set his ideal of humanity higher than in the average of real examples, because he considered these, in comparison with the perfect figure, to be degenerate and dwarfed. Although he worked with reference to this view, still he developed his types from the real appearances of nature; and when asked by the painter Eupompos of Sikyon for advice as to the best teacher, he pointed to an assemblage of people. He wished to represent man, however, not as he is, but as he should be, and employed only those features which did not fall below the average determined by Polycleitos. His ideal type of the human body became more slender and larger, the size being especially apparent because the head and extremities, which take their proportions from the whole, were made smaller.

Lysippos, however, followed the footsteps of Polycleitos in considering the establishment of a canon as the greatest essential in art, and exercised his powers chiefly in the province of humanity. His Apoxyomenos—the athlete scraping himself with the strigil, a marble copy of which is in the Vatican—is the most celebrated among his statues of athletes and victors. (Fig. 230.) In this he seems to have set forth his new confession of faith, in opposition to that of Polycleitos. This aim must have had the most important influence upon portrait-sculpture, the chief field of his activity. It is clear from the accounts of some likenesses of persons long dead, or even legendary, that he fully expressed the character in the features, as in the Apollodoros of Silanion, and did not aim at that over-scrupulous reproduction of details and attention to circumstantial matters which endeavor to attain a likeness by sharp observation of external things, unessential to the whole. This inferior style of portraiture was pursued by Lysistratos, the brother of Lysippos, who formed his figures after plaster casts from nature. Although earlier portraits might have informed the sculptor in regard to the true features of some historical personages, certainly this could not have been the case with Æsop, or the Seven Wise Men, for whose individuality and intellectual tendencies he was obliged to create a characteristic type. In the portrait which he most frequently executed, that of Alexander the Great, it was of especial importance to illuminate the ugly and faulty formation of the monarch’s face by the expression of his powerful character, and to execute it so appropriately that even the likeness was increased by such depth of appreciation. The artist thus produced portraits of the conqueror which differed as much, and as favorably, from the realistic and chance appearance of the king as the historic illustration of a great personage does from the knowledge of that individual in every-day life. Alexander, accordingly, would be represented in sculpture by no one except Lysippos, as he would be painted by none but Apelles. Even that best-preserved portrait of Alexander, the bust in the Capitol, does not suffice to make clear the whole conception of Lysippos. How grand such monumental portraitures really were may be gathered from the account of the group at Dium—afterwards transferred to the Portico of Octavia in Rome—illustrating a scene from the battle upon the Granicos, where twenty-five warriors on horseback and nine on foot were grouped about the king, to which many of the enemy may doubtless be added.

The work next in importance after this was the representation of Heracles by this master. Not in the elevation of the ideal above the human, but rather in the emphasizing of this latter quality, did the Heracles of Lysippos stand in distinct opposition alike to the merely human model of Polycleitos, to the superhuman and godlike beings of Pheidias, and especially to the divinely charming beauty of the Aphrodite and the Eros, as seen in the best creations of Scopas and Praxiteles. The Heracles of Lysippos, the embodiment of strength developed beyond human possibility, appeared colossal, whether the absolute dimensions were really great—like the statue from Tarention which represented him resting upon a basket after the labor of cleansing the Augean stables—or whether in miniature, suitable for a table ornament—like the celebrated Epitrapezios, showing the hero as a drinker. Copies, in part, still remain of the Labors of Heracles, executed in twelve groups for Alyzia, in Acarnania. They show the same type that is reproduced in the affected, overstrained statue of the later Athenian artist Glycon—the so-called Farnese Hercules in Naples. (Fig. 231.)