ἀμβρόσιαι δ’ ἄρα χαῖται ἐπεῤῥώσαντο ἄνακτος
κρατὸς ἀπ’ ἀθανάτοιο· μέγαν δ’ ἐλέλιξεν Ὄλυμπον,
served him as the model of his Olympian Jupiter, and that only through their help had he succeeded in making a godlike countenance, “propemodum ex ipso cœlo petitum.” Whoever understands by this merely that the imagination of the artist was fired by the poet’s sublime picture, and thus made capable of equally sublime representations, overlooks, I think, the chief point, and contents himself with a general statement where something very special and much more satisfactory is meant. Phidias here acknowledges also, as I understand him, that this passage first led him to notice how much expression lies in the eyebrows, “quanta pars animi” is shown in them. Perhaps it further induced him to bestow more attention upon the hair, in order to express in some degree what Homer calls ambrosial curls. For it is certain that the old artists before Phidias had very little idea of the language and significance of the features, and particularly neglected the hair. Even Myron was faulty in both these respects, as Pliny observes,[[146]] and, according to the same authority, Pythagoras Leontinus was the first who distinguished himself by the beauty of his hair. Other artists learned from the works of Phidias what Phidias had learned from Homer.
I will mention another example of the same kind which has always given me particular pleasure. Hogarth passes the following criticism on the Apollo Belvidere.[[147]] “These two masterpieces of art, the Apollo and the Antinous, are seen together in the same palace at Rome, where the Antinous fills the spectator with admiration only, whilst the Apollo strikes him with surprise, and, as travellers express themselves, with an appearance of something more than human, which they of course are always at a loss to describe; and this effect, they say, is the more astonishing, as, upon examination, its disproportion is evident even to a common eye. One of the best sculptors we have in England, who lately went to see them, confirmed to me what has been now said, particularly as to the legs and thighs being too long and too large for the upper parts. And Andrea Sacchi, one of the great Italian painters, seems to have been of the same opinion, or he would hardly have given his Apollo, crowning Pasquilini the musician, the exact proportion of the Antinous (in a famous picture of his now in England), as otherwise it seems to be a direct copy from the Apollo.
“Although in very great works we often see an inferior part neglected, yet here this cannot be the case, because in a fine statue, just proportion is one of its essential beauties; therefore it stands to reason, that these limbs must have been lengthened on purpose, otherwise it might easily have been avoided.
“So that if we examine the beauties of this figure thoroughly, we may reasonably conclude, that what has been hitherto thought so unaccountably excellent in its general appearance, hath been owing to what hath seemed a blemish in a part of it.”
All this is very suggestive. Homer also, I would add, had already felt and noticed the same thing,—that an appearance of nobility is produced by a disproportionate size of the foot and thigh. For, when Antenor is comparing the figure of Ulysses with that of Menelaus, he says,[[148]]—
στάντων μὲν Μενέλαος ὑπείρεχεν εὐρέας ὤμους,
ἄμφω δ’ ἑζομένω, γεραρώτερος ἦεν Ὀδυσσεύς.
“When both were standing Menelaus overtopped him by his broad shoulders; but when both were sitting, Ulysses was the more majestic.” Since, when seated, Ulysses gained in dignity what Menelaus lost, we can easily tell the proportion which the upper part of the body in each bore to the feet and thighs. In Ulysses the upper part was large in proportion to the lower: in Menelaus the size of the lower parts was large in proportion to that of the upper.