.883.] on the Influence of Athletic Games ujpon Greek Art. 281 



lurface is modelled with a perfection which presents most vividly the 

 lexibility of the human skin and the change of surface as it covers 

 )ri^ans of different form and texture. Finally, in the Diskobolos of 

 Itlyron we have fullest freedom of attitude in the indication of active 

 ife and in the modelling of the surface. The artists had to exercise 

 heir power of rendering the life of nature in many an athlete statue 

 )efore they gained the full benefit of the growing influence of the 

 )alaestra. It was chiefly in the schools of ^gina and Argos that 

 his training was undergone. If we but bear in mind that, before 

 he year 530, statues were only of gods and there existed none of 

 ithletes, and compare the enormous preponderance of athlete statues 

 )ver those of divinities with the sculj^tors of Argos like Ageladas, of 

 Egina like Kallon and Onatas, of Athens like Myron, we can realise 

 he actual influence which the growth of athletic institutions had 

 ipon art. I would beg you to connect in mind with what we shall 

 earn concerning the ideal period which followed this step down to 

 lature the fact that after this period of transition, especially with the 

 ^reat artists of the Attic schools, there was no such preponderance of 

 ithlete statues over those representing mythological subjects. 



Finally, in carefully studying the extant ancient monuments, we 

 •ealise the great and direct influence of athletic games, while at the 

 ;ame time we explain a fact in the early Greek which has often been 

 loticed, and never, to my knowledge, satisfactorily explained. It is 

 ;he fact that, down to the time of Pheidias, the treatment of the nude 

 nale figure far surpasses in perfection the rendering of the head, 

 vhich is hard, lifeless, and conventional. This shows that the body 

 3ngrossed the artistic interest and attention of the sculptors, that this 

 ippreciation of the human body is to be attributed to the engrossing 

 nterest of the athletic games, and that the palaestra was the real 

 school for the sculj)tor. Look at the feeling for nature in the body 

 3f this " Strangford Apollo," and compare with it the lifelessness of 

 :he head. You must be struck by the exceedingly careful rendering 

 )f the human structure — limbs, muscles, sinews, and surface — in the 

 ngures from this pediment of the temple of Athene at ^gina ; then 

 3ompare with it the lifeless conventionality of the heads. In the 

 same way it is the influence of the palaestra, which, arousing the 

 interest in the male human figure, and giving the sculptor the 

 power of rendering it with truth to nature, accounts for the inability 

 freely to render the female figure, as compared with the great skill 

 with which the male figure is represented during this period. Com- 

 pare the nude warriors from this same pediment with the Athene in 

 its centre, and the difference will be most manifest. And, thirdly, 

 this supreme influence which the athletic games exercised upon 

 irtistic feeling and upon artistic creation is shown by the fact that, 

 tvhile during this period the modelling of the nude male figure is so 

 perfect, the modelling of drapery is still in its elementary stages ; so 

 chat even in the works attributed to Kalamis, the older contemporary 

 jf Pheidias, the modelling of the drapery is comparatively hard and 



