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SCt LPTURE. 



enthusiastic frenzy. Scopas invented the group; 

 Praxiteles the ideals of Diana, of Venus, and of 

 Bacchus. He was the father of a numerous family 

 of artists. After him the beautiful style was 

 transformed into the graceful, which gained in 

 expression and purity what it lost in grandeur. 

 Symmetry and proportion were most attended to. 

 In the age of Alexander, Lysippus adopted a new 

 style of art, by forming many portrait statues. He 

 was the only one who was permitted to make the 

 s tat iii- of Alexander, as Apelles alone was allowed 

 to paint him. This last flourishing period of Gre- 

 cian sculpture began 336 B. C. It contained the 

 last class of works of the art, that of the ideal 

 statues of kings and of warriors. Lysippus, though 

 influenced much by Polycletus's rules of proportion, 

 formed his bodies more slender, and his heads 

 smaller; he also bestowed particular care upon the 

 finishing of the hair. His statues are particularly 

 admired for their life. Through the influence of 

 painting, sculpture acquired the expression of feeling, 

 of which the highest perfection, in the pathetic, is 

 the group of Laocoon. The taste for colossal statues 

 extended itself, and contributed to the decline of 

 the art; excess of ornament was also connected 

 with it. After the Macedonian and Syrian wars, 

 200 B. C., the Romans began to carry off the 

 statues from the conquered countries. Paulus 

 /Emilius adorned his triumph of three days with 

 immense treasures of Grecian statues. The Forum 

 liomanum was often hung with costly carpets, and 

 transformed into a theatre, adorned with about 

 3000 statues; 12,000 were placed in the capital 

 alone. With the statues also the Grecian artists 

 came to Rome ; but the art never became natural- 

 ized there. After the time of Sylla, the love of the 

 art was increased to a mania. The best flourishing 

 period of the art was Adrian's age. The highest 

 elegance, polish, and perfection was its character. 

 This taste continued under the Antonines, slightly 

 degenerated; but it sunk entirely under Severus 

 and his successors ; before Constantine the Great, 

 the art of the ancients was entirely lost. The 

 early Christian works adhere to a fixed type. 

 See the Notizie dela Scultura degli Antichi e dei 

 varj suoi Stili, del Abate Luigi Lanzi (2d Italian 

 ed., with annotations and copper-plates, in the Po- 

 ligrafia Fiesola.no., 1824). Sculpture revived in 

 Italy in the thirteenth century. The modern artists 

 worked also ably in metal. The greatest master 

 of this first period of modern art was Michael 

 Angelo Buonarotti. Through him and his disci- 

 ples, sculpture raised its head in Western Europe. 

 All the remains of art which had escaped destruc- 

 tion from barbarian violence, religious fanaticism, 

 and natural causes, were -now carefully preserved. 

 We are chiefly indebted to the noble Cosmo and 

 Lorenzo de' Medici for the restoration of a better 

 style. Artists were honoured and supported, the 

 treasures of antiquity were collected and museums 

 instituted. The neighbouring princes vied with 

 the Medici. Yet modern art never attained the 

 sublimity and tranquil grandeur of the ancient. 

 The modern artist reveals himself in his works ; the 

 ancient artist did not appear in his work. Through 

 Buonarotti's sublime genius, the art was seduced 

 into extravagance, and through Bernini's affected 

 grace into mannerism and excessive ornament ; the 

 true feeling of beauty had disappeared; artists in 

 vain endeavoured to surpass the ancients, not real- 

 izing that they had sunk too low to understand 

 them. Through the preponderating example of 



France, good taste in every art declined more and 

 more; human nature itself was distorted. The 

 folly of fashion prevailed every where. In the 

 eighteenth century, Winckelmann was the first 

 who lighted the torch of modern art, and opened 

 the eyes of his contemporaries to the elevated beauty 

 of antiquity. The cardinal Albani and Mengs sup- 

 ported him ; thus the new dawn of the art and of 

 beauty was ushered in. The present age can boast 

 of several sculptors of great merit.. An apparent 

 stagnation in art was first to come, bad taste was 

 to be destroyed, before beauty could blossom again. 

 Canova became the founder of a new period. Thor- 

 waldsen stands by his side, and in many respects 

 before him; and to judge by the progress which 

 modern sculpture has made in the last thirty years, 

 and the noble works which have been executed in 

 so short a time, we may hope, that it is upon a 

 safer route than in the sixteenth century. 



The most illustrious Sculptors of Antiquity Ear- 

 liest period. Vulcan and Prometheus are but sym- 

 bolical figures; and the ingenious Greeks denoted 

 by the lame god and the deified man, the power and 

 skill of art conquering matter, and the divine spirit 

 of the mind immortalizing earthly forms. In Daeda- 

 lus of Athens we behold the first great sculptor; 

 we may place him about 1400 B. C. At the same 

 time, Smilis, the father of statuary, lived in JEgina. 

 Epeus is said to have made the Trojan horse. 

 Rhoecus of Samos, 700 B. C., invented the art of 

 moulding and casting statues in metal. Theodoi us 

 and Telecles, his sons, travelled, for the study of 

 the art, to Egypt. The former is reported to have 

 made the statue of the Pythian Apollo, for the temple 

 at Samos, in two parts one half at Ephesus, the 

 other half at Samos a manner of working, which 

 was, perhaps, possible in the condition of the Egyp- 

 tian art. Dibutades invented the art of making 

 portrait figures in baked earth (terra cotta} ; his 

 daughter Calirrhoe suggested to him this idea, by 

 drawing the profile of her lover's shadow with coal 

 upon the wall. Euchirus of Corinth (B. C. 663) 

 accompanied Demaratus, the father of the elder 

 Tarquin, to Italy, and introduced the art of model- 

 ling into Etruria. Diposnus and Scyllis became th e 

 masters of a numerous school. Malas and his fol- 

 lowers were among the most illustrious sculptors 

 of that time. Canachus was the greatest master 

 of the Sicyonian school. Perillus made the famous 

 brazen bull (a splendid masterpiece) for Phalaris, 

 who ruled in Sicily 564 B. C., in which the artist 

 himself was burnt. Among the principal works in 

 stone were those of Bathycles of Amyclae. Gallon 

 of ^Egina lived 540 B. C. Demeas of Crotona 

 executed the statue of Milo. Iphicrates cast the 

 brazen lioness of Leaena, who was privy to the con- 

 spiracy of Harrnodius and Aristogiton against Hip- 

 parchus, and who endured the torture till death, 

 without confessing any thing. The artist gave no 

 tongue to the lioness, in order to express the heroic 

 silence of Leaena. Onatas of JSgina restored the 

 statue called the black Ceres of Phigalea. Agel- 

 adas of Argos is considered the master of Phidias. 



Second Period Ideal Style With Phidias of 

 Athens began the period of the high ideal style, 

 which he created. He lived in the time of Pericles. 

 Besides his two masterpieces, Pallas Athene and 

 Jupiter, his Pallas of brass for Athens, his Venus 

 Urania, his Nemesis in the temple at Marathon, and 

 his Amazon, called Eucnemon, from the beauty of her 

 limbs, deserve mention. He made but a single boy 

 from life. His favourite disciples were Alcamenes 



