SCULPTURE 



5274 



SCULPTURE 



head of this article) but he executed a colossal 

 statue of Athene for that temple, and one of 

 Zeus for the temple at Olympia. The latter, a 

 gold and ivory monument sixty feet high, was 

 one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient 

 World. Phidias had several contemporaries of 

 outstanding importance, including Polycletus 

 of Argos, whose masterpiece was a statue of 

 Hera, and Paeonius, of Mende, sculptor of a 

 famous Nike, or Victory, set up at Olympia. 



The sculptors of the age of Phidias idealized 

 their subjects, giving expression in their work 

 to a lofty religious aspiration. In the century 

 following, which produced the so-called Later 

 Attic School, the artists were more interested 

 in individual traits of character, and sculpture 

 became less heroic and more human. Portrait 

 busts of living men were produced, and the 

 statues of the gods revealed these divinities in 

 their individual moods. That is, there was a 

 decided tendency toward realism and a drift 

 from idealization. The two greatest figures of 

 this school were Scopas and Praxiteles. Scopas 

 was one of the sculptors who assisted in the 

 adornment of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, 

 one of the Seven Wonders of the World (see 

 illustration on page 3680). 



The single undoubted original known to be 

 the work of Praxiteles is a Hermes group dis- 

 covered at Olympia in 1877. This priceless 

 treasure is preserved in the museum at Olym- 

 pia. Praxiteles, who is said to have "rendered 

 into stone the moods of the soul," was also the 

 creator of a matchless Aphrodite, set up in the 

 temple to the goddess at Cnidus. The so-called 

 Venus de Medici, in the Uffizi Gallery at Flor- 

 ence, is believed to be a copy of the Cnidian 

 Aphrodite. The last Greek artist of whom we 

 have any considerable knowledge, Lysippus of 

 Sicyon (in Sicily), lived in the last half of the 

 fourth century. He is not properly a repre- 

 sentative of the Attic School, though he was 

 greatly influenced by its traditions. Lysippus 

 was . celebrated for his works in bronze, espe- 

 cially his statues and portrait busts of Alexan- 

 der the Great, and he was the leader of a school 

 of art which adopted a new system of bodily 

 proportions small head, long legs and slender 

 figure. 



The death of Alexander the Great (323 B. c.) 

 marks the end of the Attic Period and the be- 

 ginning of the Hellenistic, during which Greek 

 culture was diffused over the lands in Asia and 

 Egypt conquered by Alexander. This period 

 ends with the conquest of Greece by Rome, in 

 146 B. c. Rhodes, the chief city of an island of 



the same name in the Eastern Mediterranean, 

 and Pergamus, a city in Western Asia Minor, 

 were centers of important schools of sculpture 

 during the Hellenistic Period. The former 

 produced the celebrated Colossus oj Rhodes, a 

 figure of the sun god astride the entrance to 

 the harbor of the city; the Laocoon group (see 

 illustration on page 3330) ; and the Farnese 

 Bull (see FARNESE). To the Pergamene school 

 belongs the bronze original of the famous Dy- 

 ing Gaul, a copy of which is preserved in the 

 Capitoline Museum, Rome. The Hellenistic 

 Period also produced two famous statues, both 

 of which show the influence of the Attic School. 

 These, the Nike (Winged Victory) oj Samo- 

 thrace and the Venus de Milo, are pictured in 

 the panel at the head of this article. 



Italy. The Roman Period. Towards the 

 end of the Republic, in the first century before 

 Christ, an independent school of Roman Sculp- 

 ture began to take form, but for some time 

 before this the Romans had relied on Greece 

 for the adornment of 

 their temples and other 

 buildings. During their 

 career of conquering 

 the Hellenic world they 

 had borne away as 

 trophies of victory 

 numerous statues and 

 bas-reliefs taken from 

 Grecian temples, and 

 Greek sculptors in large 

 numbers flocked to 

 Rome after the con- 

 quest of their country. 

 During the early Em- 

 pire, however, Roman 

 artists produced some 

 very commendable his- 

 toric bas-reliefs and por- 

 trait statues, which were 

 more than mere imitations of Greek models. 

 The bust portraiture of the Romans had a real- 

 ism and vitality which the Greeks rarely at- 

 tained, and this realistic tendency was also 

 manifest in their historic sculptures, such as the 

 decorations on the Arch of Titus and those on 

 the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. 

 Mythological statuary, however, was inspired 

 chiefly by Greek ideals and traditions. In the 

 second century A. D. Roman sculpture entered 

 upon a decline, and when Christianity became 

 the state religion it deteriorated into a form 

 of architectural decoration and lost all tendency 

 to realism. 



MARS RESTING 

 A statue in the Villa 

 Ludovisi, Rome. 



