614 CLASSICAL ART 



work, whether it be the Lemnia or not, a point I would waive as of 

 little consequence, is at any rate by Phidias. But the objection is 

 raised x that the type of face is so different from the type of face of 

 the Athena Parthenos of Phidias, known to us from unquestionable, 

 though poor, copies, as to throw the gravest doubt on the proposed 

 attribution. The difference does seem great: in the Parthenos a 

 broad face with full cheeks and cheerful look, in the other a narrow 

 oval face with sober, even severe expression. Can we suppose that 

 one artist conceived and presented to his countrymen the same 

 goddess in two aspects so unlike? Casting about for guidance here, I 

 can think of nothing better than to examine the sculptured Madonnas 

 of Michelangelo to see how far they agree among themselves in type 

 of face. As a result I find between the circular relief in the Bargello, 

 with its comparatively broad face and untroubled look, and the 

 Bruges Madonna, with its narrow face and solemn expression, both 

 of them productions of Michelangelo's early period, a difference 

 which to me seems as great as we are obliged to suppose between the 

 original Athena Parthenos and the original of the Bologna head 

 under discussion. If my estimate be just, then there is surely no 

 insuperable difficulty on this score in accepting the original of the 

 Dresden statues as the work of Phidias. 



Take another specific problem of a similar nature to the last. - a 

 problem which has only recently come into the forefront of interest 

 and which for this reason deserves to be treated somewhat more 

 fully. For fifty years and more until the other day. a marble statue 

 in the Vatican representing an apoxyomenus, that is. an athlete 

 scraping himself with a strigil, has been universally regarded as an 

 excellent copy of a bronze statue by Lysippus and as giving us our 

 most trustworthy knowledge of that sculptor's style. This supposed 

 knowledge has come to be a corner-stone in the history of Greek art. 

 With our proneness to accept "what is believed always, everywhere, 

 and by all." many of us had probably until lately not taken the 

 trouble to scrutinize critically the evidence on which the identification 

 depends. Let us look at it. Lysippus made an apoxyomenus. which 

 was carried to Rome, was, set up by Marcus Agrippa in front of his 

 Thermic, and was there much admired. These facts do not carry us 

 far. for the subject was no uncommon one and we possess no detailed 

 description of the treatment of it by Lysippus. But the marble 

 statue in question exhibits a system of bodily proportions radically 

 different from that of Polyclitus and agreeing with the valuable, 

 though inadequate, indications afforded by Pliny regarding the 

 innovations introduced by Lysippus. On reflection, however, we 

 see that the agreement does not reallv clinch the matter. At most 



