620 POLYCHEOMY IN GREEK STATUARY. 



copy of an Attic original, of a date r)rior to that of the Hermes. The 

 chiton is purple, the mantle green with a violet border, and the parts 

 reserved for the painter have on purpose been left a little rough, iu con- 

 trast with the fleshy parts, which are most carefully polished. 1 Let us 

 complete the renewal of the painting of the accessories, and restore 

 the gilding of the sandals, and we shall have an idea of a somewhat 

 somber polychromy which, moreover, covers only a small part of the 

 statue. 



If we examine the details more carefully, the painting of the head 

 suggests some thoughts deserving our attention. Where did the red- 

 dish brown of the hair stop ? In the Hermes, as in several other statues 

 by Praxiteles, the line of the hair on the brow is managed by a kind of 

 plastic transition, by softened surfaces which the painter can not cut 

 off brutally. We do not find here, as in archaic heads, that the sculp- 

 tor's chisel has been at work abruptly cutting off the hair on the fore- 

 head and on the temples. The Roman copyists have instinctively felt 

 the difficulty. In this point of view the female head of the Dresden 

 Museum, which we mentioned above, is peculiarly interesting. The 

 local tint of the hair is yellow; the curls are each marked off by dark- 

 brown lines, which follow the outlines, and finally expire, so to say, on 

 the forehead, forming thus at the root of the hair a kind of transparent 

 fringe. No doubt a Mcias would have known how to solve that prob- 

 lem by simpler means, by a softening down of the tint, skillfully man- 

 aged. But that is a question which practiced experiments alone can 

 answer satisfactorily. 



Were the eyes painted? If we had no other testimony to consult 

 but Plato's, we should not hesitate to think so. Our impression would 

 be confirmed by literary statements relative to the Venus of Cnidus. 

 Could we understand that "hurried look," of which Lucian speaks, if 

 the question was only of eyes without color and without life, such as 

 we are accustomed to see in modern statuary 1 ? But we know that the 

 custom, of animating the look of statues by means of color is to a cer- 

 tain extent traditional in Greek statuary. Enameled eyes, inserted 

 between the eyelids, sometimes set skillfully between two leaflets of 

 bronze, the beard-like edges of which imitate the hair of the eyelids, 

 are details which are more than once met with in archaic works. 2 A 

 study of the technique of eyes in Greek statues led Mr. Conze to the 

 conclusion that even in the best years of the art, the painting* of the 

 eyes is the rule. 3 The custom of hollowing out the pupil so as to give 



'The statno has "been published by Mr. R. von Schneider, Jahrbuch tier kunstliist. 

 Sammlungen des Kaiserhanses in Wien, V, Pis. I-II, page 1 et seq. 



-Lechat, Bulletin tie correspondance hellenique, 1890, page 361. Ballorn, Zeit- 

 Bchrift fur bildeude Kunst, 1893, pages 261-267. The Dresden Museum possesses an 

 eye of a statue which is inserted in a bronze eggshell, and in which the colors of 

 the iris and of the pupil are represented by marbles of different colors. (Arch. 

 Anzeiger, 1889, p. 102.) 



"Conze: Qeber Darstelhmg des menslichen Auges in tier antiken Sculptor. 

 (X'omptes rendus de l'Acad&xrie tie Berlin, 1892, p. 47.) 



