22 THE FINE ARTS. 
with that of the works of the older masters, and this was the source of many 
refinements in matters of detail. Thus, for example, Lysippus put on the 
hair more naturally and with picturesque effect. Artists also bestowed the 
greatest attention on the study of the proportions of the human figure; and 
Euphranor (with Xeuxis among the painters) adopted a much slenderer 
model ; this Lysippus was the first to reduce to harmony, after which it 
became the predominant one in Grecian art. It must be confessed, however, 
that this system was less the offspring of a warm and intimate appreciation 
of nature than of a desire to elevate the productions of art above those of 
actual life. There is also exhibited in the works of the latest artists of this 
period a strong tendency to the colossal, which became predominant in the 
subsequent period. The Jupiter of Lysippus at Tarentum was 40 Grecian 
cubits (about 68 feet) high. 
4. Fourtn Prriop (336—146 3. c.). The conquest of Persia by the 
Greeks gave to Grecian artists many occasions for the display of their skill, 
while it also communicated a peculiar direction to art itself: as the artists’ 
sphere of observation was extended, and the wonders of the East excited 
them to emulate the magnificence and splendor of its works. But as there 
existed a firmly established style of art developed from a native germ in 
the different peoples on the one hand, and a strong line of demarcation 
between the conquerors and the conquered on the other, no hybrid style 
resulted from this cause, but Grecian art, even when transplanted abroad, 
remained Grecian still. 
Nevertheless we meet with a peculiar phenomenon in this period of art. 
The external relations of Greece and its connexion with foreign countries 
had called forth a hitherto unknown fondness for splendor and had thus 
given a new impetus to the life of art; while the internal and properly 
creative energy, after the natural Hellenic circle of ideas had been em- 
bodied in plastic forms, was brought to the necessity either of pausing in 
its career or of being artificially spurred on to anewflight. The latter took 
place in fact; and accordingly we find in the period of which we are now 
treating a striving after effect, even at the expense of what is truly valuable 
in art. 
In the beginning of this period we find that along with the disciples of 
Praxiteles the most flourishing was the Sicyonian school, in which brass- 
casting was practised in the ancient perfection and in a noble style, 
especially by Euthycrates ; but afterwards this art fell into disuse, until it 
was revived again in Athens towards the end of this period through the 
study of the older works of art, when the Grecian taste obtained the 
supremacy in Rome. The school of Rhodes was a branch of that of Sicyon, 
and Chares of Lindus, a pupil of Lysippus, cast the largest of the hundred 
colossal statues of the Sun, which was reckoned one of the seven wonders 
of the world. This colossus, which stood not over but near the harbor, was 
70 Grecian cubits high, and was cast in a number of pieces. Tothis period 
belongs also most probably the Laocoén (pl. 6, jig. 7), a miracle of art as 
respects the fine and noble taste displayed in the execution of so difficult a 
task, but evidently calculated for dazzling effect and the exhibition of skill, 
406 
