Ancient critics take a high view of the merits of Phidias. What they especially praise is the ethos or permanent moral level of his works as compared with those of the later “pathetic” school. Demetrius calls his statues sublime and at the same time precise.
40. Anonymous, Diomedes, Roman copy after a Greek original, c. 430 BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 102 cm. Glyptothek, Munich.
41. Anonymous, Aphrodite (Venus Genitrix), Roman copy after a Greek original created by Callimachus, end of 5th century BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 164 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
An ancient sculptor and engraver, Callimachus was nicknamed “katatxitechnos” – “the perfectionist.” He left behind no writings, but we know his life through the works of Pausanias and Vitruvius, although today certain of their accounts seem doubtful. It is known that he contributed to the decoration of the Erechtheion. For this temple he created, among other things, a magnificent golden lamp, above which was mounted a bronze palm branch, which trapped the smoke. Several beautiful sculptures were also ascribed to him: a group of Lacedemonian dancers and a statue of the seated Hera made for the Heraion of Plataea. What characterises Callimachus more than anything else is his painstaking attention to detail; hence the nickname. Purportedly, he was the first to use a drill for shaping marble. He modelled his work on the tradition of the old masters and pioneered the Archaic style.
Callimachus also has a place in the history of architecture. He is considered the inventor of the Corinthian capital. According to the legend told by Vitruvius, he got the idea while looking at the acanthus blossom wrapped around a basket which had been placed on a child’s tomb.
42. Anonymous, Male Torso, in the style of the Diadoumenos, copy after a bronze original created by Polykleitos, c. 430 BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 85 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
43. Anonymous, Hermes Tying his Sandal, Roman copy after a Greek original created by Lysippos, 4th century BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 161 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
The Greek sculptor, Lysippos, was head of the school of Argos and Sicyon in the time of Philip and Alexander of Macedon. His works, some colossal, are said to have numbered 1500. Certain accounts have him continuing the school of Polykleitos; others represent him as self-taught. He was especially innovative regarding the proportions of the human male body; in contrast to his predecessors, he reduced the head size and made the body harder and more slender, producing the impression of greater height. He also took great pains with hair and other details. Pliny and other writers mention many of his statues. Among the gods he seems to have produced new and striking types of Zeus, the Sun-god and others; many of these were colossal figures in bronze. Among heroes he was particularly attracted by the mighty physique of Heracles. The Heracles Farnese of Naples, though signed by Glycon of Athens, and a later and exaggerated transcript, owes something, including the motive of rest after labour, to Lysippos. Lysippos made many statues of Alexander the Great, and so satisfied his patron, no doubt by idealising him, that he became the king’s court sculptor; the king and his generals provided numerous commissions. Portraits of Alexander vary greatly, and it is impossible to determine which among them go back to Lysippos.
As head of the great athletic school of Peloponnese, Lysippos naturally sculptured many athletes; a figure by him of a man scraping himself with a strigil was a great favourite of the Romans in the time of Tiberius; it has usually been regarded as the original copied in the Apoxyomenos of the Vatican (fig 55).
44. Anonymous, Apollo Sauroktonos, Hellenistic copy after a Greek original created by Praxiteles, 4th century BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 149 cm. Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican.
45. Anonymous, Venus and Cupid, Roman copy after a Greek original, 4th century BCE.
Restored at the end of the 17th century CE by Alessandro Algardi. Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 174 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Aphrodite became a common subject for Greek sculptors in the 4th century BCE and later, because her renowned beauty provided an acceptable excuse for an erotic representation of the female body. She is sometimes shown, as here, with her son Eros, known to the Romans as Cupid, and in later art as “putti,” the winged babies symbolising earthly and divine love. In Roman art and mythology, Aphrodite became Venus, goddess of love. To the Romans she had a more elevated status, seen as the progenitor of the line of Caesar, Augustus, and the Julio-Claudian emperors, and by extension, as an embodiment of the Roman people. This playful depiction of Aphrodite and Eros, or Venus and Cupid, is more suggestive of the Greek view of Aphrodite, who saw her not only as the symbol of sensual beauty, but also as occasionally silly and humorous.
46. Anonymous, Wounded Amazon, Roman copy after a Greek original created by Polykleitos, c. 440–430 BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble, height: 202 cm. Musei Capitolini, Rome.
47. Anonymous, Aphrodite of Knidos, copy after a Greek original created by Praxiteles, c. 350 BCE.
Ancient Greek. Marble. Museo Pio Clementino, Vatican.
Greek sculptor, Praxiteles of Athens, the son of Cephissodotus, is considered the greatest of the 4th century BCE Attic sculptors. He left an imperishable mark on the history of art.
Our knowledge of Praxiteles received a significant contribution, and was placed on a satisfactory basis with the discovery at Olympia in 1877 of his statue of Hermes with the Infant Dionysos, a statue that has become world famous, but which is now regarded as a copy. Full and solid without being fleshy, at the same time strong and active, the Hermes is a masterpiece and the surface play astonishing. In the head we have a remarkably rounded and intelligent shape, and the face expresses perfect of health and enjoyment.
Among the numerous copies that came to us, perhaps the most notable is the Apollo Sauroktonos, or the lizard-slayer (fig. 44), a youth leaning against a tree and idly striking with an arrow at a lizard, and the Aphrodite of Knidos of the Vatican (fig. 47), which is a copy of the statue made by Praxiteles for the people of Knidos; they valued it so highly they refused to sell it to King Nicomedes, who was willing in return to discharge the city’s entire debt, which, according to Pliny, was enormous.
The subjects chosen by Praxiteles were either human or the less elderly and dignified deities. Apollo, Hermes and Aphrodite rather than Zeus, Poseidon or Athena attracted him. Under his hands the deities descend to human level; indeed, sometimes almost below it. They possess grace and charm to a supreme degree, though the element of awe and reverence is wanting.
Praxiteles and his school worked almost entirely in marble. At the time the marble quarries of Paros were at their best; for the sculptor’s purpose no marble could be finer than that of which the Hermes is made.
48. Anonymous, Aphrodite of Knidos, Roman copy after Praxiteles,