Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 25 - A-AUS.pdf/627

This page needs to be proofread.

muscles and of monstrous forms, which combine the limbs of men and of animals ; the measure and moderation which mark developed Greek art are as completely absent as are skill in execution or power of grouping. We engrave (Fig. 18) a small pediment in which appears in relief the slaying of the Lernsean hydra by Hercules. The hero strikes at the many-headed water-snake, somewhat inappropriately, with his club. lolaus, his usual com-

Fig. 18.—Athenian pediment: Herakles and Hydra. Athen. Mittheil. x. 237. panion, holds the reins of the chariot which awaits Hercules after his victory. On the extreme left a huge crab comes to the aid of the hydra. There can be little doubt that Athens owed its great start in art to the influence of the court of Pisistratus, at which artists of all kinds were welcome. We can trace a gradual transformation in sculpture, in which the influence of the Chian and other progressive schools of sculpture is visible, not only in the substitution of island marble for native stone, but in increased grace and truth to nature, in the toning down of glaring colour, and the appearance of taste in composition. A transition between the older and the newer is furnished by the well-known statue of the calf-bearer, an Athenian preparing to sacrifice a calf to the deities, which is made of marble of Hymettus, and in robust clumsiness of forms is not far removed from the limestone pediments. The sacrificer has been commonly spoken of as Hermes or Theseus, but beseems rather to be an ordinary human votary of the goddess. In the time of Pisistratus or his sons a peristyle of columns was added to the old temple of Athena; and this necessitated the preparation of fresh pediments. These were of marble. In one of them was represented the battle between gods and giants ; in the midst Athena herself striking at a prostrate foe (Fig. 19). In these

whose graceful though conventional forms, and delicate colouring, make them one of the great attractions of the Acropolis Museum. We engrave (Fig. 20) a figure which, if it be rightly connected with the basis on which it stands, is the work of the sculptor Antenor, who was also author of a celebrated group representing the tyrant-slayers, Harmodius and Aristogeiton. To the same age belong many other votive reliefs of the acropolis, representing horsemen, scribes, and other votaries of Athena. From Athens we pass to the seats of Dorian art. And in doing so we find a complete change of character. In place of draped goddesses Dor'a" and female figures, we find SCU P Ure‘ nude male forms. In place of Ionian softness and elegance, we find hard rigid outlines, strong muscular development, a greater love of and faithfulness to the actual human form—the influence of the palaestra rather than of the harem. To the known series of archaic male Pig. 20.—Figure of figures, recent years have added many Antenor, restored. examples. We may especially mention a series of figures from the temple of Apollo Ptoos in Boeotia, probably representing the god himself. Still more noteworthy are two colossal nude figures of Apollo, remarkable both for force and for rudeness, found at Delphi, the inscriptions of which prove them to be the work of an Argive sculptor. From Crete we have acquired the upper part of a draped figure (Fig. 21), whether male or female is not

Pig. 21.—Bust from Crete. certain, which should be an example of the early Daedal id school, whence the art of Peloponnesus was derived ; but we can scarcely venture to treat it as a characteristic product of that school; rather the likeness to the dedication of ISTicandra (Fig. 16) is striking. Next in importance to Athens, as a find-spot for works Fig. 19.—Pediment: Athena and giant. Athen. Mittheil. xxii. 3. of early Greek art, ranks Olympia. Olympia, however, figures no eye can fail to trace remarkable progress. On did not suffer like Athens from sudden violence, oiympia, about the same level of art are the charming statues of and the explorations there have brought to light Sparta, votaresses of Athena, dedicated to her, which were set up a continuous series of remains, beginning with Selinus. in the latter half of the 6th century in the acropolis, the bronze tripods of the geometric age already mentioned, S. L —73