Ancient art and its remains, or, A manual of the archaeology of art / By C.O. Müller.

  • Karl Otfried Müller
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ancient art and its remains, or, A manual of the archaeology of art / By C.O. Müller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    142/664
    up in the Grecian settlements in the east, and nowhere did a school of art of any repute attach itself to any of the courts. Comp. §. 154. On the trade of Sicyon with Alexandria in objects of art, Plut. Arat. 13. Athen. v. p. 196 e. Among others Bryaxis the Athenian (§. 128, 5. 168, 1) and Eutychides the Sicyonian (§. 158, 5} worked for Antioch. 1 147. Now it can admit of no doubt that the schools of art in Greece were in a flourishing condition, especially at the beginning of this period, and that the pure feeling for art which characterized the earlier times still continued long alive in individual minds nurtured by the models of the best 2 era. On the other hand, art must have experienced a detri- mental influence when the intimate union in which it had subsisted with the political life of free states was weakened, and on the contrary the pleasure and gratification of indi- 3 viduals prescribed as its great aim. It must have been led into many a devious path when it was called upon to gratify now the vanity of slavish-minded cities, now the freaks of splendour and magnificence of pampered rulers, and to pro- duce with expedition a great amount of showy workmanship for the pageantry of court-festivals. 2 Comp on the union of art with public hfe in republican times, Heeren Ideen iii, 1. s. 513. On the other hand, on the spirit of this period, Heyne, De genio sseculi Ptolemaeorum, Opusc. Acad. i. p. 114. 3 The character of these court festivals is shown in the description of that appointed by the 2d Arsinoe in honour of Adonis at Alexandria, under Ptolemy the 2d. Theocrit. xv. 112 sqq. Aphrodite and Adorns on couches in an arbour, where many little Erotes hovered around [auto- maticaUy, as at the festival at Florence in the Weisskunig; various au- tomata are mentioned in the sequel], two eagles soaring up with Gany- mede and the like. All composed of ivory, ebony, gold, magnificent tapestries, foliage, flowers and fruits. Comp Groddeck, Antiq. Versuche i s 103 ff.—Further, in the description of the pompa instituted by Ptol. II 'in honour of all the gods, especially Dionysus and Alexander, from Callixenus, ap. Athen. v. p. 196 sqq. Thousands of images, also colossal automata, such as the Nysa nine cubits in height. A (p«AAo? x^'^J'ovs^'^x^, kyxrou d'Koa, (as in the temple at Bambyce) l,ccyeyqc,^,uiuo; kx, Oictl^U^tvoj i'? Comp 5 150. Manso Vermischte Schriften u. §. 336 u. 400.—Also the pompa of Antiochus the Fourth, in which there were images o all gods! dions and heroes, regarding whom there was any legend, gilded for the most part, or clothed in drapery embroidered with gold. Polyb. xxxi, 3, 13. 1 148 To these external circumstances, brought about by the progress of political life, are to be added others which lay 11 thcTnternal life of art itself. Art appears on the whole to