Six Greek sculptors / by Ernest A. Gardner.

  • Ernest Arthur Gardner
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Six Greek sculptors / by Ernest A. Gardner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    297/448 page 175
    writers, though their results do not always agree. The external data for fixing the chronological sequence of the various statues are scanty. It has been suggested, for example, that Praxiteles’ work at Mantinea was contemporary with that of Cephisodotus at Megalo¬ polis, when, in 370 b.c., the cities of the Peloponnese were reorganised under Epaminondas. It has even been suggested that at this period Praxiteles may have fallen under the influence of the Polyclitan school, which may be seen in the modelling of his Satyr as cup-bearer. But it does not seem necessary to look outside Attica for the influences that affected the earlier work of Praxiteles. The Satyr, as we have seen, is based to a great extent on an earlier statue of an Athlete that is admittedly Attic, whether we assign it to the school of Myron or to Alcamenes. Again, the perfection of technique in the Hermes leads us naturally to assign it to the sculptor’s maturity; but here we must remember that we have to deal with an original, elsewhere often with copies that may either have lost the character of the original altogether, or have imported into earlier Praxitelean works certain characteristics that the master himself did not adopt until his later period. Where so much dispute is possible it has seemed safer to proceed from what is certain to what is uncertain, to study an original work before turning to copies, and well-attested
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