DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9184#0303
28o
New Chapters in Greek History. LChap. IX.
Oenomaus group, is poor; that the drapery of the
figures is rendered in a shallow and feeble manner ;
that the faults of execution are numberless. Indeed,
an ordinary student of art will find, in an hour's study
of these figures, faults which in our day an inferior
sculptor would not commit. And, what it still worse'
to a modern eye, the figures are not only faulty, but
often displeasing, and the heads have a heaviness which
sometimes seems to amount to brutality, and are re-
pellent, if not absolutely repulsive.
That which repels the artist, attracts the archaeologist,
who is bound to explain how this character can attach
to sculptures from the most celebrated temple in Greece.
In seeking an explanation we have lighted on many
new truths. It has been suggested by Professor Brunn,
that the peculiarities of Olympian sculpture arise from
the circumstance that both Paeonius and Alcamenes
were trained in the peculiar schools of Northern Greece.
Others have fancied that these two artists only furnished
the designs for the pedimental groups, and that these
designs were very much marred in the execution by the
clumsiness of the Peloponnesians who were employed
as craftsmen. It can scarcely be doubted that there
is much truth in this latter part of the theory, and we
may safely lay to the credit of unskilled stone-masons
the smaller defects of the pedimental sculptures. But,
even then, the artist who designed the Chariot-contest
can scarcely be acquitted of jejunencss and poverty,
and he who designed the Combat of Centaurs sins quite
as deeply in the direction of excess of strain and de-
ficiency in sobriety. In fact, the composition as well as
the execution is of provincial character, and the safest
plan is absolutely to reject Pausa'nias' assignment of the
pediments to Alcamenes and Paeonius, and to suppose
that they are entirely due to a local school of sculpture.
New Chapters in Greek History. LChap. IX.
Oenomaus group, is poor; that the drapery of the
figures is rendered in a shallow and feeble manner ;
that the faults of execution are numberless. Indeed,
an ordinary student of art will find, in an hour's study
of these figures, faults which in our day an inferior
sculptor would not commit. And, what it still worse'
to a modern eye, the figures are not only faulty, but
often displeasing, and the heads have a heaviness which
sometimes seems to amount to brutality, and are re-
pellent, if not absolutely repulsive.
That which repels the artist, attracts the archaeologist,
who is bound to explain how this character can attach
to sculptures from the most celebrated temple in Greece.
In seeking an explanation we have lighted on many
new truths. It has been suggested by Professor Brunn,
that the peculiarities of Olympian sculpture arise from
the circumstance that both Paeonius and Alcamenes
were trained in the peculiar schools of Northern Greece.
Others have fancied that these two artists only furnished
the designs for the pedimental groups, and that these
designs were very much marred in the execution by the
clumsiness of the Peloponnesians who were employed
as craftsmen. It can scarcely be doubted that there
is much truth in this latter part of the theory, and we
may safely lay to the credit of unskilled stone-masons
the smaller defects of the pedimental sculptures. But,
even then, the artist who designed the Chariot-contest
can scarcely be acquitted of jejunencss and poverty,
and he who designed the Combat of Centaurs sins quite
as deeply in the direction of excess of strain and de-
ficiency in sobriety. In fact, the composition as well as
the execution is of provincial character, and the safest
plan is absolutely to reject Pausa'nias' assignment of the
pediments to Alcamenes and Paeonius, and to suppose
that they are entirely due to a local school of sculpture.