DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9188#0042
30
The Lamps of Greek Art
Aphrodite of Praxiteles is remarkably free from all attempt
at sensuous attraction, or self-consciousness. Solid, noble, and
stately in form, she is a type or model rather than an individual.
Later sculptors, it is true, departed from this line of simple
harmoniousness, and tried to make the figure more attractive
to the average man. But it does not become weak, and it does
not become vulgar. The noble Aphrodites of the fourth
century have fixed the type of female beauty in school after
school of artists down to our own time.
This ideal is perhaps for us best incorporated in the Aphro-
dite of Melos in the Louvre, a work of the Hellenistic age,
combining with the great fourth-century tradition a perfection
of detail and an informing life which belong to a later time.
But while most people of taste profess a devotion to her, that
devotion is usually untinged by knowledge or real appreciation ;
for there could hardly be a greater contrast than that between
the bodily forms of the Goddess of Melos and those of the
women who are most admired in our days. I was almost
disposed to figure side by side the Goddess and the bodily
forms which figure in our fashion plates. The fashion plates
do not represent women as they are, but as they would like
to be ; they represent not the actual, but the modern ideal.
And what an ideal !
Some readers may smile at the notion of taking seriously
these ephemeral productions. But no one would take them
lightly who was familiar with the facts of psychology. We well
know that when certain types of women are set constantly
before the rising generation as beautiful and to be imitated
they will necessarily exercise a great influence on the future
of the race. Young men will look out for such types to admire
and to couTt : young women will try to resemble them. The
hideous mistake in aesthetics will exercise a constant dragging
power, pulling the young away from the light and the air of
heaven towards the caves of evil spirits.
The Lamps of Greek Art
Aphrodite of Praxiteles is remarkably free from all attempt
at sensuous attraction, or self-consciousness. Solid, noble, and
stately in form, she is a type or model rather than an individual.
Later sculptors, it is true, departed from this line of simple
harmoniousness, and tried to make the figure more attractive
to the average man. But it does not become weak, and it does
not become vulgar. The noble Aphrodites of the fourth
century have fixed the type of female beauty in school after
school of artists down to our own time.
This ideal is perhaps for us best incorporated in the Aphro-
dite of Melos in the Louvre, a work of the Hellenistic age,
combining with the great fourth-century tradition a perfection
of detail and an informing life which belong to a later time.
But while most people of taste profess a devotion to her, that
devotion is usually untinged by knowledge or real appreciation ;
for there could hardly be a greater contrast than that between
the bodily forms of the Goddess of Melos and those of the
women who are most admired in our days. I was almost
disposed to figure side by side the Goddess and the bodily
forms which figure in our fashion plates. The fashion plates
do not represent women as they are, but as they would like
to be ; they represent not the actual, but the modern ideal.
And what an ideal !
Some readers may smile at the notion of taking seriously
these ephemeral productions. But no one would take them
lightly who was familiar with the facts of psychology. We well
know that when certain types of women are set constantly
before the rising generation as beautiful and to be imitated
they will necessarily exercise a great influence on the future
of the race. Young men will look out for such types to admire
and to couTt : young women will try to resemble them. The
hideous mistake in aesthetics will exercise a constant dragging
power, pulling the young away from the light and the air of
heaven towards the caves of evil spirits.