DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0299
THE HERMES OF PRAXITELES.
263
sculptor rejoice in sinuosity of line, in the play of surface
light and shade, so fleeting, so unstable is the expression,
that we seem forced to confess this is a vision of the
lower earth only, the image of a shadow, a thing human,
not divine.
Perhaps if we turn to the life and times of Praxiteles,
and to the traditions respecting his other works, we may
feel more distinctly the character and, to our mind, the
defect of his genius. We have seen how the age of
Pheidias glowed with the fervour of the war of liberation.
This λvar was followed by another of very different
import; not a great national contest against an outside
foe, but a struggle—miserable, degrading, cruel, between
two sister states and their allies—a fight of Greek against
Greek, Athens against Sparta, the disastrous Pelopon-
nesian war. We may hope that Pheidias died soon after
the war broke out, 431 B.C. ; about the close of the war
Praxiteles was born, and through his youth and early
manhood the bitter contest between Thebes and Sparta
went on. But it was no fight to fire a young man’s genius,
to fill his heart anew with a fresh faith in his country’s
gods ; rather it was enough to shake the firmest trust, to
sour the sweetest soul. It turned the best thoughts inward
from the state to the individual, from politics to philo-
sophy ; and in so doing it exalted the individual, his
thoughts, his emotions, even his passions ; he was no
longer to lose himself in serving his country, rather he
263
sculptor rejoice in sinuosity of line, in the play of surface
light and shade, so fleeting, so unstable is the expression,
that we seem forced to confess this is a vision of the
lower earth only, the image of a shadow, a thing human,
not divine.
Perhaps if we turn to the life and times of Praxiteles,
and to the traditions respecting his other works, we may
feel more distinctly the character and, to our mind, the
defect of his genius. We have seen how the age of
Pheidias glowed with the fervour of the war of liberation.
This λvar was followed by another of very different
import; not a great national contest against an outside
foe, but a struggle—miserable, degrading, cruel, between
two sister states and their allies—a fight of Greek against
Greek, Athens against Sparta, the disastrous Pelopon-
nesian war. We may hope that Pheidias died soon after
the war broke out, 431 B.C. ; about the close of the war
Praxiteles was born, and through his youth and early
manhood the bitter contest between Thebes and Sparta
went on. But it was no fight to fire a young man’s genius,
to fill his heart anew with a fresh faith in his country’s
gods ; rather it was enough to shake the firmest trust, to
sour the sweetest soul. It turned the best thoughts inward
from the state to the individual, from politics to philo-
sophy ; and in so doing it exalted the individual, his
thoughts, his emotions, even his passions ; he was no
longer to lose himself in serving his country, rather he