DOI Artikel:
Marshall, John Hubert: Of a head of a youthful goddess, found in Chios
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.44284#0100
90
J. Marshall, Of a head of a youthful goddess, found in Chios.
inal. — At any rate, Praxiteles who was at the trouble to differentiate plastically
in the eye itself the various phases of mood in a man, would know what is due to a
girl’s face, and if there be any truth in the text, rwv öcpOaXpwv to vypöv äpa tlu
cpaibpw Kai KexapicpLievw — an expression “soft, radiant and pleasant” was the most
notable beauty in the face of the Cnidian Aphrodite. I cannot think of words which
better describe this head from Chios.
To revert for a moment to the difficulty of such work. The Leconfield Aphro-
dite, the well-known head from Pergamon and the Aphrodite in Boston are of
large, the Medicean of moderate, size. All are works by Very considerable artists.
They all show the evanescent treatment, but none of them needed and to none was
given, an evanescence so fine as that seen in the present work. Contrast with them
the large head of a woman in the Central Museum, Athens (from Smyrna, No. 362,
in Cavvadias 363). This goes much further than they, but, as contrasted with them,
its modelling is vague: its maker in fact has so far blundered that his result is unin-
telligible without colour (cf. Pfuhl, Röm. Mitteil. XIX 1904, 9). The head in Vienna
of an Hermaphrodite (von Schneider, Album T. VIII) is not, strictly speaking, similar,
but it illustrates how risky in works of considerable size are attempts to get im-
pressionistic results in the eye without sure modelling.
It is therefore not surprising that the great majority of instances occur in heads
which are small and even very small. There the difficulties were not great and the
effect, sometimes, was charming. The general occurrence of such works implies,
as we have already argued, that the method had been developed in Athens, whilst
Athens was the common centre, still, of the Arts. A trick lay ready to hand by which
poor artists all the world over could achieve a Praxitelean effect on a small scale.
By neglecting a difficult precision of modelling, and keeping to an easy smoothness
of transition, they reached one thing at least — a general softness of effect, which
if it was not Praxitelean, at least resembled something which really was in the
works of Praxiteles.
Long after the Praxitelean movement had died away came the great age of
copies, made for the Roman market. Why in copies of Praxitelean heads, from the
Cnidian Aphrodite onwards, is there no evanescent treatment of the eyelids in the
männer of the Hermes? The question opens up the whole subject of copying and
cannot be dealt with here. That I hope to discuss later. Meanwhile, to take the
copies of the Cnidian Aphrodite, which alone or mainly concerns us, it may be
asserted, in spite of their extraordinary clifferences, that they were made as every
other full-size copy was made, by measurements and pointings taken on a cast.
That the town was jealous of its statue is certain; that casting could not improve
its appearance and might cause irreparable damage to the colour, is to be
acknowledged; that local patriotism would oppose its being cast, is highly
probable. The mould might have to be taken hastily, almost surreptitiously; in
clay, therefore, rather than in plaster12); but cast the statue was. Then casts,
I2) The differences between the Kaufmann head
and that of the Vatican statue seem to imply
a shrinkage of the mould from which the latter
was taken. So of the two casts of the Leconfield
J. Marshall, Of a head of a youthful goddess, found in Chios.
inal. — At any rate, Praxiteles who was at the trouble to differentiate plastically
in the eye itself the various phases of mood in a man, would know what is due to a
girl’s face, and if there be any truth in the text, rwv öcpOaXpwv to vypöv äpa tlu
cpaibpw Kai KexapicpLievw — an expression “soft, radiant and pleasant” was the most
notable beauty in the face of the Cnidian Aphrodite. I cannot think of words which
better describe this head from Chios.
To revert for a moment to the difficulty of such work. The Leconfield Aphro-
dite, the well-known head from Pergamon and the Aphrodite in Boston are of
large, the Medicean of moderate, size. All are works by Very considerable artists.
They all show the evanescent treatment, but none of them needed and to none was
given, an evanescence so fine as that seen in the present work. Contrast with them
the large head of a woman in the Central Museum, Athens (from Smyrna, No. 362,
in Cavvadias 363). This goes much further than they, but, as contrasted with them,
its modelling is vague: its maker in fact has so far blundered that his result is unin-
telligible without colour (cf. Pfuhl, Röm. Mitteil. XIX 1904, 9). The head in Vienna
of an Hermaphrodite (von Schneider, Album T. VIII) is not, strictly speaking, similar,
but it illustrates how risky in works of considerable size are attempts to get im-
pressionistic results in the eye without sure modelling.
It is therefore not surprising that the great majority of instances occur in heads
which are small and even very small. There the difficulties were not great and the
effect, sometimes, was charming. The general occurrence of such works implies,
as we have already argued, that the method had been developed in Athens, whilst
Athens was the common centre, still, of the Arts. A trick lay ready to hand by which
poor artists all the world over could achieve a Praxitelean effect on a small scale.
By neglecting a difficult precision of modelling, and keeping to an easy smoothness
of transition, they reached one thing at least — a general softness of effect, which
if it was not Praxitelean, at least resembled something which really was in the
works of Praxiteles.
Long after the Praxitelean movement had died away came the great age of
copies, made for the Roman market. Why in copies of Praxitelean heads, from the
Cnidian Aphrodite onwards, is there no evanescent treatment of the eyelids in the
männer of the Hermes? The question opens up the whole subject of copying and
cannot be dealt with here. That I hope to discuss later. Meanwhile, to take the
copies of the Cnidian Aphrodite, which alone or mainly concerns us, it may be
asserted, in spite of their extraordinary clifferences, that they were made as every
other full-size copy was made, by measurements and pointings taken on a cast.
That the town was jealous of its statue is certain; that casting could not improve
its appearance and might cause irreparable damage to the colour, is to be
acknowledged; that local patriotism would oppose its being cast, is highly
probable. The mould might have to be taken hastily, almost surreptitiously; in
clay, therefore, rather than in plaster12); but cast the statue was. Then casts,
I2) The differences between the Kaufmann head
and that of the Vatican statue seem to imply
a shrinkage of the mould from which the latter
was taken. So of the two casts of the Leconfield