DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0322
MYRON AND CALAMIS.
289
another side of the altar is a gracefully draped goddess, perhaps Aphrodite.
In the form of Hermes, there is all the grandeur and breadth of a well-nigh
perfectly developed art, the hair and drapery alone betraying its origin before
the climax had been reached. That this grand fragment is not a late imitation
of some fine archaic original, but a genuine production of those old times,
appears, moreover, from the ornament happily preserved on the upper cornice
of the altar. Here there is still the restraint and extreme simplicity of old bor-
ders : while in archaistic reliefs, although attempts are made to give the human
figure in all its stiffness, in the borders the
artist revels in the full luxury of richly de-
veloped forms ; instance the well-known mar-
ble standard of the Dresden Museum, where
Apollo and Heracles contend for the sacred
tripod. Such works as this unpretending altar,
with its grandly conceived reliefs, calling to
mind somewhat the noble simplicity of figures
on the earlier red-figured vases, may, no doubt,
give us a very high idea of the attainments of
Attic art during the earlier half of the fifth
century B.C.
A few single statues discovered in Athens
show, moreover, that different streams of in-
fluence were probably here at work ; and it is
one of the great and absorbing problems of
modern archaeology to trace out these streams,
and their effects on the time to come. One of
these peculiar branches is represented by the figure of a boy discovered on the
Acropolis at Athens. This statue has been published with a keen discernment
of its peculiarities and affinities by Furtwiingler.520
Fig. 137. Relief of Hermes Criophoros. One
Side of an Altar found in Athens. Athens.
But there remain to be considered in Attica two masters of great impor-
tance, whose prime was in the first half of this century, — Calamis and Myron.
Calamis is not positively stated to have been a native of Athens; but this may
be inferred, since his works were principally there : and Praxias, his only scholar
mentioned, is called an Athenian. The fact that Calamis executed for Pindar a
statue of Zeus Amnion, which the poet dedicated in Thebes, must place his
age before Olymp. 85, when the aged poet died.521 Calamis' widely scattered
works were most varied in subject and material. No less than three statues 0!
Apollo are mentioned as coming from his hand. One of these, a bronze colos-
sus 13.72 meters (45 feet) high, and reported to have cost five hundred talents
(about six hundred thousand dollars), was in Apollonia on the Pontus, whence
•t was later removed to Rome. 5" Another was an Apollo Alexicacos (warder-
289
another side of the altar is a gracefully draped goddess, perhaps Aphrodite.
In the form of Hermes, there is all the grandeur and breadth of a well-nigh
perfectly developed art, the hair and drapery alone betraying its origin before
the climax had been reached. That this grand fragment is not a late imitation
of some fine archaic original, but a genuine production of those old times,
appears, moreover, from the ornament happily preserved on the upper cornice
of the altar. Here there is still the restraint and extreme simplicity of old bor-
ders : while in archaistic reliefs, although attempts are made to give the human
figure in all its stiffness, in the borders the
artist revels in the full luxury of richly de-
veloped forms ; instance the well-known mar-
ble standard of the Dresden Museum, where
Apollo and Heracles contend for the sacred
tripod. Such works as this unpretending altar,
with its grandly conceived reliefs, calling to
mind somewhat the noble simplicity of figures
on the earlier red-figured vases, may, no doubt,
give us a very high idea of the attainments of
Attic art during the earlier half of the fifth
century B.C.
A few single statues discovered in Athens
show, moreover, that different streams of in-
fluence were probably here at work ; and it is
one of the great and absorbing problems of
modern archaeology to trace out these streams,
and their effects on the time to come. One of
these peculiar branches is represented by the figure of a boy discovered on the
Acropolis at Athens. This statue has been published with a keen discernment
of its peculiarities and affinities by Furtwiingler.520
Fig. 137. Relief of Hermes Criophoros. One
Side of an Altar found in Athens. Athens.
But there remain to be considered in Attica two masters of great impor-
tance, whose prime was in the first half of this century, — Calamis and Myron.
Calamis is not positively stated to have been a native of Athens; but this may
be inferred, since his works were principally there : and Praxias, his only scholar
mentioned, is called an Athenian. The fact that Calamis executed for Pindar a
statue of Zeus Amnion, which the poet dedicated in Thebes, must place his
age before Olymp. 85, when the aged poet died.521 Calamis' widely scattered
works were most varied in subject and material. No less than three statues 0!
Apollo are mentioned as coming from his hand. One of these, a bronze colos-
sus 13.72 meters (45 feet) high, and reported to have cost five hundred talents
(about six hundred thousand dollars), was in Apollonia on the Pontus, whence
•t was later removed to Rome. 5" Another was an Apollo Alexicacos (warder-