DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5253#0461
CHAPTER XXIII.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION AND EARLIEST ATTIC SCULPTORS OF THE
FOURTH CENTURY B.C.
Changes in Attica at the Beginning of this Period.— Political Decline of Athens. — Condition of Attica
during Time of Alexander. — Private Patronage. — Attic Sculptors in Foreign Parts. — Influence
of Peloponnesian War. — New Elements in Society and Art. — Change in Character of Subjects.—
Susceptibility of Greeks to Impressions through the Eye. — Sculptors' Grasp of the Spirit of the
Times. — Kephisodotos. — His Works.— His Activity in Arcadia. — His Eirene. — Greater Em-
phasis of Emotion than in Pheidian Age. — Other Sculptors.
Could we be carried back to that time about the close of the fifth century
B.C., when such great Athenians as Pheidias, Sophocles, and Socrates had
passed away, we should find younger men rising to fill their places in carrying
on the great mission of Hellenic culture. We should find, that, as the fourth
century dawned, the gifted sculptor Scopas was gaining fame, and that Kephi-
sodotos, the father of the celebrated Praxiteles, was already in his prime, while
his greater son was probably in his infancy.
Although through such men the chain remained unbroken uniting the earlier
to the later times, yet great changes had come over the Greek state and people,
which should leave their impress on art. A destructive war between 431-405
B.C. had ravaged the land. Before its dire shadow passed over the sunny val-
leys of Greece, Athens, as we have seen, had been the proud ruler of the seas,
the political, as well as artistic, centre of the Greek world. Sparta, watching
her course with ill-disguised jealousy; Corinth hating her, because Athenian
war-ships hemmed in her commerce ; Doric Thebes, finding but little sympathy
with Ionian Athens; and even far-off Syracuse, joining its voice in the murmur
raised against her, — united in bringing on this terrible war ; its devastating
campaigns raging for full thirty years over unhappy Greece. Athens was
humbled ; her once proud navy shrank to mean proportions ; and, with the loss
of their head, a spirit of individual self-assertion was nursed among the dissev-
ered states. In the midst of her other troubles, Athens was visited, during the
Peloponnesian war, by the frightful plague, which counted among its victims
many of the greatest and best men, including Pericles himself. These calami-
ties could not fail to have a demoralizing effect upon the survivors. Agony
and despair engendered a spirit of selfishness. Through dread of contagion,
the well frequently neglected to care for their dying friends, and even omitted
427
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION AND EARLIEST ATTIC SCULPTORS OF THE
FOURTH CENTURY B.C.
Changes in Attica at the Beginning of this Period.— Political Decline of Athens. — Condition of Attica
during Time of Alexander. — Private Patronage. — Attic Sculptors in Foreign Parts. — Influence
of Peloponnesian War. — New Elements in Society and Art. — Change in Character of Subjects.—
Susceptibility of Greeks to Impressions through the Eye. — Sculptors' Grasp of the Spirit of the
Times. — Kephisodotos. — His Works.— His Activity in Arcadia. — His Eirene. — Greater Em-
phasis of Emotion than in Pheidian Age. — Other Sculptors.
Could we be carried back to that time about the close of the fifth century
B.C., when such great Athenians as Pheidias, Sophocles, and Socrates had
passed away, we should find younger men rising to fill their places in carrying
on the great mission of Hellenic culture. We should find, that, as the fourth
century dawned, the gifted sculptor Scopas was gaining fame, and that Kephi-
sodotos, the father of the celebrated Praxiteles, was already in his prime, while
his greater son was probably in his infancy.
Although through such men the chain remained unbroken uniting the earlier
to the later times, yet great changes had come over the Greek state and people,
which should leave their impress on art. A destructive war between 431-405
B.C. had ravaged the land. Before its dire shadow passed over the sunny val-
leys of Greece, Athens, as we have seen, had been the proud ruler of the seas,
the political, as well as artistic, centre of the Greek world. Sparta, watching
her course with ill-disguised jealousy; Corinth hating her, because Athenian
war-ships hemmed in her commerce ; Doric Thebes, finding but little sympathy
with Ionian Athens; and even far-off Syracuse, joining its voice in the murmur
raised against her, — united in bringing on this terrible war ; its devastating
campaigns raging for full thirty years over unhappy Greece. Athens was
humbled ; her once proud navy shrank to mean proportions ; and, with the loss
of their head, a spirit of individual self-assertion was nursed among the dissev-
ered states. In the midst of her other troubles, Athens was visited, during the
Peloponnesian war, by the frightful plague, which counted among its victims
many of the greatest and best men, including Pericles himself. These calami-
ties could not fail to have a demoralizing effect upon the survivors. Agony
and despair engendered a spirit of selfishness. Through dread of contagion,
the well frequently neglected to care for their dying friends, and even omitted
427