Mitchell, Lucy M.: A history of ancient sculpture (New York, 1883)

THE BABE DIOXYSOS. 443

and it is possible, that, in view of this lack of light, it was left thus incom-
plete. But even these unfinished parts are of interest, as teaching us that
Praxiteles used the same-shaped tools as those employed by sculptors of to-day.

To the quiet nude form of Hermes the master has wrought a wonderful
contrast, by the drapery hanging over his arm, and replete with broken lights
and shadows. How different from the treatment of the Parthenon drapery is
this of the god's mantle, dropped carelessly at his side ! The fluted edge has
disappeared, to give place to a border sewed in with regular seam by skilful
hands ; and the simplicity of the former folds has given place to intricacy and
almost superabundance of details, which seem well-nigh photographic in their
truthfulness. In the Parthenon sculptures, the large folds pass one into the
other without those sharp and angular breaks which arc caused by the natural
weight of the material when left to fall loosely. Such breaks, or eyes (occlii,
as they are called by the Italians, and well illustrated in Diirer's drawings),
appear, as the rule, in Hermes' drapery, showing a conscious and thorough
departure from the older, simpler treatment. Besides, the surface is enlivened
with innumerable wrinkles, enhancing its intensely real character, and height-
ening still more the beauty of the rounded and gently flowing lines of the
god's strong form.

But what a contrast to Hermes' well-proportioned frame, soulful face, and
natural hair, is the babe Dionysos. Although, as compared with the god's ma-
ture shape, the child is disproportionately small; yet his form does not express
early infancy. In nature the head of infancy is large as compared with the
body; but here it is small, and covered by archaic regular locks, falling in even
lines from the crown, and bound about with a band near the forehead. The
face is childlike, but has not the chubby, fat cheeks of babyhood. Besides,
the form is firm and muscular, like that of adults, and the drapery about the
limbs like that worn by older gods. Altogether, in this babe, form, face, and
drapery are ungainly and quaint. These peculiarities involuntarily call to mind
a similar feature of early Italian art, in which the beautiful Madonna is often
coupled with a Christ-child of crude and archaic form. Even Raphael's Christ-
child, in his early pictures, does not reach the tender, perfect bloom of the babe
in his later works, as in the Delia Sedia, or the Sistina. How to explain simi-
lar peculiarities in the Hermes group, and still have it keep the high place it
has won in our affections, Brunn best teaches us by tracing with masterly hand
the gradual unfolding of Praxiteles' genius.839 He reminds us, that, while we
are rapt in wonder before Raphael's Sistina, we do not forget his Sposalizio ;
and that, indeed, by some, the budding, tender, timid beauty of the Sposalizio
is preferred to the riper perfections of the master's later works. Thus, Brunn
believes, that, in this Hermes, many reminders of what had gone before com-
bine with a new and peculiar beauty to show us the work of Praxiteles' youth,
before his genius had fully enkindled with new fire the thoughts and forms