DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4377#0152
•182 LION TOMB.
side, lying undermost, was as fresh as when it left
the hand of the artist. The body is couching,
the head turned round to the right, in the same
manner as the lion is frequently represented on
Greek coins. The entire animal has been sculp-
tured out of one block of Pentelic marble with
the exception of the fore-paws, which have been
united to the body by a joint. It must have fallen
in one solid mass, pitching forward on the fore-
paws, which have been broken off at the joint.
Part of the lower jaw, and of one hind-leg, are also
wanting. But these injuries detract but little from
the general effect; and the original design of the
artist is presented to the eye with a completeness
seldom to be met with in those examples of colossal
Greek sculpture which have been preserved to us.!l
No attempt is made to imitate the natural form
of the eye, in the place of which is a deeply-recessed
cavity.
It is a question whether eyes of metal, or of
vitreous paste, were inserted in these cavities, or
whether the deep shadows thus created under the
overhanging brows were not designed, when viewed
at a distance, to convey to the spectator an impres-
sion equivalent to that produced by the real eye.
Such a mode of representation by equivalents was
adopted by the ancient artists, whenever mere me-
chanical imitation failed to reproduce in art the
effect of an object in nature, and this is particularly
the case in the treatment of the eye, in the repre-
11 See Plate LXI, Lower View, which represents the lion after
it had been turned over.
side, lying undermost, was as fresh as when it left
the hand of the artist. The body is couching,
the head turned round to the right, in the same
manner as the lion is frequently represented on
Greek coins. The entire animal has been sculp-
tured out of one block of Pentelic marble with
the exception of the fore-paws, which have been
united to the body by a joint. It must have fallen
in one solid mass, pitching forward on the fore-
paws, which have been broken off at the joint.
Part of the lower jaw, and of one hind-leg, are also
wanting. But these injuries detract but little from
the general effect; and the original design of the
artist is presented to the eye with a completeness
seldom to be met with in those examples of colossal
Greek sculpture which have been preserved to us.!l
No attempt is made to imitate the natural form
of the eye, in the place of which is a deeply-recessed
cavity.
It is a question whether eyes of metal, or of
vitreous paste, were inserted in these cavities, or
whether the deep shadows thus created under the
overhanging brows were not designed, when viewed
at a distance, to convey to the spectator an impres-
sion equivalent to that produced by the real eye.
Such a mode of representation by equivalents was
adopted by the ancient artists, whenever mere me-
chanical imitation failed to reproduce in art the
effect of an object in nature, and this is particularly
the case in the treatment of the eye, in the repre-
11 See Plate LXI, Lower View, which represents the lion after
it had been turned over.