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Perry, Walter Copland
Greek and Roman sculpture: a popular introduction to the history of Greek and Roman sculpture — London, 1882

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0262

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226 THE SCULPTURES OF THE TEMPLE OF ZEUS.

discovered. Of the remaining four, viz. Cerberus—the Keryneian

Hind—-the Amazon—and the Mares of Diomede, we have more or less

considerable fragments.

The best preserved of all is the so-called Atlas metope (Germ.

discov.).1 In this, the most perfect of all the metopes, Heracles (fig. 87)

is represented standing with his neck—on which is a cushion—bowed

by the weight of the superincumbent world, here represented by the

- 0. sima or cornice of the building.2

Fig. 87. b

Atlas stands before him holding
out the apples of the Hesperides,
three in each hand, to the labour-
ing hero, who is unable to take
them. The artist seems to follow
the myth, which represents Atlas
as unwilling to resume his eternal
burden. Behind Heracles stands
a maiden, probably a Hcsperid,
who touches the cushion with
her left hand, as if desirous of
aiding the overburthened hero in
his tremendous task.3

The nude figures of this
group are of great excellence, and
show the careful hand of an artist trained, after the manner of the
Peloponnesian school, in close attention to the general proportions
of the human form, and to anatomical detail. The head of Heracles
is that of a Peloponnesian athlete, and may fairly be regarded as the
prototype from which the Diadumenos' head of Polyclcitus was
evolved.4

The Hcsperid makes a less favourable impression, partly be-

IIERACLES, ATLAS, AND HESFIiRID.

1 In the following description, the abbrc- 3 See the beautiful copy of this metope in

viations Fr. and Germ, will be used to show Ausgrabungcn zu Olympia, vol. i. taf. 26,

by which expedition a metope, or a part of a and the interesting treatise of E. Curtius,

metope, was discovered. tfttlkeilungen des AH. Inst. i. taf. II, p.

* Pausanias (v. 10. 9) mistook the position 206.

of the figures. lie says, (cal "ArKavrus ti ri> ' Brunn, Die Sculptural von Olympia, p.

<p6pr)na e'xSe'xeo-Oai MeAAaie. '4> I°77-
 
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