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

363

THE YOUNGER ATTIC SCHOOL.

FOURTH PERIOD.

FROM THE END OF THE PEL OP ONNESIA N
WAR TO THE ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER
THE GREAT OL. 94-111 (b.c. 404-336).

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE YOUNGER ATTIC SCHOOL.

It is customary with the historians of Greek art to represent the
period on which \vc enter at the end of the Peloponncsian war as
having little traceable connexion with the preceding Pcriclcan age.
Yet the dominant tendencies of the later school are manifestly the
logical sequence of those which prevailed in the preceding periods.
The development of Greek art, in its progress from youth to manhood
and decay, is perfectly organic and normal. It is indeed difficult to
trace the connexion between Phcidias, Myron, Polycleitus, &c. and the
corypluci of the new Attic school, Scopas and Praxiteles ; but we can-
not doubt that they form part of the same golden chain, though some
of the intermediate links arc hidden from us by the dust and ruins of
the Peloponncsian war. There is scarcely any characteristic of the
new period—whether political, religious or social—the germs, at least,
of which may not be seen before the Peloponncsian war; though, no
doubt, the fierce heat engendered in that terrible conflict did much to