DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0488
452
OTHER WORKS OF PRAXITELES,
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
OTHER WORKS OF PRAXITELES.
30. Phryne at Thespiae.' We arc told that the Cnidian Aphrodite
was moulded by Praxiteles after the model of Phryne. But no mere
portrait statue of Phryne could have moved so refined and critical a
race as the Athenians to the unbounded admiration which his work
excited ; nor would they have received it as an adequate represen-
tation of a deity in whose existence they still believed, if it had not
been an example of—
What mind can make when Nature's self would fail.
We could have no better proof of this than the fact that Praxiteles
dared to place the statue of Phryne by the side of Aphrodite, without
any fear that his countrymen would fail to recognise the immeasur-
able distance between a portrait and an ideal statue, between a lovely
woman and the Goddess of love.
31. Phryne in Delphi. Praxiteles made another statue of Phryne
in gilt bronze, which she herself offered at Delphi.2 It was executed
by order of her neighbours, and set up on a pillar between the statues
of Archidamus, King of the Lacedaemonians, and of Philip, son of
Amyntas, and it bore the inscription, fypupij 'EttikXeovs (dscnrt'fCT).3
32. The Weeping Wife and the Laughing Harlot. Pliny4 mentions
a curious group by Praxiteles, ' expressing the different feelings of a
weeping matron and a laughing harlot,' and says that the latter was
supposed to be Phryne herself, triumphing over her legitimate rival
in the heart of the artist himself. But there is not the slightest
1 Pausnn. ix. 27. 5. Alcophron. Efist.
IraS- 3- Pint Amator. ix. 10.
s Pausan. x. 15. 1.
Allien, xiii. p, 591.
I'lin. n. ii. xxxiv. 70.
OTHER WORKS OF PRAXITELES,
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
OTHER WORKS OF PRAXITELES.
30. Phryne at Thespiae.' We arc told that the Cnidian Aphrodite
was moulded by Praxiteles after the model of Phryne. But no mere
portrait statue of Phryne could have moved so refined and critical a
race as the Athenians to the unbounded admiration which his work
excited ; nor would they have received it as an adequate represen-
tation of a deity in whose existence they still believed, if it had not
been an example of—
What mind can make when Nature's self would fail.
We could have no better proof of this than the fact that Praxiteles
dared to place the statue of Phryne by the side of Aphrodite, without
any fear that his countrymen would fail to recognise the immeasur-
able distance between a portrait and an ideal statue, between a lovely
woman and the Goddess of love.
31. Phryne in Delphi. Praxiteles made another statue of Phryne
in gilt bronze, which she herself offered at Delphi.2 It was executed
by order of her neighbours, and set up on a pillar between the statues
of Archidamus, King of the Lacedaemonians, and of Philip, son of
Amyntas, and it bore the inscription, fypupij 'EttikXeovs (dscnrt'fCT).3
32. The Weeping Wife and the Laughing Harlot. Pliny4 mentions
a curious group by Praxiteles, ' expressing the different feelings of a
weeping matron and a laughing harlot,' and says that the latter was
supposed to be Phryne herself, triumphing over her legitimate rival
in the heart of the artist himself. But there is not the slightest
1 Pausnn. ix. 27. 5. Alcophron. Efist.
IraS- 3- Pint Amator. ix. 10.
s Pausan. x. 15. 1.
Allien, xiii. p, 591.
I'lin. n. ii. xxxiv. 70.