DOI article:
No. II: Praxiteles ant the Hermes with the infant Dionysos
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11444#0413
II.]
APPENDIX.
377
the prefect of Egypt from 26 to 24 b.c. ; another made the portrait of
the proconsul Cn. Acerronius Proclus (Consul 37 a.d.). These facts,
Benndorf maintains, go so far as to show a possibility that the sculptor
of the Hermes was not the Praxiteles. (Dr Klein supports Benndorf's
theory and develops it still further.) Lysippian elements, which
Benndorf believes he has discovered in the Hermes, and which we
shall consider hereafter, drive him to insist upon the probability that
the Hermes is the work of the supposed grandson of Praxiteles, who
was not exempt from the influence of the renowned sculptor Lysippos,
who flourished a generation before him. I shall merely remark here,
a point which has already been noticed by Dr Treu (Der Hermes mit
de?n Dionysos Knaben, etc., Berlin, 1878), that Lysippos might have
been, and I say most probably was, influenced by the work of Praxiteles
in the constitution of his canon of human proportions.
The simplest answer to all these objections is, that if Pausanias had
meant one of the less famous sculptors of the name, he would have
added some attribute or mark of distinction; while, whenever he uses
the name without any distinctive attribute he means the great Praxiteles.
Analogous cases in ancient and modern times are present to us all.
We must furthermore bear in mind the context of the passage in
Pausanias. Pausanias tells us before, that several of the statues are of
poor workmanship, and that the sculptors of several of the others are
not known; in strong antithesis, as it were, he then mentions a statue,
both excellent in work and identified with regard to its author, and
tells us that this is a work of Praxiteles, seeming to imply thereby,
that being a work of the Praxiteles it must be excellent. The more
instances of the recurrence of the same name Benndorf enumerates, the
more he fails to disprove the present case being applicable to the great
sculptor; and the more does he manifest the need for Pausanias to have
specified whom he meant if he did not mean the Praxiteles. Prof.
Benndorf himself furnishes the best illustration in his enumeration of the
Praxiteles pedigree. He there specifies each individual, and only uses
the name alone when he means the famous Praxiteles'.
1 The word r^x">7 used to indicate the sculptor in the passage of Pausanias (r^x"'?
Si tart Upa^iT(\ovs), instead of the more common Ipyov, or the verbal form iiroUi,
iwol^ae, i-iroyae, etc., has also been used to throw some doubt upon the assertion
whether this strictly meant that this was a work from the hand of Praxiteles.
G. Hirschfeld (Titiili slatuarum sculptorumque Graccorum, etc., Berlin, 187r),
supposes that rixvV was a later Greek form, influenced by the Roman term opus
(Illae autem inscriptiones ex Romanorum usu potius quam ex Graecorum conformatae
sunt. Cf. opus Phidiae, opus Praxitelis, etc.). Opus does frequently occur in this
APPENDIX.
377
the prefect of Egypt from 26 to 24 b.c. ; another made the portrait of
the proconsul Cn. Acerronius Proclus (Consul 37 a.d.). These facts,
Benndorf maintains, go so far as to show a possibility that the sculptor
of the Hermes was not the Praxiteles. (Dr Klein supports Benndorf's
theory and develops it still further.) Lysippian elements, which
Benndorf believes he has discovered in the Hermes, and which we
shall consider hereafter, drive him to insist upon the probability that
the Hermes is the work of the supposed grandson of Praxiteles, who
was not exempt from the influence of the renowned sculptor Lysippos,
who flourished a generation before him. I shall merely remark here,
a point which has already been noticed by Dr Treu (Der Hermes mit
de?n Dionysos Knaben, etc., Berlin, 1878), that Lysippos might have
been, and I say most probably was, influenced by the work of Praxiteles
in the constitution of his canon of human proportions.
The simplest answer to all these objections is, that if Pausanias had
meant one of the less famous sculptors of the name, he would have
added some attribute or mark of distinction; while, whenever he uses
the name without any distinctive attribute he means the great Praxiteles.
Analogous cases in ancient and modern times are present to us all.
We must furthermore bear in mind the context of the passage in
Pausanias. Pausanias tells us before, that several of the statues are of
poor workmanship, and that the sculptors of several of the others are
not known; in strong antithesis, as it were, he then mentions a statue,
both excellent in work and identified with regard to its author, and
tells us that this is a work of Praxiteles, seeming to imply thereby,
that being a work of the Praxiteles it must be excellent. The more
instances of the recurrence of the same name Benndorf enumerates, the
more he fails to disprove the present case being applicable to the great
sculptor; and the more does he manifest the need for Pausanias to have
specified whom he meant if he did not mean the Praxiteles. Prof.
Benndorf himself furnishes the best illustration in his enumeration of the
Praxiteles pedigree. He there specifies each individual, and only uses
the name alone when he means the famous Praxiteles'.
1 The word r^x">7 used to indicate the sculptor in the passage of Pausanias (r^x"'?
Si tart Upa^iT(\ovs), instead of the more common Ipyov, or the verbal form iiroUi,
iwol^ae, i-iroyae, etc., has also been used to throw some doubt upon the assertion
whether this strictly meant that this was a work from the hand of Praxiteles.
G. Hirschfeld (Titiili slatuarum sculptorumque Graccorum, etc., Berlin, 187r),
supposes that rixvV was a later Greek form, influenced by the Roman term opus
(Illae autem inscriptiones ex Romanorum usu potius quam ex Graecorum conformatae
sunt. Cf. opus Phidiae, opus Praxitelis, etc.). Opus does frequently occur in this