DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2532#0218
168
MAEBLE STATUARY FROM THE HERAEUM
Cicero1 praises them for their supreme grace (eximia venustate), while Symmachus2
mentions them, together with the Zeus of Phidias and the famous cow of Myron, as
the most famous works of art in existence. If Polycleitus, whose fame was established
long before the Erechtheum was built, created a type of maiden carrying some object
on her head, a work of world-wide fame, is it not more likely that the inferior Attic
sculptor who fashioned these maidens for the Erechtheum should be influenced by such
a type than that the Argive sculptor should borrow
his type from the later Erechtheum ?
If there was such Polycleitan influence in Attic
works of the second half of the fifth century, there
might certainly also have been, and there most
probably was, a certain Attic influence in Argive
work. Even so great an artist as Polycleitus could
not fail to be affected by the technical advance
made by Phidias and the great sweep of his artistic
genius. We can thus trace the influence of the
technical progress made by the Van Eycks in oil-
painting through Antonello da Messina in nearly
all the great Italian masters; the artistic spirit of
a Diirer even is modified by his travels in Italy;
even a Giorgione and a Titian are not to be wholly
explained by the specifically Venetian current of
artistic growth; Raphael is affected by Michael
Angelo; Francia, even at an advanced age, by
Raphael; Mabuse the Fleming by Italian art;
Rubens expands his genius after his stay in Italy
and Spain ; so Van Dyck and so many others. But
these alien influences do not extirpate or hide the
strong original and native " style " if it ever was
the direct expression of a marked and vital artistic personality.
So, too, Avhile recognizing the strongly surviving " Doryphorus" element in the
youths' heads from our metopes, we see certain changes from the severer bronze technique
as manifested in the head of the Polycleitan Doryphorus (Fig. 86), especially in the
treatment of the hair. This is no doubt due, in the first instance, to the change in
material, and consequently in technique, from bronze to marble. Polycleitus, more-
over, was chiefly noted as a bronze-worker, while Phidias (though his chief works are
caelaturae) was more proficient in actual carving.3 But this must never lead us to
believe that the great sculptor and his thriving school were restricted in their work to
the one material, bronze, and could not extend their activity to the plastic decoration
of the great temple in which they were working, especially when we know that his Zeus
Pig. 86. — Head of the Doryphokus.
Ancient marble copy of the statue now in the
Museum of Naples.
1 Cicero, In Verr. IV. 3. 5. Erant aenea praeterea
[in the collection of Heius] duo signa, non maxima, verum
eximia venustate, virginali habitu atque vestitu, quae
manibus sublatis sacra quaedam more Atheniensium vir-
ginum reposita in capitibus sustinebant, canephorae ipsae
vocabantur. Sed earum artiflcem ? Quemnam ? Recte
admones, Polycletum esse dicebant.
2 Symmachus, Epist. I. 23 : Tune, inquies, audeas de
philosophis iudicare ? Licet alienas spectare virtutes :
nam et Phidiae Olympium Iovem et Myronis buculum et
Polycleti canephoras rudis ejus artis hominum pars magna
mirata est.
" Dionys. Halicarn. de Dinarclio 7 : . . . m»l irAao-rai
tk TIo\vk\€ltov iced y\v4>e7s TCt <J»ei5iou.
Aristot. Eth. Nicmn. VI. 7.: . . . ciiov OsiSiW \i8ovpybv
aotphv teal TIoKvk\€ltoi> av§piaVT0irm6v.
MAEBLE STATUARY FROM THE HERAEUM
Cicero1 praises them for their supreme grace (eximia venustate), while Symmachus2
mentions them, together with the Zeus of Phidias and the famous cow of Myron, as
the most famous works of art in existence. If Polycleitus, whose fame was established
long before the Erechtheum was built, created a type of maiden carrying some object
on her head, a work of world-wide fame, is it not more likely that the inferior Attic
sculptor who fashioned these maidens for the Erechtheum should be influenced by such
a type than that the Argive sculptor should borrow
his type from the later Erechtheum ?
If there was such Polycleitan influence in Attic
works of the second half of the fifth century, there
might certainly also have been, and there most
probably was, a certain Attic influence in Argive
work. Even so great an artist as Polycleitus could
not fail to be affected by the technical advance
made by Phidias and the great sweep of his artistic
genius. We can thus trace the influence of the
technical progress made by the Van Eycks in oil-
painting through Antonello da Messina in nearly
all the great Italian masters; the artistic spirit of
a Diirer even is modified by his travels in Italy;
even a Giorgione and a Titian are not to be wholly
explained by the specifically Venetian current of
artistic growth; Raphael is affected by Michael
Angelo; Francia, even at an advanced age, by
Raphael; Mabuse the Fleming by Italian art;
Rubens expands his genius after his stay in Italy
and Spain ; so Van Dyck and so many others. But
these alien influences do not extirpate or hide the
strong original and native " style " if it ever was
the direct expression of a marked and vital artistic personality.
So, too, Avhile recognizing the strongly surviving " Doryphorus" element in the
youths' heads from our metopes, we see certain changes from the severer bronze technique
as manifested in the head of the Polycleitan Doryphorus (Fig. 86), especially in the
treatment of the hair. This is no doubt due, in the first instance, to the change in
material, and consequently in technique, from bronze to marble. Polycleitus, more-
over, was chiefly noted as a bronze-worker, while Phidias (though his chief works are
caelaturae) was more proficient in actual carving.3 But this must never lead us to
believe that the great sculptor and his thriving school were restricted in their work to
the one material, bronze, and could not extend their activity to the plastic decoration
of the great temple in which they were working, especially when we know that his Zeus
Pig. 86. — Head of the Doryphokus.
Ancient marble copy of the statue now in the
Museum of Naples.
1 Cicero, In Verr. IV. 3. 5. Erant aenea praeterea
[in the collection of Heius] duo signa, non maxima, verum
eximia venustate, virginali habitu atque vestitu, quae
manibus sublatis sacra quaedam more Atheniensium vir-
ginum reposita in capitibus sustinebant, canephorae ipsae
vocabantur. Sed earum artiflcem ? Quemnam ? Recte
admones, Polycletum esse dicebant.
2 Symmachus, Epist. I. 23 : Tune, inquies, audeas de
philosophis iudicare ? Licet alienas spectare virtutes :
nam et Phidiae Olympium Iovem et Myronis buculum et
Polycleti canephoras rudis ejus artis hominum pars magna
mirata est.
" Dionys. Halicarn. de Dinarclio 7 : . . . m»l irAao-rai
tk TIo\vk\€ltov iced y\v4>e7s TCt <J»ei5iou.
Aristot. Eth. Nicmn. VI. 7.: . . . ciiov OsiSiW \i8ovpybv
aotphv teal TIoKvk\€ltoi> av§piaVT0irm6v.