Praxiteles (/prækˈsɪtɪliːz/;Greek:Πραξιτέλης) ofAthens, the son ofCephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of theAtticsculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt thenudefemale form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture by Praxiteles is extant, numerous copies of his works have survived; severalauthors, includingPliny the Elder, wrote of his works; and coins engraved withsilhouettes of his various famous statuary types from the period still exist.
A supposed relationship between Praxiteles and his beautiful model, theThespiancourtesanPhryne, has inspired speculation and interpretation in works of art ranging frompainting (Gérôme) tocomic opera (Saint-Saëns) toshadow play (Donnay).
Some writers have maintained that there were two sculptors of the name Praxiteles. One was a contemporary ofPheidias, and the other his more celebrated grandson. Though the repetition of the same name in every other generation is common inGreece, there is no certain evidence for either position.
Accurate dates for Praxiteles are elusive, but it is likely that he was no longer working in the time ofAlexander the Great, in the absence of evidence that Alexander employed Praxiteles, as he probably would have done.Pliny's date, 364 BC, is probably that of one of his most noted works.
The subjects chosen by Praxiteles were either human beings or the dignified and less elderlydeities such asApollo,Hermes andAphrodite rather thanZeus,Poseidon orThemis.He probably invented theS-curve.
Praxiteles and his school worked almost entirely inParian marble. At the time the marblequarries ofParos were at their best; nor could any marble be finer for the purposes of the sculptor than that of which the Hermes from Olympia was fashioned. Some of the statues of Praxiteles were coloured by the painter Nicias, and in the opinion of the sculptor they gained greatly by this treatment.
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In 1911, theEncyclopædia Britannica noted that
Later opinions have varied, reaching a low with the sculptorAristide Maillol, who railed, "It'skitsch, it's frightful, it's sculpted inMarseille soap".[2] In 1948, Carl Blümel published it in a monograph asThe Hermes ofa Praxiteles,[3] reversing his earlier (1927) opinion that it was a Roman copy, finding it not 4th century either, but referring it instead to aHellenistic sculptor, a younger Praxiteles of Pergamon.[a]
The sculpture was located wherePausanias had seen it in the late 2nd century AD.[6]Hermes is represented in the act of carrying the childDionysus to thenymphs who were charged with his rearing. The uplifted right arm is missing, but the possibility that the god holds out to the child abunch of grapes to excite his desire would reduce the subject to a genre figure, Waldstein (1882) noted that Hermes looks past the child, "the clearest and most manifest outward sign of inward dreaming".[7]: 108 The statue is today exhibited at theArchaeological Museum of Olympia.
Opposing arguments have been made that the statue is a copy by a Roman copyist, perhaps of a work by Praxiteles that the Romans had purloined.[b] Wallace (1940) suggested a 2nd-century date and aPergamene origin on the basis of the sandal type.[9] Other assertions have been attempted by scholars to prove the origins of the statue on the basis of the unfinished back, the appearance of the drapery, and the technique used with the drilling of the hair; however scholars cannot conclusively use any of these arguments to their advantage because exceptions exist in both Roman and Greek sculpture.
Other works that appear to be copies of Praxiteles' sculpture express the same gracefulness in repose and indefinable charm as theHermes and the Infant Dionysus. Among the most notable of these are theApollo Sauroktonos, or the lizard-slayer, which portrays a youth leaning against a tree and idly striking with an arrow at a lizard. Several Roman copies from the 1st century are known including those at theLouvre Museum, theVatican Museums, and theNational Museums Liverpool.
On June 22, 2004, theCleveland Museum of Art (CMA), announced the acquisition of anancient bronze sculpture ofApollo Sauroktonos. The work is alleged to be the only near-complete original work by Praxiteles, though the dating and attribution of the sculpture will continue to be studied. The work was to be included in the 2007 Praxiteles exhibition organized by the Louvre Museum in Paris, but pressure fromGreece, which disputes the work's provenance and legal ownership, caused the French to exclude it from the show.
TheApollo Lykeios or Lycian Apollo, another Apollo-type reclining on a tree, is usually attributed to Praxiteles. It shows the god resting on a support (a tree trunk or tripod), his right arm touching the top of his head, and his hair fixed in braids on the top of a head in a haircut typical of childhood. It is called "Lycian" not afterLycia itself, but after its identification with a lost work described byLucian[10] as being on show in theLykeion, one of thegymnasia ofAthens.
TheResting Satyr of theCapitol atRome has commonly been regarded as a copy of one of the Satyrs of Praxiteles, but it cannot be identified in the list of his works. Moreover, the style is hard and poor; a far superior replica exists in a torso in theLouvre.[citation needed] The attitude and character of the work are certainly of Praxitelean school.
Excavations atMantineia inArcadia have brought to light the base of a group ofLeto,Apollo, andArtemis by Praxiteles. This base was doubtless not the work of the great sculptor himself, but of one of his assistants. Nevertheless, it is pleasing and historically valuable.Pausanias (viii. 9, I) thus describes the base, "on the base which supports the statues there are sculptured theMuses andMarsyas playing the flutes (auloi)." Three slabs which have survived represent Apollo; Marsyas; a slave, and six of theMuses, the slab which held the other three having disappeared.
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TheLeconfield Head (a head of the Aphrodite of Cnidus type, included in the 2007 exhibition at the Louvre)[11] in the Red Room,Petworth House,West Sussex, UK, was claimed byAdolf Furtwängler[12] to be an actual work of Praxiteles, based on its style and its intrinsic quality. The Leconfield Head, the keystone of the Greek antiquities at Petworth[13] was probably bought fromGavin Hamilton in Rome in 1755.
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TheAberdeen Head, whether ofHermes or of a youthfulHeracles, in theBritish Museum, is linked to Praxiteles by its striking resemblance to theHermes of Olympia. Dated between 325-280 BC, the statue, of which only the head is extant, would have been crowned with a metal wreath in his hair, for which the dowel holes survive.[14]
Aphrodite of Cnidus was Praxiteles's most famous statue. It was the first time that a full-scale female figure was portrayed nude. It was bought by the people ofCnidus, and according to Pliny valued so highly by them that they refused to sell it toKing Nicomedes in exchange for discharging the city's enormous debt. Many copies survive, theColonna Venus in theVatican Museums often having been considered the most faithful to the original.[15]
Its renown was such, that it was immortalised in a lyric epigram:
According toPausanias there was a statue of Artemis made by Praxiteles in her temple inAnticyra of Phokis.[16] The appearance of the statue, which represented the goddess with a torch and an arch in her hands and a dog at her feet, is known from a 2nd-century BC bronze coin of the city.[17] A recently discovered dedicatory inscription of the 3rd-2nd century identifies the goddess at Antikya as ArtemisEleithyia.[18]
Vitruvius (vii, praef. 13) lists Praxiteles as an artist on theMausoleum of Maussollos andStrabo (xiv, 23, 51) attributes to him the whole sculpted decoration of theTemple of Artemis atEphesus. These mentions are widely considered as dubious.[19]
Besides these works, associated with Praxiteles by reference to notices in ancient writers, there are numerous copies from the Roman age, statues of Hermes, Dionysus, Aphrodite, Satyrs and Nymphs, and the like, in which a varied expression of Praxitelean style may be discerned.[citation needed]
C'est pompier, c'est affreux, c'est sculpté du savon de Marseille.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Studies in Spartan Architecture, Sculpture and Topography. Presented to Ion A. Thompson
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Percy Gardner (1911). "Praxiteles". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 255–256.
