Praxitèle

Praxitèle (in Greek old Πραξιτέλης / Praxitélês ), born towards 400 av. J. - C., died before 326 av. J. - C., is as of Antiquity one of most famous the Greek sculptors. Varron writes as follows: “Thanks to the excellence of its talent, Praxitèle is not unknown so much to any man is cultivated little. ”

Its working life goes from 375 to 335 before J. - C. He is the first the female naked artist to have represented integral one in the great Greek sculpture.

Biography

One knows few things of the life of Praxitèle: one does not even know with certainty the year of his birth nor that of his death. The literary sources abound about it, but they are late: they do not go back to before third century BC

Pline Old the locates its floruit (apogee) at the time of the 104e Olympiad (i.e. in 364 - 361 av. J. - C.) and gives the sculptor Euphranor like his contemporary. This chronological beach is corroborated by a base of statue signed by Praxitèle, which carries the dedication of “Kléiokratéia, woman of Spoudias”: this Spoudias is known as the adversary of Démosthène in a plea which goes back to 361 av. J. - C. Pausanias quotes as for him “the third generation after Alcamène”, raises Phidias, for the group of Létoïdes of Mantinée. It is generally considered that Praxitèle was born towards 400 av. J. - C.

Family

Praxitèle itself proclaims Athenian citizen in a found inscription with Leuctres. He is probably the son of the sculptor Céphisodote, known for his statue of the Paix carrying the Richness , although filiation cannot be established with certainty: Praxitèle does not quote the name of his/her father in his signatures, and the floruit quoted by Pline for Céphisodote, the 102e Olympiad (i.e. 372 - 369 av. J. - C.). It is also possible that Céphisodote is not the father, but the father-in-law of Praxitèle.

The bond between Praxitèle and Céphisodote the Young person is attested by mentions of Plutarque and Pline, like on several inscriptions, which also quote another son, Timarchos. Pline locates to them floruit at the time of the 121e Olympiad (i.e. 296 - 293 av. J. - C.). It is generally estimated that Céphisodote the Young person is born towards 360 av. J. - C.. An inscription related to this last specifies that the family is resulting from the Dème of Sybrides (which one is unaware of the localization), of the Érechthéis tribe; one has however advanced that it referred to another family whose members would have borne the same name.

One loses the trace of the family of Praxitèle between 280 and 120 av. J. - C., then four inscriptions give a report on a portraitist named Praxitèle, credit in Athens during first century BC, perhaps a descendant of the sculptor of the 4th century.

Phrynè

The literature brings back a multitude of anecdotes binding Praxitèle to the courtesan Phryné: they are the only ones which provides biographical elements on the sculptor. However, it is difficult to disentangle the truth of the novel there.

The principal claim to fame of Phryné is to have inspired the Aphrodite de Cnide :

“, at the time of the festival of Éleusinies, and of that of Poséidon, withdrew its clothing and demolished its hair in front of all the assembled Greeks and plunged in the sea; according to it, Apelle painted the Aphrodite Anadyomène ; and the sculptor Praxitèle, his lover, carved on his model the Aphrodite de Cnide . ”

If one believes Pline of it, Praxitèle carries out two statues: one covered with a veil, the other naked one. People of the island of Cos come in its workshop choose the version vêtue, “finding it modest and severe”, while those of Cnide, in minor Asia, buy the stripped version.

Phryné would have also been the model of the Aphrodite de Thespies (of which the Venus of Arles would be a Roman copy), of a courtesan laughing and two portraits. The first of them is located at Thespies, its birthplace, at the sides of the Aphrodite . The other, out of gilded bronze, is devoted by Phryné itself to Delphes: it would have appeared between the king de Sparte Archidamos II and Philippe II of Macedonia, thus exciting the anger of the Plato ician Cratès. One wanted to recognize these portraits in the Aphrodite Townley , the head of Arles or in that of the Tower of the Winds.

In anecdote almost such a famous, Pausanias tells like it is made offer the Eros de Thespies : Praxitèle promises to him “most beautiful of its works” but refuses to specify of which it acts. A slave sent by it comes to warn the sculptor who his workshop is in flames; this one exclaims that all is lost if the Satyr and the Eros disappear. Thus Phrynè chooses the Eros, which it devotes in the temple of the god to Thespies. This anecdote, like that of the purchase of Aphrodites by people of Cos and Cnide, accredits the idea rather that Praxitèle worked in its workshop, in Athens, and that the purchasers came until him, than the reverse: the mention of a great number of works in minor Asia does not mean inevitably that the sculptor would have made a round there.

The list of the offerings which can be reconstituted in the literature makes it possible to outline an outline of chronology. Initially, Thespies is destroyed by Thèbes in 371 av. J. - C., the shortly after the Bataille of Leuctres, and is not rebuilt that in 338 av. J. - C. One supposes that Phrynè came to Athens after the destruction from its native city. The offering of the Eros would thus have been made between these two dates, in a city in ruins, whose only temples still functioned.

Phryné being re-elected for the astronomical prices that it practices, one wanted to see in this connection a proof of the fortune of the family of Praxitèle. The fact is added to it that Céphisodote the Young figure among the most fortunate Athenians: it pays six Liturgie S, kind of imposed patronage, including two only. Its principal first triérarchie (financing of a Trière supplements and its crew) is in 326 - 325 av. J. - C., date after which the name of Praxitèle disappears from the official documents: one deduced from it that Praxitèle had just died, bequeathing his fortune to his sons, which would have justified this exceptional imposition. In the case of Praxitèle, the sources are particularly numerous, which paradoxically hardly helps the work of the historian of Article principal literary testimonys are the Natural history of the Romain Pline Old the and the Description of Greece of the Greek Pausanias. The first approaches the work of the Greek sculptors in its sections relating to the work of metals (delivers XXXIV) and the stones (XXXVI deliver); the second describes in what resembles a guide of modern voyage works that he saw during his voyage in Greece.

The exploitation of these sources comprises important limits: their authors lived respectively with, i.e. four and five centuries after Praxitèle. Their lists of works are thus not necessarily exact, nor exhaustive. Then, the temptation of the surinterpretation is large, especially when the texts are vague or obscure. Thus, in a famous sentence, Pline enumerates works of Praxitèle which it names in Greek - a Catagūsam , “a satyr that the Greeks call periboētos ”, a Stephanūsa or a Pseliūmenē -, terms with the directions doubtful, perhaps badly transmitted by the handwritten tradition and which were thus interpreted, even amended, in a very diverse way.

On the whole, Praxitèle seems to have carved mainly effigies of divinities or hero: Eubouleus (the “Good Adviser”), Aphrodite, Apollo, Artémis, Dionysos, Eros, Héra, Hermes, Léto, of the Ménades, Méthè (Intoxication), of the Nymph S, Side, Peïtho (Persuasion), Poséidon, of the Satyr S, Triptolème, Tyché (Destiny), Zeus and twelve gods. As regards the human field, one knows to him Diadumène, a aurige and a warrior close to his horse, as well as the statues already mentioned: a “woman in tears”, a “courtesan laughing”, a stephanousa (woman with the crown), a pselioumene (woman with the bracelets?) and a canéphore. Its activity of portraitist is also well attested.

Its statues were installed:

in Greece even: in Athens, Delphes, Elect, Lébadée, Mantinée, Mégare, Messène, Olympie, Platées and Thespies, like on the island of Cos, in the Dodécanèse;
in minor Asia: with Alexandria de Carie, Cnide, Halicarnasse and Parion.

The corpus of the existing statues allotted to Praxitèle itself, attached to its school or its style recovers several tens of works. At the end of the 19th century, the historian of art Adolf Furtwängler counts 27 praxitéliens types; nowadays, Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway, partisane of an approach minimalist, even hypercritical, reduced this list with a single type, the Aphrodite de Cnide .

One follows here the typology retained by Alain Pasquier and Jean-Luc Martinez for the exposure Praxitèle organized to the Musée of Louvre in March - June 2007.

Originals?

We have of Praxitèle six bases of signed statues. Three of them are attached to women: Kléiokratéia girl of Polyeuktos, Archippè girl of Cléogénès and Chairippè girl of Philophron. One knows the latter which it is priestess of Déméter and Coré, and the two other bases probably come from this same temple, whose Praxitèle would have been to some extent a appointed portraitist. At all events, these inscriptions throw the light on a side of the work of Praxitèle little mentioned in the literature, which concentrates on its representations of divinities.

Several other works, generally little known of the general public, were allotted directly to the hand of the Master, but these conjectures seldom make consensus.

; The furnace bridge of Artémis to Éphèse and the Mausolée of Halicarnasse

Strabon allot to Praxitèle almost the totality of the carved decoration of the first; Vitruve the fact of taking part in the realization of the second at the sides of Léocharès, Bryaxis and Scopas. These two mentions are generally regarded as doubtful: in both cases, the little which remains monuments does not make it possible to check anything. Moreover, work with Halicarnasse poses problems of chronology; the letter Π engraved on four of the lions of the decoration of the mausoleum is undoubtedly insufficient to conclude: it could more simply be the mark of the architect, Pythéos de Priène.

; The Danseuses of Delphes

It is about a column coming from the North-East from the sanctuary from Pythien Apollo in Delphes, which was used to support a colossal bronze tripod. It carries the mark of the contractor Pantarkès d' Argos, whose activity is at the end of. The style of the figures in high relief which prolong the column can be to him gone back to 335 with 325 av. J. there - C. Two archeologists believed to read the name of the archonte éponyme, Hippodamas (thus dating the column of the year 375 av. J. - C.), and especially the signature of Praxitèle. However, no other specialist could confirm the existence of this inscription on base where it is supposed to be located.

; The beautiful young man of Marathon

This statue out of bronze, fished out in 1925 in bay of Marathon, represents an young man carrying an object (disappeared) with the left arm and claquant fingers of the raised right hand. It is attached to no statue mentioned by the old texts, but presents a remarkable resemblance to the Satyre pourer or the Hermes d' Olympie . On these considerations stylistics, and fault of a pushed technical analysis of bronze, one proposed to see an original of Praxitèle there itself, his workshop or one of his sons; others do not exclude that it is about a Roman bronze imitating the style of the second classicism.

; The Base of Mantinée

It acts of three panels in low-relief discovered with Mantinée in 1887 representative Apollon and Marsyas, a group of three Muses of which one sat on a rock, and another group of three Muses of which one holds a Cithare. It is possible that a missing panel represented another group of three Muses, thus increasing their full number with the traditional figure of nine. These three reliefs were identified as decorating the base with a group of divine statues of Praxitèle that Pausanias states to have seen precisely in Mantinée, representing “a MUSE and playing Marsyas of the double flute.

; The base of tripod of the archaeological National museum of Athens

Discovered in the street of the Tripods, in Athens, in 1853, this triangular base represents a Dionysos carrying a long chiton and two Victories. It was brought closer to another base discovered in the vicinity, in the theater of Dionysos, which carries the following inscription: “so formerly one offered them to the Hermes of the contests, these devoted gifts also agree for Nike (the Victoire), it that Praxitèle installed like parèdre with Bromios (Dionysos) in the glorious contest of the artists, under two tripods. ” One also proposed a resemblance between Dionysos and the type of Sardanapale formerly allotted to Praxitèle, like between draped Victories and that of the Muses of the base of Mantinée.

However, the works placed “under the tripods” are more probably of the statues in sculpture in the round, according to a device which one knows for example for Aphrodite armed with Amycléion de Sparte. The assumption was also put at evil by the discovery of a second specimen of the base, of identical size, and which dates from hellenistic recent, even of the Roman imperial time.

The Hermes and its wake

; Hermes carrying Dionysos child

the Hermes d' Olympie , one of the more known works allotted to Praxitèle and paradoxically the most discussed, was discovered in 1877 in the ruins of the temple of Héra to Olympie. Very quickly, it is brought closer to the Hermes carrying Dionysos child that Pausanias saw at the same place, mentioned as being “the work of Praxitèle”.

However, the statue present of many characteristics stylistics which return its dating, even its attribution dubious: original of Praxitèle? Works of its sons? Copies Roman of an original of Praxitèle? Original hellenistic without relationship with Praxitèle? The debate is all the more impassioned that the Hermes served and is used still largely as stone of key as the corpus praxitélien, to which one adds or cuts off from works according to whether they resemble or not the style of the Hermes .

; The Head Leconfield

Preserved at Petworth House, this head female representing Aphrodite was identified by Furtwängler as an original of Praxitèle on the basis of its resemblance to the Hermes d' Olympie . Indeed, modelled flesh, the Sfumato of the features, the hairstyle and returned hair place this head, which fit into the origin in a draped statue, at the end of fourth century BC the very great quality of execution also encourages to see in work an original rather than a copy. In the absence of literary or epigraphic testimony to which one could attach the head, attribution with Praxitèle remains however suspended with that of the Hermes .

; The Head Aberdeen

Preserved at the British Museum, this head male is even closer to the Hermes d' Olympie : it represents an young man of the same age; the features are the same ones - face inflated and crossed by a long furrow, inserted eyes, projecting arch of the eye brows; the two heads raise the same thoughtful glance and the same light smile. On the basis of this resemblance, one saw an Hermes there; identification with young Héraclès or with a Diadoque (Lysimaque?) was also proposed.

the attribution of the head divides the specialists, even if the majority lean in favor of an original. The partisans of a low dating of the Hermes place the head Aberdeen at hellenistic old (beginning of third century BC). Others see the hand of the Master there, but the comparison with the Hermes always does not turn to the advantage of the same work: one estimates that the head Aberdeen is lower than the Hermes whereas for the other, the higher quality of the first proves than the second is only one copy.

; The bust of Eubouleus

Found with Éleusis and preserved at the archaeological National museum of Athens, this bust represents an young man with broussailleuse hair, that Furtwängler recognized like the hero chtonien Eubouleus, associated with the Culte with mysteries éleusinien. However, a headless hermaïque pillar of the Musées of the Vatican carries the inscription Εὐϐουλεὑς Πραξιτέλους (“Eubouleus de Praxitèle”). This mention, and the similarity between the surface treatment of Eubouleus and that of the Hermes d' Olympie caused an attribution with the hand of Praxitèle itself.

However, as already Furtwängler announces it, the head of Éleusis does not belong to the hermaïque pillar: it comes from a draped complete statue transformed then into bust, and there exists of other specimens of the same type. In fact, the head poses several problems, to start with its subject: one suggested, rather than Eubouleus, his Triptolème brother by Léocharès or Bryaxis or, in very an other kind, Alexandre Large the. Fastening with the style praxitélien was also disputed. The modification of the bust not making it possible to be based in a sure way on its characteristics stylistics, prudence is probably of setting vis-a-vis attribution with Praxitèle.

Re-examined and corrected Praxitèle?

; The Tête Despinis

This female head colossal coming from the Acropole bears the name of the historian of the art George Despinis, which drew it from the anonymity of the reserves of the Musée of the ancient Agora of Athens to propose it as an original fragment of Artémis Brauronia that Pausanias gives to Praxitèle. A stylistic comparison with the Dancers of Delphes and the THEMIS de Rhamnonte enables him to date work from the end from, i.e. at the any end of the career of the Master. The principal objection against this assumption is that the head, the powerful and severe features, hardly resembles the idea that one has style praxitélien, impresses grace and of delicacy.

; The Satyre of Mazara del Vallo

This statue out of bronze was discovered in 1997 in the Canal of Sicily, between Malta and the Italy. It represents a drunk satyr dancing, the reversed head and the left leg violently raised behind, in a posture that one very frequently finds in the decorative productions néo-attics or Romans. One proposed to see an original of Praxitèle there on the basis of interpretation new of a passage of Pline mentioning “a satyr that the Greeks call periboētos , this word is traditionally translated by “famous”, and one identifies the work quoted by Pline with the Satyre at rest or the Satyre pourer.

the new assumption, founded on a passage of a speech of Plato, proposes the direction “which shouts with frenzy”, and notes resemblances stylistics between the Satyr and the Aphrodite de Cnide or the Apollon of Cleveland, a specimen bronzes some recently found Apollon sauroctone . The assumption was largely criticized, the style of the Satyre of Mazara being considered to be too foreign to that of Praxitèle.

Sure types

The types are presented by order of certainty, there still according to the classification of Pasquier and Martinez.

The Aphrodite de Cnide

The type is one of most famous of the Greek sculpture, and this as of Antiquity. Pline proclaims thus that “above all works, not only of Praxitèle, but of all the ground, it there in Venus: much made the voyage in Cnide to see it. ” For the first time in the large Greek statuary, it represents out of marble of Paros a woman - in fact, a goddess - entirely naked: upright, the goddess holds her coat of the left hand, while it carries the right hand in front of her sex.

Traditional interpretation wants that the goddess is represented as surprised with leaving the bath: if it is necessary to believe of them the epigram S of the Greek Anthologie, Praxitèle would have testified first hand: “Alas, alas! Where Praxitèle it saw me naked! ” the goddess in one of them exclaims. This interpretation was disputed: it would act, not of a scene of kind, but of true a Epiphany where nudity symbolizes the fertility and the erotic power of the goddess. Far from dissimulating her sex, Aphrodite would thus indicate it with her faithful.

The specimens of the type of Cnidienne are particularly numerous, the installation and details (hairstyle, support, etc) varying sometimes in a considerable way of the one with the other. Their fastening with the original work of Praxitèle is attested by the representation of the type on currencies of Cnide struck under the reign of Caracalla. Venus known as “of the View-point”, preserved in the reserves of the Museum Pio-Clementino at the the Vatican, is often regarded as nearest to the original taking into account its resemblance to these last.

Other sculptors types representing Aphrodite were also allotted to Praxitèle: the Venus of Arles, with half undressed, attached by Furtwängler to the first times of the sculptor, or Aphrodite Richelieu, vêtue of a chiton long and identified by the same author like the statue bought by people of Cos.

The Apollo sauroctone

Mainly represented by the Sauroctone Borghèse of Louvre, the type was brought closer to the mention by Pline of a “young Apollo, watching for with an arrow a lizard crawling, and that one calls sauroctone ”, supplemented by ancient Intaille S and currencies. One traditionally interprets the scene like an evocation on the minor mode of the combat between Apollon and the snake Python, continuation to which the god made of Delphes its territory. However, one does not include/understand well why Praxitèle would have thus chosen to gum the violence of the account: the gesture of Sauroctone remains still mysterious.

The identification was disputed for reasons stylistics: appearance gracile, even effeminate of the god, the hairstyle and the scene of kind would return rather at the time hellenistic. It is however accepted by the majority of the specialists.

Satyrs

The literature mentions with four resumptions of the satyrs of Praxitèle:

a “Satyr, work of Praxitèle, out of marble of Paros”, seen by Pausanias in the temple of Dionysos with Mégare;
a “Satyr of the street of the Tripods” seen by Pausanias with Athens, hero of the anecdote of the false fire to the workshop of Praxitèle, probably out of bronze, contemporary of a Eros ;
a “Satyr child” pouring of the wine with Dionysos, quoted by Pausanias following the mention of the satyr of the street of the Tripods;
a satyr bronzes some that, Pline specifies. The more daring dynamism of the Satyre at rest supports as for him a dating at the end of the career of the sculptor.

It was objected that the representation of a satyr alone - out of any narrative or allegorical context -, which more of natural size and is humanized, was not possible in Ronde-bosse at the time traditional. The Satyre pourer would be a hellenistic creation or even Roman transcribing in three dimensions of the known representations before on low-reliefs. As for the Satyr at rest , his head with the powerful features and leonine hair seems quite different from the known style of Praxitèle. Final, no argument makes it possible to take a decision for or against its fastening with the Master.

The corpus praxitélisant hellenistic and Roman

The father of Praxitèle, Céphisodote Old the, was him also sculptor, just as his two sons, Céphisodote the Young person and Timarchos. One knows also at least a disciple to him, Papylos. Temptation is large to allot to the workshop or wire a work of which the manner seems praxitélienne, but which does not coincide completely with the sculptor, for example for a question of dates. However, it is difficult to determine which could be the influence of a Master like Praxitèle on his immediate entourage and beyond, on the hellenistic sculpture then Roman.

Masculine representations

The influence of Praxitèle on the later sculpture especially was translated, for the naked masculines, by one hanchementprononcé and a thanks confining to mollesse and effemination, giving place to attributions with the Athenian Master more or less lifting. The Antinoüs of the View-point and the Hermes Andros, datable of old Hellénistique, remain rather close to Hermes d' Olympie by the treatment of the musculature, the installation and the conformation of the head. On the other hand, Dionysos Richelieu, with the underdeveloped muscles, fact allusion to Praxitèle without quoting a work specifies and is attached rather to the school known as “classicisante” of first century BC eclecticism is carried to its roof in recent Hellénistique in works of Pasitélès and its entourage, which mingle with the elements praxitélisants with memories of the severe style of fifth Of the same century BC, at the time Roman, the Groupe of Ildefonso associates the type of Sauroctone with the type of the Éphèbe Westmacott of Polyclète, distant of almost one century.

Eros

The literature allots two statues of Eros to Praxitèle. One is that known as “of Thespies”, implied in the anecdote of the false fire. Installed in the temple of Eros of this island, it is only worth with him, note Cicéron, the turning by a city which does not present notable attractions in addition. After several return tickets between Thespies and Rome, it is destroyed by a fire under the reign of Titus and is replaced by a copy. Furtwängler recognizes it in the type known as “of Centocelle”, largely recognized today like an eclectic work, borrowing in particular from Polyclète and Euphranor.

One also proposed the Farnèse-Steinhaüser type, already allotted to Praxitèle by Furtwängler on the basis of his resemblance to the Satyre pourer. This assumption proposes to join together the Eros de Thespies, the Farnèse-Steinhaüser type and description by Callistrate of an Eros, works of Praxitèle, seen in a place not specified. However, Callistrate insists on the skilful work of the bronze of its Eros whereas that of Thespies, according to Pausanias, is out of marble pentelic: it thus is not about the same work. In addition, the Eros de Callistrate holds an arc in the left hand whereas at the Eros Farnèse-Steinhaüser, the arc is reproduced on the support: there still, the identification must be abandoned.

The second Eros is that known as of Parion which, according to Pline, is as known as Aphrodite de Cnide itself and which is probably bronzes some, since quoted in the chapter relating to the work of metals. It was attached to currencies of Parion, struck reign of Antonin the Piles with that of Philippe the Arab, showing a winged figure resting against the right leg, the right hand extended the side and the folded left arm - representation which corresponds in its broad outlines to the Borghèse Genius of Louvre and other statues resulting from Cos and Nicopolis AD Istrum. However, the numismatic type includes/understands a coat thrown on the left shoulder which one does not find in any the statues. It was also objected that they differed too from/to each other to form a true type and that conversely, their common points found oneself in good of other dissimilar statues.

The Apollo lycian

This type, known by a hundred copies (statues and figurines) and currencies of first century BC, represents the god supported on a support (tree trunk or tripod) and the right-hand man folded up on the head; its hair is tied in braid on the top of the head, in a hairstyle characteristic of childhood. It is described as “lycian” because one identifies it with a disappeared work described by Lucien de Samosate like appear in the Lykeion , one of the Gymnase S of Athens.

No literary source attaches this type to Praxitèle, but attribution is traditionally proposed on the basis of its resemblance to the Hermes d' Olympie - a counterpart of Lycien spent a time for a copy of Hermes. The comparison rests primarily on what one a long time thought of being a specimen of Lycien: the Apollino (or Apollon Médicis ) of the Galerie of the Offices to Florence, whose head present of the proportions close to that of Aphrodite de Cnide and whose marked sfumato is in conformity with the idea that one had style of Praxitèle a long time.

However, the majority of the specimens of the type exhibent a marked musculature which hardly resembles the male types usually allotted to Praxitèle: one rather proposed to see there a work of Euphranor, his contemporary, or a creation of second century BC Apollino, as for him, would be an eclectic creation of the Roman epoch, mixing several styles with the second classicism.

Female representations

The praxitélienne influence in the female representation is initially felt via Aphrodite de Cnide. In the alternative of the Aphrodite of Capitole, her forms are more copious and its nudity, more provocante; the gesture of the two hands hiding the chest and the sex draws the attention of the spectator more than it does not hide. One also believed to recognize the style praxitélien in a certain type of draped and the hairstyle called “in melon coasts”, two characteristics derived from the Base of Mantinée.

Artémis

According to Pausanias” described like representative the goddess wrapped in a chitoniskos . It is known in addition that the worship of Artémis Brauronia comprised the dedication of clothing offered by the women.

Work was recognized a long time in the Diane de Gabies , a statue exposed to the museum of the Louvre which represents an young woman upright, equipped with a short chiton and fastening the Fibule of a coat on its right shoulder: the goddess would be shown approving the gift of her faithful. One also noted the resemblance of the head to that of the Aphrodite de Cnide and the Apollon sauroctone . However, the identification was called into question for several reasons. Initially, the inventories discovered in Athens proved to be copies of those of the sanctuary of Brauron: it is not certain that the Athenian worship included/understood to him also the offering of clothing. Then, the short chiton would be anachronistic at the 4th century: on this basis, the statue would be rather of the hellenistic time.

The Artémis of Dresden was also proposed: known by many counterparts, it represents the goddess carrying a péplos not girdled with long reduction and raising the right-hand man as if it drew an arrow from her quiver. The general attitude approaches the bearing Eirénè Ploutos of Céphisodote Old the and the specimen éponyme of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen of Dresden, in the absence of the others, has a head completely praxitélienne. Furtwängler locates it in the wake of the Aphrodite of Arles , the whole of these arguments justifying an attribution with young Praxitèle. It was objected that the péplos with long reduction did not appear before second half of the 4th century, to which also seem to return the weighting and the attitude of the body, the behind rejected bust. Then, one knows no other péplophore in the work of Praxitèle. Lastly, the statue is not really attached to any the statues of Artémis allotted to the sculptor, especially since the identification of Artémis Brauronia proposed by Georges Despinis.

Herculanaises

This double type draws its name from two statues discovered at the beginning of the 18th century with Herculanum, representing two women vêtues of a chiton and a coat, with the close attitudes: large Herculanaise with the buckled head while Small Herculanaise is smaller and with the naked head; both hold a side of their coat of the left hand. They knew a very great popularity under imperial Rome: one represented the matrons in the installation of the first and the young girls in that of the second.

Because of their great resemblance to the MUSE power station of the plate inv. 215 of the base of Mantinée, traditional interpretation attached them to Praxitèle, and more precisely to the group representing Déméter and its daughter Perséphone that Pausanias sees in the temple of Déméter to Athens - perhaps the same one as Pline Old the sees in Rome thereafter. Recent work disputes this interpretation: the attributes alone do not make it possible to conclude, and the type finds in contexts not éleusiniens. In addition, the attitude of Herculanaises is not identical to that of the MUSE of Mantinée, but seems to exceed it. Knowing that the type of Large Herculanaise is found on a stele of the Céramique of before 317 av. J. - C., we probably have business with a sculptor having well-known Praxitèle, perhaps a member of its workshop.

Also fits in the tradition of the base of Mantinée the Sophocle of the Lateran which combines the gesture of the right-hand man of the MUSE power station of the plate inv. 215 and the attitude of the left arm of the MUSE to the zither of the plate inv. 217.

The art of Praxitèle

Technical elements

The ancient literature is miserly in details on the style of Praxitèle: at the time of Pline, the amateurs had sometimes evil to differentiate works from Praxitèle and those of Scopas, its contemporary. We know that the sculptor privileged the Marbre with the Bronze: Pline notes that “it was happier and also more famous for its marble works; however, it also made very beautiful bronze works. ” The fact is indeed remarkable, since bronze is since the beginning of fifth century BC the noble material for the sculpture in sculpture in the round.

The Romain also specifies that the sculptor frequently resorted to the painter Nicias to carry out the painted decoration ( circumlitio ) of his statues: the Greek marble sculpture was systematically polychrome. What we know of the art of Nicias, i.e. an special attention paid to the effects of the light and shades, seem to agree particularly well with the Sfumato regarded as characteristic of works of Praxitèle. Besides Pline quotes the sculptor among the possible inventors of γάνωσις / gánôsis , a kind of finish to the Polish whose old texts do not make it possible to include/understand in what it consisted exactly, testifying to the important influence of the mural on the sculpture of the second classicism.

Elements of style

One calls “style praxitélien” a whole of characteristics resulting mainly from the Hermes carrying Dionysos child and from the Apollon sauroctone :

a grace and a delicacy confining with effemination for the masculine representations;
hanchement pronounced, coupled to an installation accoudée for the masculine representations, exceeding the Contrapposto of Polyclète to lead to a “S-curve”;
the Sfumato of the features of the face and the anatomical details, i.e. shading of the edges and the lines to the profit of very soft transitions;
a naturalist treatment of draperies;
inclusion in the composition of the trees, draperies and other elements of support;
contrast enters the flexibility of the flesh and the strength of hair.

Praxitèle modified the traditional representation of the divinities, by imposing the naked one for Aphrodite and youth for Apollon. The prevalence in its repertory of the goddess of the love, Eros and the dionysiaque world fits however in a broader tendency: one also finds these subjects in the painting of vases or in the minor arts. In a general way, the art of Praxitèle fits more in continuity that in the rupture compared to the former sculpture: “the construction of its works takes again, prolongs, enriches the research started by the successors by Polyclète and Phidias”, note the archeologist Claude Rolley” of his sculpture: the ancient literature provides indeed a certain number of anecdotes on the attacks which underwent the Aphrodite de Cnide and the Eros de Parion on behalf of admirors a little too enthusiastic. When Lucien de Samosate, watch the heroes of its Loves commenting on Aphrodite de Cnide, description resembles more that of a true woman than to that of a statue:

“What a generous sides, favourable with full pressures! How the flesh surround the buttocks of beautiful curves, without neglecting the projection of the bones, and without being invaded by an excess of grease! ”

The rhetor Callistrate makes in the same way in his Descriptions , commenting on the “glance full with desire mixed with decency, filled of grace aphrodisiac” of a Diadumène allotted to the sculptor. These visions are however those of romanized spectators: it is difficult to say how works of Praxitèle were perceived by the sensitivity of fourth century BC

The chances of the transmission of the statues do not enable us alas to know the side of its work devoted to the architectural sculpture or the portrait.

Inspiration

Part of the work of Praxitèle is devoted to divinities celebrated in the Mystères of Éleusis: the group of Déméter, Perséphone and Iacchos located in the temple of Déméter in Athens. One objected: with the wrong way of the “realistic” anecdotes where the sculptor takes Phryné for model of the Aphrodite de Cnide, of the epigram S of the Greek Anthologie shows it exceeding significant appearances to represent the idea even beauty: “Praxitèle did not see a prohibited spectacle, but iron/polished Paphienne such as Arès wished it” or: “You are not the work of Praxitèle, nor that of iron/but you draw up yourself such as you were with the Pâris judgment. ”

Praxitèle at the time modern

Praxitèle is a long time known only by literary sources and some whimsical attributions, like one of the groups known as of Alexandre and Bucéphale on the place of the Quirinal, with Rome. The first work to be to him correctly attached is probably the fragmentary statue of the type of the known Aphrodite de Cnide under the name of Aphrodite Braschi , present in Rome as of the neighborhoods of 1500. The name of Praxitèle itself is prestigious: with the Rebirth, Michel-Angel is regarded as new Praxitèle. The Sauroctone Richelieu watch that at the beginning of the 17th century, to the restorers to the ancient fragments of the old texts, but should be waited the 18th century can bring closer so that Sauroctone mentioned by Pline is formally recognized: the baron von Stosch makes initially the bringing together with a engraved stone, then Winckelmann connects the latter with Sauroctone Borghèse and a small bronze of the Albani villa.

At the 18th century, Winckelmann sees in Praxitèle the inventor of the “beautiful style”, characterized by the grace. The Aphrodite de Cnide , the Satyr at rest , the Sauroctone and the Satyre pourer well-known, and are sometimes quoted by the sculpture or the painting of the time, witness the Ganymède wine waiter (1816) of Bertel Thorvaldsen, which takes again the installation of the Verseur . One also finds a praxitélienne influence at Antonio Canova. The sculptor however is eclipsed by Phidias, and the sculptures of the Parthenon that Lord Elgin paid of Athens. In second half of the 19th century, the current says “atticist”, inspired by severe art, is competed with by that says “hellenist”, more inspired by Praxitèle and the hellenistic Art, whose James Pradier is undoubtedly the best representing, but which degenerates sometimes into a research of pretty and the picturesque one.

Praxitèle also occupies a choice place in artistic teaching: the statues which are allotted to him are abundantly reproduced by the moulding, or are represented on the first photographs. They are also copied: thus, the jury of the Académie from France to Rome declares about a copy of the Satyre at rest by Theodore-Charles Gruyère, prize winner in 1839 of the Prix of Rome, that “while choosing for subject of its copy celebrates it Faune of Capitole , one of the ancient repetitions of the fauna of Praxitèle, the artist had already shown of judgment and taste. ” Praxitèle also appears in good place in the carved decoration of the Carrée court of the Palais of Louvre, that it is among the copies of antiques (a Apollino , two Diane de Gabies , a Satyre at rest ) or among the creations entrusted to contemporary sculptors.

The beginning of the 20th century sees a return of beam in favor of the severe art, whose Bourdelle and especially Maillol is the best representatives. This last in particular testifies to a detestation marked for Praxitèle. After having seen the sculptures of the temple of Zeus with Olympie then the Hermes , it writes about this last: “It is fireman, they are dreadful, it is carved as in household soap. (…) for me, it is the Bouguereau of the sculpture, the first fireman of Greece, the first member of the Institute! ”

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