THE STYLES OF SKOPAS AND LYSIPPOS COMPARED.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.—Attic Grave-Relief, found in the Bed of the Ilissos, Athens. National Museum, Athens.]
[Illustration: FIG. 75.—Statue of the so-called _Meleager_. Vatican Museum, Rome.]
In view, then, of the differences enumerated I should hesitate to assign a Skopaic origin to the head from Sparta. In the lower part of the face, with its small mouth and delicate chin, I see signs only of Praxitelean influence; in the upper part I am much more inclined to see affinities to the art-tendencies of Lysippos, as we now know them from the statue of Agias. In the present state of our knowledge it is not difficult to separate works of Praxitelean origin from those of Skopas; but it is a very different thing to distinguish those of Skopaic origin from those of Lysippos; here the line distinguishing the two masters is much finer and harder to draw. Before the discovery of the Tegea heads, the deep-set eye,[2145] prominent brow, and “breathing” mouth were looked upon as characteristic features of Lysippos, as they were known to us from representations of Alexander, especially on coins. We now know that these traits belonged to Skopas to a much greater extent. When the _Agias_ was found, and before its true authorship had been determined, Homolle, as we have seen, had at first classed it as showing the manner of Lysippos, only later to see more of Skopas than Lysippos in it. Such a conclusion was natural so long as we regarded the _Apoxyomenos_ as the key to Lysippan art. By assigning these traits definitely to Skopas, we were compelled to view the work of Lysippos as conventional and somewhat lifeless in comparison. But with the assumption that the statue of Agias represented true Lysippan characteristics, we were forced to recognize that the same traits belonged to Lysippos also, though to a less degree, since the energy of the Tegea heads was absent from the features of the _Agias_ and their fierceness was here replaced by a look of quiet melancholy. The study of such allied works as the beautiful and excellently preserved _Lansdowne Herakles_ (Pl. 30 and Fig. 71), the athlete on the Pentelic marble stele found in the bed of the Ilissos in 1874, and now in the National Museum in Athens (Fig. 74),[2146] the so-called _Meleager_ in the Vatican (Fig. 75),[2147] and other copies of the same original (_e. g._, Figs. 76, 77), also shows how closely the type of Lysippos approached that of Skopas. Long ago I expressed the view[2148] that these and similar works should be assigned to Lysippos rather than to Skopas, to whom most critics had referred them. Thus, after the discovery of the Tegea heads, scholarly opinion began to follow the arguments of Furtwaengler in bringing the _Lansdowne Herakles_ into the sphere of Skopas.[2149] But Michaelis, as far back as 1882, commenting on the characteristically small head, short neck in comparison with the mighty shoulders, and long legs in proportion to the thick-set torso, had declared: “Without doubt the statue offers one of the finest specimens, if not absolutely the best, of a Herakles according to the conception of Lysippos.”[2150] Now opinion varies again; only those who believe that the _Agias_ is Lysippan class the _Herakles_ as a Lysippan work.[2151] Of the _Meleager_, Graef[2152] gives eighteen copies besides the one in the Vatican. This number shows how common an adornment it was of Roman villas and parks. Some of these copies have a chlamys thrown over the arm, _e. g._, the Vatican example, and belong to imperial times, while others without the mantle, _e. g._, the torso in Berlin,[2153] are older. In addition to the Vatican example we reproduce two other copies, the beautiful Parian marble head now placed on the trunk of a Praxitelean _Apollo_ in the gardens of the Medici in Rome (Fig. 76),[2154] and the statue without arms or legs and without the chlamys, found in 1895 near Santa Marinella, 30 miles from Rome, and since 1899 in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University (Fig. 77),[2155] one of the most beautiful of the many replicas. At first the original of these copies was supposed to be Lysippan, being identified with the _Venator_ at Thespiai mentioned by Pliny as the work of Euthykrates, the son and pupil of Lysippos,[2156] but after the discovery of the Tegea heads it was almost universally referred to Skopas.[2157] Here again the Skopaic group of Graef has been broken by P. Gardner[2158] and others, and the _Meleager_, like the _Herakles_, has been given to Lysippos.