The works which remain of this master, either in originals or in repetitions,--the Faun,--the Thespian Cupid, in the Museum of the capitol,--the Apollino with a Lizard, one of the most beautiful, as well as difficult, specimens of antiquity, abundantly justify this character. Of the works that have utterly perished, the nude and draped, or Coan and Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles, fixed each a standard which future invention dared scarcely to alter. Indeed, he appears to have been the first, perhaps the sole master, who attained the true ideal on this subject, in the perfect union of yielding feminine grace with the dignity of intellectual expression. The Venus of Cnidos, in her representative the Medicean, still 'enchants the world',
--and fills The air around with beauty: we inhale The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils Part of its immortality; the veil Of Heaven is half withdrawn; within the pale We stand, and in that form and face behold What mind can make when nature's self would fail.
Lysippus of Sicyon the younger, contemporary and rival of the preceding, appears to have wrought only in metal. Accordingly, in comparing him with Phidias, Aristotle employs distinctive terms, which both point out this fact, and would alone settle the needless dispute, whether the latter wrought in marble. Of the 610 works, an incredible number, ascribed to Lysippus, not one survives; for the Venetian horses originally brought from Chios, by Theodosius the younger, to Constantinople, and thence removed to St Mark's in 1204, are unworthy of the artist's reputation. The bust at Portici requires also to be authenticated, though of superior merit. Born in the lowest walks of life, Lysippus was, in a great measure, self-taught, and commenced his studies where the art itself had begun,--with nature. Though a perfect master of beauty, his style appears to have been distinguished by a more masculine character than that of the age. He was emulous of reviving the grave and severe grandeur of the preceding school. This predilection his subjects and materials would cherish, if not produce. Colossal and equestrian statues of warriors in bronze, demanded a forceful and vigorous composition, with sober and dignified expression. The Tarentine Jupiter, sixty feet high, was in magnitude equal to any undertaking in the ancient world; and twentyone equestrian statues of Alexander's bodyguard, who fell at the Granicus, would alone have sufficed for the labour of years to an ordinary artist. But not only in great works was Lysippus famous; many of the most beautiful and delicate description are recorded. His finishing was exquisite, his imitation of nature faithful 'as truth itself,' and he especially excelled in the knowledge of symmetry. He was so great a favorite with Alexander, that to him alone permission of casting the prince's statue was granted; and it may serve to prove how justly this admiration of his own age was deserved, that centuries after, even the monster Tiberius trembled in his palace at an insurrection of the Roman people, occasioned by the removal from one of the public baths of a figure by Lysippus.