File:The midsummer of Italian art (1911) (14782896945).jpg

Identifier: midsummerofitali00stea (find matches)
Title: The midsummer of Italian art
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Stearns, Frank Preston, 1846-1917
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, R.G. Badger, Gorham Press
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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thatthe only solution of this enigma was to be reachedthrough a comparative study of style and drapery; and,acting on this principle, I obtained results which mutuallysupport one another and point to similar conclusions. In regard to style, the relation of the Aphrodite ofMelos to the sculpture of the Parthenon is obviousenough. Even Furtwangler, who places the statue some-where in the later Hellenistic period, or about 150 B. C,without alleging very definite reasons for doing so, ad-mits that its sculptor must have lived, in spirit at least,in the age of Phidias. Its largeness of limb and feature,full-sized cranium, and general breadth of treatment in-dicate this, as well as that more subtle mystery of formwhich defies description; but there are also essential dif-ferences. Statues of the fifth century have a genericrather than an individualized character; and of all idealworks of Greek sculpture, the Aphrodite of Melos is themost highly individualized—so much so as to suggest in-
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VENUS OF MELOS Appendix. 325 fluence of the model on the hand of the master. This ismost strongly marked about the mouth and chin, in thelength of neck and the breadth of her waist. There isa decided resemblance in her figure to the reliefs ofWingless Victory on the Acropolis, and to the groupcalled the Moirai from the Parthenon, but her hair anddrapery are so different from these, or any known hairand drapery of that period, as to force the conclusionthat no prominent sculptor of the Periclean age couldhave modelled the Melian statue. The folds, at least ofheavy drapery, in the fifth century, have a downward ten-dency,—in many instances they are perpendicular,—butthe lines of the drapery of the Aphrodite of Melos aremore nearly horizontal, with a tendency to sharpness inthe principal folds. Her drapery has been complainedof by certain critics, but I find it very simple and natural,—much more so than the drapery of the Parthenonstatues and reliefs. In the Fates and the Iris grou

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