File:Greek bronzes (1898) (14590056008).jpg

Identifier: greekbronzes00murr (find matches)
Title: Greek bronzes
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Murray, A. S. (Alexander Stuart), 1841-1904
Subjects: Bronzes, Greek
Publisher: London : Seeley and Co. New York : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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thatthese characteristics were rightly described by ancient writers as manly.It seems to me probable that the ancient copyist, in reproducing theheads of Polycleitos, had been more faithful than in the bodily forms,just because of the peculiar expression by which they were recognisable.But I do not feel the same confidence as to their fidelity in reproducingthe bodily forms and proportions. It is no doubt true that the measure-ments of the Diadumenos and the Doryphoros, with their replicas, workout in a fairly satisfactory manner, whether we take the foot, the palm,or the digit as the unit of measurement, and, as Polycleitos is said by anot very authoritative writer to have employed the digit as his unit, thisresult has sometimes been cited as tending to prove that the proportionsof these statues are true to his original, and embody his canon. It isunfortunate that the system of proportions handed down by Vitruvius,and worked out by Leonardo da Vinci, is stated to have been in use by
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Fig. 18.—Bronze Statuette. Hermes. British Museum. GREEK BRONZES 49 Lysippos and other sculptors, as well as by Polycleitos, which, of course,would be a flat contradiction of the statement that Lysippos had funda-mentally changed the canon of Polycleitos. So far as I have seen,however, the Vitruvian system yields a type of figure which seems tocorrespond better with the sculptures of the frieze of the Parthenon—which were contemporary with Polycleitos—than with the Grasco-Romancopies of the Doryphoros. I have endeavoured to make the discussion of the style of Polycleitosas brief as possible, in view of the fact that we have at best only avery limited number of bronze statuettes that can be associated withhim. We begin with one which in its proportions and attitudeobviously ranges with the copies of the Diadumenos and Doryphoros.It is a figure of Hermes, found in France, and now in the British Museum(Fig. 18). Round its neck is a loose golden tore, which apparentlyhad been added

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