United States or Niger ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Calamis adorns her with Sosandra's modesty, Sosandra's grave half- smile; the decent seemly dress is Sosandra's too, save that the head must not be veiled. For her stature, let it be that of Cnidian Aphrodite; once more we have recourse to Praxiteles. What think you, Polystratus? Is it a lovely portrait? Poly. Assuredly it will be, when it is perfected.
Altogether we see here the stamp of an artistic manner very different from that of Critius and Nesiotes. Possibly, as some have conjectured, it is the manner of Calamis, an Attic sculptor of this period, whose eminence at any rate entitles him to a passing mention. But even the Attic origin of this statue is in dispute.
Some of these may have anticipated to a certain extent the work of Phidias; several of them were of colossal size, like his chief masterpieces, and thus, even from the technical point of view, may have prepared the way before him; one, the Apollo by Calamis at Apollonia, was about forty-five feet high, and so actually rivalled the Zeus and Athena of Phidias in size.
Calamis, somewhat older than the others, was an Athenian, at least by residence. He carried on the measure of perfection which Athenian sculpture had already attained, and added grace and charm to the already powerful model which earlier workers had left him. None of his works survive, but from notices of critics we know that he excelled especially in modelling horses and other animals.
Also in cases are: Head of a Lapith from the Parthenon; and Head of a woman attributed to the sculptor Calamis, acquired in 1908 from the Humphrey Ward collection. Three bas-reliefs from a temple of Apollo at Thasos show a marked advance in artistic expression, which reaches its ultimate perfection in the lovely fragment of the Parthenon frieze, and in a mutilated metope from the same temple.
With how sure a touch does she mingle the colours, and in what sweet proportion blushes and blanches her lady's upturned face. Phiale is the cleverest of all the slaves. Now Calamis dips her quill in a certain powder that floats, liquid and sable, in the hollow of her palm. Standing upon tip-toe and with lips parted, she traces the arch of the eyebrows.
It is certain that among the workers on the Erechtheum was Praxias, a pupil of Calamis, and probably a relative of Praxiteles. The distinction between artist and mason, so marked in our day, scarcely existed in Greece. The mason who had talent became a noted sculptor; and the sculptor, instead of making a model in wax or plaster, set to work, like Michelangelo, on the block of marble himself.
For if we can put faith in those who lived near those times and could see and judge the labours of the ancients, it is seen that the statues of Canachus were very stiff and without any vivacity or movement, and therefore very distant from the truth; and the same is said of those of Calamis, although they were somewhat softer than those aforesaid.
His two race-horses in memory of the victory of Hiero of Syracuse at Olympia in 468 were considered unsurpassable. However, it is related that Praxiteles removed the charioteer from one of the groups of Calamis and replaced it by one of his own statues "that the men of Calamis might not be inferior to his horses."
He was distinguished for his statues in bronze of Zeus and Heracles, but his great distinction is not through works of his own, but is due to the fact that he was the teacher of Myron, Polycleitos, and Pheidias. These names with those of Pythagoras and Calamis bring us to the glorious flowering time of Greek sculpture.
Word Of The Day