One of the new Greco-Alexandrian types was naturally the goddess Isis.
A head in the Louvre (Fig. 16) gives us a version of this figure,
which still, even in a poor Roman copy, shows us something of the
languid elegance of the original. There is no traceable influence of
Scopas in Alexandrian art. The Praxitelean and Attic tradition was
transferred pure, and therefore the liveliness of movement and action
in Pergamene art is quite absent from the art of Alexandria. Statues
are mainly small, partly perhaps for economy, and partly from the lack
of all desire for comparison with the gigantic masterpieces of ancient
Egypt, and they are limited to simple standing or seated poses. An
interesting statue of obvious Alexandrian origin is the priest of Isis
in the Capitol (Fig. 17), which has been wrongly restored with a female
head. This head is itself Alexandrian, as its hair demonstrates, but
it has no connexion with the body, which is male, though draped in a
light clinging tunic.[40] The tunic is interesting as giving us
a good example of Alexandrian drapery. We may notice the very small
closely set folds, and the extreme realistic care with which the loose
parts of the drapery are distinguished from those tightly stretched.
There is an element of artificiality no doubt in the way in which the
folds radiate from the great jar carried against the chest and in
their close symmetry of design, but as a whole the effect of texture
is marvellously well secured. We have here a good example of the
naturalism which now plays a large part in Alexandrian art.
Another statue which we must claim for Alexandrian art is the
Capitoline Venus (Fig. 18), an extremely interesting statue not
only as a first-rate original but from its relation to the Cnidian
goddess of Praxiteles. The face and the hair show the usual qualities
of Alexandrian impressionism; the fringed mantle thrown over the
water-pot is the mantle of the Egyptian Isis, and the foreshortening
of the foot of the amphora is just the pictorial touch we expect in
Alexandrian art. But the most interesting light which this statue
throws on Alexandrian art is its directness and want of subtlety in
motive. The goddess of Cnidos is naked, but she is only half-conscious
of her nakedness. Her eyes are fixed on eternity, and the actual bath
is a mere accessory like the child of the Hermes. But the Capitoline
goddess is not thinking of eternity at all. She is stepping into her
bath, and is suddenly aware of a spectator’s gaze. She is the classical
counterpart of Susannah in Renaissance art. All the vague beauty of the
Attic statue is lost by the touch of Alexandrian realism, which amounts
almost to vulgarity. As to the treatment of the body it is again real
and not ideal. The back in particular shows a close study of the model
without any of the selective idealism of classical art. Like the
beautiful torso in Syracuse[41] it is a marvellous study from nature,
not marked by any vestige of idealism.
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