Popular Technology; or, Professions and Trades. Vol. 2 (of 2) — John Shaqi
Popular Technology; or, Professions and Trades. Vol. 2 (of 2)Hazen, Edward
History
Popular Technology; or, Professions and Trades. Vol. 2 (of 2)
Hazen, Edward
Industrial arts; Occupations
23. Dædalus, who lived about 100 years after Moses, was the first
sculptor among the Greeks, of any notoriety. The statues made before
his time, were stiff, formal figures, having the arms attached to the
body, and the legs united, like the mummy-shaped productions of
Egyptian art. He separated the legs of his statues, and placed them,
and the upper extremities, in a natural position. He also was the
first sculptor who made the eyes of his statues open. On account of
these improvements, the Greeks said, that his divine genius made
statues walk, and see, and speak.
24. The disciples and imitators of Dædalus were called his sons, and
artists, generally, _Dædalides_. Soon after this period, schools of
design were established in the island of Ægina, at Corinth, at Sicyon,
and in Etruria, in Italy: but it seems that no good representations of
the human form were effected until near the time of Phidias, who was
born 444 years before Christ.
25. This most distinguished of all the votaries of sculpture,
flourished at or near the same time with the dramatic poets, Æschylus,
Euripides, and Sophocles; the philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and
Anaxagoras; and the statesmen and commanders, Pericles, Miltiades,
Themistocles, Cimon, and Xenophon. This was the most refined period of
Grecian history, and of all others, the most favorable in its moral
and political circumstances, for the development of genius.
26. Phidias was the author of the _ideal style_, which, in the fine
arts, may be defined, the union of the perfections of any class of
figures. Among the distinguished productions of this artist, the
colossal statues of Minerva and Jupiter Olympius, made of gold and
ivory, have excited the greatest astonishment. The former, executed
for the Parthenon of Athens, was twenty-six cubits in height; and the
latter, for a splendid temple at Elis, was about the same height,
although seated upon a throne.
27. The favorite disciples of Phidias, were Alcamenes, of Attica, and
Agoracritus, of Paros; and at the same time with them, flourished
Polycletus, of Argos, Miron, of Boeotia, and Pythagoras, of Rhegium.
The _beautiful style_ soon succeeded to the ideal; the authors of
which, were Praxiteles and Scopas, who brought the art to the highest
perfection,--since, in their productions, they united beauty and
grace. After the days of these two artists, sculpture began to
decline; although it continued to be practised with considerable
success, for some centuries after this period.
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