Daphne; precede Hector with the ægis and disperse the Greeks; strike
Patroclus with his palm and decide his destiny.--And is the figure
frigid because its great idea is inexhaustible? might we not say the
same of the infant Hercules of Zeuxis or of Reynolds? Did not the idea
of the man inspire the hand that framed the mighty child? his magnitude,
his crushing grasp, his energy of will, are only the germ, the prelude
of the power that rid the earth of monsters, and which our mind pursues.
Such was no doubt the Paris of Euphranor: he made his character so
pregnant, that those who knew his history might trace in it the origin
of all his future feats, though first impressed by the expression
allotted to the predominant quality and moment. The acute inspector, the
elegant umpire of female form receiving the contested pledge with a
dignified pause, or with enamoured eagerness presenting it to the
arbitress of his destiny, was probably the predominant idea of the
figure; whilst the deserter of Oenone, the seducer of Helen, the subtle
archer, that future murderer of Achilles, lurked under the insidious
eyebrow, and in the penetrating glance of beauty's chosen minion. Such
appeared to me the character and expression of the sitting Paris in the
voluptuous Phrygian dress, formerly in the cortile of the palace
Altheims, at Rome. A figure nearly colossal, which many of you may
remember, and a faint idea of whom may be gathered from the print among
those in the collection published of the Museum Clementinum. A work, in
my opinion, of the highest style and worthy of Euphranor, though I shall
not venture to call it a repetition in marble of his bronze.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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