Sculpture in gold and ivory has been called Chresdep/fantine, from the Greek words xptsrlos, " gold," and iAlipar," ivory." It was not first introduced at the time to which our history has reached, as Pausanias dscribes works so composed, of a much earlier date, existing in the Ilerscum, or temple of Hera, at Olympia, as well as in other places ; but it was during this period that it was carried to its highest point of excellence. The two moat celebrated works recorded in these costly materials are the masterpieces of Phidias. They were, the statues of the Athene of the Parthenon, and that of the Olympian Zeus in his temple at Ells. The exposed parts of the figures were made of ivory, and the drapery and accessorial enrichments of gold. Of the enor 1no14 value of this kind of work some idea may be formed from the accounts of the ancients, that the figure of Athono was twenty-six cubits high, and that the gold employed on it weighed forty talents. (Plin., II int. Nat..' xxxvi. 5 ; Thucydides, ii. 13.) One writer says there were fifty talents of gold on it (Died. Sic., uL 40.) Chryselephantine sculpture seems to have been a branch of what tLe ancients called Toreutic. The exact meaning of this term has not been satisfactorily explained. (See' Le Jupiter Olympien; par Quatremere de Quincy, where several opinions are collected ; also Arehdologie der Kunst; by Muller • 31illingen Ancient Inedited Monuments,' &c.) It was probably to describe sculpture in which metal, which was worked or chased, was combined with other materials. Pliny says Polycletus brought the art to perfection. (` Hist. Nat.', xxxiv. 8.) The ancient writers do not furnish any particulars as to the mode of executing these colossal works in materials which sometime; as in the case of ivory, could only have been supplied in comparatively small pieces. Pansanias (v. 15) tells us that an edifice called the workshop of Phidias, near to Altis, was pointed out to him. It was there, he says, that the sculptor worked each of the parts of the Olympian Zeus. In addition to the original cost of these productions, there seems to have been great care necessary to preserve them. The Olympian Zeus was surrounded by a groove or channel of black marble containing oil. The object of this was, first to supply the necessary quantity of moisture to preserve the ivory ; and secondly, to secure the work from damp, as the Altis was situated on marshy ground. Means were also adopted at Athens for preventing injury to the ivory parts of the Athene, from the too dry situation of the Acropolis. We are told that the statue of the Olympian Zeus was out of repair very soon after its completion; and the fact of the Phmdruntas being established to take care of the work, is a proof of its liability to accident Pausanias mentions a remarkable circumstance connected with the persons appointed to this duty. It had been entrusted to the descendants of Phidias, and he says that it was in the same family in his time.
The scholars and followers of Phidias were Agoracritus of Paros, Alcamenes of Athens, Colotes or Colotas, Plconius, and others. The first two deserve notice for the celebrity of their names and works. Agoracritus was the favourite scholar ; Alcamenes, judging from the accounts left of him, the most able artist. He was considered second only to his great master; • and one author, alluding to the progress made in sculpture, even classes him with Phidias, saying, that what was wanting in Polycletus was to be found in the works of Phidias and Alcamenes. (Quinctilian, lib. mil, 10.) The sculptures of Phigalia, consisting of a series of alti-rilievi, repre senting the battle of the Lapithas and Centaurs, and of the Greeks and Amazons, are of this age. The temple of which they formed part of the interior decoration was built by Ictinus, the architect, under Phidias, of the Parthenon ; and from the style which pervades them, there is every reason to think these compositions proceeded from the same source as the sculptured portions of that edifice. The inferiority of their execution may be easily accounted for by supposing the work ing out of the designs of the master to have been left to the scholars or inferior artists. These interesting remains have already been more
particularly described. [PRIOALTAN MARBLES.] The original sculp tures are preserved in the British Museum.
The influence of Phidias continued to be felt for some time. Art had gradually been relieved from the dryness and hardness of the sEginetan school, and Phidiasproducecl out of it the grand character which marks his period ; but it appears there was still remaining a severity both in the forms and in the treatment, in the works of some of tho artists of this school, which it was left for a sculptor of a suc ceeding to remove. This change, which stamped the character of a new school of sculpture, was effected by Praxiteles.
When the restrictions which originally confined sculpture to religious purposes and prescribed forms had once been disregarded, and the art was applied to represent objects of general beauty and interest, it rapidly underwent changes ; and the sculptors of the period which we are now considering, that is, at about 350 B.C., succeeded in introducing an entirely new quality of art. The grand, the sublime, and the severe, gave way to the soft, the flowing, and the graceful. At the head of these innovators was Praxiteles. He worked in bronze and in marble ; but his most beautiful and admired performances were pro bably in the latter material, in the working of which he exhibited the greatest skill, and In which he is said to have introduced processes unknown to his predecessors. [PRAXITELES, in BIOO. Div.] He is supposed to be the first sculptor who ventured to make a statue of Aphrodite entirely naked : all statues of female divinities were anciently draped. (Millingen,`Monuments,' x. p. 7.) Such an innovation was considered extremely indecorous ; but it was excused in this instance, on account of the beauty of the performance. Subsequent artists, desiring to reconcile a mode of representation so favourable to the pur poses of art, with tho prejudices still existing in a degree in matters pertaining to religious personages, seem to have adopted a middle as is seen in the two statues of Venus called of Capua and of 3felos. (` 3f useo Borbonico • " du Louvre.') In these the forms are left entirely naked down to the middle, from whence rich drapery falls to the ground, covering all the lower portion of the figures.
The next name of importance, as the leader of a new school, is that of Lysippus of Sicyon. The reputation of this artist is not inferior to that of any sculptor who preceded him. He appears to have worked exclusively in bronze ; and, according to Pliny, executed as many as six hundred and ten works. [Lysierus, in lhoo. Div.] A colossal statue at Tarentum by him is much distinguished. Lysippus was the favourite sculptor of Alexander the Great, and had the exclusive privi lege of making statues of him. A long list of works by Lysippus is furnished by l'liny, Pausaniss, and other writers. He is said to have paid great attention to the treatment of hair, and to have intro duced an improvement in proportion, making the heads of his figures smaller than his predecessors had done. He doubtless observed that his figures gained in elegance and effect by taking this liberty; for a saying of his is recorded, " They (the older sculptors) made men as they were; he represented them as they appeared to be." This seems to be a wastes ; but it is not so, and its meaning and the value of the principle are quite intelligible to artiste. It shows that Lysippus con sidered that eery minute detail and close mechanical copying should be made subservient to general effect. Lysippus left several scholars, three of whom, his sons Daippus or Laippus, liedae, and Euthycratos, are mentioned amongst the most eminent of his successors. The last is said to have imitated the firmness, or the austerer parte, of his Wheel) practice, rather than his more elegant and pleasing qualities. " There fore," says Pliny (' Hirt. Nat.,' xxxiv. 8), "he succeeded admirably in a statue of Hercules at Delphi," Ite, There is a flue bronze statue of Hercules in the Townley Gallery in the Ilritiah Museum, which has every indication of being of this school.