PRAXIT'ELES (Lat.. from Gk. rIpaEtrAns). A celebrated sculptor of ancient Greece, of whose life little certain is known, except that he was a citizen of Athens, and lived in the fourth century n.c. Pliny gives Olympiad 104 (B.c. 364-361) as his date, and Aritrnvins says he worked on the Mausoleum at Balicarnassus, about n.c. 353. The former date seems connected with the battle of Mantinea. and the activity of Praxiteles, Cephis odotus (q.v.), perhaps an elder brother, and other Athenian artists at this period in the Pelopon nesus There is nothing in the statements about Praxiteles that indicates artistic activity after B.C. 330. His most famous works have perished, and are known to us. if at all, only through Bo man copies. The most famous was the Aphrodite of Cubit's, which Pliny calls the finest statue in the world. In it the goddess was represented as having just laid aside her clothing to enter the bath: she was naked, but, while conscious of her beauty, showed plainly her reluctance at display ing it even to herself. The only gond complete copy is a statue in the Vatican, which has been disfigured for a hundred years or more by a mass of tin drapery about the lower limbs. The best head is in private possession in Berlin. The statue shows how the ideals of the fifth-century art had been modified. The gods and goddesses of this period have lost the superhuman element, and are little more than idealized men and wo men. Praxiteles himself seems to have avoided the sensuous and weak„ but his copyists and imitators were not so fortunate. Another famous statue was the Eros of Thespise, dedicated by the hetiera Phryne, the mistress of Praxiteles and the most famous beauty of her time, who was said to have served as a model for the Aphrodite. This statue is by sonic thought to be the original of the Eros of Centocelli in the Vatican. though this is doubtful. The artist was celebrated for his satyrs. and two very frequent types may with probability be referred to his originals. One is the youthful satyr who pours wine from a pitcher in his raised right hand into a bowl in his left, well represented by the Palermo copy; the other is the resting satyr, best known from the Capi toline statue immortalized by Hawthorne in his "Marble Faun." Another work is one reproduced in the statues which represent the youthful Apollo playfully threatening with an arrow a lizard crawling toward him on a tree-trunk, which must be Praxiteles's Apollo Sauroctonos, or Lizard Slayer. More fortunate than other artists of
antiquity. Praxiteles is known to us by one un doubted original, the Hermes of Olympia. which was found May 8, 1877, during, the excavation of the Herieum. where it was seen by the traveler Pausanias. The youthful god is here represented as the protector of his baby brother Dionysus. Be rests his left elbow on a tree-trunk, over which his cloak is hung. while on the lower arm sits the baby stretching one band toward some object (probably a bunch of grapes held in the extended right hand of the god). The attitude is easy and the pose graceful. giving opportunity for a variety of contrasting curves, while the technical execution is beyond praise. But the chief beauty of the work is in the wonderful head, which is strong and thoughtful yet full of sensitiveness and delicacy. The lines are finely curved, and in the modeling every part receives equal attention. so that the effect is produced by an infinite num ber of details, without giving undue prominence to any part, thus contrasting somewhat strongly with the methods of Scopas (q.v.). Another work which makes strong claim to being an orig inal of this artist, and is almost certainly exe cuted from his drawings, is the Basis from Mantinea, where on three slabs is reproduced the strife of Apollo and Marsyas in presence of the Muses. The figures are in low relief, and full of grace, though without the perfection which char acterizes the Hermes. A fine marble bust found at Elensis is also regarded by many competent judges as the original of a Enbulens by Praxi teles. It certainly shows strong resemblance to the Satyr and other works of this artist, but the identification cannot be regarded as certain. In addition to the histories of Greek art (q.v.), con sult : Flirt wiingler, Masterpieces of Greek Sculp ture, trans. by E. Sellers (London and New York, 1595), Klein, Fris:He/es (Leipzig. 1898), both to be used with caution ; Kekules Der Kopf des l'rux itclischclt• Hermes (Stuttgart, 1881 ) ; A melung, Die Basis des Praxiteles aus llantinea (Munich, 1895). See Plate of POLYCLITUS AND PRA XITELES.