Identifier: greekbronzes00murr (find matches)
Title: Greek bronzes
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Murray, A. S. (Alexander Stuart), 1841-1904
Subjects: Bronzes, Greek
Publisher: London : Seeley and Co. New York : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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, to represent the finer emotions such as only very slightlyaffect the bodily forms. Let us take as an example the marble statue ofHermes holding on his arm the infant god Dionysos, which was found anumber of years ago at Olympia, on the spot where an ancient writer hadseen it (Fig. 26). At various times since its discovery this statue has beenthought to be not quite equal to the great name of Praxiteles, or thatperhaps it had been a work of his earlier period when still under theinfluence of his father. Several things point in this latter direction.The massiveness of the torso of Hermes is not what we shall find inothers of his statues such as the Sauroctonos, but in this respect remindsus more of his fathers statue of Eirene carrying the infant Plutos on herarm, which infant, again, is almost identical with the infant Dionysos on 66 GREEK BRONZES the arm of Hermes. But these things notwithstanding, the statue is fullof the subtlest observation of bodily forms which cannot, one would
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Fig. 26.—Hermes by Praxiteles. Olympia. think, be traced to any other than Praxiteles himself. Similarly, themotive or action of the Hermes is exactly of that very slight kind whichwe expect from that sculptor more than any other. Hermes, as we now GREEK BRONZES 67 know, had held up in his right hand a bunch of grapes, and is watchingits effect on the infant god of the vine. The drapery hanging on a treestem, however beautifully executed, is only an accessory, serving as a

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