The Arkansaw traveler., 1886-05-08

the seventh century, B.c.), and several generations of artists of his own family followed, while Byzes of Naxos or his son Euergos discovered the art of saw ing marble, and Dipoinos and Skyllis of Crete made great strides in marble sculpture. Finally, Bupalos of Chios, q descendant of Melas, also gained great fame by his marble statues (for which all true sculptors used Parian Lychnites) and the only works mentioned as being by him are draped female figures of re ligious character.
 It thus appears to me highly probable that these works mark a distinct epoch in the history of the technical develop ment of art at Athens-the period namely of the introduction of marble as a material for statues. But the strong feeling for difference of texture and for color, which never left the Greek sculp- tors, and which manifested itself in the use of different materials for the indi- cation of different textures, did not per init them to trust to the modelling alone and so in the case of the eyes several of these statues nave the eye ball rendered by glass let into the mar ble, as in the case of the gold and ivory statue of Athene Parthenos by Pheidias, precious stones were employed. In the drapery this feeling led to elaborate ap- plication of color, and fortunately we have in these figures clearly extant re- mains of color which make these statues, together with the statuette of Artemis in the museum at Naples, unique spec linens of ancient polychromatic sculp- ture. The other figure has an elaborate key pattern on the border of the under garment (chiton) and on the border of the upper-garment (himdtion) on the left arm while the whole of the under-gar- ment was decorated with stars. These traces of color are distinctly visible in the photographs.
 But we must not be led by the mani fest archaic characteristics into ignoring the clear traces of great freedom and skill in modelling which mark these statues as the precursors of the works of the highest period of Attic art The quaint attitude of the figure daintily gathering up the drapery with the left hand, while the right held some attri- bute Ca spear if Athene, a pomegranate or apple if Hera or Aphrodite), is not without some freedom and grace This motive occurs in many similar statues and torsos of Athene at Munich, Dres- den, Naples, and the British museum The ornate and regular treatment of the folds is common feature of the con- ventionality of archaic modelling; yet believe that too much stress must not be laid upon this conventionality as in- dicating, in the case of these statues want of skill on the part of the artist to represent the flexibility of actual drapery. For it appear highly prob able that this regular and careful ar rangement of folds was characteristic of the ornate drapery worn by the Greek ladies in the period to which these stat ues belong, result not only obtained by careful folding in dressing, but more permanently secured by pleating and stitching Given the regularity in the folds of the drapery in these statues, the surfaces between the grooves pre- sent delicate variety of rise and fall and variety of line which render with much truth to nature the actual texture of the drapery-for example in the sur faces between the folds of the upper Sdi III tIit CiittI III Ollt liRuTc, dIlQ the edge of the upper-garment below the neck in the other. Still we must admit that the actual modelling of tex ture in the drapery of these figures ap- pears new departure, marking the transitional period of art of which they are such interesting types.
 The conclusions at which we have thus arrived may be summed up as fol lows: CD The statues are of early Attic workmanship CD they mark the period of transition from archaic conventions alty to the freedom of later tifth-cen- tury art, and are fixed in date by the limit from the year BIO B.C, to 40 BIG; (3) the working of the marble manifests a degree of uncertainty in the manipu- lation of this material, with a cores bonding obtrusion of the earlier methods of working other materials (wood and metaD, which point to the fact that these statues mark the introduction of a comparatively new craft into Attic art and CD this art of marble sculpture ap- pears, both from monumental as well as literary evidence to have been intro duced into Attica from the islands of the 4Egean.
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