Polyclitus survived Phidias and may have been the younger of
the two. The only certain thing is that he was in the plenitude of
his powers as late as 420, for his gold and ivory statue of Hera
was made for a temple built to replace an earlier temple destroyed
by fire in 423. His principal material was bronze. As regards
subjects, his great specialty was the representation of youthful
athletes. His reputation in his own day and afterwards was of the
highest; there were those who ranked him above Phidias. Thus
Xenophon represents [Footnote: Memorabilia I., 4, 3 (written about
390 B. C).] an Athenian as assigning to Polyclitus a preeminence
in sculpture like that of Homer in epic poetry and that of
Sophocles in tragedy; and Strabo[Footnote: VIII., page 372
(written about 18 A. D.).] pronounced his gold and ivory statues
in the Temple of Hera near Argos the finest in artistic merit
among all such works, though inferior to those of Phidias in size
and costliness. But probably the more usual verdict was that
reported by Quintilian, [Footnote: De Institutione Oratoria XII,
10, 7 (written about 90 A.
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