The conditions of
the great age, although they permitted a genre-like treatment in
votive sculptures and in grave-reliefs (cf. Fig. 134), offered few
or no occasions for works of pure genre, whose sole purpose is to
gratify the spectator. In the Hellenistic period, however, such
works became plentiful. Fig. 178 gives a good specimen. A boy of
four or five is struggling in play with a goose and is triumphant.
The composition of the group is admirable, and the zest of the
sport is delightfully brought out. Observe too that the
characteristic forms of infancy--the large head, short legs, plump
body and limbs--are truthfully rendered (cf. page 222). There is a
large number of representations in ancient sculpture of boys with
geese or other aquatic birds; among them are at least three other
copies of this, same group. The original is thought to have been
of bronze.
Fig. 179 is genre again, and is as repulsive as the last example
is charming. It is a drunken old woman, lean and wrinkled, seated
on the ground and clasping her wine-jar between her knees, in a
state of maudlin ecstasy.
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