Greek bronzes . e gave more attention thanany one of his time to a truthful re-presentation of external details, caringlittle for the expression of his statues of athletes his first aimwas a telling and effective composi-tion, with greater variety of actionthan Polycleitos allowed himself, butapparently with less refinement. Itwas Myron who first concentratedupon single statues the variety ofmovement which in older art wasspread over many figures. His philo-sophy of life was to see the greatestpossible display of action in one figure,and directed to one purpose. We must remember t
Greek bronzes . e gave more attention thanany one of his time to a truthful re-presentation of external details, caringlittle for the expression of his statues of athletes his first aimwas a telling and effective composi-tion, with greater variety of actionthan Polycleitos allowed himself, butapparently with less refinement. Itwas Myron who first concentratedupon single statues the variety ofmovement which in older art wasspread over many figures. His philo-sophy of life was to see the greatestpossible display of action in one figure,and directed to one purpose. We must remember that great aswas the exactitude of Greek sculptorsin their observation of nature, they yet at times allowed themselves a free-dom which strikes us as peculiar. For instance, they would on occasiongive a lioness the mane of a lion, or a hind the antlers of a stag. Theirprinciple was that to represent a thing which seems probable, though itmay be impossible in fact, is a lesser error than to represent a thing which. Fig. 19.—Greek Bronze. British Museum. GREEK BRONZES 51 seems improbable, however true it may be to fact. That is a principle ofart laid down by Aristotle, and one of his instances is that of the hind withstags antlers, which seems likely enough but is not true.
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