Essays in Portraiture (5-6)

LYCINUS These are the most beautiful, my friend, so that we shall not need any other artists. Come now, out of them all I shall make a combination as best I can, and shall display to you a single portrait-statue that comprises whatever is most exquisite in each.

POLYSTRATUS How can that be done?

LYCINUS Nothing hard about it, Polystratus, if from now on we give Master Eloquence a free hand with those statues and allow him to adapt, combine, and unite them as harmoniously as he can, retaining at the same time that composite effect and the variety.

POLYSTRATUS Very well; by all means let him have a free hand and show us his powers, for I am eager to know what he really can do with the statues and how he can combine so many into one without making it discordant.

LYCINUS Well, he permits you to look upon the statue even now, as it comes into being; and this is the way he makes the blend. From the Cnidian he takes only the head, as the body, which is unclothed, will not meet his needs. He will allow the arrangement of the hair, the forehead, and the fair line of the brows to remain as Praxiteles made them; and in the eyes also, that gaze so liquid, and at the same time so clear and winsome—that too shall be retained as Praxiteles conceived it. But he will take the round of the cheeks and all the fore part of the face from Alcamenes and from Our Lady in the Gardens; so too the hands, the graceful wrists, and the supple, tapering fingers shall come from Our Lady in the Gardens. But the contour of the entire face, the delicate sides of it, and the shapely nose will be supplied by the Lemnian Athena and by Phidias, and the master will also furnish the meeting of the lips, and the neck, taking these from his Amazon. Sosandra and Calamis shall adorn her with

modesty, and her smile shall be grave and faint like that of Sosandra, from whom shall come also the simplicity and seemliness of her drapery, except that she shall have her head uncovered. In the measure of her years, whatever it may be, she shall agree most closely with the Cnidian Aphrodite; that, too, Praxiteles may determine. What do you think, Polystratus? Will the statue be beautiful?