Greek Sculpture. 199 without in the smallest degree sacrificing dignity or anatomical correctness or beauty of arrangement. The artistic perfection in balance and grouping evinced, in the highest degree, the union of genius and skill. The draperies, which are most carefully studied, fall in a mul- titude of crisp folds. The faces are idealised, and share but slightly the passion often expressed by the actions of the figures. The execution of the work is extremely bold, combining a disregard of the most formidable technical difficulties with perfect mastery over effects of light and shade, modelling and composition. Next to the sculptures of the Parthenon we must name those of the. Propylaea ; the reliefs of the parapet of the Temple of Nike ; the frieze of the Erechtheium j and the frieze of the Temple of Apollo at Bassse, near Phigalia in Arcadia; this was discovered in 1812 by a party of English and German travellers, and is now in the British Museum ; it represents the battles of the Greeks, aided by Apollo and Artemis, with the Centaurs and Amazons ; these figures are remarkable for their life and energy, but are wanting in the technical finish and correctness charac- teristic of the marbles of the Parthenon. 3. Third Period, 400—323 B.C. The first important artist who appeared after the time of Pheidias was Cephisodotus (the son of Praxiteles, and the pupil of Alcamenes), who represents the transition between the grand and simple style of Pheidias and the passionate vigour of Scopas and Praxiteles. His group of Irene with the boy Plutus — a marble copy of which is in the Glyptothek of Munich — is a typical work, in which we see a touch of human weakness modifying the stern
