Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ... allow of our placing it earlier than the age of the later Diadochi, when the display of technical skili in the treatment of difficult subjects was the chief object of the artist. 204. The Knife Sharpkner (Arrotino). Found in the house of Nicolo Guisa at Rome in 1556, and now in the Tribune of the Uttizi at Florence. Has with good reason been assigned to the school of Pergamon, of which it has the strongly marked characteristics. It probably formed part of a group consisting of Apollo, Marsyas and a barbarian slave, who is eagerly looking up for the signal, and whetting his knife to carry out the cruel sentence on the defeated Satyr who had challenged the God of Music to a trial of skill. He is here represented with a Cossack's skull and a pigeon breast. His hair is coarse and disorderly, his dress mean and dirty, and the whole attitude of the unclean creature is a disgusting mixture of servility and cruelty. An extraordinary amount of skill has been lavished, we might almost say wasted, on this remarkable example of the ethnological realism of the Pergamene school. The subject is one which could not have been chosen before the age of Alexander the Great. This figure was formerly misnamed "The listening slave." A similar figure is found in some Roman reliefs. 205 to 208. SCULPTURES FROM THE GREAT ALTAR AT PERGAMON IN MYSIA. BERLIN. According to Strabo, "Eumenes II.," son of Attalos I., King of Pergamon, "built the city, planted the grove of Nike"phorion, and out of love for magnificence and beauty erected "buildings as offerings to the Gods, and founded libraries, and "made Pergamon the splendid abode which it now is." One of the most remarkable of these public works was an altar of vast size, dedicated to 'Afltjva rioXia? Ko.) Nwojopo?...