and admirably the progress and, as it may be said,
the consummation of sculpture. They exhibit in a remarkable degree all
the qualities that constitute fine art--truth, beauty, and perfect
execution. In the forms, the most perfect, the most appropriate and
the most graceful have been selected. All that is coarse or vulgar is
omitted, and that only is represented which unites the two essential
qualities of truth and beauty. The result of this happy combination is
what has been termed ideal beauty. These sculptures, however, which
emanated from the mind of Phidias, and were most certainly executed
under his eyes, and in his school, are not the works of his hands.
Phidias himself disdained or worked but little in marble. They were,
doubtless, the works of his pupils, Alcamenes, Agoracritus, Colotes,
Paeonios, and some other artists of his time. For, as Flaxman remarks,
the styles of different hands are sufficiently evident in the alto and
basso rilievo. To the age of Phidias belong the sculptors Alcamenes,
Agoracritus, and Paeonios. The greatest work of Alcamenes was a statue
of Venus in the Gardens, a work to which it is said Phidias himself
put the finishing touch. He also executed a bronze statue of a
conqueror in the games, which Pliny says was known as the
"Encrinomenos, the highly approved." Agoracritus, who, Pliny says, was
such a favorite of Phidias that he gave his own name to many of that
artist's works, entered into a contest with Alcamenes, the subject
being a statue of Venus. Alcamenes was successful, Pliny tells us, not
that his work was superior, but because his fellow-citizens chose to
give their suffrages in his favor, in preference to a stranger. It was
for this reason that Agoracritus, indignant at his treatment, sold his
statue on the express condition that it should never be taken to
Athens, and changed its name to Nemesis. It was accordingly erected at
Rhamnus.

A marble statue of Victory, a beautiful Nike in excellent
preservation, has been lately discovered at Olympia, bearing the name
of Paeonios. This statue is mentioned by Pausanius as a votive offering
set up by the Messenians in the Altis, the sacred grove of Zeus at
Olympia. The statues in the eastern pediment of the temple of Jupiter
at Olympia were by Paeonios, and those in the western by Alcamenes. The
first represented the equestrian contest of Pelops against Oenomaus,
and in the second the Lapithae were represented fighting with the
cen