taurs at the marriage of Pirithous.

The frieze of the temple of Apollo at Bassae, near Phigaleia, in
Arcadia, belongs to this period. It was the work of Ictinus, the
architect of the Parthenon. Contests with the Amazons and battles with
the centaurs form the subject of the whole. The most animated and
boldest compositions are sculptured in these reliefs. They exhibit,
however, exaggeration, and are wanting in that repose and beauty which
are the characteristics of the works of Phidias.

In the half draped Venus of Milo now in the Louvre, we have a genuine
Greek work, which represents an intermediate style between that of
Phidias and Praxiteles. "Grandly serious," Professor Lubke writes,
"and almost severe, stands the goddess of Love, not yet conceived as
in later representations, as a love requiring woman. The simple
drapery, resting on the hips, displays uncovered the grand forms of
the upper part of the body, which, with all her beauty, have that
mysteriously unapproachable feeling which is the genuine expression of
the divine."

_Praxitilean._ This period is characterized by a more rich and flowing
style of execution, as well as by the choice of softer and more
delicate subjects than had usually been selected for representation.
In this the beautiful was sought, after rather than the sublime.
Praxiteles may be considered the first sculptor who introduced this
more sensual, if it may be so called, style of art, for he was the
first who, in the unrobed Venus, combined the utmost luxuriance of
personal charms with a spiritual expression in which the queen of love
herself appeared as a woman needful of love, and filled with inward
longing. He first gave a prominence to corporeal attractions, with
which the deity was invested. His favorite subjects were of youthful
and feminine beauty. In his Venus of Cnidos he exhibited the goddess
in the most exquisite form of woman. His Cupid represented the beauty
and grace of that age in boys which seemed to the Greeks the most
attractive. His Apollo Sauroctonos presented the form of a youth of
exquisite beauty and proportion. The Venus of Cnidos stands foremost
as one of the celebrated art creations of antiquity. This artist
represented the goddess completely undraped; but this bold innovation
was justified by the fact that she was taking up her garment with her
left hand, as if she were just coming from her bath, while with her
right she modestly covered her figure. Many as are