Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Biographies for wider area of: "ISTHMIA Ancient sanctuary LOUTRAKI-PERACHORA" .
ISTHMIA (Ancient sanctuary) LOUTRAKI-PERACHORA
Euphranor. A distinguished statuary and painter. He was a native of Corinth,
but practised his art at Athens about B.C. 336. Of one of his works, a beautiful
sitting Paris, we have probably a copy in the Museo Pio-Clementino. His best paintings
were preserved in a porch in the Ceramicus.
Euphanor, the Isthmian, is mentioned as a pupil of Aristeides of Thebes (probably about B.C. 360), and, like others of his predecessors, worked both in sculpture and painting; according to Pliny (xxxv. § 128), he was docilis ac laboriosus ante omnis, and in both branches of art excelled all his contemporaries. Of his pictures we hear specially of three great compositions for a stoa in the Ceramicus, representing the charge of the Athenians against the Thebans before the battle of Mantineia, pictures of the twelve gods, and a Theseus. Of this last, Pliny says in quo dixit that the Theseus of Parrhasius looked as though fed on roses, while that of Euphranor seemed fed on beef. The dixit is usually taken as alluding to Euphranor Klein suggests that it was a remark more appropriate to Parrhasius; the same confusion of Pliny comes out in his attribution of a madness of Odysseus to Euphranor in the same passage. After describing the three works in the Stoa, he adds, nobilis eius tabula Ephesi est, Ulixes . . . Now we know from Plutarch that Parrhasius painted a picture of this subject, and it seems absurd to suppose that Euphranor would have painted the same idea for the home of Parrhasius, Ephesus. The eius should properly refer to Parrhasius, who alone painted this subject, and the whole passage has been inserted here by Pliny in error. Of Euphranor's style we cannot judge; we only know that he devoted his attention to the canon of proportions, and is said to have written on this subject; but it remains uncertain whether or no he is to be considered as the predecessor of Lysippus in this study.
This extract is from: A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890) (eds. William Smith, LLD, William Wayte, G. E. Marindin). Cited July 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Euphranor the sculptor-painter became a true all-rounder in both
technique and subject matter
Euphranor is variously reported as being an 'Isthmian' and an Athenian;
yet whether an immigrant or not his major paintings were certainly done for
Athens. His chronology is also confused, for though Pliny twice dates him to
364-36 (N.H. 35.128), he places him after the flower-painter Pausias, who taught
Apelles (floruit 332-329: N.H. 35.79). Indeed, in N.H. 35.111 he lowers the
chronology still further, by apprenticing him to Apelles' contemporary the Theban
painter Aristeides (cf. N.H. 35.98). Something has to give, and since (1) his
own floruit coincides with the Battle of Mantinea (362), the occasion for his
acknowledged masterpiece, and (2) also gives his son Sostratos a floruit in
328-325, the most likely explanation is that Pliny has made one Aristeides out
of two: the earlier, active ca. 400 (N.H. 35.75) and grandfather of the later
(N.H. 35.108-10), would then be Euphranor's master. Euphranor's work on the
Apollo Patroos and for the Macedonian kings extends his career at least to ca.
330.
His known works of sculpture are as follows:
• Divinities and personifications
This extract is from: Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works. Cited Oct 2003 from Perseus Project URL below, which contains extracts from the ancient literature, bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
Euphranor. One of the greatest masters of the most flourishing period of Grecian art, and equally distinguished as a statuary and a painter. (Quintil. xii. 10.6.) He was a native of the Corinthian isthmus, but he practised his art at Athens, and is reckoned by Plutarch as an Athenian. (De Glor. Ath. 2.) He is placed by Pliny (xxxiv. 8. s. 19) at Ol. 104, no doubt because he painted the battle of Mantineia, which was fought in Ol. 104, 3 (B. C. 362/1), but the list of his works shews, almost certainly, that he flourished till after the accession of Alexander. (B. C. 336.) As a statuary, he wrought both in bronze and marble, and made figures of all sizes, from colossal statues to little drinking-cups. (Plin. xxxv. 8, s. 40.25.) His most celebrated works were, a Paris, which expressed alike the judge of the goddesses, the lover of Helen, and the slayer of Achilles ; the very beautiful sitting figure of Paris, in marble, in the Museo Pio-Clementino is, no doubt, a copy of this work : a Minerva, at Rome, called the Catulian, from its having been set up by Q. Lutatius Catulus, beneath the Capitol : an Agathodaemon (simulacrum Boni Eventus), holding a patera in the right hand, and an ear of corn and a poppy in the left : a Latona puerpera, carrying the infants, Apollo and Diana, in the temple of Concord ; there is at Florence a very beautiful relief representing the same subject : a Key-bearer (Cliduchus), remarkable for its beauty of form : colossal statues of Valour and of Greece, forming no doubt a group, perhaps Greece crowned by Valour. (Muller, Archaol. d. Kunst) : a woman wrapt in wonder and adoration (admirantem et adorantem) : Alexander and Philip riding in fourhorsed chariots, and other quadrigae and bigae. (Plin. xxxiv. 8. s. 19.16.) The statue of Apollo Patroiis, in his temple in the Cerameicus at Athens, and a disciple of Iamblichus. (Eunap. Vit. Soph. p. was by Euphranor. (Paus. i. 3.3.) Lastly, his statue of Hephaestus, in which the god was not lame, is mentioned by Dion Chrysostom. (Orat.) As a painter, Euphranor executed many great works, the chief of which were seen, in the time of Pausanias, in a porch in the Cerameicus. On the one side were the twelve gods; and on the opposite wall, Theseus, with Democracy and Demos (Demokratia te kai Demos), in which picture Theseus was represented as the founder of the equal polity of Athens. In the same place was his picture of the battle between the Athenian and Boeotian cavalry at Mantineia, containing portraits of Epaminondas and of Gryllus the son of Xenophon. (Paus. i. 3.2, 3.) There were also some celebrated pictures by him at Ephesus, namely, Ulysses, in his feigned madness, yoking an ox with a horse (it is difficult to understand the next words of Pliny, "et palliati cogitantes"); and a commander sheathing his sword. (Plin. xxxv. 11. s. 40.25.) Euphranor also wrote works on proportion and on colours (de Symmetria et Coloribus, Plin. l. c.), the two points in which his own excellence seems chiefly to have consisted. Pliny says that he was the first who properly expressed the dignity of heroes, by the proportions he gave to their statues ; and Hirt observes that this statement is confirmed by the existing copy of his Paris. (Gesch. d. Bild. Kunst) He made the bodies somewhat more slender, and the heads and limbs larger. His system of proportion was adopted, with some variation, by his great contemporary, Lysippus : in painting, Zeuxis had already practised it. It was, no doubt, with reference to proportion, as coloring, that he used to say that the Theseus of Parrhasius had been fed on roses, but his on flesh. (Plin. l. c.; Plut. de Glor. Ath. 2.) In his great picture of the twelve gods, the coloring of the hair of Hera was particularly admired. (Lucian, Imag. 7.) Of the same picture Valerius Maximus relates that Euphranor invested Poseidon with such surpassing majesty, that he was unable to give, as he had intended, a nobler expression to Zeus. (viii. 11, ext. 5.) It is said that the idea of his Zeus was at length suggested by his hearing a scholar recite the description in Homer :--Ambrosiai d' ara chaitai, &c. (Eustath. ad Il. i. 529.) Muller believed that Euphranor merely copied the Zeus of Phidias. (Arch. d. Kunst) Plutarch (l. c.), amidst much praise of the picture of the battle of Mantineia, says that Euphranor painted it under a divine inspiration (ouk anenthousiastos). Philostratus, in his rhetorical style, ascribes to Euphranor to eskion (light and shade) kai to eupnoun (expression) kai to eisechon te kai exechon (perspective and foreshortening). (Vit. Apollon. ii. 9.) Pliny (l. c.) says that Euphranor was, above all men, diligent and willing to learn, and always equal to himself. His disciples were, Antidotus (Plin. l. c.), Carmanides , and Leonidas of Anthedon. (Steph. Byz. s. v. Anthedon.) He was himself a disciple of Ariston, the son of Aristeides of Thebes.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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