"Praxitelizing'' works : the pastiches



Greek sculptors of Praxiteles's generation looked beyond the contrapposto developed by Polykleitos, and exaggerated their figures' stance, with the weight planted fully on one leg and the hips thrown out to one side. The same sculptors also rejuvenated their gods, portraying them as noticeably youthful figures (in the case of Apollo), and dared to represent them naked (in the case of Aphrodite). Their works incorporated elements of landscape and attempts at three-dimensional compositions incorporating two or more viewpoints.

Praxiteles's career is generally thought to have come to an end circa 330 BC. His workshop continued to exert considerable influence, however. Roman replicas of his statues testify to a somewhat selective view of his oeuvre: 400 to 600 years after his death, Praxiteles's contribution to portraiture and architectural sculpture seems to have been forgotten. The search for traces of his influence in these areas, among the architectural sculptures and steles of his immediate successors, reveals little beyond a trend for complex hair styles and rather languid figures. It seems, too, that in Roman times (according to Pliny) Praxiteles's work was often confused with that of Skopas, notably a group representing the Niobids. It is nonetheless important to distinguish between replicas and pastiches of Praxiteles's work. So-called "Praxitelizing" sculptures were produced from the late 4th-century BC onwards, and were a particular feature of Alexandrian art in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, as Greek sculptors arrived in Rome, where they established workshops producing a range of copies as well as figures "in the style of" celebrated sculptors, often mixing details and references.