Their most renowned artists, Phidias,
Praxiteles, and Lysippus, were sculptors.
They executed bas-reliefs to adorn the walls of a temple, its facade
or its pediment. Of this style of work is the famous frieze of the
Panathenaic procession which was carved around the Parthenon,
representing young Athenian women on the day of the great festival of
the goddess.[91]
They sculptured statues for the most part, of which some represented
gods and served as idols; others represented athletes victorious in
the great games, and these were the recompense of his victory.
The most ancient statues of the Greeks are stiff and rude, quite
similar to the Assyrian sculptures. They are often colored. Little by
little they become graceful and elegant. The greatest works are those
of Phidias in the fifth century and of Praxiteles in the fourth. The
statues of the following centuries are more graceful, but less noble
and less powerful.
There were thousands of statues in Greece,[92] for every city had its
own, and the sculptors produced without cessation for five centuries.
Of all this multitude there remain to us hardly fifteen complete
statues.
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