Praxiteles (flourished 370–330 bce) was the greatest of the Attic sculptors of the 4th century bce and one of the most original of Greek artists. By transforming the detached and majestic style of his immediate predecessors into one of gentle grace and sensuous charm, he profoundly influenced the subsequent course of Greek sculpture.
Nothing is known of his life except that he apparently was the son of the sculptor Cephisodotus the Elder and had two sons, Cephisodotus the Younger and Timarchus, also sculptors. The only known surviving work from Praxiteles’ own hand, the marble statue Hermes Carrying the Infant Dionysus, is characterized by a delicate modeling of forms and exquisite surface finish. A few of his other works, described by ancient writers, survive in Roman copies.
His most-celebrated work was the Aphrodite of Cnidus, which the Roman author Pliny the Elder considered not only the finest statue by Praxiteles but the best in the whole world. The goddess is shown naked, a bold innovation at the time. From reproductions of this statue on Roman coins numerous copies have been recognized; the best known are in the Vatican Museum and in the Louvre. Another work that has been recognized in various Roman copies is the Apollo Sauroctonus, in which the god is shown as a boy leaning against a tree trunk, about to kill a lizard with an arrow.
According to Pliny, when Praxiteles was asked which of his statues he valued most highly, he replied, “ ‘Those to which Nicias [a famous Greek painter] has put his hand’—so much did he prize the application of colour of that artist.” To visualize the sculptures of Praxiteles, therefore, it is well to remember how much colour added to the general effect. Another ancient writer, Diodorus, says of him that “he informed his marble figures with the passions of the soul.” It is this subtle personal element, combined with an exquisite finish of surface, that imparts to his figures their singular appeal. Through his influence, figures standing in graceful, sinuous poses, leaning lightly on some support, became favourite representations and were later further developed by sculptors of the Hellenistic Age.