ABSTRACT
There is one theme repeated century after century which clearly shows the modification of ideal which we have indicated. The Boy Plucking a Thorn from his Foot has inspired a number of replicas 1 until quite late times. In the 5th century, when the theme was invented, it was not a genre subject but a type of the athletic and religious statue, the image of a young victor whose wounded foot did not cause him to slacken in the race. The early form was slim and dry, somewhat schematized; and gaucheries had not completely disappeared because the carefully combed locks did not fall, as they should, by their own weight, and the junction of thorax and pelvis is still a little reminiscent of the old frontal ankylosis. The Rothschild bronze shows a robust fellow with expressive physiognomy, knit brows, picturesque hair and powerful muscles: here we have the dawning realism of the 4th century. Still later, the Priene image-maker 2 transforms the graceful lad of archaic times into a common little street urchin who, barely clothed in a small cloak and wearing a cap, makes a pleasing grimace of pain: here we get the keen and somewhat trivial realism of the Hellenists with its predilection for the lower orders of society and its transformation of the grave and religious subjects of olden times into genre.
