Euphra'nor
（Εὐφράνωρ).1. One of the greatest masters of the most flourishing period of Grecian art, and equally distinguished as a statuary and a painter. (Quint. Inst. 12.10.6.) 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 (34.8. 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. Nat. 35.8, 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. (Müller, Archäol. d. Kunst, § 405, n. 3) : a woman wrapt in wonder and adoration (admirantem et adorantem) : Alexander and Philip riding in fourhorsed chariots, and other quadrigae and bigae. (Plin. Nat. 34.8. 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. 1.3.3.) Lastly, his statue of Hephaestus, in which the god was not lame, is mentioned by Dion Chrysostom. (Orat. p. 466c.)
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 (Δημοκρατία τε καὶ Δῆμος), 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. 1.3.2, 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. Nat. 35.11. 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, p. 208.) 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. (8.11, 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 :--Ἀμβρόσιαι δ᾽ ἄρα χαῖται, &c. (Eustath. ad Il. 1.529.) Müller believed that Euphranor merely copied the Zeus of Phidias. (Arch. d. Kunst, § 140, n. 3.) Plutarch (l.c.), amidst much praise of the picture of the battle of Mantineia, says that Euphranor painted it under a divine inspiration (οὐκ ἀνενθουσιάστως). Philostratus, in his rhetorical style, ascribes to Euphranor τὸ ἔσκιον (light and shade) καὶ τὸ εὔπνουν (expression) καί τὸ εἰσέχον τε καὶ ἐξέχον (perspective and foreshortening). (Vit. Apollon. 2.9.) 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. § 27), Carmanides (ib. § 42), and Leonidas of Anthedon. (Steph. Byz. s. v. Ἀνθήδων.) He was himself a disciple of Ariston, the son of Aristeides of Thebes. [ARISTEIDES.]