Such a treatment evidently gave more scope for variety in the styles of the sculptors; and although we can sometimes trace the influence of one upon another, yet each clearly shows his own characteristics.

We are expressly told of Praxiteles that he showed the most admirable skill in infusing into his marble works the passions and emotions of the soul; and the extant remains of the statues made by Scopas and Lysippus show that they also, each in his own way, attained the same results.
If the sculpture of the fifth century was ethical, expressing noble ideals of character whether in gods or men, that of the fourth century may be called psychological.

It is not content with character; it expresses also mood and even passion, and thereby gives more prominence to individuality.

At first sight it is not easy to realise how this change came to affect the representations of the gods.

The gods of Homer are, indeed, full of individual character; but we have seen how in the fifth century, though the greatest sculptors declared it was the gods of Homer that they represented, these representations were idealised and raised above those human touches in which the individuality is most conspicuous.