There was, in the Homeric hymns and in the lyric poets, a delight in details of incident and in personal peculiarities and even in romantic tales about the gods; and in the fourth century, when the high idealisation of the preceding age is no longer so strong in its influence, we find a similar tendency in art as well.

While the great statues of the gods in the fifth century are almost all represented as either enthroned or standing, not employed in any particular action or function, the most characteristic examples of the statues of gods made in the fourth century have almost all some definite motive.

We may take as an example what was perhaps the most famous statue of antiquity, the Aphrodite by Praxiteles at Cnidus.

The goddess is represented as nude; and it is often said that goddesses would not have been so represented in the fifth century.

It is true that full drapery seems more consistent with the dignified and august figures of Phidian art.