Dibutades lived in Sicyon, and had a daughter called sometimes Kora, and again Callirhoe. She could not aid her father very much in his work as a sculptor, but she went each day to the flower-market and brought home flowers, which gave a very gay and cheerful air to her father's little shop. Kora was very beautiful, and many young Greeks visited her father for the sake of seeing the daughter. At length one of these youths asked Dibutades to take him as an apprentice; and when this request was granted the young man made one of the family of the sculptor. Their life was one of simple content. The young man could play upon the reed, and his education fitted him to be the instructor of Kora. After a time, for some reason that Pliny does not mention, it was best for the youth to go away from the artist's home, and he then asked Kora if she would be his wife. She consented, and vows of betrothal were exchanged, while they were sad at the thought of parting.
The last evening of his stay, as they sat together, Kora seized a coal from the brazier, and traced upon the wall the outline of the face that was so dear to her; and she did this so correctly that when her father saw it he knew instantly from what face it had been drawn. Then he wished to do his part, for he also loved the young man. So he brought his clay and filled in the outline which Kora had drawn, and so went on to model the first portrait in bas-relief that was ever made. Thus did this great art grow out of the love of this beautiful maiden of Sicyon, about twenty-five hundred years ago.
After this beginning Dibutades went on to perfect his art. He made medallions and busts, and decorated the beautiful Grecian structures with his work, and work in bas-relief became the most beautiful ornamentation of the splendid temples and theatres of Greece. He also founded a school for modelling at Sicyon, and became so famous an artist that several Greek cities claim the honor of having been his birthplace.
The bas-relief made from Kora's outline was preserved in the Nymphæum at Corinth for almost two hundred years, but was then destroyed by fire. She married her lover, and he became a famous artist at Corinth.
We have said that accounts of individual artists exist from about 700 B.C.; but these accounts are of so general a character and so wanting in detail that I shall pass on about two hundred years, after saying a few words of the advance made in the arts of sculpture, and mentioning a few of the examples which remain from that early time, which is called the Archaic period. This expression not only means an ancient period of art, but carries also the idea of an obsolete art--of something that is not only ancient, but something that is no longer practised in the same manner or by the same people as existed in this ancient or archaic time. During this archaic period a beginning was made in many branches of plastic art. There were statues in metal and marble, bas-reliefs in various kinds of stone and marble, as well as some chryselephantine statues. This kind of work is often said to have been invented by Phidias, but the truth seems to be that he was not its inventor, but carried it to great perfection. These chryselephantine statues were made of wood and then covered with ivory and gold; the ivory was used for the flesh parts of the statue, and gold for the drapery and ornaments of the figure, and the finished work was very brilliant in its effect.