names of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days
of Pericles or even Alexander. I simply speak of sculpture as an art
which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
a right to infer from the specimens that have been preserved. How many
more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
authors. The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
reproductions; they cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
Powers's Greek Slave is a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which
have been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed
from Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving to his statues an appearance of
living flesh. The Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand
specimens of ancient sculpture which have been found among the débris of
former magnificence, many of which are the productions of Greek artists
transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvedere sculptured by Apollonius, the
Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
the Laocoön, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvedere, the work of
Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleeping Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, is alone a
magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was carried
centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues that now
embellish Italy, to say nothing of those that are scattered over Europe.
We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in their day.
Not merely the figures of men are chiselled, but of animals and plants.
Nature in all her forms was imitated; and not merely Nature, but the
dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern sculptor
has equalled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies of those ancient
statues as they appear to us even after the exposure and accidents of
two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
Europe, can question that of all the nations who have claimed to be
civilized, the ancient Greeks and Romans deserve a proud pre-eminence in
an art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity are the result of
native genius alone, without the aid of Christian ideas. Nor with the
aid of Christianity are we sure that any nation will ever soar to
loftier heights than did the Greeks in that proud realm which was
consecrated to Paganism.
We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
art of painting as we are in regard to sculpture and architecture, since
so few specimens of painting have been preserved. We have only the
testimony of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste
and so great a susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot
suppose that their notions were crude in this great art which the
moderns have carried to such great perfection. In this art the moderns
doubtless excel, especially in perspective and drawing, and light and
shade. No age, we fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, when the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and
Domenichino blazed with such wonderful brilliancy.
Painting in some form, however, is very ancient, though not so ancient
as are the temples of the gods and the statues that were erected to
their worship. It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and
color, and with the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul
by imitation of their outward expression. The walls of Babylon were
painted after Nature with representations of different species of
animals and of combats between them and man. Semiramis was represented
as on horseback, striking a leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus
as wounding a lion. Ezekiel describes various idols and beasts portrayed
upon the walls, and even princes painted in vermilion, with girdles
around their loins. In ages almost fabulous there were some rude
attempts in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues
and reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are covered with
painted and hieroglyphic presentations of religious subjects; but the
colors were laid without regard to light and shade. The Egyptians did
not seek to represent the passions and emotions which agitate the soul,
but rather to authenticate events and actions; and hence their
paintings, like hieroglyphics, are but inscriptions. It was their great
festivals and religious rites which they sought to perpetuate, not ideas
of beauty or of grace. Thus their paintings abound with dismembered
animals, plants, and flowers, with censers, entrails,--whatever was used
in their religious worship. In Greece also the original painting
consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of wood and clay. At Corinth,
painting was early united with the fabrication of vases, on which were
rudely painted figures of men and animals. Among the Etruscans, before
Rome was founded, it is said there were beautiful paintings, and it is
probable that these people were advanced in art before the Greeks. There
were paintings in some of the old Etruscan cities which the Roman
emperors wished to remove, so much admired were they even in the days of
the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan vases are famous for designs
which have never been exceeded in purity of form, but it is probable
that these were copied from the Greeks.
Whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, however,
the art was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the
former. The development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It
probably began by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
markings,--such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
designs of Flaxman. They were originally practised on a white ground;
then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
eighteen years before Christ. As the subject was a battle, it must have
represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of the
coloring or of the real excellence of the work, except that the artist
was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name connected
with the art in Greece. He is praised by Pliny, to whom we owe the
history of ancient painting more than to any other author. Cimon was not
satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
representations of the diminution of the length of figures as they
appear when looked at obliquely; and hence was the first painter of
perspective. He first made muscular articulations, indicated the veins,
and gave natural folds to drapery.
A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463
B.C.,--one of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most
magnanimous, who had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding
intellectual activity. He painted on panels, which were afterward let
into the walls, being employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on
the great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously.
He also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the
superintendence of Phidias. The pictures of Polygnotus had nothing of
that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers of perspective, so much
admired in modern art. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which
he brought nearly to perfection by ideal expression, accurate drawing,
and improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity
of his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He gave great
expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were models of
excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the cheeks,
and the gracefulness of the draperies. He strove, like Phidias, to
express character in repose. He imitated the personages and the subjects
of the old mythology, and treated them in an epic spirit, his subjects
being almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.
Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, are his paintings
in the Temple at Delphi, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in the
Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon symmetrical principles,
with great grandeur and freedom, resembling Michael Angelo more than any
other modern artist.
The use of oil was unknown to the ancients. The artists painted upon
wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon canvas, which was
not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon tablets or panels, and
not upon the walls,--the panels being afterward framed and encased in
the walls. The stylus, or cestrum, used in drawing and for spreading the
wax colors was pointed on one end and flat on the other, and generally
made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and bleaching, and then
mixed with colors. When painting was practised in watercolors, glue was
used with the white of an egg or with gums; but wax and resins were also
worked with water, with certain preparations. This latter mode was
called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the most durable of
all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time of Alexander the
Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it prevented the
colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practised both with the
cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burned in.
Fresco, or water-color, on fresh plaster, was used for coloring walls,
which were divided into compartments or panels. The composition of the
stucco, and the method of preparing the walls for painting, is described
by the ancient writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of
ordinary plaster, over which, when dry, were successively added three
other layers of a finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were
placed three layers of a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper
one being laid on before the under one was dry; by which process the
different layers were so bound together that the whole mass formed one
beautiful and solid slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being
detached from the wall and transported in a wooden frame to any
distance. The colors were applied when the composition was still wet.
The fresco wall, when painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish,
both to heighten the color and to preserve it from the effects of the
sun or the weather; but this process required so much care, and was
attended with so much expense, that it was used only in the better
houses and palaces." The later discoveries at Pompeii show the same
correctness of design in painting as in sculpture, and also considerable
perfection in coloring. The great artists of Greece--Phidias and
Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus and Lysippus--were both
sculptors and painters, like Michael Angelo; and the ancient writers
praise the paintings of these great artists as much as their sculpture.
The Aldobrandini Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount during the
pontificate of Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is
admired both for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle
for his designs, and by Lucian for his color.
Dionysius and Mikon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
former being celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were deficient
in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant drawing.
Mikon was particularly skilled in painting horses, and was the first who
used for a color the light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt
vine-twigs. He painted three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and
also the walls of the Temple of the Dioscuri.
A greater painter still was Apollodorus of Athens. Through his labors,
about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added to the style of Polygnotus,
without departing from his pictures as models. "The acuteness of his
taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover that as all men were connected
by one general form, so they were separated each by some predominant
power, which fixed character and bound them to a class. Thence he drew
his line of imitation, and personified the central form of the class to
which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its qualities
administered without being absorbed. Agility was not suffered to destroy
firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight, agility.
Elegance did not degenerate into effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to
hugeness." His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the
semblance of reality: he painted men and things as they really appeared.
He also made a great advance in coloring: he invented chiaro-oscuro.
Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light and
shade; he heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus
obtained what the moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred
due honor on the pencil,--_primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit_.
This great painter was succeeded by Zeuxis, who belonged to his school,
but who surpassed him in the power to give ideal form to rich effects.
He began his great career four hundred and twenty-four years before
Christ, and was most remarkable for his female figures. His Helen,
painted from five of the most beautiful women of Croton, was one of the
most renowned productions of antiquity, to see which the painter
demanded money. He gave away his pictures, because, with an artist's
pride, he maintained that their price could not be estimated. There is
a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to death over an old woman
painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the senses, regarded as a high
attainment in art,--as in the instance recorded of his grapes, at which
the birds pecked. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose headquarters
were at Ephesus,--the peculiarities of which were accuracy of imitation,
the exhibition of sensuous charms, and the gratification of sensual
tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of Phidias
was completed, which modified his style. His marvellous powers were
displayed in the contrast of light and shade, which he learned from
Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. Lucian highly
praises his Female Centaur as one of the most remarkable paintings of
the world, in which he showed great ingenuity of contrasts. His Jupiter
Enthroned is also extolled by Pliny, as one of his finest works. Zeuxis
acquired a great fortune, and lived ostentatiously.
Contemporaneous with Zeuxis, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native
of Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing and power of
expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since Parrhasius painted a
curtain which deceived his rival, whereas the grapes of Zeuxis had
deceived only birds. Parrhasius was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious,
and boasted of having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined
the magic tone of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis and
the classic expression of Polygnotus.
Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
Christ, not only in Athens, but in the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes
of Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same
city founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable: "Let Nature,
not an artist, be your model." Protogenes was celebrated for his high
finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
expression.
The art probably culminated in Apelles, who was at once a rich colorist
and portrayer of sensuous charm and a scientific artist, while he added
a peculiar grace of his own, which distinguished him above both his
predecessors and contemporaries. He was contemporaneous with Alexander,
and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great conqueror.
Apelles was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of Amphipolis,
and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took lessons
from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court of
Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men and
of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so assiduously
to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day without
practising. He made great improvement in the mechanical part of his art,
inventing some colors, and being the first to varnish pictures. By the
general consent of ancient authors, Apelles stands at the head of all
the painters of their world. His greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene,
or Venus rising out of the sea, in which female grace was personified;
the falling drops of water from her hair gave the appearance of a
transparent silver veil over her form. This picture cost one hundred
talents, was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos, and afterward
placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated to Julius Caesar.
The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could be found to repair
it; nor was there an artist who could complete an unfinished picture
which Apelles left. He feared no criticism, and was unenvious of the
fame of rivals.
After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
Mummius, 146 B.C., gave a severe blow to Grecian art. This general
destroyed, or carried to Rome, more works than all his predecessors
combined. Sulla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater
injury; and from that time artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and
other flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The
masterpieces of famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and
Asia were ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius
Paulus brought from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to
carry them in the triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece,
the migration of artists began; and this spoliation of Greece, Asia, and
Sicily continued for two centuries. We have already said that such was
the wealth of Rhodes in works of art that three thousand statues were
found there by the conquerors; nor could there have been less at Athens,
Olympia, and Delphi. Scaurus had all the public pictures of Sicyon
transported to Rome. Verres plundered every temple and public building
in Sicily.
Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings in the world, without
the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could advance no higher in the realm
of painting, as well as of statuary, than the Greeks had already borne
it. Yet the Romans learned to place as high value on the works of
Grecian genius as the English do on the paintings of the old masters of
Italy and Flanders. And if they did not add to the art, they gave such
encouragement that under the emperors it may be said to have been
flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven hundred portraits of eminent
men. The portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in
the temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
filled with paintings.
The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul, as well as
the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for a people
who had both a natural and a cultivated taste and sensibility.
Among the Romans portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the
art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing
could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one
hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus landscape
decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of
license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has
been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in the
latter days of the empire. Mosaic work, of inlaid stones or composition
of varying shades and colors, gradually superseded painting in Rome; it
was first used for floors, and finally walls and ceilings were
ornamented with it. It is true, the ancients could show no such
exquisite perfection of colors, tints, and shades as may be seen to-day
in the wonderful reproductions of world-renowned paintings on the walls
of St. Peter's at Rome; but many ancient mosaics have been preserved
which attest beauty of design of the highest character,--like the Battle
of Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii; and this brilliant art had its
origin and a splendid development at the hands of the old Romans.
Thus in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest, and in
which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the ancients
were not merely our equals,--they were our superiors. It is greater to
originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and perhaps in
painting, the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our
time, who should build an edifice in different proportions from those
that were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a
mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or
upon the Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in
proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of
Pericles that excellence with us is attained and recognized; when we
differ from them we furnish grounds of just criticism. So in
sculpture,--the finest modern works are inspired by antique models. It
is only when the artist seeks to bring out the purest and loftiest
sentiments of the soul, such as only Christianity can inspire, that he
may hope to surpass the sculpture of antiquity in one department of that
art alone,--in expression, rather than in beauty of form, on which no
improvement can be made. And if we possessed the painted Venus of
Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of Cleomenes, we
should probably discover greater richness of coloring as well as grace
of figure than appear in that famous picture of Titian which is one of
the proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the
greatest marvels of Italian art.
* * * * *
AUTHORITIES.
Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Müller's Ancient Art and its
Remains; A.J. Guattani, Antiquités de la Grande Grèce; Mazois,
Antiquités de Pompeii; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities
of Athens; Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De
Quincey, Fergusson, Schliemann,--these are some of the innumerable
authorities on Architecture among the ancients.