they sent him a large vessel of bronze, round the mouth of which the
figures of all sorts of animals were chased or engraved. The vase,
indeed, never reached Crœsus, who was dethroned by Cyrus while it was
on its way, and it fell into the hands of some merchants who sold
it for a large price. Cyrus had the fortune not only to obtain the
treasure in the precious metals and in the workmanship, of the gorgeous
possessions of Crœsus, more precious than those metals themselves, but
also to restore to Jerusalem the splendid ornaments and rich vessels,
the work of the Tyrian artists, which belonged to the temple, and which
were no doubt saved, by having been consecrated in[81] the temple of
Belus, during the taking of Babylon.
It will perhaps never be known in what degree the taking of the Capital
of the Chaldeans by Cyrus, altered the state of literature and art
in ancient Persia. I have already referred to the passage in the
prophet Ezekiel, which mentions the portraying the figures of men with
vermilion, according to the use of the Chaldeans of Babylon; and, it
should be observed, that their _many-coloured_ head-dresses are also
mentioned; so that the Babylonian pictures, such as they were, were not
monochromes. But this belongs to another place[82].
The Greeks had early adopted or borrowed deities from every nation. The
Syrian Astaroth or Astarte, and Thammuz or Adonis, were not neglected,
but were received as kindly in the temples, as the Tyrian purple and
the fine linen of Egypt, in the ports of Greece; and they were too
intelligent and tasteful, not to adopt whatever of beautiful or elegant
might be found among the artificers and artists of the nations with
which they traded. Perhaps the Greeks were less inventors, than quick
and happy discerners, of what was beautiful. They seem to have wrought
the rough materials of many other nations into the happiest forms;
and, if they borrowed largely from others, they amply repaid them by
the beauty of the works they produced, and the excellent artists they
formed, and these, by seeking employment in foreign countries, refined
no doubt the taste of the great barbaric courts.
The art of inlaying and colouring metals is still possessed in
perfection by many of the descendants of the nations of Asia Minor and
Syria. The Circassians especially pride themselves on colouring silver,
an art in which in ancient times the Egyptians excelled, though it was
practised by the artists of Tyre and Sidon[83].
Figures and sometimes portraits were introduced in the patterns of the
stained metals; and though the damasking or colouring steel[84] is now
confined to swords and fire-arms, the example of the curious under-cup,
seen by Pausanias at Delphi, shows that it was applied to different
purposes by the inventors.
I have dwelt more upon the ornamental and religious vases, whether
in clay or wrought in metal, than upon statues in bronze or marble,
because their subjects, the manner of treating them, and the tools
employed in executing them, seem properly to belong to painting. On
the fictile vases, the subjects being chiefly applicable to funereal
rites, represent the mysteries of Ceres, Bacchus, and Hercules. Any
part of the fables concerning those divinities sufficed to indicate the
mystery. I have seen a beautiful design of Triptolemus with a winged
car, a type surely of the burial of the body in earth, while the living
spirit shall revive, even as the corn sown in the field springeth up
to beauty and use when the winter is gone. The struggles of Bacchus
and Hercules, the death of Linus, the descent of Hercules to Hades,
all these are compositions belonging strictly to picture, and form
the first steps towards it; departing more from the nature of designs
for sculptured friezes or tablets in bas-relief, than those other
Bacchic subjects, where the Menadæ and their companions dance at fixed
distances and independent of each other, or the graver Pyrrhic dancers
that are supposed to be equally emblematical, and are frequently drawn
on the vases or on the sides of altars, consecrated to the service of
the temples.
One of the most interesting works of the kind, of which the knowledge
has come down to us, was the chest of Cypselus already mentioned, in
the temple of Juno at Olympia in Elis[85], it was of cedar, inlaid with
gold, silver, and ivory; it was covered with designs indicative of the
mysteries, or representing funeral games. Whatever relates to Ceres
or Proserpine, to Bacchus or to Hercules, as connected with Dis, is
represented. Pausanias describes many figures, which my very imperfect
knowledge of their mystic meaning would lead me to call miscellaneous;
but they are doubtless connected with the main design. Among these are
some representing the virtues and the arts. It is clear that the woman
called Night, with a black child in one arm and a white one in the
other, called Death and Sleep, has a reference to the usual mysteries
of death.
But the fancy of the artificer has brought together, according to the
description, all the greater gods and older heroes, without any very
perceptible connexion as to their position[86].
In the same temple where that chest was placed, there were statues,
altars, treasures, and vases innumerable. However, there is but one
more that I shall notice on account of the fitness of the figures that
adorned it. It was the table of gold and ivory upon which the crowns
of the victors in the Olympic games were placed, and was the work of
Colotes, who, like his master Phidias, was a painter as well as a
sculptor. That is, they both of them designed, and sometimes carried on
their drawings, so far as to make them real monochrome pictures[87].
This appears to have been sometimes done as a preparation for working
in relief, as on the famous shield of Minerva, designed by Pantænus the
brother of Phidias. On the front of the table or altar were the six
greater gods more particularly patrons of the games; namely, Cybele,
Juno, Jupiter, Mercury, Apollo, and Diana. On the back the Olympic
games were carved or inlaid--it is not very clear which, as the word
used is only _representation_--and we know there were both carving and
inlaying in the chest. One side contained a battle under the direction
of Mars; and close by, were Esculapius and Hygeia; the other side was
filled by Pluto, Proserpine, Bacchus and two nymphs, one of whom held
a globe, the other a key: both symbolical of the mastery of Pluto or
death over the world.
The earliest names of Greek painters, discovered by the indefatigable
Pliny, are those of Dynas, Hygiænon, and Charmas. What their works
might be we can scarcely conjecture; for it is accounted a great
improvement that after them Eumanus the Athenian distinguished man from
woman in his figures[88], and undertook to draw any object he could
see; and Cimon the Cleonian proceeded so far as to place his figures in
different positions, and to give the proper direction to the eyes.
These all preceded Bularchus, whose picture of the battle of the
Magnetes must have very far surpassed the works of those artists. It
was esteemed so highly, that Candaules, the last King of Lydia, of the
race of the Heraclidæ, bought it at a very high price--it is reported,
at its weight in gold--and regarded it as a treasure. This was about
the eighteenth Olympiad, or nearly 730 years before our era.
If the description given by Lucian of the picture in the temple of
Diana in Taurica, and which he ascribes to some very ancient unknown
painter, be anything but imaginary, it must have been painted about
this time[89].
In the half century after Bularchus, the arts of design, and especially
painting, had made large and rapid progress. Somewhere about the
eightieth Olympiad, or between four and five hundred years before
Christ, prizes for painting were instituted at Delphi and at Corinth;
and we find Pantænus, the brother of Phidias, contending at Delphi with
Timagros, among the first of the exhibitors for the prize.
Besides the drawings or pictures, which Pantænus had made in
conjunction with Phidias[90], he had already painted at Athens the
battle of Marathon, in which the portraits of the leaders of both
armies were conspicuous. The two Mycons, and Timarete, the daughter
of the second, were his cotemporaries; his elders, Aglaiophon,
Cephysodorus, and Phylus, were still living. These all employed their
genius upon subjects relating to the religion or the history of their
country. From devotion or patriotism they drew their inspiration. Hence
the grandeur and severity that, according to all authors, distinguished
their works.
Between seven and eight centuries before Christ, about the time
when the Olympic games became fixed, many of the temples and public
buildings of Athens appear to have been improved or rebuilt. At that
period all the states, enjoying any advantages of situation as to
maritime commerce, appear to have been actively employed in domestic
improvements, or in sending out foreign colonies. Syracuse, Corcyra,
Tarentum, Rome, and many other cities were founded. Byzantium, half
a century later; and in the interval Necho’s ships had sailed round
Africa.
By the year 550 before Christ, the Athenians, under the government of
Pisistratus and his sons, had not only improved in all that renders
civilised life delightful, but had extended their commerce, and
acquired a degree of wealth and splendour, that drew upon them, first
the admiration, and not long after the hostile attacks of the Persians,
aided, it must be confessed, by the revenge of the Pisistratidæ, who
had been expelled when the popular government was established.
It was then when the great contest began between Athens and the
Monarchs of the East, who would have oppressed all Greece by the
conquest of her first free people, that the arts were called into
existence. They lent their aid to deepen religion, to animate
patriotism, to reward virtue.
Themistocles rebuilt in purer taste, and with greater magnificence,
some of the temples, and most of the other public buildings injured
by the Persians. But it is said that his works were chiefly those
necessary, or at least most useful to the people.
Cimon, the son of that Miltiades who won the battle of Marathon,
resolved to beautify the city with temples, and statues, and pictures,
part of the expense of which he defrayed out of his private fortune,
and part was provided for by a portion of the Persian spoils.
Struck with the heedlessness of the Athenians, who, among their many
shrines, had never erected one in honour of Theseus, their greatest
benefactor, he planned and accomplished the Temple of Theseus[91],
about thirty years before Pericles’ more magnificent structure, the
Parthenon, rose to fix for ever a canon for perfection in architecture
and sculpture[92].
The expedition of Cimon to the Isle of Scyros, to recover the bones of
Theseus, and to punish the islanders for the death of that hero, was
immediately followed by the erection of the venerable temple, still
standing in honour of his remains. Its decorations were more beautiful
than any that had hitherto been seen.
Mycon, who was both a sculptor and a painter, had the direction of
the structure. The sculptured metopes are said to be even finer than
those of the Parthenon[93] in execution, though inferior in taste;
and the same is said of the two friezes that adorn the front and back
vestibules of the temple. As these pieces of sculpture bear marks even
now of having been coloured, I must consider them as works fitted,
in the opinion of one of the greatest painters of that age, to be
considered as pictures.
The friendship that subsisted between Theseus and his cousin Hercules,
and the gratitude so strongly expressed by Theseus for the services
and favours of his friend, rendered it natural that a temple to one of
these heroes should be decorated with the acts of both; and as in life
Theseus had always generously given the first place to Hercules, so in
his monument the Athenians placed the pictures of his actions in the
front of the temple, while those of Theseus occupied the back and sides.
The flat pictures were what we should call frescoes; they were all
painted upon the interior walls of the Theseum, and related solely to
the actions of Theseus.
It is impossible now to know how far Mycon had departed from the
Egyptian style of painting which had prevailed in Athens and elsewhere
before this period.
Where paintings of mythological, or even historical subjects were
required in public places, plain unbroken colours, without much regard
to nature, were applied, so as to produce a dazzling effect at a
distance, much like that of an Eastern bazaar, where separate pieces of
various coloured brocades produce a gorgeous but not unpleasant show.
By the age of Mycon some discrimination was used in the application of
colour. The coloured foliage and meanders which decorated the Theseum,
the Parthenon, and the Panhellenic Temple of Egina[94], were only
internal decorations; and I think the descriptions left of the pictures
contemporary with those of Mycon, justify us in concluding that the
Egyptian practice was already falling into disuse.
The subjects chosen to do honour to Hercules were, of course, his own
actions, not exactly those called the twelve labours of Hercules;
though some of them are mixed with other events in the hero’s life. The
subject of the frieze, over the front entrance, is the war with the
giants, in which the superior gods are only spectators, while Hercules,
Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, and Mercury, are actively engaged in combat with
the giants. The subjects on the metopes, relating to Hercules, are some
of them too much injured to be recognised with certainty; but others
are from his common adventures, such as the Nemean Lion, the Hydra, and
so on.
The frieze, in honour of Theseus, represents the battle of the Centaurs
and Lapithæ. Among the groups there are some of great beauty; but I
cannot help thinking that, like those of the battle of the giants,
there is an affectation of a display of strength. There are too many
figures with legs outstretched and strained, and arms employed without
a visible necessity; very unlike the work of Phidias, where the action
of every figure is directed to its proper purpose.
But it is not as sculpture I speak of them; all these figures were
painted by Mycon and his daughter Timarete, reported by Pliny to have
been a paintress of great reputation. Even yet, Colonel Leake[95] says,
there are traces of bronze or gold coloured armour, garments of various
hues, azure skies, and golden stars. If these artists gave natural
colours to the objects they treated, it was already a great improvement
on the Egyptian notion of pictures; but yet their works must have
resembled those ancient altar-pieces, some by the hand of Albert
Durer himself, which we still meet with occasionally in the German
churches[96].
The description of, and apology for, coloured sculpture in Flaxman’s
seventh lecture, leaves nothing to be said on that side of the
question. On the other I believe there is an universal feeling of
distaste to anything so like waxwork.
The pictures on the inner walls of the Theseum were painted on stucco,
which here and there still retains vestiges of colour.
The subjects were most probably effaced when the temple was converted
into a Christian church.
They were the battle of the Amazons, that of the Centaurs and Lapithæ,
and one of an action performed by Theseus, in Crete, to convince Minos
that he was indeed the son of Neptune. It appears that the king,
offended with Theseus, had taunted him with pretending falsely to a
divine origin, and threw a ring into the sea, desiring him, if he
really had the influence of a son with Neptune, to restore it. Theseus
immediately dived to the bottom, and soon emerging from the tide he
presented the king with his signet, and displayed the golden crown with
which Amphitrite had honoured him while below the waves.
The best work of Mycon, however, according to Pausanias, was Acastus
and his horses, which he painted in the temple of the Dioscuri. His was
also the picture of the Argonauts, in the same temple, where Polygnotus
also painted some excellent pictures.
But leaving these things, I must hasten on to a work of still greater
importance in the history of painting, and which the Athenians likewise
owed to Cimon. I mean the Stoa or Portico, called Pæcile, on account
of its many colours[97]. The painters who adorned it were Polygnotus,
Mycon, and Pantænus. Here, both the patriotism and filial piety of
Cimon were gratified. The memorable acts of the Athenians, from the
time of Theseus, the war of Troy, and other historic subjects were
represented in the Stoa; but the picture that was of most importance,
nay, that almost forced the spectators to forget all the others, was
the battle of Marathon, by Polygnotus.
I must refer to Fuseli for a most beautiful and spirited sketch of the
character of the works of Polygnotus, and confine myself to relate the
little that history tells of them.
Alas! for the ancient painters that no Vasari among them condescended
to collect gossipping anecdotes, and tell us about their houses, their
dress, their labours, and their amusements. We might, indeed, have been
induced to believe a few pleasing fables, but who would not delight
in being brought a little nearer to those master minds, which gave a
character to their age, and to grow into acquaintance with them at the
expense of a little incorrectness.
But I am obliged to take leave of Mycon, well paid as we are told, for
his works, and of his daughter, without knowing more of their lives or
deaths; and in turning to Polygnotus, what can I tell of, before he
painted in the Stoa, but that he was the son and pupil of Aglaiophon,
and was born at Thasos? After he had finished his great pictures in the
Stoa, and the votive pictures of the Gnidians at Delphi, I can indeed
show that his patriotism induced him to refuse all payment for the
public works executed in honour of his country. And that the Greeks,
in return, were so alive to his worth, that the Amphictyonic council
decreed, that wherever he might travel in Greece he should be received
with public honours and provided for at the public expense!
Notwithstanding the coldness of Pausanias’ description, we cannot but
perceive that a true poetical feeling governed the composition of the
battle of Marathon. Presiding over the whole, the hero Marathon, after
whom the plain was named, received Minerva, the patroness of Athens,
accompanied by Hercules, and soon to be joined by Theseus, whose
shade, arising out of the earth, thus claimed Attica as his native
soil. The armies are engaged in combat: some of the Persian chiefs are
distinguished, particularly Mardonius, the insertion of whose portrait
scarcely gratified the Athenians less than that of their own commander,
Miltiades, along with whom were Callimachus, Echetlus, and the poet
Æschylus, who was in the battle that day[98]. In another part of the
field the Persians were routed; and farther on, some were seen hurrying
to their ships to escape, and others flying towards the marshes, where
the Greeks following were slaying them in their flight[99].
I am aware that critics require painters to observe what they call the
unities, not less than dramatic poets; and that to represent different
actions of the same story, or different parts of the same action, on
one and the same canvas, is to sin grievously against their rules. But
Shakspeare gloriously breaks the laws of the drama, and Polygnotus had
a right to break those, if they then existed, of the picture. In a
future Essay I hope to show the great advantages that may be derived
from a disregard of the unities in painting, and to bring forward
examples of its success by more modern artists. Meantime, in some of
the other works of Polygnotus, which I am about to mention, it will be
seen that he used considerable freedom in this respect. But, to go on
with those in Athens. In the temple of the Dioscorides, assisted by
Mycon, he painted the actions of these heroes[100], and their marriage
with the daughters of Leucippus. Two other pictures adorned one of the
buildings of the Acropolis, the subjects being Achilles among the young
women of Scyros, and the meeting of Ulysses and Nausicaa[101].
But the great works of Polygnotus were the story of Troy and the
descent of Ulysses into the infernal regions, painted in the Lesche, or
public hall, at Delphi.
From the very unartistlike description by Pausanias, I think I can make
out, that the back ground of the picture was filled by the town, the
citadel, the surrounding country, and the sea. The hero Epeus, naked,
was visible destroying the walls of the citadel, over the top of which
the head of the famous wooden horse was seen[102]. Scattered about
singly, or in groups, were the dead or the dying. On the margin of the
sea were the Greek ships, on board of which parties of the conquerors
were embarking; while their servants were bearing tents, furniture, and
spoil, to put on board.
Approaching the foreground, and distributed in groups, were the
principal captives, and some of the heroes. Helen was sitting attended
by her maids, one of whom was tying her sandal, and gazed upon by
Briseis, Diomed, and Iphis. Near her, were some of both the nations
whose miseries she had caused. The chief of these were the captive
Trojan princesses: Andromache, with her infant, and one of her sisters,
Priam’s daughter, Medisecasta, veiled; but the poor virgin Polyxena was
bareheaded, with her hair gathered into a knot, as became her years.
In front of the city, the groups were composed of more wretched
captives still, in various attitudes; some thrown upon couches, others
kneeling, some clinging to their native altars, and, chief in misery,
the sad Cassandra, with her arms round the Palladium, crouched upon the
earth as Ajax was drawing nigh the altar, where the Atridæ appeared
ready to receive his oath. Some of the circles of the lower town were
laid open where this was taking place. There, boys were seen clinging
to the altars, or infants to their mothers, while Neoptolemus was
continuing the work of slaughter.
Such were the grand features of the picture. Some touches of common
nature we find there, were, as if to give truth to the scene. For
instance, the horse rolling on the sandy shore, and servants loading a
beast of burden[103].
The other picture was the Descent of Ulysses, described by Pausanias
with even less feeling than the first. It is, however, evident that
the reedy Acheron, with Charon’s boat, occupied the foreground; and
that one of the figures in the boat was a person initiated into the
Eleusinian rites, by the covered basket she held, thus signifying
the mysterious passage between life and death. Beyond the river, the
demon Eurynomus, of an unearthly hue, was fitly placed, sitting on the
skin of a vulture, and gnawing the bones of the dead[104]. Ulysses,
performing the incantation, was properly conspicuous; and the rest of
the picture was filled with the women and heroes whom he saw or spoke
to while in the kingdom of Pluto.
The clumsy way in which these pictures, and those in the Temple of
Minerva, in Bœotia, are described by Pausanias, who saw them six
hundred years after they were painted, has led even Fuseli to fancy
that all the figures were of equal size and at equal distance from
the spectator. But the inference is surely not just; for an ignorant
man would probably (especially if the horizon were placed high in the
picture) thus speak of one group as _above_ another instead of _beyond_
it.
Any one who has had the good fortune to examine, at leisure, Hemelink’s
epic picture of the three kings, formerly in the Boiserée collection,
and now at Munich, will at once comprehend the possibility of arranging
the most complicated subject, without confusion of parts or division
of interest; and I cannot comprehend why we are to suppose Polygnotus
incapable of such arrangement[105]. There are two pictures in the Pitti
palace, by Andrea del Sarto, of the history of Joseph, arranged as
I suppose the great works of the Pæcile and at Delphi to have been;
which, to such as admire only Italian art of the best time, will afford
proof, if it were wanting, of the excellent effect that a departure
from vulgar rules may sometimes produce.