THE ARTS IN GREECE
ATHENS AT THE TIME OF PERICLES
=Pericles.=--In the middle of the fifth century Athens found herself
the most powerful city in Greece. Pericles, descended from one of the
noble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state. He
wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the
vanity of the people. But the Athenians respected him and acted only
in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of
all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and
so they permitted him to govern. For forty years Pericles was the soul
of the politics of Athens; as Thucydides his contemporary said, "The
democracy existed in name; in reality it was the government of the
first citizen."
=Athens and Her Monuments.=--In Athens, as in the majority of Greek
cities, the houses of individuals were small, low, packed closely
together, forming narrow streets, tortuous and ill paved. The
Athenians reserved their display for their public monuments. Ever
after they levied heavy war taxes on their allies they had large sums
of money to expend, and these were employed in erecting beautiful
edifices. In the market-place they built a portico adorned with
paintings (the Poikile), in the city a theatre, a temple in honor of
Theseus, and the Odeon for the contests in music. But the most
beautiful monuments rose on the rock of the Acropolis as on a gigantic
pedestal. There were two temples of which the principal, the
Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena, protecting goddess of the city; a
colossal statue of bronze which represented Athena; and a staircase of
ornamental character leading up to the Propylaea. Athens was from this
time the most beautiful of the Greek cities.[81]
=Importance of Athens.=--Athens became at the same time the city of
artists. Poets, orators, architects, painters, sculptors--some
Athenians by birth, others come from all corners of the Greek
world--met here and produced their masterpieces. There were without
doubt many Greek artists elsewhere than at Athens; there had been
before the fifth century, and there were a long time afterward; but
never were so many assembled at one time in the same city. Most of the
Greeks had fine sensibilities in matters of art; but the Athenians
more than all others had a refined taste, a cultivated spirit and love
of the beautiful. If the Greeks have gained renown in the history of
civilization, it is that they have been a people of artists; neither
their little states nor their small armies have played a great role in
the world. This is why the fifth century is the most beautiful moment
in the history of Greece; this is why Athens has remained renowned
above all the rest of the Greek cities.
LETTERS
=The Orators.=--Athens is above all the city of eloquence. Speeches in
the assembly determine war, peace, taxes, all state business of
importance; speeches before the courts condemn or acquit citizens and
subjects. Power is in the hands of the orators; the people follow
their counsels and often commit to them important public functions:
Cleon is appointed general; Demosthenes directs the war against
Philip.
The orators have influence; they employ their talents in eloquence to
accuse their political enemies. Often they possess riches, for they
are paid for supporting one party or the other: AEschines is retained
by the king of Macedon; Demosthenes accepts fees from the king of
Persia.
Some of the orators, instead of delivering their own orations, wrote
speeches for others. When an Athenian citizen had a case at court, he
did not desire, as we do, that an advocate plead his case for him; the
law required that each speak in person. He therefore sought an orator
and had him compose a speech which he learned by heart and recited
before the tribunal.
Other orators travelled through the cities of Greece speaking on
subjects which pleased their fancy. Sometimes they gave lectures, as
we should say.
The oldest orators spoke simply, limiting themselves to an account of
the facts without oratorical flourishes; on the platform they were
almost rigid without loud speaking or gesticulation. Pericles
delivered his orations with a calm air, so quietly, indeed, that no
fold of his mantle was disturbed. When he appeared at the tribune,
his head, according to custom, crowned with leaves, he might have been
taken, said the people, "for a god of Olympus." But the orators who
followed wished to move the public. They assumed an animated style,
pacing the tribune in a declamatory and agitated manner. The people
became accustomed to this form of eloquence. The first time that
Demosthenes came to the tribune the assembly shouted with laughter;
the orator could not enunciate, he carried himself ill. He disciplined
himself in declamation and gesture and became the favorite of the
people. Later when he was asked what was the first quality of the
orator, he replied, "Action, and the second, action, and the third,
action." Action, that is delivery, was more to the Greeks than the
sense of the discourse.
=The Sages.=--For some centuries there had been, especially among the
Greeks of Asia, men who observed and reflected on things. They were
called by a name which signifies at once wise men and scholars. They
busied themselves with physics, astronomy, natural history, for as yet
science was not separated from philosophy. Such were in the seventh
century the celebrated Seven Sages of Greece.
=The Sophists.=--About the time of Pericles there came to Athens men
who professed to teach wisdom. They gathered many pupils and charged
fees for their lessons. Ordinarily they attacked the religion,
customs, and institutions of Greek cities, showing that they were not
founded on reason. They concluded that men could not know anything
with certainty (which was quite true for their time), that men can
know nothing at all, and that nothing is true or false: "Nothing
exists," said one of them, "and if it did exist, we could not know
it." These professors of scepticism were called sophists. Some of them
were at the same time orators.
=Socrates and the Philosophers.=--Socrates, an old man of Athens,
undertook to combat the sophists. He was a poor man, ugly, and without
eloquence. He opened no school like the sophists but contented himself
with going about the city, conversing with those he met, and leading
them by the force of his questions to discover what he himself had in
mind. He sought especially the young men and gave them instruction and
counsel. Socrates made no pretensions as a scholar: "All my
knowledge," said he, "is to know that I know nothing." He would call
himself no longer a sage, like the others, but a philosopher, that is
to say, a lover of wisdom. He did not meditate on the nature of the
world nor on the sciences; man was his only interest. His motto was,
"Know thyself." He was before all a preacher of virtue.
As he always spoke of morals and religion, the Athenians took him for
a sophist.[82] In 399 he was brought before the court, accused "of not
worshipping the gods of the city, of introducing new gods, and of
corrupting the youth." He made no attempt to defend himself, and was
condemned to death. He was then seventy years old.
Xenophon, one of his disciples, wrote out his conversations and an
apology for him.[83] Another disciple, Plato, composed dialogues in
which Socrates is always the principal personage. Since this time
Socrates has been regarded as the "father of philosophy." Plato
himself was the head of a school (429-348); Aristotle (384-322), a
disciple of Plato, summarized in his books all the science of his
time. The philosophers that followed attached themselves to one or the
other of these two masters: the disciples of Plato called themselves
Academicians,[84] those of Aristotle, Peripatetics.[85]
=The Chorus.=--It was an ancient custom of the Greeks to dance in
their religious ceremonies. Around the altar dedicated to the god a
group of young men passed and repassed, assuming noble and expressive
attitudes, for the ancients danced with the whole body. Their dance,
very different from ours, was a sort of animated procession, something
like a solemn pantomime. Almost always this religious dance was
accompanied by chants in honor of the god. The group singing and
dancing at the same time was called the Chorus. All the cities had
their festival choruses in which the children of the noblest families
participated after long time of preparation. The god required the
service of a troop worthy of him.
=Tragedy and Comedy.=--In the level country about Athens the young men
celebrated in this manner each year religious dances in honor of
Dionysos, the god of the vintage. One of these dances was grave; it
represented the actions of the god. The leader of the chorus played
Dionysos, the chorus itself the satyrs, his companions. Little by
little they came to represent also the life of the other gods and the
ancient heroes. Then some one (the Greeks call him Thespis) conceived
the idea of setting up a stage on which the actor could play while the
chorus rested. The spectacle thus perfected was transferred to the
city near the black poplar tree in the market. Thus originated
Tragedy.
The other dance was comic. The masked dancers chanted the praises of
Dionysos mingled with jeers addressed to the spectators or with
humorous reflections on the events of the day. The same was done for
the comic chorus as for the tragic chorus: actors were introduced, a
dialogue, all of a piece, and the spectacle was transferred to Athens.
This was the origin of Comedy. This is the reason that from this time
tragedy has been engaged with heroes, and comedy with every-day life.
Tragedy and comedy preserved some traces of their origin. Even when
they were represented in the theatre, they continued to be played
before the altar of the god. Even after the actors mounted on the
platform had become the most important personages of the spectacle,
the choir continued to dance and to chant around the altar. In the
comedies, like the masques in other days, sarcastic remarks on the
government came to be made; this was the Parabasis.
=The Theatre.=--That all the Athenians might be present at these
spectacles there was built on the side of the Acropolis the theatre of
Dionysos which could hold 30,000 spectators. Like all the Greek
theatres, it was open to heaven and was composed of tiers of rock
ranged in a half-circle about the orchestra where the chorus performed
and before the stage where the play was given.
Plays were produced only at the time of the festivals of the god, but
then they continued for several days in succession. They began in the
morning at sunrise and occupied all the time till torch-light with the
production of a series of three tragedies (a trilogy) followed by a
satirical drama. Each trilogy was the work of one author. Other
trilogies were presented on succeeding days, so that the spectacle was
a competition between poets, the public determining the victor. The
most celebrated of these competitors were AEschylus, Sophocles, and
Euripides. There were also contests in comedy, but there remain to us
only the works of one comic poet, Aristophanes.
THE ARTS
=Greek Temples.=--In Greece the most beautiful edifices were
constructed to the honor of the gods, and when we speak of Greek
architecture it is their temples that we have in mind.
A Greek temple is not, like a Christian church, designed to receive
the faithful who come thither to pray. It is the palace[86] where the
god lives, represented by his idol, a palace which men feel under
compulsion to make splendid. The mass of the faithful do not enter the
interior of the temple; they remain without, surrounding the altar in
the open air.
At the centre of the temple is the "chamber" of the god, a mysterious
sanctuary without windows, dimly lighted from above.[87] On the
pavement rises the idol of wood, of marble, or of ivory, clad in gold
and adorned with garments and jewels. The statue is often of colossal
size; in the temple of Olympia Zeus is represented sitting and his
head almost touches the summit of the temple. "If the god should
rise," they said, "his head would shatter the roof." This sanctuary, a
sort of reliquary for the idol, is concealed on every side from the
eyes. To enter, it is necessary to pass through a porch formed by a
row of columns.
Behind the "chamber" is the "rear-chamber" in which are kept the
valuable property of the god--his riches,[88] and often the gold and
silver of the city. The temple is therefore storehouse, treasury, and
museum.
Rows of columns surround the building on four sides, like a second
wall protecting the god and his treasures. There are three orders of
columns which differ in base and capital, each bearing the name of the
people that invented it or most frequently used it. They are, in the
order of age, the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. The temple is
named from the style of the columns supporting it.
Above the columns, around the edifice are sculptured surfaces of
marble (the metopes) which alternate with plain blocks of marble (the
triglyphs). Metopes and triglyphs constitute the frieze.
The temple is surmounted with a triangular pediment adorned with
statues.
Greek temples were polychrome, that is to say, were painted in several
colors, yellow, blue, and red. For a long time the moderns refused to
believe this; it was thought that the Greeks possessed too sober taste
to add color to an edifice. But traces of painting have been
discovered on several temples, which cannot leave the matter in doubt.
It has at last been concluded, on reflection, that these bright colors
were to give a clearer setting to the lines.
=Characteristics of Greek Architecture.=--A Greek temple appears at
first a simple, bare edifice; it is only a long box of stone set upon
a rock; the facade is a square surmounted by a triangle. At first
glance one sees only straight lines and cylinders. But on nearer
inspection "it is discovered[89] that not a single one of these lines
is truly straight." The columns swell at the middle, vertical lines
are slightly inclined to the centre, and horizontal lines bulge a
little at the middle. And all this is so fine that exact measurements
are necessary to detect the artifice. Greek architects discovered
that, to produce a harmonious whole, it is necessary to avoid
geometrical lines which would appear stiff, and take account of
illusions in perspective. "The aim of the architect," says a Greek
writer, "is to invent processes for deluding the sight."
Greek artists wrought conscientiously for they worked for the gods.
And so their monuments are elaborated in all their parts, even in
those that are least in view, and are constructed so solidly that
they exist to this day if they have not been violently destroyed. The
Parthenon was still intact in the seventeenth century. An explosion of
gunpowder wrecked it.
The architecture of the Greeks was at once solid and elegant, simple
and scientific. Their temples have almost all disappeared; here and
there are a very few,[90] wholly useless, in ruins, with roofs fallen
in, often nothing left but rows of columns. And yet, even in this
state, they enrapture those who behold them.
=Sculpture.=--Among the Egyptians and the Assyrians sculpture was
hardly more than an accessory ornament of their edifices; the Greeks
made it the principal art. Their most renowned artists, Phidias,
Praxiteles, and Lysippus, were sculptors.
They executed bas-reliefs to adorn the walls of a temple, its facade
or its pediment. Of this style of work is the famous frieze of the
Panathenaic procession which was carved around the Parthenon,
representing young Athenian women on the day of the great festival of
the goddess.[91]
They sculptured statues for the most part, of which some represented
gods and served as idols; others represented athletes victorious in
the great games, and these were the recompense of his victory.
The most ancient statues of the Greeks are stiff and rude, quite
similar to the Assyrian sculptures. They are often colored. Little by
little they become graceful and elegant. The greatest works are those
of Phidias in the fifth century and of Praxiteles in the fourth. The
statues of the following centuries are more graceful, but less noble
and less powerful.
There were thousands of statues in Greece,[92] for every city had its
own, and the sculptors produced without cessation for five centuries.
Of all this multitude there remain to us hardly fifteen complete
statues. Not a single example of the masterpieces celebrated among the
Greeks has come down to us. Our most famous Greek statues are either
copies, like the Venus of Milo, or works of the period of the
decadence, like the Apollo of the Belvidere.[93] Still there remains
enough, uniting the fragments of statues and of bas-reliefs which are
continually being discovered,[94] to give us a general conception of
Greek sculpture.
Greek sculptors sought above everything else to represent the most
beautiful bodies in a calm and noble attitude. They had a thousand
occasions for viewing beautiful bodies of men in beautiful poses, at
the gymnasium, in the army, in the sacred dances and choruses. They
studied them and learned to reproduce them; no one has ever better
executed the human body.
Usually in a Greek statue the head is small, the face without emotion
and dull. The Greeks did not seek, as we do, the expression of the
face; they strove for beauty of line and did not sacrifice the limbs
for the head. In a Greek statue it is the whole body that is
beautiful.
=Pottery.=--The Greeks came to make pottery a real art. They called it
Ceramics (the potter's art), and this name is still preserved. Pottery
had not the same esteem in Greece as the other arts, but for us it has
the great advantage of being better known than the others. While
temples and statues fell into ruin, the achievements of Greek potters
are preserved in the tombs. This is where they are found today.
Already more than 20,000 specimens have been collected in all the
museums of Europe. They are of two sorts:
1. Painted vases, with black or red figures, of all sizes and
every form;
2. Statuettes of baked earth; hardly known twenty years ago, they
have now attained almost to celebrity since the discovery of the
charming figurines of Tanagra in Boeotia. The most of them are
little idols, but some represent children or women.
=Painting.=--There were illustrious painters in Greece--Zeuxis,
Parrhasius, and Apelles. We know little of them beyond some anecdotes,
often doubtful, and some descriptions of pictures. To obtain an
impression of Greek painting we are limited to the frescoes found in
the houses of Pompeii, an Italian city of the first century of our
era. This amounts to the same as saying we know nothing of it.
FOOTNOTES:
[81] The moderns have called this time the Age of Pericles, because
Pericles was then governing and was the friend of many of these artists;
but the ancients never employed the phrase.
[82] See Aristophanes' "Clouds."
[83] The "Memorabilia" and "Apologia."
[84] Because Plato had lectured in the gardens of a certain Academus.
[85] Because Aristotle had given instruction while moving about. [Or
rather from a favorite walk (Peripatus) in the Lyceum.--ED.]
[86] The Greek word for temple signifies "dwelling."
[87] But not by a square opening in the roof as formerly supposed.--ED.
See Gardner, "Ancient Athens," N.Y., 1902, p. 268.
[88] The Parthenon contained vases of gold and silver, a crown of gold,
shields, helmets, swords, serpents of gold, an ivory table, eighteen
couches, and quivers of ivory.
[89] Boutmy, "Philosophie de l'Architecture en Grece."
[90] The most noted are the Parthenon at Athens and the temple of
Poseidon at Paestum, in south Italy.
[91] Knights and other subjects were also shown.--ED.
[92] Even in the second century after the Romans had pillaged Greece to
adorn their palaces, there were many thousands of statues in the Greek
cities.
[93] It is not certain that the Apollo Belvidere was not a Roman copy.
[94] In the ruins of Olympia has been found a statue of Hermes, the work
of Praxiteles.