ἀπέχει· Βλέπω γὰρ αὐτήν.
τάχα, κηρὲ, καὶ λαλήσεις.
Wax was the common medium used by painters. After it had been purified
and blanched, their colors were mixed with it just as ours are with
oil; and in like manner, as we speak of painting in oils, they spoke of
painting in wax. A head done in chalk would no more necessarily mean
a head modeled in chalk or plaster, than “imaginem [or effigiem] cera
expressam” would mean a likeness modeled in wax.
The substances on which the ancients painted were wood, clay, plaster,
stone, parchment, and perhaps canvas. The best painters, however,
rarely painted on anything but tablets or panels. “Nulla gloria
artificum est nisi eorum qui tabulas pinxere,” says Pliny (xxxv. 37).
These panels were of wood; they were prepared for painting by spreading
over them chalk or white plaster (gypsum), and on that account were
called “λεύκωμα.” All the paintings on walls were also on plaster
covered with a composition of chalk and marble dust, as is fully
described by Vitruvius.[15]
Let us now apply these facts to Pliny’s statement. May he not intend
to say, and is not this a legitimate meaning of his words, that
Lysistratus first of all modeled portraits in gypsum from life, and
then increased the likeness by color laid on to the plaster bust.
He also made colored copies or effigies from brass statues (which
were called, as we know, “ceræ”), and these came so into vogue that
thenceforward there were no statues without white clay or chalk,
which, as we have seen, was a preparation for the wax color as shown
by Vitruvius. In this view of his meaning, the statement that this
peculiar process is older than that of casting in bronze becomes
intelligible, if we suppose him to intend to say that coloring statues
was a very old process, while coloring portraits in exact imitation
of life was the invention of Lysistratus. The succeeding sentence
then becomes clear, in which he says that the most famous plastæ were
Damophilus and Gorgasus, who were also painters, and who decorated the
Temple of Ceres at Rome in both these arts, since it is plain that
these works were both modeled and painted.
The making of portraits in effigy, colored in imitation of life, had
been a common practice in Rome, as we learn from Pliny himself, and
these, because they were colored, were technically called “ceræ” as
well as “imagines.” It was the custom of the great families to set
up these colored figures in their atria, and on particular festivals
to carry them in procession through the streets of Rome, draped with
actual robes such as were worn by the persons whom they represented.
Pliny expresses his regret that in his time this custom had fallen into
disuse, tending as it did to keep fresh and alive the personal memory
of great men who had passed away from this life.[16]
It will be useful here to consider the character of the whole chapter
in which this passage appears. It is entitled, “Plastices primi
inventores, de simulacris, et vasis fictilibus et pretio eorum.” The
object of the chapter is to give an account of modeling and modelers,
not of casting. In a previous chapter, where Pliny is speaking of
some early products of the plastic art, and particularly of the
_signa Tuscanica_, or earthenware statues, he says: “It appears to me
a singular fact, that, though the origin of statues was of such great
antiquity in Italy, the images of the gods, which were consecrated
to them in their temples, should have been fashioned of wood or
earthenware, until the conquest of Asia introduced luxury among us.
It will be most convenient to speak of the art of making likenesses
[_similitudines exprimendi_] when we come to speak of what the Greeks
call ‘plastice,’ for the art of modeling was prior to that of statuary
of bronze and marble,—[_prior quam statuaria fuit_]. But this last art
has flourished in such an infinite degree that to pursue the subject
thoroughly would require many volumes.” Thus he announces clearly
beforehand what he intends to speak of in this chapter which we are now
considering, on plasticæ. It is the art of “making likenesses, of the
first invention of modeling, of fictile vases, and of their price,”
but not of casting or of any such invention. The previous chapter, in
which this announcement is made of his subsequent intention, is devoted
to casting in bronze and brass-work, or statuaria. After making this
statement, he goes on to enumerate the principal works in bronze, and
then says that portrait statues were long afterwards placed in the
Forum and in the atria of private houses; that clients thus did honor
to their patrons, and that in former times the statues thus dedicated
were dressed in togas: “Togatæ effigies antiquitus ita dicabantur;” or
ought not “dicabantur” to be _dicebantur_,—meaning that these statues
were called “togatæ effigies”?
In the chapter we are now considering, he begins by saying that,
having already said enough about pictures, he now proposes to append
some account of the plastic art. Then he speaks of Dibutades, and
relates the story of his making the portrait of the girl he loved;
and adds that he first invented a method of coloring his works in
pottery by adding red earth or red chalk. Then follows the passage
about Lysistratus, who used plaster instead of clay to make portraits,
covering it with wax or color to improve the resemblance. After the
passages cited, he goes on to mention other celebrated modelers
(_plastæ laudatissimi_), among whom were Damophilus and Gorgasus,
who were also painters, and who adorned the Temple of Ceres at Rome
by the exercise of both their arts. According to Varro, he says,
everything in the temples was _Tuscanica_,—that is, ancient pottery of
the Etruscan school; and when they were repaired the painted coatings
of the walls were removed and framed. He also mentions Chalcosthenes,
who executed several works in baked earth. He cites Varro again as
saying that Possis at Rome executed grapes, fruit, and fishes with such
truth to Nature that they could not be distinguished from the real
things. Dibutades, he also says, invented a method of coloring plastic
composition by adding red earth.
Throughout the chapter Pliny is not speaking solely of modelers, but
most of those he mentions colored their works. The grapes, fruit,
and fishes of Possis, the works of Damophilus and Gorgasus, the
_Tuscanica_ in the temples, all were colored in imitation of the
objects represented. And besides these he mentions particularly the
Jupiter of Pasiteles, made in clay, “et ideo miniari solitum,”—and
therefore proper for painting in vermilion. He also speaks of
“figlina opera,”—earthenware painted in encaustic,—which were on
the baths of Agrippa in Rome. All this seems to lend probability
to the interpretation of “cera” to mean color and not wax; at all
events, there is not a word about casting, unless the words relating
to Lysistratus can be tortured into such a meaning. What adds still
more to the probability that this was the real thought of Pliny in
the passage cited is the use of the words “effigies” and “argilla.”
“Effigies” in Latin is distinguished from “simulacrum” (which may be
a picture as well as a statue), both being representations indicating
something which shows they are not life itself, the one being flat and
the other colorless; while “effigies” carries the idea of deception
with it, so far as resemblance goes. Thus Cicero says, “Vidistis
non fratrem tuum nec vestigium quidem aut simulacrum, sed effigiem
quamdam spirantis mortui.” So, also, “argilla” means white clay, and
not ordinary clay out of which terra cotta images were made; and
Pliny may have intended by these words to express the idea that
after Lysistratus had made effigies or colored copies of brass or
marble statues, white clay was constantly used, for the reason that
it was manifestly better for coloring. This would relieve him from
the absurdity of saying that Lysistratus invented or led the way
in modeling in clay, rather than in the use of white clay which he
colored. Argilla and gypsum would then be nearly the same thing, both
used as a basis for colored walls, upon which “cera” or color was
laid or infused. This would clear up the subsequent statement that
this art was older than casting in bronze, since it is plain that
coloring statues was very ancient. Pausanias mentions two,—one of the
Ephesian Diana and one of Bacchus in wood, gilt except the faces,—which
were painted with vermilion. So, in the Wisdom of Solomon (ch. xiii.
and xv.), images of wood and clay are spoken of, painted in red and
vermilion and stained with divers colors; and in 630 B. C. there were
images in gold, silver, stone, and wood in Babylon (Baruch, ch. vi. and
xiii.), painted and gilded and dressed, and colored purple.
In his chapter entitled “Honos Imaginum,”—the honor attached to
portraits,—Pliny says it was the custom of the Romans to adorn
their palæstra and anointing-rooms with the portraits of athletes
(“imaginibus athletarum”), and to carry about on their persons the
face of Epicurus (“vultus Epicuri”); and that they also prized the
portraits of strangers (“alienasque effigies colunt”). Afterwards,
contrasting the habits of the Romans of his own day with those of
the ancient Romans, he says: “And since the former have no longer in
them any likeness to the minds of their ancestors, they also neglect
the likeness of their bodies. How different it was,” he continues,
“with our ancestors, who placed in their atria to be gazed at these
‘imagines,’ and not statues by foreign artists in brass or marble, and
kept colored portraits of their faces each in its separate case, to
serve as ‘imagines’ to accompany their funerals.”[17] It would seem
from this that, besides the draped images or effigies in the halls,
modeled and colored busts of others of the family, probably of less
distinction, were also kept to be dressed up on occasion, made into
effigies, and carried in procession. Other “imagines” of the most
distinguished personages in the family were placed outside at the
threshold of the house, hung with the spoils of the enemy.
It is of these “expressi cera vultus” and these “imagines” kept by the
Romans as proofs of their nobility, and on which their pedigrees were
inscribed, that Ovid speaks when he says,—
“Per lege dispositas generosa per atria ceras.”
On the sale of the house they were not allowed to be destroyed or
removed, but passed with it, and were bought by “novi homines” (men
of no family), and passed off by them as the portraits of their own
ancestors,—just as the portraits of Wardour Street are at the present
day. Cicero in his invective against Piso cries out, “Obrepsisti ad
honores errore hominum, commendatione fumosarum imaginum, quarum simile
habes nihil præter _colorem_;” and Sallust in his Jugurtha says, “Quia
imagines non habeo, et quia mihi nova nobilitas est.”
Nor were the Romans singular in this custom of draping figures with
real stuffs. The images of the gods in early Greece also were draped
and dressed in clothes, and crowns were placed on their heads. They
had false hair, too, which was dressed regularly by attendants, and
at stated times they were washed and adorned with jewels and had
their dresses arranged, just as if they were alive. In later times
this custom died out; but the colossal Athena’s solid drapery of gold
was washed at a certain festival appointed for the purpose, called
Plyntheria. In Rome, however, the custom was maintained to a late day.
The images of the temples were adorned with real drapery, and purple
mantles were hung on the statues of the emperors. The Greeks did not
thus treat their portrait statues, and in this the Romans were peculiar.
The Roman “imagines” and “ceræ” were probably executed in plaster or
some such material, certainly not in marble, or otherwise they would
have been too heavy to be carried about in procession. Apparently they
resembled the figures which Lysistratus first began to make, and the
process of coloring them, if we understand “cera” to mean color, was
little else than the old practice, called “circumlitio,” of covering
marble statues with an encaustic varnish of color so as to give them
a delicate and tinted surface. The most salient example of this is to
be found in the anecdote told of Praxiteles, who, when he was asked
which of his statues he most admired, answered, “Those that Nicias has
colored,”—“quibus Nicias manum admovisset,”—Nicias, who in his youth
was celebrated as a painter of statues, ἀγαλμάτων ἐγκαυστής, having
assisted him, “in statuis circumliendis.” A similar process, called
καύσις, was also employed in finishing walls, and is thus described by
Vitruvius: After the wall had received its color, it was covered with
Punic wax and oil, which was laid on evenly with a hard brush, and then
half melted or infused into a smooth surface by moving a “cauterium,”
or pan of hot coals, close over it; and after that it was rubbed with a
candle and a clean linen cloth.
This process, then, was old as applied to marble statues and to plaster
walls. What was new in the work of Lysistratus was that he united the
two methods, by modeling in plaster the general likeness and then
finishing the surface in encaustic. It was an old process with a new
application.
To explain such a process, what could be clearer than the words Pliny
uses? We do not need to warp a word from its ordinary significance.
Lysistratus made portraits in plaster from life, and improved them by
color laid on to the model. He thus made realistic, exact resemblances,
whereas before him artists had sought only to make heads as beautiful
as possible.
What, then, were the “effigies de signis” that he made? We have already
seen that the term “effigies” had a significance of reality and
absolute imitation, and corresponded in great measure to the English
word effigy, meaning colored effigies with real dresses,—like those of
Madame Tussaud, for instance. The “imagines” and “ceræ” of the ancient
Romans were very much like them; and does not Pliny mean to say that
Lysistratus copied marble or brass statues, or pictures, and made these
effigies from them, coloring them so as to add to the likeness, and
clothing them with real draperies? and that this so grew into vogue
that thenceforward there were no statues which were not thus copied
in plaster or “argilla”?—using the term “argilla,” or white clay,
as equivalent to gypsum, with which possibly the plaster was mixed.
As “argilla” was the foundation with which the ancient panels were
prepared for painting, this would seem most appropriate in such case.
Such would be the figures alluded to by Lucian, or by Lexiphanes when
he says, “If you cull the flower of all these various beauties, you
will in your eloquence be like those makers of figures in wax and clay
[or argilla] in the Forum, colored outside with minium and blue, and
inside only fragile clay.”
According to this interpretation of the passage in Pliny, it not
only becomes intelligible as a whole, but is consistent and without
contradiction; whereas, if we suppose that he meant to indicate the
process of casting in plaster, his statements are not only entirely
obscure and inconsecutive, but ignorant and contradictory.