GREEK SCULPTURE.--GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
In the Mycenaean period, as we have seen, the art of sculpture had
little existence, except for the making of small images and the
decoration of small objects. We have now to take up the story of
the rise of this art to an independent and commanding position, of
its perfection and its subsequent decline. The beginner must not
expect to find this story told with as much fulness and certainty
as is possible in dealing with the art of the Renaissance or any
more modern period. The impossibility of equal fulness and
certainty here will become apparent when we consider what our
materials for constructing a history of Greek sculpture are.
First, we have a quantity of notices, more or less relevant, in
ancient Greek and Roman authors, chiefly of the time of the Roman
Empire. These notices are of the most miscellaneous description.
They come from writers of the most unlike tastes and the most
unequal degrees of trustworthiness. They are generally very vague,
leaving most that we want to know unsaid. And they have such a
haphazard character that, when taken all together, they do not
begin to cover the field. Nothing like all the works of the
greater sculptors, let alone the lesser ones, are so much as
mentioned by name in extant ancient literature.
Secondly, we have several hundreds of original inscriptions
belonging to Greek works of sculpture and containing the names of
the artists who made them. It was a common practice, in the case
especially of independent statues in the round, for the sculptor
to attach his signature, generally to the pedestal. Unfortunately,
while great numbers of these inscribed pedestals have been
preserved for us, it is very rarely that we have the statues which
once belonged on them. Moreover, the artists' names which we meet
on the pedestals are in a large proportion of cases names not even
mentioned by our literary sources. In fact, there is only one
indisputable case where we possess both a statue and the pedestal
belonging to it, the latter inscribed with the name of an artist
known to us from literary tradition. (See pages 212-3.)
Thirdly, we have the actual remains of Greek sculpture, a
constantly accumulating store, yet only an insignificant remnant
of what once existed. These works have suffered sad disfigurement.
Not one life-sized figure has reached us absolutely intact; but
few have escaped serious mutilation. Most of those found before
the beginning of this century, and some of those found since, have
been subjected to a process known as "restoration." Missing parts
have been supplied, often in the most arbitrary and tasteless
manner, and injured surfaces, e. g., of faces, have been polished,
with irreparable damage as the result.
Again, it is important to recognize that the creations of Greek
sculpture which have been preserved to us are partly original
Greek works, partly copies executed in Roman times from Greek
originals. Originals, and especially important originals, are
scarce. The statues of gold and ivory have left not a vestige
behind. Those of bronze, once numbered by thousands, went long
ago, with few exceptions, into the melting-pot. Even sculptures in
marble, though the material was less valuable, have been thrown
into the lime-kiln or used as building stone or wantonly mutilated
or ruined by neglect. There does not exist to-day a single
certified original work by any one of the six greatest sculptors
of Greece, except the Hermes of Praxiteles (see page 221). Copies
are more plentiful. As nowadays many museums and private houses
have on their walls copies of paintings by the "old masters," so,
and far more usually, the public and private buildings of imperial
Rome and of many of the cities under her sway were adorned with
copies of famous works by the sculptors of ancient Greece. Any
piece of sculpture might thus be multiplied indefinitely; and so
it happens that we often possess several copies, or even some
dozens of copies, of one and the same original. Most of the
masterpieces of Greek sculpture which are known to us at all are
known only in this way.
The question therefore arises, How far are these copies to be
trusted? It is impossible to answer in general terms. The
instances are very few where we possess at once the original and a
copy. The best case of the kind is afforded by Fig. 75, compared
with Fig. 132. Here the head, fore-arms, and feet of the copy are
modern and consequently do not enter into consideration. Limiting
one's attention to the antique parts of the figure, one sees that
it is a tolerably close, and yet a hard and lifeless, imitation of
the original. This gives us some measure of the degree of fidelity
we may expect in favorable cases. Generally speaking, we have to
form our estimate of the faithfulness of a copy by the quality of
its workmanship and by a comparison of it with other copies, where
such exist. Often we find two or more copies agreeing with one
another as closely as possible. This shows--and the conclusion is
confirmed by other evidence--that means existed in Roman times of
reproducing statues with the help of measurements mechanically
taken. At the same time, a comparison of copies makes it apparent
that copyists, even when aiming to be exact in the main, often
treated details and accessories with a good deal of freedom. Of
course, too, the skill and conscientiousness of the copyists
varied enormously. Finally, besides copies, we have to reckon with
variations and modernizations in every degree of earlier works.
Under these circumstances it will easily be seen that the task of
reconstructing a lost original from extant imitations is a very
delicate and perilous one. Who could adequately appreciate the
Sistine Madonna, if the inimitable touch of Raphael were known to
us only at second-hand?
Any history of Greek sculpture attempts to piece together the
several classes of evidence above described. It classifies the
actual remains, seeking to assign to each piece its place and date
of production and to infer from direct examination and comparison
the progress of artistic methods and ideas. And this it does with
constant reference to what literature and inscriptions have to
tell us. But in the fragmentary state of our materials, it is
evident that the whole subject must be beset with doubt. Great and
steady progress has indeed been made since Winckelmann, the
founder of the science of classical archaeology, produced the
first "History of Ancient Art" (published in 1763); but twilight
still reigns over many an important question. This general warning
should be borne in mind in reading this or any other hand-book of
the subject.
We may next take up the materials and the technical processes of
Greek sculpture. These may be classified as follows:
(1) Wood. Wood was often, if not exclusively, used for the
earliest Greek temple-images, those rude xoana, of which many
survived into the historical period, to be regarded with peculiar
veneration. We even hear of wooden statues made in the developed
period of Greek art. But this was certainly exceptional. Wood
plays no part worth mentioning in the fully developed sculpture of
Greece, except as it entered into the making of gold and ivory
statues or of the cheaper substitutes for these.
(2) Stone and marble. Various uncrystallized limestones were
frequently used in the archaic period and here and there even in
the fifth century. But white marble, in which Greece abounds, came
also early into use, and its immense superiority to limestone for
statuary purposes led to the abandonment of the latter. The
choicest varieties of marble were the Parian and Pentelic (cf.
page 77). Both of these were exported to every part of the Greek
world.
A Greek marble statue or group is often not made of a single
piece. Thus the Aphrodite of Melos (page 249) was made of two
principal pieces, the junction coming just above the drapery,
while several smaller parts, including the left arm, were made
separately and attached. The Laocoon group (page 265), which Pliny
expressly alleges to have been made of a single block, is in
reality made of six. Often the head was made separately from the
body, sometimes of a finer quality of marble, and then inserted
into a socket prepared for it in the neck of the figure. And very
often, when the statue was mainly of a single block, small pieces
were attached, sometimes in considerable numbers. Of course the
joining was done with extreme nicety, and would have escaped
ordinary observation.
In the production of a modern piece of marble sculpture, the
artist first makes a clay model and then a mere workman produces
from this a marble copy. In the best period of Greek art, on the
other hand, there seems to have been no mechanical copying of
finished models. Preliminary drawings or even clay models, perhaps
small, there must often have been to guide the eye; but the
sculptor, instead of copying with the help of exact measurements,
struck out freely, as genius and training inspired him. If he made
a mistake, the result was not fatal, for he could repair his error
by attaching a fresh piece of marble. Yet even so, the ability to
work in this way implies marvelous precision of eye and hand. To
this ability and this method we may ascribe something of the
freedom, the vitality, and the impulsiveness of Greek marble
sculpture--qualities which the mechanical method of production
tends to destroy. Observe too that, while pediment-groups,
metopes, friezes, and reliefs upon pedestals would often be
executed by subordinates following the design of the principal
artist, any important single statue or group in marble was in all
probability chiseled by the very hand of the master.
Another fact of importance, a fact which few are able to keep
constantly enough in their thoughts, is that Greek marble
sculpture was always more or less painted. This is proved both by
statements in ancient authors and by the fuller and more explicit
evidence of numberless actual remains. (See especially pages 148,
247.) From these sources we learn that eyes, eyebrows, hair, and
perhaps lips were regularly painted, and that draperies and other
accessories were often painted in whole or in part. As regards the
treatment of flesh the evidence is conflicting. Some instances are
reported where the flesh of men was colored a reddish brown, as in
the sculpture of Egypt. But the evidence seems to me to warrant
the inference that this was unusual in marble sculpture. On the
"Alexander" sarcophagus the nude flesh has been by some process
toned down to an ivory tint, and this treatment may have been the
rule, although most sculptures which retain remains of color show
no trace of this. Observe that wherever color was applied, it was
laid on in "flat" tints, i.e., not graded or shaded.
This polychromatic character of Greek marble sculpture is at
variance with what we moderns have been accustomed to since the
Renaissance. By practice and theory we have been taught that
sculpture and painting are entirely distinct arts. And in the
austere renunciation by sculpture of all color there has even
been seen a special distinction, a claim to precedence in the
hierarchy of the arts. The Greeks had no such idea. The sculpture
of the older nations about them was polychromatic; their own early
sculpture in wood and coarse stone was almost necessarily so;
their architecture, with which sculpture was often associated, was
so likewise. The coloring of marble sculpture, then, was a natural
result of the influences by which that sculpture was molded. And,
of course, the Greek eye took pleasure in the combination of form
and color, and presumably would have found pure white figures like
ours dull and cold. We are better circumstanced for judging Greek
taste in this matter than in the matter of colored architecture,
for we possess Greek sculptures which have kept their coloring
almost intact. A sight of the "Alexander" sarcophagus, if it does
not revolutionize our own taste, will at least dispel any fear
that a Greek artist was capable of outraging beautiful form by a
vulgarizing addition.
(3) Bronze. This material (an alloy of copper with tin and
sometimes lead), always more expensive than marble, was the
favorite material of some of the most eminent sculptors (Myron,
Polyclitus, Lysippus) and for certain purposes was always
preferred. The art of casting small, solid bronze images goes far
back into the prehistoric period in Greece. At an early date, too
(we cannot say how early), large bronze statues could be made of a
number of separate pieces, shaped by the hammer and riveted
together. Such a work was seen at Sparta by the traveler
Pausanias, and was regarded by him as the most ancient existing
statue in bronze. A great impulse must have been given to bronze
sculpture by the introduction of the process of hollow-casting.
Pausanias repeatedly attributes the invention of this process to
Rhoecus and Theodorus, two Samian artists, who flourished
apparently early in the sixth century. This may be substantially
correct, but the process is much more likely to have been borrowed
from Egypt than invented independently.
In producing a bronze statue it is necessary first to make an
exact clay model. This done, the usual Greek practice seems to
have been to dismember the model and take a casting of each part
separately. The several bronze pieces were then carefully united
by rivets or solder, and small defects were repaired by the
insertion of quadrangular patches of bronze. The eye-sockets were
always left hollow in the casting, and eyeballs of glass, metal,
or other materials, imitating cornea and iris, were inserted.
[Footnote: Marble statues also sometimes had inserted eyes]
Finally, the whole was gone over with appropriate tools, the hair,
for example, being furrowed with a sharp graver and thus receiving
a peculiar, metallic definiteness of texture.
A hollow bronze statue being much lighter than one in marble and
much less brittle, a sculptor could be much bolder in posing a
figure of the former material than one of the latter. Hence when a
Greek bronze statue was copied in marble in Roman times, a
disfiguring support, not present in the original, had often to be
added (cf. Figs, 101, 104, etc.). The existence of such a support
in a marble work is, then, one reason among others for assuming a
bronze original. Other indications pointing the same way are
afforded by a peculiar sharpness of edge, e.g., of the eyelids and
the eyebrows, and by the metallic treatment of the hair. These
points are well illustrated by Fig. 76. Notice especially the
curls, which in the original would have been made of separate
strips of bronze, twisted and attached after the casting of the
figure.
Bronze reliefs were not cast, but produced by hammering. This is
what is called repousse work. These bronze reliefs were of small
size, and were used for ornamenting helmets, cuirasses, mirrors,
and so on.
(4) Gold and ivory. Chryselephantine statues, i.e., statues of
gold and ivory, must, from the costliness of the materials, have
been always comparatively rare. Most of them, though not all, were
temple-images, and the most famous ones were of colossal size. We
are very imperfectly informed as to how these figures were made.
The colossal ones contained a strong framework of timbers and
metal bars, over which was built a figure of wood. To this the
gold and ivory were attached, ivory being used for flesh and gold
for all other parts. The gold on the Athena of the Parthenon (cf.
page 186) weighed a good deal over a ton. But costly as these
works were, the admiration felt for them seems to have been
untainted by any thought of that fact.
(5) Terra-cotta. This was used at all periods for small figures, a
few inches high, immense numbers of which have been preserved to
us. But large terra-cotta figures, such as were common in Etruria,
were probably quite exceptional in Greece.
Greek sculpture may be classified, according to the purposes which
it served, under the following heads:
(1) Architectural sculpture. A temple could hardly be considered
complete unless it was adorned with more or less of sculpture. The
chief place for such sculpture was in the pediments and especially
in the principal or eastern pediment. Relief-sculpture might be
applied to Doric metopes or an Ionic frieze. And finally, single
statues or groups might be placed, as acroteria, upon the apex and
lower corners of a pediment. Other sacred buildings besides
temples might be similarly adorned. But we hear very little of
sculpture on secular buildings.
(2) Cult-images. As a rule, every temple or shrine contained at
least one statue of the divinity, or of each divinity, worshiped
there.
(3) Votive sculptures. It was the habit of the Greeks to present
to their divinities all sorts of objects in recognition of past
favors or in hope of favors to come. Among these votive objects or
ANATHEMETA works of sculpture occupied a large and important
place. The subjects of such sculptures were various. Statues of
the god or goddess to whom the dedication was made were common;
but perhaps still commoner were figures representing human
persons, either the dedicators themselves or others in whom they
were nearly interested. Under this latter head fall most of the
many statues of victors in the athletic games. These were set up
in temple precincts, like that of Zeus at Olympia, that of Apollo
at Delphi, or that of Athena on the Acropolis of Athens, and were,
in theory at least, intended rather as thank-offerings than as
means of glorifying the victors themselves.
(4) Sepulchral sculpture. Sculptured grave monuments were common
in Greece at least as early as the sixth century. The most usual
monument was a slab of marble--the form varying according to place
and time--sculptured with an idealized representation in relief
of the deceased person, often with members of his family.
(5) Honorary statues. Statues representing distinguished men,
contemporary or otherwise, could be set up by state authority in
secular places or in sanctuaries. The earliest known case of this
kind is that of Harmodius and Aristogiton, shortly after 510 B.C.
(cf. pages 160-4). The practice gradually became common, reaching
an extravagant development in the period after Alexander.
(6) Sculpture used merely as ornament, and having no sacred or
public character. This class belongs mainly, if not wholly, to the
latest period of Greek art. It would be going beyond our evidence
to say that never, in the great age of Greek sculpture, was a
statue or a relief produced merely as an ornament for a private
house or the interior of a secular building. But certain it is
that the demand for such things before the time of Alexander, if
it existed at all, was inconsiderable. It may be neglected in a
broad survey of the conditions of artistic production in the great
age.
The foregoing list, while not quite exhaustive, is sufficiently so
for present purposes. It will be seen how inspiring and elevating
was the role assigned to the sculptor in Greece. His work destined
to be seen by intelligent and sympathetic multitudes, appealed,
not to the coarser elements of their nature, but to the most
serious and exalted. Hence Greek sculpture of the best period is
always pure and noble. The grosser aspects of Greek life, which
flaunt themselves shamelessly in Attic comedy, as in some of the
designs upon Attic vases, do not invade the province of this art.
It may be proper here to say a word in explanation of that frank
and innocent nudity which is so characteristic a trait of the best
Greek art. The Greek admiration for the masculine body and the
willingness to display it were closely bound up with the
extraordinary importance in Greece of gymnastic exercises and
contests and with the habits which these engendered. As early as
the seventh century, if not earlier, the competitors in the foot-
race at Olympia dispensed with the loin-cloth, which had
previously been the sole covering worn. In other Olympic contests
the example thus set was not followed till some time later, but in
the gymnastic exercises of every-day life the same custom must
have early prevailed. Thus in contrast to primitive Greek feeling
and to the feeling of "barbarians" generally, the exhibition by
men among men of the naked body came to be regarded as something
altogether honorable. There could not be better evidence of this
than the fact that the archer-god, Apollo, the purest god in the
Greek pantheon, does not deign in Greek art to veil the glory of
his form.
Greek sculpture had a strongly idealizing bent. Gods and goddesses
were conceived in the likeness of human beings, but human beings
freed from eery blemish, made august and beautiful by the artistic
imagination. The subjects of architectural sculpture were mainly
mythological, historical scenes being very rare in purely Greek
work; and these legendary themes offered little temptation to a
literal copying of every-day life. But what is most noteworthy is
that even in the representation of actual human persons, e.g., in
athlete statues and upon grave monuments, Greek sculpture in the
best period seems not to have even aimed at exact portraiture. The
development of realistic portraiture belongs mainly to the age of
Alexander and his successors.
Mr. Ruskin goes so far as to say that a Greek "never expresses
personal character," and "never expresses momentary passion."
[Footnote: "Aratra Pentelici," Lecture VI, Section 191, 193.] These are
reckless verdicts, needing much qualification. For the art of the
fourth century they will not do at all, much less for the later
period. But they may be of use if they lead us to note the
preference for the typical and permanent with which Greek
sculpture begins, and the very gradual way in which it progresses
toward the expression of the individual and transient. However,
even in the best period the most that we have any right to speak
of is a prevailing tendency. Greek art was at all times very much
alive, and the student must be prepared to find exceptions to any
formula that can be laid down.