THE ARCHAIC PERIOD OF GREEK SCULPTURE. FIRST HALF: 625 (?)-550
B.C.
The date above suggested for the beginning of the period with
which we have first to deal must not be regarded as making any
pretense to exactitude. We have no means of assigning a definite
date to any of the most primitive-looking pieces of Greek
sculpture. All that can be said is that works which can be
confidently dated about the middle of the sixth century show such
a degree of advancement as implies more than half a century of
development since the first rude beginnings.
Tradition and the more copious evidence of actual remains teach us
that these early attempts at sculpture in stone or marble were not
confined to any one spot or narrow region. On the contrary, the
centers of artistic activity were numerous and widely diffused--
the islands of Crete, Paros, and Naxos; the Ionic cities of Asia
Minor and the adjacent islands of Chios and Samos; in Greece
proper, Boeotia, Attica, Argolis, Arcadia, Laconia; in Sicily, the
Greek colony Selinus; and doubtless many others. It is very
difficult to make out how far these different spots were
independent of one another; how far, in other words, we have a
right to speak of local "schools" of sculpture. Certainly there
was from the first a good deal of action and reaction between some
of these places, and one chief problem of the subject is to
discover the really originative centers of artistic impulse, and
to trace the spread of artistic types and styles and methods from
place to place. Instead of attempting here to discuss or decide
this difficult question, it will be better simply to pass in
review a few typical works of the early archaic period from
various sites.
The first place may be given to a marble image (Fig. 77) found in
1878 on the island of Delos, that ancient center of Apolline
worship for the Ionians. On the left side of the figure is
engraved in early Greek characters a metrical inscription,
recording that the statue was dedicated to Artemis by one Nicandra
of Naxos. Whether it was intended to represent the goddess Artemis
or the woman Nicandra, we cannot tell; nor is the question of much
importance to us. We have here an extremely rude attempt to
represent a draped female form. The figure stands stiffly erect,
the feet close together, the arms hanging straight down, the face
looking directly forward. The garment envelops the body like a
close-fitting sheath, without a suggestion of folds. The trunk of
the body is flat or nearly so at the back, while in front the
prominence of the breasts is suggested by the simple device of two
planes, an upper and a lower, meeting at an angle. The shapeless
arms were not detached from the sides, except just at the waist.
Below the girdle the body is bounded by parallel planes in front
and behind and is rounded off at the sides. A short projection at
the bottom, slightly rounded and partly divided, does duty for the
feet. The features of the face are too much battered to be
commented upon. The most of the hair falls in a rough mass upon
the back, but on either side a bunch, divided by grooves into four
locks, detaches itself and is brought forward upon the breast.
This primitive image is not an isolated specimen of its type.
Several similar figures or fragments of figures have been found on
the island of Delos, in Boeotia, and elsewhere. A small statuette
of this type, found at Olympia, but probably produced at Sparta,
has its ugly face tolerably preserved.
Another series of figures, much more numerously represented, gives
us the corresponding type of male figure. One of the earliest
examples of this series is shown in Fig. 78, a life-sized statue
of Naxian marble, found on the island of Thera in 1836. The figure
is completely nude. The attitude is like that of the female type
just described, except that the left foot is advanced. Other
statues, agreeing with this one in attitude, but showing various
stages of development, have been found in many places, from Samos
on the east to Actium on the west. Several features of this class
of figures have been thought to betray Egyptian influence.
[Footnote: See Wolters's edition of Friederichs's "Gipsabgusse
antiker Bildwerke," pages 11 12.] The rigid position might be
adopted independently by primitive sculpture anywhere. But the
fact that the left leg is invariably advanced, the narrowness of
the hips, and the too high position frequently given to the ears--
did this group of coincidences with the stereotyped Egyptian
standing figures come about without imitation? There is no
historical difficulty in the way of assuming Egyptian influence,
for as early as the seventh century Greeks certainly visited Egypt
and it was perhaps in this century that the Greek colony of
Naucratis was founded in the delta of the Nile. Here was a chance
for Greeks to see Egyptian statues; and besides, Egyptian
statuettes may have reached Greek shores in the way of commerce.
But be the truth about this question what it may, the early Greek
sculptors were as far as possible from slavishly imitating a fixed
prototype. They used their own eyes and strove, each in his own
way, to render what they saw. This is evident, when the different
examples of the class of figures now under discussion are passed
in review.
Our figure from Thera is hardly more than a first attempt. There
is very little of anatomical detail, and what there is is not
correct; especially the form and the muscles of the abdomen are
not understood. The head presents a number of characteristics
which were destined long to persist in Greek sculpture. Such are
the protuberant eyeballs, the prominent cheek-bones, the square,
protruding chin. Such, too, is the formation of the mouth, with
its slightly upturned corners--a feature almost, though not quite,
universal in Greek faces for more than a century. This is the
sculptor's childlike way of imparting a look of cheerfulness to
the countenance, and with it often goes an upward slant of the
eyes from the inner to the outer corners. In representing this
youth as wearing long hair, the sculptor followed the actual
fashion of the times, a fashion not abandoned till the fifth
century and in Sparta not till later. The appearance of the hair
over the forehead and temples should be noticed. It is arranged
symmetrically in flat spiral curls, five curls on each side.
Symmetry in the disposition of the front hair is constant in early
Greek sculpture, and some scheme or other of spiral curls is
extremely common.
It was at one time thought that these nude standing figures all
represented Apollo. It is now certain that Apollo was sometimes
intended, but equally certain that the same type was used for men.
Greek sculpture had not yet learned to differentiate divine from
human beings The so-called "Apollo" of Tenea (Fig. 79), probably
in reality a grave-statue representing the deceased, was found on
the site of the ancient Tenea, a village in the territory of
Corinth. It is unusually well preserved, there being nothing
missing except the middle portion of the right arm, which has been
restored. This figure shows great improvement over his fellow from
Thera. The rigid attitude, to be sure, is preserved unchanged,
save for a slight bending of the arms at the elbows; and we meet
again the prominent eyes, cheek-bones, and chin, and the smiling
mouth. But the arms are much more detached from the sides and the
modeling of the figure generally is much more detailed. There are
still faults in plenty, but some parts are rendered very well,
particularly the lower legs and feet, and the figure seems alive.
The position of the feet, flat upon the ground and parallel to one
another, shows us how to complete in imagination the "Apollo" of
Thera and other mutilated members of the series. Greek sculpture
even in its earliest period could not limit itself to single
standing figures. The desire to adorn the pediments of temples and
temple-like buildings gave use to more complex compositions. The
earliest pediment sculptures known were found on the Acropolis of
Athens in the excavations of 1885-90 (see page 147) The most
primitive of these is a low relief of soft poros (see page 78),
representing Heracles slaying the many-headed hydra. Somewhat
later, but still very rude, is the group shown in Fig. 80, which
once occupied the right-hand half of a pediment. The material here
is a harder sort of poros, and the figures are practically in the
round, though on account of the connection with the background the
work has to be classed as high relief. We see a triple monster, or
rather three monsters, with human heads and trunks and arms the
human bodies passing into long snaky bodies coiled together. A
single pair of wings was divided between the two outermost of the
three beings, while snakes' heads, growing out of the human
bodies, rendered the aspect of the group still more portentous.
The center of the pediment was probably occupied by a figure of
Zeus, hurling his thunderbolt at this strange enemy. We have
therefore here a scene from one of the favorite subjects of Greek
art at all periods--the gigantomachy, or battle of gods and
giants. Fig. 81 gives a better idea of the nearest of the three
heads. [Footnote: It is doubtful whether this head belongs where
it is placed in Fig 80, or in another pediment-group, of which
fragments have been found.] It was completely covered with a crust
of paint, still pretty well preserved. The flesh was red; the
hair, moustache, and beard, blue; the irises of the eyes, green;
the eyebrows, edges of the eyelids, and pupils, black. A
considerable quantity of early poros sculptures was found on the
Athenian Acropolis. These were all liberally painted. The poor
quality of the material was thus largely or wholly concealed.
Fig. 82 shows another Athenian work, found on the Acropolis in
1864-65. It is of marble and is obviously of later date than the
poros sculptures. In 1887 the pedestal of this statue was found,
with a part of the right foot. An inscription on the pedestal
shows that the statue was dedicated to some divinity, doubtless
Athena, whose precinct the Acropolis was. The figure then probably
represents the dedicator, bringing a calf for sacrifice. The
position of the body and legs is here the same as in the "Apollo"
figures, but the subject has compelled the sculptor to vary the
position of the arms. Another difference from the "Apollo" figures
lies in the fact that this statue is not wholly naked. The
garment, however, is hard to make out, for it clings closely to
the person of the wearer and betrays its existence only along the
edges. The sculptor had not yet learned to represent the folds of
drapery
The British Museum possesses a series of ten seated figures of
Parian marble, which were once ranged along the approach to an
important temple of Apollo near Miletus. Fig. 83 shows three of
these. They are placed in their assumed chronological order, the
earliest furthest off. Only the first two belong in the period now
under review. The figures are heavy and lumpish, and are
enveloped, men and women alike, in draperies, which leave only the
heads, the fore-arms, and the toes exposed. It is interesting to
see the successive sculptors attacking the problem of rendering
the folds of loose garments. Not until we reach the latest of the
three statues do we find any depth given to the folds, and that
figure belongs distinctly in the latter half of the archaic
period.
Transporting ourselves now from the eastern to the western
confines of Greek civilization, we may take a look at a sculptured
metope from Selinus in Sicily (Fig. 84). That city was founded,
according to our best ancient authority, about the year 629 B.C.,
and the temple from which our metope is taken is certainly one of
the oldest, if not the oldest, of the many temples of the place.
The material of the metope, as of the whole temple, is a local
poros, and the work is executed in high relief. The subject is
Perseus cutting off the head of Medusa. The Gorgon is trying to
run away--the position given to her legs is used in early Greek
sculpture and vase-painting to signify rapid motion--but is
overtaken by her pursuer. From the blood of Medusa sprang,
according to the legend, the winged horse, Pegasus; and the
artist, wishing to tell as much of the story as possible, has
introduced Pegasus into his composition, but has been forced to
reduce him to miniature size. The goddess Athena, the protectress
of Perseus, occupies what remains of the field. There is no need
of dwelling in words on the ugliness of this relief, an ugliness
only in part accounted for by the subject. The student should note
that the body of each of the three figures is seen from the front,
while the legs are in profile. The same distortion occurs in a
second metope of this same temple, representing Heracles carrying
off two prankish dwarfs who had tried to annoy him, and is in fact
common in early Greek work. We have met something similar in
Egyptian reliefs and paintings (cf. page 33), but this method of
representing the human form is so natural to primitive art that we
need not here assume Egyptian influence. The garments of Perseus
and Athena show so much progress in the representation of folds
that one scruples to put this temple back into the seventh
century, as some would have us do. Like the poros sculptures of
Attica, these Selinus metopes seem to have been covered with
color.
Fig. 85 takes us back again to the island of Delos, where the
statue came to light in 1877. It is of Parian marble, and is
considerably less than life-sized. A female figure is here
represented, the body unnaturally twisted at the hips, as in the
Selinus metopes, the legs bent in the attitude of rapid motion. At
the back there were wings, of which only the stumps now remain. A
comparison of this statue with similar figures from the Athenian
Acropolis has shown that the feet did not touch the pedestal, the
drapery serving as a support. The intention of the artist, then,
was to represent a flying figure, probably a Victory. The goddess
is dressed in a chiton (shift), which shows no trace of folds
above the girdle, while below the girdle, between the legs, there
is a series of flat, shallow ridges. The face shows the usual
archaic features--the prominent eyeballs, cheeks, and chin, and
the smiling mouth. The hair is represented as fastened by a sort
of hoop, into which metallic ornaments, now lost, were inserted.
As usual, the main mass of the hair falls straight behind, and
several locks, the same number on each side, are brought forward
upon the breast. As usual, too, the front hair is disposed
symmetrically; in this case, a smaller and a larger flat curl on
each side of the middle of the forehead are succeeded by a
continuous tress of hair arranged in five scallops.
If, as has been generally thought, this statue belongs on an
inscribed pedestal which was found near it, then we have before us
the work of one Archermus of Chios, known to us from literary
tradition as the first sculptor to represent Victory with wings.
At all events, this, if a Victory, is the earliest that we know.
She awakens our interest, less for what she is in herself than
because she is the forerunner of the magnificent Victories of
developed Greek art.
Thus far we have not met a single work to which it is possible to
assign a precise date. We have now the satisfaction of finding a
chronological landmark in our path. This is afforded by some
fragments of sculpture belonging to the old Temple of Artemis at
Ephesus. The date of this temple is approximately fixed by the
statement of Herodotus (I, 92) that most of its columns were
picsented by Croesus, king of Lydia, whose reign lasted from 560
to 546 B. C. In the course of the excavations carried on for the
British Museum upon the site of Ephesus there were brought to
light, in 1872 and 1874, a few fragments of this sixth century
edifice. Even some letters of Croesus's dedicatory inscription
have been found on the bases of the Ionic columns, affording a
welcome confirmation to the testimony of Herodotus. It appears
that the columns, or some of them, were treated in a very
exceptional fashion, the lowest drums being adorned with relief-
sculpture. The British Museum authorities have partially restored
one such drum (Fig. 86), though without guaranteeing that the
pieces of sculpture here combined actually belong to the same
column. The male figure is not very pre-possessing, but that is
partly due to the battered condition of the face. Much more
attractive is the female head, of which unfortunately only the
back is seen in our illustration. It bears a strong family
likeness to the head of the Victory of Delos, but shows marked
improvement over that. Some bits of a sculptured cornice
belonging to the same temple are also refined in style. In this
group of reliefs, fragmentary though they are, we have an
indication of the development attained by Ionic sculptors about
the middle of the sixth century. For, of course, though Croesus
paid for the columns, the work was executed by Greek artists upon
the spot, and presumably by the best artists that could be
secured. We may therefore use these sculptures as a standard by
which to date other works, whose date is not fixed for us by
external evidence.