THE progressive change in sculpture, from a style of severe and simple
majesty, to one of more studied elegance and softer character, already
noticed as having commenced even in the lifetime of Phidias, received
its full developement under those masters who adorned the beginning
of the Macedonian empire. Various political and moral causes, without
decline of talent, might have contributed to this change, which is not
even so great, while it corresponds with, the contemporary revolutions
which, from similar origin, took place in manners and literature,
in the opinions and usages of the times. The annals of no nation,
also, can boast a distinguished succession of names, eminent in the
exercises of the very highest genius. Sublimity is, in its own nature,
a more simple sentiment than beauty, and the sources whence it springs
infinitely more limited. If, then, we find the true sublime in Grecian
sculpture confined to almost the age and the labour of one man, is this
to be wondered at, when the same is the case, not only in their poetry,
an art far more abundant in resources, but in the poetical literature
of every people? The sculptors, then, who followed the era of Pericles
to the death of Alexander, can be called inferior to Phidias, only
in the same sense as the poets who succeeded will be termed inferior
to Homer. In both instances, the change was but the application
of principles which in their essence could not vary, the subjects
requiring a modification of certain distinguishing qualities.
But an opinion opposite to this is more commonly entertained, namely,
that not till the improvements of Praxiteles and Lysippus, was ancient
art perfectly free from the rude and harsh of that early taste. A
glance, however, either to the Greek historians, or especially to
the remaining labours of Phidias himself, is more than sufficient
to show how utterly without foundation is this censure; and that no
other man has united in his style more of the highest excellences. It
is, in fact, this union which truly constitutes beauty in sculpture,
whose sources of pleasing and of moving, being new, and derived only
from the essential elements of design, form, and expression, admit of
separation or imperfection with peculiar disadvantage. If we examine
the Elgin Marbles in regard to those qualities considered as especial
constituents of the beautiful, we shall find how slight indeed could
be succeeding additions. More seductive grace, an air more elaborately
refined, may have been given to the female statues of Praxiteles; but
for that perfect beauty, which arises from including the essentials of
excellence in the most liberal proportion, we search successfully in
the labours of Phidias alone.
The views now taken of Grecian sculpture, in which we have divided the
subject into three schools, are thus proved to be correct. Two of these
have already been examined; the old school, which brought material
art almost to perfection, retaining only a degree of constraint, but
wanting the expression of mind; the Phidian, or sublime school, in
which the genius of art soared to its loftiest height. The third is now
to be considered, which, from the prevailing character of its principal
works, has been rightly termed the School of the Beautiful.
The discussions which have been so warmly agitated regarding the true
era of this school, seem entirely gratuitous. It is acknowledged,
that the greatest masters of whom this latter age could boast, were
Praxiteles and Lysippus, contemporaries, and both highly esteemed by
Alexander the Great. Coeval, then, with the commencement of the career,
and during the brief empire, of this prince, is to be placed the
brightest period in this last display of the arts and genius of Greece.
Many external circumstances concurred, with the encouragement given
by Alexander himself, to render his reign propitious to refinement,
science, and letters; while a reaction of opposite influences, on his
death, closed with that event both the progress of higher improvement,
and even the prospect of long retaining the knowledge possessed. In
sculpture, particularly, a visible decay of talent, and a neglect of
the exercise, soon after follow. Indeed, Pliny decidedly says, that
art from thenceforth ceased,--_deinde cessavit ars_. This expression
must be understood in a limited sense; there is no doubt, however, that
the causes of decline, whose consequences wealth, the complexion and
renewed energies of the times, had retarded, were then recalled into
more direct activity.
Praxiteles, born about the 104th Olympiad, or 364 B. C., was a native
of Magna Grecia, but of what town is uncertain. From preceding remarks
it will appear, that in praising him as an original inventor,--the
discoverer of a new style, writers very generally have mistaken the
influence exercised by his genius upon the progress and character
of sculpture. Finding the highest sublimity in the more masculine
graces of the art already reached; perceiving, also, that the taste
of his age tended thitherwards; he resolved to woo exclusively the
milder and gentler beauties of style. In this pursuit he attained
eminent success. None ever more happily succeeded in uniting softness
with force,--elegance and refinement with simplicity and purity; his
grace never degenerates into the affected, nor his delicacy into
the artificial. He caught the delightful medium between the stern
majesty which awes, and the beauty which merely seduces,--between the
external allurements of form, and the colder, but loftier, charm of
intellectuality. Over his compositions he has thrown an expression
spiritual at once and sensual; a voluptuousness and modesty which touch
the most insensible, yet startle not the most retiring.
The works which remain of this master, either in originals or in
repetitions,--the Faun,--the Thespian Cupid, in the Museum of the
capitol,--the Apollino with a Lizard, one of the most beautiful, as
well as difficult, specimens of antiquity, abundantly justify this
character. Of the works that have utterly perished, the nude and
draped, or Coan and Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles, fixed each a standard
which future invention dared scarcely to alter. Indeed, he appears to
have been the first, perhaps the sole master, who attained the true
ideal on this subject, in the perfect union of yielding feminine grace
with the dignity of intellectual expression. The Venus of Cnidos, in
her representative the Medicean, still 'enchants the world',
--and fills
The air around with beauty: we inhale
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil
Of Heaven is half withdrawn; within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold
What mind can make when nature's self would fail.
Lysippus of Sicyon the younger, contemporary and rival of the
preceding, appears to have wrought only in metal. Accordingly, in
comparing him with Phidias, Aristotle employs distinctive terms, which
both point out this fact, and would alone settle the needless dispute,
whether the latter wrought in marble. Of the 610 works, an incredible
number, ascribed to Lysippus, not one survives; for the Venetian
horses originally brought from Chios, by Theodosius the younger, to
Constantinople, and thence removed to St Mark's in 1204, are unworthy
of the artist's reputation. The bust at Portici requires also to be
authenticated, though of superior merit. Born in the lowest walks of
life, Lysippus was, in a great measure, self-taught, and commenced
his studies where the art itself had begun,--with nature. Though a
perfect master of beauty, his style appears to have been distinguished
by a more masculine character than that of the age. He was emulous of
reviving the grave and severe grandeur of the preceding school. This
predilection his subjects and materials would cherish, if not produce.
Colossal and equestrian statues of warriors in bronze, demanded a
forceful and vigorous composition, with sober and dignified expression.
The Tarentine Jupiter, sixty feet high, was in magnitude equal to any
undertaking in the ancient world; and twentyone equestrian statues of
Alexander's bodyguard, who fell at the Granicus, would alone have
sufficed for the labour of years to an ordinary artist. But not only
in great works was Lysippus famous; many of the most beautiful and
delicate description are recorded. His finishing was exquisite, his
imitation of nature faithful 'as truth itself,' and he especially
excelled in the knowledge of symmetry. He was so great a favorite with
Alexander, that to him alone permission of casting the prince's statue
was granted; and it may serve to prove how justly this admiration
of his own age was deserved, that centuries after, even the monster
Tiberius trembled in his palace at an insurrection of the Roman people,
occasioned by the removal from one of the public baths of a figure by
Lysippus.
During at least forty years from the death of Alexander, the
school founded and presided in by these two masters would preserve
undiminished the beauty of the art. The latter was still alive on
the death of the Macedonian prince, in the last year of the 114th
Olympiad, or 324 B. C.; while Praxiteles survived to the 123d Olympiad.
If, again, we consider the pupils immediately deriving their science
from these great men, the period may be extended during which Greece
could have produced sculptors not unworthy her ancient glory. When
we contemplate also her condition in other respects, never had she
exhibited a more numerous or a more imposing assemblage of intellectual
worthies. Surely, then, the death of a despot could not have wrought so
fatal and so immediate a decline in the means and faculties of human
genius. No! but the consequences of that event destroyed an artificial
system, and dried up factitious streams of prosperity, which for a
time had supplied or concealed the absence of those healthful and
constitutional currents, whence was circulated, throughout the whole of
Greece, the very life-blood of her glory and greatness. Had liberal
institutions been then restored; had the moral vigour of her better
days reappeared, even amid wars and revolutions--in such struggles they
had been reared--her genius and taste, her letters and arts, would have
survived. These were innate in the constitution of her free states. The
last, in particular, formed at once a means and an end in her popular
governments. Springing up an ornamental blossom amid the sterner and
the nobler fruits of liberty, they withered as independence decayed.
We would not be understood as here maintaining a respectable and
amiable, but unfounded theory, that the fine arts have never flourished
except under popular governments, nor that they ceased with such
forms in Greece. In this, more than in any walk of genius, is the
active encouragement of the supreme power indispensable to excellence.
But never can the arts of taste flourish in true grandeur, where
patriotism and popular feeling are not the paramount, or at least the
apparently paramount, principles of the times, and source of their
peculiar cultivation. The arts themselves must be essentially free;
they must likewise derive their quickening inspiration from a national
sentiment of interest and of country. Pisistratus and Pericles, we
have seen, while rulers of Athens, were but superintendents of the
arts, in their application to public purposes, in unison with public
will, and in obedience to public approval. Even Phidias prepared with
trembling anxiety to receive the award of merit from the voice of
his fellow-citizens; and only on the supposition that they were to
undergo the ordeal of a close inspection before being placed in their
destined situation, can we account for the exquisite finish of the
Elgin Marbles, even in parts not exposed to the effects of climate.
Only when the purity of this source of honor was contaminated, did
art fall, never to rise again. Not till every institution belonging to
the republican ages of Greece; not till every sentiment of a generous
kind had been trampled upon; not till the Olympic games ceased,--till
the physical education and martial exercises of the youth were
neglected,--till the arts, separated from national polity, became
dependent on the caprice of individuals,--till there was no longer
public spirit nor patriotic feeling; not till all that creates and
endears the name of country had sunk beneath a foreign yoke or domestic
thraldom, did Greece cease to produce artists.
Again, the period of this decline extends through nearly two hundred
years, from the dismemberment of the Macedonian empire, to the final
reduction of Greece into a Roman province. This space of time, in
regard to the eras of Sculpture, has been variously and too minutely
divided. Each favorable turn of circumstances enabling the art to
recover a little, has been exalted into an epoch. Into these details
it needs not to enter. From the death of Praxiteles, or at least in
the school of his own and the pupils of Lysippus, as Cephissodotus,
son of the former, Tauriscus, Eubolas, Pamphilus, Polyceutas, Agasias,
and others, it does not appear that original works of magnitude or
beauty were produced. After this the labours of artists seem to
have been confined to copies of the works of the older masters, and
chiefly to making repetitions in marble of the ancient bronzes. To
this period belong many of the antique marbles now remaining. Pliny,
indeed, though not with strict correctness, considers that Sculpture
lay dormant during one hundred and twenty years, from the 120th to
the 150th Olympiad. The Achæan league, and the expiring efforts of
Greece under the last of her heroes, Aratus and Philopæmen, inspired a
degree of vigour into her intellectual exertions. Of these warriors,
contemporary statues are noticed by Pausanius; and the latter is
reported to have excelled in painting. But the Ætolian war broke for
ever the ties of country, and the sacredness of national glory. Temples
were therein first desecrated,--statues and paintings defaced in
Greece, and by the hands of Greeks. If, during the same era, we direct
our attention to the successors of Alexander in Egypt and Asia, we
find letters cultivated in preference to art; or, where Sculpture is
patronised, as at the courts of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidæ, the
cultivation of a taste between Grecian and barbarian only hastened the
progress of corruption. One bright interval yet arose in the parent
seats of refinement, upon the declaration, by the Romans, of freedom to
the states of Greece. Sculpture, for more than thirty years of apparent
liberty at least, and of real repose, was exercised with considerable
success by the masters, Antheus, Callistratus, Polycles Apollodorus,
Pasiteles, and others, possessing considerable merit, though far below
the genius of ancient times. This was the struggling gleam of the
expiring taper--the farewell sweet of a sun about to set forever. The
independence of Greece endured only by sufferance; the Achæan league
was dissolved, and Corinth and its capitol levelled with the dust, to
the sound of Roman trumpets--the knell of freedom and of the arts in
Greece.