_THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF PAIN_
I
Leonardo da Vinci, in his celebrated treatise on painting, in speaking
of the difference between laughing and weeping, says: 'In eyes, mouth,
and cheeks there is no difference between one who laughs and one who
weeps. They are distinguished from each other only by the position of
the eyebrows, which contract during weeping, while in one who laughs
they are drawn upwards. He who weeps raises the eyebrows at the inner
corners, draws them together, wrinkling the skin above them, and turns
the corners of the mouth down, while one who laughs draws the corners
of the mouth upwards, and has an open, uncontracted brow.’
With these words da Vinci shows the characteristic expression of the
face in laughter and in tears; but the physiologist is not content
with what satisfies the artist, he seeks the cause and origin of the
phenomena, analyses the reason of the difference and similarity in the
expression of laughing and weeping, joy and pain.
The impetus which Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin gave to the study
of human nature was so powerful, the progress made so rapid, and the
new horizon so vast, that numerous philosophical and scientific books
at once became obsolete; and when we now turn over their leaves, we
seem to feel the breath of decay, as though we were groping amid the
ruins and dust of edifices that have crumbled for centuries.
The study of nature was much easier for the spiritualists and
philosophers of the old school than for us, because with little trouble
they found reasons which satisfied them, and in their faith they had a
strong bulwark that sheltered them from the uncertainty and doubt which
follow us everywhere as we grope deeper and deeper, trying to find out
the causes of things.
Duchenne de Boulogne, in his well-known book on the mechanism of human
physiology, printed in 1862, still maintains that the facial muscles
were created for the expression of the soul.
'Le créateur n’a donc pas eu à se préoccuper ici des besoins de la
mécanique; il a pu, selon sa sagesse, ou--que l’on me pardonne cette
manière de parler--par une divine fantaisie, mettre en action tel ou
tel muscle, un seul ou plusieurs muscles à la fois, lorsqu’il a voulu
que les signes caractéristiques des passions, même les plus fugaces,
fussent écrits passagèrement sur la face de l’homme. Ce langage de la
physionomie une fois créé, il lui a suffi, pour le rendre universel et
immuable, de donner à tout être humain la faculté instinctive d’ex
primer toujours ses sentiments par la contraction des mêmes muscles.
'Il était certainement possible de doubler le nombre des signes
expressifs de la physionomie; il fallait, pour cela, que chaque
sentiment ne mît en jeu qu’un seul côté de la face. Mais on sent
combien un tel langage eût été disgracieux.’[24]
According to Duchenne de Boulogne all passions have a special muscle
at their service, which enters into activity in order to express the
feelings of the mind; benevolence, joy, laughter, sadness, attention,
reflection, lasciviousness, irony, contempt, fright, cruelty, pain,
weeping, appear on the human countenance each through the medium of a
muscle possessing the privilege of representing a particular emotion.
[24] G. B. Duchenne de Boulogne: _Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine_
(Paris, 1862), p. 32.
Duchenne de Boulogne certainly went rather far with his theory of
localisations. He treated the face as Gall did the skull and brain.
Classifications of mental faculties are too artificial, being derived
from an abstraction based on facts and phenomena neither distinct nor
definable. Gall wished to localise, so to speak, the metaphysical and
theological faculties of the mind in the different parts of the brain,
and invented the phrenology which made him famous. But in none of his
writings is there any penetration to the real origin of facts. He let
his imagination and, more than all, the force of his own eloquence,
carry him away, and his phrenology, then called the science of the
future and the reforming doctrine of society, has now fallen into
oblivion in spite of the prophecies of his followers.
II
Darwin reduced the principles on which the expression of the emotions
depends to the following three:
I. The principle of serviceable associated habits.
II. That of antithesis.
III. That of actions due to the constitution of the
nervous system, independently from the first of the
will and to a certain extent of habit.
According to Darwin the expression of pain depends essentially on the
first and third of these principles. He assumes, indeed, that in all
animals, in the series of innumerable generations, intense pain has
produced the most violent and diverse movements in order to escape its
cause.
As the muscles of the thorax and of the vocal organs are those most
habitually used, they were called more particularly into action, and
animals began to make sounds, to howl and to screech. Darwin believed
that vocal sounds were useful to animals, particularly to the young
and to those living in community, because in case of danger the cries
serve to call the parents or to warn the other animals. These opinions
of Charles Darwin open up a wide field for discussion, but for the
present I intend to speak only of the expression of the face, so as to
confine my subject within reasonable limits.
The movements of the facial muscles depend, according to Darwin, on
the constitution of the nervous system. We must remark, however, that
Darwin took this idea from Herbert Spencer, who, a few years before
Darwin published his book, had written a chapter in his 'Principles of
Psychology’ entitled 'The Language of the Emotions.’ Darwin recognised
the priority of Herbert Spencer, and I think it advisable to quote a
passage from his book, 'The Expression of the Emotions,’ so that the
reader may become acquainted with one of the most important pages
published on the subject of which we are treating:
'As Mr. Herbert Spencer remarks’ (says Darwin on p. 71), 'it may
be received as an “unquestionable truth that, at any moment, the
existing quantity of liberated nerve-force, which in an inscrutable
way produces in us the state we call feeling, _must_ expend itself in
some direction--_must_ generate an equivalent manifestation of force
somewhere”; so that, when the cerebro-spinal system is highly excited
and nerve-force is liberated in excess, it may be expended in intense
sensations, active thought, violent movements, or increased activity
of the glands. Mr. Spencer further maintains that an “overflow of
nerve-force, undirected by any motive, will manifestly take the most
habitual routes; and, if these do not suffice, will next overflow
into the less habitual ones.” Consequently, the facial and respiratory
muscles, which are the most used, will be apt to be first brought into
action; then those of the upper extremities, next those of the lower,
and, finally, those of the whole body.’
The simplicity of this theory is seductive, but it suffices to subject
it to a superficial examination in order to see that it does not
quite correspond to the facts. If we find out which are the most
habitual routes of nerve-force, and write them down in order one after
the other, and then compare them with the movements expressing the
passions, we shall see that there is not a perfect correspondence.
It was perhaps for this reason that Herbert Spencer afterwards
introduced the idea of the nervous lines of least resistance, in order
to explain the greater facility with which certain muscles contract,
compared to others. 'The molecular motion’ (says Spencer) 'disengaged
in any nerve-centre by any stimulus, tends ever to flow along lines of
least resistance throughout the nervous system.’
The solution of the problem was thus removed to the domain of
experimental physiology. The question now is, whether in reality the
muscles most commonly in use are those which have nerves offering less
resistance, or whether the nervous excitement hidden in the centres is
sufficiently strong to allow the resistance made by the nerves to its
passage towards the muscles to be disregarded.
Spencer and Darwin gave no proof of their statements, so that it
devolves upon us physiologists to discover experimentally whether the
intuition of these great philosophers is correct. Darwin was, as usual,
very cautious, and in Chapter III., in which he treats of the general
principles of expression, after having mentioned the above theory,
says: 'Our present subject is very obscure, but, from its importance,
must be discussed at some little length; and it is always advisable to
perceive clearly our ignorance.’
III
I made a few experiments in order to see whether in reality, as
Spencer assumes, there exists a difference of conductibility amongst
the various nervous filaments which move the muscles of the face, and
which, as we know, are united into one bundle called the facial nerve.
I irritated this nerve at its point of departure from the skull, and
near the ear, where it is most easily isolated. There is no need to
describe the process of irritating the nerves by electric currents.
Galvani began in the last century to produce contractions of the
muscles by means of electric currents originated by the contact of
two metals; and we all know that the contractions of the legs of some
skinned frogs, observed by Galvani in Bologna while he was hanging them
on the iron railings in his garden, were the beginning of one of the
greatest conquests of science, and one of the discoveries which have
exercised the greatest influence on civilisation.
The apparatus made use of to irritate the nerves is an invention
of Professor Du Bois-Reymond. Many who are not physicians will yet
know the apparatus, which is often used in the cure of diseases by
electricity; its greatest advantage consists in the facility with which
the intensity of the electrical stimulus may be increased or diminished.
After having produced such a profound sleep in a dog by means of
chloral that he was insensible, I tried to irritate the nerve which
moves the muscles of the face by a very weak electric current. At
first the current was so weak that no effect was visible, but as it
was increased, a slight contraction of the cutaneous muscle of the
neck appeared, and a little movement at the corner of the mouth. It
might perhaps be of use to explain here how, in the muscles situated
under the skin of the neck, other facial muscles originate, amongst
others the so-called risorial muscle; but in order not to interrupt the
relation of this experiment, I shall reserve these remarks till the
beginning of the next section. The intensity of the electric current
when the slight movement of the mouth appeared was equal to 400 units.
If the current is increased, the movement of the lips becomes more
apparent, and when the electric irritation of the _facialis_ reaches
the intensity of 700, a contraction of the orbicular muscle of the
eyelids appears, which closes the eyes. At an intensity of 750 the
muscles which elevate the upper lip contract. At 820 the nostrils
are dilated and elevated. At 950 the contraction of the lips becomes
so pronounced that the dog shows his teeth, and his face assumes an
aggressive expression. At 1,250 there is a depression of the corners
of the mouth, as though produced by pain and disgust. At 1,500 this
expression becomes more intense, and the eye is forcibly shut. If the
stimulus is still further intensified, the face assumes the fierce
expression of an animal about to attack.
I obtained the same results with the animal soon after death.
These experiments show that Herbert Spencer’s hypothesis is correct;
but we shall presently see that the matter is exceedingly complicated,
and that we must take into account other factors no less important in
the expression of the face.
IV
The muscles of the face have certainly not the office, as Duchenne de
Boulogne thought, of expressing the passions of the soul. To speak
frankly and without sentimentality, pedantry, or conventionality,
we must recognise that the most important feature of the face is
the mouth, and that the mouth is a funnel of flesh attached to the
alimentary canal. Sometimes it only serves to seize the prey and
receive the food before sending it to the stomach, as is the case
in fishes, reptiles, and birds, in which the face is reduced to a
minimum. As the apparatus for mastication becomes more complicated with
the appearance of teeth for cutting and crushing the food, and of lips
for sucking, drinking, and closing the mouth, the more complicated also
does the structure of the face become.
One of the most curious things discovered by anatomists is, that many
muscles of the face, of great importance in the expression of the
emotions, were originally, that is, in the inferior animals, muscles
serving a very different purpose. I shall develop this fact briefly,
so that the reader may see how difficulties continually increase the
nearer science approaches to the origin of things.
We all know that the hedgehog rolls itself up on the approach of
danger, its body having the appearance of a ball covered with bristles.
This movement is executed by means of a muscle under the skin which
covers nearly the whole body, and which contracts in a similar manner
to a bag drawn together by a string. Many other animals are similarly
furnished with a fine muscular layer which covers the body. In the
mole, for instance, this muscular system is well developed. Amongst
domestic animals we may mention the dog, the cat, and the horse, in
which, although these layers of cutaneous muscles are less compact,
they are still sufficiently developed to be noticeable when they enter
into action.
We have all remarked the rapid twitching of the skin by which dogs
and horses rid themselves of flies. This movement is due to the rapid
contraction of one of these muscles. It is easily proved that this is
not in reality their office, for they are well developed in birds,
fish, and reptiles that do not need to defend themselves from flies in
this way.
In all higher animals the traces of organs exist, which remind us of
our kinship with the lower animals. Sometimes these organs retrograde
from want of use, at other times they remain in existence but fulfil
a very different office, and one always much less useful than the
original one. Thus the cutaneous muscles still exist under the skin in
many parts of the human body, as an inheritance and a sign transmitted
to us by generations of animals that have preceded us on the earth.
But the contractions of these muscles are no longer of any actual use.
When the nerve-force in emotion spreads from the centre towards the
periphery, these muscles, from their position in the skin, produce
effects which are more easily seen than in other parts of the body,
but which serve no effectual purpose in the struggle for existence and
in the preservation of life. In the dog and cat, for instance, the
contraction of these muscles in strong emotions causes the erection
of the hair on the back, and gives the animal the characteristic
expression of attack or defence, of fear or pain. In man, on the other
hand, a forcible contraction of the cutaneous muscles of the neck which
extend under the skin near the lips gives to the mouth the expression
so characteristic of children when about to cry, or when they are
trying to restrain their tears. Duchenne de Boulogne studied the
function of this muscle, and showed that, when irritated by electric
currents, it opens the mouth in the manner of one under the influence
of terror.
From Ehlers’ observations on the facial muscles of the gorilla and
chimpanzee, we learn that these animals have the same muscles of the
face as we have. Ehlers maintains that the statement made by certain
authors is not true, namely, that the single fasciculi in the muscular
system of the face of these animals are less thick and compact than
in man. Only the wrinklings of the brow are less developed, and the
muscles round the eye are finer, while those distributed to the
nostrils and lips are more highly developed.
It is not true that laughing and weeping are exclusively human. One
need only observe attentively the face of a sensitive and faithful dog
in order to see the first traces of expressions betraying an altered
state of the nervous system. In joyful emotion, as, for instance, when
he meets his master, the lips are lifted in such a manner as to uncover
the teeth, the head inclines in a caressing attitude, the rhythm of
the respiration is modified, and the eyes glisten. Notwithstanding the
difference of anatomical structure and the wide dissimilarity of parts,
we can yet trace in the dog the rudiments of those involuntary muscular
movements which attain their supreme expression in man, in whom a
slight movement of the muscles curves the lips into a smile which sheds
a ray of benevolence over the whole face and increases the charm of
beauty, as though with the breath of love itself.
Darwin wrote many interesting pages about the way in which monkeys
laugh. Humboldt observed the eyes of a monkey fill with tears when it
was overcome by fear, and Brehm relates that seals weep with pain, and
that young elephants when ill-treated shed tears as abundantly as man.
V
Their reasons why changes in the psychical state are reflected are
numerous with such facility by the muscles of the face. Besides that
of proximity to the nerve-centres propounded by Spencer and Darwin,
there is the anatomical fact that the facial muscles have, for the most
part, no antagonists. We know that in the hand, for instance, a slight
contraction of the muscles which serve to open the hand and extend
the fingers, is opposed by the action of the flexors which bend and
contract the fingers. In the face the majority of the muscles can act
freely, hence a slight nervous shock produces effects far more intense
than in the other muscles of the body, in which the slight contraction
of muscles acting in a contrary sense must always be overcome.
The muscles of the face are also more delicate, and have less volume
than those of other parts of the body. Now the volume of the muscles
exercises considerable influence on the greater or lesser facility with
which they contract. A convincing proof is offered by the heart, in
which, when life ceases, there is an almost immediate stoppage of the
action of the ventricles, which form a thick, firm muscle, while the
auricles, forming a fine muscle, continue to move for hours after all
other parts are rigid in death.
Another anatomical fact of the greatest importance, brought into
prominence by Meynart, is to be found in the origin of the facial
nerve within the brain. All other nerves have a very intricate course,
and are connected with other cells, and other nerve-filaments, which
constitute the cerebral convolutions; the facial nerve only receives
commands directly from the central parts of the brain and transmits
them by the shortest route to the periphery. If I may allow myself
to make use of a comparison, I should say that the facial nerve is
like a telegraph wire, which transmits the messages directly to
their destination, while with the other nerves the messages are sent
successively from one station to another, consequently they pass less
rapidly from the brain to their destination in the muscles.
The investigation of that part of the brain whence are issued the
commands causing the contraction of the muscles, the accurate,
microscopic examination of the cells which, by their activity in the
deep parts of the brain, produce the expression of the physiognomy, is
a new and important study.
An American anatomist, Mr. Edward Spitzka,[25] discovered that the
facial nerve originates in two masses of nerve-cells, called, in
anatomical language, nuclei.
There is a lower nucleus, the cells of which preside over the
respiratory movements and the expression of the emotions, and an upper
nucleus directing the orbicular muscle of the eye. While the latter
presents very few variations when studied in different animals of the
zoological series, the lower nucleus of the facial nerve, on the other
hand, varies considerably, according to the development of the other
muscles of the face.
In reptiles, for instance, the nucleus of the facial nerve which
goes to the eye is well developed, while the lower nucleus is in a
retrograde condition. In birds, which, like reptiles, have no muscles
giving expression to the face, this mass of cells forming the lower
nucleus is entirely lacking. In the elephant, on the other hand, the
lower nucleus is well developed, because the nose is a complex organ
requiring a special group of nerve-cells and nerves in order to act.
Spitzka’s anatomical researches having shown that the lower nucleus
of the facial nerve reaches its maximum development in the monkey and
in man, we must regard it as very probable that the nerve-cells which
we see at this point in the brain, at the lower origin of the facial
nerve, are really those which produce the expression of the physiognomy.
[25] Edward C. Spitzka: _Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease_, 1879,
s. 69.
As I write this, I have before me a very thin section of the brain,
showing the nucleus of the facial nerve as it appears in man. It
is a gray spot, as large as the head of a small pin, slightly
spindle-shaped, and having a volume of about two cubic millimetres. If
we look at it under the microscope we see nothing but an accumulation
of cells, about the five-hundredths of a millimetre in diameter, and
with delicate branches intertwining with each other. In vain the eye
tries to find a path through this intricate network of filaments and
cells; imagination loses itself as in a labyrinth, and we remain
humbled and almost frightened at the thought that we are contemplating
the corpse of the noblest part of the brain. The activity of these
cells has roused the most powerful emotions of our life: our knowledge
of men, our sympathy, indifference, suspicion were provoked by the
movements which they gave to the faces of those we have known;
friendship, affection, and the most holy joys of life brightened our
countenance with a smile which came from these cells; they, again,
diffused the shadow of sadness, pain, and tears--and all this drew
life from a part of the brain so minute that by a mere touch we could
unconsciously crush it.
VI
The greatest difficulties in the study of the alterations which the
human face undergoes in suffering are essentially two in number. The
first is the rapidity and the perpetual restlessness of muscular
movements, which are so fugitive that our eye cannot grasp and
comprehend them. The second difficulty lies in the nature of our mind,
which is disturbed and touched at the sight of pain. Even men who
have been hardened and accustomed to the sight of blood and of human
misfortunes, are yet moved at the terrible picture of pain wreaking its
rude will on a sensitive organism. Human pain is of such importance
that all scientific curiosity becomes a trifling and ridiculous thing,
and our mind rebels and feels an invincible repugnance to every desire
which has not the alleviation of the sufferer for its object, to every
act which does not spring from a lively and intense compassion.
For this reason I made use of instantaneous photographs in studying
the expression of the face. The first experiments were made on a few
friends and on myself. Pain was produced by introducing the fingers
between five pieces of wood, which were then pressed firmly together.
This pressure may become unbearable, but the expression of the face is
less characteristic than we are accustomed to see in suffering people.
In oppression and fear there is not generally that effort of will which
subdues the reflex movements in voluntary pain. Tears, agitation,
spasms, terror, faintness, which appear in the terrible reality of
nature, can only be studied in actual sufferers. I had therefore to
leave my laboratory and continue my investigations in the hospitals.
I owe thanks to my colleagues in Turin who assisted me during these
researches, and allowed me to place my camera in such a position that
I could photograph their patients during surgical operations without
their being aware of it. The machine opened and closed instantaneously
by means of an electric apparatus which I had constructed for this
purpose. I could stand near the patient during the operation, and at a
given moment, by touching a button, I obtained a picture of the invalid
in the camera, which was at a distance of a few paces.
In this way I have made an album of pain. It is a saddening and
terrible book, from which I take only two pages, reproduced in Plates
I. and II. Their reality is represented in it with such vividness that
one shudders on opening it. No artist’s fancy has ever been able to
imagine or express what photography faithfully reproduces. In acute
stages of suffering the human face inspires fear in one contemplating
it; it is not alone the profound commiseration which we feel for the
anguish of a sentient being which moves us, nor the humiliation which
the sight of human misery awakes in us, but also the selfish thought
that this palpitating flesh might be our flesh, that our soul, shaken
with pain, would also forget its tranquillity, and our tortured nerves
wring from us the same cries and the same tears.
[Illustration: PLATE I.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF PAIN]
The pictures which I reproduce were taken in the Mauriziano hospital
in Turin, and represent a boy, eighteen years of age, who had received
a wound on his elbow which had healed badly, rendering the joint
stiff and leaving the arm bent at a right angle. When he came
to Turin, the treatment was begun at once, the arm being moved and
stretched daily in order to overcome the resistance and render the
joint movable. I photographed the boy twice nearly every day for
several weeks, whenever the surgeon forcibly extended the arm, which
was intensely painful.
I shall not attempt to describe these pictures, because I feel sure
that no words of mine could express the transformation which the human
face undergoes in pain. Even had I the talent and the pen of a great
artist or a great writer, I should yet refrain, for I know that every
description is useless, pale, and vague when confronted with reality.
Instantaneous photographs are the best means of showing how even the
greatest painters and sculptors have fallen far short of reality, in
their representations of the spasms and sufferings which disfigure and
distort the human face.
VII
The expression of pain alters according to age; it is different in the
child, the youth, the adult, and the old. Energy of will or weakness of
character also exercise a profound influence upon it.
I have been present at surgical operations, and have performed them, on
persons who refused to be chloroformed, and have noticed how great was
the difference of conduct. An old officer, who bore the operation of
lithotomy without anæsthetics, only clenched his hands and his teeth,
keeping his eyes closed and his face almost impassive. A labourer,
whose foot had to be amputated, frowned during the operation, and
tapped lightly with curved fingers on the coverlet. There are patients
who gnash their teeth, others who roll their eyes upwards, others again
who puff; some say, before the operation begins, that they would lie
still if only they were allowed to scream.
But none, whatever be the strength of will, succeed in suppressing
completely the expression of pain when intense. Only very energetic
persons succeed in preserving immovable the muscles of the face, while
they discharge the activity of the nervous system into other muscles by
tetanic contractions.
We may say that every malady has its peculiar expression of pain.
Often, by merely looking at the patient and hearing him moan, the
physician can tell which are the affected organs.
This study is very much complicated because of the rare occurrence of
simple sensations of pain. Our states of mind are so variable and so
complex, that the expression of the face is, as it were, the result of
numerous factors. To be convinced we need only think of the touching
sight of a woman about to become a mother. Notwithstanding the pangs
that torture her, in spite of the indescribable agony of the most
intense pains to which human nature is condemned, she yet finds a smile
which expresses the hope of surviving, and the joy of motherhood shines
in the tender radiance of her eyes, beautifying the face furrowed by
cruel suffering.
Italian literature can boast of two very valuable books on the
physiology of pain. The first was written by Professor Filippo Lussana
in 1860, and dedicated to Dr. Paolo Mantegazza, 'who was writing
his celebrated “Physiology of Pleasure” when the joyous spring of
his twenty-second year smiled upon the author.’ Twenty years later,
in 1880, Paolo Mantegazza also published a valuable book on the
'Physiology of Pain.’ The merits of this book are great, and it is
perhaps one of his greatest achievements in the field of physiology,
but science has since made such rapid progress, that it would be well
if a third volume were added to the group, developing the anatomical
and physiological part, illustrating by instantaneous photographs the
most characteristic movements and expressions of pain, and subjecting
to a severe criticism the most celebrated pictures and statues of the
various schools. I cherish the wish that Paolo Mantegazza, who was my
master, and one of the greatest popularisers of science, may find time
to complete and rejuvenate his work, for who else would find courage to
take a place at his side, and to glean where he has reaped?
VIII
The art of the future, comprising all visible nature within its limits,
will find a great and terrible potency of effect in the expression of
pain. The difficulties, certainly, are here much greater than in the
calm reproduction of the ideally beautiful, and those painters and
sculptors who wish to grapple with the problem of the expression of
pain must train themselves by the study of reality, and arm themselves
with anatomical and physiological knowledge of which antique art gives
us no example.
I believe that, with the advance of a scientific criticism nurtured on
an accurate knowledge of physiology, and intimately acquainted with the
functions of the muscles, we shall one day recognise that the Greeks
of the epoch of Phidias and Praxiteles were unequal to the effectual
reproduction of violent passions.
Winckelmann said that Greek art was always tranquil and majestic,
like the depths of the sea, which remain immovably calm, however the
tempest may ruffle the surface. But I fear there is some exaggeration
in the statement that beauty was the only law of Greek art, and
that the Greeks shunned the expression of pain because the sight
of suffering excites disgust in the spectator. Sophocles and Homer
believed in an art of wider limits; they made their heroes weep, and
shriek, and groan; all human weaknesses are faithfully represented by
them, descending even to the grotesque and ridiculous. At the epoch of
Phidias monuments vividly expressing the internal passions of the soul
are rare. It was only later, in the time of Praxiteles and Scopas, that
subjects and compositions of greater effect were attempted. The most
ancient monument of pain, that representing the destruction of Niobe’s
children, does not attain the perfection of other famous works of that
epoch. The subject is tragic in the highest degree, and such that one
cannot say the Greeks shunned the terrific. It may be that the statue
of the Niobe in Florence is a bad copy, but it is much more probable
that the artists of that epoch, who were unrivalled and beyond all
rivalry in the representation of grace of attitude and silent majesty,
could not touch with the same master-hand the other chords to which the
human heart vibrates.
Some great artist--perhaps Praxiteles or Scopas--wished to adorn the
temple of Apollo with this terrible picture of revenge taken upon man
by an offended deity. It is Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, who, proud
of her children, dared to compare herself to the mother of Apollo, and
now sees them killed one after another, shot by the revengeful arrows
of Apollo and Artemis. No subject could be more tragic. The first
time I entered the 'Galleria degli Uffizi’ in Florence, I remember
halting, almost afraid, at the door leading to the hall of the Niobean
group, thinking of the heart-rending scene I was about to see, and of
the emotion which I should feel while contemplating one of the most
celebrated productions of Greek art. I confess that it did not produce
the effect which I had imagined, and that a careful examination of the
statues forming the group resulted in a great disappointment.
Only the mother filled me with emotion, so perfect is her attitude,
so real her gesture; but in her face and in that of her children there
is no true reflection of the awful event taking place. There is no
physiological correspondence in the pose of the limbs and between
the muscles of the body and those of the face. There is insufficient
accuracy in the sculpture of the heads, for in them is lacking the
expression of intense emotion, of horror, fear, and pain which would
inevitably be present in the terrible moment of so cruel a butchery.
Even though the convulsions and spasms had altered the beauty of the
lines to which the eye of the Greeks was accustomed, it was yet the
duty of the artist faithfully to represent reality. Nor can it be said
that the artist feared to fall into the grotesque, because certain
postures of the children are so violent, that in their boldness they
perhaps exaggerate the truth. Though Praxiteles himself were the
creator of the Niobean group, I yet hold that a humble physiologist,
looking with dispassionate eye at these statues, may affirm that they
fall short of the fame of so great a master, because the faces are not
so modelled as to produce the desired effect, because nature is not
faithfully copied, and because there lacks the sublime ideality of
terror aroused by the chastisement of an offended deity, which was the
subject of the work.
It was in the schools of Asia Minor, after the time of Alexander,
in Pergamos and Rhodes, that antique art, before it became extinct,
developed its greatest splendour, showing an irresistible tendency to
the representation of pain. It is to the school of Rhodes that the
Laocoon group belongs. So much has been written about this celebrated
work, that I should have nothing to add if the face of Laocoon were
anatomically correct. Duchenne de Boulogne was the first to notice the
defects of the Laocoon of Rome, and to declare that the furrows of the
brow in this celebrated statue are physiologically impossible. The eye
of the superficial observer does not notice this defect, because the
movement of the eyebrows which produces the fundamental line of pain is
marvellously modelled. Some perhaps will say that it is useless to stop
to criticise the delineation of a few furrows when such an intense and
majestic pain is written on the face, when one seems to hear the sigh
of superhuman agony from his lips, and sees the lines of beauty and of
pain so wonderfully blended.
The discoveries which have been made of late years in the excavations
in the Acropolis of Pergamos have restored to the admiration of
centuries treasures which mark an epoch in the history of plastic
art, and throw a vivid light on the last phase with which Greek art
completed its evolution. Works so moving as those of the sculptors of
Pergamos had never been produced before. Art devoted itself entirely to
the embodiment and representation of physical pain in its innumerable
manifestations, as though the observation and experience of suffering,
the study of the pathetic, having accumulated for centuries in the
mind of artists and people, burst forth impetuously at the sight of
the victories over the barbarians who threatened their country with
invasion. We have in Italy some of the most celebrated masterpieces
of the school of Pergamos. As all know them I shall only mention the
statue of the dying Gaul in the Museo Capitolino. The head is not so
beautiful as those of the Greek statues, but, on the other hand, it
wears so vivid an expression of pain that we feel touched at the brave
death of this barbarian, who breathes his last leaning upon his shield,
while the blood gushes from the fatal wound. This statue, together
with the group in the Villa Ludovisi to which it belongs, was placed
on the Acropolis of Pergamos about 200 years before the vulgar era, in
order to celebrate the victory of Attalus I. over the barbarians. In
the second group we have again a barbarian before us, who, pursued by
an enemy, kills his wife, and then with the same dagger, as he looks
behind him, his eyes wild with the fear that the enemy may be near and
make him a prisoner before he dies, he stabs himself.
Brizio, in his 'Studies of the Laocoon,’ speaking of the school of
Pergamos, says: 'After an exhaustive examination of the statues in the
museums of Naples, Venice, Rome, and St. Germain-en-Laye, not only
the intention of the artists becomes evident, but also the pleasure
they took in representing with the greatest perspicuity the death of
combatants with all the torture and agony preceding it. In none of
the monuments prior to this epoch is anything similar to be found,
although Greek sculpture, beginning with Phidias, boasts a conspicuous
series of representations of combats. In all these scenes the artists
endeavoured to find new situations, to recreate and vary the groups of
combatants, to reproduce the ardour of the fight; they even represented
the wounded and the dead, but simply as episodes; they never made a
study of death itself, of its tragic effects, with the manifest object
of moving and exciting to the highest degree the compassion of the
spectator. In these groups death is rather indicated than represented.
A further step in the representation of physical pain is marked by the
sculpture of the 'War of the Titans’ around the altar of Jove. When we
throw a comprehensive glance on these scenes of the battle between gods
and giants, we are struck by a new and horrible phenomenon--namely, the
part which the animals, tearing the human bodies to pieces, take in it.
Anyone contemplating in the Museum of Berlin the figures in haut-relief
which formerly adorned the plinth of the altar at Pergamos, 135 metres
in length, feels that this is perhaps the most imposing work which
sculpture has ever produced. Art was in full possession of its most
potent means, and more advanced science had contributed its part. It
was by a most minute study of details, by an exact knowledge of the
movements of the muscles, and long practice in the observation of the
physiognomy of passion, that antique plastic art, in the last period
of its splendour, attained its highest effect in the expression of
feeling. This, I think, is the natural law in the evolution of art.