the view of BRUNN, _Sitzungsber. d. Münch. Akademie_, 1880, pp.
435 ff.]
[Note 27: WOOD, _Discoveries at Ephesus_, p. 271.]
[Note 28: _Antiquities of Ionia_, IV. p. 46. Mr. Pullan is
inclined to date the temple after Alexander; Prof. Middleton
somewhat earlier (_Smith's, Dict, of Antiq._, 3d ed.,] II, p.
785).
[Note 29: CLARAC, _Musée de Sculpture_, II, pp. 1193-1233; pls.
117 C-J. Additional pieces of the frieze have recently been
found in the course of excavations conducted by the German
Archæological Institute. The date given above for the building
is that suggested by DÖRPFELD, _Ath. Mitth._, 1891, pp. 264-5.
Most of the sculpture is generally regarded as of much later
date.]
[Note 30: CONZE, _etc._, _Untersuchungen auf Samothrake_, I,
pp. 24-7, 43-4.]
[Note 3: NEWTON, _Discoveries at Halicarnassus_, _etc._, II,
pp. 554-67.]
[Note 32: MAYER, _Giganten und Titanen_, pp. 370-71.]
[Note 33: _Antiquities of Ionia_, IV, pp. 38-9.]
[Note 34: NEWTON, _Discoveries at Halicarnassus_, _etc._, II,
pp. 449-50, 633.]
Page 28
PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL
STUDIES AT ATHENS.
THE RELATION OF THE ARCHAIC PEDIMENT
RELIEFS FROM THE ACROPOLIS TO
VASE-PAINTING.
[PLATE I.]
From one point of view it is a misfortune in the study of
archæology that, with the progress of excavation, fresh
discoveries are continually being made. If only the evidence of
the facts were all in, the case might be summed up and a final
judgment pronounced on points in dispute. As it is, the ablest
scholar must feel cautious about expressing a decided opinion;
for the whole fabric of his argument may be overturned any day
by the unearthing of a fragment of pottery or a sculptured
head. Years ago, it was easy to demonstrate the absurdity of
any theory of polychrome decoration. The few who dared to
believe that the Greek temple was not in every part as white as
the original marble subjected themselves to the pitying scorn
of their fellows. Only the discoveries of recent years have
brought proof too positive to be gainsaid. The process of
unlearning and throwing over old and cherished notions is
always hard; perhaps it has been especially so in archæology.
The thorough investigation of the soil and rock of the
Acropolis lately finished by the Greek Government has brought
to light so much that is new and strange that definite
explanations and conclusions are still far away. The
pediment-reliefs in poros which now occupy the second and third
rooms of the Acropolis Museum have already been somewhat fully
treated, especially in their architectural bearings. Dr.
Page 29 Brückner of the German Institute has written a full monograph
on the subject,[36] and it has also been fully treated by
Lechat in the _Revue Archeologique_.[37] Shorter papers have
appeared in the _Mittheilungen_ by Studniczka[38] and P.J.
Meier.[39] Dr. Waldstein in a recent peripatetic lecture
suggested a new point of view in the connection between these
reliefs and Greek vase-paintings. It is this suggestion that I
have tried to follow out.
The groups in question are too well known to need a detailed
description here. The first,[40] in a fairly good state of
preservation, represents Herakles in his conflict with the
Hydra, and at the left Iolaos, his charioteer, as a spectator.
Corresponding to this, is the second group,[41] with Herakles
overpowering the Triton; but the whole of this is so damaged
that it is scarcely recognizable. Then there are two larger
pediments in much higher relief, the one[42] repeating the
scene of Herakles and the Triton, the other[43] representing
the three-headed Typhon in conflict, as supposed, with Zeus.
All four of these groups have been reconstructed from a great
number of fragments. Many more pieces which are to be seen in
these two rooms of the Museum surely belonged to the original
works, though their relations and position cannot be
determined. The circumstances of their discovery between the
south supporting-wall of the Parthenon and Kimon's inner
Acropolis wall make it certain that we are dealing with
pre-Persian art. It is quite as certain, in spite of the
fragmentary condition of the remains, that they were pedimental
compositions and the earliest of the kind yet known.
[Footnote 36: _Mitth. deutsch. arch. Inst. Athen._, XIV, p. 67;
XV, p. 84.]
[Footnote 37: _Rev. Arch._, XVII, p. 304; XVIII, pp. 12, 137.]
[Footnote 38: _Mitth. Athen._, XI, p. 61.]
[Footnote 39: X, pp. 237, 322. _Cf. Studniczka_, _Jahrbuch
deutsch. arch. Inst._, I, p. 87; _Purgold_, [Greek: Ephemeris
Archaiologike], 1884, p. 147, 1885, p. 234.]
[Footnote 40: _Mitth. Athen._, X, cut opposite p. 237;
[Greek: Ephemeris], 1884, [Greek: pinax] 7.]
[Footnote 41: _Mitth. Athen._, XI, _Taf._ II.]
[Footnote 42: _Idem_, XV, _Taf._ II.]
[Footnote 43: _Idem_, XIV, _Taf._ II, III.]
The first question which presents itself in the present
consideration is: Why should these pedimental groups follow
vase paintings? We might say that in vases we have practically
the first products of Greek art; and further we might show
resemblances, more or less material, between these archaic
reliefs and vase pictures. But the proof of any connection
between the two would still be wanting. Here the discoveries
Page 30 made by the Germans at Olympia and confirmed by later
researches in Sicily and Magna Graecia, are of the utmost
importance.[44] In the Byzantine west wall at Olympia were
found great numbers of painted terracotta plates[45] which
examination proved to have covered the cornices of the Geloan
Treasury. They were fastened to the stone by iron nails, the
distance between the nail-holes in terracottas and cornice
blocks corresponding exactly. The fact that the stone, where
covered, was only roughly worked made the connection still more
sure. These plates were used on the cornice of the long side,
and bounded the pediment space above and below. The
corresponding cyma was of the same material and similarly
decorated.
It seems surprising that such a terracotta sheathing should be
applied on a structure of stone. For a wooden building, on the
other hand, it would be altogether natural. It was possible to
protect wooden columns, architraves and triglyphs from the
weather by means of a wide cornice. But the cornice itself
could not but be exposed, and so this means of protection was
devised. Of course no visible proof of all this is at hand in
the shape of wooden temples yet remaining. But Dr. Dörpfeld's
demonstration[46] removes all possible doubt. Pausanias[47]
tells us that in the Heraion at Olympia there was still
preserved in his day an old wooden column. Now from the same
temple no trace of architrave, triglyph or cornice has been
found; a fact that is true of no other building in Olympia and
seems to make it certain that here wood never was replaced by
stone. When temples came to be built of stone, it seems that
this plan of terracotta covering was retained for a time,
partly from habit, partly because of its fine decorative
effect. But it was soon found that marble was capable of
withstanding the wear of weather and that the ornament could be
applied to it directly by painting.
[Footnote 44: I follow closely Dr. Dörpfeld's account and
explanation of these discoveries in _Ausgrabungen zu Olympia_,
v, 30 _seq_. See also _Programm zum Winckelmannsfeste_, Berlin,
1881. _Ueber die Verwendung Terracotten_, by Messrs. DÖRPFELD,
GRÄBER, BORRMANN, and SIEBOLD.]
[Footnote 45: Reproduced in _Ausgrabungen zu Olympia_, V,
_Taf._ XXXIV. BAUMEISTER, _Denkmäler des klassischen
Altertums_, _Taf._ XLV. RAYET et COLLIGNON, _Histoire de la
Céramique Grecque_, pl. XV.]
[Footnote 46: _Historische und philologische Aufsätze_, _Ernst
Cartius gewidmet_. Berlin, 1884, p. 137 _seq_.]
[Footnote 47: V, 20. 6.]
Page 31 In order to carry the investigation a step further Messrs.
Dörpfeld, Gräber, Borrmann and Siebold undertook a journey to
Gela and the neighboring cities of Sicily and Magna
Graecia.[48] The results of this journey were most
satisfactory. Not only in Gela, but in Syracuse, Selinous,
Akrai, Kroton, Metapontum and Paestum, precisely similar
terracottas were found to have been employed in the same way.
Furthermore just such cyma pieces have been discovered
belonging to other structures in Olympia and amid the
pre-Persian ruins on the Acropolis of Athens. It is not yet
proven that this method of decoration was universal or even
widespread in Greece; but of course the fragile nature of
terracotta and the fact that it was employed only in the oldest
structures, would make discoveries rare.
Another important argument is furnished by the certain use of
terracotta plates as acroteria. Pausanias[49] mentions such
acroteria on the Stoa Basileios on the agora of Athens.
Pliny[50] says that such works existed down to his day, and
speaks of their great antiquity. Fortunately a notable example
has been preserved in the acroterium of the gable of the
Heraion at Olympia,[51] a great disk of clay over seven feet in
diameter. It forms a part, says Dr. Dörpfeld, of the oldest
artistic roof construction that has remained to us from Greek
antiquity. That is, the original material of the acroteria was
the same used in the whole covering of the roof, namely
terracotta. The gargoyles also, which later were always of
stone, were originally of terracotta. Further we find reliefs
in terracotta pierced with nail-holes and evidently intended
for the covering of various wooden objects; sometimes, it is
safe to say, for wooden sarcophagi. Here appears clearly the
connection that these works may have had with the later reliefs
in marble.
To make now a definite application, it is evident that the
connection between vase-paintings and painted terracottas must
from the nature of the case be a very close one. But when these
terracottas are found to reproduce throughout the exact designs
and figures of vase-paintings, the line between the two fades
away. All the most familiar ornaments of vase technic recur
Page 32 again and again, maeanders, palmettes, lotuses, the scale and
lattice-work patterns, the bar-and-tooth ornament, besides
spirals of all descriptions. In exception, also, the parallel
is quite as close. In the great acroterium of the Heraion, for
example, the surface was first covered with a dark varnish-like
coating on which the drawing was incised down to the original
clay. Then the outlines were filled in black, red and white.
Here the bearing becomes clear of an incidental remark of
Pausanias in his description of Olympia. He says (v. 10.):
[Greek: en de Olympia] (of the Zeus temple) [Greek: lebes
epichrysos epi ecastô tou orophou tô perati epikeitai]. That
is originally aeroteria were only vases set up at the apex and
on the end of the gable. Naturally enough the later
terracottas would keep close to the old tradition.
[Footnote 48: _Cf. supra, Programm zum Winckelmannsfeste_.]
[Footnote 49: I, 3. 1.]
[Footnote 50: His. Nat., xxxv, 158.]
[Footnote 51: _Ausgrabungen zu Olympia_, v, 35 and _Taf_.
XXXIV.]
It is interesting also to find relief-work in terracotta as
well as painting on a plane surface. An example where color and
relief thus unite, which comes from a temple in Caere,[52]
might very well have been copied from a vase design. It
represents a female face in relief, as occurs so often in Greek
pottery, surrounded by an ornament of lotus, maeander and
palmette. Such a raised surface is far from unusual; and we
seem to find here an intermediate stage between painting and
sculpture. The step is indeed a slight one. A terracotta
figurine[53] from Tarentum helps to make the connection
complete. It is moulded fully in the round, but by way of
adornment, in close agreement with the tradition of
vase-painting, the head is wreathed with rosettes and crowned
by a single palmette. So these smaller covering plates just
spoken of, which were devoted to minor uses, recall continually
not only the identical manner of representation but the
identical scenes of vase paintings,--such favorite subjects, to
cite only one example, as the meeting of Agamemnon's children
at his tomb.
[Footnote 52: _Arch. Zeitung_, xxix, 1872, _Taf._ 41; RAYET et
COLLIGNON, _Hist. Céram. Grecque_, fig. 143.]
[Footnote 53: _Arch. Zeitung_, 1882, _Taf._ 13.]
From this point of view, it does not seem impossible that
pedimental groups might have fallen under the influence of vase
technic. The whole architectural adornment of the oldest temple
was of pottery. It covered the cornice of the sides, completely
Page 33 bounded the pedimental space, above and below, and finally
crowned the whole structure in the acroteria. It would surely
be strange if the pedimental group, framed in this way by vase
designs, were in no way influenced by them. The painted
decoration of these terracottas is that of the bounding friezes
in vase-pictures. The vase-painter employs them to frame and
set off the central scene. Might not the same end have been
served by the terracottas on the temple, with reference to the
scene within the typanum? We must remember, also, that at this
early time the sculptor's art was in its infancy while painting
and the ceramic art had reached a considerable development.
Even if all analogy did not lead the other way, an artist would
shrink from trying to fill up a pediment with statues in the
round. The most natural method was also the easiest for him.
On the question of the original character of the pedimental
group, the Heraion at Olympia, probably the oldest Greek
columnar structure known, furnishes important light. Pausanias
says nothing whatever of any pedimental figures. Of course his
silence does not prove that there were none; but with all the
finds of acroteria, terracottas and the like, no trace of any
such sculptures was discovered. The inference seems certain
that the pedimental decoration, if present at all, was either
of wood or of terracotta, or was merely painted on a smooth
surface. The weight of authority inclines to the last view. It
is held that, if artists had become accustomed to carving
pedimental groups in wood, the first examples that we have in
stone would not show so great inability to deal with the
conditions of pedimental composition. If ever the tympanum was
simply painted or filled with a group in terracotta, it is easy
to see why the fashion died and why consequently we can bring
forward no direct proof to-day. It was simply that only figures
in the round can satisfy the requirements of a pedimental
composition. The strong shadows thrown by the cornice, the
distance from the spectator, and the height, must combine to
confuse the lines of a scene painted on a plane surface, or
even of a low relief. So soon as this was discovered and so
soon as the art of sculpture found itself able to supply the
want, a new period in pedimental decoration began.
Literary evidence to support this theory of the origin of
pediment sculpture is not lacking. Pliny says in his Natural
Page 34 History (xxxv. 156.): _Laudat_ (Varro) _et Pasitelen
qui plasticen matrem caelaturæ et statuariæ sculpturaeque dixit
et cum esset in omnibus his summus nihil unquam fecit antequam
finxit_. Also (xxxiv. 35.): _Similitudines exprimendi quae
prima fuerit origo, in ea quam plasticen Graeci vocant dici
convenientius erit, etenim prior quam statuaria fuit_. In both
these cases the meaning of "plasticen" is clearly working, that
is, moulding, in clay. Pliny, again (xxxv. 152.), tells us of
the Corinthian Butades: _Butadis inventum est rubricam addere
aut ex rubra creta fingere, primusque personas tegularum
extremis imbricibus inposuit, quae inter initia prostypa
vocavit, postea idem ectypa fecit. hinc et fastigia templorum
orta_. The phrase _hinc et fastigia templorum orla_, has been
bracketed by some editors because they could not believe the
fact which it stated. _Fastigia_ may from the whole connection
and the Latin mean "pediments." This is quite in accord with
the famous passage in Pindar,[54] attributing to the
Corinthians the invention of pedimental composition. Here then
we have stated approximately the conclusion which seems at
least probable on other grounds, namely, that the tympanum of
the pediment was originally filled with a group in terracotta,
beyond doubt painted and in low relief.
[Footnote 54: _Olymp._, XIII, 21.]
But if we assume that the pedimental group could have
originated in this way, we must be prepared to explain the
course of its development up to the pediments of Aegina and the
Parthenon, in which we find an entirely different principle,
namely, the filling of these tympana with figures in the round.
It is maintained by some scholars, notably by Koepp,[55] that
no connection can be established between high relief and low
relief, much less between statues entirely in the round and low
relief. High relief follows all the principles of sculpture,
while low relief may almost be considered as a branch of the
painter's art. But this view seems opposed to the evidence of
the facts. For there still exists a continuous series of
pedimental groups, first in low relief then in high relief, and
finally standing altogether free from the background, and
becoming sculpture in the round. Examples in low relief are the
Hydra pediment from the Acropolis and the pediment of the
Page 35 Megarian Treasury at Olympia, which, on artistic grounds, can
be set down as the two earliest now in existence. Then follow,
in order of time and development, the Triton and Typhon
pediments, in high relief, from the Acropolis; and after these
the idea of relief is lost, and the pediment becomes merely a
space destined to be adorned with statuary. Can we reasonably
believe that the Hydra and Triton pediments, standing side by
side on the Acropolis, so close to each other in time and in
technic, owe their origin to entirely different motives, merely
for the reason that the figures of one stand further out from
the background than those of the other? Is it not easier to
suppose that the higher reliefs, as they follow the older low
reliefs in time, are developed from them, than to assume that
just at the dividing-line a new principle came into operation?
[Footnote 55: _Jahrbuch deutschen archäol. Instituts_, II,
118.]
It is a commonplace to say that sculpture in relief is only one
branch of painting. Conze[56] publishes a sepulchral monument
which seems to him to mark the first stage of growth. The
surface of the figure and that of the surrounding ground remain
the same; they are separated only by a shallow incised line.
Conze says of it; "The tracing of the outline is no more than,
and is in fact exactly the same as, the tracing employed by the
Greek vase-painter when he outlined his figure with a brush
full of black paint before he filled in with black the ground
about it." The next step naturally is to cut away the surface
outside and beyond the figures; the representation is still a
picture except in the clearer marking of the bounding-line. The
entire further growth and development of the Greek relief is in
the direction of rounding these lines and of detaching the
relief more and more from the back surface. This primitive
picturesque method of treatment is found as well in high relief
as in low. How then can the process of development be different
for the two? I quote from Friedrichs-Wolters[57] on the metopes
of the temple of Apollon at Selinous, which are distinctly in
high relief: "The relief of these works stands very near to the
origin of relief-style. The surface of the figures is kept flat
throughout, although the effort to represent them in their full
Page 36 roundness is not to be mistaken. Only later were relief-figures
rounded on the front and sides after the manner of free
figures. Originally, whether in high or in low relief, they
were flat forms, modelled for the plane surface whose ornament
they were to be." As the sculptured works were brought out
further and further from the background, this background tended
to disappear. It was no longer a distinctly marked surface on
which the figures were projected, but now higher and now lower,
serving only to hold the figures together. When this point was
reached, the entire separation of the figures from one another
and from the background, became easy. That is, the change in
conception is an easy step by which the relief was lost and
free-standing figures substituted. This process of change was
especially rapid in pedimental groups, for the reason stated
above. The pediment field from its architectonic conditions was
never suited to decoration in relief. But we find from the
works before us that such a system was at least attempted, that
painting and an increased projection of relief were employed as
aids. We are bound to seek a logical explanation of the facts
and of their bearing on the later history of art, and it is
safer to assume a process of regular development than a series
of anomalous changes. Koepp (_cf. supra_), for example, assumes
that these two pediments in low relief are simply exceptions to
the general rule, accounting for them by the fact that it was
difficult to work out high reliefs from the poros stone of
which they were made. He seems to forget that the higher
reliefs from the Acropolis are of the same poros. This material
in fact appears to have been chosen by the artist because it
was almost as easy to incise and carve as the wood and clay to
which he had been accustomed. The monuments of later Greek art
give no hint of a distinction to be drawn between high and low
relief. We find on the same stele figures barely attached to
the ground, and others in mere outline. If then there are
reasons for finding the origin of pedimental decoration in a
plane or low-relief composition of terracotta, made more
effective both by a framing of like material and technic, and
by the acroteria at either extremity and above, then the
process of development which leads at length to the pediments
at Aegina and the Parthenon becomes at once easy and natural.
We note first the change from terracotta to a low painted
Page 37 relief in stone, then this relief becomes, from the necessities
of the case, higher and higher until finally it gives place to
free figures.
[Footnote 56: _Das Relief bei den Griechen. Sitzungs-Berichte
der Berliner Akademie_, 1882, 567.]
[Footnote 57: _Gipsabgüsse antiker Bilderwerke_, Nos. 149-151.]