more important. Homer was acquainted with the use of the lathe; while
relief-carving in wood, and inlaying of metal, ivory, and amber, were
early practised. The latter process can also be referred to Phœnician
influence, in consideration both of the materials employed and of
historical analogy. Even kings busied themselves with such handiwork, as
the building of his nuptial couch by Odysseus proves; and royal ladies,
such as Penelope, Andromache, and Helen, embroidered and wove elaborate
textures. Professional workmen are also mentioned: Icmalios was the
maker of Penelope’s seat; and some productions of this nature, like the
chest of Kypselos, were as late as the beginning of the historical ages
of Greece. Sculptured utensils of metal, vessels, tripods, and weapons,
are particularly and distinctly described in the Homeric epics. The jars
and vases described as “embossed with flowers” may be imagined as
decorated with wreaths, like those found in Assyria and on Cyprus, and
as similar to the early Italian bronzes. Cups with knobs (Iliad, xi.
633) were discovered in the excavations at Nineveh; conventionalized
animals, serpents and birds (Iliad, xi. 17 and 634; Odyssey, xi. 610,
and xix. 227), are to be found upon many primitive vases, and may be
supposed to have existed as handles to vessels as well as upon clasps,
sword-belts, and armor. References to the Asiatic derivation of the
bronze-works known in prehistoric Greece are given by Homer, who
mentions craters from Sidon and a Cyprian coat of mail. The shields were
especially rich, being formed by several thin plates of metal secured
one over the other; every disk was of greater circumference than that
above it, only a narrow concentric rim of each thus remaining visible.
The inner circle alone upon the comparatively simple shield of Agamemnon
(Iliad, xi. 32) was ornamented with sculpture, in this case a
Gorgoneion, the outer edges being provided with ten knobs of tin; upon
the handle was a three-headed dragon. The shield of Achilles (Iliad,
xviii. 468) was wonderfully elaborate, and, as the work of Hephaistos,
probably exceeded by far the ordinary ornamentation of heroic arms; but
it does not, on this account, give less reliable information concerning
the general form and nature of prehistoric armor. Five layers of metal
were superimposed,--two of bronze, two of tin, perhaps alternating, that
in the centre being of gold; four rings were thus formed around the
inner circle, each covered with rich sculptural decoration. Symbols of
earth, sea, and sky, with the sun, moon, and stars, were within the
golden disk. Upon one side of the first concentric band was shown a city
in time of peace, with a wedding procession and a court of justice; upon
the other a besieged city, with a sally of the defenders and a general
engagement. Upon the second ring were the four seasons, indicated by
ploughing, harvesting, the vintage, and by a herd of peacefully grazing
cattle attacked by lions. A harvest dance of youths and maidens, before
whom was a singer with a harp, decorated the third ring; while the
fourth and outermost, probably narrower than the others, was ornamented
by waves representing the sea, which, according to the conception of the
ancients, surrounded the circular land of the earth. The figures were
cut from thin sheets of different metals, and were riveted to the
ground; it is uncertain whether these were first beaten to a relief, or
were left flat, giving the effect of a silhouette. The metals were
naturally chosen of colors different from that of the band to which they
were affixed, and the treatment, in principle, thus somewhat approached
the art of painting. The ground and the vineyards, in the pictures of
the seasons, were of gold, yet “the grapes shone blackish;” the poles
appear to have been of silver, the trenches of iron, and the hedges of
tin, while upon the dancers “hung golden daggers upon silver straps.”
Such empaistic work must have been more closely related to surfaces of
inlaid metal upon wooden forms than to the statuesque Phœnician
sphyrelaton. Homer’s account of the shield of Achilles should be
considered not from a technical, but from an artistic, point of view.
The vivid description is, of course, due altogether to poetical license;
but we may well believe that subjects like the harvest dances, festive
processions, warlike scenes, symbols of the seasons, etc., may have been
attempted upon utensils and weapons, though in a more simple and
decorative manner, their object not being an artistic setting-forth of
details, but an intelligible indication of the whole. With what limited
means this is possible is proved by Egyptian coilanaglyphics, Assyrian
reliefs, and the paintings upon Greek vases of the most primitive style.
(_Fig._ 187.) The artist of the heroic age cut his figures from thin
sheets of metal, just as children snip paper, and set them together upon
the background, filling up the intervening spaces as best he might with
ornaments and names. Direct Oriental models were hardly needed for this;
but it is probable that, as in the sphyrelaton, the influence of Asia
Minor was felt: the conventional character of the types painted upon the
oldest Greek vases bears distinct evidence of a Phœnician impulse.
There was little that was artistic in the details of such early
decorations, but all the more in the conception as a whole: the manner
of expression was weak, but the thought was admirable. Figures appear
upon Assyrian sculptures, so similar to those described by the poet
that by their help one might almost reconstruct the Homeric shield; in
Mesopotamia, however, the representations lacked unity in the
fundamental conception, they were not well grouped in the given space,
and appear, as Brunn says, like a chronicle written in figures when
compared with such a poem as the artistic compositions, made up,
perhaps, of the same elements, described by Homer. The pseudo-Hesiodic
shield of Heracles resembled that of Achilles, the chief difference in
outward form being that the three inner of the five circular layers were
bordered upon the outer edges by narrow rings of steel. The middle plate
was decorated with the head of Phoibos, encircled by twelve serpents
like a Gorgon. The next band displayed a warlike scene and one of peace:
the combat of the Lapithæ and Centaurs in one half, and Apollo among the
Muses in the other. The third had a like contrast between a besieged and
a peaceful city, similar in composition to those upon the shield of
Achilles; while the fourth was also a representation of the seasons,
chiefly distinguished from those of Homer by the substitution of a
hare-hunt as the symbol of winter. The reliefs upon the four narrow
steel rings must have differed in action from the larger groups; in the
latter the radial lines of the upright figures prevailed, in the former
a contrary movement was predominant. On the innermost steel ring boars
and lions moved concentrically around the shield; upon the next
following was an arm of the sea, over which flew Perseus, pursued by the
Gorgons. The third was a chariot-race at full speed; and upon the outer
rim were conventionalized waves, with fishes and swans, forming an
ornamental band similar to the border of the Homeric shield.
[Illustration: Fig. 188.--Relief from the Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ.]
Our knowledge of the sculptural activity of Greece in the heroic ages
has, up to the most recent times, been derived almost entirely from the
poets, whose idealized descriptions are supported, in regard to form,
only by the analogy of Assyrian reliefs and the paintings upon archaic
vases. Works of a primitive period have, indeed, not been entirely
wanting; but it being impossible to date them, they lend no aid to an
historical consideration. The derivation and age of only two are
assured, and the characteristic forms of one of these--the Niobe upon
Mt. Sipylos, near Magnesia, mentioned in the Iliad, xxiv. 613--are
entirely obliterated. It is so rudely executed, or so weather-beaten,
that even in antiquity it appeared to Pausanias, even when seen from the
immediate vicinity, as but a shapeless rock, in which the human figure
was scarcely to be recognized, while, at a distance, it resembled a
woman bowed down with grief and weeping. The account has been verified
in recent times by the discovery of a rock-cut relief of three times the
size of life, so disintegrated that satisfactory drawings of its human
forms could not be made. This renders the other pre-Homeric monument,
the most ancient known sculpture of Greece and of Europe, all the more
important--namely, the relief over the gate of Mykenæ, called by the
poet that of the Lions--the chief portal of the fortress of the Atridæ,
the witness of the departure of Agamemnon for the Trojan war, and of the
downfall of his house on his return. (_Figs._ 188 and 126.) The
structure has been already described from an architectural point of
view. The relief upon the slab which closes the triangle above the
lintel represents two lions standing upright upon either side of a
column; their heads, turned outward, were separate pieces, fastened with
dowels to the background, and have disappeared. The designation of these
animals need not be deemed erroneous because they have no manes.
Pausanias speaks of them as lions (though this in itself may not be of
great weight), and in the Phœnician examples of beaten metal-work, as
in the archaic paintings upon Greek vases, the indication of hair is
always wanting. The Asiatic influence which, in architectural respects,
had made itself felt upon the Tholos of Atreus, must be acknowledged
here also; thus alone is it possible to account for a peculiar modelling
of the forms, entirely foreign to sculpture in stone. The resemblance of
these lions to the animal figures of Assyria is readily recognizable; it
is the same resemblance as that which the art industry of the Syrian
coasts showed to that of Mesopotamia. The Phœnician tradespeople,
themselves skilled in many novel technical processes, formed the medium
between the cultured countries upon the Tigris and the Ægean Sea. The
Lycian Cyclops had also borrowed from these neighbors, and to them was
traditionally attributed this wonderful stone carving at Mykenæ, a work
which, from all appearance, was an isolated attempt. Such sculptures
could not become national and native so long as the requirements of the
heroic Greeks were satisfied with the mere decoration of useful objects.
The impulse towards monumental art seems first to have been awakened
with the introduction of the columnar temple. Schliemann’s excavations
upon the Acropolis of Mykenæ in 1876 have brought to light some few
works of sculpture which deserve to be considered. Prominent among them
are the memorial stones, two of which are shown in Fig. 189. They are
remarkable for a naïve primitiveness of conception and the desire to
display the subject chosen as distinctly as possible. A vigorous action
and a certain observation of nature are not lacking, though the forms
are incorrect, both in general effect and in detail. The similarity of
these works to Asiatic sculptures is marked; but no trace of Egyptian
influence is to be recognized in the attenuated figures. The same
derivation is evident in the spiral ornaments, which closely resemble
those upon the façade of the Tholos of Atreus, and upon Phœnician and
Cyprian remains. All the reliefs imply models of beaten metal, and lend
further support to the hypothesis which connects the heroic age of
Greece with the civilization of Western Asia, through the medium of
Phœnician traders.
[Illustration: Fig. 189.--Steles from the Acropolis of Mykenæ.]
The golden masks found in the graves are not less interesting, whether
the assignment of these to the Homeric worthies--Agamemnon, Eurymedon,
etc.--be accepted or not. (_Fig._ 190.) It is at least certain that they
are memorials of the heroic age, and the great quantities of gold found
in the sepulchres make it probable that they appertained to a royal
race, and were buried at a time when the prosperity of Mykenæ was great
and its power extensive. The masks, like the grave-stones, are formed
with the helpless realism peculiar to the art of Western Asia, and
entirely foreign to that of Egypt. It is easy to believe that they were
imported directly from Phœnicia. This must certainly have been the
case with the beautifully executed ornaments of gold--disks, diadems,
stars, etc.--the beaten workmanship of which is of a perfection only
possible to trained and practised manufacturers. The spirals and other
linear designs are executed with exceeding accuracy, by peculiar
instruments. Their motives are taken from the animal and vegetable
world, from cuttle-fishes, butterflies, and various forms of leaves and
flowers. It is certain that the perforated cylinders, cut, like gems, in
intaglio, with scenes of war and hunting, were introduced directly from
Asia; they are strikingly similar to the rolling seals of carnelian and
agate found in Mesopotamia. A small model of a temple is peculiarly
Phœnician, like that repeated upon Paphian coins.
[Illustration: Fig. 190.--Golden Mask from Mykenæ.]
[Illustration: Fig. 191.--From the Vase of Clitias and Ergotimos.]
During the first two historical centuries, after the commencement of
reckoning time by Olympiads, the direction of activity in art appears to
have changed but little. Sculpture, represented by guilds, or families,
of handicraftsmen in Athens, Argos, and Sikyon, remained little else
than decoration, though, at least in the selection of subjects, it
opened for itself new fields. In the heroic ages the scenes were limited
to the most immediate realities; but, after the Homeric epics had become
the property of the nation, the picturesque treasures of many legends
became available. Arctinos of Miletos, in the middle of the eighth
century, and, somewhat later, Lesches of Lesbos, continuing the Iliad,
sang of the downfall of Troy. Stasimos of Cyprus chose preceding events
as his theme; while the myths of the Seven against Thebes, of the
Titanomachia, and of the exploits of Heracles and Theseus found similar
epic illustration. These poems not only provided the subjects for
sculpture, but described them with plastic vividness. This is shown by
the two chief works of this period,--the Chest of Kypselos and the
Throne of Apollo at Amyclæ. The first was an oblong shrine of
cedar-wood, which Kypselos, tyrant of Corinth, consecrated in the
Heraion of Olympia, in memory of his preservation as a child, when,
hidden in a fruit-box, he had escaped from the persecution of the
Bacchiadæ. This chest, either upon three sides--the fourth standing
against the wall--or upon the long front side alone, was ornamented with
carvings, in five bands, one over the other, probably of unequal height.
The reliefs, partly inlaid with ivory and gold, must have been of a
workmanship similar to that customary in the heroic ages. The uncommonly
rich and varied representations, almost exclusively mythological and
heroic, were taken from the before-mentioned cyclic poems (Pausanias, v.
17 to 19). The figures appear to have somewhat resembled in style those
upon the Vase of Clitias and Ergotimos in Florence (_Fig._ 191), which,
on account of its banded arrangement and the similarity of its mythical
subject, deserves, rather than the cover of Dodwell’s vase given above
(_Fig._ 187), to be compared to the Chest of Kypselos. The Throne of
Apollo at Amyclæ, near Sparta, has been connected with the name of one
of the oldest artists known, Bathycles of Magnesia, who lived half a
century later than the maker of the Chest of Kypselos. This throne also
has been minutely described by Pausanias (iii. 18 to 19). In regard to
its sculptured decoration, his account of its construction is
unintelligible; it is only clear that the framework was colossal, and
that the ancient doll-like image stood within it, without any seat. Not
less than forty-one scenes, besides the larger compositions upon the
pedestal of the statue, covered the outer and inner sides of the throne
with carvings in low-relief, similar in style to those of the Chest of
Kypselos. Upon the legs in full, or at least in three-quarter, relief
were figures of the Graces, the Hours, Tritons, etc.; upon the back
were portraits of the master and of his Magnesian assistants, besides
sphinxes, panthers, and lions.
These works were still chiefly of a decorative character. Monumental
sculpture had not yet freed itself from the trammels of inadequately
developed technical processes. So long as the artisan had no choice
other than the sphyrelaton and the xoanon, a material foundation was
wanting for the development of an independently artistic sculpture. Even
when isolated works of a higher order were attempted, as in the colossal
Zeus, of beaten gold-plate over a wooden form, dedicated in Olympia by
Kypselos or his son Periander, they can be considered, like the other
sphyrelata of this and of the heroic age, only as figures of great
material value but of little artistic importance. Want of skill in
execution favored that clinging to old honored types of devotional
figures inherent in the nature of all religions. These influences stood
in such close, interchangeable relations that it is impossible to say
whether, in the province of sculptured images, the slowness of progress
should be placed more to the account of religious prejudices and the
difficulties thrown in the way of all change by hieratic institutions,
or of the technical limitations of doll-like xoana and sphyrelata.
New mechanical acquirements were needed for the furtherance of the art.
Three great discoveries, or, to speak more correctly, the extended
application of known processes, date from the beginning of the sixth
century B.C.: the casting of bronze, the sculpture of marble, and
chryselephantine work (the inlaying of gold and ivory upon a wooden
kernel). Each of these had its gradual development, at least the first
and the last being furthered by auxiliary inventions. It was
indispensable for the casting of bronze that modelling in clay should
have attained a certain perfection. The name of the Sikyonian potter
Boutades is connected with the introduction of this branch of art; it
appears to have been in the middle of the seventh century B.C. that he
ornamented the acroteria and antefixes of the temple roof, first with
low-relief (prostypon) and then with high-relief (ectypon). He also left
a portrait panel in terra-cotta, shown in the Nymphaion of Corinth until
the destruction of that city as the first work of its kind. In
connection with it was told the pleasing anecdote that the daughter of
Boutades, in taking leave of her lover, sketched his shadow upon the
wall with charcoal, the father afterwards filling out the outline with
clay and burning the relief thus produced. Neither of these accounts are
of great direct value, but that a potter could achieve a lasting
reputation as an artist may perhaps show that modelling in clay had
already made essential progress, and thus prepared the way for
brass-founding, which requires an original and mould of this more
plastic material. The discovery of soldering was also not without
significance; it formed, in metal work, a connecting link between the
riveting of the sphyrelaton and casting, even indispensable to larger
statues of the latter process, which, at least in the beginning, were
executed in pieces. Soldering seems first to have been employed upon
iron. Glaucos of Chios attained great results by this means, and
attracted general attention to it in the seventh century B.C. His iron
crater-stand, dedicated at Delphi by Alyattes, was an elaborate work,
ornamented upon the legs and clasps with sculptured animals and plants.
The way was thus prepared for monumental bronze-founding, which was not,
indeed, discovered by the Samians Rhoicos and Theodoros, the sons of
Phileas and Telecles, to whom it was attributed by antiquity,--for, as
has been seen, it was practised by the Phœnicians,--but was by them
first introduced into Greek art. The dates assigned to their epoch vary
from the beginning of the seventh to the middle of the sixth century
B.C.; but it is the more reasonable to place them, with Brunn, at the
close of this period, without supposing that there were two masters by
the name of Theodoros, a father and a son. The innovation probably began
with the solid casting of smaller works, but whether Rhoicos and
Theodoros were limited to this is at least doubtful. Economy of material
and the lessening of weight in figures of great dimensions must soon
have led to hollow casting upon a fire-proof kernel; it is possible that
it was this very progress that made the two artists celebrated as
discoverers. The development of their technical improvements seems at
first to have impaired the artistic aspects of the works; Pausanias says
of a female statue by Rhoicos, probably in the Temple of Artemis at
Ephesos, that it was even more archaic and rude than a figure of Athene
in Amphissa which was there held to be Trojan. That the two Samians also
practised in beaten metal work is clear from the colossal silver
mixing-vessel, containing six hundred amphoras (about 200,000 litres),
executed by Theodoros and dedicated at Delphi by Crœsus, from a
golden vine with grapes of mounted jewels, and a golden plane-tree in
the possession of the Persian kings; the latter works remind us of
examples of similar workmanship in the Assyrian palaces, the existence
of which has been proved by the fragments of palms in gold-plate, lately
found by Place upon a portal in the palace of Sargon, at Corsabad. If
Theodoros worked thus extensively in the precious metals, it is not
surprising that he produced such small toreutic objects as those
indicated by the legend of the ring of Polycrates, ascribed to him, and
the fabulous portrait statue of a man, with a quadriga in his hand which
a fly might have covered with its wings.
A still more brilliant future was open to the second innovation, that of
sculpture in marble. Chios was the birthplace of Hellenic marble
statuary, as Samos had been of bronze-casting. Coarse stone had been
employed from the earliest times, in isolated instances like the relief
over the Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ, for figures and for small images;
and the introduction of marble statuary was older than bronze-founding,
for Melas, ancestor of a long race of sculptors in Chios, lived about
the middle of the seventh century B.C. Of Melas himself and his son
Mickiades little except the names are known; an artist of the third
generation, Achermos, could venture to represent a winged Victory, yet
even he was surpassed by his sons Boupalos and Athenis. It is evident,
from several notices, that marble sculpture flourished greatly under
these latter, who, living about 540 B.C., had become very particular in
the choice of material--using only the fine-grained and translucent
Parian lychnites. No one venturing to dispute their precedence, they
could place upon their sculptures, exhibited in Delos, the
self-conscious inscription: “Chios is celebrated, not alone for its
vineyards, but for the works of the sons of Achermos.” Numerous works by
them are mentioned by ancient visitors, being collected in later times
by princely _dilettanti_. Augustus employed such sculptures upon the
exterior of many of his buildings, notably in the gable of the Palatine
temple of Apollo; he had an especial and, as it appears, a not
ill-founded liking for them, and these works could not have been a
disfigurement, even to the universal magnificence of imperial Rome. An
explanation of this marked advance at so early a date is given by this
very fancy of Augustus: the works thus architecturally utilized could
not have been devotional images of the deities; they must have been
decorative sculptures. The former class, from reasons already touched
upon, were hindered in artistic progress; the latter being beyond the
jurisdiction of hieratic institutions, developed untrammelled. It was
only in ornamental figures that the assiduous and talented sculptors of
early times found free scope, and it was fortunate that the demand for
these architectural and decorative works must naturally have been
greater than for the more rare devotional images, which were piously
transferred from the older sanctuaries to the new buildings which took
their place. The gable groups of Ægina show how unequally art advanced
in these different and distinct fields.
During the time of Boupalos and Athenis, art began to flourish in other
places than Chios. First in Sikyon, with the two Cretans Dipoinos and
Skyllis, who may have been even older than the last Chian masters. They
were called, it seems, to Sikyon, and there chiefly employed their
energies in founding a school, changing at times the site of their
labors to Argos, Cleonæ, and Ambrakia. Like the masters of Chios, they
chiefly employed the marble of Paros, and it appears, from the accounts
of a group representing Apollo, Artemis, Athene, and Heracles, that they
too sought their fame less in devotional images for the interior of
temples than in monumental compositions for architectural ornament.
Although these Cretan sculptors, according to the testimony of Pliny,
acquired great celebrity in marble working, they are more important as
the founders of the third among the statuesque arts above
mentioned--that process of gold and ivory overlaying which culminated in
the greatest masterpieces of Pheidias. It seems to have originated from
the native xoana of early times, by transferring the inlaid decoration
observed upon the furniture of the heroic ages to sculpture in the
round. It developed in plainly distinguishable stages. Dipoinos and
Skyllis still only in part covered the carved core of wood, and
restricted this overlaying to ivory. This is illustrated by the accounts
of a group of the mounted Dioscuri, with their mistresses Hilasia and
Phœbe, and their sons Anaxis and Mnasinos, in the Temple of the Isius
at Argos, which was cut out of common wood and ebony, the former being
covered with ivory. Statues were made by Hegylos and his son Theocles,
scholars of Dipoinos and Skyllis, for the treasure-house of the
Epidamnians in Olympia, which represented Heracles with the Nymphs of
the Hesperides, and Atlas bearing the heavenly globe; Pausanias
describes this work as cut from cedar-wood, and the serpent and the tree
with the golden apples of the Hesperides must certainly have required
the inlaying of gold, if not of ivory. The author particularly mentions
the employment of gold upon another group: the struggle of Heracles with
Acheloos for Deianeira, the work of Donycleidas and Dontas of
Lacedæmonia, also scholars of the Cretan masters. The perfection of the
chryselephantine process seems early to have been obtained, the wood,
before in great part visible, was by the latter artists used only as a
kernel, being completely covered with ivory and gold. This was, at
least, the case with the Themis of Donycleidas in the Temple of Hera at
Olympia. That Pausanias considers these statues extremely archaic must
be understood as a relative judgment; it is to be borne in mind that
works by which a new process is introduced are always of a primitive and
imperfect appearance, if not artistically backward. A sphyrelaton of
beaten copper-plates riveted together was still possible to this school,
for a figure of Athene Chalkioicos at Sparta was the work of Clearchos
of Rhegion, a member of this guild. The sphyrelaton was, indeed, nearly
related to chryselephantine work which was virtually a combination of
the sphyrelaton with the ancient xoanon. The Æginetan Smilis, of this
group of scholars, was celebrated as the first great artist of his
island. His connection with the Cretans is more certain than with the
later sculptors of Ægina; if he should prove to be older than the native
Sikyonian masters, as has recently been asserted, this would add another
site to the primitive schools of Greek art.
[Illustration: Fig. 192.--Metope Relief from the Middle Temple of the
Acropolis of Selinous.]