another, fastened together by iron clamps, in at least two courses. From
the text of Vitruvius--from whom the entire description must be taken,
since, on account of the wooden beams, there are no remains of Etruscan
temples--we cannot learn whether these smooth layers took the place of
both architrave and frieze, or whether the upper member resembled the
Doric frieze with triglyphs. From a remark of this writer, the former
appears more probable, as many epistyle timbers being fastened one above
another as the size of the building seemed to require; moreover,
notwithstanding the Hellenic influence, triglyphs were not always
introduced into the Roman Tuscan order. The arrangement of the roof
rafters was doubtless such that their support upon the beams of the
epistyle beneath was hidden, and perhaps rendered more solid by
mortising or dovetailing. Upon the longer sides the roof projected
considerably, fully one quarter of the height of the columns. By this
means the size of the gable was decidedly increased. These gables may
have been decorated with sculptural ornament in the tympanon, of clay or
bronze, and with acroteria, as may be gathered from several notices, as
well as from the rock-tombs of Norchia. Concerning these decorations
Vitruvius is silent; but they could not have altered the heavy, low, and
clumsy character of which he complains, and which is apparent in the
restorations that have been made according to his theory. (_Fig._ 254.)
The Etruscan temple could not become really monumental so long as it
retained the wooden construction in its most essential constituents, and
this seems never to have been given up in the entablature, even when the
direct Grecian influence first made itself felt among the Romans. How
this ultimately changed the fundamental architectural forms of Central
Italy will be explained in the section upon Roman building, which united
the traditions of Etruscan and Hellenic art.
[Illustration: Fig. 254.--Elevation of the Etruscan Temple according to
Vitruvius.]
[Illustration: Fig. 255.--Tomb at Corneto.]
One of the chief features of the Etruscan or primitive Italian
dwelling-house, the inner court, has already been mentioned in the
consideration of the tombs. As in Hellenic architecture, so here this
formed the central point, the chief space of the dwelling, around which
were grouped the ceiled chambers, subordinate in dimensions and in
importance. As the court was intended to be the chief gathering-place, a
partial covering could not have sufficed in these northern Apennines, as
did the Grecian peristyle; for continued rain, snow, and piercing winter
frost were not so rare here as in the lands upon the Kephissos and
Meander. The central aperture was diminished, and the effect of storms
or cold more completely excluded. The Italian atrium, or cavædium,
acquired thus a form essentially different from the Grecian court. If
the aperture open to the sky were reduced to a small orifice for light
and air, only large enough to carry off the smoke from the hearth and
provide sufficient illumination, columnar supports would not be needed,
the rafters being inclined outward, and framed into the square of the
opening, as is conspicuously the case in the tomb at Corneto (_Fig._
255), and as is also described by Vitruvius (vi. 3). Vertical props
obstructing the space would be the less necessary, inasmuch as the
dimensions of the court were small, on account of the lower temperature
of the region. The Italian court thus differed from that of Greece by an
entire absence of columns, as well as by the outward inclination of the
roof. The latter peculiarity had the advantage that, notwithstanding the
restriction of the central aperture, more light was admitted, the
slanting rays of the sun falling high upon the walls; while, on the
other hand, the interior of the house was free from the objectionable
rain-drip, and, by covering the orifice in bad weather or at night,
could be entirely isolated and protected. A remarkable copy of a roof
upon an Etruscan clay sarcophagus (_Fig._ 256) shows the outward aspects
of the dwellings of Central Italy, as the tomb at Corneto (_Fig._ 255)
does the interior. The roof of the atrium, rising like a clere-story,
inclined outward, while the covering of the chambers surrounding this
space carried the drip still farther from the central aperture. The
practical sense of the Italians was thus expressed, as opposed to the
more cheerful and elevated ideals of form among the Greeks. These
constructive advantages were attained, however, at the cost of that
artistic, or at least tasteful, development of the whole which was
characteristic of the Greeks, even when striving mainly after public
usefulness or private comfort.
[Illustration: Fig. 256.--Etruscan Sarcophagus.]
The remaining monuments of Etruria are almost entirely limited to tombs,
among which it is not possible to recognize progressive stages of
architectural design. Still it is evident that examples like the
Regulini-Galassi tomb of Cære, which shows a most primitive covering of
the chambers, and that of Alsium, or the Campana tomb at Veii, must
belong to an earlier period than do those sepulchres in which the
imitation of a dwelling-house, particularly in regard to the
roof-timbering, shows an advanced intelligence and great technical
skill. This skill is equally evident in the decorative members:
pilasters before the piers, the carvings of the coffin-benches, and
utensils upon the walls, with Hellenic features of a late and advanced
period. A further division of Etruscan monuments into chronological
periods is not possible; it is only to be concluded that the most
primitive are less ancient than has usually been supposed, and are
probably to be referred to the seventh century B.C., while the later and
more perfected tombs may date from 250 to 150 B.C.
* * * * *
The numerous sculptural productions of Etruria may be better grouped.
They are preserved in the Gregorian Museum of the Vatican, the British
Museum, the earlier Campana collection in the Louvre, and special
collections in various towns in Tuscany, particularly at Perugia. Others
are scattered among the many museums of Europe. As the practical
character of the Italians might lead us to expect, the greater part of
these works consist of utensils and implements; those which bear the
stamp of the greatest antiquity belonging almost exclusively to this
class. The earliest period may be called the _decorative_, in which art
was employed only for the ornamentation of useful articles. The most
ancient specimens of this handiwork are those in the British Museum,
found in the Grotto dell’ Iside of Vulci, and those in the Gregorian
Museum of the Vatican, from the Regulini-Galassi tomb at Cære. The
material is gold, silver, and bronze--occasionally amber and ivory; the
objects are ornaments, such as breastplates, ear-rings, bracelets of
gold wire and thinly beaten gold; also golden and amber necklaces,
silver bowls, candelabra, kettles, tripods, couches, censers, and
shields of bronze. All these are evident imitations of imported wares.
The beaten figures of the breast ornaments remind one of the vessels
excavated at Nineveh, Cyprus, and Mykenæ; the decorations of the silver
bowls are more like the discoveries in Cyprus and Phœnicia; the
bulb-like candelabra are similar to the Cyprian bronze utensils, and
also to the seven-armed candlestick of the Temple of Jerusalem. Having
already designated the vessels of Nineveh and those of Mykenæ as of
Phœnician workmanship, and the Egyptianized ivoryware found upon the
Tigris as having been brought into Mesopotamia by the Phœnicians as
an article of trade, there can be no hesitation in referring the objects
discovered in Etruria to the same origin. The beaten work in sheet-metal
was among the best-executed productions of the Phœnicians, and among
their most important articles of commerce; and intercourse between the
Phœnicians and the Etruscans is known to have been active. Through
this current of trade must also have come the vials and alabasters with
Egyptian hieroglyphics and symbols; the gilded bronze birds with the
pshent upon their heads, like those from the Grotto dell’ Iside; and the
beetle-shaped bodies of clay, like the scarabæus, found in different
places, for the Etruscans had no direct intercourse with Egypt. It is
possible, however, that some of the objects which bear the
characteristic forms of those countries are to be regarded as Etruscan
manufactures, adhering closely to the imported patterns.
The era next following is distinguished as being emancipated from the
earlier dependence upon the East, the Asiatic influence being gradually
replaced by that of Hellas. Here may be mentioned the half-mythical
report that, about 650 B.C., the Corinthian artists Eucheir, Diopos, and
Eugrammos--whose names, as personification of handiwork in art, give
little confidence--emigrated to Italy and there introduced sculpture.
Though this may be taken to indicate an active artistic impulse, it
cannot alone explain the great and decided advance that we find. In
Southern Etruria monumental sculpture must early have attained a certain
importance, since Tarquinius Priscus ordered from Vulca, or Vulcanius of
Veii, a statue of the Capitoline Jupiter, and a quadriga for the gable
ridge of his temple. The material for such colossal works was
terra-cotta with a painting, perhaps monochromatic; at least, the nude
parts of the image of Jupiter were repeatedly tinted with a red color.
The roughness of such conventionalized work can hardly be conceived; the
trunk, in a sitting figure, was not detailed; the extremities, on the
contrary, had all the ugliness of realism; the head was sharply
individualized, verging upon portraiture. As the oldest example of this
treatment of the head may be mentioned the bust found in the Grotto
dell’ Iside at Vulci (_Fig._ 257), which shows, at the same time, that
the germ of that specific Etruscan motive--the conception of the
individual, to the neglect of the general or ideal--existed even in the
period of dependence upon Asiatic influence. This characteristic
Etruscan formation of the head, though in a less artistic and more
superficial style, is also shown in the so-called _canopi_ of
Chiusi--jugs with portrait heads upon the lids. These are distantly
related to the Egyptian jars of the kind, but show scarcely a trace of
the early conventional influence of ideal Greek sculpture; the heads, of
extreme rudeness, are yet sharp and hard in modelling; coarse
caricatures of the round skull and low, retreating forehead, which yet
betray a certain observation of nature.
[Illustration: Fig. 257.--Bust from the Grotto dell’ Iside in Vulci.]
Greek influence is first apparent, though still overbalanced by native
individualization and realistic elements, in a somewhat later
sarcophagus of terra-cotta, found in Cære, now one of the chief
treasures of the Campana collection in the Louvre. (_Fig._ 258.) The
sarcophagus itself shows a draped couch with technical and ornamental
details similar to those found upon the furniture of Assyrian, Xanthian,
and ancient Greek reliefs, and particularly upon archaic vase-paintings.
A man and woman of life-size, leaning with their left elbows upon
leathern cushions, form the lid. If, at first sight, this group has a
somewhat frightful and repellent character, not felt in the most
shocking distortions of primitive art, the cause lies in its prosaic
realism, strikingly heightened by color. Notwithstanding many failures
in point of detail, the effect of life was given by the artist without
additions or idealizations. Rather inclined to caricature--that is, to
the exaggeration of individual characteristics--the Etruscan artist
sensibly failed in the reproduction of the head, because wanting in that
training in fundamental correctness, through the canonical formation of
a true type, which preceded the Grecian perfection. The representation
of the individual, instead of being the first aim, should have been left
to the last, and it was on this account that the skulls were deformed by
various peculiar defects, while the eyes and mouth were drawn upward in
a manner that is natural only to the Mongolian race. The same is true in
regard to the terra-cotta reliefs of this period, in which the striving
after action and naturalness of appearance caused an excessive
restlessness in all the motions of the dislocated arms and hands,
particularly evident in the ivory reliefs upon a number of caskets.
[Illustration: Fig. 258.--Sarcophagus of Terra-cotta from Cære.
(Louvre.)]
Sculpture in marble at this period, about 550 to 300 B.C., was less
developed; single archaic reliefs in this material--of which Southern
Etruria offers but few--appear flat, and entirely under the influence of
painting. The inadequacy of the artistic ability of this time is shown,
for example, in a relief of Chiusi, representing the lamentation for the
dead, where expression of sorrow is combined with caricatured individual
features, very rude in drawing and form. (_Fig._ 259.)
[Illustration: Fig. 259.--Etruscan Relief.]
The bronze-work, which is closely connected with the terra-cotta work,
was of greater importance, and betrays a more decided and enduring
Phœnician influence than do the terra-cotta statues. This is shown in
the beaten bronzes, thin plates of which were used to overlay wooden
forms. The most important example, the remains of a chariot found at
Perugia, is preserved in the Glyptothek and Antiquarium at Munich. The
representations of a sea-horse, a woman with fins, sphinxes, and a man
who holds or strangles two lions, give evidence rather of Oriental than
of Hellenic prototypes. The uncertainty in form and proportions, the
ungainliness of the figures, and the awkwardness of the entire
composition are in no wise compensated by the careful execution of the
finely engraved details to be seen only upon close inspection. A tripod,
found at the same time in Perugia, also now in Munich, shows a certain
advance. Its three sides have representations of Hercules, and the
Italian Juno Sospita, with the so-called Bœotian shield and pointed
shoes, in somewhat higher beaten reliefs, very carefully engraved. This
tripod is distinguished from the preceding examples as being the work of
a more skilful artist, but differs little, or perhaps not at all, in
point of age. The upper part of this vessel, now lacking, was mostly of
bronze casting; the borders of the seat and the ends of the shafts upon
the Perugian chariot were decorated with statuettes of solid metal; but
these, as well as the handles upon utensils, seem to have been mere
artisan work, not unlike the ornaments upon the handles, the furniture,
chariots, etc., shown by the reliefs of Nineveh.
Works in bronze of considerable size must have been numerous at that
period, as, in 260 B.C., Volsinii alone was in possession of two
thousand bronze statues; but only a single example remains of
well-attested Etruscan origin, the Capitoline Wolf (_Fig._ 260);
probably the same which, soon after 300 B.C., was consecrated in Rome
under the Ruminal fig-tree. It is a hollow cast, which, with great
hardness and carefulness of treatment, gives the well-understood
character of this animal excellently, almost to the point of caricature.
It well illustrates the peculiarities of Etruscan art above described,
inasmuch as it sacrifices to realism all artistic beauty. The chimera of
Arezzo in Florence, and a griffin in Leyden, are similar in style; but,
notwithstanding their Etruscan inscriptions, it is doubtful whether they
are of Tuscan workmanship.
[Illustration: Fig. 260.--Capitoline Wolf.]
Here should be mentioned the bronze utensils ornamented by
drawings--_sgraffiti_--particularly the mirrors, generally in the form
of plates, one side of which had a polished surface, while the other was
engraved. The handles upon these either represented figures like
caryatides, or, more commonly, ended in a deer’s head. Toilet cistas, a
further variety of these works, were of cylindrical form, usually with
the claws of animals for feet, and a group of human figures upon the
cover as a handle; but these, on account of their engravings, should
rather be considered in the section upon painting, and are mentioned
here merely because of the accompanying castings. Only a small part of
them belongs to the archaic period.
About 300 B.C. the art of Etruria appears to have reached its highest
point of independence and perfection, which, in sculpture, is
illustrated by the terra-cotta sarcophagus of Cære in the Louvre, and by
the Capitoline Wolf. The old ignorance of proportions had disappeared,
and a tolerable correctness was attained; the realistic tendency no
longer struggled with unpliant forms, as in the former period, when it
might have been likened to the lisping and stammering of children. Yet
the Etruscan artists never succeeded in harmonious combinations, or in
mastery and surety of form. The stream of Grecian art, long restrained,
or, so far as possible, turned aside, at length overcame all obstacles.
Up to this time the taste of the Etruscans for the archaic and the
archaistic, aided by the importations of that character, had given to
their art an antiquity of aspect in form and in painting far beyond its
true age. But when political Etruria ceased to exist, as its walls were
destroyed at the opening of the cities by the Romans, Grecian art, of
the period of the Diadochi, entered from the coasts of Magna Græcia.
This is first noticeable in the sculptured lids of the sarcophagi of
this Hellenistic period. That of Cære, mentioned above, was executed in
almost entire independence of the influence of Greece: a copy was made
directly from life, with a prosaic realism which, without restraint or
culture, and with no feeling for the beautiful, was still fascinating
from its naturalness. In later times this unpoetical sobriety and
truthfulness to individual peculiarities still existed; but they were
affected by Hellenic forms and formulas, which, being without organic
unity or intrinsic significance, and void of capacity for development,
were merely an exterior varnish. This period is most clearly represented
by the lids of three sarcophagi carved in alabaster and a soft stone. Of
these, one bears a reclining image with five statues in the full round
at the head and feet (_Fig._ 261); the two others, from Vulci, represent
a man and woman upon the marriage bed, wrought in high-relief. The
portraiture of the chief personages is by no means limited to the heads.
Apart from the accessories, chosen from the purely human sphere of daily
existence, the position and modelling of the nude portions of the body
were evidently taken from living models. The secondary figures and the
drapery show a decided Grecian influence, in visible contrast to the
inherent realism. Organic connection and unity of style are wanting, and
this want leaves it to be regretted that Greek forms should ever have
found admission into Etruria, for by them the native tendency towards
the realistic was checked, while the originality sacrificed was not
compensated by a merely external Greek formalism, never essentially
understood.
[Illustration: Fig. 261.--Etruscan Stone Sarcophagus.]
This condition of things is most strikingly exemplified by the reliefs
upon the two sarcophagi of Vulci, the lids of which have been referred
to above. Upon the front of one is shown a wedding procession, and upon
the end a funeral chariot drawn by mules, with the married pair seated
under a canopy. In the arrangement and drapery they somewhat resemble
Grecian sculptures, but the heads, especially of the important figures,
are portraits, with traits of realistic coarseness in all the nude
parts. Even in subject, as Brunn remarks, this naturalism is apparent.
While the Greeks would have chosen to represent a mythological wedding
like that of Heracles, Peleus, or Cadmus, and the Romans would have
illustrated the bridal pair--in a conception more theological than
mythological--by Victory, Juno, and Venus, with the Graces in their
train, the Etruscans show the marriage in a literal manner, the united
pair being followed by servants, with couch, sun-shade, wash-basin,
crook, horn, flutes, and harp. In the reliefs upon the other sarcophagus
the subjects selected offered no opportunity for purely Etruscan
motives; battles of the Amazons, and heroic encounters of naked youths,
on foot and upon horse, gave no scope to realistic treatment. They
consequently appear almost entirely Greek, but clumsy and superficial,
justifying, by the slavishness of their imitation and the weakness of
their composition, the suggestion of Brunn, that the Etruscan artists
not only made use of Hellenic designs as a kind of pattern-book, but,
when they would illustrate some scene for which they had no complete
guide, combined separate groups from different examples. In the steer
seized by lions, and the horse lacerated by griffins, upon the small
sides of the same sarcophagus, may be recognized not only Oriental
conceptions, but an Asiatic treatment.
The terra-cotta sculptures of this period show the same Hellenic
tendency, with, the same superficiality and relation to the late Greek
degeneracy. Examples of this are to be found in the antefixes of a
sarcophagus from Vulci, and some fine urns belonging particularly to
Northern Etruria--Volterra, Clusium, and Perugia--which appear in tufa
and travertine, and represent the latest period--150 to 100 B.C. Grecian
legendary scenes have been observed upon earlier works, and afterwards
they became more general; but a certain preference for particular and
better known fables is evident, and native additions are easily
recognized.
Not to speak of later examples in bronze, and the engraved drawings upon
cistas and mirrors, which will be treated of below, the most important
statue is the so-called Mars from Todi, now in the Vatican museum.
According to its inscription, it is Umbrian, but it is properly to be
considered here, because for the too limited term Etruscan art might
well be substituted Italian, or at least Central Italian. Vigorous in
all its details, and betraying throughout the later Hellenic style, the
Mars is yet stiff, heavy, and without organic understanding. Similar to
it are other figures of warriors; but the Boy with the Duck, in the
museum at Leyden, in spite of the stiff and hard features, would,
perhaps, not be recognized as Etruscan at all, were it not for the
inscription upon his right leg, and the bulla upon his neck-band. The
life-like statue of an orator in Florence might, in like manner, pass
for Roman, were there not something in the head, and in the lame
position of the legs, particularly hard and commonplace, a quality
which, in the Roman works of this kind, is always tempered by some
degree of heroic conception. The difference is less evident because the
primitive art of the Romans and Etruscans was much the same, and the
Greek influence the same in both, though this was earlier and more
active in Rome.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Fig. 262.--Painting from Cære.]