The objections brought against Homer’s shield by the elder Scaliger,
Perrault, Terrasson, and others, are well known, as are also the answers
of Madame Dacier, Boivin, and Pope. But these latter, it seems to me,
have gone somewhat too far, and confiding in the justness of their cause
have asserted things incorrect in themselves and contributing little to
the poet’s justification.
In answer to the chief objection, that Homer had burdened his shield
with more figures than there could possibly have been room for, Boivin
undertook to show in a drawing how the necessary space might be
obtained. His idea of the various concentric circles was very ingenious,
although there is no foundation for it in the poet’s words and nothing
anywhere to indicate that shields divided in this way were known to the
ancients. Since Homer calls it (σάκος πάντοσε δεδαιλωμένον) a shield,
artistically wrought on all sides, I should prefer to gain the required
space by turning to account the concave surface. A proof that the old
artists did not leave this empty is furnished in the shield of Minerva
by Phidias.[119] But not only does Boivin fail to seize this advantage,
but, by separating into two or three pictures what the poet evidently
meant for one, he unnecessarily multiplies the representations while
diminishing the space by one-half. I know the motive which led him to
this, but it was one by which he should not have allowed himself to be
influenced. He should have shown his opponents the unreasonableness of
their demands, instead of trying to satisfy them.
An example will make my meaning clear. When Homer says of one of the two
cities:[120]
λαοὶ δ’ εἰν ἀγορῇ ἔσαν ἀθρόοι· ἔνθα δὲ νεῖκος
ὠρώρει δύο δ’ ἄνδρες ἐνείκεον εἵνεκα ποινῆς
ἀνδρὸς ἀποφθιμένου· ὁ μὲν εὔχετο πάντ’ ἀποδοῦναι,
δήμῳ πιφαύσκων, ὁ δ’ ἀναίνετο μηδὲν ἑλέσθαι·
ἄμφω δ’ ἱέσθην ἐπὶ ἴστορι πεῖραρ ἑλέσθαι.
λαοὶ δ’ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπήπυον, ἀμφὶς ἀρωγοί.
κήρυκες δ’ ἄρα λαὸν ἐρήτυον· οἱ δὲ γέροντες
εἵατ’ ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι λίθοις ἱερῷ ἐνὶ κύκλῳ,
σκῆπτρα δὲ κηρύκων ἐν χέρσ’ ἔχον ἠεροφώνων·
τοῖσιν ἔπειτ’ ἤϊσσον, ἀμοιβηδὶς δὲ δίκαζον.
κεῖτο δ’ ἄρ’ ἐν μέσσοισι δύω χρυσοῖο τάλαντα,
he refers, as I understand him, to but a single picture, that of a
public lawsuit about the contested payment of a considerable fine for
the committal of a murder. The artist, who is to execute this design,
can use but a single moment of the action,—that of the accusation, of
the examination of witnesses, of the pronouncing of the sentence, or any
other preceding or following or intervening moment which may seem to him
most fitting. This single moment he makes as pregnant as possible, and
reproduces it with all that power of illusion which in the presentation
of visible objects art possesses above poetry. Left far behind in this
respect, what remains to the poet, if his words are to paint the same
design with any degree of success, but to avail himself of his peculiar
advantages? These are the liberty of extending his representation over
what preceded, as well as what was to follow, the artist’s single point
of time, and the power of showing not only what the artist shows, but
what he has to leave to our imagination. Only by using these advantages
can the poet raise himself to a level with the artist. Their works most
resemble each other when their effect is equally vivid; not when one
brings before the imagination through the ear neither more nor less than
the other presents to the eye. Had Boivin defended the passage in Homer
according to this principle, he would not have divided it into as many
separate pictures as he thought he detected distinct points of time. All
that Homer relates could not, indeed, be united in a single picture. The
accusation and the denial, the summoning of the witnesses and the shouts
of the divided populace, the efforts of the heralds to quiet the tumult
and the sentence of the judges, are things successive in time, not
coexistent in space. But what is not actually in the picture is there
virtually, and the only true way of representing an actual picture in
words is to combine what virtually exists in it with what is absolutely
visible. The poet who allows himself to be bound by the limits of art
may furnish data for a picture, but can never create one of his own.
The picture of the beleaguered city[121] Boivin divides likewise into
three. He might as well have made twelve out of it as three. For since
he has once for all failed to grasp the spirit of the poet, and requires
him to be bound by the unities of a material picture, he might have
discovered many more violations of these unities. In fact he ought
almost to have devoted a separate space on the shield to every separate
touch of the poet. In my opinion Homer has but ten different pictures on
the whole shield, every one of which he introduces with ἐν μὲν ἔτευξε,
or ἐν δὲ ποίησε, or ἐν δ’ ἐτίθει, or ἐν δὲ πόικιλλε Ἀμφιγυήεις, “on it
he wrought,” “on it he placed,” “on it he formed,” “on it Vulcan
skilfully fashioned.”[122] In the absence of these introductory words we
have no right to suppose a distinct picture. On the contrary every thing
which they cover must be regarded as a single whole, wanting in nothing
but the arbitrary concentration into one moment of time, which the poet
was in no way bound to observe. Had he observed this, and, by strictly
limiting himself to it, excluded every little feature which in the
material representation would have been inconsistent with this unity of
time; had he in fact done what his cavillers require,—these gentlemen
would indeed have had no fault to find with him, but neither would any
person of taste have found aught to admire.
Pope not only accepted Boivin’s drawing, but thought he was doing a
special service by showing that every one of these mutilated pieces was
in accordance with the strictest rules of painting, as laid down at the
present day. Contrast, perspective, the three unities, he found, were
all observed in the best possible manner. And although well aware that,
according to the testimony of good and trustworthy witnesses, painting
at the time of the Trojan war was still in its cradle, he supposes
either that Homer, instead of being bound by the achievements of
painting at that time or in his own day, must in virtue of his godlike
genius have anticipated all that art should in future be able to
accomplish, or else that the witnesses could not have been so entirely
worthy of faith that the direct testimony of this artistic shield should
not be preferred to theirs. Whoever will, may accept the former
supposition: the latter, surely, no one will be persuaded to adopt who
knows any thing more of the history of art than the date of the
historians. That painting in the time of Homer was still in its infancy
he believes, not merely on the authority of Pliny, or some other writer,
but chiefly because, judging from the works of art mentioned by the
ancients, he sees that even centuries later no great progress had been
made. The pictures of Polygnotus, for instance, by no means stand the
test which Pope thinks can be successfully applied to Homer’s shield.
The two great works by this master at Delphi, of which Pausanias has
left a circumstantial description,[123] were evidently wholly wanting in
perspective. The ancients had no knowledge of this branch of art, and
what Pope adduces as proof that Homer understood it, only proves that he
has a very imperfect understanding of it himself.[124]
“That Homer,” he says, “was not a stranger to aerial perspective appears
in his expressly marking the distance of object from object. He tells
us, for instance, that the two spies lay a little remote from the other
figures, and that the oak under which was spread the banquet of the
reapers stood apart. What he says of the valley sprinkled all over with
cottages and flocks appears to be a description of a large country in
perspective. And, indeed, a general argument for this may be drawn from
the number of figures on the shield, which could not be all expressed in
their full size; and this is therefore a sort of proof that the art of
lessening them according to perspective was known at that time.” The
mere representing of an object at a distance as smaller than it would be
if nearer the eye, by no means constitutes perspective in a picture.
Perspective requires a single point of view; a definite, natural
horizon; and this was wanting in the old pictures. In the paintings of
Polygnotus the ground, instead of being level, rose so decidedly at the
back that the figures which were meant to stand behind seemed to be
standing above one another. If this was the usual position of the
various figures and groups,—and that it was so may fairly be concluded
from the old bas-reliefs, where those behind always stand higher than
those in front, and look over their heads,—then we may reasonably take
it for granted in Homer, and should not unnecessarily dismember those
representations of his, which according to this treatment might be
united in a single picture. The double scene in the peaceful city,
through whose streets a joyous marriage train was moving at the same
time that an important trial was going on in the market-place, requires
thus no double picture. Homer could very well think of it as one, since
he imagined himself to be overlooking the city from such a height as to
command at once a view of the streets and the market.
My opinion is that perspective in pictures came incidentally from
scene-painting, which was already in its perfection. But the
applications of its rules to a single smooth surface was evidently no
easy matter; for, even in the later paintings found among the
antiquities of Herculaneum, there are many and various offences against
perspective, which would now hardly be excusable even in a
beginner.[125]
But I will spare myself the labor of collecting my desultory
observations on a point whereon I may hope to receive complete
satisfaction from Winkelmann’s promised “History of Art.”[126]