EXPRESSION. PART III.--CLASSICAL IDEALS
Ideals of the Greeks--Aphrodite--Hera--Demeter--Athena--Apollo--
Diana--Neptune--Mars--Mercury--Bacchus--Vulcan--General classical
compositions.
What human being can appropriately describe the great ideals in art of
ancient Greece? Above us all they stand, seemingly as upon the pinnacle
of the universal mind, reflecting the collective human soul, and
exhibiting the concentrated essence of human nature. The best of men and
women of all ages is combined in these ideal heads, which look from an
endless past to an eternal future; which embody every passion and every
virtue; every religion and every philosophy; all wisdom and all
knowledge. They are ideal gods and goddesses, but are independent of
legends and history. They represent no mythological deities except in
name, and least of all do they assort with the deities of Homer and
Hesiod. In all other religions the ideals expressed in art fail entirely
to reach the height of the general conceptions, and are far below the
spiritual beings as depicted in the sacred books; but the Grecian ideals
as recorded in stone are so far beyond the legendary gods of the ancient
poets, that we are unable to pass from the stone to the literature
without an overwhelming feeling of astonishment at the contrast. It is
unfortunate that we are powerless to re-establish these ideals
definitely, for the originals have been mostly lost; nevertheless the
ancient copies, a few contemporary complete sculptures, and many
glorious fragments; as well as intimate descriptions and repeated
eulogies, often reaching to hyperbole, of eminent men, expressed over a
succession of centuries when the great works were still exposed to
view--all this assembled evidence indelibly stamps upon our minds the
nature of the ideals; gives us a clear impression of the most profound
conceptions that have emanated from the human brain.
The people who accomplished these great monuments seem to have thought
only in terms of the universe. They did not seek for the embodiment of
goodness, nobility, and charity, perfection in which qualities we regard
as divine, but they aimed at a majesty which included all these things;
which comprehended nothing but the supreme in form and mind; and with an
all-reaching knowledge of the human race, stood outside of it, but
covered it with reflected glory, as the sun stands ever away from the
planets but illumines them all. The wonder is not that these ideals were
created in the minds of the Greeks, for there is no boundary to the
imagination, but that minds could be found to set them down in design,
and hands to mould and shape them in clay and stone; and that many minds
and hands could do these things in the same epoch. That these
sculptured forms have never been equalled is not wonderful; that they
never will be surpassed is as certain as that death is the penalty of
life. So firmly have they become grafted into the minds of men as things
unapproachable in beauty, that they have themselves been converted into
general ideals towards which all must climb who attempt to scale the
heights of art. The greatest artists known to us since the light of
Greek intelligence flickered away, have been content to study these
marble remains, and to cull from them a suggestion here, and an idea
there, with which to adorn their own creations. Indeed it is clear that
from the time of Niccolo Pisano, who leaped at one bound to celebrity
after studying the antique sculptures at Pisa, through Giotto to the
fifteenth and sixteenth century giants, there was hardly a great artist
who was not more or less dependent upon Grecian art for his skill, and
the most enduring of them all--Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian,
Correggio--were the most deeply versed in the art.[42]
Bellori affirmed that the Roman school, of which Raphael and
Michelangelo were the greatest masters, derived its principles from the
study of the statues and other works of the ancients.[a] This is not
strictly exact, but it is near the truth, and certain it is that
Michelangelo, the first sculptor known to the world since the Dark Age,
willingly bowed his head before the ancient triumphs of art presented to
his view. And yet he did not see the Parthenon sculptures and other
numerous works of the time of Phidias, with the many beautiful examples
of the next century which have been made available since his day. What
he would have said in the presence of the glories of the Parthenon, with
the Hermes of Praxiteles and the rest of the collection from Olympia, is
hard to conjecture, though it may well be suggested that they would have
prompted him to still higher work than any he accomplished. With these
stupendous ideals in front of us, it seems almost unnecessary to talk of
the principles of art. Their very perfection indicates that they were
built up on eternal principles, so that in fact and in theory they form
the surest guide for the sculptor and painter.
[a] _Le Vite de' Pittori, Scultori, e Architteti moderni._
But how is the painter to use these ancient gods and goddesses, for the
time has gone by to gather them together on the heights of Olympus, or
to associate them with human frailties? Surely he may leave aside the
fables of the poets, and try to portray the deities as the Grecian
populace saw them in their hearts--noble forms of adoration, or images
of terror, objects of curses veneered with prayer and of offerings
wrapped in fear. The artist has not now to be troubled with pangs of
dread, nor will his imagination be limited by sacerdotal scruples. The
rivalry of Praxiteles need not concern him, for there are wondrous
ideals yet to be wrought, which will be comprehended and loved even in
these days of hastening endeavour. But the painter must leave alone the
Zeus and the variation of this god in the pictured Christian Deity, for
the type is so firmly established in the minds of men that it would be
useless to depart from it. The other important Grecian deities with
which art is concerned may be shortly considered from the point of view
of the painter, though they are naturally of far more importance to the
sculptor because it is beyond the power of the painter to suggest an
illusion of divine form, since he must associate his figures with human
accessories.[43]
APHRODITE
Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus, Spirit of Love, or by whatever name we call
her; the one eternal divinity recognized by all ages, all races; the
universal essence whose fragrance intoxicates every soul: the one queen
before whom all must bow: the one imperial autocrat sure of everlasting
rule--sure of the devoted allegiance of every living thing to the end of
time! Such is Aphrodite, for that is the name under which we seem to
love her best--the Aphrodite of the Greeks, without the vague terrifying
aspect of Astarte, or the more earthly qualities of the Roman Venus. Who
loves not the Aphrodite sprung from the foam of the sea; shading the sun
on the Cytheran isle with the light of her glory; casting an eternal
hallow over the groves of Cyprus; flooding the god-like mind of Greece
with her sparkling radiance? What conception of her beauty can rise high
enough when the grass in astonishment grows beneath her feet on desert
rocks; when lions and tigers gently purr as she passes, and the rose and
the myrtle throw out their scented blossoms to sweeten the air? Hera
and Athena leave the heavens to help man fight and kill: Aphrodite
descends to soothe despairing hearts, and kindle kindly flame in the
breast of the loveless. The spear and the shield with the crested helmet
she knows not, nor the fiery coursers accustomed to the din of strife.
Serenely she traverses space at the call of a lover's prayer, her car a
bower of celestial blooms. From the ends of the earth fly the sparrows
to draw it, till their myriads hide the sun, and mortals learn that the
time has come when their thoughts may turn to the spirit of love.
This was the Aphrodite of Grecian legend and poetry, if we except Homer
and Hesiod. It is the type of the goddess whom Sappho implored, and must
be accepted as the general ideal of the Grecian worshippers who desired
divine mediation when troubled with pangs of the heart. But it was not
the type of Phidias and his school, for Phidias passed over Hesiod and
purified Homer, representing Aphrodite with the stately mien and lofty
bearing of a queen of heaven, daughter of the all-powerful Dione:
goddess of beauty and love certainly, but so far above the human
understanding of these terms that all efforts to associate her with
mundane ideas and aspirations must signally fail.[44]
So far as we know it was Praxiteles who first attempted to realize in
stone the popular ideal of the goddess, and certainly the Cnidian
Aphrodite was better understood by the people of Greece as a type of
this ideal than any work that preceded it. We can attach to it in our
minds but very few of the Homeric and other legends surrounding the
history of the goddess, but we can well imagine that a deity who was the
subject of so much attention and so much prayer, could rest in the
hearts of the people only as one with every supreme earthly charm,
combined with a divine bearing and dignity. These qualities the
Aphrodite of Praxiteles appears to have possessed, though it lacked the
majesty and exclusiveness of the Parthenon gods.[45]
Thus there was formed a type of beauty acceptable to the average human
mind as an unsurpassable representation of an ideal woman: to the
worshipper at the ancient shrines, a comprehensible goddess; to all
other men the personification of sublime beauty. The fifth century
goddess was left aside as beyond mortal reach, and from the time it left
the sculptor's hands to this day, the Cnidian Venus has been regarded as
a model for all that is true and beautiful in women. To the sculptor it
is an everlasting beacon; to all men a crowning glory of human
handiwork. And this notwithstanding that so far as we know, the original
figure has long been lost, and we have preserved little more than
records of its renown, a fair copy of it, and a single authentic example
of the other work of the sculptor. But if we had the actual Aphrodite
before us, it could not occupy a higher place in our minds than the
goddess which our imagination builds upon this framework.
As in all cases where a supreme artist rises above his fellows and
creates works of which emulation appears hopeless, the period succeeding
the time of Praxiteles seems to mark a decline in the art of sculpture,
and though the decline was more apparent than real for about half a
century, there was naturally a depreciation in the representation of the
deities of whom the great man had fashioned masterpieces. This was so in
the case of Aphrodite. Whoever the sculptor it seemed impossible to
approach the Cnidian ideal, and the result was a series of variations
stamped with artificial devices as if to emphasize the departure. But
meanwhile the painter's art had developed upon much the same lines as
sculpture, and Apelles produced an Aphrodite, which, considering the
limitation of the painter, appears to have been almost, if not quite, as
marvellous as the stone model of Praxiteles. Nearly two thousand years
have passed since the painting was last known to exist, but its fame was
so great that the reverberations from the thunder of praise accorded it
have scarcely yet died away. No close description of the painting
remains, but from certain references to it by ancient authors we know
that it represented the sea-born goddess walking towards the shore to
make her first appearance on earth, holding in each hand a tress of hair
as if in the act of wringing out the water therein.[46] These are
practically all the written details we have of the famous Venus
Anadyomene, but we really know much more of it from the existence of
certain pre-Roman sculptures. All but one are broken, with parts
missing, but the exception, which dates from about the beginning of the
third century B.C., enables us to gain a good idea of the picture. The
figure represents the goddess with her lower limbs cut off close to the
hips; that is to say, it produces the whole of that part of the figure
in the picture of Apelles which is visible above the water.[a] Clearly a
subject in which Venus is shown to be walking in the sea, so foreign to
the art of the sculptor, could not have suggested itself independently
to a Grecian artist, nor would we expect to find one attempting a work
which necessitated amputation of the lower limbs, unless a very special
occasion warranted the design. The special occasion in this case was the
picture of Apelles, which was at the time renowned through the whole of
Greece as an extraordinary masterpiece, and with this work in their
minds the sculptured head and torso would appear quite appropriate to
those Greeks interested in the arts, that is to say, the entire citizen
population.
[a] See Plate 4.
These two works then, the Cnidian Venus and the Venus Anadyomene of
Apelles, constitute the models upon which the world relies for its
conceptions of the goddess of beauty. Both models depend more or less
upon the imagination for completion, but they are sufficiently definite
for the artist, who, of course, desires general rather than particular
ideas for his purpose.
[Illustration: PLATE 11 (See page 139)
The Pursuit, by Fragonard (_Frick Collection_)]
It must be confessed that the attempts to rival Apelles in the creation
of a Venus Anadyomene have not been very successful. Raphael painted a
small picture of the subject, introducing the figure of Time putting an
end to the power of the Titans.[a] Venus stands in the water with one
foot on a shell, while holding a tress of hair with her left hand. As
may be expected the execution is perfect, but the design is less
attractive than that of Apelles. The only important work of the
Renaissance directly based upon the Greek design, is from the hand of
Titian.[b] He represents the goddess walking out of the water, the
surface of which only reaches half way up the thighs, with the result
that considerably more action is indicated than is necessary. But the
great artist was evidently at a loss to know how to give the figure the
size of life or thereabouts, while indicating from the depth of water
that she had an appreciable distance to go before touching dry land. He
solved the problem by placing the line of the front leg to which the
water rises, at the bottom of the canvas, so that the picture suggests
an accident which has necessitated the cutting away of the lower portion
of the work. The master also varies the scheme of Apelles by crossing
the left hand over the breast. This inferior device was imitated by
Rubens, who, however, exhibits the goddess rising from the water amongst
a group of nymphs and tritons.[c] Modern artists in designs of the birth
of Venus, usually represent her as having reached the shore,[d] the best
work of this scheme being perhaps that of Cabanel who shows the goddess
lying at the water's edge and just awaking, suggesting a state of
unconsciousness while she floated on the waves.[e] Another exception is
by Thoma, who exhibits the goddess walking in only a few inches of
water, reminding one of the old Roman bronze workers who imitated the
form as painted by Apelles, but modelled the whole figure.
[a] In the bathroom of Cardinal Bibiena, Vatican. There is a drawing
for the figure of the goddess at the Munich Gallery.
[b] Bridgewater Coll., England. See Plate 5.
[c] Birth of Venus, at Potsdam.
[d] Notable examples are those of Ingres and Bouguereau.
[e] At the Luxembourg, Paris. There are several replicas of this
picture.
Repose being the first compulsory quality in the representation of
Aphrodite, it is not surprising to find that the greatest picture of the
goddess extant--the masterpiece of Giorgione--shows her asleep.[a] She
rests on a verdure couch in a landscape of which the signs indicate a
soft and tranquil atmosphere, with no suggestion to disturb the repose
or remove the illusion of life so strongly marked by the skilful
drawing. Only the calm sleeping beauty is there without appearance of
fatigue or recovery from it: no expression save of perfect dreamless
unconsciousness. The work is the nearest approach to a classical ideal
that exists in Venetian painting. Titian in his various pictures of
Venus reposing never reached the excellence of his master. In all, he
painted the goddess in a resting position, sometimes radiant and
brilliant, and invariably with a contented expression which precludes
sensual suggestions: still there is ever a distinctly earthy tone about
the figures. His Venuses in fact are pure portraits. He did not seek to
represent profound repose. His most important example is at the Uffizi
Gallery,[b] the design of which was taken from Giorgione's work. The
goddess is a figure of glowing beauty, but the pose indicates
consciousness of this fact and calls the model to mind. Perhaps the
surroundings tend to accentuate the drawback, for in this, as in most of
his other pictures of Venus, the artist has introduced Venetian
accessories of the period. Palma Vecchio also took Giorgione's work as a
guide for his reposing Venus, but he represents her fully awake with
Cupid present.[c] An exceptional work of the subject was designed by
Michelangelo, and painted by Pontormo[d] and others. It represents the
goddess reclining with Cupid at her head; but the form is entirely
opposed to all our conceptions of Venus, for she is seen as a broad
massive woman with a short neck, and a strongly formed head--a fit
companion for some of the figures in the Sistine Chapel. Proud dignity
and a certain majesty are suggested in the expression, but the figure is
without the grace and charm usually associated with the goddess. The
only other early Italian reposing Venus of interest is Botticelli's,
where he shows her in deep thought with two cupids by her side.[e]
[a] Dresden Gallery. See Plate 6. Titian added a Cupid to this
picture, but the little god was subsequently painted out by
a restorer. (L. Venturi, _Giorgione e il Giorgionismo_, 1913.)
[b] The sitter is supposed to have been the model also for La Bella
in the Uffizi, and the Woman in Fur at the Vienna Gallery.
[c] Dresden Gallery.
[d] Hampton Court Palace, England.
[e] National Gallery, London.
In the seventeenth century Venus was rarely represented reposing.
Nicholas Poussin has a fine picture on the subject, but unfortunately
for the repose a couple of cupids are in action beside the sleeping
goddess, while the heads of two satyrs are dimly seen.[a] In the
Sleeping Venus of Le Sueur, which was much praised in former times,
Cupid is present with a finger to his mouth to indicate silence, but
Vulcan is seen in an adjoining room wielding a heavy hammer, the
suggestion of repose being thus destroyed. No reposing Venus of
importance has since been produced, though a few French artists have
treated the subject in a light vein, notably Boucher in his Sleeping
Venus, and Fragonard in a delicate composition of Venus awakened by
Aurora.
[a] Dresden Gallery.
Venus cannot be represented as conscious of her beauty, or the design
would immediately suggest vanity. Consequently when shown looking into a
mirror, she should be engaged at her toilet, or at least the reflection
should be accidental. Titian painted the first great picture of the
goddess at her toilet, but this is just completed and her hands are at
rest.[a] The attitude would be extravagant were it not that any
suggestion of satisfaction is overcome by the artist making Cupid hold
the mirror, and giving Venus an expression of unconcern as she glances
at her reflection. The work suggested to Rubens a similar design, but he
shows the goddess dressing her hair, this being apparently the only
definite action which may be properly introduced into such a
composition.[b] Albani has a delightful picture in which Cupid compels
Venus to hold a mirror,[c] and some later artists have represented her
adorning her tresses with the aid of a water reflection. The only
notable _faux pas_ in a painting of this subject is in the Venus and
Cupid assigned to Velasquez, in which Venus lies on her side and looks
into a mirror held by Cupid at her feet.[d] There is no suggestion of
toilet or accident, and hence the attitude is quite inapplicable to a
goddess.
[a] The Hermitage, Petrograd.
[b] Hofmuseum, Vienna.
[c] The Louvre.
[d] National Gallery, London.
It should be remembered that the province of Aphrodite is to infuse the
gentle warmth of love into the human race, and not to attract love to
herself. The rays are presumed to proceed from her only, for a mortal
having no divine powers would be incapable of reflecting them. Zeus was
required to bring about the adventure with Anchises. Hence a voluptuous
form should never be given to the goddess, and if an artist err at all
in the matter, it should be on the side of restraint lest the art be
affected by a suggestion of the sensuous. The surest means of preventing
this is to represent the goddess in an attitude of repose, with perfect
contentment as a feature in expression. If any action be indicated, it
must be light and purely accidental in its nature. To introduce an
action involving an apprehension of human failings tends to bring the
goddess down to the human level, and thus to destroy the ideal. The
Venus de' Medici is a superb sculpture of a woman, but an inferior
representation of Venus, for modesty is a human attribute arising from
purely artificial circumstances of life, its meaning varying with race
conditions and customs. To depict a goddess in an action suggestive of
modesty or other antidote to the coarser effects of natural instincts,
is therefore an anomaly.
HERA
There is no fixed type in art of the ox-eyed sister and spouse of Zeus,
the Queen of Olympus, whose breast heaves ever high, and flaming, with
the rushing fire of jealousy; the Virgilian incarnation of bitter rage;
yet withal the symbol of eternal Earth, yearly renewing her fruitful
youth with the burning kiss of the sun. The sculptors of Greece saw in
her only the supreme Matron-Spouse, serenely pondering the march of time
beneath the awful sway of her lord. A mantle she wore, and a
high-throated tunic, as she looked into space from a square-wrought
throne; or she stood in her temple with flowing robe and diadem,
inscrutable, before the offerings of an adoring multitude. But
nevertheless she was not insensible to the radiance of Aphrodite.
Polyclitus did well to place a cuckoo on her sceptre, and who can forget
how the lotus and the hyacinth cushioned the ground on the heights of
Ida beneath a golden cloud, which held suspended around the glittering
couch a screen of sparkling dew?
It is unfortunate that the painter is at a loss to deal with the
majestic scenes in great Juno's story. How is he to depict her flying in
the celestial chariot between heaven and earth, each leap of the fiery
coursers measuring the range of the eye from a lofty peak across the sea
to the endless haze? How can he paint her anointed with ambrosial oil
which is ever struggling for freedom to bathe the rolling earth in
fragrance? He may add a hundred tassels to her girdle; perhaps give her
the triple grace-showering eardrops, and even the dazzling sun-bright
veil; but the girdle of Aphrodite, which peeps from her bosom, will fail
to turn the brains of men, or pierce their hearts with rays of soft
desire. And the more dreadful side of Hera's history would equally
trouble the despairing artist, for dire anger and jealousy ill-become
the countenance of a goddess. The smouldering fire must never leap into
flame. Eyes may not flash, not the lips quiver, and the noble brow must
be free from fitful thought.
So with Hera there is no middle course for the painter. He must
represent her alone, calm and passionless, unfathomable, with a sublime
disregard of earth; or else join with his predecessors and drag her down
to a mundane level in scenes of trivial fable. But there is room for
untold Heras of the higher type.
DEMETER
Matron-Guardian of the yielding soil; heart-stricken wanderer over the
earth; mysterious silent Food-Mother whom all men love and the gods
revere; eternal life-preserver; fruitful, but passionless save where the
vision of Pluto looms, Iasus and Poseidon notwithstanding! Such was the
Demeter of the ancient Greeks till the hordes of Alexander mingled her
fame with the lustre from Isis and De. So the mourning _haute dame_ of
Olympus came nearer the seat of her care, nearer the dread home of her
daughter: passed from Homer to Theocritus; from the adoration of the
higher priesthood of Greece, to become merged in the Ceres of Rome, the
goddess beloved of the lowly, who received the first fruits of the field
amidst joyful measures of dance and song. But it is the _haute dame_
that strikes our imagination--the staid and mystic Demeter of Eleusis,
and not the Ceres of the Roman lyric. The light-hearted Ceres, as a
beautiful woman in the prime of life, may be adorned with poppies and
wheat-ears, may stand serene and smiling as a symbol of harvest or the
goddess of a Latin temple; but paint her as one will, she will do little
more than serve to show how fallen are the idols--how immeasurable is
the descent from the stately Earth-Mother whose image would be stamped
on the brain of a Phidias.
But where is the Phidian Demeter? Surely such a goddess, "deeply musing
in her hallowed shrine," was a theme for the carver of the immortal Zeus
and Athena! Perhaps those inscrutable headless "Fates" from the
Parthenon, so wonderful in noble grace that the conception of befitting
heads is beyond the reach of our minds, include the Earth-Mother and her
daughter! How easy it is to imagine the reclining figure as Persephone
leaning upon the mother who loved her so well! But we must be content
with what we have of Demeter in art, which is little more than a few
fifth century frieze reliefs, the figure from Cnidos attributed to
Scopas,[a] and some Damophon memories of Phidias.
[a] See Plate 7.
So the artist is free and untrammelled in respect of the representation
of the far-famed goddess. There is no definite type of her which has
fixed itself on the minds of men, though the legend and story weaved
about her name are beautiful and wonderful in a high degree.
ATHENA
Though swathed in legend and surrounded with a hallow of Grecian
reverence, Athena is always cold. She may dim the sun with the radiance
of her armour; ride in a flaming car, and have Strength and Invisibility
for her allies; but she fights only on the side of the strong, and uses
the tactics of spies against her enemies. With the Gorgon's head on her
shield, and a helmet which will cover the soldiers of a hundred towns,
she yet whispers advice to Grecian heroes, and deflects a Trojan arrow
in its flight. Truly as Goddess of War she is somewhat difficult to
generalize. But she is also the divinity of the arts and sciences;
invents the pipe and the shuttle, and becomes the depository of all
industrial knowledge. Hence she embodies the triumphs of peace and
war--combines the extremes of human exertion.
How Phidias overcame the task of representing the goddess is well known.
He generalized war and wisdom, and from his great work of the Parthenon
there can be little departure in respect of bearing and attitude, so
long as the province of war is symbolized in the design. The actual work
of the Greek master has disappeared, but from various records and
copies, it would appear that the Parthenon Athena was the loftiest
conception ever worked out in sculpture, if we except the Olympian Zeus.
Majestic grace and the unconscious power derived from supreme knowledge,
seem to have been the first qualities exhibited in the statue. In the
fourth century there was no great departure from the Phidian ideal, and
it is difficult to see how there could be much modification in the
direction of bringing the conception closer to earth, for the goddess
had no special presumed form which could be adapted by the artist to
popular ideas. A nude figure would be impossible because in this the
force and power implied in a hero of war could not be combined with
feminine attributes. The Greeks drew the line at observable muscular
developments, invariably clothing nearly the whole of the figure, but
they did not, and could not, free her general bearing from certain
masculine qualities. It is true that the costume of the goddess might be
modified, and Phidias himself represented her in one or two statues
without a helmet, an example followed by several artists of the
Renaissance,[a] but so long as the symbols of war are included in her
habit, she can be only of formal use to the painter.
[a] See Piero di Cosimo's Marsyas and the Pipes of Athena,[47] and
Botticelli's Athena and the Centaur.
APOLLO
Although in mythology Apollo is connected with everything on earth which
is useful or pleasing to mankind, in art custom has so confined his
representation in respect of both appearance and symbols, that a type
has been established from which it would be difficult to depart without
a suggestion of incongruity arising. This type is of a more purely
formal character than that of any other god, except perhaps Mercury, a
circumstance probably arising from the fact that the reputed hard nature
of Apollo fails to lend itself to sympathetic idealization. He does not
appear to have been a favourite subject with the greatest sculptors of
ancient times, for nearly all the innumerable statues of him which have
come down to us, are reproductions of two or three types which in
themselves vary but little. It is difficult to see how a really noble
ideal of such a god can be suggested. Stern and inflexible, with many
human vices but no weaknesses or gentle traits, and withal a model of
physical beauty without strength or apparent power--in fact an
emphasized feminine form: such is the Apollo of tradition and art. We
cannot wonder that the type was quickly fixed, the limitations to avoid
the abnormal being so well defined.
The painter then has small scope with the figure of this god. He may
only slightly vary the accepted form, which admits of but a negative
expression. The best representation of Apollo in modern art is the one
by Raphael in the Parnassus fresco at the Vatican, though the beautiful
figure in the Marsyas work at the Louvre is very nearly as perfect.[48]
Raphael does not give to the god the rounded swellings of a female form,
but overcomes the difficulty by showing him as a young man of perfect
figure who has just reached maturity. The expression is entirely
general, but does not suggest a god-like power.
DIANA
It would scarcely be natural to be sympathetic with Artemis. She seems
to be the feminine type of a cold flint-like nature, as Apollo is the
masculine, and one can well understand that mythology makes of them
brother and sister. Mistress of wild beasts and goddess of sudden death,
she was always worshipped from fear: her wrath had ever to be appeased;
she inspired neither affection nor respect. True, she wore the mantle of
Ililythia, but only to be dreaded, and even the attempt to throw a warm
halo over her by the theft of the Endymion story for her benefit, failed
to lift her reputation for the tireless satisfaction of a supernatural
spleen. Nevertheless for the painter Diana has always had a certain
attraction, because the legends connected with her offer opportunities
for the exercise of skill in the representation of the nude. But there
is an end of all things, and the bathing and hunting scenes have been
fairly exhausted. For the sculptor only is Artemis likely to live.
Bright colours are not the vehicle to represent the symbol of an idea
which is beyond, but not above, nature--a useless abstraction which
neither warms the heart nor elevates the soul. Callisto draws our
sympathy, and Niobe our tears: the goddess freezes our veins.
NEPTUNE
Brother of Jupiter and Pluto; sire of Theseus, of Polyphemus, and of the
titanic lads who threatened to pile mountain on mountain in order to
destroy the home of the deities; the god whose footsteps tremble the
earth; who disputes with the sun; who uses floods and earthquakes for
weapons; who owns vast palaces in the caverns of the deep; for whom the
angry waves sink down beneath the shining sea, and ocean monsters play
around his lightning track across the waters: this is the divinity whom
the painter is accustomed to portray as a rough bearded man with
dishevelled hair and rugged features, holding a three-pronged fork, and
associating with dolphins, mermaids, and shells. But Neptune is not a
popular god. He does not appeal to the mind as a good-natured god like
Jupiter or Mercury, with many of the virtues and some of the failings of
mankind. His acts are mostly violent; he punishes but does not reward;
grows angry but is never kind. There is consequently no sympathetic
attitude towards him on the part of the artist, who would sooner paint
good than bad actions. Beyond his violent acts, the circumstances which
make up the history of the god, provide subjects more suitable for the
poet than the painter, who is practically confined to unimportant and
casual incidents which, with changes of accessories, would answer a
thousand scenes in mythological history. Neptune then may well disappear
from the purview of the painter, with the tritons and the seaweed
entourage.
MARS
From the point of view of the painter, there is little to say about the
Grecian Ares. He has not a single good trait in legend or story, and we
know nothing of his presumed personal form beyond the military
externals. It is difficult to understand how such a god came to be
included among the deities of a civilized race. Of what service could be
prayer when it is addressed to a blatant, bloodstained, genius of the
brutal side of war, without feeling or pity, and apparently so wanting
in intelligence that he has to leave the direction of battles to a
goddess? One would think that Homer intended him as the god of bullies,
or he would not have made him roar like ten thousand men when struck
with a stone, nor would he have allowed him to be imprisoned by two
young demigods, and contemptuously wounded by a third. But who is
responsible for the association of such a wretched example of divinity
with the radiant Aphrodite, for surely it is only the cloak of Homer
that covers the story! Was it a painter who had sought in vain from the
poets a suggestion for a composition in which the god would at least
appear normal, or a cynical critic who wished to incite ridicule as well
as contempt for the divinity? In any case the painter must sigh in vain
for an inspiriting design with Ares as the leading figure: he cannot
harmonize love and terror.
The Roman Mars has a slight advantage over Ares, for the name of Silvia
is sweetly-sounding, but she should be represented alone, as the star of
the wild Campagna, while yet it was forest-clad: the gleaming light
whose rays are to illumine the earth. Mars may disappear with the wolf,
but who can hide the glory of Rome?
MERCURY
It is difficult to connect the Hermes of the poet with the tedious
expressionless figure commonly seen in painting, whose only costume is a
helmet, and whose invariable province is apparently to look on and do
nothing. For the sculptor he is a god; for the painter a symbol of
subordination. A Rubens may give him the pulse of life, but only the
sculptor can suggest the divinity. With the painter the winged helmet is
a bizarre ornament; the immortal sandals are shrunken to leather; the
caduceus is a thing of inertia which is ever in the way. But with the
sculptor all these things may be endowed with the quickening spirit of a
soaring mind, for does not Giovanni di Bologna show the lithesome god
speeding through space ahead of the wind, the feathery foot-wings
humming with delirium, the trembling air dividing hastily before the
wand? True, the painter may represent the divine herald on his way
through space, as when he conducts Psyche to Olympus, or leads the
shades of the suitors to Hades; but the accessories present must
surround him with an earthy framework, unless the design be confined to
a ceiling, and shut away from things mundane with architectural forms,
as in the plan of Raphael at the Farnese Villa, or to a fresco executed
in the manner of a Flaxman drawing. Beyond these artifices the artist
cannot go with propriety.
Few and worn are the scenes in the history of the god in which he takes
a leading part. The head of Argus seems to be cut off, or awaiting
separation, in nearly every collection, sometimes with Juno on a cloud
deeply frowning with revengeful ire, occasionally with the peacock
expectant of its glorious fan, but always with the weak-looking helmeted
piper, passive and unconcerned as if fulfilling a daily task. A
Correggio may weave his golden fancy around a scene where Cupid learns
to strengthen his arrows with the rules of science and the wiles of art;
but let the painter beware of the infant Bacchus in the arms of the
messenger-god, lest a vision of the Olympian group arise and enfold his
work in a robe of charity. The schemes whereby the cradled thief
deceived the Pythian god are beyond the scope of the painter, though
there is a certain available range in the charming actions surrounding
the invention of the lyre. And if the designs relating to the
unfortunate Lara be properly consigned to oblivion, surely the
connection of Hermes with Pandora offers a field for the sprightly
imagination. But save where the god is a symbol of commerce or speed,
the helmet should be dispensed with, for it is hackneyed beyond
endurance. The modern painter is not bound by custom unless the
provision of beauty conflict with the lucidity of the design or the
reverence for universal sentiment. Let the winged heels suffice, for the
shadow of Persius will scarcely rise in protest.
[Illustration: PLATE 12 (See page 145)
Greek Portraiture
Head of Plato Head of Euripides]
BACCHUS
Centuries of bacchanalian festivities and revelries have nearly killed
Bacchus for the painter. Who can further interest himself in meaningless
processions, where the most prominent figure is a fat, drunken,
staggering man, supported by goat-hoofed monstrosities, and attended by
all the insignia of vinous royalty? Silenus is no more the loving nurse
of the infant god; the satyrs are no more the followers of a
reed-playing woodland deity; the nymphs have long forgotten the flowery
dales, the faithful trees that lived and died with them, the fairy
bowers where first Semele's offspring clapped his hands to the measure
of dance and pipe. Why should the dance be turned into a drunken revel?
Why should the artist remember the orgies of Rome, and forget the
Grecian pastoral fancies? What has become of Dionysus, inheritor of
Vishnu traditions, the many-named father of song, the leader of the
Muses, and the fire-born enemy of pirates? Nothing remains of him worth
remembering, save Ariadne the golden-haired, and she must in future be
left on the desert isle lest the pathos of her figure be disturbed by
the motley followers of her rescuer.
It is passing strange that the artists of the Renaissance did not
attempt to lift Bacchus out of the ditch of ignominy into which he had
fallen. They seem to have taken their ideas from the recorded accounts
of the Roman rites and vine festivals, overlooking the Grecian
suggestions relating to Dionysus, and even the later restrained reliefs
picturing incidents in his history. In their art, however, as is
evidenced by Pompeian frescoes, the Romans often treated Bacchus in a
serious manner, associating him with higher interests than those
connected with festival orgies. It may be that the figure of the god
carved by Michelangelo[a] had something to do with the later coarse
representations of him, for it would have been impossible for artists
succeeding so great a sculptor, to ignore the types he created. But it
will be an eternal mystery how he came to design such a Bacchus. A
voluptuous semi-realistic god, opposed to everything else that was
conceived by the sculptor, and antagonistic to all that was known in
Greece, it can never be anything more than a sublime example of a purely
earthly figure. One stands amazed before the perfect modelling, but
aghast at the conception. It represents the most extraordinary
transition from the god-like man of the Greeks, to a man-like god, ever
seen in art.
[a] In the Bargello, Florence.
The painter then has little left to use of the conventional Bacchus and
his history, except the never-dying Ariadne, but there is nothing to
prevent him from reverting to the pastoral Dionysus, to the delightful
abodes of the nymphs his foster-mothers, where Pan played and the Muses
sang, while the never-tiring son of Maia breathed tales of love into
willing ears.
VULCAN
The poet may continue to hold our fancy with volcanic fires and
cyclopean hammers, but on canvas Etna becomes a blacksmith's forge, and
the figure of a begrimed human toiler is given to the divinity
responsible for the golden handmaids, and the brazen bull whose breath
was scorching flame. There is rarely a painting of Vulcan without a
forge and leather bellows, with a smith who is stripped to the waist,
which earthly things necessarily kill all suggestions of celestial
interest, notwithstanding the presence of Venus, or the never-fading
bride of palsied Peleus. Occasionally we have the incident with Mars,
and strangely look for the invisible net, but not finding it we are
immediately called back to earth to ponder over the wiles of the ancient
legend gatherers. The art is lost behind the unreality. But why does not
the painter revert to the childhood of Vulcan, when he was hiding in the
glistening cavern beneath the roll of ocean, fashioning resplendent
eardrops for silver-footed Thetis? Here is scope for the imagination--to
indicate the fancies of the budding genius who was to carve the wondrous
shield, and adorn the heaven-domed halls of Olympus. Let Hephaestus
mature as he will for the poet: he should only bloom for the painter.
GENERAL CLASSICAL COMPOSITIONS
Scenes of adventure from the ancient poets in which the gods and
goddesses are concerned, appear to be rapidly becoming things of the
past for the painter. This is partly due to the circumstance that these
scenes have been so multiplied since the early days of the Renaissance,
that they are now positively fatiguing to both artists and the public;
but there is a deeper reason. If we try to number the paintings of
classical subjects by first-class artists which are enshrined in our
minds, we can count very few, and nearly all of these are single
figures, as a Venus, a Leda, a Psyche, or a Pandora. We do not call up a
Judgment of Paris, or a Diana and Actaeon, or any other design where
divinities are mixed with mortals in earthly actions. The cause of this
seems to be that our minds naturally revolt against a glaring
incongruity. The imagination is unable to harmonize the qualities of a
god with the possession of human instincts and frailties, or strike a
balance between divine actions and human motives. We see these pictures
and admire the design and execution, but they leave us cold: we are
unable to kindle enthusiasm over patent unreality. The general
conclusion is that painters would be wise to avoid such compositions,
and confine their attention in classical work to single figures of
goddesses or heroines, leaving to the poet suggestion of miraculous
powers.