this other difficulty to contend with, that the appearance of his work
will change with every change of light. The painter can fix whatever
light he pleases on his canvas. As the appearance of the sculptured work
will vary with the light, the sculptor can attain but partial success in
the representation of figures or scenes in which much active emotion is
shown in the faces. But in such scenes as these a painter’s power can
well be shown, since, owing to his ability to paint any power of light
(except, of course, direct sunlight), and his power of placing the
various figures of a group in various lights, and by means of varied
tints and lights being able to bring sharply into notice any expression
of the face, he can well depict most violent emotion. It will be found,
I think, that the sculpture which is most successful deals with groups
or figures whose meaning is made clear by action and by the form of the
body as a whole, and the paintings that are most successful are those in
which effects of chiaroscuro, colour and facial expression are the most
satisfactory method for making the figure intelligible. Several facts
which will be readily acknowledged show the truth of this statement. For
instance, Veronese, Rubens, Tintoretto, Velasquez when painting scenes
the interest of which depends on the individual figures appearing in
them (not such scenes as Paradise, Hell or battles where the interest is
in the masses and spaces), compose them mainly in one plane. Also if
single heads be taken from pictures and from sculptured groups, it will
usually be found that the former give a fuller impression of the
artist’s intention than the latter.
[Illustration: PLATE XLV.]
Every rule has exceptions and among Michael Angelo’s sculptures are
works in which he sought to reproduce effects of light and shade and
expression that if given by painting would have been more successful
because the latter would have expressed the artist’s intention more
clearly; and in certain of his paintings he attempted effects of form
that could be given more satisfactorily by sculpture. Done by any less a
genius than Michael Angelo, such work would be either ineffective or
laboured. Done by him one can but marvel at his mastery over the sister
arts that enabled him to approach so closely to the effects proper to
the one while using the means offered by the other. But such success as
he attained does not prove soundness in the principles that led him to
make the attempt. A _tour de force_ is but the attempt to attain a
result by means other than the best. It may be successful, but it must
be unsatisfactory. It is unreal, impractical; it is a form of jugglery!
To see how similar scenes are treated in the two arts, compare the group
of Niobe and her Children with the Massacre of the Innocents as painted
by the Renaissance artists.[26] In such comparison trivial details must
not be too much regarded, for of the Niobe group there consists but one
incomplete set of copies of the original figures and of the Massacre of
the Innocents each one of us probably considers a different artist’s
conception of the scene most effective. But the general impression given
by Niobe and her children is that of bodies driven into violent motion
by fright, what might be called frightened motion; the figures are
rushing from one spot to another in search of safety; they bend and
cower in terror of the peril. They are the incarnation of dread of
physical suffering. The impression of the Massacre of the Innocents is
one of faces contorted by horror. The action of the bodies is of less
concern. The attention is drawn to the eyes, the mouths, the hands, the
three chief outlets of mental feeling. The sufferers in the scene are
moved by the horror of unjustifiable slaughter. They are the incarnation
of anger, revolt and despair induced by the sight of pitiless massacre.
In portraiture the painter and sculptor are drawn together because the
greatest interest of the work is centred in the face, which is the
clearest index of thoughts and emotions. Both sculptors and painters
even when making figures of life size are limited in portraiture to
seeking their chief effects in the treatment of the face. But though so
far working in common, the painter and sculptor still have different
aims; for that part of the head the expression of which can be more
strongly accented and more completely reproduced by the use of colour
and a chosen shade and light, is the eyes; while that part the
expression of which can be most adequately rendered by modelling is the
mouth. This is the reason why portraits similar in style, such as those
above mentioned, the bust of Pericles, and the painting of the Duke of
Norfolk, attract our attention in different ways. In the bust the most
noticeable feature is the firm but sensitive mouth, in the painting it
is the steady, but vivid, eye.
Mindful of these conditions that govern the art of portraiture we find
it easy to see how the artists of various epochs have conformed to them.
This may seem to be putting the cart before the horse; to be fitting the
facts to the theory. But it is not so,—it is merely searching for proof
of a working hypothesis. The theory was suggested by the phenomena and
it will be seen to explain these phenomena.
[Illustration: PLATE XLVI.]
The study of Greek sculpture is at present seriously hampered by
statements and beliefs concerning it which arose at a time when its
place in the history of art was very inaccurately understood. These have
been repeated so often that they are frequently accepted without being
critically weighed in the light of recent knowledge. It is a unique and
very perfect art, but the causes and qualities of its perfection are
sometimes misunderstood. Justifiable admiration has out-weighed the
critical faculties. It is generally thought to be more imaginative and
ideal than is in fact the case. The quality of realism is not usually
attributed to such a work as the portrait bust of Pericles. And yet this
bust is quite as realistic, though not so prosaic, as that of the Roman
general Corbulo. I mention these two because they are very generally
known; but many others such as the Demosthenes, Sophocles, Cæsar,
Caligula would do equally well. The word realism is reserved too much
for those works in which the artist has represented the forms that would
be first noticed by the casual observer and, in this limited sense, the
Corbulo is far more realistic than the Pericles; but realism is just as
truly displayed in works in which the forms, while reproducing those of
the model, may perhaps not be the most obvious ones and though the
juxtaposition of them be not their most common combination. In this
sense the Pericles is as realistic as the Corbulo. Greek realism in
portraits deals chiefly with faces and figures in repose; Roman realism
deals in the main with faces and figures in action.
It is noteworthy that portraiture was a late development of sculpture in
Greece. We know, for instance, of no contemporary portraits of Solon or
Peisistratus, and there exist in museums and private collections
extremely few busts or statues of the period preceding the middle of the
fifth century B.C., that have the character of portraits. One reason of
this doubtless was the feeling that the success which brought fame in
its train was due more to the Gods than to the individual. The
individual was an accident in the exhibition of beneficent power by the
Gods, and consequently, so far as form and feature are concerned, was of
no special interest. Furthermore, there was the feeling that the fame of
individuals was due to and a part of the fame of the whole state; hence
the individual was not apt to overestimate his own value nor to be
thought of by his neighbours with any such feeling of special respect as
is expected by, and often granted to, those who are “self-made.”
Over and above these causes was another which must have been largely
responsible for the late development of portraiture and for its
character when it began to be common. This was the Hellenic love of
beauty. Divided though the Greeks were into numerous states, they were
held together by bonds of language, tradition, religion and politics.
But the bond that united them more strongly than all others, even than
their hatred of barbarians, was their love of beauty. “Beauty the first
of all things” says Isocrates “in majesty and honour and divineness.
Nothing devoid of beauty is prized. The admiration of virtue itself
comes to this, that, of all manifestations of life, virtue is the most
beautiful.” The consequence of this feeling was to make the individual
and imperfect man uninteresting to the artist while the general and
typical figure became his supreme aim. When at last in the fifth century
B.C. portraiture became more frequent than it had previously been, the
perfect portrait was the one which gave most completely the impression
of the general character of the man and not the one which gave the most
vivid and striking representation of the separate features of his face.
Curiously enough the first portrait we hear of in Greece was a
caricature of the poet Hipponax by Bupalos and Athenis, artists of the
sixth century B.C. While caricature was attempted as early as this, as
is shown by the drama, by terra-cotta figurines and by vases such as
those from the sanctuary of the Kabeiroi in Bœotia, it may be questioned
whether such a portrait of Hipponax ever existed. The details of the
story, such as the suicide of the artists owing to the satirical attacks
of the poet, are scarcely credible, and if we remember the very strange
and unlifelike appearance of archaic art it seems not improbable that
the story arose in the attempt to explain some rude statue the true
intention of which had been long forgotten or had not been clearly
indicated. Even were it certain that such a caricature did once exist,
the knowledge would be of no great interest, because caricatures are but
a debased form of art. They are only the exaggeration of accidental
physical peculiarities. If the traces of a warped or ill-developed
character show in the face or figure, the representation of them may be
made a caricature, but almost all so-called caricatures show not
oddities of character but deformities of person. It is in literature, in
the works of Molière or Shakespeare, rather than in sculpture or
painting, that we find true caricatures. Not that they do not exist in
the plastic arts, but the literary art lends itself more readily than
the others to this mode of representation.
Whatever the actual facts regarding the reported portrait of Hipponax
may have been, it is not till about the first quarter of the fifth
century (circ. 500–475) that we have undoubted evidence of portraiture.
To that time belongs the bust of a bearded man wearing a helmet, in the
Glyptothek in Munich. A replica of this work exists in the collection of
Barrone Barracco in Rome. These two heads may well be copies of a statue
of some victor in the games. As is known, portrait statues were allowed
only to thrice victorious athletes, and they were erected not so much as
an honour to the victor as to keep fresh the memory of one who had
thrice been cherished by the Gods. But this rule governing the making of
statues of athletes clearly shows what deep significance a statue was
considered to express and the secondary importance to the Greek mind of
keeping a record of personal appearance. Whether of a victor or not, the
bust referred to belongs to the early period of development of the
technique of sculpture, before it had been perfectly mastered, when the
artist was able to represent not what he wanted to but what he was able
to. Hence it is conventional; so much so that were it not for the helmet
and the absence of any attribute of Divinity we could hardly be sure
that it was intended as a portrait.
[Illustration: PLATE XLVII.]
Probably the best known example of portraiture produced during the
period when the technique of sculpture was thoroughly understood and
mastered, is the head of Pericles by Kresilas to which I have already
made reference (Plate XLIV). It is a work of special importance owing to
the interest attaching to the character of Pericles, but more
particularly from the artistic point of view; and fortunately there
exist several careful copies of it. These make us sure what its artistic
character was,[27] and furthermore Pliny has handed down to us an
estimate of the original work by a critic of the ancient world. This
critic expressed concisely and epigrammatically the intention that is
manifest in all Greek work of the best time, in saying that the bust of
Pericles by Kresilas shows how art can make a noble man still
nobler.[28] Now this can only be said of the best Greek and Italian
work. And all work, no matter where or by whom produced, if wrought in
the spirit which was shown more by Greek sculptors and Venetian painters
than by other artists, may be described by such words. Such a criticism
could not be made of most Roman or Florentine work. It can only be said
of work in which the attempt is successfully made to suggest a perfected
type by the improvement of an individual example, not of work the
intention of which is to represent the individual example as the
embodiment of special peculiarities with indifference as to their
excellence or defects.
The method adopted by Kresilas is not difficult to analyse. The
character of Pericles was a rare and happy mixture of calmness,
foresight, perseverance and sensitiveness. His power of understanding
men and conditions, together with his quiet and steady pursuit of his
aims, is shown by the course of his political policy. His sensitiveness
is made clear by his unselfish ambitions, by his delight in works of the
fine arts and by his chivalrous conduct towards Aspasia, whom general
opinion, not confined to the ancient world, would have allowed him to
disregard and forget, when for the sake of giving offence to him the
populace attacked her character. Such was the man whom Kresilas had to
portray, and with high artistic perception he chose his means.
Kresilas, we can well understand, might have shown us Pericles the
warrior, or Pericles the orator, or Pericles the lover of philosophy and
the arts, and in doing so might have given a more striking impression of
one or more of the special qualities by which his contemporaries were
impressed. Instead of this he succeeded in setting before us the complex
of all these qualities, and many more, that formed Pericles the man. The
helmet lifted back from the face reminds us of his military career but
does not force this on our attention.[29] The expression of the face is
not in the least dreamy but is thoughtful and grave; an expression
which, considering his life and friends, must have been habitual when he
was in repose. It should not be forgotten that the attitudes assumed by
the body when at rest show the presence or lack of inborn grace and
dignity, and the expression of the face when in repose is an index to
the mental nature. The expression of the eyes is open; the gaze is
steady; the brow is undisturbed. The impression given by the eyes is of
clear, highly developed intelligence. In the mouth which, as pointed out
above, is the most indicative single feature in portrait sculpture, may
be seen even more markedly than in the eyes, the man’s character. It is
a very noticeable mouth, with full and softly modelled lips, lips such
as usually suggest a weak and sensuous character. But this mouth is
neither insignificant nor weak. Its great sensitiveness passes into
firmness in the closure of the lips and the strong jaw, and shows itself
not as that of an ungoverned and libitudinous nature, but of a reserved
and, in the best way, sensitive quality. It is a mouth that implies
vigour but not self-will; the mouth of a very sensitive and
appreciative, but not a sensual man.
Besides the character of eyes and mouth, the treatment of the whole head
must be studied in order to understand what the critic meant when he
wrote that this work made a noble man still nobler. The treatment is
broad. The minor and accidental details are disregarded that the general
effect may be clearer. The curling hair of head and beard, for instance,
is not tossed about in disordered masses, as so often in later works,
but is conventionalised. The artist realised that he could not imitate
hair, and consequently sought for the best graphic symbol by which to
suggest curls. In the modelling of the face he chose an expression of
quietness and not one of any fitful, momentary emotion; and by not
representing any slight irregularities of surface or structure, he
emphasised and made more inevitably noticeable that expression which was
most completely indicative of the man’s essential nature. He has given
us not alone Pericles the leader of the state, nor Pericles the patron
of the fine arts, nor Pericles the impassioned orator, but the Pericles
of history, the embodiment of all the best qualities bred in Athens.
It must not be thought that the Pericles head alone exhibits the
qualities of both artist and sitter which I have attempted to suggest.
In their various ways the portraits of Sophocles, Euripides,
Demosthenes, the so-called Menander (Plate XLV), Periander (Plate XLVI)
and many another famous Greek show similar æsthetic feeling.
It was but a short time after the death of Pericles that the
intellectual conditions of Greece underwent a great change. Beliefs
that, heretofore, had been universally held by the Greeks began to be
questioned, and the conditions of state-craft passed into a new phase.
The rise and fall of the Macedonian power was of lasting effect on the
Greek character. Alexander exhibits the type, which became common again
in the Renaissance, of the selfish despot who maintained his power by
having the money to maintain his personal influence. His thoughts were
set chiefly on his own personal glory as expressed in his empire. He
tried, but unsuccessfully, to make his court the centre of the artistic
life of the day. He was not a patron of the arts but of artists. To
Lysippus alone was granted the right to carve his portrait. No natural
development of the arts was possible under such conditions.
The granting of such a monopoly to Lysippus shows that Alexander was
merely interested in producing on posterity a good effect so far as his
portraits could help him to do so. Copies of some of these portraits
exist. They are fine in many ways and, to a high degree, lifelike, but
they and other similar works of the epoch lack the quietness and repose
of the works of earlier times. There is a melodramatic feeling in the
looser treatment of the hair, and, oftentimes, an attempt to give a
superhuman expression to the face.
These qualities, as critics have often noticed, are to be found in all
the forms of art of the time, so far as we now have the means of
judging. Even in architecture there is a noticeable change. Stone is not
laid so carefully, the cutting of details is coarser and mouldings are
heavier; masses are less finely proportioned and the effects of light
and shade are made more definite and striking. The miniature portraits
on gems and coins show the same characteristics as the large busts, and
the mere fact of putting portraits of contemporary rulers on the coinage
shows that the relation of the individual to the state had changed and
that, on the one hand, the desire for personal fame was spreading over
the world—a desire which became still more marked in the Roman and
Renaissance epochs; while on the other the worship of rulers, introduced
from the Orient, had firmly entrenched itself. In fact, these
Hellenistic portraits are not simple. While the technique is still
Greek, there is something else in them than the desire of the artist to
show the sitter as he appeared to his contemporaries, even in a rightly
idealised manner,—they manifest the desire of the sitter to be admired.
The tendencies of the time were all towards exactness of representation
of existing forms, and this was soon attained. Perhaps it would have
been reached even sooner had it not been for certain interests which
held the sculptors partially to the old-time aims. One such conservative
influence is shown in the work of Silanion, who became famous for his
portraits of persons dead long before his day. Such work, if it was to
satisfy a large public, and this was what it aimed at and succeeded in
doing, had to be of a broad, general and unemphasized character, for the
nature and appearance of persons known only by tradition is necessarily
more vaguely and variously observed, less easily and surely grasped,
than that of the living. Hence, if Silanion had made portraits that
suggested strongly what seemed to him the most vital characteristic of
the person represented, he would probably have found that many of his
contemporaries considered some very different characteristic the most
essential. To please the many it was needful for his work to embody only
those ideas that were generally accepted. Such work cannot be realistic
in the sense of attracting attention to detailed peculiarities.
Greek portraiture became rapidly more and more prosaically realistic.
But even in its last stages, when Greek artists were still employed by
Greek patrons, the realism is generally restrained. The old
conventionalism and typifying of the model is gone, and there is greater
frankness in the rendering of special peculiarities of hair or skin; but
the work is generally quiet and dignified, calm in expression and
reposeful in action. The artist puts before us not the type and idea
suggested by the man, nor, except in special cases, the man’s own desire
regarding his appearance, but the real daily aspect of the man, dressed
up not at all, treated in accordance with the essential rules of
sculpture as a fine art.
That there were, however, some artists who amused themselves
and a thoughtless public with portraits that were vulgarly
realistic—realistic, that is, in the representation of ugly and
unessential details—is shown by what we know of Demetrius of Alopeke. He
is noted solely for his successful rendering of ugliness. But there was
too much cultivated taste in what remained of the Greek world, and too
much vigour and good sense in the growing Roman world, for such work to
become popular. To see realism developing in a strong and healthy
manner, we must turn to Rome where, though the actual carving was done,
with few exceptions probably, by Greek workers, still the character of
the work itself was controlled by Roman ideas (Plate XLVII).
[Illustration: PLATE XLVIII.]
The dry, matter of fact quality of Roman portraiture as opposed to the
more imaginative work of the Greeks, has long been recognised. Its
direct and unadorned presentation of the human face is noted by the most
careless observer and is to most people pleasing. It makes them feel at
ease; they have the sensation of being with real people; it does not
demand of them a mental effort to analyse the appearance before them in
order to understand it. But notwithstanding the facility with which one
derives very definite, and it may be lasting, impressions from these
Roman busts, they are by no means as simple and artless as they seem at
first sight to be. They are the product of complex influences and a
highly developed art and are as difficult to understand and properly
appreciate as are the earlier Greek ones.
We may illustrate what has been said by glancing a moment at a portrait
of an unknown old man[30] (Plate XLVIII). This is a superb example of
Roman portraiture of the time of the Republic. It cannot lay claim to
any beauty of form or feature; it is uncompromisingly homely.
Nevertheless it has a certain fascination for the beholder. The sculptor
was a great master. The way in which he has rendered the signs of old
age in the withered neck, the irregular wrinkles of the brow, and the
uneven mouth is magnificent. It is realism of a perfect kind, for the
evidence of the wear and tear of life is subdued by and made minor to
the splendid and enduring vigour of the mind and character behind the
cheerful old face. What an old age! The sap may be running slow, the
body may show the blows dealt by life, but the stiff, short hair is
still thick, the head is still held upright and forward. It is a face of
a clean-living, plain-thinking man, one who had “held both hands before
the fires of life,” and seems to scarcely suppress a smile at the
thought that any one should want the portrait of his old face.