The revival of interest in Greek civilization was at first purely
literary, and remained so during two or three centuries. But during the
last century various travellers and residents abroad made collections
which awoke an interest in the art; and though most of these collectors
were content with merely showy sculpture, greatly restored and
falsified for the market, yet some—such as Hamilton—took a real
archæological interest in the unearthing and collecting of ancient art.
The condition of study at the end of the eighteenth century was that
many private men of wealth had bought large quantities of sculpture
which was but little understood, and looked on more from a decorative
than a scientific point of view, while there were the beginnings of a
serious appreciation of it which had been just laid down by Winckelmann.
The nineteenth century opened with a grand work of publishing the
principal treasures of classical art in England, which was finally
issued in 1809 by Payne, Knight, and Townley; this marks the highest
point of the dilettante collecting spirit, which was soon eclipsed by
truer knowledge. Hitherto the best sculpture had hardly been known but
at second hand through Roman copies; a closer acquaintance began with
the travels of Dodwell, Gell, and Leake, all in the first decade of
the century. The free opening of the British Museum, in 1805, and the
accumulation there of all the best collections within the first quarter
of the century, also served to educate a public taste. The first
struggle of scientific and artistic knowledge against the dilettante
spirit was over the Elgin marbles; by 1816 they were accepted as the
masterpieces which all later criticism has proved them to be. The
Æginetan and Phigaleian sculptures, brought to Munich and London,
helped also to show the nobility of early Greek art; so that the last
two generations have had a canon of taste to rely upon, the value of
which cannot be overestimated.
Following on this noble foundation, other collectors worked in
Greece and Asia Minor, and the British Museum profited by the
labors of Burgon, Fellows, and Woodhouse between 1840 and 1860. The
diplomatically supported work of Newton on the Mausoleum (1857–58),
and Wood at Ephesus (1863–75), filled out our knowledge of the middle
period of Greek art (350 B. C.). Comparatively little has been done
since then by England, but the activity of the Germans at Olympia
has given us the only original masterpiece that is known—the Hermes
of Praxiteles (350 B. C.), and their work at Pergamon revealed the
great altar belonging to the later age (180 B. C.). The excavations
at Athens (in 1886) have produced the impressive statues dedicated to
Athene about 520 B. C., which reveal the noble rise of Attic sculpture.
But attention during the last quarter-century has been largely fixed
upon the earlier ages. The discoveries of Schliemann at Hissarlik
(Troy, 1870–82), Mycenæ (1876), Orchomenos (1880–81), and Tiryns
(1884), opened a new world of thought and research. Though at first
bitterly attacked, it is now agreed that these discoveries show us the
civilization of Greece between 2000 and 1000 B. C. Lastly, during ten
years past Egypt has provided the solid chronology for prehistoric
Greece by discoveries of trade between the two countries.
We can now very briefly estimate the present position of our knowledge
as gained during the century. Setting aside the early foreign pottery
found in Egypt, which belongs probably to Greece or Italy at 5000 and
3000 B. C., we first touch a civilized city in the lowest town of Troy,
where metal was scarcely yet in use, which is certainly before 2000
and probably about 3000 B. C. in date. Succeeding that is the finely
built second Troy, rich in gold vases and ornaments, which—though
mistaken by Schliemann for the Homeric Troy—must yet be long before
that, probably before 2000 B. C. After the burning of that come three
other rebuildings before we reach the town of the age of Mycenæ, about
1500 B. C. Of this, which was in Greece the climax of the prehistoric
civilization, there are the splendid treasures found at Mycenæ, the
magnificent domed tombs, the abundance of fine jewelry and metal-work,
of beautiful pottery and glazed ornament. To this age belong the
great palaces of Mycenæ, Tiryns, Athens, and other hill fortresses,
of which hardly more than the plans can now be traced. And it is this
civilization which traded eagerly with Egypt, exchanging the valued
manufactures of each country. This period was at its full bloom from
1500–1200 B. C., and began to decay by 1100 B. C., this dating being
given by the contact with Egypt.
This natural decadence of art in Greece was hastened by the invasion
of the barbarous Dorians about 1000 B. C. Art, however, was by no
means extinguished, but only repressed by the troubles of the age; and
Athens, which was not conquered by the Dorians, was the main centre of
the revival of the arts. Other examples of such a history are familiar
in Egypt (after the Hyksos invasion) and in Italy (after the Lombards),
where earlier abilities revive and bloom afresh when vigorous invaders
become united to an artistic stock. After the centuries of warfare
a quieter age allowed the growth of fine arts again in the seventh
century B. C., largely influenced by Egyptian and Assyrian work at
second hand, through the Greek settlements in Cyprus and Egypt. By
600 B. C. definite types of sculpture were started, and a course
was begun which only ended in the fall of classical civilization.
The century before the Persian invasion, in 480 B. C., was one of
rapid development; and in sculpture and vase-painting we see that
this century carried forward the arts to technical perfection and the
highest power of expression. Immediately after the Persian wars came
the supreme works of Pheidias and Myron, most familiar in the Parthenon
and the Discobolus; and in vase-painting comes the reversal from vases
drawn in black on a red ground to the blocking out of the ground in
black, leaving the figure in red, thus giving far greater scope to the
filling in of finely drawn detail. The civilization of Athens was also
at its height in this age, under Pericles, and the minor arts received
their most refined and perfect treatment. After this comes nothing but
ripening to decay. It must always be remembered that we have but very
few examples of original work of the great artists. Nearly all the
actual marbles preserved are copies made in later times, which show
little of the delicacy of the original; and the few original marbles
that remain are mostly of unknown subjects by unknown men. The great
work in Greek archæology during the last fifty years has been comparing
the records of ancient art (in Pliny, Pausanias, etc.) with the
remaining sculptures, critically assigning the various types of statues
to their celebrated originals, and thus forming some idea of the real
history of Greek art.
From these studies, full of detail and controversy, we may briefly sum
up the characteristics of the principal artists and their imitators. At
about 440 B. C. Pheidias showed in the Parthenon the highest expression
of divine and mythic forms, in a simple and heroic style which was
never equalled. Half a century later Polykleitos followed a more human
expression, using motives (as in the Doryphoros), but yet portraying an
abstract humanity. By 330 B. C. Praxiteles brought the expression of
moods to his works, graceful, animated, and with a full ripeness, as
in the Hermes of Olympia, or the Faun. Skopas, slightly later, marked
his work by his great vigor and strong personality. This was the second
turning-point, when ripeness passed into decay; and in Lysippos there
is mere vivid naturalism and an impressionist manner without much soul
or thought, as in his Apoxyomenos, about 330 B. C. After this mere
triviality and genre subjects are usual, portraiture is a common aim,
and dignity was vainly striven for in colossal size. The glorification
of showing dead and vanquished enemies is seen in the Dying Gaul and
figures of slain foes at Pergamon. Later on, about 180 B. C., we
see the violent, complicated, and straining action of the figures
around the great altar of Pergamon, which also appears in the groups
of the Laocoon and Farnese Bull. In the Græco-Roman age a conscious
artificiality took the place of life and expression, as we see in the
Apollo Belvidere, the Venus di Medici, and the Farnese Hercules. Art
was saved in the first century A. D. by the devotion of portraiture,
which gave a sense of reality and conviction which is entirely absent
in the imaginative works. Lastly, a painstaking study and admiration of
earlier works led, under the wealthy patronage of Hadrian (130 A. D.),
to an eclectic revival which was wholly artificial, and passed away
within a generation. We have fixed on sculpture as the most complete
expression of Greek art; in other directions there is neither enough
material nor enough research to give us a connected view. Not a single
town, hardly a single house, in Greece has been excavated; there is no
consecutive knowledge of the ordinary products and objects of life;
and there is very little recorded of the discoveries of the tombs. The
artistic interest of the sculpture and architecture has starved other
branches of archæology, and for Greece more remains to be done than for
some less celebrated lands.