Athenian sculpture.
At Athens, in the age 650-480, we may trace two quite distinct periods
of architecture and sculpture. In the earlier of the two periods, a
rough limestone was used alike for the walls and the sculptural
decoration of temples; in the later period it was superseded by marble,
whether native or imported. Every visitor to the museum of the Athenian
acropolis stands astonished at the recently recovered groups which
decorated the pediments of Athenian temples before the age of
Peisistratus--groups of large size, rudely cut in soft stone, of
primitive workmanship, and painted with bright red, blue and green, in a
fashion which makes no attempt to follow nature, but only to produce a
vivid result. The two largest in scale of these groups seem to have
belonged to the pediments of the early 6th-century temple of Athena. On
other smaller pediments, perhaps belonging to shrines of Heracles and
Dionysus, we have conflicts of Heracles with Triton or with other
monstrous foes. It is notable how fond the Athenian artists of this
early time are of exaggerated muscles and of monstrous forms, which
combine the limbs of men and of animals; the measure and moderation
which mark developed Greek art are as completely absent as are skill in
execution or power of grouping. Fig. 20 shows a small pediment in which
appears in relief the slaying of the Lernaean hydra by Heracles. The
hero strikes at the many-headed water-snake, somewhat inappropriately,
with his club. Iolaus, his usual companion, holds the reins of the
chariot which awaits Heracles after his victory. On the extreme left a
huge crab comes to the aid of the hydra.
There can be little doubt that Athens owed its great start in art to the
influence of the court of Peisistratus, at which artists of all kinds
were welcome. We can trace a gradual transformation in sculpture, in
which the influence of the Chian and other progressive schools of
sculpture is visible, not only in the substitution of island marble for
native stone, but in increased grace and truth to nature, in the toning
down of glaring colour, and the appearance of taste in composition. A
transition between the older and the newer is furnished by the
well-known statue of the calf-bearer, an Athenian preparing to sacrifice
a calf to the deities, which is made of marble of Hymettus, and in
robust clumsiness of forms is not far removed from the limestone
pediments. The sacrificer has been commonly spoken of as Hermes or
Theseus, but he seems rather to be an ordinary human votary.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--Figure by Antenor, restored.]
In the time of Peisistratus or his sons a peristyle of columns was added
to the old temple of Athena; and this necessitated the preparation of
fresh pediments. These were of marble. In one of them was represented
the battle between gods and giants; in the midst Athena herself striking
at a prostrate foe (fig. 21). In these figures no eye can fail to trace
remarkable progress. On about the same level of art are the charming
statues dedicated to Athena, which were set up in the latter half of the
6th century in the Acropolis, whose graceful though conventional forms
and delicate colouring make them one of the great attractions of the
Acropolis Museum. We show a figure (fig. 22) which, if it be rightly
connected with the basis on which it stands, is the work of the sculptor
Antenor, who was also author of a celebrated group representing the
tyrant-slayers, Harmodius and Aristogiton. To the same age belong many
other votive reliefs of the Acropolis, representing horsemen, scribes
and other votaries of Athena.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--Bust from Crete.]
Dorian sculpture.
From Athens we pass to the seats of Dorian art. And in doing so we find
a complete change of character. In place of Dorian draped goddesses and
female figures, we find nude male forms. In place of Ionian softness and
elegance, we find hard, rigid outlines, strong muscular development, a
greater love of and faithfulness to the actual human form--the influence
of the palaestra rather than of the harem. To the known series of
archaic male figures, recent years have added many examples. We may
especially mention a series of figures from the temple of Apollo Ptoos
in Boeotia, probably representing the god himself. Still more noteworthy
are two colossal nude figures of Apollo, remarkable both for force and
for rudeness, found at Delphi, the inscriptions of which prove them to
be the work of an Argive sculptor. (Plate V. fig. 76.) From Crete we
have acquired the upper part of a draped figure (fig. 23), whether male
or female is not certain, which should be an example of the early
Daedalid school, whence the art of Peloponnesus was derived; but we can
scarcely venture to treat it as a characteristic product of that school;
rather the likeness to the dedication of Nicandra is striking.
Another remarkable piece of Athenian sculpture, of the time of the
Persian Wars, is the group of the tyrannicides Harmodius and
Aristogiton, set up by the people of Athens, and made by the sculptors
Critius and Nesiotes. These figures were hard and rigid in outline, but
showing some progress in the treatment of the nude. Copies are preserved
in the museum of Naples (Plate I. fig. 50). It should be observed that
one of the heads does not belong.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Head of Hera: Olympia.]
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Spartan Tombstone: Berlin.]
Olympia, Sparta, Selinus.
Next in importance to Athens, as a find-spot for works of early Greek
art, ranks Olympia. Olympia, however, did not suffer like Athens from
sudden violence, and the explorations there have brought to light a
continuous series of remains, beginning with the bronze tripods of the
geometric age already mentioned and ending at the barbarian invasions of
the 4th century A.D. Notable among the 6th-century stone-sculpture of
Olympia are the pediment of the treasury of the people of Megara, in
which is represented a battle of gods and giants, and a huge rude head
of Hera (fig. 24), which seems to be part of the image worshipped in the
Heraeum. Its flatness and want of style are noteworthy. Among the
temples of Greece proper the Heraeum of Olympia stands almost alone for
antiquity and interest, its chief rival, besides the temples of Athens,
being the other temple of Hera at Argos. It appears to have been
originally constructed of wood, for which stone was by slow degrees,
part by part, substituted. In the time of Pausanias one of the pillars
was still of oak, and at the present day the varying diameter of the
columns and other structural irregularities bear witness to the process
of constant renewal which must have taken place. The early small bronzes
of Olympia form an important series, figures of deities standing or
striding, warriors in their armour, athletes with exaggerated muscles,
and women draped in the Ionian fashion, which did not become unpopular
in Greece until after the Persian Wars. Excavations at Sparta have
revealed interesting monuments belonging to the worship of ancestors,
which seems in the conservative Dorian states of Greece to have been
more strongly developed than elsewhere. On some of these stones, which
doubtless belonged to the family cults of Sparta, we see the ancestor
seated holding a wine-cup, accompanied by his faithful horse or dog; on
some we see the ancestor and ancestress seated side by side (fig. 25),
ready to receive the gifts of their descendants, who appear in the
corner of the relief on a much smaller scale. The male figure holds a
wine-cup, in allusion to the libations of wine made at the tomb. The
female figure holds her veil and the pomegranate, the recognized food of
the dead. A huge serpent stands erect behind the pair. The style of
these sculptures is as striking as the subjects; we see lean, rigid
forms with severe outline carved in a very low relief, the surface of
which is not rounded but flat. The name of Selinus in Sicily, an early
Megarian colony, has long been associated with some of the most curious
of early sculptures, the metopes of ancient temples, representing the
exploits of Heracles and of Perseus. Even more archaic metopes have in
recent years been brought to light, one representing a seated sphinx,
one the journey of Europa over the sea on the back of the amorous bull
(fig. 26), a pair of dolphins swimming beside her. In simplicity and in
rudeness of work these reliefs remind us of the limestone pediments of
Athens (fig. 20), but yet they are of another and a severer style; the
Ionian laxity is wanting.
[Illustration: PLATE V.
_From a Cast._
FIG. 71.--APHRODITE OF CNIDUS. (VATICAN.)
_Photo, Anderson._
FIG. 72.--BRONZE BOXER OF TERME. (ROME.)
FIG. 73.--BRONZE OF CERIGOTTO. (ATHENS.)
Found in the sea near Cythera.
FIG. 74.--AGIAS AT DELPHI.
(From _Fouilles de Delphes_, by permission of A. Fontemoing.)