This is, so far as we know, almost the only work of the early part of
the 3rd century which shows imagination. Sculptors often worked on a
colossal scale, producing such monsters as the colossal Apollo at
Rhodes, the work of Chares of Lindus, which was more than 100 ft. in
height. But they did not show freshness or invention; and for the most
part content themselves with varying the types produced in the great
schools of the 4th century. The wealthy kings of Syria, Egypt and Asia
Minor formed art galleries, and were lavish in their payments; but it
has often been proved in the history of art that originality cannot be
produced by mere expenditure.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Head of Anytus: Lycosura.]
A great artist, whose date has been disputed, but who is now assigned to
the Hellenistic age, Damophon of Messene, is known to us from his actual
works. He set up in the shrine of the _Mistress_ (Despoena) at Lycosura
in Arcadia a great group of figures consisting of Despoena, Demeter,
Artemis and the Titan Anytus. Three colossal heads found on the spot
probably belong to the three last-mentioned deities. We illustrate the
head of Anytus, with wild disordered hair and turbulent expression (fig.
48). Dr Dorpfeld has argued, on architectural grounds, that shrine and
images alike must be given to a later time than the 4th century; and
this judgment is now confirmed by inscriptional and other evidence.
In one important direction sculpture certainly made progress. Hitherto
Greek sculptors had contented themselves with studying the human body
whether in rest or motion, from outside. The dissection of the human
body, with a consequent increase in knowledge of anatomy, became usual
at Alexandria in the medical school which flourished under the
Ptolemies. This improved anatomical knowledge soon reacted upon the art
of sculpture. Works such as the Fighter of Agasias in the Louvre (Plate
IV. fig. 69), and in a less degree the Apoxyomenus (Plate VI. fig. 79),
display a remarkable internal knowledge of the human frame, such as
could only come from the habit of dissection. Whether this was really
productive of improvement in sculpture may be doubted. But it is
impossible to withhold one's admiration from works which show an
astonishing knowledge of the body of man down to its bony framework, and
a power and mastery of execution which have never since been surpassed.
With accuracy in the portrayal of men's bodies goes of necessity a more
naturalistic tendency in portraiture. As we have seen, the art of
portraiture was at a high ideal level in the Pheidian age; and even in
the age of Alexander the Great, notable men were rendered rather
according to the idea than the fact. To a base and mechanical naturalism
Greek art never at any time descended. But from 300 B.C. onwards we have
a marvellous series of portraits which may be termed rather
characteristic than ideal, which are very minute in their execution, and
delight in laying emphasis on the havoc wrought by time and life on the
faces of noteworthy men. Such are the portraits of Demosthenes, of
Antisthenes, of Zeno and others, which exist in our galleries. And it
was no long step from these actual portraits to the invention of
characteristic types to represent the great men of a past generation,
such as Homer and Lycurgus, or to form generic images to represent
weatherbeaten fishermen or toothless old women.
Altar of Pergamum.
Our knowledge of the art of the later Hellenistic age has received a
great accession since 1875 through the systematic labours directed by
the German Archaeological Institute, which have resulted in recovering
the remains of Pergamum, the fortress-city which was the capital of the
dynasty of the Philetaeri. Among the ancient buildings of Pergamum none
was more ambitious in scale and striking in execution than the great
altar used for sacrifices to Zeus, a monument supposed to be referred to
in the phrase of the Apocalypse "where Satan's throne is." This altar,
like many great sacrificial altars of later Greece, was a vast erection
to which one mounted by many steps, and its outside was adorned with a
frieze which represented on a gigantic scale, in the style of the 2nd
century B.C., the battle between the gods and the giants. This enormous
frieze (see PERGAMUM) is now one of the treasures of the Royal Museums
of Berlin, and it cannot fail to impress visitors by the size of the
figures, the energy of the action, and the strong vein of sentiment
which pervades the whole, giving it a certain air of modernity, though
the subject is strange to the Christian world. In early Greek art the
giants where they oppose the gods are represented as men armed in full
panoply, "in shining armour, holding long spears in their hands," to use
the phrase in which Hesiod describes them. But in the Pergamene frieze
the giants are strange compounds, having the heads and bodies of wild
and fierce barbarians, sometimes also human legs, but sometimes in the
place of legs two long serpents, the heads of which take with the giants
themselves a share in the battle. Sometimes also they are winged. The
gods appear in the forms which had been gradually made for them in the
course of Greek history, but they are usually accompanied by the animals
sacred to them in cultus, between which and the serpent-feet of the
giants a weird combat goes on. We can conjecture the source whence the
Pergamene artist derived the shaggy hair, the fierce expression, the
huge muscles of his giants (fig. 49); probably these features came
originally from the Galatians, who at the time had settled in Asia
Minor, and were spreading the terror of their name and the report of
their savage devastations through all Asia Minor. The victory over the
giants clearly stands for the victory of Greek civilization over Gallic
barbarism; and this meaning is made more emphatic because the gods are
obviously inferior in physical force to their opponents, indeed, a large
proportion of the divine combatants are goddesses. Yet everywhere the
giants are overthrown, writhing in pain on the ground, or transfixed by
the weapons of their opponents; everywhere the gods are victorious, yet
in the victory retain much of their divine calm. The piecing together of
the frieze at Berlin has been a labour of many years; it is now
complete, and there is a special museum devoted to it. Some of the
groups have become familiar to students from photographs, especially the
group which represents Zeus slaying his enemies with thunderbolts, and
the group wherein Athena seizes by the hair an overthrown opponent, who
is winged, while Victory runs to crown her, and beneath is seen Gaia,
the earth-goddess who is the mother of the giants, rising out of the
ground, and mourning over her vanquished and tortured children. Another
and smaller frieze which also decorated the altar-place gives us scenes
from the history of Telephus, who opposed the landing of the army of
Agamemnon in Asia Minor and was overthrown by Achilles. This frieze,
which is quite fragmentary, is put together by Dr Schneider in the
_Jahrbuch_ of the German Archaeological Institute for 1900.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--Giant from Great Altar: Pergamum.]
Since the Renaissance Rome has continually produced a crop of works of
Greek art of all periods, partly originals brought from Greece by
conquering generals, partly copies, such as the group at Rome formerly
known as Paetus and Arria, and the overthrown giants and barbarians
which came from the elaborate trophy set up by Attalus at Athens, of
which copies exist in many museums. A noted work of kindred school is
the group of Laocoon and his sons (Plate I. fig. 52), signed by Rhodian
sculptors of the 1st century B.C., which has been perhaps more discussed
than any work of the Greek chisel, and served as a peg for the
aesthetic theories of Lessing and Goethe. In our days the histrionic and
strained character of the group is regarded as greatly diminishing its
interest, in spite of the astounding skill and knowledge of the human
body shown by the artists. To the same school belong the late
representations of Marsyas being flayed by the victorious Apollo (Plate
II. fig. 54), a somewhat repulsive subject, chosen by the artists of
this age as a means for displaying their accurate knowledge of anatomy.
On what a scale some of the artists of Asia Minor would work is shown us
by the enormous group, by Apollonius and Tauriscus of Tralles, which is
called the Farnese Bull (Plate I. fig. 51), and which represents how
Dirce was tied to a wild bull by her stepsons Zethus and Amphion.
Rome.
The extensive excavations and alterations which have taken place at Rome
in recent years have been very fruitful; the results may be found partly
in the palace of the Conservatori on the Capitol, partly in the new
museum of the Terme. Among recently found statues none excel in interest
some bronzes of large size dating from the Hellenistic age. In the
figure of a seated boxer (Plate V. fig. 72), in scale somewhat exceeding
life, attitude and gesture are expressive. Evidently the boxer has
fought already, and is awaiting a further conflict. His face is cut and
swollen; on his hands are the terrible caestus, here made of leather,
and not loaded with iron, like the caestus described by Virgil. The
figure is of astounding force; but though the face is brutal and the
expression savage, in the sweep of the limbs there is nobility, even
ideal beauty. To the last the Greek artist could not set aside his
admiration for physical perfection. Another bronze figure of more than
life-size is that of a king of the Hellenistic age standing leaning on a
spear. He is absolutely nude, like the athletes of Polyclitus. Another
large bronze presents us with a Hellenistic type of Dionysus.
Besides the bronzes found in Rome we may set those recently found in the
sea on the coast of Cythera, the contents of a ship sailing from Greece
to Rome, and lost on the way. The date of these bronze statues has been
disputed. In any case, even if executed in the Roman age, they go back
to originals of the 5th and 4th centuries. The most noteworthy among
them is a beautiful athlete (Plate V. fig. 73) standing with hand
upraised, which reflects the style of the Attic school of the 4th
century.
After 146 B.C. when Corinth was destroyed and Greece became a Roman
province, Greek art, though by no means extinct, worked mainly in the
employ of the Roman conquerors (see ROMAN ART).
IV. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY.[3]--I. General works on Greek Art.--The only
recent general histories of Greek art are: H. Brunn, _Griechische
Kunstgeschichte_, bks. i. and ii., dealing with archaic art; W. Klein,
_Geschichte der griechischen Kunst_, no illustrations; Perrot et
Chipiez, _Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquite_, vols. vii. and viii.
(archaic art only).
Introductory are: P. Gardner, _Grammar of Greek Art_; J. E. Harrison,
_Introductory Studies in Greek Art_; H. B. Walters, _Art of the
Greeks_.
Useful are also: H. Brunn, _Geschichte der griechischen Kunstler_,
(new edition, 1889); J. Overbeck, _Die antiken Schriftquellen zur
Geschichte der bildenden Kunste bei den Griechen_; untranslated
passages in Latin and Greek; the Elder Pliny's _Chapters on the
History of Art_, edited by K. Jex-Blake and E. Sellers; H. S. Jones,
_Ancient Writers on Greek Sculpture_.
II. Periodicals dealing with Greek Archaeology.--England: _Journal of
Hellenic Studies_; _Annual of the British School at Athens_;
_Classical Review_. France: _Revue archeologique_; _Gazette
archeologique_; _Bulletin de correspondance hellenique_. Germany:
_Jahrbuch des K. deutschen arch. Instituts_; _Mitteilungen des arch.
Inst._, Athenische Abteilung, Romische Abteilung; _Antike Denkmaler_.
Austria: _Jahreshefte des K. Osterreich. arch. Instituts_. Italy:
Publications of the _Accademia dei Lincei_; _Monumenti antichi_; _Not.
dei scavi_; _Bulletino comunale di Roma_. Greece: _Ephemeris
archaiologike_; _Deltion archaiologikon_; _Praktika_ of the Athenian
Archaeological Society.
III. Greek Architecture.--General: Perrot et Chipiez, _Histoire de
l'art dans l'antiquite_, vol. vii.; A. Choisy, _Histoire de
l'architecture_, vol. i.; Anderson and Spiers, _Architecture of Greece
and Rome_; E. Boutmy, _Philosophie de l'architecture en Grece_; R.
Sturgis, _History of Architecture_, vol. i.; A. Marquand, _Greek
Architecture_.
IV. Greek Sculpture.--General: M. Collignon, _Histoire de la sculpture
grecque_ (2 vols.); E. A. Gardner, _Handbook of Greek Sculpture_; A.
Furtwangler, _Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture_, translated and edited
by E. Sellers; Friederichs and Wolters, _Bausteine zur Geschichte der
griechisch-romischen Plastik_ (1887); von Mach, _Handbook of Greek and
Roman Sculpture_, 500 plates; H. Bulle, _Der schone Mensch in der
Kunst: Altertum_, 216 plates; S. Reinach, _Repertoire de la statuaire
grecque et romaine_, 3 vols.
V. Greek Painting and Vases.--Woltmann and Woermann, _History of
Painting_, vol. i., translated and edited by S. Colvin (1880); H. B.
Walters, _History of Ancient Pottery_ (2 vols.); Harrison and MacColl,
_Greek Vase-paintings_ (1894); O. Rayet et M. Collignon, _Histoire de
la ceramique grecque_ (1888); P. Girard, _La Peinture antique_ (1892);
S. Reinach, _Repertoire des vases peints grecs et etrusques_ (2
vols.); Furtwangler und Reichhold, "Griechische Vasenmalerei," _Wiener
Vorlegeblatter fur archaologische Ubungen_ (1887-1890).
VI. Special Schools and Sites.--A. Joubin, _La Sculpture grecque entre
les guerres mediques et l'epoque de Pericles_; C. Waldstein, _Essays
on the Art of Pheidias_ (1885); W. Klein, _Praxiteles_; G. Perrot,
_Praxitele_; A. S. Murray, _Sculptures of the Parthenon_; W. Klein,
_Euphronios_; E. Pottier, _Douris_; P. Gardner, _Sculptured Tombs of
Hellas_; E. A. Gardner, _Ancient Athens_; A. Botticher, _Olympia_;
Bernoulli, _Griechische Ikonographie_; P. Gardner, _The Types of Greek
Coins_ (1883); E. A. Gardner, _Six Greek Sculptors._
VII. Books related to the subject.--J. G. Frazer, _Pausanias's
Description of Greece_ (6 vols.); J. Lange, _Darstellung des Menschen
in der alteren griechischen Kunst_; E. Brucke, _The Human Figure; its
Beauties and Defects_; A. Michaelis, _Ancient Marbles in Great
Britain_ (1882); _Catalogue of Greek Sculpture in the British Museum_
(3 vols.); _Catalogue of Greek Vases in the British Museum_ (4 vols.);
J. B. Bury, _History of Greece_ (illustrated edition); Baumeister,
_Denkmaler des klassischen Altertums_ (3 vols.). (P. G.)