CHAPTER IV.

ART IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

In my enumeration of the external glories of the Roman world, I only

attempted to glance at those wonders which were calculated to strike a

traveler with admiration. Among these were the great developments of

Art, displayed in architecture, in statuary, and in painting. But I only

enumerated the more remarkable objects of attraction; I did not attempt

to show the genius displayed in them. But ancient art, as a proud

creation of the genius of man, demands additional notice. We wish to

know to what heights the Romans soared in that great realm of beauty and

grace and majesty.

[Sidenote: Origins and principles of art.]

[Sidenote: Fascinations of art.]

[Sidenote: Development of art.]

[Sidenote: Glory of art.]

The aesthetic glories of art are among the grandest triumphs of

civilization, and attest as well as demand no ordinary force of genius.

Art claims to be creative, and to be based on eternal principles of

beauty, and artists in all ages have claimed a proud niche in the temple

of fame. They rank with poets and musicians, and even philosophers and

historians, in the world's regard. They are favored sons of inspiration,

urged to their work by ideal conceptions of the beautiful and the true.

Their productions are material, but the spirit which led to their

creation is of the soul and mind. Imagination is tasked to the uttermost

to portray sentiments and passions. The bust is "animated," and the

temple, though built of marble, and by man, is called "religious." Art

appeals to every cultivated mind, and excites poetic feelings. It is

impressive even to every order, class, and condition of men, not,

perhaps, in its severest forms, since the taste must be cultivated to

appreciate its higher beauties, but to a certain extent. The pyramids

and the granite image temples of Egypt must have filled even the rude

people with a certain awe and wonder, even as the majestic cathedrals of

mediaeval Europe, with their imposing pomps, stimulated the poetic

conceptions of the Gothic nations. Art is popular. The rude savage

admires a gaudy picture even as the cultivated Leo X. or Cardinal

Mazarini bent in admiration before the great creations of Raphael or

Domenichino. Art appeals to the senses as well as to the intellect and

the heart, and is capable of inspiring the passions as well as the

loftiest emotions and sentiments. The Grecian mind was trained to the

contemplation of aesthetic beauty in temples, in statues, and in

pictures; and the great artist was rewarded with honors and material

gains. The love of art is easier kindled than the love of literary

excellence, and is more generally diffused. It is coeval with songs and

epic poetry. Before Socrates or Plato speculated on the great certitudes

of philosophy, temples and statues were the pride and boast of their

countrymen. And as the taste for art precedes the taste for letters, so

it survives, when the literature has lost its life and freshness. The

luxurious citizens of Rome ornamented their baths and palaces with

exquisite pictures and statues long after genius ceased to soar to the

heights of philosophy and poetry. The proudest triumphs of genius are in

a realm which art can never approach, yet the wonders of art are still

among the great triumphs of civilization. Zeuxis or Praxiteles may not

have equaled Homer or Plato in profundity of genius, but it was only a

great age which could have produced a Zeuxis or Praxiteles. I cannot

place Raphael on so exalted a pinnacle as Luther, or Bacon, or Newton,

and yet his fame will last as long as civilization shall exist. The

creations of the chisel will ever be held in reverence by mankind, and

probably in proportion as wealth, elegance, and material prosperity

shall flourish. In an important sense, Corinth was as wonderful as

Athens, although to Athens will be assigned the highest place in the

ancient world. It was art rather than literature or philosophy which was

the glory of Rome in the period of her decline. As great capitals become

centres of luxury and display, artists will be rewarded and honored. The

pride of a commercial metropolis is in those material wonders which

appeal to the senses, and which wealth can purchase. A rich merchant can

give employment to the architect, when he would be disinclined to reward

the critic or the historian. Even where liberty and lofty aspirations

for truth and moral excellence have left a state, the arts suffer but

little decline. The grandest monuments of Rome date to the imperial

regime, not to the republican sway. When the voice of a Cicero was mute,

the Flavian amphitheatre arose in its sublime proportions. Imperial

despotism is favorable to the adornment of Paris and St. Petersburg,

even as wealth and luxury will beautify New York. When the early lights

of the Church were unheeded in the old capitals of the world, new

temples and palaces were the glory of the state. Art was the first to be

revived of the trophies of the old civilization, and it will be the last

to be relinquished, by those whom civilization has enriched. Art excites

no dangerous passions or sentiments in a decaying monarchy, and it is a

fresh and perpetual pleasure, not merely to the people, but to the

arbiters of taste and fashion. The Popes rewarded artists when they

crushed reformers, and persecuted inquiring genius. The developments of

art appeal to material life and interests rather than to the spiritual

and eternal. St. Paul scarcely alludes to the material wonders of the

cities he visited, even as Luther was insensible to the ornaments of

Italy in his absorbing desire for the spiritual and moral welfare of

society. Art is purely the creation of man. It receives no inspiration

from Heaven; and yet the principles on which it is based are eternal and

unchangeable, and when it is made to be the handmaid of virtue, it is

capable of exciting the loftiest sentiments. So pure, so exalted, and so

wrapt are the feelings which arise from the contemplation of a great

picture or statue, that we sometimes ascribe a religious force to the

art itself, while all that is divine springs from the conception of the

artist, and all that is divine in his conception arises from sentiments

independent of his art, as he is stimulated by emotions of religion, or

patriotism, or public virtue, and which he could never have embodied had

he not been a good man, rather than a great artist, or, at least,

affected by sentiments which he learned from other sources. There can be

no doubt that, through the vehicle of art, the grandest and noblest

sentiments may be expressed. Hence artists may be great benefactors; yet

sometimes their works are demoralizing, as they appeal to perverted

taste and passions. This was especially true in the later days of Rome,

when artists sought to please their corrupt but wealthy patrons. The

great artists of Greece, however, had in view a lofty ideal of beauty

and grace which they sought to realize without reference to profit, or

worldly advantage, or utilitarian necessities. Art, when true and

exalted, as it sometimes is, and always should be, has its end in

itself. Like virtue, it is its own reward. Michael Angelo worked,

preoccupied and wrapt, without the stimulus of even praise, even as

Dante lived in the visions to which his imagination gave form and

reality. Art is therefore self-sustained, unselfish, lofty. It is the

soul going forth triumphant over external circumstances, jubilant and

melodious even in poverty and neglect, rising above the evils of life in

its absorbing contemplation of ideal loveliness. The fortunate accidents

of earth are nothing to the true artist, striving to reach his ideal of

excellence,--no more than carpets and chairs are to a great woman pining

for sympathy or love. And it is only when there is this soul-longing to

reach the excellence it has conceived for itself alone that great works

have been produced. The sweetest strains of music sometimes come from

women where no one listens to their melodies. Nor does a great artist

seek or need commiseration, if ever so unfortunate in worldly

circumstances. He may be sad and sorrowful, but only in the profound

seriousness of superior knowledge, in that isolation to which all genius

is doomed.

[Sidenote: Great artists labor from inspiration.]

We have reason to believe that the great artists of antiquity lived, as

did the Ionic philosophers, in their own glorious realms of thought and

feeling, which the world could neither understand nor share. Their ideas

of grace and beauty were realized to the highest degree ever known on

earth. They were expressed in their temples, their statues, and their

pictures. They did not live for utilities. When art became a utility, it

degenerated. It became more pretentious, artificial, complicated,

elaborate, ornamental even, but it lacked genius, the simplicity of

power, the glory of originality. The horses of the sun cannot be made to

go round in a mill. The spiritual must keep within its own seclusion, in

its inner temple of mystery and meditation.

[Sidenote: Grecian art consecrated to Paganism.]

[Sidenote: Greatness and beauty of Grecian art.]

[Sidenote: Grecian admiration of art.]

Grecian art was consecrated to Paganism, and could not therefore soar

beyond what Paganism revealed. It did not typify those exalted

sentiments which even a Gothic cathedral portrayed--sacrifice; the man

on the cross; the man in the tomb; the man ascending to heaven. Nor did

it paint, like Raphael, etherial beauty, such as was expressed in the

mother of our Lord, her whom all generations shall bless, _regina

angelorum, mater divinae gratiae_. But whatever has been reached by the

unaided powers of man, it reproduced and consecrated, and it realized

the highest conceptions of beauty and grace that have ever been

represented. All that the mind and the soul could, by their inherent

force, reach, it has attained. Modern civilization has no prouder

triumphs than those achieved by the artists of Pagan antiquity in those

things which pertain to beauty and grace. Grecian artists have been the

schoolmasters of all nations and all ages in architecture, sculpture,

and painting. How far they themselves were original we cannot decide,

although they were probably somewhat indebted to the Assyrians and

Egyptians. But they struck out so new a style, and so different from the

older monuments of Asia and Egypt, that we consider them the great

creators of art. But whether original or not, they have never been

surpassed. In some respects their immortal productions remain objects of

hopeless imitation. In the realization of ideas of beauty which are

eternal, like those on which Plato built his system of philosophy, they

reached absolute perfection. And hence we infer that art can flourish

under Pagan as well as Christian influences. We can go no higher than

those ancient Pagans in one of the proudest fields of civilization; for

art has as sincere and warm admirers as it had in Grecian and Roman

times, but the limit of excellence has been reached. It is the mission

of our age to apply creative genius to enterprises and works which have

not been tried, if any thing new is to be found under the sun. Nor was

it the number and extent of the works of art among the Greeks and

Romans, nor their perfection, which made art so distinguishing an

element of the old civilization. It was the spirit of the age, the

absorption of the public mind, the great prominence which art had in the

eyes of the people. Art was to the Greeks what tournaments and churches

were to the men of the Middle Ages, what the Reformation was to Germany

and England in the sixteenth century, what theories of political rights

were to the era of the French Revolution, what mechanical inventions to

abridge human labor are to us. The creation of a great statue was an

era, an object of popular interest--the subject of universal comment. It

kindled popular inspirations. It was the great form of progress in which

that age rejoiced. Public benefactors erected temples, and lavished upon

them the superfluous wealth of the State. And public benefactors, in

turn, had statues erected to their memory by their grateful admirers.

The genius of the age expressed itself in marble histories. And these

histories stand in the mystery of absolute perfection--the glory and the

characteristic of a great and peculiar people.

[Sidenote: Principles of art.]

[Sidenote: Devotion of the Greeks for Art.]

Much has been written on those principles upon which art is founded, and

great ingenuity displayed. But treatises on taste, on beauty, on grace,

and other perceptions of intellectual pleasure, are not very

satisfactory, and must be necessarily indefinite. In what does beauty

consist? Do we arrive at any clearer conceptions of it by definitions?

Whether beauty, the chief glory of the fine arts, consists in certain

arrangements and proportions of the parts to a whole, or in the fitness

of means to an end, or is dependent on associations which excite

pleasure, or is a revelation of truth, or is an appeal to sensibilities,

or is an imitation of Nature, or the realization of ideal excellence, it

is difficult to settle and almost useless to inquire. "Metaphysics,

mathematics, music, and philosophy have been called in to analyze,

define, demonstrate, and generalize." [Footnote: Cleghorn, _Ancient

and Modern Art_, vol. i. p. 67.] Great writers have written ingenious

treatises, like Burke, Alison, and Stewart. Beauty, according to Plato,

is the contemplation of mind; Leibnitz maintained it consists in

perfection; Diderot referred beauty to the idea of relation; Blondel

asserted it was harmonic proportions; Peter Leigh speaks of it as the

music of the eye. Yet everybody understands what beauty is, and that it

is derived from Nature, agreeable to the purest models which Nature

presents. Such was the ideal of Phidias. Such was it to the minds of the

Greeks, who united every advantage, physical and mental, for the

perfection of art. Nor could art have been so wonderfully developed had

it not been for the influence which the great poets, orators,

dramatists, historians, and philosophers exercised on the inspiration of

the artists. Phidias, being asked how he conceived the idea of his

Olympian Jupiter, answered by repeating a passage of Homer. We can

scarcely conceive of the enthusiasm which the Greeks exhibited in the

cultivation of art. Hence it has obtained an ascendency over that of all

other nations. Roman art was the continuation of the Grecian. The Romans

appreciated and rewarded Grecian artists. They adopted their

architecture, their sculpture, and their paintings; and, though art

never attained the estimation and dignity in Rome that it did in Greece,

it still can boast of a great development. But, inasmuch as all the

great models were Grecian, and appropriated and copied by the Romans,--

inasmuch as the great wonders of the "Eternal City" were made by

Greeks,--we cannot treat of Roman art in distinction from Grecian. And

as I wish to show simply the triumph of Pagan genius in the realm of

art, and most of the immortal creations of the great artists were

transported to Rome, and adorned Rome, it is within my province to go

where they were originally found.

"Tu, regere imperio populos, Romane, memento!

Hae tibi erunt artes."

[Sidenote: Art first impressive in achitecture.]

The first development of art was in architecture, not merely among the

Greeks, but among the older nations. Although it refers, in a certain

sense, to all buildings, yet it is ordinarily restricted to those

edifices in which we recognize the principle of beauty, such as

symmetrical arrangement, and attractive ornaments, like pillars,

cornices, and sculptured leaves.

The earliest buildings were houses to protect men from the inclemencies

of the weather, and built without much regard to beauty; but it is in

temples for the worship of God, that architecture lays claim to dignity.

It was the result of devotional feelings; nor is there a single instance

of supreme excellence in art being reached, which was not sacred, and

connected with reverential tendencies. In the erection and decoration of

sacred buildings there was a profound sentiment that they were to be the

sanctuaries of God, and genius was stimulated by pious emotions. In

India, in Egypt, in Greece, in Italy, the various temples all originated

in blended superstition and devotion. Nor did the edifice, erected for

religious worship, reach its culminating height of beauty and grandeur

until that earnest and profoundly religious epoch which felt as injuries

the insults offered to the tomb which covered the remains of the Saviour

of the world. Then arose those hoary and Gothic vaults of Cologne and

Westminster, the only modern structures which would probably have called

out the admiration of an ancient Greek.

[Sidenote: Egyptian architecture.]

[Sidenote: Monuments of Egypt.]

[Sidenote: Temple of Carnack.]

[Sidenote: Features of Egyptian art.]

But architecture is conventional, and demands a knowledge of its system

and a mind informed as to the principles on which it depends for beauty.

Hence, in the oldest temples of India and Egypt, there was probably

vastness, without elegance or even embellishment. But no nation ever

left structures that, in extent and grandeur, can compare with those of

ancient Egypt; and these were chiefly temples. Nothing remains of the

ancient monuments of Thebes but the ruins of edifices consecrated to the

deity--neither bridges, nor quays, nor baths, nor theatres. It was when

the Israelites were oppressed by Pharaoh that the great city of

Heliopolis, which the Greeks called Thebes, arose, with its hundred

gates, and stately public buildings, and magnificent temples. The ruins

of these attest grandeur and vastness. They were built of stone, in huge

blocks, and we are still at a loss to comprehend how such heavy stones

could have been transported and erected. All the monuments of the

Pharaohs are wonders of science and art, especially such as appear in

the ruins of Carnack--a temple formerly designated as that of Jupiter

Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the Great, the first

of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that architecture in Egypt

reached its greatest development. Then we find the rectangular cut

blocks of stone in parallel courses, and the heavy piers, and the

cylindrical column, with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and

massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column

to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice. But the

imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the vast proportions

of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of proportion, or

graceful embellishments. It was designed to awe the people, and kindle

sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this end was

contemplated, it was nobly reached. Even to this day the traveller

stands in admiring amazement before those monuments which were old three

thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the Pyramids.

No ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes. The

temple of Carnack and the palace of Rameses the Great, were probably the

most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of

stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and

three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and

other structures did not possess that unity of design, which marked the

Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes form the approach. At

Carnack the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body

of the edifice stand two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The

principal structures do not follow the straight line, but begin with

pyramidical towers which flank the gateways. Then follows, usually, a

court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate temples, and houses for

the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidical tower, now leads to the

interior and most considerable part of the temple, a portico inclosed

with walls, which only receives light through the entablature or

openings in the roof. Adjoining to this is the cella of the temple,

without columns, inclosed by several walls, often divided into various

small chambers, with monolith receptacles for idols or mummies or

animals. The columns stand within the walls. The Egyptians had no

perpetual temples. The colonnade is not, as among the Greeks, an

expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with apertures. The

walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only on the inside,

and beveled externally, so that the thickness at the bottom sometimes

amounts to twenty-four feet, and thus the whole building assumes a

pyramidical form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian architecture.

The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are placed close

together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft diminishes, and

is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique furrows, but not fluted like

Grecian columns. The capitals are of the bell form, ornamented with all

kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but high abacus, or bulge out below,

and are contracted above, with low, but projecting abacus. They abound

with sculptured decorations, borrowed from the vegetation of the

country. The highest of the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a

quarter times the greatest diameter. [Footnote: Muller.]

[Sidenote: The Pyramids.]

But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the

Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity, as

from their immense size and unknown age. None but sacerdotal monarchs

would ever have erected them--none but a fanatical people would ever

have toiled upon them. They do not indicate civilization, but despotism.

We do not know for what purpose they were raised, except as sepulchres

for kings. They do not even indicate as high a culture as the temples of

Thebes, although they were built at a considerable period subsequently,

even several generations after Sesostris reigned in splendor. The

pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is seven

hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air four hundred and

fifty-two, and is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from

time than the mountains near it. And it is probable that it stands over

an immense substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient

Egypt, and which may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which

Herodotus speaks, built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this

author, one hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty

years. What a waste of labor!

The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, and the

only difference of architecture is this, that the rooms are larger and

in greater numbers. Some think that the labyrinth was a collective

palace of many rulers.

Such was the massive grandeur of Egyptian antiquities: at the best

curiosities, but of slight avail for moral or aesthetic culture, they yet

indicate a considerable civilization at a very remote period--proving

not merely by architectural monuments, but by their system of writing,

an original and intellectual people. [Footnote: Muller, _Ancient

Art_; Wilkinson, _Topog. of Thebes_; Champollion, _Lettres Ecrites

d'Egypt_; _Journal des Sav._ 1836; _Encyclopedia Britannica_;

Strabo.]

[Sidenote: Babylonian architecture.]

Of Babylonian architecture we know but little, beyond what the

Scriptures and ancient authors allude to in scattered notices. But,

though nothing survives of ancient magnificence, we feel that a city

whose walls, according to Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in

thickness, three hundred and thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in

circumference, and in which were one hundred gates of brass, must have

had considerable architectural splendor. The Tower of Belus, the Palace

of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis, were probably wonderful

structures, certainly in size, which is one of the conditions of

architectural effect.

[Sidenote: Tyrian monuments.]

The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,

since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient

world, was probably built by Phoenician artists. It was not remarkable

for size; it was, indeed, very small; but it had great splendor of

decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid

platform of stone, and having a striking resemblance to the oldest Greek

temples, like those of aegina and Paestum. The portico of the temple, in

the time of Herod, was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the temple

itself was entered by nine gates thickly coated with silver and gold.

The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold, and

was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticoes and palaces

with which it was surrounded, gave to it a very imposing effect.

[Sidenote: Early Doric monuments.]

[Sidenote: The principles of Doric architecture.]

[Sidenote: The features of the Doric order.]

[Sidenote: The Parthenon.]

Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high

civilization, was perfected only by the Greeks. Egyptian monuments were

curiosities to the Greek and Roman mind, as they are to us objects of

awe and wonder. And as we propose to treat of the arts in their

culminating excellence chiefly,--to show what the Pagan intellect of man

could accomplish, unaided by light from heaven, we turn to the great

teacher of the last two thousand years. It was among the ancient

Dorians, who descended from the mountains of Northern Greece eighty

years after the fall of Troy, that art first appeared. The Pelasgi,

supposed to be Phoenicians, erected cyclopean structures fifteen hundred

years before Christ, as seen in the giant walls of the Acropolis,

[Footnote: _Dodwell's Classical Tour_, Muller.] constructed of huge

blocks of hewn stone, and the palaces of the princes of heroic times,

[Footnote: Homer's description of the palace of Odysseus.] like the

Mycenaean treasury, the lintel of the doorway of which is one stone

twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. [Footnote: Mure, _Tour in

Greece_.] But these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness

merely, were deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given

immortality to the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture

every thing was suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The

great thickness of the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample

proportion of the capital; the great horizontal lines of the architrave

and cornice, predominating over the vertical lines of the columns; the

severity of geometrical forms, produced for the most part by straight

lines, gave an imposing simplicity to the Doric temple. How far the

Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot tell, for

though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian temples, they

are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the structures of

Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical columns, from

which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric column. The Greeks

seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved upon it. The Doric

column was not, probably, an entirely new creation, but shaped after the

models furnished by the most original of all the ancient nations, even

the Egyptians. The Doric style was used exclusively until after the

Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly applied to temples. The Doric

temples are uniform in plan. The columns were fluted, and were generally

about six diameters in height. They diminished gradually from the base,

with a slight convexed swelling downward. They were superimposed by

capitals proportionate, and coming within their height. The entablature

which the column supported is also of so many diameters in height. So

regular and perfect was the plan of the temple, that, "if the dimensions

of a single column, and the proportion the entablature should bear to

it, were given to two individuals acquainted with the style, with

directions to compose a temple, they would produce designs exactly

similar in size, arrangement, and general proportions." Then the Doric

order possessed a peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were

nevertheless necessary in order to determine the number of diameters a

column should have, and, accordingly, the height of the entablature. The

Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand years,

and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. The massive temples

of Paestum, the colossal magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more

elegant proportions of the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and

Temple of Theseus, show the perfection of the Doric architecture.

Although the general style of all the Doric temples is so uniform, yet

hardly two temples were alike. The earlier Doric was more massive; the

latter were more elegant, and were rich in sculptured decorations.

Nothing could surpass the beauty of a Doric temple in the time of

Pericles. The stylobate or pedestal, from two thirds to a whole diameter

of a column in height, was built in three equal courses, which gradually

receded from the one below, and formed steps, as it were, of a grand

platform on which the pillars rested. The column was from four to six

diameters in height, with twenty flutes, with a capital of half a

diameter supporting the entablature. This again, two diameters in

height, was divided into architrave, frieze, and cornice. But the great

beauty of the temple was the portico in front, a forest of columns,

supporting the pediment, about a diameter and a half to the apex, making

an angle at the base of about 14 degrees. From the pediment projects the

cornice, while, at the apex and at the base of it, are sculptured

ornaments, generally, the figures of men or animals. The whole outline

of columns supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of

light and shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals

produce a grand effect. The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of

the Doric, has never been equaled, and it still stands august in its

ruins--the glory of the old Acropolis, and the pride of Athens. It was

built of Pentelic marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was

two hundred and twenty-seven feet in length, and one hundred and one in

breadth, and sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted

columns, six feet and two inches at the base, and thirty-four feet in

height, while within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range

of columns, standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the

pediment were elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, while the

cella, within and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of

Phidias. The grandest was the colossal statue of Minerva, in the eastern

apartment of the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and

ivory; while the inner walls were decorated with paintings, and the

temple itself was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon,

so regular, with its vertical and horizontal lines, was curved in every

line, with the exception of the gable,--pillars, architrave,

entablature, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement--all arched

upwards, though so slightly as not to be perceptible, and these curved

lines gave to it a peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as

solidity.

[Sidenote: The Acropolis.]

Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the

Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The

Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine

diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented.

The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and alternate fillets, and

the fillet is about a quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is

flatter than of the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great

distinction of the Ionic column is a base, and a capital formed with

volutes, with a more slender shaft. Vitruvius, the greatest authority

among the ancients in architecture, says that, "the Greeks, in inventing

these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and

dignity of a man, and in the other, the delicacy and ornaments of a

woman; the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the

volutes of ringlets."

[Sidenote: Temple of Minerva.]

The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance

than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the

Peloponnesian war. Its peculiarity is columns with foliated capitals,

and still greater height, about ten diameters, with a more ornamented

entablature. Of this order, the most famous temple in Greece was that of

Minerva at Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four

hundred years before Christ.

Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the

grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.

The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or

wave, concave at one end, and convex at the other, like an Italic

_f_, the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve,

according to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.

[Sidenote: Architecture among the Greeks seen in greatest perfection in

temples.]

The most beautiful application of Grecian architecture was in the

temples, which were very numerous, and of extraordinary grandeur, long

before the Persian war. Their entrance was always to the west or the

east. They were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly

adorned with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the

front alone, in the fore and back fronts, or on all the four sides. They

generally had porticoes attached to them. They had no windows, receiving

their light from the door or from above. The friezes were adorned with

various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no expense was

spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was the cella,

where the statue of the deity was kept, and was generally surrounded

with a balustrade. Beside the cella was the vestibule, and a chamber in

the rear or back front in which the treasures of the temple were kept.

Names were applied to the temples, as well as the porticoes, according

to the number of columns in the portico at either end of the temple,

such as the tetrastyle with four columns in front, or hexastyle when

there were six. There were never more than ten columns in front. The

Parthenon had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to

have twice as many columns along the sides as in front, and one more.

Some of the temples had double rows of columns on all sides, like that

of Diana at Ephesus, and of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the

columns varied from a diameter and half of a column to four diameters.

About five eighths of a Doric temple were occupied by the cella, and

three eighths by the portico.

[Sidenote: Simplicity of Grecian temples.]

That which gives so much simplicity and harmony in the Greek temples,

which are the great elements of beauty in architecture, is the simple

outline, in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are

straight and uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity

and harmony are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other

orders, and pertain to all the temples of which we have knowledge. Nor

can any improvement be made upon them, or any alteration which does not

conflict with established principles. The Ionic and Corinthian, or the

Voluted and Foliated orders, do not possess that harmony which pervades

the Doric, but the more beautiful compositions are so consummate that

they will ever be taken as models of study.

[Sidenote: Matchless proportions of the Grecian temples.]

It is not the magnitude of the Grecian temples and other works of art

which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important

models. It is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all

the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with

the temples of Egypt, or the vast dimensions of Roman amphitheatres.

Only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic cathedral, like

the Parthenon, the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the Temple of Diana at

Ephesus. Even the Pantheon at Rome is small, compared with the later

monuments of the Caesars. The traveler is always disappointed in

contemplating their remains, so far as size is concerned. But it is

their matchless proportions, their severe symmetry, the grandeur of

effect, the undying beauty, the graceful form which impress us, and make

us feel that they are perfect. By the side of the Colosseum they are

insignificant in magnitude. They do not cover acres like the baths of

Caracalla. Yet who has copied the Flavian amphitheatre? Who erects an

edifice after the style of the Thermae? But all artists copy the

Parthenon. That, and not the colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears

in the capitals of Europe, and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo

or a Christopher Wren.

The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from

Pericles to Alexander--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian

conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman

conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders

were used indiscriminately.

[Sidenote: Beginning of Roman art.]

[Sidenote: Romans copied the Greeks.]

In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,

and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still

essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge

from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima was built during the reign of the

second Tarquin--the grandest monument of the reign of the kings. It is

not probable that temples and other public buildings were either

beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece, when Grecian

architects were employed. The Romans adopted the Corinthian style, which

they made even more ornamental, and by the successful combination of the

Etruscan arch with the Grecian column, laid the foundation of a new and

original style, susceptible of great variety and magnificence. They

entered into architecture with the enthusiasm of their teachers, but, in

their passion for novelty, lost sight of the simplicity which is the

great fascination of a Doric Temple. "And they deemed that lightness and

grace were to be attained not so much by proportion between the vertical

and the horizontal, as by the comparative slenderness of the former.

Hence we see a poverty in Roman architecture in the midst of profuse

ornament. The great error was a constant aim to lessen the diameter,

while they increased the elevation, of the columns. Hence the massive

simplicity and severe grandeur of the ancient Doric disappear in the

Roman, the characteristics of the order being frittered down into a

multiplicity of minute details." [Footnote: Memes, _Sculpture and

Architecture._] And when they used the Doric at all, they used the

base, which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric

capital, which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric

temples were peripteral, that is, were surrounded with pillars on all

the sides. But the Romans did not build with porticoes even on each

front, but only on one, which had a greater projection than the Grecian.

They generally are projected three columns. Many of the Roman temples

are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns

projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral

temples, or uncovered, with internal columns, like the Greeks. The

Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great

ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal

columns placed in the front of niches, composed with antae, or pier-

formed ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on

which the cupola rests. They also adopted coupled columns, broken and

recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.

They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior

decoration of their palaces and baths, as we may infer from the ruins of

Adrian's villa at Tivoli, and the excavations of Pompeii.

The Roman Corinthian, like the Greek orders, consisted of three parts,

stylobate, column, and entablature, but the stylobate was much loftier,

and was not graduated, except in the access before a portico. The column

varied from nine and a half to ten diameters, and was always fluted with

twenty-four flutes and fillets. The height of the capital is a diameter

and one eighth; the entablature varies from one diameter and seven

eighths to two diameters and a half. The portico of the Pantheon is one

of the best specimens of the Corinthian order. The entablature of the

temple of Jupiter Stator, like that of the Pantheon, is two diameters

and one half. The pediments are steeper than those made by the Greeks,

varying in inclination from eighteen to twenty-five degrees. The

mouldings used in Roman architectural works are the same as the Grecian

in general form, although they differ from them in contour. They are

less delicate and graceful, but were used in great profusion. Roman

architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding carved, and every

straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical subjects in

relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and animals, with

a variety of other things. The great exuberance of ornament is

considered a defect, although when applied to some structures it is

exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars architecture had

a character of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in

all the leading public buildings, columns generally forming the

external, and arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric

arose on the ruins of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of

Nero, which ministered to debauchery, by structures of public utility.

[Sidenote: Changes made by the Romans.]

[Sidenote: Invention of the arch.]

[Sidenote: Uses of the arch.]

The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, except the arch,

which was not known to the Greeks, and carried out by them to greater

perfection than by the Romans; but this, for simplicity, harmony, and

beauty, has never been surpassed in any age, or by any nation. The

Romans were a practical and utilitarian people, and needed for their

various structures greater economy of material than large blocks of

stone, especially for such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch

supplied this want, and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in

architecture. No instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of

Greek edifices, before Greece became a part of the Roman Empire. Its

application dates back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of

Etrurian invention. It was not known to Egyptians, or Persians, or

Indians, or Greeks. Some maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the

inventor, but to whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is

certain that the Romans were the first to make a practical application

of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast edifices into

the air with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,

sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and

palaces; its merits have never been lost sight of by succeeding

generations, and it is at the foundation of the magnificent Gothic

cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application extends to domes and

cupolas, to arched floors and corridors and roofs, and to various other

parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is desired. It

was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an ornament as

well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman architecture may be

traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch, and as brick was

more extensively used than any other material, the arch was invaluable.

The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon, except its portico

and internal columns, the temples of Peace, of Venus and Rome, and of

Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great baths of Titus,

Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Adrian, the city walls, the

villa of Maecenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of the nobility;

although, like many of the temples, they were faced with stone. The

Colosseum was of travertine faced with marble. It was the custom to

stucco the surface of the walls, as favorable to decorations. In

consequence of this invention, the Romans erected a greater variety of

fine structures than either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public

edifices were chiefly confined to temples. The arch entered into almost

every structure, public or private, and superseded the use of long stone

beams, which were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden

timbers, in the use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do

not really pertain to the art of architecture. An imposing building must

always be constructed of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the

Romans to economize in the use of costly marbles, of which they were

very fond, as well as of other stones. Some of the finest columns were

made of Egyptian granite, very highly polished.

The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration

of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and

thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of

Athens and Corinth. And as taste became vitiated with the decline of the

Empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall from

the simplicity of the Parthenon, and the interior of the Pantheon.

[Sidenote: Magnificence of Roman architecture.]

But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it

can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a

perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equaled the

severe simplicity of their teachers, the Greeks, but they surpassed them

in the richness or their decorations, and in all buildings designed for

utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.

[Sidenote: The effect of columns in architecture.]

The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The

Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously

called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose nearly

simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem

to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch,--in

the shape of an ellipse rather than a circle. Aside from this invention,

to which we are indebted for the most beautiful ecclesiastical

structures ever erected, we owe every thing in architecture to the

Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new principles which were not

equally known to Vitruvius. No one man was the inventor or creator of

the wonderful structures which ornamented the cities of the ancient

world. We have the names of great architects, who reared various and

faultless models, but they all worked upon the same principles. And

these can never be subverted. So that in architecture the ancients are

our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we are acquainted

with their works. What more beautiful than one of those grand temples

which the heathen but cultivated Greeks erected to the worship of their

unknown gods: the graduated and receding stylobate as a base for the

fluted columns, rising at regular distances, in all their severe

proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals,

supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and

ornamented with the figures of plants and animals, and rising above

this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,

the pediment, covered by chiseled cornices, with still richer ornaments

rising from the apices and at the feet; all carved in white marble, and

then spread over an area larger than any modern churches, making a

forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone, without

any thing tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by which

the harmony and simplicity of the whole are seen. So accurately squared

and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of which these temples

were built, that there was scarcely need of even cement. Without noise

or confusion or sound of hammers did those temples rise, since all their

parts were cut and carved in the distant quarries, and with mathematical

precision. And within the cella, nearly concealed by the surrounding

columns, were the statues of the gods, and the altars on which incense

was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part, interior and exterior,

do we see a matchless proportion and beauty, whether in the shaft, or

the capital, or the frieze, or the pilaster, or the pediment, or the

cornices, or even the mouldings--everywhere grace and harmony, which

grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The greatest evidence

of the matchless creative genius displayed in those architectural

wonders is that, after two thousand years, and with all the inventions

of Roman and modern artists, no improvement can be made, and those

edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed beautiful

as they approximate the ancient models which will forever remain objects

of imitation, No science can make two and two other than four. No art

can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon without departing

from the settled principles of beauty and proportion which all ages have

endorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art which is one of the

greatest indices of material civilization, and which by them was derived

from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Perfection of Grecian sculpture.]

The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture, is even more

remarkable than in architecture. It was carried to perfection, however,

only by the Greeks. But they did not originate the art, since we read of

sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest names of

sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt are full

of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not carried

to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude images of

gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry. The history

of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. It was from

Phoenicia that Solomon obtained the workmen for the decoration of his

Temple. But the Egyptians were probably the first who made considerable

advances in the execution of statues. They are rude, simple, uniform,

without beauty or grace, but colossal and grand. Nearly two thousand

years before Christ, the walls of Thebes were ornamented with sculptured

figures, even as the gates of Babylon were of sculptured bronze. The

dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures surpass those of any other

nation. The sitting figures of Memnon at Thebes are fifty feet in

height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five, and these are of granite. The

number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The sculptures found

among the ruins of Carnac must have been made nearly four thousand years

ago. [Footnote: Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians_.] They exhibit

great simplicity of design, but without much variety of expression. They

are generally carved from the hardest stones, and finished so nicely

that we infer that the Egyptians were acquainted with the art of

hardening metals to a degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal

grandeur among any of the remains of Egyptian sculpture. However

symmetrical or colossal, there is no expression, no trace of emotion, no

intellectual force. Every thing is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It

was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any

remarkable excellence was reached. But the progress of development was

slow. The earliest carvings were rude wooden images of the gods, and

more than a thousand years elapsed before the great masters were

produced which marked the age of Pericles.

It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic

art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of

immortal sculptors.

[Sidenote: Admiration for sculpture among the Greeks.]

[Sidenote: High estimation of sculpture among the Greeks.]

The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this

great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture

made. Nature was most carefully studied, and that which was most

beautiful in Nature became the object of imitation. They ever attained

to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a single statue what

could not be found in a single individual, as Zeuxis is said to have

studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona in order to

paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty of Thryne, or

Aspasia, or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a perfect

model. And it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to select

and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty was

adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it, especially

beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of Grecian

statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented, and the great prizes

of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility, were regarded

as the highest honors which men could receive--the subject of the

poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the victors

perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the study

of these statues were produced those great creations which all

subsequent ages have admired. And from the application of the principles

seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grandeur and

beauty such as no other people have ever discovered and scarcely

appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became a noble object of

ambition, and was most munificently rewarded. Great artists arose, whose

works adorned the temples of Greece, so long as she preserved her

independence; and when it was lost, their priceless productions were

scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans especially seized what was

most prized, whether or not they could tell what was most perfect.

Greece lived in her marble statues more than in her government or laws.

And when we remember the estimation in which sculpture was held, the

great prices paid for masterpieces, the care and attention with which

they were guarded and preserved, and the innumerable works which were

produced, filling all the public buildings, especially consecrated

places, and even open spaces, and the houses of the rich and great,--

calling from all classes admiration and praise,--it is improbable that

so great perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which

are designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few

statues which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,

convince us that the moderns can only imitate. They can produce no

creations which were not surpassed by Athenian artists. "No mechanical

copying of Greek statues, however skillful the copyist, can ever secure

for modern sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed

among the Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may

be the resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the

original is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was

not sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is

called _taste_. In Greece, the artist, having a common feeling for

the beautiful with his countrymen, produced his works for the public,

which were erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the

gods." [Footnote: _Encyclopedia Britannica_, "Sculpture," R. W. T.]

[Sidenote: Phidias and his contemporaries.]

[Sidenote: The statue of Zeus by Phidias.]

But it was not until the Persian wars awakened in Greece the slumbering

consciousness of national power, and Athens became the central point of

Grecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture and painting,

reached its culminating point of excellence, under Phidias and his

contemporaries. Great artists, however, had previously made themselves

famous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches which

flowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art,

especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whose

age was the golden era of Grecian history. Pheidias or Phidias was to

sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic poetry, sublime and grand. He was

born four hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupil

of Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not from

what _we_ know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but from

the estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics of

antiquity. It was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of the

Parthenon, and the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze and

the pediment were the work of artists whom he directed. _His_ great

work in that wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minerva

herself, made of gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standing

victorious with a spear in her left hand and an image of victory in her

right; girded with the aegis, with helmet on her head, and her shield

resting by her side. The cost of this statue may be estimated when the

gold alone of which it was composed was valued at forty-four talents.

[Footnote: This sum was equal to $500,000 of our money, an immense sum

in that age. Some critics suppose that this statue was overloaded with

ornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in its admiration. The

exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as the grandeur of the

proportions.] Another of his famous works was a colossal bronze statue

of Athena Promachus, sixty feet in height, on the Acropolis, between the

Propylaea and the Parthenon. But both of these yielded to the colossal

statue of Zeus in his great temple at Olympia, represented in a sitting

posture, forty feet high, on a pedestal of twenty. In this, his greatest

work, the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and repose,--of a

supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and Giants, but

enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject world, and

giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to the Greeks.

[Footnote: The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold, ivory, and

precious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and painted

figures, the wonderful composition of this throne.] So famous was this

statue, which was regarded as the masterpiece of Grecian art, that it

was considered a calamity to die without seeing it; and this served for

a model for all subsequent representations of majesty and power in

repose among the ancients. It was removed to Constantinople by

Theodosius I., and was destroyed by fire in the year 475. Phidias

executed various other famous works, which have perished; but even those

that were executed under his superintendence, that have come down to our

times, like the statues which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,

are among the finest specimens of art which exist, and exhibit the most

graceful and appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting

grandeur with simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical

structure. His distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of

the sublimest order. [Footnote: Muller, _De Phidiae Vita_.]

[Sidenote: Colossal statues of ivory and gold.]

Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art, the colossal statues of

ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of

executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like

Winkelmann, Heyne, and De Quincy. "The grandeur of their dimensions, the

perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials; their

majesty, beauty, and ideal truth; the splendor of the architecture and

pictorial decoration with which they were associated, all conspired to

impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the

actual presence of the god."

[Sidenote: The school of Praxiteles.]

After the Peloponnesian War, a new school of art arose in Athens, which

appealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed

to please, without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probably

ever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, and

was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Without

attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias

excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the

human form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was an

undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so

remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. He

did not aim at ideal majesty so much as ideal gracefulness, and his

works were imitated from the most beautiful living models, and hence

expressed only the ideal of sensual charms. It is probable that the

Venus de Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of

Praxiteles, which was so highly extolled by the ancient authors. It was

of Parian marble, and modeled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues of

Dionysus also expressed the most consummate physical beauty,

representing the god as a beautiful youth, crowned with ivy, engirt with

a nebris, and expressing tender and dreamy emotions. Praxiteles

sculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of love, of which that at

Thespiae attracted visitors to the city in the time of Cicero. It was

subsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a conflagration in the

time of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues of this artist was an

Apollo, many copies of which still exist. His works were very numerous,

but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Eros, in which

adoration for corporeal attractions is the most marked peculiarity, and

for which the artist was fitted by his life with the hetaerae.

[Sidenote: Scopas.]

Scopas was his contemporary, and was the author of the celebrated group

of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the gallery of

sculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and fifty years

before Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was employed in

decorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her husband, one of

the wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to have been a group

representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce by the divinities

of the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in the Flaminian

Circus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring power, and

luxurious fullness of life were combined with wonderful harmony.

[Footnote: Muller, 125.] Like the other great artists of this school,

there was the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated,

but a greater refinement and luxury, and skill in the use of drapery.

[Sidenote: Lysippus.]

[Sidenote: The works of Lysippus.]

Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who worked

chiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues,

and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensively

patronized. He represented men, not as they were, but as they appeared

to be; and, if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. He

aimed to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature was

carried out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; but

as he alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer that

he had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues,

that of an athlete, from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, which

so incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favorite

subject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried to

Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterwards was

transferred to Constantinople. The Farnese Hercules and the Belvidere

Torso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars,

among whom were Chares, who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes,

Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, who sculptured the group of the

"Laocoon." The Rhodian School was the immediate offshoot from the school

of Lysippus at Sicyon, and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans,

when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. The

Colossus was one of the wonders of the world, seventy cubits in height,

and the Laocoon is a perfect miracle of art, in which group pathos is

exhibited in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It was

discovered in 1506 near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicest

remains of ancient plastic art.

The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to the

representation of man; but they also carved animals with exceeding

accuracy and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows,

and Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lion

after a living animal. "The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles

appear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop, prance, and

curvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended with

circulation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness and

elegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inch

from the back-ground, and they are so much smaller than nature, we can

scarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive." [Footnote:

Flaxman, _Lectures on Sculpture_.]

[Sidenote: Cameos and medals.]

The Greeks also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, with

unapproachable excellence. Very few specimens have come down to our

times, but those which we possess show great beauty both in design and

execution.

[Sidenote: Sack of the Grecian cities.]

Grecian statuary commenced with ideal representations of deities, and

was carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues of

Jupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in which

the figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortal

forms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebrated

men, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists were

expected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers by

portrait statues. The plastic art then degenerated. Nor were works of

original genius produced, but rather copies or varieties from the three

great schools to which allusion has been made. Sculpture may have

multiplied, but not new creations; although some imitations of great

merit were produced, like the "Hermaphrodite," the "Torso," the Farnese

"Hercules," and the "Fighting Gladiator." When Corinth was sacked by

Mummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried to Rome, and

after the civil war between Caesar and Pompey the Greek artists emigrated

to Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works of priceless value

into Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth, Elis, and other

great centres of art, that the richest treasures were brought. Greece

was despoiled to ornament Italy. The Romans did not create a school of

sculpture. They borrowed wholly from the Greeks, yet made, especially in

the time of Hadrian, many beautiful statues. They were fond of this art,

and all eminent men had statues erected to their memory. The busts of

emperors were found in every great city, and Rome was filled with

statues. The monuments of the Romans were even more numerous than those

of the Greeks, and among them some admirable portraits are found. These

sculptures did not express that consummation of beauty and grace, of

refinement and sentiment, which marked the Greeks; but the imitations

were good. Art had reached its perfection under Lysippus; there was

nothing more to learn. Genius in that department could soar no higher.

It will never rise to loftier heights.

[Sidenote: Degeneracy of art among the Romans.]

It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its

earlier stages. In a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the

time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The

specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths

make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline

for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross

appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please

corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and

luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The

reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with

those on the Column of Marcus Aurelius.

[Sidenote: Imitation of ancient art.]

But I do not wish to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the names

of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days of

Pericles, or even Alexander. I simply allude to sculpture as an art

which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have

a right to infer from the specimens which have been preserved. How many

more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient

authors! The finest productions of our own age are in a measure

reproductions. They cannot be called creations, like the statue of the

Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and

the Greek Slave a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which have

been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed from

Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving an appearance of living flesh. The

Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand specimens of

ancient sculpture which have been found among the debris of former

magnificence, many of which are the productions of Grecian artists

transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the

Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the

Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvidere, sculptured by Apollonius, the

Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,

the Laocoon, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvidere the work of

Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleepy Ariadne, with numerous other statues of

gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of

antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, alone is a

magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was brought

centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a

few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues which

now embellish Italy, to say nothing of those which are scattered over

Europe. We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in

their day. Not merely the figures of men are chiseled, but animals and

plants. Nature, in all her forms, was imitated; and not merely Nature,

but the dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern

sculptor has equaled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies even of those

ancient statues, as they appear to us after the exposure and accidents

of two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of

Europe, can question that, of all the nations who have claimed to be

civilized, the ancient Greek and Roman deserve a proud preeminence in an

art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human

genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity, it should be

remembered, are the result of native genius alone, without the aid of

Christian ideas. Nor, with the aid of Christianity, are we sure that any

nation will ever soar to loftier heights than did the Greeks in that

proud realm which was consecrated to Paganism.

* * * * *

We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the

art of painting as we are in reference to sculpture and architecture,

since so few specimens have been preserved. We have only the testimony

of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste and so

great susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot suppose that

their notions were crude in this great art which the moderns have

carried to so great perfection. In this art the moderns may be superior,

especially in perspective and drawing, and light and shade. No age, we

fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when

the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and Domenichino blazed with such

wonderful brilliancy.

Nevertheless, we read of celebrated schools among the ancients, all of

which recognized _form_ as the great principle and basis of the

art, even like the moderns. The schools of Sicyon, Corinth, Athens, and

Rhodes were indebted for their renown, like those of Bologna, Florence,

and Rome, to their strict observance of this fundamental law.

[Sidenote: Antiquity of painting.]

[Sidenote: Painting among the Egyptians.]

Painting, in some form, is very ancient, though not so ancient as the

temples of the gods and the statues which were erected to their worship.

It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and color, and with

the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul by imitation.

The walls of Babylon were painted after Nature with different species of

animals and combats. Semiramis was represented on horseback, striking a

leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus wounding a lion. Ezekiel

(viii. 10) represents various idols and beasts portrayed upon the walls,

and even princes, painted in vermilion, with girdles around their loins

(xxiii. 14, 15). In ages almost fabulous there were some rude attempts

in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues and

reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are painted and written

with religious subjects, but the colors were laid without regard to

light and shade. The Egyptians did not seek to represent the passions

and emotions which agitate the soul, but rather to authenticate events

and actions; and hence their paintings, like hieroglyphics, are

inscriptions. It was their great festivals and religious rites which

they sought to perpetuate, not ideas of beauty or grace. Hence their

paintings abound with dismembered animals, plants, and flowers, censers,

entrails,--whatever was used in their religious worship. In Greece,

also, the original painting consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of

wood and clay. At Corinth, painting was early united with the

fabrication of vases, on which were rudely painted figures of men and

animals. Among the Etruscans, before Rome was founded, it is said there

were beautiful paintings, and it is probable they were advanced in art

before the Greeks. There were paintings in some of the old Etruscan

cities which the Roman emperors wished to remove, so much admired were

they even in the days of the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan

vases are famous for designs which have never been exceeded in purity of

form, but it is probable that these were copied from the Greeks.

[Sidenote: Cimon of Cleona.]

But whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, the art

was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the former. The

development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It probably

commenced by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate

markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner

markings, such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the

designs of Flaxman. They were originally practiced on a white ground.

Then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors

in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of

the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and

eighteen years before Christ. And as the subject was a battle, it must

have represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of

the coloring, or of the real excellence of the work, except that the

artist was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name

connected with the art in Greece, and is praised by Pliny, to whom we

owe the history of ancient painting more than to any other author. He

was contemporary with Dionysius in the eightieth Olympiad. He was not

satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we

see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and

folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various

positions of figures, as they appear when looking upward or downward and

sideways, and hence is the first painter of perspective. He first made

muscular articulations, indicated the veins, and gave natural folds to

drapery. [Footnote: Pliny, xxxv. 34.]

[Sidenote: Greatness of Polygnotus and his school.]

A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the

contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463 B.C., one

of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most magnanimous;

and had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding intellectual

activity. He was employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on the

great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously. He

also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the superintendence

of Phidias. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which he brought

nearly to perfection by the ideal expression, the accurate drawing, and

improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity of

his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He was the first

who painted woman with brilliant drapery and variegated head-dresses. He

gave great expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were

models of excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the

cheeks, and the gracefulness of the draperies. He was a great epic

painter, as Phidias was a sculptor, and Homer a poet, since he expressed

not passion and emotion only, but ideal character. He imitated the

personages and the subjects of the old mythology, and treated them in an

epic spirit. He strove, like Phidias, to express character in repose.

His subjects were almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.

His pictures had nothing of that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers

of perspective, so much admired in modern art. His figures were grouped

in regular lines, as in the bas-reliefs upon a frieze. He painted on

panels which were afterward let into the walls. He used the pencil,

instead of painting in encaustic with the cestrum.

Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, [Footnote: H. N.

xxx. 9, s. 35.] are his paintings in the Temple at Delphi, in the

Portico called Poecile at Athens, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in

the Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He

took his subjects from the whole range of Epic poetry, but we know

nothing of them except from the praises of his contemporaries.

[Footnote: Pausanias, x. 25-31.] His great merit is said to have

consisted in accurate drawing, and in giving grace and charm to his

female figures. He painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon

symmetrical principles, with great grandeur and freedom, resembling

Michael Angelo more than any other modern artist. Like the Greeks, he

painted with wax, resins, and in water colors, to which the proper

consistency was given with gum and glue. The use of oil was unknown. The

artists painted upon wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon

canvas, which was not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon

tablets or panels, and not upon the walls. These panels were framed and

encased in the walls. The style or cestrum used in drawing, and for

spreading the wax colors, was pointed on one end and flat on the other,

and generally made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and

bleaching, and then mixed with colors. When painting was practiced in

water colors, glue was used with the white of an egg or with gums, but

wax and resins were also worked with water, with certain preparations.

This latter was called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the

most durable of all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time

of Alexander the Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it

prevented the colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practiced

both with the cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burnt in.

Fresco was used for coloring walls, which were divided into compartments

or panels. The Fresco composition of the stucco, and the method of

painting, preparing the walls for painting, is described by the ancient

writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of ordinary plaster,

over which, when dry, were successively added three other layers of a

finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were placed three layers of

a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper one being laid on

before the under one was dry, by which process the different layers were

so bound together that the whole mass formed one beautiful and solid

slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being detached from the wall

and transported in a wooden frame to any distance. The colors were

applied when the composition was still wet. The fresco wall, when

painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish, both to heighten the

color and preserve it from the effects of the sun or the weather. But

this process required so much care, and was attended with so much

expense, that it was used only in the better houses and palaces." The

later discoveries at Pompeii show the same correctness of design in

painting as in sculpture, and also considerable perfection in coloring.

The great artists of Greece were both sculptors and painters, like

Michael Angelo. Phidias and Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus

and Lysippus, were both. And the ancient writers praise the paintings of

these great artists as much as their sculpture. The Aldobrandini

Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount, during the pontificate of

Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is admired both

for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle for his

designs and by Lucian for his color. [Footnote: _Poetica of

Aristotle_, c. 286. _Imagines of Lucian_, c. 7.]

[Sidenote: Contemporaries of Polygnotus.]

Dionysius and Micon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the

former of whom was celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were

deficient in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant

drawing. [Footnote: Plutarch, _Timol._ 36.] Micon was particularly

skilled in painting horses, and was the first who used for a color the

light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt vine twigs. He painted

three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and also the walls of the

Temple of the Dioscuri.

[Sidenote: The school of Apollodorus.]

With Apollodorus, of Athens, a new development was made in the art of

painting. Through his labors, about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added

to the style of Polygnotus, without departing from his pictures as

models. "The acuteness of his taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover

that, as all men were connected by one general form, so they were

separated each by some predominant power, which fixed character and

bound them to a class. Thence he drew his line of imitation and

personified the central form of the class to which his object belonged,

and to which the rest of its qualities administered, without being

absorbed; agility was not suffered to destroy firmness, solidity, or

weight; nor strength and weight agility; elegance did not degenerate to

effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to hugeness." [Footnote: Fuseli, Lect.

I.] His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the semblance of

reality. He painted men and things as they really appeared. He also made

a great advance in coloring. He invented chiaro-oscuro. Other painters

had given attention to the proper gradation of light and shade; he

heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus obtained what

the moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred due honor

on the pencil--"primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit." [Footnote:

Pliny, H. N. xxxv. 11.]

[Sidenote: Peculiarities of Zeuxis as a painter.]

This great painter prepared the way for Zeuxis, [Footnote: Born 455

B.C.] who belonged to his school, but who surpassed him in the power to

give ideal form to rich effects. He began his great career four hundred

and twenty-four years before Christ, and was most remarkable for his

female figures. His "Helen," painted from five of the most beautiful

women of Croton, was one of the most renowned productions of antiquity,

to see which the painter demanded money. He gave away his pictures,

because, with an artist's pride, he maintained that their price could

not be estimated. There is a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to

death over an old woman painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the

senses, regarded as a high attainment in art, as in the instance

recorded of his grapes. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose head-

quarters were at Ephesus, the peculiarities of which were accuracy of

imitation, the exhibition of sensual charms, and the gratification of

sensual tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of

Phidias was completed, which modified his style. His marvelous powers

were displayed in the contrast of light and shade which he learned from

Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form

rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by

making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it

belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the

feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer

of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of

ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were

perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules

strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. [Footnote:

Lucian _on Zeuxis_.] Lucian highly praises his Female Centaur as

one of the most remarkable paintings of the world, in which he showed

great ingenuity in his contrasts. His Jupiter Enthroned is also extolled

by Pliny, as one of his finest works. He acquired a great fortune, and

lived ostentatiously.

[Sidenote: Parrhasius of Ephesus.]

Contemporaneous with him, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native of

Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing, and power of

expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute

details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did

for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect

as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He

established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding

artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were

demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since he painted a curtain

which deceived his rival, whereas Zeuxis painted grapes which deceived

only birds. He was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious, and boasted of

having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined the magic tone

of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis, and the classic

expression of Polygnotus.

[Sidenote: Contemporaries of Zeuxis.]

Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before

Christ, not only in Athens, but the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes of

Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same city

founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable--"Let Nature, not

an artist, be your model." Protogenes was celebrated for his high

finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was

celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for

prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,

Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of

expression.

[Sidenote: Art culminates in Apelles.]

[Sidenote: The Venus of Apelles.]

The art probably culminated in Apelles, the Titian of his age, who

united the rich coloring and sensual charms of the Ionian with the

scientific severity of the Sicyonian school. He was contemporaneous with

Alexander, and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great

conqueror. He was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of

Amphipolis, and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took

lessons from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court

of Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men

and of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so

assiduously to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day

without practicing. [Footnote: Pliny, xxxv. 12.] He made great

improvement in the mechanical part of his art, and also was the first

who covered his picture with a thin varnish, both to preserve it and

bring out the colors. He invented ivory black. His distinguishing

excellence was grace, "that artless balance of motion and repose,

springing from character, founded on propriety, which neither falls

short of the demands nor overleaps the modesty of Nature." [Footnote:

Fuseli, Lect. I.] His great contemporaries may have equaled him in

perspective, accuracy, and finish; but he added a grace of conception

and refinement of taste which placed him, by the general consent of

ancient authors, at the head of all the painters of the world. His

greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene, or Venus rising out of the sea,

in which female grace was personified. The falling drops of water from

her hair form a transparent silver veil over her form. It cost one

hundred talents, [Footnote: 243 pounds x 100 = 24300 pounds x 5 =

$121,500.] and was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos,

and afterwards placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated

to Julius Caesar. The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could

be found to repair it. Nor was there an artist who could complete

an unfinished picture which he left. He was a man who courted

criticism, and who was unenvious of the fame of rivals. He was

a great admirer and friend of Protogenes of Rhodes, who was his

equal in finish, but who never knew, as Apelles did, when to

cease correcting. [Footnote: Cicero, _Brut._ 18; _De Orat._

iii. 7. Martial, xxx. 9. Ovid, _Art. Anc._ iii. 403. Pliny, xxxv.

37.]

[Sidenote: Introduction of pictures into Rome.]

After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters

occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was

renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by

Mummius, B.C. 146, gave a severe blow to Grecian art. He carried to Rome

more works, or destroyed them, than all his predecessors combined.

Sylla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater injury, and,

from that time, artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and other

flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The masterpieces of

famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and Asia were

ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius Paulus brought

from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to carry them in the

triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece, the migration of

artists commenced, and this spoliation of Greece and Asia and Sicily

continued for two centuries; and such was the wealth of Rhodes in works

of art that three thousand statues were found for the conquerors. Nor

could there have been less at Athens, Olympia, or Delphi. Scaurus had

all the public pictures of Sicyon transported to Rome. Verres plundered

every temple and public building in Sicily.

[Sidenote: High value placed by them on painting.]

Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings of the world, without

the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of

Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could soar no higher in the realm of

painting, as well as of statuary. Yet the Romans learned to place as

high value on the works of Grecian genius as the English do on the

paintings of the old masters of Italy and Flanders. And if they did not

add to the art, they gave such encouragement that, under the emperors,

it may be said to have been flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven

hundred portraits of eminent men. [Footnote: Pliny, H. N. xxx. 2.] The

portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in the

temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were

filled with paintings.

[Sidenote: Subjects among the Greeks.]

The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or

mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in

which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly

prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of

form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul as well as

the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to

reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for people

who naturally had taste and sensibility.

[Sidenote: Landscape Painting.]

Among the Romans, portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the

art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing

could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one

hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus, landscape

decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of

license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has

been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in its

latter days. Mosaic gradually superseded painting in Rome. It was first

used for floors, but finally walls and ceilings were ornamented with it,

like St. Peter's at Rome. Many ancient mosaics have been preserved which

attest beauty of design of the highest character, like the Battle of

Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii.

In fact, neither statuary nor painting was advanced by the Romans. They

had no sensibility, or conception of ideal beauty. The divine spark of

genius animated the Greeks alone. Still the wonders of Grecian art were

possessed by the Romans, and were made to adorn those grand

architectural monuments for which they had a taste. Greek productions

were not merely matters of property, they were copied and reproduced in

all the cities of the Mediterranean; and though no artist of original

genius arose from Augustus to Constantine, galleries of art existed

everywhere in which the masterpieces of Polygnotus, Pausias, Aristides,

Timanthes, Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Pamphilus, Euphranor, Protogenes,

Apelles, Timomachus, and of other illustrious men, were objects of as

much praise as the galleries of Dresden and Florence.

[Sidenote: Probable perfection of the ancients in painting.]

"The glorious art of these masters, as far as regards tone, light, and

local color," says Muller, "is lost to us, and we know nothing of it

except from obscure notices and later imitations; on the contrary, the

pictures on vases give us the most exalted idea of the progress and

achievements of the arts of design." [Footnote: Muller, Ancient Art,

143.] It is surprising that, with four colors, the Greeks should have

achieved such miracles of beauty and finish as are represented by the

greatest cities of antiquity. The great wonders of the schools of

Ephesus, Athens, and Sicyon have perished, and we cannot judge of their

merits as we can of the statues which have fortunately been preserved.

Whether Polygnotus was equal to Michael Angelo, Zeuxis to Raphael, and

Apelles to Titian, we have no means of settling. But it is scarcely to

be questioned that critics like the Greeks, whose opinions respecting

architecture and sculpture coincide with our own, could have erred in

their verdicts respecting those great paintings which extorted the

admiration of the world, and were held, even in the decline of art, in

such high value, not merely in the cities where they were painted, but

in those to which they were transferred. What _has_ descended to

our times, like the mural decorations of Pompeii and the designs on

vases, go to prove the perfection which was attained in painting, as

well as sculpture and architecture.

[Sidenote: Perfection of art among the ancients.]

And thus, in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest,

and in which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the

ancients were not merely our equals: they were our superiors. It is

greater to originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and in

painting the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our

time, who should build an edifice in different proportions than those

which were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a

mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or the

Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in

proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of

Pericles that excellence with us is attained. When we differ from them

we furnish grounds of just criticism. So, in sculpture, the Greek Slave

is a reproduction of an ancient Venus, and the Moses of Michael Angelo

is a Jupiter in repose. It is only when the artist seeks to bring out

the purest and loftiest sentiments of the soul, and such as only

Christianity can inspire, that he may hope to surpass the sculpture of

antiquity in one department of the art alone--in expression, rather than

beauty of form, on which no improvement can be made. And if we possessed

the Venus of Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of

Cleomenes, we should probably discover greater richness of coloring, as

well as grace of figure, than in that famous Titian which is one of the

proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the greatest

marvels of Italian art.

* * * * *

REFERENCES.--Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Muller's Remains of

Ancient Art; A. J. Guattani, Antiq. de la Grande Grece; Mazois, Antiq.

de Pomp.; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities of Athens;

Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De Quincey.

These are some of the innumerable authorities on Architecture among the

ancients.

In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is a

fine article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith's

Dictionary are the lives and works of the most noted masters. Muller's

Ancient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfaucon's Antiquite

expliquee en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society of

Diettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by

Taylor Combe; Millin, Introduction a l'etude des Monumens Antiques;

Monumens Inedits d'Antiquite figuree, recuellis et publies par Raoul-

Rochette; Gerhard's Archaol. Zeit.; David's Essai sur le Classement

Chronol. des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus celebres.

In Painting, see Caylus, Memoires de l'ac des Inscr. Levesque, sur les

Progres successifs de la Peinture chez les Grecs; I. I. Grund, Mahlerei

der Griechen; Meyer's Kunstgischichte; Muller, Hist, of Ancient Art;

Article on Painting, Ency. Brit., Article "Pictura," Smith's Dict.;

Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua Reynolds' Lectures. Lanzi's History of

Painting refers to the revival of the art. Vitruvius speaks at some

length on ancient wall paintings. The finest specimens of ancient

painting are found in catacombs, the baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. On

this subject, Winckelmann is the great authority.