time after Alcuin; but after all it comes from his school, and the book
was produced in Tours about the middle of the ninth century, still
showing the influence of the brilliant scholar of Charlemagne’s court.
We will say here that the so-called Alcuin Bible is severely criticized
by Anton Springer on account of “the ugliness of its figures,” but there
is more to be seen in this picture than mere awkwardness of style. The
psychology of the picture here reproduced is exceedingly good. The eyes
of Adam and Eve, and of the Lord in rebuking them, show real
appreciation of the mental processes of the individuals. God walks into
the garden with his finger raised, like a teacher who rebukes children
caught stealing apples. God’s finger is not straight, a fact which
presupposes a close observation of life. His eyes express kindliness as
well as admonition, while Adam and Eve stand conscience-stricken by the
side of the tree. They do not dare to look into the face of God, and
Adam, with his clumsy hand, points to Eve as the cause of the evil,
while her face expresses admission, though in her turn she lays the
blame on the snake which stands erect at her left.
It is true that the technique is abominable. The heads are ridiculously
large, and the hands are out of proportion. The bodies do not express
the beauty generally credited to both Adam and Eve as the most perfect
handiwork of God. The paints in the picture are reported to be no better
than the drawing. The flesh is of a gray color shaded with maroon
streaks. In contrast to the sickly and poverty-stricken appearance of
the human couple the good Lord is dressed in gold, like a wealthy
nobleman of the age, and the scene is shown to be in Paradise by the
trees too being overlaid with gold. Nevertheless the situation is very
clearly a garden, copied from nature, and the very story, with all its
details, could be reconstructed from this picture.
In time, with the advance of art, the figures of Adam and Eve come more
and more to assume the artistic appearance of natural beauty. Adam and
Eve represent mankind in its primitive state, devoid of spirituality but
perfect in health and vigor. It is noteworthy that Christian art
portrays in them paganism in its rudeness and ignorance, and so they
acquire a certain relationship to Greek antiquity.
In the Renaissance we reach a perfection in the figures of Adam and Eve
which attains the ideal of classical beauty. Every painter believed it
his duty to represent the two fatal scenes, the fall of man and the
expulsion from Paradise. Similar scenes also begin to appear in
sculptured reliefs. A scene on one side of the large pillars in the
front of the cathedral at Orvieto is devoted to the subject of Eve’s
creation.
The creation of man and woman is the first scene portrayed on Ghiberti’s
great bronze entrance-doors of the baptistery at Florence. These
beautiful
[Illustration: THE CREATION OF WOMAN.
Relief on the cathedral of Orvieto (14th cent.)]
reliefs represent the beginning of a new and greater period of art. It
is Ghiberti’s merit to have created an originally Christian conception
quite different from the classical reliefs of plastic art. We observe in
his work evidence of a close study of garments and draperies, and the
attempt to bring out not only bodily beauty but a spiritual expression
and allegorical meaning. Most of the characters presented are plainly
portraits of men and women who have served as living models.
[Illustration: DETAIL FROM GHIBERTI’S DOORS.
First panel.]
In the lower left corner of this panel on Ghiberti’s door God is
creating man. In the center he is raising Eve from the side of the
sleeping Adam, who lies prostrate on the ground. God is here always
surrounded and assisted by angels, who lift up Eve while the good Lord
watches her rise. In the middle left part of the picture we see Adam
and Eve taking the apple from the serpent which is entwined about the
tree between them. In the right corner our unfortunate ancestors are
being driven out of Paradise. Eve stands in despair, while Adam is
visible in the rear.
[Illustration: THE CREATION OF WOMAN. By Michelangelo (15th cent.)]
[Illustration: ADAM AND EVE IN PARADISE.
By Gustave Doré.]
[Illustration: THE FIRST FAMILY. By Schnorr von Carolsfeld.]
Michelangelo’s Creation of Eve is represented on the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and is perhaps the most vigorous
expression of the original strength of the mother of mankind. It will be
observed that here too Eve comes from Adam’s side, although the picture
seems to show her fully grown.
From among the more modern pictures we reproduce a drawing by Gustave
Doré representing Adam and Eve. Here we see them in their state of
innocence, Eve being pictured as reclining on the ground, while Adam
looks upon her in love and admiration.
Of the more recent pictures we will mention only those of Schnorr von
Carolsfeld, who has succeeded most effectively in striking the proper
traditional note in Bible illustrations. He represents Adam and Eve
according to the dogmatic belief of Protestant Christianity. In the
scene here reproduced they are portrayed after their expulsion from
Paradise in their comfortable primitive home, where Adam, leaning on his
hoe, rests from his labors while Eve sits in the background with a
distaff in her hand, and their two sons are playing about them.
* * * * *
And now, in conclusion, the question as to the place of this theme in
the art of the future. Has not the present generation lost interest in
our ancestors? Since the legend is no longer believed literally, our
artistic imagination is not attracted so strongly by it. The story of
the fall of man has become an allegory, an interesting tale, but it is
no longer a truth. We believe now in evolution, and so Gabriel Max has
pictured a new Eve for us which is the mother of modern man,--the mother
who bequeaths to her son a deeper comprehension of life and a truer
insight into the nature of things.
[Illustration: PRIMITIVE MAN.
By Gabriel Max.]
The picture is at first sight repulsive, but the more we look at it and
the more we study the artist’s intentions, the more it grows on us. Here
is a primitive couple of the ape-man type, fossil remains of which have
been found in the Neanderthal, in Cannstatt and in Spy. They must have
been very savage, and we shudder at their appearance. How unpleasant it
would be to meet such creatures in a lonely forest! The male is very
brutish while the female shows traces of a dawning intelligence.
Verily, we discover in this scene represented by Gabriel Max a close
resemblance to pictures of the holy family. And considered rightly, the
similarity is by no means fortuitous, for here we have indeed a holy
family. It is an uncultured primitive couple of a speechless tribe of
forest men, yet the hope of progress and a brave determination to take
up the battle of life for the sake of the babe that is born to them
becomes visible in the mother’s eyes.
After all, the wife of _homo alalus_, of the primitive speechless man,
is still the same Eve. There is the same sacrifice of motherlove, the
same determination of bringing to life the man of the future, the
higher, better, nobler man, whose life will be much more worth living
than was her own.
This is the secret of life, that we live not for ourselves but for
others. If mankind were one great immortal being, how monotonous life
would be; how egotistical would all our aspirations become! But nature
renders all egotism futile. None of us finds an abiding home here on
earth; we pass away and new generations fill the places we leave vacant.
Daily the world grows older, and yet it remains ever young. There is the
same happiness, the same bliss and joy that ever thrilled the heart of a
mother. Christianity has abolished Venus, the great mother goddess, but
Eve has taken her place; and if Eve too is to be deposed, mankind will
still cling to the old idea of eternal womanhood, the patron of love and
loveliness, of wifehood and of motherhood.
APHRODITE IN ART.
[Illustration: BABYLONIAN CLAY FIGURES.]
The oldest assured statues of Venus, of an all-nourishing mother
goddess, are perhaps the little figurines frequently found in
Mesopotamia representing “the Lady” or Beltis (the feminine of Bel,
“the Lord”) in the shape of a naked woman, sometimes with a child in her
arms; but we may fairly well assume that even the artists of the stone
age took up this all-absorbing subject, and if this be the case we may
be justified in calling the torso of a naked female figure discovered in
Brassempouy, a Venus,--so far the oldest Venus that has come down to us.
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF BRASSEMPOUY.]
[Illustration: LAKSHMI.
In the Musée Guimet.]
[Illustration: A CILICIAN COIN.]
[Illustration: COIN OF TARSUS.]
[Illustration: COIN OF GAULOS.]
[Illustration: COIN OF PERGA.]
In India the goddess of beauty was revered under the name of Lakshmi,
and we need not doubt that she still finds worshipers among the Hindu
population of to-day, but there are no statues left of the age of
ancient Brahmanism. All monuments are of comparatively late origin; in
fact the large mass of Hindu idols is quite modern, although it
represents art and religious notions of a typically primitive character.
Another and, as it seems, independent development can be traced from the
worship of stone pillars or bethels. A _bethel_, i. e., “house of God,”
well known from the Bible as a monument of divine revelation, developed
gradually into the representation of a stiff female figure like the
Diana of Ephesus, but we cannot doubt that the primitive idea of it was
the worship of an all-nourishing mother. From her the Greek conception
of the chaste moon goddess, the virgin Artemis or Diana, developed in
course of time; but the Diana of Ephesus still preserves symbols of a
pantheistic conception of the All under the allegory of a mother
goddess. (For illustrations see pages 152 and 153.)
[Illustration: COINS OF PERGA IN PAMPHYLIA.]
[Illustration: THREE ARTEMIS MEDALS.]
Among the Semites the oldest bethels, or houses of God, were pillars of
stone. We need not assume that they were gods or goddesses, for judging
from Biblical information they may be interpreted as monuments marking a
holy place, i. e., a spot where a deity had revealed himself in some
way.
The primitive form of a bethel,[39] or as the Greeks transcribed the
Phenician term, βαίτυλος, has often been represented on coins. Sometimes
two columns are placed, one on each side, and the stone is frequently
accompanied with the symbols of the goddess, fruit and eggs; sometimes
doves perch on the sanctuary; sometimes the pillar is covered with a
temple roof. We know one instance in which it bears the symbol of a
Latin cross and gradually it assumes in a coarse style the features of a
woman. Such is the beginning of the manufacture of idols which at first
are extremely stiff and assume only gradually--indeed very slowly--an
artistic shape.
[Illustration: COIN OF ANTIOCHUS EUERGETES.]
[Illustration: ISTAR ON A COIN OF TARSUS.]
[Illustration: COIN OF EMESA.]
[Illustration: COIN OF IASOS CARIA.]
[Illustration: COIN OF PAPHOS, CYPRUS.]
[Illustration: COIN OF IULIA GORDUS, LYDIA.]
At the dawn of the historic age the oldest Greek statues and paintings
of Venus show her fully robed and draped. Great numbers of Aphrodite
amulets of small size and made of glazed terra-cotta have been found
mainly on the Ægean islands where her cult had spread from Babylon and
Syria. They resemble the Babylonian Beltis statuettes in having
[Illustration: THE DIANA OF EPHESUS IN THE VATICAN.
After a photograph.]
[Illustration: THE DIANA OF EPHESUS.
Alabaster statue now in the museum of Naples. (Roscher, _Lex._, I, col.
588.)]
the arms crossed over the breast, but as a rule their hips are
unnaturally broad. Some of them have a bird’s (possibly a pigeon’s) head
and all have large ears with earrings.
The very oldest real statues of Aphrodite, products of primitive
manufacture, have been lost, and none of the temple idols have survived
Christian iconoclasm, but we have information that Kanachus[40] in the
sixth century before Christ, and Kalamis, Phidias and Alcamenes in the
fifth, have represented the goddess as dignified and severe. We
reproduce here drawings of archaic statues fully dressed. Some of them
are still awkward but give evidence of the artist’s reverence. An
archaic Venus of the style familiar in Pompeii was formerly regarded as
a Moera but to-day after Gerhard’s interpretation it is considered as a
Venus Proserpina.
[Illustration: CYPRIAN APHRODITE.[41]]
The statue by Kalamis which once stood upon the Acropolis at Athens and
was called Aphrodite Sosandra[42] is also fully dressed, but much more
graceful. A veil is tied about her hair, and in her right hand the
goddess is clasping some folds of her upper garment, while her extended
left hand holds a pomegranate blossom.
[Illustration: ARCHAIC APHRODITE WITH DOVE.
Roscher, _Lex._, I, 409.]
[Illustration: ARCHAIC VENUS IN POMPEIAN STYLE.]
Among the Attic votive reliefs there is one interpreted as Aphrodite and
Ares,[43] which shows
[Illustration: APHRODITE SOSANDRA BY KALAMIS.
From Roscher, _Lex._, I, col. 412.]
Aphrodite unveiling her face to Ares. She holds a pitcher in her right
hand and is pouring its contents into a vessel in his hands. It is also
to be noted that the action takes place above an empty altar. The child
behind her in this connection can only represent her son Eros.
In the National Museum at Rome there is an Attic sculpture of the fifth
century which is somewhat bolder in showing the outlines of the figure.
This Aphrodite is clad in a very diaphanous garment, the left breast
being quite uncovered.
[Illustration: APHRODITE AND ARES.
Votive relief from _Monuments grecs_, Pl. I.]
In the beautiful statue by Alcamenes, a copy of
[Illustration: ATTIC SCULPTURE OF THE FIFTH CENTURY B. C.
In the National Museum at Rome.]
which is still preserved in the Louvre, the dress seems to be of
slightly heavier texture and the posture more simple and dignified. In
her left hand the goddess holds a pomegranate and is lifting with
[Illustration: APHRODITE OF ALCAMENES, KNOWN AS VENUS GENETRIX.]
her right hand a corner of her drapery above her right shoulder.
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE CNIDIAN VENUS.]
It was in the days of the highest development of
[Illustration: THE CNIDIAN VENUS OF PRAXITELES.
In the Vatican Museum at Rome.]
Greek art that the greatest artists dared to show the goddess of love in
perfect nudity. The statues of Phidias still retain the severe
expression of her divine character, but Praxiteles endeavors to show her
beauty as in primitive times without any dress, in a careless but
graceful and artistic pose. So at least appears the most authoritative
record of her appearance on the Cnidian coin. Other statues, especially
the Vatican marble known as the Venus of Praxiteles, are partly dressed.
It is assumed that many replicas of ancient masterpieces did not follow
their originals in all details.
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF PRAXITELES ON A CNIDIAN COIN.
From Roscher, _Lex._, I, col. 416.]
This statue of Praxiteles was ordered by the Cnidians from the artist
for public worship, and when finished they placed it in the temple of
Aphrodite Euploia built especially to serve as a shrine for
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE CROUCHING VENUS.]
this piece of art. The goddess was the patroness of the island of Cnidos
and therefore her image was impressed upon the Cnidian coins as the
great artist had depicted her. The best copies of the Cnidian
[Illustration: VENUS CROUCHING IN THE BATH.
In the Vatican.]
Aphrodite are preserved in the Vatican and in the Glyptothek at Munich.
[Illustration: VENUS WITH THE UNGUENT JAR.
In the Vatican.]
The Vatican is rich in Venus statues of a similar type which have been
worked out in the spirit of Praxiteles, and we here reproduce
photographs of what has been called the crouching Venus and also the
Venus with the unguent jar.
These statues of Aphrodite in the Vatican and most others produced in
the latter portion of the classical period of Greek art are entirely
nude, but with the exception of the very latest ones we must grant that
they are endowed with divine dignity. An improper feature enters only
when nudity betrays either an intentional display, with a pretense of
prudery, or an obvious purpose to excite sensuality. Originally these
features are foreign to the Greek goddess and develop only with the
decay of Hellenic civilization. They appear obtrusively in the so-called
Venus of Medici, and worse still in the so-called Venus Kalypygos, in
this way justifying to some extent the harsh opinion of Christian
pietists who have vitiated our notion of Greek deities down to the
present day. From the standpoint here taken I may be permitted to omit
entirely any reproduction of pictures of this latest phase of the
artistic conception of Venus.
Among the portrayals of Venus we deem two recent discoveries worthy of
reproduction on account of their sweetness and gracefulness. One is the
Venus of Panderma and the other a bust found in a wrecked ship by sponge
divers at the bottom of the sea off the African coast in the
Mediterranean. The former was found in a shipwreck near the coast
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF PANDERMA.
Front view.]
of Panderma in the year 1884, together with coins of the time of
Lysimachos. It is made of Parian marble and shows the goddess standing
near a small pillar over which her garment is hung. She is represented
at the moment when her hands are tying a long ribbon around her head to
hold up her curly hair which falls back behind the ears. Furtwängler and
Salomon Reinach have devoted much attention to the statue, the latter
in his _Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine_, and both praise
highly the beauty of the goddess.
[Illustration: THE VENUS OF PANDERMA.
Rear view.]
The head of the goddess Venus now preserved in the museum at Bardos near
Tunis must have lain hidden for over two thousand years. It had
[Illustration: THE VENUS HEAD IN THE MUSEUM OF BARDOS.]
probably been ordered by lovers of art living in Africa and never
reached its place of destination. The shells which cover part of the
bust have happily not attacked the features of the goddess and so the
beauty of the face is left unmarred.
CLASSICAL HYMNS.
The worship of Aphrodite in the days of classical paganism is best
characterized by two hymns attributed to Homer, but it must be
understood that this whole class of poetry constitutes Homeric apocrypha
of a comparatively late date. We quote the original from the Teubner
edition:
ΣΙΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΝ
Κυπρογενῆ Κυθέρειαν ἀείσομαι, ἥτε βροτοῖσι
μείλιχα δῶρα δίδωσιν, ἐφ’ ἱμερτῷ δὲ προσώπῳ
αἰεὶ μειδιάει καὶ ἐφ’ ἱμερτὸν θέει ἄνθος.
Χαῖρε, θεά, Σαλαμῖνος ἐυκτιμένης μεδέουσα
καὶ πάσης Κύπρου: δὸς δ’ ἱμερόεσσαν ἀοιδήν.
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ’ ἀοιδῆς.
A versified translation of our own reads thus:
“My verse shall praise thee, goddess fair and mighty,
Great Queen of Cyprus, glorious Aphrodite
Who unto mortals love’s sweet gift bestowest
And in the charm of richest beauty glowest.
Thou holdest in thy hand the magic flower
Whose spell subjects us to thy gentle power.
Hail, gracious lady, soother of all woes,
Who conquerest by pleasing smiles thy foes.
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE CNIDIAN VENUS.
Front view.]
As we thy beauty worship and admire
Inspire my song with thy celestial fire.
So shall my muse forever honor thee
And her whom thou commendest unto me.”
Here is another hymn, not less charming:
ΣΙΣ ΑΦΡΟΔΙΤΗΝ
Αἰδοίην, χρυσοστέφανον, καλὴν Ἀφροδίτην
ᾄσομαι, ἣ πάσης Κύπρου κρήδεμνα λέλογχεν
εἰναλίης, ὅθι μιν Ζεφύρου μένος ὑγρὸν ἀέντος
ἤνεικεν κατὰ κῦμα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης
ἀφρῷ ἔνι μαλακῷ: τὴν δὲ χρυσάμπυκες Ὧραι
δέξαντ’ ἀσπασίως, περὶ δ’ ἄμβροτα εἵματα ἕσσαν:
κρατὶ δ’ ἐπ’ ἀθανάτῳ στεφάνην εὔτυκτον ἔθηκαν
καλήν, χρυσείην: ἐν δὲ τρητοῖσι λοβοῖσιν
ἄνθεμ’ ὀρειχάλκου χρυσοῖό τε τιμήεντος:
δειρῇ δ’ ἀμφ’ ἁπαλῇ καὶ στήθεσιν ἀργυφέοισιν
ὅρμοισι χρυσέοισιν ἐκόσμεον, οἷσί περ αὐταὶ
Ὧραι κοσμείσθην χρυσάμπυκες, ὁππότ’ ἴοιεν
ἐς χορὸν ἱμερόεντα θεῶν καὶ δώματα πατρός.
αὐτὰρ ἐπειδὴ πάντα περὶ χροὶ κόσμον ἔθηκαν,
ἦγον ἐς ἀθανάτους: οἳ δ’ ἠσπάζοντο ἰδόντες
χερσί τ’ ἐδεξιόωντο καὶ ἠρήσαντο ἕκαστος
εἶναι κουριδίην ἄλοχον καὶ οἴκαδ’ ἄγεσθαι,
εἶδος θαυμάζοντες ἰοστεφάνου Κυθερείης.
Χαῖῥ ἑλικοβλέφαρε, γλυκυμείλιχε: δὸς δ’ ἐν ἀγῶνι
νίκην τῷδε φέρεσθαι, ἐμὴν δ’ ἔντυνον ἀοιδήν.
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ’ ἀοιδῆς.
Translated into English verse the hymn reads:
“The venerable Lady I adore,
Queen Aphrodite, owner of the shore
Of seagirt Cyprus. Thither Zephyr’s breeze
Had wafted her as babe with gentle ease.
While yet unborn, in briny foam lay she
Floating on billows of the surging sea,
Whence she came forth. The Seasons young and fair
With gold-embroidered bridles guided her,
They took her to their arms and they caressed
The little maid and had her beauty dressed
In garments of Ambrosian fabric wrought.
And then a crown of golden weight they brought,
Three-handled, which above her head they placed.
Her soft white neck with carcanets was graced,
The strands of which her silver breast adorn
In such a way as by the Seasons worn
At dances in sylvestrian resort
Or in Olympus at their father’s court.
They carried up the babe so fair and wee
To the immortals, who in ecstacy
Began at once to hug and fondle her
And kiss her hands. All vowed that they would wear
The sacred flower of this divine fair maid
At Hymen’s feast in festival parade.
Yea, such great charm the Gods e’en never saw;
They gazed and wondered and they stood in awe.
O goddess, dark-browed, sweet of voice,
In thee my song shall glory to rejoice!
On us poor mortals here on earth below
Life’s palm and heaven’s happiness bestow.
[Illustration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE CNIDIAN VENUS.]
Praised be forever thy divinity,
And the fair sex which representeth thee.”
The nature of Venus as the mother of the universe, the mistress of
existence, and the representative of all that is charming and lovely
endeared her to the philosopher as well as to the poet, and so in Rome
at a later day even the freethinker among classical poets, Titus
Lucretius, dedicated to her his philosophical book of poetry, _De rerum
natura_, in these often quoted words:[44]