ARLES
"The name of Arles has raised great discussions.... Some
see in it a Greek origin, _Agns_, others regard it as Latin,
_Ara lata_ (raised altar), because the Romans there found an
altar consecrated to Diana of the Ephesians by the Phoceans
of Marseilles: ... others as Celtic _Ar-lath_, moist place,
on account of its marshes.... It is sufficiently evident that
the name Arelate has not a physiognomy either Greek or Roman;
and the radical _Ar_ which is found ... in the name of the
Arekomique Volcians ... the Arnnematici, the Arandunici ...
permits one to affirm that this city was contemporary with
those ancient peoples, and existed in the fifth century before
our era.... Placed between its river and its inland sea, Arles
had in fact two ports as she had two cities: on the left bank
of the Rhone was the Patrician town, with its temples, its
amphitheatre, its theatre, its forum, the baths, triumphal
arches, statues.... On the right bank ... was the city of
business men, sailors, and the people. Larger in those days
than the Patrician city, _Trinquetailles_ is nothing to-day
but the maritime suburb of the modern town. A bridge of boats
connected the two towns, and Constantine substituted for it
a bridge of masonry of which one can still see the remains on
the quays of the Rhone."
TRANSLATION FROM CHARLES LENTHÉRIC.
[Illustration: ST. TROPHIME, ARLES.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
A few more turns of the kaleidoscope of life, and we find ourselves
sitting in a Roman amphitheatre among a crowd of spectators.
That odious descendant of the Roman games, the bullfight, does, at certain
times, carry on in a far milder form the ancient tale of agony in this
very arena, but the present performance given by a troup of Laplanders
is of quite another character.
The people of Arles had come in considerable crowds to see them, but what
interested us was the spectators, not the Laplanders. It was Sunday, and
many of the women had on their famous costume: a black skirt, white muslin
or tarlatan fichu, a picturesque white cap with a band of embossed black
velvet round it, which hangs gracefully at one side. The Arlésiennes
are beautiful, and carry themselves perfectly.
A picturesque costume is popularly said to "make people look handsome;"
as if the dress created a beauty that was not really there!
At Arles, by comparing the faces of those who wear the costume with
those who have abandoned it for modern garb, one can clearly realise that
beauty--which consists in relations of line and tint--is not _made_ but
_revealed_ by its setting. One sees, too, how, on the other hand, it can,
by the same means, be disguised and hidden, just as it would be easy to
disguise the symmetry of some fine freehand design by tacking on to its
outline a random selection of octahedrons or oblate spheroids. This, be
it added, is too often the sort of process pursued by the designer of
modern costume.
The beauty of the Arlésiennes is attributed to their Greek descent from
the original founders of the city. Judging by appearance, one would
say there was a strong touch of Saracen blood mingling with the clearer
current of the classic.
The hair is generally black, the eyes dark, the features regular and
often noble in character.
Arles is a place of narrow streets, of ruins, of tombs. It stands in a
wilderness of vast lagoons at the mouths of the Rhone, and in ancient
times it could only be reached by water, for the land was all covered
with these meres to the foot of the Alpilles. In the time of the Romans
and during the Middle Ages these great waters were navigated by the
_utriculares_, or raftsmen, whose flat craft were made of extended skins.
Merchandise from Central Gaul had to come to Arles to be transshipped on
its way to the East or elsewhere, _viâ_ the Mediterranean. The raftsmen
carried it over the shallow water round the city, and plied a roaring
local trade as well.
At Arles all interested in architecture will be apt to linger before
the very remarkable church of St. Trophime.
The interest lies in the characteristic Provençal blending of the pure
Roman style with its offshoot, the Romanesque, an architecture which
forms a curious analogue to the Romance languages, formed during the
same period when things Roman were falling to pieces, yet were still
the only standards and models, the type of all possible achievements in
human life and art.
The Romanesque is the _patois_ of the classic architecture (with a history
singularly analogous to that of the language), developing finally into
the eloquent Gothic of our great cathedrals. But it was in the north,
not in the south--just as in the language--that the more evolved form
established itself. That leaves to the southern speech and architecture
a primitive charm all their own.
Of the porch of St. Trophime the engaged pillars are classic as to their
capitals, Romanesque in the half barbaric carving of their bases. The
figures in the niches formed by the pillars are Roman in general type,
yet with a touch of Byzantine, which may be described as the architectural
Romance dialect of the East.
The interior was a surprise. The half-barbaric richness of the porch
had disappeared. The choir had something of the northern Gothic, but
the nave was severe, and indeed rigid in character, yet with none of
the massiveness that makes the Norman version of Romanesque so fine.
In another country one would have concluded that the interior was of
earlier date than the highly decorated porch; but in Provence this
rigid manner belongs to the second period of architecture, when the
Cistercians--afraid, apparently, lest imaginative decoration might make
things too pleasant and beautiful for sinful mortals--introduced a new
style in which such irrelevancies were sternly banished: hence even the
piers of the nave are merely square blocks of masonry. One must hope
that the worshippers of St. Trophime received commensurate spiritual
benefit for the deprivation thus imposed upon them.
The church gives one a sense of chill, of hardness; an atmosphere from
which all the inspiration and intuition of religious feeling has been
driven out, and only the intolerance and cold-blooded pieties remain.
It is exceedingly interesting none the less, for it is so fine an example
of the emotionless Cistercian style of the twelfth century--the twelfth
century, strange to relate, when the troubadours were singing their
loudest and best, when the great castles were overflowing with gaiety,
and all the land was full of dance and song.
The cloisters belong to the earlier and richer period, the pillars being
carved with real Romanesque beasts and birds of the most aggrieved and
untamed character, with vigorous foliage and volutes, and every variety
of ornament; yet all balanced with that perfect instinct of the mediæval
carver, never afraid to let himself go, to plunge into a profusion almost
riotous, while always some sane inner guidance builds up the richness
into a beautiful whole, wherein the quality of reserve which seemed so
recklessly broken down in the spendthrift detail reappears as by miracle
to bind all into one. There is no lack of emotion here. It informs every
rampant beast and indignant bird, every living curve of leaf and swirl
of volute; but it is like the clamour of tumultuous music, all welded
together into harmony.
* * * * *
In this city of the lagoons there are endless associations of Roman
days and of days far earlier, as well as tangible relics of those
dim ages that, at best, remain so profound a mystery even to the most
learned. Of the Greek colony a few marbles remain, and a few words.
The Provençal herdsmen in the mountains call their bread _arto_,
from the Greek αρτος. The sea also is _pelagre_ (πελαγος), and there
are a few more as obviously or more indirectly derived.
It was to Arles, among other Provençal places, that St. Martha came to
convert the people to Christianity. With a little company of saints, she
arrived one day in the gay pagan city just when they were all celebrating
the festival of Venus. And forthwith St. Trophimus--the beloved friend
of St. Paul--lifted up his voice and addressed the laughing, dancing
crowd, and suddenly, with a great crash, the statue of the goddess fell
to the earth, and the people were converted. Encouraged by this rapid
discomfiture of one of the most powerful of the Olympians, the little
band dispersed through the country--St. Eutropius to Orange, St. Saturnin
to Toulouse, and St. Martha to Tarascon to reform the Tarasque, with
what success we shall presently know.
Perhaps it was because the weather had lost its brilliance that Arles
seemed to us a little sad. Its beautiful, poplar-bordered Aliscamps,
the famous avenue of tombs, was scarcely a cheering place to loiter
in at the close of a winter afternoon. It brought home too clearly the
Roman idea of death: sombre, cold, grim, merciless. Sometimes, not very
often, the tombs revealed regret for the dead that appeared more than
conventional; sometimes one seemed to discern, breathing out of the
damp-stained marble, a passion of grief that was unbearably hopeless;
human love beating, beating for ever, with bleeding hands, against a
hateful, unyielding doorway. One had to hurry past those tombs....
[Illustration: LES ALISCAMPS, ARLES.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
This avenue is the sole remains of what was once a very large Roman
cemetery, destroyed when the railway came to the city. Among the tombs
was found one of Julia, daughter of Lucius Tyrannus, proudly representing
in sculpture all the musical instruments on which she could play, among
them an organ, said to be the earliest example known. Marble sarcophagi
are ranged in rows beneath the poplars, leading the eye along the solemn
glade to the church of St. Honorat, another fine example of Provençal
Romanesque, with a bell tower built on lines almost purely Roman.
St. Virgilius, under whose direction it was erected, had no little trouble
at the beginning of his work. The pillars of the church had arrived, and
were just going to be set up, when the workmen found that they could
not get them lifted, do what they would. The reason was obvious. They
found sitting solidly on the columns a very small but very determined
demon, and budge he would not. He sat there square and firm, resolved
that the obnoxious church should never be completed if he had any say
in the matter. At last, in despair, they had to send for St. Virgilius,
who was Bishop of Arles, and with holy-water and various exorcisms the
obstructive demon was driven away and the columns triumphantly hoisted
into their places, where one can see them to this day. It seemed to us
that that demon had not altogether departed from the church. The place
was gloomy, uncanny, damp, and unwholesome, but undoubtedly a fine
example of its style.
St. Virgilius, no doubt on account of his saintship, was much beset by
demons and false appearances--a very discouraging feature in the lives
of the saints.
He was one night looking out over the lagoons, when he saw a phantom ship,
and a voice called out saying that the crew was bound for Jerusalem and
had come to take St. Virgilius with them. But the wary saint replied,
"No, thank you; not until I know who you are!" And he made the sign of
the cross, and instantly the ship became a drift of mist, and rolled
away across the water.
This is said to be a version of the legend of the "Flying Dutchman."
It is not surprising that Arles should have had so many splendid Roman
buildings, for not only did it become a Roman colony,[10] but it was the
residence of Roman emperors, and was nicknamed the Rome of Gaul--_Gallula
Roma, Arelas_.
The museum was rich in relics of the Imperial occupation. There is a
beautiful bust of the Empress Livia among the treasures, and one exquisite
little head of a boy, son of one of the Cæsars, a delicate, pathetic
little face, evidently an individual, not a type.
The collection also boasts a Phœnician tomb which looks as if it were made
yesterday, and some fine reliefs of dancing figures, decorated foliage,
instinct with that quality of beauty, lightness, magic that the Gods have
bestowed upon the art of Greece. This quality comes into strong evidence
in this museum, where there are Pagan and Christian sarcophagi side
by side in large numbers. Fine as are the earlier Christian sculptures
(that is, on tombs before the withdrawal of protection from Christian
cemeteries),[11] they are not to be compared with the pure pagan work;
and the later tombs of Christian origin are "rude and childish in design
and execution."
One can spend hours wandering about the nooks and corners of the city,
loitering by the river-side, where there are the wretched remains, worse
than ruined, of a palace of Constantine; lingering about the silent
theatre where the famous Venus of Arles was found.
Cyril, an enthusiastic deacon, had the building destroyed, knocked down
all the statues and all the noble pillars, of which only two sad ones
are now standing above the ruin.
One might sit for hours unmolested on some fragment of the seats once
so gaily filled with fashionable citizens of the Empire, for though
the ruins are surrounded by houses on three sides there is little sign
of life in those quiet and ancient dwellings of the citizens of Arles.
The fine tower of St. Trophime rises conspicuously behind them, a true
southern tower, square and solid, with the three stories marked with
flat arcading and round-topped windows: simple, characteristic, with a
grave charm which is almost impossible to define, yet very obvious.
[Illustration: ARLES FROM THE RIVER.
_By Joseph Pennell._]
The parapet dividing the auditorium from the stage is still standing here
and there, and from this the two columns rise into the air, supporting
even yet a fragment of the entablature on their ornate capitals.
Cyril, the iconoclastic deacon, had the place smashed up in indignation
at the levity of the performance.
There is little levity now at any rate to trouble any deacon, however
serious! One feels, looking at the desolation, and listening to the
silence--for it is a silence that throbs and cries more loudly than ever
the audience applauded in days gone by--one feels as if the good Cyril
need hardly have troubled himself to interfere so stormily with the
doings of the people. He could not stamp out "human levity" by knocking
down fine columns and statues. He might stamp out human happiness and
the sense of the beautiful, perhaps, and help to make a coarser, duller
race to inhabit the earth. But happily the "levity" must survive in some
form or other, devastate our deacons never so wisely!
[Illustration: ROMAN THEATER, ARLES.
_By E. M. Synge._]