Transcriber’s Note
Superscripts are shown as ^{es}; italics are enclosed in _underscores_.
HELLENISTIC SCULPTURE
[Illustration: 1]
[Illustration: 2]
HELLENISTIC
SCULPTURE
BY
GUY DICKINS, M.A.
SOMETIME FELLOW AND LECTURER OF ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD
AND LECTURER IN CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
WITH A PREFACE
BY
PERCY GARDNER, LITT.D., F.B.A.
LINCOLN AND MERTON PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1920
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Guy Dickins wrote these chapters on Hellenistic Sculpture as a brief
sketch of the period to which he hoped to devote years of study. They
foreshadow some of the theories which he intended to work out, and for
that reason we believe that they will be useful to the student. There
are obvious omissions, but no attempt has been made to fill up gaps in
the manuscript, such as paragraphs on the Barberini Faun or the Attic
Gaul, which were left blank in 1914.
The illustrations, which naturally must be limited in number, have
been selected by me mainly on the principle of reproducing the less
accessible pieces of sculpture while giving references to standard
works for the others.
In preparing my husband’s manuscript for publication I have to
acknowledge with gratitude the help of many friends. To Professor Percy
Gardner I am particularly indebted for valuable advice and for his
kindness in writing a preface to the volume; to Miss C. A. Hutton for
her counsel throughout; and to Mr. Alan Wace for sending me photographs
from Athens. I have also to thank the Hellenic Society, the Committee
of the British School at Athens, and Dr. Caskey of the Boston Museum
for permission to reproduce certain photographs.
MARY DICKINS.
OXFORD, March, 1920.
PREFACE
Among the losses which Oxford has suffered from the war, none is
more to be regretted than that of the author of this volume. As an
undergraduate, twenty years ago, Guy Dickins gave up his intention
of entering the Indian Civil Service in order to devote himself to
the study of Classical Archaeology, an allegiance from which he never
swerved. In 1904 he went as Craven Fellow to the British School of
Athens, and for five years lived mostly in Greece, studying and
exploring. In 1909 he returned to Oxford as a Fellow of St. John’s
College, and Lecturer in Ancient History. In 1914 he was appointed
University Lecturer in Classical Archaeology; but before he could take
up the duties of the post the great call came, and he obeyed it at
once. A most efficient and able company commander, he served in the
King’s Royal Rifle Corps. In July 1916 he died of wounds received in
the battle of the Somme.
Before the war Dickins had been occupied in tasks of research, and in
preparation for a teaching career. He had published several papers,
and a volume of the catalogue of the Acropolis Museum. He had visited
most of the museums of Europe, and brought back a large collection of
photographs, which his widow has presented to the Ashmolean Museum.
He was especially interested in Greek sculpture, and had intended
to collect materials for a history of art in the Hellenistic Age,
a subject which has been neglected, but which is of the greatest
importance. Several of his papers, such as those on the followers of
Praxiteles and on Damophon of Messene, show in what direction his mind
was working, though at the same time he was ready to take part in all
the projects and the excavations of the School of Athens.
The present volume, alas, is the only fruit which the study of
antiquity is likely to reap from such continued and thorough
preparation. Every reader will regret that it was not written on a
far larger scale. But it was planned as part of a complete history of
ancient sculpture. No doubt, had he lived, Dickins would have rewritten
it in a more complete form. But as it stands it is far too valuable to
lose, full of suggestion, and pointing the way to important lines of
discovery. In my opinion it contains the best that has been written on
the subject; and one rises from the reading of it with a keen regret
that the author could not bring his harvest to completion.
Dickins possessed in a high degree two qualities necessary for the best
work in archaeology. He was distinctly original, always preferring to
look at things in a light not borrowed from books or teachers but his
own. And he was at the same time of cool judgement and strong in common
sense. One of his fellow officers told me that whenever he was in doubt
as to the course to be followed in attack or defence he consulted
Dickins, and accepted his advice. He did not, like many young
archaeologists, delight in starting brilliant hypotheses; but was ever
content in coming nearer to the truth, and setting it forth in orderly
and sober fashion. Such qualities would have made him an invaluable
factor in the teaching of archaeology in England. I am told that the
undergraduates of his college always felt that he set before them a
high standard, and had no sympathy with anything which was pretentious
or meretricious. The same qualities appeared in two or three courses of
lectures on recent excavation, which he gave at the Ashmolean Museum.
I add as an appendix a list of Dickins’s published works, with a
summary of their purpose and contents. They are not great in extent;
he was not a rapid worker; but every one of them is worthy of careful
reading, and does something to advance our knowledge of Greek art and
ancient life.
PERCY GARDNER.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
I. THE SCHOOL OF PERGAMON 1
II. THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA 19
III. THE RHODIAN SCHOOL 35
IV. THE MAINLAND SCHOOLS DURING THE HELLENISTIC AGE 53
V. GRECO-ROMAN SCULPTURE 68
APPENDIX. A LIST OF THE PUBLISHED WORKS OF THE AUTHOR 89
INDEX 95
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Hermaphrodite. Constantinople _Frontispiece_
2. Marsyas. Constantinople _Frontispiece_
_Facing page_
3. Dancing Satyr of Pompeii. Naples 8
4. Ludovisi Gaul. Rome, Museo Nazionale 8
5. Head of a Dead Persian. Rome, Museo Nazionale 12
6. Gaul’s Head. Cairo 12
7. Group from the Great Frieze of the Altar at Pergamon: Giant
and Dog. Berlin 12
8. Group from the Telephos Frieze at Pergamon: Telephos and
Herakles. Berlin 12
9. Apollo of Tralles. Constantinople 16
10. Ephebe of Tralles. Constantinople 16
11. Venus Anadyomene from Cyrenaica. Rome, Museo Nazionale 20
12. Sarapis of Bryaxis. British Museum 20
13. Girl’s Head from Chios. Boston, Fine Arts Museum 20
14. Bearded Head. Rome, Museo Capitolino 22
15. Zeus of Otricoli. Rome, Vatican 22
16. Isis. Louvre 22
17. Priest of Isis. Rome, Museo Capitolino 24
18. Capitol Venus. Rome, Museo Capitolino 24
19. Ariadne. Rome, Museo Capitolino 26
20. Inopos from Delos. Louvre 26
21. Dwarf from the Mahdia Ship 30
22. Old Woman. Dresden 30
23. Grimani Relief. Vienna 30
24. Nile. Rome, Vatican 30
25. Aphrodite and Triton. Dresden 34
26. Bronze Athlete from Ephesos. Vienna 34
27. Praying Boy. Berlin 38
28. Resting Hermes. Naples 38
29. Hero Resting on his Lance. Rome, Museo Nazionale 42
30. Jason. Louvre 42
31. Draped Figure from Magnesia. Constantinople 44
32. Eros and Psyche. Rome, Museo Capitolino 44
33. Draped Figure by Philiskos from Thasos. Constantinople 44
34. Victory of Samothrace. Louvre 46
35. Chiaramonti Odysseus. Rome, Vatican 50
36. Menelaos and Patroclos. Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi 50
37. Youthful Centaur. Rome, Museo Capitolino 52
38. Bearded Centaur. Rome, Museo Capitolino 52
39. Hermes of Andros. Athens, National Museum 54
40. Themis of Chairestratos. Athens, National Museum 54
41. Hermes from Atalanta. Athens, National Museum 54
42. Sleeping Hermaphrodite. Rome, Museo Nazionale 56
43. Victory of Euboulides. Athens, National Museum 58
44. Athena of Euboulides. Athens, National Museum 58
45. Group by Damophon (restored) 60
46. Anytos. Athens, National Museum 62
47. Artemis. Athens, National Museum 62
48. Veil of Despoina. Athens, National Museum 62
49. Poseidon of Melos. Athens, National Museum 64
50. Venus of Capua. Naples 64
51. Appiades of Stephanos. Louvre 72
52. Torso Belvedere. Rome, Vatican 72
53. Athlete of Stephanos. Rome, Villa Albani 72
Figs. 3, 7, 8, 15, 27, 28, and 53 are taken from casts in the Ashmolean
Museum; figs. 4, 5, 11, 16, and 42 are from photographs by Alinari;
figs. 12 and 21 are from photographs by the Hellenic Society; figs.
20, 30, 34, and 51 are from photographs by Giraudon; figs. 23 and 26
are from photographs by Frankenstein; fig. 29 is from a photograph by
Anderson; figs. 36 and 50 are from photographs by Brogi; fig. 45 is
reproduced by permission from the _Annual of the British School at
Athens_, vol. xiii, Pl. XII.
I
THE SCHOOL OF PERGAMON
Most of the writers on Greek art agree in calling the Hellenistic
period an age of decadence. The period is a long one, lasting from the
death of Alexander to the Roman absorption of the Hellenistic kingdoms,
i.e. from about 320 to later than 100 B.C. The lowest limit is marked
by the Laocoon group, and the fact that some critics have seen in that
wonderful monument the climax of Greek art may make us pause in a hasty
generalization. The decadence of the Hellenistic age is due simply to
its exaggeration of certain tendencies already present in the fourth
century, tendencies which accompany the inevitable development of all
art gradually away from the ideal and gradually closer to realistic
imitation of nature. As long as the technical skill of the Hellenistic
artist shows no sign of abating, it is unfair and untrue to call
his work decadent. The term is only justly applicable when loss of
idealism or growth of frivolity in subject is accompanied by a decline
in execution, by a want of thoroughness, and by a desire to shirk
difficulties.
It is true to say that Greek art on the mainland enters on a period of
decadence in the third century, for its execution and expression grow
steadily worse after 250 B.C., but it is interesting to note that it
reverts to a greater idealism. The last great artist of the mainland,
Damophon of Messene, might have been a member of the school of Pheidias
save for an inadequate mastery of the chisel.
On the other hand, the schools of Pergamon, Alexandria, and Rhodes show
no falling off in technical skill as long as they remain independent
of Rome. Even their idealism does not wholly decline, for the Gallic
victories of Attalos and Eumenes brought about an idealist revival in
Pergamene art associated with the decoration of the great altar. Rhodes
remained ever wedded to the athletic ideal. Alexandria delighted most
in scenes of _genre_ and realistic imitations of nature. But all turned
out work of marvellous quality, and it is mainly a vagary of fashion
in criticism that now induces so many authorities to label as decadent
wonderful masterpieces of sculpture like the Victory of Samothrace,
the kneeling boy of Subiaco, or the Silenos with the young Dionysos.
Works so full of human nature and so rich in sympathy may well claim
to replace by their romantic appeal the classical feeling of the fifth
century. It is only when romance becomes sentimentality that it meets
with just condemnation.
The outstanding feature of the history of Greek sculpture during the
Hellenistic period is the transference of its vital centres from the
mainland to the new kingdoms of the Diadochi on the east and south and
to the great new free state of Rhodes. The chief cause was an economic
one. Alexander’s campaigns brought about a revival of prosperity and
wealth in the Greek world, but among his friends and not among his
enemies. Athens was always his enemy and the enemy of his Macedonian
successors. Consequently during the whole period from the death of
Alexander to the Roman conquest Athens was either under Macedonian rule
or in danger of Macedonian attack. It was Macedonian policy to keep her
weak and isolated, and her trading supremacy began to be transferred
to the island of Delos. The great days of Attic art passed with the
death of Praxiteles and the coming of Alexander. In the Peloponnese the
pupils of Lysippos carried on into the third century the traditions of
the Sikyonian school, but we can see from such knowledge as we possess
of their activities that the wealth and fame of the new kingdoms were
already calling the artists to abandon the impoverished towns of the
mainland. The Peloponnese also opposed Alexander and his successors,
and Macedonian garrisons held the chief fortresses of the country. We
find Eutychides of Sikyon working for Antioch, and Chares working at
Lindos in Rhodes. After the date given for the pupils of Lysippos in
296 B.C., Pliny makes the following significant statement: ‘cessavit
deinde ars, ac rursus Olympiade CLVI (156 B.C.) revixit.’[1] For 150
years the history of artistic development must be studied on the
eastern side of the Aegean.
After the preliminary conflicts between the successors of Alexander
for the partition of the empire a number of new states arose, which
are known to us usually as the kingdoms of the Diadochi or Successors.
Of these the three most important were Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt,
under the rule of Antigonids, Seleucids, and Ptolemies respectively.
Of smaller importance, but quite independent and self-sustaining, were
Bithynia, Pergamon, and the island republic of Rhodes, the latter being
the only one which maintained its Hellenic democratic institutions.
The attitude of these states towards art differs remarkably. Macedonia
remained always a military monarchy in a condition of almost constant
frontier war, and was wholly uninterested in artistic developments.
Syria seems from the first to have fallen under Semitic and oriental
influences, which destroyed its appreciation of the purer forms of
Greek art. Bithynia, Pontos, and Cappadocia were barbarian rather
than Greek. As a result, we find that the old artistic traditions are
maintained prominently in three only of the new states: Pergamon,
the home of the very Hellenic race of the Attalids; Rhodes, whose
pure Hellenic descent was untouched; and Alexandria, which became
practically a Greek town in the midst of an older Egyptian civilization.
The kingdom of Pergamon included the area of the old Ionian cities,
and inherited, therefore, an artistic tradition as old as its own
existence. It is no matter for surprise that its art-loving monarchs
should have founded a great library and a great school of sculpture in
open rivalry with the richer resources of Ptolemaic Alexandria. The
art of Pergamon is well known to us from the magnificent groups and
figures of the Gallic dedications of Attalos I after his victories
about 240 B.C., and from the marvellous frieze of the altar excavated
_in situ_ by the Germans, which belongs to the period of Eumenes
II and the early second century. But before we come to these later
developments of Pergamene art, it is important that we should discover
the earliest tendencies and predilections of the Pergamene court in
the first half of the third century. We are told[2] that the most
remarkable work of Kephisodotos, the son of Praxiteles, was his
‘symplegma’ at Pergamon--probably an erotic group--which was noteworthy
for its extraordinarily naturalistic rendering of the pressure of
the fingers into the flesh. Such erotic groups of nymphs and satyrs
or hermaphrodites exist in our museums, and are ultimately derived
from this type of statue. Actual discoveries at Pergamon support
this conception of early third-century Pergamene art. The well-known
Hermaphrodite in Constantinople (Fig. 1) and a beautiful girl’s head
in Berlin[3] show the extreme delicacy in the rendering of flesh and
the fondness for a sensual body treatment which we might expect from an
Ionian version of the schools of Scopas and Praxiteles. The existence
of such a school in Ionia in the late fourth century is highly
probable. The Pergamene school of the early third century would seem to
be the later natural development of the creators of the Ephesos columns
and the Niobids. Scopaic expression and Praxitelean flesh treatment
are the hall-marks of the school. Another work of importance for the
early Pergamene period is the Crouching Aphrodite type, so popular
in Roman times. Of this statue Pliny tells us: ‘Venerem lavantem se
Daedalus fecit.’[4] This Daedalus was a Bithynian artist of the early
third century, who must have fallen under the general influence of the
prevalent Pergamene school. His Aphrodite[5] shows exactly the artistic
tendencies of the early Pergamene school. The motive is unimportant and
frivolous--a _genre_ motive of a girl washing herself--but it is used
for the purpose of demonstrating the technical skill of the artist in
displaying the nude female form. The artist does not use all his skill
in the effort to produce a noble or even a romantic ideal. The subject
is immaterial, provided it affords a chance of showing his technical
skill. The crouching attitude is a new one in art, and one well adapted
for exhibiting the human body in all its variety. It appears again in
the Attalid dedications, and was evidently a favourite at Pergamon.
Another example is in the well-known Knife-Grinder of the Uffizi,[6]
part of a great group of Marsyas, Apollo, and the Scythian slave,
which we can certainly connect with this period of Pergamene art. The
Knife-Grinder himself is a copy and not an original. That is made clear
by his late plinth, in spite of his magnificent workmanship. But the
finer copies of the hanging Marsyas, which belongs to the group, are
in a Phrygian marble, betraying their Pergamene origin. These copies
of the Marsyas are divided into two types: a so-called ‘red’ type
(Fig. 2), made of the Phrygian marble, in which the expression of
agony is more marked, and a white type[7] in which the face is less
distorted. A theory has been put forward that the white type represents
an early third-century prototype, while the red type is a Pergamene
variation of rather later date.[8] We may, however, hesitate to see
sufficient difference in the two types to make so wide a distinction.
The white type may be merely a less masterly adaptation of the red.
An Apollo torso[9] in Berlin from Pergamon with the right hand
resting on the head agrees with a marble disc in Dresden[10] showing
a similar figure confronted by the hanging Marsyas. We may therefore
associate this figure as the third member of the group with Marsyas
and the Knife-Grinder.[11] The Apollo is a seated figure of distinctly
Praxitelean influence. The keen expression of the Knife-Grinder and
the agonized face of the Marsyas may equally well be attributed to
Scopaic teaching. We have a good example of this mixed tradition in
early Pergamene art. Technically we are at once compelled to notice the
immense advance in realism and anatomical study. The hanging Marsyas
shows a correct appreciation of the effects of such a posture on
swollen veins and strained abdomen. The corner of the mouth is drawn up
in agony; the forehead is corrugated with rows of wrinkles; the hair,
even on the chest, is matted with perspiration. One would say that so
remarkable a statue could only be studied from nature, and one recalls
the stories of Parrhasios, who is said to have used an actual model
for his Prometheus Bound.[12] We are long past the time when sculptors
worked from memory. Even Praxiteles was said to have made his Cnidian
goddess with Phryne as a model. In the Knife-Grinder we may perhaps
detect some of the earliest traces of that exaggeration of the muscles
which will so soon affect athletic art.
One of the most important of the Pergamon finds was the little bronze
satyr,[13] which has enabled us to associate with Pergamon a whole
host of satyr types of more or less similar style. The Dancing Satyr
of Pompeii (Fig. 3) and Athens, the Satyr of the Uffizi clashing
cymbals,[14] with its replica in Dresden, and the Satyr turning round
to examine his tail[15] are all variants of the new artistic cult of
the satyr, a cult which seems to have had a Pergamene origin.[16]
The satyr gave to the Pergamene artist just that opportunity for the
display of wild and somewhat sensual enthusiasm which he wanted,
for new and original poses, and for combination with his nymphs and
bacchanals. In Phrygia especially orgiastic manifestations of religion
were the regular practice, and dancing was both wild and universal. The
new artistic conceptions show the clear influence of this spirit on the
more restrained art of the fourth-century schools. The Dancing Maenad
of Berlin,[17] the Aphrodite Kallipygos of Naples,[18] and the famous
Sleeping Hermaphrodite[19] are further examples of the marvellous flesh
treatment and the wild frenzy of movement which we learn to associate
with third-century Pergamene art.
Apart from the general spirit of Pergamene work there are several
definite technical peculiarities which enable us to postulate a
Pergamene origin for many unclassed works of the Hellenistic age.
These can be gathered from the definitely Pergamene Gallic statues,
which we have yet to discuss, and from the satyr types already
mentioned. One is the hair tossed up off the forehead and falling in
lank matted locks of wild disordered type. The eyebrows are usually
straight and shaggy, with a heavy bulge of the frontal sinus over the
nose. The cheekbones are prominent, and the lips thick and parted. In
the body the most marked feature is the desire to get away from the
old-fashioned straight plane for the front of the torso. The lower part
of the chest usually projects strongly, while the waist is drawn in, so
that the profile of the torso is shaped like a very obtuse _z_. In the
female body there is a general affection for rather heavy forms with
a good envelope of flesh. The artist’s skill is here devoted mainly
to the delineation of surface. The heads of such female figures as
we can attribute to Pergamene art show very little expression. The
hair is done on the Praxitelean model, but the locks tend to become
more rope-like and twisted as time goes on. We cannot point to any
great peculiarities in the Pergamene treatment of women. Neither
Lysippos nor Scopas seems to have had much effect on the feminine
types of Greek sculpture. The whole Hellenistic age is in servitude to
Praxitelean ideals of women whether in Alexandria, Rhodes, or Pergamon.
The differences are only in the details of execution, the Pergamenes
tending always towards clear cutting of hair and features, while the
Alexandrines preferred an impressionist smoothing away of all sharp
edges.
[Illustration: 3]
[Illustration: 4]
We come now to the two great dedications of Attalos for his victories
over the Gauls.[20] These were made at some time later than 241 B.C.,
and consist of two series of statues. One is life-size or larger,
and is represented by some of the best-known examples of Hellenistic
sculpture, such as the Dying Gaul[21] and the Ludovisi group of a
Gaul slaying his wife and himself (Fig. 4). The other consisted of a
number of small figures about three feet high, and was dedicated by
Attalos in Athens, where they stood on the parapet of the south wall
of the Acropolis. Four battle-groups were included--a gigantomachy, an
Amazonomachy, a battle of Greeks and Persians, and a battle of Greeks
and Gauls. Several copies from this smaller group are in existence,
the best known being in Naples.[22] The originals of both groups were
probably in bronze, and we have the names of some of the artists of
the larger group, Phyromachos, Antigonos, and Epigonos or Isigonos.
Stratonicos and Niceratos of Athens may also have taken part.[23]
These works all deserve careful study, as they differ in many ways from
the rather sensual and ecstatic art which we know to have preceded
them, and the very _baroque_ and exaggerated art which followed them
in the next century on the great altar. Eumenes and Attalos had to
fight for their lives against the Gauls, and a temporary return to an
austerer and less luxurious art would be a not unnatural result of the
great war. We certainly find in the treatment of the Amazons or of
the wife of the Ludovisi Gaul no such insistence on sexual detail as
marks the earlier studies of the feminine form, and the expression of
the male figures is distinguished by more ideal emotions of courage
or resignation than the frenzy of the satyrs and the passions of the
later gods and giants. The Attalid dedications show some _bravura_ of
pose; the Ludovisi Gaul is a little histrionic in his attitude; but as
a whole they are sober and restrained sculpture, when compared with
the satyrs on the one hand and the altar frieze on the other. In that
sense they represent the high-water mark of Pergamene art, inspired
with an equal skill, but with a nobler ideal than the earlier work,
and not subject to the somewhat grotesque exaggerations of its later
activities. Greek art has few nobler figures to show than the Dying
Gaul of the Capitol, itself an admirable and closely contemporary
copy, perhaps made in Ephesos, of the bronze original at Pergamon. The
sober restraint of the torso modelling is remarkable, and contrasts
most forcibly with the altar frieze. The pathos of the expression and
attitude is not forced or exaggerated in any way, and if the curious
hair gives a touch of strangeness to the head, we must account for
it as a naturalistic detail of the Gallic fashion of greasing and
oiling the hair. The Ludovisi Gaul is a superb work, rather more
exaggerated, both in expression and in detail, than the Capitol figure.
The right arm is perhaps wrongly restored, as it hides the face from
the front, but it is more likely that the group should be looked at
from a position farther to the left, where the face, the fine stride,
and the technical _tour de force_ of the cloak can all be appreciated
more fully. The woman’s face is not well finished, and her whole
pose is more effective from the other point of view. The Pergamene
peculiarities in the treatment of chest and waist are clearly visible
in this figure.
The little figures in Naples, the Louvre, Venice, and elsewhere are
partly recumbent dead figures of Persians, giants, and Amazons, and
partly crouching figures defending themselves. None of the victorious
Greeks seems to have survived, except possibly the torso of a horseman
in the Terme Museum. They are dry, rather hard figures, much inferior
in skill to the larger group and much closer to the bronze originals
which they represent. The head of a dead Persian in the Terme Museum
(Fig. 5) is probably a more worthy copy (on a larger scale) of one of
the figures of this series. Its type of features and its moustache
resemble the Ludovisi Gaul. Another fine Gallic head is in the Gizeh
Museum at Cairo (Fig. 6). This has been often called an original, an
Alexandrian variant of the Gallic dedications. There is, however, no
need to separate it from the others. If it shows more emotion, that
only brings it rather closer to what we know of earlier Pergamene art.
The provenance of the Gizeh head is disputed, and it may be only a
recent importation into Egypt.[24]
We now come to the frieze of the great altar at Pergamon (Fig. 7), the
contribution of Eumenes II to the series of monuments commemorating
the defeats of the barbarians. Here again we have several inscriptions
of artists,[25] which are especially interesting as showing that four
foreign artists of Attic, Ephesian, and Rhodian origin all contributed
to the great monument. It is, however, quite uniform and unique in
character, and shows a _baroque_ exaggeration of expression and of
muscular detail, which in the end becomes monotonous and overpowering.
The slight tendency towards a histrionic attitude, which we noticed in
the Ludovisi Gaul, has now become much more pronounced. Most of the
figures are in stage attitudes of fright, ferocity, attack, or defence.
Their bodies are covered either with drapery in wild disorder, or,
if naked, with massive rolls and lumps of muscle, which are almost
comical in their exaggeration. Their hair is in unrestrained twisted
snaky locks; their faces are distorted in fierce expressions of anger
or alarm; they are in every conceivable attitude of attack or defence.
When we add to this the colossal size of the monument and its figures,
we can well understand how its remains became known to early Christian
writers as the throne of Satan.[26]
[Illustration: 5]
[Illustration: 6]
[Illustration: 7]
[Illustration: 8]
The subject of the frieze is the battle of the gods and the giants, and
the members of the Olympic Pantheon are represented in attitudes of
triumph over the serpent-footed denizens of Tartarus. This is probably
the first appearance in sculpture of the serpent feet of the giant.
Every earlier artist had realized how such a ridiculous detail
would detract from the strength and probability of his figures, but
the Pergamene artists are so glad of the chance of displaying extra
technical skill that they pass over the artistic difficulty without
hesitation. The great frieze of the altar is like the work of a
megalomaniac. The restraint and good taste which have accompanied all
Hellenic art hitherto are quite forgotten, and we are reminded rather
of some Assyrian scene of carnage and destruction. This is the more
curious, because the smaller frieze of the altar, the Telephos frieze,
which is contemporary with the larger one, shows altogether a different
character. It has therefore been plausibly argued, with the support of
some of the artists’ signatures, that the main style of the work is
Rhodian rather than Pergamene.[27] The view would only involve us in
further difficulties when we come to consider Rhodian art. There is
Rhodian influence in the frieze, but the technical details of hair,
faces, and bodies as a whole correspond closely to Pergamene art.
Moreover, on _a priori_ grounds, Pergamene art is much more likely to
be affected by exotic oriental influences than the purer Rhodian. It
is easier to assume a special development of Pergamene art in this
exaggerated direction for a monument which was itself a special and
exceptional memorial. The whole character of the work is a reversion
to an earlier idealistic phase of art, though carried out on very
different artistic lines. This is no romantic or frivolous treatment of
mythological detail. It is a great conception of the victory of right
over might, of Hellas over the barbarian, and as such the great altar
of Pergamon stands quite apart from most of the work of the Hellenistic
age, and serves rather as a connecting link between the Parthenon
on the one hand and the Imperial trophies of Augustus, like the Ara
Pacis, on the other. It demonstrates the lack of judgement and balance
in Hellenistic art, but it is a good proof that the Hellenistic school
was not wholly absorbed in questions of _bravura_ and technique, but
could rise, even if in rather clumsy fashion, to the level of a great
occasion.
The smaller frieze of Pergamon, giving incidents in the myth of
Telephos, is of a very different type (Fig. 8). Firstly, the subject
is not a unity in time and place, but a continuous narration of
mythological episodes. It thus resembles the setting in a continuous
frieze of a number of metope-subjects. Telephos appears in different
situations in a scene which apparently is uniform. This is a decidedly
new departure in artistic theory, and it had the profoundest effect on
all subsequent art. We need not, of course, see in the Telephos frieze
the first appearance of this custom, but it happens to be the earliest
surviving monument in which the principle is easily remarked. Moreover,
the information as to change of scene is conveyed by means of changes
in the background, so that we see in it another new departure: the use
of a significant pictorial background instead of the blank wall against
which earlier reliefs had been set. Here again the Hellenistic artist
revives rather than originates. The pictorial background occurs as
early as the ‘Erechtheum’ _poros_ pediment of the Acropolis, but during
the fifth and fourth centuries the idea was dropped only to reappear at
a later date.
We have already seen that relief sculpture at all stages of its history
is closely affected by the kindred art of painting. During the fourth
century painting underwent changes in the direction of naturalism as
marked as, if not more marked than, the corresponding changes in
sculpture. The late fourth century and the third century form the great
period of Greek painting, in which the names of Parrhasios, Protogenes,
and Apelles stand supreme. A true and correct feeling for perspective
and a naturalistic scheme of colouring were the main discoveries of
the period, discoveries which we are only able to appreciate in very
roundabout methods through Pompeian wall-paintings and mummy-cases
from the Fayum. All Hellenistic sculpture is profoundly influenced
by painting, as we shall see; but naturally the art of relief is
nearest akin and shows most clearly the effects of graphic ideas. The
Hellenistic reliefs are almost all adaptations of pictures, and the
Telephos frieze earns its main interest and reputation because it is
one of the first monuments to show this influence very clearly. We find
a true use of perspective in part of this frieze, and a deliberate
intention to create the impression of depth.
One of the first results of these innovations was to free relief from
its subordination to architecture. It begins now to take its place as
a self-sufficing artistic object like a picture. Greek pictures were
mainly of the fresco type, and therefore immovably fixed to walls,
though easel pictures now begin to be more frequent. There was nothing
dissimilar in the position of a relief decorating a wall-panel without
architectural significance. This idea found its earliest manifestation
in Ionia with friezes of the Assos type on an architrave block, and
therefore at variance with architectural principles. Friezes as wall
decorations appear commonly in the Ionian buildings of the fifth
and fourth centuries, like the Nereid and Trysa monuments and the
Mausoleum. We find in the Hellenistic age the use of panels as wall
decorations quite frequent all over Asia Minor. Thus at Cyzicus we
have some curious mythological reliefs called Stylopinakia, which
appear to have been panels fixed between the columns of a peristyle. We
have the Apotheosis of Homer by Archelaos of Priene, a clear instance
of the decorative panel with a pictorial background; we have smaller
pieces like the Menander relief in the Lateran; the visit of Dionysos
to a dramatic poet; and all the series of so-called Hellenistic reliefs
ascribed by Schreiber[28] to an Alexandrian origin, by Wickhoff[29] to
the Augustan age and Italian art. The reliefs, like other sculpture
of the Hellenistic age, cannot be judged as a whole.[30] Some are
Augustan, like the reliefs in the Palazzo Spada, and some are
undoubtedly Alexandrian, like the Grimani reliefs in Vienna. Others,
again, show a strong Lysippic influence, which at once connects them
with Rhodes. The Telephos frieze, however, is Pergamene, and the
Cyzicus reliefs must have fallen mainly in the Pergamene sphere of art.
We are, therefore, entitled to demand a separation of the reliefs into
just as many classes as the sculpture. A fine piece of very high relief
from Pergamon is the group of Prometheus on the Caucasus freed by
Herakles.[31] Besides the influence of pictures on relief there is also
the influence of earlier sculpture. One of the figures in the Telephos
relief reproduces the Weary Herakles of Lysippos.[32] It would not be
difficult to point out other examples of the adaptation of older types.
The Marsyas group is itself a case in point. The indifference of the
Hellenistic artist to his subject made him the readier to adapt earlier
types, provided he had a free hand for his details of execution and
expression.
[Illustration: 9]
[Illustration: 10]
The figures of Pergamene art as a whole are short and stocky with
squarish deep heads. They correspond to the Scopaic, pre-Lysippic, and
Peloponnesian type, but the Lysippic improvements in pose and swing of
the body are thoroughly appreciated and adopted. From Praxiteles are
derived the female type and the interest in the satyr as a vehicle of
sculptural expression. The athletic art of Lysippos and the school of
Sikyon is practically unrepresented at Pergamon or in those regions of
Ionia and Bithynia which are connected with it and at which we must now
glance.
From Priene we have remains of a gigantomachy and some other
sculpture.[33] The influence of Praxiteles is marked, and the work as
a whole is clearly under Pergamene guidance. From Magnesia we have
remains of a great Amazonomachy belonging to the frieze of the temple
of Artemis Leucophryene and dating from the end of the third century.
The work is dull and careless but strongly under the influence of
Pergamon. We shall in fact find no more architectural reliefs of even
tolerable quality. The new landscape or pictorial reliefs occupied the
attention of the sculptors, and temple decoration was left entirely to
workmen.
One of the great Hellenistic art centres is Tralles, whose treasures
are mainly to be seen in the Constantinople museum. The colossal Apollo
or Dionysos (Fig. 9) is closely connected in pose and treatment with
the Apollo of the Marsyas group, and shows even more clearly than the
torso in the Uffizi the influence of Praxiteles. The cloaked ephebe
of Tralles (Fig. 10) is a good example of the eclecticism of the age.
The leaning attitude with the crossed legs reminds us of the satyrs
of Praxiteles and his school, but the head is quite different and is
strongly reminiscent of Myron. Boethos of Chalcedon belongs by birth to
the northern or Pergamene sphere of influence, but he worked in Rhodes
and will be more suitably considered in connexion with Rhodian art.
Pergamene influence was also strong in the islands and on the mainland.
We shall see that the school of Melos and both Attic and Peloponnesian
art during the late third and second centuries were obviously affected
by it.
II
THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA
It may well be questioned whether we are really in a position to
separate the Hellenistic schools as definitely and surely as we can
separate the Attic and Peloponnesian schools of the fifth and fourth
centuries or the earlier local schools of the sixth. In the Hellenistic
age we find a far greater uniformity and cosmopolitanism in art than
ever before. The conquests of Alexander had been in the long run
Panhellenic, and outside the mainland at any rate the title Greek
came at last to mean more than merely a man’s city or state. It has
therefore been argued by some critics that we must not expect to find
the same local distinctions in Hellenistic art. In a cosmopolitan world
with easy communications local and separate developments were no longer
possible. This position is plausible, and so far as the question of
ideals or even types is concerned there is little to choose between the
Hellenistic schools. The so-called Hellenistic reliefs are probably
of very diverse origin; the Hellenistic love for _genre_ scenes and
for the grotesque appears to be universally indulged; the erotic
groups of Pergamon were certainly equally popular in Alexandria; the
influence of painting and the adaptation of earlier sculptural types
are found in all parts of the Aegean world. But there does seem to be
a distinction in technical execution between the three great schools
of the period, which is sufficient to justify their consideration in
three separate chapters. While Pergamon is predominantly subject to
the Scopaic-Praxitelean mixed tradition with an especial fondness
for extremely clear-cut work and soft finish, Rhodes appears to be
equally faithful to the Lysippic athletic tradition, and Alexandria to
a strongly impressionist development of Praxitelean ideas joined to
a fondness for unsparing realism in the grotesque, a combination not
infrequent in the decadence of art. For Alexandrian art, more than any
of the others, deserves the title of decadent through its abandonment
of every vestige of idealism in motive.
We know the connexion of Alexandria with Athens was close in the late
fourth century, especially during the rule of Demetrios of Phaleron in
its closing decades. It was at this time that Bryaxis made the Sarapis
(Fig. 12), which has perhaps survived for us in the innumerable copies
of a wild-haired, heavily bearded head with shadowed mysterious eyes.
During the next century Macedonia was the chief foe of Athens and of
the Ptolemies, and all the earlier Egyptian rulers were on close terms
of friendship with the city. Thus a predominant influence of Athens and
of the greatest of the fourth-century Athenian sculptors, Praxiteles,
is only what we should anticipate in Alexandrian art. It has, however,
been argued that we have no evidence for a native art of Alexandria at
all.[34] While importing much late Attic sculpture, she borrowed also
from Pergamon works like the Gaul’s head at Cairo,[35] and from Antioch
a group like the Dresden Aphrodite with the Triton.[36] She was in fact
a collecting rather than an originating centre.
[Illustration: 11]
[Illustration: 12]
[Illustration: 13]
This view is improbable on many grounds. The Egyptians were a people
with a keen artistic sense, and the sudden introduction of a new race
like the Greeks with their passion for cultural expression could
hardly fail to give an impetus to artistic output. Moreover, a great
revival in architecture is noticeable all over Egypt. The Ptolemaic
age is one of the great building periods of the Nile valley. Further,
our authorities are unanimous on the importance and brilliance of
the Alexandrian school of painting, and we know that in gem-cutting
Pyrgoteles started a development never surpassed in antiquity or
modern times. In literature, in criticism, and in science the museum
of Alexandria held the chief place, and it is impossible to suppose
that Egypt remained a mere collector of sculpture without any original
development of her own. We must, therefore, examine the artistic
products of Hellenistic Egypt to see if they exhibit any technical
peculiarities marking them off from other Hellenistic centres and
compelling us to credit them with a local origin.
Any study of the sculpture of Alexandrian origin reveals one
characteristic almost invariably present in serious work, as opposed
to the grotesque, and absent from the certified products of other
centres. This is that quality of slurring over all sharp detail in the
features and producing a highly polished, almost liquidly transparent
surface for which we have borrowed the Italian term _morbidezza_.[37]
Instances of this highly impressionist treatment are to be found in
the British Museum head of Alexander from Alexandria, and also in the
Sieglin head from the same place; in the Triton head of the Dresden
Alexandrian group of Triton and Aphrodite; in the many Anadyomene
copies which are mostly connected with Alexandria, such for instance
as the beautiful statue recently found in Cyrenaica (Fig. 11); in
girls’ heads from Alexandria in Copenhagen and Dresden. In most of
these works and in many others the soft transparent quality of the face
is matched by a quite rough impressionist blocking-out of the hair.
Thus we find both the characteristics of Praxitelean impressionism,
the rough hair and the soft liquid gaze, exaggerated and intensified
in Alexandrian sculpture. While the female hair of Pergamene art is
invariably clear-cut and rope-like, Alexandrian hair is normally
of the rough crinkly Praxitelean type, sometimes merely formal, at
others more complicated and complete. This impressionist character of
Alexandrian sculpture is borne out by what we know of its painting, and
is doubtless due to some extent to the great influence of painting on
sculpture as well as to the influence of Praxiteles.
Another technical point about Alexandrian sculpture is connected with
the local conditions of the country. Egypt is not a country of marble,
and therefore the artists had to be economical in the use of it. This
is probably the reason why so many Alexandrian heads have the faces
complete in marble but the hair added separately in stucco, where the
colouring would render the difference in material hardly noticeable.
Thus many statues of Alexandrian origin have large pieces of the
upper part of their heads smoothed away and left for the addition of
stucco. This phenomenon is not confined to Alexandrian art, though it
is much commoner at Alexandria than elsewhere, and where we find it in
combination with the other qualities of impressionism and _morbidezza_
already noticed we may feel fairly confident in claiming an Alexandrian
origin for the work in question.
[Illustration: 14]
[Illustration: 15]
[Illustration: 16]
This theory is admirably illustrated in the beautiful little head of
a girl from Chios recently acquired by the Boston Museum (Fig. 13).
The head shows us an extreme degree of _morbidezza_ in the softening
of all the sharper facial lines such as eyelids and lips. The face
is seen almost through a slight haze, and it thus gets some of the
impression conveyed by distance. Where the head is worked it is quite
rough and formal in purely impressionist style, but most of the hair
was to be added in stucco, as the sharp cuts on the upper part of the
head demonstrate. The head has been attributed too enthusiastically to
Praxiteles himself. It is good work, but it is not by the author of the
Hermes. The too mechanical smile and the too formal cheeks show a less
masterly touch. But it is a perfect embodiment of Alexandrian art about
300 B.C. and must be unhesitatingly attributed to its real origin. We
see a general copy of the Praxitelean long face with eyes about the
centre of the head, Praxitelean proportions, and Praxitelean head-type.
Another head of Alexandrian origin is the fine bearded head of the
Capitol Museum (Fig. 14), which is really almost a mask with the whole
of the top and sides of the head left for stucco additions. The rough
blocking of the beard shows the artist’s impressionist leanings. The
long face is purely Attic, though perhaps closer to Bryaxis or some
later artist than to Praxiteles. The head is more or less akin to the
Sarapis head and to the other much finer bearded head which stands
in close relation to the Sarapis, the well-known Zeus of Otricoli
(Fig. 15). In the Otricoli head we have a similar prominence of the
cheek-bones, a similar narrowing of the forehead above the frontal
sinus--Attic features but not Praxitelean. The Otricoli Zeus is also
a marble work cut for stucco additions, some of which are still
visible, and we should probably recognize in it another work of early
Alexandrian origin. It is perhaps not too daring to see the prototype
of these Attic-shaped non-Praxitelean Alexandrian bearded heads in the
Sarapis of Bryaxis.[38] Bryaxis or some other late Attic artist seems
to have affected the bearded male type of Alexandria much as Praxiteles
influenced the feminine ideal. Nottingham Castle contains a bearded
head from Nemi,[39] which belongs to the same class of work. Here again
we have the hair added in stucco and a general resemblance to the
Otricoli type.
[Illustration: 17]
[Illustration: 18]