A head in the Louvre (Fig. 16) gives us a version of this figure,
which still, even in a poor Roman copy, shows us something of the
languid elegance of the original. There is no traceable influence of
Scopas in Alexandrian art. The Praxitelean and Attic tradition was
transferred pure, and therefore the liveliness of movement and action
in Pergamene art is quite absent from the art of Alexandria. Statues
are mainly small, partly perhaps for economy, and partly from the lack
of all desire for comparison with the gigantic masterpieces of ancient
Egypt, and they are limited to simple standing or seated poses. An
interesting statue of obvious Alexandrian origin is the priest of Isis
in the Capitol (Fig. 17), which has been wrongly restored with a female
head. This head is itself Alexandrian, as its hair demonstrates, but
it has no connexion with the body, which is male, though draped in a
light clinging tunic.[40] The tunic is interesting as giving us
a good example of Alexandrian drapery. We may notice the very small
closely set folds, and the extreme realistic care with which the loose
parts of the drapery are distinguished from those tightly stretched.
There is an element of artificiality no doubt in the way in which the
folds radiate from the great jar carried against the chest and in
their close symmetry of design, but as a whole the effect of texture
is marvellously well secured. We have here a good example of the
naturalism which now plays a large part in Alexandrian art.
Another statue which we must claim for Alexandrian art is the
Capitoline Venus (Fig. 18), an extremely interesting statue not
only as a first-rate original but from its relation to the Cnidian
goddess of Praxiteles. The face and the hair show the usual qualities
of Alexandrian impressionism; the fringed mantle thrown over the
water-pot is the mantle of the Egyptian Isis, and the foreshortening
of the foot of the amphora is just the pictorial touch we expect in
Alexandrian art. But the most interesting light which this statue
throws on Alexandrian art is its directness and want of subtlety in
motive. The goddess of Cnidos is naked, but she is only half-conscious
of her nakedness. Her eyes are fixed on eternity, and the actual bath
is a mere accessory like the child of the Hermes. But the Capitoline
goddess is not thinking of eternity at all. She is stepping into her
bath, and is suddenly aware of a spectator’s gaze. She is the classical
counterpart of Susannah in Renaissance art. All the vague beauty of the
Attic statue is lost by the touch of Alexandrian realism, which amounts
almost to vulgarity. As to the treatment of the body it is again real
and not ideal. The back in particular shows a close study of the model
without any of the selective idealism of classical art. Like the
beautiful torso in Syracuse[41] it is a marvellous study from nature,
not marked by any vestige of idealism.
Another head in the Capitol, the so-called Ariadne (Fig. 19), perhaps
really a Dionysos, also suggests an Alexandrian origin with its long
face, eyes close together, and crinkly hair.[42] It is a very favourite
Roman head often copied, and must belong to some famous original. It
wears a band, which presses into the hair, and its sleepy languid gaze
is remarkable. This is produced by making the upper eyelid nearly
straight and the lower one well curved. The face is long and heavy.
Both eye-shape and head recall the Boston girl from Chios and other
Alexandrian statues. The surface of the face is highly polished, the
hair left crinkly and rough--an Alexandrian procedure. If we can accept
this head, we must class with it two heads of identical facial type,
the Eubouleus of Eleusis[43] sometimes attributed to Praxiteles, and
the so-called Inopos from Delos in the Louvre (Fig. 20). Alexandrian
dedications might plausibly be expected at Delos and Eleusis. Both
Inopos and Eubouleus are highly impressionist. We have said enough to
show that what we may call the serious art of Alexandria had certain
characteristics of technique and execution, which render not impossible
an attempt to classify and arrange an Alexandrian school of sculpture.
We must now turn to another side of Alexandrian art which, if of less
artistic interest, is nevertheless of paramount importance in our study
of Hellenistic art.
[Illustration: 19]
[Illustration: 20]
The people of Alexandria were noted in the ancient world as scoffers
and cynics. Their temper was fiery, their jests were brutal, and
reverence of any kind was unknown to them. A cosmopolitan medley of
Greek, Macedonian, native Egyptian, Jew, and every nation of the East,
they were united only in their utter diversity of point of view and
their scepticism of all ideal obligation. To such a people caricature
and a love of the grotesque were almost second nature. By the side of
the greater art of Alexandria it is easy to discern a lesser art of
comic, grotesque, and obscene statuettes of every description. Greek
realism in portraiture went back to the Pellichos of Demetrios with his
great paunch and scanty hair in the early fourth century.[44] With the
end of the century the satyr was a recognized medium for every variety
of the _baroque_ and the _macabre_ in expression. But in Alexandria
above all the grotesque exaggeration of natural defects found its true
popularity. The negro, the hunchback, the drunkard, the _crétin_ of
every kind, became popular artistic models. As if the delineation of
youth and beauty was exhausted, the Hellenistic sculptors of Alexandria
rushed into the portrayal of disease, of old age, and of mutilation
in every form. They suffered as much as any modern decadent from
‘la nostalgie de la boue’. Here again we must beware of attributing
to Alexandria all the grotesque figures of Hellenistic art and all
its pieces of most painful naturalism. Pergamon, if not Rhodes, and
doubtless Antioch must have played their part in the commonest form
of artistic decadence; but we have so much of this work certified as
Alexandrian, that we are justified in regarding Egypt as its chief
and most popular home. Works of this type fall into two classes: the
purely grotesque and the extremely naturalistic. The former class is
more or less confined to statuettes, of which a number are collected in
Perdrizet’s _Bronzes grecs d’Egypte de la Collection Fouquet_, and the
account of the Mahdia ship in _Monuments Piot_ for 1909 and 1910. These
include gnomes, pygmies, dwarfs (Fig. 21), and little obscene figures
of all kinds. Needless to say, Praxitelean qualities of _morbidezza_
and impressionism have no place in art of this kind. We may presume
that the demand was primarily foreign and not Greek, though all the
skill of Greek sculpture is employed in the faultless execution of many
of them. Their Alexandrian origin is better attested than that of the
second class of extremely naturalistic works.
The latter are more important and more interesting. They include some
of the most skilful works of sculpture ever achieved. The splendid
negro’s head of Berlin[45] and the fisherman of the Louvre are of
undoubted Alexandrian origin, but such works as the fisherman and the
peasant woman of the Conservatori[46] or the old women of the Capitol
and of Dresden are not so clear in their origin. When we get a statue
of this type, combined with some clearly Alexandrian quality, such as
the so-called Diogenes of the Villa Albani[47]--a naked beggar carried
out with fine realism but also with considerable _morbidezza_ and
impressionism--we may claim an Alexandrian origin; but impressionism is
rare among such statues, as the artists seem to love to dwell on every
detail. We may, however, regard them as a single class irrespective of
their individual origin. The Louvre fisherman[48] deserves careful
study for its absolutely unsparing truth to nature. The slackness of
skin caused by long wading in water, the swelling of the veins through
hard work, the feebleness and hollowness of chest due to old age or
disease, the coarse peasant’s head, in which each wrinkle is faithfully
delineated, deserve our wonder if not our admiration. The little
companion pair in the Conservatori, though inferior in workmanship as
Roman copies, are also full of interest for their vitality and truth.
Finest of all perhaps is the splendid old woman’s head in Dresden (Fig.
22), with its marvellous mimicry of the ravages of age. Such art is
decadent, because it is pessimistic, cynical, and unhappy, and because
it refuses to select and idealize as it might do even in studies of
decay; but of its brilliant execution there can be no doubt. Only
the Chinese have made grotesques which can rank with the products of
Alexandria.
This is a convenient place for dealing with the great series of
Hellenistic reliefs, though it is no longer possible to maintain
that these have a uniform and common origin either in Alexandria or
in Imperial Rome.[49] We have seen their beginning in the Telephos
frieze, the first to show us a pictorial background and an episodic
mythological treatment. The appearance of the relief panel as a
self-sufficient whole without architectural background is an invention
of the Hellenistic age as early as the third century B.C., but it
continues as an artistic force right through Roman into mediaeval and
modern art. Certainly not even the Hellenistic reliefs have a common
origin, but it is not impossible that Alexandria was the home of one
class of them, the pre-eminently pastoral scenes like the Grimani
reliefs in Vienna (Fig. 23). Alexandria was the greatest city of the
Hellenistic world and the farthest from any conception of the pastoral
life of the country. It is, therefore, possible that the rise of the
pastoral tendency in art was connected with the Alexandrian craving
for novelty and variety in a sphere of which it knew nothing. It is
certain that the pastoral poems of Theocritos delighted the citizens of
Alexandria, and the Hellenistic pastoral relief is strictly analogous
to the poems of Theocritos. It shows a countryside of the Watteau type
with satyrs and nymphs to correspond to the shepherds and shepherdesses
of the court of Louis XIV. It is an artificial country without a touch
of the reality of nature. Thus the pastoral reliefs and the poems of
Theocritos represent the one element of idealism in the materialistic
culture of Alexandria.
[Illustration: 21]
[Illustration: 23]
[Illustration: 22]
[Illustration: 24]
The Hellenistic reliefs may be divided into three classes: the
pastoral reliefs such as the scenes showing sheep and a lioness and
cubs, called the Grimani reliefs, in Vienna; mythological reliefs
like the Bellerophon and Pegasus of the Palazzo Spada,[50] or Perseus
and Andromeda of the Capitol[51] in Rome; and more complicated little
scenes or groups like the Menander relief of the Lateran,[52] the
Apotheosis of Homer,[53] the slaying of the Niobids,[54] or the visit
of Dionysos to a dramatic poet.[55] They are all closely related to
painting--how closely a reference to Pompeian wall-paintings or mosaics
like the famous Praenestine pavement will show--but there are some
differences between the groups which are worthy of mention. The
pastoral scenes are straightforward and naturalistic. The little group
of a countryman driving a cow past a ruined temple in Munich is a good
example of straightforward naturalism. The mythological reliefs are
usually distinctly affected in style. The gesture with which Perseus
receives Andromeda is like that of an exquisite handing a lady from
her carriage. Bellerophon waters his horse with a nonchalant air.[56]
Daedalos and Icaros[57] present a curious mixture of affectation and
realism. But it may now be regarded as certain that the Spada reliefs
are Augustan in date at the earliest, and the affectation may well be
imported. This is, indeed, partially demonstrated by a comparison of
the two copies of the Daedalos-Icaros group in the Villa Albani, of
which one is Roman, the other probably late Hellenistic. At the same
time it is remarkable that the figures of the mythological reliefs all
show the long slender proportions of Lysippos. This at once suggests a
Rhodian connexion. Mythological groups are favourites in Rhodes, and it
is the one place where the Lysippic tradition certainly lasted. It is
not a wholly hazardous suggestion to propose a Rhodian origin for the
mythological, and an Alexandrian origin for the pastoral, reliefs. One
might be tempted, therefore, to ascribe the most intimate and domestic
scenes to Pergamon, but there is insufficient evidence for proof at
present, though the reliefs deserve careful study with these possible
divisions in mind.
In general we can only point out their fine naturalism and perfect
execution. Their artists seem to have mastered all the problems of
perspective and to deal with the third dimension as easily as with the
other two. It is natural to notice some advance in freedom of style.
The earlier reliefs, like the Telephos frieze, or the Dolon relief,[58]
are in less pronounced relief and with less carefully conceived
perspective. Later reliefs like the so-called Menander relief show
some of the figures in part detached from the background, while the
perspective of a group is most subtly graded. We may compare the finest
of them with the bronze doors of the Florentine Baptistery and their
marvellous panels.
We are still left with one important monument of Alexandrian art which
perhaps can be treated most fitly in connexion with the pastoral
reliefs--the great statue of the Nile in the Braccio Nuovo of the
Vatican (Fig. 24). The god lies out at length supported on his elbow,
and little boys, representing the cubits of his annual rise, play
about over him. The work is a Roman copy, and tells us little of
technique, but the _putti_ are interesting as a typical Hellenistic
development. This is the period in which Eros, who has been growing
steadily younger from the youth of Praxiteles to the boy of Lysippos,
turns finally into the chubby Roman Cupid or Amorino of Renaissance
art. As such he helps Aphrodite in her toilet or performs all manner of
tasks in the fine frieze of Erotes at Ephesos. It is the logical ending
of the transformation of mythology into _genre_. Alexandrian art is
essentially mundane and frivolous, sceptical and humorous. Her artists
would have appreciated the earlier Pergamene developments, but they
would have laughed at the clumsy idealism of the great altar frieze.
Nor would they have felt much sympathy with the athletic art of Rhodes.
We may perhaps consider here the little we know of the art of Antioch,
since it has certain points in common with that of Alexandria. The
chief monument used in all discussion of Antiochene art is the statue
of Antioch[59] on the Orontes, made by Eutychides, a pupil of Lysippos.
A small copy of this in the Vatican shows us a fine seated figure
crowned with the turreted crown, who rests her foot on a little male
figure with outstretched arms representing the stream of the Orontes.
Unfortunately the copy is too small to give us much information about
the artist, though he seems to have used the same idea for another
statue of the Eurotas. We have, however, a figure of Aphrodite from
Egypt (Fig. 25), which shows a supporting Triton in an attitude
indubitably connected with the figure of the Orontes. This is an
Egyptian work, but it argues some artistic connexion between Alexandria
and the Seleucid capital. Another link is given us by the statement[60]
that the Apollo at Daphne near Antioch was made by Bryaxis, the author
of the Alexandrian Sarapis.
Antioch, though like Alexandria in many respects--in her
turbulent population, her cosmopolitanism, her irreverence for
all authority--seems never to have developed the cultured love of
literature and the arts which we find at Pergamon and on the Nile. She
remained in all probability a collector and not an originator of art.
The glimpses which we can get of her statues indicate a catholic taste.
The Apollo seated on the Omphalos, which decorates the Seleucid coins,
resembles the Lysippic type, and a Herakles type, also found on Syrian
coins and reproduced in the bronze colossus of the Conservatori, has
some connexion with the later Sikyonian school. By the side of these we
must place the Apollo of Bryaxis.
Ephesos, a strong place more or less at the meeting-point of three
empires, has left us considerable remains of Hellenistic art. Her
bronze athlete at Vienna (Fig. 26) belongs to a later development of
the Scopaic school; her frieze of Erotes[61] is more in the Alexandrian
manner. Some beautiful bronzes, in particular a Herakles attacking a
centaur,[62] are in the mixed Lysippo-Scopaic manner. There are also
traces of Praxitelean influence in her art.
These cosmopolitan collecting centres cannot tell us much of the
methods of Hellenistic art. Our best resource is to examine more
closely the works of certified origin. Ephesos is, however, important
for its school of copyists. The marble copies of the Attalid
dedications were perhaps made here, and Agasias, the author of the
Borghese Fighter,[63] was an Ephesian by birth, although a Rhodian by
education.
[Illustration: 25]
[Illustration: 26]
III
THE RHODIAN SCHOOL
The school of Rhodes stands on a different footing from that of
Pergamon or Alexandria. The latter were new foundations, or at least
new societies, in which the Greek element was associated with much
that was alien and exotic. The orgiastic wildness of Phrygia went far
to influence the art of Pergamon, whether in its earlier sensuality
or its later pageantry of exaggerated triumph. In Alexandria and in
Antioch non-Greek races imported into Hellenic art the cynicism and
the world-weariness of older and exhausted civilizations. But Rhodes
was pure Greek and a living, growing, prosperous community without
recollections of humiliation and defeat. Rhodes as a city had been born
of the union of Lindos, Kameiros, and Ialysos at the end of the fifth
century. The fourth century brought slow growth, but the successful
defence against Demetrios Poliorcetes in its last decade opened a new
chapter in Rhodian history. Henceforward Rhodes was mistress of an
empire. She acquired possessions on the mainland; her fleet rode and
controlled her neighbouring seas; her trade stretched out tentacles in
all directions; and among the semi-barbarous Hellenistic kingdoms she
alone carried proudly the torch of undefiled Hellenic tradition. Chares
of Lindos, a pupil of Lysippos, headed the long roll of her sculptors;
her painter, Protogenes, had but one rival in the Sikyonian Apelles.
Thus from the first she boasted great artists, closely connected too
with the school of Sikyon. Her Dorian sympathies naturally isolated
her from the Attic school and from the mixed Praxitelean-Scopaic
school of the Ionian mainland. Her Peloponnesian and Sikyonian
connexions identified her at once with athletic art and with the school
of Lysippos. Thus while Alexandria and Pergamon patronized marble
sculpture, Rhodes now becomes the home of bronze casting. Her vast
Colossus was matched by at least one hundred more statues of remarkable
size, and the roll of her artists as recorded in inscriptions is
noteworthy for its length. The great siege gave that impulse of
idealism which is necessary for the growth of any artistic development,
and the traditional friendship with the rising power of Rome helped
her to preserve her prosperity and independence later than any of her
neighbours. The last great work of Rhodian art, the Laocoon, is almost
as late as the Empire, and the whole period of two hundred and fifty
years between it and the Colossus is marked by an immense output of
sculpture.
We have already suggested that the Hellenistic art of Rhodes began
under the dominant influence of the athletic school of Lysippos. We
must first examine the character and achievements of this school.
Daippos, Boedas, and Euthykrates are said to have been sons and pupils
of the great Sikyonian. Of these Euthykrates was the best known,
and Pliny tells us that he followed his father’s carefulness rather
than his elegance, and that his style was more severe than genial
(‘constantiam potius imitatus patris quam elegantiam austero maluit
genere quam iucundo placere’).[64] His works were mainly athletic or
equestrian, with a few female subjects, and his pupil Tisicrates was
a faithful copyist of the style of Lysippos, so much so, in fact, that
his works could hardly be distinguished from the master’s. Daippos made
a _perixyomenos_ or athlete scraping himself,[65] and Boedas made an
_adorans_ or praying figure.[66]
Pliny’s description is important, because it assures us of the
faithfulness with which the pupils of Lysippos kept to their master’s
style. This is the basis for the argument of those who see in the
Apoxyomenos of the Vatican a work of the pupil Daippos rather than the
master; but the argument is two-edged, if Lysippos’ own style is to be
found in the Agias, since the two statues have little in common. The
mention of the _adorans_ enables us to connect two well-known bronzes
with this school--the Praying Boy of Berlin (Fig. 27) and the Resting
Hermes of Naples (Fig. 28). The Praying Boy is a subject unparalleled
elsewhere, and belongs to the early Hellenistic age. He can hardly be
other than a copy of the statue of Boedas. The slender proportions
and small head follow the Lysippic canon, and the easy swing of the
body proves its chronological position. This figure and the others,
which we shall subsequently notice, show a new growth of naturalism
by less insistence on the outlines of the torso muscles. The average
body in repose does not show the massive muscles of Pheidian or even
of Lysippic art, and the post-Lysippic sculptors of the third century
tend to soften and naturalize the torso to a considerable extent.
The Pergamene Dying Gaul is a good example of this fine restraint,
which was utterly abandoned by the later Pergamene school and even
by the late Rhodians, but which in all third-century art of Rhodes
is noteworthy. The Resting Hermes is a fine copy of a post-Lysippic
original, which stood in close connexion with the Praying Boy. The
torso, slender, restrained, and full of vitality, shows the same
treatment, and must belong to the Lysippic school.
[Illustration: 27]
[Illustration: 28]
Eutychides of Sikyon, another pupil of Lysippos, is known to us only
from his Antioch.[67] This figure, even in its poor copy, is of great
importance, since it is almost the only certified draped female
figure of the Lysippic school. Our whole theory of Lysippic and early
Rhodian drapery must, therefore, rest upon it. A comparison with the
Herculaneum figure[68] in Dresden will show at once a considerable
resemblance in treatment, so much so, in fact, that it has caused the
attribution of the Dresden figure to the Lysippic school. This cannot
be allowed because of the greater resemblance to Attic grave-reliefs
and the Mantinean basis, which demonstrates the origin of the type in
the school of Praxiteles.[69] But it is sufficient to show that the
new scheme of the school of Praxiteles was adopted in the main by the
pupils of Lysippos; their faithfulness to their teacher will incline
us to the belief that Lysippos used it also. This type of drapery
shows a tendency to an artificially effective or artistic arrangement
rather than to complete simplicity of naturalism like the drapery of
Praxiteles himself, but it is important to notice that it does not
become purely artificial or stereotyped till much later, and that all
the early examples preserve a considerable share of freer naturalism.
The characteristic of the drapery is an opposition of folds in many
differing directions, so as to counteract the uniformity of the
older Pheidian type. The folds themselves are quite natural; it is only
in their arrangement that we find the element of art.
The Antioch permits us to assume the tall figure swathed in a long thin
cloak as the female type of the Lysippic school, and therefore of the
early Rhodian school, while the Praying Boy and the Resting Hermes give
us the male type. The close connexion postulated rests on the fact that
Chares of Lindos, the author of Rhodes’ most famous statue, the great
Colossus, was himself a member of the Sikyonian school and a pupil of
the master. But the Colossus itself is unknown to us in any certain
copy, and therefore we cannot speak with full knowledge of his art.
Some statuettes in bronze in marked Lysippic style may well reproduce
the statue, but we cannot feel the necessary certainty in their
identification.