Part 55

Another remarkable statue of Phidias was the Athene Promachus, in the Acropolis. It represented the tutelary goddess of the Athenians, fully armed and in the attitude of battle, with one arm raised and holding spear in her hand. This work was of colossal dimensions and stood in the open air, nearly opposite the Propylæa. It towered above the roof of the Parthenon and it is said the crest of the helmet and the point of the spear could be seen far off by ships approaching Athens from Sunium. Its height is supposed to have been, with its pedestal, about seventy feet, the material was bronze. There are two marble statues which have come down to us, and which give some idea of the Minervas of Phidias. One is the Pallas of Velletri, which is supposed to be a copy of the Minerva Promachus (cut is on p. 530). The Farnese Minerva, at Naples, may afford some idea of the chryselephantine statue of the Parthenon. It does not, however, present the accessories of the Athenian figure. The Sphinx, the serpent and the shield are not represented. The sculptures of the Parthenon, now in the British Museum, can lead us to appreciate the manner of Phidias, and the character of his school, so observed by Flaxman. The statues of the pediments, the metopes, and bas-reliefs, are remarkable for the grandeur of style, simplicity, truth, beauty, which are the characteristics of this school. On the eastern pediment was represented the birth of Minerva, and on the western the contest between Minerva and Neptune for the guardianship of the soil of Attica. Of the figures still preserved to us of the eastern pediment, it has been generally supposed that the reclining figure may be identified as Theseus, that another is Ceres, a third Iris, the messenger, about to announce to mortals the great event of the birth of Minerva, which has just taken place, while the group of three female figures are considered to represent the three Fates. Of the western pediment, the remaining figures are Cecrops, the first King and founder of Athens, and Aglaura, his wife, and the river god, Ilissus, or Cephisus. The metopes, which generally represent single contests between the Athenians and the Centaurs, are in strong high relief, full of bold action and passionate exertion--though this is for the most part softened by great beauty of form and a masterly style of composition which knows how to adapt itself with the utmost freedom to the strict conditions of the space. These reliefs were placed high, as they were calculated for the full light of the sun, and to throw deeper shadows.

The frieze may be considered as the chief glory of the art of Phidias. The artists here expressed with the utmost beauty the signification of the temple by depicting a festive procession, which was celebrated every fifth year at Athens, in honor of Minerva, conveying in solemn pomp to the temple of the Parthenon the peplos, or sacred veil, which was to be suspended before the statue of the goddess. The end of the procession has just reached the temple, the archons and heralds await, quietly conversing together, the end of the ceremony. They are followed by a train of Athenian maidens, singly or in groups, many of them with cans and other vessels in their hands. Then follow men and women, then bearers of sacrificial gifts, then flute-players and musicians, followed by combatants in chariots, with four splendid horses. The whole is concluded by prancing horsemen, the prime of the manly youth of Athens. This frieze was within the colonnade of the Parthenon, on the upper part of the wall of the cella, and was continued round the building. By its position it only obtained a secondary light. Being placed immediately below the soffit, it received all its light from between the columns, and by reflection from the pavement below. Mr. Westmacott remarks that these works are unquestionably the finest specimens of the art that exist, and they illustrate fully and admirably the progress and, as it may be said, the consummation of sculpture. They exhibit in a remarkable degree all the qualities that constitute fine art--truth, beauty, and perfect execution. In the forms, the most perfect, the most appropriate and the most graceful have been selected. All that is coarse or vulgar is omitted, and that only is represented which unites the two essential qualities of truth and beauty. The result of this happy combination is what has been termed ideal beauty. These sculptures, however, which emanated from the mind of Phidias, and were most certainly executed under his eyes, and in his school, are not the works of his hands. Phidias himself disdained or worked but little in marble. They were, doubtless, the works of his pupils, Alcamenes, Agoracritus, Colotes, Pæonios, and some other artists of his time. For, as Flaxman remarks, the styles of different hands are sufficiently evident in the alto and basso rilievo. To the age of Phidias belong the sculptors Alcamenes, Agoracritus, and Pæonios. The greatest work of Alcamenes was a statue of Venus in the Gardens, a work to which it is said Phidias himself put the finishing touch. He also executed a bronze statue of a conqueror in the games, which Pliny says was known as the "Encrinomenos, the highly approved." Agoracritus, who, Pliny says, was such a favorite of Phidias that he gave his own name to many of that artist's works, entered into a contest with Alcamenes, the subject being a statue of Venus. Alcamenes was successful, Pliny tells us, not that his work was superior, but because his fellow-citizens chose to give their suffrages in his favor, in preference to a stranger. It was for this reason that Agoracritus, indignant at his treatment, sold his statue on the express condition that it should never be taken to Athens, and changed its name to Nemesis. It was accordingly erected at Rhamnus.

A marble statue of Victory, a beautiful Nike in excellent preservation, has been lately discovered at Olympia, bearing the name of Pæonios. This statue is mentioned by Pausanius as a votive offering set up by the Messenians in the Altis, the sacred grove of Zeus at Olympia. The statues in the eastern pediment of the temple of Jupiter at Olympia were by Pæonios, and those in the western by Alcamenes. The first represented the equestrian contest of Pelops against Oenomaus, and in the second the Lapithæ were represented fighting with the centaurs at the marriage of Pirithous.

The frieze of the temple of Apollo at Bassæ, near Phigaleia, in Arcadia, belongs to this period. It was the work of Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon. Contests with the Amazons and battles with the centaurs form the subject of the whole. The most animated and boldest compositions are sculptured in these reliefs. They exhibit, however, exaggeration, and are wanting in that repose and beauty which are the characteristics of the works of Phidias.

In the half draped Venus of Milo now in the Louvre, we have a genuine Greek work, which represents an intermediate style between that of Phidias and Praxiteles. "Grandly serious," Professor Lubke writes, "and almost severe, stands the goddess of Love, not yet conceived as in later representations, as a love requiring woman. The simple drapery, resting on the hips, displays uncovered the grand forms of the upper part of the body, which, with all her beauty, have that mysteriously unapproachable feeling which is the genuine expression of the divine."

_Praxitilean._ This period is characterized by a more rich and flowing style of execution, as well as by the choice of softer and more delicate subjects than had usually been selected for representation. In this the beautiful was sought, after rather than the sublime. Praxiteles may be considered the first sculptor who introduced this more sensual, if it may be so called, style of art, for he was the first who, in the unrobed Venus, combined the utmost luxuriance of personal charms with a spiritual expression in which the queen of love herself appeared as a woman needful of love, and filled with inward longing. He first gave a prominence to corporeal attractions, with which the deity was invested. His favorite subjects were of youthful and feminine beauty. In his Venus of Cnidos he exhibited the goddess in the most exquisite form of woman. His Cupid represented the beauty and grace of that age in boys which seemed to the Greeks the most attractive. His Apollo Sauroctonos presented the form of a youth of exquisite beauty and proportion. The Venus of Cnidos stands foremost as one of the celebrated art creations of antiquity. This artist represented the goddess completely undraped; but this bold innovation was justified by the fact that she was taking up her garment with her left hand, as if she were just coming from her bath, while with her right she modestly covered her figure. Many as are the subsequent copies preserved of this famous statue, we can only conceive the outward idea of the attitude, but none of the pure grandeur of the work of Praxiteles. In the Vatican (Chiaramonte gallery, No. 112) there is one of very inferior execution, but perhaps the only one which gives a correct idea of this Venus, as it corresponds as nearly as possible with the pose of the statue on the coin of Cnidos and with the description of Lucan.

His Cupid is represented as a slender, undeveloped boy, full of liveliness and activity, earnestly endeavoring to fasten the strings to his bow. A Roman copy of this statue is in the British Museum.

He also executed in bronze a Faun, which was known as "Periboetos, the much famed;" the finest of the many copies of this celebrated statue that have come down to us, is in the Capitol; and a youthful Apollo, styled Sauroctonos, because he is aiming an arrow at a lizard which is stealing towards him; a copy of this statue in marble is in the Vatican, and one in bronze in the Villa Albani.

Contemporary with Praxiteles was Scopas. His works exhibit powerful expression, grandeur, combined with beauty and grace. The group of Niobe and her children, at Florence, has been attributed to him. Another very celebrated work of Scopas was the statue of the Pythian Apollo playing on the lyre, which Augustus placed in the temple which he built to Apollo, on the Palatine, in thanksgiving for his victory at Actium. An inferior Roman copy of this statue is in the Vatican. He was also celebrated for his heads of Apollo. Of these many excellent copies are still extant, the finest being that formerly in the Giustiniani collection, and now in the British Museum.

The late discoveries at Halicarnassus have yielded genuine works of Scopas in the sculptures of the bas-reliefs of Mausoleum, erected by Artemisia in memory of her husband, Mausolus, King of Caria, the east side of which is known to have proceeded from his hands; the other sides by his contemporaries, Bryaxis, Timotheus and Leochares. Parts of these are now in the British Museum.

The bas-reliefs of the temple of Nike Apteros have been associated with the peculiarities which characterize the productions of Scopas. A figure of Victory, stooping to loose her sandal, in bas-relief from this temple, is remarkable for its admirably arranged drapery.

The sculptural decorations of the temple of Artemis, at Ephesus, the foundations of which have been lately discovered by Mr. Wood, there is every reason to believe were contributed by Praxiteles and Scopas. The drum of a column, with figures in bas-relief from this temple, has been lately added to the British Museum.

The beautiful figure of a Bacchante in bas-relief in the British Museum is generally referred to Scopas.

The following are some of the more particular characteristics of the human form, adopted by the Grecian sculptors of this age:

In the profile, the forehead and lips touch a perpendicular line drawn between them. In young persons, the brow and nose nearly form a straight line, which gives an expression of grandeur and delicacy to the face. The forehead was low, the eyes large, but not prominent. A depth was given to the eye to give to the eyebrow a finer arch, and, by a deeper shadow, a bolder relief. To the eyes a living play of light was communicated by a sharp projection of the upper eyelid, and a deep depression of the pupil. The eye was so differently shaped in the heads of divinities and ideal heads that it is itself a characteristic by which they can be distinguished. In Jupiter, Apollo, and Juno the opening of the eye is large, and roundly arched; it has also less length than usual, that the curve which it makes may be more spherical. Pallas likewise has large eyes, but the upper lid falls over them more than in the three divinities just mentioned, for the purpose of giving her a modest maiden look. Small eyes were reserved for Venuses and voluptuous beauties, which gave them a languishing air. The upper lip was short, the lower lip fuller than the upper, as this tended to give a roundness to the chin; the short upper lip, and the round and grandly-formed chin, being the most essential signs of genuine Greek formation. The lips were generally closed; they slightly open in the statues of the gods, especially in the case of Venus, but the teeth were never seen. The ear was carefully modeled and finished. The beauty, and especially the execution of them, is, according to Winkelman, the surest sign by which to discriminate the antique from additions and restorations. The hair was curly, abundant, and disposed in floating locks, and executed with the utmost imaginable care; in females it was tied in a knot behind the head. The frontal hair was represented as growing in a curve over the temples in order to give the face an oval shape. The face was always oval, and a cross drawn in the oval indicated the design of the face. The perpendicular line marked the position of the brow, the nose, the mouth, and the chin; the horizontal line passed through the eyes, and was parallel to the mouth. The hands of youth were beautifully rounded, and the dimples given; the fingers were tapered, but the articulations were not generally indicated. In the male form the chest was high, arched, and prominent. In the female form, especially in that of goddesses and virgins, the form of the breasts is virginal in the extreme, since their beauty was generally made to consist in the moderateness of their size. They were generally a little higher than nature. The abdomen was without prominence. The legs and knees of youthful figures are rounded with softness and smoothness, and unmarked by muscular movements. The proportion of the limbs was longer than in the preceding period. In male and female figures the foot was rounded in its form; in the female the toes are delicate, and have dimples over their first joints gently marked.

It is evident that this type of beauty of form, adopted by the Grecian sculptors, is in unison with, and exhibits a marked analogy to the type of face and form of the Greeks themselves, for, as Sir Charles Bell observes, the Greek face is a fine oval, the forehead full and carried forward, the eyes large, the nose straight, the lips and chin finely formed; in short, the forms of the head and face have been the type of the antique, and of all which we most admire.

The sculptors of this age, instead of aiming at an abstract, unattainable ideal, studied nature in its choicest forms, and attained the beautiful by selecting and concentrating in one those charms which are found diffused over all. They avoided the representation of all violent motions and perturbations of the passions, which would have completely marred that expression of serene repose which is a prominent characteristic of the beautiful period of Greek sculpture. Indeed, the chief object of the Greek sculptor was the representation of the beautiful alone, and to this principle he made character, expression, costume, and everything else subordinate.

Lysippus, the successor of Praxiteles and Scopas, was a contemporary of Alexander the Great. He contributed to advance their style by the peculiar fullness, roundness, and harmonious general effect by which it appears that his works were characterized. His school exhibited a strong naturalistic tendency, a closer imitation of nature, leading to many refinements in detail. It was unquestionably greater in portrait than in ideal works. Pliny thus speaks of his style: "He is considered to have contributed very greatly to the art of the statuary by expressing the details of the hair, and by making the head smaller than had been done by the ancients, and the body more graceful and less bulky, a method by which his statues were made to appear taller."

The portrait statues of Alexander the Great by Lysippus were very numerous. The great King would only allow himself to be modeled by Lysippus. The head of Alexander, as the young Ammon on the coins of Lysimachus, is said to have been designed by him. An athlete, scraping his body with a strigil, was the most famous of the bronze statues of Lysippus. The statue of an athlete in the Vatican, in a similar position, is supposed to be a marble copy of the original bronze of Lysippus; though an inferior work, it illustrates the statements of Pliny regarding the proportions adopted by Lysippus--a small head and the body long and slim. The bas-reliefs also on the monument of Lysicrates, representing the story of Dionysus and the Tyrrhenian pirates, presented all the characteristic features of the school of Lysippus. It was erected in the archonship of Euænetus, B.C. 335.

The canon of Polycletus began to be generally adopted at this period. It was followed by Lysippus, who called the Doryphoros of that artist his master. In his practice of dealing with the heads and limbs of his figures, Lysippus was followed by Silanion and Euphranor, and his authority may be said to have governed the school of Greece to a late period of the art.

Pliny tells us that Euphranor was the first who represented heroes with becoming dignity, and who paid particular attention to proportion. He made, however, in the generality of instances, the bodies somewhat more slender and the heads larger. His most celebrated statue was a Paris, which expressed alike the judge of the goddesses, the lover of Helen, and the slayer of Achilles. The very beautiful sitting figure of Paris, in marble, in the Vatican, is, no doubt, a copy of this work.

Subsequently to these sculptors we have Chares, the Rhodian, who constructed the famous colossus of Helios at the entrance of the harbor of Rhodes, which was 105 feet high. It appears there is no authority for the common statement that its legs extended over the mouth of the harbor.

Of the later Asiatic or Rhodian schools we have the famous groups of the Laocoon, on page 555, and of Dirce tied to a bull, commonly called the Toro Farnese. In both of these the dramatic element is predominant, and the tragic interest is not appreciated. In the Laocoon consummate skill is shown in the mastery of execution; but if the object of the artist was to create pity or awe, he has drawn too much attention to his power of carving marble. The Laocoon was executed, according to Pliny, by Agesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes. This group, now in the Vatican, was found in the baths of Titus. From the evidence of an antique gem, on which is engraved a representation of this group, we find the right arm of the Laocoon has been wrongly restored. In the gem the hand of Laocoon is in contact with his head, and not, as restored by Giovanni da Montorsoli, raised high.

The Farnese Bull, a work in which we possess the most colossal group of antiquity, was executed by Apollonius and Tauriscus, of Tralles. To the same school belongs the Dying Gladiator, who unquestionably represents, as usually supposed, a combatant who died in the amphitheatre. It is remarkable for the entire absence of ideal representation, and for its complete individuality and close imitation of nature. This statue is probably one of the masterpieces of the celebrated Pyromachus, who executed several groups, and large compositions of battle scenes for Attalus, King of Pergamus, to celebrate his decisive victory over the Gauls (B.C. 240).

To the later Athenian school belong probably the Belvidere Torso, so much admired by Michael Angelo, the Farnese Hercules, the Venus de'Medici, and the Fighting Gladiator. The Belvidere Torso is now considered to be a copy by Apollonius, the son of Nestor, of the Hercules of Lysippus, and probably executed in the Macedonian period. The Farnese Hercules is so exaggerated in its style as to have been deemed a work as late as the Roman empire. According to Flaxman, the Venus de'Medici is a deteriorated variety or repetition of a Venus of Praxiteles. It is now generally admitted that it is a work of the latest Macedonian period, probably by Cleomenes, whose name appears on its base. The Fighting Gladiator bears the name of Agasias of Ephesus. From the attitude of the figure it is clear that the statue represents not a gladiator, but a warrior contending with a mounted combatant, probably an Athenian, warding off a blow from a centaur.

[Illustration: DYING GLADIATOR.]

The Macedonian age, to which most of these statues belonged, commenced with Alexander the Great, and terminated with the absorption of Greek art by the Romans.

Art having, in the two previous periods, reached its culminating point of perfection, as is the law of all development, when a culminating point is reached, a downward tendency and a period of decline begins, for the cycle of development must be completed and the stages of rise, progress, maturity, decline and decay run through.