Part 5

It is a commonplace to say that sculpture in relief is only one branch of painting. Conze[56] publishes a sepulchral monument which seems to him to mark the first stage of growth. The surface of the figure and that of the surrounding ground remain the same; they are separated only by a shallow incised line. Conze says of it; "The tracing of the outline is no more than, and is in fact exactly the same as, the tracing employed by the Greek vase-painter when he outlined his figure with a brush full of black paint before he filled in with black the ground about it." The next step naturally is to cut away the surface outside and beyond the figures; the representation is still a picture except in the clearer marking of the bounding-line. The entire further growth and development of the Greek relief is in the direction of rounding these lines and of detaching the relief more and more from the back surface. This primitive picturesque method of treatment is found as well in high relief as in low. How then can the process of development be different for the two? I quote from Friedrichs-Wolters[57] on the metopes of the temple of Apollon at Selinous, which are distinctly in high relief: "The relief of these works stands very near to the origin of relief-style. The surface of the figures is kept flat throughout, although the effort to represent them in their full Page 36 roundness is not to be mistaken. Only later were relief-figures rounded on the front and sides after the manner of free figures. Originally, whether in high or in low relief, they were flat forms, modelled for the plane surface whose ornament they were to be." As the sculptured works were brought out further and further from the background, this background tended to disappear. It was no longer a distinctly marked surface on which the figures were projected, but now higher and now lower, serving only to hold the figures together. When this point was reached, the entire separation of the figures from one another and from the background, became easy. That is, the change in conception is an easy step by which the relief was lost and free-standing figures substituted. This process of change was especially rapid in pedimental groups, for the reason stated above. The pediment field from its architectonic conditions was never suited to decoration in relief. But we find from the works before us that such a system was at least attempted, that painting and an increased projection of relief were employed as aids. We are bound to seek a logical explanation of the facts and of their bearing on the later history of art, and it is safer to assume a process of regular development than a series of anomalous changes. Koepp (_cf. supra_), for example, assumes that these two pediments in low relief are simply exceptions to the general rule, accounting for them by the fact that it was difficult to work out high reliefs from the poros stone of which they were made. He seems to forget that the higher reliefs from the Acropolis are of the same poros. This material in fact appears to have been chosen by the artist because it was almost as easy to incise and carve as the wood and clay to which he had been accustomed. The monuments of later Greek art give no hint of a distinction to be drawn between high and low relief. We find on the same stele figures barely attached to the ground, and others in mere outline. If then there are reasons for finding the origin of pedimental decoration in a plane or low-relief composition of terracotta, made more effective both by a framing of like material and technic, and by the acroteria at either extremity and above, then the process of development which leads at length to the pediments at Aegina and the Parthenon becomes at once easy and natural. We note first the change from terracotta to a low painted Page 37 relief in stone, then this relief becomes, from the necessities of the case, higher and higher until finally it gives place to free figures.

[Footnote 56: _Das Relief bei den Griechen. Sitzungs-Berichte der Berliner Akademie_, 1882, 567.]

[Footnote 57: _Gipsabgüsse antiker Bilderwerke_, Nos. 149-151.]

If ceramic art really did exert such an influence on temple-sculpture, we should be able to trace analogies in other lines. The most interesting is found in the design and execution of sepulchral monuments. Milchhoefer[58] is of the opinion that the tomb was not originally marked by an upright slab with sculptured figures. He finds what he thinks the oldest representation of sepulchral ornament in a black-figured vase of the so-called "prothesis" class.[59] Here are two women weeping about a sepulchral mound on which rests an amphora of like form to the one that bears the scene. He maintains then that such a prothesis vase was the first sepulchral monument, that this was later replaced by a vase of the same description in marble, of course on account of the fragile nature of pottery. For this reason, too, we find no certain proof of the fact in the old tombs, though Dr. Wolters[60] thinks that the discovery of fragments of vases on undisturbed tombs makes the case a very strong one. The use of such vases or urns of marble for this purpose became very prevalent. They are nearly always without ornament, save for a single small group, in relief or sometimes in color, representing the dead and the bereaved ones. A very evident connecting-link between these urns and the later sepulchral stele appears in monuments which show just such urns projected in relief upon a plane surface. The relief is sometimes bounded by the outlines of the urn itself,[61] sometimes a surrounding background is indicated. In many cases this background assumes the form of the ordinary sepulchral stele. The Central Museum at Athens is especially rich in examples of this kind. On two steles which I have noticed there, three urns are represented side by side. A still more interesting specimen is a stone so divided that its lower part is occupied by an urn in relief, above which is sculptured the Page 38 usual scene of parting. This scene has its normal place as a relief or a drawing in color on the surface of the urn itself; here, where the step in advance of choosing the plane stele to bear the relief seems already taken, the strength of tradition still asserts itself, and a similar group is repeated on the rounded face of the urn below. The transition to the more common form of sepulchral monument has now become easy; but the characteristics which point to its genesis in the funeral vase are still prominent.

[Footnote 58: _Mitth. Athen._, v, 164.]

[Footnote 59: _Monumenti dell' Inst._, viii, _tav._ v. 1. _g.h._: found near Cape Kolias; at present in the Polytechnic Museum at Athens.]

[Footnote 60: _Attische Grabvasen_, a paper read before the German Institute in Athens, Dec. 9, 1890.]

[Footnote 61: Examples are Nos. 2099 and 2100 in the archaic room of the Louvre. I remember having seen nothing similar in any other European museum.]

This process of development, so far as can be judged from existing types, reaches down to the beginning of the fourth century B.C. Steles of a different class are found, dating from a period long before this. Instead of a group, they bear only the dead man in a way to suggest his position, or vocation during life. All show distinctly a clinging to the technic of ceramic art. Sculptured steles and others merely painted exist side by side. The best known of the latter class is the Lyseas stele, in the Central Museum at Athens. Many more of the same sort have been discovered, differing from their vase predecessors in material and form, but keeping to the old principles. The outlines, for example, are first incised, and then the picture is finished with color. The Aristion stele may be taken as an example of the second order. Relief plays here the leading part; but it must still be assisted by painting, while the resemblance to vase-figures in position, arrangement of clothing, proportion and profile, remains as close as in the simply painted stele. An ever present feature, also, is the palmette acroterium, treated in conventional ceramic style. Loeschke thinks that the origin of red-figured pottery is to be found in the dark ground and light coloring of these steles. Whether the opinion be correct or not, it points to a very close connection between the two forms of art.

The influence of ceramic decoration spread still further. Large numbers of steles and bases for votive offerings have been discovered on the Acropolis, which alike repeat over and over again conventional vase-patterns, and show the use of incised lines and other peculiarities of the technic of pottery.[62]

[Footnote 62: BORRMANN, _Jahrbuch des Instituts_, III, 274.]

As to specific resemblances between the pediments of the Acropolis and vase-pictures, the subjects of all the groups are Page 39 such as appear very frequently on vases of all periods. About seventy Attic vases are known which deal with the contest of Herakles and Triton. One of these is a hydria at present in the Berlin Museum, No. 1906.[63] Herakles is represented astride the Triton, and he clasps him with both arms as in the Acropolis group. The Triton's scaly length, his fins and tail, are drawn in quite the same way. It is very noticeable that on the vase the contortions of the Triton's body seem much more violent; here the sculptor could not well follow the vase-painter so closely. It was far easier for him to work out the figure in milder curves; but he followed the vase-type as closely as possible. On the other hand, if the potter had copied the pedimental group the copy could perfectly well have been an exact one. The group is very similar also to a scene in the Assos frieze, with regard to which I quote from Friedrichs-Wolters;[64] "It corresponds to the oldest Greek vase-paintings, in which we find beast fights borrowed from Oriental art, united with Greek myths and represented after the Greek manner." This frieze is ascribed to the sixth century B.C., and is not much later than our pediments.

For the Hydra pediment, there exists a still closer parallel, in an archaic Corinthian amphora, published by Gerhard.[65] Athena appears here as a spectator, though she has no part in the pedimental group; but in every other point, in the drawing of the Hydra, of Herakles and Iolaos, the identity is almost complete. Athena seems to have been omitted, because the artist found it difficult to introduce another figure in the narrow space. Evidently the vase must have represented a type known to the sculptor and copied by him.

[Footnote 63: Published by GERHARD, _Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder_, No. 111; RAYET et COLLIGNON, _Hist. Céram. Grecque_. fig. 57, p. 125. In the National Museum at Naples, No. 3419, is a black-figured amphora which repeats the same scene. The drawing and position of the two contestants is just as on the Berlin vase, the Triton seeking with one hand to break Herakles' hold about his neck, while with the other he holds a fish as attribute. Athena stands close by, watching the struggle.]

[Footnote 64: _Gipsabgüsse antiker Bildwerke_, Nos. 8-12.]

[Footnote 65: _Auserlesene Vasenbilder_, Nos. 95, 96.]

For the Typhon pediment, no such close analogies are possible, at least in the form and arrangement of figures. It would seem that this is so simply because no vase-picture of this subject Page 40 that we know so far answers the conditions of a pedimental group that it could be used as a pattern. In matters of detail, a hydria in Munich, No. 125,[66] offers the best illustration. For example, the vase-painting and the relief show quite the same treatment of hair, beard and wings in the figure of Typhon.

Speaking more generally, we find continually in the pediments reminiscences of ceramic drawing and treatment. The acroteria, painted in black and red on the natural surface of poros stone, take the shape of palmettes and lotuses. The cornices above and below are of clay or poros, painted in just such designs as appear on the Olympian terracottas; and these designs are frequently repeated in the sculptures themselves. The feathers of Typhon's wings are conventionally represented by a scale-pattern; the arc of the scales has been drawn with compass; we observe still the hole left in the centre by the leg of the compass. The larger pinions at the ends of the wings have been outlined, regularly by incised lines, and then filled up with color. All this is as like the treatment of vase-figures, as it unlike anything else in plastic art. In the former the scale-pattern is used conventionally to denote almost anything. Fragments of vases found on the Acropolis itself picture wings in just this way; or it may be Athena's aegis, the fleece of a sheep or the earth's surface that is so represented. On the body of the Triton and the Echidna of the pediments no attempt is made to indicate movement and contortion by the position of the scales; it is everywhere the lifeless conventionality of archaic vase-drawing. In sculptured representations the scale device is dropped, and with it the rigid regularity in the ordering of the pinions. Further, in drawing the scales of the Triton, the artist has dropped usual patterns and copied exactly a so-called bar-ornament which decorates the cornice just over the pediment. Here again he chooses one of the most common motives on vases. For the body of the Echidna, on the other hand, it is the so-called lattice-work pattern which represents the scale covering,--a pattern employed in vases for the most varied purposes, and found on the earliest Cypriote pottery. Even the roll of the snake-bodies of Typhon seems to follow a conventional spiral which we find on old Rhodian ware.

[Footnote 66: _Ibid._, No. 287.]

Page 41 The outlining and coloring of the figures is most interesting. The poros stone of the reliefs is so soft that it could easily be worked with a knife; so incised lines are constantly used, and regular geometrical designs traced. Quite an assortment of colors is employed: black, white, red, dark brown, apparent green, and in the Typhon group, blue. It is very noticeable that these reliefs, unlike the others which in general furnish the closest analogies, the metopes of the temple at Selinous and the pediment of the Megarian Treasury at Olympia, have the ground unpainted. This is distinctly after the manner of the oldest Greek pottery and of archaic wall paintings. Herein they resemble also another archaic pedimental relief, found near the old temple of Dionysos at Athens, and representing just such a procession of satyrs and mænads as appears so often on vases.

To give a local habitation to the class of pottery which most nearly influenced the artist of these reliefs, is not easy. Perhaps it is a reasonable conjecture to make it Kamiros of Rhodes. Kamiros ware shows just such an admixture of oriental and geometrical designs as characterizes our pediments. Strange monsters of all kinds are represented there; while in the reliefs before us a goodly number of such monsters are translated to Greek soil.

CARLETON L. BROWNSON. American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Nov. 10, 1891.

Page 42

PAPERS OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL STUDIES AT ATHENS. THE FRIEZE OF THE CHORAGIC MONUMENT OF LYSIKRATES AT ATHENS.[67]

[PLATE II-III.]

The small circular Corinthian edifice, called among the common people the Lantern of Diogenes,[68] and erected, as we know from the inscription[69] on the architrave, to commemorate a choragic victory won by Lysikrates, son of Lysitheides, with a boy-chorus of the tribe Akamantis, in the archonship of Euainetos (B.C. 335/4), has long been one of the most familiar of the lesser remains of ancient Athens. The monument was originally crowned by the tripod which was the prize of the successful chorus, and it doubtless was one of many buildings of similar character along the famous "Street of Tripods." [70] It is the aim of this paper to show, that the earliest publications of the sculptured reliefs on this monument have given a faulty representation of them, owing to the transposition of two sets of figures; that this mistake has been repeated in most subsequent publications down to our day; that inferences deduced therefrom have in so far been vitiated; and that new instructive facts concerning Greek composition in sculpture can be derived from a corrected rendering of the original.

[Footnote 67: It is a pleasure to acknowledge my obligations to the Director of the School, Dr. Waldstein, who has kindly assisted me in the preparation of this paper by personal suggestions.]

[Footnote 68: This does not exclude the tolerably well-attested fact, that the name "Lantern of Diogenes" formerly belonged to another similar building near by, which had disappeared by 1676.]

[Footnote 69: _C._ 1. _G._ 221.]

[Footnote 70: _Cf._ PAUS., I, 20, 1.]

Although we are not now concerned either with the subsequent fortunes of the monument arid the story of its preservation, or Page 43 with its architectural features and the various attempts which have been made to restore the original design, it may be convenient to recall briefly a few of the more important facts pertaining to these questions. The Monument of Lysikrates first became an object of antiquarian interest in 1669, when it was purchased by the Capuchin monks, whose mission had succeeded that of the Jesuits in 1658, and it was partially enclosed in their _hospitium_.[71] The first attempt to explain its purpose and meaning was made by a Prussian soldier, Johann Georg Transfeldt, who, after escaping from slavery in the latter part of 1674, fled to Athens, where he lived for more than a year.[72] Transfeldt deciphered the inscription, but was unable to decide whether the building was a "_templum Demosthenis_" or a "_Gymnasium a Lysicrate * * * exstructum propter juventutem Atheniensem ex tribu Acamantia_." [73] Much more important for the interpretation of the monument was the visit of Dr. Jacob Spon of Lyons, who arrived at Athens early in the year 1676. Spon also read the inscription,[74] and, from a comparison with other similar inscriptions, determined the true purpose of edifices of this class.[75] Finally the first volume of Stuart and Revett's _Antiquities of Athens_, which appeared in 1762, confirmed, corrected and extended Spon's results. Careful and exhaustive drawings accompanied the description of the monument.

In the latter part of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth century, Athens was visited by many strangers from western Europe, and the hospitable convent of the Capuchins and the enclosed "Lantern," which at this time was used as a closet for books, acquired some notoriety. Late in the year 1821, however, during the occupation of Athens by the Turkish troops under Omer Vrioni, the convent was accidentally burned, and its most precious treasure was liberated, to be sure, but, as may still be seen, sadly damaged by the fire, and what was still more unfortunate, left unprotected and exposed to the destructive mischief of Athenian street-arabs and their less innocent elders.

[Footnote 71: SPON, _Voyage_, II, p. 244; LABORDE, _Athènes_, I, p. 75 and note 2.]

[Footnote 72: MICHAELIS, _Mitth. Athen_., I, p. 103. ]

[Footnote 73: _Mitth. Athen._, I, p. 114.]

[Footnote 74: SPON, III, 2, p. 21 f. ]

[Footnote 75: SPON, II, p. 174.]

Aside from some slight repairs and the clearing away of rubbish, the monument remained in this condition until 1867, Page 44 when the French Minister at Athens, M. de Gobineau, acting on behalf of his government, into whose possession the site of the former monastery had fallen, employed the architect Boulanger to make such restorations as were necessary to save the monument from falling to pieces.[76] At the same time the last remains of the old convent were removed, and some measures taken to prevent further injury to the ruin. Repairs were again being made under the direction of the French School at Athens, when I left Greece, in April, 1892.

For the architectural study of the monument of Lysikrates little has been done since Stuart's time. In the year 1845 and in 1859, the architect Theoph. Hansen made a new series of drawings from the monument, and upon them based a restoration which differs somewhat from that of Stuart, especially in the decoration of the roof. This work is discussed in the monograph of Von Lützow.[77]

Confining our attention to the sculptures of the frieze, we will examine certain inaccuracies of detail which have hitherto prevailed in the treatment of this important landmark in the history of decorative reliefs of the fourth century. The frieze, carved in low relief upon a single block of marble, runs continuously around the entire circumference of the structure. Its height is only .012 m. (lower, rectangular moulding) + .23 m. (between mouldings) + .015 m. (upper, rounded moulding).[78] It is to be noticed that the figures rest upon the lower moulding, while they are often (in fourteen cases) carried to the top of the upper moulding.

[Footnote 76: VON LÜTZOW, _Zeitschr für bildende Kunst_, III, pp. 23, 236 f.]

[Footnote 77: Pp. 239 ff., 264 ff. For another restoration of the roof _cf._ SEMPER, _Der Stil_, vol. II, p. 242.]

[Footnote 78: My own measurements.]

The question as to the subject of the relief was a sore puzzle to the early travellers. Père Babin finds "_des dieux marins_";[79] Transfeldt, "_varias gymnasticorum figuras_," which he thought represented certain games held "_in Aegena insula_" in honor of Demosthenes.[80] Vernon (1676), who regarded the monument as a temple of Hercules, sees his labors depicted in the sculptures of the frieze.[81] Spon, while not accepting this view, admitted that some, at least, of the acts of Herakles were represented; so that the building, apart from Page 45 its monumental purpose, might also have been sacred to that deity.[82] To Stuart and Revett[83] is due the credit of being the first to recognize in these reliefs the story of Dionysos and the pirates, which is told first in the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos. In the Homeric version, Dionysos, in the guise of a fair youth with dark locks and purple mantle, appears by the seashore, when he is espied by Tyrrhenian pirates, who seize him and hale him on board their ship, hoping to obtain a rich ransom. But when they proceed to bind him the fetters fall from his limbs, whereupon the pilot, recognizing his divinity, vainly endeavors to dissuade his comrades from their purpose. Soon the ship flows with wine; then a vine with hanging clusters stretches along the sail-top, and the mast is entwined with ivy. Too late the marauders perceive their error and try to head for the shore; but straightway the god assumes the form of a lion and drives them, all save the pious pilot, terror-stricken into the sea, where they become dolphins.

[Footnote 79: WACHSMUTH, _Die Stadt Athen_, I, p. 757.]

[Footnote 80: _Mitth. Athen._, I, p. 113.]

[Footnote 81: LABORDE, I, pp. 249 f.]

[Footnote 82: SPON, II, p. 175.]

[Footnote 83: I, p. 27.]