Part 6

The Greeks, it is interesting to note in this connection, recognised this limitation of the power of words and rarely tried to delineate the actors in their poetry and drama by other means than the description of traits of character. It may be said that the Greeks also did not attempt landscape in their writing. True, but we have every reason to know that the Greek mind was not interested seriously in beauties of landscape, while we know that it was deeply concerned with the characters and

## actions of individuals. Landscape was not studied by the Greeks as an

end in itself, whereas portraiture was. Hence the absence of an attempt at portraiture in their literature by other means than description of character is the natural result of their mental tendencies. Such description can of course be accomplished by language with greater certainty than by sculpture or painting. It can give such an impression of the nature of a person that there is no more room for doubt concerning the qualities that constitute that nature than there is concerning the colour of eyes that have been put on canvas by some painter. Take any example and it will appear that when an author tries to stir the imagination to form an image of a character, he does it mainly by describing carefully his nature rather than his personal appearance, and when he attempts to do more than this, he suggests inevitably a different vision to every reader. Shakespeare’s sonnets are sufficient evidence of the truth of these statements.

I should not wish to imply that writers, even the greatest of them, do not sometimes attempt to depict persons by elaborate descriptions, but a comparison of any two illustrated editions of an author will show my contention to be correct. The inefficiency of the means and the inadequacy of the result has been recognised by the masters of literature. And it needs but to compare a word portrait with a painted one of the same person to be convinced of the painter’s greater power in this work. Take Shelley’s lines describing the crazed musician:

There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully Near a piano, his pale fingers twined One with the other, and the ooze and wind Rushed through an open casement, and did sway His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray; His head was leaning on a music book, And he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook; His lips were pressed against a folded leaf In hue too beautiful for health, and grief Smiled in their motions as they lay apart— As one who wrought from his own fervid heart The eloquence of passion, soon he raised His sad meek face and eyes lustrous and glazed And spoke—sometimes as one who wrote and thought His words might move some heart that heeded not If sent to distant lands.—

As a portrait the failure of these verses lies in the fact that the attention of the reader is hurried on from point to point like a storm-driven bird and never allowed to rest. Look, for half the time it takes to read the lines, at Titian’s Concert, and you have a much more definite image of a musician. It is just because of this unrest of the attention, due to continued introduction of some new feature of importance, that poets and writers of prose are much more successful when they endeavour to reproduce a landscape, for it is a natural tendency, as we look at any scene of nature, for the eyes to wander over the hills and far away. They cannot seize the essential points instantaneously and they cannot apprehend the interrelation of the details as when they look at a person’s face and figure.

Sometimes the poet—it is generally a poet, for the epithets that poets use are apt to be more carefully chosen and so have greater graphic force than those of prose writers—seems to succeed in portraiture, but if you will consider closely, it will be seen that the success is fictitious. It is due to our having a ready-formed picture of the character of the person described which is suited by the poet’s words, as in Browning’s lines:

You know we French stormed Ratisbon, A mile or so away On a little mound Napoleon stood On our storming day With neck outthrust, you fancy how, Legs wide, arms locked behind, As if to balance the prone brow Oppressive with its mind.

But to one who had never seen a picture of Napoleon what image would these lines give? Or, take Lowell’s lines on Lincoln. Not a word in them concerning the outward appearance of the Martyr Chief; but the attempt, successful to the uttermost, is made to impress on the reader’s mind what there was of him to think of, not to look at:

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God and true.

These epithets offer no suggestion that can be visualised, nor is there when we note

... that sure mind’s unfaltering skill And supple tempered will That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.

And then finally, to sum up:

Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch’s men talked with us face to face.

Vivid and eloquent as all this is, it offers no picture of the tall, gaunt President. It is but a suggestion of mental conditions. It does not show the deep-set eyes, sorrowful with the sorrows of two races, or the firm mouth lined with the humour that helped him to bear his burden of care. Plutarch himself does not show us Cæsar, or Pericles, or Demosthenes or any other worthy, as the sculptors do.

Possibly it might be suggested that in such poems as those quoted the writer had no intention of giving a suggestion of the outer husk that hides the inner man; but there is one class of poems—the love lyrics—in which the passion-driven bard would surely, could it be accomplished, give the immortality of portraiture to the beloved. But those “dear dead women,” the ever-renewing Spring brood of Sappho, Chloris, Lesbia, Lalage and Doris, are but the vague dwellers of dreamland. Sometimes they are dark and sometimes fair; they have cheeks that shame the rose, and eyes whose glance overwhelms as does the bolt of Jove; their brows are white as driven snow, and a nest for little loves is in their bosom—but can we ever be sure that we recognise from such description each particular Lesbia as, waiting and watching at the corner, we hopefully murmur “She comes, she’s here, she’s past”? Such words as these form a portrait only for that one love-stung heart that beats the overtone to the note of Lesbia’s footfall.

No, the writer cannot, in any adequate sense, place before us portraits.

Literature being excluded as a means of portraiture, it remains to consider sculpture and painting. In order to understand why painted and carved portraits showing similar types with equal distinctness and emphasis produce very different effects on the observer and hold his attention in different ways, study must be made of the different results possible to attain by these arts. If these general propositions in regard to the two arts be true, the demands and characteristics of portraiture will become plainer.

The fundamental distinction between sculpture and painting lies in the fact that the former concerns itself not always, but primarily, with light and shadow and fully modelled forms, while the latter deals chiefly with colour. Furthermore, painting works in two dimensions, while sculpture exercises herself with three. Hence, figures in positions that are much contorted or groups that are complexly organised in retreating planes are unsuitable subjects for a painter, inasmuch as he cannot represent them clearly except at the expense of infinite labour. If the sculptor, on the other hand, chooses such subjects, he is not hampered by the difficulties that block the painter’s path. His finished work can be looked at from all sides, and he is not liable to the painter’s risk that his final effect may, perhaps, be ruined by a misuse of light and shade or by faulty drawing and perspective.

The advantage, however, is not altogether on one side. The sculptor has this other difficulty to contend with, that the appearance of his work will change with every change of light. The painter can fix whatever light he pleases on his canvas. As the appearance of the sculptured work will vary with the light, the sculptor can attain but partial success in the representation of figures or scenes in which much active emotion is shown in the faces. But in such scenes as these a painter’s power can well be shown, since, owing to his ability to paint any power of light (except, of course, direct sunlight), and his power of placing the various figures of a group in various lights, and by means of varied tints and lights being able to bring sharply into notice any expression of the face, he can well depict most violent emotion. It will be found, I think, that the sculpture which is most successful deals with groups or figures whose meaning is made clear by action and by the form of the body as a whole, and the paintings that are most successful are those in which effects of chiaroscuro, colour and facial expression are the most satisfactory method for making the figure intelligible. Several facts which will be readily acknowledged show the truth of this statement. For instance, Veronese, Rubens, Tintoretto, Velasquez when painting scenes the interest of which depends on the individual figures appearing in them (not such scenes as Paradise, Hell or battles where the interest is in the masses and spaces), compose them mainly in one plane. Also if single heads be taken from pictures and from sculptured groups, it will usually be found that the former give a fuller impression of the artist’s intention than the latter.

[Illustration: PLATE XLV.]

Every rule has exceptions and among Michael Angelo’s sculptures are works in which he sought to reproduce effects of light and shade and expression that if given by painting would have been more successful because the latter would have expressed the artist’s intention more clearly; and in certain of his paintings he attempted effects of form that could be given more satisfactorily by sculpture. Done by any less a genius than Michael Angelo, such work would be either ineffective or laboured. Done by him one can but marvel at his mastery over the sister arts that enabled him to approach so closely to the effects proper to the one while using the means offered by the other. But such success as he attained does not prove soundness in the principles that led him to make the attempt. A _tour de force_ is but the attempt to attain a result by means other than the best. It may be successful, but it must be unsatisfactory. It is unreal, impractical; it is a form of jugglery!

To see how similar scenes are treated in the two arts, compare the group of Niobe and her Children with the Massacre of the Innocents as painted by the Renaissance artists.[26] In such comparison trivial details must not be too much regarded, for of the Niobe group there consists but one incomplete set of copies of the original figures and of the Massacre of the Innocents each one of us probably considers a different artist’s conception of the scene most effective. But the general impression given by Niobe and her children is that of bodies driven into violent motion by fright, what might be called frightened motion; the figures are rushing from one spot to another in search of safety; they bend and cower in terror of the peril. They are the incarnation of dread of physical suffering. The impression of the Massacre of the Innocents is one of faces contorted by horror. The action of the bodies is of less concern. The attention is drawn to the eyes, the mouths, the hands, the three chief outlets of mental feeling. The sufferers in the scene are moved by the horror of unjustifiable slaughter. They are the incarnation of anger, revolt and despair induced by the sight of pitiless massacre.

In portraiture the painter and sculptor are drawn together because the greatest interest of the work is centred in the face, which is the clearest index of thoughts and emotions. Both sculptors and painters even when making figures of life size are limited in portraiture to seeking their chief effects in the treatment of the face. But though so far working in common, the painter and sculptor still have different aims; for that part of the head the expression of which can be more strongly accented and more completely reproduced by the use of colour and a chosen shade and light, is the eyes; while that part the expression of which can be most adequately rendered by modelling is the mouth. This is the reason why portraits similar in style, such as those above mentioned, the bust of Pericles, and the painting of the Duke of Norfolk, attract our attention in different ways. In the bust the most noticeable feature is the firm but sensitive mouth, in the painting it is the steady, but vivid, eye.

Mindful of these conditions that govern the art of portraiture we find it easy to see how the artists of various epochs have conformed to them. This may seem to be putting the cart before the horse; to be fitting the facts to the theory. But it is not so,—it is merely searching for proof of a working hypothesis. The theory was suggested by the phenomena and it will be seen to explain these phenomena.

[Illustration: PLATE XLVI.]

The study of Greek sculpture is at present seriously hampered by statements and beliefs concerning it which arose at a time when its place in the history of art was very inaccurately understood. These have been repeated so often that they are frequently accepted without being critically weighed in the light of recent knowledge. It is a unique and very perfect art, but the causes and qualities of its perfection are sometimes misunderstood. Justifiable admiration has out-weighed the critical faculties. It is generally thought to be more imaginative and ideal than is in fact the case. The quality of realism is not usually attributed to such a work as the portrait bust of Pericles. And yet this bust is quite as realistic, though not so prosaic, as that of the Roman general Corbulo. I mention these two because they are very generally known; but many others such as the Demosthenes, Sophocles, Cæsar, Caligula would do equally well. The word realism is reserved too much for those works in which the artist has represented the forms that would be first noticed by the casual observer and, in this limited sense, the Corbulo is far more realistic than the Pericles; but realism is just as truly displayed in works in which the forms, while reproducing those of the model, may perhaps not be the most obvious ones and though the juxtaposition of them be not their most common combination. In this sense the Pericles is as realistic as the Corbulo. Greek realism in portraits deals chiefly with faces and figures in repose; Roman realism deals in the main with faces and figures in action.

It is noteworthy that portraiture was a late development of sculpture in Greece. We know, for instance, of no contemporary portraits of Solon or Peisistratus, and there exist in museums and private collections extremely few busts or statues of the period preceding the middle of the fifth century B.C., that have the character of portraits. One reason of this doubtless was the feeling that the success which brought fame in its train was due more to the Gods than to the individual. The individual was an accident in the exhibition of beneficent power by the Gods, and consequently, so far as form and feature are concerned, was of no special interest. Furthermore, there was the feeling that the fame of individuals was due to and a part of the fame of the whole state; hence the individual was not apt to overestimate his own value nor to be thought of by his neighbours with any such feeling of special respect as is expected by, and often granted to, those who are “self-made.”

Over and above these causes was another which must have been largely responsible for the late development of portraiture and for its character when it began to be common. This was the Hellenic love of beauty. Divided though the Greeks were into numerous states, they were held together by bonds of language, tradition, religion and politics. But the bond that united them more strongly than all others, even than their hatred of barbarians, was their love of beauty. “Beauty the first of all things” says Isocrates “in majesty and honour and divineness. Nothing devoid of beauty is prized. The admiration of virtue itself comes to this, that, of all manifestations of life, virtue is the most beautiful.” The consequence of this feeling was to make the individual and imperfect man uninteresting to the artist while the general and typical figure became his supreme aim. When at last in the fifth century B.C. portraiture became more frequent than it had previously been, the perfect portrait was the one which gave most completely the impression of the general character of the man and not the one which gave the most vivid and striking representation of the separate features of his face.

Curiously enough the first portrait we hear of in Greece was a caricature of the poet Hipponax by Bupalos and Athenis, artists of the sixth century B.C. While caricature was attempted as early as this, as is shown by the drama, by terra-cotta figurines and by vases such as those from the sanctuary of the Kabeiroi in Bœotia, it may be questioned whether such a portrait of Hipponax ever existed. The details of the story, such as the suicide of the artists owing to the satirical attacks of the poet, are scarcely credible, and if we remember the very strange and unlifelike appearance of archaic art it seems not improbable that the story arose in the attempt to explain some rude statue the true intention of which had been long forgotten or had not been clearly indicated. Even were it certain that such a caricature did once exist, the knowledge would be of no great interest, because caricatures are but a debased form of art. They are only the exaggeration of accidental physical peculiarities. If the traces of a warped or ill-developed character show in the face or figure, the representation of them may be made a caricature, but almost all so-called caricatures show not oddities of character but deformities of person. It is in literature, in the works of Molière or Shakespeare, rather than in sculpture or painting, that we find true caricatures. Not that they do not exist in the plastic arts, but the literary art lends itself more readily than the others to this mode of representation.

Whatever the actual facts regarding the reported portrait of Hipponax may have been, it is not till about the first quarter of the fifth century (circ. 500–475) that we have undoubted evidence of portraiture. To that time belongs the bust of a bearded man wearing a helmet, in the Glyptothek in Munich. A replica of this work exists in the collection of Barrone Barracco in Rome. These two heads may well be copies of a statue of some victor in the games. As is known, portrait statues were allowed only to thrice victorious athletes, and they were erected not so much as an honour to the victor as to keep fresh the memory of one who had thrice been cherished by the Gods. But this rule governing the making of statues of athletes clearly shows what deep significance a statue was considered to express and the secondary importance to the Greek mind of keeping a record of personal appearance. Whether of a victor or not, the bust referred to belongs to the early period of development of the technique of sculpture, before it had been perfectly mastered, when the artist was able to represent not what he wanted to but what he was able to. Hence it is conventional; so much so that were it not for the helmet and the absence of any attribute of Divinity we could hardly be sure that it was intended as a portrait.

[Illustration: PLATE XLVII.]

Probably the best known example of portraiture produced during the period when the technique of sculpture was thoroughly understood and mastered, is the head of Pericles by Kresilas to which I have already made reference (Plate XLIV). It is a work of special importance owing to the interest attaching to the character of Pericles, but more

## particularly from the artistic point of view; and fortunately there

exist several careful copies of it. These make us sure what its artistic character was,[27] and furthermore Pliny has handed down to us an estimate of the original work by a critic of the ancient world. This critic expressed concisely and epigrammatically the intention that is manifest in all Greek work of the best time, in saying that the bust of Pericles by Kresilas shows how art can make a noble man still nobler.[28] Now this can only be said of the best Greek and Italian work. And all work, no matter where or by whom produced, if wrought in the spirit which was shown more by Greek sculptors and Venetian painters than by other artists, may be described by such words. Such a criticism could not be made of most Roman or Florentine work. It can only be said of work in which the attempt is successfully made to suggest a perfected type by the improvement of an individual example, not of work the intention of which is to represent the individual example as the embodiment of special peculiarities with indifference as to their excellence or defects.

The method adopted by Kresilas is not difficult to analyse. The character of Pericles was a rare and happy mixture of calmness, foresight, perseverance and sensitiveness. His power of understanding men and conditions, together with his quiet and steady pursuit of his aims, is shown by the course of his political policy. His sensitiveness is made clear by his unselfish ambitions, by his delight in works of the fine arts and by his chivalrous conduct towards Aspasia, whom general opinion, not confined to the ancient world, would have allowed him to disregard and forget, when for the sake of giving offence to him the populace attacked her character. Such was the man whom Kresilas had to portray, and with high artistic perception he chose his means.