CHAPTER VII
THE PORTRAIT SCULPTURE OF ROME
(50 b.c. TO THE FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE IN 330 a.d.)
Roman sculpture and Roman imperialism—these two things are indissolubly connected. That is the proposition, expressed in the baldest terms, that must now be established. As long as the Republican system sufficed for the needs of Rome, her sculpture was entirely Hellenistic in character. It was only with the advent of the Augustan age (between, let us say, 50 b.c. and the year of Our Lord) that traces of a distinctively national spirit began to show themselves. A complete imperial system had commenced to exert its influence upon society. From that time onward, and throughout the three following centuries, characteristics can be traced which clearly differentiate the work of the Roman sculptor from that of any Hellenic or Hellenistic artist. It was only when “the pale Galilean” triumphed and the ideals of Christianity supplanted those of an outworn imperialism that “Roman sculpture,” too, became a thing of the past.
The how and the why suggested by our major proposition must be faced boldly. Reducing the problem to its elements, we require, in the first place, to gain a clear idea of what “Roman imperialism” denotes. In the second place we must distinguish clearly between “Roman sculpture” and, an entirely different thing, “sculpture produced in Rome.” The one is organically Roman. The parentage of the other is Greek; its birthplace is an accident. It precedes the national art of imperial times by at least a century.
That so widely diffused an appreciation of sculpture existed long before the growth of a native art is in itself highly significant. An imported art is not a rare phenomenon in history, but it rarely persists for the length of time it did in Rome. In the sixteenth century, England welcomed an invasion of Italian “noveletti” and romantic poetry. In a very short while, however, the alien art was replaced by a vigorous national drama. Earlier in the same century, France for a time suffered the Italian school of painting (the school of Fontainebleau). But the stranger never quite made herself at home, and was finally supplanted by an artistic canon which was entirely French in spirit.
Republican Rome, on the contrary, was not only satisfied with her alien school of sculpture for a century and a half, but borrowed at the same time an entire culture from Greece—literature, science and philosophy. The Roman boy was educated by Greek teachers in Rome. During adolescence, he passed over to Athens for a course of philosophy or to Rhodes for instruction in the accepted methods of rhetoric. Afterwards, a year was spent upon “the grand tour” through Greece and Asia Minor where the chief temples and monuments of the Hellenic masters were still to be seen in situ. This Greek education by no means changed the Roman Republican into a Hellenistic Athenian. The Roman was never more Roman than he was during the Republican age. Yet the same art and philosophy served for both. In other words, peculiarly Roman thought and emotion found no artistic expression whatever.
These facts compel us to retrace some of the ground covered in our last chapter. Both upon the historical and the artistic side we are forced back to the time when Republican Rome furnished the principal market for the wares of the Hellenistic sculptor. We shall, however, regard it from a different ground. Our review of Hellenistic sculpture only interested us in as far as it affected Greece. We judged it from the standpoint of the Greek artist. Now Hellenistic sculpture calls for attention from the point of view of the Roman patron.
During the later Republican age—the period from the defeat of Carthage to the rise of Julius Cæsar—Rome was filled with Greek sculpture. Thousands of original Hellenic and Hellenistic works were carried there. Numberless Græco-Roman sculptors spent their time in producing copies of Greek masterpieces or designing variations upon well-known and popular designs. The process of despoiling Greater Greece of its art treasures began as early as the fall of Syracuse in 212 b.c. Corinth was stripped in 146 b.c. by Mummius. Delphi and Olympia both suffered. Even Athens itself was plundered by Sulla in 86 b.c. during the war with Mithridates. Chryselephantine statues like the “Athena” of Phidias and the decorative sculptures of the great temples were left untouched, but so many works of the Greek masters were carried westward that Myron, Phidias, Polyclitus, Praxiteles, Scopas, and Lysippus became household names in Rome.
We moderns can only be grateful that Roman taste did not prefer the productions of its own native sculptors. Had it done so, the history of Greek sculpture would have had to be reconstructed from stray works like the Elgin and the Æginetan marbles, the “Charioteer of Delphi” and the “[Hermes]” of Olympia. As matters stand, we have such books as those of Pausanias and Pliny. We are, moreover, furnished with numberless copies of the principal Hellenic masterpieces. True, these “copies” are not “the real thing.” In many cases they are marble translations from bronze originals, giving us, let us say, that intimacy with the earlier Greek works which the Arundel Society’s prints, or large-sized photo-gravures, afford about the Italian original paintings they reproduce. In addition, the Roman preference for Greek sculpture resulted in the production of many statues which, though they cannot be directly connected with any original Greek work, are clearly little more than variations upon popular Greek themes.
THE GRÆCO-ROMAN SCULPTORS
Generally speaking, throughout the first and second century b.c. none of the Greek sculptors working in Rome departed far from the accepted models. Some followed the general standards adopted by Praxiteles; some those of Lysippus; others again preferred the more romantic style of the school of sculpture at Rhodes. When new subjects presented themselves, however, Roman taste began to exercise a direct influence upon the work of the Hellenistic sculptors. We dwelt upon some of the effects of the Roman influence when considering the “[Farnese Hercules]”—the work of the Græco-Roman Glycon. It is equally well illustrated by two fine bronzes which have been recently discovered and placed in the Terme Museum at Rome. The first is the life-sized warrior or athlete leaning on his spear, usually called “The Prince.” It closely resembles such a work as the “[Cerigotto Bronze]” in general style. Nothing except the tendency towards an accentuation of muscular development and the fact that it apparently does not follow an earlier Greek design mark its Græco-Roman origin.
THE SEATED BOXER
Terme Museum, Rome
The second is the “[Seated Boxer],” a magnificently powerful presentation of an utterly ignoble theme. The fighter is resting; he is waiting for his call to another bout. Each hand is still cased in the leather cæstus. The bruised and swollen features of the man are given with savage truth. By reason of its entirely un-Hellenic subject, the “[Seated Boxer]” affords as fine an illustration of the Græco-Roman style at its best as can be given. We see the grand technical skill which led the Roman connoisseur to give his commissions to Greek sculptors. In the insistence upon realistic detail and the absence of a high ideal guiding the choice of subject, we can trace the influence of a taste far removed from any that Greek sentiment could have fostered.
Hellenistic works showing the influence of Roman taste as clearly as the “[Seated Boxer]” are rare. The Roman collector, as a rule, was perfectly content with a work which was practically identical with some earlier Greek design. A close resemblance to a Greek original was in itself a strong recommendation. The faithfulness with which Roman taste abided by Hellenic sculpture is proved by the popularity of the pseudo-archaic school of Pasiteles during the last days of the Roman Republic. Pasiteles was an Italian Greek. Pliny says of him that “he never executed any work without first making a clay model.” Excessive care and excessive emotional sobriety were the keynotes of his style. It is peculiarly interesting to note in the works of this school an obvious revolt against both the sensuous tendencies of the followers of Praxiteles and the theatrical propensities of the Rhodians. The pseudo-archaic sculptors and the patrons for whom they catered had sufficient insight to distinguish between the various epochs of Greek sculpture, that is to say, between work imbued with Hellenic qualities and work which was only Hellenistic.
This can be seen at once in the group by Menelaus known as “[Orestes and Electra]” (Plate, p. 128), as good an example of the school of Pasiteles as can be found. The sculptor has evidently imitated the style of an Argive artist living just before Polyclitus. In other words, the “[Orestes and Electra]” represents a reversion beyond even the purely Hellenic style of Polyclitus. So successfully is this archaic manner imitated by the Græco-Roman followers of Pasiteles that modern experts can easily be in doubt, in the case of particular statues, whether the style is real or feigned. Dr. Murray, for instance, has suggested that the Vatican “[Spartan Girl],” which is usually assigned to the transitional period of Hellenic sculpture ending with Myron’s “[Discobolus],” is actually by a follower of Pasiteles. The likeness of the “[Spartan Girl]” to the works of the followers of Pasiteles is obvious.
With characteristics like these, how should statues of the school of Pasiteles be classed? That they are not Hellenistic is plain. Equally clearly the resemblance to Hellenic work is so close that it would be absurd to regard the style popularized by Pasiteles as a movement towards a Roman national art. Really a pseudo-archaic statue like the “[Orestes and Electra]” represents a passing craze. It is the outcome of the fancy of a few art collectors.
One may, however, argue that the popularity of such a school points to a dissatisfaction with the accepted Hellenistic art of the latter Roman Republic. Be that as it may, a genuinely Roman school of sculpture arose directly after.
Roman social and political circumstances began to influence sculpture soon after the year 50 b.c. One hundred and fifty years earlier, the defeat of Hannibal and the fall of Carthage had left Rome with the undisputed headship in Western Europe. Spain was in her hands and her frontiers stretched to the Atlantic. In the East, however, Rome was faced with the Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedonia, Syria and Egypt. One by one these fell before her. Naturally, so tremendous a success was not attained without social and political changes of the first order. Even before the Punic Wars the inner ring of the Roman aristocracy had lost its long-established monopoly of the great offices of State. At the time of the fall of Carthage, the Senate was certainly the supreme authority in Roman affairs, the various magistrates being no more than its executive tools. But the aristocracy had been compelled to recognize a new class of capitalist merchants which had established a claim to Rome’s regard by its ready aid during the Punic wars. The body which directed Rome’s expansion beyond the borders of Italy was therefore composed of a blend of wealthy patricians and plebeians. These were the patrons of the Græco-Roman sculptors. They were the men who composed “the assembly of kings,” whose report the ambassadors of Pyrrhus carried to their master. For close upon a century a senate of this type guided the destinies of the Roman Republic.
By about 100 b.c.—we express time in the roundest of round numbers—it had become apparent that the political foundations upon which Rome’s career of conquest was based were radically unsound. No body of men—even an “assembly of kings”—could deal with the multitudinous problems which arose from an attempt to absorb the whole of the civilized world. The first man to realize this, and to attempt a practical solution of the difficulty, was Marius. Soon after 107 b.c. he proved that he understood the essentials of the problem by reorganizing the Republican armies. He converted them into fit tools for the first “adventurer of genius” by ordaining that the soldiery should be paid by land grants and booty.
The reforms of Marius were none too early. Between 89 b.c. and 64 b.c. the wars with Mithridates of Pontus showed Rome its weakness. Mithridates overran Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece. Syria was only regained by a gigantic effort. Then came “the adventurer of genius”—Julius Cæsar—the founder of the Roman Imperial system. He was followed by his son Octavius (Augustus Cæsar), the “Organiser of Roman Imperialism.” These two men made Roman sculpture possible. On the day that Cæsar and his eleven legions crossed the Rubicon with the cry “the die is cast,” Roman sculpture was born.
The victory over Pompey at Pharsalia in 49 b.c. left Julius Cæsar in supreme control. Brutus and Cassius led the Republican forlorn hope, and Cæsar himself was murdered in 44 b.c., but he had achieved his end. He had pointed out the only method of consolidating Rome’s vast conquests and bringing peace to the sorely tried State. Augustus realized at once the impossibility of reverting to the discarded republican form of government. In its place he set up a veiled despotism which enabled him to control all the energies and resources of Rome’s great empire. As Imperator, Augustus made himself commander-in-chief of the armies; as Princeps Senatus, he was leader of the Legislative Assembly of the Senate; as Tribune, he acted as the representative of Roman democracy; as Chief Pontiff, he was the head of an all-powerful ecclesiastical organisation.
With the advent of peace Rome was able to turn her energies to art. The consequences were immediate in all departments of culture. It was the patronage of Mæcenas, the chief minister of Augustus, which placed Virgil in a position to write the “Georgics.” By 19 b.c. the “Æneid” was written in honour of Augustus. It was Mæcenas who provided Horace with the farm among the Sabine hills, where the Roman lyricist and satirist wrote all his later works.
THE RISE OF ROMAN PORTRAITURE
The effects of this social and political revolution upon sculpture could not be more happily illustrated than by two portraits of the men who brought them to pass. The “Julius Cæsar” is the well-known portrait bust in the British Museum;[1] the “[Augustus]” is the equally famous life-sized figure in the Vatican.
[1] See Furtwängler, “Neuere Fälschungen von Antiken,” p. 14.
In the first place, both are portraits. This emphasizes the prime fact that the branch of sculpture chiefly affected was portraiture. It is not difficult to surmise why this was so. In all other branches, whether athletic statues, dramatic groups or sculptures of the gods, earlier Hellenic and Hellenistic artists had produced works which the unimaginative Romans could never hope to equal. The copies of, and variations upon, the works of the Greek masters so fitted Rome’s needs that little or no effort was made to produce new works of the same class. But in portraiture this was not the case. In the nature of things portraits cannot be so directly affected by an earlier artistic method. The sculptors of Rome soon found that the methods of their Hellenic masters would not yield the results required. The true Greek portrait sculptor had never aimed at the realistic and life-like representation which was the one desire of the matter-of-fact Roman patron. As we have seen, the Greek had refrained from elaborating expression. He portrayed an ideal type rather than an individualized man or woman.
Take any typical Greek portrait as an illustration—the bust of “[Pericles],” in the Elgin Room at the British Museum, for instance. Compare it with the “Julius Cæsar” in the same collection. We see Pericles in the perfection of physical force and mental energy. The ruler of Athens is more than a man. He is an epitome of all that a Greek would be. There is no attempt at characterization. The suggestion of voluptuousness in the lips, which heightens the work so much, is really not an individual trait. It is rather an Hellenic characteristic. It is part of an effort to express a type. But the Roman sculptor of the “Julius Cæsar” never dreamt of embodying a whole race in a single portrait—a philosophy in a statue. He was content to give expression to the man before him. For this very reason the finest Roman portraits possess a vigorous vitality which an Hellenic portrait study lacks. As Pater expressed it: “The seeking of the type in the individual, the abstraction of all that because of its nature endures but for a moment, this involves loss of expression.” That is why the “[Pericles]” is the portrait of a fifth-century Athenian and the Roman work is the portrait of Julius Cæsar.
Exactly the same must be said of the great statue of “Augustus addressing his Soldiers,” in the Vatican. Compared with the “[Phocion],” the “[Augustus]” is a carefully individualized character-study. The tendency is not, however, carried to the extreme limit attained in later Roman sculpture. The artist evidently hesitates to break entirely with the idealistic method of the Hellenes. He willingly sacrifices the chance of creating an eternal type, symbolizing the idea of Roman imperialism incarnated in the first Emperor, preferring to convey the impression of life-like portraiture. But he shows an ideal Augustus. The statue does not convey the sensation of a moment of time—good, bad or indifferent—captured and fixed for ever, which is so characteristic of Roman portraits during the next century or two.
For this reason there is much to be said in favour of the view which regards Augustan Rome as the last Hellenistic centre. It is still an artist who is Greek at heart who is at work. But he differs from his predecessors inasmuch as he is striving to give his Roman patrons a thrill which they will feel to be national—to be truly Roman.
The Vatican statue of Augustus Cæsar was discovered in 1863. Apart from its interest as a transitional work leading to the pure Roman style, it claims attention owing to the light it throws upon the much discussed problem of the colouring of marble statuary. We have previously noted the fact that it is established beyond possibility of doubt that the great mass of Greek and Roman sculpture was freely coloured. Traces of pigment can still be found in numerous works, but the evidence is insufficient to justify any really dogmatic utterances as to actual methods. We have therefore preferred to do little more than allude to the practice. The evidence furnished by the statue of Augustus is so complete, however, that it suggests the desirability of a rather fuller reference. The work was discovered in the Villa of Livia, near Prima Porta. Otto Jahn, in his Aus der Alterthumswissenschaft, published in 1868, gives the following particulars as to its condition:
“The tunic of Augustus is crimson, the mantle purple, the fringe of the armour yellow; on the nude portions of the body no traces of colour are noticeable, except the indication of the pupils with a yellowish tint; and the hair no longer shows colour. But the relief decorations of the cuirass are painted with especial care, although the flat surfaces are left without colour. The god of heaven, rising from the blue waves or clouds, holds a purplish garment in both hands; the chariot of the sun-god is crimson; before him soars a female with outspread blue wings; the goddess of the earth wears a wreath of wheat in her blonde hair. Apollo in a crimson mantle rides upon a griffon with blue wings; the light haired Diana, in a crimson garment, is borne by a reddish brown stag. In the middle stands a Roman Commander in blue and red armour, crimson tunic, and purple mantle, with a blue helmet. A bearded warrior in crimson tunic and blue trousers holds up a Roman standard with insignia painted blue. The barbarian on the right, with auburn hair, in a purple mantle, holds a war-trumpet; the figure on the left is likewise light haired and clothed in a blue mantle.”
ORESTES AND ELECTRA
(SCHOOL OF PASITELES)
National Museum, Naples
AUGUSTUS
Vatican, Rome
We shall not refer to the problem of how generally Greek and Roman sculptures were coloured again. M. Maxime Collignon, in his La Polychromie dans la Sculpture Grecque, has collected the evidence bearing upon the point. The “[Augustus]” shows how elaborate the process must have been in many cases. It will, however, be worth while to refer to two typical pieces of evidence supporting the view that the great bulk of Greek and Roman sculpture was coloured.
In a wall-painting, once in Pompeii, now in the National Museum at Naples, a picture represents a woman actually painting a statue. It is a “Herma,” one of the popular figures of Dionysus set on a quadrilateral base. The god’s hair is dark brown, the beard is grey and the mantle yellow. A study of the wall paintings and mosaics unearthed at Pompeii and Herculaneum gives the following result. Out of eighty-one pictures of statues, fifty-nine are coloured completely. The male figures are painted a ruddy brown, the female pink and white. Of the others, fourteen are of a greeny brown tinge suggesting bronze.
Returning once again to our main argument: we have referred to Julius Cæsar, as the father alike of Roman imperialism and Roman sculpture. Roman national art was created when Cæsar and Augustus established a political system which gave Italy peace after close upon a hundred years of strife. It is not difficult to realize the relief with which Italy must have greeted the new era. In the last few lines of the First “Georgic,” Virgil has drawn a picture of the Roman world as it had been until the imperial visions of Julius Cæsar had become living realities for every Roman citizen under Augustus Cæsar. War was raging everywhere. Corruption was rife. Agriculture was languishing. “The crooked scythes are forged into rigid swords,” says Virgil.
With the advent of peace came the same desire to build which followed the Persian war in Athens. The Augustan age changed Rome—to use the well-worn metaphor—from a town of bricks to a city of marble. The student of sculpture will do well to associate both events—the coming of peace to the sorely tried Empire and the era of Augustan building—with a slab of the great Ara Pacis which has been preserved by a strange chance. The fragment shows Augustus, accompanied by his family and the leading citizens and senators, going to the consecration ceremony on July 4, 13 b.c.—the Independence Day of Roman Imperialism. The Ara Pacis was built to honour the Goddess of Peace, in the style of the Altar on the Acropolis of Pergamus. Just as the Altar at Pergamus memorized the delivery of the Hellenistic state from the Gauls, the Ara Pacis enshrined the fact that Rome was at last the acknowledged mistress of the civilized world. Men could now dream of an era of eternal peace; Rome set itself to enjoy the pleasures of intellectual existence in a way that had been impossible amid the perpetual march and remarch of armies and the rise and fall of factions.
It is true that the Roman Empire did not long remain at peace. But Italy, at any rate, did not experience the horrors of war for some centuries. The years of struggle had aroused a strong sense of national feeling. The imperial system organized by Augustus set men free to cultivate the arts of peace. Patrons with national instincts and artists with the gift of expressing national feelings and thoughts arose. In a few years, the tendencies shadowed forth in such sculptures as “The Julius Cæsar” and “[The Augustus],” became fixed, and a national school of Roman portraiture sprang up. The characteristics of the national style became more and more strongly marked.
THE HEIGHT OF ROMAN IMPERIALISM
(96 a.d. TO 117 a.d.)
The distinctively Roman portrait, untainted with any Hellenic or Hellenistic admixture, is seen in the famous statue of the Emperor Nerva in the Vatican collection. Here the artist has left the idealistic methods of the Hellenic sculptors entirely behind. He has depended upon the cunning use of realistic detail for his effect, emphasizing the impression of life-like portraiture beyond anything attempted in the Augustan age. Even the grace of a statue like “[The Augustus]” has been sacrificed in the search for vigorous actuality. The English equivalent of the new ideal is “Cromwell, warts and all.” But one cannot but admire the magnificent judgment with which the realistic detail is managed. There is nothing set down which does not add to the vivid sense of a living portrait. As Wickhoff says in his fine study of Roman art, “They gave an exact reproduction of nature, but with a terseness which produced the desired impression of cold distinction.” In the “[Nerva]” we have the Roman ideal in its most concrete form. Not a word too much, but sufficient to ensure the impression of intense and living reality.
Exactly the same tendency can be observed when the languages of the two races are compared. The Roman—practical man—preferred a narrow and concrete vocabulary. He willingly sacrificed flexibility of expression to a businesslike conciseness. Hence arose his system of inflectional speech, which is to be contrasted with the analytical speech of the Hellenes with its particles and definite article. Just as the inflectional language of Rome would not have expressed a quarter of what the agile-minded Greek desired to say, so the methods of the Roman portrait sculptor would have been valueless to the Greek to whom philosophical aperçus into the whole of human experience alone seemed worthy of incarnation in marble and bronze. The Roman sculptor, however, was quite satisfied with a narrow and concrete mode of expression. He was content with an intensely concise method entirely unsuited to the abstract thought and emotion in which the Greek had revelled.
Our argument then has led us to this. Roman sculpture, far from being a decadent anticlimax to Greek sculpture, is actuated by entirely new ideals—ideals which arise out of the Roman nature. It is, therefore, in the truest sense a national art. It embodies a temperament bearing no possible relation to that of the Greek. For that very reason the characteristics of Roman sculpture are most strongly accentuated at times when the ideals embodied are most potent. The Roman imperial spirit reached its climax in the age of Trajan (96 a.d. to 117 a.d.). The statue of Nerva dates from the early years of Trajan’s reign, that is a little before 96 a.d., when Nerva, who had raised his vigorous lieutenant to imperial rank, died. For close upon a century the tendency towards terse realism of the Roman method of portraiture had been growing. When we picture a characteristically Roman figure during the height of the imperialistic wave we can readily see why.
NERVA (DETAIL)
Vatican, Rome
What was the position at the time of Trajan himself? After securing his frontiers in Northern Europe, Trajan passed eastward. He crossed the Tigris and made a determined attempt to gain the control of the overland trade with India. At the time of his death, the Roman empire included Europe south of the Rhine and the Danube; in Asia it stretched to the Euphrates.
What sort of men would be required to administer such an Empire? Can we not picture them from our own experience of Empire-building? Imagine for a moment that Trajan had established a permanent occupation of the Punjab. It might well have been. As it was, he died after receiving a check at the hands of the Parthians. What would Roman rule in India have entailed? While the weaker states would have been absorbed, many of the stronger ones would have entered the Empire as subject kingdoms. The allies of Rome would, doubtless, have been rewarded with grants of territory at the expense of the harder fighters. In other words, the problem of government would have needed an infinity of administrative tact, for all sorts and conditions of subject states would have had to be appeased or held in subjection. The Roman governor of the Punjab would have been in the first place a soldier. But he would only have been guided in his general conduct by a rough lex provinciæ, so that in practice he would have had to combine with his military duties those of our Lord Chief Justice. It was not an age of cablegrams. The decision upon a host of matters would necessarily have been in his hands. So with his subordinates. They, too, would have had to solve the nicest problems of practical administration every day—success being their only justification.
These were the duties which Rome demanded of her sons. She educated them for such posts as these. The circumstances in which the Romans lived and the characteristics which their lives engendered, in turn, reacted upon their art. As Mr. Dooley has told us, various nations have various methods of treating “what Hogan calls th’ Muse,” when they ask her “f’r to come up an’ spind a week” with them. A country like Rome doesn’t expect her guest “to set all day in th’ hammock on th’ front stoop, singin’ about th’ bur-rds. She’s got to do th’ week’s washin’, clane th’ windows, cook th’ meals, chune th’ pianny, dust th’ furniture, mend th’ socks an’ milk th’ cow be day, an’ be night she’s got to set up an’ balance th’ books iv an Empire.”
Mr. Dooley, of course, has Rudyard Kipling in mind. But the lines so exactly fit the case of the Roman portrait sculptor, that we may well pursue the analogy further.
Kipling is himself the product of political circumstances. He finds expression for the vigorous matter-of-fact vision of an imperialism that is nearly akin to that of Rome. Kipling joined the Civil and Military Gazette at Lahore when he was seventeen. He lived in India during the formative period. At twenty-four he was back in England with the essential features of his style fixed. The man the Roman State required and for whom the Roman sculptor worked, was the man for whom Kipling writes and whose ideals he expresses in throbbing prose and verse.
But we may pursue the analogy even further. Rudyard Kipling and the sculptor of the “[Nerva]:” Does a comparison of the styles of these two artists reveal any innate resemblance? In both we see an intense interest in strongly individualized humanity. Neither pays much heed to grace or beauty—in the Hellenic sense of the word. Both are more concerned with actuality than with the more shadowy realms of the ideal. But most striking fact of all, the methods by which both express their body of thought and emotion are strangely similar. Compare a typical Kipling portrait with the “[Nerva].” Let us say Miss Minnie Treegan’s picture of Captain Gadsby.
“He belongs to the Harrar set. I’ve danced with him but I’ve never talked to him. He’s a big yellow man, just like a newly hatched chicken with an e-normous moustache. He walks like this (imitates Cavalry swagger) and he goes ‘Ha-Hmm!’ deep down in his throat, when he can’t think of anything to say. Mamma likes him. I don’t!”
This sketch gives us the heart of the Kipling style. Certain as the day—cocksure, some might say. Photographically true? In a sense only. Emphatic? As emphatic as capitals and apostrophes can make it. Imaginative? Yes. If imagination be the faculty for creating a mental image. These are the characteristics alike of the Kipling portrait and the statue of “[Nerva].” The sculptor is as emphatic in his message and as certain in his delivery as the poet of English Imperialism. He has not given a transcript of reality but has deepened the essential lines until they speak with telling effect.
It is true that we miss the philosophical calm with which a Greek sculptor would have treated such a subject as the imperial jurist Nerva. But, in some ways we must admit that the Roman portraitist is to be rated higher. If the impression that one is gazing upon reality is the proper object of the portrait sculptor, the Roman gives us the more life-like picture. But if the artist’s first function is to show us nature, so that we may form our own judgment as to what is essential and organic by the aid of his insight, then the Greek who carved the very soul of men was the truer artist.
“Do you remember your mother, my dear?” was the question put to the under-fed, under-clothed, Bermondsey waif.
“Yes, she was a stout woman, what beat me.”
It was a Roman answer, Roman in its magnificent brevity and extraordinary directness. It typifies the artistic method of a society which can spend no energy upon the production of men devoted to pigment mixing and marble cutting for no better purpose than to dream dreams. Something had to be sacrificed. The price Rome chose to pay was that broad view of the world of nature and humanity which alone produces an idealistic art like that of Greece. This is why when Rome finally began to express its thoughts and emotions through marble and bronze it chose a very different method to that of the Hellene. In Greece, the sculptor had needed men and women, gods and heroes; Rome contented herself with one branch of the art—that of sculpture-portraiture. Instead of expressing herself by means of flesh and muscle, limbs and trunk, Rome concentrated all her attention upon the human face.
THE REACTION UNDER HADRIAN
(117 a.d. TO 138 a.d.)
Surely it will be admitted that the facts and the historical explanation fall beautifully into line. If further proof of the direct connection between the ideas fostered by Roman imperialism and the national school of portraiture is necessary, it is to be found in the tendency to revert to a more Hellenic style when the imperialistic wave recedes.
ANTINOUS
Vatican, Rome
Trajan was succeeded by Hadrian in 117 a.d. The former’s intensely imperial policy had overtaxed Rome’s strength. The keynote of Hadrian’s method was reaction against the forward policy which had been paramount. Hadrian stopped the Parthian war. He abandoned Armenia and the provinces beyond the Euphrates. All Rome’s efforts were concentrated upon the task of finding out how to hold as opposed to how to gain.
There is abundant artistic material in which to trace the effects of this reactionary spirit, for Hadrian was one of the greatest of the Roman builders. His efforts to beautify the cities of his Empire were continuous. Temples and monuments were set up; theatres and baths erected. The grand scale upon which he worked can be judged from Pausanias’ statement that the Library of Hadrian was decorated with one hundred columns of Phrygian marble—the walls of the surrounding porticoes being similarly decorated. Or again, take the case of the City of Antinopolis which Hadrian erected on the banks of the Nile to the memory of his famous Antinous. The walls of Antinopolis enclosed a rectangular space three miles in length. The great avenues that ran through it were bordered by porticoes decorated with Corinthian columns, the principal thoroughfares being ornamented with statues, fountains, and votive monuments.
Upon examination it is found that the leading characteristic of the great artistic wave of the age of Hadrian was a reversion to Greek models. The Maison Carrée at Nîmes was erected at this time—the most perfectly preserved temple in the Greek style now extant. During the years 132 and 133 a.d., which Hadrian passed in Athens, he spent immense sums upon rebuilding the city. Surely an additional proof of his devotion to Greek art and culture. In all his tastes Hadrian was a philo-Hellene—a “græculus,” as the Romans called him. When in Athens he had himself initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. His very appearance witnesses to his preference for Greece and things Greek. Instead of the clean-shaven face of his imperial predecessors, Hadrian wore a beard after the Hellenic fashion.
Turning to the portrait sculpture of the age of Hadrian we can see the influence of the Emperor’s instinctive preference for Greek modes of thought and expression very clearly.
The most typical pieces are to be chosen from the numberless statues of Antinous, in whose honour Antinopolis was built. Hadrian’s love for the beautiful Bythinian youth was in itself rather Greek than Roman. Looking at the “[Antinous]” in the Vatican collection, and comparing it with the statue of “[Nerva],” the reaction against the Roman preference for a vigorous actuality is apparent at once. The “[Antinous]” is not a portrait as much as the incarnation of a type. The expression of brooding melancholy, rather than the features of the man Antinous, characterizes all the statues of the Bythinian youth scattered through the galleries of Europe. This is the Greek, not the Roman method.
MARCUS AURELIUS
Rome
POST-HADRIAN SCULPTURE
The last Roman sculpture to which reference need be made is the well-known equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. The highest praise that can be accorded to it, is, that it can bear comparison with the finest equestrian statue the world possesses—that of Colleoni at Venice, the joint work of Verocchio and Leopardi.
A melancholy interest attaches to the “[Marcus Aurelius]” for the reason that it signalizes the close of an artistic movement that had run its course for more than eight hundred years. The transition from Greek to Roman sculpture had been uninterrupted. Now, the art of sculpture was to pass into the shades for almost the same period. Even in the days of Marcus Aurelius himself, the world had dim forebodings of the Dark Ages which were approaching. The effort with which Aurelius arrested the flow of Germanic invasion was far from reassuring. To an Emperor such as Trajan it would have spelt disaster. Every Roman capable of bearing arms was enrolled in the forces defending Italy itself. The outposts of the Empire—the Danubian provinces, for instance—were only saved by the efforts of the barbarians. A Roman Elijah might have warned the Empire of what Alaric’s boastful cry would be when asked what ransom Rome should pay.
“All your gold, all your silver, the choicest of your treasures.”
“What then will you leave us?”
“Your lives!”
As the third century of our era advanced, the system upon which the Roman Empire had been founded showed even clearer signs of breaking down. The supply of capable administrators proved insufficient. Roman citizens no longer took the keen interest in political affairs they had of old. The men who had furnished the brains of the state in earlier times abandoned themselves to lives of luxury and idleness. The concentration of power in the hands of the few governors of real ability and vigour led to a state of perpetual insurrection. On the contrary, the counter-check of subdivision of provinces and powers, devised by Diocletian and Constantine, led to the rise of a bureaucracy which got entirely out of hand. The ideals of Roman imperialism passed away. With them went the art of portraiture which they had fostered. An effete empire led to an effete art.
As we have said many centuries were to pass before the Catholic Church, which fathered the next great school of national sculpture—the Gothic—realized the possibility of embodying its thoughts and feelings in marble and bronze. The early Christians could never disassociate sculpture from the religious beliefs of the Romans. The art was too closely allied with a pagan faith to be acceptable to the new church. This more or less accounts for the absence of a vigorous school of sculpture in Italy between the fourth and the thirteenth centuries a.d.
The circumstances in Constantinople were not more favourable. During the early years of the Eastern Empire Greek and Roman sculpture never lacked appreciation. Constantine made his new capital an immense museum of classical art. But when the Byzantine artist sought to express the ideals of Christendom by means of sculpture he failed. All Byzantine art tended to become more and more abstract and symbolical. It finally became completely divorced from naturalism—the only sure ground upon which a sculptor can stand. At the same time Christian thought and feeling, which the Byzantine artist might have expressed, passed under the control of a Church which would not recognize the rights of any artist. No other explanation of the absence of a vigorous school of sculpture during the Dark Ages is required than the recital of the following decision of the Council of the Church at Nicæa. It refers to painting. A similar decree issued by the Empress Theodora, however, forbade any sculpture save low relief. Sculpture in the round was denounced as entirely pagan. The Nicæan decree may, therefore, be accepted as applying to any art effort.
It ran: “The composition of the figures is not the invention of the painters but the law and tradition of the Catholic Church.... Nor is this purpose and tradition the part of the painter (for his is only the craft) but is due to the ordination and disposition of Our Father.”
Principles such as these ruled until about the tenth century, when circumstances led to their gradual decay and the consequent rise of a new school of sculpture. We shall see that this found a wealth of material in Christian myths and personalities which had suggested nothing to the craftsmen of Rome and Byzantium.