SECTION I.
ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE.
If it were possible to place within an Ephesian Temple, every historic book, manuscript, and engraving in the world, and then the sacrilegious torch of a modern Erostratus should entirely consume them, whereby the only apparent knowledge to be obtained would be from tradition,—yet the marble and stone quarries of the earth have issued those volumes composed and fashioned by the hands of man, that would restore the progressive history of the arts and civilization.
Architecture has erected his lofty temples, palaces, and mansions; and Sculpture has, with her magic wand, charmed and adorned them with historic facts, legends, and romance: the former planned the porticoes, columns, and proportions; but the latter was the power whereby they were fashioned and embellished. Architecture by his peculiar characteristic gives intelligence as we wander amid his works, that we are on the land of Egypt, or the plains of Pæstum: on the Acropolis of Athens, or the land of Romulus and the Coliseum: and whether we gaze upon the sky-pointing Pyramid, the stern or the graceful Doric, the Ionic of the Ilissus, or the acanthus-crowned Corinthian,—they one and all have voices of oracular power, proclaiming to the classic scholar the Nation from whence they arose to life and beauty.
Even the horizontal and curved lines of Architecture have their especial records; for they state the time in the history of the Arts, when they were erected, even without a sculptured cipher;—for the level lines of the Cyclopean and Egyptian walls, with their attendant apertures, give certain knowledge that they were erected before the principle of the Grecian arch was known or practised.
Sculpture has a more harmonious voice than that of her stern consort;—the graceful bride, whose rock-ribbed cradle amid the Parian hills—whose virgin youth reposed upon the halcyon marble of Pentelicus, has a voice of warm, yet chaste simplicity,—her tones are as sweet, as from lips first nourished on Hymettus' Hill; yet at times they speak with all the solemnity of her consort, around whom she fondly clings, as the ivy around the oak; and like that plant and tree, the sculpture-vine preserves for ages the character of the marble monarch of the Arts, even after his broad-spreading authority has been broken and humbled to the earth by Time and Desolation; or these two destroying powers may be viewed as the Regan and the Goneril, while Architecture is the Lear, and Sculpture the Cordelia of the Arts!
Even as a note of music struck from a chord of Nature vibrates to the heart, in like manner does the voice of Sculpture reach and echo around the walls of Life: it is Poetry's diapason—it speaks of God and His works—of Man in his intellect and glory—of Woman in her charity and beauty: it speaks a language which the unlettered may translate, while to her more subdued or secret tones, the disciples of her heavenly power have but to listen, or behold her action of utterance, as developed in her free or drapered limbs, to give the history of her thoughts; nor have those thoughts or attitudes, chaste as the marble they inhabit, ever been conquered by lust or luxury,—that unworthy conquest was reserved for the false disciples of her faith, yet not over herself, but her fair handmaid—Painting. But Architecture and Sculpture have lived on—severe and chaste, stern and graceful, majestic and beautiful—as when they were first created from the Eden of the mind! No sword of wrath has driven them forth to wander as outcasts; but as Messengers of Peace they have visited every clime; they have raised their temples and cities in every land, subjected to one power only—the insatiate monster of the earth, Time—the twin-born with Creation, and who will be the last mourner of Nature and her name! Yet even when their children have been struck down—like Niobe's, by the shafts of fate—still how beautiful in Ruins! Although prostrate upon the earth, yet even in death, they have voices as speaking from the tomb:—but the Parents still live on, ever young and immortal, and can point to the proud remains of their fallen Children, and with the voice of historic truth proclaim their fadeless epitaph and character.
Egypt! My first-born and consort of the Nile!—while thy Pyramids and Temples shall remain—and they will even to the final tempest of the World—thou shalt be identified from among all the nations of the Earth!
Athens!—My favourite daughter! Until the Rock of the Acropolis shall fall,—thy classic beauties,—around which have gleamed the meridian splendour of the mind, will proclaim that Minerva, Plato, Pericles, and Phidias, were thy own!
Palmyra!—My third joy! Although the wild Arab sleeps within thy roofless dwelling, with the whirling sands for his nightly mantle—yet, while thy Porticoes, Arches, and Colonnades shall be seen, the City of the Desert will live in Memory; for the Spirits of Longinus and Zenobia will be there!
Rome!—My Warrior Son! Thy ancient glory lives in the recorded evidences of thy Parent's Art; for amid the ruined columns of thy Forum glide the spectral forms of Romulus, Junius, Virginius, Brutus, Cato, and of Cicero! Through thy Arches move those of Septimus, Vespasian, Titus, and of Constantine!—And dost thou not speak to all the world from the solemn historic voice of thy giant Coliseum? But beyond all this, from the ashes of thy former magnificence—like the Phœnix upon the spot of Martyrdom, thou hast risen in double splendour to the Glory of THE Saviour and the Faith of an Apostle; and to the triple-fame of Bramante, Raphael, and Angelo!
These are the still-living metropolitan records of by-gone days—from the Heathen to the Christian—they cannot be rejected—from them we trace and prove the æras of the world.
Sculpture has also her own prerogative, apart and separate from her Lord, as a dower-right, a jointure power of instruction; and what immortal pupils has she not produced? They stand as the models of art and intellect—each unapproached—solitary and beautiful,—the human eye contemplates them with the chaste wonder of Creation's daughter—Eve, when from the banks of Eden's limpid waters, she first gazed upon the mirrored image of herself! The Jupiter of Elias,—the Minerva and the Triple-Fates of the Parthenon,—the Medicean Venus and her sister of the Bath,—the gentle Antinöus,—the Athenian Phocian,—The Pythonian Victor—Sun-clad Apollo,—the Serpent-strangled Priest and Sons of Troy, all speak the intellectual power of their mistress: and even the poor Roman captive—the death-struck Gladiator—has been raised by her magic wand from the sandy deathbed of the Coliseum, to live on, unconquered to all posterity!
Sculpture is a title not only applicable to statuary, but to every kind of architectural stone-ornament, and in every stage towards its completion—from the rough-quarried block to the polished marbles of the frieze and pediment: this being admitted, how vast and almost unlimited is the field for historic contemplation! The Antiquary when he removes the trodden earth from the mouldering tomb to trace the deeds of heroes: or from an antique Gem or Medal, raises to light from beneath the dark dust of ages, the bold outline of an imperial head: or, when within the lava-coloured city, a hidden statue from beneath the veil of centuries bursts upon his bewildered sight, he still remembers that Sculpture was the creative power. The traveller who pauses in silent wonder as he views the Egyptian Pyramids (blocks of stone raised to perpetuate a nameless king), turns with redoubled pleasure to contemplate the sculptured marble of Tentyra—in the sight of whose shrines the followers of Napoleon felt amply repaid "for the dangers they had passed." Although the Assyrian Kings have for ages been covered with the sands of their desert, and the wandering Arab sleeps unmolested in the shade of Palmyra's columns, unconscious of his mighty mansion, yet her temples and porticoes speak loudly for the living truth of historic marble.
Greece!—the wonder of the classic age,—the key-stone in the arch of intellect,—owes her glory to Marathon and Salamis, but her living name breathes from the Sculpture of the Acropolis. The proportion given by Ictinus to the body of the Parthenon is fast falling to decay, while the sculptured mantle of Phidias which adorns it adds regality to splendour, and every stone that falls produces but another graceful fold to the gorgeous drapery! Sculpture still preserves Syracuse amid the wreck of time, as when Marcellus wept tears of joy at beholding his mighty conquest: it still points out Carthage, the fatherland of Hannibal, as when Marius upon a prostrate column mourned her desolation. Mysterious Pæstum has no other monument, for her deeds have perished with her records. From Istria to Dalmatia may be traced the historic progress of the art,—the gate of the Sergii, Theatre of Pola, and the Palace of Dioclesian, whose columned wall is mirrored in the Adriatic, all bear convincing testimony. And for ancient Rome!—it is her living history! The Statorian columns of the Forum, lifting high their leafy brows, proclaim the spot where Romulus checked the bold advance of the Sabine Tatius: the solitary shaft of Corinthian form and grace, gives fame to Phocas: the Ionic columns of Concordia's Temple, proudly point the place where Cicero impeached the blood-stained Catiline; while the triumvirate columns of the Tonans-Jupiter preserve the imperial name that witnessed the Redeemer's Birth! The arch of Titus (where the Composite first shone forth) heralds the Conquest of Jerusalem,—its sculpture, a Jewish basilisk, for none of that nation dare pass beneath its gateway. The arch of Constantine, robed in Sculptured history, records the battle with Maxentius, the first victory beneath the Banner of the Cross, and gained by the Christian Prince after his conversion by the vision of the Holy-sign! The column of Antoninus still preserves the deeds of the philosophic Marcus; and while the equestrian statue of the Capitoline Hill presents the figure of Aurelius, the grouped trophies of Marius make known the conquest of the Cimbri! The column of Trajanus blazons forth the wars of the Dacii, thereby transmitting to all ages the costume and weapons of the captives, and of the imperial victors. The circular and columned edifice speaks of Vesta,—her Virgins, and the heathen's perpetual altar-flame: the giant arches near the Forum, of a Temple to the God of Peace, while the earth-buried palace of the Esquiline contained the moving form of that Son of War, who fell beneath the patriot blow of Brutus! The Pantheon,—the Pyramid,—and the Tower,—perpetuate Agrippa, Cestius, and Mætella's fame! The triple-monument of the Appian-Way, tells the historic tale of the first victory that consolidated Rome in early freedom,—it speaks of the Curiatian Brothers who fell for Alba,—of the Horatii that fell for Rome:—the classic eye in viewing those time-honoured tombs looks through a vista of near three thousand years,—it gazes upon the Horatian triumph and his spoils,—it sees a widowed sister's upraised hands in malediction,—it beholds that sister's death from a brother's patriot sword! A sculptured frieze and cornice upon a lone pilastered house, in the most humble street of Rome, speak to the passer-by that within those shattered walls once dwelt the "Last of the Tribunes," Petrarch's friend—renowned Rienzi! Then the blood-cemented Coliseum! It is an history within itself! Commencing with its founders, Vespasian and Titus, and its builders, the poor captives from Jerusalem,—it encloses all the savage and succeeding emperors whose mantles of coronation were there dyed in human gore! Domitian, Commodus, Valerian, and the long line of insatiate murderers of the early Christians! And even Trajan suffered the sands of that arena to receive the mangled body of an Apostle's Minister,—Ignatius of Antioch,—who died like Polycarp of Smyrna, for that Faith which claimed death in cruel torments rather than Apostacy,—from whose lips may have passed the same sentiment as from his successor in martyrdom: "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has done me no injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?" Architecture erected the Coliseum, but Sculpture like a funeral pall, mantles this human slaughterhouse of Rome;—not a stone of which, from the base to the ruined cornice, but has an historic voice that speaks, as from the Arimathean Sepulchre of our Religion, of the final Resurrection of those early martyrs to the Faith of Christ!
The humble gravestone of the village churchyard is received as legal evidence of death,—it speaks a name, a date, and burial,—the Acropolis, as the tomb of Athens, can do no more, save that it is the record of a nation's downfall, and not a peasant's.
Sculpture can speak even of the Religious mind of the deceased,—bring it to memory, and instruct us as to the means whereby the departed attained his hope of Salvation,—it presents the transparent medium through which he gazed upon futurity, and believed in his approach to God: for the Cross or Crescent upon a tombstone, needs no other language to inform the passer-by, that the departed was a follower of Christ or Mahomet! If then the mind of a solitary corpse can, as it were again be vivified, by merely contemplating the sculptured emblem of the dead, and that from a single gravestone, may not entire nations be historically resuscitated, when the human eye and mind are brought to gaze upon, and investigate whole Cities of Ruins, with their sculptured Temples, Tombs, and Palaces? Yes! though they should be found amid the darkened forests of the Western Continent, where the panther and beasts of prey were thought alone to dwell. Yes! Palenque, Copan, Chiapas, and their muraled sisters, have historic voices for posterity from their "cities of the dead," the Pompeii and the Herculaneii of the Western Hemisphere,—yet more aged and venerable than even those victims of Vesuvius!
Architecture and Sculpture then claim the right to be received as undeniable evidences of historical record; and, as such, those two branches of the Fine Arts will be admitted by the reader in support, and in illustration of the Epoch now under investigation. Ictinus, Phidias, and Praxiteles,—Bramante, Jones, and Wren,—Canova, Chantrey, and Greenough, may justly be regarded as historians; for from the volumes of their art, events and æras can be traced and established.