GREECE
The revival of interest in Greek civilization was at first purely literary, and remained so during two or three centuries. But during the last century various travellers and residents abroad made collections which awoke an interest in the art; and though most of these collectors were content with merely showy sculpture, greatly restored and falsified for the market, yet some—such as Hamilton—took a real archæological interest in the unearthing and collecting of ancient art. The condition of study at the end of the eighteenth century was that many private men of wealth had bought large quantities of sculpture which was but little understood, and looked on more from a decorative than a scientific point of view, while there were the beginnings of a serious appreciation of it which had been just laid down by Winckelmann.
The nineteenth century opened with a grand work of publishing the principal treasures of classical art in England, which was finally issued in 1809 by Payne, Knight, and Townley; this marks the highest point of the dilettante collecting spirit, which was soon eclipsed by truer knowledge. Hitherto the best sculpture had hardly been known but at second hand through Roman copies; a closer acquaintance began with the travels of Dodwell, Gell, and Leake, all in the first decade of the century. The free opening of the British Museum, in 1805, and the accumulation there of all the best collections within the first quarter of the century, also served to educate a public taste. The first struggle of scientific and artistic knowledge against the dilettante spirit was over the Elgin marbles; by 1816 they were accepted as the masterpieces which all later criticism has proved them to be. The Æginetan and Phigaleian sculptures, brought to Munich and London, helped also to show the nobility of early Greek art; so that the last two generations have had a canon of taste to rely upon, the value of which cannot be overestimated.
Following on this noble foundation, other collectors worked in Greece and Asia Minor, and the British Museum profited by the labors of Burgon, Fellows, and Woodhouse between 1840 and 1860. The diplomatically supported work of Newton on the Mausoleum (1857–58), and Wood at Ephesus (1863–75), filled out our knowledge of the middle period of Greek art (350 B. C.). Comparatively little has been done since then by England, but the activity of the Germans at Olympia has given us the only original masterpiece that is known—the Hermes of Praxiteles (350 B. C.), and their work at Pergamon revealed the great altar belonging to the later age (180 B. C.). The excavations at Athens (in 1886) have produced the impressive statues dedicated to Athene about 520 B. C., which reveal the noble rise of Attic sculpture. But attention during the last quarter-century has been largely fixed upon the earlier ages. The discoveries of Schliemann at Hissarlik (Troy, 1870–82), Mycenæ (1876), Orchomenos (1880–81), and Tiryns (1884), opened a new world of thought and research. Though at first bitterly attacked, it is now agreed that these discoveries show us the civilization of Greece between 2000 and 1000 B. C. Lastly, during ten years past Egypt has provided the solid chronology for prehistoric Greece by discoveries of trade between the two countries.
We can now very briefly estimate the present position of our knowledge as gained during the century. Setting aside the early foreign pottery found in Egypt, which belongs probably to Greece or Italy at 5000 and 3000 B. C., we first touch a civilized city in the lowest town of Troy, where metal was scarcely yet in use, which is certainly before 2000 and probably about 3000 B. C. in date. Succeeding that is the finely built second Troy, rich in gold vases and ornaments, which—though mistaken by Schliemann for the Homeric Troy—must yet be long before that, probably before 2000 B. C. After the burning of that come three other rebuildings before we reach the town of the age of Mycenæ, about 1500 B. C. Of this, which was in Greece the climax of the prehistoric civilization, there are the splendid treasures found at Mycenæ, the magnificent domed tombs, the abundance of fine jewelry and metal-work, of beautiful pottery and glazed ornament. To this age belong the great palaces of Mycenæ, Tiryns, Athens, and other hill fortresses, of which hardly more than the plans can now be traced. And it is this civilization which traded eagerly with Egypt, exchanging the valued manufactures of each country. This period was at its full bloom from 1500–1200 B. C., and began to decay by 1100 B. C., this dating being given by the contact with Egypt.
This natural decadence of art in Greece was hastened by the invasion of the barbarous Dorians about 1000 B. C. Art, however, was by no means extinguished, but only repressed by the troubles of the age; and Athens, which was not conquered by the Dorians, was the main centre of the revival of the arts. Other examples of such a history are familiar in Egypt (after the Hyksos invasion) and in Italy (after the Lombards), where earlier abilities revive and bloom afresh when vigorous invaders become united to an artistic stock. After the centuries of warfare a quieter age allowed the growth of fine arts again in the seventh century B. C., largely influenced by Egyptian and Assyrian work at second hand, through the Greek settlements in Cyprus and Egypt. By 600 B. C. definite types of sculpture were started, and a course was begun which only ended in the fall of classical civilization. The century before the Persian invasion, in 480 B. C., was one of rapid development; and in sculpture and vase-painting we see that this century carried forward the arts to technical perfection and the highest power of expression. Immediately after the Persian wars came the supreme works of Pheidias and Myron, most familiar in the Parthenon and the Discobolus; and in vase-painting comes the reversal from vases drawn in black on a red ground to the blocking out of the ground in black, leaving the figure in red, thus giving far greater scope to the filling in of finely drawn detail. The civilization of Athens was also at its height in this age, under Pericles, and the minor arts received their most refined and perfect treatment. After this comes nothing but ripening to decay. It must always be remembered that we have but very few examples of original work of the great artists. Nearly all the actual marbles preserved are copies made in later times, which show little of the delicacy of the original; and the few original marbles that remain are mostly of unknown subjects by unknown men. The great work in Greek archæology during the last fifty years has been comparing the records of ancient art (in Pliny, Pausanias, etc.) with the remaining sculptures, critically assigning the various types of statues to their celebrated originals, and thus forming some idea of the real history of Greek art.
From these studies, full of detail and controversy, we may briefly sum up the characteristics of the principal artists and their imitators. At about 440 B. C. Pheidias showed in the Parthenon the highest expression of divine and mythic forms, in a simple and heroic style which was never equalled. Half a century later Polykleitos followed a more human expression, using motives (as in the Doryphoros), but yet portraying an abstract humanity. By 330 B. C. Praxiteles brought the expression of moods to his works, graceful, animated, and with a full ripeness, as in the Hermes of Olympia, or the Faun. Skopas, slightly later, marked his work by his great vigor and strong personality. This was the second turning-point, when ripeness passed into decay; and in Lysippos there is mere vivid naturalism and an impressionist manner without much soul or thought, as in his Apoxyomenos, about 330 B. C. After this mere triviality and genre subjects are usual, portraiture is a common aim, and dignity was vainly striven for in colossal size. The glorification of showing dead and vanquished enemies is seen in the Dying Gaul and figures of slain foes at Pergamon. Later on, about 180 B. C., we see the violent, complicated, and straining action of the figures around the great altar of Pergamon, which also appears in the groups of the Laocoon and Farnese Bull. In the Græco-Roman age a conscious artificiality took the place of life and expression, as we see in the Apollo Belvidere, the Venus di Medici, and the Farnese Hercules. Art was saved in the first century A. D. by the devotion of portraiture, which gave a sense of reality and conviction which is entirely absent in the imaginative works. Lastly, a painstaking study and admiration of earlier works led, under the wealthy patronage of Hadrian (130 A. D.), to an eclectic revival which was wholly artificial, and passed away within a generation. We have fixed on sculpture as the most complete expression of Greek art; in other directions there is neither enough material nor enough research to give us a connected view. Not a single town, hardly a single house, in Greece has been excavated; there is no consecutive knowledge of the ordinary products and objects of life; and there is very little recorded of the discoveries of the tombs. The artistic interest of the sculpture and architecture has starved other branches of archæology, and for Greece more remains to be done than for some less celebrated lands.