Pompeii, Its Life and Art

by August Mau

Examples of a pathetic situation are equally abundant. We find Aphrodite caring for the wounded Adonis, and Cyparissus grieving over the dead stag. The pathos of the scene, however, is not always so obviously suggested. The familiar painting of Europa represents the maiden playfully sitting upon the bull, which one of her girlish companions is caressing. The situation, from one point of view, is idyllic, yet it brings to mind the unhappy fate of the girl, borne far away from home over the sea to a distant land, and the effect is heightened by giving her a wonderfully beautiful form.

Not infrequently a similar result is produced by placing figures of incongruous type in sharp contrast; so in the oft-repeated composition in which the beautiful Thetis in elegant attire sits in the workshop of Hephaestus, looking at the shield which the rough and grimy smith is finishing for Achilles. In another composition Pasiphaë is seen in the shop of Daedalus, who points out the wooden cow; and a similar idea of contrast must have been present in the mind of the artist who painted Danaë after she had been cast ashore in a chest on the island of Seriphus, sitting on the beach with little Perseus in her lap, while two fishermen standing near make inquiry concerning her strange fate.

The symmetrical arrangement of the paintings in a Pompeian room can hardly have failed to influence the choice of compositions for the principal panels, especially in cases in which mythological scenes were to be represented. Sometimes, though not so frequently as might have been expected, pictures were grouped according to subject. We have already noticed the relation of two paintings, in the house of Castor and Pollux, in which Achilles is the principal figure. The first of these, Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes, is found in a room of another house in a group of three; one of the companion pieces represents Thetis in the smithy of Hephaestus looking at the weapons which are being made for Achilles, while in the other she is seen riding over the sea on a Triton, bringing them to her son. There is another group of three pictures related by subject in a room in the house of the Vettii; they belong to the Theban cycle, and represent the infant Hercules strangling the serpents, the death of Pentheus, and the binding of Dirce.

Similarity of scene and of treatment influenced the selection of paintings for a room much more often than unity of subject. A good illustration is the pair of pictures several times found together, one of which represents Polyphemus on the beach receiving from a Cupid a letter written by Galatea; in the other Aphrodite is seen on the seashore fishing, with Cupids all about her. The suggestion of Love is common to both paintings, but the juxtaposition of the two as counterparts is due to the similarity of scene. Opposite the picture of Europa referred to above, is a Pan playing on his pipe, with nymphs around him; the two pictures, which appear in a room of the third style, from the decorative point of view form an effective pair.

A sleeping room of the same style—though in respect to grouping no difference between the styles is apparent—offers an interesting example of a double group. The four principal paintings form two pairs. In one pair we see, on one side, Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides approaching an altar around which three maidens are standing; on the other, a shrine of Artemis in a forest with three worshippers drawing near, one of whom brings a garland. The two pictures harmonize in the character of the scenery and in the arrangement of the figures.

The effectiveness of the other pair as a decorative counterpart can be seen in our illustrations; the subject of one of the paintings is the fate of the pipes which Athena cast aside ([Fig. 271]), and of the other the fall of Icarus ([Fig. 272]).

In the first of the two pictures we have one of the few extant examples of a kind of painting associated with the name of Philostratus, in which different scenes representing the successive stages of an action are united in one composition.

In the foreground at the left sits Athena, with her shield on the ground beside her, playing the double pipe; a nymph in front rising from the surface of a stream holds up a mirror in which the goddess may see her face reflected as she plays.

The next two scenes lie just across the brook. At the foot of the cliff sits the divinity of the country, Phrygia, in which the story of Marsyas is localized. Above, at the left, we see the satyr with a shepherd's crook in his left hand blowing a Pan's pipe; he has not yet espied the pipes thrown away by Athena.