History of Ancient Art

by Franz von Reber

The theatres, as enclosures for musical and scenic representations, offered greater scope for architectural development. When possible, the auditorium was in a situation where a natural semicircular inclination served instead of the immense foundations which would otherwise have been necessary for the elevated seats; the stage and surrounding buildings were, however, free-standing works of architecture. The arrangement of the Greek theatre is described by Vitruvius: three squares were inscribed in a circle, thus forming a twelve-pointed star (Fig. 185); one of the sides, a b, served as the line of the front foundation of the stage. This platform, the logeion, was closed at the rear by a wall, treated like a façade, and forming a background, the skene; its position being decided by the tangent c d, parallel to the front side. The remainder of the circle, the orchestra, was reserved for the evolutions of the chorus and for the stand of the musicians, the thymele; it was not until the development of the Roman theatre that spectators were admitted to this enclosure. Its extent was slightly increased by drawing the outline from the diameter, e f, to the stage with a doubled radius. Around seven twelfths of the original circle was constructed the concentrical auditorium of ascending seats, divided by a platform at half-height, the diazoma, into two parts, and accessible by radial passages. The statement of Vitruvius, who, as usual, substitutes a thought-saving canon for the living individuality of Hellenic art, is not borne out by the numerous remains of Greek theatres. The orchestra and auditorium exceed the semicircle in every instance where local conformations have not rendered this impossible; but they either do this by elongating the arc with tangents, as in the theatres of Segesta (Fig. 186), Syracuse, Tyndaris, and Tauromenion, or by continuing the circumference of the original circle without deviation, as in those of Athens, Epidauros, Megalopolis, Delos, Melos, Cnidos, Laodikeia, Side, Myra, Telmissos, Patara, Aizanis, etc. Among all known Greek theatres only two, those at Mantinea and Alabanda, are situated in the plain and entirely built of masonry; the others, contrary to Roman custom, utilize natural inclinations, as before explained. The seats were either cut in the native rock, or were walled and reveted with slabs of marble; when the slope was of earth, important foundations were undertaken.

The arrangements of odeions, or partially covered theatres for festive musical representations, appear to have preceded, and in some degree influenced, the architecture of the theatres. The oldest known example of these structures is the Skias in Sparta, a circular building provided with a pitched roof, which was probably built in accordance with forms customary in Asia Minor, as a Samian architect (Theodoros, the son of Telecles) was called from Samos to superintend its erection. The odeion upon the Ilissos near Athens appears to have been of similar disposition, and, like the former, constructed chiefly of wood.

The private dwellings of Greece stood in no relation to the monumental public buildings. That we are acquainted with no Greek house is a proof that these were of the same subordinate importance as was the family in the Hellenic state. The house was nothing more than the scene of the family labors, and turned modestly inward, confined and simple chambers being grouped around a central court. The life of the Greeks was, for the most part, spent away from home, upon the market-places and in the gymnasia and stoas; it was only at meal-times and for repose that he sought the retirement of his house. This was completely separated from the outer world, the dwelling-chambers having no windows upon the street and the façade being unimportant. The rooms, with the exception, perhaps, of the dining-hall, were but little developed, being generally lighted through the door alone. Their windowless walls presented no opportunity for architectural treatment, this being restricted to the court, a space of considerable size, surrounded by a colonnade. For centuries there was nothing to lead to any increase of this simple dwelling, or to the development of a palace architecture; in the ages of the heroes and tyrants the constructive ability was insufficient, and later republican equality was inimical to all individual ostentation. It was not until royal power had, in the Macedonian epoch, taken the place of democracy that private architecture made a decided advance,—less, however, in monumental importance than in luxury and display. The chambers were multiplied by a repetition of the courts, the rooms still remaining small; while a refined extravagance, borrowing its decoration from the sister arts, took the place of architectural invention. Notwithstanding the Greek terms applied to various forms of rooms by Vitruvius, they appear to have been comparatively restricted in size. The so-called Corinthian hall, covered with a barrel-vault, is specifically a Roman creation; the Egyptian hall, with a clerestory over the central aisle, may have been built in remembrance of Alexandrian models, while that of Kyzicos is illustrative of methods customary in Asia Minor, and especially in Pergamon. The three chief cities of the Diadochi must have presented imposing monuments of private and palatial architecture: Alexandria, the Egyptian residence of the Ptolemies, had been founded by Alexander himself, and in great part designed by his architect, Deinocrates; Antioch, upon the Orontes in Syria, was built by Seleucos Nicator, with the aid of the architect Xenaios, and rapid increase soon quadrupled its original extent; Pergamon had been restored and enlarged by Eumenes. The wonderful works of that time show architecture to have lost all earnestness and truthfulness through the extravagant demands created by the luxurious courts of the Ptolemies, Seleucidæ, and Attalidæ; their sham theatrical pomp was surpassed only by the Oriental costliness and splendor of the materials. The monuments were expressive of the weakness and superficiality into which the Eastern Hellenic world had fallen, and for which the forms of Greek art were employed only as a transparent varnish. Alexander the Great had himself led the way to this profusion of monumental and private buildings. It was he, for instance, who had caused Deinocrates to erect a pyramidal pyre for the burning of the body of his favorite Hephaisteion, which was a marvel of tastelessness and extravagance: the square substructure of brick masonry, with sides one stadion long, each ornamented with two hundred and forty golden prows of vessels and nine hundred and sixty statues, bore a second terrace decorated with golden wreathed torches; the third and fourth stages were reveted with reliefs of gold representing hunting scenes and the battles of the centaurs; the fifth with golden lions and bulls, upon which followed Macedonian arms and trophies taken from the barbarians. The whole was terminated by golden figures of sirens, the hollow bodies of which accommodated the singers of the funeral chant. A similar piece of display was the magnificent wagon for the funeral procession of Alexander. Other works were the gigantic tent for the Dionysian procession of Ptolemy II., Philadelphos, with its supports formed like palms and thyrses, with its cupola-shaped roof, secret grottoes, etc.; and the Thalamegos, or colossal Nile bark, a floating palace built by Ptolemy IV., Philopator, with its Temple of Aphrodite and many halls, one of which had chryselephantine Corinthian columns, and was decorated by a frieze of reliefs executed in ivory and affixed to a golden ground. A dining-saloon was built in the Egyptian manner, as a hypostyle, and the hall of Dionysos was provided with an apse formed like a grotto. At the same time, wonders of technical and mechanical skill divided attention with these works of barbarous luxury. As early as the time of Hiero II. of Syracuse, Archimedes and Archias built a monstrous ship, intended for the transportation of grain, which is said to have comprised an entire city, with a gymnasion, a public park, towers, reception-rooms, dining-halls, etc. It had three decks, and was propelled by twenty rows of oarsmen. Even this was surpassed by Ptolemy IV., who built a vessel with forty rows of oars. In short, gigantic dimensions and tasteless magnificence, favored by the insane competition among the followers of Alexander, extinguished true art, the more rapidly as works of these later ages were not executed with the solidity which preserved Roman architecture from similar decline, even though it accepted many unsound artistic influences from these Hellenic and barbarian despots.

The sculpture deserves even more unlimited admiration than the architecture of Greece. Hellenic building shows monumental ideals such as the creative power of no other people has attained; yet the problems which presented themselves for solution were of a limited nature. In sculpture, on the other hand, a height was reached which the artists of all later times have scarcely been able to comprehend, far less to equal. For centuries cultivated nations have drawn from this inexhaustible fountain, in unconditional admiration,—learning from Greek statues, and acknowledging their matchless perfection. Although it may justly be concluded that a direct reconstruction of the architectural remains, as a whole, were it possible, is not to be recommended, still no one can hesitate to regard the best examples of Hellenic sculpture as a model worthy of direct emulation, the controlling influence of which upon the present age is only to be desired. And though the Gothic cathedral may appear to some a higher artistic conception than the Doric peripteros, no one would give preference to the sculptures of the ancient Orientals, of the Mediæval Christians, or even of the great masters of the Renaissance, over the marble treasures gathered in any of the larger collections of antiques.

As, among all the works of antiquity, it is to Hellenic sculpture that the undisputed palm of precedence is given, it is befitting that particular attention should be devoted to it—that it should be treated as the central point, the focus, of the history of ancient art. This is made possible by the accounts of classic authors handed down concerning it, and by the multitudinous remains preserved and accessible in the museums of all great cities; it is rendered easy by the circumstance that the attention and industry of the archæological explorer and of the student of art have been directed to no other field of antique life with equal zeal and with equally important results. The history of the development of Hellenic sculpture thus lies, in its main features, more clearly before us than does that of any other ancient art. Although different views still exist in regard to many particulars, the arguments advanced in their support only serve for greater general enlightenment. The lively discussion which the question of the beginnings of Greek sculpture has called forth may be considered as terminated, since the Egyptian origin, advocated by Thiersch, Ross, Feurbach, Julius Braun, Stahr, and others, has been refuted, or at least reduced to the secondary and later influence assumed by Friedrichs. Indeed, the oldest Grecian sculptures, when compared with those of Egypt, display a complete contrast, and prove that such a connection, if it existed at all, was by no means intimate. Egyptian art worked upon purely mechanical principles, according to a typical network of lines. Sculpture was drawn into the province of architecture, and slavishly subordinated to it; carved figures became little else than architectural members through uniformity, symmetrical regularity, and multiplicity of repetition. Piers masked by the form of Osiris were thus substituted for columns, and long rows of sphinxes or colossal statues were set, like the obelisks, to decorate the avenues leading to the temples. The fixed standard after which the heads of such figures were patterned—more like the capitals of columns than imitations of life—and the members, without action, and constructed according to an established height or breadth, like the shafts of pillars, and similarly regulated in proportions by their diameter—took away all independence as works of sculpture, and caused the statues rather to appear as parts of an architectural composition. The ordinary Egyptian stone-cutter knew of only two positions, well established by custom; he renounced fundamentally the countless different appearances of life, and, with this, all representation of action and of individuality. Primitive Greek sculpture, on the contrary, arose from a sound naturalism, which directed the eye of the artist to real and peculiar appearances from the outset, often neglecting the proportions of the whole in the desire characteristically to express important details. The first Hellenic figures are wanting in that which was so prominent in the Egyptian: a correct, or at least a schooled, outline and modelling; while the pleasing imitation of life in detail, utterly foreign to Egyptian sculptures, is most forcibly presented. This naturalistic tendency prevented Hellenic sculpture from degenerating into an Egyptian formalism; the Greek artist did not blindly attach himself to a hieratic model, but studied organic life, thus keeping his works free from that ossified conventionalism common to all Eastern civilization. The very first carvings of Greece had a power of development which was wanting in all the other nations of that period.

To these differences of artistic principle must be added differences in characteristic forms, dependent partly upon race and partly upon the different conceptions of the two nations—differences so marked as to enable us to distinguish their works without hesitation. The Egyptian head differs decidedly from the Greek head in the high position of the ear, the long, narrow, and somewhat obliquely placed eyes, the wide flat nose, and the thick lips. (Fig. 28.) The Egyptian figure is slim, the primitive Greek almost stunted; in the former the shoulders are high and broad, in the latter sloping and narrow; there the hips are small, here large. The garments of Egyptian works are either elastic, without natural folds, clinging so closely to the body as often to be recognizable only at the borders, or are heavily pressed together in broad and angular masses. The scanty clothing introduced into ancient Hellenic sculptures shows throughout a close observation of nature; and the drapery is pleasing even in unsuccessful imitations, because it betrays the loving care of the artist. In the oldest productions of Greece we perceive a slumbering genius and capacity for development which were wholly lacking in the trained handiwork of Egyptian art,—as the faulty free-hand drawing of an intelligent boy, who tries to show what he has seen, awakens greater interest and hope than do the labored copies and tracings of an illiterate mechanic.

When compared with these weighty reasons against the dependence of primitive Grecian sculpture upon that of Egypt, the arguments adduced in favor of the supposition seem insufficient. Chief among these is the opinion of several ancient writers who vaguely imply that the oldest sculpture of the Greeks was related to that of the Egyptians, and derived from it as a later production. But it is well known that Pausanias and Diodoros were not exacting as to proofs of their opinions in regard to the history of art. In this instance, they were deluded by the same outward resemblance which has been so deceptive in modern times,—a similarity dependent upon that stiffness of archaic statues common to every primitive art, and to the attenuation and union of the extremities, which resulted from the economy of material and labor natural to both countries. But though, in the beginning of Greek sculpture, certain difficulties of execution were avoided in the same manner as in Egypt, and the material of the carved figures, whether wood or stone, was meted out as scantily as possible, it does not follow that they were directly dependent upon the Egyptian works which were influenced by like considerations.