History of Ancient Art

by Franz von Reber

It is otherwise with the relations between Western Asiatic art and the early sculpture of Greece. The preceding section has made it evident that the most prominent characteristics of the Ionic style were developed from this root, and the influence of Asiatic motives was as marked in regard to the sculpture as to the architecture of Hellas. The fully perfected flower, however, but little betrays an Oriental derivation in either province. The art of Asia Minor and of Syria had taken an essentially different starting-point from that of Egypt—one more nearly allied to the Greek point of view. Instead of formulating the human figure by a fixed canon after the manner of the Egyptians, it looked to nature itself, with a decided realistic tendency. But in its later development, as already shown, Mesopotamian art went as much too far beyond reality as that of Egypt had remained behind it; and the self-sufficiency of the Eastern despotisms resulted in that utter standstill which checked the life of art in Assyria, Persia, and Phœnicia. The acquired forms, as upon the Nile, stiffened into conventional types, with the difference that those of Egypt took more the character of a written chronicle, those of Mesopotamia and its dependencies more that of ornament. Hellenic genius could only remain upon such a low level during its immaturity; there are, therefore, almost no traces of direct Asiatic influence evident in the sculptures of Greece after the most primitive period, although in this it is unmistakable. We may call this period of development the heroic age, and understand by it the epoch from the earliest times to the first Olympiad, 776 B.C. Even the native legends concerning the beginning of Greek art point towards the East. The mythical founders of monumental buildings, the Cyclops, to whom were ascribed the oldest stone sculptures, like those upon the Lions’ Gate of Mykenæ, came from Lycia. The Dactylæ appear in groups upon the mountains of Phrygia and Crete often bearing names characteristic of their significance as cunning artisans—Kelmis, Damnameneus, and Acmon (hammer, tongs, and anvil); while the Telchinæ—Chryson, Argyron, and Chalkon (workers in gold, silver, and copper)—inhabited Rhodes. The personification of various metal-workers in these mythical guilds is unequivocal, and the attributed locality of their dwellings has a corresponding meaning, pointing to the coasts of Western Asia, where the process of overlaying wooden carvings with beaten metal was predominant, as in Phœnicia and the intermediate island of Cyprus. This empaistic work, of plates shaped upon a model by hammer and punch, presupposes the carving of the model itself, without which the creation of the sphyrelaton was obviously impossible. The gold overlaying of Solomon’s Temple was formed upon reliefs carved in cedar-wood, and was, perhaps, beaten over them: before the discovery of bronze-casting, we may conclude this also to have been the case with works of statuary in the round. The art of sculpture in wood seems to have been native among the early Greeks; carved idols, xoana, soon appearing as substitutes for those stones and trunks of trees (Paus. vii. 22), which, provided at times with the attributes of trident, caduceus, lance, or sceptre, were at first worshipped as divine symbols. These were frequently so old that no account could be given of their origin, and they were consequently said to have fallen from the skies. It is difficult adequately to conceive the rudeness of these most ancient xoana. The arms were not at all separated from the body, and were indicated only in as far as was necessary to attach to them characteristic attributes, like the garment and spindle in one hand, and the lance in the other, of the Trojan Athene described by Homer. The sacred figure was frequently quite covered with real doll-like clothing, as is the Virgin or the Bambino in many modern places of pilgrimage provided by the Roman Catholic Church. The difficulty of representing the hair of these puppets appears, from the later treatment of the heads in marble, as seen in the Apollo of Tenea, to have been evaded by the use of a woolly covering like a wig. The want of definition in the faces is evident from the statement that some xoana had closed eyes. This is not to be explained by the pious legends of antiquity that the image had refused to look upon some deed of sacrilege,—such, for instance, as the rape of Cassandra,—but by the fact that the eye was indicated only by a horizontal painted line. It was from such rude figures that Daidalos advanced. It was not only said that he was the inventor of various instruments for wood-working, such as the axe, saw, auger, and plummet; but certain improvements in the shaping of the statues were also ascribed to him, such as the opening—that is to say, the formation—of the eye, and the separating of feet, as if in the act of stepping. The progress cannot, in fact, have been great. The traditional account that the images had to be bound after the freeing of their legs, to prevent their running away, must not lead us to imagine an ideal perfection, or, indeed, any striking resemblance to life. The classical authorities who knew the works attributed to Daidalos say, indeed, that they were “wonderful to look upon,” and that “the master would have made himself ridiculous by such works in our day.” The personality of Daidalos is hardly better assured than that of the mythical workers in metal, the Dactylæ and Telchinæ; the name itself, signifying the cunning workman, is nothing else than a personification of artistic skill, a collective term for all primitive skill and activity in wood-carving. As this had developed from handiwork, the legend calls the father of Daidalos, Palamaon, the contriver, or Eupalamos, the skilful artisan. The travels which Daidalos is said to have made from Athens to Crete, Sicily, Thebes, Pisa, Egypt, etc., merely result from the appearance of so-called Daidalian works in those places. In the time of Homer, the ninth century B.C., these images were already regarded as of great age; so that the period of the beginning of Greek sculpture must be at least as remote as the tenth century B.C. The one statue directly mentioned in the Iliad, the sitting Athene at Troy, upon whose knees the Trojan women laid a garment, appeared to the author of the Homeric epics to be a work in the manner of Daidalos. If another passage (Iliad, i. 14) may be understood as referring to an image of Apollo, this must, like the Athene, have been at least partially covered with real clothing. Such figures were also overlaid with metal; it is not to be doubted that the gold and silver dogs, and the youthful torch-bearers of gold, in the Palace of Alkinoos were carved models of wood covered with beaten plate. The empaistic process, native to Phœnician countries, was early imitated in heroic Greece. Though the island of the Phæacians was idealized by the fancy of the poet, he yet cannot be supposed to have invented new technical processes in an account which was to be generally intelligible. It seems, however, that sculptural art had no great range during the heroic ages; perhaps the works overlaid with beaten metal, which were known to Homer, may have been the results of an accidental and superficial knowledge gained by intercourse with the Oriental peoples inhabiting the coasts of Western Asia.

The manufacture of furniture and smaller decorative objects was probably more important. Homer was acquainted with the use of the lathe; while relief-carving in wood, and inlaying of metal, ivory, and amber, were early practised. The latter process can also be referred to Phœnician influence, in consideration both of the materials employed and of historical analogy. Even kings busied themselves with such handiwork, as the building of his nuptial couch by Odysseus proves; and royal ladies, such as Penelope, Andromache, and Helen, embroidered and wove elaborate textures. Professional workmen are also mentioned: Icmalios was the maker of Penelope’s seat; and some productions of this nature, like the chest of Kypselos, were as late as the beginning of the historical ages of Greece. Sculptured utensils of metal, vessels, tripods, and weapons, are particularly and distinctly described in the Homeric epics. The jars and vases described as “embossed with flowers” may be imagined as decorated with wreaths, like those found in Assyria and on Cyprus, and as similar to the early Italian bronzes. Cups with knobs (Iliad, xi. 633) were discovered in the excavations at Nineveh; conventionalized animals, serpents and birds (Iliad, xi. 17 and 634; Odyssey, xi. 610, and xix. 227), are to be found upon many primitive vases, and may be supposed to have existed as handles to vessels as well as upon clasps, sword-belts, and armor. References to the Asiatic derivation of the bronze-works known in prehistoric Greece are given by Homer, who mentions craters from Sidon and a Cyprian coat of mail. The shields were especially rich, being formed by several thin plates of metal secured one over the other; every disk was of greater circumference than that above it, only a narrow concentric rim of each thus remaining visible. The inner circle alone upon the comparatively simple shield of Agamemnon (Iliad, xi. 32) was ornamented with sculpture, in this case a Gorgoneion, the outer edges being provided with ten knobs of tin; upon the handle was a three-headed dragon. The shield of Achilles (Iliad, xviii. 468) was wonderfully elaborate, and, as the work of Hephaistos, probably exceeded by far the ordinary ornamentation of heroic arms; but it does not, on this account, give less reliable information concerning the general form and nature of prehistoric armor. Five layers of metal were superimposed,—two of bronze, two of tin, perhaps alternating, that in the centre being of gold; four rings were thus formed around the inner circle, each covered with rich sculptural decoration. Symbols of earth, sea, and sky, with the sun, moon, and stars, were within the golden disk. Upon one side of the first concentric band was shown a city in time of peace, with a wedding procession and a court of justice; upon the other a besieged city, with a sally of the defenders and a general engagement. Upon the second ring were the four seasons, indicated by ploughing, harvesting, the vintage, and by a herd of peacefully grazing cattle attacked by lions. A harvest dance of youths and maidens, before whom was a singer with a harp, decorated the third ring; while the fourth and outermost, probably narrower than the others, was ornamented by waves representing the sea, which, according to the conception of the ancients, surrounded the circular land of the earth. The figures were cut from thin sheets of different metals, and were riveted to the ground; it is uncertain whether these were first beaten to a relief, or were left flat, giving the effect of a silhouette. The metals were naturally chosen of colors different from that of the band to which they were affixed, and the treatment, in principle, thus somewhat approached the art of painting. The ground and the vineyards, in the pictures of the seasons, were of gold, yet “the grapes shone blackish;” the poles appear to have been of silver, the trenches of iron, and the hedges of tin, while upon the dancers “hung golden daggers upon silver straps.” Such empaistic work must have been more closely related to surfaces of inlaid metal upon wooden forms than to the statuesque Phœnician sphyrelaton. Homer’s account of the shield of Achilles should be considered not from a technical, but from an artistic, point of view. The vivid description is, of course, due altogether to poetical license; but we may well believe that subjects like the harvest dances, festive processions, warlike scenes, symbols of the seasons, etc., may have been attempted upon utensils and weapons, though in a more simple and decorative manner, their object not being an artistic setting-forth of details, but an intelligible indication of the whole. With what limited means this is possible is proved by Egyptian coilanaglyphics, Assyrian reliefs, and the paintings upon Greek vases of the most primitive style. (Fig. 187.) The artist of the heroic age cut his figures from thin sheets of metal, just as children snip paper, and set them together upon the background, filling up the intervening spaces as best he might with ornaments and names. Direct Oriental models were hardly needed for this; but it is probable that, as in the sphyrelaton, the influence of Asia Minor was felt: the conventional character of the types painted upon the oldest Greek vases bears distinct evidence of a Phœnician impulse. There was little that was artistic in the details of such early decorations, but all the more in the conception as a whole: the manner of expression was weak, but the thought was admirable. Figures appear upon Assyrian sculptures, so similar to those described by the poet that by their help one might almost reconstruct the Homeric shield; in Mesopotamia, however, the representations lacked unity in the fundamental conception, they were not well grouped in the given space, and appear, as Brunn says, like a chronicle written in figures when compared with such a poem as the artistic compositions, made up, perhaps, of the same elements, described by Homer. The pseudo-Hesiodic shield of Heracles resembled that of Achilles, the chief difference in outward form being that the three inner of the five circular layers were bordered upon the outer edges by narrow rings of steel. The middle plate was decorated with the head of Phoibos, encircled by twelve serpents like a Gorgon. The next band displayed a warlike scene and one of peace: the combat of the Lapithæ and Centaurs in one half, and Apollo among the Muses in the other. The third had a like contrast between a besieged and a peaceful city, similar in composition to those upon the shield of Achilles; while the fourth was also a representation of the seasons, chiefly distinguished from those of Homer by the substitution of a hare-hunt as the symbol of winter. The reliefs upon the four narrow steel rings must have differed in action from the larger groups; in the latter the radial lines of the upright figures prevailed, in the former a contrary movement was predominant. On the innermost steel ring boars and lions moved concentrically around the shield; upon the next following was an arm of the sea, over which flew Perseus, pursued by the Gorgons. The third was a chariot-race at full speed; and upon the outer rim were conventionalized waves, with fishes and swans, forming an ornamental band similar to the border of the Homeric shield.

Our knowledge of the sculptural activity of Greece in the heroic ages has, up to the most recent times, been derived almost entirely from the poets, whose idealized descriptions are supported, in regard to form, only by the analogy of Assyrian reliefs and the paintings upon archaic vases. Works of a primitive period have, indeed, not been entirely wanting; but it being impossible to date them, they lend no aid to an historical consideration. The derivation and age of only two are assured, and the characteristic forms of one of these—the Niobe upon Mt. Sipylos, near Magnesia, mentioned in the Iliad, xxiv. 613—are entirely obliterated. It is so rudely executed, or so weather-beaten, that even in antiquity it appeared to Pausanias, even when seen from the immediate vicinity, as but a shapeless rock, in which the human figure was scarcely to be recognized, while, at a distance, it resembled a woman bowed down with grief and weeping. The account has been verified in recent times by the discovery of a rock-cut relief of three times the size of life, so disintegrated that satisfactory drawings of its human forms could not be made. This renders the other pre-Homeric monument, the most ancient known sculpture of Greece and of Europe, all the more important—namely, the relief over the gate of Mykenæ, called by the poet that of the Lions—the chief portal of the fortress of the Atridæ, the witness of the departure of Agamemnon for the Trojan war, and of the downfall of his house on his return. (Figs. 188 and 126.) The structure has been already described from an architectural point of view. The relief upon the slab which closes the triangle above the lintel represents two lions standing upright upon either side of a column; their heads, turned outward, were separate pieces, fastened with dowels to the background, and have disappeared. The designation of these animals need not be deemed erroneous because they have no manes. Pausanias speaks of them as lions (though this in itself may not be of great weight), and in the Phœnician examples of beaten metal-work, as in the archaic paintings upon Greek vases, the indication of hair is always wanting. The Asiatic influence which, in architectural respects, had made itself felt upon the Tholos of Atreus, must be acknowledged here also; thus alone is it possible to account for a peculiar modelling of the forms, entirely foreign to sculpture in stone. The resemblance of these lions to the animal figures of Assyria is readily recognizable; it is the same resemblance as that which the art industry of the Syrian coasts showed to that of Mesopotamia. The Phœnician tradespeople, themselves skilled in many novel technical processes, formed the medium between the cultured countries upon the Tigris and the Ægean Sea. The Lycian Cyclops had also borrowed from these neighbors, and to them was traditionally attributed this wonderful stone carving at Mykenæ, a work which, from all appearance, was an isolated attempt. Such sculptures could not become national and native so long as the requirements of the heroic Greeks were satisfied with the mere decoration of useful objects. The impulse towards monumental art seems first to have been awakened with the introduction of the columnar temple. Schliemann’s excavations upon the Acropolis of Mykenæ in 1876 have brought to light some few works of sculpture which deserve to be considered. Prominent among them are the memorial stones, two of which are shown in Fig. 189. They are remarkable for a naïve primitiveness of conception and the desire to display the subject chosen as distinctly as possible. A vigorous action and a certain observation of nature are not lacking, though the forms are incorrect, both in general effect and in detail. The similarity of these works to Asiatic sculptures is marked; but no trace of Egyptian influence is to be recognized in the attenuated figures. The same derivation is evident in the spiral ornaments, which closely resemble those upon the façade of the Tholos of Atreus, and upon Phœnician and Cyprian remains. All the reliefs imply models of beaten metal, and lend further support to the hypothesis which connects the heroic age of Greece with the civilization of Western Asia, through the medium of Phœnician traders.

The golden masks found in the graves are not less interesting, whether the assignment of these to the Homeric worthies—Agamemnon, Eurymedon, etc.—be accepted or not. (Fig. 190.) It is at least certain that they are memorials of the heroic age, and the great quantities of gold found in the sepulchres make it probable that they appertained to a royal race, and were buried at a time when the prosperity of Mykenæ was great and its power extensive. The masks, like the grave-stones, are formed with the helpless realism peculiar to the art of Western Asia, and entirely foreign to that of Egypt. It is easy to believe that they were imported directly from Phœnicia. This must certainly have been the case with the beautifully executed ornaments of gold—disks, diadems, stars, etc.—the beaten workmanship of which is of a perfection only possible to trained and practised manufacturers. The spirals and other linear designs are executed with exceeding accuracy, by peculiar instruments. Their motives are taken from the animal and vegetable world, from cuttle-fishes, butterflies, and various forms of leaves and flowers. It is certain that the perforated cylinders, cut, like gems, in intaglio, with scenes of war and hunting, were introduced directly from Asia; they are strikingly similar to the rolling seals of carnelian and agate found in Mesopotamia. A small model of a temple is peculiarly Phœnician, like that repeated upon Paphian coins.