93. The epoch which discovered expression, or what the Greeks called "manners,"[12] is marked by Pliny as that which gave importance and effect to art.
Coroll.—Homer invested his heroes with ideal powers, but copied nature in delineating their moral character. Achilles, the irresistible in arms, clad in celestial armour, is a splendid being, created by himself; Achilles the fool of passions, is the real man delivered to him by tradition.
That the plastic artist should have had an aim beyond the poet is improbable, because the poet, in general, furnished him with materials; he composed his man of beauty and ideal limbs, not to obscure, but to invigorate his character and our attention.
The limbs, the form of Ajax hurling defiance from the sea-swept rock unto the murky sky, were, no doubt, exquisite; but if the artist mitigated his expression, the indignation due to blasphemy from the spectator gave way to sterner indignation at the injustice of his gods.
The expression of the ancients, from the heights and depths of the sublime, descended and emerged to search every nook of the human breast; from the ambrosial locks of Zeus, and the maternal phantom fluttering round Ulysses,[13] to the half-slain mother, shuddering lest the infant should suck the blood from her palsied nipple, and the fond attention of Penelope dwelling on the relation of her returned son.[14]
The expression of the ancients explored nature even in the mute recesses, in the sullen organs of the brute; from the Argus of Ulysses, to the lamb, the symbol of expiatory resignation, on an altar, and to the untameable feature of the toad.
The expression of the ancients roamed all the fields of licit and illicit pleasure; from the petulance with which Ctesilochus exhibited the pangs of a Jupiter delivered by celestial midwives, to the libidinous sports of Parrhasius, and from these to the indecent caricature[15] which furnished Crassus with a repartee.
The ancients extended expression even to the colour of their materials in sculpture: to express the remorse of Athamas, Aristonidas the Theban mixed metals; and Alcon formed a Hercules of iron, to express the perseverance of the God.[16]
94. Invention, before it attends to composition, group, or contrast, classes its subject and ascertains what kind of impression it is to make on the whole.