Old Greek Education

by J. P. Mahaffy

CHAPTER VI.
THE SUBJECTS AND METHOD OF EDUCATION—DRAWING AND MUSIC.

§ 41. It is likely that most writers on Greek education have exaggerated the importance and diffusion of drawing as an ordinary school subject. Even in Aristotle’s day it was only recognized by some people, probably theorists;[41] and Pliny tells us that it was Pamphilus, Apelles’ master, who first had it introduced at Sicyon, from which it spread over all Greece. These combined notices point to its not being general before the days of Alexander. But the theorists recognized its use and importance earlier, first and most obviously for critical purposes, that men might better judge and appreciate works of art; secondly, for that æsthetical effect which is so forgotten by us, the unconscious moulding of the mind to beauty by the close and accurate study of beautiful forms.

The usual word ζωγραφία for painting, and ζωγράφος for drawing-master, suggests to us that figure-drawing was the early and the principal branch of the art known and taught. From the earliest times rude figures had been scratched and colored on vases, and the number of vase-painters in historical Greece must have been so considerable as to disseminate some general feeling for the art, though we hear of no amateur vase-painting, such as is in fashion among ladies of our own day. On the other hand, landscape-painting was of late growth and very imperfect development. The prominence of sculpture, even polychromatic sculpture, made its absence less felt. Owing to the old Greek habit of personifying nature, and expressing every mountain and river by its tutelary gods, we find in the great pediment sculptures of the best epoch that curious indication of the landscape by its tutelary gods—looking on calmly and unconsciously at the action of the principal figures—which is perhaps the most peculiar characteristic of all Greek art. Thus the local rivers, the Alpheus and Cladeus, are represented lying at the ends of the great eastern pediment of the temple at Olympia, witnessing the combat of Pelops and Œnomaus with no more expression of feeling than the landscape which they represent would manifest.

The earliest essays at landscape proper were, moreover, not rocks and trees, or that wild country which the Greeks never loved, but buildings and artificial grounds, with regular lines and definite design. The first attempt was made to satisfy the requirements of the theatre, and the fact that scene-painting and shade-painting (or perspective) were used as synonymous terms shows the truth of the report that Apollodorus (cir. 400 B.C.) first discovered the art of representing the straight lines of a building in depth, by a departure from that orthography in geometrical drawing which had hitherto been practised.

If we may judge from the many sketches of this sort of suburban landscape which are preserved on Pompeian walls, the proper knowledge of perspective was not even in later times diffused among ordinary artists, whose figure-painting on these walls is in every respect vastly superior. On the other hand, the figure-painting even on vases of the best epoch is so conventional that we cannot believe Greek boys were taught to draw figures with a proper knowledge of living or round models, and must assume the drawing-lessons to have been chiefly in geometrical designs.

According to Ælian, there were maps of the Greek world to be had at Athens, and therefore presumably in schools, when Alcibiades was a young man; but this isolated notice, backed up by one or two allusions in Aristophanes, must not be pressed too far. The confusion between the terms for drawing and for writing utensils arises from the same materials being used in practising both—as if we used pencils only in learning to write. The same stylus (γραφίς) which was used for writing on wax tablets was used for drawing outlines on the same; and the earliest training in drawing, if we may trust the statement of Böttiger, was the copying of the outlines of models proposed by the master.[42] After firmness had been attained, delicacy of outline was practised, and ultimately a fine paint, which was used to paint black and red outlines on white tables, or white on black.

§ 42. Though the diffusion of drawing was late and doubtful, this was not the case with music, in its strictest sense. For its importance was such as to make it a synonym for culture in general, and to leave us doubtful in some cases whether Greek authors are speaking in this wider or the narrower sense. But it is from music proper that they all would start, as affording the central idea of education.

Here is one of the features in which Greek life is so different from ours, that there is the greatest possible difficulty in understanding it. When modern educators introduce music into boys’ recreation time, and say it has important influences in humanizing them, though in this they may approach the language of Greek social reformers and statesmen, they mean something widely different. The moderns mean nothing more (I conceive) than this, that the practice of music is a humane and civilizing pursuit, bringing boys into the company of their sisters and lady friends, withdrawing them from coarse and harmful pursuits, and thus indirectly making them gentler and more harmless men. It is as an innocent and social source of amusement that music is now recommended. Let us put out of all account the far lower and too often vulgar pressure on girls to learn to play or sing, whether they like it or not. For here the only advantage in view is not the girl’s moral or social improvement, but her advancement in life, by making her attractive in society. Such a view of musical training is quite beneath any serious notice in the present argument.

What has above been said will be considered a fair statement of the importance given to music by modern thinkers. And accordingly, when we find all Greek educators and theorists[43] asserting a completely different kind of importance in music, we find ourselves in presence of what is strictly an historical problem. It is not enough for the Greeks to admit that martial music has strong effects on soldiers going to battle, or that doleful music turns the mind to sadness in a solemn requiem for the dead. They went so far beyond this as to assert that by constantly playing martial music people would become martial, that by constantly playing and singing passionate and voluptuous music people became passionate and voluptuous. Consequently, the proper selection of instruments of music and of words became a subject of serious importance. The flute was cultivated at Athens till Alcibiades spurned it for distorting his handsome face, and caused it to go out of fashion at Athens. But this aversion to the Bœotian instrument was supported by the theorists on the ground that it had no moral tendency, that it was too exciting, and vague in the emotions it excited; also, that it prevented the player from singing words to his music.

But when we would infer from this that it is really the text, and not the actual music, which has the mental effect—when we are disposed to add that in our own time instrumental music is a higher and more intellectual kind of music, which has no moral effects save good ones, and that it is the libretto of the opera or the sentiment of the song which does harm—the answer from the Greek point of view is conclusive against us. Though much stress was laid upon the noble words which were sung, the music was known to have the principal effect. Plato, in a celebrated passage, even inveighs bitterly against the gross immorality and luxuriousness of all mere instrumental music, which allowed of so much ornament, so much exaggeration of expression, so much complexity of emotion, as to be wholly unsuited to his ideal state. It is, indeed, perfectly true that the intellectual effort in understanding instrumental music, at least some instrumental music, is far greater than is required for appreciating, or imagining one appreciates, a simple song. To understand a string quartet of Mendelssohn, or, still more, a symphony of Beethoven, is an intellectual task far exceeding the abilities of nine tenths of the audiences who hear them.[44] But, apart from all such intellectual strain, there is a strong though indefinable passion about this very music which has the deepest effects on minds really tuned to appreciate it.