History of Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture

by J. S. Memes

'Artis Phidiacæ toreuma durum
Pisces adspicis: adde aquam, natabunt.'

'These fish are iv'ry—but by Phidias made;
From want of water only seem they dead.'

Of the works belonging to the first division, the Olympian Jupiter, and the Minerva of the Parthenon, colossal statues composed of gold and ivory, were the most wonderful productions of ancient art. The former, placed in the Temple at Elis, was sixty feet high, in a reposing attitude, the body naked to the cincture, the lower limbs clothed in a robe gemmed with golden flowers; the hair also was of gold, bound with an enamelled crown; the eyes of precious stones; the rest of ivory. Notwithstanding the gigantic proportions, every part was wrought with the most scrupulous delicacy; even the splendid throne was carved with exquisite nicety. The whole was finished before the artist had obtained the direction of the public works of the Athenians, in the 83d Olympiad after a labour of ten years; the same date in which Herodotus read the second part of his history, the first regular prose composition that had been heard at Athens.

About twelve years later was executed the Minerva, of inferior dimensions, being only forty feet in altitude, but equal, if not superior, in beauty of workmanship and richness of material, the nude being of ivory, the ornaments of gold. A flowing tunic added grace to the erect attitude of the goddess: in one hand was a spear, upon the head a casque; on the ground a buckler, exquisitely carved, the concave representing the giants' war, the convex a conflict with the Amazons, portraits of the artist and of his patron being introduced among the Athenian combatants—one cause of the future misfortunes which envy brought upon the author. On the golden sandals was also sculptured another favorite subject, the battle of the Centaurs, praised by historians as a perfect gem of minute art.

Such admiration attached to these two works, that they were regarded as 'having added majesty to the received religion;' and it was esteemed a misfortune not to have been able, once in a lifetime, to behold them. Yet judged according to the true principles of genuine art, theirs was not a legitimate beauty. It does not excite surprise, then, to learn that Phidias himself disapproved of the mixed effect produced by such a combination of different substances, nor will it appear presumptuous here to condemn these splendid representations. It is not sufficient that a work of art does produce a powerful impression—it is indispensable to its excellence that the means employed be in accordance with the principles and the mode of imitation. Now, in the compositions just described, exposed as they were to the dim light of the ancient temple, and from very magnitude imperfectly comprehended, the effects of variously reflecting surfaces, now gloom, now glowing of unearthly lustre, must have been rendered doubly imposing. But this influence, though well calculated to increase superstitious devotion, or to impress mysterious terror on the bewildered sense, was meretricious, altogether diverse from the solemn repose, the simple majesty of form and expression, which constitute the true sublimity of sculptural representation.

Statuary, or the art of casting in bronze, as the term was used by the ancients, Phidias carried to unrivalled perfection. The Amazon, the Minerva, at Lemnos, and in the Acropolis, were considered as the masterpieces in this department. The last, called the Minerva Polias, was of such majestic proportions, that the crest and helmet might be discerned above the battlements of the citadel at a distance of twentyfive miles, pointing home to the Athenian mariner, as he rounded the promontory of Sunium. Of these and other works, descriptions alone remain; we are consequently indebted for our positive knowledge of his style and principles to the marble sculptures of Phidias, in which department numerous admirable performances of his hand have also perished; but we have here an advantage in the possession of undoubted originals denied in every other instance.

Of the scholars of Phidias, the most esteemed were Alcamenes the Athenian, and Agoracritus of Paros. Their real merit, however, is matter of uncertainty, since their works are reported to have been retouched by their master, who was likewise in the habit of inscribing his statues with the names of his favorite pupils. Indeed, the sublime style perfected by Phidias seems almost to have expired with himself—not that the art declined, but a predilection for subjects of beauty, and the softer graces, in preference to more heroic and masculine character, with the exception of the grand relievos on the temple of Olympia, may be traced even among his immediate disciples. Among his contemporaries, indeed, Polycletus, the second of the name, has been by some placed equal in grandeur of style, while by others he has been described as unequal, to the majesty of the great Athenian. Polycletus himself appears to have decided the controversy, by showing, from the selection of his subjects, that his genius carried him to the imitation rather of the beautiful than the great. His most celebrated performances were the statues of two youths, both nude, the Diadumenos and the Doryphorus, so called from their action of binding the head with a fillet, and bearing a spear. The latter formed the famous 'canon,' from which, as from an unerring standard, all succeeding artists, even Lysippus, borrowed their proportions. Among contemporaries, also, a most distinguished station must have been occupied by Ctesilaus, since he contested with Phidias and Polycletus the public prize of merit for a statue to be dedicated in the temple of the Ephesian Diana. To this artist is erroneously ascribed one of the finest specimens of art now in existence, miscalled, but best known as, the Dying Gladiator, and which, more than any other ancient example, discovers the most profound knowledge of the internal structure of the human frame.

From the banishment and death of Phidias, which occurred some time before his patron died of the plague, in the last year of the eightyseventh Olympiad, the history of art is carried forward through a period, one of the most stormy and unsettled in the Grecian annals. He beheld the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, an event, indeed, Pericles is accused of having at least hastened, in order to screen his remaining friends from those accusations of which the sculptor had been the guiltless victim. During thirty years of hostile commotions, the arts flourished with almost unimpaired vigor, except that towards the close of the contest, sculpture, which had naturally participated in the fortunes of Athens, suffered a decline in this its capital school. The spirit of the age generally, however, united with the sentiment of hostility a more generous rivalry in excellence of every kind. The grand and beautiful in art continued to be followed and admired, while, amid the contention of arms, eloquence began to attain that nervous elegance which yet renders attic oratory the finest model of deliberative procedure. Even the less friendly interval which followed, the establishment of the iron rule of Sparta—the ruin of the milder and more splendid dominion of Athens—and, more disastrous still, the war kindled by the ambition of Thebes, with the various isolated struggles arising out of these leading events, appear to have produced no material degradation in that heroic style, whose lofty character harmonized with the strong excitement of contests for freedom or empire.

Of the artists who adorned this stirring era, the names of nearly fifty, with descriptions of certain of their works, have been handed down in the incidental notices of contemporary history, or in the more detailed accounts of Pausanius, Strabo, and Pliny. Naucydes was author of that beautiful figure holding a discus, and measuring in his own mind the distance, of which antique copies remain, admired for fine position, sweet variety of contour, and unaffected expression. Leochares, Bryaxis, and Timotheus, assisted in the erection of the tomb of Mausolus, where Scopas, superior to all others mentioned, presided.