CHAPTER II.
In the previous chapter, Egypt has been exhibited as the centre of intelligence in the history of ancient art; and having explained the connexion which can still be traced in the few remaining monuments of the East, we now turn from the parent source to trace the progress of refinement in the West, where, first in Greece, the human mind awoke to the full consciousness of its capacious grasp, and of its exquisite sensibilities.
The universal origin of sculptural representation, already noticed, in the alliance which man forms with natural objects as shadowing forth the affections or the regrets of the heart, is nowhere so conspicuous as in Greece. Here art was poetry from the beginning; her consecrated groves, her winding streams, her flowery plains, the azure depths of her mountains, became at once the residence and the representatives of those beings, whether divine or heroic, who constituted her theology. By a people, simple in their habits, yet ardent in their feelings, this early faith was long remembered,—such reminiscences deeply tincturing much of what is most exquisitely descriptive and sentimental in Grecian poetry. But a belief so abstract, so untangible in its forms, and so remotely addressed to the senses, would soon prove insufficient to maintain effectual empire over the passions. Attempts were speedily made to secure, as it were, the more immediate presence and protection of the objects of veneration or of worship. Men's desires in this respect, however, as in all other instances, would necessarily be limited by their knowledge and their powers. In the primitive ages, accordingly, objects rude and unfashioned as we learn from history, were adored as representing the divinities of Greece. Even to the time of Pausanias, stones and trunks of trees, rough and uninformed by art, were preserved in the temples: and though replaced by forms almost divine, still regarded with peculiar veneration, as the ancient images of the deities. As skill improved, these signs began to assume more determinate similitude; and from a square column, the first stage, by slow gradations something approaching to a resemblance of the human figure was fashioned. These efforts at sculpture long continued extremely imperfect. The extremities seem not to have been even attempted; the arms were not separated from the body, nor the limbs from each other, but, like the folds of the drapery, stiffly indicated by deep lines drawn on the surface. Such appears to have been the general state of the art immediately prior to the period when it can first be traced, as cultivated with some degree of success in any particular place. This occurs about twelve centuries before Christ.
The fine arts have never flourished in states not commercial; in this respect, presenting a marked contrast to the origin and progress of poetry and music; a fact singularly exemplified in the condition of those cities where arose the primitive schools in Greece. Sicyon, Ægina, Corinth, and Athens, were the first seats of commerce and of sculpture. Sicyon, with its small but important territory, extending a few miles along the south-eastern extremity of the Corinthian gulf, was the most ancient of the Grecian states, and probably the oldest city of Europe. From the earliest times, it became celebrated for the wealth, enterprise, and intelligence of its population; and from the Sicyonian academy were sent forth many of the most celebrated masters of design; hence Sicyon obtained the venerable appellation of 'Mother of the Arts.' The foundation of this school, though most probably of much higher antiquity, is assigned to Dibutades, who, in the humble occupation of a potter, became the accidental inventor of the art of modelling. For this discovery, so precious in its subsequent effects, he was indebted to the ingenuity of his daughter, who, inspired by love, traced upon the wall, by means of a lamp, the shadowed profile of the favored youth as he slept, that with this imperfect resemblance she might beguile the lingering hours of absence. This outline the father, filling up with clay, formed a medallion, which, even to the time of Pliny, was preserved as a most interesting relic. To the same pleasing origin painting has been ascribed—another instance of that delightful charm, which, to their poetry, their arts, their philosophy even, the Greeks have imparted by the constant union of sentiment and reason—of the heart with the understanding.
The little island, or rather rock, of Ægina, still one of the most interesting spots of Greece, rising above the waves of the Saronic gulf, nearly opposite to Athens, affords a striking illustration of the effects of commercial wisdom. Insignificant in extent, boasting of few productions, it was yet enabled, by this wisdom, long and successfully to maintain the struggle of warfare, and to cherish the arts of peace and of elegance, especially sculpture, in a school, if not the earliest, certainly latest distinguished by originality of style and invention. Smilis was famous by his statues of Juno, especially one at Samos, called by Pliny 'the most ancient image' of that goddess. Even in the works of this, her first master, it is said, were to be discovered a gravity and austere grandeur, the principles of that style visible still in the noble marbles which once adorned, in Ægina, the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius.
Corinth was early more celebrated as the patroness of painting. Concerning Dædalus, the first of the Athenian sculptors, doubtful or fabulous accounts have reached us; but a careful investigation of circumstances proves, that of whatsoever country a native, he had rendered himself renowned by the exercise of his skill at the court of Minos before settling in Attica. The facts attending his arrival there, and the history of his previous labours, enable us to fix dates, and to trace the true source of improvement in Grecian art at this particular era. Of the early establishments of the Greeks planted in the isles of the Ægean, which even preceded the mother country in the acquisition of wealth and intelligence, the Doric colony of Crete enjoyed, from a very early period, the happiness and consequent power of settled government. External advantages of situation first invited the access, while domestic institutions secured the benefits, of ancient and uninterrupted intercourse with Egypt. Hence the laws and the arts of the Cretans. With the former, the Athenian hero, Theseus, wished to transplant the latter also; and while he gave to his countrymen a similar system of policy, he did not fail to secure the co-operation of one whose knowledge might yield powerful aid in humanizing a rude people by adding new dignity to the objects of national veneration. Accordingly Dædalus, accompanying the conqueror of the Minotaur to Athens, fixes there the commencement of an improved style, 1234 years before the Christian era. With Dædalus, the artists already mentioned are described as nearly or altogether contemporaries.
The performances of Dædalus were chiefly in wood, of which no fewer than nine, of large dimensions, are described as existing in the second century, which, notwithstanding the injuries of fourteen hundred years, and the imperfections of early taste, seemed, in the words of Pausanias, to possess something of divine expression. Their author, as reported by Diodorus, improved upon ancient art, so as to give vivacity to the attitude, and more animated expression to the countenance. Hence we are not to understand, with some, that Dædalus introduced sculpture into Greece, nor even into Attica; but simply that he was the first to form something like a school of art, and whose works first excited the admiration of his own rude age, while they were deemed worthy of notice even in more enlightened times. Indeed the details preserved in the classic writers, that he raised the arms in varied position from the flanks, and opened the eyes, before narrow and blinking, sufficiently prove the extent of preceding art, and the views we have given on the subject. In these primitive schools, however, many centuries necessarily elapsed, before sculpture can be considered as a regular art. Their founders and pupils were little more than ingenious mechanics, who followed carving among other avocations. Such were Endæus of Athens, celebrated for three several statues of Minerva; Æpeus, immortalized as the fabricator of the Trojan horse; Icmulous, praised in the Odyssey as having sculptured the throne of Penelope; with many others who must have contributed to the arts of the heroic ages, and who, if they did not rapidly improve, at least kept alive the knowledge of sculpture.
Besides these continental schools, another must be described, which there is every reason to believe was still more ancient, and which certainly attained higher perfection at an earlier period. This was the insular Ionian school, flourishing in those delightful isles that gem the coast of Asia Minor, and chiefly in Samos and Chios. To this the continental academies were even indebted for many of their most distinguished members, who, leaving the narrow sphere of their island homes, naturally preferred the commercial cities from the same causes which had rendered these originally seats of art, opulence, intelligence, and security. Of the Samian masters, Rhæcus, about the institution of the Olympiads, or 777 B. C., first obtained celebrity, as a sculptor in brass, in which art, Telecles and Theodorus, his son and grandson, also excelled. Their works in ivory, wood, and metal, were extant in the age of Pausanius, whose description exhibits the hard and dry manner of Egypt, whence it is probable these artists had derived their improvements, distinguished for very careful finish. The Chian school claims the praise of first introducing the use of a material to which sculpture mainly owes its perfection, namely, marble. The merit of this happy application is assigned to Malas, the father of a race of sculptors, and who is placed about the 38th Olympiad, or 649 years before the Christian era. Michiades inherited and improved the science of the inventor, transmitting to his own son, Anthermus, the accumulated fame and experience of two generations of sculptors, to whom, as to their successors, the beautiful marbles of their native island furnished one rich means of superiority.