History of Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture

by J. S. Memes

In the insular,—and the evidence is in favour of the Chian school,—we also first hear of bronze statues. The earliest works of this kind were not cast, but executed with the hammer. Two manners are discernible; large figures were formed of plates, and hollow, the interior being filled with clay; in small pieces, the separate parts were brought nearly into shape in the solid, afterwards united, and the whole finished by the graver and the file. These methods, in each of which rivets, dovetails, and soldering, formed the joints, were gradually superseded as the knowledge of casting was acquired.

About the commencement of the sixth century before Christ, the school of Sicyon was illustrated by Dipænus and Scyllis, brothers, the most famous of her ancient masters, and whose age forms an era in the history of the ancient art, marking the first decided advances towards the mastery of the succeeding style. Their labours were in various materials, the most esteemed of marble; and the praise of its application is shared betwixt them and the Chian school. Statues by these artists, in Parian marble, were admired in the time of Pliny, excited the cupidity of Nero, and are subsequently described by one of the Christian fathers, from the peculiar veneration in which they were held. The style of sculpture had hitherto been extremely dry and minute;—a passion for extreme finish, in preference to general effect, had distinguished former masters. This taste had been first introduced, and afterwards maintained, by the limited resources of the art itself, by the mediocrity of artists, and by the dress and ornaments of the time. The hair arranged in undulating locks or spiral curls, and sometimes little separate knobs, was laboured as if to be numbered; the drapery, disposed in the most rigid and methodical folds, finished with painful minuteness; at the same time the limbs and countenance retained much of rude and incorrect form and tasteless expression, but elaborated with the extreme of care. It is far easier, and the common error, both of inferior genius and of an unskilful age, to bestow on parts that talent and application by which a whole is to be perfected. The fault of fastidious and useless labour, with inaccuracy of general result, still attaches to the works of Dipænus and Scyllis, but great melioration is also apparent; their execution was much more free, the whole effect more powerful, the expression, if not more animated, more natural, and the forms better selected and composed. Colossal heads, now in the British Museum, of Hercules and Apollo, most probably of these masters, afford an admirable illustration of these remarks, and of the style of art at this early period. The fiftieth Olympiad, shows all the necessary inventions and principles of mechanical art fully known and universally practised. Even so early as the twentyninth Olympiad, an equestrian group had been executed in Crete by Aristocles; all the proper materials, and the methods of working them, had long been discovered; in the greatest single work of these times, the shrine of Apollo at Amyclæ, by Bathycles the Ionian, every description of relief had been exhibited; and lastly, improvement had been fixed on such principles of taste and composition, as enabled succeeding efforts to carry it forward.

The extent of country in which the art was now cultivated, and the zeal evinced in the pursuit, corresponded to, while they increased, the improvement of taste. Attention is now directed to a new school, that of Magna Græcia, which (during two thousand years), had been gradually rising into importance and excellence. Its chief seats were at Rhegium and Crotona in Italy, and in Sicily, Syracuse and Agrigentum. In these, the artists first practised in metal chiefly, afterwards in marble; and were among the foremost to perfect iconic statues,—a source of most decided advantage to the art. Omitting farther enumeration, one of these early masters, Dionysius of Rhegium, merits to be mentioned as the first who composed a statue of Homer, erected about the twenty-seventh Olympiad. This was an ideal bronze, in which the traditionary resemblance had been preserved; and from this ancient original were taken those portraits of the father of verse which are mentioned by Pliny as so numerous in his time, and of which one or two exquisite examples still remain.

Thus five centuries and a half before the Christian era, sculpture was practised with success throughout the wide extent of Greece and her colonies. During the former part of the sixth century, however, Sicyon, whose school had added to its ancient supremacy by the superiority of Dipænus and Scyllis, continued to send forth, in their pupils, the most numerous and efficient artists. Of these, the principal were Learchus, a native of Rhegium; Theocles, Dontas, Doryclidos, and Medon, Lacedæmonians; Tecteus and Angelion of Delos, where they erected a colossal statue of Apollo. At Rhegium, Clearchus was highly esteemed, and had a very flourishing academy; while at Agrigentum, Perillus rivalled the masters of the parent schools. He cast the famous bull of Phalaris, afterwards carried off by the Carthaginians, restored by Scipio, again the object of the cupidity of Verres, and of the praise of Cicero, whose words, ille nobilis Taurus, prove that the skill of those early ages has not been too highly appreciated.

But the fame of all preceding sculptors has suffered from the superior reputation of the two Chian brothers, Bupalus and Anthemis, who lived 517 years B. C. They were the first who brought to a high degree of perfection the discovery of their ancestors,—sculpture in marble. Both Greece and Asia strove to possess their works, which were equally numerous and excellent, and on which was inscribed, not their own, but their father's name and their country's, in the following verse: 'The sons of Anthermus will render thee, O Chios, more renowned than thy vines have yet done.' The beauty of these works caused them to be highly valued in all succeeding ages, and they formed part of those master-pieces removed to Rome by order of Augustus.

During the period of fiftyeight years, from the sixtieth to the seventysecond Olympiad, and the battle of Marathon, sculpture throughout Greece was vigorously exercised, and with corresponding success. At Athens, which, though distinguished in the very commencement of our narrative, has subsequently appeared in the back ground, Pisistratus laid the foundation of that school whence afterwards issued the new lights of the art. This extraordinary man perceived and applied the proper remedy to the poverty of Attica: he introduced manufactures and encouraged commerce; and while the true sources of political greatness were thus opened, the more enviable supremacy of his country was secured in the intellectual empire of literature and the arts of elegance. Yet this man has been termed, in the history of that very country, a tyrant, because he saved her from her worst enemy, the mob—miscalled free citizens—slaves of their own passions, and agents in the hands of demagogues. Our own times are not without similar prejudices. Mankind seem destined, in all ages, to be the dupes of fears and of phantoms which they themselves have evoked, and which distract attention from real danger. Happy that state, governed by rulers, who, like Pisistratus, will respect the essentials of free institutions, who will consecrate the resources of the state to promote the national grandeur, and save the people from themselves! Under his protection were assembled the most esteemed artists of all descriptions: of sculptors, Eucharis was famous for the figures of warriors in armour; and Callon for statues of bronze. Callimachus is praised as master of all the arts of design, and in sculptural composition had introduced a lightness and elegance before unattained.

In other parts of Greece, during the same interval, were the following: Dameas, of whose works, the statue of his compatriot Milo was the most celebrated, and which the latter, among his other wonderful feats, carried to the place of erection. Polycletus, the first of the name, and his master Ageladas, finished at Argos, their native city, the statue of Cleosthenes in a car, soon after the sixtyseventh Olympiad, and one of the greatest works yet undertaken. At Sicyon were the brothers Canachus and Aristocles, whose two Muses were the finest statues then known; and of which, one is supposed to be the famous antique now in the Barbarini palace. Ascarus, at Elis, produced a Jupiter crowned with flowers; Menecmus and Soidas a Diana, afterwards placed in the palace of Augustus. Menecmus was the first who wrote on the principles of his art. The Dioscorides of Egesias, contemporary with the Persian invasion, have, by a misinterpretation of Pliny, been assigned to the figures now on Monte Cavallo, at Rome.

The victory of Marathon, B. C. 490, inspired fresh vigour into the genius and institutions of Greece. From this date, to the government of Pericles, intervenes a period in moral grandeur, the brightest, perhaps, in Grecian history. Of the sculptors who then flourished, the immediate predecessors, or early contemporaries, of Phidias, the following were the chief: Onatas and Glaucias, of Egina; the one modelled an admirable statue of Gelon, king of Syracuse; the other, an iconic figure of Theagines of Thasos, four hundred times victorious in the public games. Critias replaced the statues of Harmodias and Aristogiton, the originals having been carried off by Xerxes. Calamis was still more renowned for his horses, which were likewise iconic statues—a proof how early nature was admitted as the only guide in every department of sculpture. Pythagoras of Rhegium surpassed all his predecessors; his statues of Enthymus and Astylas, conquerors in the Olympic games, were masterpieces of form; and in expression, his Philoctetes exhibited deeper and truer sentiment than had yet appeared in any work. The name of Pythagoras, indeed, is closely associated with the general advancement of the art, as ranking among the inventors of that system of proportion which, derived from nature, taught to unite elegance with truth, and which invariably guided the practice, while its perfection was improved by the discoveries, of each succeeding master. In the mechanical department, also, his manner was more bold, firm, and graceful, in delicacy of style being placed by Quintilian inferior only to Myron, the last and the greatest of the early school.

Myron, a native of Eleutheræ, exercised his profession chiefly at Athens, of which he enjoyed the citizenship. The decline of his life corresponds with the early labours of Phidias: Myron thus unites the first and second ages of Grecian sculpture, combining in his works many of the essential excellences of its perfection, with some of the remaining hardness and defects of its pupillage. In adopting this chronology, we seem to reconcile conflicting opinions both with each other and with history. The principal works of Myron were in bronze, and the most colossal in wood; consequently, no original of his hand has come down to modern times. There can, however, be no doubt that the famous Discobolos is preserved to us in more than one antique repetition. Hence, and from the writings of the orators and historians, a fair estimate of his merits may be deduced. His composition was distinguished for energy, science, and truth. Iconic statues he carried to a degree of excellence and vigour, as in the portrait of Ladus, unsurpassed in any succeeding age. The Bacchus, Erectheus, and Apollo, executed by order of the state, were not less admired by the Athenians; the last, carried away by Antony, was restored to them by Augustus, in consequence of a dream. His representations of animals were equally admirable; and seem, if possible, to have been more universally praised, judging from the circumstance of no fewer than thirtysix laudatory poems on the famous heifer being still extant in the Anthology. Myron carried mere imitative art to its utmost limits; yet in some of the minor details, the dry manner of the first ages appeared. Sculpture, as the representation of the external form, he perfected; but as an instrument of touching the heart—of elevating the imagination—of embodying sentiment, he proved unequal to call forth its powers. He represented nature forcibly and with fidelity, but without grandeur or ideal elevation. An important approach, however, to just conceptions of abstract beauty, is to be perceived in the principle which he is said first to have promulgated,—that propriety in the separate parts was beauty, or that a work of art was beautiful as a whole, according as the partial forms and proportions corresponded to their offices and to the general character. This, in fact, is the essence of corporeal beauty, the highest refinement of material art; and assigns to form, independent of mind, the noblest expression of which it is susceptible. This is the utmost range attained by the genius of this the first period in the history of art in Greece, and an admirable ground-work for the sublimity, and refined perceptions of the beautiful, added in the era that followed.