The spirit of self-sacrifice.—Wordsworth.
Apart from the question whether the proud Greek could ever by any possibility have become “lowly wise,” the word σωφροσύνη “temperance,” “moderation”—or perhaps better still, “commonsense”—becomes not only a “Rule of Religion” but even the highest conception of Christianity, self-sacrifice. It is very extraordinary. Imagine the Greeks—as we know them, and as Mr. Zimmern knows them—having the faintest conception of what we mean by self-sacrifice! It reminds one very much of Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass: “When I use a word” (εὐδαιμονία or σωφροσύνη) “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
As this is my last note I am giving myself great latitude, but I must not prolong it into a treatise. I shall, as briefly as I can, refer to only one other matter, the Greek sense of beauty. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that we are given to believe that in this respect the Greeks are exalted high as gods above the rest of mankind. What is the fact? They saw beauty in only one natural object, the human body. In a land of clear skies, wonderful sunsets, starry nights, remarkable for its ranges of mountains and extent of sea-coast, they were (with some tiny exceptions not worth mentioning) absolutely blind to any beauty in inanimate nature. Nor did any bird or beast or insect, tree or flower appeal to them to any appreciable extent as a thing of beauty. They admired only what was useful or added to their comfort—the laden fruit tree, the shady grove, the clear spring, the soft water-meadows.
Various explanations have been given for the Greek failure to appreciate beauty in nature. Ruskin’s theory is most often quoted, that the Greeks were so familiar with beautiful scenes that they could not appreciate them. In the first place he forgot that it was not always the bright tourist-season in Greece; they had their dark and wintry times. In the second place, I have lived all my life in the southern part of Australia, which has much the same climate as Greece, and I do not think there are any greater lovers of nature than the Australians.
Is not the love of nature, as it came later,[75] also higher than love of the human form (omitting that facial expression which is an index of the soul)? Our ideals of human beauty appear to be purely relative and depend on our surroundings, while the same beauty in nature appeals to the most diverse nations. Take for example the Japanese and Dutch artists who both loved nature much as we do—yet they admired very different types of the human figure. I understand that the Japanese, originally at least, regarded with positive disgust our tall English beauties.
The beauty the Greeks saw in one object only, the human body, they reproduced in statues which have never been equalled in grace and charm, and are the admiration of the world. Their pure white marble statues and temples seem to be always present in our minds and to transfigure our conceptions of the Greeks. We unconsciously picture them as a race of glorious men and beautiful women moving in a city of marble.[76] We find ourselves forgetting what we know of their character and habits—and also forgetting the fact that both statues and temples were painted.
With the disappearance of colour through the effect of time, the flesh effect has disappeared from their statues, and the chaste white marble gives an idealized and spiritual conception of the utmost purity. As stated before, this would be a conception quite alien to the Greek mind, which saw no beauty in physical purity. If, when we stand in admiring awe before that calm, majestic and exceedingly graceful and beautiful Venus of Milo, we imagine her as the Greeks saw her, how different is the picture! To begin with, the Greeks had little sense of colour, as is seen from their limited colour-vocabulary. For example, one word porphureos was used for dark-purple, red, rose, sea-blue, violet, and other shades even to a shimmery white. Their colours were harsh, glaring, and put together in shockingly bad taste (from our point of view). In temples and sculpture reds and blues were the main colours used. In the Venus of Milo we must, therefore, picture the hair painted red or red-brown, the lips a hard red, eyebrows black, the eyes red or red-brown with black pupils, the dress with borders and patterns of crude reds and greens or reds and blues. As regards the flesh surfaces, we know they were wax-polished, but there is no literary record or actual trace of any tinting or colouring. The effect of the white marble would have been so horrible to us against the living eyes and face, that Mr. Kaines Smith (being one of our enthusiasts) suggests that the artist “might quite well” have used some colouring matter for the nude parts of the figure! We must further picture the statue standing in a temple, which must of course also have been painted. The structure would have its borders generally of harsh reds and blues, and the decorative sculpture of the pediments, metopes and friezes would be painted in most inconceivable colours. Thus in the metope relief of the slaying of the Hydra at Olympia, the hydra is blue, the background red, and the hair, lips, and eyes of Hercules are coloured. I might go on to the Elgin marbles, the greatest sculptures that we possess in the world, and show them gorgeous in bronze and colour. (Armour, horse-trappings, etc., were attached to the marble in bronze or other metal.) The two masterpieces of Pheidias, forty and sixty feet high respectively, which have not survived to us, were much more admired by the Greeks than the sculptures of the Parthenon. These were in barbaric ivory and gold, with the same living eyes, red lips, and so on. The fact is that the Greek, “builded better than he knew.” He unintentionally produced objects whose spiritual beauty he was incapable of appreciating and, therefore, he gave them a grosser form that appealed to his own primitive sensual nature.
(Apart from this the Greek sculptor was very limited by the paucity of his subjects. How tiresome are the never-ending Centaurs and Amazons!)[77]