And in Sat. XII., “Simulacra intentia cerâ.”
We have already treated of this custom of waxing the statues, and given the recipe of Pliny, to which we revert for a moment, because the advocates for the colouring theory insist that illitia, linita, illinere, linire, all of one origin, are words applicable to painting. Pliny says,—we quote from Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities,—after showing how the wax should be melted and laid on, “It was then rubbed with a clean linen cloth, in the way that naked marble statues were done.” The Latin is—“Sicut et marmora nitescunt.” The writer in the Dictionary speaks as to the various application of the encaustic process, to paint and to polish: “Wax thus purified was mixed with all species of colours, and prepared for painting; but it was applied also to many other uses, as polishing statues, walls, &c.”
Lucian, who died ninety years of age, 180th of the Christian era, although he relinquished the employment of a statuary, and followed that of literature, had certainly an excellent taste in art. His descriptions of statues and pictures prove his fondness and his knowledge. What he says of the famous Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles is very remarkable. After admiring the whiteness of the marble and its polish, he praises the ingenuity of the artificer, in so contriving the statue as to bring least in sight a blemish in the marble, (a very common thing, he adds). It would not have required this ingenuity in the design, if Praxiteles had intended his statue to be painted, for the paint would have covered the stain in the marble wherever placed. We may learn something more from Lucian. In his “Images,” wishing to describe a perfect woman, he will first represent her by the finest statues in the world, selecting the beauties of each. It is in a dialogue with Lycinus and Polystratus. “Is there anything wanting?” asks Polystratus, after mention of these perfect statues. Lycinus replies that the colouring is wanting. He therefore brings to his description the most beautiful works of the best painters. Enough is not done yet; there is the mind to be added. He therefore calls in the poets. Here, then, we have statuary, painter, and poet, each by their separate art to portray this perfect woman. He does not describe by painted statues, but by pictures. Had painting statues been universal, as pretended, Lucian must have seen examples, and his reference to pictures would have been unnecessary. If it be argued that the paint had worn off, that argument will tell against the Polychromatists, for it at least will show that, in an age when statues were esteemed, the barbarity of colouring was not renewed.
In his “Description of a House,” he says, “Over against the door, upon the wall, there is the Temple of Minerva in relief, where you may see the goddess in white marble, without her accoutrements of war.” The painter, it may be fairly conjectured, painted inside on the wall of the house, the common aspect, and the white marble statue.
In his “Baths of Hippias,” he mentions “two noble pieces of antiquity in marble of Health and Æsculapius.” Nor does he omit noticing paint, and that vermilion—but where is it? “Then you come to a hot passage of Numidian stone, that brings you to the last apartment, glittering with a bright vermilion, bordering on purple.”
According to Mr Owen Jones’s theory, all these exquisite works in white marble are to be considered as unfinished; if they have not been handed over to the painter, they should be now. Why did Phidias and Praxiteles so elaborate to the mark of truth their performances? The reader will be astonished to learn the reason from Mr Owen Jones. It was from the necessity of the subsequent finish by paints!
“People are apt to argue that Phidias never could have taken such pains to study the light and shade of this bas-relief, if the fineness of his workmanship had had to be stopped up when bedaubed with paint.” It is astonishing that not a glimmering of common sense was here let in upon the work of Phidias, while the whole light of his understanding showed the effect of his own handiwork on the plaster; for he, in that case, says, “But when the plaster has further to be painted with four coats of oil-paint to stop the suction, it may readily be imagined how much the more delicate modulations of the surface will suffer.” Does he suppose that the eyes of Phidias, and of people in that age, were blind to the suffering of these nice modulations from the stucco, or over-coats of paint? But why did Phidias so finish his works?—hear the polychromatic oracle “Now, people who argue thus have never understood what colour does when applied to form. The very fact that colour has to be applied, demands the highest finish in the form beneath. By more visibly bringing out the form, it makes all defects more prominent. Let any one compare the muscles of the figures in white with the muscles of those coloured, and he will not hesitate an instant to admit this truth. The labours of Phidias, had they never received colour, would have been thrown away; it was because he designed them to receive colour, that such an elaboration of the surface was required.” This is the most considerable inconsiderate nonsense imaginable. Common sense says, that one even colour, or absence of colour, gives equal shadows, according to the sculptor’s design; but if you colour portions of the same work differently, the unity of shadows will be destroyed, for shadows will assimilate themselves to the various colourings, be they light or dark. This necessity of colouring would impose such a task upon the sculptor, so complicate his work and design, and so bring his whole mind into subservience to, or certainly co-operation and consultation with, the painter, that no man of genius could submit to it; for it is the characteristic of genius to have its exercise in its own independent art. The assertion of this effect of colour, by Mr Jones, is untrue in fact, and if he could make it true, would so complicate, and at the same time degrade, the statuary’s art, that in the disgust of its operation it would be both out of the power, and out of the inclination, of men to pursue it. Will the people of England take Mr Owen Jones’s reproof? To them the labours of Phidias have hitherto been thrown away, for they have only as yet seen his works in white marble—in fact, unfinished. In this state Mr Jones thinks they have been very silly to admire them at all—and how they came to admire them who can comprehend? they have no colourable pretext for their admiration. Not only have the labours of Phidias been “thrown away,”—but, what is more galling to this age of economists, some forty thousand pounds of our good people’s money have been thrown away too. What is left to be done? Simply what we have often done before—throw some “good money after the bad,” and constitute Mr Owen Jones Grand Polychromatist-plenipotentiary, with competence of salary and paint-pots, and establish him for life, and his school for ever, in the British Museum. It is well for him and for them the innocent marbles have no motion, or the very stones would cry out against him, and uplift their quiescent arms to smash more than his paint-pots.
And here let us be allowed to remark of Mr Owen Jones’s colouring, having been thoroughly disgusted at the Crystal Palace, that he is as yet but in the very elements of the grammar of colour. He has gone but a very little way in its alphabet. He has practised little more than the A B C—that is, the bright blue, the bright red, the bright yellow. But the alphabet is much beyond this. What of their combinations? These are so innumerable that, as if in despair of their acquirement, he puts his whole trust in the blue, red, and yellow, so that the very object of colour, variety, is missed, and the eye is wearied and irritated in this Crystal Palace with what may be called, in defiance of the contradiction of the word, a polychromatic monotony. His theory of colour stops short at the beginning—it is without its learning. The sentiments of colours are in their mixtures, their relative combinations, and appropriate applications, and we venture to suggest to other Polychromatists, besides Mr Owen Jones, that the grammar of colouring, if learned properly, will lead to a mystery which the blue, red, and yellow, of themselves the A, B, C of the art, are quite insufficient to teach. The study is by none more required than our painters in glass; nor are some of our picture-makers, as our Academy exhibitions show, without the need of a little learning. We scarcely ever see a modern window that does not exhibit a total ignorance of colour. The first thing that strikes the eye is a quantity of blue, for it is the most active colour, and it is given in large portions, not dissipated as it should be—then reds, and as vivid as may be—and yellows. Attempt at proper effect, such as the genius loci requires, there is none. With the unsparing use of these three unmitigated colours only, we do not see why decorators should be called Polychromatists at all; they should style themselves Trichromatists. But of Mr Owen Jones’s polychromatic theory and practice, do not let him so slander the tasks of the ancients as to pretend that he has it from them, if by the ancients he means those artists of good time. They delighted in white marble, “nuda et candida signa,”—the naked and the white. The pretence that he had it from them, is as the
“Painted vest Prince Vortigern had on,
Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won.”