But if we assume that the pedimental group could have originated in this way, we must be prepared to explain the course of its development up to the pediments of Aegina and the Parthenon, in which we find an entirely different principle, namely, the filling of these tympana with figures in the round. It is maintained by some scholars, notably by Koepp, [55] that no connection can be established between high relief and low relief, much less between statues entirely in the round and low relief. High relief follows all the principles of sculpture, while low relief may almost be considered as a branch of the painter's art. But this view seems opposed to the evidence of the facts. For there still exists a continuous series of pedimental groups, first in low relief then in high relief, and finally standing altogether free from the background, and becoming sculpture in the round. Examples in low relief are the Hydra pediment from the Acropolis and the pediment of the Megarian Treasury at Olympia, which, on artistic grounds, can be set down as the two earliest now in existence. Then follow, in order of time and development, the Triton and Typhon pediments, in high relief, from the Acropolis; and after these the idea of relief is lost, and the pediment becomes merely a space destined to be adorned with statuary. Can we reasonably believe that the Hydra and Triton pediments, standing side by side on the Acropolis, so close to each other in time and in technic, owe their origin to entirely different motives, merely for the reason that the figures of one stand further out from the background than those of the other? Is it not easier to suppose that the higher reliefs, as they follow the older low reliefs in time, are developed from them, than to assume that just at the dividing-line a new principle came into operation?
Footnote 55:[ (return) ] Jahrbuch deutschen archäol. Instituts, II, 118.
It is a commonplace to say that sculpture in relief is only one branch of painting. Conze [56] publishes a sepulchral monument which seems to him to mark the first stage of growth. The surface of the figure and that of the surrounding ground remain the same; they are separated only by a shallow incised line. Conze says of it; "The tracing of the outline is no more than, and is in fact exactly the same as, the tracing employed by the Greek vase-painter when he outlined his figure with a brush full of black paint before he filled in with black the ground about it." The next step naturally is to cut away the surface outside and beyond the figures; the representation is still a picture except in the clearer marking of the bounding-line. The entire further growth and development of the Greek relief is in the direction of rounding these lines and of detaching the relief more and more from the back surface. This primitive picturesque method of treatment is found as well in high relief as in low. How then can the process of development be different for the two? I quote from Friedrichs-Wolters [57] on the metopes of the temple of Apollon at Selinous, which are distinctly in high relief: "The relief of these works stands very near to the origin of relief-style. The surface of the figures is kept flat throughout, although the effort to represent them in their full roundness is not to be mistaken. Only later were relief-figures rounded on the front and sides after the manner of free figures. Originally, whether in high or in low relief, they were flat forms, modelled for the plane surface whose ornament they were to be." As the sculptured works were brought out further and further from the background, this background tended to disappear. It was no longer a distinctly marked surface on which the figures were projected, but now higher and now lower, serving only to hold the figures together. When this point was reached, the entire separation of the figures from one another and from the background, became easy. That is, the change in conception is an easy step by which the relief was lost and free-standing figures substituted. This process of change was especially rapid in pedimental groups, for the reason stated above. The pediment field from its architectonic conditions was never suited to decoration in relief. But we find from the works before us that such a system was at least attempted, that painting and an increased projection of relief were employed as aids. We are bound to seek a logical explanation of the facts and of their bearing on the later history of art, and it is safer to assume a process of regular development than a series of anomalous changes. Koepp (cf. supra), for example, assumes that these two pediments in low relief are simply exceptions to the general rule, accounting for them by the fact that it was difficult to work out high reliefs from the poros stone of which they were made. He seems to forget that the higher reliefs from the Acropolis are of the same poros. This material in fact appears to have been chosen by the artist because it was almost as easy to incise and carve as the wood and clay to which he had been accustomed. The monuments of later Greek art give no hint of a distinction to be drawn between high and low relief. We find on the same stele figures barely attached to the ground, and others in mere outline. If then there are reasons for finding the origin of pedimental decoration in a plane or low-relief composition of terracotta, made more effective both by a framing of like material and technic, and by the acroteria at either extremity and above, then the process of development which leads at length to the pediments at Aegina and the Parthenon becomes at once easy and natural. We note first the change from terracotta to a low painted relief in stone, then this relief becomes, from the necessities of the case, higher and higher until finally it gives place to free figures.
Footnote 56:[ (return) ] Das Relief bei den Griechen. Sitzungs-Berichte der Berliner Akademie, 1882, 567.
Footnote 57:[ (return) ] Gipsabgüsse antiker Bilderwerke, Nos. 149-151.
If ceramic art really did exert such an influence on temple-sculpture, we should be able to trace analogies in other lines. The most interesting is found in the design and execution of sepulchral monuments. Milchhoefer [58] is of the opinion that the tomb was not originally marked by an upright slab with sculptured figures. He finds what he thinks the oldest representation of sepulchral ornament in a black-figured vase of the so-called "prothesis" class. [59] Here are two women weeping about a sepulchral mound on which rests an amphora of like form to the one that bears the scene. He maintains then that such a prothesis vase was the first sepulchral monument, that this was later replaced by a vase of the same description in marble, of course on account of the fragile nature of pottery. For this reason, too, we find no certain proof of the fact in the old tombs, though Dr. Wolters [60] thinks that the discovery of fragments of vases on undisturbed tombs makes the case a very strong one. The use of such vases or urns of marble for this purpose became very prevalent. They are nearly always without ornament, save for a single small group, in relief or sometimes in color, representing the dead and the bereaved ones. A very evident connecting-link between these urns and the later sepulchral stele appears in monuments which show just such urns projected in relief upon a plane surface. The relief is sometimes bounded by the outlines of the urn itself, [61] sometimes a surrounding background is indicated. In many cases this background assumes the form of the ordinary sepulchral stele. The Central Museum at Athens is especially rich in examples of this kind. On two steles which I have noticed there, three urns are represented side by side. A still more interesting specimen is a stone so divided that its lower part is occupied by an urn in relief, above which is sculptured the usual scene of parting. This scene has its normal place as a relief or a drawing in color on the surface of the urn itself; here, where the step in advance of choosing the plane stele to bear the relief seems already taken, the strength of tradition still asserts itself, and a similar group is repeated on the rounded face of the urn below. The transition to the more common form of sepulchral monument has now become easy; but the characteristics which point to its genesis in the funeral vase are still prominent.
Footnote 58:[ (return) ] Mitth. Athen., v, 164.
Footnote 59:[ (return) ] Monumenti dell' Inst., viii, tav. v. 1. g.h.: found near Cape Kolias; at present in the Polytechnic Museum at Athens.
Footnote 60:[ (return) ] Attische Grabvasen, a paper read before the German Institute in Athens, Dec. 9, 1890.
Footnote 61:[ (return) ] Examples are Nos. 2099 and 2100 in the archaic room of the Louvre. I remember having seen nothing similar in any other European museum.