This is the first volume of what is likely to prove for some time to come the best general history of Greek sculpture. The personal inspection of monuments made during his connection with the French school at Athens, and his training as a lecturer at the Faculté des Lettres at Paris, have given M. Collignon an admirable training for the production of this book. We see in it also a hearty appreciation of more specialized work. This is essentially a history from the archæaeological standpoint, the monuments of Greek sculpture, rather than written documents, being assumed as fundamental material. In this respect he represents a more advanced stage of archæological science than Overbeck. Again we feel in reading the volume the constant assumption that the history of Greek sculpture is a continuous evolution. Even when the development is checked, as by the Dorian invasion, the element of continuity is emphasized. The Dorians construct new forms out of the elements which they find already established in Greece. Thus the connecting links evincing the continuous flow, are not lost sight of when he comes to treat of the different schools. This regard for the general conditions of development tempers his judgment and prevents him from formulating or approving of irrelevant and improbable hypotheses. This is an admirable temper for one who writes a general history. We do not find here remote analogies and startling theories. There is an even flow to the narrative which indicates to us that the knowledge of Greek sculpture is now more connected, and that many gaps have been filled in the list during a few years. Yet M. Collignon is not a literary trimmer, steering a middle course between opposing theories. He merely seeks for near and probable causes, and is not carried away by resemblances which have little historical value. His method is fundamentally the historical method, the four books which compose the first volume treating of the Primitive Periods, Early Archaic, and Advanced Archaic Periods, and The Great Masters of the V century. It is unnecessary to give here the general analysis of the book, as it does not differ essentially from other similar histories, but we may notice the systematic method with which he treats his material. At the opening of each new period he briefly notes the general historical conditions, then having classed the monuments by schools he considers the characteristics of a few representative examples, and finally endeavors to summarize the style of the school or period. In doing this he is handling considerable new material which has not yet found its way into general histories. Even to specialists, this general treatment of a subject with which they may be familiar in detail, is valuable. The book is a summary and index to a large number of monographs scattered in French, German, Greek and English periodicals, and we find it much more convenient to have these references at the foot of each page rather than gathered together at the end of the volume as in Mrs. Mitchell's excellent history. Of course it is no easy matter to distinguish sharply the characteristics of different schools in a country as small as Greece, where there was so much interaction, and the formulas, which are laid down now, may require correction in a few years. Still the attempt is well made, and is helpful in consolidating our knowledge.
In a work of whose method we cordially approve, the defects, if there be any, are likely to be in the way of omission of material or under-valuation of that which is taken into consideration. In the direction of omission we find that practically no use whatever has been made of Cyprus as a school of archaic Greek art, yet there is considerable material for this in European museums as well as in the Metropolitan museum in New York. In unduly estimating the value of the material in hand, we find here and there more influence attributed to the Phoenicians, than we should be inclined to allow. For example (p. 43,) the ceiling at Orchomenos, is explained as Phoenician because of the rosettes, and the same design upon Egyptian ceilings at Thebes is explained as Phoenician also. Evidently M. Collignon has not yet learned the grammar of the Egyptian lotus. We commend him to Prof. Goodyear. He is also in error in ascribing the first use of the term "lax-archaic" to Brunn's article in the Muth. Ath. vii. p. 117, for it held an important place in Semper's classification of Doric monuments made three years earlier. But these are minor matters. The book is abundantly illustrated, having twelve excellent plates in lithograph and photogravure, and two hundred and seventy-eight in the tone process and photoengraving. We regret that the tone process had not been more extensively used, as the drawings do not and cannot give a sufficiently full impression of the objects. However, is it quite proper that the maker of a tone process plate should sign it as is done here Petit sculpsit?
A.M.
HEINRICH-BRUNN. Griechische Götterideale in ihren Formen erlüutert.
8vo. pp. VIII, 110. München, Verlagsanstalt für Kunst und
Wissenschaft. 1892.
This is not a systematic treatise, but a series of nine papers, all of which, except the last, have been already published. But we are grateful to Dr. Brunn and to his publishers for having collected these articles, which were scattered in various periodicals and written at wide intervals of time. In their present form they are instructive as revealing to us Dr. Brunn's general habits of mind in approaching his subject, as well as more useful and better adapted to a wide circle of readers. The first of these articles on the Farnese Hera appeared in the Bullettino dell' Instituto, in 1846, and is described as the "first attempt at the analytical consideration of the ideal of a Greek God," while the entire series may be taken as evidence that "the intellectual understanding of ideal artistic productions can be reached only on the basis of a thorough analysis of form." For his analysis of sculptural form, and his keen intuitions, Dr. Brunn has long been held in high esteem, and it is interesting to learn what we can of his methods. In considering the Hera head he first examined the original, afterwards a cast of it for many hours, then compared these impressions with observations made upon a human scull. In doing this he brings the work of art to nature, so as to substantiate or correct his impressions. We see him following the same method in the articles upon the Medusa and upon Asklepios. But this reference to nature is for the most part casual and incidental. It is not to nature but to literature that he resorts for help. He is not content to trust himself entirely to the method enunciated in the preface. He does not rest satisfied with the ideals as he reads them in the sculptured faces. He rather assumes that these ideals were fixed before they were expressed in marble. He looks at the heads of Hera and Zeus through "ox-eyed" and "dark-browed" glasses. He accepts the Divine ideal from the pages of Homer, rather than from the marble form, whenever it is possible. His mind is still imbued with doctrines concerning the "eternity of ideas" and "inward necessity," which he must have reached in some other way than by the analysis of external forms.
But while we may regard the method as not consistently applied, we have no fault to find with the method and no sentiment but that of admiration for the fine powers of observation displayed in these articles. There seems to be nothing in the form of the eye that escapes his attention. The slightest variations in the form of the lids, in the positions of the eyeball, he notices and assumes that they were made the vehicles of expression. Similarly the forehead, the mouth, the chin, the hair are most attentively studied as vehicles of expression. Surely few, even trained archæologists, can read these pages without having their powers of observation quickened. By far the greater portion of workers in the field of Greek sculpture are concerned at the present time with the morphology of art for the sake of its history. The analysis of forms is utilized to ascertain an historical series, to discover schools, to establish dates. Here we find scarcely a mention of schools or artists, no reference to history and not a date. The analysis of form leads to the interpretation of monuments and the establishment of ideals. It is the physiology, not the history of art. The publishers, who are gaining a world-wide reputation for their photo process reproductions, have added to this book a series of fine phototype plates.
A.M.