But we must stop short in this list of famous names and enchanting works, or we should never have done. This seems to have been the fabulous age of sculpture, when marble started into life as in a luxurious dream, and men appeared to have no other employment than ‘to make Gods in their own image.’ The Lecturer bestows due and eloquent praise on the horses in the Elgin collection, which he supposes to have been done under the superintendence, and probably from designs by Phidias; but we are sorry he has not extended his eulogium to the figure of the Theseus, which appears to us a world of grace and grandeur in itself, and to say to the sculptor’s art, ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther!’ What went before it was rude in the comparison; what came after it was artificial. It is the perfection of style, and would have afforded a much better exemplification of the force and meaning of that term than the schoolboy definition adopted in the Lecture on this subject; namely, that as poets and engravers used a stylos, or style, to execute their works, the name of the instrument was metaphorically applied to express the art itself. Style properly means the mode of representing nature; and this again arises from the various character of men’s minds, and the infinite variety of views which may be taken of nature. After seeing the Apollo, the Hercules, and other celebrated works of antiquity, we seem to have exhausted our stock of admiration, and to conceive that there is no higher perfection for sculpture to attain, or to aspire to. But at the first sight of the Elgin Marbles, we feel that we have been in a mistake, and the ancient objects of our idolatry fall into an inferior class or style of art. They are comparatively, and without disparagement of their vast and almost superhuman merit, stuck-up gods and goddesses. But a new principle is at work in the others which we had not seen or felt the want of before (not a studied trick, or curious refinement, but an obvious truth, arising from a more intimate acquaintance with, and firmer reliance on, nature;)—a principle of fusion, of motion, so that the marble flows like a wave. The common antiques represent the most perfect forms and proportions, with each part perfectly understood and executed; every thing is brought out; every thing is made as exquisite and imposing as it can be in itself; but each part seems to be cut out of the marble, and to answer to a model of itself in the artist’s mind. But in the fragment of the Theseus, the whole is melted into one impression like wax; there is all the flexibility, the malleableness of flesh; there is the same alternate tension and relaxation; the same sway and yielding of the parts; ‘the right hand knows what the left hand doeth’; and the statue bends and plays under the framer’s mighty hand and eye, as if, instead of being a block of marble, it was provided with an internal machinery of nerves and muscles, and felt every the slightest pressure or motion from one extremity to the other. This, then, is the greatest grandeur of style, from the comprehensive idea of the whole, joined to the greatest simplicity, from the entire union and subordination of the parts. There is no ostentation, no stiffness, no overlaboured finishing. Every thing is in its place and degree, and put to its proper use. The greatest power is combined with the greatest ease: there is the perfection of knowledge, with the total absence of a conscious display of it. We find so little of an appearance of art or labour, that we might be almost tempted to suppose that the whole of these groups were done by means of casts from fine nature; for it is to be observed, that the commonest cast from nature has the same style or character of union and reaction of parts, being copied from that which has life and motion in itself. What adds a passing gleam of probability to such a suggestion is, that these statues were placed at a height where only the general effect could be distinguished, and that the back and hinder parts, which are just as scrupulously finished as the rest, and as true to the mould of nature, were fixed against a wall where they could not be seen at all; and where the labour (if we do not suppose it to be in a great measure abridged mechanically) was wholly thrown away. However, we do not lay much stress on this consideration; for we are aware that ‘the labour we delight in physics pain,’ and we believe that the person who could do the statue of the Theseus, would do it, under all circumstances, and without fee or reward of any kind. We conceive that the Elgin Marbles settle another disputed point of vital interest to the arts. Sir Joshua Reynolds contends, among others, that grandeur of style consists in giving only the masses, and leaving out the details. The statues we are speaking of repudiate this doctrine, and at least demonstrate the possibility of uniting the two things, which had been idly represented to be incompatible, as if they were not obviously found together in nature. A great number of parts may be collected into one mass; as, on the other hand, a work may equally want minute details, or large and imposing masses. Suppose all the light to be thrown on one side of a face, and all the shadow on the other: the chiaroscuro may be worked up with the utmost delicacy and pains in the one, and every vein or freckle distinctly marked on the other, without destroying the general effect—that is, the two broad masses of light and shade. Mr. Flaxman takes notice that there were two eras of Grecian art before the time of Pericles and Phidias, when it was at its height. In the first they gave only a gross or formal representation of the objects, so that you could merely say, ‘This is a man, that is a horse.’ To this clumsy concrete style succeeded the most elaborate finishing of parts, without selection, grace or grandeur. ‘Elaborate finishing was soon afterwards’ [after the time of Dædalus and his scholars] ‘carried to excess: undulating locks and spiral knots of hair like shells, as well as the drapery, were wrought with the most elaborate care and exactness; whilst the tasteless and barbarous character of the face and limbs remained much the same as in former times.’ This was the natural course of things, to denote first the gross object; then to run into the opposite extreme, and give none but the detached parts. The difficulty was to unite the two in a noble and comprehensive idea of nature.
We are chiefly indebted for the information or amusement we derive from Mr. Flaxman’s work, to the historical details of his subject. We cannot say that he has removed any of the doubts or stumbling-blocks in our way, or extended the landmarks of taste or reasoning. We turned with some interest to the Lecture on Beauty; for the artist has left specimens of this quality in several of his works. We were a good deal disappointed. It sets out in this manner: ‘That beauty is not merely an imaginary quality, but a real essence, may be inferred from the harmony of the universe; and the perfection of its wondrous parts we may understand from all surrounding nature; and in this course of observation we find, that man has more of beauty bestowed on him as he rises higher in creation.’ The rest is of a piece with this exordium,—containing a dissertation on the various gradations of being, of which man is said to be at the top,—on the authority of Socrates, who argues, ‘that the human form is the most perfect of all forms, because it contains in it the principles and powers of all inferior forms.’ This assertion is either a flat contradiction of the fact, or an antique riddle, which we do not pretend to solve. Indeed, we hold the ancients, with all our veneration for them, to have been wholly destitute of philosophy in this department; and Mr. Flaxman, who was taught when he was young to look up to them for light and instruction in the philosophy of art, has engrafted too much of it on his Lectures. He defines beauty thus: ‘The most perfect human beauty is that most free from deformity, either of body or mind, and may be therefore defined—The most perfect soul is the most perfect body.’
In support of this truism, he strings a number of quotations together, as if he were stringing pearls:
‘In Plato’s dialogue concerning the beautiful, he shows the power and influence of mental beauty on corporeal; and in his dialogue, entitled “The greater Hippias,” Socrates observes in argument, “that as a beautiful vase is inferior to a beautiful horse, and as a beautiful horse is not to be compared to a beautiful virgin, in the same manner a beautiful virgin is inferior in beauty to the immortal Gods; for,” says he, “there is a beauty incorruptible, ever the same.” It is remarkable, that, immediately after, he says, “Phidias is skilful in beauty.” Aristotle, the Scholar of Plato, begins his Treatise on Morals thus:—“Every art, every method and institution, every action and council, seems to seek some good; therefore the ancients pronounced the beautiful to be good.” Much, indeed, might be collected from this philosopher’s treatises on morals, poetics, and physiognomy, of the greatest importance to our subject; but for the present we shall produce only two quotations from Xenophon’s Memorabilia, which contain the immediate application of these principles to the arts of design. In the dialogue between Socrates and the sculptor Clito, Socrates concludes, that “Statuary must represent the emotions of the soul by form;” and in the former part of the same dialogue, Parrhasius and Socrates agree that, “the good and evil qualities of the soul may be represented in the figure of man by painting.” In the applications from this dialogue to our subject, we must remember, philosophy demonstrates that rationality and intelligence, although connected with animal nature, rises above it, and properly exists in a more exalted state. From such contemplations and maxims, the ancient artists sublimated the sentiments of their works, expressed in the choicest forms of nature; thus they produced their divinities, heroes, patriots, and philosophers, adhering to the principle of Plato, that “nothing is beautiful which is not good;” it was this which, in ages of polytheism and idolatry, still continued to enforce a popular impression of divine attributes and perfection.’
If the ancient sculptors had had nothing but such maxims and contemplations as these to assist them in forming their statues, they would have been greatly to seek indeed! Take these homilies on the Beautiful and the Good, together with Euclid’s Elements, into any country town in England, and see if you can make a modern Athens of it. The Greek artists did not learn to put expression into their works, because Socrates had said, that ‘statuary must represent the emotions of the soul by form;’ but he said that they ought to do so, because he had seen it done by Phidias and others. It was from the diligent study and contemplation of the ‘choicest forms of nature,’ and from the natural love of beauty and grandeur in the human breast, and not from ‘shreds and patches,’ of philosophy, that they drew their conceptions of Gods and men. Let us not, however, be thought hard on the metaphysics of the ancients: they were the first to propose these questions, and to feel the curiosity and the earnest desire to know what the beautiful and the good, meant. If the will was not tantamount to the deed, it was scarcely their fault; and perhaps, instead of blaming their partial success, we ought rather to take shame to ourselves for the little progress we have made, and the dubious light that has been shed upon such questions since. If the Professor of Sculpture had sought for the principles of beauty in the antique statues, instead of the scholia of the commentators, he probably might have found it to resolve itself (according, at least, to their peculiar and favourite view of it) into a certain symmetry of form, answering in a great measure, to harmony of colouring, or of musical sounds. We do not here affect to lay down a metaphysical theory, but to criticise an historical fact. We are not bold enough to say that beauty in general depends on a regular gradation and correspondence of lines, but we may safely assert that Grecian beauty does. If we take any beautiful Greek statue, we shall find that, seen in profile, the forehead and nose form nearly a perpendicular straight line; and that finely turned at that point, the lower part of the face falls by gentle and almost equal curves to the chin. The cheek is full and round, and the outline of the side of the face a general sloping line. In front, the eyebrows are straight, or gently curved; the eyelids full and round to match, answering to that of Belphœbe, in Spenser—
‘Upon her eyebrows many Graces sat,
Under the shadow of her even brows:’
The space between the eyebrows is broad, and the two sides of the nose straight, and nearly parallel; the nostrils form large and distinct curves; the lips are full and even, the corners being large; the chin is round, and rather short, forming, with the two sides of the face, a regular oval. The opposite to this, the Grecian model of beauty, is to be seen in the contour and features of the African face, where all the lines, instead of corresponding to, or melting into, one another, in a kind of rhythmus of form, are sharp, angular, and at cross-purposes. Where strength and majesty were to be expressed by the Greeks, they adopted a greater squareness, but there was the same unity and correspondence of outline. Greek grace is harmony of movement. The ideal may be regarded as a certain predominant quality or character (this may be ugliness or deformity as well as beauty, as is seen in the forms of fauns and satyrs) diffused over all the parts of an object, and carried to the utmost pitch, that our acquaintance with visible models, and our conception of the imaginary object, will warrant. It is extending our impressions farther, raising them higher than usual, from the actual to the possible.[[31]] How far we can enlarge our discoveries from the one of these to the other, is a point of some nicety. In treating on this question, our author thus distinguishes the Natural and the Ideal Styles:
‘The Natural Style may be defined thus: a representation of the human form, according to the distinction of sex and age, in action or repose, expressing the affections of the soul. The same words may be used to define the Ideal Style, but they must be followed by this addition—selected from such perfect examples as may excite in our minds a conception of the preternatural. By these definitions will be understood that the Natural Style is peculiar to humanity, and the Ideal to spirituality and divinity.’
We should be inclined to say, that the female divinities of the ancients were Goddesses because they were ideal, rather than that they were ideal because they belonged to the class of Goddesses; ‘By their own beauty were they deified.’ Of the difficulty of passing the line that separates the actual from the imaginary world, some test may be formed by the suggestion thrown out a little way back; viz. that the ideal is exemplified in systematizing and enhancing any idea whether of beauty or deformity, as in the case of the fauns and satyrs of antiquity. The expressing of depravity and grossness is produced here by approximating the human face and figure to that of the brute; so that the mind runs along this line from one to the other, and carries the wished-for resemblance as far as it pleases. But here both the extremes are equally well known, equally objects of sight and observation: insomuch that there might be a literal substitution of the one for the other; but in the other case, of elevating character and pourtraying Gods as men, one of the extremes is missing; and the combining the two, is combining a positive with an unknown abstraction. To represent a Jupiter or Apollo, we take the best species, (as it seems to us,) and select the best of that species: how we are to get beyond that best, without any given form or visible image to refer to, it is not easy to determine. The ideal, according to Mr. Flaxman, is ‘the scale by which to heaven we do ascend;’ but it is a hazardous undertaking to soar above reality, by embodying an abstraction. If the ancients could have seen the immortal Gods, with their bodily sense, (as it was said that Jupiter had revealed himself to Phidias,) they might have been enabled to give some reflection or shadow of their countenances to their human likenesses of them: otherwise, poetry and philosophy lent their light in vain. It is true, we may magnify the human figure to any extent we please, for that is a mechanical affair; but how we are to add to our ideas of grace or grandeur, beyond any thing we have ever seen, merely by contemplating grace and grandeur that we have never seen, is quite another matter. If we venture beyond the highest point of excellence of which we have any example, we quit our hold of the natural, without being sure that we have laid our hands on what is truly divine; for that has no earthly image or representative—nature is the only rule or ‘legislator.’ We may combine existing qualities, but this must be consistently, that is, such as are found combined in nature. Repose was given to the Olympian Jupiter to express majesty; because the greatest power was found to imply repose, and to produce its effects with the least effort. Minerva, the Goddess of Wisdom, was represented young and beautiful; because wisdom was discovered not to be confined to age or ugliness. Not only the individual excellencies, but their bond of union, were sanctioned by the testimony of observation and experience. Bacchus is represented with full, exuberant features, with prominent lips, and a stern brow, as expressing a character of plenitude and bounty, and the tamer of savages and wild beasts. But this ideal conception is carried to the brink; the mould is full, and with a very little more straining, it would overflow into caricature and distortion. Mercury has wings, which is merely a grotesque and fanciful combination of known images. Apollo was described by the poets (if not represented by the statuary) with a round jocund face, and golden locks, in allusion to the appearance and rays of the sun. This was an allegory, and would be soon turned to abuse in sculpture or painting. Thus we see how circumscribed and uncertain the province of the ideal is, when once it advances from ‘the most perfect nature to spirituality and divinity.’ We suspect the improved Deity often fell short of the heroic original; and the Venus was only the most beautiful woman of the time, with diminished charms and a finer name added to her. With respect to ideal expression, it is superior to common every-day expression, no doubt; that is, it must be raised to correspond with lofty characters placed in striking situations; but it is tame and feeble compared with what those characters would exhibit in the supposed circumstances. The expressions in the Incendio del Borgo are striking and grand; but could we see the expression of terror in the commonest face in real danger of being burnt to death, it would put all imaginary expressions to shame and flight.