Excursions in Art and Letters

by William Wetmore Story

Here are a charming series of assumptions, so completely in defiance of history that one cannot help smiling; and were not the fact accredited, it would be difficult to believe that these inscriptions could have been placed under these statues. Phidias died probably in B. C. 432, Praxiteles flourished about B. C. 364, nearly a century later, and Alexander was not born till B. C. 356. Here we have Phidias making a group of Alexander and Bucephalus, and representing an incident which occurred a century after his death, and in competition with Praxiteles. Absurdity and ignorance can scarcely go further; and, as we learn from “Roma Sacra,” it afterwards occasioned such ridicule that Urban VIII. removed the inscriptions, and substituted the simple words, “Opus Phidiæ” and “Opus Praxitelis” under the respective statues, still adhering to the legend that the two groups were the work of these great artists. The fact is that they are Roman works, and were neither brought by Tiridates from Armenia to present to Nero, nor by Constantine from Greece.

Of the statues attributed to Phidias we may then strike out eleven as resting, on the face of the facts, upon no sufficient authority. We still shall have the large number of twenty-six important statues, many of them colossal, which are far more than sufficient to have occupied his life, even when reckoned at its longest probable term. To this number it would be impossible to add the marble statues contained in the Parthenon.

Michel Angelo lived to a great age. He was throughout his life a very hard worker, devoting all his time to art. It is true that he was devoted to architecture and fresco-painting, as well as to sculpture, and that to these arts he gave much time; but still he was by profession specially a sculptor, and a large portion of his life was given to sculpture. He was, besides, impetuous and even violent in his marble work; and not content with the labor of the day, gave to it a portion of his nights, working with a candle fixed in his cap—unless, indeed, this also be a legend, into which it is better not to inquire too anxiously. Still, in the course of his long life he executed very few statues: of the really accredited statues of any size, the number, I think, does not exceed fifteen—and some of these are merely roughed out and left unfinished. The explanation of this is undoubtedly that casting in plaster having been then just invented, and being very imperfect in its development, he was accustomed at once to rough out his large statues from small sketches in terra cotta, after the probable practice of the ancients. This obliged him personally to do with his own hand much of the hard work which now, with the increased facilities of the art and the perfecting of plaster-casting, can safely be left to an ordinary workman; at all events, there are no full-sized models existing of his great works. If, then, Michel Angelo, with twenty years more of life, and with all his energy, could produce only some fifteen statues of heroic size,—and these, many of them, unfinished,—it will not seem necessary to suppose that Phidias must have executed double that number, particularly when we remember the colossal size of many of them (from forty to sixty feet in height), the extreme elaboration and fineness of the workmanship, and the difficulties growing out of the materials in which they were executed.

We have already seen, by the testimony of Themistius, that Phidias was by no means rapid in his workmanship, but, on the contrary, slow and elaborate in his finish—just the opposite in these respects from Michel Angelo. This testimony of Themistius is borne out by all the ancient writers who speak of him. His style was a singular combination of the grand and colossal in design with the most minute and careful finish of all details. He had a peculiar grace and refinement in his art (χάρις τῆς τέχνης), says Dion Chrysostomus, who in another passage distinguishes him from all his predecessors by the delicate precision of his work (κατὰ τὴν ἀκρίβειαν τῆς ποιήσεως); τὸ ἀκριβές is also attributed to him by Demetrius, in his treatise on Elocution; and Dionysius of Halicarnassus celebrates his art as uniting these qualities of finesse of workmanship with grandeur of design (τὸ σεμνὸν καὶ μεγαλότεχνον καὶ ἀξιωματικόν). The minute and almost excessive elaboration of his great works, as they are described by ancient authors, perfectly supports this judgment. Take, for instance, the Zeus at Olympia, or the Athena of the Parthenon—his two greatest statues in ivory and gold. Not content with carefully finishing the main figures, he chased and ornamented them, as well as all the accessories in every part, with the minute elaboration of a goldsmith. The surface of the mantle of Zeus was wrought over with living figures and flowers. Gold and gems were inserted. Cedar, ebony, and ivory were inlaid and overlaid, and the whole was exquisitely painted. Each leg of the throne on which Zeus sat was supported by four Victories dancing, and two men were in front. The two front legs were surmounted by groups representing a Theban youth seized by a sphinx, and beneath each of these groups were Phœbus and Artemis shooting at the children of Niobe; and still further on the legs were represented the battle of the Amazons and the comrades of Achelous. Over the back of the throne were three Graces on one side, and three Hours on the other. Four golden lions supported the footstool, and along its border was worked in relief or intaglio the battle of Theseus with the Amazons. The sides of the throne were ornamented with numerous figures representing various groups and actions—such as Helios mounting his chariot, Zeus and Charis, Zeus and Hera, Aphrodite and Eros, Phœbus and Artemis, Poseidon and Amphitrite, Athena and Heracles, and others. What wonderful elaboration expended on a mere accessory of this Colossus!

Scarcely less remarkable for its extreme ornamentation was the Athena of the Parthenon. The goddess was represented standing, dressed in a long tunic reaching to her feet, with the ægis on her breast, a helmet on her head, a spear in her left hand, touching a shield which rested at her side upon the base, and holding in her right hand a golden Victory, six feet in height. Her own height was twenty-six cubits, or about forty feet. Her robes were of gold beaten out with the hammer; her eyes were of colored marble or ivory, with gems inserted. Every portion was minutely covered with work. The crest of the helmet was a sphinx, on either side of which were griffins. The ægis was surrounded by golden serpents interlaced, and in its centre was a golden or ivory head of Medusa. The shield was embossed with reliefs, representing on the inner side the battle of the Giants with the Gods, and on the outer side the battle of the Athenians with the Amazons. Beneath the spear was couched a dragon; and even the sandals, which were four dactyls high, were ornamented with chasings representing the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithæ. The base, which alone occupied months of labor, was covered by reliefs representing the birth of Pandora, and the visit of the divinities to her with their gifts—the figures being some twenty in number. The interior or core of the statue was probably of wood, and over this all the nude parts were veneered with plates of ivory to imitate flesh, while the draperies and accessories were of gold plates so arranged as to be removable at pleasure.

Here is certainly work enough to employ any man a very long time in designing and executing. The Victory which Athena held in her hand was of large life-size, and might easily have occupied a year. Besides this, there are the embossed bassi-relievi on both sides of the shield, the ægis, with the Medusa’s head and golden serpents, the dragon at her feet, the sphinx and griffins on her helmet, and the relievi and chasings which ornamented the base and the sandals. Yet these are merely accessories. What, then, must have been the time devoted to the figure itself, to the disposition and working out of those colossal draperies, and to the perfect elaboration of the head, the arms, and the extremities!

The tendency of Phidias’ mind to great elaboration and refinement of finish is shown in both of these works. Colossal as they were, august and grand in their total expression, the parts were quite as remarkable for laborious detail as the whole was for grandeur and impressiveness. He is generally considered and spoken of now solely in relation to these great works; but it must be remembered that with the ancients he was also renowned for his minute works. Julian, in his Epistles, tells us that he was accustomed to amuse himself with making very small images, representing for example bees, flies, cicadæ, and fishes, which were executed with infinite delicacy, and greatly admired. His skill in the toreutic art was also very remarkable; and as a chaser, engraver, and embosser, he was among the first, if not the first, of his time. He might be called, in a certain sense, the Cellini of Athens—vastly superior to the celebrated Florentine in grandeur of conception, but uniting, like him, the work of the goldsmith to that of the sculptor, and, like him, distinguished for refinement and fastidiousness of execution.

To this character and style there is nothing that responds in the fragments of the Parthenon which we now possess. The style of the figures in the pediment is broad, large, and effective, but it is decorative in its character. The parts are classed and distributed with skill, but they are often forced, in order to produce effect at a distance and in the place where they were to be seen. They show the practiced hands of men who have been trained in a grand school, but they cannot be said to be finished with elaborate attention to details or minute study of parts. Whatever characteristics of his style they may have, they certainly want τò ἀκριβές, which was the distinguishing feature of the work of Phidias.

The same remarks apply to the metopes and the frieze. It is evident that all these works are of the same period; but in style, design, and execution they differ from each other, as the works of various men in the same school might be expected to differ. In grouping, composition, treatment, and character of workmanship, the metopes are of quite another class from the Panathenaic Procession of the frieze. Compared with each other, the metopes are rounder and feebler in form, tamer and more labored in treatment, and they want not only the spirit and freedom of design of the figures in the frieze, but also their flat, decisive, and squared execution. The frieze is very rich, varied, and light in composition, while the metopes are comparatively monotonous and heavy. Nor do the metopes differ more from the frieze than the figures in the pediment do from both the frieze and the metopes. While in execution the pediment sculpture is more flat and squared in style than the metopes, it differs from the frieze in the treatment of the draperies and in the proportions and character of the figures. As a design, the figures on the pediment are disconnected, while those of the frieze are interwoven with remarkable skill. Again, not only do these three classes, as classes, differ from each other, but in each class there are very decided inequalities and diversities of style and workmanship between one part and another,—showing plainly that they have been executed by various hands, some of more and some of less skill. But the treatment of all is purely decorative, as it properly should be. All of these sculptures were subordinated to the temple which they decorated, and they were executed, not for near and minute examination, but to produce a calculated effect in the position they were to occupy. Fineness of workmanship, delicacy and refinement of detail, would have been out of place and unnecessary, and evidently were not attempted. This, however, was not the style of Phidias, who, as we have seen, even in the colossal statues of Zeus and Athena, elaborated to the utmost, with almost excessive labor, not only the figures themselves, but also the least of the accessories. It was in his nature to do this. He wished to leave the impress of all his arts upon these splendid works; and he wrought upon them, not only as a sculptor in the large sense of the word, but as a goldsmith, as an engraver, a damascener, an embosser. Nothing was too rich, nothing too large, nothing too small for him. He enjoyed it all—the minute detail as well as the colossal mass. It was this peculiarity of his nature that led him to select, and almost to create, the chryselephantine school of art. He had been a painter in his youth, and his eye craved color. The coldness of marble did not satisfy him and he rejected it, not only for this reason, but because as a material it did not lend itself to the art of the engraver and the goldsmith. Before his time the colossi had been of bronze or wood. He introduced and perfected the art of making them in ivory and gold; and it was as a maker of statues of divinities in these materials and in bronze that he attained the highest renown.

But abandoning the ground that these marble sculptures of the Parthenon were executed by Phidias, let us consider whether they were designed by him. Of this there is not a vestige of evidence. It is not only not stated as a fact by any ancient writer, but not even intimated in the most shadowy way, unless it be deduced from the fact stated by Plutarch, that he was general superintendent of public works, and that he had various classes of workmen under his orders. What is meant by designing these works? Is it meant that he modeled the designs? If this were the case, is it probable that no mention would be made of it by any author? We are told of other cases in which works were executed from his designs, and from the designs of other artists. We are informed that the figures in the tympana of the temple at Olympia were executed by Alcamenes and Pæonios; but nothing is said about those figures in the Parthenon. Is there any necessity to suppose these works to have been designed by Phidias? Surely not. There were in Athens many other artists of great distinction who were fully able to design and execute them, and among them were men but little inferior to Phidias himself, who would not readily have accepted his designs, and who, by profession, were sculptors in marble—not, like Phidias, sculptors in bronze, or ivory and gold.