“Lysistrate de Sicyone fut le premier à prendre en plâtre des moules de la figure humaine. Dans ces moules il coulait de la cire, puis il corrigeait ces masques de cire d’après la nature. De la sorte, il atteignit la ressemblance, tandis qu’avant lui on ne s’appliquait qu’à faire de belles têtes. Lysistrate imagina aussi de reproduire l’image des statues, procédé qui obtint une telle vogue, que depuis lors ni figure ni statue ne fut faite sans argile, et l’on soit en conclure que ce procédé est antérieur à la fonte du bronze.”
If this translation be correct, there seems to be no doubt either that Pliny was mistaken, or that the ancients knew and practiced the modern art of casting in plaster.
Is, then, this translation correct? It seems to us to be an utter misapprehension of the whole meaning of the passage. Pliny says nothing about moulding or casting, and thus to translate and amplify the words he does use is to assume the very facts in question. What he really says is literally as follows:—
“Lysistratus of Sicyon, brother of Lysippus, of whom we have spoken, first of all expressed the image of a man in gypsum from the whole person [that is, made full-length portraits], and improved it with wax [or color, for, as we shall see, cera means both] spread over the form. He first began to make likenesses, whereas before him the study was to make persons as beautiful as possible. He also invented expressing effigies from statues; and this practice so grew that no statues or signa [which were full-length figures either painted, modeled, cast in bronze, or executed in marble] were made without white clay. From which it would seem that this science [or process] was older than that of casting in bronze. The most famous modelers were Damophilus and Gorgasus, who were also painters, and who decorated the temple of Ceres at Rome with both branches of their art.”
The first sentence, thus literally rendered, it will be perceived, has in many respects the same ambiguity in English as in Latin. The words “image,” “expression,” and “form” have all a double signification, and the question is what is their true meaning in this connection.
If it can be shown that this passage neither describes nor proposes to describe the process of casting in plaster, as we understand that phrase, the keystone of the whole argument that it was known to the ancients falls out. No other writer directly asserts that such a knowledge or practice existed, and all allusions to this matter contained in any ancient author are purely collateral, and have no force in themselves. Further, some well-known facts which we shall have occasion to bring forward later are entirely opposed to the probability of such a knowledge and practice.
It is upon this passage in Pliny, then, that the whole case depends. Now, in a doubtful and obscure question like this, dependent upon the statement of any single author, we have a right to claim three things: first, that the statement should be clear and fairly susceptible of only one explanation; second, that it should not be contradicted by a subsequent statement immediately following; third, that the author himself should be trustworthy.
And in the first place, as to the author. The “Natural History” of Pliny is certainly a most interesting, amusing, and in many respects valuable book, but quite as certainly it is one of the most inaccurate that ever was written, abounding in half-knowledge, second-hand information, legendary statements, and rubbish of every kind. It is, in a word, the commonplace book of an agreeable, gossiping man, of a wide reading, who took little pains to be accurate, who reported everything he heard with slight examination, who was exceedingly credulous, and who accepted as truth and fact the most ridiculous stories. All is fish that comes to his net. In his chapters relating to artists and art he is singularly devoid of judgment or accurate knowledge; he constantly confuses things which have no relation to each other, often contradicts himself, and becomes at times utterly unintelligible. Yet we are forced to turn to Pliny, to give a weight and authority to his words upon art, and to own a deep debt of gratitude to him, not because he is trustworthy, but simply because he alone of all the ancient authors, with the exception of Pausanias, has given us a detailed account of the statues and artists of antiquity. His account of the ancient artists and their works is the fullest we have, and adrift as we often are on a wide sea of conjecture, we are glad to seize upon any straws and fragments, “rari nantes in gurgite vasto” of blankness and doubt; seizing here a bit from Pausanias, Herodotus, or Lucian, there a waif from Cicero, or a floating fragment from one of the great tragic poets, and glad enough to get upon any such raft as that which Pliny gives us, however leaky and rickety. But seaworthy or trustworthy in emergencies Pliny certainly is not.
In the next place, as to the passage under discussion. So far from its being clear and distinct, its obscurity, confusion, and apparent contradiction are so great as to have baffled every effort to explain it satisfactorily; and Dr. Brunn, one of the most accomplished of archæologists, in his history of Greek art, finding it impossible to reconcile the different sentences, does not hesitate to treat a portion as an interpolation, or at least out of place where it appears.
Two views are to be taken of the process described by Pliny: first, that by the term “cera” he means wax; and second, that he means color. Taking the first view, let us now consider the passage in question, sentence by sentence, and endeavor to unravel its real meaning. Lysistratus, first of all, made likenesses of men in gypsum from their whole figure (that is, whole-length portraits), and improved them with wax (or color) spread over the form (core or model) of gypsum. “Imaginem gypso e facie ipsa expressit” are the words of Pliny which Mr. Perkins in common with other translators supposes to mean “made moulds in plaster from the face,”—“prendre en plâtre des moules.” But this simple phrase cannot be twisted into such a meaning. “Exprimere,” according to Forcellinus, is “effingere, rappresentare, assomigliare, ritrarre dal vivo.” “Exprimere” alone would be, therefore, according to this last definition, to make a portrait from life. The additional words, “imaginem e facie ipsa,” make this meaning still stronger. “Imaginem” means a full-length figure or likeness, and not a mould, as would be required by Mr. Perkins’s translation. “Exprimere imaginem” cannot be forced to mean “made a mould,” whether in gypsum or in any other material. Suppose we translate the words literally, “to express an image in plaster,” and interpret “image” to mean mould, it is plain that the phrase is wrong; it should be impress and not express. You cannot express a mould. It is impressed on the face. In like manner when Plautus says “expressa imago in cera,” or “expressa simulacra ex auro,” he means making a portrait in color or in gold. Again, “facies” does not mean face, but the total outward shape, appearance, or figure of a man. “Vultus” is the proper term for face, and is so used by Pliny himself; as when he speaks, for instance, of the portraits of the head of Epicurus as “vultus Epicuri,” and distinguishes them from the full-length figures of athletes, “imagines athletarum,” with which the ancients adorned their palæstra and anointing-rooms. In fact, the whole chapter in which this passage occurs relates to portraits, and is entitled “honos imaginum.” If there could be any question on this point, it would be settled by a passage in Aulus Gellius (13, 29), in which he defines “facies” as the build of the whole body,—“facies est factura quædam totius corporis;” and Cicero, in his treatise “De Legibus” (1, 9), says, “That which is called ‘vultus’ exists in no living being except man,”—“Is qui appellatur vultus nullo in animante esse præter hominem potest.”[10] So Virgil in “vivos ducent de marmore vultus” means the face. “Imago,” on the contrary, and “facies” mean the whole figure; only “facies” means the real figure, and “imago” the imitation of it. Pliny himself invariably uses them so, and in one of his letters (ep. 7, 33, 2) he recommends that we should be careful to select the best artist to make a full-length likeness,—“Esse nobis curæ solet ut facies nostra ab optimo quoque artifice exprimatur.” By the word “exprimatur” he certainly does not refer to casting. So mechanical an operation as this surely does not require the best of artists. “Imaginem e facie ipsa” means therefore a full-length likeness.