Excursions in Art and Letters

by William Wetmore Story

Here we have the body modeled (“fingere” is to model) in gypsum, and the ductile “cera” spread over all the undulations, and the rude face finished, just as Pliny describes it.

Let us now consider the next sentence, in which he says, “Hic et similitudinem reddere instituit, ante eum quam pulcherrimum facere studebant.” This certainly has nothing to do with casting. It is very important as throwing a reflex light on the previous sentence. The whole stress of the passage is to bring out the fact that Lysistratus made portraits. He used a peculiar process, perhaps, but his specialty was that he made portraits from life (“imaginem hominis e facie ipsa”), which he worked up in wax (“emendare cera”); and not only this, but his portraits were exact likenesses (“similitudinem reddere instituit”), and not merely ideal figures like those of the artists who preceded him (“ante eum quam pulcherrimum facere studebant”).

A slight glimpse at the history of the art will clear up this matter. In the early period of sculpture, only statues of divinities were made, and up to a comparatively late time these archaic figures were copied for religious and superstitious reasons, and the old formal hieratic type was strictly observed. It was not until the 58th Olympiad that iconic statues began to be made in honor of the victors in the national games, and these for the greater part were rather portraits of the peculiarities of general physical developments than of the face. Portrait statues of distinguished men now began to be made, but they were very few in number, and only exceptionally allowed by the state. The first iconic statues, representing Harmodius and Aristogeiton, were made in 509 B. C. by Antenor. Phidias followed (480 to 432 B. C.), and during his period the grand style was in its culmination, and for the most part divinities or demigods only were thought worthy subjects for a great sculptor. Iconic statues were, however, executed during this period, and among the legendary heroes and divinities who formed the subjects of the thirteen statues erected at Delphi and executed by Phidias out of the Persian spoils, the portrait of Miltiades was allowed,[11] but the erection of public portrait statues was very rarely permitted, and the introduction by Phidias of his own portrait and that of Pericles among the combatants wrought upon the shield of his ivory and gold statue of Athena occasioned a prosecution against him for impiety. It is said that Phidias, in his statue of a youth binding his hair with a fillet, made the portrait of Pantarces, an Elean who was enamored of the great sculptor, and who obtained the victory at the Olympian games in the 86th Olympiad (B. C. 435). But this story, which is given by Pausanias, rests, even by his own account, purely on tradition, and was apparently founded upon a supposed resemblance between Pantarces and the statue. Portraiture in its true sense, however, now began, and soon after the death of Phidias, about the 90th Olympiad, Demetrius obtained celebrity as a portrait sculptor. He seems to have been the first to introduce the realistic school of portraiture, copying so carefully from life, particularly in his likenesses of old persons, that he was reproved for being too faithful to Nature. Quinctilian accuses him of being “nimius in veritate” (xii. 10); Lucian in his “Philopseudes” calls him an ἀνθρωποποιός, and, describing a statue by him of Pelichus the Corinthian, says it was αὐτῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ὁμοῖον,—like the very man himself. Callimachus, also, at the same period obtained the nickname of Κατατηξίτεχνος, on account of the extreme detail and finish of his works. These artists flourished nearly a century before Lysistratus; and Pliny therefore is incorrect in his sweeping statement that before the time of Lysistratus sculptors had only endeavored to make their statues as beautiful as possible, and not to give accurate portraits. Still, these men must be considered as exceptions to the general practice, and it was not until the time of Alexander that portrait-sculpture in the sense of accurate likeness was developed. Up to that period it still was heroic, generalized, and ideal in its character, with comparatively little individuality or detail. The portrait statues, for instance, of the Royal Family by Leochares (372 B. C.), and that of Mausolus (about 350 B. C.) on the famous Mausoleum erected by Artemisia, were treated in this style. Lysippus, however, during the reign of Alexander of Macedon, by his great talent gave a new impulse and development to the school of portraiture, and while retaining the heroic character he gave a more realistic truth to his works. Pliny speaks of him as distinguished for the finish of his work in the remotest details,—“argutiæ operum custoditæ in minimis rebus.” In his portraits of Alexander he represented even the defects of his royal patron, such as the stoop of his head sideways. Such was his skill that Alexander declared “that none but Apelles should represent him in color, and none but Lysippus in marble.” Lysistratus was the brother of Lysippus, and Pliny says that he introduced the practice of making portraits which were not merely heroic and ideal likenesses, but faithful representations of the real men. In attributing to Lysistratus the introduction of this practice of individual portraiture, Pliny undoubtedly goes beyond the real facts. He did not introduce the practice, he merely developed it by a peculiar process, giving additional verisimilitude thereby. This process was roughly modeling the likeness in plaster, and then finishing the surface and the details in the “cera” with which he covered it.

In painting, the sphere of portraiture was larger than in sculpture, and subject apparently to no such restrictions. The earliest portrait on record by any great painter was not of hero, philosopher, or athlete, but of Elpinice, the daughter of Miltiades and the mistress of Polygnotus, who painted her portrait as Laodice, one of the daughters of Priam, in his famous picture representing the “Rape of Cassandra,” in the Pœcile at Athens. This picture was executed about 463 B. C., when Elpinice must have been at least thirty-five years of age. Dionysius of Colophon was also a distinguished portrait-painter and celebrated for his excessive finish. Nicephorus Chumnus, the grammarian, describes Apelles and Lysippus as making and painting Ζῶσας εἰκώνας καὶ πνοῆς μόνης καὶ κινήσεως ἀπολειπόμενας,—being likenesses only wanting breath and motion. For one of his portraits of Alexander Apelles received twenty talents of gold (£5,000), which was measured, not counted, out to him. He also painted the portraits of Campaspe and Phryne in the character of Venus, taking the face from Campaspe and the nude figure from Phryne. Speaking of Apelles, Pliny himself relates in his thirty-sixth book that “he painted portraits so exact to the life that one of those persons called Metoscopi, who divine events from the features of men, was enabled, on examining his portraits, to foretell the hour of the death of the person represented.” And this monstrous story Pliny apparently accepts. At all events, he does not question it. Parrhasius, “the most insolent and arrogant of artists,” says Pliny, “painted a portrait of himself and dedicated it in a public temple to Mercury; and though the Athenians had publicly proceeded against Phidias for so doing, they allowed it to Parrhasius, thus plainly showing that the dignity of sculpture was higher than that of painting.”

But to return from this digression to the consideration of the passage by Pliny relating to portraiture in modeling and sculpture. In the sentence immediately following, Pliny goes on to say, “Idem et de signis effigiem exprimere invenit, crevitque res in tantum, ut nulla signa statuæve sine argilla fierent,”—Lysistratus also made copies from statues, and this practice came so into vogue that no statues in brass or marble were made without white clay. What the meaning of this sentence is we can only guess; as it stands, it is quite unintelligible. Perhaps he intended to say that Lysistratus set the fashion of making small copies in clay or terra cotta of all the statues that were executed. But it is quite possible that he meant nothing of the kind. It is plain that if Lysistratus had already invented casting in plaster, it would have been unnecessary to copy statues in clay, except for the purpose of reduction to statuettes. Mr. Perkins thinks he may have intended to speak of “esquisses d’argile [maquettes] dont se servent les sculpteurs comme point de départ, esquisse reproduite plus tard en marbre et avec la mise aux points.” But there was nothing new in this; and surely Lysistratus could not be said to have invented, or set the fashion of, a process which certainly had been employed very long before his time. And again, why make a small statue in clay and enlarge it proportionally in marble, if you can make it at once in full size and cast it? Nor does Mr. Perkins seem to be aware that in adopting this view, and translating as he does “de signis effigiem exprimere,”—to make a small model or maquette in clay,—he abandons his explanation of the sentence referring to gypsum. For if “effigiem argilla exprimere” means, as he says, to make a model in clay, why does not “imaginem gypso exprimere” mean to make a model in plaster? Besides, the fact that Pliny applies the same terms to a process in clay as to one in plaster at once puts an end to the matter so far as the question of casting goes. Clay is not a material to cast with, in any proper sense of that term.

Another objection to this interpretation that Pliny meant a maquette, “esquisse,” or sketch is that “effigies” did not mean sketch. It carried with it nearly the significance of our own word effigy,—of great reality of imitation. “Imago” was a vaguer word, and might indicate a delusive resemblance as by painting; but “effigiem” was ordinarily employed to designate a more absolute imitation. Thus Cicero says, “Nos vere juris germanæ justitiæ que solidam et expressam effigiem nullam tenemus. Umbra et imaginibus utimur.”[12] And again, “Consectatur nullam eminentem effigiem virtutis sed adumbratam imaginem gloriæ.” “Effigies” would, therefore, carry no such idea as that of sketch.

Besides, not only is “effigies” not the correct word for sketch, but Pliny would scarcely have used it in this sense, when immediately afterwards, speaking of the sketches of Arcesilaus, which sold for more than the finished works of other artists, he employs the appropriate term for sketches,—“proplasma.” In the translation of Pliny, published by Mr. Bohn, and made by Mr. Bostick and Mr. Riley, this term is translated “models in plaster;” but it simply means sketches or antijicta, in whatever material they were made. The words “plastæ” and “plasma” have nothing to do with plaster. “Plastæ” were simply modelers, and πλαστική was the art of modeling,—the plastic art.

Again, Pliny could scarcely have intended to say that Lysistratus invented modeling sketches of statues in clay before executing them in plaster, since he tells us explicitly that Pasiteles used to say that plastice was the mother of statuaria, scalptura, et cælatura; and, though he was distinguished as first in all these arts, he never executed anything in them until he had first modeled it in clay,—“nihil unquam fecit, antequam finxit.”

Before leaving this sentence, let us take a different view of its possible meaning. May not Pliny use the words “signa” and “signis” to mean pictures and not statues? Undoubtedly “signum” was thus used, as where Plautus speaks of a “signum pictum in parieti,”—a picture painted on the wall; or where Virgil speaks of a “pallam signis auroque rigentem,”—a mantle stiff with embroidered figures and gold. In this sense the passage would mean that Lysistratus made effigies from pictures as well as from statues, and that thenceforward not only no statues but no pictures were made without being copied in bas-relief, or in the round, argilla, or white clay. This would account for the use of the word “effigiem,” which has a stronger significance of reality than “imaginem.”

The succeeding sentence is even more obscure; and, unless it be interpolated or out of its proper place, is quite unintelligible. In the connection in which it now stands it is absurd. It is as follows: “Quo apparet antiquiorem hanc fuisse scientiam quam fundendi æris,”—by which it seems that this knowledge or practice was older than that of casting in bronze. What is the “scientiam” to which he refers? He has previously spoken only of two: first, that of making portraits in plaster and wax; second, that of making copies of statues in clay,—both, as he says, invented or introduced into practice by Lysistratus. But to say that that artist could have invented any process older than that of casting in bronze is not only ridiculous in itself, but inconsistent with what he has previously told us; since at least two centuries previous to the time of Lysistratus, Rhœcus and Theodorus of Samos—as we learn from Pausanias, Herodotus, and even Pliny himself—exercised the art of casting in bronze. Pausanias,[13] indeed, tells us that these sculptors invented this art; but Pliny, with his usual inaccuracy and carelessness, says that they invented “plastice,” or the art of modeling (“In Samo primos omnium plasticen invenisse Rhœcum et Theodorum,” ch. xxxv.),—an art which from the very nature of things must have been practiced from the earliest and rudest ages, almost from the time when the first child made the first mud-pie.