Dr. Brunn,[14] in commenting on this passage in Pliny, accepts the first sentence as describing the art of casting in plaster, but, finding it impossible to reconcile it with the subsequent sentences, ingeniously suggests that it was an addition inserted in the margin, and afterwards interpolated into the text by the copyists in the wrong place. Throwing out this first sentence about Lysistratus from this place, he still accepts it, and interprets it to mean that Lysistratus invented the art of casting. The subsequent sentences he connects with a previous passage in Pliny, in which he gives an account of Dibutades of Sicyon, a potter by trade, and relates the legend that this artist drew the outline of the face of a girl whom he loved from her shadow on the wall, and his father pressed clay upon it within those outlines, and made a typum which he baked. The passage, according to Dr. Brunn, then would continue: “He [Dibutades] also invented the making of effigies from signa, and this practice so increased that thenceforward no statues or signa were made without argilla; so that it appears that this art was more ancient than that of casting in bronze.” By accepting this suggestion of Dr. Brunn we certainly relieve Pliny of the absurdity of stating that any “scientiam” or practice invented by Lysistratus was older than casting in bronze, since centuries before his time bronze figures of colossal proportions had been cast. But even supposing these sentences to refer to Dibutades and not to Lysistratus, they are far from being clear or accurate. Is it possible to believe that, while the making of brick and earthenware utensils and fictile vases is so ancient that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, no one before Dibutades had ever attempted to model a figure or a face in clay, or to put a model into a furnace and bake it? All history is against such a supposition. Images in terra cotta were made by the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Ephesians centuries before Dibutades. The ancient Etruscan terra cottas previous to his epoch were scattered, as Pliny himself says, all over the world: “Signa Tuscanica per terras dispersa.” The capitol was decorated with earthen statues at the time of the first Tarquin, and Pausanias mentions many clay statues of gods and demigods executed in the earliest ages of Greece itself.
Again, from this very passage it is clear that Pliny himself admits that there were signa and statuæ already existing at the time of Dibutades, of which he first made effigies. What did Dibutades invent? Certainly not the art of modeling in clay, or of baking the clay. His statement, also, that thenceforward no statues were made without clay is scarcely intelligible, unless we suppose him to mean that clay models were made thenceforward before executing statues in stone or other materials. But he does not say this. Again, he cannot mean that Dibutades first invented taking impressions from indented outlines, or intaglii, for this was as old as the first primitive seal, and was no more invented by Dibutades than by Lysistratus.
Dr. Brunn interprets the statement in respect to Dibutades as showing that he was probably the first inventor of casting, at the same time that he also interprets the sentences referring to Lysistratus as declaring that he first invented casting,—the only difference being that the process of the one was in clay, and that of the other in plaster.
But is it clear that Dibutades, according to Pliny, ever made even a stamp in clay from indented outlines on the wall? The passage is ordinarily so interpreted, but is this interpretation correct? Pliny says that Dibutades having traced the shadow on the wall in outline, his father impressed clay within that outline, and thus made a typum which he baked with other articles of earth, and which was long afterwards preserved in the Nymphæum at Corinth. His words are, “quibus lineis pater ejus impressa argilla typum fecit.” What, then, is the meaning of “typum”? Evidently not a mould, or impression, but a relief. Had it been a mould, he could have stamped from it a hundred impressions, since it would have been merely a seal with an irregularly relieved outline; and in order to have the repetition of what was on the wall he must perforce have stamped from it an impression. This he evidently did not do, or at least nothing is said to indicate anything of the kind. He preserved and baked what he first obtained, which, if it was merely a mould, would have produced, to say the least, no effect. The true as well as the literal translation of this passage would seem to be, “within the outlines by putting on clay he made a relief.” This clay he probably modeled as well as he could, keeping within the lines, and then removed it from the wall and baked it. The same interpretation of this passage is given by Giovanni Battista Adriani, in a remarkable essay or rather letter addressed by him to Giorgio Vasari in 1567, in which he gives a summary of the most celebrated Greek artists and their works. “Typus” in Latin had the double significance of “intaglio” and “relievo,” as our word “type” has of the type itself and the printed impression; and sometimes it was used in one sense and sometimes in the other, but it was usually employed to mean a relief. Thus Cicero, in one of his letters to Atticus (lib. i. ep. 10), writes, “Præterea typos tibi mando quos in tectorio atrioli possim includere,”—I commission you also to procure me some reliefs to be inserted in the plaster of the anteroom. And Pliny in this passage would plainly seem to use the word in the same sense; otherwise he would probably have written “forma,” as he did in other cases when he meant a mould. Not that even that word would be free from all ambiguity, but it would more appropriately signify a mould.
But however ingenious is the suggestion of Dr. Brunn that the passages relating to Lysistratus ought to belong to Dibutades, the fact is that in all editions of Pliny they are connected with Lysistratus; and as this suggestion does not dispose of all difficulties and clear up the matter, we will proceed to consider them in that relation, and see if anything can be made clearly out of them.
Plainly, if the “scientiam” here spoken of refers to the invention of Lysistratus, and is interpreted to be the art of casting in plaster, it is ridiculously incorrect to say that it was older than casting in brass. If that invention be of modeling in plaster, it is also entirely incorrect. We know that this was practiced at least a century previous,—as, for instance, in the construction of the great statue of Zeus at Megara, the body of which was of plaster and clay, the head alone being cased in gold and ivory; and also of the Bacchus in painted plaster, of which Pausanias speaks.
The only way in which we can explain the statement that any “scientiam” or process described by Pliny as used by Lysistratus was older than the art of casting in bronze, is by supposing he meant to say that the process he employed was in itself an old one, and that it was only in the practical application to the making of portraits that there was any novelty,—the process of covering a core of plaster with wax being older than casting in bronze, while covering a sketch of plaster with wax and then working that surface up from life was new. The statement so understood would be intelligible at least, and, as far as we know, perfectly correct. The method of the ancients in casting bronze statues is not described by any ancient writer, but it is supposed to have been this: A fire-proof core was first built up of plaster, clay, earth, or other materials, and over this a thin and even coating of wax or pitch was spread; or perhaps, which is not so probable, the surface was rasped down to the thickness intended for the bronze, and afterwards covered with a thin coating of wax. In either case the result would be the same. The outside of this wax being then completely covered with sand or packed clay-dust, there would be a thin coating of wax inclosed between the two surfaces, which, melting away before the fused metal, would allow that metal to take its place. This would account for the remarkable thinness and evenness of the ancient bronzes; for by such a method the core would be perfect, and the artist would naturally put on as little wax as possible. If we suppose the statue, after it was nearly completed in plaster or clay, not to have been rasped down but simply to have been covered with wax, we shall see that the result would be that the bronze cast would be a little fuller in size and thicker in proportions than the original model. And this is a peculiar characteristic of the ancient bronzes, especially to be observed in the limbs and joints, which are generally larger and puffier in bronze than in marble statues.
Now if Pliny meant to say of Lysistratus that his method of modeling portraits by making a plaster figure or core, and covering the surface with wax, was older than that of casting in bronze, he was quite right; for undoubtedly the process of covering a core with wax must have preceded that of casting in bronze, or at least must have been coincident with it. But at the same time this method had previously been used only, or at least chiefly, in casting; whereas Lysistratus was the first to use it for modeling from life and carefully finishing every part. The process was old; the application was new.
Thus far in considering this passage we have proceeded on the hypothesis that the “cera” spoken of was wax. But another and quite different view is also possible, and seems in all probability to be the correct one. Pliny may mean to refer to quite a different thing, and by the term “cera” may have meant not wax but color. “Ceræ” was the common term for a painter’s colors, and Pliny himself thus uses it in defining encaustic painting: “Ceris pingere et picturam inurere.” Varro also says, “Pictores locutulas magnas habent arculas ubi discolores sunt ceræ.” Statius also uses the same term when he says, “Apelleæ cuperent te scribere ceræ.” Anacreon, in his odes, constantly uses κηρός for picture; as, for instance,—
Ἔρωτα κήρινόν τις
Νεηνίης ἐπώλει.