Throughout the chapter Pliny is not speaking solely of modelers, but most of those he mentions colored their works. The grapes, fruit, and fishes of Possis, the works of Damophilus and Gorgasus, the Tuscanica in the temples, all were colored in imitation of the objects represented. And besides these he mentions particularly the Jupiter of Pasiteles, made in clay, “et ideo miniari solitum,”—and therefore proper for painting in vermilion. He also speaks of “figlina opera,”—earthenware painted in encaustic,—which were on the baths of Agrippa in Rome. All this seems to lend probability to the interpretation of “cera” to mean color and not wax; at all events, there is not a word about casting, unless the words relating to Lysistratus can be tortured into such a meaning. What adds still more to the probability that this was the real thought of Pliny in the passage cited is the use of the words “effigies” and “argilla.” “Effigies” in Latin is distinguished from “simulacrum” (which may be a picture as well as a statue), both being representations indicating something which shows they are not life itself, the one being flat and the other colorless; while “effigies” carries the idea of deception with it, so far as resemblance goes. Thus Cicero says, “Vidistis non fratrem tuum nec vestigium quidem aut simulacrum, sed effigiem quamdam spirantis mortui.” So, also, “argilla” means white clay, and not ordinary clay out of which terra cotta images were made; and Pliny may have intended by these words to express the idea that after Lysistratus had made effigies or colored copies of brass or marble statues, white clay was constantly used, for the reason that it was manifestly better for coloring. This would relieve him from the absurdity of saying that Lysistratus invented or led the way in modeling in clay, rather than in the use of white clay which he colored. Argilla and gypsum would then be nearly the same thing, both used as a basis for colored walls, upon which “cera” or color was laid or infused. This would clear up the subsequent statement that this art was older than casting in bronze, since it is plain that coloring statues was very ancient. Pausanias mentions two,—one of the Ephesian Diana and one of Bacchus in wood, gilt except the faces,—which were painted with vermilion. So, in the Wisdom of Solomon (ch. xiii. and xv.), images of wood and clay are spoken of, painted in red and vermilion and stained with divers colors; and in 630 B. C. there were images in gold, silver, stone, and wood in Babylon (Baruch, ch. vi. and xiii.), painted and gilded and dressed, and colored purple.
In his chapter entitled “Honos Imaginum,”—the honor attached to portraits,—Pliny says it was the custom of the Romans to adorn their palæstra and anointing-rooms with the portraits of athletes (“imaginibus athletarum”), and to carry about on their persons the face of Epicurus (“vultus Epicuri”); and that they also prized the portraits of strangers (“alienasque effigies colunt”). Afterwards, contrasting the habits of the Romans of his own day with those of the ancient Romans, he says: “And since the former have no longer in them any likeness to the minds of their ancestors, they also neglect the likeness of their bodies. How different it was,” he continues, “with our ancestors, who placed in their atria to be gazed at these ‘imagines,’ and not statues by foreign artists in brass or marble, and kept colored portraits of their faces each in its separate case, to serve as ‘imagines’ to accompany their funerals.”[17] It would seem from this that, besides the draped images or effigies in the halls, modeled and colored busts of others of the family, probably of less distinction, were also kept to be dressed up on occasion, made into effigies, and carried in procession. Other “imagines” of the most distinguished personages in the family were placed outside at the threshold of the house, hung with the spoils of the enemy.
It is of these “expressi cera vultus” and these “imagines” kept by the Romans as proofs of their nobility, and on which their pedigrees were inscribed, that Ovid speaks when he says,—
“Per lege dispositas generosa per atria ceras.”
On the sale of the house they were not allowed to be destroyed or removed, but passed with it, and were bought by “novi homines” (men of no family), and passed off by them as the portraits of their own ancestors,—just as the portraits of Wardour Street are at the present day. Cicero in his invective against Piso cries out, “Obrepsisti ad honores errore hominum, commendatione fumosarum imaginum, quarum simile habes nihil præter colorem;” and Sallust in his Jugurtha says, “Quia imagines non habeo, et quia mihi nova nobilitas est.”
Nor were the Romans singular in this custom of draping figures with real stuffs. The images of the gods in early Greece also were draped and dressed in clothes, and crowns were placed on their heads. They had false hair, too, which was dressed regularly by attendants, and at stated times they were washed and adorned with jewels and had their dresses arranged, just as if they were alive. In later times this custom died out; but the colossal Athena’s solid drapery of gold was washed at a certain festival appointed for the purpose, called Plyntheria. In Rome, however, the custom was maintained to a late day. The images of the temples were adorned with real drapery, and purple mantles were hung on the statues of the emperors. The Greeks did not thus treat their portrait statues, and in this the Romans were peculiar.
The Roman “imagines” and “ceræ” were probably executed in plaster or some such material, certainly not in marble, or otherwise they would have been too heavy to be carried about in procession. Apparently they resembled the figures which Lysistratus first began to make, and the process of coloring them, if we understand “cera” to mean color, was little else than the old practice, called “circumlitio,” of covering marble statues with an encaustic varnish of color so as to give them a delicate and tinted surface. The most salient example of this is to be found in the anecdote told of Praxiteles, who, when he was asked which of his statues he most admired, answered, “Those that Nicias has colored,”—“quibus Nicias manum admovisset,”—Nicias, who in his youth was celebrated as a painter of statues, ἀγαλμάτων ἐγκαυστής, having assisted him, “in statuis circumliendis.” A similar process, called καύσις, was also employed in finishing walls, and is thus described by Vitruvius: After the wall had received its color, it was covered with Punic wax and oil, which was laid on evenly with a hard brush, and then half melted or infused into a smooth surface by moving a “cauterium,” or pan of hot coals, close over it; and after that it was rubbed with a candle and a clean linen cloth.
This process, then, was old as applied to marble statues and to plaster walls. What was new in the work of Lysistratus was that he united the two methods, by modeling in plaster the general likeness and then finishing the surface in encaustic. It was an old process with a new application.
To explain such a process, what could be clearer than the words Pliny uses? We do not need to warp a word from its ordinary significance. Lysistratus made portraits in plaster from life, and improved them by color laid on to the model. He thus made realistic, exact resemblances, whereas before him artists had sought only to make heads as beautiful as possible.
What, then, were the “effigies de signis” that he made? We have already seen that the term “effigies” had a significance of reality and absolute imitation, and corresponded in great measure to the English word effigy, meaning colored effigies with real dresses,—like those of Madame Tussaud, for instance. The “imagines” and “ceræ” of the ancient Romans were very much like them; and does not Pliny mean to say that Lysistratus copied marble or brass statues, or pictures, and made these effigies from them, coloring them so as to add to the likeness, and clothing them with real draperies? and that this so grew into vogue that thenceforward there were no statues which were not thus copied in plaster or “argilla”?—using the term “argilla,” or white clay, as equivalent to gypsum, with which possibly the plaster was mixed. As “argilla” was the foundation with which the ancient panels were prepared for painting, this would seem most appropriate in such case.