Greek Sculpture E-Book

Edmund von Mach

• Herausgeber: Parkstone International
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 394

Beschreibung

Greek Sculpture is probably the most well known aspect of Greek art, for a contemporary it expresses the most beautiful ideal and plastic perfection. It is the first of the Ancient Arts that looked to free itself from the imitative constraints, of the faithful representation of nature. Only a small part of the production of Greek Sculpture is known to us. Many of the masterpieces described by Antique literature are henceforth lost or badly damaged, and a large part, we know are copies, more or less skillful and faithful to the Roman era. Many have been restored by Western Sculptors, from the Renaissance to nowadays, and often in a meaning very different from the original work: a discobolous is thus turned into a dying gladiator, this god received the attributes of another, the legs of this statue are transplanted to the torso of this other one. “The soul of Greek Sculpture contains in it all sculpture. Its essential simplicity, defies all definition. We can feel it, but we can not express it. ‘Open your eyes, study the statues, look, reflect and look again,’ is the perpetual perception of anyone who wants to learn or know about Greek Sculpture.”

Leseprobe

Author: Edmund von Mach

© 2023 Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA

© 2023 Parkstone Press International, New York, USA

Mausoleum Museum, Bodrum. Courtesy of Pr. Kristian Jeppesen

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No part of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyrights on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification.

ISBN:978-178310-752-0

Edmund von Mach

Greek Sculpture

Contents

Introduction

Rapidity of Growth

The Triumph of the Few

Small Range of Simple Ideas

The Appeal of a Work of Art

Periods of Greek Sculpure

Fundamental Considerations

Greek Sculpture in its Relation to Nature:The Mental Image

The Appeal of Greek Sculpture

The Artist and his Public

The Principles of Greek Relief Sculpture

Differing Technique of High and Low Relief Sculpture

Greek Relief Sculpture in its Relation to Architecture; Reliefs on Rounded Surfaces

Physical Effort and Pleasure in Viewing Extended Compositions

The Colouring of Greek Sculpture

Art Conditions Before the 7thCentury B.C. and Early Ignorance

Material, Technique

Destructive Forces

Early Ignorance of Greek Sculpture

Early Greek Sculpture

First Attempts in the Round

The First Attempts in Relief

Conservatism, Ready Skill Before Freedom of Conception

Transitional Period

Myron

Pythagoras; Telling Use of Details

Grace and Delicate Workmanship; Kalamis

Sculptured Temple Decorations, Aegina and Olympia

Realisation of the Noblest Ideas: the Divine Side of Human Nature

The Parthenon

The Metopes

The Frieze

The Pediments

The Greek Ideal

The Individual Soul and Body

Praxiteles

Skopas

The Niobe Goup

The Tomb of King Mausollos

Formulated Principles; Perfect Skill

Autumn Days

The Aphrodite of Melos

The Nike of Samothrace

The Belvedere Apollo and the Artemis of Versailles

The Laokoön Group

The School of Pargamon

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Notes

Dipylon Head, Dipylon,

Athens, c. 600 B.C. Marble, h: 44cm.

National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

Introduction

The study of Greek sculpture was unknown two hundred and fifty years ago. Winckelmann[1] was the first to study it, and to publish a book on the subject in 1755. The excavations in Pompeii and Herculaneum, the removal of the Parthenon sculptures to London by Lord Elgin, and above all, the regeneration of Greece and the subsequent rich finds in her soil, added zest to the continually growing interest in this new study.

In the eighteenth century people were unable to properly judge ancient art because they possessed few originals and were obliged to look through the spectacles of a later Roman civilisation. Animated by a scientific spirit, people of the nineteenth century probed deeper. The spade of the excavator brought long-forgotten treasures to light; scholars trained in the severe school of philology arranged and classified the material, and little or nothing was left to the art critic. The subject, on the whole, was in the hands of the scientific archaeologists, who presented it in more or less exhaustive histories of Greek sculpture or Greek art. All their books follow the historic development. They are histories of ancient artists.

Such a treatment of the subject, although bringing order out of the preceding century’s chaos, made a clear understanding of the spirit of Greek sculpture impossible; for it overburdened the books with such facts as are interesting only to the specialist for use in further discoveries, and cannot legitimately appeal to the artistic public. The archaeological discussions, therefore, largely account for the present neglect of ancient art on the part of artists and intelligent laymen. The eighteenth-century writers generalised without sufficient facts at their disposal; the nineteenth-century scholars collected the facts, and it therefore becomes our duty today to present the lessons which can be learned from them and to introduce the reader to the spirit and the principles of Greek sculpture.

The spirit of Greek sculpture is synonymous with the spirit of sculpture. It is simple, and therefore defies definition. We may feel it, but we cannot express it. The reason it has lost its power today is that we have listened to what has been said about it instead of coming into contact with it. No amount of book knowledge makes up for the lack of familiarity with original pieces of sculpture. “Open your eyes, study the statues, look, think, and look again,” is the precept to all who would learn to know Greek sculpture. Some introductory assistance and guidance, to be sure, should be accepted; they clear one’s mind of prevailing misconceptions. Suggestions in this direction, however, often do more than exhaustive discussions, for they stimulate individual, thought.

Rapidity of Growth

Greek sculpture was of remarkably rapid growth, developing under conditions, generally believed, to be unfavourable. Few countries ever underwent such rapid changes as Greece, for the suddenness with which the Mycenaean civilisation was swept away, perhaps by the Dorians, is unequalled in history. The three or four centuries following upon the Dorian invasion (about 1000 B.C.) – the dark middle ages of Greece – were full of violent political upheavals; and the whole of the historic period of Greece was characterised by unsettled conditions. States rose and fell with startling rapidity. Athens was an insignificant community before the time of Peisistratos, and is hardly mentioned in the Homeric poems (about 800 B.C.). Her ascendency dates from the Persian wars (490-480 B.C.), but before the century closed, her glory had faded. Alexander the Great came to the throne in 336 B.C.; he carried his standards to India, and when he died Macedonia was no longer destined to be a world power. Pergamon came into prominence in 241 B.C. under Attalos I, and disappeared as a major power in 133 B.C. America is thought of as a new country, but is almost as old as Greece was when absorbed by Rome; and more years have elapsed since the American Declaration of Independence than intervened between the rise and fall of Athens.

The Triumph of the Few

Peace and leisure are commonly believed to be the prerequisites for a period of great art. They surely are, but should not be understood to refer only to external conditions. Revealing is not the people’s surroundings but their state of mind; nor is it necessary that all share the blessing of a noble character. The fervour of the few has often achieved the triumphs of a nation. It is a mistake to credit all the Athenians, or even the majority of them, with an artist’s love of the beautiful. The petty, unjust middle-class man, as he appears in Aristophanes’s comedies and in Plato’s dialogues, with his narrow horizon and jealous prejudices, does not explain the sudden rise of Athens, though he may, and probably does, account for her rapid fall. It was in spite of him and his fellows that Athens gained her superiority.

In the field of art, therefore, the importance of the individual artists cannot be overestimated. Sir Robert Ball[2] is on record as saying that scientific discoveries follow the law of necessity, though they may be hastened by the presence of big men. If Watt had not discovered the power of steam, some one else would have, and several men were ready to announce to the world Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. “But,” Sir Robert added, “what would the world of music be, if Beethoven had not lived?” What is true of music is true also of sculpture, or of any of the thought-expressing fine arts. Some of the noblest Greek statues would never have been created if Phidias had not lived. “Dost thou not know,” exclaims an ancient writer, “that there is a Praxitelean head in every stone?” But, it may be added, it takes a Praxiteles to bring it out. Only after the confusing mass of encasing rock has been hewn away does the head reveal its meaning. Most of us, to understand a thought, need its expression. The reality of the thought, however, cannot be denied even when no expression has been vouchsafed it, for it is independent of our conception of it.

Kore, Delos, c. 525-500 B.C. Marble, h: 134 cm.

National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

Small Range of Simple Ideas

The realm of thoughts expressed in Greek sculpture was circumscribed and far removed from the complexity of modern times. A few simple ideas well expressed form the charm of Greek art. Adequacy of expression, indeed, has at times been considered an essential part of Greek art; and many have spoken of Shelley, Keats, Hölderlin, and others, as Greek, not because these men thought as the ancients did but because they knew how to express their feelings adequately. They were Greek, however, only in part, for they lacked the second quality of ancient art – simplicity. True simplicity with human beings is rarely spontaneous. The beauty of the Parthenon is the result of much clear thinking and right feeling. It was, therefore, understood by all, and became in the very year of its completion, as Plutarch says, a classic.

The Appeal of a Work of Art

The power to appeal to all classes of men is given but few artists, for it requires not only great skill but also a sympathetic knowledge of human nature. This fact is often overlooked. People forget that the appeal of a work of art is directed to the higher faculties of man but that it is made through his eyes. Few things are seen just as they are. The house that we think we see is very different from the pyramidal image of the house that appears on the retina of our eye. The only reason why we are not misled is that we are thoroughly familiar with the house. No such familiarity can be supposed to exist with the work of art. The discrepancy between the imagined object and its realistic representation must be taken into consideration and allowances be made for the peculiarities of human vision. The artist is not permitted to forget that in order to convey his thoughts he borrows shapes from objective nature, and that he makes his appeal to human perception, that is subjective nature. He will select of all possible subjects only those that are readily understood, and carve them in a way that is calculated to meet the requirements of the human power of perception. The moral and intellectual development of a race, therefore, requires changes in the selection of suitable subjects and also in the mode of their representation.

Periods of Greek Sculpure

The Greeks worked along these lines. It is therefore not astonishing that their sculpture can be divided into periods corresponding to the various stages in their civilisation. The spirit of their art never changed. Not all sculptors, to be sure, were invariably true to it. However correct their ideas were, they could not help giving them an individual interpretation. This makes it necessary to distinguish between what a sculptor meant to do and what he actually did. Just here the archaeological treatment of ancient art has erred most. The detail which in the process of creation has detached itself from the whole has been considered by many to be the expression of a new conception. Is this a mistake? The Athenian tendencies to over-elaboration, for instance, and the Polykleitean neglect of the nobler side of human nature, are only periodic aberrations. They are entirely outside the even spirit of Greek sculpture, and find their explanation in the passing likes and dislikes of a few men.

Such instances of undue attention paid to one detail or another inevitably left their impact upon subsequent art expression. Their influence, however, would have been greater if they had been the intentional introduction of a new concept, and not merely the accidental exaggeration of a minor element. It is well worth noticing that the impressive delicacy of early Athenian sculpture was followed by Phidias, and that Polykleitos, with his disregard of man’s noblest side, is immediately superseded by Praxiteles and Skopas, who were the greatest masters in the expression of the passions of the human soul.

Draped Woman seated, tombstone (fragment), c. 400 B.C. Marble, h: 122 cm.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Male Torso, copy after a bronze original by Polykleitos,

the“Diadoumenos”, created around 440 B.C.

Marble, h: 111cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Farnese Herakles, copy after a Greek original of the 5th century B.C. Marble, h: 313 cm.

Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

Pensive Athena, Acropolis, Athens,

c. 470-460 B.C. Marble, h: 54cm.

Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Fundamental Considerations

Greek Sculpture in its Relation to Nature: The Mental Image

Greek sculpture exhibits a quality which is strongly opposed to what is termed realism. Since realism and idealism are opposites, Greek sculpture has often been called idealistic. The realist in art endeavours to represent nature as it really is, with all its accidentals and incidentals, and is often so far carried away by these minor quantities that he is unable to catch the true, though fleeting, essence of the object. The idealist consciously disregards the apparent details, spending his effort in emphasising the idea which he finds embodied in the object selected for representation. Both men work from the visible objects of nature, which they try to reproduce. Not so the Greeks.

Everyone has what may be styled a mental image or a memory picture of his familiar surroundings. To represent these mental images accurately was the aim of the Greeks. They endeavoured to make real their ideas, and are therefore realists rather than idealists. But since both these terms are presently applied to the classes of people mentioned above, it is confusing to use them in speaking of the ancient Greeks. This is also true of the modern use of the word “elimination,” by which most writers mean “an intentional omission or suppression of details”. The absence of unnecessary details in Greek sculpture was not due to conscious eclecticism, but to the fact that such details have no place in one’s mental images.

The mental image or the memory picture is the impression left upon one after seeing a great many objects of the same type. It is in the nature of the Platonic idea, purified and freed from all individual or accidental ingredients. At times it may even be strangely at variance with a particular object of the class to which it belongs. The human memory is a peculiarly uncertain faculty, and in its primitive stage, though quick to respond, very inaccurate. The shape of a square sheet of paper is readily remembered, and so is a pencil or any other uniform and simple object. Our mental image of an animal is less distinct. We remember the head and the legs and the tail, and perhaps the body, if it is a prominent part, as in the case of a dog or a horse; but all these parts are unconnected, and if a child, for instance, is asked to draw a man, he will remember the head and arms and legs, but will not know how to join them together. His mental image of the man as a whole is too indistinct to guide him. In nature the several parts are united in easily flowing curves – they grow together; in our mental image they are simply put together.

This process of putting together is entirely unconscious, causing us little concern unless we are compelled to reproduce it on paper or in stone, and are forced to compare it with the actual objects about us. Professor Löwy[3] cites a remarkable instance of a perverse mental image on the part of the crude Brazilian draughtsmen who were much impressed by the mustaches of the Europeans and represented them as growing on the foreheads instead of on the upper lips. In the mental image the upper lip is unimportant, while the broad stretch of the forehead fills a more prominent place. It is on the forehead, therefore, that the moustache was introduced, despite its being contrary to nature and proven wrong with even the hastiest glance.

It is not necessary, however, to go so far afield in order to realise the peculiar pranks of mental images. Let the reader call to mind pictures of horses, dogs, flies, lizards, and the like. Horses and dogs he will see in profile; lizards and flies from above. If he is shown one of the recent posters of racing horses from above, such a view does not at once agree with his memory image, and requires a special mental effort to be understood, however accurate it may be. The same is true of the picture of a fly in profile or, perhaps, a dog seen from the front. Neither of these pictures immediately conveys to him the idea of the animal represented, though it probably is more like this particular view of the animal than his own distorted mental image.

On general principles our mental images of familiar objects ought to be the more distinct. This is, however, not always the case. When we see an animal the first time we carefully observe it; with every succeeding view we give it less attention, and by and by the most cursory glance satisfies us. Ultimately, we carry away with us a mental image the haziness of which in the lack of details corresponds to the lack of attention we finally bestow upon it. Expressed in drawing it will be far removed from, and little resemble the animal whose mental image, penned through nature, has become so familiar as to cease being of interest. When a primitive draughtsman sketches a wild beast he is apt to show much more individuality than when he is representing his own kind. The features of the Egyptians on ancient Egyptian wall paintings and reliefs are distinctly less characteristic than those of the Keftiu, or Oriental Captives, often introduced, and both fall far short of the excellence with which animals are represented.

No mental image is ever reproduced on paper or stone as it actually is. The very attention bestowed on it in the endeavour to realise it, robs it of much of its spontaneity; and since it is the result of unconsciously observing a great many objects, it will, when consciously expressed, exhibit many gaps and hazy lines of connection, which the artist must fill as best he can.

Another reason why all mental images cannot be accurately reproduced is that the laws of the physical universe to which the objects belong have no binding force in the world of mental images. Löwy cites as an instance of this the fact that the memory picture of a man in profile may, and with primitive people does, contain two eyes. You cannot, however, draw them both in your picture because of the limitation of space, and are therefore compelled to deviate from your mental image.

The“Auxerre Kore”, c. 640-630 B.C.

Limestone, h: 75cm.Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Kore, Ex-voto offered by Nicandré,

Delos Sanctuary, c. 650 B.C. Marble, h: 175cm.

National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

Cleobis and Biton, Ex-voto, Apollo Sanctuary, Delphi, c. 590-580 B.C. Marble, h: 218 and 216 cm.

Archaeological Museum, Delphi.

Kore 671, Acropolis, Athens,

c. 520 B.C. Marble, h: 177cm.

Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Kore 593, Acropolis, Athens,

c. 560-550 B.C. Marble, h: 99.5cm.

Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Kore 685, Acropolis, Athens,

c. 500-490 B.C. Marble, h: 122cm.

Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Such instances compel the primitive artist to turn to nature for information. This he can do in two ways – either by observing more thoughtfully, and thus gaining a clearer mental image, or by actually copying the missing parts from a model. The latter way, natural though it may seem, is not so readily resorted to as the first, probably because it would introduce an entirely different quality into the work – the individual instead of the type. It is, moreover, well-known that children gifted with pencil and clever at drawing are often unable to make an intelligible copy of a definite model.

The primitive artist is the interpreter of his people’s general tendencies. When he for the first time expresses his and their mental images, such copies serve a significant end in the development of the race. If its people are sincere and imbued with a search for truth, the accuracy or inaccuracy of these embodied mental images will be checked by unconscious comparisons with natural objects, resulting in a readjustment of initially incorrect mental images. The new ideas will again be expressed by some later artist, and the process of readjustment will be repeated. This was the case with the Greeks. The period of historic Greek art was short, yet sufficiently long to enable the Greeks to advance to the point where mental images of objects suitable for presentation in sculpture are so delicate that pressing them is almost identical with copying nature.

The development in Greece was diametrically opposed to what took place, for instance, in Egypt or Assyria. The earliest art expressions in these countries were far ahead of the crude attempts by the Greeks. But instead of using them to clarify memory concepts, their people remained satisfied with them, with subsequent generations content to view them as binding prototypes. Egyptian or Assyrian statuary in later times cannot claim to be the genuine expression of those people’s ideals. While we may examine a Greek statue and learn of the moral and intellectual attitude of the Greeks at the time it was made, we cannot do the same with an Egyptian or Assyrian relief – at least not to the same extent. This is also largely true of sculpture in modern times. The modern artist has the entire wealth of ancient and Renaissance sculpture at his disposal, and is often willing to copy or adapt their types, making only such alterations as the tastes of his own time imperatively demand. American sculpture, for instance, beautiful as it is in some of its phases, shows a rapid and most remarkable increase in skill, but can hardly be said to reveal the gradual development of the ideals of the people.

It has so far been tacitly assumed that the skill of the artist at any given time enabled him to accurately present his mental images. This was, however, not always the case with the Greeks. Their unusually spirited mental development was such that the technical skill of the artists could not keep pace with it, and until the autumn days of their art generally fell short of their ideals. As soon as a representational problem was solved, the increasing accuracy of the mental images presented another; and when all the problems of the limited range of subjects first represented had found their solutions, new subjects were urgently clamouring for representation. The end of Greek sculpture may have come when all technical problems were resolved and the people’s mental degeneration made them unwilling to accept the moral and religious views of the new era, leaving them with few worthy ideas to express.

Capitoline Venus, Roman copy after a Greek original by Praxiteles around the 3rd century B.C.

Marble, h: 193cm. Musei Capitolini, Rome.

Imperfection of, or excellence in skill, however, have other influences. Since mental images are the involuntary result of frequent exposure to great objects, they are influenced as well by the numerous statues of men as by men themselves. This is especially true of modern times when Puritanical disregard for the body has created a state of affairs where it is sometimes difficult to form intelligent ideas of the human body except from statues and pictures. Often, nobility of mind and body are closely connected, and since the noblest people are rarely found among professional models; for this reason bodies are rarely represented. Coarseness of some nudes in modern art can perhaps be explained by artists feeling obliged to copy the best models obtainable, instead of forming their own refined mental images through observation of the noblest bodies.

The effect of statues upon the mental images of the Greeks was probably less powerful than it is with us, since the Greeks were more familiar with nude bodies, both male and female. They had, however, infinitely more statues, and could not possibly remain entirely uninfluenced by them.

An artist, therefore, firstly expresses the ideas of his people, and by so doing influences them for better or worse. The next artist endeavouring to express the mental images of his contemporaries finds them no longer the primitive product of a crude observation of nature, but instead a combination of the original conceptions and new ideas. These new ideas are due partly to the impressions received from the first artist’s work and partly to the general change that has taken place in the character of the people, owing to their moral and intellectual advance.

The rapid growth of Greek sculpture is undeniable; the primary aim of the artists, however, seems always to have been the same – to represent truly the clearest mental images of the time.

The Appeal of Greek Sculpture

Even the most extreme type of materialists admits that a world of bare facts and dry bones is uninteresting and unnecessary. Thoughts that come in evening’s stillness are real, and few men faced with a forest’s majestic solitude remain indifferent; they come away awed by greater forces beyond the reach of their eyes. Such observations are as true of one’s most familiar surroundings as of the rare moments in every one’s life. Our friends mean more to us than the mere pleasure we obtain from observation. In fact, we seldom examine them truly. One glance suffices to relate their presence, and after this first glimpse our enjoyment becomes almost entirely psychical.

This does not, however, exclude enjoying the physical pleasure in seeing them, particularly if their body lines glide easily and rhythmically over our eyes. What holds true for friends is also true of lesser-known persons, even strangers. Seeing them means a great deal more than seeing a table or a chair, for these objects generally suggest nothing beyond what is actually seen. No thoughtful person can see an individual without coming – to some extent – in contact with his personality. Thus, a picture provoking admiration for its perfect technique is valuable as a work of art only if it conveys an idea. An object’s external appearance may appeal to us visually, but its spiritual essence must strike our imaginations. This vision is a purely physical faculty; the imagination, a noble acquisition of humanity. Enjoyment of one is not, however, wholly independent of the other, for the intricacies of human nature are such that it is impossible to say where the one begins and the other ends. The artist, therefore, must consider both, and since his appeal to the imagination is made through the senses, he must studiously avoid all friction with them. This is perfectly in keeping with the experience of great poets, who cannot successfully transmit their thoughts unless they refrain from offending the ear by harsh cadences.

Crouching Venus, Roman copy after a Greek original from the 1st-2nd century B.C.

Marble, h: 96cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Statue of Dr. Sombrotidès, Megara,

c. 550 B.C. Marble, h: 119cm.

Archaeological Museum, Syracuse.

Calf Bearer (Moschophoros), Acropolis,

Athens, c. 560 B.C. Marble, h: 165cm.

Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Silenus with the Infant Dionysos,

Hellenistic copy after a Greek original from

the 4thcentury B.C. Marble, h: 190cm.

Musée du Louvre, Paris.

That the Greek sculptors worked along these lines is clear, for many peculiarities of their art find their explanation only if this is understood. The Greeks always had in mind the nobler side of man, although they were well aware that to impress this noble side required a certain sacrifice in gratifying man’s physical nature. A work of art fails to carry its message if unpleasant to look upon. To credit the ancients, on the other hand, with a logical interpretation and knowledge of all the principles which they followed, is a mistake; the most refined people do the proper things unconsciously.

Modern artistic standards vary; the observer’s individuality is often overpowered by the individuality of the artist, and the complexity of modern times has forced claims of simple human nature into the background where it’s almost forgotten. In antiquity these claims were of great importance. Before attempting, therefore, to judge the allowances made to them by the Greeks, it is necessary to see what they are.

Often at the unveiling of commemorative statues one hears comments that the sculptor had done well in capturing the characteristic pose of the dead and that the statue looked just like the person it commemorated; one could almost believe one saw the man himself; in short, the statue was a great work of art. The statue may indeed be a great work of art, but not for these reasons, for most of them are applicable to any fine figure in the Eden Musée[4], where wax policemen guard the entrance and waxen smiths work the bellows.

Few people would be willing to call such figures great works of art. The average wax figure, while it accurately reproduces the material body of a person, disregards his personality. It momentarily tricks vision, and makes no appeal to man’s higher faculties; as a suggestive work of art it fails. If a man wants a physical momento of his friend, he places a statue or a bust of him in his study, not a wax figure. A good portrait is better than a photograph, though the latter is generally a more accurate copy of the material body. Neither the photograph nor the wax figure transmits the spirit of life primarily representing the man. Art seeks the man, with all his thoughts, not a mechanical reproduction of his body’s lines. The sculptor works in stone or bronze, and the questions arise: Does he have the means at his disposal to satisfy the requirements of art? What are these means?

Apollo and Marsyas, statue base,

Mantinea, c. 330-320 B.C. Marble, h: 97cm.

National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

The first question may unhesitatingly be answered in the affirmative; for the Greek sculptors, and some great men after them, have demonstrated the existence of such means. The second question is less readily answered, because the means are not only different for different subjects, and different according to the various standards of the ethnic group, but also so subtle that they can hardly be expressed in words – they must be felt. It is therefore not only impossible, but also perhaps needlessly presumptuous, to enumerate all the means at the disposal of the sculptor – for who would dare to prescribe to the genius of a great artist? However, it may be profitable to point out certain things the Greeks avoided in meeting the claims of an art that appeals to human nature. The near total absence of subjects taken from inanimate nature is one of the most noticeable traits of Greek sculpture. The principle: sculpture ought to represent nothing but living things. Says Ruskin[5]: “You must carve nothing but what has life. “Why?” you probably feel inclined to ask. “Must we refuse every pleasant accessory and picturesque detail and petrify nothing but living creatures?” Even so: I would not assert it on my own authority. It is the Greeks who say this, and be assured whatever they say of sculpture is true!”[6] He and most art teachers let the matter rest there. But this is neither wise nor just. Unless a man sees the correctness of a principle he ought not to accept it, not even on the authority of the Greeks. Fortunately for us it is not difficult to see why the Greeks avoided inanimate matter in sculpture, for the principle which guided them in this respect is at the very foundation of their art.

Since a work of art may be considered nonexistent unless beheld by human eyes, the danger is ever present of having the spectator’s consciousness centred in his purely physical faculty of sight. To avoid this the Greeks made use of certain devices or “conventions,” that satisfied the claims of vision without curtailing the scope given over to the higher human faculties of thought or imagination. Reproducing the mental image of the object rather than the object itself achieved this. Care was taken, however, that the reproduction should be neither so completely like the original as to challenge, after the first momentary deception, immediate comparison, nor so unlike the original that it should fail to bear strong points of resemblance; in both cases eyesight would have rendered this disproportional.

The sculptor, it may be remarked by way of digression, must observe these principles much more carefully than the painter, because painting, which is restricted to two dimensions – whereas all objects of nature have three – does not run the danger of deceiving our vision. Sculpture, representing not only the object’s appearance, but also its bodily form, may easily make such a forceful appeal to vision that it fails to attain its goal.

By representing inanimate objects in corporal form the sculptor must confront practically insurmountable obstacles. Generally speaking, such objects offer little inspiration in appealing to man’s nobler self; thus, their pure and simple form convey importance. But since they are represented in full bodily form, even the slightest deviation from their actual appearance attracts notice – here there is no work of art because there is no appeal to the imagination. On the other hand, the very excellence of a truthful representation challenges the vision to make a comparison – again there is no work of art. Only when living people are represented does the specific character, not its outer form, attract attention. This appeals to vision through the higher mental faculties, for consciously or not, we tend to read character in human bodies; and this cannot be done by the merely exercising vision. For this reason, viewing the statue of a man makes eyesight less consciously active than the imagination. The best art ceases to be an interesting visual object altogether, making its appeal immediately to the imagination. Artists at all times have striven to accomplish this. The realistic reproduction of nature never does it; neatness of workmanship alone is useless in this respect. Like the Greeks, only those paying full attention to the peculiar needs of physical human nature achieve it. Impossible in sculpture – unless living creatures are represented.

Contrast enhances the idea of life. The ancient Greeks, therefore, introduced as accessories lifeless objects into their compositions. Ruskin states the principles governing the use of such secondary subjects: “Nothing must be represented in sculpture external to any living form which does not help to enforce or illustrate the conception of life. Both dress and armour may be made to do this and are constantly so used by the greatest, but, “Ruskin adds, using an instance of modern sculpture, though his inferences are equally true of Greek art,” note that even Joan of Arc’s armour must be only sculptured, if she has it on; it is not the honourableness or beauty of it that are enough, but the direct bearing of it by her body. You might be deeply, even pathetically, interested by looking at a good knight’s dented coat of mail, left in his desolate hall. May you sculpture it where it hangs? No; the helmet for his pillow, if you will – no more.”

But how can such a helmet be sculptured, or how must the armour be treated if the hero has it on? Shall we represent it as accurately as possible? Suppose we do, and suppose the statue we make is of bronze; then there is no reason why the result should not be a second armour so much like the one the hero wore that our vision is deceived into seeing the armour itself. But how about the person that wore it? His bronze statue reproduces the sculptor’s mental image of his personality – it cannot be the man; the quality of the accessory is different from that of the figure itself.

The one is what it appears to be; the other cannot appear to be what it is meant to represent, because the contrast between the real armour and the man’s lifeless form awakens the thought that he is not real. “But,” an objector exclaims, “if the armour shouldn’t be made just like its prototype, the sculptor surely ought not carve it altogether unlike it.” Certainly not; if he did, its being too little like a coat of mail would immediately attract the spectator’s attention, and his ever alert vision would overplay the work’s true purpose.

How fully the Greeks appreciated these details is perhaps best illustrated in the draperies of their statues, which always appear real without being correct. Nobody has yet been able to demonstrate from the statues the accuracy of this theory on ancient costumes gleaned from the study of literary descriptions and vase paintings. The painters often attained a fairly accurate rendering of the garment, the sculptors never. They not only took great liberties with those pieces of drapery they represented, but even omitted entire garments. A statue of Sophokles, now in the Lateran Museum, for instance, is represented as wearing only the outer costume or overcoat, while it is well known from literature that gentlemen never appeared in public in quite so scanty attire. With one or two exceptions, the warriors from the pediments of the temple of Aegina, are completely nude; they have gone into battle with helmets on their heads and shields on their arms, but without a single piece of fabric. The Greeks never entered battle in this way, either at the time the marbles were carved, or at the time the statues commemorate, or at any other time. Such a partial or complete omission of the cloth can hardly be explained as the unconscious reproduction of a mental image; while the actual treatment of the drapery, as it appears, for instance, in the Nike of Paionios or on the Parthenon frieze (Illustration1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12), probably is more or less unconscious. Many modern writers use the word “elimination” in speaking of Greek drapery; but this is a mistake, because elimination implies the studied omission of details, and cannot account either for the omission of entire garments or the unconscious treatment of actually sculptured costumes.

The eclecticism in Greek drapery may be called one of the devices or “conventions” of Greek sculpture, and may serve to prove that such conventions do not hold good for all times. When Greenough[7] carved his large statue of George Washington in the national Capitol, he omitted the drapery on the upper part of the body, obviously with the intention of drawing the observer’s attention away from the dress to the person who wearing it. In this respect he clearly followed the practices of the Greeks, in particular the pattern set by Phidias in his colossal Zeus in Olympia. The Greeks might omit drapery with impunity, for they were as a race intensely fond of the nude. Greenough, imitating them in the face of pronounced racial and religious prejudices against the nude, committed the unpardonable mistake of copying not the spirit of a past art but its accidental expression. Instead of accomplishing his end by omitting the drapery, he achieved the opposite, for the cloth is “conspicuous by its very absence.”

The same considerate spirit which prompted the Greeks to deviate from nature in representing drapery shows itself also in their treatment of rocks, trees, and the like in marble reliefs. Marble is rock, and nothing is easier than to reproduce the rock accurately, so that the result is not only a picture of the rock, but really a second piece of rock. If this had been done, for instance, on the marble base from Mantinea, the contrast between the actual rock and the representation of Apollo sitting on it would have deprived the god of all semblance of reality. Similar observations may be made with the trees on the frieze of the Athena-Nike temple in Athens, or the stepping-stones on the frieze of the Parthenon.

These instances suffice to show the general attitude of the Greek sculptors towards the public. The public – and of course artists belong to the public – are not automatic inspection machines, but rather human beings, complex and inconsistent creatures. Entitled to consideration, they received it at the hands of the ancient artists.

Moreover, the Greeks gladly gave it; to them, making allowances for the frailties of human nature was not an irksome duty but a welcome privilege that enabled them to introduce into their art a human element of great variety and inexhaustible possibilities.

Kouros, Agrigente, c. 500-480 B.C. Marble,

h: 104cm.Archaeological Museum, Agrigente.

The Kritios Boy, Acropolis,

Athens, c. 480-470 B.C. Marble,

h: 116cm. Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Head of a Blond Youth, c. 485 B.C.

Marble, h: 25cm.Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Kore 680, Acropolis, Athens,

c. 530-520 B.C. Marble, h: 114cm.

Acropolis Museum, Athens.

The Artist and his Public

The personal influence of the Greek artists upon their communities was great, although it is not often touched upon in ancient literature. This influence was due to the artists feeling themselves one with the public. They rarely, if ever, believed themselves set apart as a class, distinct from the laymen. Such a view, however, has often since prevailed. When Michelangelo carved the tombs of the Medici and therein gave a mystic expression to his ideas of liberty, these thoughts were to him exclusively his own – too high, too good to be shared by the common populace – and yet they were the very thoughts in which this populace began to delight. When an artist’s genius grapples with the unexpressed phantoms of new ideas, and after patient meditation realises them on canvas or in stone to the extent of transforming the haziness of the notions into appealing clarity, he may indeed be forgiven if he takes a too exalted view of his achievements and believes that he and his fellow-artists are of nobler timbre than the general public.

Such a view is erroneous and contrary observations anyone can make. For instance, it is not rare for two men, under widely different conditions and far apart, to discover an original idea simultaneously; even more often it occurs that several people are concurrently engaged in the solution of identical problems. One might say then, that the idea is the active force, urgently clamouring for expression; the artists – poet, sculptor, painter, sage – are willing tools. The thoughts themselves are products of past and present intellectual life, the artists’ and laymen’s common inheritance. Mistaken is the belief that only the man possessing refined skills of expression can receive this inheritance; on the contrary, he is often the very one who by his neglect of an education and his thoughtless application to manual dexterity forfeits his birthright.

The world of thoughts with which we come in contact today is vastly greater than at any other time. In antiquity an Aristotle could without presumption claim to be master of everything, and even in the sixteenth century of our era Scaliger[8] could enjoy a similar reputation; today this is out of the question for anyone. Thoughts and intelligence representing property of the community have multiplied at such a tremendous rate that no one lifetime suffices to comprehend it all. Coupled with this increase in the world of thoughts, it seems the individual has developed the ability to master them even without finding visible or audible expressions. Ruskin once said he could imagine the time when the human race would have advanced so far that it could realise noble thoughts currently expressed in art without art. Humanity has already made a tremendous step in this direction. Religious thoughts in many denominations are independent of pictorial aids. The Roman Church still clings to them, as does the Lutheran, and to some extent the Protestant Episcopal; but denominations owing their origin to more recent centuries have entirely discarded them. No examples taken from religious practices are altogether fair, because too much sentiment is involved and too little unbiased human nature. But, even after due assumptions, the progress from the Roman Church, conservatively adhering to the traditions of the past, to the modern Protestant churches is too striking not to serve as an illustration that the human race has grown to realise – that is, to possess thoughts never expressed.

Kore 685, Acropolis, Athens,

c. 500-490 B.C. Marble, h: 122cm.

Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Whatever vistas these considerations may open for the future no individual today, and certainly not humanity as a whole, has attained the state of mind prophesied by Ruskin. If true today, this was infinitely more so of the people in Greece in antiquity. Their world of thoughts was simple; even their philosophers, whose teachings are admired today, shared this blessing of comparative simplicity; and the fundamental ideas contained in the great Greek tragedies are far removed from confusing complexity. According to their own ideas, the Greek people were autochthonos – sprung from the soil where they lived – without more than a few centuries of history. We know that the Greeks were mistaken – that beyond the dark middle ages of Greece lay the Mycenaean Age, a long forgotten civilisation of glory and splendour, and that even the Mycenaean Age was conceivably not the first advance in humanity’s progress. In any event, the past was blotted out, its memory erased. Step by step the Greeks had to make their move forward, unaided, just as if they truly had sprung from the soil. No thoughts of distant ancestors had been recorded, and the few fabulous ruins spared from the storms of prehistoric events were mistaken for remnants of a race of giants. The discoveries in Mycenae and on Crete have brought to light objects of art demonstrating a splendidly aesthetic character and an unusually refined power for pleasure. Perhaps the historic Greeks from their distant ancestors, unknown to them, inherited these traits and that this accounts to some degree for the unparalleled and rapid artistic advances that occurred when they again “found their footing.” In any case, each thought expressed became a new idea, and was greeted with that admirable delight accompanying every fresh achievement.