Generally speaking, wood, when it is not covered over with gilding or some other precious material, by reason of its texture and the grain of it, appears too fine a material for works of importance and more appropriate to smaller figures, for which purpose it was frequently used in the Middle Ages, and is still thus utilized nowadays.
(b) Other materials of most importance areivory, associated withgold, foundedbronzeandmarble.
(α) As is well known, Pheidias employed ivory and gold for his masterpieces, such as his Olympian Zeus, and alsofor his famous colossal Athene in the Acropolis of Athens, who carried on her hand an image of Victory, itself being larger than life-size. The nude portions of the body were made out of sheets of ivory, the drapery and mantle from gold plates, which could be removed. This type of workmanship in yellowish ivory and gold dates from a period in which statues were coloured, a kind of representation which steadily approximated to the one colour tone of bronze and marble. Ivory is an extremely pure material, smooth and without the granular character of marble, and, moreover, costly. And among the Athenians the costliness of the statues of their gods was itself of importance. The Pallas at Plataea had merely a superficial gilding, that at Athens solid metal plates. The statues had to be both of colossal size and of the richest material. Quatremère de Quincy has written a masterly work upon these works, upon the "toreutic" of the ancients. "Toreutic"—τορεύειν, τόρευμα—is primarily applicable to figures whose lines are brought out by engraving in metal, or cutting of some kind such as cut stones; one uses the expression, however, to indicate entire works or parts of entire works in metal, which are executed by means of moulds and the founder's art, that is, not by means of engraving, then, still more remotely from the original meaning, of superb figures on earthenware utensils, and finally in the widest sense of mouldings[191]on bronze. Quatremère's researches have particularly been directed to the technical aspect of the execution; he calculates what must have been the size of the plates made of elephants' tusks, and, among other things, how much space, in proportion to the gigantic dimensions of the figure, they would leave covered. From another point of view he is equally concerned to reproduce for us from the sketches, or other evidence[192]we possess from antiquity, a drawing of the seated figure of Zeus, and, most of all, the great chair with its rich decorations of bas-reliefs, and by so doing to give us in every respect some conception of the splendour and perfection of the work.
In the Middle Ages ivory is mainly used for smaller worksof very varied character, such as Christ on the Cross and the Virgin Mary, or yet again for drinking vessels with scenes of hunting and the like, in which cases ivory, on account of its smoothness and hardness, is in many respects preferable to wood.
(β) The material which was most favoured and most widely employed by the ancients was bronze, in the casting of which it attained a success of the highest mastery. Preeminently during the period of Myron and Polycletus it was the prevailing material utilized in statues of deities and other kinds of sculpture. The darker, less defined colour, the sheen, the smoothness of bronze generally, has not reached the abstract formality of the white marble, and it is at the same time warmed. The bronze which the ancients used was partly gold and silver, partly copper, varying considerably in the degrees of its component parts. The so-called bronze of Corinth is, for example, a composition unique of its kind which originated after the burning of Corinth from the almost incredible wealth of this city in statues and vessels of bronze. Mummius had many statues carried off on his ships; and the excellent man was so full of anxiety for their safe deliverance in Rome that he informed the captain that in case of loss he must recreate the same exactly or suffer, such was the threat, heavy punishment. In the founding of bronze the ancients attained an incredible mastery, by aid of which it was possible to them to cast it securely despite its extreme thinness. It is possible to regard such a feat as merely a matter of technical dexterity which is unconnected with true art. Every artist, however, works upon a certain material, and it is an essential quality of genius to be complete master of the same. Dexterity and adaptability in matters which concern the technique and instruments of its work constitute one distinct aspect of genius. On account of this virtuosity in the founder's art a work of sculpture in this medium involved a less expensive process, and was in the reach of a larger number than the chiselling out of marble statues. A second advantage, which the ancients were able to attain in casting their work in bronze, was the purity thereby acquired, which they carried so far that their bronze statues did not require further enchasening, and consequently lost nothing of the finer marksof expression, which is almost inevitable where such a process is necessary. If we consider, then, the extraordinary number of works of art, which originated in this facility and mastery over technical matters, we cannot fail to be astonished and admit that the artistic sense for sculpture is a distinctive impulse and instinct of spirit, which can only, that is, in so overwhelming a degree, appear in one period and one people. In the whole of the Prussian State, for example, at the present time we can easily reckon up the number of bronze statues, the single bronze door of a church we find in Gnesen, and, with the exception of the standing figures of Blücher at Berlin and Breslau, and Luther at Wittenburg, we have merely a few more in Königsberg and Düsseldorf[193].
The very various tone and the infinite adaptability to form and fusibility of this material, which may accommodate itself to every kind of representation, gives to sculpture the pass into every conceivable variety of production, and makes its sensitive material suitable for a host of conceits, prettinesses, utensils, ornaments, and innocent trifles of all kinds. Marble, on the other hand, is limited in its suitability for the depicting of objects and their size; it is, for instance, possible to execute bas-reliefs in it of a certain size on urns and vases. It is, however, unsuitable for smaller objects. In the case of bronze, however, which is not merely cast into specific forms, but can also be beaten into shape and informed by the engraver's tools, there is hardly any type or size of representation which it does not command. We may here, by way of more definite example, instance the case of coinage minting. In this art, too, we find that the ancients executed masterworks of beauty, albeit in the technical aspect of the mere mintage[194]they stand as yet far behind our present elaboration of all that is mechanical in the design. The coins in fact were not really minted, but beaten but of pieces of metal closely resembling a globular form. This department of the art attained its culmination in the time of Alexander. The coins of the Roman Empire have already deteriorated. In our own time Napoleon endeavoured to revive the beauty of antique work in his medals andcoinage, and they are of great excellence. In other states, however, the mere worth of the metal and accurate weight is mainly important in the mintage of coin.
(γ) The last kind of material exceptionally favourable to sculpture is stone, which possesses independently the external aspect of consistency and permanence. The Egyptians long before chiselled out their sculptured colossi with a labour that spared no pains from the hardest granite, syenite and basalt.Marbleis, however, most directly, as a material, in harmony with the aims of sculpture through its soft purity, whiteness, no less than by the absence of definite colour and the mildness of its sheen, and in particular possesses, by virtue of its granular texture and the soft interfusion of light which it carries, a great advantage over the chalk-like dead whiteness of gypsum, which is too bright, and easily kills with its glare the finer shadows. We find a distinct preference given to marble, only at a later epoch of the Greek school, that is during the period of Praxiteles and Scopas, who executed their most famous works in marble. Pheidias no doubt worked in marble, but for the most part only in the execution of head, hands, and feet. Myron and Polycletus mainly made use of bronze. Praxiteles and Scopas, on the other hand, appear to have sought to remove from sculpture that feature which is alien to its main principle, namely colour. No doubt it is undeniable that the beauty of the ideal of sculpture is capable of being embodied in bronze as in marble, with no diminution whatever of its purity. When, however, as was the case with Praxiteles and Scopas, art begins to approach the softer forms of grace and charm of figure, the marble asserts itself as the more congenial medium. For marble "encourages, by virtue of the transparency of its surface, a softness of outline, its gentle articulation[195]and mild conjunction; add to this that the tender and artificial elaboration of consummate work always appears more clearly on the soft whiteness of stone than on bronze, however noble it may be, which, in proportion as the transition of green is beautifully gradated, makes the lustres and the reflections all the more disturbing to theeffect of repose[196]." For the same reason the careful attention, which at this period was paid to effects of light and shade, whose nuances and gradations are more clearly marked by marble than by bronze, was a further reason why stone should be preferred to metal.
(c) In conclusion we ought to associate with the above more important kinds of materialprecious stonesandglass.
The ancient gems, cameos and pastes are invaluable. They repeat in fact on the smallest scale, yet with consummate finish, the entire survey of sculpture, from the simple figure of a god, through all the varied forms of grouping to every possible kind of conceit in dainty delight and prettiness. Winckelmann, however, observes with regard to the Stosch collection[197]: "It was while looking at this that I was made aware of a truth, which afterwards became to me of great value in elucidating monuments, very difficult to understand; and the truth is this, that on cut stones, no less than on imposing works of sculpture, we very rarely come across events which took place after the Trojan war, or after the return of Odysseus to Ithaca, if we only except the one case of the Heracleidae and the descendants of Hercules; for in this latter case the limits of history and fable still overlap, and fable is the main subject of these artists. Only one example of the tale of the Heracleidae, however, is known to me personally." As for gems, the genuine and most consummately executed figures are of the greatest beauty, fine as the work of organic Nature, and may be inspected through a magnifying glass without any loss to the purity of their delineation. I refer to this fact in proof that the technique of art in such cases is almost an art of intuition; the fineness is such that the artist is unable as the sculptor is to follow the work with his eyes, but is rather compelled tofeel afterit. He holds the stone which is made fast on wax against tiny sharp wheels which are made to spin by means of a flying-wheel, and in this way cuts out the forms. By this process what we have is a kind of instinctive sense, which takes in and directs so consummately the conception, the intention of line and drawing, that we can almost fancy ourselves to have before us in these stones, when one sees them properly illuminated, a relief work.
The work on cameos is to be contrasted with the above. These represent figures finely cut in out of the stone. The onyx was particularly utilized as material for this kind of work. In dealing with these, the ancients were expert in setting off to advantage and with taste the various strata, in particular the white and yellow-brown. Aemilius Paulus had a number of such stones and other trinkets carried to Rome.
In the representations which were depicted upon all this varied material the Greek artists adapted as the basis of their work no situations which were poetically conceived by themselves, but selected their subject-matter invariably, if we only except examples of Bacchanals and dances, from myths about the gods and sagas. Even in the case of urns and representations of events relative to deceased persons they had definite facts before them, which were associated with the individual, whom it was thought right to honour by reason of his decease. The direct allegory, in fact, does not belong to the genuine Ideal, but only becomes perspicuous in art's later development.
We have hitherto regarded sculpture as the most adequate expression of the classical Ideal. The Ideal, however, has not merely an intrinsic forward development on its own account, by virtue of which it approximates to that which it is in virtue of its notion, and by doing so equally begins a forward movement beyond this absolute harmony with its own essential nature. Quite apart from this, as we have already seen in the second main division of this work during our review of the particular types of art as a process, it contains, putting on one side its mode of presentation under the symbolical type, a certain aspect pre-supposed, which it is bound to pass beyond in order generally to establish itself as Ideal, and moreover a further type of art, that is the romantic, from which it will once more pass away. Both types of art, the symbolical no less than the romantic, likewise seize upon the human figure as an element of their presentment, whose spatial outlines they adhere to, andconsequently set forth as sculpture sets them forth. We have, therefore, when it is a question of drawing attention to the historical-development, not only to speak of Greek and Roman sculpture, but also Oriental and Christian. It was, however, the Egyptian people pre-eminently among all, among whom thesymbolicaltype sums up the fundamental character of their art-production, who first began to associate with their deities the human figure as it emerges from a mode of existence that is purely natural, and for this reason it is mainly among them that we meet too with sculpture, inasmuch as they gave as a rule to their general outlook an artistic existence in that which was simply material. The sculpture of Christianity is of wider range and richer development. We do not merely refer here to its uniquely romantic character in the Middle Ages, but also to that further elaboration, in which we find it made an effort once again to approach more closely the principle of the classical Ideal, and establish that type most specifically consonant with sculpture.
I will in concluding the present section of my work in its entirety, and following the above general observations, add a few words,first, upon Egyptian sculpture as contrasted with the Greek as the introductory stage of the true Ideal.
The characteristic elaboration ofGreeksculpture makes oursecondstage, which closes withRomansculpture. On the present occasion what will mainly concern us will be to survey the stage which precedes the really ideal mode of presentation, because we have already in our second chapter considered at length ideal sculpture.
Thirdly, we have merely left us to indicate briefly the principle of Christian sculpture. I can only undertake in this place to refer to it in the most general terms.
(a) When we have the intention to investigate on the soil of Greece the classical art of sculpture from thehistoricalstandpoint, we find ourselves already confronted with Egyptian art in the form of sculpture before we have arrived at our object; and we must add not merely is this so in regard to great works which bear witness to the highest technique and elaboration in an entirely unique artistic style, but as the point of departure and source for the forms of Greek plastic art. That this last result on the ground ofhistorical fact amounts also to an external contact, an acceptance and an instruction to which Greek artists submitted, this must be left to the history of art to establish, whether it be in reference to the significance of figures of deities represented from the field of mythology, or to the particular methods of artistic treatment. The association between Greek and Egyptian ideas of the gods is a conviction set forth with proofs by Herodotus. Creuzer is of the view that we find this external association of these arts most clearly demonstrated on coins, and he lays exceptional stress on ancient Attic examples. He has showed me one in his own possession in which without question the face, a profile possessed quite the outline of the physiognomy of Egyptian figures in every respect[198]. We must, however, here leave this purely historical aspect to stand on its own merits, and confine ourselves to the inquiry whether apart from it a more ideal and necessary bond of connection cannot be established. This bond of intrinsic causality we have already adverted to above. It is necessary that the art which is incomplete must precede the complete form of art, the Ideal, by means of the negation of which, that is by the stripping off of that aspect which adheres to it as a defect, the Ideal is first realized. In this respect unquestionably classical art is abecomingor a process, which, however, apart from it must necessarily possess an independent existence, inasmuch asquâclassical it must leave all deficiency, all the mere becoming behind it, and be essentially rounded in "completion." This process as such consists in this, that the form of the presentation first begins to run counter to the Ideal, and yet remains incapable of an ideal grasp, belonging as it does to the symbolical synthesis, which is unable to embody in union the universal aspect of the significance, and the individual embodiment as it appears to sense. ThatEgyptiansculpture possesses such a fundamental character, is the single point that I will now briefly touch upon.
(α) The primary fact that calls for attention is the deficiency we find here in ideal and creativespontaneity, despite the greatest technical perfection. The source of works of Greek sculpture is the vitality and freedom of the imagination, which builds up individual figures from the religiousideas which are prevalent, and in the individuality of this its production makes an actual fact of its own ideal outlook and classical perfection. The Egyptian figures of deities, on the contrary, receive an inherited[199]type. As Plato long ago observes[200], the representations were long before fixed by the priestly caste, and it was neither permitted to painter nor any master of sculpture to introduce novelty, nor indeed to invent anything at all, but to accept instead what was already among them and traditional; neither is such permission conceded now. We consequently find that what was made and fashioned, it may be myriads of years before (to allow oneself a hyperbolical expression for the great number that is actual verity), is neither more beautiful nor more ugly than the work of to-day. The circumstance must also be associated with this scholastic accuracy, that in Egypt, as appears clear from Herodotus[201], artists did not enjoy the same respect as other citizens, but were forced with their children to defer to all who were not engaged in artistic work. Add to this art among the people was not followed according to natural inclination; the institution of caste was paramount, and the son walked after his father, not merely in the matter of profession, but also in the way in which he made himself efficient in his duties and his art. One man simply placed his feet in the steps of another, so that, as Winckelmann has already observed[202], "Not a soul appears to have left behind him a footmark, which he can appropriate as his own." Consequently art, when fully confronted with this enforced serfdom of Spirit—in conjunction with which the mobility of free and artistic genius, in other words, not the mere impulse after external honour and reward, but the more elevated impulse to beartist, is banished—maintained itself simply as the mere craftsman working in a purely mechanical and abstract way according to forms and rules ready to hand, rather than with the vision of the artist of his own individuality in his work, viewed in this way as his own unique creation.
(β) Coming now in thesecondplace to the actualworks of art, here, too, we may borrow from Winckelmann, whose descriptions attest once more his exceptional acuteness of observation and distinction, and whose account of the character of Egyptian sculpture is in its main lines as follows[203].
Speaking generally we may say that both grace and vitality, which are the result of the genuine sweep and balance of organic line, are absent from the entire figure and its detailed parts; the outlines are straight or in lines that show less deviation from it, the pose appears constrained and stiff, the feet are thrust close together, and in cases of figures in the upright position where one foot is placed before the other, both point in the same direction instead of having the toes turned outwards. In the same way, in masculine figures, the arms hang down straight and glued to the body. Further, the hands, such is Winckelmann's view, are shaped much as we find them in men who possess hands not badly shaped originally, but deteriorated and neglected; feet, on the other hand, are too flat and spread out, the toes are of equal length and the little toe is neither crooked nor curved inwards: in other respects hands, nails, and toes are not badly shaped, although neither the joints of fingers nor toes are indicated. And similarly we may say of all the rest of the nude figure the muscles and bones are but slightly indicated, and the nerves and veins not at all. In short, so far as detail is concerned, despite the laborious and able execution, just that aspect of the elaboration is absent which alone communicates to the figure its true animation and vitality. The knees, however, bones, and elbows are traceable in relief, as we find them in Nature. Masculine figures are conspicuous for their exceptionally narrow waist above the hips. The backs of figures, on account of their position against columns and their being sculptured from one block with them, are not visible.
Together with this lack of mobility, which is not entirely due to the technical inferiority of the artists, but must be regarded as a result of their primitive conception of the figures of deities and their mysterious repose, is nearly associated the absence of any true situation and any sort or kind of action, which are asserted in sculpture by means ofthe position and motion of the hands and the demeanour and expression of delineation. No doubt we do find among Egyptian representations on obelisks and walls many figures in movement, but these are purely reliefs and are for the most part painted.
To add a few more examples of even more intimate detail, the eyes are not deeply set as in the Greek ideal, but are almost on a level with the forehead; they are flattened and extended obliquely. The eye-brows, eyelids, and rims of the lips are mainly suggested by the graver's lines, or the brows are indicated by a stroke in relief, which extends as far as the temples and is at that point cut off angular wise. What we above all find wanting here is the projection of the forehead, and along with this, together with uncommonly high placed ears and arched noses, as is the rule with vulgar natures, we have the retreating form of cheekbones, which in contrast to other parts are strongly indicated and emphasized, whereas the chin is always retiring and small; the rigidly closed mouth, too, draws its corners in an outward rather than an under-ward direction, and the lips appear to be separated from each other by a mere slit. Speaking generally, then, such figures are not only wanting in freedom and vitality, but more than anything else the head fails to show us the expression of spiritual significance; the animal aspect is the prevailing one, and Spirit is not as yet suffered to appear in its self-poise and independence.
The execution ofanimalfigures is, on the contrary, according to the same authority, carried through with much knowledge and an exquisite variety of gently gradated outlines and of parts that flow one into the other without a break. And if in the human figures spiritual life is not as yet liberated from the animal type and the interfusion of the Ideal with what is sensuous and of Nature on a new and free model is absent, yet we find here that the specifically symbolical significance of the human no less than the animal figures is directly expressed by means of sculpture in these embodiments of forms, in which human and animal shapes pass into one mysterious union.
(γ) Consequently the works of art, which carry on their face this character, remain at the stage where the breach between significance and form is not yet bridged over. Forsuch a stage significance is still of main importance, and what is aimed at is rather the conception of that in its general aspect, than the vitalization of any one individual figure and the artistic enjoyment derived from such presentment. Sculpture proceeds here from the genius of an entire people, about which we may on the one hand affirm, that it has in the first instance arrived at the point where the need ofimaginativeconception is disclosed; and it is satisfied to find that indicated in the work of art, which is present in the conception, and here of course is a conception which isreligious.We are not therefore entitled, taking into consideration the great strides they have made in laborious activity upon and actual perfection in technical execution, to call the Egyptians uneducated in their sculpture merely on the ground that, despite all this, they did not as yet in great measure seek to attach truth, vitality, and beauty to their results, by virtue of which qualities the free work of art receives a soul. Doubtless from another point of view the Egyptians did advance beyond the mere idea and its necessary demand. They sought further to envisage and embody the same in human and animal forms, nay, they knew how to comprehend and set forth the forms, which they reproduced, clearly, without distortion and in their just relations. They failed, however, to impart to them the breath of vitality, which the human form in its natural state already possesses, and to infuse with them that more exalted life, by virtue of which an active and fluent motion of spirit could be expressed in a created image that was adequate to its significance. Their works rather attest a seriousness that is entirely lifeless, an unsolved riddle, so that the configuration does not so much embody their own individual ideality as permit us to surmise a further significance which is still alien to it. I will here only adduce one example, namely, the frequently recurring figure of Isis, holding Horus on her knees. Here we have, so far as externals are concerned, the same subject-matter that we meet with in Christian art as the Madonna and her Child. In the symmetrical, straight-lined, and immovable pose of the Egyptian example we discover, to quote a recent description[204], "neither a mother, nor achild; there is no trace of affection, smile, or endearment, in a word there is no real expression at all. Tranquil, unperturbed, and immovable is this divine mother, who suckles her divine babe; or rather we have here neither goddess nor mother, nor son, nor god. It is simply the sensuous sign of a thought, which is capable of no result and no passion; it is not the genuine presentation of a real action, still less the just expression of a natural emotion."
And it is precisely this which constitutes the breach between signification and determinate being, which creates the absence of figurative expression in the artistic results of the Egyptian people. Their ideality or spiritual sense is still so imbruted, that it has no imperative desire to possess the precision bound up in a true and vital representation carried through with detailed accuracy, to which the onlooker has nothing to add, but may simply surrender himself to the attitude of reception and translation, because everything is already a gift of the artist. We must have a more lofty feeling of the individual's self-respect aroused than the Egyptians possessed, before we cease to be content with the indefinite and superficial features of art, and make valid in its products a claim to reason, science, motion, expression, soul, and beauty.
(b) We find this artistic self-consciousness, so far as sculpture is concerned, first wholly alive among the Greeks. By its presence all the defects of the Egyptian phase of art vanish. Yet in this further development we do not have to make a wide leap from the imperfections of a type of sculpture still symbolical to the perfected result of the classical Ideal. Rather the Ideal has, in its own distinctive province—I have noticed this more than once—although lifted to a higher range, to remove the defects whereby in the first instance its onward path of perfection is obstructed.
(α) I will here very briefly refer toAeginetanand ancientEtruscanworks of art as examples of such beginnings within the sphere itself of classical art. Both these stages, or rather styles, already pass beyond that point of view, which is satisfied, as was the case with Egypt, in repeating forms, we will not say absolutely opposed to Nature, but at least forms that are lifeless, precisely as they have been received from others, and is further content to place before theimagination a figure, from which the same can abstract its own religious content and recover the same for memory, without, however, attempting to work it out under a mode, by virtue of which the work is made apparent as the individual conception and vitality of the artist himself.
But along with this and to the same degree this preliminary stage of ideal art fails as yet to force its way entirely to the true classical ground, and this, first, because it is still clearly constrained within the bonds of the type and therewith the lifeless; secondly, because though it makes an advance in the direction of vitality and motion, yet in the first instance all that it attains to is the vitality of what is wholly ofNature, rather than that beauty, whose animation is Spirit's own gift, and which manifests the life Spirit inseparably conjoint within the living presentment of its natural form, accepting the individual modifications of this fully completed union with equal impartiality from present vision of actual fact and the free creation of genius. It is only in recent times that we have obtained a more detailed knowledge of Aeginetan works of art, over which it has been a matter of controversy, whether they belonged to Greek art or no. In considering their artistic quality, as representations, we must at once make an essential distinction between the head and the rest of the body. The whole of the body, if we except the head, attests the most faithful apprehension and imitation of Nature. Even accidental features of the skin are copied and excellently executed with an extraordinary manipulation of the marble's surface; the muscles are set forth in full relief and the skeleton framework of the body well indicated; the figures are thickset in their severity of line[205], but are reflected with such knowledge of the human organism, that they appear alive to a limit of actual deception, ay, to an extent, so Wagner assures us[206], that we are almost scared at the sight and hardly like to touch them.
On the other hand, in the execution of heads all attempt to represent Nature is abandoned. One uniform design offace is throughout apparent in all the heads despite every divergence of action, character, and situation; the noses are pointed; the forehead is still the retreating type, which fails to rise up straight and with freedom; the ears are set high in the head; the long slit eyes are flat and oblique; the closed mouth ends in corners which are pursed outwards; the cheeks are stretched flat-shaped; the chin, however, is strong and angular[207]. Of a similar uniformity is the form of the hair and the fall of the drapery, in which symmetry, a principle which is also uniquely conspicuous in the pose and groupings, and second to that, a peculiar kind of exquisiteness are the prevailing characteristics. This uniformity has been in part imputed to a lack of the sense of beauty in seizing national traits, and in part traced to the fact that reverence for the ancient traditions of an art still immature has fettered the hands of the artists. An artist, however, whose life is that of his personality, and who lives in his work, does not suffer his hands to be thus shackled; consequently we can only explain this type of work, associated as it is with great ability in other respects, by assuming some bondage of spirit, as yet not wholly conscious of its freedom and independence of its creative powers.
The pose of these figures is of the same kind of uniformity, not so much a quality of stiffness as uncouthness, lack of enthusiasm, and in a measure, where we have the attitudes of warriors, resembling what we sometimes find from artisans at their trade, such as the rough work of joiners with the plane[208].
The net result, which we gather from the above description, we may affirm to be that, however interesting they may be for the history of art, what is wanting in such works of art, in the conflict they disclose between tradition and the imitation of Nature, isspiritualanimation. For we must remember that, in accordance with what I have already explained in the second chapter of this part of my work, spiritual significance is exclusively expressed in the countenance and the pose of the figure. The other parts of the body no doubt indicate natural distinctions of soul, sex,and age, but what is spiritual in the full sense can only be reflected by the general pose. But it is precisely the traits of countenance and the posture which in Aeginetan sculpture is the relatively spiritless.
TheEtruscanworks of art, that is, such whose genuineness is fully authenticated by inscription, display the same imitation of Nature in a yet higher degree; they are, however, freer in their pose and facial characteristics, and, in fact, some of them approximate closely to the portrait. Winckelmann, for example[209], mentions the statue of a man which appears to be simply a portrait, though it would also appear to date from a later period of art. It is a man of life-size, representing some kind of orator, a magisterial, worthy sort of person. It is executed with an extraordinary spontaneity and naturalness both of pose and expression. Remarkable and significant it would indeed be, if we did not recollect that on Roman soil it is not the Ideal but actual and prosaic natural fact which is from the first at home.
(β) In thesecondplace trulyidealsculpture, in order to reach the highest point of classical art, has above all, to abandon the mere type and the respect for what is traditional, and to give free scope to the principle of spontaneity in artistic production. It is alone possible to a freedom of this kind entirely to incorporate the significance in its generality in the individual presentment of the form; or, from another point of view, to elevate the sensuous forms to the high level of a true expression of their spiritual import. Only after doing this do we find the rigid and inflexible aspect which is native to the origins of the more ancient art, no less than the emphatic prominence of the significance over the individuality, by means of which the content ought to be expressed, liberated as that vital creation, in which the bodily forms also on their part equally lose the abstract uniformity of a traditional, character, and an illusive realism, and by doing so move in the direction of the classical individuality, which quite as much makes, vital the universality of the form in the particularity of its object as, on the other hand, it makes the sensuousness and actuality of the same throughout interfused with the expression of a soul'sinspiration[210]. A vitalization of this type affects not only the form, but also the pose, movement, drapery, grouping, in short every aspect of the sculptured figure to which I have already drawn attention. What here communicates unity are these two principles of universality and individualization. They have, however, not merely to be brought into harmony in respect to the spiritual content, but also in relation to the material form, before they can be participant in the indissoluble association which is the classical type in its full flavour. This identity, however, has itself a series of stages. In other words, under one extreme we find that the Ideal still somewhat inclines to the aspect ofloftinessand severity, which it is true does not deprive the individual object of its living impulse and movement, yet does tend to concentrate it more securely under the lordship of the general type. At the other extreme we find that the universal aspect more and more tends to dissolve in the individual; and while it pays the penalty for doing so in loss of depth it can only replace this loss by further elaboration of this sensuous individuality. Consequently it descends from the heights to the lower levels of that whichgives pleasure, is exquisite, blithesome, and displays the charm which flatters. Between these two there is afurtherphase, one, namely, which carries forward the severity of the first to increased individualization, without reaching that point where mere charm of aspect is held to be the supreme object.
(γ)Thirdly, in the art ofRomewe have indications of the dissolution of classical sculpture. In this art it is no longer upon the true Ideal that the entire conception and execution depends. The poetry inherent in the vital action of Spirit, the breath and nobility of the soul apparent in the essentially perfected presentment, these peculiarly emphasized excellences of Greek plastic art disappear, and give place, as a rule, to a preference for portraiture studies. And this insistence on realistic truth in art is carried out in all possible modifications. Notwithstanding, this Roman sculpture maintains so lofty a position in this its own province, that it is only in so far as it withdraws from that which brings a work of art to its full perfection, in other words,the poetry of the Ideal in the true sense of the word, that it essentially falls behind Greek art.
(c) Fixing now our attention onChristiansculpture we shall find that the principle of artistic conception and its mode of embodiment is from the commencement one that does not so directly commend itself to the material and forms of sculpture as we find to be the case in the classical Ideal of the Greek imagination and art. The romantic Ideal in short is essentially concerned, as we discovered in the second portion of this work, with a personal withdrawal of the self into its own realm from the external world, with a self-absorbed individuality, which no doubt possesses its external reflection, but which permits this external appearance to issue independently from it in its aspect of particularity, without enforcing a fusion between it and its ideal and spiritual self. Pain, torture of body and soul, martyrdom and penance, death and resurrection, the personality of the individual soul, inner life, love, and emotional life in general—this characteristic content of the romantic imagination, in a religious sense, is no object, for which the external form taken simply for what it is in its spatial entirety, and the material which belongs to it in its more sensuous existence unrelated to ideality, can supply either a form that is wholly relevant to it, or one similarly congruent with it. It is therefore not in romantic art sculpture contributes the fundamental type and the affiliating quality of membership in a system[211]to all the other arts as in Greece, but yields the palm in this respect to painting and music, as arts more adequate to express the life of the soul, distinct from the external world of particularity which is withdrawn from it. No doubt we find also in Christian art repeated examples of sculpture in wood, marble, bronze, and both silver and gold work, examples of the greatest excellence. Yet for all that sculpture is not here the art which, as in Greek art, is most fitted to reveal the Divine image. Religious romantic sculpture, on the contrary, is to a larger extent than in the case of the Greek, an embellishment of architecture. The saints are placed as a rule in the niches of towers andbuttresses, or at the entrance doors. Likewise the birth, baptism, the histories of the passion and resurrection, and many other incidents in the life of Christ, the day of Judgment and so forth, accommodate themselves naturally by the multiplicity of their subject-matter to reliefs over church doors, on church walls, and stalls in the choir, and readily approximate to the character of arabesques. All such sculpture contains, for the reason that it is the life of the soul which is herein pre-eminently expressed, characteristics suggestive of the painter's art in a higher degree than is permitted in the plastic of ideal sculpture. And from another point of view, for the same reason, such a sculpture seizes more readily upon aspects of ordinary life, and therewith inclines to portraiture, which, as in the case of painting, it is quite prepared to associate with religious representations. The goose-seller, for example, in the Nürnberg marketplace, which is highly prized by Goethe and Meyer, is an ordinary rustic of very realistic appearance in bronze (it would be impossible in marble), who carries a goose under either arm to market. There are, too, the many sculptured figures, which we find upon the St. Sebaldus Church and on many other churches and buildings, especially dating from the period previous to Peter Vischer, and which in their representation of religious subjects such as the Passion, make clear to us with great vividness this particular type of individualized form, expression, mien and attitude, more particularly in their reflection of every degree of sorrow.
As a rule, then, romantic sculpture, which has deviated only too frequently into every kind of confusion, remains most loyal to the genuine principle of plastic art in those cases where it approaches most nearly the Greek, and either is concerned to treat in the mode of sculpture ancient subject-matter, much as the ancients would have done, or to model the standing figures of heroes and kings, and portraits, with an intention to imitate the antique. This is exceptionally the case nowadays. Much of the most excellent work, however, has been accomplished by sculpture, even in the religious field. It is only necessary here to mention the name of Michelangelo. We can hardly admire sufficiently his dead Christ[212], of which we have aplaster cast in our Royal Museum. The authenticity of the sculptured figure of the Madonna in the Frauenkirche at Bruges, a consummate work, is disputed by certain critics. Speaking for myself, nothing has ever more impressed me than the tomb of the Count of Nassau at Breda[213]. The Count reposes with his lady, life-size figures both in alabaster, on a slab of black marble. At the angles of this are placed Regulus, Hannibal, Caesar, and a Roman warrior in a bowing posture, and they support above their heads a black slab similar to the one beneath. Could anything be more interesting than to see a character such as that of Caesar placed before our eyes by Michelangelo. Even when dealing with religious subjects the genius, the power of imagination, the force, thoroughness, boldness, in short all the extraordinary resources of this master tended, in the characteristic production of his art, to combine the plastic principle of the ancients with the type of intimate soul-life which we find in romantic art. But as we have seen, the direction as a rule of the Christian emotion, where the religious point of view and idea are paramount, is not towards the classical form of ideality, which primarily and with highest results is the determinant factor of its sculpture.
From this point we may now fix the transition from sculpture to another principle of artistic apprehension and presentment, which requires for its realization another sensuous material. In classical sculpture it was the objective andsubstantiveindividuality in its human shape, which constituted the vital core, and the human form was placed thereby at such a lofty level, that it was in fact retained in its abstract simplicity as the beauty of form, and as such converted to the Divine image. Under such a one-sided aspect of content and representation man is not fully himself in hisconcrete humanity.The anthropomorphism of art remains in its incomplete state in ancient sculpture. For that which fails us here is humanity in itsobjective universality, a universality which we identify at the same time with the principle ofabsolute personality, quite as much as that aspect of it which in common parlance is called human, inother words the phase ofsubjective singularity, human weakness, contingency, caprice, immediate sense life, passion, and so forth, a phase or factor which must be taken up into that universality in order that theentire individuality, the subject of conscious life, that is, in its entire range, and in the infinite compass of its reality, may appear as the vital principle both of the mode of presentment and its content.
In classical sculpture one of these phasal aspects, that is the human from the side of immediate Nature, is in part only brought before us in animals, quasi-animals, fauns and the like, without being reflected back again into the personal life of soul, and stated as a negation of that; and also in some measure this type of sculpture only accepts the factor of particularity, only directs its interest to external things in thepleasing style, in the countless sallies of delight and conceits, in which the antique plastic lives and moves. Owing to this we wholly fail to meet here the profundity and infinity which lies at the root of man's personal life, that inmost reconciliation of Spirit with the Absolute, that ideal union of humanity with the humanity of God. No doubt Christian sculpture is the instrument which makes visible the content which here enters the domain of art more consonant with the above disregarded principle. But it is precisely its modes of art's embodiment which expose to us the fact that sculpture is insufficient for such a content, that other modes of art will infallibly arise able to reach in very truth the mark which sculpture failed in its work to achieve. We may collectively unite these new arts under the title of theromantic arts.They are indeed the modes most adequate to express the romantic type of art.