CHAPTER II.
ART.
Architectureis the metaphysics of the fine arts, and should be made the basis of all researches in this department, since it is the oldest and bears the most comprehensive type. It teems with the oracular inscriptions of entombed empires, and either affords information where other testimonies are silent, or confirms the facts which more dubious history asserts. Within its ruined temples yet linger the echoes of cycles long since departed, and which symbolized on their track the mightiest impulses of emulative nations in those monuments which inventive genius, coalescing with constructive skill, stamped with the attractions of beauty and strength.
Egyptian civilization was thoroughly exclusive, and possessed no disposition to diffuse itself. On the contrary, the Indo-Germanic race rapidly assimilated surrounding nations to itself, and with that energetic spirit of propagandism which was its primary element, made the reservoir of its accumulated worth the fountain of all subsequent culture. The great Surya people of northern India are supposed to be the original Cyclopœans who reared the gloomy grandeur of Egyptian Thebes, and the magnificence of Solomon's temple, who constructed the Catabothra of Bœotia, drained the valleys of Thessaly, constructed the canals of Ceylon, and left the venerable walls of Mycenæ on their westward course.
The monuments of the East attest the unreasoning submission of thousands to despotic power, and teem with the reminiscences of gloomy superstition, but both in outline and execution, the spirit of the beautiful is wanting. Vestiges of Assyria, like an earlier Pompeii, have lately been disinterred, and we are permitted to look upon, perhaps, the identical figures on which the prophets gazed,and which so moved Aholibah, when "she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girdled with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity." Ezek. xxiii. 14, 15. Persian art, judging from what has recently been brought to light, combined much of Egypt and Assyria in its manner. The types of wisdom and power, and even the Persian alphabet, were of Assyrian character.
The temple which the monarch of Israel dedicated, and his devotion enriched, owed its artistic attractions to Tyrian skill. The descriptions of these preserved in the archives of Judea, clearly vindicate the justness of Homer's representations respecting the precious metals of the East, and the progress there made in ornamental art. Even females could divide the prey: "To Sisera, a prey of colors of needle work on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil." Judg. v. 30. Of such, the treasury of Priam was replenished, and Sidonian artists were not less expert. Helen embroiders a picture of a battle between the Greeks and Trojans; Andromache transfers flowers to a transparent vail; and Penelope weaves a web of pensive beauty, honorable to the hand of filial piety, to grace the funeral of Laertes. Many evidences demonstrate that the whole of Greece, from the era of the supposed godships of Poseidon and Zeus, down to the close of the Trojan war, was Indian not only in language and religion, but in all the arts of war and peace.
The discovery and use of metals hold the first place in the history of human progress, and in the momentous origin of the murderous sword, we have the first of inventions. The fratricide Cain fled to central Asia, the cradle of ambitious conquest, and there hereditary classes, trades, and arts arose. Thence descended eastward, the nomadic tribes who still wander amid the vast remains of the primitive mining operations of the oriental world. From the more amiable Seth, the patriarchs of peace emigrated in another direction to people cities, foster science, promote writing, and transmit sacred traditions on durable monuments of stone. The struggle of contrasted races is the leading subject of all history, and its primary development lies between the passion shown by one forwar, and by the other for more peaceful arts. Moab, Ammon, and Bashan, the giants of barbarism, have ever moved westward in advance of the vanguard of civilization, and been vanquished thereby.
The infancy of Greek art was the infancy of a Hercules, who strangled serpents in his cradle. However superior as to intrinsic worth, it must be acknowledged to be an offspring of Egypt. As we have seen in western literature, a kind of hereditary lineage connects it with the East, and this is attested by evidence too palpable to be denied. Native elements appear to have combined with foreign art in Assyria; but Nimroud and Karsabad prove that the style of that intermediate region, at a certain period of its development, was directly derived from the valley of the Nile. The Assyrian types of art furnished Lydia and Caria, probably, with improved elements, from whom the Asiatic Greeks obtained the means of advancing toward that high excellence which the most refined race was destined to achieve. The earliest proofs of their skill come to us on coins, and that the Lydians were the first on earth to excel in that kind of work, Homer distinctly asserts. But while an Asiatic origin must be assigned to all the arts of Greece, it should not be forgotten that the Hellenic organization alone perfected each and every department with that exquisite refinement which no other people has ever been able to attain. Their wonderful originality is indicated by the fact, that their very earliest coins, possess in their embryo state, the germs of that beauty and sublimity which afterward were realized by the greatest artists in their grandest works. In the smallest seal, as in the most colossal form, the charming simplicity and repose prevail, which forever mark the leading traits of the Attic mind. Coins made of gold in Asia, preceded the silver coinage of Athens, but even in this earliest imprint of archaic skill, we see rudely executed all that which subsequently characterized those groups of Centaurs and Amazons that enriched the metopes and pediments of the Parthenon.
When compared with Indian and Egyptian remains, the Persian column must be considered as presenting an approximation to the perfect form, and yet it lacks that purity of taste, that refined and chastened intellect, which distinguishes the works of Greece. The lotus and palm, were indeed imitated at Carnak and Persepolis, but Athens saw the acanthus and honeysuckle surmount shafts of manlystrength with amarynths of beauty such as the East never knew. India excavated the cell, and Egypt quarried the column; then came Greece to perfect the entablature system, and add that crowning glory, the triangular pediment. The three orders in their succession, exhausted every realm of invention, and perfected structural types unsurpassed by human powers; and while the mechanical principles remained identified with the most unadorned Cyclopean gateway, or rudest cromlech, an exquisite system of ornament embraced every feature, and refined all into consummate dignity and elegance.
All the institutions of Greece bore the impressive signet of national character. In government, dialect, and invention, despite minor differences, there was a general uniformity which rendered them distinct, not only from Phœnicians or Egyptians, but also from the kindred inhabitants of Lydia, Italy, and Macedonia. Though at the beginning germs were derived from the East, it is not less true that at the time of ripest maturity not the least tinge of foreign influence was discernible in their literature, politics, religion or art. Grecian architecture, especially, like their poetry, was the natural expression of the national mind. It was influenced by the peculiarity of the land in which it originated, and was more than national; it was local, born under the sky of Hellas only, and in no colony did it ever attain the comprehensive beauty which signalized the city of its birth. Sparta might boast of the hard bones and muscles of well-trained athletes, but grace and beauty never entered her walls. The Athenians borrowed materials and suggestions from diverse sources, but their skill was entirely their own. They invented all the component parts of classic architecture, the proportions, characters, and distinctions, with a corresponding nomenclature by which each order and every ornament is still designated. Symmetry, proportion, and decoration; the solidity and gracefulness of nature, relieved by historical sculpture, and illuminated by chromatic splendor, with the perfection of reason interpenetrating and presiding over all, constituted that perfect model of noble simplicity which always attracts and never offends.
The Dorians produced the first pure architectural style, and carried it to the highest perfection, without any assistance from the fallen palaces of the Atreidæ. The Æschylean majesty was the highestconception of even that extraordinary people. The Parthenon was the noblest production of the noblest masters, and should be accepted as the highest exemplification of the national skill.
The order of columns at Persepolis seems to be the proto-Ionic, as certain pillars have been supposed to be proto-Dorics, but neither, in fact, deserve, in the slightest degree, that admiration which belongs legitimately to those honored names. The temple of the Ilissus was the most ancient monument of the true middle order, and was a significant prelude to those more glorious works destined to immortalize the administration of Pericles when freed from the rivalry of Cimon, the restraints of the Areopagus, and the opposing aristocrats. Within twenty years all the grandest works were executed, and then the point of culmination in that lovely land was forever passed.
Of the three orders perfected by the Greeks, the Corinthian would appear to be the most entirely original, and, at the time of its invention, the exactest symbol of their mind. The flower had fully bloomed, and decrepitude was already begun. They could no longer adequately execute the Doric order, with its integral sculpture and painting, and had ceased to be satisfied with the chaste gracefulness of Asiatic volutes. They began by raising the honeysuckle from around the necking of the Ionic capital, and extended it over a vase-form under a light abacus, intermingled with a few rosettes, but omitting altogether the volutes. To this was after ward added the Persepolitan water-leaf, and finally the crisp acanthus of Attica gave a rich variety to the order, which constitutes its crowning charm. The choragic monument of Lysicrates is the only pure type of this style; and if sculpture and painting must be banished from architecture, this is, doubtless, the most beautiful order extant.
Architecture expresses the difference among races, as language does the variety of dialects. The Dorians built in the same style that was employed by Pindar, Æschylus, and Thucydides in speech. The simplicity and elegance of the Ionians are exemplified in their temple graces, not less than in Homer's matchless verse, and the smooth rhythm of Herodotus. The Corinthians, refined to effeminacy, were the last architectural inventors in the old world, and they stamped upon their production the delicate luxuriance whichcharacterizes the language of Isocrates. The opposing principles of Dorism and Ionism which prevailed in all the institutions of Greece, politics, literature, customs, and art, were boldly embodied in sculpture and architecture. The former came from Egypt, and the latter from Asia; but both were alike indebted to western genius for the refined symmetry which their respective orders finally assumed. The zenith of perfection was not reached until the Doric influence was impregnated by the Ionic, the material by the spiritual, and Corinthian delicacy was born to perish in the grave of its exhausted parents.
Egyptian sculpture was the archaic state of Greek sculpture, as is clearly indicated by specimens yet extant. The types of the Nile, which remained unchanged through many centuries, were no sooner transferred to the Ilissus than a wonderful improvement succeeded. The remains of the temple of Jupiter in Ægina show the metamorphosis of the uncouth East into the refinement of the West in the very act of taking place. The heads of the figures are Egyptian, according to the prescriptive sanctity of priestly rule, heavy and immobile; but the limbs are detached, and move with the natural freedom of Greek taste. The conservative East regarded innovation as destructive of the divine, while the progressive West sought for near approach to divinity in increased perfection. Hence the figure of Minerva on this edifice, the central one of the pediment, is more oriental than the rest, as if less liberty should be taken with the personal image of a being fully divine; but this hereditary scruple was soon overcome, and, in direct contrast with Egypt, Grecian deities became most celestial in form.
The progress of perfected sculpture was striking and continuous. The Herma was the first step in true statuesque art, when the Greek placed a human head on a pillar by the wayside, fashioned after the proportions of the human form. Then the resemblance of life extended to the loins, preparatory to that further realization when the bust spread vital beauty and activity throughout every speaking feature or graceful limb, rendering the statue complete. Last of all came the associated group, simultaneous with architectonic perfection, to which it added manifold charms. Then was the memorable era when the images of gods and heroes possessed not less truth and majesty than if the divinities had themselves sat for theirpictured or sculptured portraits; and all this resulted because art had become the greatest national activity, and the entire nation was merely a transcendant artist. In a chronological review, the ancient monuments of Asia and Egypt must be considered before those of Greece; but the true history of art, in its continuous development, as in every other civilizing power, began alone with that sagacious people. To the last, the East retained in its sculpture those symbolical images which are utterly destructive of elegance in imitative representations; but the West soon emancipated itself, and came step by step to elicit from marble perfected human features under the attitude and aspect of divinity. Therein is most clearly traced the mysterious symbolism of the inner mind of that people. The reason and imagination of Greece were poured with profusion and power into artistic creations, and the faculties from which these works sprang are in turn most forcibly addressed. Like excites like; and if ancient sculpture shines on, through all time, with inextinguishable beams, it is simply because the original creation transpired under the transmuting and glorifying influence of impassioned thought. Supremacy in art among that people was not an accidental inspiration of a few artists, but the predominant spirit of the age and great heritage of a race. Their language was the first organ of speech thoroughly eliminated, and art, its correlative, was the highest material medium of mind. The mystery of the human form was accurately conceived by the Hellenic genius, and thus the mythological Sphinx, whose motto is Man, which had ever been inaccessible to the race of Shem, was by Japhetic intellect clearly revealed. In her most glorious days, the sumptuous temples of Athens, amid the elaborate graces of their moldings, the living foliage of their capitals, and the multiform friezes whereon Lapithæ and Centaurs exhibited the most impressive action, did yet preserve the same outline of simplicity with which the wooden hut of Pelasgus was marked.
In consequence of the excitement, surprise, joy, and glory of their first conquest over the Persians, the Greeks developed all their energies, and the brief period of their highest excellence terminated soon after the final triumph over that great foe, so inseparable is national enthusiasm from exalted perfection in art. The Parthenon and Propylæa were trophies of Marathon and Salamis, monumentsof past success, and pledges of future progress. Then supreme homage was paid to superior talent; and popular admiration, as profound as it was general, gave birth to those masterly productions its paintings deserved. The same combination of boldness and gentleness which constitutes the very essence of classic literature, imparted its peculiar expression to the plastic art of Greece. Both, in their best days, were equally imbued with that lofty impulse which antique traditions excited, and the national genius was most ambitious to perpetuate. The Persians brought marble with them, intending to erect a memorial of the anticipated victory, which their conquerors appropriated, and commissioned Phidias to cut it into a statue of Nemesis. Such was the destiny of all oriental elements, and the use made of them by the valiant genius of occidental republicans. When the first great battle of opinion had been won, and the Persian, like the Mede, was overthrown, a few years of active freedom produced more of civilizing art, than had been generated under the pressure of whole centuries of despotic repose.
The art of the first Pharaohs, as well as that of the last Ptolemies, is brought down to us in well preserved relics, and by means of these, at a single glance, we can survey a boundless historic period, during which, in the first progressive land, civilization had passed from the lowest to the highest point; from the Pelasgi to the Parthenon, from the wooden works of Dædalus to the marble glories of Phidias; from the fabulous Orpheus, and mythological Amphion, to Homer and Sophocles; in a word, from Cecrops to Pericles. But on the Nile, beyond certain ignoble and arbitrary types, sculpture never advanced. Dædalus is reputed to have been the first statuary in Greece, but he was more of a mechanist than sculptor, the architect of labyrinths, carver of wood, and inventor of wings. He was the countryman and cotemporary of Theseus, equal to that hero in the adventures of his life, born of a royal race, admired for his works while living, and honored by the Egyptians with a special chapel after death. About two centuries later, appeared Dipœmus and Scyllis. They were born in Crete, under the Median empire, but worked at Sicyon, and made statues of Apollo, Diana, Minerva, and Hercules. They were the first to use the white marble of Paros, and gave to each divinity a peculiar personal appearance so entirely distinct, as to cause the offensive symbolism ofpreceding art to be laid aside. The slow progress of sculpture may be further traced, until a single mighty master raised his profession to a height, of which the world had entertained no previous conception. The Greeks could produce beauty without meretricious ornament, delicacy without affectation, strength without coarseness, and the highest degree of action without the slightest disturbance of equilibrium. Proud only of progressive invention, they preserved their first rude monuments side by side with their later masterpieces, and appealed to this aggregate as the true archives of nobility, their highest credentials to glory. The plastic sense, which usually disappears with the infancy of nations, was fostered to the fullness of adult perfection among this people. Whatever of beauty real objects supplied to their hands, the inspiration of fervid genius transfigured into the most beautiful idealized forms. As was said by one of their number, the higher nature of the divinities passed into the arts; and we have reason to believe that sculpture especially, did wear a celestial aspect in its representation of glorified heroes and the highest gods. The law which Plato long after prescribed to artists, seems to have been instinctively observed from the earliest era, "that they should create nothing illiberal or deformed, as well as nothing immoral and loose, but should everywhere strive to attain to the nature of the beautiful and the becoming." Latent worth doubtless lay imprisoned in the uncouth sculpture of the East, but it was only when moved westward, that the fair prisoner was set free; like Aphrodite, born without a pang, in the enfranchisement of the sea, and landed on the blooming shore of Paphos, redolent of spontaneous charms.
Homer, and the other poets, as they were the fountains of all other elements of culture, nourished also the plastic sense in the common mind. From the tragic writers, especially, emanated a world of sculpture, so that nearly all the great spirits generated in the regions of fable, were happily embodied in substantial art. Hipparchus, a few years before the birth of Phidias, formed the first public library at Athens, and placed therein the complete works of Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, Anacreon, and Simonides. The public games were not less favorable in their influence on plastic art. They were great artistic congresses, wherein each department was exhibited for the special benefit of itself, and in regular succession;just like various pieces of music at a modern concert, without discord between them. Not only in the popular poetry, but in the public manners as well, was manifested that refined grace and equanimity between excessive freedom and coarse formality, which was embodied in sculpture as its highest form. The second desire of Simonides, was, that he might possess a handsome figure, and the gymnastic exercises customary in the healthful serenity of his native land, did much to realize the wish. The most eminent men in their youth, sought renown in the development of natural qualities, and thereby laid a substantial basis for the magnificence of acquired accomplishments. Each successful competitor was honored with a statue of the highest order and most perfect resemblance. Hieratic models were utterly discarded, and not only was the real portrait preserved, but also the very attitude in which the victory was gained. Even horses which had borne off prizes, were reproduced by the exactest imitative skill, and all the most natural forms were elevated to that ideal of perfection which constituted the models of excellence, and the best incentive to yet higher improvement of surpassing worth.
We have observed that Hermes were the first sculptured productions of Greece. These most abounded at Athens, where, for a long time, the word Hermoglyph was the only term in use to designate a sculptor of any kind. But soon after the Persians had despoiled that city of her ancient monuments, she acquired immense resources, by which, under the guidance of superlative taste, she soon arose to be the head of the national confederacy, and most splendid abode of art. Architects and sculptors, painters, lapidaries, and workers in precious metals vied with each other in adorning the lettered empress of earth and sea. The monuments of Ictinus, Phidias, Callicrates, and Mnesicles arose, surrounded with kindred glories, thenceforth to become masterpieces for the emulation of mankind. What was especially needed, was something that would mold all surrounding elements of beauty into one perfect and homogeneous whole, like the unity of diversified expressions in the opera, and this was gloriously realized in the perfected temple. Appropriate material was quarried from Paros and Pentelicus, which when wrought into graceful and sublime forms, stood on the terraced height in serene majesty, and glowed through the sparkling atmospherewith enhanced splendor borrowed from harmonized colors and burnished gold. In Greece, history and art from the beginning, were closely allied. The breastplates, helmets, and shields, as well as altars, temples, and tombs, were all made to glorify an honored ancestry, through the blandishments of material art. Homer and Hesiod brightened the dawn of national renown, as they sang the artistic triumphs of Vulcan, embossed on the weapons which Hercules and Achilles bore. The arcades of nature, and the canopied walks which architecture so magnificently provided, were transformed into vast galleries, all aglow with brilliantly harmonized tints; and a wanderer the most remote from the metropolis, still found the annals of his country embodied in marble, and each great personage strongly characterized by the sculptor's chisel. Every subordinate democracy had its Prytancum, Odeon, Pnyx, Gymnasium, and Theatres; and when Athens usurped pre-eminent control, her citizens were proud to erect public monuments worthy of her ambition, and whose dazzling magnificence should reconcile the other states to her supremacy. So greatly was this the passion of the people themselves, that when Pericles proposed to exonerate them from debts incurred by the immense works of his administration, if he might be permitted to inscribe them with his own name, the proposition was rejected at once, and every responsibility was cheerfully accepted as their own.
Phidias was an Athenian, the son of Charmidas, and cousin to the distinguished painter, Panænus, whose associated skill he employed on several of his works. Doubtless this fact should explain much of his grace of outline, and power of relief. He proved himself equally successful in the sublime and minute, by turning from the awful majesty of his marble Jupiter to stamp like perfection on the grasshopper or bee of bronze. This Æschylus of sculpture began with works in ivory, continued to develop his power through statues of metal, and finally attained the highest excellence in colossal marble groups. He was born under the full blaze of Grecian freedom, and carried his profession to the loftiest height of excellence, through a knowledge of all the arts and sciences that could enhance its attraction, or dignify its pursuit. He was not only a painter and poet, but was also familiar with the gorgeous fictions of mythology, and the more sober records of history, the knowledge ofoptics, and the severest discipline of geometric science. It is probable that Phidias planned all the works about the Parthenon, and that Callicrates and Ictinus executed the architectural portions, while Alcamenes and other pupils wrought nearly to the surface most of the sculptural forms. But as his genius outlined the general plan, so his hand imparted the finishing touch to the varied parts.
The most marked characteristic of the first half of the Periclean age was placid majesty. Jupiter sat in supreme quietude, with thunderbolts resting in his lap; Juno reposed on her own feminine dignity; and Minerva showed supreme power, less through outward impulse than by sovereign self-control, and inward intent. When the highest period of calm beauty was passed, and another cycle drew near, full of force, greater excitement is exhibited in corresponding art, and with increased harmony with the changed spirit it portrayed. Such was Niobe and her children, pursued by Apollo and Diana, Gladiators in mortal struggle, and the passionate group of Laocoon. But at the best period no Greek artist would ever introduce in sculpture grim Pluto and sad Proserpine, or the monster Cerberus. He loved every thing that was beautiful; and, instead of damaging the uniform placidity of his works with such images of terror and aversion, he represented even the Furies as bearing a serene countenance. This calmness is the prevailing charm of Greek art. Its great depth, like that of the sea, remains undisturbed, however much the tempests may rage; and so, in their artistic figures: under every billow of passion reposes a great, self-collected soul. We may often be called to contemplate the struggling of brave heroes, but they are never altogether overcome by their pangs. The strongest emotions do not repel the spectator, but attract him rather; as in the dying Gladiator, or tortured Laocoon. While the misery we contemplate pierces to the very soul, it yet inspires us with a wish that we could endure with a fortitude like that we see. Beauty was latent in Periclean Greeks, like fire in crystal, which, however brilliant when excited, habitually rests in quiet, and robs not its abode of either purity or strength. They were as full of emotion as of heroism, and, as Agamemnon, after the victory, poured tears on the funeral pyre, they were never braver than at the very time they wept. Winkleman suggests,that beauty with the ancients was the balance of expression, and, in this respect, the groups of Niobe and Laocoon are the best examples; the one in the sublime and serious, the other in the learned and ornamental style.
But the glory of Athens, as a single figure, and marking the highest culmination, was Minerva, of the Parthenon. Above all others she bore the charms of celestial youth, under the expression of severest virtue. Doubtless no more glorious contrast could be found to the stiff and conventional uncouthness of the Memnonian statues, than was produced in that fine realization of cultivated intellect invested with invincible power. The spirit of the beautiful was embodied in her whose masculine wisdom was tempered with feminine grace, the severity of dominion softened into elegance, and the sedateness of philosophy dissolved in the fervor of patriotic enthusiasm. Her majestic form of ivory rose forty feet in the dazzled air, draped in robes and ornaments of gold. At her feet lay a shield, covered with exquisite sculpture, representing, on the convex side, the Amazonian war, the Athenian leader being the portrait of Pericles, and on the concave side were giants warring against heaven. On her golden sandals were depicted the battle of the Centaurs. By special decree the Athenians forbade Phidias from inscribing his name on this, the divinest Pallas of his creation, in order that they might share equally among themselves the honor of an undertaking which the people in common had conceived and sustained.
The grandest inspiration came from Marathon, and was exemplified in that glorious art which best expressed the manliness of the Grecian race, and rose highest in the republic in its freest hour. From the battle of Salamis to Pericles, scarcely fifty years elapsed, in which brief period art had advanced from eastern archaism to the most refined western excellence, from the rude carving of Selinus to the consummate sculptures of the Parthenon. The finest group of antiquity is preserved to us from the western front of that magnificent temple. Notwithstanding the variety of the figures, there is not one which is inert, or which represents a perpendicular line. In the centre are Neptune, with the trident in his left hand, and Minerva, with the spear in her right, with their chariots and attendants. The goddess of wisdom wields the strongest hand, andthe sculptor has so adroitly managed the composition, as to place Neptune in the way of his own horses, while Minerva is allowed free passage in her nobler career. This pediment, looking down upon the mighty metropolis, and the Ægean bathing its western brim, bore a record and prophecy of high significance to him who approached by land or sea.
Cimon ornamented the public squares of Athens from his private fortune; and Pericles added markets, halls, gymnasia, and temples, all of which he caused to be adorned with innumerable statues by superior masters. The crowded wonders of the Acropolis, in particular, seemed to the astonished visitor, one great offering, the aggregate of national enthusiasms expressed in transcendant art. Toward this subordinate Olympus, a gigantic flight of steps conducted through the Propylæa, which opened its fivefold gates of bronze to a world of men and gods in precious forms, peopling marble halls, and adorning brilliant shrines. Here, for the temple of Polias, Phidias erected that statue of Minerva whose brazen helmet gleamed far off to greet the mariner as he doubled the Sunian promontory; and that other Pallas, named the Lemnian beauty; and a third, the "immortal maid," and protectress of the Parthenon, to whose colossal fascinations of ivory and gold allusion has already been made. So much were that democratic people animated with the passion of Pericles, which themselves had mainly inspired, that when Phidias recommended marble as being a cheaper material than ivory for the gigantic figure required, it was for that very reason that ivory was unanimously preferred. Miracles indeed abounded on every hand, and as the great patron and perfecter of them all, stood there the incarnation of his age, each masterpiece attested the culmination of that glorious star which blazed in tranquil beauty while he lived, and paled in tempest when he died. The outward decline of Greece was strangely sudden, and left a blank which has never been filled; but the empire of her inner spirit can never perish, so long as heroism may arouse, poetry enrapture, art embellish, or wisdom instruct the nations in their predestined progress. The epitaph—Here is the heart; the spirit is everywhere—most appropriately belongs to the capital of Attica. From her gates went forth colonies of beautiful intellect throughout the civilized world; and the light of her genius, lingering around theruins of her skill, still serves to model all the masterly productions of earth. Like the venerable Nestor's cap of sculptured gold, the material may have perished, but the power which conceived and executed it has proved itself immortal.
Proficiency in sculpture was at one time widely diffused; it rose rapidly to the highest excellence, and as rapidly descended to a corresponding depth. The great Socrates was himself a statuary. Pausanias saw, at the entrance of the Athenian Acropolis, a group of Graces draped, which was executed by the philosopher. Praxiteles, at a later period, was distinguished for delicate grace and most careful finish. When Nicomedes, of Bythinia, wished to purchase of the Cnidians the Aphrodite by this artist, with the condition of discharging the city of its oppressive debt, they preferred to endure any hardship rather than suffer such a loss. This tender solicitude for the preservation of the beautiful was utterly unlike a mere mania for museum collections, and was not limited to plastic art; it grew up in common with all Grecian culture, and is to be found in all the phenomena of exalted Hellenic life. Art was indigenous to that prolific soil, and graced the maturest fruit, as well as nourished the deepest roots, of existence. While the auspices of freedom remained, she constantly derived fresh vigor, as Antæus gained strength from contact with mother earth, borrowing radiance from Olympus, and growing in conscious companionship with heroes and gods.
Critias, Nestœlis, and Hegias succeeded each other with some distinction, but not much was added to plastic art until Polycletus was born to raise alto-relievo to perfection, and won the proud renown of being the Sophocles of sculpture. He excelled in exquisite symmetry and superlative polish. The statue he made of a Persian life-guard was so exact in its proportions, and careful in its finish, that it was called the Rule. But the highest excellence in art had passed, and Myron, and Scopas, in their works which commemorated war, the chase, or the terrors of a violent death, foretokened the tempestuous age about to break in desolation all over earth.
Having thus briefly sketched the progress and character of both architecture and sculpture, let us now glance at the painting of the Periclean age.
As we have before said, architecture was the first of the fine arts,and the pursuit of the beautiful in this paved the way for all the rest. Color, as an artistic element, was first used to define hieroglyphics, and afterward was largely employed in mural decorations. The most characteristic production of Egypt was its obelisks, and these have made the world best acquainted with the spirit of the East by being transported without mutilation to the great cities of the West. Artificial tints on these are not common, but masses of wall are still seen, with pictorial representations of great variety, almost as vivid as they were three thousand years ago. But the type and form of her mummies was all that ever belonged to the land of the Pharaohs in the history of art. Every thing which contained life, growth, and power, from the simplest wayside Herma to Jupiter Olympus on his resplendent throne, sprang exclusively from the inventive and executive genius of Greece.
There is no proof that the art of Mosaics was indigenous in Africa. That it existed in Persia as early as the age of Ahasuerus is recorded in the first chapter of Esther, where it is mentioned that in the royal palace of Shushan "the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red and blue and white marble." In this and many other respects, the spoils of war taken from the Persian invaders, conveyed to their victors important lessons in the arts of peace. The excellence which this kind of art eventually attained, and the profusion of its use, is quaintly indicated by the incident referred to by Claudius Galenus as follows: "Diogenes, the cynic, having entered a mansion in which all the Olympian deities were figured in chaste Mosaics, spat in the face of the host, saying it was the least noble spot he saw." Athenæus also mentions a work, formed of many colored stones, in small fragments, which represented the whole story of the Iliad.
The Graces rocked the cradle of Greek art, Admiration taught her to speak, and painting was her most phonetic idiom. A legend not unworthy of belief tells us that a Corinthian maid, by means of a secret lamp, traced the shadow of her departing lover, and thus outlined portrait was formed. As Love made the first essay in this department of art, so he never ceased to guide the hands which beautified the age of Pericles. A wise law prohibited the choice of an ugly subject, and the popular sentiment so generally limited pictorial representation to the realm of elegance, that Pyricus,who ventured to depict apes and kitchen herbs, was surnamed Rhypographer, or "Dirt Painter."
The etymology of the word used by the Greeks to express painting was the same which they employed for writing, and this renders the affinity of method and materials certain. Their first efforts were striagrams, simple outlines of a shade; thence they advanced to the monogram, or form without light or shade; from this they arose to the monochrom, or design with a single pigment, on a waxed tablet; and in the end, by means of the pencil, then first used, they invented the polychrom, and thus raised the stained drawing to a legitimate picture, glowing through all the magic scale of rainbow tints. The progressive steps in the attainment of excellence in this art are distinctly marked by the terms employed by Quinctilian, when he says that Zeuxis discovered light and shade; Pamphilus was exquisite for subtlety of line; Protogenes, for finish; Apelles, for grace; Theon, for poetical conceptions; Polygnotus, for simplicity of color and form; Aristides, for expression; and Amphion, for composition.
When Neptune and Minerva disputed as to who should name the capital of Cecropia, the Olympian hierarchy decided that the right should be given to the one who bestowed the greatest benefit on man. Neptune smote the earth with his trident, from whence sprang a war-horse; while Minerva produced an olive-tree. Thenceforth, as the greatest glory of the age, the arts of peace prevailed, and the product and proof of the noblest fame was set forth in mighty sculpture along the western pediment of the Parthenon. This was of pure Attic origin, and worthily crowned the reminiscences of oriental skill beneath. Egypt gathered the palm and lotus, the papyrus and date-leaves together, and produced the column, that symbol of strength, fastened like a bundle of sticks, the binding together of which probably suggested elegant flutings to the Greeks. But, while mechanical execution absolutely perfect, and great exactness in copyism of ignoble types, were imported from the East, in vain do we there seek, from Moses to Ptolemy, for the least approximation to natural forms. In the land of its growth, the lotus-leaf never alters, nor do the owl and ibis borrow one truthful characteristic from the models which abounded in the valley of the Nile. According to Herodotus, a heroic mythology, that great leverof Greek art, was altogether wanting in Egypt; and for this reason, doubtless, of their individual poets, sculptors, and painters, we do not possess the slightest record. On the contrary, in the great western metropolis, infant art was progressively nourished by the refined spirit of both natural and ideal excellence; the permanent traces of which perpetually remain on the painted vases and delicate basso-relievos which in the temples of Theseus and Minerva adorned the councils of the supreme gods.
By means of polychromy, the Greeks endeavored to add elegance to their buildings, without detracting from their majesty, knowing well that this exquisite system of coloring, when applied under their pure sky, illuminated by brilliant sunshine, and encompassed by gorgeous vegetation, would bring artificial beauty into complete unison with the richness of nature. Thus colored statuary harmonized with mural historic painting, and this looked out from broad panels of beauty through tinted colonnades upon the sky, the groves, fields, and sparkling seas. By this combination, Athenian structures were rendered most worthy of admiration, because in them works which, taken separately, might move through single attractions, or approach the sublime, were so happily combined, as instantly to evoke a sentiment of perfection and delight such as no other monuments ever possessed. Colors were so graduated that the temple they vitalized was made to resemble and reflect the charming vicissitudes of a lovely Grecian day: cool in the morning, dazzling at noon, and at evening burned with all the glowing gorgeousness of the setting sun. Euphranor and Micon, to excite the emulation of compatriots, depicted the exploits of heroes in the Porticoes; Protogenes and Olbiades drew the portraits of renowned legislators in the Curia; the Odeia were decorated with the pictorial forms of poets, and with the Graces, their inseparable companions; the Gymnasia exhibited the godlike champions in the contests of Mars and the Muses; and even the Propylæa became more famous for the precious works of the painters than for the marbles out of which its structural grandeur was formed. But Phidias alone excepted, Polygnotus was perhaps the greatest public genius in the greatest artistic age. The pictures painted by him as votive offerings of the Cnidians were much admired, and the whole nation honored him for other monumental works. The Lesche, filled with the splendorsof his skill, was the grand glyptothek of Athens, and first picture-gallery of the Grecian world.
In the Periclean age, art was held as a glory, not as a luxury. Private life was frugal and modest, while the public monuments were soaring in proudest display. Socrates, the cotemporary of Pericles, according to his own testimony preserved by Xenophon, occupied a house which, with all it contained, was valued at five minæ, or about ninety dollars. The dwellings of Miltiades, Aristides, Themistocles, and Cimon were contracted and devoid of all decoration. Alcibiades was the first who introduced painting as an ornament to his living apartments. But a passion for art actuated all classes, and was most prominent in the highest. Thus the beautiful Elpinice, sister of Cimon, took a pride in being a model to Polygnotus, at the same time her potent brother, at the head of the republic, triumphed over the mighty king. With kindred zeal, the populace of Croton gathered all the fairest damsels before Zeuxis, in order that from them he might select the best features with which to execute their commission to paint Helen. The astonishing progress made at that period in sculpture and painting was seen in the contrast which existed between an Indian idol, or Egyptian Isis, and the Jupiter of Phidias; between the infantile fancies of a Chinese designer, and the ineffable charms of a picture by Apelles. While Socrates employed the language of Homer as the medium of moral discourse, and Plato thence derived images and reasoning to convey the theologies of Orpheus and Pythagoras, Agatharcus invented dramatic painting, and drew for Æschylus the first scene that ever agreed with the rules of linear perspective. A picture of the battle of Marathon, representing Miltiades erect in the foreground, was solemnly guarded by the public, and deemed an adequate reward by that great captain. A pendant to this is said to have been one representing Aristides watching at night over the bloody field, in sight of the blue sea, no longer crowded by the barbarian fleet, and the white columns of the temple of Hercules, near which the Athenians had pitched their tents.
But when freedom ceased to preside over the public fortunes of Greece, grandeur and beauty withdrew from her private minds. As Philip of Macedon drew near, the propitious gods of Olympia migrated to Pella, and all the fair heritage assumed a sickly hue inthe deepening shade. As rhetoric vainly mimicked the deep thunders of eloquence which had passed, and metaphysical sophistry was substituted for that lofty philosophy which had guided honorable destinies, so the grand taste which at first dictated to art the monumental style, degenerated into mere prettiness, or expanded into the heaviness of an unhealthy growth. But soon even the portion which yet retained some elegance ceased altogether, and what remained was rapidly transformed into the type of an age already gaining the ascendancy—colossal might. Phidias excelled in graphic as in plastic art. According to Pliny, his Medusa's head was a wonderful picture. Alcamenes, the Athenian, continued for a while the style of that great master, as did Agoracritus and Scopas of Paros. But the latter, like Lysippus, were transitional to Praxiteles of Cnidos, in whom great art expired. Original genius ceased to produce models of its own, and only expert imitators of mighty predecessors succeeded. Pamphilus was the Perugino, and Zeuxis, of Crotona, the Raphael, of Periclean painters. Apelles seems to have been the Titian of his age, and Protogenes, of Rhodes, a Greek Leonardo, whose picture of Temperance, his cotemporary Apelles declared, was worthy of being carried to heaven by the Graces. But with these masters pictorial art declined, and, like architectural and plastic art, was marked with the grossness of a coming age.
Cheronea was the grave of Grecian excellence, as Marathon had been the glorious scene of its birth. The principle of despotism there came into collision with that of democracy, and with fearful odds in favor of the former; but the result first demonstrated, as was afterward repeated at Thermopylæ, Salamis, and Platæa, the difference between the man who fights for another and him who contends for his own rights. From the days of Themistocles to the present hour, no writer has discussed the nature and influence of free institutions without drawing largely from this portion of Grecian heroism. It is impossible to estimate the influence of those battles on the destinies of mankind, as in all succeeding ages they have constituted the staple of patriotic appeal, the battle-cry of desperate struggles, and thrilling key-notes of triumphant songs. Thus consecrated to free government by martyred patriots, they are the universal watchwords of independence throughout the world. Thecalm fortitude of that invincible age was expressed in every department of art, even its melody. Music was an accomplishment in which the Greeks generally excelled. Alcibiades, however, surrendered the use of the flute, because it deranged the beauty of his features; and Themistocles, also, rejected its instruments, saying, "It is true I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small city to glory and greatness." Perhaps the best instance and symbol of all was Achilles. He was fed on the marrow of lions, and trained for conflict by the centaur Chiron, who was not less skillful in music than in the art of war. Resting from the chase of wild beasts in the desert, or, after the victorious fight with Trojans, sitting alone by the sea-shore, the lyre was the companion of his leisure, and, playing with its chords, he could control inward wrath by his own melody.
If architecture is the most significant and enduring portion of the history of a people, a sure index of their mental state and social progress, plastic and graphic art are also striking exponents of their national character. The beautiful marble which forms the cliffs and coasts of Greece, notwithstanding its homogeneous transformation, betrays by veins and fossils its sedimentary formation. And so Hellenism, although it may be homogeneous, nevertheless betrays its secondary origin, and the sedimentary material which constitutes its groundwork. The rudimentary vestiges bear the same impress in Assyria, Egypt, and even among savage races; but the Greeks ignored the origin of these, rose above their hieratical meanings, and stamped all creations with their own peculiar manner. Their system of polychromy was the richest in antiquity, combining the lapidary style brought by the Dorians from Egypt, and the more brilliant tints which were attained when the Ionic mind penetrated Doric matter, and transfigured it with all the glories of Asiatic color. As Homer describes only progressive actions, so his great race executed nothing but what was bounded by the delicate lines of grace. The Parthenon has generally been regarded as being exactly rectilinear; but Penrose has recently demonstrated, by careful admeasurements, that probably there is not a straight line in the building. All is embraced within mathematical curves, accurately calculated, and designed to correct the disagreeable effect produced on a practiced eye by perfectly straight lines. Taken asa whole, this work is sublimely grand, and, in its minutest details, it is perfectly wonderful. When unmutilated, it was the aggregate of all artistic worth, and yet remains, of its age, the chief emblem of intellectual majesty.
The Greek sculptor invested his work with an inexpressible serenity, as if it were a spirit without a passion, as appears in the Apollo and Antinous. Pride and scorn are strongly marked in these, yet over the whole figure is thrown a heavenly calm and placidness; there is no swelling vein, no contorted muscle, but a general smoothness and unperturbed dignity. The same subdued air and tone prevailed in the paintings of the best age. Achilles appears grieved at having slain Penthesilea; the brave beauty, bathed in her own blood so heroically shed, demands the esteem of her mightier antagonist, and elicits the exclamations of both compassion and love. The Greeks never painted a Fury, nor did extravagant rage or frightful despair degrade any of their productions. Indignant Jupiter hurled his lightnings with a serene brow; and Timanthes, in painting the sacrifice of Iphigenia, rather than over-pass the limits within which the Graces moved, when he knew that the grief of Agamemnon, the father, would spread contortions over the face of the hero, concealed the extreme of distress, and perfected at once the merit of the picture and the purity of his taste. The Philoctetes of Pythagoras of Leontini, appeared to impart his pain to the beholder; but this was telegraphed to the soul by the magnetic sympathy latent in all the work, and not by means of ugly features. Hercules in the poisoned garment, depicted by an unknown master of that age, was not the Hercules whom Sophocles described, shrieking so horridly that the rocks of Locris and headlands of Eubœa resounded therewith. What was truthful and appropriate in language, was not attempted to be adequately expressed through the distortions of inappropriate art. Zeuxis derived his inspiration from Homer, and when he had painted his Helen, he had the courage to write at her feet the renowned verses, in which the enraptured elders confess their admiration. This contest between poetry and painting was so remarkable, that the victory remained undecided, as both the poet and painter were deemed worthy of a crown. The Diana of Apelles also followed Homer closely, with the Graces mingling in the accompanying train of her Nymphs.In these instances, as with Phidias in his own loftier sphere, the imagination of the artist was fired by the exalted image of the poet, and thus became more capable of just and captivating representation.
But perhaps the grandest combination of glorious arts it is possible to conceive, was that which existed when Demosthenes addressed six thousand of his countrymen at the Pnyx. In the presence of this vast multitude, he ascended the bema, and saw beneath him the Agora, filled with statues and altars to heroes and gods. To the north lay the olive groves of wisdom, and sunny villages along the fruitful plains beneath the craggy heights of Parnes and Cithæron; while to the south sparkled the blue Ægean, whitened by many a sail. Before him was the Hill of Mars, seat of that most venerable tribunal, the Areopagus. Above him towered the Acropolis, with its temples glittering in the air; on the left, stood the lofty statue of Minerva Promachus, with helmet and spear ready to repel all who dared to invade her pride of place; and on the right, rising in supreme and stately splendor, was the marble Parthenon, glowing with chromatic legends spread behind the colonnades, and relieved with sculpture tipped with gold.
The splendid noon of Grecian greatness was succeeded by a splendid evening, divinely prolonged. Mental pre-eminence survived long after her political supremacy was overthrown; and even when trampled in the dust, she still won reverence from her brutal foe.