Greek Sculpture with Story and Song

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Preface

The object of my book is twofold ; to awaken in boys and girls an interest in Greek Sculpture, and to provide for older people possessing some superficial knowledge, and desiring to widen it, a convenient companion when examining Galleries of Casts. For the most part, therefore, only such sculptures are included in the work as are found in collections of this kind, or in the British Museum.

The book differs from other works on Sculpture of the same size in various ways. In the first place it is not a handbook for scholars by a professed Archaeologist, but contains, besides an account of the Rise and Decline of Greek Sculpture, brief mythological sketches of the chief Gods and Heroes for the benefit of those who are unacquainted with or have forgotten the myths and legends which inspired the Greek artists. It contains also short descriptions of the principal temples, and of recent excavations, and anecdotes have been introduced concerning the statues, with an anthology of verse from ancient and modern poets relating either to the statues or the myths. A collection has, in fact, been made of all such pieces of information, historical, artistic, and literary, as appeared likely to make the book more useful, the object being not only to present the opinions of the chief authorities, English, French, viii Preface

and German, on the Sculptures, but to awaken the reader's interest in everything connected with them.

A special acknowledgment is due to Professor Waldstein, who has allowed me to make use of his opinions, whether published or not ; and to many friends, who have put aside their own work to help me, I desire to record my sincere and grateful thanks.

Albinia Lucy Wherry.

Cambridge, October 18, 1898.

I.

II.

III.

Part Ii.— The Gods And Their Makers First Statues Of The Gods

THE EARLIEST GREEK TEMPLES

ARCHAIC RELIEFS

SCULPTURE OF THE TRANSITION PERIOD

PART HI.— THE GOLDEN AGE

THE SUCCESSORS OF PHEIDIAS— ATTIC RELIEFS POLYCLEITUS AND THE SCHOOL OF ARGOS .

TEMPLES OF ATTICA, DELOS, AND BASSAE .

PAGE

49 67 81

139 156

PART IV.— THE APOTHEOSIS OF BEAUTY CEPHISODOTUS AND SCOPAS l8l

TOMBS AND TEMPLES OF ASIA MINOR 24a

EPIDAURUS AND LYCOSURA 252

Part V.— The Twilight Of The Gods Decline Of The Schools 263

SCHOOLS OF PERGAMUM AND RHODES 28 1

LAST YEARS BEFORE THE CHRISTIAN ERA .... 29a

TABLE OF SCULPTURES ........ 307

LIST OF SCULPTORS 313

GENERAL INDEX 315

GENERAL BOOKS OF REFERENCE

Collignon, Maxime : Histoire de la Sculpture Grecque ; Manuel d'Archdologie ; Manual of Mythology, translated by J. E. Harries.

Furtwangler, A. : Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, translated by E. Sellars.

Gardner, E. : Handbook of Greek Sculpture.

Gardner, P. : New Chapters of Greek History.

Harrison and Verral: Mythology and Monuments of Ancient Athens.

Jones, H. Stuart: Select Passages from Ancient Authors relative to Greek Sculpture.

Mitchell, Lucy : History of Ancient Sculpture.

Murray, A. S. : History of Greek Sculpture.

Rayet, O. : Monuments de PArt Antique.

Waldstein, C. : Essays on the Art of Pheidias.

NOTE

In quotations from classical authors the chief translations used are the following : —

Iliad: Lang, Leaf, and Myers.

Odyssey : Butcher and Lang.

Sophocles : Whitelaw.

Euripides ; Ion : Bayfield ; Medea, Webster.

Theocritus and Bion : Lang.

Part I From Darkness To Dawn

The Shield of Achilles. — "There wrought he the earth and the heavens and the sea and the unwearying sun, and the moon waxing to the full, and the signs every one wherewith the heavens are crowned, Pleiades and Hyades, and Orion's might, and the Bear that men call also the Wain, her that turneth in her place and watcheth Orion, and alone hath no part in the baths of ocean. Also he fashioned therein two cities of mortal men. In the one were espousals and marriage-feasts, and beneath the blaze of their torches they were leading the brides from their chambers through the city, and loud rose the bridal song. . . . But around the other city were two armies in siege with glittering arms, ... on the wall there stood to guard it their dear wives and infant children, and with these the old men, but the rest went forth. . . . Also he wrought therein a herd of kine with upright horns, and the kine were fashioned of gold and tin, and with lowing they hurried from byre to pasture beside the murmuring river, beside the waving reed. And herdsmen of gold were following with the kine, four of them, and nine dogs fleet of foot came after them, but two terrible lions among the foremost kine had seized a loud-roaring bull that bellowed mightily as they haled him, and the dogs and the young men sped after him. . . . Also he set therein the great might of the river "of ocean around the uttermost rim of the cunningly-fashioned shield." — Iliad, xviii. 481, 607.

The Palace of Alcinous. — " Meanwhile Odysseus went to the famous palace of Alcinous, and his heart was full of many thoughts as he stood there or ever he crossed the threshold of bronze. Brazen were the walls which ran this way and that from the threshold to the inmost chamber, and round them was a frieze of blue, and golden the doors that closed in the good house. Silver were the doorposts that were set

B upon the golden threshold, and silver the lintel thereupon, and the hook of the door was of gold. And on either side stood golden hounds and silver, which Hephaestus wrought by his cunning to guard the palace of the great-hearted Alcinous, being free from death and age all their days. . . . And within were seats ranged against the wall this way and that, from the threshold even to the inmost chamber, and thereon were spread light coverings finely woven, the handiwork of women. There the Phasacian chieftains were wont to sit eating and drinking, for they had continual store. Yea, and there were youths fashioned in gold standing on firm-set bases with flaming torches in their hands, giving light through the night to the feasters in the palace." — Odyssey, vii. 58.

The quotations that form the introduction to this chapter are taken from two celebrated epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey. The exact origin of these is uncertain, for though they are usually ascribed to a blind poet called Homer, there is no historical evidence to this effect, and a certain school of critics are of opinion that the numerous short poems out of which they are composed were collected and woven together about 560 b / c. by Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens at this date, his object in doing so being to provide a national literature, and to stimulate military enthusiasm among his fellow-citizens by keeping constantly in their memories the great deeds of their ancestors. We know, however, from the history of other nations, that when the knowledge of reading and writing was limited to a small handful of priests or scholars, the Bard, Skald, or Minstrel, who wandered from one castle to another, was an important person and everywhere a welcome guest. By the fireside after the feast, when the red wine shone or the strong ale foamed in the beakers, he sang to his harp of the great deeds of yore ; and may we not imagine Homer such an one as Tennyson describes him —

"And there the Ionian father of the rest, A million wrinkles carved his skin, A hundred winters snowed upon his breast, From cheek and throat and chin."

The subjects of the songs he sang were well-known legends and popular folk-lore, but the thread which held together the scattered pearls was the golden harp-string of the blind poet.

t"

Such songs never grow old : we can still weep with Achilles over the death of Patroclus, and dwell with breathless interest on the hairbreadth escapes of Odysseus.

The only piece of real sculpture described by Homer is the sacred image of Athene at Troy, with whose safety was mysteriously bound up the welfare of the city —

" Set where the upper streams of Simois flow Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood ; And Hector was in Ilium, far below, And fought and saw it not, . . . but there it stood. It stood, and sun and moonshine rained their light On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. Backward and forward rolled the waves of fight Round Troy ; but while this stood Troy could not fall." 1

The elaborate descriptions of inlaid armour, gold cups and ornaments which occur in both the Iliad and the Odyssey y were long believed to be either inventions or gross exaggerations on the part of the author, but we now know that, although Homer, like other poets, imparted to his stories an element of mystery, and wove round them the peacock robe of fancy, he was not drawing entirely from his own imagination. When he sings of the shield of Achilles, the work of Hephaestus, the god of handicraft, forged in immortal workshops where the one-eyed giants were the craftsmen, he does so as though the animals and people sculptured upon it were alive and moving before him ; and when he tells us of golden youths bearing torches, and deathless hounds of bronze which guarded the gates of the palace of Alcinous, he was romancing. But when he describes the breast-plate of Agamemnon and the golden cup of Nestor, it is now possible to compare his account of them with real armour and cups which have recently been found, and which were made, and perhaps already buried away out of sight before the Iliad and Odyssey were committed to writing. For the treasures of Mycenae and Hissarlik belong to a period of civilization which probably existed 1500 years before Christ, when Greece was inhabited by an Eastern race supposed to have come from Phrygia, and called Pelasgians, Hellenes, or

1 Matthew Arnold.

Achaians, but about whom very little is known and many different opinions are held.

What is more certain is, that somewhere about 1100 B.C. a race of hardy barbarians, called Dorians, swept over the luxurious cities of the plain, and for a period of many centuries plunged the whole country in darkness and ruin. As time went on the Dorian conquerors, inter-marrying with the original inhabitants, formed a new race of people, and these are the true Greeks, whose early works of art have a different character Jo any that existed before.

THE CITIES OF THE ARGIVE PLAIN.

In the triangular plain at the head of the Gulf of Nauplia there have existed since prehistoric times three great cities, Argos, Mycenae, and Tiryns ; the two last are assigned to mythical founders, but there is no tradition of the beginning of Argos, for from time immemorial it had been a city.

In Argos itself little of interest remains, but on a hill opposite may still be seen the remains of that temple of Hera where tradition says the Achaian chiefs swore allegiance to Agamemnon before starting for Troy. At "well-walled Tiryns " the foundations of the palace and portions of the famous walls are still to be seen ; while at Mycenae, besides the walls, the rock tombs, and the tombs or treasuries in the lower city, a remarkable monument of prehistoric times still retains its original position. This is the gateway of the citadel, where over a doorway in the wall of rough-hewn stones are two headless lions (or lionesses), whose fore-feet rest on an upright column ; these are sculptured in low relief on a triangular slab, and it is supposed that their heads, of which no vestige remains, may have been of metal. The style of the composition is rather Assyrian than Egyptian, and at Azazin in Phrygia there is a tomb similarly decorated, which, although probably of later date, may owe its origin to the same unknown influence.

The subterranean tombs outside the citadel are also extremely interesting ; the largest and most striking, the Treasury of

Atreus or "Tomb of Agamemnon," is in good preservation, and though its connection with Atreus or Agamemnon cannot be proved, it was evidently the last resting-place of some distinguished personage or family. It has been known since very ancient times, but has only lately been thoroughly explored. • The roof is of a conical shape, made of large stones, narrowing to the top, where it is finished off with a single huge block, and at one time the inside was lined with plates of metal, the attachments of which are still visible.

At Tiryns and at Hissarlik, the site of ancient Troy, the foundations of the palace walls answer to the description of the palace of Alcinous. In the first of these were found the fragments of a frieze of blue cyanus, and on the walls traces of the metal plating. Cyanus, which is used as a general term for "blue," may in some cases be'lapis-lazuli, but when employed in large quantities, as in a frieze, was glass coloured with copper, a material manufactured by the Phoenicians. The custom of using metal in this manner was a survival from the time when buildings were of wood instead of stone, and the metal was employed in this way not only for decoration, but to strengthen and preserve them from decay. The material used may have been gilt bronze, but was probably burnished copper, for the copper of Cyprus, largely exported from the earliest times, was of a peculiarly pure bright colour resembling gold. It is possible, moreover, that the bodies found in the tombs at Mycenae may be those of princes of the Pelopid family, who came from Phrygia, where gold was plentiful, and who are described in the Homeric poem as possessing much treasure in gold and precious metals. It is interesting to compare the fragments of Mycenean architecture with that of the earliest Greek buildings, which are remarkable for their extreme simplicity, and everything connected with this epoch of comparative civilization points to the Asiatic origin of the early inhabitants of the cities of the Argolid plain.

It is to these early inhabitants of Greece, that tradition points as the heroes round whom centre the legends of a great prehistoric war, undertaken by them against a fortified city of semi-oriental origin. It is therefore necessary to consider briefly some of the works of Art described in the Homeric poems, and see how far they correspond to those that have actually been found. When Patroclus, at the request of Achilles, visited Nestor, the oldest and wisest of the Achaian chiefs, in his tent before the walls of Troy, Hecamede, a captive princess, set before them a strangely concocted drink in a gold four-handled cup, " that the old man had brought from home, embossed with studs of gold ; four handles there were to it, and round each two golden doves were feeding." 1 A golden cup with two handles instead of four is among the treasures found at Mycenae by Dr. Schliemann. Hidden away in a beehive tomb at Vaphio in Sparta, two other golden cups, that have miraculously escaped the despoiler, have rewarded the researches of modern explorers. These are decorated in repousse work, with spirited designs of wild bulls caught in the snare of hunters, and tame cattle feeding in rich pastures. Among the valuable prizes given away by Achilles at the funeral games held in honour of Patroclus, "the son of Peleus set forth a mixing bowl of silver, chased ; six measures it held, and in beauty it was far the best on all the earth, for artificers of Sidon wrought it cunningly, and men of the Phoenicians brought it over the misty sea." 2 Metal bowls decorated in concentric rings with Egyptian and Assyrian designs have long been known, several being now in the British Museum. These also approach more nearly than anything else to the description of the shield of Achilles, on which the designs were arranged in a similar manner. The breast-plate of Agamemnon, the gift of Cinyras, king of Cyprus, is thus described. " Now there are two courses of black cyanus, and twelve of gold, and twenty of tin, and a dark blue snake writhed up towards the neck, three on either side like rainbows, that the son of Cronus had put into the clouds, a marvel to the tribes, of mortal men." 8 Corresponding probably in style to the breast-plate, are the swords found at Mycenae, some of which have now revealed beautiful designs of cats catching waterfowl, and lions pursued by hunters inlaid jn various coloured metals on a foundation of

1 Iliad \ xi. 614. 2 Ibid, xxiii. 725. 3 Ibid* xi. 20.

bronze. From the Acropolis of Mycenae comes the fragment of a silver vase, on which has been engraved with a sharp pointed instrument a scene from the siege of a fortified city ; from its gates issue naked warriors carrying large shields, while mourning women and old men unfit for war crowd upon the walls.

Here, therefore, are specimens of four kinds of metal work ; inlaying with one metal upon another, repousst work where the design is raised by being pressed out from behind, engraving done by means of some sharp pointed instrument, and birds fashioned in the round. All these show that when the things themselves were lost sight of, the tradition of a bygone civilization was still preserved by a later and ruder generation.

INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON ART.

The religion of the Greeks was Polytheism, or a belief in many gods, and this form of worship had an important influence on their art. The Jews, who revered one God only, and were forbidden to represent Him in material form, often broke this command, and made for themselves graven images after the manner of their neighbours the Babylonians and Assyrians. The Greeks, except possibly in very early times, were not idolaters, but to them the whole world of nature was peopled by beings who, although wiser, more powerful, and, above all, more beautiful than themselves, were yet of like passions. These could be approached by flattery, and even on occasions deceived, though an awful vengeance fell on one* guilty of such impiety, and his children's children suffered for their father's sin. A worship of Beauty was the mainspring of the Greek religion, and Beauty came to be so absolutely identical with good that the two were one. That which was beautiful was good, and that which was good must of necessity be beautiful.

When therefore they began to make symbolical statues of the Divinities their highest aim was that each one, whether man or woman, should be as perfect as possible. Zeus was the most majestic of middle-aged men, Aphrodite the perfect woman, Apollo and Hermes ideal athletes. At first their endeavours were not crowned with success, for Art enslaved by Religion is always conventional, and clings to old models for the sake of sacred associations that belong to them. As late . as the fifth century B.C. the sculptor Onatas made a black image of Demeter with a horse's head for the people of Phigalia, in imitation of a very ancient wooden image that had been destroyed by fire, and it was said that the goddess in a dream directed his work.

Pausanias gives the following description of this grotesque and barbarous idol. "In the other mountain, Elaion by name, about thirty stades further removed from Phigalia, there is a cave sacred to Demeter who is called the Black. They describe the original image as follows. The goddess was seated on a rock, and was in form like a woman except for her head ; she had the head and mane of a horse, and forms of serpents and other creatures sprang from her head, she was dressed in a tunic that reached to her feet ; in one hand was a dolphin, while the bird in the other was a dove. They say that she got the name of Black because the goddess herself wore black raiment." 1

Many stories are told about the Greek divinities, and every great chief proudly traced his descent from the union of an Immortal with some mortal youth or maiden. Heracles, the most popular of the Greek heroes, was said to be a son of Zeus, and the Trojan ^neas in his wanderings was protected and guided by his mother Aphrodite.

Besides the great gods there was a host of inferior divinities, the nymphs who, under various names, Oreads, Dryads, and Nereids, haunted the mountains, woods, and sounding salt sea caves. Every mountain tmd river had its personification in a human form. With such an unlimited choice of subjects it is not surprising that the Greeks, with their keen sense of beauty and extraordinary technical skill, should have excelled as painters and sculptors. " i Not all the treasures,' " as Homer has it, " ' which the stone threshold of the Far-darter hides safe within,' would now be so precious to us as the power of

1 Pausanias, viii. 42.

io Greek Sculpture

looking for one hour on the greatest work of the greatest painter of antiquity, the picture by Polygnotus, in the hall of the Cnidians at Delphi, of the Descent of Odysseus among the Dead." It is difficult to form any idea as to the real merits of Greek painting, as none survives except small decorative designs on vases, limited to a few primary colours ; but of Greek sculpture, though much is lost, much happily remains, and works of all kinds extending over a period of more than five centuries have been preserved, though in an imperfect and mutilated condition.

HISTORICAL WORKS OF ART.

During the rule of the Antonines, in the second century A.D., ' Pausanias, a learned Roman, made a tour round Greece, and wrote down in a most entertaining manner not only minute descriptions of the things he saw; out also many interesting legends and traditions concerning the people and places he visited ; and it is from his own account of his travels that we get most of our information about works of Art which have since perished. When Pausanias made this tour, which he did in the most exemplary frame of mind, interesting himself in everything, and asking questions of everybody, all the important sanctuaries in Greece were museums filled with treasures of gold, ivory, and bronze, tripods, vases, terra-cottas, woven and embroidered garments, everything, in fact, that was beautiful, valuable, and interesting from its age or history. Many of these treasures were the gifts of foreign monarchs. Crcesus, the King of Lydia, who possessed so much treasure that his name has passed into the proverb, " As rich as Crcesus," sent many valuable gifts to various shrines, but especially to Delphi. A large number of these beautiful things were not made in Greece, but, like the prehistoric works of Art described in Homer, were the work of Phoenicians, who, though they never possessed much originality, continued to combine Egyptian and Assyrian designs in a manner which, though both effective and ingenious, is exceedingly puzzling for antiquarians and archaeologists. This Phoenician work may generally be distinguished by the use of foreign plants, such as palm-leaves and the lottos, or sacred lily of the Nile, also by the introduction of hybrid monsters, griffins, chimaeras, and sphinxes, besides real animals not found in Greece, such as lions and panthers.

CHEST OF CYPSELUS.

The oldest piece of decorative work of Greek origin, seen and described by Pausanias, was the Chest of Cypselus, an oblong box of cedar-wood, decorated with a series of thirty-three pictorial designs arranged in five bands extending along the front and probably the two ends. This chest was dedicated in the temple of Hera at Olympia by Cypselus, a ruler of Corinth, in memory of an important event in his childhood, when his mother, to save him from the enemies who sought his life, had hidden him in it, like Moses in his ark. The subjects of the designs carved in gold and ivory, and fastened] on to a dark wooden background, were all taken from the stories of Greek gods and heroes, which proves that there must have existed at this time a large number of legends and traditions which, if not yet committed to writing, were still familiar to every one ; and in this respect it forms a marked contrast to the shield of Achilles, for the shield, which was decorated with similar bands of pictures, contained no story and no special person, the scenes being merely general subjects — war, hunting, or the gathering in of the harvest. It is interesting to find that even at this time the Greek should have been so skilful in the use of gold and ivory, for these were the materials which, later, they employed with such a fine effect in statues of the gods.

EARLIEST TEMPLE STATUES.

The first temple statues were stones, tree-trunks, or pillars of metal with, head and hands attached ; these succeeded to still earlier objects of worship, such as the stone cone revered as the emblem of Aphrodite at Paphos, or the original Artemis of Ephesus, " the image which fell down from Jupiter," which was possibly an aerolite that had really fallen from the sky. The Apollo of Amyclae 1 was one of the most celebrated of these bronze idols, and is described as a pillar of metal forty-five feet high, with head and hands, which stood on the spot where, according to tradition, Apollo, the Sun-god, by an unfortunate accident caused the death of his friend Hyacinthus, from whose blood sprang the flower Hyaointh.

Keats has written some beautiful lines in which he refers to this pathetic incident.

" Fair creatures, whose young children's children bred Thermopylae its heroes . . . not yet dead, But in old marbles ever beautiful.

High genitors, unconscious did they cull Time's sweet first-fruits . . . they danced to weariness, And then in quiet circles did they press The hillock turf, and caught the latter end Of some strange history, potent to send A young mind from its bodily tenement ; Or they might watch the Quoit-players, intent On either side ; pitying the sad death Of Hyacinthus, when the cruel breath Of Zephyr slew him, . . . Zephyr penitent, Who now, ere Phoebus mounts the firmament, Fondles the flower amid the sobbing rain."

When Pausanias saw this statue it was adorned with the gold given by Crcesus to the Lacedemonians, that, according to their laws, could not be used by the citizens for an increase of personal luxury. 2 It stood on a throne or platform, containing seats for priests and worshippers, and decorated by the sculptor Bathycles of Magnesia with stories of gods and heroes sculptured in low relief. Before there was any real sculpture, that is, statues in the round, the Greeks had already produced much decorative work of wood and metal ; it is not therefore surprising to find that when they began to work in stone they still sculptured in relief, that is, they cut out the surface of a solid block of stone, so that the figures or designs stood out distinct from the slab on which they were carved. Relief is called high

1 Pausanias, iii. 18, 19. 2 Ibid. iii. 18.

or low according to whether the sculpture is only slightly raised above the surface or stands out nearly free from the background.

DiEDALUS AND HIS PUPILS.

Daedalus, a half-mythical person, whose name signifies "one who works cunningly," 1 was a carver of wooden images, "of which it was said they are strange to look upon, and yet have some divine inspiration manifest in them," 2 and of whom it is also recorded that " he loosed the limbs of the gods and opened their eyes." 8 Pausanias on his travels saw many of these wooden images, which, although displaced from their original position by works of art more suited to the critical taste of later worshippers, were still preserved with care as sacred relics, and in some cases, as with the ancient wooden images of Hermes in the Erechtheum at Athens, wreathed with garlands to veil their grotesqueness. The legends of Daedalus ascribe to him the invention of wings, which he is said to have fastened with wax to the shoulders of himself and his son Icarus ; with these they crossed the JEgean Sea, but the boy, disregarding his father's advice, flew too high, the wax melted in the hot rays of the sun, and, his wings being detached, he fell into the sea and was drowned. Daedalus scarcely comes within the range of history, but in both Athens and Crete there existed families or guilds of sculptors called Daedalids, and several artists whose names and works are celebrated by historians are said to have been his pupils. 4 Among these are Dipcenus and Scyllis of Crete and Endceus of Athens, who worked in the sixth century B.C. 5 We have the following record of Smilis, another pupil of Daedalus : " The temple of Hera of Samos may reasonably be thought one of the oldest in existence, notably because of the statue, for it is the work of an ^Eginetan, Smilis, the son of Eucleides. This Smilis was a contemporary of Daedalus, but never obtained to the same height of fame." 6 This Hera statue probably took the place of the xoanon, or wooden idol, which we are told had a large and costly wardrobe.