Part 13 (1/2)

His position in the history of art is a.s.sured by the fortunate discovery of a copy of his Eirene with Ploutos, now in the Glyptothek at Munich (_Fig._ 221). This work combined the tendencies of the new Attic style with those of Pheidias. Though the n.o.ble simplicity and grandeur, the earnestness and strictness, of the earlier period still remained, there had already dawned an expression of deeper feeling, and of a more spiritual life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 221.--Eirene and Ploutos, after Kephisodotos.]

The representation, as Friederichs says, of the deep interchange of affection between mother and child, as shown in the Eirene of Kephisodotos, united with much of the hardness of the older works, culminated in two masters--the Parian Scopas and the Athenian Praxiteles, the latter possibly the son of Kephisodotos. Their productions were so nearly related that, even in antiquity, it was doubtful whether a work of celebrity should be ascribed to one or to the other. The chief creations of both were statues of the deities, both worked in marble, choosing this material not by chance, but from the nature of their subjects. With the exception of such colossal figures, of a highly monumental character, as the chryselephantine statues of Zeus and Athene Parthenos by Pheidias, and the Hera by Polycleitos, the delicate beauty of soft and transparent stone was best fitted for the images of deities enshrined within the temple; bronze, on the contrary, is peculiarly suited to statues of victors and athletes intended for outdoor exposure. It was on this account that it had been so largely employed by Myron and Polycleitos.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 222.--Apollo Kitharoidos. (Vatican.)]

The Raging Bacchante, designated by epigrams and descriptions as the most celebrated work of Scopas, was one of the first masterpieces of antiquity. The head was thrown back in an ecstasy of pa.s.sion, the hair loosened, and the long garment fluttering in the wind; thus did the Mainad appear rus.h.i.+ng to the heights of Kithairon, holding in her hands the kid rent in her fury. If the rhetor Kallistratos was, as he says, speechless at sight of the countenance, admiring particularly the expression of a soul stung into madness, we can well believe that pa.s.sion itself was embodied in this work. The excitement was more moderate in the Apollo of the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous, brought by Augustus to the Palatine, playing the lyre and singing with lyric inspiration. It is not improbable that the motive of the Apollo in the Vatican, with the long flowing garments (_Fig._ 222), may be referred to this original. The entire bearing more closely resembles that of the figures of the children of Niobe. We can hardly think without enthusiasm of the Bithynian Achilles group, placed in later times in the Temple of Neptune, near the Circus Flaminius in Rome, which, according to Pliny, would have made the master celebrated even though he had created nothing else during his lifetime. It represented Achilles upon the island of Leuke after his death, and his reception among the deities, and displayed, besides Thetis and Poseidon, numerous fantastic creatures of the sea. Some idea of these last may be gained from a magnificent frieze found in the vicinity of the Temple of Neptune, and now in the Glyptothek at Munich. But it cannot belong to this group, and, in its main features, has no close relations with it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 223.--Central Figure of the Niobids. (Florence.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 224.--Head of Niobe.]

Delicate beauty and warmth of feeling must be ascribed to the works of Scopas, otherwise Pliny could not have placed the Aphrodite found in the Temple of Mars, near the Circus Flaminius, above that of Praxiteles. Nor can we imagine the groups at Megara--Eros, Himeros, and Pothos (Love, Yearning, and Desire)--described by Pausanias; or Aphrodite, with her priestly lover Phaethon; or Pothos, in Samothrace, to have been without these traits. The group of Leto with the nurse Ortygia carrying the children, Apollo and Artemis, as the personification of a mother's joy and pride, must have been full of deep meaning. It is evident, from the long list of his works, that his power was many-sided: his peculiar style is best exemplified in a grand composition, the group of the Niobids, though Pliny is in doubt whether it should be ascribed to Scopas or to Praxiteles. The original of this no longer exists, and even the very unequally executed pieces--to be found chiefly in the Uffizi at Florence, and in various repet.i.tions in different museums--are not complete; still even thus they betray the greatness and individuality of this wonderful work. Niobe, wife of King Amphion of Thebes, and mother of fourteen children, in a boastful spirit, inherited from her father Tantalos, compared herself with Leto, who had only two, and ordered sacrifices to be made to herself rather than to that G.o.ddess. For this she was terribly chastised by Apollo and Artemis, her children being all slain before her eyes by the avenging arrows of the two deities. She herself, trying in vain to protect her youngest daughter, pressing against her, makes an attempt to draw her mantle over her head to hide the expression of despairing woe which, according to the legend, in a few moments turned her to stone. The figure, in its royal n.o.bility and motherly despair, yet so free from contortion, has wonderful effect.

(_Figs._ 223 and 224.) The children, already wounded and hurrying towards her, show pain, fear, and need of help in different degrees, but with that dignity and fine control which render it a tragedy in the highest sense. The various struggles of feeling in the beautiful young faces; the excited wrestling with an invisible, unconquerable, relentless power, in every gesture, and in every motion of the swaying garments; the plaintive character of the lines throughout the whole composition, entirely opposed to the vertical tendency of the statuesque, and especially of the architectural art; the wavy flow which distinguishes it from the group at aegina, and even from the quiet action of the figures in the gables of the Parthenon--are all so peculiar to this pathetic school, and so characteristic of its productions, that the Niobe will ever be considered the greatest example of its style.

In a study of the artistic character of Scopas, we must content ourselves, for the most part, with a few copies, and some not very full accounts. Still, original remains from his hand are not altogether wanting. We have seen that he was engaged in the sculptural ornamentation upon the eastern side of the Mausoleum of Halicarna.s.sos; while upon the south and north sides his younger a.s.sociates were employed--Timotheos, Bryaxis, and Leochares, the latter known to us by a copy in the Vatican of his Ganymede Carried Away by the Eagle of Zeus.

But the greater part of the recognizable reliefs upon the frieze, the most important group of which represents the so often recurring battle of the Amazons, notwithstanding the wonderful beauty and pathos of the action, peculiar to the sculptured art of this period, is the work of artisans, and certainly not by the hand of a master of the first rank.

(_Fig._ 225.) Among the numerous fragments of the statues found in the English excavations of 1856, which, from a.n.a.logy with the mausoleums of the Roman emperors, may have stood between the columns, one at least, a well-preserved torso, probably of Zeus, found upon the eastern side, has been ascribed to Scopas. The others are, unfortunately, too much mutilated to allow of any reliable judgment, as the varying views of different authorities testify. At all events, these decorative works cannot be ranked with the more celebrated examples of this master.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 225.--Fragment of the Frieze from the Mausoleum of Halicarna.s.sos.]

An acquaintance with the art of Scopas is extended by the study of his younger and still more important contemporary Praxiteles. The masterpieces of this artist are similar in character, and betray all the preference of the former for the ideal beauty of youth. Not less than five statues of Aphrodite by Praxiteles are known to have existed, among which the famous statue at Cnidos was regarded as one of the wonders of the world, and was ranked with the Olympian Zeus. It was so highly prized among lovers of art that King Nicomedes of Bithynia, for instance, in vain offered to the people of Cnidos the entire amount of their State debt in exchange for it. The brow, the moist glowing eyes, and soft smile of the slightly parted lips are described as wonderful; the whole figure being so executed as to cause the marble to be forgotten and the G.o.ddess of love to appear a reality. Coins of Cnidos show the figure to have been entirely nude, the left hand holding her drapery, partly lying upon a vase, and the right s.h.i.+elding herself in modesty. The best in this style among the numerous remaining statues were the Braschi Aphrodite, now in the Glyptothek at Munich, and that of the Vatican, which is, however, inferior in execution, and is, unfortunately, disfigured in the lower part by hard, modern drapery.

Next to that of Cnidos in n.o.bility and beauty must have been a draped Aphrodite from Cos, provided the people of that place had any understanding of art; for, when the choice between the two was offered them by the artist, they gave the preference to this. Of the three others, less known, the Thespian was placed next to the statue of Phryne, as contrasting divine with human beauty. To Praxiteles were ascribed, also, at least two representations of Eros--blooming, youthful figures, of which the most celebrated seems to have been the Thespian or Botian one, which was installed between the Phryne and the Aphrodite. Epigrams and accounts describing the G.o.d as wounding not with the arrow, but the eye, appear to relate to this figure; for the second statue from Parion, in Mysia, according to the coins, showed the G.o.d unarmed, and with head uplifted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 226.--Head of Eros. (Vatican.)]

A tender and almost effeminate character was exhibited in these beautiful figures of youth, similar to which were the Sauroctonos--the lizard-killer--the best copy of which is in the Louvre; the dreamily reposing Satyr, of which there are copies in various museums; and the smiling, sentimental Dionysos with the doeskin, leaning upon the thyrsos. Great depth of suffering and sorrow is the fundamental feature of two groups, one representing the rape of Proserpine, the other her delivery by Demeter to the lower world, to which she returned after every harvest, as a symbol of the following fruitless season.

This last was as pathetic an ill.u.s.tration of a sorely tested mother as could be found in any other work of Praxiteles. The mild Demeter was not less frequently presented by this master than was Aphrodite.

That greatest of all modern discoveries, the Hermes with the infant Dionysos, found in the Heraion at Olympia (_Figs._ 227 and 228), has proved the error of imputing to all the works of Praxiteles a delicate gracefulness verging upon weakness, which had arisen from the study of the only examples. .h.i.therto known--the copies of the Sauroctonos, the Satyr, and the Aphrodite. The manly force of this statue, in character midway between the conceptions of Pheidias and Lysippos, is, indeed, so surprising that some scholars have even been inclined to a.s.sume a second sculptor by the name of Praxiteles, there being no reason to doubt the direct testimony of Pausanias as to the authors.h.i.+p of this work. The beauty of this torso exceeds that of all other antique statues known; the expression of the head conveys that intense sympathy between the loving protector and the child which must have characterized the work of Kephisodotos referred to above. It is possible that the Hermes was the product of an earlier period of the sculptor's development, more closely related to the tendency and ideals of Pheidian art. When it is considered that this torso is the only surely authenticated original production of any great master of Greek sculpture--for it is by no means certain that the gable groups of the Parthenon are by the hand of Pheidias himself--there is no need for further discussion of the fundamental importance of this most fortunate discovery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 227.--Hermes with the Infant Dionysos. (From the Heraion at Olympia.)]

Notwithstanding the astonis.h.i.+ng many-sided genius and productivity of Praxiteles, nearly all the Olympian deities appearing in the half hundred of his works, it must still be acknowledged that, besides his pathetic tendency, he particularly affected that province in which the figures of maidens or youths gave opportunity for the development of the greatest charms. His works portray a sensual loveliness distinguished alike from that hard and abstract beauty, that outward perfection of form sought and attained by Polycleitos, and from that elevated, G.o.dlike being ideally embodied by Pheidias in his Zeus and his Athene. Neither entirely human, as with Polycleitos, nor divine, as with Pheidias, this emotional loveliness seemed created for the world of G.o.ds, but little raised above the sight and experience of men; and this type appears to have been as well established by Praxiteles as that of the higher deities by Pheidias. Its examples are the Aphrodite and Eros, the youthful Dionysos with his train, the Demeter, and the Eleusinian circle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 228.--Head of the Hermes of Praxiteles.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 229.--Venus of Melos. (Louvre.)]

However important the school of these two masters of pathos may have been, but few among the numerous names that have been preserved became prominent. The chief exceptions are the above-mentioned a.s.sistants of Scopas upon the mausoleum, and the two sons of Praxiteles, Kephisodotos the younger, and Timarchos. Two of the greatest works of statuary, however, may be ascribed to their most vigorous scholars--the Venus of Melos in the Louvre (_Fig._ 229) and the so-called Ilioneus in the Glyptothek at Munich. If the doubtful inscription of the artist upon the former be credited, which, in characters of the first century B.C., designated it as the production of

Ale

xandros, son of Menides of Antioch upon the Meander, but which, together with the corresponding part of the plinth, has disappeared, we should possess in this work an inexplicable anachronism, a creation of the highest rank in art produced during a period of decided decadence. As, however, through this loss, this a.s.sumption cannot be verified, science must proceed to judge it by its style alone. Its grandeur and dignity, in contrast to the immodest coquetry of later works; the fulness of the flesh in this body of ever-blooming youth, in comparison with their attenuated grace; the mild softness of the surface beside the cold polish of the other figures of Aphrodite--would place this statue between the period of highest perfection at the time of Praxiteles, and that of the Roman reproductions. The reference of the Venus of Melos to the school of Praxiteles has found a justification not to be undervalued in the discovery of the Hermes at Olympia, this figure of manly youth forming as complete a pendant to the maidenly Venus as could be imagined. In artistic character this is far more nearly related to the Hermes than is any other statue of Aphrodite, not excepting the undoubted Roman reproduction of that of Cnidos. At any rate, it is clearly an h.e.l.lenic original, not belonging to the period of later h.e.l.lenistic art.

Unfortunately, no explanation of this statue hitherto advanced has been entirely satisfactory. The two arms are wanting, and the fallen drapery covering the lower limbs has hidden from us the only accessory evidence--namely, the object upon which the lifted left leg is supported; so that even the name of Venus is not to be applied with the usual certainty. The Roman types of Victory, also half nude, with the same garments and position, and with the s.h.i.+eld upon which the conquest is inscribed, suggest an Aphrodite-Victory a.n.a.logous to the Attic Athene-Victory. The restorations all present points of difficulty; among them may be mentioned that commonly received, where the G.o.ddess contemplates herself in the s.h.i.+eld of Ares, supported by the a.n.a.logy of a statue mentioned by Pausanias (ii. 5), an interpretation equally applicable to the Venus of Capua, now in Naples; that also of Wiesler, with the lance in the uplifted left hand; and the combination of the G.o.ddess in a group with Ares by Quatremere de Quincy.

It is even less easy to find a reliable explanation of the beautiful torso in the Glyptothek at Munich, formerly held, falsely, to be Ilioneus among the Niobids, and even believed to be an original. As the Venus of Melos is an ill.u.s.tration of ripened womanly beauty, the entirely nude, cowering figure, without head or arms, represents the perfection of youth; and the position suggests a subject equal in pathetic import to that of the children of Niobe.

As the works of Scopas and Praxiteles frequently found their way to the islands of the aegean Sea, and as the former, at least, had certainly dwelt for some time in Asia Minor, the influence of these two masters appears to have extended eastward, and their style to have had decided sway even longer there than in Greece proper. The farthest outlying examples are presented by the fragmentary statues of the Nereids from the Monument of Xanthos, to which they have given the name.

At that period, even in Athens, some highly esteemed artists not only partially followed their own ways, but in these surpa.s.sed the former masters, and pursued aims which did not become generally prevalent until the middle of the fourth century, and then in quite other localities.