Part 13 (2/2)

These were Silanion of Athens and Euphranor of the Isthmos. The first devoted himself chiefly to portraits and representations of victors, and was so especially successful in the former as to make them a real embodiment of personal character; as, for instance, the portrait of the pa.s.sionate sculptor Apollodoros was made to appear a personification of sudden rage. Silanion distinguished himself from Praxiteles in the subjects of his art, in which he had much in common with Lysippos.

Euphranor was also, perhaps in a still greater degree, a painter, and, in the coa.r.s.er power of his creations, was opposed to the delicate style of Praxiteles, showing more affinity with Lysippos, so far, at least, as we can judge of his sculptures by the accounts of his paintings.

Similar to the transitional position between Pheidias and Scopas, held by the elder Kephisodotos, was the position taken by these two sculptors between the art of Scopas and Praxiteles and that of Lysippos, for whom the studies and innovations in the canons of human proportions prepared the way. Though self-taught, for as a youth he had been a hand-worker in bra.s.s, and from this had raised himself to the position of an artist, he was still not without connection with the schools, since he took as his model the Doryphoros of Polycleitos, the academic pattern mentioned above, and also worked in bronze, the material most favored by Polycleitos and the artists of the Peloponnesos. He cannot, however, be called a direct scholar of Polycleitos, whose canon he corrected and even replaced by a new one, better adapted to the artistic aims of the younger masters. The model of Polycleitos was the human body, but Lysippos felt that he must set his ideal of humanity higher than in the average of real examples, because he considered these, in comparison with the perfect figure, to be degenerate and dwarfed. Although he worked with reference to this view, still he developed his types from the real appearances of nature; and when asked by the painter Eupompos of Sikyon for advice as to the best teacher, he pointed to an a.s.semblage of people. He wished to represent man, however, not as he is, but as he should be, and employed only those features which did not fall below the average determined by Polycleitos. His ideal type of the human body became more slender and larger, the size being especially apparent because the head and extremities, which take their proportions from the whole, were made smaller.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 230.--Marble Copy of the Apoxyomenos of Lysippos.

(In the Vatican.)]

Lysippos, however, followed the footsteps of Polycleitos in considering the establishment of a canon as the greatest essential in art, and exercised his powers chiefly in the province of humanity. His Apoxyomenos--the athlete sc.r.a.ping himself with the strigil, a marble copy of which is in the Vatican--is the most celebrated among his statues of athletes and victors. (_Fig._ 230.) In this he seems to have set forth his new confession of faith, in opposition to that of Polycleitos. This aim must have had the most important influence upon portrait-sculpture, the chief field of his activity. It is clear from the accounts of some likenesses of persons long dead, or even legendary, that he fully expressed the character in the features, as in the Apollodoros of Silanion, and did not aim at that over-scrupulous reproduction of details and attention to circ.u.mstantial matters which endeavor to attain a likeness by sharp observation of external things, unessential to the whole. This inferior style of portraiture was pursued by Lysistratos, the brother of Lysippos, who formed his figures after plaster casts from nature. Although earlier portraits might have informed the sculptor in regard to the true features of some historical personages, certainly this could not have been the case with aesop, or the Seven Wise Men, for whose individuality and intellectual tendencies he was obliged to create a characteristic type. In the portrait which he most frequently executed, that of Alexander the Great, it was of especial importance to illuminate the ugly and faulty formation of the monarch's face by the expression of his powerful character, and to execute it so appropriately that even the likeness was increased by such depth of appreciation. The artist thus produced portraits of the conqueror which differed as much, and as favorably, from the realistic and chance appearance of the king as the historic ill.u.s.tration of a great personage does from the knowledge of that individual in every-day life. Alexander, accordingly, would be represented in sculpture by no one except Lysippos, as he would be painted by none but Apelles. Even that best-preserved portrait of Alexander, the bust in the Capitol, does not suffice to make clear the whole conception of Lysippos. How grand such monumental portraitures really were may be gathered from the account of the group at Dium--afterwards transferred to the Portico of Octavia in Rome--ill.u.s.trating a scene from the battle upon the Granicos, where twenty-five warriors on horseback and nine on foot were grouped about the king, to which many of the enemy may doubtless be added.

The work next in importance after this was the representation of Heracles by this master. Not in the elevation of the ideal above the human, but rather in the emphasizing of this latter quality, did the Heracles of Lysippos stand in distinct opposition alike to the merely human model of Polycleitos, to the superhuman and G.o.dlike beings of Pheidias, and especially to the divinely charming beauty of the Aphrodite and the Eros, as seen in the best creations of Scopas and Praxiteles. The Heracles of Lysippos, the embodiment of strength developed beyond human possibility, appeared colossal, whether the absolute dimensions were really great--like the statue from Tarention which represented him resting upon a basket after the labor of cleansing the Augean stables--or whether in miniature, suitable for a table ornament--like the celebrated Epitrapezios, showing the hero as a drinker. Copies, in part, still remain of the Labors of Heracles, executed in twelve groups for Alyzia, in Acarnania. They show the same type that is reproduced in the affected, overstrained statue of the later Athenian artist Glycon--the so-called Farnese Hercules in Naples.

(_Fig._ 231.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 231.--Farnese Hercules of Glycon. (In the Museum of Naples.)]

Besides these prominent groups by Lysippos, evidences of his creative energy, the figures of the deities appear to have been few in number.

That examples from the circle of young and beautiful divinities, which formed the princ.i.p.al field for the art of Praxiteles, should be almost entirely wanting, was to be expected, he who had perfected the type of Heracles naturally preferring a powerful figure. Four statues of Zeus are mentioned. Though the colossal size of these seems to have been a prominent feature--the Zeus of Tarention measuring eighteen metres in height--still they should not be considered as executed after a conventional pattern, and consequently offering nothing worthy of remark. In view of all that is known of Lysippos, it seems not improbable that the Zeus of Otricoli (_Fig._ 232), formerly referred to the Pheidian type, may be more nearly related to its modification by Lysippos. The Helios upon the quadriga in Rhodes, besides its human beauty, may possibly have been of great importance in type and conception; but this is not a.s.sured by the fact that Nero prized it highly, and ordered it to be gilded. If it be added that Lysippos worked more industriously and rapidly than any other known sculptor--provided the account be true that the number of his productions amounted to fifteen hundred--it cannot be supposed that the time required for new conception and careful execution would be given to them all.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 232.--Zeus of Otricoli. (Vatican.)]

The school of Lysippos was not wanting in names of renown. His most gifted son, Euthycrates, appears to have equalled his father in groups of portrait statues, like the Gathering of Riders and a Hunt of Alexander in Thespia; while another son, Boidas, awakens our interest from the circ.u.mstance that the celebrated Praying Boy, in the museum at Berlin, may possibly be referred to him. Chares of Lindos produced the greatest known work of Greek sculpture in regard to size--namely, the colossal statue of the sun at Rhodes, over thirty metres high. Pliny describes it as already fallen and in ruins, therefore his words give us no information as to the conception and style; and the current account of its having stood so high above the entrance to the harbor that vessels sailed between the legs is a fabulous reminiscence of the figure projected at Mount Athos by Deinocrates. Among the scholars of Lysippos, Eutychides seems to have been the most independent; the G.o.ddess Anticheia, a copy of which is in the Vatican, was distinguished by excellence in the motive, ease of position, and effective drapery; but, in its genre-like treatment, it excluded all thought of religious art, to which a certain strictness and dignity should pertain. This G.o.ddess was seated with dignity, like a city itself, while another personification--the river-G.o.d--appeared ”more flowing than water.” This marked significance in both cannot be ascribed to a happy chance, but must be regarded as evidence of that highly developed characterization by which the great Sikyonian master endeavored to conceive the whole being and to embody it in his portraits and representative figures.

Among the nameless works from the school of Lysippos, creations are to be found of the highest merit. The originator of the Barberini Faun, now in the Glyptothek at Munich, whoever he may have been, should be ranked among the greatest masters of all times.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 233.--Boreas.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 234.--Notos. From the Tower of the Winds, Athens.]

With Lysippos the development of art in its princ.i.p.al directions was terminated. As Overbeck says, ”the summit lies behind us; we descend, and our way downwards may still lead through charming landscapes; but the pure, clear ether soon ceases to surround us, and, before the far-reaching glance, rises from the mist of centuries the flat and endless desert, in the sands of which the stream of Grecian art is quenched.” Alexander himself was the patron of the last of the seven great masters of sculpture; with him ended the fresh directness of h.e.l.lenic creations, as well as the greatness of Greece itself. He and his successors built temples afterwards to be furnished, as before, with statues of the deities and outwardly ornamented with sculptures; but they took their models from those earlier works which, elevated to a typical and canonical importance, were not to be surpa.s.sed, and employed themselves simply in reproducing. They followed more willingly the easy path open to them because, in the Alexandrian period, scepticism, empty formalism, and chilling indifference had already laid the ravaging axe to the h.e.l.lenic religion. With the spread of h.e.l.lenic power into the heart of Asia, its art, like its polity, lost its individuality, becoming _expansive_ instead of _intense_, in decorative subjection to the requirements of elegance and use. Losing its former independent n.o.bility, sculpture soon fell from the height which it had occupied for a century and a half. Athens, Sikyon, and Argos, hitherto central points of development, where art had brought forth its richest fruits as a model for the entire h.e.l.lenic world, now became provincial cities of the Macedonian kingdom, and lost their glory--some for a long period, and others forever. Following the example of Lysippos, artists preferred wandering from court to court of Alexander's successors; and in Alexandria, Antioch, Seleucia, in Nicomedia, Pergamon, Ambrakia, mostly new and elegant cities of royal residence, occupation could not have been wanting, though the quant.i.ty of work may have tended to hasten the decline. How extensive and extravagant were the artistic requirements of the Diadochi, how excessive the incense of flattery offered them, is shown in the description of the luxurious works of the Ptolemies and of the Seleucidae, and by the three hundred statues erected to Demetrius Phalereus in Athens alone. These last may have been somewhat better than the representation of the winds upon the clepsydra and vane of Andronicos Kyrrhestios (_Figs._ 233 and 234), but even they must be cla.s.sed as mere artisan-work. Much was done in portrait-statuary after the time of Alexander, who turned art in this direction; and the successive dynasties also encouraged it, as may easily be imagined. This is evident from the statues still preserved, from the Ptolemaic cameos, and especially the coins of the Diadochi. The heads of these kings have never been equalled, for fine and lifelike characterization and modelling, in all the portrait coins and medallions which have been struck down to the present time. (_Fig._ 235.)

Though a great deal was produced in the period of the Diadochi, and, in the line of portraiture, much that was good, still there must have been truth in the saying of Pliny that ”after the 121st Olympiad (290 B.C.) art ceased, and revived again only in the 156th (150 B.C.).” It ceased, namely, in so far as it was made subservient to courts and decoration; but upon the soil of Greece itself, and among the people, it grew, and strove after higher aims. The production continued, but its artisan-like elaboration did not make good the lost artistic originality. Men of vigorous talent followed in the paths of Praxiteles and Lysippos, producing works which are the ornaments of our antique collections; but the character of reproductions, clinging to their creations, robs them of the name of artist in the full sense of the word. The scanty notices of Pliny are, in general, correct; but he omits to mention some exceptions which represent a further development of sculpture, not quite unimportant, though questionable in principle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Antiochos I. of Syria. 281 to 262.

Philip V. of Macedon. 220 to 178.

Perseus of Macedon. 178 to 168.

Fig. 235.--Coins of the Diadochi.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 236.--The So-called Dying Gladiator. School of Pergamon.]

In two places, at the royal court of Pergamon and in the republic of Rhodes, productive art rose again to a certain independence and originality. Pliny himself, in another place, says that ”several artists ill.u.s.trated the battles of Attalos and Eumenes against the Gauls; namely, Isigonos, Phycomachos, Stratonicos, and Antigonos.” The great victory over these barbarians was fought in 229 B.C. by Attalos, with which Eumenes, by a misunderstanding easily to be explained, appears to have been connected. Attalos erected in his capital a grand monument to his victory, and, not contenting himself with this, consecrated another upon the Acropolis at Athens, perhaps in part a copy of that in Pergamon. Remnants of both monuments still exist which give a comparatively good knowledge of the artistic peculiarities of this school. The investigations upon this site, now approaching completion, have unearthed hundreds of fragments in high-relief, part of a gigantomachia originally forming the decoration of an altar. The altar was surrounded by Ionic colonnades, the high stereobate of which was ornamented with sculptures in high-relief, the whole being elevated upon a gigantic terrace, 38 m. long, and 34 m. broad. The frieze, representing the gigantomachia, stands midway between the works of Lysippos and the Laoc.o.o.n, and forms the most extensive and important monument of sculpture remaining from the time of the Diadochi; it is in many respects a parallel to that of the Mausoleum of Halicarna.s.sos which represents the decorative work of the school of Scopas and Praxiteles.

These works have now found their way to Berlin, but a critical account of them will be possible only when they shall have been made generally accessible by an official publication. The statue of the so-called Dying Gladiator of the Capitol belonged to the group in Pergamon already known (_Fig._ 236); as did the two figures in the Villa Ludovisi, representing a Gaul who, to escape the shame of slavery, has stabbed his wife, who sinks beside him, and is about to thrust the sword into his own neck.

In the so-called Dying Gladiator, the rough hair growing low upon the neck, the strongly marked indentation between the brow and the projecting Northern nose, the beard shorn to the upper lip, the heavy cheek-bones, the fleshy and somewhat clumsily formed body, the hard and calloused skin upon the hands and feet, the twisted neckband, and the curved battle-horn have long since shown the meaning of this statue. In the group in the Ludovisi Villa, the same marble, a like and peculiar treatment of the forms, with the same type of head, leave no doubt that this also belonged to a large group representing a victory over the Gauls. From its style, it cannot be considered as a Roman monument, particularly as some notices of the Athenian Votive Offering of Attalos clearly identify it.

The most striking novelty in these monuments, and also in the school of art at Pergamon, is the characteristic following-out of ethnographical differences. Previously, when artists would distinguish barbarians, they were content to make the nationality clear by costume and accessories; but this could not suffice for Lysippos, who had carried individual characterization to such a height in his portrait-statues, and who probably, in his group of the battle upon the Granicos, ill.u.s.trated the peculiarities of the Persian race. In groups of portrait-statues it was necessary to treat the action with absolute truthfulness, thus leading the way to historic art. This is perfected in the monument in question, the ideal battle scene being based upon real details; it was not merely a strife among men, but Greeks and Celts stood opposed, each nation with its marked features and peculiarities, the barbarians distinguished not outwardly alone, but by their natural wildness.

This is evident from a number of figures of the Athenian votive offering of Attalos, still preserved; our knowledge of their connection with the Dying Gladiator and the school of Pergamon is due to Brunn. According to Pausanias, this votive offering consisted of figures half the size of life, in four groups, showing the gigantomachia, the combat of the Amazons, the battle of Marathon, and the victory of Attalos. Figures exist from them all; from the first, a giant, dead and outstretched, is in the museum at Naples, as also one of the second, a fallen Amazon; from the third, a dead body clad in breeches, and two nude Persians kneeling, are in Naples, the Vatican, and in the possession of Signor Castellani. From the fourth, a kneeling figure, at Paris, and one kneeling and one falling backward, at Venice, are unmistakable Gauls; while a sitting figure, wounded, also at Venice, and a youthful one, dead, at Naples, are probably also of that race. Judging from these remains, the composition must have included numerous figures, as the five existing Gauls--perhaps also several more--bespeak a corresponding number at Pergamon, and forty is the lowest that can be reckoned for the whole. Their position was probably upon the steps of the monument, which possibly bore the statue of the founder. It must have stood near the wall of the Acropolis, since it has been said that a figure from the gigantomachia was thrown by a storm into the theatre which stood at the foot of this fortress. That only the conquered are found among the pieces preserved seems to be an evidence that these remnants are from the original rather than from any copy, because, aside from the improbability that so extensive a work would have been copied in later times, the effect of the storm suggests the thought that the erect statues of the victors would have been less likely to last through so many centuries than the lying and cowering figures, not so easily injured on account of their closer connection with the base.

Notwithstanding their relation in style to the Capitoline statue and to the group in the Ludovisi Villa, these are distinctly inferior and harder. Brunn is probably right in his supposition that they are the work of scholars, and a contemporaneous reproduction from the studio of that master, who himself executed the monument at Pergamon, the figures of which ranked in merit with the Dying Gladiator. Many deficiencies may be accounted for by its reduction to half life-size; its repet.i.tion at this scale, for the Athenian votive offering, appearing to have satisfied the king.

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