BOOKS.

ESSAYS ON ANCIENT AUT.*

Deedalus, as a representative name for a treatise on sculpture, may be allowable enough, and we should never have thought of entering upon a dispute as to whether or not there ever existed such a person in the flesh, had not the author of the 'book before us gone seriously into a biography of Daedalus and his son Icarus, even to his sad end by the bite of a sea-serpent at Caria. This matter forms the chief burden of the preface to the elegant volume of Mr. Falkener's, and the idea is carried out by the medallions en mire which surmount the cover, and which really deserve no- tice as new specimens of Diedalean skill applied to bookbinding. These pretty cameos, the one representing Father Daedalus at work upon a wing, while Icarus stands waiting at his side half- fledged, the other showing the daring boy ready to mount to his destiny, while Daedalus entreats him not to fly too high, suggest at the threshold that within the reader will have the company of an enthusiast for the art of the Greeks, with the conversation of a scholar and man of taste.

Daedalus is evidently believed by Mr. Falkener to have really existed as the first sculptor, although he is candidly obliged to trace his genealogy amongst such mythological personages as Hercules and Theseus. But the idea conveyed by his account is not exactly descriptive of the period or the art which may be called Diedalean. The term Dmdala was applied to all kinds of inventions, as well as to those rude wooden shapes, carved into something like human form, which were the first Greek deities worshipped ; these were the " simulacra mcesta Deorum," rather irreverently alluded to by Terence. Figures of this kind, clothed in drapery to hide defects and render the illusion greater, were commonly used in Greece, and probably borrowed from Phoenicia,

three generations at least the siege of Troy. Some expert carver of these figures probably got the name of Daedalus, or all who made them were so called • and just as we have our Smiths and Coopers, the ancients had their Homerides, IEsclepiades, and Diedalides. The name was not 'a proper name but a generic one, although we speak of the school of Daedalus merely as indicating the vague period of plastic art. An important feature also should be remarked of this cradle epoch in Greek' art ; it is that, accord- ing to all descriptions of the time, the daidiaa were so far a great advance upon the Egyptian and Assyrian figures in having the limbs separated from the body, and even moveable, like a lay figure. They were painted also to imitate the living being still more closely. In this we trace the germ which developed into such mighty works in the hands of Phidias—a principle of vitality and advance entirely opposed to the rigid hieratic style of the Egyptian art, the essential element of which was eternal sameness. At this time, indeed, the ingenuity of artists had not

been curbed by that severity of repose which subsequently be- came the rule of Greek art, and Dredala were even employed to gratify the populace in the festivals of Bacchus, by performing all sorts of comic pantomimes. It is said this was contrived by causing quicksilver to circulate outside them, and the trick has been employed for toys, to the present day. It has not fallen within Mr. Falkener's plan to trace the rise and progress of Greek art ; otherwise we should have been able to follow him to the origin of the Aginetan school, some five cen- turies later in the hands of the descendants of the Diedalides ; but after the story of Daedalus, we have an introduction which lays before us the pet subject of the author, in the restoration, ac- cording to his view of the roof of the Parthenon. Abruptly as this comes upon us, we must briefly say that Mr. Falkener con- siders that the arched roof, made of wood however, is the only one that would have admitted the colossal statue of Athene. We are unable to see the force of this argument. The form of roof hitherto supposed to have covered the Parthenon, with the excep-

tion of the space. called " hyptethrum," was like our roofs, and formed of rafters, as represented in the model made by Mr. Lucas,

in the Elgin room of the British Museum. Mr. Falkener imagines an arched ceiling inside this, and the effect as seen in his draw- ing is good, but not better than in the trabeated form. His rea- sons for this restoration are, that the arch was practised by the Egyptian and Assyrian architects, and that upon some coins, as one exhibiting the Temple of Juno at Samos, the statue is shown standing under an arch. But these coins are • Roman, and the arch was very probably put in as a bit of Roman taste, and after the form of the temple with which the Roman medallist was most familiar. He could not certainly have visited the temple at Samos, and it is clear that he drew upon his own invention, be- cause the true Greek coin represents the figure only. The an- tiquity of the arch is a point not concerned in the matter. Had the curved form of the arch been consonant with Greek ideas of architecture, they would have adopted it, but we are not aware of a single example of the arch in Greek buildings. Certainly, when we imagine an arch supported on Done columns,_ the idea appears utterly incongruous. Mr. Falkener offers another restoration to the Parthenon, in the statues which filled the pediments. In the museum of Classical Antiquities, are drawings by him, as he imagines the pediments

• Acclaim ; or the Causes and Principles of the Excellence of Greek Sculpture. By Edward Falkener, Member of the Academy of Bologna, and of the Institutes of Bowe and Berlin. Published by Longman and Co. The Museum of Classical Antiquitie s ; being a Series of Essays on Ancient Art. Edited by Edward Falkener. New edition. Complete in one volume. Published by Longman and Co.

existed before the Venetians, in 1687, boinbarded the Temple, at that time used as a powder-magazine by the Turks. In that of the Eastern pediment, we have a winged Athene, rising up be- tween seated profile figures of Jupiter and Juno, an arrangement which no Greek artist would have dared to make in direct contra- diction to the belief that the goddess sprang armed from the head of Jova M. Quatremere de Quincy, guided by the drawings of Jacque Carrey, restores the group, with an Athene without wings, in accordance with the legend and after the manner in which the subject is represented on an Etruscan patera, and this would appear to be a more likely restoration.

The essays upon the uses of art, the causes of success, the beau- tiful, and the ideal, are short and pleasant reading, though by no means touching upon all the points which influenced Greek art ; we find them neither very exhaustive nor very subtle in treat- ment, and in parts treading upon very debateable ground. Of the large proportion of quotations, somewhat of the trite order, we shall not oomplain, as they are apologized for in the preface, though we should have preferred a little more dealing with the subject at the author's own hands. Mr. Falkener attributes no small amount of the excellence of Greek art to the religion, mora- lity, and iatrioti.sm of the people: " the life of the Greek," he says, " resembled that of the Gods ; " the beautiful and the good in- spired everybody to good deeds. " The artist felt that every eye was upon him, and that each man was able to criticize his work." Above all, he was so religious and dwelt so upon the meditation of Divinity, that in this way his statue became godlike. We should be sorry to dispel this artistic dream of a golden age, but we fear history will not support it. It is something new to have purity claimed for the life of the gods ; and as to Greek mortals, the little matters between Themistoeles and. Aristides are enough to show us that they were not better than other people. We have a stern recollection, too, of sundry plottings against Pericles and his friend Phidias in reference to the expenditure of the public funds upon the Parthenon ; and whether Phidias was rascal enough—for genius in art has ere now been basely wed—to appropriate any of the gold allotted for his great statue of Minerva, or whether, envied for his genius and renown he died a persecuted martyr in prison, perhaps even by poison—it is impossible in either case to agree with Mr. Falkener as to the high moral worth of the Athenians. It is even told by Plutarch, that Pericles knew his men so well, that he cautioned Phidias to make the golden drapery to take off the figure, and when the accusation came, the gold was brought into courtand weighed before the eyes of the people. Foiled in this, however, it is related that afterwards these noble Greeks dis- covered that Phidias had carved a portrait of Pericles and himself upon the shield of the goddess, and to this sacrilege poor Phidias was obliged to plead guilty. We are content in history to regard the great salient points—the grand examples for the future —and with similar views in art we remember the surpassing achieve- ments of the Greeks, the lofty genius of their sculptors, and the grandeur of their ideal, without caring whether, as a people, they were any better than the modern successors to the name. It would have been unnecessary to allude to their weak points, had not our author attributed the greatness of the Greeks in art to their goodness—an opinion in which we are satisfied history will not support him. The short Essays upon the beautiful and the ideal, abounding as they do with sage remarks and principles culled from the ancient philosophers, are only so far good, they are not satisfying to the mind and do not tempt one to explore any new paths of thought, indeed sometimes, we might be led astray out of the old tracks. We are told, for instance, that the andro-gunaikal form in a statue "is a most wonderful evidence of the powers of idealism," and that the pleasing smile which is expressed in the faces of die dying Patroclus and Laomedon in the Aginetan figures exemplified the principle of beauty as the rule above everything, and the maxim that all was to be made pleasant to the eye. We imagine there are those who see in this smile of the warrior tho expression of the hero, and the last link to the archaic style. As to the Greeks being afraid of the horrible or the forcible, we cannot suppose this as we read their tragedies. In sculptural art, they knew exactly how far to go, and this we see in the Laocoon, where the signs of suffering are almost as convulsive as Michael Angelo would have rendered them, or in the fighting gladiator or warrior of Agasias, oddly referred to by lir. Falkener as the Warrior of Hegesias of Ephesus4 The paintings of Polygnotus in the Lesche, at Delphi, are also mentioned as carefully avoiding anything horror-striking in opposition to the mistake of Raffaelle and Poussin in represent- ing the plague-stricken people too literally. But we suspect these antique pictures t would be called barbarous in every way by mo- dern painters • and that the wonderful stories, some of which are repeated by Mr. Falkener, of birds pecking at the grapes of Zeuxis, and horses neighing at their fellows, painted by Micon are to be regarded as com imentary fables. Sir Joshua Reynold; cewas seized with an absurd fit of classic enthusiasm, when he said, " if the masterpieces in ancient painting had come down to us, we should see works in the style of the Laocoon with the colouring of Titian.".

t In the Museum of Antiquities, there are copies of the conjectural pic- tures which have been painted by the brothers ltiepenhausen from the des- cription of Pausanias.

+ The authority. for tbis innovation we are not acquainted with ; the pedestal is carved in old Greek letters, Arias Atocriotov Ectotcrws Ewoiti. Hegesias of Magnesia is mentioned by, Plutarch as a writer of the time, who described the burning of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus while its mistress was absent assisting at the birth of Alexander the Great. We notice a similar looseness of opinion when our author com- pares works of very different periods of Greek art, to illustrate his

views of the ideal. The .2Egmetaii, the Phigalian, the Parthenon, sculptures, and the Niobe group, are jumbled up with the La- ocoon, the Farnese Hercules, and the Antinous of the Vatican; while some of the finest statues are as if unknown. The Venus de' Medici is all but worshipped, while the Venus of Milo, the grandest female figure in existence, is not named ; neither is the Venus of Capna. The two Discoboli, and many other statues of acknowledged excellence, are not spoken of as great examples ; and, to increase our discontent, we find the two colossal groups on the Quirinal referred to as the works of Phidias and Praxiteles —a stretch of fabulous inclination which certainly is rather be- yond belief in modern art-criticism. Need we set the reader on a surer scent by saying that there is not the remotest resemblance in the style of these fine works to that of Phidias and Praxiteles, and that they are, most likely, Roman copies in marble from bronzes of the time of Alexander the Great ; possibly the work of Lysippus, his favourite sculptor. The chapters devoted to Chryselephantine sculpture and iconic polychromy—in simpler words, sculpture in ivory and gold, and the colouring of statues and sculpture—form an excellent sum- mary of the argument upon this interesting subject. Illustrated as the subject is by some good coloured drawings, it becomes in- deed the most valuable part of the book. Here, however, it is impossible that any one at all acquainted with the opinions of late years gaining acceptance amongst architects and art-anti- quarians, can fail to miss all reference to the works of M. Hittorf, and to the actual examples of colouring applied to Greek archi- tecture by Mr. Owen Jones in the Crystal Palace. In speaking also upon the very remarkable modifications of architectural forms adopted by the Greeks to make their buildings appear per- fectly symmetrical, we find no mention whatever of the architect, Mr. Penrose, who was positively the discoverer of this peculiarity in the lines of the Parthenon. It was scarcely worth while to tell us the bald fact that the Greeks made a line bulge to appear straight, and a falling line to appear upright. Mr. Falkener devotes a considerable portion of his work to modern art, apparently for the purpose of showing us how very in- ferior we are to the Greeks, for he skips very conveniently over the whole of that period when Italy, taking up the stile and chisel of the ancients, so long laid by like the arms of a giant, created. sculpture and architecture anew, and we may say, invented the art of painting. It is easy to plump down at once into the old rut of decline of art, and the lament over the loss of Academic classicism, the sad fate of men of genius, like Hayden, and so on ; we had hoped that this style of rebuke had ceased. We believe that the real value of the antique is fully appreciated by modern artists, but the age is too genuine, happily, to be satisfied with the imitative style of art that hung like fetters upon the sculptors who designed English kings, soldiers, and orators as Roman Caesars or Grecian philosophers. Better, surely, it is to see Peel in a tail-coat than Samuel Johnson as a Hercules entering the bath, or Handel slipshod, attended by Cupids. Modern art has its ideal as well as the antique, and the two differ occasionally ; but nothing can be more absurd than to thrust the Greek ideal upon English art. Modern sculpture is not comparable with the antique ; its ideal is one unknown to the ancients, and its beauty belongs to another category, but it is frequently none the less admirable. In some few instances, indeed, where the antique ideal has been pur- posely worked upon, as in Gibson's Hunter, and Thorwaldsen's Venus, for example, we have no hesitation in asserting that the noblest ideal has been reached by the moderns. We can neither agree with Mr. Falkener in his estimate of our artists, as workers without originality, feeling, and aspiration, and as animated solely by the necessities of life. The distressed artist—the Ludovico of the dirty garret, is a very rare bird now-a- days. And as to patronage of art, need we remind him of the enormous revenue of the Royal Academy Exhibition, and of the private one-picture exhibition going on for many months, pro- ducing positive wealth, or of the enormous venture of thousands constantly being made by speculating dealers, upon the painting and engraving of pictures. As to sculpture, we should say there never was a time, excepting in old Rome, where portrait busts, and statues, were the ordinary compliments to respectable people, when so many monumental works were in progress.

We must own that, while Mr. Falkener's Daedalus" has not fully displayed the excellences of the antique, it has not been

just to modern art, in attributing all the errors to a neglect of those precepts revealed to us by the marbles and bronzes of the museums. The study of nature is scarcely hinted at by our mo- dern Wedelns : everything is to be got from the antique ; yet, as we think, it is that which has reformed our painters, and will con- tinue to elevate the public taste. We shall conclude with a single quotation, which as directed to the ignorant critic, it is only ingenuous on our part, after all

we have felt it necessary to say, that we should give our author the advantage of the last word ; severe as it is, we opine that it may be felt to out both ways- " Let him reflect that he is seeking to gain a transient reputation for his pen, at the permanent loss of reputation to the artist ; that possibly his cri- ticism may be false, and, therefore, as the artist has no opportunity of being heard in defence, he is taking upon himself the part of a calumniator rather than a critic."