GREEK SCULPTURE.*

THIS work contains a large number of passages from such Roman and Hellenic writers as have given any important • Ancient Writers on Greek Sculpture. By H. Stuart Jones, M.A. London= Macmillan and Co.

information regarding the rise and progress of Art in Hellas and her colonies, with learned and judicious notes thereon.

These latter, however, we think much too few and brief, and regret that the editor has not increased the size of the volume by about a hundred pages ; for as the authors he draws from belong almost to the end of the Silver Age, and wrote sometimes incorrectly and too often affectedly, difficulties very embarrassing to the student may be expected to present themselves. This defect will, we trust, be sup- plemented in a later edition, which will assuredly be called for.

The earliest attempts at the formation of images were termed Xoana, apparently from their being smoothed or planed, and consisted at first of a square block of wood, surmounted by a head and neck with rudimentary shoulders and arms. Such images are even now to be found among the Lapps and Ostiaks, but gradually attempts were made to fashion the rest of the body, though at first in a rude and tentative manner. By these artists, whose very names are unknown to us as they probably were to the writers of the classic period of Hellenic literature, the eyes were portrayed closed, and the arms hanging stiffly by the sides, while the nether limbs were kept close together ; there was, therefore, a complete absence of gesture and expression, and the later art-critics term them " the school of rectilineal severity." Athens, " the eye of Hellas "—and we may also term it the mind—led the way in reform and progress, and gave to future ages " The stone that breathes and struggles, The brass that seems to speak ;" but other States, and even isolated and self-centred Sparta, took up the work, and to the Hellenic race Europe owes it that she possesses artists who can-

" Give more than female beauty to a stone And fervid eloquence to marble lips."

Daidalos, an Athenian of royal lineage—it is remarkable that the citizens of democratic republics who rise to eminence are almost invariably accredited with a regal or noble

ancestry—was the first to image gods and heroes, not merely as existing, but as acting ; he opened the eyes, ex- panded the arms, and parted the lower limbs of his figures, and thus bestowed on them some degree of gesture and ex- pression, though we can easily believe that much of his work was somewhat unpolished; and Plato asserts that many of

them would be laughed at in later times. Many of his statues were of wood, but the most famous, which still existed in the days of Pausanias, were of the Attic marble, supplied by the quarries of Pentelicus. After Athens had established her naval empire over the lEgrean, a more copious and varied

supply was attainable, " green Donusa " opened her stores,— " And the light chisel brushed the Parian stone."

This latter species was termed xvvirer from the pellucid quality of its lower strata, and was appropriated to the effigies of the supreme deities. Bronze and tin were in

common use in the Homeric times, the former for weapons and armour, the latter for ornamental purposes; iron was

known, but apparently scarce and dear, its usual epithet, row4eiceroc, implying either difficulty in procuring or working it up. Endoios, of Athens, was the first to make a statue of ivory, and the grouping of figures to represent heroic adventures came into use about B.C. 580. Glankos, of Chios, invented the soldering of iron, but this art was not, as far as we know, ever applied to statuary. Many States, probably from considerations of economy, continued to use wooden statues with the head and bust wrought in marble or bronze, but we have no adequate information as to when the casting of the latter material was first devised, and the wood used was ebony, box, or fig. Onatas, of (Egina, cast a bronze Apollo, in which he was considered by art-critics to have sacrificed grace to corpulency, so much so that the deity was facetiously addressed in an epigram as gairatc=hulking lad. Myron, who flourished about 500 B.C., is celebrated by many writers for his cow, which has become nearly as famous as Paul Potter's bull, as well as for his discobolos and sea-monsters, which we believe to be the real meaning of prisfas in Pliny, though in this view we dissent from our author. Be gave variety to the postures of his figures, and studied proportion more carefully and successfully than his predecessors, but was believed to be too materialistic in his treatment and to have made no advance in portraying mental emotions. The anthology gives ns a graceful epigram on his statue of Ladas '—a celebrated conqueror in the foot-race at Olympia, not the Premier's horse, which some may think should more properly be named Disruption ' or Cataclysm '—in which the lifelike execution is praised in high terms. The custom of erecting statues of the athletic victors at the public games must have been very serviceable to the progress of the art, but it is noteworthy that the artists were forbidden to present such a likeness as would lead to identification, save in the case of pancratiasts, or those who had been successful in all the five species of contest, a rather Hibernian mode of doing honour to a victorious athlete, but logically consistent with the democratic theory of equality.

But Hellenic Art received its most powerful impulse from the genius of Pheidias and the fostering patronage of Perikles, the Lorenzo di Medici of antiquity. This illustrious artist, who flourished about B.C. 450, commenced his studies as a painter, and is best known for his colossal statue of Zeus at Olympia, that of Athene in the Akropolis at Athens, and the monument in honour of his fellow-citizens who had fallen at Marathon. Much gold and ivory were used in the making of the two former, but it seems probable that marble also was employed. The enemies of Perikles, wishing to strike at him through the sides of his favourite artist, brought against Pheidias a charge of embezzlement of the valuable materials placed at his disposal, and drove him into exile. There is, how- ever, much uncertainty regarding the events of his life, and though many statues in various States of Hellas have been assigned to his skill, it is probable, in the case of some at least, on insufficient grounds. Pliny praises his fertility of invention, which is shown by the numerous groups of figures on the bases of his statues representing various mythological adventures ; but Strabo points out that the statue of Olympian Zeus violated proportion by being too large for the temple in which it was placed. Critics assign to Pheidias a decided superiority over his predecessors and contemporaries in sublimity and precision, and in the former quality he has rarely been surpassed in later times and more favoured nations. He may also be said to have initiated the Attic school of sculpture, and had many pupils and successors who gave to Athens the various groups on the Parthenon and Erechtheum, as appears from such inscriptions as archa3o- logiste have succeeded in deciphering.

The mantle of Pheidias descended on Polykleitos, the originator of the Argive school of art. Inferior to his great precursor in colossal sublimity and magnificence, he equalled him in precision and surpassed him in beauty of face and grace of figure, so that the critics have told us that Pheidias portrayed Divinity and Polykleitos Humanity. If we may adduce a parallel from dramatic literature, we will term Pheidias the CEschylus, and Polykleitos the Sophocles of statuary, and as the "father of tragedy " called his dramas " fragments from the great Homeric banquet," so the Attic sculptor said that he derived his conceptions of the majesty of the father of gods and men from the strains of the father of song. His statue of a boy bearing a lance has been judged by critics a perfect model of youthful grace and proportion, and has been called the " Canon," since from it artists have drawn rules of art, so that, in the words of Pliny, " he is held to be the only man who has embodied Art itself in a work of art." As may be supposed, he was successful in the nude and in portraitures of boys and youths. The Argive school was prolific in sculptors of ability, principally disciples and imitators of Polykleitos, but we can hardly rank among them Scopas, save indirectly.

Scopes, who flourised from 380 to 350 B.O., and is praised by Horace as "Solere nuns hominess porters nuns Deum," is thought to have surpassed all earlier sculptors, save Pheidias and Polykleitos. His most famous work is said to have been a group representing Poseidion and divers marine deities and sea-monsters ; a colossal statue of Ares was alao much admired. Both of these were conveyed to Rome as the spoils of war; most probably from Corinth. He was engaged in concert with four other artists of reputation in exe: outing the sculptures on the wonderful Karian Ifausoleion, which was counted one of the seven wonders of the world, We believe that this region has been recently somewhat explored and excavations made, but do not anticipate that any important discoveries can be made until Asia Minor fal4 under the control of a civilised nation. The last great name in the roll of Hellenic artists is that of Lysippos, B.C. 360, a most versatile genius and prolific worker. He was first known as a skilful bronze- caster, but soon turned hie attention to sculpture, and was advised by the painter Eupompas not to limit his studies to he works of his predecessors, but to contemplate Nature in

the scenes of everyday life. Most of his statues were in bronze, and he made great advances by his careful treatment of the hair, and by making the head smaller and the body more slender, thus modifying the ungraceful squareness to which former artists were addicted. His likenesses of Alexander the Great and his Macedonian warriors were highly celebrated, and his chief merit is the extreme delicacy of his work even in the smallest details. The world-famous Laokoon was the joint work of three artists, Hegesandros, Polydoros, and Athenodoros, of Rhodes, and was discovered in A.D. 1506, in the ruins of a building which tradition points out as having been the palace of Titus. Some have held that it was made during the reign of that Emperor, but there is good reason to suppose that its date is about B.C. 80, when Rhodes was closely allied or rather subject to Rome. Pliny believed that it was fashioned out of a single block of marble ;

but there are really six, so ingeniously joined that even the eye of Michael Angelo could only detect three. To criticise

so noble a work would be unpardonable presumption.

The well-known group called the " Farnese Bull," repre- senting the cruel punishment of the Theban Queen Dirke, was found in the baths of Caracalla in A.D. 1456, and was trans- ported from Rhodes by Asinine Pollio in the reign of Augustus.

The entire group is stated to consist of but one block of marble, and was the work of Tauriskos, a native of Tralles in Asia Minor. Hellenic art, like all the intellectual products of that gifted race, expired with expiring liberty; but we may

be thankful that it enjoyed a glorious existence for over five hundred years, and gave to the succeeding ages,— "Jove's awful brow, Apollo's air divine, The fierce atrocious frown of sinew'd Mars, And the sly graces of the Cyprian Queen, Minutely perfect all."

We can safely recommend Mr. Jones's book to the careful study of the lover of Hellenic literature as well as of the cultivator of art, and hope to see more from a writer who has exhibited so much industry, learning, and good taste.