Percy Gardner

“ There can be little doubt that Athens owed its great start in art to the influence of the court of Peisistratus, at which artists of all kinds were welcome. We can trace a gradual transformation in sculpture, in which the influence of the Chian and other progressive schools of sculpture is visible, not only in the substitution of island marble for native stone, but in increased grace and truth to nature, in the toning down of glaring colour, and the appearance of taste in composition. ”

“ The immense success with which the veil has in late years been lifted from the prehistoric age of Greece, and the clearness with which we can discern the various strands woven into the web of Greek art, have tended to fix our attention rather on what Greece possessed in common with all other peoples at the same early stage of civilization than on what Greece added for herself to this common stock. In many respects the art of Greece is incomparable—one of the great inspirations which have redeemed the world from mediocrity and vulgarity. ”

“ The figure is of astounding force; but though the face is brutal and the expression savage, in the sweep of the limbs there is nobility, even ideal beauty. To the last the Greek artist could not set aside his admiration for physical perfection. Another bronze figure of more than life-size is that of a king of the Hellenistic age standing leaning on a spear. He is absolutely nude, like the athletes of Polyclitus. ”

“ And gradually, in the course of the century, we see both in the painting of vases and in sculpture a national spirit and a national style forming under the influence of Greek religion and mythology, Greek athletic training, Greek worship of beauty. We must here lay emphasis on the fact, which is sometimes overlooked in an age which is greatly given to the Darwinian search after origins, that it is one thing to trace back to its original sources the nascent art of Greece, and quite another thing to follow and to understand its gradual embodiment of Hellenic ideas and civilization. ”

“ And in Asia the Greek cities were still prosperous and artistic, as were the cities of Italy and Sicily which kept their independence. On the whole we find during this age some diminution of the freshness and simplicity of art; it works less in the service of the gods and more in that of private patrons; it becomes less ethical and more sentimental and emotional. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that technique both in painting and sculpture advanced with rapid strides; artists had a greater mastery of their materials, and ventured on a wider range of subject. ”

“ Works of substantive sculpture may be divided into two classes, the statues of human beings and those of the gods. The line between the two is not, however, very easy to draw, or very definite. For in representing men the Greek sculptor had an irresistible inclination to idealize, to represent what was generic and typical rather than what was individual, and the essential rather than the accidental. And in representing deities he so fully anthropomorphized them that they became men and women, only raised above the level of everyday life and endowed with a superhuman stateliness. ”

“ GREEK ART. It is proposed in the present article to give a brief account of the history of Greek art and of the principles embodied in that history. In any broad view of history, the products of the various arts practised by a people constitute an objective and most important record of the spirit of that people. But all nations have not excelled in the same way: some have found their best expression in architecture, some in music, some in poetry. ”

“ In all the museums and universities of Europe the fresh examination of new monuments, the study of style and subject, and attempts to work out points in the history of ancient art, are incessantly going on. ”

“ To the accidence of a grammar may be compared the mere technique of sculpture and painting: to the syntax of a grammar correspond the principles of composition and grouping of individual figures into a relief or picture. By means of the rules of this grammar the Greek artist threw into form the ideas which belonged to him as a personal or a racial possession.
We may mention first some of the more external conditions of Greek art; next, some of those which the Greek spirit posited for itself.
No nation is in its works wholly free from the domination of climate and geographical position ”

“ The victory over the giants clearly stands for the victory of Greek civilization over Gallic barbarism; and this meaning is made more emphatic because the gods are obviously inferior in physical force to their opponents, indeed, a large proportion of the divine combatants are goddesses. Yet everywhere the giants are overthrown, writhing in pain on the ground, or transfixed by the weapons of their opponents; everywhere the gods are victorious, yet in the victory retain much of their divine calm. The piecing together of the frieze at Berlin has been a labour of many years ”

“ To the modern eye the child is not a success; only the latest art of Greece is at home in dealing with children. But the Hermes, strong without excessive muscular development, and graceful without leanness, is a model of physical formation, and his face expresses the perfection of health, natural endowment and sweet nature. ”

“ The statues of the gods began either with stiff and ungainly figures roughly cut out of the trunk of a tree, or with the monstrous and symbolical representations of Oriental art. In the Greece of late times there were still standing rude pillars, with the tops sometimes cut into a rough likeness to the human form. And in early decoration of vases and vessels one may find Greek deities represented with wings, carrying in their hands lions or griffins, bearing on their heads lofty crowns. ”

“ We now return to the early years of the 6th century, and proceed to trace, by the aid of recent discoveries, the rise of architecture and sculpture. The Greek temple in its character and form gives the clue to the whole character of Greek art. It is the abode of the deity, who is represented by his sacred image; and the flat surfaces of the temple offer a great field to the sculptor for the depicting of sacred legend. The process of discovery has emphasized the line which divides Ionian from Dorian architecture and art. ”

“ This enormous frieze (see Pergamum) is now one of the treasures of the Royal Museums of Berlin, and it cannot fail to impress visitors by the size of the figures, the energy of the action, and the strong vein of sentiment which pervades the whole, giving it a certain air of modernity, though the subject is strange to the Christian world. In early Greek art the giants where they oppose the gods are represented as men armed in full panoply, “in shining armour, holding long spears in their hands,” to use the phrase in which Hesiod describes them. ”

“ The rules of balance and symmetry in composition which are followed in Greek decorative art are still more to be discerned in the paintings of vases, which must serve, in the absence of more dignified compositions, to enlighten us as to the methods of Greek painters. Great painters would not, of course, be bound by architectonic rule in the same degree as the mere workmen who painted vases. Nevertheless we must never forget that Greek painting of the earlier ages was of extreme simplicity. ”

“ We will speak first of the temples and the sculpture of Ionia. The Ionians were a people far more susceptible than were the Dorians to oriental influences. The dress, the art, the luxury of western Asia attracted them with irresistible force. We may suspect, as Brunn has suggested, that Ionian artists worked in the great Assyrian and Persian palaces, and that the reliefs which adorn the walls of those palaces were in part their handiwork. Some of the great temples of Ionia have been excavated in recent years, notably those of Apollo at Miletus, of Hera at Samos, and of Artemis at Ephesus. ”

“ The discovery of the Hermes of Praxiteles, almost the only certain original of a great Greek sculptor which we possess, has furnished a new and invaluable fulcrum for the study of ancient art. In emulation of the achievements of the Germans at Olympia, the Greek archaeological society methodically excavated the Athenian acropolis, and were rewarded by finding numerous statues and fragments of pediments belonging to the age of Peisistratus, an age when the promise of art was in full bud. ”

“ We have records of numberless such statues executed by all the greatest sculptors. When Pausanias visited Greece he found them everywhere far too numerous for complete mention.
It is the custom of studying and copying the forms of the finest of the young athletes, combined with the Greek habit of complete nudity during the sports, which lies at the basis of Greek excellence in sculpture. Every sculptor had unlimited opportunities for observing young vigorous bodies in every pose and in every variety of strain. ”

“ The 4th century is the brilliant period of ancient painting. It opens with the painters of the Asiatic School, Zeuxis and Parrhasius and Protogenes, with their contemporaries Nicias and Apollodorus of Athens, Timanthes of Sicyon or Cythnus, and Euphranor of Corinth. It witnesses the rise of a great school at Sicyon, under Eupompus and Pamphilus, which was noted for its scientific character and the fineness of its drawing, and which culminated in Apelles, the painter of Alexander the Great, and probably the greatest master of the art in antiquity. ”

“ And it is becoming more and more evident that a sound and methodic study of Greek art is quite as indispensable as a foundation for an artistic and archaeological education as the study of Greek poets and orators is as a basis of literary education. The extreme simplicity and thorough rationality of Greek art make it an unrivalled field for the training and exercise of the faculties which go to the making of the art-critic and art historian. ”

“ The work of explorers on Greek sites requires as its complement and corrective much labour in the great museums of Europe. As museum work apart from exploration tends to dilettantism and pedantry, so exploration by itself does not produce reasoned knowledge. When a new building, a great original statue, a series of vases is discovered, these have to be fitted in to the existing frame of our knowledge ”

“ It is now generally held, in consequence of evidence furnished by tombs, that the 5th century saw the end of the making of vases on a great scale at Athens for export to Italy and Sicily. And in fact few things in the history of art are more remarkable than the rapidity with which vase-painting at Athens reached its highest point and passed it on the downward road. At the beginning of the century black-figured ware was scarcely out of fashion, and the masters of the severe red-figured style, Pamphaeus, Epictetus and their contemporaries, were in vogue. ”

“ Again, people who had not won any distinction were in the habit of dedicating to the deities portraits of themselves or of a priest or priestess, thus bringing themselves, as it were, constantly under the notice of a divine patron. The rows of statues before the temples at Miletus, Athens and elsewhere came thus into being. But from the point of view of art, by far the most important class of portraits consisted of athletes who had won victories at some of the great games of Greece, at Olympia, Delphi or elsewhere. ”

“ There remain only the designs drawn rather than painted on the beautiful vases of the age, which in some degree help us to realize, not the colouring or the charm of contemporary paintings, but the principle of their composition and the accuracy of their drawing.
Polygnotus of Thasos was regarded by his compatriots as a great ethical painter. His colouring and composition were alike very simple, his figures quiet and statuesque, his drawing careful and precise. He won his fame largely by incorporating in his works the best current ideas as to mythology, religion and morals. ”

“ The Greeks most fully embodied their ideas in two ways, first in their splendid literature, both prose and verse, and secondly, in their plastic and pictorial art, in which matter they have remained to our days among the greatest instructors of mankind. ”

“ To a base and mechanical naturalism Greek art never at any time descended. But from 300 B.C. onwards we have a marvellous series of portraits which may be termed rather characteristic than ideal, which are very minute in their execution, and delight in laying emphasis on the havoc wrought by time and life on the faces of noteworthy men. Such are the portraits of Demosthenes, of Antisthenes, of Zeno and others, which exist in our galleries. ”

“ But in the Pergamene frieze the giants are strange compounds, having the heads and bodies of wild and fierce barbarians, sometimes also human legs, but sometimes in the place of legs two long serpents, the heads of which take with the giants themselves a share in the battle. Sometimes also they are winged. The gods appear in the forms which had been gradually made for them in the course of Greek history, but they are usually accompanied by the animals sacred to them in cultus, between which and the serpent-feet of the giants a weird combat goes on. ”

“ In the field of sculpture recent discoveries have been too many and too important to be mentioned at any length. One instance may serve to mark the rapidity of our advance. When the remains of the Mausoleum were brought to London from the excavations begun by Sir Charles Newton in 1856 we knew from Pliny that four great sculptors, Scopas, Bryaxis, Leochares and Timotheus, had worked on the sculpture; but we knew of these artists little more than the names. ”

“ In regard to ancient painting we can of course expect no such fresh illumination. Many important wail-paintings of the Roman age have been found at Rome and Pompeii: but we have no certain or even probable work of any great Greek painter. We have to content ourselves with studying the colouring of reliefs, such as those of the sarcophagi at Constantinople, and the drawings on vases, in order to get some notion of the composition and drawing of painted scenes in the great age of Greece. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the character of the art declined, and there were no longer produced great works to be the pride of cities, or to form an embodiment for all future time of the qualities of a deity or the circumstances of scenes mythical or historic. ”