A

MANUAL OF ANCIENT SCULPTURE
EGYPTIAN—ASSYRIAN—GREEK—ROMAN
BY GEORGE REDFORD, F.R.C.S.

BRONZE H E A D OF A R T E M I S .

In the British

H E R O I C SIZE.

Museum Bronze Room.

(See page vi)

A

MANUAL OF ANCIENT SCULPTURE
EGYPTIAN—ASSYRIAN—GREEK—ROMAN
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, A MAP OF ANCIENT GREECE
AND A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF ANCIENT SCULPTORS
AND THEIR WORKS

(Second Edition, Enlarged
WITH ADDITIONAL

ILLUSTRATIONS

AND EXAMPLES

DESCRIBED

GEORGE REDFORD, F.R.C.S.
Registrar of the Crystal Palace Collection of Sculpture, 1853-4
Cztrator of the Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester, 1857
Commissio7ierfor the National Exhibition of Works of'Art', Leeds, 1S68

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON
CROWN BUILDINGS, FLEET STREET

1886
{Authors

Copyright

reserved.)

BEONZE HEAD OE AETEMIS.
" This head, which is of the finest period of Greek art, has been called
Aphrodite, but is more probably Artemis. It has been broken off from a
statue, the hand of which is exhibited in Case 44."—British Museum
Guide Book, by MR. NEWTON, Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at
the British Museum.
The back and crown of the head are ivanting. The eye sockets are
hollowed, as having originally had eyes of glass or enamel.
It is said to have been found in Armenia, where it was bought by the
Turkish Pasha, who sold it to Signor Castellani, of whom it was purchased,
with the hand, by the British Museum Trustees for a very large sum—it is
said, £10,000—a price which some think not too high for its value as an
example of rare beauty.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

T

H E Study of Antique Sculpture has two principal directions, the Historic or Archaeological, and that on the side
of Art. Each view has its own special interest, and both contribute mutually to the elucidation of the general subject; but
while the one has comparatively little direct relation to the
cultivation of the fine arts, the other is constantly concerned
with artistic practice as well as the principles. The great truths
which ancient art evolved, and which remain as firmly established as those which science has determined, belong to art, not
to archaeology. Eeeling this to be so, I have endeavoured to lay
before the reader the view of an art student, as that which is
more directly the intention of this volume. This course seemed
not only the one which chiefly concerns the interests of art, and
calculated to conduct to the full appreciation of the beautiful in
sculpture, but, at the same time, the more practical and the more
suitable for a short treatise with illustrations. To have attempted
more in the historical section, even had it been possible within
the limits, and had I been qualified to deal fully with so large a
subject in all its varied relations, would have been to distract
attention from the main point. Enough, however, it is hoped,
has been said of the history of sculpture to lead those who are
disposed to follow out the archaeological view, to seek the fuller
information to be found in the many elaborate works upon the

viii

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

subject. I t may be some solace for the lack of much that would
certainly be indispensable to a bulkier work, to bear in mind that
the views of archaeologists are liable to modification and sometimes to serious revolution, while much is constantly left as
matter of opinion and controversy. The archaeological side of
art is always fruitful in speculation, with a considerable borderland of disputed ground, while the art view is more safely
occupied in the perception of the beautiful, the comprehension
of the principles which regulate all works of art and which are
specially disclosed in sculpture, and the understanding of the
characteristics of the various styles. There is no difficulty in
arriving at certain broad distinctions in the examples that have
fortunately been preserved to us, and this will, it is hoped, be
facilitated by the numerous engravings.
The arrangement of the subject under the sections of Technic,
^Esthetic, Historic, and Examples, is so far new that it is offered
with some diffidence. I adopted it only after having sought in
vain for any model to follow which seemed systematic, and at
the same time free from the complexity of more elaborate and
exhaustive works.
Being a handbook only, this volume does not pretend to do
more than open out the principal paths which lead to the great
mountain region that has to be climbed before any wide and
comprehensive view can be obtained of ancient sculptural art.
G. E.
CRICKLEWOOD, LONDON, N.W.,
March, 1882.

PEEFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

A

E" impression of 2500 copies having been sold within
about three years, a second edition of this l Manual' is
consequently required. The author may be permitted to congratulate the public as well as himself on the fact. It testifies
to the existence of a large body of students not to be daunted
by the difficulties of a subject so subtle and intricate as
ancient sculpture, provided the writer avoids abstruse questions
and unnecessary technicalities.
If my readers were not dissatisfied with the first edition, I
venture to promise them that they will find the second both
carefully revised and enriched with fresh matter of interest.
As ' The Atheneeum' in an appreciative review cordially
recommended the * Manual' when it originally appeared, and
commended my plan of treating the subject under the sections
of Teclmic, JEsthetic, Historic, and Examples as u n o t only
well suited for the instruction of the tyros whom the book
more particularly addresses, but might well be adopted for a
work on a more exhaustive and serious scale," I may say,
with some regret, that circumstances forbid me to undertake
the elaborate treatise thus suggested. But I shall hope that
some one fully capable and with more leisure may be prompted
to adopt such a plan to the construction of a full and scientific
exposition of the noblest and most consummate of all the
branches of ancient art.
G. E.
CRICKLEWOOD, March, 1886.

BAS-EELIEF I N MAEBLE FEOM THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO AT PHIGALIA.
CONTEST OF CENTATJES AND LAPITHAE.

In the British Museum.

CONTENTS.
SECTION I.

TECHNIC.

MATERIALS AND METHOD—

PAGE

CLAY MODELLING, MOULDING, AND CASTING

.

SCULPTUEE IN MAEBLE AND STONE (STATUAEY)
IN HAED

STONES.

EGYPTIAN COLOSSI.

.

.

.

.

.

3

.

4

GEMS, AND MEDALS

(GLYPTIC AET)

6

TEEEA COTTA

11

IVOEY AND GOLD (CHRYSELEPHANTINE)

14

WOOD—BEONZE

16

VARIOUS FORMS ADOPTED IN SCULPTURE—
SCULPTUEE I N E E L I E F
STATUARY—SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND

26
28

COLOSSAL STATUES

29

THE SCULPTOR'S CANON OF PROPORTION—
EGYPTIAN, GEEEK, AND MODEEN EULES OF PEOPOETION

.

31

CONTENTS.

xiii

SECTION IV. EXAMPLES.
PAGE

EXAMPLES OF ANCIENT SCULPTURE, ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY

217

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF SCULPTORS NAMED BY
HERODOTOS, PAUSANIAS, AND PLINY
.
.
.273
INDEX

281

SOME OF THE ATTRIBUTES SEEN I N ANCIENT SCULPTURE
GLOSSARY OF NAMES GIVEN TO STATUES, ETC.

.

.

. 285
. 2 8 6

CORRESPONDING NAMES OF MYTHIC PERSONAGES I N ROMAN
AND

GREEK NOMENCLATURE

286

AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ENGRAVINGS is given in Hie Index.

The JtUhor has to acknowledge his obligation to the Directors of the
Crystal Palace Company, who were kind enough to allow electrotypes to be,
taken from some of the wood engravings in their " Guide Book to the Greek
and Roman Courts."

MANUAL OF ANCIENT SCULPTURE
EGYPTIAN—ASSYRIAN—GREEK—ROMAN

F I G . 1.—BAS-RELIEF FEOM THE PARTHENON F R I E Z E .

ANCIENT SCULPTURE.
EGYPTIAN,

ASSYRIAN,

GREEK,

ROMAN

B

E F O E E entering upon the different styles of ancient
sculpture it is necessary to understand what sculpture is,
and the various forms it has taken. First, as to what it is in
regard to technic and material; next as to what it is in aesthetics.
The history and examples of the various styles will then be
more readily followed.
The subject, therefore, may be conveniently treated in four
sections—
I. TECHNIC.

I I . ^ESTHETIC.

I I I . HISTORIC.

IY. EXAMPLES.

Some of the chief statues in the great museums of Europe
are described in this last section.
A.S.

B

SECTION

L— TECKNIC.

THE word SCULPTURE, derived from the Latin sculpo, to carve,
is applicable to all work cut out in a solid material in imitation
of natural objects. Thus carvings in wood, ivory, stone, marble,
metal, and those works formed in a softer material, not requiring carving, such as wax and clay, all come under the general
denomination of sculpture.
But sculpture, as we are about to consider it, is to be distinguished by the term STATUARY, from all carved work belonging
to ornamental art, and from those beautiful incised gems and
cameos which form the class of GLYPTICS, a word derived from
the Greek yXv^w, to carve, as well as from the works of
the medallist. It must be borne in mind, however, that the
sculptor does not generally carve his work directly out of
the marble; he first makes his statue or bas-relief in clay, or
sometimes in wax. It is scarcely necessary to say that the
most primitive sculptor naturally took clay for his work, as
the potter did for his "wheel." This method enabled him to
" sketch in the clay," and to perfect his work in this obedient
material. Michelangelo and such great masters could dispense
with this, and when they chose could carve at once the statue
from the block. The ancient Egyptian sculptors, and after them
the Assyrians, carved their gigantic figures from the living rock.
The rock-cut temples of India show similar work. (Figs. 3, 57).
Carving is, however, of secondary consideration—with the
exception of the special work of great masters just referred to—
arid it is the modelling in the clay which is the primary work.
Sculpture is therefore properly styled "plastic art, v from irXaaoio,
to fashion or mould. The " model," as it is termed technically, is
afterwards to be " moulded " by the exact application of liquid
plaster of Paris (sulphate of lime; gypsum, deprived of its
water or unslaked), in a proper manner. By means of the
mould thus formed, a cast of the original clay statue or bas-

MODELLING AND

3

MOULDING.

relief is taken by
a similar use of
the liquid plaster.
This liquid plaster has the property of solidifying, or "setting,"
as it is technically called, by a
kind of crystallization, and it
thus takes any
form to which it
is applied. The
clay model, therefore, is like the
original drawing
of a painter, a
master work. It
is s o m e t h i n g
more; it is the
result of a previous step, for
the sculptor has
probably made a
drawing before
taking the clay
in hand. In all
bas-reliefs
the
sculptor
first
draws his design
on a slab and
fills it in after- F I G . 2 . — P A R T OF THE EGYPTIAN STATUE O F MEMNON
IN BED GRANITE. In the British Museum.
wards with the The face measures 3J feet from top of forehead to chin.
clay, proceeding
then to model the forms. The sculptor, therefore, is less a
carver than a designer, a draughtsman, and a modeller. This
being so, he invented a method of mechanical measurement by
B 2

4

THE SCULPTOR A DESIGNER.

"POINTING/'

which most of the carving could be done by skilled labour)
the sculptor taking it up to give the finish which a master
hand alone can bestow. That this was an ancient practice is
shown by an example in the Museum of St. John Lateran at
Eome of an unfinished statue of a captive, which has been left
with the " points " on the surface; so placed by the master as a
guide for the workman.
In the process of "pointing," the model and the block of
marble are each fixed on a base called a scale-stone, to which a
standard vertical rod can be attached at corresponding centres,
having at its upper end a sliding needle so adapted by a moveable joint as to be set at any angle, and fastened by a screw when
so set. The master sculptor having marked the governing points
with a pencil on the model, the instrument is applied to these
and the measure taken. The standard being then transferred to
the block-base, the " pointer," guided by this measure, cuts away
the marble, taking care to leave it rather larger than the model,
so that the general proportions are kept, and the moredmportant
work is then left for the master hand.
The process of pointing, which was probably employed in
some shape by the ancient sculptors, though not so accurately
as in modern times, is of course not applicable to metal
statues.
The nature of the material in which a sculptor carves necessarily influences the character of his work; the harder the stone
the more difficult to give it the pliant forms of life. The
most ancient and the grandest in size of all works of sculpture
are in those kinds of hard stone, such as basalt, granite, and
porphyry, which cannot be worked sufficiently by the chisel, as
they would either break the edge of the tool if the steel were
too hard, or turn it if too soft. It is very remarkable that the
most ancient and perfect Egyptian statues (Fig. 2) should have
been formed out of these very hard stones; and as the ancient
Egyptians were not acquainted with steel, they must have been
dependent on bronze of various degrees of ^hardness for their
cutting tools.
That it was part of the grand scheme of the Egyptians to
raise monuments that would defy injury and the decaying effects

ANCIENT METHOD OF CUTTING H A R D STONE.

5

of time, and that they succeeded, is shown by numerous statues
cut out of large blocks of the hardest stone, perfect after the
lapse of at least four thousand years, and likely to remain so till
they encounter the fire that made the igneous rocks out of which
they are hewn. These statues too, it should be clearly understood,
are remarkable for excellence in the work, both as to the form and
proportions, and in the finish given to the details of the features,
the dress, and the ornaments; and they show a degree of fine
work in the polishing, which compels at once the admiration and

FIG. 3.—COLOSSAL STATUES CARVED I N THE ROCK ; I N THE TIME OF RHAMSES II.

(B.C. 1200).

On the banks of the Nile.

astonishment of the world. It is conjectured that it was done
by immense labour with the chisel, the drill, and the wheel of
the lapidary, aided with sand and emery for polishing. No
ancient iron tool has ever been found; but this may be on
account of the rusting and decay of this metal. Sir G. Wilkinson found a chisel made of an alloy of tin and copper, not hard
or brittle, the edge of which was easily turned by striking it

6

THE GLYPTIC SCULPTOR.

INTAGLII AND CAMEI.

against the very stone it had been used to cut. He thought the
Egyptians possessed some method of hardening bronze.*
Assyrian sculpture was confined to bas-relief and high-relief

Fm. 4.—CAMEO. GIGANTIMACHIA.

Naples Museum.

approaching the round, in the softer stones, limestone and
alabaster; small objects only, such as the incised cylinders used
as seals, being worked in the hard stones.
Hard Stones. Greek and Eoman sculptors made many statues
and bas-reliefs in hard stones. There are fine examples in the
Vatican collection, but, as might be expected from the nature of
the material, none that equal in beauty of form and expression
the works in marble and bronze. The
Vatican also contains the most remarkable collection of sculpture of this kind
in existence, in the groups of animals,
all in the most spirited actions of sport
or combat, placed in what is called
" t h e Hall of the Animals." The exF I G . 5.—THE BACCHIC B U L L ,
tremely difficult nature of such work
S I G N E D YAAOY (OE H Y L L O S ) .
may be understood when it is seen
* In a tomb at Kertch of the 4th century B.O. were found bronze arrowheads the file could not cut. An alloy of phosphorus with bronze is very
hard ; possibly the ancients made this by using bones and animal matter
in the melting of the metal.

THE

GLYPTIC SCULPTOR.

7

that the ordinary method of the chisel and mallet in the most
skilful hands would be quite unavailing in this hard material
and upon so small a scale. The treadle-wheel, the drill, and the
file are brought to aid the chisel, and even these require the use
of emery upon the wheel of the lapidary, in the method by
which the hardest gems are cut. In fact these works come
rather under the class of glyptics than sculpture. Here it

F I G . 6.—AN ENGRAVED G E M IN AMETHYST, CALLED BY AGOSTINI,
K I N G MASSINISSA. In the Florence Museum.

may be explained that the wheel referred to is a tool capable
of extremely nice application. I t is not like the wheel of a
grindstone, but more like that of the glass-cutter, being a disc
of copper of varying diameter, fitted on the free end of a spindle,
which is made to revolve like the common lathe worked by the
foot, and the stone is brought into contact with it, guided by the

F I G . 7 . — T H E GONZAGA CAMEO IN O N T X .
EOMAN W O R K .

PTOLEMY I. AND EURYDICE.

In the St. Petersburg

Museum.

COINS A N D

MEDALLIONS.

9

delicate hand and eye of the artist. The cutting edge of this
disc is armed with the fine particles of emery, and sometimes
diamond dust kept moist with oil, wxhich become embedded in
the yielding metal, and thus convert it into the finest and most
searching file, so sharp that even the diamond itself, the hardest
substance in nature, is cut in the most accurate manner. The last
touches are given with the diamond point fixed in a tool, and
sharper than a needle. Many of the most beautiful examples of
ancient classic art (Figs. 4 to 6), and many of the Italian Eenaissance, exist in the form of intaglii and camei. The great masters
who have left their names engraved upon the face of these gems

F I G . 8.—COIN O F E L I S — Z E U S O F
PHEIDIAS.

F I G . 9 . — C O I N O F E L I S — Z E U S OF
PHEIDIAS.

hold a place parallel with the greatest sculptors of the age
of Perikles. When it is remembered that the glyptic sculptor
works entirely from his mind—impromptu as it were—some idea
may he formed of the profound knowledge he must have of the
beauty of the human and animal form, and the amazing mastery
he must possess over the most unyielding material.
The medallist both of ancient and modern times is an artist
scarcely less able and accomplished than the gem-cutter. The
die he carves out of the metal is a fine work of the chisel, the
punch, and the drill; with the grinding method of the lathe to
give polish and delicacy. This is done by what is technically
called " lapping out," which is a term taken from the use of the

10

TERRA

COTTA.

"lapstone" or "whet-stone," applied somewhat in the manner
of the disc in the gem-engraver's work.
The "coins of Greece offer many fine examples of beautiful work,
besides affording invaluable records of renowned statues, such
as the Jupiter Olympius (Figs. 8, 9), the Venus of Knidos,
the Palatine Apollo, and the Colossus of, Ehodes—long since
lost—which were copied on them during the life-time of Pheidias,
Myron, Praxiteles, and other great sculptors.
The medallions by the great men of the Eenaissance in Italy,

F G. 10.—PERSEUS WITH THE GORGON H E A D .

Terra Cotta.

France, and Germany, both the early works which were cast in a
mould and the later ones produced by stamping with the die,
are unsurpassed by any antique works of their kind for portrait
character and beauty of work.
Terra cotta. Clay modelled and dried in the sun, or hardened
by the fire, was naturally one of the early forms in which
sculpture was developed. At once ready to hand and easily
modelled, it was adopted for the same reasons that made clay

WORKS I N T E R R A

COTTA.

n

convenient for the ordinary vessels of every-day use* So we find
countless numbers of ancient figures of deities, animals, grotesque
monsters, in baked or simply sun-dried clay, all more or less
barbaric and archaic in style, whether found in Mexico or
Cyprus, in Egypt or Assyria, in Etruria or the Troad. These
have escaped destruction chiefly on account of their not being
of any value as bronze and marble were, and partly from their

F I G . 11.—BAS-RELIEF.

A T H E N A PRESIDING OVER THE BUILDING OF A SHIP.

Terra Cotta.

great durability in resisting decay. The ancient Egyptians and
Assyrians applied a vitreous glaze to terra cotta objects, thus
making them more decorative and more durable; but they
never carried out this process as it was perfected in after-times
by the Chinese, and especially by those two distinguished
sculptors of the Eenaissance, Luca and Andrea della Eobbia.
Terra cotta was obviously chosen by the sculptors of Greece
and Eome, as it is by modern artists, with the view of preserving

12

TERRA

COTTA.

the exact spirit and freedom
of the original, whether
as a sketch or as a finished
work. A l t h o u g h some
shrinking under the action
of the tire has to be allowed for, and occasionally an accidental deformity
may occur from this cause,
yet what is perfect in the
firing is certain to possess
the excellence of the work
in the fresh clay; as it
escapes the chances of
over-finish and the loss of
truth and animation, which
too often befall bronze and
marble. As it left the
hand of the master the fire
fixes it, converting the soft
clay into a material as hard
as marble, and more capable
of resisting damp and heat.
Winckelmann
remarks,
' Ancient works in terra
cotta are as a rule never
b a d " (lib. i. ch. ii).
Some interesting examples of work in terra
cotta are little figures which
have lately been found in almost countless numbers at Tanagra
in Boeotia : some of these are in the British Museum and in the
Louvre. A great number of these were shown in the Exposition
retrospective of Paris, in 1878. (Fig. 12.)
Ivory. Another ancient form of sculpture to be noticed?
though no example of it remains, is very important as it is known
to have been that employed by the greatest master of the art—
Pheidias, for his grand colossal statues of Zeus (Fig. 16) and
F I G . 12.—A SLAVE. Terra Cotta.
Foitvd at Tanagra.

CHKYSELEPHANTINE

STATUES.

13

Athene in the temples of those gods. This is called Chryselephantine, on account of the combined use of gold (xpvabc) and ivory
(eAi^ac); the] nude parts of the figure being of ivory, probably
with colour applied to the flesh and features, and the drapery of
gold. The statue was substantially but roughly made in marble,
with wood perhaps upon i t ; the ivory being laid on in thick
pieces (Figs. 13, 14, 15). Much interesting research has been
given to this form of sculpture, by De Quincy especially, but
it is not necessary to enter into details which are so largely

FIGS. 13,14,15.—SHOWING THE SUPPOSED METHOD OF WORKING IVORY IN
PIECES LAID ON.

conjectural. The use of ivory denoted a very decided intention
to imitate nature as closely as possible, though in colossal
proportions. Ivory and gold statuary was revived during the
time of Hadrian, who had a colossal statue of Jupiter made and
placed in the temple at Athens.
That statues made of such valuable materials, to do honour
to the god, should have fallen under the hand of the spoiler was
inevitable; so that no examples of this work exist. A small
reproduction of the chryselephantine statue of the Zeus was
made under the direction of the Due de Luynes in Paris some
years ago. in order to see the effect of such work. Many fine
statuettes in ivory have been carved by modern sculptors of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and by those of more
recent times, especially by the late Baron de Triqueti.

F I G . 1 6 . — T H E CHRYSELEPHANTESTE STATUE O F ZEUS BY PHEIDIAS.

As restored by Quatremere de Quincy.

Height 45 feet.

TJie height of the temple in which this statue was placed was 68 feet to the spring
of the roof.

STATUES OF WOOD.

15

Wood. Statues of wood of various kinds were made by the
most ancient sculptors of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece. Many
small figures in wood, the work of the Egyptian carvers, are to
be seen in the museums; and the mummy cases show the practice of carving the head while the trunk is left only partly shaped
out of the block. A wooden statue of Sethos I. is in the British
Museum. A life-size statue in wood of Ea em ke, with the
arms separate from the trunk, and the legs also carved " in the
round," from the museum of Boulak at Cairo, was exhibited in
the Paris Exposition of 1867.
The Greeks called their wood statues Zoava, from U<>>. to polish
or carve. The statue of a god was called ayaXjua KLMV—a
column is taken to mean also a statue (Plutarch). Castor and
Pollux were represented by the Lacedemonians simply as two
pieces of wood joined by a ring, hence the sign II for the twins
in the Zodiac. The small figures of men and animals, called
by the Greeks Dcedalides as supposed to be made by Daedalus
(a name derived from datSaWco, to work skilfully) and his
school of artificers, were carved in wood. As we saw when
speaking of the origin of the plastic art in the rude clay, and
wood figures serving as images of the gods, these were the work
of the mechanical producers of the toy-like figures with movable
arms, which were dressed up with draperies and wreaths, and
painted for festive celebrations. Figures of this nature were
universal, and were carried about probably wherever settlers
wandered, as forming part of their religious customs. So far as
any date has been given to these, it may be said to be from
about the 14th to the 7th century before our era. Pausanias
(ix. 3) refers to the festival of the Daedala, in which a dressed up
wooden statue of Plataea in a chariot was carried in procession,
according to the ancient myth. Plutarch also refers to the same
festival, calling the wooden statue Dcedala. Pausanias (who
wrote in the second century of our era) also describes similar
figures of Bacchus, Ceres, and Proserpine, which he saw in a
Nymphaeum between Sikyon and Philontum; in these statues
the head only was seen, the rest being covered with drapery.*
* See ' Lectures of Raoul Rochette' for much curious matter concerning
the Dcedala.

16

BRONZE WORK.

The ancient Greeks began
by representing their deities
by simple blocks of stone
(XIOOL apyni), which were
gradually hewn into square
forms. At length a human
head was added, of Hermes
or any other god, and they
were called ' Hermes J and
when used as boundary
marks, ' Termes? hence the
word terminal in sculpture
for busts squared at the
shoulder.
Bronze. This was one of
the most important forms of
ancient statuary. Unfortunately we have to rely almost
entirely upon ancient writers
for any descriptions of the
great works of the Egyptian
and Greek sculptors in
bronze, and upon those
copies of them in marble,
which tradition tells us are
such. The original bronze
works have long since
perished, some by fire, and
others by the hand of the
F I G . 17.—OSIEIS. E G Y P T I A N STATUE I N BRONZE,
spoiler. Most of them will
In the Louvre.
be noticed when speaking of
the history and examples of sculpture. For the present we
have to attend to that which concerns the material and the
methods of working in it. The word bronze is of comparatively
modern origin, being similar to the Italian bronzo, which is, in
all probability, derived from bruno, signifying the brown colour
of the metal. The ancient Greek word for it was %a\ic6c,* and
* Mr. Gladstone says Chalkos was copper, and that bronze was the
metal called Kuanos.—Juventus Mundi, p. 532.

BRONZE WORK.

17

the Bonians called it aes. The words rame and ottone in Italian,
and airain in French, mean the metal called in English brass,
and are sometimes incorrectly used by translators for the
Latin aes. Brass is an entirely different alloy from bronze;
it is composed of copper and zinc, while bronze is an alloy
of copper and tin. I t is found by analysis of ancient bronze,
called aes, that it does not contain any zinc; neither is any
zinc found in metal used by the ancients. Small proportions of gold, silver, lead, and iron were mixed by the ancient

FIGS. 18,19.—BRONZE FIGURES. In the British Museum.

metal-workers with their bronze to give various colour to the
work; and this was a point to which much study was directed.
Different kinds of aes are spoken of, such as the aes Corinthiacum, aes Deliacum, aes Aegineticum, aes hejpatizon—on
account of its liver colour—and others; but the precise composition of these is not known. The analysis of bronze—taken
from some nails from the treasury of Atreus at Mycenae, a
Greek helmet and a piece of armour (bronzes of Siris, Tigs. 21,
22) in the British Museum, and a bronze sword found in

IS

BRONZE WORK.

France—gives in
V
s3*~
100 parts, 87-43
copper,
12 *5 3
tin, varying to
88 copper and * ^ ^ _
12 tin.
The
J/
aes
CorintJiiacum was most
highly esteemed,
and is said to
have been discovered accidentally by the running together of
gold and bronze articles at the
burning of Corinth by Lucius
Mummius, B.C. 146.
Pliny
(' Hist. Nat.' xxxiv. 3) speaks
of three kinds of Corinthian
bronze.
1. Gandidum, being
made whiter with the addition
of silver. 2. Golden-coloured,
from the addition of gold. 3.
A mixed alloy of gold, silver,
and bronze. The hepatizon
was inferior to the Corinthian,
but was said to be better than
the metal of Delos and Aegina.
Mr. Gladstone, in that remarkable book of his, the e Juventus
Mundi/ which abounds with
interesting matters of suggestion and instruction, says, referring to the making of the
F I G . 2 0 . — H E R C U L E S HOLDING T H E
famous shield of Achilles by
APPLE O F THE H E S P E R I D E S .
Bronze, 30 inches high, found in 1775
Hephaistos, — " The
metals
at Jehely, Sira.
used were gold, silver, tin,
In the British Museum.
and chalcos, which has been
by mere license of translators interpreted as brass,—for there
was no brass till long ages after Homer had rolled away,—which

THE METALS USED BY THE ANCIENTS.

19

lias been more plausibly taken to mean bronze, but which,
after a good deal of inquiry, I am satisfied can only mean
copper. . . If chalcos be not copper, then copper is never
mentioned in Homer. . . One of Homer's epithets for cbalcos
is eruthros, red; and this it is impossible under any conditions
to apply to bronze. . . Surgical instruments made of copper
alone have been discovered recently in a tomb at Athens. . .
Chalcos in Homer was a very cheap and common metal; tin a
very scarce and rare metal, used in small quantities, and even
approaching in some degree what we term a precious metal."
Mr. Gladstone thinks it very improbable, therefore, that defensive armour and utensils could have contained an eighth
part of tin, so as to be of the composition of our bronze. He
thinks that the six deities in the planetary worship of the East
were connected with the six pure metals, and a seventh, Kuanos,
which he thinks may be bronze. In order of value he places
them—gold, silver, tin, kuanos, iron, chalcos, lead. " Tin was
used in small quantities for ornaments, and plated on copper.
The only articles entirely made of it were the greaves of
Achilles; and these proceeded from a divine, not a human,
workman (f Iliad/ xxi. 582-590, 594)." The alloy of gold and
silver, called electrum, was so named after the word for amber
(i]\eKTpov), from its resemblance to the colour of that substance.
Helen is said to have dedicated a cup made of elektron, of
the exact size and form of her own breast, in the temple of
Athene at Lindos (' Plin./ xxxiii. 23).
The ancient bronze-workers sought to obtain effects of colour;
as Pliny states that Aristonidas made a statue of Athamas
that showed the blush of shame in the face, by the rusting of
the iron mixed with the bronze. Plutarch mentions a Jocasta
dying, the face of which was pale, the sculptor Silanion having
mixed silver with the bronze. A representation of the Battle
of Alexander and Porus was like a picture, from the different
colours of the metal employed. Possibly these effects were
obtained by inlaying with metals of different colours.
The primitive bronze-workers began by hammering solid metal
into shapes, before they arrived at the knowledge of casting.
The "toreutic" art, although not definitely known at present,
c2

THE TOREUTIC ART.

21

was probably that of hammering, punching, and chiselling
plates of metal, either separately or with a view to fixing
them upon stone or wood. Much ancient work was of this
kind, as the famous shield of Achilles, described by Homer; the
chest of Kypselos,* made about 700 B.C. ; and the ornamental
work of the temple of Jerusalem. The Greek word for hammer,
a-(j>vpa, gave the name of <r<pvp{]\arov to work of this kind.
Pliny refers to solid hammered work and hollow plate work,
" holosphyraton " and " sphyraton." Diodorus Siculus speaks of
statues of this kind in the gardens of the palace of JSTinus and
Semiramis; and Pausanias mentions a solid bronze statue of Dionysus at Thebes, the work of Onasimedes. Many examples are to
be seen in museums. The hollow statues were built up in pieces,
fastened together with nails, rivets, and dovetails, and it is not
improbable that some method of soldering was practised, and
perhaps " welding."
The casting of metal in moulds of a very simple kind for
small ornaments like rings, the pendants of necklaces, buttons,
and bosses, must have followed upon the discovery that metals
could be melted in the fire. There are many allusions to this in
the Bible (Job xxviii. 1, 2), and to the refiner and purifier of
"gold seven times purified."
As the sculptor improved in his art of modelling he would be
able to make better moulds. He would soon observe that his
solid statue was not only a costly work but a very heavy one.
He would find that solid arms broke off at the trunk from
mere weight, or that his whole figure had collapsed from the
same simple cause. Thus he would be led to seek some means
of overcoming these defects in his cast statues, which, though
an improvement upon his hammered ones in their correctness
of form, were not so durable. This was accomplished by the
discovery of a contrivance for casting metal in a hollow form.
I t was done pretty much as it is at the present day, by fixing a
solid but removable mass within the mould, technically called a
" core," so that it did not touch the sides except at certain small
* Pausanias, who describes the subjects on it, says thcartist of this is not
known, but he suspects he was the Corinthian Eumelos, from comparison
with other works of his.—Lib. v. c. 19.

22

CASTING IN BRONZE.

points necessary for support. The space between this and the
surface of the mould was that to be taken by the molten metal.
There is in the British Museum a'bronze in which the casting
has failed, and the " core " is seen left within. As to the date
of this important improvement nothing satisfactory can be
stated.
Theodorus of Samos is named by Pausanias, and
Khaecus of Samos by Herodotus, as the inventors in bronze work

FIGS. 23, 24.—BRONZE STATUETTES.

In the British Museum.

who distinguished themselves so much that their names are
handed down as the first to arrive at perfection in the method.
Gitiades of Sparta, Glaukias of Aegina, and Glaukos of Chios
were other sculptors in bronze of the sixth to the seventh
century B.C.
There is still another method of casting, which though
common in later times, there is some reason to consider was

THE 'CIRE PERDUE' CASTING.

23

employed by the ancients for some of their smaller works, such
as the statuettes and other objects abounding in the museums
(Figs. 23, 24). This is when a wax model, after having been
completed by the sculptor, is encased in clay or plaster of Paris,
and the molten metal, for small objects, is then poured into it to
melt the wax, or the wax is melted out through vent-holes, and
so takes the form of every minute and delicate part of the work
precisely as it left the hand of the sculptor. The original model
is thus destroyed, and the bronze as a solid casting takes its
place in the permanent work; hence it has been termed by the
French a ' cire perdue.1 This method, which was practised by
Cellini and before him by the great Italian medallists of the
Eenaissance," has great advantages in securing the spirit of the
master-work. Some large and beautiful works have been cast
in this way in recent years, one of the most remarkable being
the group of Two Gladiators, by M. Gerome, the distinguished
painter.
It must be explained with reference to bronze casting with a
core, that this necessary contrivance has to be formed with very
considerable care and practical skill. The mould, which is
obliged to be formed of pieces which fit together, in order that the
model may be taken out, is first well soaked in oil; then melted
wax is applied to the inner side of the moulded parts in such
thickness as may be required in the metal of the completed
statue. But as no hollow metal statue would be strong enough
to support its own weight, or to be fixed on its pedestal as it is
to stand permanently in the attitude designed, a sort of skeleton
of iron bars is made to take the general form of the figure, and
this strong framework is firmly fixed within the mould. We
have then the mould with its wax lining, so to speak, enclosing
the iron skeleton-, or " armature " as it is called, with an opening
left in the proper place to allow of pouring in the liquid plaster
of Paris mixed with pounded brick, which is to fill up the space
around the armature, and set into a solid mass close up to the
wax lining. Therefore, if at this stage the mould were taken
to pieces again, the sculptor would behold his statue as one of
apparently solid wax. Practically this is done in order that he

24

BKONZE

CASTING.

may satisfy himself of
the success of the
work so far, and correct it where necessary,
especially where the
joints of the mould
have left any projecting pieces or lines
on the wax, which
would prove troublesome to remove in
the final bronze casting. Then the model
is again placed in the
mould, and finally
closed up, preparatory
to melting out.
The wax, having
served its purpose, is
then got rid of by
applying heat to melt
it out of the mould
—a process requiring
care and time. Thus
the mould is once more
left empty, except the
core, and ready for the
operation of casting,
which it is not necessary to enter into, since
sculptors are no longer,
as Benvenuto Cellini
was, their own foundryF I G . 25.—NARCISSUS.
BJJONZE.
Height 20 inches. Found 1830.
men. It remains to
Naples Museum.
say that the core is
removed by providing openings in certain convenient parts of
the statue, either at some line of junction in the mould; or in

1

GALVANO-PLASTIQUE/

25

larger work, where the limbs and trunk are cast separately.
The iron armature is usually left in the legs when required, as
it usually is in equestrian statues, and others needing support.
Galvano-plastique, or the use of electricity to deposit a thin
layer of metal in a pure state upon a model, is an important
invention or application of science to art, which has been recently
carried out with perfect success. The fountain statues by Monti
in the Crystal Palace are good examples.

F I G . 2 6 . — G R E E K COIN OF ALEXANDER.

THE VARIOUS FORMS ADOPTED

IX

ANCIENT SCULPTURE.

HAVING described the various materials and methods employed
in sculptural art, we are in a condition to classify the different
forms adopted, and arrange them under the proper terms.
All sculpture is measurable; and it has three dimensions—
height, width, and depth. Sculpture in " the round," i. e. statuary
proper, has also circumference or girth that may be measured.
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF.

1. Bas-relief, or " basso relievo" is the term used when the
work projects from the general plain surface or ground, the
forms being rounded as in nature.*
2. Flat-relief, or " stiacciato "—if the work is very little raised,
the forms being not so projecting as in nature.
3. Half-relief, or "mezzo-relievo"—if more raised, but not
free from the ground in any part, as in the Parthenon and
other friezes (Fig. 1).
4. Full-relief, or " alto-relievo "—in which parts of the figures
are entirely free from the ground of the slab; as in the metopes
of the Parthenon (Fig. 27).
5. Sunk-relief or " eavo-relievo "—in which the work is recessed within an outline but still raised in flat relief not
projecting above the surface of the slab, as seen in the ancient
Egyptian carvings.
* The Assyrian bas-relief work is peculiar, and was, no doubt, as suggested by Mr. Fergusson, painted, as were later works of the kind by the
Greek sculptors. The Assyrian reliefs may be regarded, indeed, as
sculptured pictures. Mediaeval reliefs of all lands were also painted, veiy
commonly.

SCUXPTUKE I N

EELIEF.

27

6. Intaglio—invented by the famous ancient sculptors in
hard stones and gems. In this the figure is cut into the stone
or metal, so that a cast taken from it, as in a seal, gives a mezzorelievo or even an alto-relievo. When the gem is transparent
the figure appears as if in relief, with very beautiful efiect
(Fig. 6).
Much of the Eenaissance and modern sculpture combines the
four first-named kinds of work on different planes in degrees of

F I G . 27.—ALTO-RELIEVO.

O N E OF THE M E T O P E S OF THE PARTHENON.

distance, with some under cutting; thus departing from true
relief in sculpture and approaching the pictorial form.
The beauty and character of bas-relief depend much upon
the representation of outline. The projection is small in proportion to the distinctness and continuity of line enforced by
this method, so conspicuously seen, in its most masterly style,
in the frieze of the Parthenon (see Fig. 1). Besides the requisite
of a fine conception of beauty and expressive forms, the greatest
executive skill and tact are necessary to keep within the limits

STATUARY.

28

of sculptural art, so as to mail] tain the composition free from
crowding, or the pressing out of form of one figure by another,
a n d to give to each figure the full necessary space to stand and
move in t h e action represented.
STATUARY.
STATUARY proper, which is so called from the Latin stare, to
stand, is SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND, or as the French, express
it, " en ronde bosse." % A statue is therefore seen on every side.
Statues a r e — 1 . Standing. 2. Seated. 3.Becumbent. 4. Equestrian.
Statues are classed into five forms as to s i z e : —
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Colossal—above the heroic standard.
Heroic—above six feet, b u t under the Colossal.
Life Size.
Small Life Size.
Statuettes—half
t h e size of life, and smaller.

T h e Bust (a name derived from the Latin, JBustum, a tomb,
or rather a place for cremation) naturally came to be used for
those portraits of deceased relatives which were placed in the
entrance of dwelling-houses, by the Eomans, who were the first
to show the great love for portraiture not only of public characters
b u t of their friends and relatives.
* The Egyptian statues, though never carved entirely " in the round,"
although in a standing or seated attitude, and never having the limbs
entirely free, either from the trunk of the figure or the block out of which
they are cut, are something more than alto-relievi. They have an aesthetic
quality of expression and meaning which well dignifies them with the
appellation of statues. In the British Museum are ten archaic Greek
statues of seated figures like the Egyptian colossi, which were found at
Miletus. Assyrian colossal figures are nearly all either alto or bas-reliefs ;
only two or three statues have been discovered, and these are like the
Egyptian statues, or standing with long drapery, showing only the front
part of the feet, and being part of the block, so that the figure does not
stand any more than the Egyptian statues, and the arms are not
sculptured in the round, but fixed. All sculptors, however, have to study
how to conceal the means of support for their marble statues. Sometimes
this is afforded by the trunk of a tree, as in the famous Fighting Gladiator,
or the lion's skin and club planted on the rock on which the ponderous
Hercules of Glycon leans.

FABULOUS CREATURES IN SCULPTURE.

29'

The ancient sculptors represented with great beauty the
various mythological creatures described in their fables ; some
of which are of the human form varied—as the Amazon, the
Faun, the Syren, the .Nereid, the Cyclops, the Janus or bifrons
(double-faced), and the Hermaphrodite, uniting the characteristics of Hermes and Aphrodite. In other instances they
invented the combinations of the human with the brute form
of fabulous creatures described in ancient mythology : these
are—(a) Sphinx. Lion with head of man or woman, (b) Man
with eagle or hawk head, (c) Minotaur—Man with head or
body of the bull, (d) Centaur—Man or woman with part of
the trunk and limbs of the horse, (e) Satyr—Man with hind
quarters of a goat. (/) Triton—Man with fish-tail, (g) The
Giants—Men with serpents for legs, (h) Harpy—Woman and
bird. Other strange creatures were of brutes only, as the
Hippocamp—Horse and fish, with fins instead of hoofs ; the
CMmaera, Griffin, Dragon, Dog Cerberus with many heads, &c.
COLOSSAL STATUES.

The most a,ncient statues were generally colossal, and carved
in the hardest granite. The four Egyptian colossal seated figures
hewn out of the living rock at the entrance of the temple at
Ipsamboul,or Aboo Simbel, are 61 feet high.*
But larger than these was the bronze Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of
the world (Fig. 28). This stupendous figure
was 70 cubits high, and was long said to
have stood with one foot on each side of the
entrance to the harbour so that ships could FlG- 28~COIN OF RHODES.
sail under the legs. This is now proved to Head °fthe Golossushave been a fabnlous story, by the discovery of the foundation
stones for the statue. The ancient Egyptian cubit (not'the Royal
cubit) was, according to Mr. Sharpe, 17*7212 inches, so that
* Two of these were made of the full size of the ancient statues, the head
of one having been moulded by Mr. Bonomi in Nubia, which is in the
British Museum, and which was used as a model for these reproductions
under his direction in the Crystal Palace. They were, however, destroyed
by fire about 10 years ago.

30

COLOSSAL STATUES.

it would he about 115 feet high. The Athene Promachos, a
bronze figure by Pheidias, placed on the Acropolis, to be seen at
sea beyond the Piraeeus, was between 50 and 60 feet high. His
statue of Athene within the Parthenon, a chryselephantine
statue, was 47 feet high. His statue of Zeus, in the same
materials, in the temple at Olympia, was a seated figure, 45 feet
high in that position. Some of these colossal statues were built
up in sections, and nailed, clamped, or dove-tailed together.
Several other colossi are mentioned in history; one in later
Koman times, when Zenodorus made a bronze statue of Nero
as Sol, 110 feet high. It was not completely executed, as
the art was then partly out of use, but in A.D. 75, it was consecrated as a Sol, and was afterwards changed into a Cornmodus by adapting his head (see Pliny, H. N". xxxiv. 18).
It is interesting to remember that the Colossus of St. Charles
Borromeo, placed on a hill near Arona, his birthplace, in 1697,
is 66 feet high, standing on a pedestal 40 feet high; it is formed
of sheets of copper beaten out, and supported ori a column of
masonry; the head, hands, and feet are cast in bronze.
The statue of Arminius, designed by Ban del, and erected in
1875, is also of hammered copper. It is 45 feet high, and
stands on a pedestal 90 feet high, on the top of the Grotenberg,
near Detmold.
The largest colossal statue of modern times is the " Bavaria,"
designed by Schwanthaler of Munich, and cast in bronze by
Stiegelmayer, both of whom died unfortunately before their great
work was completed in 1848. This draped figure of a German
maiden is 54 feet high, the lion at her side is 27 feet high;
the group standing on a pedestal 30 feet high, in front of the
Pumeshalle, on an eminence outside the west-gate of Munich.
Some rather large bronze statues have of late years been
made by English sculptors. The most remarkable of these are
the equestrian statue of George III. on an artificial rock at the
end of the long walk at Windsor; the equestrian statue of the
Duke of Wellington which stood on the arch at Hyde Park
Corner—now at Aldershot; the figure in the Park, called the
Achilles, which is a copy of one of the celebrated antique marble
statues of Castor and Pollux on Monte Cavallo, at Rome; the

THE 'CANON' OF PROPORTION.

31

seated statue of Prince Albert in the Hyde Park Memorial,
12 feet high, of bronze gilt; the four Lions by Landseer at the
base of the Nelson Column.
THE SCULPTOR'S

l

CANON' OF PROPORTION.

To know the proper proportions of the figure- is a matter
of the utmost value in all sculpture, even more so than in
painting, as the statue is measurable in every direction and
viewed on every side. The work of making colossal statues
is therefore not only one of artistic labour and expenditure
of money, it requires also a careful study of the proportions
of the human figure. It would have been impossible 'for the
ancient Egyptian sculptors to carve out of the living rock
those four tremendous figures at the entrance of the temple
at Aboo Simbel, or indeed any of the numerous other statues
on this scale, unless they had arrived at a rule of proportion
for the figure. Without this their colossi would have been
only rude monsters. Such a rule they had discovered and
laid down in a " canon," as it is called, similar to that which
was followed by the Greek sculptors after them, and especially
made known by Polykleitos, whose name it received. Polykleitos, who flourished B.C. 452—412, was the greatest master
of the school of Argos and Sikyon. He was instructed by
Ageladas, and was fellow-student with Myron and Pheidias, who
was his senior. Though there is some uncertainty as to the precise terms of the canon of Polykleitos, there can be no doubt
that it had for its unit of measurement some part of the human
figure. Ever since the time of Vitruvius Pollio, who wrote his
well-known treatise on architecture and other branches of art
in the first century of our era, it has been an accepted tradition
that his version of the canon of Polykleitos was the correct
one. He says (lib. iii. cap. 1) :—"Nature has so composed the
human body that the face from the chin to the top of the forehead and the roots of the hair should be a tenth part; also the
palm of the hand from the wrist joint to the tip of the middle
finger; the head from the chin to the highest point, an eighth;
from the top of the chest to the roots of the hair, a sixth."
The rule of eight heads or ten faces derived from this has

32

'CANONS'

OF POLYKLEITOS AND VITEUVIUS.

remained to the present time. Eut Leonardo da Yinci differs from
Yitruvius as to the proportions from the top of the chest to the
roots of the hair, and states it to be a seventh instead of a sixth.
Another similar difference is to be observed between Yitruvius
and Leonardo; the foot being stated to be a sixth part of the
height by the former, and a seventh by the latter. Mr. Bonomi,
who was educated as a sculptor by Nollekens, and who gave
much attention to this subject, remarks upon this point:—" The
foot in the best antique statues is usually more than a
seventh, and less than a sixth."* Prof. Schadorw stales
that the foot is as 10 to 66 as the height, not as 10 to
60, according to Yitruvius. Leonardo made a diagram in which
a circle is applied so as to embrace the figure with extended
arms; the circle is described from the navel as the centre
(Fig. 29) : this he also took from Yitruvius:—"Item corporis
centrum medium naturaliter est umbilicus." But it cannot be
overlooked that a circle described from the navel does not show
that it is the centre of the body; on the contrary, a circle drawn
from this point would cut the line of the top of the head and
a spot a little below the tuberosity of the tibia, or leg-bone.
Leonardo added a square, of which each side is equal to the
height of the body, and marked it into four horizontal divisions,
which are certainly correct, viz. in the erect figure equal distances
are found to extend from—1. the sole to the lower border of
the patella; 2. from that to the pubes; 3. to the nipples; 4.
to the crown of the head. The arms being extended horizontally, the tips of the middle fingers touch the sides of the square
of Leonardo; the length of the outstretched arms is therefore
the approximate measure of the height of the body in men and
women, but, as might be expected, there are few persons—only
six in eighty-four, according to Mr. Bonomi's measurements—in
whom these proportions are exact. The other measurements of
proportion given by Leonardo may be accepted, such as across
the widest part of the shoulders in a man one-fourth of the
height: from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger one-fourth
of the height: from the elbow to the top of the shoulder is the
eighth of the height of a man : the length of the ear is one* The c Proportions of the Human Figure/ by Joseph Bonomi, 1872.

F I G . 29.—LEONARDO DA Y I N C I ' S DIAGRAM.

Showing that a circle of which the navel is the centre, embraces the extremities ;
and that the extended arms to the ends of the fingers equal the height of the
figure. But showing that the navel is not the centre of the body, as he stated.

A.S.

D

34

CHARLES BLANC ON THE 'CANON.'

third of the face : the greatest width of the hips is one-fifth of
the height. His observations upon the variations to be followed
in representing men, women, and children of certain characteristic types may also be relied on.
This subject, which is of great practical importance to
sculptors, has lately received much elucidation from M. Charles
Blanc, in his 'Grammaire des Arts du Dessin/ who supports
his views by the discoveries of Lepsius of Egyptian measures
of proportion and sculptors' canons, and by the observations of
Schadow (the late eminent professor at Dusseldorf) on the canon
of Polykleitos. To all this may be added the valuable measurements previously given by Clarac ('Musee de Sculpture/ 1841),
showing that eight heads are not the correct rule for the antique
statues. He also notices the variations in width, which though
of less moment are still a matter of great importance in reference
to characteristic forms or typical statues. The figure of woman
is narrower at the shoulders and broader at the hips than in
man (see Plate I I I . in Bonomi's ' Proportions ? ). The width of
the thigh and the calf of the leg is generally greater also. The
rule of an equilateral triangle, having its angles at the nipples
and the pit of the neck, holds equally in man and woman,
as does also that of three widths of the face, from the zygomas,
between the shoulders across the chest. M. Blanc, remarking
that the proportion of 10 faces has been so widely adopted,
mentions that a Spanish sculptor of the sixteenth century,
Juan de Arphe, wrote a book, very rarely seen, entitled ' Yaria
Oofnensuracion,' * modifying the proportions of Vitruvius, and
taking the nose as the unit, it being one-third of the face. Thus
he would give 31 lengths of the nose instead of 30, making the
height of the figure seven heads and three-quarters. This, however, does not appear to be correct, for M. Blanc lays down as the
common proportion that there should be more than eight heads,
not less; the small head belonging only to athletes. Winckelmann
says a good deal rather vaguely about the number three being the
ratio, as it was that of perfection, according to Plato (' Timseus/
p. 477), as that two things cannot exist without a third—a
* The original I have seen once, in Dr» Laing's library.
to be met with more frequently.

The reprint is

THE

EGYPTIAN 'CANON/

35

"beginning, middle, and end. In
the growth of man three years
gives the half of the full size.
The face has three nose lengths,
but the head has not four, but
three and three-quarters. He considers that the foot was the unit
employed by the ancients, and
the height was determined by
this, not by the head or the face.
Still, after measuring many
Egyptian figures, he is compelled
to admit that the foot in them is
not the unit of proportion; but
in most of the Greek statues he
found that it is. His instances,
however, do not prove the correctness of his view as to the foot.
M. Charles Blanc, in quoting
Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary
with Vitruvius, who states that
the Egyptian sculptors divided
the figure into 21 \ parts of equal
length, says that he himself
tested this with the statues at
Karnac, and found that they were
divisible according to the horizontal lines upon those in the
temple of Ombos into about 22J.

F I G . 30.—EGYPTIAN FIGURE HOLDING
A KEY.

Divided ly lines into 19 equal parts from
the sole of the foot to the top of the head,
and 2 1 | to the top of the cap. Taken
from a statue found ly Lepsius and
figured Jn his ' Choix de Monuments
funeraires.'
Each division corresponds
to the length of the middle finger as
shown.
D 2

36

THE MEDIUS

FINGER THE UNIT.

M. Blanc concludes that the ancient canon was forgotten. He
points out that the length of the head and face from chin to
crown varies with age, that the nose being formed of bone and
cartilage cannot be invariable, and its point of juncture with
the forehead is not marked. It is necessary, then, to seek
some other member as the unit of proportion. He then goes on
to say that Chrysostome Martinez, in the text to his anatomical
plates, points out that the bones of the hand in their growth
preserve a constant proportion to the length of the body. He
thinks that the ancient Egyptians observed this, especially as

FIG. 31.—PROPORTIONS OF EGYPTIAN LION.

the hand was always regarded as the interpreter of the soul, and
had great importance in the mysterious science of Hermes : that
the medius (middle finger), as the finger of destiny, was chosen
as the unit of proportion. Eeferring to the great work of
Lepsius* he found a figure, divided into 19 parts (Fig. 30),
holding a key in the right hand, and letting the left hand fall
by the side of the thigh with the fingers extended, the eighth,
line of division falling precisely at the knuckle of the closed
right hand holding the key, and the articulation of the medius,
while the tip of this finger touched the seventh line. This
figure, he considers, is the solution of the problem. The same
number of divisions is to be seen on a tablet with a lion
* Leipzig, 1852.

DIODORUS SICITLTJS ON THE ' CANON.'

37

recumbent, in which the carpus and meta-carpus together (the
paw) fill one space (Fig. 31).
The statement of Diodorus, above-noticed, that the Egyptian
figures had a rule of 21J divisions, is curiously confirmed, in this
figure of the Lepsius collection having 21 J, if the head-dress is
counted in the height. So far M. Blanc ; but it was well known
long before that the Egyptian sculptors and painters worked by
" squaring on " the figures to slabs and walls ; and several, not
to say many, examples seen in the museums show these lines
either still on the work left unfinished, or under the colour on
the surface. In the British Museum is " an ancient tablet on
which is an outline exhibiting the canon of the proportions of
the human frame, in use among the painters and sculptors in the
age of Amunopth III., about 1250 years before our era" (see
Bonomi on the Canon of Vitruvius, 1857, and Sharpe's ' Chronology and Geography of Egypt,' 1849). This tablet has two
figures, each squared over, the one seated, and of larger proportions than the other. The seated figure has the feet and top
of the head, without the usual high cap, exactly included in 15
squares; the standing figure of a female is also precisely included,
but in 19 squares. Bonomi remarks in a note upon John
Gibson's, canon, the remarkable coincidence that this eminent
sculptor divided the figure into 19 equal parts, of which two
were to be taken as a radius for a circle, &c, and that this was
the same as the Egyptian canon above referred to.*
M. C. Blanc having obtained measures of the iEgina statues
in the Munich Museum, and of the Achilles and the Athlete in
the Louvre, finds that the height is regulated by the medius, as
are most of the other proportions—that from the navel to the
pectoral muscles being rather less than in the Egyptian figure. The
* I once took occasion to ask Mr. Bonomi, who was a great friend of
mine, and from whom I learnt much of Egyptian art, whether he had seen
the work of M. Charles Blanc, and he told me he had not, and therefore he
was not aware that the canon of Yitruvius was discovered to be an incorrect
tradition as to the famous canon of Polykleitos. I think it will be found
on examination that the key held by the Lepsius figure represents two
medius lengths, and these are equal to one hand; also that 21 medius
lengths, and a fraction over, are the rule for Egyptian /figures, as
Diodorus Siculus had stated.

88

THE 'CANON' OF POLYKLEITOS.

Achilles is considered by Yisconti to betaken from the bronze of
Alkamenes; therefore it is a contemporary work with any of
Polykleitos. Now, from the most careful measurements taken by
M. Longperier, then keeper of the Louvre, it was found that
this statue measured 2 metres, 33 millimetres, including the
reliefs of the helmet. Allowing for these as equal to trie loss
by the slightly bent attitude of the head, the height was taken to
be 2*035 millimetres. The length of the medius, compared with
the distance from the bottom of the nose to the roots of the hair,
was found to be *107 mm., which multiplied by 19 gives 2*033
mm. Still further evidence is found in the two fingers in basalt
marked with unequal divisions, which are in the Louvre
collection, some single, some with two, joined—the index and
medius.* These confirm the view as to the canon, and in
hieroglyphics they are known to be employed to signify the sign
numeral of unity. Two joined mean justice, right, rule, and
naturally, measure.
The subdivisions on these measures,
however, have not yet been explained.
Unfortunately both the written canon of Polykleitos, and
the statue canon in marble he made of a guard of the Persian
king, armed with a lance—a 'Doryphore*—are lost. But
it is known that Pythagoras of Rhegium was acquainted
with the canon which his contemporary Polykleitos treated of.
They both lived in Olympiad LXXXVIT, 5th century B.C.,
and Laertius says (lib. viii. in ' Pythagora ) : Kcu aXXwv
adptavT£7roi6y Vr\yivov yeyovevat tyaal Uvdayopav irpwrov doKavra
pvdfi& tealffvfxiAETpiagearoyaadat—which points distinctly to
measurement first taught by him who learnt from the Egyptians,
as Diodorus says, Telekles and Theodoros, sons of Ehoekos, who
lived in the eighth century B.C., and who made the Pythian
* M. Blanc observes that Paolo Pino—in his ' Dialogo di Pittura/ Ven.
—states that from the top of the indexfingerto the middle phalanx is the
same as from the chin to the opening in the lips, and this is also the
measure of the mouth and the ears. The ungual phalanx of the same finger
is the measure of the eye, and the space between the two eyes. The
space from the nose to the opening of the ear is the length of the medius.
He also mentions that Dr. Henszlmann finds that the medius is the unit
of proportion in Egyptian architecture. (' Methode des Proportions dans
Architecture Egyptienne Dorique et de Moyen Age,' Paris, 1859.)

F I G . 3 2 . — T H E PROPORTIONS OF THE H U M A N F I G U R E .

As handed down to us by Yitruvius—and described by. Joseph Bonomi
in his 'Proportions of t h e Human Figure.'

40

GALEN ON THE 'CANON.'

Apollo for the Samians. So regularly was the work done,
although the one sculptor made one-half (vertical half) at Samos
and the other was made by Theodoros at Ephesus, when adjusted
appeared as the perfect work of one sculptor.
But we arrive somewhat nearer to what was the precise nature
of the canon of Polykleitos by what Galen has said of beauty.
Freely translated, this would be: " The beautiful is not in the
elements, but in the harmony of the parts of the body, of finger
with finger, and all these with the metacarpus and the carpus
(the bones of the hand), and of all these with the cubitus (forearm), and of the cubitus with the arm's, and of all with all,
according as it is written in the Canon of Polykleitos."
To

de icaXXog OVK kv rrj rdv

ovfAfiETpiq. (TvvicrTaadai

o r o t i c i w r , a \ \ ' ev fjr TU>V fiopiiov

VO/J.L£EI, dcucrvXov 7rpoQ daKTvXov

icai GVfjL7rdvT(t)V avTwv irpog re fiEraKapiriov

drj\6voTif

KOL Kap-irop, ical TOVTWP

7TpOQ 7Tfj)(VV, KCli TTlj^ElOQ TTpOQ /3jOa%«Wa, ICCtl IZGLVTWV
navTa,

Kada.7rep iv

rw ROXVICXELTOV

KCIVOVI

TTpOQ

yiypairrai—(Galen,

' de Hippocratis et Platonis Decretis,' 1. v. p. 225, Ed. Yen.*
1565).
Erom the well-known terms of the Greek fmeasures it is
obvious that the parts of the hand were taken as the standard
from great antiquity, whether from the Egyptians, or simply
from the practice as arising amongst all primitive nations. It is
remarkable that while the Egyptians seem to have taken length
as the measure, the Greeks took the breadth of the hand and
fingers. To this day also by us i the breadth of a hand is the
measure used in describing horses. The following will suffice to
show the Greek measures derived from the hand : —
AaKTvXog—a finger-breadth—Roman, digitus.
KOVSVXOQ—(a knuckle), two fingers'-breadth.
HaXaiarj or TraXaGrfjg, dwpov, ^oy^fir} or haKTvXo do^pr}—a

breadth.
'Qpdodwpov—the length of the open hand.
Atx«c—the span from thumb to fore-finger.
'SiTridajjirj—the span from thumb to little finger.
Uvyfii)—from the elbow to knuckle joints.
ILvyojv—from the elbow to first joint of little finger.
ILriXVQ—{Cubitus) from elbow to tips of fingers.

hand's

ME. MAESHALl/s EULE OF PEOPOETION.

41

Galen, as an anatomist, founded his statement on the bones;
and no doubt every sculptor who has relied upon safer and
sounder knowledge of the figure than his own eye and feeling
for proportion afforded, has been guided by the study of the
bones of the human figure.
The proportions of the Human Figure as handed down to us
by Vitruvius, and enclosed in a divided square, are described
by Mr. Bonomi (Fig. 32).

FIG. 32«.—PBOMETHEUS CARTING A SKELETON.

From an antique gem.

Mr. John \Marshall, F.E.S., the Professor of Anatomy at the
Eoyal Academy, has invented a rule of proportion of which the
unit is one inch, the length of the top bone of the middle finger,
and according to which the general height of the male figure is
67 units or 5 ft. 7 in. This agrees very closely with the average
of 500,000 American recruits for the army, which is 67*3.
" The head, neck, and trunk proper contain 36 units or 4
parts of 9 units each. The limbs are attached to the trunk at
two points distant 2 heads or 18 units (i. e. between the axes
of the shoulder and hip-jointsVone of these points being 1 head

42

MICHELANGELO'S COMPASSES.

4 units (13 units), the other 3 heads 4 units (31 units), from
the top of the head. The three successive segments of the upper
limb (arm) measure 19, 9, and 7 i units respectively; while
those of the lower limb are 18, 14, and 9 units." The inch
corresponds with the length of the top bone of the middle
finger. (For further information see 'Athenaeum/ no. 2783 :
Eeview of Mr. Marshall's book.)
That strict rules of symmetrical proportion should be followed,
is necessary in all statuary, but more especially in that which is
architectonic, or designed to serve as embellishment to architecture. The knowledge of the figure acquired by such sculptors
as Pheidias, Alkamenes, and Praxiteles, and in after times by
Donatello, Giovanni di Bologna, and Michelangelo, inspired
them with the admiration of the beautiful, and enabled them to
express an ideal of grand beauty, not so guided by religious
dogma or priestly authority with its rule of measurement, but
rather as creations of their art guided by a taste and feeling
which rarely failed to direct them aright. We shall see in
speaking of the aesthetic in sculpture how the> ancient rules of
symmetry were modified in giving liberty and spontaneity to
the sculptor. It was the greatest sculptor of modern times—
Michelangelo—who said, in reference to these rules of proportion,
that the sculptor should have " his compasses in his eye." M.
Charles Blanc, with his accustomed esprit, observes of this mot,
that " sculptors and painters especially dread the rule of
geometry. They regard rule as a fetter upon the liberty of their
invention, but without dreaming that this great man (Michelangelo), before he expressed himself thus, had for so long a time
had the compasses in his hand." This points to a profound truth
in all practical art, that no man can be a great artist unless he have
the power of drawing in the true proportions of the beautiful.
If he have this gift, and has enlarged and strengthened the faculty
by accurate observation and close study of the lines of nature,
whether he designs on the scale of nature, on a colossal scale, or
one so minute as that adopted by the great Greek gem-cutters,
his figures will be in accord with the proportions developed in
the most beautiful examples of antique art, and in Nature.
It must be evident that the most gifted sculptor would always

43

CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES.

be glad to assure himself by reference to any laws of form and
proportion that can be formulated into a canon, such as we have
been considering.

FIG. 33.—COLOSSAL BUST OF JUPITER.

In the Vatican.

| Found at Otriculum during the time of Pius VI.
CHARACTERISTIC

TREATMENT OF PARTS OF THE

FIGURE.

The method and character of work differ so much in sculpture of different periods, as well as in the works of different
sculptors of the same period, that it is necessary to state some
particulars upon this point, which however refer chiefly to
technical execution.

44

CHARACTER OF THE HEAD.

THE HEAD in fine statues has a certain proportion to the
height of the body. In archaic work it is nearly always too
large, with dumpy bodies and thick limbs, the muscles of which
are exaggerated and forced into lumps, and the joints made
too prominent, with a view to show enormous strength. The
forehead is massive and full at the brow in Jupiter, Neptune,
Mars, Hercules, but not projecting from the line of the nose.
The hair is carved in numerous round curls, having in some
statues no connection or flow of continuous line. This was
a quick and ready mode, but from being cut mostly with the
drill, it shows great formality and dryness; in others it is
in long straight rolls. I n the bas-reliefs of the Harpy Tomb,
the hair is wiry and collected on the forehead in bunchy curls.
It is similar to this in the archaic statue of Artemis (Fig. 63),
and in the two little acroter statues of Athene found in the
iEgina ruins are long tails of hair falling on the neck, and the
curls are arranged in two or three rows.
It is necessary to note some modes of treating the hair which
were adopted as significant of the deities represented.*
Jupiter (Zeus).—Has the hair rising from a point at the top
of the forehead, and falling all round the head in massive lionlike curls as in the bust (Fig. 33). Pheidias when asked by
Panaenus where he found his idea of the head of Jove for
his great statue at Elis (Fig. 16), replied it was in Homer's
description of the god.f The beard of the Jupiter is equally
marked in its full curling masses. The head of Laocoon is
obviously borrowed from the Pheidian Jove, but it was an error
in aesthetic knowledge to adopt the physiognomy of a deity.
* The fashion of wearing the hair and wigs as seen in many Roman
busts need not be entered into. The stiff forms of the hair and beard
in Egyptian, Assyrian, and Archaic Greek statues represent probably
the effect of intertwining it with gold or silver threads.
"" ' H KCLI KVavStjGlV
f

£7r' O^pVCFE VSVGE

KpOVl(t)V

Afi€poaiai d' a p a ^ o u r a i STrtppuxravro avatcrog
Kparbg CLTC aOavaroio /JiEyav d' sXski&v "OXvfXirov

(fi Iliad/ i. v. 528.)
He said, and nodded with his shadowy brows ;
Waved on the immortal head the ambrosial locks,
And all Olympus trembled at the nod.—(Lord Derby's translation).

TREATMENT OF THE HAIR.

45

The same is noticeable in the fine head of iEsculapius in the
British Museum, purchased in 1866 with the Blacas collection.
Apollo.—Has the hair falling in rich curls upon the neck and
flowing at the temples, often gathered in a sort of knot on the
front of the crown—Kpw€v\og—as in the Apollo Belvedere. The
Adonis of the Vatican has the hair on the neck in the manner
of the Apollo, and is now called by that name. The Apollo
Sauroctonos (see Examples) has the hair like a woman, and
with a fillet. This form is of the soft feminine style, called
"androgunaikal."

FIG. 34.—INDIAN BACCHUS.

FIG. 35.—APOLLO.

Bacchus (Dionysus).—Has the hair falling in curls on the
neck. The god is bearded in the early heads distinguished as the
'Indian Bacchus' (Fig. 34), but not in later work. Praxiteles
first made Dionysus youthful.
Cupid (Eros).—Curls on neck (Fig. 124, Cupid and Psyche).
A tuft-like curl on the fore part of the hair is given to genii.
Diana (Artemis).—Knot on the top (Figs. 36, 37), like
Apollo.
Hercules (Heracles).—The hair curled thick upon the forehead, like the hair between the horns in a young bull: as
indicating great strength. It stands in close, strong curls all
over the head set on a " bull neck " (Fig. 20). The Hercules of

46

CHARACTERISTIC FORMS OF THE HAIR.

Ionia has the skin of the lion's head worn over the hair; seen
also in the coins and gems.
Hercules (Herakles).—A young Hercules with laurel-wreath
may be mistaken for an Alexander the Great or other king
(Winckelmann). The heads of Alexander have more resemblance
to Zeus, whose son he wished to be considered, in the hair rising
off the forehead like the Olympian Jove of Pheidias (Fig. 38,
coin). Hyllus, the son of Hercules, is represented with a ram's
horn on the left side of the head, as seen also in the coins of
Alexander.
Mercury (Hermes).—Curly hair, but not on the neck (Fig.
134).
In the older hieratic type the hair is smooth and wiry

FIG. 36.—ARTEMIS.

Brit. Mus.

FIG. 37.—ARTEMIS.

Brit. Mus.

on the crown, with stiff regular, ringlets below a fillet, and
long plaited tail; the beard stiff and pointed.
Neptune (Poseidon).—Long curls as if wet, parted at the
forehead.
Pluto (Plouton, Hades).—Long, straight hair hanging on the
shoulders, and low on the forehead, somewhat like Zeus, as the
ruler of the lower world.
Venus (Aphrodite).—The hair parted on the top, and gathered
into full wavy tresses towards a knot, higher than in the maiden
style. Sometimes bound with a fillet or a band of metal, as in
the Yenus of Cnidos, seen on the coins (Fig. 145).
Amazons have the hair parted and in full waves from the

VARYING TREATMENT OF THE EYE.

47

front, gathered back and fastened in a thick knot at the lower
part of the occiput. This is also the form generally adopted for
virgins by the Greek and Koman sculptors, and followed by tbe
moderns for maidens and martyrs.
Greek women frequently gathered the hair into a knot on the
top of the head, called Kopvfitog.
Gladiators and Athletes.—Hair in short stubbly curls, from
having been cut, as in the Discobolus (Fig. 127). The hair of
the so-called ' Dying Gladiator' shows that it was not intended
for a gladiator; his shaggy sticking-up hair is that of the
half-savage Gauls.
Satyrs and Fauns.—The hair in stiff short curls, standing up
at the points, to give the character of the hair of wild animals.
In the famous Faun of the Capitol (Fig. 130), the hair falls in
more full curls on the neck. Pan was called ^pi^oKOfiiQ—in
English " frizzed haired."
THE EYES.—These are very differently represented according
to the date of the work. In archaic statues and bas-reliefs, the
eye is very nearly level with the brow, and the lids, instead of
being curved as in nature, are straighter, and the borders of the
lids elongated towards the cheek and inclined upwards; the
face being in profile the eye is often shown in full. The eye is
made out in some examples without much modelling, but with
chiselled lines, the pupil being also marked with a line and a dot,
giving a stare. The narrow eye with the outer corners elevated
belongs to Fauns and Satyrs. But as
any marking of the eye is little seen in
statues to be viewed from a distance, it
became necessary to make the brow more
prominent and marked, so as to cast
shadow, and the ball of the eye was left
plain.
In coins before the time of
Pheidias the pupil was marked, and
strongly afterwards in those of Alexander
FIG. 38.—COIN OF
(Fig. 38). In all the finest statues,
ALEXANDER.
however, the ball of the eye is quite plain. In many it is
hollowed out deeply, to represent the dark of the pupil, and
also the form and colour of the iris: but this is not in strict

48

MAEKING OF THE PUPIL AND

IRIS.

keeping with sculptural art. It is constantly adopted in modern
works up" to the present time, many sculptors actually representing the reflected high light on the globular form of the eye by
leaving a speck of marble or bronze. The eyes in the colossal
figures of Castor and Pollux, known as the Monte Cavallo
groups, are strongly cut into in this way, and the coloured part
(the iris) is raised from the ball of the eye quite an eighth of an
inch. The magnificent onyx cameo (Fig. 7), the Gonzaga
cameo, now in the museum of St. Petersburg, of Ptolemy I.
and his queen Eurydice, shows the eyes strongly marked.
I n bronze statues the eyes were deeply drilled often, to show the
pupil with light and shade upon it, and engraved or chiselled for
the iris. But in many fine works the whole of the ball of the
eye seen was cut away, as in the bronze head of Artemis (see
Frontispiece), and the space filled with enamel, coloured to represent the natural eye. Gems were also used for this purpose, arid
coloured glass, so as to give the appearance of actual life. Probably this arose from the common custom of painting statues
with wax and colours—the circumlitio which Pliny describes—•
which, with the gilding of the hair and the ornaments of diadems,
ear-rings, and bracelets, was resorted to on any great festival.
(See description of Yenus de Medici, Sec. IY. Examples.)
In the Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, and Athene, the eyes are large,*
the ball being full and round, and rather short in the horizontal
axis. The eye of Athene has the upper lid rather low upon the
ball, so as to give the serious and chaste look of the virgin deity.
Yenus has rather small eyes, with the lids somewhat closed,
giving that charm of languor which the Greeks admired, and
named vypov—literally, " moisture."
The eyebroivs crown the beauty of the eye, and their beauty
consists partly in the constant change of form they undergo with
every passing expression, in which they play an important part,
and which has so much effect without being noticed as forming
the countenance. They are formed by very delicate gradation of
* The appellation of "ox-eyed" to Juno is not, however, the proper
one for the Greek of Homer—ROUTTIQ—the syllable Bo being merely an
expletive, signifying large, and having nothing to do with Bovg, an ox,
whose eyes in the Italian and Spanish beast are so large and prominent.

49

THE BROW, THE ^EOUTH.

line, and by the diminution in the fineness of the hairs from the
centre to the angle of the brow, indicating the form of the
bone.
The form of the brow is always carefully modelled in antique
work, but the hairs of the eyebrow are not marked distinctly,
such detail not being in accord with the antique style. The
Yenus of Melos, the Ludovisi Juno, the Apollo Belvedere, and
especially the bronze head of Artemis (Frontispiece), are examples
of this. Praxiteles is said to have excelled in modelling and
carving the eyebrow. Theokritos praised eyebrows that joined
at the root of the nose; and Porphyrogenitus describes Ulysses
as ^wo(f>pvQ, but though there are some portrait busts, as that of
Julia, the daughter of Titus, with joined or meeting eyebrows,
yet this wTas not considered a beauty by the ancients. Augustus
had meeting eyebrows, according to Suetonius, but this peculiarity is not seen in his busts as it is in those of Lucius Yerus
strongly marked.
THE MOUTH, next to the eyes, is the great feature of expression;
it follows in its beautiful undulating lines, more freely and more
fully, the thoughts as well as the words which come from it, like
water from the mountain spring. To represent this mobile
feature in bronze, in hard stone, and marble, is the most taxing
effort of a sculptor, as it is that which most tries the mettle of the
painter. We see what importance the Greeks attached to it by
their inventing the masks worn by actors in their large theatres.
The tragic, with its square, wide-open lips and eyes; the comic,
with its round mouth and eyes half-closed and slanting.
The lips in the archaic statues are closed, but the angles of
the mouth are curved up to give a smile, and in the dying
warriors of the iEgina pediment (Fig. 74) this peculiar smile is
very marked.
The lower lip in the Minerva is fuller and rather more projecting, supported by a larger chin than in the other female deities,
giving gravity and sternness. Venus has the lips more delicately
modelled, and a little parted. Apollo has the lips parted.
" Marmoreus tacita carmen hiare lyra " (Propertius).
Diana has a full under lip and arched upper, the chin being
strongly formed, and the nose straight.
A.S.

E

50

THE CHIN, ^ H E NOSE, THE EAR.

Jupiter has a full under lip; the moustache and beard indicating the strong forms beneath.
The Deities are never represented laughing, and never show
any sign of emotion.
Satyrs and Fauns show the teeth if laughing. The teeth
are seen in the Monte Cavallo colossi. They are also carved in
the Laocoon.
In portrait statues of Eoman emperors the mouth has the lips
invariably closed firmly.
THE CHIN.—This, in antique statues of deities, is always full,
prominent, round, and without any dimple.
THE NOSE, in all fine Greek statues, is nearly on a line with
the profile of the forehead. Except in portrait busts there is no
example of a high bridge or scarcely any rise—nothing like an
aquiline nose—in antique Greek or Eoman sculpture, though
it is so in Egyptian and Assyrian heads. In archaic Greek
statues the nose is rather turned up, as in those found in
Cyprus by Cesnola and others, many of which are in the
archaic room of the British Museum (Fig. 64). This important organ has so generally been destroyed in the antique
statues that the types are not so clear as in other features. Jupiter
has the nose straight, the full length of its proportion—a quarter
of the head—thick at the root and broad at the bridge, and
towards the end, the nostrils wide and full; a massive nose.
Hercules has a shorter nose, broad bridge and root, but thinner
than in the Jupiter at the tip and the nostrils. The Apollo nose
has more upward curve at the end than in the Jupiter, and his
sister Diana shows a similar tendency, as does Venus also.
Minerva has the long, straight, sharply-cut nose, with thin close
nostrils occupying a space equal to an eye in length. In Fauns
and Satyrs the nose is flattened at the bridge, and spread out at
the nostrils, the openings of which are exposed. The extreme
Satyric nose approaches that of the goat, and the openings in the
nostrils slant upwards.
THE EAR.—~No part was more scrupulously studied in its
complex forms by the ancient sculptors than the ear; for this
reason it is one of the tests of genuine work. Even in the
minute work of the glyptic artist the ear was a point of excellence

51

THE CHEST, THE BREASTS.

on which he prided himself, and on which he never neglected
to bestow his best skill. Any defect or want of finish here is a
sure sign that the work is not of a high order. In portraiture
the ancient sculptor was careful to observe the individual
character of the ear, and there is no part more distinctive,
perhaps. Marcus Aurelius had a very open meatus or passage
to his ear, and this would be enough to conclude whether a
separate ear belonged or not to his bust (Winckelmann). This
character is the reverse of that seen in the ears of Gladiators,
Athletes, and especially of Hercules, who have the opening small
and the cartilages strongly developed, though flattened. The
ears of Fauns are elongated at the top like those of an animal;
the ears of Satyrs more so, and both often have goat's horns.
The Centaur (Fig. 44) has pointed ears.
THE CHEST.—A full and finely-proportioned chest, according
to the general character of the figure, whether of a Jupiter or an
Apollo, a Hercules or a Neptune, is always given. The proportions in width and symmetry have been given in speaking of
the figure generally. The salience of the pectoral muscles, and
the serrati seen upon the ribs, and the forms of the cartilages
with the muscles at the central line of the body (linea alba), are
strongly marked in Hercules and Neptune. In Apollo these
'parts are softened, especially in the young god.
I n statues of Minerva the chest is invariably covered with the
aegis, which was originally the skin of the goat Amalthea that
suckled Jupiter as an infant, and which he wore with the
Gorgon's head when he conquered the Titans; hence he is called
by Homer Alytoxpg, the aegis-bearer. This was afterwards
covered with scales of armour. Beneath both, however, the form
of the woman's bosom is always shown, though not so prominently
as in Yenus, Ceres, and Proserpine. The Fates (Fig. 94) show
the breast very fully. Amazons have the left breast large and
full; they are said to have cut off, or branded, the right breast
of their female infants, because it interfered with the use of
the bow in war. But it must be borne in mind that the
breast was never at all prominent in fine antique statues, and
the nipples were always small, and in Venus coming to a round
pointed form which was considered the most beautiful. This,
E 2

52

THE ABDOMEN.

however, is a virginal form. The Diana has also this form,
except as the goddess of the Ephesians, when it becomes exaggerated all over the body, and multiplied (TTOXVJJKKTTOQ). The
nipple is placed in many statues exactly in the centre of the
breast, which is not as it is in nature, except in very exceptional
instances. It should be a little towards the outer side, and from
the dependance, a little below the centre of a circle. In the
Parthenon frieze figures, the natural model is followed with most
remarkable truth.
THE ABDOMEN.—This yielding part of the trunk, which varies
much under different circumstances, is never represented bulging
or flaccid in antique statues. The beautiful undulating forms of
the muscles and broad tendinous bands that unite in keeping
the viscera in place in a vigorous man or woman have always
attracted the admiration, and occupied the highest skill of
ancient and modern sculptors. "We have only to look at the
Theseus and Ilyssus of the Parthenon, and the nude figures of
Michelangelo on the Medici Tomb, to see this. The instances
in which any violent action is shown are few, such as the
Laocoon, in which the strong marking of the edge of the rib
cartilages by the spasm of the abdomen muscles is finely studied.
In the Apollo Belvedere a certain compression of the abdomen
appears, which always accompanies the holding of the breath
during an ..effort, and would confirm the suggestion that the
god had just let fly the arrow, and was watching its effect.
The Clapping Faun (Fig. 39) is another example of this compression. This statue should be compared with the Meleager
and the Mercury as well as the Adonis of the Vatican, in which
these muscles are in repose. These muscles in the Farnese
Hercules are much exaggerated, and turgid with fat, especially at
the crest of the ilium (hip-bone). In the Torso Belvedere
they are very finely treated in union with those of the chest, and
suggest some strong action, and in the Hermes (Fig. 134). A
sure mark of debased work is a swollen form in the muscles of
the trunk, and especially where the bones of the pelvis show
where the " w a l l s " of the abdomen start from this line, marked
in nature only by a gentle swell of the soft parts. The veins on
the abdomen are exaggerated in statues of Hercules of a debased

THE HIPS, THE BACK, THE LIMBS.

53

style, under the mistaken notion that they represent strength.
These veins are only slightly shown in fine statues.
THE HIPS.—The greater natural width of the body at this part
in the woman than in the man has been already noticed. It does
not, however, amount to much, and in the antique it is always
kept within rather than beyond this limit of proportion, as in
the Venus of Melos. Even in the well-known Yenuses of the
Naples Museum, of which the Yenus Callipyge is one, this rule
is kept. Not even in Eoman work was there any of the exaggeration that is to be noticed in some modern statues of the
Yenus type. The Yenus of the Capitol, and the Medici Yenus,
are examples of careful natural study (Figs. 143—147).
THE BACK.—No part of the figure was more carefully and
intelligently studied than the muscles of the back—those of the
shoulders which aid in the strong exertion of the arms, and of
the neck in the attitude of the head, and those which hold the
body erect and direct its movements, acting on each side of the
bony column of the spine, having firm roots of attachment, so to
speak, on the solid base of the pelvis and the sacrum (hip-bones).
The finest examples are the Theseus (Fig. 91), the Ilyssus,
the Torso Belvedere, the Wrestlers, the Yenus of Melos,
and the Medici Yenus. The true love and admiration of
the natural beauty of the human figure which inspired the great
Greek sculptors is finely shown in the care bestowed upon this
most difficult part of the figure in statues which could not be
seen at all from behind, as in the pediment of the Parthenon.
The back is therefore one of the great test points in a statue.
THE THIGHS AND LEGS, as well as the UPPER and FORE-ARM, in

antique statues, are always studied with careful attention to the
differences between the man and woman, and in men the varied
forms indicating the character of the person are represented. The
arm of Apollo is somewhat soft and feminine in the muscles; so
also is, that of Mercury, though slim and wiry. The legs correspond. The limbs of Achilles and Hercules are of course strongly
developed. The Antinous and Adonis have the forms undulating
and smooth. In Jupiter the limbs are massive and powerful,
the muscles being full, but not with the hard and sharper contour of the Neptune, Hercules, and Yulcan. The knees of the

F I G . 3 9 . — T H E CLAPPING FATJN.

The head and arms are restorations by Michelangelo. The scabelhtm on t h e
foot is found on ofcher bacchanal figures. Marble. H t . 4ft. 8|in.
In the Museum, Florence.

THE HANDS AND FEET.

55

Apollo Belvedere and Apollo Sauroctonos are considered the
most perfect.
In the late and dehased Eoman work the forms of the muscles
ahout the knees are dropsical and haggy, showing ignorance of
the natural state of the muscles and their true form.
In the statues of the finest 'time the veins are rarely shown,
neither are the tendons at the wrists, and on the backs of the
hands and feet. But in the Laocoon the superficial veins on the
shoulder and arm, as well as on the thigh and leg, are prominently
carved. The Fighting Gladiator shows similar taste in the display of tendons and muscles. This became rather to be admired,
displaying knowledge of form and great energy of life; but as
seen in statues of the decadence, where it is common, it is nearly
always at fault as regards the correct situation and form of the
veins. This kind of work tends to the gross and exaggerated
and indicates poor art.
THE HANDS.—So far as the hands and feet can be studied in
those rare examples of antique work that remain, it is observable
that the forms of the bones were little made out, though they
are indicated with perfect truth. Neither the tendons nor the
veins on the back of the hands are ever seen strongly marked.
The fingers are tapered, but never turned back, as in the modern
hands supplied to the Medici Yenus. The nails are never long
or filbert-shaped, but rather short, broad and rounded. The
best examples of antique hands are in one of the sons of Mobe
(Florence Mus.), the hand stretched on the ground ; a group of
Mercury embracing Herse (Farnese Palace) has the two hands
of Herse and one of Mercury antique; and one hand of the
Hermaphrodite is perfect {Villa Borghese). The left hand of
the Apoxyomenos (Fig. 121) is also a good example of true
antique work.
THE FEET.—The sandal of the ancients was favourable to the
natural growth of the foot. As a rule, therefore, this part is
thoroughly understood by the antique sculptor, who admired
the feet. Aspasia and Polyxena are said to have had beautiful
feet. The Meleager and the Apollo Belvedere have good
feet, and in these the details are rather subdued, though the
pliant forms of the ankle and toes are finely rendered. The

56

DEAPEEY.

nails are rather flatter than in modern statues, arising from the
absence of cramping by shoes. If the hands and feet are badly
carved the statue is probably a feeble work.
By consulting the Index, the reader will find engravings of
most of the statues mentioned.
DRAPERY.

The great importance of the drapery given to the antique
statues, such as we see in the highest style in the Parthenon
figures, especially of the Fates (Fig. 94), is so universally admitted
that it is not necessary to enforce it here. It may be remarked,
however, that such is the beauty of fine drapery, that, next to
the portrayal of the nude, it is the highest test of the style and
merit of sculpture. It is so because to model and carve the folds
so that the beauty of the figure should be displayed, and yet so
far concealed, demands the subtlest art. To show the action of
the figure also in the forms of the drapery is equally part of the
design. Goethe, whose critical observations in art were so
instructive and so profound, called drapery " The thousand-fold
echo of the form." The finest examples that can be pointed
out are those of the Parthenon marbles. In some, as in the
Fates, we see what dignity and grace, combined with infinite
variety and beauty of line, is given to this superb group, although
the heads, and all that could give expression of an intellectual
kind, are gone. This is a good example of drapery in grand
repose. Movement is rendered with consummate art in many
instances, such as those in the Parthenon frieze : in the ' Victory'
of the M k e Apteros Temple (Fig. 101) and the Sandal-tying
figure (Fig. 102) as well as in other bas-reliefs such as ' The
Dancers' (Fig. 110), of which the ' Msonad' (Fig. 108) is a very
striking example. Some statues of much later time and of far
inferior style, being by Eoman sculptors, have the drapery
treated with much nobleness and fine perception of the beauty
that can be given to it (Fig. 40, Thalia). The representation of
drapery by zigzag folds and stiff impossible forms clinging to the
figure is peculiar to archaic work, and is to be taken generally as

STUDY OF DBAPERY.

57

distinctive of early sculpture, always remembering that it was
imitated afterwards in the pseudo-archaic statues.
The style of the drapery, whether in statues, bas-reliefs, or
pictures, is spoken of as distinguished by " motive " and " cast,"
the two words being taken from the artist's intention, in displaying the movement or momentary attitude, to indicate these
by the forms of the folds and the general composition of the
drapery. Technically, he aids his imagination by " casting " an
experimental drapery of the material he decides to represent,
over the living model before him, and selects after much study
those forms which satisfy him, rejecting certain folds which are
not essential to the design, which may be trivial and too full of
detail that would " cut up " the composition of the work. The
clothing of the ancient Greeks was of such light material, sometimes so thin that the forms were fully seen under it, that it
evidently lent much to the sculptor, and encouraged him to
observe and admire it. In this way the dress of the ancients
taught the sculptor as much of drapery as the athletic games
did of the nude. The materials used were woven cloths of flax
and cotton (from Cos). Silken and woollen cloths dyed or woven
in colours, and sometimes with gold, were, it would seem,
adopted in times subsequent to the great period in sculpture
(Winckelmann). This, however, may be doubtful as to the
time. Thukydides speaks of the thin dresses of the women
during the plague at Athens (lib. ii. p. 64). The fine and
numerous folds, and the ease with which they follow the form
of the figure in the statues by Pheidias, are considered to be due
to linen cloth. And it was at Elis that flax was cultivated and
so delicately woven (Pausanias, lib. v. ; Pliny, lib. xix. c. 4).
Cotton cloth was worn almost solely by women, it being
effeminate , for a man to wear it, either amongst Greeks or
Komans (Pliny, lib. ii. c. 27). It was often striped and ornamented with flowers. These fabrics were sometimes made so.
thin and transparent as to be compared to clouds, and Euripides
describes the mantle with which Iphigenia covered her face as
so clear it could be seen through. Silk of changing colours, as
we should say, "shot," appear to be shown in the draperies of
the figures in the famous painting of Koman work of the third

58

DIFFERENT FORMS OF DRAPERY.

century known as the Nozze Aldobrandini,—the marriage of
Peleus and Thetis—in the Yatican. Woollen fabrics were used
in the same way for coloured garments.
Different forms of Drapery.—Women wore three—the tunic,
the robe, and the mantle. The first of these corresponds to the
modern chemise; it is seen in the Mora Farnese, the Amazon of
the Yatican (Fig. 118), and in the Thalia of the British Museum
(Fig. 40). It was called a chiton, and had no sleeves, being
fastened on the shoulders with a button. Cybele and Isis alone
have sleeves, but they are foreign to the Greeks. The long
falling robe was a simple garment of two broad pieces, open at
the sides, as seen in dancing figures, and fastened at the shoulders
with several buttons (Fig. 63, Artemis). The complexity of
the hanging folds led -to the archaic sculptor getting out of the
difficulty by his conventional forms of the zigzag edges. This
robe was held up to the figure by a girdle of some kind, both by
young girls and older women, tied close up under the breasts,
and not at the waist above the hips, which Homer describes as
J$aQv%ii)voQ—low-girdled. But the Amazons wore the girdle
like men, round the waist, as the mode adopted for fighting.
In the beautiful little bronze, however, in Naples Museum, of
the Amazon falling wounded from her horse the girdle is not
at the hips; and it is noticeable also that the right breast is
shown, the left being deficient.
Yenus when draped has two girdles—one high up, the other
quite below the hips, fastened in front (Fig. 147).
The Peplos—mantle—originally that which belonged to
Pallas. It was cut round, and probably also square, the corners
having loops with which to fasten it up. It was worn sometimes fastened at the throat with a brooch, and often carried
carelessly on the arm, allowing part to fall round the hips, as
in the fine statue of Thalia (Fig. 40). To follow out the subject
of dress would involve more space than can be given to it here,
and it is not necessary, as it can be so fully studied in the
dictionaries of Greek and Roman antiquities.
The clilamys is the cloak so finely shown in the Apollo
Belvedere; it was fastened at the shoulders by a button or
brooch.

F I G . 40.—THALIA, THE M U S E OF COMEDY.

Wearing the chiton and peplos ; and holding the pedum.
In the British

Museum.

60

PRINCIPLES OF DRAPERY.

Drapery should be observed as having the following characteristic disposition in bas-reliefs and statues :—
1. Hanging in perpendicular folds or pleats, dependent on the
weight of the fabric.
2. Fitting the form loosely, and showing it through, as in
the beautiful bas-reliefs from the Temple of Nike Apteros (Figs.
101, 102).
3. Stretched or suspended in diagonal folds, as between the
knees of seated figures (Fig. 84), particularly remarkable in the
Phigalian sculptures, and in one of the Fates of the Parthenon.
4. Flying—-with figures in strong action, as in many of the
Parthenon bas-reliefs and metopes. Exaggerated into twisting
forms in the sculptures of the Theseus temple and the
Phigalian friezes (Figs. 98, 99).
5. Clustered—the ends or borders gathered, as by the hand or
a loop. Eemarkable in the Amazon (Fig. 118).
The principle which governs movement in drapery has been
pointed out by Flaxman. Drapery in repose takes the forms as
classified above; but when the figure moves, the perpendicular
folds change according to the degree of movement: if slow,
towards gentle curves from the fixed point of support to the
free end; if more rapid, the curve becomes more complex and
undulating, and to some extent floating on the air. A draped
figure moving against a wind doubles the floating power, and
increases the curves at the free ends, straightening them in the
line of support.

COLOURED MARBLES AND COLOURED SCULPTURE.

A distinction is of course necessary between colouring statues
and bas-reliefs, and forming them out of various coloured materials. That both processes were constantly practised from early
to the best times of Greek art, under Pheidias and afterwards,
there is no room for any question. Numerous instances of colour
remaining still on sculptures, as well as on architectural details,
are to be seen in museums. The subject, however, is too exten-

COLOURING STATUES.

61

sive in its relations and too controversial to be treated fully in
this place. I t may be remarked, however, t h a t what is spoken
of as colouring was, from all accounts b y Plato, Pausanias, Pliny,
and Quintilian, as well as the modern writers M. Quatremere de
Quincy, M. Emeric David, and M. HittorfT, not painting w i t h
an opaque colour, b u t a sort of staining of the surface by t h i n ,
transparent colouring matter. Pausanias says of a statue of
Bacchus at Phigalia, partly clothed with ivy leaves and laurels,
that those parts which are visible shine from being rubbed over
with C i n n a b a r * (vermilion) (lib. viii. c. 29, Taylor's translation).
This m i g h t be done b y means of a " m e d i u m , " such as is invented
for painting in order to obtain transparent colour, formed of
wax and oil. B y this mode of applying it the fine surface of
t h e marble worked b y t h e sculptor would not be injured, and
would show through with a k i n d of lustre and richness like the
glow of life in the living body. T h e term " c i r c u m l i t i o , " used
b y Pliny, seems to be a process of rubbing in, and we m a y
conclude t h a t t h e colouring was to some extent transient, as it
was repeated on t h e recurrence of festivals. H a d it been a
" painting," P l i n y would have used t h e word " p i n g o " in some
form.
Those instances of statues in terra-cotta found with a coat
of vermilion on t h e m give no proof t h a t they were painted
of t h a t colour alone, as they appear n o w ; vermilion remains
undecomposed b y long action of oxygen and light, while a n y
modifying colour derived from vegetable or animal sources which
may have been mixed w i t h it has been destroyed.
M. D e
Quincy states t h a t t h e fine preservation of the surface of some
antique statues, such as t h e Apollo Belvedere, Hercules of
Glycon, and Yenus de' Medici, is attributable to the use of w a x
* Mcias, an encaustic painter, is said by Pliny to have been preferred
by Praxiteles to put this colour or tint upon his statues (lib. xxxv. c. 11.)
This colour was probably mixed with wax, and applied melted under heat,
or made liquid with oil and then rubbed off somewhat until the surface
became polished. Gibson, the eminent sculptor, made the experiment
with his statue of Yenus and some others, carrying the colouring so far as
to tint the hair, the eyes, and the eyebrows, with some of the accessories.
The effect, however, was not generally approved at the time (1862,
International Exhibition) by the critics.

62

POLYCHROMATIC SCULPTURE.

colouring. The ivory statues were certainly often soaked with
oil and water to prevent cracking from dryness, for which
purpose a vessel to contain oil was placed near the statue.
Stones of various colours were employed to represent different
parts of the figure. Thus a helmet of Minerva is seen made of
black basalt or marble, the face and neck of white marble, and
the segis and gorgon's head of green and red. In Eoman busts
of the emperors the dress is frequently of coloured marble, while
the flesh is of white. These combinations were rarely if ever
chosen by the great Greek masters, but the artifice was a favourite
one during the decadence of taste in Eoman times, and afterwards
in the Eenaissance and later styles, when a sensational effect
was frequently produced by such methods, as in representing
negroes in black marble, with- eyes of white marble and gilded
ornaments.
Bronze with marble.—The accessories of marble statues are
often made of bronze, such as wreaths round the head, weapons,
the thyrsus of Bacchus, the talaria and the caduceus of Mercury,
the sandals, helmet, armour, lyre, and other ornaments. These
were freely employed by the greatest masters, as seen in the
Parthenon sculptures, in which the holes for affixing the bronze
bits and bridles of the horses still remain.
Gilt bronze.—That the ancients were accomplished in the art
of gilding metal is seen in the large equestrian statue of Marcus
Aurelius in the piazza of the Capitol at Eome, which still retains
some of the gold, and in a colossal statue of Hercules, in the
Vatican, discovered a few years ago, on which much of the gold
remains in brilliant condition. The bronze horses of antique
work over the door of St. Mark's, Venice, are gilt. Many other
smaller examples are in existence. According to Muratori, there
were once twenty-eight gilt colossal equestrian statues in Eome,
and eight horses gilt. There are also many examples of silver
being inlaid into the bronze to mark the features, such as in the
eyes, the lips, the eyebrows. It is not within the limits of
this volume to go further into the subject of the use of gold in
ancient statuary, neither would it be of any practical utility.
That gold was used to cast statues is admitted, also that it
was employed in plates hammered into shape; but beyond

VARIOUS KINDS OF MARBLE USED.

63

small objects of personal ornament no example has been found.
Those who are curious upon the point will find it fully considered in the work of M. Quatremere de Quincy.

DIFFERENT MARBLES USED BY ANCIENT SCULPTORS.

Many varieties of fine marbles were plentiful in Greece and
Asia Minor; they take names from the mountains where they
were quarried.
SOFT MARBLES—sedimentary rocks of limestone.
Pentelic marble, from Mount Pentelicus in the neighbourhood
of Athens, is found white, with a fine fracture, brilliant and
sparkling, obtaining with exposure, after having received the
surface polish from the hand of the sculptor, a beautiful warm
tone comparable to ivory. This effect is seen in the Parthenon
and other temples in Athens built of this marble, which have an
extraordinary richness in their golden tint, especially under bright
sunlight and seen against a blue sky. The yellow colour is said
to be caused by oxydation of some salt of iron contained in the
marble. The statues in Athens are also of the same marble,
and many others now in various museums.
Parian is the marble from the island of Paros. The marble
usually called Parian has a coarse sparkling grain, which, however, takes a high finish : but there is reason to suppose that the
true Parian marble was of extremely fine grain, easy to work,
and of a creamy white.
Luna—a white marble: the quarries near Florence which
were worked in the time of the Emperor Augustus.
Carrara—abundant in the quarries near Florence. This is the
marble principally used by sculptors, on account of its pure whiteness, though sometimes it has serious blemishes and dark veins.*
Phigalian—a grey marble, seen in the bas-reliefs from Phigalia.
2Egineta,n—a greyish marble, seen in the statues of the pediment of the Temple of Athene, now in the museum of Munich.
* As the Italian quarries were not worked till about the middle of the
1st century B.O , the marble, if identified as such, affords a test for the
date of any work.

64

HARD STONES.

Black marble—found at Cape Tenaros.
Verde antico—found at Taygetos.
Corallitic.—Mentioned by Pliny as found in Asia, like ivory
in tone—" Candore proximo Ebori."
Alabaster.—Much used by the Egyptians. It was found at
Alabastron, on the Nile, whence its name.
HARD MARBLES—from igneous rocks, once in a state of fusion
Porphyry.
Granite. Rosso antico (red), nero antico (black).
Black and green basalt, Sienite, a dark stone, so called from
Syene, the town in Egypt near which it was found; and others.
These were principally used by the Egyptian sculptors; there
are however several large statues in the Yatican and Capitol
museums made of Rosso antico.

F I G . 41.—HOMER.

SECTION

II.— AESTHETIC.

I

T will have been gathered, from what has been said of
sculpture in general, of the high technical skill necessary
to the various forms of carved and modelled work, and especially
of the admirable examples of antique and renaissance work
in glyptics, that although sculpture is essentially founded on an
imitation of nature more close and palpable than the painter
can attain, yet it tends away from exact imitation towards the
realization of a certain complete beauty of form that is not to be
found in any one example of nature.
Notwithstanding that the great sculptors place before us a
figure so exactly modelled that it seems to want only the
breath of life to be another creation of the human form, yet it
is not this palpable reality of the figure that strikes the mind
so much as the suggestion that there is something more—that
the statue must have some being of its own, some supernatura
A.S.

F

66

THE STATUE AND THE PICTURE.

endowment within.* The very wonder felt that a figure of
bronze or marble should stand, and look, and be as if about to
move, encourages this idea. Thus with all its reality of form
that we can examine, and measure, and see all round on every
side, the statue, according as it fulfils the lofty aim of sculpture,
is more removed from the senses than a picture is. We yield
to the illusion of a picture, knowing that it is not what it
appears to be. But the statue does not strike us as an illusion;
it takes at once a presence, so to speak, a kind of personality,
and this the more impressive because of its form being so like,
and yet so unlike, the natural figure. There is the strong
resemblance, yet it is impossible to conceive anything more
unlike flesh than marble or bronze. I t is recorded that the
Huns and the Goths fled at the sight of the colossal statue
of Athena Promachus on the Acropolis at Athens; the figure
of Zeus seated on his throne in the temple so impressed
beholders with a sense of reality that they trembled as they
thought how, were the god to rise, he would carry away the
roof above his head. No picture of the god, however gigantic,
would have produced the same sense of awe. The Egyptians,
had they chosen, could have painted colossal figures, but
they knew that the statue would be as the god himself. Their
Glyphographic pictures they employed upon the walls of the
temple, to be read like a book describing great deeds of heroes.
All ancient art seems to have relied upon sculpture, as though
it were an admitted truth that pictures however imposing in
their size and splendour soon cease to be noticed, while the
statue asserts its presence constantly. All people, ancient and
modern, demand statues as monuments of great men, great
deeds, and great events of history; they seem to* feel that this
is in some sense to immortalize their heroes in perpetual bronze.
* Mrs. Jameson says, referring to Coleridge's definition of a: picture as
" a something between a thought and a thing/7 that " sculpture is a
thought and a thing" iGeorge Eliot,' the eminent novelist, speaks of
the statues in the Vatican as those "white forms whose marble eyes
seemed to hold the light of an alien world." Such a feeling led Pygmalion
to fancy his statue lived, and Donatello to call upon his " St. George " to
" march."

67

THE GREEK IDEAL.

The employment of the colossal as an expression of the ideal
of superhuman almighty power, even when, as in the Egyptian
statues, not associated with great beauty, has something of the
sublime in it. But when Pheidias united beauty with this
imposing majesty of gigantic proportions, and added the colour
of the living flesh and the lifelike look of the eye, as in the
ivory and gold-draped Athene and Zeus, sculpture was brought
to the highest pitch of grandeur, so far as this form of art could
attain it.
* Apart, however, from the religious ideal which inspired the
great Greek sculptor, and regarding merely the perfection of
beauty of form and symmetrical unity of proportion in the figure,
the colossal in size cannot be allowed to surpass the beautiful as
we see it in such statues as the Theseus, the Ilyssus, and some
other works of the Parthenon. What would be thought now of
a colossus so closely resembling life as the great statue of Zeus by
Pheidias must have done it is impossible to pronounce. The
principle, however, must remain, that beauty in sculpture does
not reside in colossal size. The converse may be shown to be true
by the experiment of magnifying a fine antique intaglio, when the
minute figure appears in perfect proportion and detail, on a scale
which, compared with the actual work, is more than colossal.
But though sculpture takes so much of the real and materialistic,
and, moreover, confers ideal beauty upon the forms of nature, it
reaches further than this in creating beings that have no existence.
The Egyptian sphinx, the Greek centaur and minotaur, those
marvellous creations, are so admirable in adaptation, so instinct
with life and nature, and so strong in the verisimilitude that art
gives, that we could fancy they may have been among the extinct
animals of creation. Although derivable from the symbolic forms
of the earliest hieratic art,—-the sphinx and other animal-headed
figures of Egypt, the winged human-headed bulls and eagleheaded men with wings of Assyria,—yet they were made beautiful
by the feeling of the artist for beauty, and the poetic conception
founded on his belief in the myth. The primitive centaur was
a very mechanically-put-together creature * (Fig. 42). In this the
* Pausanias says, that on the chest of Kypselos Chiron was represented
with the fore-legs like a man (lib. v. c. 19).
F 2

68

T H E SYMBOLIC.

THE

CLASSIC.

symbolic was the aim of the design, beauty not being contemplated ; as in the Centaur (Fig. 44). The predominance of the
symbolic was already depressing to the development of art, as we
see in later times in the productions of the debased Greek work
of the Byzantine sculptors, representing the evangelists as men
with the heads of the ox, the eagle, and the lion.* Still, it should
be understood that the
symbolic when properly
subordinated, as in all
the great works, plays an
important part, and fills
up the measure of beauty
in the design. It was
reserved for after ages,
when nations were beginning to enjoy works of
art as art and not as the
idols of a religion, and
when intellectual enlightenment was springF I G . 4 2 . — T H E CENTAUR CHIRON.
ing forth in literature, to
From a painted vase.
render beauty paramount.
Heroes had lived among mankind, and poets had celebrated
their deeds of glory. When these deeds were acted over again
in tragedy, with overpowering force of action and language,
and all the influence that the stage could lend, we may see how
literature and the drama conspired to prompt the aspirations and
the conceptions of the sculptor's art. The sculptor then became
the poet in his turn,—the designer; he was no longer the servant
and workman. Inspired by his art, he was called upon by the
nation to mould the gods as he in his art conceived them, as the
supernatural, avenging, favouring, and protecting powers. His art
made the gods like men of more than mortal mould, and conferred
* Two bas-reliefs in the porch^ of the Baptistery at Aquileja have St.
Luke with the ox head and St. John with the eagle head. Mrs. Jameson
remarks that the Assyrian Nisroch with his eagle head and wings is not
unlike the earlyfiguresof St. John, if we substitute the book and the pen
for the basket and the pine-cone (' Sacred and Leg. Art,' vol. i. p. 106).

BEAUTY, NATUEAL AND SUPERNATURAL.

69

upon the heroes born of the gods godlike beauty. Thus beauty
and nobleness of form in heroes and deities supplanted the mere
colossal proportions and the dry symbolic representations of an
unalterable sacred type in those ancient days; as it did afterwards in the Eenaissance when culminating in the grand works
of Michelangelo and Kaffaello. Mere characteristic representations, even of religious subjects, with a profusion of attributes
and symbols, gave place to beauty, and art ruled rather as a
secular, intellectual, poetic manifestation than a religious influence. Whether, then, we look to the great works of Greek art
with their ideal of superhuman beauty and passionless power and
majesty, or to those of the Eenaissance which express an ideal
of human emotion and Divine suffering and sympathy, we see
the same universal and innate love of the beautiful ever
springing up in the mind. The sources of this instinctive love
are presented to mankind primarily in every aspect of Nature;
they are found concentrated in the beauty of the human form,
and supplemented and enlarged in the abstract beauty of
humanity in all its intellectual development.
That the human form should have assumed its rightful place
as the epitome and summit of all nature—the cosmos of cosmos
—was one of the things inevitable, long before art had pretended
to represent the form Divine. But the sculptor, mindful that
he had to trace the godlike gift of intellect and all that he knew
of the soul of man, never ceased in his aim to mould out of
the dust of the earth his Adam. At first he strove to imitate
what he saw before him, but in his best successes he was
humbled by the constant presence of superior beauty. He held
the mirror up to Nature. Seeing where he failed, and admiring
with an eye growing more and more sensitive, and a mind
longing more ardently for the beauty of which he caught only
imperfect glimpses in observing natural forms, he was led under
the teaching of Nature to conceive an ideal of supernatural
beauty. This, of course, is only what passes in the growth and
culture of all art faculty; but it is necessary to state it in this
place, because sculpture is more strictly bound up with the purity
and truth of beauty than any other form of art work. It was in
sculpture that the beautiful in art, as we are considering it, was

70

THE SCULPTOR'S MUSE.

first revealed. So beautiful was the ideal conceived from admiration of the human figure, that only the nude form was taken
by the sculptor as his essay, and this was the lesson that he set
himself.*
In the statue he felt that he had to mould a form that must
bear the light of day on every side, that should be beautiful in
every contour. There could be no illusions and no allurements
of light and colour, no distance to lend enchantment, as in a
picture. No deformities could be glossed over by giving the
charm of human life, feeling, and sympathetic expression in the
countenance. All this is denied the sculptor. His muse is a
silent one. As Bulwer so beautifully said of Learning, " t h e
marble image warms into life not at the toil of the chisel, but
the worship of the sculptor; the mechanical workman finds but
the voiceless stone.'7 Or, as George Eliot has said of the
Cleopatra (or Ariadne) of the Yatican, " There lies antique
beauty not corpse-like even in death, but arrested in the complete
contentment of its sensuous perfection," Michelangelo said,
" A me soleva parere che la scultura fosse la lanterna della
pittura" (' Lett. Pitt. Botfcari/ vol. i. p. 7). " The ancient
Greek sculptors," Sir Charles Bell remarks, " seemed to be
perpetually moved by the aim at some beauty higher than
anything around them."
Since then the sculptor has to rely on beauty of form alone,
he has first to satisfy himself as to what is beautiful in the
human form, not what is merely characteristic and natural.
Thus EafFaello himself, as he has said with such profound
insight in his well-known letter to Baldassare Castiglione, found
* Drapery, though designed with such consummate mastery as we see
in the Parthenonfigures,was comparatively an afterthought. It must be
borne in mind, however, that the deities were not represented nude, not
even the Aphrodite, at the finest period of Greek art. The famous Venus
of Milo is a half-draped statue ; so is the Dione and Venus of Capua. The
goddess was not represented nude till Praxiteles set the example in his
Venus of Knidos. The celebrated Venus dei Medici is a nude, but of
later date.
The heroes were always represented nude—Theseus, Hercules, Perseus,
Castor and Pollux. Apollo as the destroyer is nude, and as the youthful
Sauroctonos. Mercury is nude, as the messenger of the gods.

w
EH

72

A TYPE OF BEAUTY.

it necessary to see a great number of beautiful forms before he
knew what beauty was; he could not see it all in one figure, but
a certain ideal came up in his mind (" Io mi servo di certa idea
che mi viene alia mente ") from looking at these many beauties,
and he strove to realize this in his pictures. But the sculptor, as
we have seen, is bound by severer laws and works even more
abstractedly from the ideal in his mind. He has to generalize
and conceive this high ideal which is his type of the beautiful;
and in endeavouring to realize it in his work he has to avoid
and shun all that would weaken his representation or detract
from the impressiveness of his figure. " The sculptor must
ever bear in mind that truth is to be united with beauty, or
even rejected whenever its adoption would involve a sacrifice
of beauty . . . All violent expression is clearly out of the
province of the sculptor . . . Complicated action is naturally
unfit for sculpture."* His study throughout is to refine,—
to reject the unessential, and select that which is essential to
the true and the beautiful. With the peculiarities of individual examples he has nothing to do, except in the domain of
portraiture, and even here he cannot wholly forget the typical,
as, for example, when he studies the countenance of a Homer,
a Sophokles or a Demosthenes, a Perikles or an Alexander, a
Hadrian or a JSTero. And those portraits, it will be admitted,
are accepted as the truest which, besides recording the idiosyncratic and the personal, tell, by some mysterious virtue, some
subtle response of intellect and hand, something of the part
played and the figure made in the world by the person represented. The heroic representations of great men by the ancient
sculptors were creations of art springing from the enthusiastic
admiration of the characters of those personages, and not from
the mere desire to preserve the lineaments of their countenances
in bronze and marble. They were monumental for all time in
exalting and refining the characteristics of the personages, and
not mere puppets, like those waxen images of the deceased
carried at funerals. Those noble heads of Homer, Sophokles,
and Demosthenes are not likenesses of the men any more than
the head of the Pheidian Zeus is a portrait of the god. If we
* Guizot, * The Fine Arts, their Nature and Relations,5 1853.

SCULPTUKE ESSENTIALLY CLASSICAL.

73

want to see practically how much refinement sculpture demands
we have only to look at any cast from the life to perceive at
once how almost repulsive that kind of exact imitation is. A
mask taken in this way, accurate as it must be, wants so much
that belongs to the aminated countenance that it is scarcely recognizable as the face of our friend. Even a hand appears unlike
the familiar one in this cold inanimate shape; it seems petrified
as it were. This is not wholly due to the dull opaque material,
for if it were possible to carve the marble so accurately the
result would be almost equally unpleasing and untrue to the
cultivated eye, however it might surprise a savage.
It will be seen, then, how it is that sculpture, so eclectic in its
nature, has justly been regarded as the classical in art. It is so
because it begins by abstracting typical beauty out of the infinite
variety of character in the human form. Thus a symmetrical
whole is conceived conformable to an ideal, so to speak, of
supernatural beauty. It proceeds by a comprehension of relative
proportion between the parts and the) whole, as we have seen
in the discovery of the canon, not only in the human form
but in that of all creation. Mastering this kind of symmetry,
which is not merely a matter of exact measurement, like
geometrical proportion, but involves a harmony of form
resulting from modulations and gentle gradations and changes
in the movement of the lines too subtle for any formula, the
sculptor, guided by certain principles of beauty, becomes a
creator.
But higher ground lies before him on those summits where
the noblest intellects meet. Here he may take his place if he
be worthy of it. Here are those immortal works of his art which
by one voice of poetry, philosophy, and science are pronounced
sublime. Here his art has surpassed the technic condition and
become " phonetic." The sculptor is then a thinker and an
expressionist of the highest order.
How has the sculptor accomplished this ? By compelling
with his technic skill the most inanimate matter of the earth
—that upon which fire has spent its utmost destructive force, the
metals and the rocks—to take the shape of beauty and live again
another life. By his higher art uniting the real with the unreal,

74

CREATIVE POWER OF SCULPTURE.

the abstract with the concrete, in a manner more striking and
impressive perhaps than the words of the poet or the pictures of
the painter. Nothing, indeed, that we can contemplate in all
the marvellous revelations of science is more wonderful than the
transmutation of matter in such miracles as those worked by the
hand of Pheidias and Michelangelo. In some sense, indeed,
the sculptor shows us the immutable and the eternal in those
stupendous colossi of Egyptian 'art; although they impress us
by that material element of grandeur contained in immense
proportions. Life, as we recognize it in living forms, being
inseparable from the changes of birth, maturity, and death, these
giants, created by the breath of art, calm in repose and meditation,
asserted their immortality. Unlike the modern monumental
effigy that sleeps in death upon the tomb, they transfigured the
mortal body, and favoured the belief ID an eternal life of
immortal happiness. Say that the whole of the ancient
Egyptian and Greek religious belief and mythology—antique
religion, so to speak—was of this mythical nature; still, there
it remains an unquestionable evidence of human thought, life,
and history that cannot for a moment be ignored. It is however
beyond our province to follow out the relations and influence of
this anthropomorphic religion of antiquity in other directions
than the domain of sculptural art, which is perhaps as wide and
significant in its records as that of letters, and certainly as
closely allied with the beautiful.
It is necessary to have full sympathy with the ancient
religious beliefs, *if we' are to appreciate ancient a r t ; and if
anything could lead us to regard the religious belief of the
Egyptians and Greeks with respect and tolerance, it should be
those wondrous embodiments of it which their art achieved.
What were the intellectual aspirations of such a people is to be
learnt in the records of their literature, which stand as the classics
of their kind along with those works of sculpture which have
remained unapproached in beauty and grandeur throughout the
course of more than two thousand years of civilization, and the
very fragments of which are treasured in our museums as the
highest examples of the grand and the beautiful in art. We
hear sometimes the partisans of what is called Christian art in

THE BEAUTIFUL IN CLASSIC AND CHRISTIAN ART.

75

opposition to Pagan art, reviling classic sculpture as the product
of everything unvirtuous, ignoble, and immoral even to bestiality.
Its beauty they admit to a certain extent, but only as a cold
inanimate expression of a renounced belief disgraceful to the
human race. We see, for example, at once how entirely Mr.
Buskin is preoccupied in his opinion when he says (p. 37,
< Modern Painters ' ) — " The utmost glory of the human body is
a mean subject of contemplation compared to the emotion,
exertion, and character of that which animates i t ; the lustre
of the limbs of the Aphrodite is faint beside the brow of the
Madonna, and the divine form of the Greek god, except as it
is the incarnation and expression of divine mind, is degraded
beside the passion and the prophecy of the vaults of the Sis tine."
That one kind of religion has been superseded, it is true, and
that it has been supplanted by one far more human and more
kindred to the best part of our nature—the emotions and the
affections; but archaic Paganism inclosed, at any rate, the germ
of that which grew out of it, and which was one of the inevitable
conditions of human progress and development.
And as to antique art, so, profoundly is it rooted in the sound
principles of beauty, that it remains as it was, the fountain
to which all students must come, and return as often as to
Nature herself to refresh their art and keep it vigorous and
healthy. The greatest masters of modern art have worshipped
at the shrine, and taken their teaching from the beauty of the
antique. The young student of to-day, impelled .with active
instinct, starts on the same path, not that he is made to do
so, but that he sees in it the highest lessons of which art is
capable.
The value of these lessons has been eloquently enforced by a
critic of high distinction—M. Ernest Eenan—in referring to the
absence of feeling for the perfect beauty of the human form to
be observed in mediaeval art—" L'Antiquite seule pouvait reveler
aux nations modernes le secret d'un art, qui ne sacritiat jamais
la beaute a l'expression et s'arretat toujours devant la difformite." *
Nothing is more remarkable in classic art, next to the grandeur
* < Revue des Deux Mondes,' 1862.

76

BEAUTIFUL MYTHICAL CKEATURES.

of its conceptions of the godlike form, than those creations of
beings impossible to the fauna of Nature, by which are impersonated all the instincts of sensuality inseparable from the
lower nature of the noblest animal—man. It would have been
against all feeling for the amenities, if classic art had represented
the evil deities of the vices as hideous monsters analogous to the
demons and arch-fiends and great Satan himself, as we see them
in the works of Christian art. The terrors of the damned were
not quite so awful perhaps in the heathen view of the future.
The ancient Egyptian judgment day is simply sculptured as a
judge weighing the departed and the condemned ones being
changed into pigs. ~No torturing demons and fiends were employed, and the cruelest vengeance wreaked by the gods was the
perpetual gnawing of the sinner's liver by the bird of Jove. The
three sister Furies sprung from the blood of Uranus, Alecto the
unceasing, Megaera the envious, and Tisiphone the blood-avenger,
though their hair was entwined with serpents and their faces
were terrific, were not loathsome monsters such as are represented
in the Inferno of mediaeval art. As the JEumenides, they wTere
termed gracious by the Athenians. The Harpies, with heads of
women and bodies of birds, were loathsome and filthy, but they
are rarely seen in ancient art work. The Harpy tomb in the Brit.
Mus. is a remarkable instance (see Fig. 60). In these, however,
the heads are quite comely. Greek art dealt beautifully even
with the bestial side of human nature, inventing the Minotaurs
and the Centaurs,* those strange wild forms so admirably conceived, who are subdued by heroic defenders of women. Then
there was Pan, with his goatlike head and shanks, as the
personification of the spirit of wild nature. And all the world
of Satyrs like him, the natives of the woods; the Fauns, with
their more human form, but with their pointed ears and flattened
noses and slanting eyes, sometimes with budding horns, and
tails springing from their backs. But none of all the great
woodland family of the Dryads and Hamadryads, of the Naiads
* The Centaur was derived from the expert horsemen of Greece,
Thessalonian tribes chiefly, who hunted the bull. The name means " bullhunter" or killer, from KSVTM, to prick as with a dart, and ravpog, bull.
They were, in fact, the originals of the modern bull-fighter.

EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN SYMBOLISM DEVOID OF BEAUTY. 7 7
a n d Nereids of the rivers and ocean,* of fabulous existence was
ever devoid of a certain beauty of form compatible with the
ideal intended, though so wholly opposite to t h a t portrayed in
the gods and heroes. There is a wide difference between these
creations of an art which was entirely engaged in t h e pursuit of
beauty, and those of the Egyptians, who were not so much artist
sculptors as they were the exponents of a system for enforcing
religious belief and exercising priestly control over t h e people.
The Egyptian or Assyrian representation had no artistic meaning, except in so far as it wTas decorative in t r e a t m e n t ; it was
simply a union of distinctive brute qualities, fiercer and more
unrelenting t h a n man, with t h e intellectual supremacy of m a n ;
and the characteristic parts chosen were grafted on to t h e h u m a n
form in the most direct and absolute manner, with scarcely a
thought of adaptation or modification of the brute character.
The heads and the wings and the bodies of the brutes were employed as accessories and symbols, while in t h e Greek sculptor's
work the h u m a n head and torso of t h e Centaur (Fig. 44) are
adapted to the body of the horse with a fitness t h a t is amazing
in its seemliness and wild grace of strength and ferocity.
W e may reasonably conclude that t h e very ancient notion of
metempsychosis which is frequently represented in the Egyptian
hieroglyphic pictures, and the belief in metamorphoses held b y
all primitive people, laid the foundation for representations of this
kind, and led to their being always accepted and taken advantage
of b y art. I t was natural t h a t such i creations of t h e fancy
should take a strong hold upon ancient art, and it is remarkable
that J e w i s h and Christian art f not only did not renounce these
* How Shakespeare felt the beauty of these ancient myths may be
observed in those lines of exquisite fancy—
" Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back."—Tempest.
f The Bible abounds with allusions of the kind, and in the New
Testament, the Book of Revelations, by John, is especially noticeable for
descriptions of mythological animals. In fact, we may apply the term
Christian mythology in this connection as appositely as to the myths of
the Pagans.

F I G . 4 4 . — T H E CENTAUR OF THE CAPITOL.

From Aphrodisias in Asia Minor.

In Bigio ; a coloured marble.

HEATHEN AND CHEISTIAN SYMBOLISM.

79

heathen fancies, but took to them and employed them constantly.
The winged cherubim and seraphim of the ark, the winged
angels, Lucifer with the fallen angels, the demons with eagles'
talons, the great serpent—the Apollyon with his scaly form,
and horned head and feet and hands like claws—are all significant
of the same imaginings. The unicorn was frequently employed
as the animal emblem of maidenhood and virgin martyrdom.
The arabesques so largely employed in ornamental work were
borrowed, as the name implies, from the ancient East, and are
as profusely adopted for works of Christian art as they were in
the decorations of the baths of Titus and the temples and houses
of the Eomans at Herculaneum and Pompeii. The connection
of the symbolic in Christian art with that of Paganism, and
with the earlier symbolism of the Egyptians arid Assyrians, is
obviously too wide a subject to be more than alluded to in this
place.
It is necessary, however, to understand what are the distinctive
characteristics of the Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Greek, and the
Eoman styles. The point of highest interest that will more and
more appear in the consideration of Greek art is that here alone
arose the association of beauty of form with the representation
of imaginary beings of superhuman nature—deities.
Egyptian.—The Egyptians made their colossal Sphinx all
powerful in its lion body, and mysterious in the profound wisdom
of its human head, but without a thought of beauty. Their human
colossi are portrait statues of regal high priests, armed with the
weapons of supreme authority and punishment. Anything of
an ideal nature beyond this was conveyed in the imposing size
and in the unmoved countenance, supremely self-possessed,
happy and content, in an attitude of solemn calm repose never
to be disturbed. The very mechanical lines * which would govern
* It should be understood that a line expresses movement only in proportion as it departs from the straight. The perpendicular line upon the
horizontal does not express motion, variety, or change. Let the vertical
line be inclined to the horizontal, and it looks tumbling down, as we say.
If a vertical line be converted into a number of successive inclined
points, as in a spiral—that is to say, turned round a centre instead of
being prolonged to any given length—it expresses movement. If a
horizontal line is converted into a series of progressive curves the form is

80

BEAUTY AND EXPRESSION OF LINE.

such figures are those which represent eternal stability—the
perpendicular and the horizontal—and this is remarkably in.
accordance with the architecture of which these figures formed so
singularly expressive an adjunct. I t is remarkable t h a t t h e y
never showed any feeling for the changing beauty of form observable in barbaric o r n a m e n t ; neither the spiral in any form nor t h e
star is ever seen in their work. Neither did they ever t h i n k of
the inclined form of a pediment as a feature in their architecture,
although they invented the pyramid as an improvement on t h e
tumulus. N o t remarkable for their own beauty of bodily form,
they were n o t prompted to admire h u m a n s y m m e t r y ; they were
not given to athletic games as the Greeks and E o m a n s , nor were
they a demonstrative and expressive people, b u t rather sad,
submissive, and reflective. Their avoidance of expression of t h e
emotions differed from t h a t of the Greeks in motive : with t h e m
i t disturbed repose a n d solemnity, with the Greeks it interfered
w i t h perfect beauty as well as with the repose and dignity of
their ideal. I t is well, however, to observe that the principles
of repose, severe symmetry, and the imposing suggestion of the
supernatural, are common to Egyptian and to Greek art. The
colossal in size was also common to both, b u t w i t h the
important distinction of beauty added in the Greek style.
As regards accuracy of imitation of natural forms the Egyptian
style is also allied with the Greek in the disregard of detail and
the representation of generalities in preference to individualities.
said to be " serpentine," because it seems to creep. The curve, and the
spiral, which is only a succession of curves, are forms of vegetable growth,
and of the lower forms of animal life, and the whole beauty of living
form is made up of curves more or less complex, changing, and irregular.
Now it is remarkable that in Greek architecture the vertical and horizontal
lines of columns and entablatures were not straight, but very delicate
curves. This refinement is thought to have been adopted to correct the
apparent error of horizontal lines in architecture due to optical illusion
dependent on the spherical forms of the retina and the lens of the eye. It
is well known that a tie-bar, which holds the ends of the girders of an iron
roof, looks as if it sank down in the middle. Greek art succeeded in
correcting this deformity inevitable to mechanical construction and
irremediable by it. The discovery of the curves in the architectural forms
of the Parthenon is due to the eminent architect, Mr. Penrose, whose great
work {Principles of Athenian Architecture, 1851) is the one authority.

EGYPTIAN AND ASSYEIAN STYLES.

81

A conventional' uniformity rules everywhere—a sort of rhythm
of form. The Egyptian figure is a kind of automaton to make
signs, while the Greek sculptor always gave it life and action.
Thus if a procession is to be sculptured, it is done by carving
each figure exactly like the rest, but slightly in advance, and in
precisely the same attitude, and often the figures in this way have
not their complement of legs, the sculptor only caring to suggest
movement by a successive repetition of the same forms. The
eye, being regarded as the evidence of life and thought, is
universally represented open, and though the head is shown in
profile, the eye is sculptured most carefully in full, and generally
with a curious enforcing of its shape by a sort of band carved in
relief round the eyelids. This subjection to symbolic meaning
and representation according to formulae laid down by authority,
and adhered to with a singular and admirable regularity of workmanship, is not without its beauty, and it gives to Egyptian
sculpture the distinction and dignity of a style.
Assyrian.—Little is to be said of Assyrian sculpture beyond
what we shall have occasion to say of it in treating of the history.
So far as it has any claim to be a style, its characteristics are an
intense and vigorous spirit of closely imitative representation
without the least reference to ideal beauty. Thus, so that the
sculpture showed violent action where it was wanted, as in battles
and lion-hunting; so that it could show the capture of a city by
swimming a river and storming the walls; so that the humanheaded bulls with eagles' wings were unmistakable in their
attributes of power and swiftness, the Mneveh sculptor had done
all that was required of him and all that he knew. I t was at
any rate immensely graphic, though as intensely rude in its
imitative power as any barbaric art; always excepting the
ornament, which has some fair claim to possess invention, and
is more symmetrical though less ingenious and complex than
the carvings of the New Zealanders. (See Eigs. 50, 54, 55.)
We may sum up Assyrian sculpture with the opinion of M.
Charles Blanc :
" Inferieur au style egyptien, Tart de Mnive et de Persepolis
est plus reel sans etre plus vrai, plus violent sans etre plus
terrible. II est puissant, il est energique, mais il a moins de
grandeur : il est charge d'ornements inutiles, et il n'atteint ni au
A.s.

G

82

EISE AND SUPREMACY OF GREEK ART.

sublime par le calme, ni a la beaute par le mouvement"
(c Grammaire des arts du Dessin').
Greek.—The dawn of Greek art is eloquently alluded to by
Mr. Gladstone. " But if we may judge from the testimony of such
remains as are now accessible, there were two great schools with
which Phoenician artists must have been in relation, alike from
their political and their geographical connections : the Egyptian
and the Assyrian. It is not, I suppose, too much to say, that
we perceive in a portion at least of the actual remains of these
schools the attainment of high excellence in intention and
design with no inconsiderable progress in execution. They seem,
however, to me to represent different principles : the Assyrian
appears to embody the principle of life and motion; the
Egyptian the principle of repose. . . In any case it would
really seem probable, from the vivid and stirring descriptions of
Homer, that these Phoenician importations supplied patterns and
suggested ideas which might well in process of time become the
nucleus of the first great efforts of Greek art. When that
nucleus was once supplied, and when the new life began to grow,
then the Olympian system of religion provided it, through the
union of the divine nature to the human form, with that lofty
aim which braced it to a perpetual effort upwards, and so
conveyed to it the pledge and the talisman of all transcendent
excellence. . . Thus Greek art was a perpetual untiring pursuit
of the highest standard of the ideal, while it seems to have had
for its starting-point foreign models which, though not similarly
inspired, were of such high merit as to suggest to Homer that
imitation might run no unsuccessful race with nature. This
happy union of the most fundamental conditions of design and
execution was seconded by the lights of a fine climate, by the
possession of the purest marbles, and by the corporal perfection
of a race abounding in the noblest models. We cannot wTonder
that,,with these advantages, Greece, within her limits of knowledge and experience, should have held down to our own day
the throne of art " (' Juventus Mundi/ p. 525).
The Greek style, as it was developed by Pheidias and the great
sculptors of his time, as we shall see in tracing its history,
derived some of its characteristics from the Egyptian and some
from the Assyrian. The ideal of sublime impassionate existence,

83

GREEK ART ECLECTIC.

as we see it portrayed in the countenance and attitude of Zeus,
of Athene, of Apollo, Artemis, and Hera, seems to be kindred
to the Egyptian ideal. The strong feeling for action, and the
vigorous naturalism of living men and animals characteristic of
all archaic Greek work—the fierce death-struggles of the Lapithae
with the Centaurs, of the Amazons with men, of the Gods with
the Titans—show much of the feeling of the Assyrians. The
connection of these styles will be further understood in tracing
the advance of sculpture historically.
Sufficient has perhaps been said to denote the general principles
upon which sculpture is based. More than can be said in
words remains to be found out in presence of the great examples,
especially those of Athenian art at its highest—those grand fragments of the Parthenon, of which, as Montaigne said of Ancient
liome : " La mine meme est glorieuse; et encore retient elle, au
tombeau, les marques et 1'image de 1'empire." The surpassing
beauty of these will be noticed in the descriptive references to
them. There are many points of great and inexhaustible interest
on this side of our subject which will occur to the student, but
these may only be hinted at within the limits at our disposal.
As to the remarkable development of beauty in plastic form,
and the refinement of style that characterize ancient Greek art,
it may be remarked, that the Hellenic race was naturally gifted
with a finer sense of beauty of form and its expression than
the Asiatic race. The admirable grace of line as well as precision of execution to be observed in some of the earlier ceramic
paintings show this ; and it is more particularly to be noticed in
those instances where the ceramic painter has left his work in the
preparatory stage of outline. There is in the British Museum a
small patera, with the outline in this state, which is quite marvellous in its freedom and beauty of line, as well as excellent in
knowledge of the' figure. Such beautiful art work seems to
have been quite common, as there is scarcely a name of the
ancient Greek potters recorded, unless it be that of Dibutades,
of whom the pretty legend of the lover's portrait is told—but
there is no mention of any one great master, the head of a
school of potters and vase painters. We must conclude, therefore, that these were artists of the simplest native growth; they
seem to have sprung from the soil and never to have had any
G 2

84

INFLUENCE OF LITERATUKE.

centre of teaching or study formed around any distinguished
man of their craft, as the bronze workers and marble sculptors
had. If we compare the fictile and painted work of the Egyptian
and the Assyrian, more especially of the latter, with the Greek
vase paintings, the great superiority of the Greek artist will be
strikingly seen. Yet it is remarkable that this superiority was
attained while they derived the rudiments of their] art from the
more ancient workers, as is seen in those Greek vase paintings
which obviously resemble the Egyptian and Assyrian figures.
As to the mutual reaction of literature and sculptural art and
the general temperament of mind in those ancient days, a vast
field of deep interest is to be traversed in the elaborate writings
of the great historians and essayists, which sculptors and all art
students would do well to explore. It is from reading in this
direction the modern artist may learn that—"The value of
vigour and passion, of vividness of all kinds, was at least as
amply recognized in theory and exemplified in practice by the
artistic genius of that age as by that of any other; but its larger
view never lost sight of the supremacy of measure and harmony,
the powers whose gracious influence was present in every great
effort of the Hellenic mind.7' *
In the written drama and in the acted tragedy there was a
mutual reaction of the poetic, the plastic, and the pictorial arts.
Upon this the following interesting suggestions are made in a
series of learned papers by Mr. W. Watkiss Lloyd (in 'The
Portfolio,' March, April, May, 1885). "The most astonishing
developments were those of sculpture and the drama at the hands
of Pheiclias and iEschylus.
'' There is full reason to believe that if we were in possession
of specimens of the drama as composed and represented anterior
to those of iEschylus we should be conscious of a transition
as amazing as that from Myron and Onatas to Pheidias in
sculpture. iEschylus was the first to apply the resources of
free invention to theatrical costume, and to enforce it for the
enhancement not only of dignity, but of every phase of
* '.fchyms/ in ' Hellenica Essays?; by Ernest Myers, M.A., 1880.
See also Mr. Gladstone's elaborate exposition of the worship of Naturepower and the development of anthropomorphism in the Olympian
system, with the ethics and polity of the heroic age (' Juventus Mundi ')•

THE DRAMA AND SCULPTURE.

85

characteristic expression. . . . To Pheidias on his part appears
due the relief of the nude in sculpture by drapery, which, while
rigid archaism was rejected, became perfectly natural only to be
treated with a refinement transcending nature. . . . The invariable
use of masks, especially for the chief actors, the very personages
who had most occasion to give visible expression to fluctuations
of passion
How far a great genius like iEschylus, for a
realization of his conceptions, stimulated the artists who provided his characters with appropriate masks, and how far he was
himself under obligations to the characteristic ideals which painting and sculpture had already embodied." . . . That there is
"much of the sculptural in the art of iEschylus, and how essentially some of the most elaborate works of Pheidias are dramatic,
as in the conflict of Athene and Poseidon in the pediment of
the Parthenon."
What is certainly to be observed in regarding the mutual
reaction of sculptural art and the drama at these early times, is
that it led to a sympathetic and simultaneous effort to render
expression in the two congenial forms respectively. Thus
iEschylus * portrayed in his characters the heroic style, which
has its analogue in the severe archaic types of sculpture without
emotional expression. Sophokles, who followed his model,
went away from this more towards direct human feeling, so
as to play upon the passions and sentiments of his audience by
passionate words, to touch them with the pathetic. Then came
his contemporary Euripides, who sought still more to affect his
audience with the sympathy for human character and emotion,
and impel the actor to be more histrionic. He indeed has been
called infidel from his want of faith in an Almighty Deity, and
his entirely secular view of life and morality. All this constant
portraying of the emotional on the stage could not be without
its influence upon the art of the time in changing, softening,
not to say weakening, its aim and aspirations.
The change gradually arising in sculpture when Skopas and
Praxiteles divided the honours, was attributable to the spirit of the
times, which tended away from the severity and implicit belief
of the age of Pheidias, who of all sculptors was the first and the
* iEschylus was born 525 B.O., died 456. Sophokles, b. 485, d. 406.
Euripides, b. 480, d. 406 B.C. Aristophanes, b. 444, d. 380 (about).

86

THE CLASSIC AND THE EMOTIONAL.

only one who had worthily represented Zeus and Athene. The
inclination of opinion, led as it was by the schools of philosophy,
was antagonistic to the ancient religious belief. The universal
questioning and doubt which had arisen with the intellectual
culture of Athens under Perikles, was like the beginning of that
eclipse of faith which has been observed in our own times.
The dawn of a materialistic and searching spirit of inquiry
was shown in the philosophy of Thales (about 550 B.C.) and
his followers of the Ionian school, which may be regarded also
as the origin of speculative philosophy. Euclid and the Megaric
school followed, and further developed the logical method. At
Athens, Socrates, who was bred a sculptor,—his group of the
Graces clothed in the! Acropolis is mentioned by Pausanias
(lib. ix. c. 35),—was in the fifth century (about 406 B.C.)
accused of despising the tutelary deities of the State and
of putting others in their place. He believed himself inspired
by a divine voice within him (his " demon" or iC genius"),
obviously the first germ of the doctrine of Conscience in
opposition to that of the Spirit of Nature—Kosmos.
Out
of his teachings came Plato, a greater master of thought, who
expanded and advanced his view, and after him Aristotle, the
father of investigative or experimental and observative philosophy, to which has since been accorded the name of Science.
Diogenes and the Cynics may be noticed as conspiring with
the other Greek philosophers to aid the general tendency towards
the sweeping away of the ancient theogony and mythology
as a religious faith, although the poetry and the art proved
indestructible, both having survived to be renovated, revived,
and revered as a faith by all worshippers of the beautiful.
Nothing in history is more remarkable than the spell of
beauty which has hung for ages over the ruined master-pieces
of ancient art, whether in Egypt, Assyria, Greece, or Eome.
Had it not been for this protective influence and charm of
beauty how much would never have been known ! Countless
works of art have been sought for and recovered at great
expenditure of national treasure, and amazing personal enterprise and study. These relics, preserved like the fossils of
prehistoric life buried for ages in the earth, or built into the
walls of ancient castles, though the art and the artists are alike

SUEVIVAL OF THE BEAUTIFUL.

87

90

ESTHETIC OF PHYSIOLOGY.

extinct, are yet accepted as the test and model of a civilization
which has scarce any other sympathy with them. More than
this, the long-buried seed brought to the light of day has
fructified, in producing not like beauties unfortunately, for that
would seem impossible, but other beauties in the creation of the
art of painting. Eaffaello and Michelangelo—were they not the
pupils of Pheidias, of Alkamenes, of Polykleitos, and of Myron %
The inspiration, if not the laws of beauty, they first learnt from
the works of those masters. That which followed the Italian
Eenaissance was a repetition in its kind of the movement in
favour of emotional and sentimental expression, of which
Skopas and Praxiteles were the leaders. The sculptors, amid
the general seeking for new things and more soul-stirring efforts
of art, were influenced and encouraged to attempt works of overrefinement : they strained their art for new creations with more
of living beauty, energy of movement, and emotional display,
both in the countenance and the muscular action of the figures.
The Niobe and the Laocoon groups are examples. With this came
the feeling for that mode of beauty which we call " grace"—•
suavity of expression, representing the beauty of humanity in
preference to the gravity and sublimity of the divine as conceived
by Pheidias. We notice this in the Yenus de' Medici, the Diana
of the Louvre, and the Apollo Belvedere. The change is further
observable in the altered character of the statues of Bacchus,
from the bearded to the youthful head and form; of Yenus
Aphrodite as in the statue of Melos and the Yenus de' Medici;
of the Eros of the Parthenon frieze and the Cupid and Psyche
of the Capitol (see Examples), and in many other instances.
Thus Greek art passed from the primitive condition of archaism
and the hieratic form, through much tentative work, to its
perfect development under Pheidias; then after a brief period of
glory, fell away into repetition and borrowing from past great
works, followed by the change of style under Skopas and
Praxiteles, and gradually declined in power, till copying, portraiture, and the manufacturing of art work without any sense
and enjoyment of beauty completed the general degradation.

form which are the result of brain and nerve force, and which
produce action, attitude, gesture, facial expression of the countenance, and intonation of the voice, chiefly involuntary.
'No writer upon the expression of the human form, whether
from the artist's point of view or from that of the ordinary
scientific observer, has gone so completely to the root of the matter as Sir Charles Bell, who was an excellent artist, in his great
work.* As a physiologist he will for ever hold a high place as
the discoverer of the distinct functions of the nerve centres and
the nerve branches, and of the mode in which certain actions of
the muscles are produced involuntarily, those which have the
most marked effect in giving expression to the face as well as to
the limbs and the attitude of the body—to all in fact that comes
under the definition of " action " in the figure. A few quotations
from his invaluable book will throw more light on the subject
than all that could be taken from the lectures of professed Sculptors
and Painters. " Anatomy, in its relations to the arts of design,
is in truth the grammar of that language in which they address
us. The expressions, attitudes, and movements of the human
figure are the characters of this language, adapted to convey the
effect of historical narration, as well as to show the working of
human passions, and to give the most striking and lively indications of intellectual power and energy.'7
Alluding to the notion of Winckelman and other writers that
" supreme beauty resides in God,—that the idea of human beauty
becomes more and more perfect in proportion to its conformity
and its harmony with the Supreme Being,"—Bell says we must
deal with what " stands materially before us, to be seen, touched,
and measured." " With what Divine essence," he asks, " is the
comparison to be made 1 The idea of representing Deity is palpably
absurd; we know nothing of form but from the contemplation
of man. The only interpretation of Divinity in the human figure
as represented by the ancient sculptors is that the artists avoided
individuality; that they studied to keep free of resemblance to
any individual; giving no indication of the spirit or of the
sentiments or affections; conceiving that all these movements

Something must here be said upon what might perhaps be
called the ^Esthetic of Physiology—those effects upon the living

* 'The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression'(1844), 6th ed. 1872.
Bell's beautiful anatomical drawings from his dissections were bequeathed
to the University College, London, and are to be seen in the Museum.

FlG. 4-t.—iVTAP OP A Nmw.wm

d-awna

MEMPHIS ab. 10 miles; LUXOR, KARNAK, THEBES, ab. 300 miles further S.—all on banks of the Nile.

MEANING OF ' DIVINE' BEAUTY.

91

destroy the unity of the features, and are foreign to beauty in the
abstract." " Whatever is peculiar to the human countenance as
distinguishing it from the brute is enhanced." " Not only is the
forehead expanded and projecting, and the facial line more
.perpendicular, but every feature is modelled on the same principle.
The mouth, the teeth, the lips are not the mere instruments of
mastication, but of speech and human expression. So of every
part ] whatever would lead to the resemblance of the brute is
omitted or diminished." " Human sentiment prevailing in the
expression of a face will always make it agreeable or lovely.
Expression is even of more consequence than shape ; it will light
up features otherwise heavy; it will make us forget all but the
quality of the mind."

While referring to bas-relief in the previous section, it was
reserved to say something of its more aesthetic relations. The
beauty of form in sculpture is told by emphasizing the contour
of the figure; even in the round the sculptor criticizes his work
by observing closely the profile, so to speak, at any and every
side. He is not satisfied till he has succeeded in giving to his
figure or group the utmost that he can conceive it capable of, in
the composition or arrangement governing the attitudes. The flow
of line must be harmonious, graceful, noble or full in the forms,
not angular, sudden, abrupt, or opposed in one line or form to
another near it, unless the expression demands this. But there
are parts in the human figure, where Nature especially enforces
the beauty and grace of form in almost pure line, where she
shows to a certain extent the profile. These are to be observed
only where there are cavities, and it is remarkable that these are
reserved almost entirely for the head, and especially for the face
or " countenance," as it is so finely called in one expressive word.
The eye is the most noticeable of these, the mouth the next so,
then the nostrils and the ears; all the avenues of the senses but
the one of touch, which has for its prime minister the hand—an
organ only second in its expressive power to the countenance.
Through the eye, as " t h e window of the soul," the rays of
thought and feeling pass in and out. Therefore the form of the
eyelid is sharply cut and brought out against the dark, shadowy,

92

VALUE OF PKOFILE.

impenetrable depth of the pupil—the opening into the camera
obscura so marvellously constructed by organic life. No curves
are more beautiful and more exquisitely modulated than thos^
of the eyelids ; and in the iris alone, with its containing sphei'6
the eyeball, do we find the perfect form of a circle. But the eye,
itself so marked, is helped by the brow, which Nature marks not
only with the sharp lines of the hair forming the eyebrow, but
by the projection of this brow, forming the orbit in such a way
as to show the form of the forehead. In the finest heads of
Greek statues it will be seen that the hairs of the eyebrow are
not carved, the sharply-defined line of the brow alone is
preferred by the sculptor. And how beautiful this line is may
be seen especially in the Venus of Milo, the Ludovisi Juno, the
Apollo Belvedere, and remarkably in the fine bronze head of
Artemis in the British Museum (frontispiece).
To render more clear what is meant, it may be said that this
enforcement of line to show beauty of form in Nature, is analogous
to the profile of a cornice taken by the architect as the essence
of his ornament, or indeed the section of any surface form.
The mouth is made out, so to speak, both with colour and
form in the sharpness of line in the lips. The exquisite curved
lines of the lips are relieved partly by contrast of form and
colour against the teeth, but chiefly against the cavity of the
mouth, as in speaking.
* The ear is brought out in its beautiful shell-like, complex
form by the most elaborate conjunctions of curves, made to tell
by relief against the hair and the smooth parts of the cheek
and neck. The shadow from the projecting parts of the ear
enforces its wonderfully beautiful form, and the opening of the
" meatus " contributes forcibly to this effect.
The nostril^ though not of so much importance, is nevertheless of considerable value in relieving the forms against the
opening to the nose, and it displays the very nicest delicacy of
modelling, especially in giving the expression of the living
pliant feature, as when dilated and moving with the excitement
of attention, astonishment, fear, anger, or all violent emotion,
when all the muscles of the face pull together, as it were, by
the action of the nerves concerned in expression apart from the
control of the will, as Sir C. Bell was the first to explain.

BEAUTY OF PROFILE IN BAS-RELIEF.

93

The beautiful effect of profile is often very remarkable in
heads which seen in fall or three-quarters are not so beautiful.
This is frequently to be observed in the heads of Angels and
Saints by some of the earlier Italian masters: in the works of
Giotto and Era Angelico especially. Profile seems to belong to
the severer style, and that in which technical mastery has not
been attained. It is therefore almost universal in Greek vase
painting. It was necessarily founded on the las-relief of the
sculptors, and is therefore sculpturesque. The intaglio affords
another example of the value of the relief obtained by sharply
cutting the profile of a figure at the surface of a plane.
Much valuable matter upon bas-relief will be found in ' Contributions to the Literature of the Fine Arts' (vol. i. p. 116) by Sir
C. Eastlake, P.E.A., in which is pointed out the " principle of
suppressing the relief within the extreme contour which, with
the strong marking of the outline itself, mainly constitutes the
style of basso-relievo." It follows, as will readily be seen, that
since " foreshortening " is the representation of the hiding, or
absorption, as it were, of parts further from the eye by those
which are nearer, it cannot be employed properly in bas-relief.
It is therefore never found in antique sculpture.

FIG. 45«.—LION HUNT : PART OF AN ASSYRIAN BAS-RELIEF.

From JVimroud.

FIG. 46.—PERIKLES.

SECTION

I

III. —HISTOEIC AND DESCRIPTIVE.

T has already been shown that history refers abundantly to
primitive works in wood, clay, and stone as the original
sources of the plastic art. To go further into any descriptive
account of these would be foreign to our purpose in considering
sculpture as a branch of art of the highest aim in the expression
of ideal beauty and the representation of natural beauty of form.
It is interesting, however, to observe the great similarity amongst
all objects of primitive design—whether works of barbaric ornament or attempts to imitate the human and brute form, although
they may be the productions of widely different nations and ages.
In the work even of savages is to be found a certain innate feeling for some elementary forms of material beauty; but no effort
to render the human, or even the brute figure, as beautiful
as it is in nature, is to be seen in these barbaric attempts.
Although in ornament the true principles of beauty were touched,
yet these primitive carvers and moulders failed utterly before

BARBAKIC AND AKCHAIC WOKK.

95

the figure. The rude images of Phoenician plastic work are
clumsy, monstrous, grotesque, without any idea of proportion,
and they are so similar to those found in ancient Peru and
Mexico that they might easily be mistaken for them. The
archaic figures discovered in Cyprus by Mr. Lang and others,
before Cesnola's important researches there, show this strong
inter-resemblance (Pig. 64). And of those dug up deep in the
buried ruius of the supposed Troy by Dr. Schliemann it may be
said the same family likeness is observable, while Mr. Newton
assures us that these are of the same character as many found
at Ialysos. There are numerous examples of Etruscan work
which show similar archaic character (Fig. 58). The heads
have the same naturalistic, imitative, rude portrait-like character
•—often the same smile peculiar to Egyptian statues made ages
before and preserved afterwards in the later and much more
artistic sculpture of Selinus (Pig. 68) and iEgina (Fig. 74).
The bodies were thick, and the limbs were clumsy, without
any perception of the rule of proportion which had been long
before settled and acted upon by the Egyptian sculptors with
far finer results, and followed by the greatest masters ever since.
Leaving Etruscan sculpture, of which something more has to
be said as to its characteristics in the examples still in existence,
a glance may be taken over those regions which were outside the
great centres of civilization of ancient times—Egypt, Assyria,
and perhaps other parts of Asia. I t may be conjectured that
as population went on radiating in every direction, towards the
shores of the Mediterranean, where the sea for a time would
offer some obstacles, and into the vast Continents of the East
and the South, such powerful settlements would be formed as
those which developed into the nations of the Medes, the
Chaldaeans, the Phoenicians, the Persians. The Chinese seem
to have been content to wander off without ever thinking of
returning to plunder their neighbours; but their records, if we
are to credit them with the antiquity they claim, show that
they were a factor in ancient civilization, though their sculptural
and architectural art is speedily summed up without finding a
trace of feeling for beauty. Had they ever mingled in the
ambitious game of war and heroic enterprise that led to so

96

ASIATIC SCULPTUKE NOT BEAUTIFUL.

much ..power in other peoples; had they even felt a spark of
chivalric feeling, they might perhaps have had an intellectual
form of art. But of them, as of all Asiatics in regard to art, it
is to be said, that their bodily organization and temperament,
their food and climate, led them to spend their efforts in the
luxurious development of ornamental forms and the beauties
of colour; all of which refer to the gratification of the senses
and not the intellect. Though they perceived by instinct the
influence of colossal size, they failed in the proportions of their
figures and the symmetry of their buildings, and relied upon a
profusion of symbols and detail of curiously-beautiful ornaments, often worked in costly material. Beyond this they
never advanced. It must be borne in mind, moreover, that
the best ornamental art-work of China, Japan, India, and Persia
is comparatively modern, and that those monuments, of figure
sculpture especially, which are ancient are barbaric in character,
with no feeling for ideal and but little of material beauty.
In endeavouring, therefore, to take any comprehensive view
of the development of sculpture, we arrive at the conclusion
that the period of the barbaric in sculpture was common to
all nations, and that art in that barbaric form was simply
indigenous; but that while some nations advanced to certain
degrees of improvement and there stopped, others endowed
with a superior organization went on developing their art in
proportion to their intellectual advancement, and step by step
with their cultivation of literature.

F I G . 47.—CAVO-RELIEVO. EHAMSES I I I . WITH THE GODS THOTH AND H O R U S
TOURING OVER HIM THE SYMBOLS OF POWER, PURITY, STABILITY,
AND THE KEYS OF ETERNAL LIFE.
From an Alabastron.

Found at

Luxor.

EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.
THE Egyptians, inhabiting a flat uniform country of pure
and salubrious climate, working as sculptors before a written
language was invented, carved their colossal Sphinx almost
entirely out of the living rock; an amazing example of symbolic sculptural representation, combining the human with the
brute form of the lion.* The date of this first great work is
probably earlier than that of the earliest of the pyramids—that
built by Chofo king of Memphis, the Cheops of Herodotus, and
the larger one by E~ef Chofo his son. M. Renan, speaking for
M. Mariette, states that a tablet was found by him recording
* The Sphinx is 180 feet long. There are several kinds of Egyptian
Sphinxes—the man-headed, the woman-headed, the ram-headed. The
Greek Sphinx had sometimes the man's, sometimes the woman's head,
with the body of lion or dog, and often wings.
A.s.

H

98

COLOSSAL WORKS.

that ISTef Chofo did certain repairs to the Sphinx; so that since
it required repairs, it must already have existed for a considerable time.* All small barbaric or archaic work of the ancient
Egyptians in sculpture has perished in the vast lapse of time.
But this one monument, raised at least 4000 years before' the
Christian era, stands to prove with its companion pyramids, the
wonderful power of conception, the energy and practical skill,
which characterized the early Egyptians. What they lacked in
ideas of beauty, they made up for by the simple grandeur of
colossal size and perfection of execution (Fig. 48).
The intention of producing a monument to last for ever was
shown in an equally striking manner in the construction of the
pyramids, and with an exercise of science and skill even more
remarkable. Following the chronology of Mr. Sharpe in his
' History of Egypt/ Egyptian art in the form of architecture
was, after the pyramids of Ghizeh, further developed about 1650
B,C. under Osirtesen I., who built the oldest of the temples at
Thebes. Columns and obelisks were then invented, and the cavi
relievi were largely used. Statuary, however, did not advance
until after the Phoenician Shepherd Kings—a body of wandering Arabs, so called, who conquered Upper Egypt for a time—
were driven out by Amosis, king of Thebes, about 1450 B.C.
Passing over Amunothph I. and his successor Thothmosis I.,
of whom there is a fine statue in the Turin Museum, we come to
Thothmosis II., whose reign marks a period of vast development,
as Ke^married Mtocris, the last queen of Memphis, capital of
Lower Egypt, and thus united the two kingdoms, about 1340 B.C.
The great avenue of Sphinxes leading to the temple of Karnak
was made in his reign, and there is a statue of Thothmosis II.,
a seated figure 7 ft. 9 in. high, in good proportions, of about
seven heads high, the fingers and toes straight, not showing the
knuckles, and the legs sharply chiselled at the shins, not showing the small bone on the outside of the leg, as in statues of
the later time of Amunothph III. (about 1260 B.C.). The statue
of this latter king,t brought to England by Belzoni, should
be studied as showing the conventional style followed by
* * Revue des deux Moncles,' 1865, p. 675.
f No. 21, British Museum.

F I G . 48.—EGYPTIAN STATUE [ S H O W I N G P I N E STYLE O P WORK AND GOOD P R O P O R T I O N S ] .
THE HEAD O P THE R E P I N E D COPTIC PEATURES, T H E L I P S NOT T H I C K , AND THE
NOSE NOT PLAT NOR TURNED U P , AS I N T H E E T H I O P I C T Y P E .

In black basalt, heroic size. British Museum.
H

2

100

EGYPTIAN COLOSSI.

these mechanical workers, in the representation of the knee-cap
(patella) as well as the small bone of the leg. The patella
especially is wrong anatomically; instead of being broader
at the upper part and narrow at the lower, it is equally large
at the top and bottom. The famous colossus, called the musical
Memnon, one of the two still standing in the desert near
Thebes, more than 50 ft. high, is of this period. These statues
are not in good proportion, being too short in the wraist. The
two fine lions carved in red granite, belonging to this time,
which Lord Prudhoe brought over and presented to the British
Museum, are remarkable as examples of fine typical treatment
of the lion. They show much grandeur of feeling, and, compared
with the modern naturalistic sculpture of lions—for example, in
the Papa Rezzonico monument in St. Peter's, Rome, by Canova—
they are superior as examples of monumental art.
I n 1170 B.C. reigned Ramses II., the greatest of the Egyptian
kings, under whom was invented all the wonderful adaptation
of the lotus and papyrus plant to the design of columns, as
seen in the famous colonnade of the hall of Karnak. His statue
in the Turin Museum is in the finest style of ancient Theban arL,
it is a seated figure carved out of a block
of black granite, but is not colossal, being
only 5 ft. 7 in. high. The point to be noticed
in this statue is the effort at action, which
is not seen in earlier works. The right hand
is raised to the breast holding the short
sort of crosier of the god Osiris; the left
hand, strongly clenched, resting on the knee.
The colossal statue of Ramses as Osiris
(Fig. 49) with that of the Memnon in the
British Museum may be taken as examples
of the sculpture of this time./ The large
Sphinx in the Louvre bears the name of
Ramses II. The four seated colossi, carved
Fia. 49.-COLOSSA7STA™E out of the living rock at the entrance of
OF RAMSES AS OSIRIS,
At Thebes.

47 feet high.

the

great

- « , , . .

temple
,

of
,,

Abou

Simbel
, .

in

™

Ltniopia, represent the same king, lney
are between 60 and 70ft. high, and wonderfully well sculptured,

THEEE DIFFERENT STYLES.

101

but the proportions are not so good as in some smaller statues,
as they are six heads only in height, and short in the waist and
thick in the limbs, showing no attempt at any close or correct
imitation of nature. They look straight
before them with a calm smile of confident
>
power and contentment. These statues
and others which are to be seen in mu- U
seums are not equal to those of the time
of Amunothph I I I . , previously referred
t o ; they are not so well carved, and the
features are heavy, with thick noses and
lips, while the limbs are clumsy, and withlA
out any attempt at accurate modelling.
It will be observed, therefore, that
Egyptian sculpture may be classed broadly
into three styles. 1. The Egyptian proper,
reaching its finest period in the reign of
Amunothph I I I . 2. The Ethiopic Egyptian. 3. The later Egyptian, leading to the
decline of that style of sculpture. Of the
first it should be noticed that the general
proportions of the figure were more accurately-considered than the relative proportions of hands and feet to the limbs, which )fc=&
re generally incorrect. There are, however,
some examples of excellent proportion, as
in a colossal arm, and a fist, in the British
Museum. This arm belonged to a statue of
Thothmes III., and came from Memphis.
The fist, which belonged to a still larger
statue, also came from Memphis, and measures 4ft. across. The heads of statues of
this period are of the pure Coptic type, with
a nose somewhat aquiline, and the lips comparatively thin. The eyes, however, were F I G . 49a — COLOSSAL A R M
ABOUT 10 FEET LONG.
always carved in full in profile representIn the British
Museum.
ations ; the feet, one in advance of the other on the same plane.
The details of form at the knuckles and legs are well indicated.

n

102

DECLINE OF EGYPTIAN ART.

In the Ethiopic-Egyptian statues, general proportion is lost
sight of; the figures become dumpy, being only six heads high;
the limbs are clumsy and wanting in modelling; the hands and
feet stiff and not marked by details at the joints; nor do they
show the small bone of the leg. The heads are more of the
Negro type, with turned-up noses and thick lips.
In the later Egyptian it is remarkable that with more attempt
to imitate nature in the modelling of the muscles, the forms of
the trunk and limbs became unnaturally puffed. More is added
in symbolic attributes; heads of the cat, the hawk, and the ape
are placed on the human body; the dress is more elaborate,
that of the head especially, on which a disc for the sun was
often placed, as on the god Osiris (Fig. 17). From the fall of
Thebes, about 1000 B.C., to the conquest of Egypt by the Persians, 523 B.O., the sculpture became more and more degraded,
and soon lost its original style of simplicity and grandeur of
form.
" Egyptian sculptors of the best time (Amunothph III.) gave
the character of the nation to their statues. The serious gloomy
Egyptian aimed at an expression not valued by the more gay
and active Greeks. Plato saw nothing but ugliness in an
Egyptian statue. The Egyptian, however, had learned the
superiority of rest over action in representing the sublime."
(Sharpe.)
After some two centuries of rule, the Persians were conquered by
Alexander the Great, 332 B.C., but there are no statues of, Greek
style of this date found in Egypt; and under the Ptolemies, his
successors for 300 years, new temples of inferior but still Egyptian
style were built, such as those at Phile, Edfou, and Denderah, and
many statues were made, but nearly all have been destroyed, and
there is not one of any king or queen of the Ptolemies.
After Egypt became a Eoman province, in 38 B.C., Egyptian
sculpture in a debased form was still continued in the
decoration of the temples, but the statues were then in the
hands of Greek artists. Still later, there is the well-known
statue of Antinous as an Egyptian, the work of a Greek sculptor
of the time of the Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117—138).

FIG. 50.—ASSYRIAN".

ASSYBIAN

British

Museum.

SCULPTUKE.

ASSYRIAN sculpture is a discovery of recent times, first made
in 1842-3 "by M. Botta, the French consul at Mosul on the banks
of the Tigris, and almost simultaneously by Mr. Layard, who
though he had seen the ruins of Mneveh in 1840 did not get
permission to examine and excavate till 1845. The sculptures
differ widely from any in Egypt in being nearly all in bas-relief
and high relief. There are very few statues, carved in the
round, that stand either with a support practically or on the legs.
There are no colossi nearly approaching in size the Egyptian and
Greek colossal statues, none being higher than 18 ft., while as we
have seen 60ft. was a moderate height for an Egyptian or Greek
colossal figure, and some were higher. The colossal humanheaded bulls and lions with wings, at the portals of the king's
palace, are in high relief on huge slabs, one on each side, facing
outwards, and one on each side on the wall, with the head
turned to look to the front. It does not appear that any principal figure was set up in an interior, either of these compound
animals, or of any deity or king. There is the headless seated
statue of Shalmaneser in black basalt, found by Layard in the
great mound of Kalah Shergat, the primitive capital of Assyria,

104

COMPARISON OF ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN.

now in the British Museum, which is life-size, and resembles
the Egyptian figure; and a statue of a Priest, larger than life
(Fig. 51), also in the Museum. How these were placed is not
known. No colossal seated figures like the
Egyptian statues have been found. The
standing figures carved in relief differ entirely in the expression of the countenance
and motive of the figure from the Egyptian.
They have all some action ; the king grasps
a captured lion, or as chief priest he walks
with his staff which he holds firmly, while
the left hand rests on the hilt of his sword.
I t is true that the legs are on one plane,
and the feet in a position that could not
support the body; still the intention to
show action and life is there. There is
none of the desire to express majestic, calm,
eternal repose and content which is so
characteristic of Egyptian sculptured statues.
Throughout the great number of slabs in
the British Museum and in the Louvre
there is a very vigorous descriptive power
displayed in carving figures of men, horses,
chariots, battles, sieges of cities, hunting
scenes, processions, rivers with men swimming on inflated skins, with fish and boats;
FIG. 51.—STATUE OF A implements, weapons, chairs, baskets, trees,
PRIEST.

birds, buildings, with a close resemblance
to the real objects that is very distinctive
of the Assyrian style (Fig. 53). The quadrupeds and birds
are much better done than the human figures : the character
of the bulls,-the horses, and the mules is faithfully given, and
there is much feeling for nature in some of the lions in the
hunting-scenes. There is no doubt, also, that this naturalistic
realism was carried further by painting the sculptures. In none
of these painted reliefs, however, is there anything of the careful
carving and delicate delineation seen in the Egyptian cavi relievi.
They are all boldly done, and with a good deal of skill, but by
In the British Museum.

VIGOROUS NATURALISM OF THE ASSYRIAN.

105

hands that would seem to have been self-taught, and at liberty
to represent as they pleased so that the conventional attributes
and symbolic objects were duly made clear. There is scarcely
any regulated use of typical forms; and in the proportions of
the figures especially there is no rule. The principal figures are
about 6f heads high, and in others the heads are often larger,
while the arms and legs are out of all proportion gigantic, the
muscles being exaggerated into masses at the calf and knee, and
the shin-bone absurdly prominent. All truth seems to have
been sacrificed for the sake of conveying a violent look of
immense strength. The battle-scenes remind us of some of the
puerile representations by mediaeval workmen of a poor style, or
the debased Eoman work seen onsarcophaguses. The Assyrians,
unlike the Egyptians, were ""mighty hunters/' consequently
horses were favourites with the Assyrian carvers, as they were
with the Greek sculptors afterwards; they seldom have more
than one fore-leg and one hind one, but their heads are carefully
carved, and all the trappings show the same intention to obtain
exact resemblance as is displayed in the dress and ornaments of
the kings and other figures (Fig. 52). It is important to observe
that these sculptures are very equal in merit; there is no sign
of improvement, and little of falling off. As to the date of these
sculptures, they are much later than all the Egyptian work of
the finer style. According to Mr. Eergusson, who was guided by
Gutschmidt's reading of the text of Berosus,* the Medes conquered the Chaldseans 2458 B.C., and were driven out again by
the Chaldseans, probably under Mmrod, about 2235 B.C. After
700 years they were invaded again from the West (possibly by
the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty), and soon afterwards
arose the Assyrians, founding the kingdom of Nineveh about
1273 B.C.; while the Chaldseans were under this Western power.
The Assyrians, in turn, were conquered by the Chaldseans about
652 (the second Chaldsean kingdom), and then a century after
came the Persian conquest under Cyrus in 538 B.C. The sculptures recovered from Nimroud, Koyunjik, and Khorsabad belong
to the period from 1290 B.C. onwards to some later date before
* Eheinischer Museum, vol viii. p. 252.

Assyrian

Bas-relief

FTG. 52.—WARRIORS HUNTING.
in the British Museum. Considered to be the finest hitherto discovered.

ASSYEIAN SCULPTUKE ALWAYS ARCHAIC.

107

the total destruction of Mneveh in 538 B.C.* Therefore it is
important to remember that the great works in sculpture due
to the old civilization of Egypt belong to an age that had passed
away long before the dawn of hislory in Babylonia. The
earliest date we have of Assyrian history is 2458 B.C., the earliest
in Egyptian may be taken as 4000^.0. As we have seen, all
the great statues of Egypt were made many centuries before 1200
B.C., while the Assyrian sculptures are placed at the earliest after
1290 B.C. as a beginning.
I t may be concluded that the Assyrian palaces, with their
sculptured walls, took a much shorter time to build than the
Egyptian, as they were built of sun-baked bricks, with ornamental slabs below, and wooden beams and columns above, all
which structures have perished leaving only the stone slabs. The
dates of the reigns of the Assyrian kings have been so clearly
determined by Sir Henry Bawlinson, that we know that a
period of about three centuries sufficed for all that was done
during the high prosperity of Assyria. The soft nature of the
stone, which is a kind of grey alabaster, extremely suited to carving in the manner employed, afforded the facility that influenced
the style and enabled the carvers to indulge their inclination for
realistic detail. They do not appear to have sought for fine
coloured hard stones as the Egyptians did, nor do they show
the same desire to make their work monumental and enduring.
There is only one example of hard stone being used, and that is
in the kind of obelisk of black marble in the British Museum,
known as the obelisk of Divanubara/which bears sculptures and
arrow-headed inscriptions referring to Assyrian kings named in
the Bible, and the date of which has been fixed as 885 B.C.
Assyrian sculpture was always archaic, though at the same
time more vigorous in what might be called graphic sculpture,
and truer in imitation of nature than Egyptian, which rarely
attempted action in the figure or facial expression. There
is, however, no alliance between the, two styles, and there was
never likely to be, as the Assyrians were not a people of poetic
* According to Dr. 8. Birch, "The monuments from Kouyunjik may,
with due allowance for the uncertainty of Assyrian chronology, be placed
between 721 B.O. and 625 B.O. (British Museum ' Guide-book').

NO ASSYKIAN SEPULCHKAL STATUES.

109

and abstract ideas, but of facts, circumstances, and action. They
thought of the present glory, and did not trouble themselves
about the future. The same characteristics will partly account
for the absence of any kind of reference to a future state. The
tree of life with the priest ministering before it and holding fruit
is to be seen; but it is remarkable that no sepulchral monuments

F I G . 54 — K I N G AND ATTENDANT.
BAS-RELTEF, SHOWING THE PROFILE STYLE, AND THE CONVENTIONAL FOLDS
OF DRAPERY PECULIAR ALSO TO ARCHAIC G R E E K SCULPTURE.

From Persepolis.

have been found; no tomb or mark of regard in any shape for
the welfare of the dead hereafter has been discovered.*
It is remarkable that neither in Assyrian nor Persepolitan sculpture is the female figure to be found, f Thus we can readily see
* The tomb of Darius, at Naksh i Rustam, given in Fergusson's
' Architecture/ is an exception, hut it only proves that the people were
not a tomb-regarding people; it contains no monumental effigies, and is
simply of an architectural character.
f And in this respect there is a similarity to the Egyptian, in which
women are rarely represented, and then only as subordinates, never as a
Goddess till the later times.

110

PERSEPOLITAN SCULPTURE.

how it happened that the Assyrians never had any high ideal, such
as distinguishes the art of the Egyptians and Greeks. Like the
Hindoo, they saw that nature was infinite in power and mystery,
but they never perceived her beauty. Bearing in mind that the
Assyrians were never a statue-making people, and never attempted
to follow the example of the Egyptians—do we find them influencing the sculptural art of any other people in work like that
of the Assyrians ? This question is answered at once by the
remains found at Persepolis, where there are to be seen similar
winged and human-headed lions and bulls, and sculptured slabs,
but no statues either in the round or in alto-relievo.
The ruins of the palaces of Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes,
the date of which is from 560 B.C. to the conquests of Alexander
the Great (331 B.C.), show only sculptural remains left after
all the soft brick walls and the wooden beams and rafters have
long perished. Persian sculptural art since those days never
advanced to the dignity of statuary, but like its Assyrian predecessor stopped short where Greek art began to develope. The
same is to be observed of that ramification of the Assyrian arts
which is to be traced in the building of the temple of Jerusalem
under Solomon, which, however, was some five centuries before the time of Cambyses, and about the same length of time
after the settling of the Israelites in the Delta of the Nile
(1550 B.C). The law of Moses was sufficient to prevent any
sculpture in the likeness of living things; but the cherubim,
with their wings, seem to have been borrowed from the Assyrians.
The temple was, no doubt, built of stone and cedar-wood after
the manner of the Assyrians, and with a profusion of ornament
in carving of valuable marbles, wood, and embossed work in
precious metals.
The colossal sculptures in the rock-cut temples of India,
whether taken as derived from the Assyrian centre or not, may
be classed with that style as semi-barbaric and naturalistic, with
a superadded symbolism which only led to the most extravagant
deformities of the human figure * to express the power and
attributes of a deity. Statuary proper never existed in any
* See the statues in the Elephaiita cave (Fig. 54a).

ASIATIC ART NOT P R O G R E S S I V E .

Ill

shape of beauty like the human form, throughout Persia, India,
and China, and there is no sign of any disposition amongst the
Asiatics to learn the art from their European conquerors; it is
not in their nature.

F I G . 54a.—COLOSSAL BOCK-CUT SCULPTURES I N THE CAYES OF ELEPHANTA.

On a small Island in the Bay of

Bomlay.

F I G . 5 5 . — T H E GATE OF LIONS AT MTCEN^E.

10 feet high and 15 feet wide;

GBEEK

of greenish, limestone.

SCULPTUEE.

BUT while no advance in the art of sculpture is to be observed
in the direction of Eastern civilization—and while Egyptian
sculpture was losing its individuality of style—a new world of
art had been gradually growing amongst those people who had
been for centuries pushing their way in conquest and commerce
Northward and to the West, in every direction along the shores
and amid the islands of the Mediterranean (see Map, pp. 88, 89).
The history of this period is necessarily obscure, and for the
most part legendary, but it is very generally agreed that the

A NEW WORLD OF ART.

113

earliest migrations under leaders whose names are handed down
in the early history of Greece are traceable to Egypt.
Thus Inachus came with his followers at the expulsion of the
Shepherd Kings in the seventeenth and eighteenth dynasties—
about 1830 B.C. He was the leader of a Libyan colony, the
first king and most ancient hero of Argos.—Kekrops, a Pelasgic
hero, whose name sounds Egyptian, was king of Attica, and
while he reigned, it is said, occurred the contest between Poseidon
and Athene, long afterwards represented in the sculptures of the
pediment of the Parthenon. Attica was called Kekropia after
him. His period is supposed to have been about 1556 B.C.
Danaus, whose name was applied by the poets to all the Greeks,
is said to have been the brother of Sesostris, and his migration
is placed at the accession of the nineteenth dynasty, 1436 B.C.—
Kadmus, who is generally considered to be of Phoenician origin,
is said to have come from ancient Thebes, and the tradition of
his inventing letters would connect him with Phoenicia* and
Egypt about 1312 B.C. But it is also maintained that he was a
Pelasgic deity. I t is remarkable, however, that the Greek city
of Thebes, the founding of which is traditionally attributed to
him, should bear the name of the Egyptian city.—Pelops, whose
name was given to the southern peninsula of Greece, Peloponnesus, is said to have been a native king, though the name
resembles those of Egyptian kings. It is of interest to remember
that under him, as king of Elis and Olympia, about 1261 B.C.,
were established the great national games which made Olympia
one of the chief centres of Greek art. Statues of the victors
in the Olympic games were set up year after year at that place.
* Mr. Gladstone points out what he aptly terms " the three great
appellatives in the Homeric Poems—1. Danaoi, 2. Argeioi, 3. Achaioi—
as used interchangeably and synonymously" (' Juventus Mundi,' p. 33).
All this subject of Phoenician influence is set out with the utmost research
and searching reflection. He notices the four national and tribal names
applied in the Homeric poems—1. Pelasgoi, 2. Hellenes, 3. Phoinikes
(Phoenicians), 4. Aiolidai. With Phoenician he blends Egyptian, remarking
that the name Aiguptios is the only positive trace of it in Greece. The
Greeks of the Homeric age were completely dependent on the Phoenicians
for their ordinary intercourse with the outer world, . . . and with respect
to fine arts the evidence is ample in favour of a Phoenician source (see
4
Juventus Mundi/ p. 133).
A.S.

I

114

SOURCES OF GREEK SCULPTURE.

These references may suffice to show briefly that the origin of
the arts of Greece has been generally ascribed by her own early
records and traditions to Egyptian and Egypto-Phcenieian influences. The evidence derived from the style of art followed
at this early period tends to confirm tradition. The earliest
coins of Greek work with the head of Athene show a striking
resemblance to the heads of Isis.*
There are many examples of vases, painted with figures representing in the most primitive forms the oldest mythological
heroes and deities, which closely resemble the Egyptian cam
relievi and paintings ; they are always in profile with the eye
full, and the feet often turned both in the same direction, or

F I G . 56.—EARLY COIN o r A T H E N S ,
H E A D OF A T H E N E ; THE EYE FULL,
AS I N EGYPTIAN R E L I E F S .

F I G . 57.—COIN OF ATHENS AFTER
THE TIME OF PHEIDIAS.

WITH

THE H E L M E T INTRODUCED
BY P H E I D I A S .

when the figure is full-face as in some bas-reliefs (Fig. 68,
Selinus), the feet are in the impossible position of profile, and
both on the same plane. In painting, the absence of all attempt
to represent shadowing, either in the forms or in the cast shadow,
and the use of a strong black outline, sometimes incised and
having the colour filled in as a flat tint, are other points of
affinity between the early Greek work and the Egyptian.
Etruscan bears a strong resemblance, in many respects, to
archaic Greek art. But strictly the term Etruscan should be
applied to that only which belongs to Etruria, not in Greece
but a wide tract extending from the western shores of Italy
towards the Apennines. The origin of Etruscan art is also
traced from Egypt; through the followers of Tarchon who came
* Overbeek,c Geschichte der Greichischen Plastik.'

ETRUSCAN AND PRIMITIVE ROMAN WORK.

115

from Lydia, and who was of the Pelasgic race. There is much
obscurity as to the Hellenes, Pelasgi, and Etrusci, but there is
little as to the art-work to which the general term Etruscan is
applied.
It is all similar in its primitive and naturalistic
character. "What is of importance to bear in mind is, that not
only the shores of Sicily and the south of Italy were so occupied

FIG. 58.—ETRUSCAN BAS-RELIEF.

A TOMB WITH FUNERAL CEREMONIES.

by immigrants from Greece, that the region got the name of
' Magna Grsecia,' but that " Italy was the common asylum for all
the fugitives of Fthe ancient world ; and if we are to accept the
arguments of Micali (' Storia degli anticlii popoli Italiani'), it
would be to Egypt that Etruria, whose art is so widely seen in
Italy, owed her religion, her arts, and her sacerdotal government''
(Duruy, ' Hist, des Eomains,' 1879). Further, that early Eoman
art has its style and history bound up with the advance of the
Etruscans towards the great centre of national power which
Eome became under the Tarquins. All the temples, monuments,
and statues of Eome were Etruscan, and not only different in
style from contemporary works in the cities of Greece, but
entirely distinct by being of bronze, terra-cotta, and stone covered
with stucco-work instead of marble. The same art prevailed
I 2

116

SCULPTURES IN ASIA MINOR.

naturally in all the neighbouring cities round Borne, as the
remains abundantly testify, in every direction, and further into
the region which as ' Tuscany' almost retains its ancient name.
The museums of Italy contain many examples of Etruscan art,
one of the most interesting being the she-wolf suckling the
infants Eomulus and Eemus (Fig. 58a), preserved in the Capitol
at Eome. The two children are considered to have been added
in later times, Several examples of early Etruscan art are in
the archaic room of the British Museum; among the most
remarkable are No. 50, a large sepulchral cist in terra-cotta,

FIG. 58a.—THE SHE-WOLF OF THE CAPITOL, ROME.

Ancient Etruscan. Bronze.

Life size.

with two figures modelled in the round, having the hair and
eyes painted, found at Cervetri; and No. 51, a small figure
from a tomb near Yulci. _
But it is important to bear in mind, in a historical consideration
of the question, that it was in Ionia that the arts were promoted
long before Athens had begun to show any advance; and all the
names, handed down by the traditions taken up by Diodorus
Siculus, Pausanias, Pliny, and the late Greek writers, are those
of sculptors working in the islands near the Asiatic shore and
in the towns upon the mainland. Thus in the objects found by
Cesnola in Cyprus, consisting of statues and other sculptures,
incised gems, and metal-work of the hammered-out or repousee

AECHAIC

BAS-EELIEFS.

117

kind, the resemblance to the art of Assyria is remarkable. Mr.
Newton has pointed out that certain repousee circular metal plates
are found equally at Mmroud, Cyprus, Palestrina, Cervetri, and
Perugia, all having a decided family likeness.
But besides the workmanship there is more decisive evidence
in the choice and treatment of the subjects; these tend to confirm
the same view.
The bas-reliefs upon the Harpy tomb* (Pig. 59), as it is called,
which was discovered in 1838 by Sir C. Pellows, were at first
supposed by Gibson, the great sculptor and student of classic

F I G . 59.—BAS-RELIEF ON THE H A R P Y TOMB.

T H E FIGURES IN PROFILE,

AND WITH THE PRIMITIVE DRAPERIES.

In the British

Museum.

sculpture, to have for their subject the Harpies flying away with
the daughters of king Pandarus, as related by Homer ( ' Odys.'
lib. xx.). Pandarus was king of Lycia. But archaeologists are
not agreed upon the point: more recent opinions conjecture that
* They were found at Xanthus, on the river of that name, in ancient
Lycia, a town some two days' journey inland from Smyrna, and so are
often spoken of as the Xanthian sculptures. The Harpy tomb is in the
archaic room ; the other sculptures, some of which are of later date, are
in the New Lycian Room.

118

LYCIAN

SCULPTURES.

the subject is simply funereal, and the Harpies emblematic of
untimely death are bearing off the souls of mortals. The Harpy
figures are more especially Assyrian in the character of the work.
The date of these Lycian sculptures is not later than 500 B.C.
In the other reliefs which are now on the walls of the New
Lycian room, in the British Museum, there are sieges, chariots,
processions, and many figures in the energetic action so remarkable in the Mneveh sculptures. The two lions sculptured in
the round resemble the Assyrian lions in style. The subject
was supposed by Fellows to be the siege of Xanthus under
Harpagus, of whom is related the strange story of his being

F I G . 60.—BAS-RELIEFS ON THE H A R P Y TOMB.

In the British

Museum.

tricked by Astyages king of Persia into eating his own son,
served up as food to the father, as a punishment for Harpagus
having preserved the young Cyrus, foretold as the supplanter of
his father the king, and consequently ordered to be slain. I t
was in revenge that Harpagus aided Cyrus, and afterwards as
his general conquered Lycia. The Xanthians refused to yield,
and after sacrificing their wives and children, died to \ man
fighting to the last.8 All this is told in the same graphic
manner as on the Nineveh slabs, and it is most interesting
to compare these two series of sculptures in the British

COMPARISON WITH EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN.

119

Museum.* I t will be observed that most of the figures are in
profile, and that the eyes are nevertheless shown in full; the
same peculiar smile prevails in all, which is a distinguishing
feature in Etruscan works and in the iEginetan and other sculptures we shall have to notice. This is also seen in the coins of
the time, and is a feature which has, of course, some similarity
to the Egyptian, but more to the Assyrian style. The long,
straight folds and zigzag edges of the draperies are also archaic
forms which belong to these Lycian sculptures, as well as the
sculptures found at Selinus in Sicily; and to a draped figure
found on the Acropolis at Athens in the ruins of temples and

FIG. 61.—JUNO,

FIG. 62.—NEPTUNE, FROM THE RELIEF OX
THE PLJTEAL IN THE CAPITOL, ROME.

Pseudo-Archaic Drapery.

buildings which were erected there before the Parthenon, f
These were destroyed by the Persians in the early battles of the
Athenians against their old enemy. Their date is considered to
be about 560—490 B.C., when Pisistratus was ruler at Athens,

1

* Recent authorities suppose the Ionic monument in the new Lycian
room to have been erected in the first half of the fourth century B.O., in
honour of the Satrap Perikles, who captured the town of Telmessus.
f Such as the ancient temple of Athene, called the Hekatompedon
(100 feet in length by 100 feet in width).

120

ARCHAIC GREEK RELIEFS AND STATUES.

Croesus at Sardis, Tarquin at Koine, Amasis in Egypt, and Cyrus
in Persia.
The archaic Artemis of the Naples Museum in bronze (Fig. 63)
shows the zigzag form of drapery, which is also seen on a similar
figure in the Dresden collection. The false archaic drapery of
the Macedonian period is shown in Figs. 61, 62.
It has been said these archaic statues are Egyptian in style,
yet it is difficult to see this character in them beyond the
general rigidity and the calm smiling look of the features.
But in this respect they are equally like the Assyrian, and for
the simple reason that to give any expression to the countenance
requires a higher exercise of art, and this these sculptors were
not sufficiently skilled to do. The Egyptians could perhaps have
done it, but it was not in keeping with their intention and the
genius of their art. The Assyrians were very rough expressionists,
rather vulgar and puerile in their imitative sculpture, but, as we
have observed, inventive, and with more feeling for design than
the Egyptians in their ornament.* Seeking for other signs of
Egyptian teaching in early Greek sculpture, it is remarkable
that not a single example can be pointed out of cavo-relievo, such
as the Egyptians adopted so universally. Though effective,
durable beyond all other forms, and capable of carrying colour,
yet it never was employed by Greek carvers or architects early
or late; nor, as has been pointed out, was the cavo-relievo ever
employed in the Assyrian reliefs.
Turning next to the statues—the seated and standing figures
carved universally with some supporting part of the work at the
back and not in the round—the examples of similar statues in
Greece are extremely rare. There are as yet only the headless
seated Athene in the Museum at Athens, f and ten draped seated
* So also in their metal work, of which manyfinespecimens of ornament
are to be seen in the British Museum, Layard Collection. Here we are
met with the similarity to some forms of Greek ornament. The ornament
known as the Greek honeysuckle, found so profusely employed upon the
fictile vases, which are called Etruscan, is much more beautiful than the
similar ornament seen in Assyrian work. Whether it is derived from
Asiatic art or is native to Etruria is a question of great interest. The
resemblance between the two is too remarkable to be lost sight of.
t See Overbeck, ' Geschichte,' &c, figure No. 24.

F I G . 63.—ARTEMIS, FOUND AT P O M P E I I .

Showing the archaitffltyle of drapery
In the Naples Museum.

BRONZE.

folds.

122

EGYPTIAN AND PHOENICIAN AKT NOT PEOGRESSIVE.

statues found in 1858, by Mr. Newton, at Miletus on the
Asiatic shore of the iEgean, all headless but one; * of which it
will be remarked that they are equally like the Assyrian seated
figure found by Layard at Kalah Shergat.f They formed a sort
of avenue leading from the harbour to the Temple of Apollo.
The date assigned to the Miletus or Branchidse statues and the
two lions is 580^-520 B.C. An inscription on the chair of one—
" I am Chares/' &c.—decides the date, and marks this as the
oldest portrait statue in Greek art. These seated statues are of
the heroic size, not colossal.
It may be observed that amongst the small objects found in
Greece there are not any of those miniature figures of Deities
precisely like the large Egyptian statues, which abound in Egypt.
To these some importance must have been attached, since they
are found in every mummy-case, often rolled up with the cerecloths, and probably intended as amulets or guardians of the dead.
From all that we learn of the Egyptians, through such exhaustive researches as those of Sir G. Wilkinson, it would seem
that the sculptors and the carvers of hieroglyphics were a distinct
class or caste, descending from father to son, and always under
the close control of the priestly rule. It is not likely that they
would ever become colonists and travel away from their city.
Those who did wander off with Kekrops and Kadmus were not
any of them sculptors, or we should have found some trace of
their work. The Egyptians were a religious, not a commercial,
people, and not colonisers. They devoted themselves to a life
of ease and luxurious repose; they were dreamers over the
abstract, and only entered into wars to defend themselves and
their territory.
The Phoenicians are sometimes spoken of as teachers; but
they never developed any art in the direction either of beauty
of form or energy of expression. As the earliest and most
expert metal-workers, they taught their neighbours, and carried
the materials both along the coast and to the islands of the
iEgean. In Cyprus abundant examples have been found in
the discoveries of General Cesnola of Phoenician and GrsecoPhoenician work.
* British Museum, Archaic Room, No. 2—13.

t British Museum.

F I G . 64.—COLOSSAL, 34 INCHES HIGH.

F I G . 65.—STONE, 9 | I N .
HIGH.

F I G . 66.—STONE, 12 I N .
HIGH.

F I G . 67.—STONE, 14 I N .
HIGH.

Heads found by Cesnola in the Temple of Golgoi, Cyprus.

124

THE ARCHAIC GREEK LION AND THE ASSYRIAN LION.

Let us endeavour to trace in other monuments that remain,
the influence of Egyptian and Assyrian art, as shown in the
work of the Pelasgi and Etrusci. Those which are simplybarbaric, as we have already pointed out, have no value for
sculptural art in helping us to identify any foreign influence,
since they belong to no individual style. Neither is much to
be learnt from sepulchral structures such as the tumuli common
to the plains of Troy and the far west of Europe, as well as
the far east of India; nor from the underground structures
known as 'treasuries/ Sculptural art did not take its great
spring in advance from any of these, as no statues of any value
in art have ever been found in them.
At Mykenae, once perhaps in the days of Homer (850—8001
B.C.) the most important city of Greece, there are sculptural
works in the remains of two lions over the entrance-gate (Fig.
55), which are examples of Pelasgic art. The height of these
is about 10 ft., and the width 15 ft.* The stone is a greenish
limestone. The holes show where the metal pins held the
heads, long since decayed. Fragments as they are, they show
an Assyrian rather than an Egyptian influence in the strong
marking of the muscles and joints, softened though it is by
decay, and in the erect attitude, which denotes action, such as
is not seen in Egyptian art of this kind. Whether it is a
column they support or an altar is doubtful; but the four
round projections above the capital resemble the wood structure
of the Lycian tombs. The peculiar tail of the lions, with the
knob at the tip, is exactly such as we see in the Assyrian lions.
These lions should be compared also |with the wounded lion
in the British Museum, Nineveh collection (Fig. 52). Of this
' gate of the lions,' which has long been known as a most ancient
work of early Greek sculpture, it must be noticed that it is not
in the round but only in high relief. And this is the case with
all the earliest works, just as it is with the Assyrian sculptures.
They tend to show therefore that the Greek sculptor had not
* In the Dilettanti Society's work they are given as height 9 feet 8iin.
by 11 feet'6 in.p in width. Mr. Simpson, the well-known artist-traveller, tells
me he examined these lions closely and drew them, and that they seemed
to him to have had heads of metal, perhaps gold, and gold plates over the
whole bodies.

EARLIEST GREEK

125

STATUES.

yet learnt to model and carve in the round in marble and
stone.
There are early records of statuary being made in marble.
Pliny says the first of all distinguished for marble carving
were Dipoenus and Skyllis, who worked together at Sikyon.

F I G . 68. - P E R S E U S KILLING MEDUSA.
SELINUS M E T O P E .
In the Museum at Palermo.

Cast in the British Museum.

F I G . 69.—HERCULES CARRYING O F F
T H E CECROPES (Robbers).
SELINUS M E T O P E .

Cast in the British

Museum.

They were born in the island of Crete during the existence of
the empire of the Medes, before Cyrus began his reign in
Persia, about the fiftieth Olympiad (Plin. lib. xxxvi. c. 5). As
the Olympiad reckoning began from the victory of Koroibos
in the foot-race at the games in the year 776 B.C., this would
be about 580 B.O. Pausanias says (lib. II. p. iii. 9), they were
pupils or followers of Daedalus. They are named also by
Clemens of Alexandria as the sculptors of statues of Castor and
Pollux at Argos, of Hercules at Tiryns, and Diana at Sikyon.
It is also related by Cedrenus, that in the time of the Emperor
Theodosius at Byzantium, was to be seen a statue of Minerva
Lindia* of 'smaragdus' stone (verde antique?) four cubits
* Lindus was a town in the island of Rhodes. Angelion and Tectaeus
are two sculptors named by Pausanias as learning from Dipoenus and
Skyllis, and the makers of the wood statue of the Delian Apollo.

126

ARCHAIC WORKS IN BRONZE AND MARBLE.

high, the works of Skyllis and Dipoenus, which had formerlybeen sent by Sesostris, the Egyptian tyrannus, to Kleobulus of
Lindus. These references are so far interesting and important
as showing with fair probability that these statues were sculptures in the round. There is no doubt the Phoenicians at Tyre
and Sidon produced much work in bronze and other metals of
an ornamental character, like the shield of Achilles described
by Homer, before this time; but no statues are known, and
neither Homer nor Hesiod ever mentions such works. Many
names of sculptors in these early times are mentioned by
Pausanias and Pliny, but it is impossible to discover precisely
what their works were, and as most of them are said to be
disciples of Daedalus, it may be concluded that their works
were of the very primitive character previously described. Those
who are curious upon this point will find full references in the
great work of Junius. Numerous examples of archaic sculpture
in bronze and marble, some of hammered-out work, are to be
seen in all the museums, a large proportion of which are basreliefs representing the figure in profile. Good examples are
Figs. 70, 71, which show a general resemblance to the Assyrian
sculptures rather than Egyptian, as well as those found at Selinus
(Eig. 68). But the examples in the archaic room, at the British
Museum, must be studied in order to come to any clear understanding of the characteristics. Particularly should be studied,
the casts of the Selinus reliefs (Nos. 16—19), and No. 27, a
relief found at the Acropolis, Athens. JSTo. 28, the Leucothea
relief in the Villa Albani, Eome, should be compared with the
Harpy tomb reliefs. Nos. 30 and 31, small nude statues of
Apollo, without the legs; very stiff, and showing the muscles of
the abdomen and chest divided into square regular masses, the
edges of the rib cartilages being marked with straight lines at an
acute angle to the median line, and the hips narrow in proportion
to the trunk. The sharp features with the turned-up nose and
smiling mouth, and the short, crisp, formal curls at the forehead,
are also characteristic of archaic Greek work, and are seen again
in the small full-length Apollo represented in Eig. 72, where we
also notice the stiff attitude with one leg slightly advanced.
Similar statues are the bronze Apollo in the Louvre, which has

BRONZE

STATUES

BEFORE

THE

TIME

OF P H E I D I A S .

129

them on the very spot where they were originally placed, and
he wrote towards the end of the second century A.D. He
speaks of two statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton the
tyrannicides* in 510 B.C., made in their honour by Antenor
(lib. i. 8, 5). They were, he says, near the Temple of

F I G . 72a.—STATUES

OF HARMODIOS AND ARISTOGEITON, B T K R I T I O S AND NESIOTES.

Marble.

Naples Museum.
The small outline shows the conjectured form of the group by Anterior,
as seen in a relief on a marble chair in Athens Museum,-and upon a prize vase, as well as a
coin of Athens.
The coin shown above is the tetradrachvi referred to which bears the group,
and the names Mentdr and Moschion, magistrates probably of the time.

Mars (Athens) with other statues named, the older ones
being by Antenor and the later by Kritias, and that they were
* The story of these two friends who assassinated the tyrant Hipparchos
will be found in the Biographical Dictionaries and in Grote's History.
A.S.

K

128

THE GREEK MYTHS INDIGENOUS, NOT ASSYRIAN.

the left foot advanced, and on it incised the words A0ANA : A
AEKATAN ; also the small marble figure called the Strangford
Apollo in the British Museum, which has lost the arms and legs.
Among the remains found by General Cesnola in Cyprus, are
numerous representations in bas-reliefs and in incised gems * of
the most ancient Greek heroes, such as Perseus
and Hercules, and of the deities, Athene,
Hera, and Aphrodite. This representation of
the ancient Greek myths which is universally
found in Etruria also, in paintings on the
oldest terra-cotta vases, in bas-reliefs and
bronze figures, is remarkable; and it must not
be overlooked that this is peculiar to those
parts through which the people we call Pelasgi,
Etrusci, and Hellenes traversed and settled.
Nothing of the kind has been found in the
Assyrian sculptures. Whatever may have
been the primitive art of the people of Etruria
Ii
before the arrival of Demaratus with his colonisers from Corinth, in 664 B.C., it took from
that time the Greek style of the archaic form
then practised, and adopted the Greek subjects.
How far the mythology is derivable from the
Egyptian theogony is another question, too
wide to be entered into here.
The instances are rare of any of the statues in
bronze by the early masters of Greek art before
Pheidias and his school, having been satisF I G . 72.—APOLLO
OF TENEA.
factorily identified with the marble reproMunich Museum.
ductions which have from time to time been
discovered. Pausanias actually saw and described many of
• * Many were found in the Treasury of Kourum in Cyprus, of which Mr.
King says, they are " a true revelation of the history of the Glyptic art in
its rise and progress from the earliest times down to the beginning of the
fifth century before our era/' The subject of one of the finest of these
archaic Greek intaglii is Boreas carrying off Orithya, daughter of Erectheus,
from the banks of the Ilissus, a very! ancient myth, which is also
represented on the famous coffer of Kypselus, a work two centuries older
at least. ('Cyprus,' by Gen. Cesnola, p. 378, Appendix.)

tfZE

STATUES BEFORE THE TIME OF P H E I D I A S .

129

on the very spot where they were originally placed, and
ote towards the end of the second century A.D. He
: of two statues of Harmodios and Aristogeiton the
icides * in 510 B.C., made in their honour by Antenor
.. 8, 5). They were, he says, near the Temple of

as OF HABMODIOS AND ARISTOGEITON, BY K R I T I O S AND NESIOTES.

Marble.

The small outline shows the conjectured form of the group by Antenor,
f on a marble chair in Athens Museum, and. upon a prize vase, as well as a
The coin shown above is the tet> adrachm referred to which bears the group,
the names Mentdr and Moschion, magistrates probably of the time.

(Athens) with other statues named, the older ones
> Antenor and the later by Kritias, and that they were
y
i story of these two friends who assassinated the tyrant Hipparchos
ound in the Biographical Dictionaries and in Grote's History.
K

130

COPIES BY KRITIOS AND NESIOTES.

carried off by Xerxes, b u t afterwards restored to t h e Athenians
b y Antiochos.* Lucian also speaks of these statues—ev big /ecu
T<X Kpiriov TOV NrjGiioTOv wXafTfiara ecrrjKev, OL rvpavvoKrovoi.
After some fifty years of research it is now considered that t h e
marble reproductions of these statues are t h e statues in the
Naples Museum (Fig. 72a), and this is supported b y a bas-relief
of them as a group upon a marble chair in the Museum of A t h e n s
(shown in Mg. 72a), and still further b y a coin (also in Fig. 72a)
found at Athens bearing a rude representation of the group, and
t h e names of t h e magistrates Mentor and Moschion. The same
group is seen on a painted vase. I t is k n o w n t h a t when Xerxes
took away t h e statues b y Antenor, copies of t h e m were made
b y Kritios and N e s i o t e s t to replace them. All, however, are lost.
T h e Naples statues are singularly fine in t h e action of t h e
figures, though t h e arms are restorations, a n d the head of the
younger figure, which is Harmodios, is also new. B u t the head
of t h e Aristogeiton is true antique, and shows t h e severe style of
t h e archaic though modified by t h e feeling of the later artist.
If these statues were placed together as a group they would
closely resemble t h e relief on the marble chair.
T h e important point to bear in mind is t h e general archaic
condition of sculpture prevailing at a time extending from t h e
first Olympiad 776 B.C. to the middle of the sixth century B.C.;
examples of which, all more or less resembling each other, have
. been found at Mycenae, Xanthus, Miletus, Ephesus, t h e islands
of Cyprus and Khodes on t h e Asiatic side of the i E g e a n ; at
* Arrianus, the accurate historian of Alexander's Anabasis, says it was
he, Alexander, who returned those statues. He wrote about the middle of
the second century A.p., and his great work is still extant.
f There was long a question as to the name of JSTesiotes, as Pliny has it
Nestocles, and Pausanias does not mention him.. But Lucian's reference
is more precise, and leads to the conclusion that there were two sculptors—
Kritios (Kritias) and Nesiotes, the latter a pupil perhaps of the first-named,
who was distinguished as a master. Pausanias speaks of a statue of a
runner Epicharinos (lib. i. 23, 11) ; and the base of this statue has been
found at Athens bearing the names of Kritios and Nesiotes, besides two
others having their names inscribed. The interesting questions as to these
statues are ably examined by Mr. A. S. Murray in his ' History of Greek
Sculpture,' 1880.

GENERAL ARCHAIC CONDITION.

131

Selinus in Sicily, and throughout Magna Graecia; in Italy at
Palestrina, Perugia, Cervetri, as well as in all Etruria far up on
the west coast of Italy; in Greece projDer, in the Peloponnesus
at Sparta, Sikyon and Argos, Athens, and iEgina—then an independent island and always possessing a very vigorous school of
sculpture, in bronze especially, though destined to yield the
palm when Athens rose to her high state.

K 2

F I G . 73.—TEMPLE OF A T H E N E AT J S G I N A .

THE ^EGINETAIST STYLE.
IN iEgina a temple of Athene was begun about B.C. 480—•
4 7 8 ; * therefore, about 26 years before the Parthenon was begun at Athens, and about the same time as the victories of the
Greeks over the Persians at Plataea and Mycale, and the battles
of Thermopylae and Salamis. It was also about the time when
the poet zEschylus wrote. The ruins of this temple were explored by the late Mr. Cockerell, R.A., the distinguished architect, in 1811. The temple, and with it the statues, had been
all thrown down by an earthquake long before. Baron Haller,
MM. Linkh, Stackelberg, Eorster, and Brbnsted assisted in
the discovery of the broken statues which had belonged to the
pediments. The temple was built of sandstone, and coated with
stucco, in a method resembling that employed in the temple at
Selinus in Sicily. These statues, and those of the Parthenon, are
the only examples as yet found of a complete pediment series, as
they were designed to fill the architectural space. The Mobe
figures in the Florence Museum are supposed to have formed a
similar composition; but this is not yet a settled point, though they
have been placed in this form. These iEginetan statues (Eig. 74)
According to Mr. Newton.

THE iEGINA PEDIMENTS.
are of marble, and were purchased
b y t h e late K i n g Ludwig of Bavaria, and placed in the Glypt o t h e k at Munich, after having
been very m u c h restored b y Thorwaldsen at Eome. (Casts are in
t h e British Museum arranged in
t h e pedimental form.) The western pediment is that given in
our illustration; and the subject,
formerly thought to be the contest for the body of Patroklus, is
now t h o u g h t to be the fight of
Greeks and Trojans around the
b o d y of Achilles, who lies at the
feet of A t h e n e . * These eleven
figures are in better preservation
t h a n those of the eastern pediment, which was so far destroyed
t h a t only five could be p u t
together. Those of t h e east
pediment are rather larger. T h e y
represent either Hercules and
his companions fighting over
t h e body of Laomedon, or an
incident of the expedition of
Hercules and Telamon against
Troy. Athene is represented
closely after t h e hieratic type,
considerably larger t h a n the
other figures, w i t h her feet
t u r n e d sideways, b u t her face
to t h e f r o n t ; while t h e mortal
combatants are placed in various
attitudes of strong action, b u t
* It may be remarked in favour
of the subject being the death of
Achilles, as first pointed out by
German writers, that the kneeling
figure with the Phrygian cap and
close Asiatic armour may be Paris,
who shot the arrow that hit the only
vulnerable part of Achilles. But
the subjects represented and the personages are still undetermined.

134

THE SCULPTORS—KALLON AND HEGESIAS.

with most of the heads in profile. These statues are all carved
in the round, and are, consequently, most interesting as showing
the great step in advance that had been made in technic capabilities. The study of the figure will be noticed as singularly
accurate, even to the veins and tendons, and the anatomy of the
joints. This vigorous naturalism is carried out also in the
spirited attitudes, and in the fallen and falling combatants.
Still greater realism was obtained by making the weapons—spears
and bows—(shown as replaced by modern ones in the cut) as
well as other parts of the details, of bronze. On some of the
figures of the eastern pediment the hair of the beards was finished
with curls of metal wire attached; while the eyes were painted,
and the bloody wounds were also coloured. This may have
been an improvement of a later taste, but, whenever applied,
portions of the colour remain still to be seen. The figures of
sturdy, robust, and gladiatorial forms, are short in the proportions and are under the size of life. The heads are
particularly significant of the art of the time, carved with artistic
skill, but all of one type, and having no other expression than
the same complacent smile. Whether attacking to the death, or
whether in the last agony, there is the same smile. This was so
probably because the sculptor did not allow himself to depart
from the received type of the heroic countenance. It was not
that he was incapable, or how could he have modelled the body
so exactly with an accuracy that perhaps even approaches to
dryness % Still, it was not the portrayal of beauty that was the
aim, but a forcible representation of a scene of historic interest,
with all the accentuation and emphasis that exact imitation could
give without the expression of the countenance. As to the
sculptor of these remarkable statues, two names are recorded as
celebrated by Quintilian—Kallon (RaXXw^), and Hegesias; but
whether both were engaged upon them, as if one did the
eastern and the other the western pediment, it is not related.
All that Quintilian has to say is : " Duriora et Tuscanicis
proxima, Galon atque Egesias; jam minus rigida, Calamis;
molliora adhuc supra dictis, Myron fecit diligentia acdecor in
Polycleto supra cseteros " (Quin. lib. xii. cap. 10). I t is interesting to observe that the style is so well distinguished as

CHARACTER OF THEIR WORK.

135

" harder, and like the Tuscan;" and the mention of Kalamis
as " less stiff; " and of Myron, the sculptor of the Discobolus,
as a still softer modeller.
Two small statues of draped female figures showing the archaic
form of drapery, which were found with the iEgina statues, are
thought to have stood one on each side of the apex of the pediment. For further illustration of the style of this period the
bas-reliefs in the Museum at Athens, the Charioteer and others,
casts of which are in the British Museum, should be noticed.
The remarkable style in which the athletic points of the figures
are displayed by the sculptor, has been attributed to the knowledge of the figure which he gained when he witnessed the
Olympic games, the victors in which were honoured by having
statues made of them, often at the expense of their city or state,
to be placed in the groves of the temples.

F I G . 75.—TEMPLE OF THESEUS, A I HEN'S.

THE ATHENIAN" STYLE.
AT Athens we have already seen what the style of sculpture
during the time of Pisistratos and his successors (560—490 B.C.)
was in the stiffness and archaic forms of the draperies, and
we have noted the absence of any sculpture in the round in
marble, at least so far as discovery has hitherto gone. But art
and especially architecture had advanced; the Hehatompedon
had been raised upon the Akropolis, though doomed with other
buildings to speedy destruction by the Persians. This, however,
only led to greater efforts to mark the national power when they
had conquered their invaders. When the bones of Theseus
were found in Skyros, one of the islands of the iEgean, by
Kimon in 469 B.C., the oracle directed that Athens should be
their guardian; and the temple called the Theseium (Fig, 75) was
built to do honour to the great hero and king of Athens. The
pediment of this temple, which is of Pentelic marble, contained

THE

HEKOIC

STYLE.

137

statues ; but they have been destroyed. Some of the metopes,
and the sculptured friezes in high relief at the east and west
ends, are still in their ancient position. Figs. 76 to 79 show some
of them, and casts of the whole series are in the British Museum.
The subjects of the frieze are, at the east end, the battle of the
gods and the giants, and at the west Theseus fighting with the
Centaurs. Theseus, it will be remembered, killed the Minotaur,
conquered the Amazons, and subdued the Centaurs at Thebes.
Kef erring to the illustrations it will be observed what an extra-

F I G . 76.—METOPE ; FROM T H E T E M P L E OF THESEUS, 29 I N . HIGH.

ordinary advance there is in these figures from the style of the
^ginetan statues; the forms are well-proportioned, the head
not too large, and the muscles displayed in the swelling, lifelike movement of muscles in action. The one figure in which
the sculptor evidently intended to show his knowledge of the
anatomy of the back, perhaps the most difficult of any, is most
remarkable (Fig. 79). There is nothing finer than this throughout
the Parthenon frieze. Indeed, it will be admitted on comparing
these Theseium sculptures with those of the Parthenon, that the
former are of such excellence as to have been well worthy of being
examples to the sculptors who, a few years afterwards, were

138

GKEAT ADVANCE IN STYLE AND TECHNIC POWER.

engaged under Pheidias. Mr. Scharf * remarks upon " the
silence of writers, with the exception of Dodwell, upon their
merits;" pointing out, also, how completely they anticipated
the Parthenon sculptures in the original conception of the
Centaur, which till then had been represented in the most
archaic fashion as an animal with a complete human form, and
only the body and hind quarters of the horse, as Chiron is seen
upon painted vases (Fig. 42). In the drapery also, "instead of
folds encircling motionless limbs, or hanging straight down, they

FIG. 77.—METOPE; THESEUS OVERCOMING THE "WRESTLER KERKYON.

are made to flow and assume every variety cf direction in accordance with the subject, and by their arrangement to set off the
figure to the greatest advantage."
It is, therefore, important to understand that these sculptures
of the Theseium must have been studied by Pheidias and his
contemporaries, and that they must have raisecj. the art to a very
high standard, such as would inspire the loftiest ambition in those
who were afterwards entrusted with the works of the Parthenon.
It is not known whether Ageladas the master of Pheidias was
the sculptor who designed these fine works ; but if he were, we
might imagine that some of these figures are to be ascribed
* ' Handbook to the Greek Court in 1855, Crystal Palace,' p. 26.

F I G S . 78, 7 9 . — T E M P L E OF THESEUS F E I E Z E . I. T H E GODS WATCHING THE BATTLE. I I . T H E BATTLE OF THE GODS AND GIANTS.

140

WAS PHEIDIAS THE SCULPTOR?

to his pupil, destined to become t h e master famous for ever
as t h e greatest in classic sculpture. Other able sculptors of t h e
time were Myron, Onatas of iEgina, and Kalamis, whose name is
associated with bronze work, and who is distinguished as t h e
sculptor of the Apollo Alexicacus.
I t is known t h a t Pheidiasjanished his great statue in ivory and
gold in the P a r t h e n o n in the third year of the 8 5 t h Olympiad, 438
B.C., when he must have been about 58 or 60 years old,* if born
as presumed between t h e 7 0 t h and 7 2 n d Olympiads (Eaoul
Rochette, Lectures) ; therefore it is quite possible that he might
have been engaged upon t h e sculptures of the Theseium as a young
man. T h a t he must have acquired t h e reputation of being t h e
first sculptor in A t h e n s at the time the P a r t h e n o n was determined upon by Perikles, is only w h a t is to be concluded ; otherwise, such an important work would not have been placed in his
h a n d s . T h e strong action of many of t h e figures in the Theseium
sculptures, and especially the cast of t h e flying draperies, would
seem to be not unlike the first great work oi a young sculptor
in the full vigour and flush of genius. T h e gravity and reserve
of power so distinctive of the P a r t h e n o n pediment figures,
a n d the perfect grace and dignity of the motives, would mark
t h e work of an accomplished master well assured of his power
a n d working well within his resources. The question whether
Pheidias had any h a n d in t h e Theseium sculptures is one that is
full of t h e deepest interest, and it has not hitherto received t h e
attention it calls for. I t will be admitted, at any rate, t h a t
some great innovator was at work upon t h e sculptures of t h e
Theseium.f All t h e archaisms we have before noticed were cast
aside in favour of a direct study of n a t u r e — a n d this not only in
* In the figures fighting the Amazons, sculptured on the shield of Athena,
alleged by his enemies to be portraits of Pericles and himself, and for
which he was accused—Pheidias was represented as a bald oldish man.
f Myron has been named as the sculptor, but Mr. A. S. Murray
(' Hist, of Greek Sculpture,' 1880, p. 252) says this " cannot well be supposed. They may have his faults and his, peculiarities, but not the style
of so great a master. A pupil could have executed them, and it may
reasonably be doubted if any but a pupil of his could." But then to this
opinion there is the obvious corollary that Pheidias was the fellow-pupil of
Myion, and unquastionably the greater master.

DATE OF THE THESEION SCULPTURES DOUBTFUL.

141

representing the figure in strong action with great beauty and
truth, but remarkably so in the draperies. " The sculptures of
the Theseium display a wonderful advance beyond all previous
attempts. No period during the whole course of Greek art
affords so striking an instance of sudden progress " (Scharf, loc.
cit.). It remains to be said that some doubt has been raised by
German archaeologists as to the date of the Theseium, and whether
it was not later than the Parthenon.

FIG. 79«.—CASTOR. Bas-relief in British Museum.
Said to he Archaic.

FIG. 80.—THE PARTHENON.

TEMPLE OF A T H E N E AT ATHENS.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE GKAND STYLE.
W E have arrived now at a period in ancient art when at
Athens, the centre of the civilization of the world, the Parthenon,
the most beautiful example of architecture, adorned with the
grandest works of sculpture, was created. Pheidias was entrusted by Perikles with the general design and direction of
this great national work (454—438 B.C.), while two architects,
Iktinos and Kallikrates, are also recorded as the practical builders
and probably the designers, with Pheidias, of the temple. The
whole world of art, ancient and modern, has always with one
voice extolled the architecture and the sculpture. It has been
pronounced " of all the great temples the best and most celebrated ; the only octa-style Doric temple in Greece, and in its
own class undoubtedly the most beautiful building in the world.
It is true it has neither the dimensions nor the wondrous
expression of power and eternity inherent in Egyptian temples,
nor has it the variety and poetry of the Gothic cathedral, but
for intellectual beauty, for perfection of proportion, for beauty
of detail, and for the exquisite perception of the highest and
most recondite principles of art ever applied to architecture, it
stands utterly and entirely alone and unrivalled—the glory
of Greece." *
* Fergusson's ' History of Architecture/ 1865.

THE

PARTHENON.

143

Pausanias is the great historian of art to whom we owe the
most authentic description of the temple, its sculptures in the
pediments and the frieze, and of the colossal statue of Athene in
ivory and gold which stood within. Plutarch, writing in the
second century of our era, described it t as retaining all the
freshness of youth.
It is not within our limits to enter fully into the architectural
details of the temple; but it is necessary to say that in plan it
was, as the ruined edifice shows to this clay, a regular parallelogram of 228ft. long by 101 wide (Fig. 81), giving the proportion of a little more than twice the width for the length.
Upon this base stood 8 columns 34^ft. high, at each end, and
showing 17 at each side, forming a colonnade all round, or

N
F I G . 81.—PLAN OF THE PARTHENON.

peristylium. These columns supported the roof and pediments :
and the frieze in which the metopes (Fig. 87), sculptured in
high relief, occupied spaces between the triglyphs all round
the building. The interior of the temple, called the cella, in
which stood the altar (see plan), was 15ft. distant from the
columns on each side. The very beautiful and celebrated
frieze, sculptured in rather flat relief, occupied the upper part
of the outer wall of the cella close up to the ceiling. This
frieze was therefore seen from below, by the light coming in
between the columns and reflected from the pavement and
other surfaces around. It ran all round—525ft. in length—
and represented the Panathenaic Procession to sacrifice at the
shrine of Athene, and offer to her a new veil (peplos) on her
birthday, which was celebrated every fifth year (Fig. 85). Of
this frieze 335ft. still remain, nearly all of the Western

144

ALTERED INTO A CHURCH, AND A MOSQUE.

sculptures being still in position on t h e temple. Casts of these
are arranged in order on tlie walls of the Parthenon-room in
t h e British Museum, together with some original slabs, and
casts of those which are in t h e Museum at A t h e n s , and t h e
Louvre, and part of one in t h e Vatican, with other fragments
obtained from private collectors who had become possessed of
t h e m ; so t h a t the whole work is there to be studied.
T h e temple was in early Byzantine times converted into a
Christian c h u r c h ; and afterwards, when the T u r k s were masters
at Athens, 1455-6, it was turned into a mosque, w i t h little
alteration of t h e Basilica form given to it b y the Christians.
A plan made by Fanelli in 1687, given in t h e great work of
D e Quincy,* shows t h a t a semi-circular apse h a d been made at
t h e east end, and the inner row of six columns, which formed
t h e front of t h e jpronaos, r e m o v e d ; the east end being t h u s
entirely closed, and the entrance made at the west,f according
to Christian usage. B u t t h e Christians, requiring light i n t h e
apse, made an aperture by breaking through the pediment, a n d
t h u s displaced and left to destruction the noble group of statues
which occupied its centre.
The most serious and extensive
damage which has ever befallen the P a r t h e n o n was done during
t h e siege of A t h e n s by t h e Venetians in 1687, when a bombshell fell and exploded a powder-magazine within the temple. J
After t h e siege t h e victorious general Morosini § tried to carry
* ' Restitution des Frontons du Temple de Minerva.' 1825.
t For a length of time it had been concluded that the entrance was at
the west front, at the Propylsea ; although Pausanias had stated clearly
that the temple was entered from the east, and that above the pronaos was
the sculpture depicting the birth of Athene ; and the great statue within
faced the worshipper on entering.
% The state of the Parthenon sculptures previous to the siege of 1687
is shown in the drawings of Jacques Carrey, in the Louvre Library.
They are drawings of the frieze, the metopes, and the pediments, done
by Carrey for the Marquis Oilier de Nointel in 1674. Copies of some of
these drawings of the actual size will be found in the works of James
Barry, R.A., 1809.
§ Morosini did succeed in carrying off a large marble lion, which is to be
seen still in the arsenal at Yenice. This fine work is considered by Mr.
Newton to resemble the lion of Knidos in the British Museum, which is
the largest hitherto found in Greece. (' Essays,' 1880.)

145

DAMAGED IN THE SIEGE.

off the statues of the western pediment, which were still comparatively uninjured; and in the process of removal many of
these were allowed to fall from the pediment, and were broken
to pieces. The fragments were utilized by a builder, who
burned them to make mortar. Those which remained on the
pediment were among the sculptures removed by Lord Elgin in
1803, which in 1816 came into the possession of the Trustees of
the British Museum, by purchase from Lord Elgin for <£35,000.
The subject of the Parthenon sculptures has received an
immense amount of learned investigation, particularly by the
German archaeologists, and especially by Michaelis,* who may
be said to have almost exhausted the materials. It would be
impossible, within any practical limits, to place before the
reader the arguments as to the identification of the various
figures. We shall therefore content ourselves with a brief
statement of the conclusions arrived at, and for further information reference can now ba made to the new ' Guide' to these
sculptures just published by the authorities of the British
Museum, which affords the indispensable advantage of being
compared with the sculptures themselves. In this Mr. ]N"ewton,
the accomplished director of the Department, has with the
utmost perspicuity and completeness set before us all that can
at present be told; giving also the tabular statement arranged
by Michaelis of the various opinions which have been held
as to the personages represented in the east and west pediments and the frieze, from the time of Spon, 1678, to Brunn,
in 1874. All the slabs of the frieze, the metopes, and the
statues of the pediments in the British Museum being numbered,
the student is now enabled to follow out the course of the
Procession, and to understand the whole design in all its
amazing beauty of work and intellectual meaning.
THE ERIEZE. It should be understood that the frieze as it
is viewed on the walls of the Museum is seen in the reverse
position to that it occupied on the cella of the temple, where
it was placed outside. The effect of the lighting from above
is also different from that intended by the Greek sculptor. It
should be borne in mind also, that the bronze trappings, arms,
* 'Der Parthenon/ Leipzig, 1871.
A.8.

L

146

THE PARTHENON FRIEZE.

and ornaments, some of which were probably gilt, are gone;
and that colour was probably employed upon the plain surfaces
and some parts of the figures.
" OR the birthday of the Goddess the Frocessiou which
conveyed the peplos to her temple assembled in the outer
Kerameikos (quarter of the modellers), and passed through the
lower city round the Acropolis, which it ascended through the
Propylsea. During its passage through the Kerameikos the

peplos was displayed on the mast of the ship which was propelled on rollers. On the eastern frieze the delivery of the
peplos is represented in the presence of certain deities (Fig. 85).
Towards this central point converge two lines of procession,
which, starting from the west side of the temple, proceed along
its northern and southern sides towards the centre of the
eastern front." * Beginning with the western frieze, the start
of the horsemen under the direction of one of the marshals,
and the figures of men in various attitudes of mounting and
riding, display the wonderful power of the ancient Greek
* 'British Museum Guide to Sculptures of Parthenon,' 1880.

PARTS

OF T H E

147

FRIEZE.

sculptor in representing the horse and his rider (Fig. 82).
Nothing can be finer in composition than many of these groups
of complex forms, or more striking than the effect given with
such very low relief. Along the northern frieze the horsemen
are continued in crowded though admirably composed throngs.
Amazing inventive faculty is shown in the variety of attitude
and unflagging spirit and life-like energy characterizing the
figures.
As Mr. Newton remarks—" I n the 125 mounted
figures in this cavalcade we do not find one single monotonous

F I G . 83.—PART o r T H E SOUTHERN F R I E Z E OP THE PARTHENON.

repetition . . . A rhythmical effect is produced by the contrast
of the impetuous horses and their calm steadfast riders" (Fig.
86). Slabs ix. and x. should be noticed for the figures of
elderly citizens bearing olive-branches (thallophori), who are
preceded by four flute-players, auletce, and four lyre-players,
Idtharistce. Several figures carrying vases, others with trays
holding offerings of cakes, and others leading the cows to be
sacrificed, are remarkable for freedom and naturalness (Fig. 83).
These last were the offerings contributed by the colonies to the
great festival. On the eastern frieze we see the two great lines
L 2

148

DESCRIPTION OF THE FRIEZE.

of the Procession meeting over the entrance, where a group of
magistrates receive the advancing procession on either side.
Here are two groups
of twelve seated male
and female figures
in pairs, six on one
side and six on the
other. B e t w e e n
these are five standing figures (Pig.
85),
representing
the offering of the
jpeplos. The beautiful
maidens of
Athens, draped and
carrying jugs
(oinoclioe), are noble
figures in graceful t
and stately attitudes.
The central portion of the eastern
frieze has been the
subject of much discussion, but, the
faces as well as the
attributes and other
indications- by
which they could
be identified having
suffered much injury, it is Yery difficult to judge the
true interpretation.
The explanation of
Michaelis is accepted
by Mr. Newton with certain changes suggested by Flasch, in his
recent memoir (' Zum Parthenon Pries/ Wurzburg, 1877).
In

FIGURES TN THE PROCESSION.

149

the group the bearded figure (No. 29, B. M.) is Zeus, the goddess at
his side is Hera his consort, and the youthful figure is probably
Iris or Nike froru.
the outline of a
wing seen on the
marble.
Opposite
Zeus, the seated
goddess (No. 35 in
the British Museum)
is assumed to be
Athene, and the remains of her u^Jgis,
not worn on her
breast but crumpled
on her knee, with
one of the serpents
of the fringe curling round her arm,
are to be seen, while
some rivet holes
show where the
spear once was.
Next her (JSTo. 36,
British Museum) is
Hephaistos,
then
Poseidon, Dianysos
(or Apollo), Eros
and
Aphrodite
pointing to the advancing procession
(No. 40), and Demeter (or Peitho)
next to Dyonysos.
The seated male
figure to the left of
the cut 84 is undoubtedly Hermes, wearing the high boots (endromides) and
having the petasus on his knee; a hole in the hand shows

THE PARTHENON FRIEZE.

151

where the caduceus was once placed. The figure leaning
on his shoulder, called Dionysos by Michaelis, has his knees
placed as if clasping those of the female deity.
Flasch
believes these two figures to represent Apollo and Artemis,
and Mr. Newton remarks that the "singular interlacing of
their limbs would thus be a symbol of their twin birth, while the
torch (held by Artemis) is an attribute as fitting for Artemis as
for Demeter." The youthful seated figure on the left of Artemis
is probably Ares. Mr. Newton considers that " on the whole
the scheme of Flasch presents the fewest difficulties, and
it may be admitted that he has brought this most difficult
problem nearer to solution than any of his learned predecessors."
In confirmation it may be added that the attitude of the figure
last referred to (Ares) has long been observed to be similar to
that of a well-known statue of Ares, called " the Ludovisi Mars "
(Fig. 137, p. 247). As a seated figure thus made equal to the other
deities of Olympus, it could not with propriety be Triptolemos,
who is generally represented as a youth standing (Fig. 105,p. 192).
Another most interesting portion of the frieze is that group
of iivQ—three women and two men (Fig. 85)—which relates
to the offering of the peplos (Nos. 30 to 34, B. M.). I t is
not clear whether the elder figure is receiving the peplos
from or handing it to the youth, or whether they are engaged
in folding i t ; but evidently this represents the important object
of the procession, and the bearded figure is either the chief
Archon or one of the treasurers of the sacred property of Athene.
The meaning of the three female figures is yet unexplained.
The two with the peplos " stand in the centre of the eastern
front under the apex of the pediment and over the door of the
cella. Such a position would be peculiarly appropriate to this
group if intended to represent that solemn ceremony which was
the crowning act of the festival, and consequently the key to
the whole composition of the frieze " (Newton). The grand
female figure next the bearded man is probably the priestess of
Athene, who takes from the head of the maiden the cushioned
stool, diphros, another being borne on the head of the other
figure, who holds in her hand some object too much broken
to be made out. The legs of the sacred diphros have been

152

THE PAKTHENON FEIEZE.

lost, but a hole in the arm shows where they were fixed, and
they may have been of bronze. The lower stature of the two
bearers indicates probably their subordinate rank.
Other
interesting details will be understood on seeing the frieze with
the aid of the Museum ' Guide Book.' It is of additional interest,
however, to note that in the figure No. 17, the right foot and leg
as high as the calf, and No. 16, the left leg and foot, have been
acquired recently by the Museum, having belonged to the late
sculptor, M. Steinhauser, and these fragments were not known
by Michaelis when his work was published. The group No.
27 should be noticed as being similar to the two celebrated
colossal statues of men with horses on the Monte Cavallo, socalled after them, at Kome. Here, too, should be observed ah
instance of the recovery of a portion of the original marble in a
fragment adjusted to the cast. This, like others since acquired
by the Museum, was brought *from Athens many years ago and
presented to the nation by the owner. No. 97, head bound
with a diadem, was formerly in the Pourtales Collection, and
was purchased in 1865 at the sale, to be inserted in its placehere. Another fragment (slab xxxii. No. 75) was preserved
by the Dilettanti Society, and presented to the Eoyal Academy,
from whom it passed to the British Museum in 1817. Another
fragment (in slab xxxv. 85) was discovered in the Marbury Hall
Collection, in Cheshire, and was presented by Mr. J. Smith
Barry. There are some spaces left for missing slabs, and some
yet unappropriated ones.
The southern frieze is occupied with the chariots and the
sacrificial cows and sheep, the offerings of the colonies, with
numerous figures of drovers and others in every beautiful variety
of attitude (Fig. 83). In Carrey's drawing there are eight
chariots, three only of which have been identified by Michaelis,
and there should be nine according to Mr. Newton.
Each
charioteer is accompanied by an armed warrior either in the
chariot or at its side, not as in the northern frieze stepping
into it. The horsemen on this south side are in more regular
order, and not in a tumultuous throng as on the opposite side,
and therefore it has been supposed they are the trained cavalry
of Athens (ffipjieis).
This part of the frieze is much injured.

THE METOPES.

153

Some small parts have been added since the work of Michaelis
appeared, in which the frieze will be found engraved in consecutive order according to Carrey's invaluable though rough
drawings, which show, in many places, the now missing portions.
I t is encouraging to learn that there are still fragments
preserved in the stores of the Museum of which some have been
recognized after long study, and added to the frieze as well as
other parts of the Parthenon sculptures. Of the metope "No. 3,
B. M., it should be observed that the heads of both figures and
the right arm of the Centaur are casts from the original
fragments in the Copenhagen Museum, which were carried off
from Athens at the time of the siege in 1687 by a Captain
Hartmand, who served under Count Konigsmark in Morosini's
army. In the same museum there are a Centaur, foot, and
lower part of a leg which, according to Michaelis, belong to a
group seen perfect in Carrey's drawing. No. 9, B. M., is a cast
from the slab in the Louvre. JSTo. 10, B. M., a cast from the
one in the Athens Museum, the marble foot of the right leg
being kept in the wall case C, being too heavy to be attached.
Some fragments are also in the British Museum belonging to
other thirteen metopes shown in Carrey's drawing of the same
subject, and of eight more, the subject of which is not known,
though supposed, from the parts of draped female figures, to
refer to the ritual of Demeter and other Attic divinities.
THE METOPES. These are the blocks sculptured with groups
partly in high relief and partly in the round, which occupy the
spaces, metopce, between the ornaments called, from the parallel
vertical channels cut in them causing three projecting lines,
triglyphi. They were on the outside of the temple, above the
architrave, and were continued all round, 92 in number, viz. 14
at each end beneath the pediments and 32 at each side. Fifteen
of them, brought from Athens by Lord Elgin, are on the walls
of the Parthenon Room, while one other was obtained by
M. Choiseul Gouffier, the contemporary French ambassador at
Constantinople, and is preserved in the Louvre. All these
sixteen are from the south side of the temple; some of the
others remain in such a very ruined condition on the building
that they can scarcely be understood, while many are destroyed

154

THE PARTHENON.

and are only known by the drawings of Carrey. Of the 32 on
the north side only 12 remain in their original position, and
three of these cannot be made out. The explosion of the
bombshell and powder magazine in 1687 destroyed 20, leaving
only a few fragments. A model in the Eritish Museum shows
the state of ruin produced.
The metopes on the south side have for their subject the
contest of the Centaurs and Lapithse at the marriage feast of
Peirithoos. The twenty-eighth metope in the original series
(No. 13, B. M.) is pointed out specially by Mr. Newton—"for
dramatic power in the conception and truth in the modelling
of the forms this metope is unrivalled " (Fig. 87).
The metopes of the north side are so much damaged that
their subjects cannot be made out, but it is conjectured by
Michaelis that they may have represented a scene from the
taking of Troy; while Mr. Newton suggests they may have
been a continuation of the series of combats of Centaurs and
Lapithse. A cast of the only one sufficiently perfect is the last
in the series at the north-west angle of the temple. I t represents a draped female figure seated on a rock with another
advancing, remarkable for fine treatment of the drapery. It is
No. 18, B. M., Parthenon Eoom.
Of the metopes on the west front, all except two remain in
position, but are too much injured to be made out: the subject
appears to refer to the battles of Greeks with Amazons. (No. 19,
B. M., is a cast from one of them.)
The metopes of the east front are all in position on the
temple, though much injured. The subject, however, is known
to be the battle of the gods and giants, the Gigantimachia.
To follow out the design of these metopes, discussing each as
to its composition and particular treatment of the figure, would
be impossible without the fullest illustration by those that
remain, which is entirely beyond the scope of the present
volume. The student should however avail himself of the ample
descriptions now to be had, which with the original marbles and
the casts in the British Museum will enable him to master the
subject. It may be remarked of the technical qualities of the
metopes, that as examples of inventive power in design and

155

T H E METOPES.

variety in the treatment and grouping of the figures they are of
the highest order. The placing of the metopes in contrast with
the straight lines of the entablature of the Parthenon and the
triglyphs, showed a perfect perception of what could be most
effective in sculpture. Statues in the round would have been
out of place and well-nigh impossible from the amount of projection required; while bas-relief and even mezzo-relievo would
have been scarcely forcible enough when coming immediately
.,
i^X

—
^-^

—
/a

t s p ^
_r_

^

F I G . 8 7 . - - C O N T E S T B E T W E E N T H E CENTAURS AND T H E L A P I T H T E .
ONE or

T H E M E T O P E S OE T H E P A R T H E N O N .

into comparison with the strong work of the pediments. The
metopes being a sort of compromise between the round and the
alto-relievo—the figures in each being partly in complete relief,
and quite in the round in the salient members of the group—
keep their importance with the pedimental figures, and at the
same time gain in vigour from the quiet and reposing lines of
the architectural parts near them. The filling of the small
spaces with groups of such extraordinary vigour of action,

B
PIG.

&

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

- W E S T E R N P E D I M E N T OF THE P A R T H E N O N .

C

D

E

F

L

M

O P Q R S T U

G

H
F I G . 89.—EASTERN

V

W

T H E CONTEST OP A T H E N E AND P O S E I D O N F O R T H E SOIL OP A T T I C A .

PEDIMENT.

J

K

T H E B I R T H OP A T H E N E .

The gap was filled by the lost group of the Birth of Athene; the composition of which is unknown. The suggestion of M. de Quincy
taken from an ancient bronze Etruscan engraved patera will be seen in Fig. 95.
Copied from the drawings by Jacques Carrey made in 1674, now in the Louvre, Paris.
N.B.—The letters refer to the statues as they are marked in the British Museum, and in the description in these pages.

THE PAKTHENON PEDIMENTS.

157

displayed in combats of two figures only, without one instance of
feebleness or anything approaching repetition, are points of the
greatest importance for study, as examples of striking power of
conception and composition, and knowledge of the form displayed in the work of the figures. I t is not known who was
the sculptor of the metopes, and from the inferiority of some
of them, it does not appear probable that they were all done
by the same hand; but it has been thought by Mr. Newton,
and so suggested by him in his recent valuable lectures upon
Greek art, that the style of Myron is recognizable in some of the
groups.
THE SCULPTURES OF THE PEDIMENTS (Figs. 88, 89) repre-

sented, as Pausanias describes, over the eastern end, above
the entrance to the temple, the birth of Athene, and over the
western end the contest of Athene and Poseidon for the soil of
Attica. But there are no detailed descriptions by the ancient
writers of the groups that filled the pediments. Yitruvius tells
us of a volume written by Iktinos and Karpion upon the Doric
Temple of-Minerva on the Acropolis; Polemo and Heliodorus
are also said to have written upon the subject, but these treasures
are lost. The broken statues and fragmentary parts are preserved
in the British Museum, and are all marked for identification.
The group which still remains on the pediment at Athens is
considered to be that of Kekrops and Aglaurus. The heads are
gone. These are the statues once supposed by Dr. Spon and
Sir G. Wheeler to be Hadrian and Sabina his empress, a mistake
that A as followed by Stuart and Fauvel, who was fifteen years
A
at Athens, and who pronounced them to be of different work.
The identification of each of the figures of the pediment
sculptures must still be a matter of discussion; and as we cannot
pretend to give a statement of the various opinions that have
been given, we must refer the reader to the writers who have
devoted so much attention to the subject. The drawings by
Carrey afford, after all, the only trustworthy evidence as to
the position of the statues; which are to be seen in their
fragmentary condition in the British Museum arranged as far as
possible according to these drawings.

158

THE

PARTHENON.

THE EASTERN

PEDIMENT.

The names given to the broken statues above mentioned are
those which were proposed by the archaeologist Yisconti in 1816
in the memoir he read to the Institute of France at the time when
the Parthenon marbles were acquired by the British Museum.
The various conjectures which have since that time been made

F I G . 9 0 . — T H E T H E S E U S , SOMETIMES CALLED T H E I D A E A N H E R C U L E S .

are shown in the tabulated form by Michaelis, to be found in
the ' ISTew Guide Book' of the British Museum, with the addition
of the opinions of Petersen, published in 1873, and Brunn in
1874.
It will be observed that nearly all agree with Yisconti as to the
figures in the angles of the pediment, only that instead of the
name Hyperion (A.) * Helios is proposed as that of the Sun-god
* Hyperion was a Titan born of Uranus and Ge (the Heaven and the
Earth), father of Helios, Selene and Eos (the Sun, the Moon, and the
Dawn).

THE PEDIMENT SCULPTURES.

159

rising from the ocean, and this is adopted by Mr. Newton, with
that of Selene or Night, which had not been discovered in Visconti's time, though he had rightly conjectured that the beautiful
horse's head (0. in British Museum, one of the two of which the
other remains on the pediment) belonged to the car of Night
descending into the sea.
The grand figure commonly called the Theseus (D. British

FIG. 91.—THE THESEUS OR IDAEAN HERCULES.

Museum), facing the horses of Helios, which Yisconti named
Herakles from a resemblance to that hero as on the coins of
Kroton, is still by several authorities thought to be rightly
named. But Mr. Newton remarks that the skin on which he
reclines seems more like that of a panther, and therefore it has
been thought to be Dionysos (Bacchus), as there is a figure (Fig.
112) similar to it in the frieze of the Monument of Lysikrates.
A better suggestion is made by Brcindsted that it is Kephalos,
constantly associated with Aurora, and in the ancient myth

160

PAKTHENON PEDIMENT

SCULPTURES.

carried off by her. A very striking and most poetic interpretation of this fine figure as Mount Olympus, receiving the first
rays of the rising sun, has been recently (1874) given by Brunn.
Prom the grandeur of the form and the imposing attitude of
sublime repose, it had before been compared by Mr. G. E.

F I G . 92.—litis.

O N T H E E A S T E R N P E D I M E N T OF T H E

PARTHENON.

Watts, E.A., to the beautiful form of a mountain. Kekrops
and Pan are other suggestions.
The Ceres and Proserpine of Yisconti (E. F.) are called the
Horse (Hours) by Brunn ; Thallo and Auxo (Two Seasons) by
Millingen and Overbeck; simply two goddesses by Miiller.

STATUES IN THE EAST PEDIMENT.

161

That they are closely related as mother and daughter or two
sisters, in accordance with Visconti and most writers after him,
is evident; of which Mr. Newton remarks, " this attribution
would be strengthened if the reclining nude figure could be
identified with Dionysos ;" and on the assumption of Brondsted
that they are the Horse who guarded the gates of Olympus, the
position of Iris next to them would represent her as on the
point of passing to the outer world to announce the birth of
Athene (Newton).
As to the Iris (G.) (Fig. 94), all agree with Yisconti except
Brunn, who proposes that it may be Hebe, and he also suggests

F I G . 93.—THE HORSE'S HEAD.

CAR OF SELENE.

that the whole subject was the moment before the birth of
Athene. To this it must be an obvious objection that the figure
displays the action of rapid movement upwards and away from
the central group. Hebe as the daughter of Zeus and Hera
would not be an appropriate personage at the birth of Athene,
while Iris as the messenger of the god has a most significant part,
and fills up the fine poetic conception of the subject.
The Horse's head., (0. British Museum.) Of the two heads of
the horses belonging to the car of Selene ( K ) , this has fortunately
been preserved in much of its original beauty. The other, wdiich
remains on the pediment, is described as now a mere shapeless
mass; though as it was hidden behind the head now in the
A.S.
M

162

THE PARTHENON PEDIMENTS.

British Museum which is seen in Carrey's drawing it may
never have been so highly wrought as its fellow. Some interesting points are to be noticed in this grand head. I t is
inclined downwards, as in the descent of the departing Eight
before the advancing horses of the Day at the opposite angle,,
whose fiery heads are tossed as they spring into the air out of
the waves. " In the whole range of ancient art there is perhaps
no work in marble in which the sculptor has shown such complete mastery over his material. 'The nostrils 'drink the air'
as if animated with the breath of life" {Newton). I t was
highly praised by Goethe. It is a remarkable example of the
genius of Greek art in uniting exact imitation of nature with the
higher beauty of an ideal type, or in the words of Goethe,
"seems the revelation of a prototype; it combines real truth
with the highest poetical conception." This head, as seen in
Carrey's drawing, projected in front of the cornice, and the
marble has been cut away to allow of this. There are also
some drill-holes behind the ears and on the nose, showing
that a metal bridle was originally fitted to it, and the
crest of the hogmane has holes which served to fasten some
ornament.
The three Fates. (K. L. M. British Museum.) Though headless now, two of them are seen in Carrey's drawing with their
heads, the one nearest the angle turned towards the horses of
Selene, the other towards the central group. The right arms of
two were then only partially injured, but are now lost. These
three figures correspond with the triad at the other side, of
Theseus, Demeter, and Persephone, and the reclining figures,
Theseus and the draped female (N.) next the horses, appear to
be similarly inattentive to the great event, while the figures
nearest the centre are as it were listening (Neivton).
To the view of Yisconti it is now objected that if the three
grandly-posed draped figures were intended to be the Fates they
would have been placed in the central part of the composition.
Several authorities agree with Yisconti, but " on the other hand
the plan of this triad in immediate succession to Selene would
point to some mythical connection between these figures and
the goddess of Night" (Newton). Hence they are named by

o

<
w

M 2

164

STATUES IN THE EAST PEDIMENT.

Welcker (1845) the three daughters of Kekrops—Aglanros or
Agraulos, Herse ancl Pandrosos; and Overbeck (1857) adopts
this view; while Dr. Brunn, also connecting them with Selene,
thinks they are personifications of the Clouds. These daughters
of Kekrops held an important place in Attic mythology, had
their festivals and sacrifices, and Pandrosos, " the all-bedewing "
or " refreshing," was worshipped at Athens with Thallo, having
a sanctuary near the temple of Athene Polias.
I t may perhaps be worthy of remark, in reference to this
point, that although the Fates were believed to be present at
the birth of mortals as holding the destiny and duration of
human life, it is not altogether appropriate that they should
play any similar part at the birth of an immortal goddess over
whom they held no influence. Still, they were divinities, and
may be taken to represent the eternal power presiding over all
birth, the spinning of the thread at the beginning of life, and
controlling the destiny of the newly-born. In this view they
would hold a place of more dignity and solemnity than as t
secondary attendants upon' Selene. And this would seem to be
indicated by the surpassing grandeur of the forms so large with
majestic grace and nobleness of character, and seated upon a
rock. As the daughters of Zeus they take the corresponding
place to Demeter his sister, and Persephone his daughter, with
Herakles the son of Zeus.*
The Nike, Victory. This figure, not in Carrey's drawing, was
found., lying on the ground below the pediment, and Visconti
naturally concluded it had stood as " Victory " present at the
birth of Athene. Prom its resemblance to the figure (N. British
Museum) in the western pediment drawn by Carrey and Dalton,
it was thought that it was wrongly placed by Visconti, but Mr.
Newton points out that a tc Victory " associated with the defeat
of Poseidon would be inconsistent, and that the subject of the
east pediment would be incomplete if Mke were not present to
* Herakles, the son of Zeus by Alcmene, is to be distinguished as the
Theban Hercules from the more ancient hero, the Idsean Herakles, who
protected Zeus when in his infanc3r, and aided the god in clearing the earth
of monsters in the Gigantimacchia. This statue may, as Visconti remarks,
be intended for the Idsean Hercules.

FRAGMENTS IDENTIFIED.

165

welcome Athene, concluding that the probability is that this
torso belongs to the east pediment as assigned by Visconti.
Some most interesting discoveries have been made amongst
the fragments brought with the Parthenon marbles by
Lord Elgin. In 1860 Mr. Watkiss Lloyd identified the
thigh of this Mke, and in 1875 the knee was recognised, and
these have since been added to the statue. Wings of marble
were attached to the shoulders, where are to be seen the deep
sinking for their attachment with holes for metal dowels. The
position of the Nike in the pediment would depend on these
wings; as if they were much raised it must have stood nearer
the centre than it is placed in the Museum.
Prometheus or Hephaestos (H. British Museum, a cast). A
torso in the Museum at Athens, which was found on the east
side of the Parthenon in 1836 and was unknown to Visconti.
" The action of the shoulders and
muscles of the back suggests the
notion of a figure about to strike
with both arms lifted above the
head" (Newton).
I t is considered to be either that of
Hephaestos, who according to
the ancient myth cleaved the
head of Zeus with his axe to
accomplish the birth of Athene,
—as represented on the patera
(Fig. 95), showing him standing
near holding his axe—or PromeFIG. 95.—BIRTH OF ATHENE, theus, to whom Attic tradition
ON A PATERA.
preferred to attribute the deed.
De Quincy proposed that this patera might be taken as an
authority for the destroyed central group of the pediment, and
he gives a restoration taken from it in his great work above
referred to, from which this patera is taken.
THE

WESTERN PEDIMENT.

The mutilated statues of the western pediment as seen in
Carrey's drawing (Fig. 88) are sufficiently complete to indicate

166

THE WEST PEDIMENT.

the subject; but they were reduced to mere fragments and
torsos before Stuart saw the Parthenon (A.D. 1751).
By
referring to the engravings (Figs. 91, 92), which have never
before been given in this convenient form, the reader will be
enabled to understand the arrangement of the statues as far as it
can be made out.
In the centre were Athene and Poseidon, with her chariot and
horses driven by a figure Nike (Victory), the blank space being
filled, it is presumed, on the other side near Poseidon by his
chariot and horses driven by Amphitrite (0. British Museum)
(Newton). The central group was no doubt composed in this
manner, with the olive tree which sprang up as Athene struck
the soil with her spear, and perhaps some representation of the
salt spring that Poseidon caused to rise at the spot he struck
with his trident.
The angle on the left of Athene was filled with the beautiful
nude reclining figure, commonly known as the Ilissos (A. British
Museum), but now called Kephissos after the small river near
Athens ; in the angle on the right, the reclining female figure
(W.) is thought to represent the fountain Kallirrhoe. The
kneeling figure (V.) next is Ilissos the river-god.
Between the Poseidon and the female figure (W.) there are
nine figures in Carrey's drawing, the charioteer Amphitrite being
the best identified; the others being variously named as a group
of the marine deity Leukothea and her son Palaimon Melikertes,
Thalassa (the sea) with Aphrodite in her lap as sea-born, and
next a female sea-deity not identified.
Between the horses of Athene and the reclining figure
Kephissos in the opposite angle, are seven figures in Carrey's
drawing. These are named in the order from the Chariot—1.
Ares (Mars) (H. British Museum), or Hermes, or one of the
Attic heroes Erictheus, Ericthonios, or Kekrops: 2. Nike as
the charioteer. . 3. 4. 5. Two female figures and a boy may be
Demeter and Kore with Iakchos (D. E. F. British Museum).
6. 7. May be Asklepios and Hygieia. The coil of a serpent
found has suggested its belonging to a group of Asklepios and
Hygieia; or Kekrops and one of his daughters, with his son the
young Erysichthon (Newton).

TORSO AND OTHER FRAGMENTS FOUND.

167

The general conclusion come to, first by De Quincy and Visconti, is that the composition of this pediment was arranged as
if embraced between the two rivers of Athens—the Ilissos and
Kephissos—the figures on the left hand side of Athene being
Attic deities or heroes, while those on the side of Poseidon are
marine deities, his allies as ruler of the ocean. The various
opinions as to the different personages may be seen in Michaelis's
table in the ' British Museum Guide Book/
The numerous fragments collected in 1833, after many years'
neglect, were placed in a magazine on the Acropolis, and casts
of them are to be seen in the Parthenon-room of the British
Museum. In 1835, in clearing the ground, parts of the horses
of the chariots, let fall under Morosini's attempt to lower them,
and the crouching figure (V. Pig. 88) were found.
The Athene (L. British Museum). The torso as described
above has had added to it a cast of the fragment of the lower part
of the neck found on the Akropolis, which shows that the head
was turned towards the Poseidon. The portion of a head which
Yisconti considered to belong to the Athene is not adjusted to
the neck, and is still to be seen lying on the pedestal upon which
the torso is mounted in the British Museum. This is so because,
although it is of the same scale as the torso and was found built
into the wall of a Turkish house at the west front of the Parthenon, it has been pronounced by Michaelis a doubtful fragment.
I t is of whiter marble than the other pieces and highly polished
in the flesh part, with some traces of red colour in the hair;
while it is considered to be hard and conventional in the work.
The Poseidon (M. British Museum). To this torso has been
added a cast of the fragment preserved at Athens found since
Lord Elgin's removal of the marbles, and a smaller portion of
the lower part of the body. A left foot also at Athens may, it is
thought, belong to this figure. As an example of grand sculpture
of colossal proportions and noble form, conceived in the spirit of
Homer's description of the vast chest of Poseidon—Utrepvov tie
IloaeidbJvoQ (' Iliad,' 6. 2. v. 479)—and extremely noble in the
forms, this torso is remarkable.
Amphitrite (0. British Museum). A draped torso without
the head, arms, and legs, except the upper part of the left thigh.

168

LOST PAKTS OF THE PEDIMENT STATUES.

The attitude is full of spirit and that of holding the reins in
driving, not that of a Victory without wings as Visconti supposed.
Mr. Newton directs attention to the attitude as that of standing,
and not as Carrey's drawing shows it seated, and compares it to
a similar charioteer in the north frieze (No. xii. 33).
Leulwthea (?) (Q. British Museum). The lower limbs only of
a seated female figure ; the lap and legs to the ancles. The outline of the legs of the youth (P.), seen in Carrey's drawing, is
traceable on the marble. Traces of three fingers of the boy at
her side in Carrey's drawing are on the right knee of Leukothea.
Next to this is a draped figure (T.), with a nude female figure on
the knees (S.), and a boy ( R ) . This group is supposed to be
Aphrodite in the lap of Thalassa with Eros by her side. The
only remnant of the draped figure Thalassa is a part of the right
thigh. No part of the next draped figure (U.) in the drawing
has been found.
Ilissos and Kallirrlioe. These are still at Athens, casts being
in the British Museum (V. and W. British Museum). The male
torso was found on the Akropolis in 1833, the lower half of
the other is still on the -pediment; both were unknown to
Yisconti. The fragments correspond to the figures in the corner
of the pediment in Carrey's drawing. The association of the
two is taken to support the view that they represent the rivergod and the celebrated fountain. Under the right leg of the
Ilissos a wavy line indicates water. All that remains of the
Kallirrhoe is the right side from below the arm to a little below
the right hip, and part of the leg below the knee. On the pediment beyond the feet of this figure is a round hole in which it
is conjectured a bronze hydria may have been placed.
Kephissos (A. British Museum). This fine, nearly nude
figure, reclining on a rock, so well-known as the Ilissos, is much
as it was when Carrey drew it, although it had been thrown down
from the pediment when removed by Lord Elgin. It has long
been a study for sculptors] and all artists, especially for the
natural modelling of the trunk in the sway of the flexible parts
of the abdomen and the fine treatment of the details of the
body in the ribs and muscles of the chest. It is remarkable also
that the back is so carefully sculptured, and that the polish

CONJECTURES AS TO IDENTITY.

169

of the work is still retained. The space between this and the
next group (B. C. British Museum) Mr. Newton suggests may
have been filled with a crouching water nymph and a river-god
corresponding with the group on the opposite side. It should
be added to this description that " a drawing by Pars, taken
daring his visit to Athens in 1765-66, shows part of the right
fore-arm not shown in Carrey's drawing, and the outline of the
four fingers of the left hand overlapping the edge of the
pediment" (Newton).
Kelcrops and Pandrosos (B. C. British Museum). These are
still on the pediment though much decayed ; casts being in the
British Museum. It is stated that in 1802 these figures still
had the heads on, and the drawing by Pars in the print-room of
the British Museum shows them turned towards the central
group. The fragment of a snake in the Elgin collection was
found to fit into the remaining part between the two figures
on the pediment.
The figures D. E. E. seen in Carrey's drawing are only now
known by a single fragment at Athens, identified as the left knee
of a seated figure with the hand of a boy resting on it. A cast
of this is in the wall-case S. British Museum.
The Charioteer—-Nike—(G. British Museum). " The only
remains that can be attributed with any probability to this figure
are the head formerly brought from Venice by Count de Laborde,
and a fragment of a draped arm now at Athens" (Newton) ;
casts of both being in the wall-case S. British Museum.
Hermes (?) (H. British Museum). The torso only of this figure
in Carrey's drawing, between the horses and the charioteer, is in
the Parthenon room. The hole on the left clavicle and one
between the two collar-bones show that a chlamys was fastened
here and passed round the arm in a manner characteristic of
Hermes. A cast of a fragment in the collection at Athens has
been adjusted to the left shoulder.
Of the fragment in which VisConti recognized the feet of
Athene and the stump of the olive tree it is now said, " There is
no sure evidence as to where this fragment was found nor whether
it belonged to either pediment. It is of Pentelic marble, and
was removed from the Akropolis with the rest of the Elgin

170

FRAGMENTS NOT YET IDENTIFIED.

collection" (Newton,' British Museum Guide Book '). It has also
been assigned to the male figure H. (Hermes.)
There are eleven fragments in the British Museum of limbs
and parts of limbs, and drapery, which have not yet been assigned
positively to any figures, though certain conjectures have been
made as to their place. There are also no less than fifty-five
casts from fragments of the pedimental sculptures at Athens in
the wall-cases. One of the most interesting of these is a female
head which was formerly built into the staircase of a house at
Venice of the San Gallo family, one of whom, Felice San Gallo,
was secretary to Morosini. This has been thought to belong to
the Victory G., as above stated, but there is no certainty of this*
Of the horses there are forty-four casts of fragments.
Marble fragments of the Metopes yet unassigned, to the
number of twelve, are in the wall-case C,; and casts of fragments
of the Metopes preserved at Athens are in the wall-cases A. to F.
A marble fragment of the frieze, the head of a youth, is in wallcase D., recently acquired from Mr. Steinhauser of Karlsruhe.
Many casts from fragments of the frieze are in wall-cases G:
H. and K., to which as yet only conjectural places have been
proposed, amongst which is one of the upper part of two horsemen and a horse's head and neck, the original marble being in
the possession of the Archduke Karl of Austria, and formerly
belonged to the late Duke of Modena.
It remains to be said of these wonderful sculptures of the
Parthenon, that it is impossible they could all have been by
the hand of Pheidias; or, that they could have been done in
the time of certainly not more than sixteen years, by any
one man. Then the question arises whether Pheidias only
modelled the statues of the pediments which are admitted to be
the finest, and left the marble to be carved by sculptors employed
under him. The same would apply also to the Metopes and the
frieze. It would appear to be quite beyond the bodily powers
of any ordinary man even to design by drawings and to model
in clay such a number of important works, especially when at
the same time he must have been engaged upon the colossal work
of the statue of Athene for the temple. Pheidias, it must be

WAS PHEIDIAS THE ACTUAL SCULPTOK OF ALL?

171

borne in mind also, was 56 years old when he began the work
on the Parthenon, about 62 when he finished, and 68 * when he
died at Elis, after having completed the Jupiter. There may be
some doubt as to the birth-date of Pheidias and of his death, and
M. de Quincy states that he was more than 80 when he died;
but this would not affect the question above set forth.
A very decided opinion is given by M. Kochette: " These
sculptures which emanated from the mind of Pheidias, and
were most certainly executed under his eye and in his school,
are not the works of his hand. Pheidias himself disdained or
worked but little in marble. His most skilful pupils were
Alkamenes and Agorakritos, and it was most probably the latter
who executed the sculptures in alto-relievo in the two pediments.
And those were artists without name but certainly not without
merit, who produced from the designs of Pheidias the bas-reliefs
of the frieze." As to Pheidias not working in marble, M. Visconti
remarks: " I f it were imagined that Pheidias devoted himself
exclusively to the toreutic art, and that he employed in his
woiks only ivory and metals, this opinion would be confuted by
Aristotle, who distinguishes this [great artist by the appellation
of GO(j)og Xidovpyog, i. e. a skilful sculptor of marble, in opposition
to Polykletos, whom he calls simply a statuary, avSptavTowoiov,
since this latter artist scarcely ever employed his talents except
in bronze ('Ethic Nicom.' lib. 6, c. 7). It must be remembered, however, that ' Statuarius ? was the term applied to the
higher rank, and ' Sculptor,' with ' Scalptor,' ' Fictor,' ' Faber,'
1
Mechanicus' and l Plasta'fcoartists engaged upon smaller work.
It is in vain to attempt to pronounce as to which of the
beautiful fragments of the Parthenon statues is by the hand of
Pheidias; but by the common consent of critics the Theseus,
the Ilissos or Kephissos of the nude figures, the Fates and
Demeter and Persephone of the draped figures, are acknowledged
to be the grandest examples of sculpture ever achieved. That
Alkamenes, who was taught by Pheidias, must have been
* Michaelangelo was a most extraordinary instance of working power.
He began the Sistine ceiling when he was 36, andfinishedit in two years.
The Last Judgment, on the east wall, 60 feet high and 30 feet wide, he
began in his sixtieth year, andfinishedit in eight years (1533—1541).

172

PUPILS AND GREAT CONTEMPOEARIES OF PHEIDIAS.

esteemed a great man, is shown by his having contended with
Pheidias in a competition for a statue of Athene. He competed
also with Agorakritos for a statue of Venus; and his work was
preferred—" non opere sed suffragiis civitatis contra peregrinum
suo faventis" (Pliny, lib. xxxvi.)—"not for the work, but by
the votes of the city, preferring its own man to a foreigner."
His Yenus, which was called "Venus of the Garden" (''AQpodirri
ev Kfjiroio), was his most celebrated work; but it was so; because
it was known that Pheidias had given a finishing touch to it,
" Huic summam manum ipse Pheidias imposuisse dicitur"
(Pliny).
Pausanias also mentions the statues of Juno, Mars,
Bacchus of ivory and gold, Hecate • tricorpor, Aesculapius,
Hercules, and a Centaur, all by Alkamenes (lib. i. p. 33).
Agorakritos, another pupil of Pheidias, was almost equally
esteemed. He was of Paros, and for this reason the Athenians
would not accept his statue in preference to that of Alkamenes;
so he sold it and called it " Nemesis." It was at Ehamnus, and
is extolled by M. Varro (Pliny, lib xxxvi.); and Strabo says
that though some declared it to be the work of Agorakritos and
others of Diodotos, it wras most excellent in grandeur and
elegance, and not inferior to the works of Pheidias (" et mole et
elegantia prsestantissimum, neque Pheidise operibus cedens "—
Strabo, lib. ix. p. 396). The frieze of the Parthenon is universally acknowledged to be the grandest example of bas-relief,
and as regards some of the highest points of excellence in art—
such as composition, variety and truth of action in the numerous
figures, and in the horses grouped together with such extraordinary beauty, it is quite equal in many of its groups to the
sculptures of the pediments. There are no records which refer
to any sculptor of the frieze. It has been conjectured that as
Kalamis was so famous for his horses that he was engaged upon
the frieze. He was celebrated at iEgina before the Parthenon
was begun. It is, however, impossible to pronounce when it is
so well known that the ancient sculptors all prided themselves
upon their ability to represent the horse and the Centaur. The
heads of the horses of the pediments are, however, the finest of
any, and this has led to these being attributed to the hand of
Pheidias.

OTHER GREAT WORKS OF PHEIDIAS.

173

It is evident, therefore, that Alkamenes and Agorakritos were
considered in their day to be second only to Pheidias, and they
are well worthy to share with the great master the renown of
the Parthenon sculptures. Mr. Newton thinks that the style
of Alkamenes is to be seen in them and in the sculptures of the
Nike-Apteros (Wingless Victory).
We have next to notice the other great works of Pheidias,
which, though utterly destroyed, were fortunately seen by
Pausanias, whose descriptions of them remain. There were
three great statues of Athene on the Akropolis. 1. The bronze
colossal statue known as Athene Promachus, which stood between
the Propylaoa and the Parthenon; it was between 50 and 60ft.
high, and probably gilt, and it was cast from the spoils of
Marathon. The crest of the helmet and the point of the spear could
be seen far out at sea. The shield of the goddess was carved by
Mys from the designs of Parrhasius the great painter. It was
still erect in 395 A.D., and is said to have struck terror into the
barbarian soldiers of Alaric. It is to be seen on the coins of
Athens, and it was probably copied by the sculptors of the wellknown statues, the Minerva or Pallas of Velletri, in the Louvre,
and the Giustiniani Minerva. Demosthenes spoke of it in his
orations. 2. A bronze known as the Lemnian because it was
made at the cost of the people of Lemnos; this Pausanias and
Lucian describe as the most beautiful, and on this Pheidias
inscribed his name : it is not stated to have been colossal.
3. The one of ivory and gold in the Parthenon, about 37ft.
high not including the pedestal, which was about 10ft.
The Parthenon statue was seen by Pausanias, and is described by him as erect with a garment reaching to her feet.
Her helmet has a sphinx on the cone and two griffins ; she holds
a spear, and a shield is at her feet with a dragon. In her hand
stands a Victory of four cubits (5ft. 9ia.) in height. A Head of
Medusa in ivory is on her breast. On the base is the Eirth of
Pandora, who, according to Hesiod, was the first woman. Plato
speaks of this statue, and Thukydides tells the value of the
gold ; Perikles also counted it in the resources of the state, to be
used if required and returned to the Temple. This gold mantle

174

THE ATHENE AND ZEUS.

was carried off afterwards by Lachares,"* 296 B.C. (about), in the
time of Demetrius Phalereus, and was never restored. The head
of Gorgon in gold was also carried off by one Philorgos before
this time, and its place supplied by the one of ivory which
Pausanias saw. Prom other accounts it is known that on the
front of the helmet was a group of four galloping horses. On
the shield the combats of the Gods and Giants in the inside, and
the Athenians with the Amazons on the outside. It was on this
part that Pheidias carved his own portrait with that of Perikles
as fighting an Amazon with his arm raised to conceal his face.
He represented himself as a bald-headed man lifting a stone.
In a treatise attributed to Aristotle it is related that this head
of Pheidias was so fixed in the shield that it could not be
removed without letting the whole work fall into separate pieces,
as if it were a sort of keystone. It was for placing his portrait
on the shield of the Goddess that he was accused on the ground
of a sacrilegious act (see p. 140). A statuette in marble was
recently discovered on the Akropolis, which corresponds with
the descriptions of the great statue, but has a support to the
arm holding the Victory which would not be required in the
Chryselephantine statue. This is, however, a work of very coarse
and poor art of Soman time, - intended as a votive offering. >
The still more famous colossal statue by Pheidias, the Zeus at
Olympia in Elis, was his last great work. It was made between
B.C. 438, the date of the consecration of the Parthenon statue,
and B.C. 432, the year of his death, at Elis.
This was a seated statue (Fig. 16), of ivory and gold, 55ft.
high including the throne. Strabo remarks, that " if the god
had risen he would have carried away the roof," and the height
of the interior was about 55ft.; the temple being built on the
model of the Parthenon at Athens, which was 64ft. to the point
of the pediment. Pausanias (lib. v.) has given a minute description of this renowned statue, from which we learn what an extraordinary amount of sculptured work was bestowed as accessory
* Pausanias says of him, " he was of all men the most savage in his
manners and the most impious towards the gods "—" he carried away the
golden shield and all such ornaments of Athene as could be removed."
(lib. i. c. xxiv.)

THE ZEUS OF OLYMPIA.

175

to the statue. " There are also many statues, amongst which
are four Yictories in a dancing posture at each foot of the throne;
two others near the sandals of the god, and near the foot of the
throne Theban infants torn away by Sphinxes, under which are
Apollo and Diana shooting the children of Mobe. On the fillets
there are seven statues, the eighth being lost; they represent
gymnastic exercises; the rest are adorned with the heroes that
accompanied Hercules against the Amazons, in which Theseus
is distinguishable." The base was painted by Pansenus, the
brother of Pheidias, with Atlas, Hercules, and other subjects
named by Pausanias, and " upon the top of the throne over the
head of the statue Pheidias has introduced three Graces on one
side, and three Horse on the other. On the base are golden lions,
and the battle of Theseus and the Amazons; and on the plinth
supporting the whole mass, the Sun mounting his car in gold.
Pausanias is particular to say that Pheidias put his name to
the J u p i t e r of Olympia : " Kal eV/ypa/ijita eanv eg fiaprvpLav VTTO
TOV &I6Q ytypa}ifj.ivov rolg iroai, <&si()La.Q Xap/miSov vlog A.0r)valoQ

fi £7roii](Te.v " And there is for a witness this inscription written
below the feet of Zeus, ' Pheidias, the son of Charmides, the
Athenian, made me' " *
The statue was also seen in its temple by Paulus Aemilius in
the second century B.C., who has left his impressions in the
words, "Jovem velut prsesentem intuens motus animo est."
Epictetus says, alluding to the pilgrimages made to Olympia
to behold the famous Jupiter, that " it was considered a misfortune for any one to die without having seen the masterpiece
* The date of the work at Elis is decisively settled, as M. Emeric David
shows, by the youth Pantarces, a favourite of Pheidias and victor [in the
Olympic games, being carved on the base of the statue. Pantarces was
crowned victor in the 86th Olympiad, B.C. 436-433.
Pheidias is said by Nazianzenus (Carmin. lam. xviii.) to have inscribed
the name Pantarces on the finger of his statue of Athene, and Clemeus
Alexandrinus and Arnobius said that he carved the words 'Pantarces
Pulcher' on the finger of the Zeus. This Pantarces is spoken of by Pausanias as' the lover of Pheidias!; The whole tradition seems questionable.
It is, however, brought forward by Emeric David, though he does not say
the inscription was on the finger. At any rate thefigureof Pantarces was
carved by Pheidias in the reliefs upon the base of the statue.

176

WHEN AND WHERE WAS THE ZEUS DESTROYED ?

of Pheidias." I n t h e time of J u l i a n t h e Apostate (A.D. 361
— 3 6 3 ) " i t continued to receive the homage of Greece i n
spite of every k i n d of attack which, the convert zeal of Constantine had made against Polytheism, its temples and its idols."
(Pochette.) This is the last notice we possess giving authentic
information of this grand statue. " I t has been said, however,
b y some Byzantine writers, and repeated on the authority of
W i n c k e l m a n n , t h a t t h e J u p i t e r of Olympia, t h e Venus of
Knidos, and t h e J u n o of Samos were to be admired at Constantinople * in the eleventh century, and only perished in the taking
of t h e town b y the Crusaders A.D. 1204. P r o m more creditable
accounts the greater n u m b e r of these works were destroyed in
t h e burning of t h e Palace of Lausus, about 475 A.D., under t h e
Emperor Basilicus, b u t there is nothing to prove that t h e
J u p i t e r was ever transported to Constantinople." " Such a mass
could never have resisted the risks of t h e voyage, w h e n so m a n y
passions against t h e ancient worship conspired to complete its
ruin. E v e r y t h i n g leads us to believe t h a t t h e J u p i t e r of Pheidias
was destroyed on t h e spot where it was placed b y t h e great
sculptor, in those ages of decline when fanaticism broke or
mutilated the ancient idols, w h e n t h e necessities of religious
worship and t h e state claimed the materials, when individual
cupidity in concert with general superstition shared t h e fragments " ( P o c h e t t e , ' Lectures'). Pheidias is said to have executed
m a n y other statues. Thirteen in bronze from t h e booty of
Marathon, and consecrated at Delphi under K i m o n — s t a t u e s of
Apollo, A t h e n e , Miltiades w i t h those ten heroes, Eponymi, or
those who h a d given their names to t h e ten A t h e n i a n tribes.
* It is also stated in Smith's' Dictionary of Antiquities,' under Pheidias,
that the statue of Zeus had been removed to Constantinople by Theodosius I. and destroyed in a fire in 475 A.D., but this cannot be accepted.
Theodosius suppressed the Olympic Games which had been kept up from
the first Olympiad, 777 B.C, to his time, A.D. 394. Very little is known of
this period as regards the statues, which numbered, according to Pausanias,
3000, some being large equestrian groups. He gives a list of more than
300, mostly of bronze. But the Christians in all probability destroyed and
carried off all valuable statues in gold, silver, and bronze. Any that
remained were afterwards taken by the Goths under Alaric in the following
year, A.D. 395.

RECENT DISCOVERIES AT OLYMPIA.

177

An Athene for the city of Pellene in gold and ivory; another
for the Platseans, of the spoils of the battle of Platsea, made of
wood gilt, with the head, feet, and hands of Pentelic marble; a
statue in marble of Nemesis, elaborately described by Pausanias
(lib. i. c. xxxiii.). "These," says Eochette, "may be considered
the productions of his youth." Por further interesting details as
to dates and the supposed death of Pheidias in prison, see note,
p. 214.
"WE may now notice some examples of sculpture of the
time of Pheidias and of the later Athenian style about the
middle of the 5th century B.C., which have been discovered at
Olympia on the west side of the Morea (see map) within the
last few years in the researches made under the direction and
at the expense of the German Government. Olympia, it was
known by the history of Pausanias, had its Temple of Zeus,
the pediments of which were filled with statues by Alkamenes,
who was a pupil of Pheidias, and by Paeonios,* and some of
these pediment statues have been recovered in a very broken
state and put together. The most important discoveries, however, next to the inscribed stones found, are the heroic statue
of Hermes carrying the infant Dionysus by Praxiteles (Fig.
96), and a Victory, the head and arms of which are lost, the
work of Paeonios.f
The subjects of the sculptures in the pediments of this
temple are described by Pausanias. In the eastern pediment
the Contest between Pelops and Oenomaus was by Paeonios,
whose name has now been discovered carved in the marble;
and in the western pediment the Battle between the Centaurs and Lapithae was by Alkamenes. These works have been
* This sculptor, though contemporary with the architect of Ephesus,
must not be mistaken for him.
f Discovered by Dr. Hirschfeld in 1878. Casts of both the Hermes
and Victory are in the British Museum, obtained from Berlin. The
originals of all found are preserved by the Greek Government in the
Museum at Athens. The base of the great statue of Zeus by Pheidias was
also found in situ, made of black limestone (marble ?) about 21ft. wide
by 31ft. deep. This was in 1880, when many parts of the architectural
ornament and pavement of the temple were also discovered.
A.S.

N

F I G . 9 6 . — H E R M E S CARRYING T H E I N F A N T D I O N Y S O S .

Recently discovered at Olympia.

B Y PRAXITELES.

A cast is in the British

Museum.

STYLE OF THE OLYMPIA SCULPTURES.

179

critically described by Mr. Newton in a valuable lecture before
the Eoyal Academy (Feb. 1880). Of the Victory, Mr. Newton
said t h a t " the flying drapery was well expressed, though dry and
meagre in parts, yet showing the influence of Pheidias. The
pedimental sculptures by him (Paeonios) are inferior. Those by
Alkamenes are better preserved, but though bold and original,
and fine in design, yet bordering on the extravagant and wanting
in harmony. In both the same shortcomings in the execution
are observable ; the draperies turgid with bloated folds, and the
forms of the figures not understood. The two great sculptors,
he thinks, left them to be executed by half-trained local sculptors
who ' scamped' their work. The Metopes found are of a better
school, but austere as Peloponnesian art is generally."
The Hermes with the infant Dionysos was in the Heraeum
(Temple of Juno), according to Pausanias, who speaks of it as the
work of Praxiteles. Mr. Newton says " all the finer and more
delicate traits which distinguished the style of Praxiteles, that
play of passing emotion in the features, that robustness tempered
by grace, the consummate technical skill, concealed, not vauntingly displayed, which ancient critics state to have been the
special excellence of Praxiteles, are apparent in this statue."
The legs have not been found, neither have the right arm
and both hands, but the head is perfect. The young Dionysos
resting on the arm is much injured, and a part of the drapery
over the arm, which is carried in a manner similar to that in the
Vatican Hermes, which fine statue this resembles in style, as it
does also the Hermes in the Grseco-Eoman Eoom No. 3 in the
British Museum, known as the Farnese Mercury.
It should be stated that it was Winckelmann who induced the
French Government to explore Olympia. So far back as 1820
some fragments were then found and deposited in the Louvre. But
the recent recovery of the Hermes and the pediment statues by
Alkamenes and Paeonios is of far greater importance, as enabling
us to identify the work of Praxiteles, the sculptor of the famous
Venus of Knidos. The style and works of Praxiteles, however,
will come in for consideration further on, while some other
sculptures of this period require to be here noticed.
N 2

F I G . 9 7 . — T E M P L E OP A P O L L O E P I C U R I O S .

PHIGALIA.

TEMPLE OF APOLLO AT PHIGALIA.

IKTINOS, the architect of the Parthenon, was employed to "build
a temple to Apollo Epicurios near the ancient Phigalia in Arcadia
at the time after the plague in 430 B.C. (Fig. 97). The frieze of
this temple is in the British Museum, placed round the walls of
the room in which are the casts of the iEgina pediments, called
the Hellenic Boom. They decorated the interior, and the figures
are in high relief, showing very strong action, with draperies
much contorted and exaggerated in the curves of the folds, as
if the sculptor having noticed the fine effect in the Parthenon
figures had tried not only to imitate but to surpass them, and
thus failed while becoming too artificial, and departing from the
true forms sanctioned by Pheidias. There is, however, much
power and originality in some of these works, as in Fig. 98, of
the Amazon being dragged from her horse. The name of the
sculptor or sculptors of these is not known. There are twentythree slabs, eleven representing the battle between the Centaurs
and Lapithae, the rest the contest of the Greeks and Amazons.
This frieze was placed about 23 feet from the ground, being a
little more" than two feet in height. There were originally
twenty-four slabs extending about a hundred feet in length, so

THE

PHIGALIA

181

SCULPTUKES.

that one is lost. The ruins were discovered in 1812 by the late
Mr. Cockerell, B.A., Mr. Forster, and two Germans, Messrs.
Haller von Hallerstein and Linkh, to whom we owe the recovery
of the iEgina marbles. These were purchased by the English

F I G . 9 8 . — F K I E Z E OF T H E T E M P L E AT P H I G A L I A (27J I N . H I G H ) .

Brit

Mus.

Government for <£15,000 and brought here in 1815, when they
were put together by Mr. Westmacott. Opinions of critics differ
as to the merits of these sculptures. Flaxman thought they
were of the same age as the Parthenon, but inferior in style and

F I G . 9 9 . — F H I E Z E FHOM T H E T E M P L E O F P H I G A L I A .

182

STYLE OF THE PHIGALIA SCULPTURES.

work generally, though in parts of the draperies equal to them;
" but iii proportions they are unequal to the Parthenon marbles,
which possess truth united with form, which is the essence of
sculpture." Mr. G. Scharf remarks, " There is a fatness in the
forms; the attitudes of some of the figures seem to be ignorantly
copied from the Temple of Theseus; and there is a remarkable
degree of flourish in the drapery upon the background, introduced
merely by way of ornament and to fill spaces between some of
the figures, Such waving draperies are only to be seen with the
same effect upon some of the Etruscan engravings on bronze
mirrors and cistae" (' Crystal Palace, Greek Court, Handbook').
Mr. Combe remarks the want of uniformity of style, as if more
than one sculptor had been engaged, and that in some the legs
are too short and the just proportions of the figure not preserved
(' Museum Marbles,' vol. iv.).

TEMPLE OF NIKE-APTEROS (WINGLESS VICTORY).

FIG. 100.—UPPER FRIEZE OF THE TEMPLE OE NIKJS-APTEROS (48 IN. HIGH).

PORTIONS of a frieze (now in the Elgin Eoom of the British
Museum), from the little temple of Nike Apteros, near the
Propylaea of the Acropolis at Athens, built in the time of

LATEK

ATHENIAN

STYLE.

183

Kimon, B.C. 450, should be noticed as showing work of the
Hheidian period. The drapery is larger in style than in the

F I G . 101.—FROM T H E F R I E Z E O F T H E T E M P L E O P N I K E A P T E R O S .
VICTORY LEADING A B U L L .
A cast is in the British

Museum.

Phigalian reliefs, which these sculptures somewhat resemble.
There is also a similarifcy to the Lycian sculptures, They are

184

LATER ATHENIAN SCULPTURE.

placed for comparison above the Parthenon frieze. They belong
to an upper and a lower frieze, four from the upper being the

F I G . 102.—FROM T H E F R I E Z E OF T H E T E M P L E OE N I K E A P T E R O S .

(About 48 inches high.)

original marbles, and the fifth a cast representing, in high relief,
Athenian warriors righting with men, some in Persian, others

FRIEZE OF

C

NIK£ APTEROS' TEMPLE.

185

in Greek dress. The four casts from slabs of the lower frieze
represent five figures of ' Victory/ two of which (partly seen in
Pig. 101) are leading a bull to sacrifice. "These reliefs are all
in the finest style" (Newton). The grand treatment of the
draperies is especially remarkable in the beautiful figure with
the ope foot raised as if to tie the sandal (Fig. 102), in which
the form is finely shown beneath the drapery.

THE MAUSOLEUM AT HALIKAMSTASSOS.
THE discovery by Mr. JSTewton, in the year 1857, of the
ruins with sculptured figures in the round and friezes belonging to the famous tomb of Mausolos (died 353 B.C.)—which
was raised to his memory by his wife Artemisia at Halikarnassos
in Caria-—was an event of very great interest. It brought to
light the works of no less than five sculptors whose names had
long been known through Pliny's account (lib. xxxvi. c. 5) of
the structure which gave the name "Mausoleum" to all tombs
that approached this in importance and magnificence of decoration. The Greeks called a tomb of this kind Heroon, and
this particular one so surpassed all others that it was named
amongst the seven wonders of the world. It was of Parian
marble, 140ft. high, pyramidal in form of steps, supported on
a peristyle of Ionic columns on a lofty basement. The whole
was surmounted by a colossal group of a chariot and four horses,
with Mausolos standing in it, and another figure—supposed to
be either a goddess as charioteer or Artemisia herself, who died
before the completion of the work. This group was the work of
Pythis or Pythius, who was also the architect; while^the various
statues, lions, and reliefs—of which [fragments more or less
broken are to be seen in the British Museum—were by Skopas,
Leochares, Bryaxis, and Timotheus. The east side was the work
of Skopas, the north of Bryaxis, the south of Timotheus, and
the west of Leochares, as described by Pliny, who also names
Pythis as the sculptor of the quadriga and figures on the
summit. In style these sculptures resemble the Phigalian reliefs, having similar strong action and flying draperies (see Figs.
100, 101). All these sculptors belonged to the later Athenian
school; and it will be observed in their works, fine as they
are, how far the art had already begun to decline. The head

THE HALIKARNASSOS SCULPTURES.

187

of Mausolos, Mr. Newton remarks, is " not of the Hellenic type,
as he was a Caiman,''
but it is remarkable
in characteristic expression and as a
portrait. The date
of these works is
about B.C. 352.
The sculptors
were selected from
those who had already distinguished
themselves. Scopas
was a native of Paros, and he and Praxiteles, after the time
of Pheidias, were
heads of the school
of architecture and
sculpture at Athens,
which arose subsequent to the Peloponnesian Avar. His
name is repeatedly
mentioned by other
ancient writers besides P l i n y a n d
P a u s a n i a s — by
Cicero ('De Divin.'
lib. i.) and By Horace (' Car.' b. iv.
ode 8)—
" Quas aut Parrhasius protulit aut Scopas ;
Hie saxo, liquidis ille coioribus.
Solers nunc hominem ponere, nunc Deum."
It is doubtful whether he or Praxiteles was the sculptor of the

188

SCULPTORS AT HALIKARNASSOS.

Mobe Statues (Fig. 140) which were in Pliny's time in the
temple of Apollo Sosianus in Eome. A Greek epigram upon
the JSTiobe is extant in which Praxiteles is thus named :
'EK: Z,IOYIQ fit QeoT rev^av \i6ov' IK 8E \19OLO
Zwrjv lipa^iTeXTjg tfnraXLV sipydaaro.

" I am she whom the gods from life had changed into marble.
Praxiteles by his art woke me from stone into life."
Bryaxis was of the school of Rhodes, where he made five of the
smaller bronze colossal statues of the Sun God (Plin. 1. xxxiv.
c. 7). In Knidos he made other statues. Clemens of Alexandria
says that some attributed works of Pheidias to him, while Columella includes him with such masters as Polukleitos, Lysippos,
and Praxiteles.
Timotheus and Leochares appear to have been Athenians.
Pausanias mentions the latter as the sculptor of several statues
in bronze, and in ivory and gold. Plutarch speaks of his Rape
of Ganymede as his masterpiece. Of this a copy in marble is in
the Vatican collection—a fine group of a figure, nude except
a mantle across the neck falling down behind, raised by the
eagle through the air, while his dog looks upwards from the
ground.
An interesting illustration of the way in which the discovery of one example of sculpture leads to the identification
of others, may be noticed in connection with these works from
Halikarnassos. "When the twelve slabs sculptured with the battle
of the Greeks and Amazons, which were discovered in 1846 built
into the walls of the fortress of Budrum, were afterwards removed by permission of the Porte to be presented to the British
Museum, they led to researches directed by Mr. Newton on the
site of the Mausoleum. Here four more slabs were found. I t
was soon observed that these sculptures bore a close resemblance
to a solitary slab which had for years been in the possession
of the Marchese Serra at Genoa; it was soon decided that it
belonged to the series; and the result was that this slab was purchased by the Museum Trustees, and once more placed amongst
its companion sculptures from which it had been so long
separated.

GREAT TECHNICAL POWER OF PHEIDIAS.

189

I t will have been seen from what has been said of the works
of sculpture which are known to have been executed by the
sculptors contemporary with Pheidias, and by others who followed in the school which arose around him, and who formed
what is spoken of as ' the later Athenian School/ that none
approached the great examples of the Parthenon. Sculpture
then reached the highest point in the grandest style, whether
in the treatment of the statue in the round or of bas-relief as
in the frieze, or alto-relievo as in the metopes. As to the
Chryselephantine statues of Pheidias, it may be concluded
without hesitation that though we are compelled to rely upon
descriptions only, they must have been works of the great
master even more beautiful than the marbles. There is every
reason to conclude that although colour was applied, and the
eyes perhaps even made to resemble life very closely by means
of enamel of some kind, yet such was the perfection of form
obtained, that these were minor adornments only adopted to
give the appearance of real life and complete the illusion in the
minds of the worshippers. It may be difficult to reconcile the
minute execution of detail in the work of Pheidias with his
grand ideal of the beautiful in simple form. But the descriptions recorded prove that he carried (finish.5 to its extreme
point, as Leonardo and other great artists after him have
delighted in doing, as if to bestow the utmost of his art was
a point of devotion and worship. Nicephorus Gregoras (' Hist.
Byzant.' lib. viii.), writing in the 14th cent., said, (betSictQ kv
*EA\r?fft ueyac

e/c TE rijg /leXiTTrjg, EK re TETTIJOQ,

" Pheidias

among the Greeks great at bees and grasshoppers," alluding to
his having sculptured these insects in bronze with such exact
resemblance.
Of the few statues that can be confidently attributed to
the contemporaries of Pheidias, some are described amongst the
examples, of which the engravings will afford a good general
idea. The attention of the student should be given to those
two important statues (Pig. 125) in the Hellenic Eoom in the
British Museum, representing the one, an athlete of full lifesize, the other a youth; each winding a fillet round his
head, and considered to be copies from the celebrated statues of

190

WOKKS m

THE STYLE OF PHEIDIAS.

Poluldeitos, called the Diadumeni, mentioned by Lucian and
Pliny (see Pig. 130).
Certain bas-reliefs, resembling in style the art of Pheidias,

FIG. 104.—BAS-RELIEF OF HERMES," EURYDICE, ORPHEUS.

Similar to the one at Naples, which bears the inscription in sharply-cut letters.

are to be found in the museums, such as that in the Naples
collection, of Orpheus, Eurydice, and Hermes (Fig. 104), in-

HPMhK

EYF*fAi|rri

^^cplO

scribed in letters of the time, two repetitions of which exist,
one in the Louvre, the other in the Villa Albani; the altorelievo of Perseus and Andromeda in the Capitol at Eome, a
cast of which is in the Crystal Palace Collection; a large relief,

THE LATER ATHENIAN STYLE.

191

in Pentelic marble, of two combatants and a horse, in the Villa
Albani, a cast of which (No. 34) is also in the Crystal Palace.
The bas-relief of Eleusis, discovered in 1859 (Fig. 105), may
perhaps also be considered to be of about this time. The names
of the sculptors of these works are, however, unknown.
The influence of the sculptures of the Parthenon is seen in
many directions, as has already been observed in referring to
the Phigalian, the Halikarnassian, and the Olympian sculptures;
but besides these, it will be seen in comparing the frieze of the
monument called the Nereid monument, at Xanthus, on the
walls of the New Lycian Eoom in the British Museum, the date
of which is considered to be about 350 B.C. In some of these
slabs the resemblance to the Parthenon figures is remarkable, as
in Nos. 38 and 37.
In the works of the later Athenian school, at the head of
which were Skopas and Praxiteles, the sublime ideal of Greek
art was no longer sustained by any new creations that can be
compared with those of the Pheidian school; no rivalry with
those great masters seemed to be attempted. The severe and
grand was beyond the comprehension, or probably uncongenial
to the spirit of the age, which inclined towards the poetic, the
graceful, the sentimental and romantic, as we have already
observed in speaking of the aesthetic tendencies of that period.
The whole range of the beautiful myths found abundant illustration in forms entirely different from the ancient archaic representations, and in these the fancy of the sculptor was allowed
the freest and fullest indulgence. Nymphs, Nereids, Maenads,
and Bacchantes occupied the chisel of the sculptor in every
form of graceful beauty (Fig. 106).
After this epoch, to which so many of the fine statues belong
—repetitions in marble of famous originals in bronze—Greek
sculpture took another phase in accordance with the social life
and the taste of the age, which inclined towards the feeling
for display that arose with the domination of the Macedonian
power brought to its height by the conquests and ambition of
Alexander the Great. Lysippos, a self-taught sculptor of Sikyon,
was the leading artist of his time. He was evidently a student

192

DEPARTURE FROM THE GRAND STYLE.

of nature and individual character, as he was the first to become
celebrated for his portraits, especially those of Alexander. He

F I G . 105.—BAS-RELIEF OF E L E U S I S .

Discovered 1859.

CERES. TRIPTOLEMUS.

PROSERPINE.

In the Museum at Athens.

departed from the severe and grand style, and in the native
conceit of all self-taught men sneered at the art of Polykleitos

LYSIPPOS AND MACEDONIAN ART.

193

in the well-known saying recorded of him, " Polykleitos made
men as they seem to be, but I make
them as they ought to be."* However this may be true or not, Cicero
said, " Polycleti Doryphorum sibi
Lysippus ajebat magistrum fuisse,"
and we know that his statue of
Hephaistion was attributed to Polykleitos (' De Claris Oratoribus'). He
seems to have been the first great
naturalistic sculptor—"Gloria. Lysippo est animosa efhngere signa"
(Propertius, lib. iii. El. 8). . Pliny
says that he made the heads of his
statues smaller than the ancients,
and defined the hair especially,
making the bodies more slender and
sinewy (' corpora graciliora siccioraque'), by which the height of the
figure seemed greater. The Apoxyomenos (see Fig. 121) may be regarded
as a good example of his work \ this
however was in bronze, and so
probably were all his statues. The
taste for colossal statues was met by
many from his hand, such as the
Hercules of Tarentum, from which
perhaps the well - known Farnese
statue by Glykon was taken, and a F l ( L 106.-IKAROS : FORMERLY
„

J

.

_

colossal Zeus, besides many others,
to the number of several hundreds,
as related by, Pliny and Pausanias.

CALLED E R O S .

British Museum.
Acropolis, Athens.
in the style of Praxiteles.

MarUe:
Found

In

on the

* The words of Pliny are—after referring to there being no Latin word
for ' Symmetria,' which Lysippus always preserved although departing
from the ' quadrates veterum statuas'—" vulgoque dicebat ab illis factos,
quales essent homines ; a se, quales viderentur esse," which bears a meaning that would be more in keeping with his naturalistic style of representing men as he saw them.
o

F I G . 1 0 7 . — T H E CYMBAL-PLAYER.

A BAS-B,ELIEF I N T H E Y I L L A A L B A N I .

Style of Skopas.

PECULIARITIES IN THE WORKS OF LYSIPPOS.

195

The famous Colossus of Ehodes has been also attributed to
him, though more probably it was the work of his pupil Chares.
His great bronze equestrian group of Alexander and the horsemen who fell at the battle of the Granicus, was brought to Korae
by Metellus (146 B.C.) to be shown in his ' triumph.' Such
was the general influence of Lysippos under the high patronage
of Alexander the Great, who only permitted him, Apelles the
painter, and Pyrgoteles the glyptic artist to represent him, that
the style which then prevailed and retained its influence until
the time of Augustus has been generally called ' Macedonian/
A peculiar treatment of the hair in two strong rising curls
above the centre of the forehead is characteristic of this period.
This arose from Lysippos having in his portrait busts and
statues adhered so closely to this peculiarity in Alexander. It
is seen in the head of him in the British Museum (Mausoleum
Room) and on the coins. It was to flatter Alexander that he
gave this peculiarity to all his heroic figures and to the gods ;
it is seen in the head of the Colossus of Rhodes, on the coins,
and again in the heads of the colossal marble figures of Castor
and Pollux on Monte Cavallo, at Rome, which—though bearing
the names of ' Pheidias' and ' Praxiteles,' absurdly carved upon
the pedestals in letters of a kind not used before the time of
Sixtus V.—are fine works, not of very high pretensions, but
probably copies from bronze statues of the Macedonian period.
Visconti considered them to be Roman works of the time of
Nero, but Mr. G. Scharf expresses an opinion that they are
copies from bronze originals of the Macedonian epoch. They
were evidently copied in the Augustan Age. " The elaborate
curls and horn-like projection of the hair indicate the Alexandrian
period. This is further borne out by the small head, projecting
brow, large eye, full neck, and violent expression of countenance.
The limbs tapering down to the extremities are very different
from the known works of Pheidias." * Flaxman accepted the
* These statues, complete with the horses, were cast for the Crystal
Palace collection, and erected at great expense; it is much to be regretted
that they are hidden under the great orchestra, and that the difficulties
and cost of removal are considered to be too serious to be undertaken.
Such important and interesting examples would find a more fitting place
in the British Museum, and might possibly be acquired at a merely
nominal cost.
0 2'

F I G . 108.—A MAENAD.

BAS-RELIEF.

Fine example of drapery.

I N THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

Attributed to Skopas.

THE CHOEAGIC MONUMENT OF LYSIKEATES.

197

names given to them on the pedestals, finding in them a resemblance to a figure in the Parthenon frieze, and " because
the animated character and style of sculpture seem peculiar to
the age in which those artists lived."
In the same room with the Halikarnassos marbles above referred
to there is a cast of a metope, the original of which was for
some time placed in the South Kensington Museum with Dr.
Schliemann's collection. It is of marble, and represents the Sun
God, Helios, in his four-horsed chariot (quadriga). It is a work
which, though small in size—being about a quarter that of the
life—shows excellent design and good work, but not of any
originality; it is evidently of that borrowed style which always
follows upon the great achievements of a school like that of
Pheidias. This metope was found at Ilium Novum in 1872,
and is said to have belonged to a Doric temple. It is the most
important, in an artistic point of view, of any of the sculptures
recovered by Dr. Schliemann, and as to style has been compared
with the works of the school of Lysippos.
In the frieze round the Choragic monument of Lysikrates
at Athens, sculptured in the year 334 B.C., the subject of which
is Dionysos transforming the Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins,
a certain softness in the forms and picturesque action suggests
the inquiry whether the reliefs may not be the work of
Praxiteles, to whom as regards date they might be attributable.
They are certainly not like the work of Lysippos (Figs. 109
and 112). The entire structure is to be seen as a cast in the
Crystal Palace.
The discovery at Ephesus by Mr. Wood in 1873, of the
ruins and sculptured columns of the famous temple of Diana,
built B.C. 323, brought to light the "columnce celatce" described
by Pliny. The lower drum of one, six feet in diameter, is now
in the Elgin Eoom of the British Museum. Six figures on this
are full life-size in mezzo-relievo, and in the Hermes and the
winged Thanatos the style of Lysippos may, it is thought, be
recognized (Newton).
That Skopas sculptured one of the
columns is related by Pliny, but that any of these fragments in

198

SCULPTURES FOUND RECENTLY AT EPHESUS.

the Museum are to be attributed to him is not at present
decided. Pliny gives the number of columns as 127, each the
gift of a king, and
says that 36 of
them were celatce
(sculptured in relief) ; their height
was 6Oft. Eoman.
Mr. Newton remarks that the surface of some of the
square bases, which
are sculptured in
high relief, show
the marks of a
column
having
rested, and that
" we thus have the
combination of a
richly - sculptured
shaft resting on a
richly - sculptured
square pedestal, a
combination which
may have been the
prototype of Trajan's and other triumphal columns."
The pediments of
this temple no
doubt were filled
with statues, as in
other
instances,
but Mr. Wood did
not succeed in finding any fragments belonging to them, if they
ever existed. The temple, which, as ' The Artemisium,' was
celebrated as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world,
in Eoman times had become the depository of an immense

COLUMNS CELAT.E.

199

treasure of works of art
of all kinds, none of
which have been as yet
discovered.* The Goths
burnt and plundered the
temple in A.D. 262. A
comparison between the
sculptures of the columnoe
celatce with those of the
Mausoleum
and
the
Priene Temple now in
the British Museum, will
show that they belong to
the same school and are
quite worthy of the age of
Skopas (Newton). It may
be remarked, however,
that there is about the
Ephesus columns, which
are unique of their kind,
a certain Asiatic taste
which is also shown in
the more ancient sculptures of the old temple
dedicated to the Asiatic
Artemis. She was represented in the temple
statue with many rows of
breasts, her robe ornamented with bees, flowers,
fruit, heads of animals,
* Though Mr. Newton is compelled to ask, " When we think how much
history has gained by this exploration, partial and inadequate as it has
been, of the ruins of Ephesus, when we review the marvellous discoveries
which have recently taken place in Cyprus and the Troad, and actually
now going on at Olympia and Mycenae—why, with all the appliances, and
with boundless wealth at the command of individuals, if not of governments, do we grudge for these great enterprises the money which is daily
wasted on trivial and ignoble objects ? ,; (' Essays on Art and Archaeology.')

200

ARCHAISTIC SCULPTUKE.

and the modius (corn measure) for her crown, as the Mother
of all life. Many Eoman repetitions of this Artemis exist.
There is now, however, in these sculptures recovered by the
explorations of Mr. Wood sufficient to enable us to judge of
the style, and it is therefore feasible to speak of the school
of Ephesus as one in which a vast amount of architectonic
sculpture was produced, together with innumerable statues in
bronze, silver, and gold, many of a votive character. These
it may be concluded were more allied to the style of Lysippos
and the Alexandrian than to the grand works of the Pheidian
school.
Connected with the spread of the naturalistic taste in sculpture, of which Lysippos was the most distinguished master, as
Skopas and Praxiteles were of the feeling for the pathetic and
emotional in general, we have to notice a singular retrograde
movement in favour of the archaic forms. This may have
arisen in protest against innovations and departure from the
austere symmetry and severe beauty of the classic Athenian
style, somewhat as the Preraphaelite painters of our day took
up the manner of the early Italian schools. This style is
known as the pseudoarchaic, in which the ancient "Hieratic
treatment is prolonged for the sake of religious associations "
{Newton). I t is to be observed remarkably in bas-reliefs and
coins after the Macedonian period, and in some statues, as that
of the Apollo (Pig. I l l ) , possibly a work of Eoman times,
which has the hair in the stiff curls of the true Archaic Apollo
placed near it in the Museum.
Ehodes had unquestionable right to give her name to a school
of sculpture, both from the great antiquity of the origin of the
culture of the arts in the island, and from the number of more
than one hundred colossal bronze statues of the Sun God, at
the head of which stood the great Colossus by Chares, who was
the most renowned pupil of Lysippos.
The Ehodian school is also distinguished by those remarkable
examples of sculpture in marble of large groups of figures—the
Toro Parnese (Pig. 141) and the Laocoon (Pig. 136). I n these
works—which are described amongst the Examples—there is the
same feeling for display of artistic accomplishment that has been

FIG. 111.—APOLLO.
Heroic size. Marble. British Museum.

202

SCHOOLS OF KHODES AND PERGAMUS.

noticed as characteristic of the Macedonian age, with that effort
at the pathetic, especially in the Laocoon, which belongs to
the finer style of the later schools, as displayed in the works
of Skopas and Praxiteles, as seen in the Mobe figures and
others.
At Pergamns, another school allied in style to that of Ephesus
arose, of which the chief sculptor was Pyromachos, who, according to Pliny, flourished in the 120th Olympiad, B.C. 300—298,
with Eutychides, Dahippos, Kephisodotos, called the son of
Praxiteles, and Timarchos. Pliny also mentions a great work
by many artists {artifices) representing the battles of Attalus
against the Gauls, in which Pyromachos, Isigonos, Stratonikos,
and Antigonos were engaged (lib. xxxv. c. 8). Pergamus was
raised to the highest importance under Attalus (B.C. 247—
197), andEumenes I I . his successor, who adorned it with many
fine buildings and founded the famous library. A statue of
iEsculapius by Pyromachos was a work of some note in the
splendid temple at Pergamus, and is to be seen on the coins of
that city. It is also conjectured that the well-known Dying
Gladiator and the group of Paetus and Arria of the Villa
Ludovisi are copies of bronzes by Pyromachos {Scliarf). However this may be, the subjects are evidently taken from scenes
that occurred at this time, and were characteristic of the Gauls,
who constantly slew themselves and their wives and children
rather than allow them to fall into the hands of their conquerors.
The vigorous naturalistic style of these statues, surpassing
anything of preceding schools in the effort at expression, may
be taken as characteristic of the school of Pergamus, then completely under Eoman influence, and destined to become more so.
Put all question as to the nature of the sculptures was set at
rest by the discovery of many large works in high relief by the
German expedition at Pergamus in 1875. These are now in
the Museum at Berlin. They are of almost colossal proportions,
representing, as Pliny described, the wars of Attalus and the
Battles with the Giants. In these the nude figures especially
show the effort to display artistic ability and great energy in
the action. In these points there is observable a connection

A STYLE O F A R T I S T I C D I S P L A Y .

203

with the well-known and very striking example of sculpture of
A p A ^ I ATthis order—the Fighting Gladiator, or
more properly the Warrior of Agasias,
who, as is certain from the inscription
on his work, was an Ephesian.
The equally renowned statue of the
Apollo Belvedere, finely conceived and
admirably modelled as it undoubtedly is, bears the stamp of artistic
display which removes it from the style of the great classic works
of sculpture (see Examples).

F I G . 112.—FIGURE ON THE F R I E Z E OF THE MONUMENT OF LYSIKEATES.

Thought to resemble the Theseus of the Parthenon.

GBEEK INSCRIPTIONS.
STATUES, bas-reliefs, engraved gems and cameos, coins, metal
mirrors, and many other things ornamented by ancient artists
and art-workmen, frequently have names of deities, heroes, kings,
and places, with sometimes the name of the sculptor. Examples
of this are to be seen in many of the descriptions here given
of statues, bas-reliefs, coins, and gems.
The form of letter and the manner of writing changed with
time; consequently, by observing these, the date of a work of
art may be found approximately. In early times letters were
scratched, as it were, very rudely into clay, marble, or bronze, and
were thin and irregular; if painted with a brush as on vases they
would be thick and perhaps blotchy. " I t is probable that the
custom of engraving words on stone or metal began among the
Greeks soon after they became familiar with the alphabet which
they borrowed from the Phoenicians. What may have been the
date of those very early Greek inscriptions which Herodotus and
Pausanias describe as written in Cadmeian characters, and which
they believed antecedent to the first Olympiad, 776 B.C., we have
no sure information " {Newton, Essays, ' Greek Inscriptions'). On
the leg of one of the colossi at Abou Simbel is a Greek inscription in archaic letters recording the names of Greek mercenaries
who served under king Psammetichus I. or II., either B.C. 611
or 589. Very ancient Greek letters may be seen on some of the
statues brought from Branchidse in the Archaic Eoom of the
British Museum. Compared with the Abou Simbel writing
these are considered to be of about the same date, between 580
and 520 B.C. In the islands of Thera, Melos, Crete, Paros, and
Naxos very early inscriptions have been found " which want the
four double consonants £7, ^P, <£, X, which the Greeks added to the
Phoenician alphabet from some other source " {Newton).' These
are of the seventh century B.C. The lists of the treasure of the
Parthenon from Pericles to the fall of Athenian supremacy, cut
into slabs of marble, still exist, dating from 434 B.C. to 404 B.C.

EARLY FORMS OF LETTERS.

205

Early Greek writing was written from left to right on one
line, and from right to left on the next, in the manner which,
from its resemblance to the turning of an ox in ploughing, is
called t h e 'Boustropliedon' > (from fiovg, an ox, a n d arpotyri,
turning), as in the following inscription :
<> A/*oA 1 K O <pavo8iico
S
which is the beginning of the
W F o W
™°oB
^lebrated Sigean inscription
f / M l o ^ o qrj irpoKowrj
in the British Museum, " a
5!d 0 A££Ii?£
'"WP
genuine specimen of Greek
PHTttPtofiW ~ prjrrjpiov: K
writing in Asia Minor, contemporary or nearly so with the Branchidse inscriptions."
On coins and bas-reliefs the letters read in some words
backwards, in others forwards (as in the above), which are
examples of the thin kind of letter. The famous chest of
Kypselos at Elis, Pausanias describes as having boustrophedon
writing, and winding characters difficult to read. " The letters
for the two long vowels e and o—H and Q,—were in use on the
"West Coast of Asia Minor in early times long before Simonides
used them, and before the Persian war " (Neioton). The Kappa
(our K) is the first letter of Korinth and Kroton, and the
Digamma F is the first in Elis on the coins, but they were not
used in the time of Pheidias. The early forms of the letters
T, A, A, N, G, were f^/s/^fv
g< The letter Hwas in early
writing used as an aspirate as we use it. An epitaph of 432
B.C., in the British Museum, shows this, also that the genitive
ou is written as O, and the datives are marked by the I adscript.
The £1 is not used.
In shape letters varied much. The M is straggling and widely
spread out, the N has the first limb longer than the second and
third; the A has very short legs, the circle is very low in the
stem of <I>, and the O is always small (see Fig. 26). The letters
on the archaic bas-relief (^ig. 71) are in Oscan characters.

FIG-. 113 —STATUE OF AUGUSTUS.

Marble.

In

the

Vatican.

EOMAN SCULPTURE.
THE history of Roman sculpture is soon told. If it have any
real roots, they are to be traced in the ancient Etruscan; for all
that was really characteristic in it as art is associated with that
style. This is shown in that intense naturalism which became
developed so »strikingly in the production of portrait statues

ROMAN ART BORROWED FROM GREEK.

207

and busts, and in those great monumental works in bas-relief
which are marked by the same strong feeling for descriptive
representation of the most direct and realistic kind, upon their
triumphal columns, arches, and Sarcophagi.
As has already been stated, early Eoman sculpture, if such
it can be called, was entirely the work of Etruscan artists employed by the wealth of Eome to afford the citizens that display of pomp in their worship of the gods and the triumphs of
their warriors which their ambition demanded. All important
works were made of colossal size. Some of the early Eoman
(quasi-Etruscan) statues have before been mentioned; others
which are spoken of by the historians are a bronze colossus of
Jupiter, made by Carvilius of the armour taken in the Samnite
war—so large that as it stood on the Capitol it was seen from
the Alban Hill. Pliny refers to an Etruscan bronze colossus
of Apollo, 80ft. high, in the Palatine Library of the temple of
Augustus. A portrait statue of an Orator in the toga, and a
Chimsera, both of bronze, are in the Florence Museum.
Sculpture, from the love of it as expressing the beautiful in
the ideal form of the deities, or the heroic and the pathetic
of humanity, never existed as a growth of Eoman civilization.
The inclination of the Eoman mind was towards social, municipal, and imperial system and ordering; in this direction the
Eomans were inventors and improvers upon that which they
borrowed from the Greeks. But in art they began by hiring,
and they ended by debasing the work of the hired.
They took away the bronze statues of Greece as trophies of
conquest, covered them with gold, and set them up in the
palaces and public places of Eome,, They subsidized the sculptors of Greece who under Eoman influence had fallen away
from their high traditions; they did nothing for the sake of art,
but simply manufactured, as i t were, copies and imitations of
Greek statues for their own use. Happily we have to be grateful for the fact, though we cannot honour the motive. Had it
not been for this bestowal of their wealth in the gratification
of their taste for luxury and display, many of the renowned
statues of ancient Greek art would have been known only by
the vague mention of them by Pausanias and Pliny, by the early

F I G . 114.—THE E A E N E S E H E R C U L E S .

Grechetto Marble.

Height, 12 ft.

COLOSSAL.

Naples

(Described in Examples )

Museum.

EOMAN SCULPTOKS EEAL INVENTOKS.

209

Christian writers of the Church, or the poetic allusions of the
Greek Anthologists and the Latin Epigrammatists.
In architectonic sculpture, as well as in architecture, the
Romans proved themselves real inventors, whatever may be the
estimate in point of aesthetic merit. To cover with descriptive
sculpture the whole of the lofty marble columns of Trajan and
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, in a continuous spiral round the
shaft, was a work in every way most remarkable and most
valuable, in recording great events of history; and to surmount
them with colossal statues of these Emperors was another
innovation, especially Roman,
The column of Trajan * was the great work of Apollodorus, the
favourite architect of the Emperor, dedicated in A.D. 114. It is
10 J feet in diameter and 127 feet high, made of thirty-four
blocks of white marble, twenty-three being in the shaft, nine in
the base which is finally sculptured, and two in the capital and
torus. The reliefs at the base are smaller than those towards
the top, being two feet high, increasing to nearly four as they
approach the summit; this was, of course, to enable the more
distant subjects to be seen equally well with the others, a singular illustration of the intensely practical turn of Roman art in
its application. There are about 2500 figures not counting
horses, representing the battles and sieges of the Dacian war.
The whole of the reliefs are engraved beautifully in the work of
Pietro Santi Bartoli. The column of M. Aurelius Antoninus
erected A.D. 174, is similar in height, but the sculptures,
although in higher relief, are not so good. They represent the
conquest of the Marcomans.
The itriumph' of Paulus iEmilius after the conquest of the
Macedonians, 168 B.C., accurately described by Plutarch, took
place when Eumenes was king of Pergamus, Ptolemy of Egypt,
Antiochus of Syria, and Pharnaces of Pontus; but- though he
brought vast treasure in gold, silver, and vessels, and jewelled
cups, no statues are mentioned. In the next great l triumph/
however, that of Metellus, 146 B.C., the famous equestrian group
of Alexander and his horsemen and foot-soldiers, by Lysippos,
* Some of the groups on the Trajan Column were evidently studied by
Raphael. A cast of the whole in two sections is in the S. K. Museum.
A.S.
p

210

ROMAN COPIES OF GREEK STATUES.

was carried in the procession. Mummius, called Achaicus, as
conqueror of the Achaian League at Corinth, is said to have
done more in destroying and selling works of art in Greece than
any of his Eoman predecessors; either being entirely ignorant
of art, or valuing money higher, he sold all the paintings and
sculptures he had captured, many to the king of Pergamus.
Polybius relates that, during the destruction of Corinth, he saw
Eoman soldiers playing at draughts on the far-famed picture of
Dionysos, by Aristicles. After this victory over Achaia, Pliny
records (lib. xxxvii. c. 1, 2) how the rage for works of art of
every kind arose in Eome, and he enumerates many incised gems
by such great artists as Dioscorides, Apollonides, and Cronius,
with statues in bronze and in gold of Minerva, Mars, and Apollo,
which had been taken by the conquerors. A statue of Apollo,
by Skopas, was brought by Octavius after his victory at Antium,
and placed in the temple on the Palatine Hill: wdiile Sylla
despoiled Athens and Olympia ; and Yerres, as Cicero accused
him, took many works of sculpture from Sicily and Asia Minor.
The Augustan age (B.C. 36—A.D. 14), favourable as it was to
literature, only contributed to the multiplying of copies of the
Greek statues, such as we see in so many instances, some of
which are of great excellence, and inestimable as reliable evidence
of tine Greek sculpture. These copies were sometimes varied
by the sculptor in some immaterial point of detail, as is noticeable in the two statues of Apollo Sauroctonos, one in the Vatican,
the other in the Louvre; in the Jason of the Munich collection,
that of the Louvre, that of the Vatican which is smaller, and
that at Lansdowne House. There are also five Discoboli, as
many Wounded Amazons, and four of the Boy with a Goose
(Fig. 115), all found in one place, showing how these were
made for sale as popular works. Where the Lao coon was discovered, there were near it the pieces belonging to another
group, apparently precisely of the same design.
Nero (A.D. 54—68) is said to have adorned his Golden House
with a colossal statue of himself, 120ft. high, and no less than
500 statues brought from Delphi. In the Baths of Titus, still
in existence (they were built on the ground of the house and
gardens of Maecenas), many valuable statues have been dis-

211

ROMAN SCULPTURE.

covered. The arch of Titus furnishes an excellent example of
bas-relief of that time, in which the golden candlestick and
other spoils from the temple of Jerusalem are shown.
Hadrian (A.D. 117—138) encouraged the reproduction of the
Greek statues, for his famous villa at Tivoli, with great success
as regards execution. And besides these are the statues of
his favourite Antinous, which are the most original works of the
time. That in the Capitol and that in the Naples Museum are
the best, while the colossal
figure having the lotus flower
on the head, in the Lateran
Museum, and a half-draped
statue holding a thyrsus, may
be named as among the best
works of their kind. Hadrian's
imperial and liberal promotion
of sculpture, gave an immense
impetus to the production of
statues of every form. All
the towns of Greece which he
favoured made bronze portrait
statues of him, which were
placed in the temple of Jupiter
Olympius at Athens, and the
enclosure round more than
half a mile in extent was
filled with its many statues.
He made his own tomb in the
FlG 1 1 5 B o Y WI
building now called the Castle
"
-™ GOOSE.*
Of St. Angelo at Kome, a n d

^ the Capitoline Museum.

adorned it with many statues of men and horses, which were
destroyed by the Goths. Many fine broken statues were
recovered near the building, amongst them the famous heroicsize statue of a Sleeping Faun now in the Munich Museum,
known as the Earberini Faun. (See Examples.)
Among the Greek sculptors of some eminence who were
* Probably a copy from the work of Boethus mentioned by Pliny. It
was found in the Via Appia, Rome, 1789.
P 2

212

ROMAN SCULPTURE.

attracted to Eome there is mentioned by Pliny, Pasiteles, who
carved an ivory statue of Jupiter for the temple of Metellus.
Colotes, mentioned by Pausanias,
as a sculptor of Paros, was pupil
of this Pasiteles (Plin. lib. xxxv.
c. 12).
The learned Yarro speaks of
Arcesilaus as the sculptor of Venus
Genetrix, in the forum of Ceesar,
and of a beautiful marble group
of Cupids playing with a lioness,
some leading her, others beating
her with their sandals, others
offering her wine to drink from
horns. Olympiosthenes is named
by Pausanias as having sculptured
• statues of three Muses on Mount
Helicon (lib. ix.). Pliny mentions
Strongylion as the sculptor of an
Amazon, which from the beauty
of her legs was called Encnemon.
Pausanias speaks of a Diana and
three Muses by him, and says that
he sculptured horses and oxen
admirably.
Possibly some of
those preserved in the Hall of
Animals in the Vatican may be
works of this sculptor.
Under the Antonines arose the
outrageous fashion of representing
noble Bom an s and their wives as
deities, and this was carried so
far that the men are not unfrequently nude as if heroic. The
bas-reliefs on the arch of Septimus
Severus at Eome, and that which
goes by the name of Constantine—though made chiefly of reliefs
belonging to one raised in honour of Trajan—show the poor

GEEEK WOEKMEN FOE THE EOMANS.

213

condition of sculpture at that time. The numerous sarcophagi,
some made by Greek sculptors for the Roman market, and
others by those working at Rome, are other examples of the
feeble style of imitators and workmen actuated by no knowledge
or feeling for art. Some of these are still to be seen in the
collections at Rome, sculptured with mythological subjects, the
heads being left unfinished, so that the portraits of any family
could be carved when required.
The rule of Constantine was however far more disastrous to
art on the removal of the seat of the Empire to Byzantium.
Most of the finest statues accumulated in Rome were removed
there only to be lost for ever in the plundering of wars and the
fanatical rage of the Christian Iconoclasts.

FIG. 117.—COIN OF CARACALLA.
With the# Hercules of G-lykon.
In the British Museum.

" The Olympic Festival though shorn of its ancient splendour
was still maintained with a certain dignity during the reign
of the Emperor Julian. In the year A.D. 394 the games were
finally suppressed by Theodosius. Whatever remnant of pagan
worship had been preserved at Olympia up to that date must
have been abolished, and such sacred lands and treasures of the
temples as had not been previously appropriated by Constantine
the Great must have been confiscated. Christian iconoclasm,
while destroying the statues of the gods, may have spared those
which commemorated agonistic victors; but we may be sure

214

THE DECADENCE OF SCULPTURE.

t h a t nearly all t h e works i n metal which t h e Christians spared
were melted down b y t h e barbarous hordes of Gothic invaders,
who u n d e r Alaric occupied t h e Morea about A.D. 3 9 5 . " (Newton,
Essays, <J"c, Olympia.)
T h u s ancient sculpture died out in t h e complete decadence of
art i n late R o m a n times a n d i n t h e coming darkness t h a t
preceded its revival. H e r e , however, we approach t h e subject
of Sculpture as connected w i t h t h e rise of Ecclesiastical religious
art, which, necessarily belongs t o Byzantine, Mediaeval, a n d
Renaissance art.

NOTE ON P H E I D I A S :—SHOWING THAT THE STORY OF HTS BEING
ACCUSED OP STEALING THE GOLD GIVEN OUT FOR THE STATUE OF
ATHENE, OF HIS BEING CONDEMNED AND ACTUALLY DYING IN PRISON
AS COMMONLY RELATED AFTER PLUTARCH, IS NOT TRUE.

There is much uncertainty as to the precise dates relating to Pheidias as
well as the circumstances of his life. Dr. Smith, in his' Classical Dictionary/
says : " He was horn about the time of the battle of Marathon, B O. 490.
He began to work as a statuary about 464, and one of his first great works
was the Athena Promachus, about 460. Having finished his great work
at Athens, he went to Elis and Olympia. He was there engaged for about
four or five years—from 437 to 434 or 433, during which time he finished
his Olympian Zeus. On his return to Athens he fell a victim to the jealousy
against his great patron Perikles. . . Pheidias was first accused of peculation " (stealing the gold to be used in the statue; but the weight of
this had been recorded through the caution of Perikles, and the drapery
was made movable, so that it was taken off, and when weighed found to
be the correct weight). " The accusers then charged Pheidias with impiety
in having introduced into the battle of the Amazons, on the shield of the
goddess, his own likeness and that of Perikles. On this latter charge
Pheidias was thrown into prison, where he died of disease in 432." So
lately as 1874, Mr. Alexander Murray of the British Museum, writing in the
' Contemporary Review/ says : "We think of Pheidias dying in prison, while
fate in partial recompense has preserved the sculptures of the Parthenon."
The whole subject has been completely examined by M. Emeric David
(' Examem des inculpations dirigees contre Pheidias/ &c, a memoir read to
the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres of the Institute of France,
so long ago as 1817). " Le fait de cette accusation de sacrilege, totalement
invraisemblable, n'a d'ailleurs de temoin que Plutarch. Ni Diodore de
Sicile ni Philochore, ni aucun des scholiastes d'Aristophane, qui, tous,
rappellent le pretendu vol, n'en ont dit un seul mot. II se trouve par
consequent dementi." He goes on to show that Diodorus Siculus, although

NOTE ON PHEIDIAS.

215

he related the fact of the accusation, does not say anything of any arrest
or any prosecution of Pheidias or Perikles ; in fact Plutarch relates how as
above stated the accusation was met and refuted. He concludes, therefore, that the sacrilege was not seriously considered, and that it could not
have been, otherwise the alleged portraits would not have been allowed to
remain, as they were undoubtedly, for they were seen by Apuleius six
hundred years afterwards ('Vidi ipse in clypeo Minervse oris sui similitudineni; Apul.' ' De Mundo/ p. 74). He asserts that Pheidias did not die
in the prisons of Athens, and he never was banished ; he was never even
arrested ; his flight was by his own free will, and he was incapable of any
crime. M. Emeric David points out how Aristophanes, who alludes to
Pheidias as having left Athens, would not have spared his satire had he and
Perikles deserved it. Instead of which he ( ' P a x / v. 600—613) makes the
villagers inquire of Mercury, why Peace has deserted them so long—to
which he answers that it was the misfortune of Pheidias that was the first
cause of the calamity. Pheidias was necessary to Peace ; inseparable from
one another, they have disappeared together ; she herself has taken to
flight—"Hfc d' fj(pavi%E~o :—Chorus exclaims, " What! • Then is Peace the
parent of Pheidias ? Ah ! then I am not surprised that she should be so
beautiful!" (v. 614—617.) Aristophanes speaks only of a flight and disappearance, and his testimony is confirmed by that of Philochorus, who
says only, that having been called to account he took to flight.
The precise date of the Olympean Zeus is proved, M. E. David says,
incontestably by Pausanias having related that Pheidias executed a bronze
statue of Pantarkes, a young Elean, who carried off the prize in the Olympic
games, and that he represented this youth in the bas-reliefs of the throne
of Zeus. Pantarkes was crowned in the 86th Olympiad (Pausanias gives
this date), therefore Pheidias was engaged at this time upon the throne,
i. e. between 436—432 B. O. St. Clement of Alexandria, Arnobius, and St.
Gregory Nazianzus also had recognized the name of Pantarkes as traced
by the hand of the master himself. " Dodwell and Heyne, obliged to adhere
to the story of Plutarch (M. David says), that Pheidias died in prison at
Athens, are constrained to suppose that the Zeus was finished before the
Athene of the Parthenon," otherwise he could not have been in Athens at
the time. This is obviously incompatible with the date of the consecration
of the Parthenon statue (438 B.C.). As to the story that Pheidias committed similar theft of the gold for the Zeus at Elis, and was put to death
by the Eleans, it is, M. Emeric David declares, more absurd than the
other, and is clearly only an altered repetition of it, and he considers that
the translation from the Scholiast is erroneous, and that instead of the
passage, '' he died by the Eleans," the Greek text properly rendered is,
" h e died amongst the Eleans"—("il niourut chez les Eleens.") But not
to dispute over an equivocal text, M. David points out the inconsistency
of supposing Pheidias condemned to death in the first year of the 87th
Olympiad, i.e. the first year of the Peloponnesian war, when it was in the
first year of the 90th Olympiad that Aristophanes had his play f P a x '
performed at Athens, in which he, thirteen years after the supposed crime

216

NOTE ON PHEIDIAS.

and expiation, pronounced his eulogy of Pheidias. How could this have
been if he had escaped the vengeance of the people of Athens, and suffered
at the hands of the Eleans the punishment of a similar crime ? Would not
Aristophanes in his ' Acharnians,' played in the third year of the 88th
Olympiad, 426 B.C., in which he denounced Aspasia and the women of her
court in casting blame upon Perikles, having included Pheidias in the
obloquy 1 " W h a t a rich subject," he says, "for blackening the administration of this celebrated man—the ignominious death of the most notable
of his prote'ges !" He further shows the impossibility of accepting the
account of Plutarch, and those put forth by certain German biographers.
Meursius ('De Archont. Athen.' lib. iii. c. 4, torn, i.); Hoffman, Moreri
(au m o t ' Pheidias'); Schlotzer (' Historie Universelle'), who has the cruel
indifference to say Pheidias was hung as a thief! Both Boettiger and
Quatremei'e de Quincy have expressed their dissent from this view, which
M. Emeric David so ably refutes. So far from the Eleans having dishonoured Pheidias it is beyond dispute that they honoured him in every
possible way. After his death they at once took charge for ever of his
children, and made them the keepers of the temple of Zeus containing the
statue, giving them the title of The Phaidrontes. Near the temple, the
studio and the house of Pheidias were religiously preserved, and an altar
was raised sacred to all the gods, as Pheidias had represented them all so
worthily. Pausanias relates all this, and, as M. David states, all the great
writers of antiquity—moralists the most rigid, satirists the most biting—
are unanimous in their praises, without a single word of restriction or
reserve. And even the Fathers of the Church, thundering against the
idolatry and immodesty of atheistic heathens, have not a word to say about
theft. Pheidias, it is true, was proved to have been falsely accused, and
it is equally certain that he was never condemned and never prosecuted,
and still more certainly was not poisoned in prison. The argument of,
M. David was confirmed by M. Rochette in his lectures to the French
Academy in 1839.

SECTION

IF.—EXAMPLES.

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.
ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY.

[Abbreviations: m., marble: b., bronze.]
ACHILLES. The Borghese Achilles. Heroic, m. Parian ; ht., Oft.
l i i n . Louvre. A fine statue, nude with a helmet; a form combining power with youthful vigour and activity; the trunk rather
turgid in the muscles, but the legs especially are finely modelled,
as if to warrant the epithet of ' swift-footed' applied to him.
The ring round the right ankle has been supposed as a protection to the only vulnerable part of his body. Winckelmann
suggested it was the remains of a fetter, as there was a statue of
Mars chained at Sparta. It may have been an ornament worn
in foot-racing. The attitude is that of one about to start in the
race. There was a celebrated bronze by Alkamenes, of which
this may be an imitation (Visconti). It was formerly in the
Borghese collection, which was sold by Prince Camillo Borghese
to Napoleon in 1806, and sent to the Louvre in 1808, since
which time the Borghese Palace has acquired another collection.
Restorations.—Left fore-arm, fingers of right hand, and tips of
..the toes.
ADONIS, m. Grechetto; ht., 5ft. 8in., life-size. In the Yatican.
This graceful statue is thought to have been originally an Apollo
or Eros, but the arms were restored by Albacini with part of an
arrow in the right hand, and it was called an Adonis. The head
had been separated, but is antique; and with the body, especially
the shoulders, is very beautiful. It was found in the Yia Labicana
in 1780.
Restorations.—The nose, the hands and arms from the shoulders,
the right leg, and left foot.
ADONIS OF CAPUA. Heroic; Grechetto m. Ht., 7ft. 3Jin.
Naples Museum. A very fine example of the time of Hadrian,

218

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

A.

the body so beautifully modelled, the attitude graceful and free.
^ Like an Apollo. Found in the
| amphitheatre at Capua.
g
Restorations.—The legs, left
ij arm, and right hand, with
^ accessories, by A. Coli.

AMAZON, m.; 6ft. 5in. Berlin.

aq

£

<
A
P
o

This claims to be a copy of the
bronze of Polykleitos, and one
of the five made in competition for the Temple of Artemis
at Ephesus, by Polykleitos,
Pheidias, Ktesilas, Kydon, and
Phraclmon. At least seven are
known besides this : two I n
the Vatican, one of which, the
Mattei statue, also claims to be
after that of Polykleitos; two
in the Capitol, one in the
Louvre, one inVienna Museum,
and one at Petworth House.
They all bear some resemblance
one to the other, but are different, some being wounded. The
Vatican statue (JN"O. 265, Mus.

P. Glem.), distinguished as the
i
Mattei Amazon,' is loosening
her bow, with the right hand
over the head, a quiver at her
left side, a shield by the right
leg on the tree-trunk, the battle—\
«s axe, and a helmet at her feet.
_|
J On the left ankle is a spur, as
>
I
3 in the Berlin figure. The
Mattei Amazon was in the Villa Mattei on the Coelian Hill,
Rome, for two centuries, till Clement X I I I . had it placed in the

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

A.

219

Vatican. On the plinth was inscribed ' Translata de Scliola
Medicorum 9—which was the Portico built by Augustus for the
Physicians. But where the statue was found is not known.
The other Amazon of the Vatican is wounded, has the right
arm raised over the head, while the left falls by her side. A
very fine Head of an Amazon is No. 150, British Museum, and
there is a good torso in the Berlin Museum, a cast of which is
No. 53, Crystal Palace.

ANTINOUS. Heroic ; m. Carrara; h i , 6ft. 6lin. Capitoline
Museum, Rome. This fine statue of the favourite youth of the
Emperor Hadrian, who was drowned in the Nile A.D. 122, represents him as a Mercury, in the attitude adopted for the messenger
of the gods. The right hand originally held the caduceus. The
treatment of the hair also shows the intention of the sculptor.
It was found in Hadrian's villa.
Restorations.—The right leg below the knee; the left foot and
left fore-arm; two fingers of right hand.
Several other statues of Antinous are in the museums. One
at Naples, in a similar attitude, in which the iris of the eye is
carved. The arms and legs of this are, however, modern. A
cast is in the Crystal Palace collection (No. 288). Antinous
as a good genius (Agathodaimon) is a heroic st. of Parian m.
in the Berlin Museum, formerly at Sans Souci. It is an important example, as having the hands and feet perfect, except
one finger of the right hand. The hollow sockets of the eyes
show that it had originally eyes of coloured glass or precious
stones. A cast is in the Crystal Palace (No. 314).
, The statue called the Braschi Antinous is colossal; in the
Lateran Museum, formerly in the Braschi Palace, Rome. It
was found at the end of the last century, by Gavin Hamilton,
near Palestrina. It is a half-draped statue, holding a thyrsus or
pine-cone staff in the left hand, and with the lotus flower on
the head. A cast of the bust is in the Crystal Palace (No. 347).
The statue in the Vatican, called the Egyptian Antinous, from
the head-dress and the loin-cloth, is 7ft. 6-in. high; m. The
arms are held straight at the sides, and the hands clenched,

220

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

A.

in the fixed attitude of Egyptian statues. I t has been regarded
as a standard of proportion. Tt was found in Hadrian's villa
about the middle of the last century. A fine bas-relief is in the
Villa Albani, Eome, of the upper part of the figure of Antinous,
larger than life, crowned with the lotus, restored, as are also
some of the fingers. This was in Hadrian's villa.

ANTINOUS Agathodaimon.
Heroic; Parian m. Berlin
Museum. A fine Koman statue, with the elephant trunk and
serpent as emblems of a good deity; well preserved, having the
eye-sockets hollowed to receive coloured stones or glass.
Restorations.—Only the finger, the rest considered to be
antique.
APOLLO BELVEDERE.

Heroic size ; m. Carrara or Luni.* Hfc.,

7ft. 2in. Vatican. Once thought to be a repetition in marble of
a bronze, by Kalamis, f but now considered to be of the time of
Lysippos. If it is of Carrara or Luni marble, it was most probably executed at Eome. Formerly considered to be the most
beautiful of antique statues, but since placed in an inferior rank
in art. I t may represent Apollo either as the destroyer of the
Python and protector from evil, or, as Pausanias described the
statue of Apollo by Kalamis, as the protector after the plague had
left Athens, having the serpent, the emblem of the healing art,
twining round the Delian olive (lib. i. p. 6, 20). Visconti took
this view, while Winckelmann thought he had just discharged the
arrow that killed the Python. The small snake upon the trunk,
however, would not warrant the latter opinion, and evidently
refers to the healing power of the god, as it does in statues of
iEsculapius. A bronze statuette in Count StroganofFs collection
has the iEgis in the left hand as in the figure, No. 119.
* Visconti got certificates from' many judges that the marble'was not
Carrara or Luni. But when the statue was in Paris Musee in 1814, where
Napoleon placed it (i6th Brumaire An. 9), the experts asserted that the
marble was unlike any Greek marble.
t The statue of Hermes bearing a kid on his shoulders, in the Wilton
House Collection, is attributed to Kalamis.

F I G . 119.—APOLLO
In the

BELVEDERE.

Vatican.

The left hand restored in this cut as holding the JEgis
In the Vatican restoration part of the low is held.

222

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

A.

It was found at the close of the 15th century in the ruins
at Antium where the Gladiator or Warrior of Agasias was, and
was purchased by the Cardinal delle Eovere, afterwards Julius
/) A< II., being one of the
— ' first works of the
Vatican
collection,
taking the name of
Belvedere from the
gardens.
Restorations.—The
entire right fore-arm
and left hand were
supplied by Montorsoli when employed
by Clement ¥ 1 1 .
Marc Antonio engraved the statue (B.
133), and this shows
it without the hands
and the left wrist
and part of the right
fore-arm.
Therefore
it is entirely a matter
of conjecture whether
the original statue in
bronze held a bow or
the iEgis, or simply
had the hand extended.

APOLLO SAUROCTO-

NOS. Life-size; m.
Parian; ht. 4ft. 10Jin.
¥atican. One of the
FIG. 120.—APOLLO SAUEOCTONOS. Parian Marble, best copies from t h e
In the Vatican. Copy of the bronze by Praxiteles, celebrated work of

Praxiteles in bronze described by Pliny: "Fecit et puberem

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

A.

223

Apollinem subrepenti lacertae cominus sagitta insidiantem, quern
Sauroctonon vocant" (lib. xxxiv. c. 8). The right hand held a
dart. Found in 1777 in the Yilla Magnani on the Palatine
Hill, Eome. Besembles the statue in the Louvre (No. 70) from
the Borghese collection, which is of Parian marble—height 4ft.
10J in.—much restored. The head was broken off but belongs
to the statue. The right hand
with part of arm, the left arm
almost entirely, the feet which
were broken are cemented. The
head and tail of the lizard are
modern.
Restorations.—-The right arm
above the elbow, left hand, part
of face and neck, left leg from
knee, right from the middle of
the thigh, tree-trunk and lizard
except the tail.. A bronze statue,
38in. high, is in the Yilla Albani.
Cast No. 373, Crystal Pal.

APOLLO (the Lycian Apollo).

Heroic; Greek m. Ht., 6ft. 7in.
Louvre. Beautiful, graceful, and
noble in character, standing in
repose, the left hand probably
held the bow. Called the Lycian
from the epithet XVKSIOQ, from.
the old Greek word XVKTJ, light
It was once at Versailles in the
Gardens.

^

Restorations.—The

FIG. 120a.—THEAPPOLLINO Marble.
right h a n d

Florence Museum.

and wrist, the left fore-arm and hand with the baton.

APOLLO MUSAGETES.

Yatican.

Heroic, draped; m.

Holding the lyre.

Ht., 5ft. 8in.

The drapery is the 'palla' worn

224

DESCEIPTIONS OF STATUES.

A.

by poets, actors, and musicians—' Pythius in longa carmina
veste sonat' (Propertius).
Found near
Tivoli.

APOXYOMENOS.

FIG. 121.—THE APOXYOMENOS. Vatican.
Athlete usiny the Strigil,

Heroic; m. Greek.
Ht., 6ft. 5|in. Vatican. This fine statue
is an example of the
school of Lysippos,
and considered to be
taken from the famous bronze mentioned
by Pliny as removed
by Tiberius from the
baths of Agrippa to
his own palace, and
restored in consequence of the clamour
of the people. It is
also remarkable as
representing an athlete using the strigil.
The dice held in the
right hand is an addition of the modern
restorer.
This copy of the
celebrated statue was
found in the Yiccolo
della Palme in the
Trastevere, Eome, in
1849, and, though in
many pieces, nearly
complete.

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

Restorations.—Part
hand with the dice.

A.

225

of the nose, and the fingers of the right

THE APOLLINO. Small life size, m.; ht., 4ft. 8§in. Florence
Museum. The young Apollo. The most beautiful and perfect
statue of a youth. The forms are so graceful and soft that it has
been attributed to the hand of the great sculptor, Praxiteles, and
it resembles a bronze in the Yilla Albani by him; but the
attitude and details are the same as the Lycian Apollo worshipped at Patara, a copy of which stood in the Lyceum (Lucian
Dialog. Anarcharsis). It stands with the Yenus dei Medici in
the tribune of the Florence Gallery, and is thought to resemble
the style of that renowned statue.
It represents the god in his amiable character, the form being
feminine and delicate, differing widely from the Apollo Belvedere. It is almost entirely antique, and therefore most precious.
The attitude of the Lycian Apollo corresponded with this apparently—the right arm over the head, the left holding a bow, and
the figure leaning against a column. The Florence statue leans
on a tree. The coins show the Lycian Apollo.
Restorations.—Both hands and wrists, and the nose.
ARIADNE. Heroic ; reclining, partly draped, m. Parian; ht.,
5ft. 2in. by 6ft. lOin. Yatican. (Fig. 43.) This beautiful statue
has been called a Cleopatra from the snake coiled round the arm;
but as this was no doubt intended simply as an armlet ornament,
it is also called Ariadne asleep, deserted by her lover Theseus.
Statues representing eternal repose, as this does, were intended
for tombs. It got the name of Cleopatra from the Latin poem
written by Castiglione when it was first found. There is a
similar statue in the Madrid Museum, and a smaller one in the
Louvre, No. 238, formerly in the Yilla Borghese.
Restorations.—The nose, mouth, right hand and wrist, and
part of the left, several toes, and parts of the drapery.
Formerly ornamented a fountain at the end of a corridor in
the Yatican. It was from this statue that Eaphael took his Dying
Cleopatra, which Marc Antonio engraved from the original drawing.
A.S.

Q

226

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

A.

In the Florence Gallery.

THE ARROTINO. Life-size; m. H i , 37 inches. Florence.
This statue is considered to belong to a group of Marsyas about
to be flayed; the Scythian sharpening his knife to execute the
command of Apollo. The subject is common in antique sculpture, and is seen on coins and sarcophagi. The figure is kneeling
with right knee, the other being bent only, and looking up.
Almost entirely nude, a slight drapery only over the left shoulder.
Cast No. 13, in the Crystal Palace.
Restorations.—Some of the fingers only, and part of the
knife.
ARTEMIS.

See

DIANA.

ATHENA.

See

MINERVA.

BOY AND GOOSE.

(See Fig.

115.)

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

B.

227

BACCHUS. Life-size; m. Naples Museum.
A beautiful
statue of Greek work. Crowned with grapes and vine leaves,
the right hand raised holding a bunch of grapes, the left holds
a cup.
Restorations.—The arms by Albaccini. The head does not
seem to belong to this statue. (Clarac.)

SILENUS WITH INFANT BACCHUS.

Heroic.

Ht., 6ft.

ljin.

Louvre. A work which resembles in style the Laocoon, has the
same exaggerated muscular development, showing the muscles in
active contraction where they would be passive and scarcely seen.
It was found in the gardens of Sallust in the 16th century.
A similar group is in the Glyptothek, Munich, and another in the
Vatican, which was once in the Euspoli Palace, Eome, which is
6ft. 3Jin. in height.
Restorations.—The arms and hands, and right fore-arm and
foot of Silenus, left leg and part of right arm of the Bacchus.

THE EICHELIEU BACCHUS (Dionysos).

Gk. marble.

Ht., 6ft.

2|in. Louvre. This is one of the most beautiful statues of
Bacchus. The youthful rounded limbs with the lazy attitude
give that voluptuous languor admired by the Eomans. I t was
brought from the castle of Eichelieu.
Restorations.—The right arm from above the elbow, the left
fore-arm and hand, the lower part of left foot, the right leg from
knee to ankle.

BOY EXTRACTING- A THORN, or SPINARIO.

Bronze.

Ht., 2ft.

4in. Capitoline Museum. One of the finest bronzes. Considered to be a youth who has got a thorn in his foot while
racing in the Stadium. I t was in the Museum before 1652,
as it is mentioned by Aldroandi. I t was amongst the statues
taken to the Louvre. A similar statue in marble is in the
Florence Gallery.
Q 2

228

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

C.

Restorations.—The nose and some toes of the right foot are
the only parts added.
It has been attributed to Pasiteles.

FIG. 123.—BOY EXTRACTING A THORN.
In the Museum of the Capitol.

CENTAUR

OF THE CAPITOL (Fig. 4 4 ) ;

m. Bigio Morato.

Ht. 5 4 | in. One of the two found in Hadrian's Villa. The
other is old and bearded.

CUPID AND PSYCHE; m. Parian.

Ht., 4ft. l j i n .

Capitoline

Museum, Eome. Pound on the Aventine. Emblematic of the
union of the body and soul.
Restorations.—Nose, chin, right hand, left foot of Cupid.
Psyche remarkable as being without wings.

Fia

124.—THE C U P I D AND PSYCHE OF THE CAPITOL.

230

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

D.

DIADUMENOS.

Life-

size ; m. There are
two Diadumeni in the
British Museum; this
one, known as the
Farnese statue, and
the other as the Yaison
statue, from having
been found at that
place in France. Both
are supposed to be
copies of bronze statues
by Polykleitos referred
to by Pliny (lib. xxxi v.
c. 8), one of a young
man —l c Diadwnenum
fecit molUterjuvenem"
—the other of a youth
of manly form " idem
et Dorypliormn viriliter puerum"
This
Farnese statue may
be the soft and graceful figure, the Yaison
statue, the strong,
square - built, young
athlete.
The lastnamed is also defective
in the left hand and the
fillet, but it has the
arm entire. Both rest
with one leg at ease,
an attitude peculiar to
Polykleitos, and seen
in the Doryphorus at
FIG.

125,,—THE DIADUMENos.—The left arm and shoulder lost. -N apleS.

Marble; life-size. British Museum.

A

Small

bronze is in the Bibliotheque, Paris.

DESCBIPTIONS OF STATUES.

D.

231

DIANA with the Stag. Heroic, m. Parian; h i , Gft. 7in. Louvre.
I t is not known where or when this statue was found; it has
been in Trance
a long time, and
was probably
one of the 184
that Primaticcio
brought
from
Eome for Francis I. I t was once
at Versailles, hence
called 'Diane de
Versailles/
also
' Diane
a
la
Biche.'
Restorations. —
Barthelemy Prieur
is said to have
done a little too
much to the surface, the feet having got something
of the style of
Germain Pilon and
Prieur (Glarac).
The left arm is by
the sculptor Lange
of Toulouse, done^
in the Louvre beBlhl-iUMiX&Z.

IOre

1 oUy.

H i e pIGi.. 126.—DIAITA WITH THE STAG OF BKAZEN FEET (Ceryneia.)

nose, ears, part of
In the Louvre.
neck, right hand,
half of fore-arm; left hand, with arm to the deltoid; right foot
and upper part of leg. Stag, nearly all.
A work of 1st cent. A.D., if not by the same sculptor, probably
of the same period, as the Apollo Belvedere (M. Frohner,
Louvre Cat.). Many repetitions exist, one at Holkham (Lord
Leicester's).

232

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

D.

FIG. 127.—THE DISCOBOLUS. British Museum.
DISCOBOLUS OF MYRON.

Above life-size; marble; height, 5ft.

Sin. British Museum.
There are no less than five statues like this, all copies of the
famous bronze by Myron, which is described by Quintilian (A.D.
40) and afterwards by Lucian (A.D. 120), and copied on to gems

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

D.

233

and coins still in existence (see Fig. 128). Has the head less
turned back than the Yatican figure, but it does not belong to
the statue, though " i t seems to be antique" (Newton). I t was
found in 1791. The Yatican statue has the head, arms, and right
leg modern. Another in Turin Museum, and one in Naples
Museum.
The Discobolus in the Palazzo Massimi at Eome is the best
preserved of any; the head, which has not been separated, in
this is turned more backwards. Found in the Yilla Palombaro
on the Esquiline Hill in 1781. A small bronze in which the
head is turned back is in the Munich
Museum.
Myron (Mvpiov) was born about 480
B. o.; he was a pupil of Ageladas of
Argos and fellow-student with Polykleitos and contemporary with Pheidias. He became celebrated about
431 B.C. for his works in bronze,
especially for his ' Cow lowing, with
her calf,' which stood in the great
square of Athens in the time of
Cicero, and after being removed to
Eome and placed in the Temple of
FIG. 128.—ON A GEM.
SeeVuconti,Vol.Lj.l^andY
eventually destroyed or
Tassze's Gems, No. 7967.

_

'

_ „

. .

J

T

_

J

lost; and for his Ladas, a runner
who fell dead as he won a race.
In the bronze the figure would not have required the treetrunk to support it. Upon this part is sculptured a ' strigil/
used as a scraper by athletes (Pig. 121). The action
and motive of the figure are readily understood, and could
not be more concisely described than in the words of Lucian,
who saw it at Athens. a The discus-player (SHTKevovrog) bending down as if about to throw, and looking back towards the
hand that holds the discus,,with one knee bent as if prepared
to rise after the cast. That is the Discobolus, the work of
Myron." Also praised by Quintilian. Mr. Newton thinks that
the work of Myron may be recognized in the metopes of the
Parthenon (Lectures on Greek Art, 1880).

234

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

D.

DISCOBOLUS OF JSTAUKYDBS. Life-size; m. Pentelic. Ht.,5ft.
7in. Vatican. The quoit-player in the attitude of measuring
his distance before casting.
Mentioned by Pliny as the
work of the Argive sculptor JSTaukydes (B.O. 350—
326) : " Naucydes Mercurio,
et Discobolo, et immolante
arietem censetur" (Plin. lib.
xxxiv. c. 8). " Few antiques
have suffered so little injury
as this; it has no fracture,
but the surface is corroded
by damp; the tenons remain undisturbed.
Were
it not that the statue
in many parts is unfinished
we might fairly conclude
this to be the actual work
of JSTaucydes, such is its
superlative
excellence"
(Scharf).
It was found at Colombaro
on the Via Appia, eight
miles from Koine, where the
Emperor Gallienus is said
to have had a villa, by
Gavin Hamilton, and was
FIG. 129.—DISCOBOLUS OF NAUKYDES. placed in the Vatican by
Vatican.
Pius VI.
Restorations. —Nbn e.
Another statue similar but more erect is in the Borghese
Palace; and another is engraved in Cavaceppi (v. 1, pi. 42),
which was then in England, and came from the Villa
Montalfco, and is now in Lord Eaversham's collection. This
Discobolus of JNaukydes has recently been conjectured to be
the work of Alkamenes, whose statue of an athlete is referred
to by ancient writers as the Enkrinomenos.

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

F.

235

FAUN OP THE CAPI-

TOL. Life-size; m.
Pentelic. H i , 5ft.
7f in. Capitol,Kome.
Often called " t h e
Faun (or Satyr) of
Praxiteles/' being
thought to be a copy
of the famous bronze
so far famed that it
was spoken of at the
time

as

7r£pift6rjrog.

Many repetitions of
it were made, some
slightly varied. The
folds of the skin
sometimes erroneously called the nebris,
but which is that of
the panther, indicate
the sharper forms
which would
be
chosen by an artist
working in bronze.
The grace of line in
the figure, amounting to what would be
termed elegance, and
the expression of the
head, mark the style
as that of the later
Athenian sculptors.
The Faun of the
Vatican, wjiicji closely resembles\ this,
also

called

b^; the

F I G . 130.—FAUN OF PRAXITELES.

Capitol, Borne.

name of Praxiteles, differs in being higher (6ft.), having
the right foot a little more behind the left leg and more bent,

236

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

F.

the bead inclined to the right (of the figure); the right
hand holds a short pedum or crooked stick instead of the
flute, and the skin hangs down behind the left leg to the ankle.
Another like this of the Vatican was in the Palazzo Euspoli, the
head of which bore a pine-branch. Winckelmann counted thirty
similar statues in Rome.
It was found near Lanuvium (Avita Lavinia), a villa of
Marcus Aurelius, in 1701, and was formerly in the Villa
d'Este, from which it was removed to the Capitol in 1753
by Pope Benedict XIV.
Restorations.—The left arm and part of the right, and the
nose.

THE SLEEPING FAUN, or Barberini Faun. Heroic; m. Parian.
Ht., 73Jin. Munich Museum, formerly in the Barberini Palace,
Eome. A work of the time of Skopas and Praxiteles, B.C. 392—
364. The knowledge shown of the anatomy and proportions of
the figure distinguish it as the work of some master-hand, perhaps
Skopas himself, as it is bolder and more robust in style than
Praxiteles. It was found in the 15th century close under the
castle of St. Angelo at Eome, the Mausoleum of Hadrian, which
was so richly adorned with statues. It may have been amongst
those which were hurled down upon the besieging Goths by order
of Belisarius in the year 537 A.D. I t was sold by the Prince
Barberini to the Prince Eoyal of Bavaria for £3000 about the
year 1814, when so many works of art were disposed of in Italy.
Cast No. 19 in Crystal Palace.
Restorations.—The, right leg and part of the left, the right
elbow and finger of right hand, the left fore-arm. These were
made in stucco by Paccini at Eome in 1814 (Clarac); the rock
upon which he reclines is also supplied.
There is another sleeping faun which differs from this in
the Dresden Museum, which was found in the same place in
1623-44, and a bronze life-size statue very similar in attitude
was found at Herculaneum 1756 (Tav. 40, Vol. vi. Antich.
di Ercolano). See cast No. 372, Crystal Palace.^

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

F.

237

FAUN—torso. Life-size; m. Florence Museum. This very
beautiful work is worthy of the highest art of the best style of
Greek sculpture. A small tail on the back shows that it is a
Faun, otherwise it might be mistaken for some heroic figure
from the fine character of the head. It was formerly in the
Gaddi Collection. A cast is in Crystal Palace Collection, No. 62.

THE PIPING FAUN. Small life-size; m. H i , 4ft. Vatican,
Borne. This graceful little statue, often repeated, is considered
to be one of the best. I t somewhat resembles" the so-called
Faun of Praxiteles, in having the legs crossed, but differs
much in the attitude, the figure leaning with the left shoulder
against a tree-trunk, upon which hangs the skin fastened over
the shoulder. He holds the flute with both hands. The
figure is nude except where the faun's (nebris) skin passes across
the shoulders.
It was found in the ruins of the Villa of Lucullus in the
Circaean lake.

FAUN WITH PATERA (Fig. 131).—LAUGHING FAUN (Fig.

132).

These statuettes in marble are in the British Museum.

THE CLAPPING FAUN~(Fig. 39). m.; life-size; Florence Museum.
Has been attributed to Praxiteles. The head and arms restored
by Michelangelo.

THE EONDININI FAUN, OR SATYR.

M.

Hi,

5ft. 9in.

Brit.

Mus. Restored as playing the cymbals with the arm raised.
Formerly in the Eondinini Palace, Rome; purchased in 1826.
Restorations.—All the figure but the body and the right
thigh, therefore of little value as an example.

F I G . 131.—FAUN WITH PATEEA.
M. /Statuette.

In the British

Museum.

F I G . 132.—THE LAUGHING FAUN.
M. In the British
Museum.

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

G.

239

GERMANICUS. Life-size; Parian m. Ht., 5ft. 11 in. Louvre.
Once in the Villa Negroni, Eome, then in Versailles Gallery.
The name of Germanicus is erroneous, and the head does not
resemble the coins, besides being that of a middle-aged man,
while Germanicus died in his 34th year. I t is some personage
of importance represented, as was often done, in the character of
Mercury, the God of Eloquence (Hermes logios). Nearly nude,
with the chlamys falling from the left shoulder down to the
tortoise at the feet, the right arm raised in the attitude of an
orator. Remarkable for the accurate study of the figure and
fine work nearly all antique. I t was bought for Louis XIV.
under the advice of 1 T Poussin the painter. On the tortoise is
S.
the inscription in letters of the century before the Christian
era—KXaofuevrjQ

KXEOJUEPOVQ 'AQevaiog iiroirjcrEr. T h e left

hand

held a caduceus.
Restorations.—-Only the thumb and fore-finger of left hand.

GENIUS OF DEATH, or of Eternal Repose.

Life-size ; m. Pen-

telic. Ht., 77J- in. Louvre, formerly in the Chateau d'Ecouen.
Standing leaning against a pine-tree sacred to Cybele, the legs
crossed and the arms bent over the head. Similar figures seen
on sarcophagi in the Vatican, some with an inverted torch, as
the emblem of the extinction of the fire of life. Similar statues
are in the Vatican and Naples Museum.

THE DYING GLADIATOR.

Above life-size, m.

Height, 33in.;

length, 66in. In the Museum of the Capitol, Rome. Though
long called ' T h e Dying Gladiator' to distinguish it from the
' Fighting Gladiator,' this fine statue is now more properly
called a Dying Gaul, or a Gaulish Herald, who has been
mortally wounded, or may have slain himself. The large
horn on the ground within which he lies, as though it had
slipped off his shoulders, has been considered to be that carried
by heralds. The twisted ring of metal round the neck is a
' torque' such as wras worn by the Gauls. The expression of
the face and the whole figure is finely portrayed, and with

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

G.

241

strong realistic truth, very characteristic of the Pergamus school.
I t was found in the ruins of the Garden of Sallust in 1770,
and was once in the gallery of the Villa Ludovisi, Home. I t
was purchased by Clement XII., and was taken to Paris among
the spoils of Napoleon. I t is considered to be a work of the
time of Hadrian.
Byron alluded to this statue, and has described it with
admirable perception of the expression, and great beauty of
language—
" He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
Consents to death, hut conquers agony."
Sir Charles Bell points out the remarkable truth of observation
with which the sculptor had studied his subject: " He seeks
support to his arms to fix them that their action may be
transferred to the chest, and thus assist the labouring respiration.'5 This would be the action in a strong man dying from
a mortal wound.
It should be observed that the muscular action, though so
thoroughly understood, is not in any degree forced, though the
appearance of effort to breathe, and restrain a cry of pain, is
strongly marked. The veins are prominently shown on the
ankle and arms.
Best orations.—The right arm, and toes of both feet.
Pliny speaks of a bronze statue by Ctesilaus of a wounded
man dying, and perfectly expressing how much life remained
in him. Montfaucon and MafTei have supposed it to be a copy
of that statue. There are several inferior statues of the same
subject varied (see Duruy, (Hist, des Eomains').

THE FIGHTING GLADIATOR : The Warrior of Agasias : The

Borghese Gladiator. Life-size; marble; height, from left foot
to head, 5ft. 4in. By Agasias of Ephesus. Louvre.
Though commonly called The Fighting Gladiator it is more
probably a hero fighting on foot against an antagonist OIL horseback, as the upward look of the head suggests. There is no
statue of a gladiator perfectly nude. The handle or belt of the
A.S.

K

242

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

H.

shield still remains on the left arm, while a sword was no doubt
held with the right hand. I t might therefore be an Achilles,
only that the rather thin and sinewy form is not such as would
be chosen for the famous hero of the Greeks.
The name of Agasias is cut on the supporting part of the
marble (see p. 203). But Agasias is not mentioned by Pausanias
nor Pliny, so that his date is probably not, as supposed, 330 B.C.
The name of Heraklides, son of Agasias, is on a statue of Mars
in the Louvre. This statue was formerly in the Borghese Palace
at Borne, and was taken to Paris and exhibited in the Louvre,
first in 1815. I t was found in 1620 at Antium on the coast
of Italy where the Apollo Belvedere was found, and on a spot
where there was once an ancient Eoman Palace. The right
arm was wanting.
Restorations.—The right arm and ear.
* I t has been thought to be a copy from a bronze statue; and
there is in the collection of the Duke de Blacas, a small antique
bronze in the same attitude, but wearing a helmet, with the
hair short and curly, supposed to be Deiphobus defending
himself from Achilles on the night of the taking of Troy.

HERMES — MERCURY of

the

BELVEDERE — formerly

called

Antinous of the Yatican, Theseus, beardless Hercules, and
Meleager. Heroic; m. Parian. Ht., 6ft. 6in. Yatican. That
this fine statue is in the style of Praxiteles is presumable from
the discovery of the beautiful broken statue of Hermes with
the infant Dionysos at Olympia, known to be by Praxiteles.
The character of the head, with the short curly, hair, and its
inclined attitude as of obedience to the message of the gods,
although without the petasus, suggests a Hermes. The supple,
muscular limbs also denote activity without the winged heels.
Yisconti first named it a Hermes, though Winckelmann thought
it a Meleager, and Gerhardt thought it could not be an
Antinous as the style is superior to the time of Hadrian. The
slight drapery carried round the left arm is significant of Hermes
as seen in the Olympia statue.

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

H.

243

Several statues resemble this. One in the Glyptothek, Munich;
another in the Lansdowne collection ; another in the Louvre with
remains of a caduceus; another in
the Museum at Athens; and one
in the British Museum (171),
might represent Mercury as god
of the palcestra, but the hair is
not that of an athlete as in a
Hermes Enagonios (Newton).
Restorations.—None.

HERCULES—the Farnese Hercules. Colossal. M. Grechetto,
Naples Museum. Formerly in
the Farnese coll., Eome. Found
in 1540, in the baths of Caracalla, much broken and without
legs, which were discovered long
afterwards in 1787. (See Fig.
114.) A copy is in the Pitti
Palace, Florence.
Restorations.—Half the forearm and hand, toes of both feet,
FIG. 134.—THE HERMES OF THE but the hand with the apples is
VATICAN.
antique. Guglielmo della Porta
supplied the legs when it was discovered, but the present legs
are antique. HERMES AND INFANT DIONYSOS, BY PRAXITELES.

(See Fig.

96.)

JASON. Life-size, 4ft. 7in.; m. Pentelic. The head of
Grechetto m. Louvre. Formerly called Cincinnatus, from the
ploughshare and one shoe at the base, but Winckelmann saw
R 2

244

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

L.

that it was Jason, who was a farmer on the banks of the
river Anaurus, and having forded the river
he tied on one sandal and forgot the
other, hurrying to assist King Pelias in
a sacrifice. The oracle had warned Pelias to
beware of a man with one shoe, and it was
this Jason who in the end slew him, though
he was sent away to get the golden fleece.
FIG. 135 —Com. A more acceptable fable is told by Pherikides,
Showing Jason. that he left the plough to undertake the
Argonautic expedition at the bidding of Pelias. This has led
to the supposition that the statue was intended for a Cincinnatus.
Many varied repetitions exist—one in Munich Museum, one
smaller in the Vatican, and one in Lord Lansdowne's collection,
which is the only one having the original head. They may be
taken from a statue by Lycius, son of the famous Myron, who
is related to have sculptured one of the Argonauts.
Restorations.—The head though antique does not belong to the'
figure, as is the case also with the Munich statue. The left arm,
right hand and part of arm, and the ploughshare are modern.

THE LAOCOON.—Heroic; Grechetto marble; h i , 5ft. lOin.;
in the Vatican, Eome. This fine group was found in 1506 in
the Baths of Titus where Pliny said it was placed—not in a
vineyard on the Esquiline HilL as stated by P. di Sangallo.
This was in the pontificate of Julius I I . while Michelangelo
was engaged upon his great works at the Vatican. That great
sculptor is said to have called it " a wonder of art." Pliny
speaks of its being in the palace of the Emperor Titus (lib.
xxxvi. c. v.). Michelangelo, who with Christoforo Komano was
directed to examine it, pointed out that it was not of one block,
but of three,—one for the son on the left, another for the figure
of Laocoon to the knees, and the third for the rest of the group.
It has, however, been since found to be made of six blocks.
When dug up, the right arm of Laocoon was gone as well as
the shoulder and the pectoral muscle; the right arm and foot

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

L.

245

of the younger son, and the same parts of the elder, were also
broken off and lost.

FIG. 136.—LAOCOON AND HIS SONS.

The work of the Ehodians Agesander, Athenodoros, and Polydoros.
In the Vatican. But with the arm as restored by Montorsoli.
The right arms and legs of the sons restored by Gornacchini, after designs by Bandinelli.

Restorations.—The right arm of Laocoon was supplied in
terra-cotta by Bernini, according to Winekelmann. But according to Fea (' Misc.' vol. i.) the arm at present on the Laocoon was

246

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

L.

made by Cornacchini (see below). But Montorsoli (Giovan'
Angelo), a pupil of Michelangelo, about 1527, also designed an
arm which was left unfinished, and is still to be seen in the Vatican where it used to lie near the group. Montorsoli observing
a projecting fracture of the marble at the back of the head,
conjectured that the hand grasped the hair here, and he therefore made his arm bent back in such an attitude (see Fig. 136).
This is certainly a much finer conception, and more in harmony
with the composition. The existing restored arm makes the
group lean to one side, and with the hand grasping the serpent
and stretching out its long coil, the line of the arm is repeated as
no great master would have done. Canova had remarked that
this arm was wrong. Yasari relates also that Baccio Bandinelli
made an arm in wax in 1525, but this was never adapted upon
the original, although he took it in his well-known copy of the
group in the Uffizi which has the arm stretched out. Bandinelli's arm appears in Marliani's engraving of 1544, so Winckelmann cannot be right in attributing it to Bernini, who was not
born then. Marliani probably copied the copy at Florence. The
antique group had been promised to Francis I. by Leo X. at
Bologna, but he repented and ordered Bandinelli to make the
copy which he intended to present instead; but it was not
finished before his death, and was in hand during the Papacy
of Adrian VI. The copy, however, in the Florence Gallery is
not an accurate one, being varied in several of the forms. It
should be remembered also that, the antique group was removed
to Paris by Napoleon with many other of his Italian art spoils;
and the catalogue of the Musee of 1815 states that the missing
parts were then supplied at Paris. " Le bras droit du pere et
deux bras des enfans manquent: sans doute un jour on les
executera en marbre; mais provisoirement on les a supplees par
des bras moules sur le groupe en platre, restaure par Girardon*
qui se voit dans la Salle de l'Ecole de peinture."
The arms and feet of the two sons are the work of Agostino
Cornacchini of Pistoia, who is said to have simply followed the
restoration designed by Bandinelli, who was a great favourite
* Francois Girardon, the great French sculptor of the 17th cent, (died
1715) went to Rome to study and returned to Paris 1650.

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

M.

247

with Pope Clement VII., and had rooms in the Belvedere
. while he was engaged in these restorations. It was he who
designed and executed the right fore-arm and hand of the
Apollo Belvedere, according to Yasari, who however in another
place names Montorsoli. Clarac remarks that the head of the
Laocoon has been
doubted, as the fragments of a similar
group A were found in
the ruins of the
Palace of Titus ; but
a close examination
since made showed
that the neck had
never been broken
through
(Scharf,
6
Crystal Palace Handbook '). A head of
the Laocoon is in the
Brussels
Museum,
considered by some
to be antique, but by
others as modern.
Mr. Ruskin's criticism upon the Laocoon
is :• " I suppose that
no group has exercised
so pernicious an influence on art as this."

Fia. 137.—THE LUDOVISI MAES.
In the Villa Ludovisi, Rome.

MARS. The Ludovisi Mars. Seated statue, heroic, m.; ht.,
4ft. lOin. In the Villa Ludovisi, Eome. A warrior resting,
holding his sword, with his shield lying by his side. The
Cupid is a modern addition by Bernini, who restored the
statue. It was found in the portico of 0 etavia. The attitude

F I G . 138.—MAESYAS. Lateran Museicm, Rome.
Att/ibuted to Myron.
The arms modern.

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

M.

249

is similar to that of Ares in the Parthenon frieze,~No.26, in
the eastern frieze in the British Museum. It is no doubt taken
from some fine original work, probably in bronze. The pose
of the figure is strikingly grand, denoting the design of a great
master. The execution of this marble is however not of high
excellence.
Restorations.—Both arms and hands, and the handle of
sword.
MARSYAS.—Life-size, m. Lateran Mus. The arms erroneously
restored in this cut as for a dancing satyr. Probably belonged
to a group of Athene and Marsyas about to seize her flutes, of
which a bas-relief exists. Pausanias saw such a group in
the Acropolis, Athens, and Pliny speaks of a work by Myron
— " Satyrum admirantem tibias et Minervam" (xxxiv. 57).
A small bronze in the Brit. Mus. with the arms is a similar
figure. The attribution of this marble to Myron is at present
not accepted.
MARSYAS—torso. Life-size; m. Pentelic. Berlin Museum.
A very fine example, particularly of masterly technical skill.
Cast in Crystal Palace, Xo. 73.
MELEAGER. Heroic; m. Ht., 6ft. 6in. Vatican. A noble
work of its kind and remarkably perfect. I t was once called
Adonis, and is one of the celebrated statues in Rome. Even
Michelangelo was not bold enough to model a hand for this fine
figure. I t has been known in Eome for at least three centuries,
having been found in the 16th century, t u t precisely where is
not settled : according to Flaminio Yacco on the Esquiline Hill,
but Aldroandi says near the Porta Portese. I t was in the Palazzo
Pighini, and was acquired for the Vatican by Clement XIV.
MINERVA—THE PALLAS OF VELLETRI.

Colossal; m. Parian;

ht., 9ft. 10in.- Louvre. A very noble statue, the head of severe
and commanding character, though somewhat benign in expression. The goddess wears the helmet; the tunic has a belt of

250

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

M.

serpents, and has the iEgis with scales and numerous small
serpents round the border, and the Medusa Mask. The right foot
is in advance, and the sandals are of the kind called Tyrrhenian,
with five soles. I t is a Eoman copy from some famous Greek
statue in bronze, and thought by M. Frohner to be of the 1st
century A.D. (Louvre Catalogue).
The marble is in six blocks.
It was found in 1797, in a vineyard about a mile from Velletri,
the ancient Yelitrae, between
the road from Naples and that
to Coni, where another statue of
Athene was also found. Traces
of red colour are. on the eyes
and lips. A bust in the Munich
Museum, from the Villa Albani,
resembles this.
Restorations. — Both hands,
half the right foot, toes of left
with "part of sandal, and some
small parts of the iEgis, drapery,
serpents, and helmet.

MINERVA, Mown as THE FARNESE MINERVA. Heroic, draped;

m. Greek; h't., 6ft. 11 in. Naples
Museum. This resembles somewhat the Louvre statue, and is
thought to* have held a figure
^ of .Victory in the hand. The
FIG. 139.—THE MINERVA OE THE arms however are modern. I t
VATICAN.
was found at Velletri. A similar
statue is in the Hope collection at" Deepdean, and another is
engraved in Cavaceppi, called Pallas Albani.
MINERVA—THE PALLAS OP THE VATICAN.

m. Parian; ht., 6ft. lOin.

Heroic, draped;

This statue has been restored with the

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

M.

251

attributes of ' Minerva Medica,' the serpent raising its head by
her side, a spear in her right hand, the arms, the Corinthian
helmet and iEgis, with mantle over the shoulders. I t was found
in the temple of Minerva Medica on the Esquiline, Borne.
This statue was for a long time in the possession of the
Giustiniani family, and afterwards passed into the collection
of Lucien Bonaparte, from whom it was eventually purchasedby
Pope Pius VII., and added to the Gallery of the Vatican. I t
represents the goddess as the beneficent protector and preserver
of health by her wisdom. The drapery is an especially good
example of the grave dignity given to the figure by the toga so
admirably. sculptured.
The form of the helmet is not that of the Athena of Pheidias,
seen on the coins of Athens, but that found on the coins of
Corinth.
Restorations.—Eight arm and hand with spear and the
serpent, emblem of health and long life, as seen in statues of
iEsculapius.

THE MONTE CAVALLO COLOSSI.

These two fine groups in

marble of nearly nude figures each holding a prancing horse, stand
on the Quirinal Hill, Rome, opposite the Palazzo Quirinale, one on
each side of an obelisk, where they were placed by the architect
and sculptor Fontana in the 16th century. The horses are
supported by a sort of pedestal under the belly, and the figures
by parts of suits of armour at the one leg. This armour is
similar to that seen in ancient vase paintings and in the celebrated equestrian bronze of Alexander the Great in Naples
Museum, also i n other bronzes of Alexander. The treatment
of the hair is similar to that on coins of his time, as has
already been stated (p. 195); there are other points of resemblance to the Macedonian style of sculpture. The subject
might therefore be Alexander with his horse Bucephalus, or,
as has also been suggested, Bellerophon with his Pegasus, or,
according to later views, the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. There
are three Roman coins on which groups like these are seen—
one struck in the time of Nero, another of Hadrian, and the

252

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

N.

third of Commodus. Yisconti states that Flaminius Yacca
relates a tradition that these statues were found in the ruins
of the baths of Constantine on the Quirinal, and that he had
them brought from the vestibule of the Palace of Nero, also
that some architectural fragments found with them correspond
with those found on the Palatine Hill. Yisconti thought they
were the work of sculptors of the time of Nero, such as those
semi-colossal figures of the Nile and the Tiber in the Yatican.
He suggests they may be copied from bronze works of Hegesias,
which Pliny relates stood before the Temple of Jupiter Tonans
in the Capitol. He also points out a resemblance in style
between these figures and the well-known 'Warrior/ or Fighting
Gladiator, by Agasias, whose name he thinks may be the same
as l Hegesias/ changed in the dialect of the Ephesians.
This
however, is very conjectural.
As regards execution, these
figures are rather roughly done5 and the hind-quarters of the
horses seem as if not intended to be shown, which would
confirm the opinion that they stood close to a building.
Flaxman accepted the opinion that they were the works of
Pheidias and Praxiteles, according to the inscriptions on the
pedestals, and from a resemblance to a figure managing a horse
on the Parthenon frieze, but it is sufficient to observe that
the style is not that of either of those great sculptors.

THE NIOBE GROUP—14 figures.

Life-size; m.

Florence

Gallery,
A very celebrated group of statues, which once
adorned the temple of Apollo Sosianus at Eome. They were
referred to both by Horace and Pliny as the work either of
Skopas or Praxiteles.
Probably none of the original figures remain; those that are
at Florence are only a part of the copies made, for some do not
belong to the subject and have merely been supplied to make up
the number. The Pedagogue and Son are not at Florence, but
in the Louvre, and are a very inferior group found at Soissons
in France.
The head of Niobe is proverbial almost as an example of the

F I G . 140.—NIOBE AND HER CHILDREN. (Centre Group.)
Now in the Florence Gallery.

254

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

S.

pathetic (Fig. 140). I t was the favourite study of Guido, as is
seen in his pictures.
There is a head of Mobe in Lord Yarborough's collection
which is considered to be finer than that of the statue.
In the Vatican there are two (Daughters of M o b e ' from
another group. In the Munich Museum is a very fine nude
kneeling figure in Parian marble much injured, the arms and
head lost, of the Son of Mobe looking up, which is called
'Ilioneus' (125, Glyptothek Cat.). There is also one of the
sons lying on the ground. In the Capitol Museum, Eome, there
is one of the kneeling sons.
Most of these statues were discovered before 1583, at Eome,
and placed in the Villa Medici, having been obtained by the
Medici family, in whose palace they were, till Pierre Leopold
had them removed to Florence in 1776.
It is not decided whether the statues belong to the same
group and whether they formed a pedimental or merely a semicircular arrangement. Also it is a question whether Apollo and
Artemis did not belong to the group \ and there is in the British
Museum a bas-relief of the subject with those deities.
Restorations.—These are so very numerous in arms, hands,
feet, and some legs that it is impossible to name them all.

SOMNUS (Hypnos)—reclining. Life-size; m. Vienna Imperial
Museum. A boy sleeping on a lion's skin upon a rock, the right
hand resting on the left shoulder, and the head upon the arm,
the hair gathered into the knot peculiar to the antique Genius
and Harpokrates. Several other statues Kke this are in various
collections—in the Vatican, and in British Museum and in
Dresden Museum. Clarac calls this a Cupid Asleep.
Restorations.—The right foot below the instep.
Somnus was a different god from Morpheus, his son, who
presided over dreams, moulding the forms of them, as his name
implies (Mop<pri = form). A lizard is often represented near the
figure of Somnus, and he often holds poppies, as the plant producing opium. Sometimes he has wings, at the shoulders and

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

T.

255

temples, and these are sometimes like those of a bird, in others
like the butterfly. He is of all ages, from a boy to old age,*
naked or loaded with clothes, or with the chlamys only. Sleep
and Death were brothers in the Homeric poems, represented as
young, holding the inverted torch and sometimes the poppy.

TORO FARNESE. Colossal group; m. Grechetto; ht., 12ft.
4in., on square base. Naples Museum. By Apollonius and
Tauriscus of Ehodes. This is the group described by Pliny,
representing Dirke being tied to a bull by Amphion and Zethus,
the sons of Antiope, who thus revenged the insult of their
mother, whose husband, Lykus king of Thebes, had forsaken her
for Dirke\ Antiope, according to some versions of the story,
interposed to save her rival, but according to others Dirke was
dragged about by the bull till she was dead, and was then thrown
into a well, which to this day is called " t h e well of DirkeV'
So much that is expressive in the heads and figures not being
due to the ancient sculptor, but to the restorer Bianchi under
the direction of Michelangelo, the group is chiefly valuable as an
example of the ambitious style of colossal work which characterized the later Ehodian school after the time of Lysippos, when it
was brought to the extreme by Chares in his Colossus. The lyre
hung upon the tree and the Pandean pipes are in allusion to
Amphion's skill in music : " Movit Amphion lapides canendo "
(Hor. Car. I I I . xi.). The wild animals, with sheep and oxen
carved on the base, describe the pastoral life led by the sons
of Lykus on Mount Cithseron when expelled by him with their
mother.
Pliny tells us (lib. xxxvi. c. v.) this grand work was brought
from Ehodes to Eome, and that it was cut out of a single block
of Greek marble, and that Asinius Pollio purchased it in the
time of Augustus. I t was much broken, and some parts entirely
gone—as the head of the bull, for example. It was placed in the
court of the Parnese Palace, where Michelangelo superintended
* The old man on some funereal sculptures was probably the Etruscan
Charon waiting for the soul.

256

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES. T.

the restorations by Giov. Battista Bianchi. In 1786 it was
removed to Naples and suffered further injuries in the transport,
which had to be restored ; it was then placed in the Villa Eeale,

F I G . 141.—TORO FARNESE.
In the Naples Museum.

and after remaining exposed to the weather for many years it
was removed to the Eoyal Museum by order of Francis I.
It was found at Eome in the Baths of Caracalla, with the

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

T.

257

Hercules of Glykon (Fig. 117), during the Pontificate of
Paul I I I .
Restorations.—All of Dirke above the waist; the head and
neck of Amphion, the arms, part of hands, the legs to above the
knees, only three toes being antique. The head of Zethus, the
left leg from foot to
thigh at the tree, right
knee and part of leg,
right arm between wrist
and shoulder, left forearm with drapery, mind,
and cords. Head and
neck of Antiope, arms,
hands, and parts of leg.
The bacchanal boy's
head less restored, but
arms, legs, and goat
skins, &c. modern. The
head of the bull. The
dog is new all but one
paw, and the base is
much
restored
by
' Bianchi.
A cast of this fine
work is in the Crystal
Palace.
THE TOESO BELVEDERE. Heroic; m. Pen-

telic; h i , 5ft. l | i n .
Vatican. By Apollonios
FIG. 142.—THE TORSO BELVEDERE.
about 336 B.C. The
In the Vatican.
celebrated torso often
called after Michelangelo because he studied it so profoundly,
and made it his great example for sculptors. Flaxman borrowed
it for one of his compositions of the Apotheosis of Hercules.
That it is a Hercules is shown by the remains of the JSTemaean
lion's skin on the thigh and the rock. On the rock is cut the
A.S.

S

258

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

T.

name of the sculptor—AIIOAA&NI02 NESTOPOS A0HNAIO2
EIJOIEI—who was careful to show he was an Athenian. He
was not the Apolionios who with Tauriscus made the Toro
Farnese,
I t was found in the Campo dei Fiori, near the theatre of
Pompey, at the end of the 15th century. •
It is remarkable that so fine a work should not be mentioned
by Pliny or any of the ancient writers. There is another fine
torso in [Naples Museum (described below), known as the
Farnese Torso, which is sometimes spoken of as a rival of this
one, but being a Bacchus it is different in character, yet it may
fairly be compared. There is also a colossal torso in the Naples
Museum which is a fine work, though the forms are somewhat
fleshy. I t is a Bacchus, from the fillets on the shoulders.
TORSO, 'known as the FARNESE TORSO.

Life-size; m. Greek.

Naples Museum. This beautiful torso* of a seated figure is
almost as celebrated as that of the Vatican collection—the Torso '
Belvedere. I t is remarkable for the full and noble form, and the
grand style of the treatment of the figure. I t has been thought
to be a Narcissus, or more probably Bacchus from the curling
hair falling on the neck, and the fillets of the vine (vittce). The
head was turned away -towards the left, the inclination of the
figure being to the right. The neck is firmly set on, a portion
of the right arm remains, and part of the thighs. There are
indications of a staff (thyrsus) upon the thigh and belly. I t
was removed from the Farnese Palace in Eome to the collection
at Naples. Poussin the French painter is said to have especially
admired and studied this statue. Engraved in Clarac Musee,
pi. 683. \ : h i s is not to be confounded with the other torso
in the Laples Museum which is colossal in size, and perhaps a
Bacchus, but of inferior style. Casts of both may be compared
in the Crystal Palace, Nos. 188 and 193, the Farnese Torso.
THESEUS of the Parthenon.

(See Fig. 91.)

* Torso means the trunk from which the head and limbs have been
torn off.

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

V.

259

YENUS. Life-size; m. Florence Gallery. A half-draped
standing figure, holding the drapery with the left hand, the
other being raised and touching a lock of hair. A diadem on
the head showing traces of red and gold, with holes for jewels,
and the ears are pierced. A bracelet is carved on the right
arm.
YENUS OF ARLES. Heroic; m. Greek, of Hymettus. Hfc.,
6ft. 5^in. Louvre. This statue resembles the Yenus (Fig. 147),
having the drapery round the hips and over the left arm, her
right arm raised as if to dress the hair which is bound into a
fillet, the head turning as if towards a mirror or flask held in
the other hand. The mirror and the apple with the arms and
hands are, however, modern. It has been considered by some
to be a Yenus Yictrix, but M. Frohner does not admit this.
He thinks it and the Towneley Yenus in Brit. Mus. belong
to the school of Praxiteles, and are from the same original.
It was found in 1651 at Aries in France, where the worship of
Yenus was especially followed; Julia Arelatensis, the name of
the town, referring to the descent of the family of Julia from
Yenus and Anchises. It was found in sinking a well in the
ruins of the ancient theatre, and was placed in the Great
Gallery at Yersailles in 1685, after having been brought to
Paris in the care of Jean Dedieu, a sculptor of Aries and pupil
of Puget.
Restorations.—The head was broken off the neck, but part
only of the fillet is new. The right arm, the left fore-arm, the
two. hands with the apple and mirror handle, and many parts of
the drapery, were done by Fr. Girardon in 1684.

YENUS. Colossal bust. This beautiful work, in Parian
marble, was found at Aries. It belonged to a statue. It is
in the Museum of that town, and was presented sby the Due de
Luynes. I t is considered to be of the same school as the
Yenus of Melos, and may be regarded as of the Praxitelean
style.
s 2

260

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

V.

VENUS OF THE CAPITOL. Heroic;

m. Parian. Ht. 6T2o-ft. This statue
has a nobler character in the form
and is altogether a more complete
work than the Medici Venus,
than which it is much larger. It
has the special interest of being
nearly as perfect as the ancient
sculptor left it. Flaxman said, " an
example of more dignified and less
insinuating beauty than the Venus
dei Medici, and certainly a copy
from one of the three enumerated
by Pliny among the works of
Praxiteles." I t has, from the form
of the hair in a knot on the top
of the head, been thought to be an
Artemis.
Restorations. — Only the tip
of the nose and two of the
fingers.
It was found at Kome towards
the end of the 18th century near
the "Suburra di monti."
The statue (Pig. 143), British
Museum, is very similar but inferior. Another is in the Louvre
(152), one of the Borghese statues.
The height of this, however,
differs from the Capitol Venus,
being 6ft. 9in., and it is much
. restored—right arm from elbow,
left fore-arm, right foot and
.' * ~ . ^ ' . .. ankle, heel and half of left foot.
~
T7.
Resembling the Statue in the Capitoime
Museum, Home. British Museum. Several other copies exist. " A l l
are probably repetitions of the
Knidian Venus of Praxiteles, modified to please Eoman taste '*
Ne tcton).

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

V.

261

VENUS OF CAPUA. Heroic; m. Greek. Ht., 6ft. 7in. Naples
Museum. Half-draped, similar attitude to the Venus of Milo,
Venus of Aries, and Towneley Venus, but having a tiara or frontlet on the head. I t is a fine statue taken probably from a Greek
original of the type Venus Victrix.
Restorations.—The arms have been supplied by wooden ones^
and a Cupid in plaster added, as some traces of small feet are
seen on the plinth.

VENUS or Dione. Heroic ; m. Greek. Ht., 6ft. 7in. British
Museum. This fine statue is commonly spoken of as the
Towneley Venus from the name of the collector from whom it
was acquired. I t is nude to the waist The right arm is raised
gracefully while the left holds the drapery, but as this is a
restoration it is doubtful " whether the left hand held up a mirror,
a diadem, or a small flask, alabastron, containing unguent. I t
may possibly be a work of the Macedonian period, though it
may with more probability be referred to the Augustan age "
(Newton). I t is in two pieces of marble joined at the drapery.
It was found in the ruins of the baths of the Emperor Claudius
at Ostia, 1776.
Restorations.—The left arm, right fore-arm, tip of nose, and
parts of drapery.

VENUS GENITRIX.

Life-size;

m. Parian.

Ht., 5ft.

4|in.

Louvre. This is a standing draped statue of Venus as the
mother of the Eomans (Genitrix) as on the medals. She holds
the apple; the drapery is very thin, without girdle or sleeves,
showing the figure ; the ears are pierced, and she wears sandals.
Plaxman thought it copied from the draped Venus of Cos by
Praxiteles which the people bought of him. Similar statues are
in the Naples Museum, and one at Holkham (Lord Leicester's),
holding a vase, which is modern, in the left hand.
Restorations.—The head fixed on : the left hand and apple
in the right, with the part of the drapery held in it, are
modern.

262

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

VENUS DE' MEDICI.

Life-size; m. Parian.

V.
Ht., 4ft. 11 Jin.

Florence, in the Tribune of the Uffizi; by Kleomenes of
Athens.
In allusion to the birth of the goddess from the foam of the
sea, is the Dolphin, on whose back are sporting the two boy
deities, Eros and Himeros. The hair is bound up as the Horse
were said to have done it. The ears are pierced and no doubt
once had ear-rings, and on the left arm is the mark of an
armlet.
It was found in the Forum of Octavia or Hadrian's Villa at
Tivoli about 1680, with other beautiful statues, amongst which
was the knife-sharpener 6 L'Arrotino.' (Fig. 122.)
I t was brought to Florence in the Pontificate of Innocent XI.,
in the reign of Cosmo I I I . di Medici, and placed in the gardens
of the Medici in the 16th century, and was placed in the
gallery of the Uffizi in 1680.
Restorations.—It was broken into thirteen pieces; the head
was off, the trunk injured, the thighs broken, the feet, the arms,
and hands almost entirely gone. Fortunately the fractures were
so regular that the pieces were easily joined with the exception
of some parts in the trunk. The right arm and hand and the
left from the elbow were lost, and these, it is said, were supplied by Bernini. This accounts for some of the affectation
shown in the position of - the arms and hands. These are
not at all of the antique character, and the statue is much
grander without them, as indeed it should always be when
studied from. The plinth is also modern, the ancient one
having been, too much broken to be used, but the Greek
inscription was accurately copied, which translated reads (see
Fig. 144)—
" Kleomenes, son of Apollodoros the Athenian, did it." He
is spoken of by Pliny as a sculptor of the highest repute for his
female figures. The son of this, sculptor is thought to be him
whose name is cut upon the tortoise at the foot of the statue
called Germanicus in the Louvre, No. 184.
It is thought to bear some resemblance to the famous
Venus of Praxiteles, the first representing the goddess nude,
of which some idea is obtained from the coins of the time

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

V.

263

of Caracalla and Plautilla
(see Fig. 146). Old copies
in marble of the Venus of
Knidos are in the Yatican
(Fig. 145), and an especiallygood one in the Glyptothek
at Munich. An antique
marble copy of the Medici
Venus in the Louvre (156)
has the arms, which are
modern, slightly different
from Bernini's in the Florence statue. The left foot
and some toes of the right
are also new. This belonged to the Campana Collection, and was found at
Porto d'Anzio (Antium).
A statue in the Dresden
Museum closely resembles
the Medici Venus, the legs
however being lost from
about half of the thighs. A
small bronze in the Brit.
Mus. is in this attitude.

FIG. 144.—VENUS DE' MEDICI.
In the Tribune of the Uffizi Gallery.

KAEOiv\K ^ H ^ « - A T C O A . A . O Z ^ f l R O Y

264

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

V.

VENUS OF KNIDOS. Heroic; m. Greek. Ht., 6ft. 8in. Vatican.

Presumed to be a copy of the famous Venus of Praxiteles, described by Pliny (lib. xxxvi. c. 5), made
of Parian marble, standing in a little
temple open on all sides, so that it could
be seen all round. Lucian describes the
mouth as open and smiling, admires the
beauty of the hair, the well-pencilled
eyebrows and swimming softness and
vivacity of the eyes (ofdaXfuav TO vypov
afia T(D (patdpu). The original was destroyed in the burning of the Lausium
Palace at Constantinople in 475 A.D.,
Imperial medals struck at Knidos have
Caracalla and Plautilla, and on reverse
this Venus, The position is reversed
in the figure taken from the engraving
by Episcopus (or Bischop, 17th cent.),
which is not very accurate. The statue
in the Vatican has a modern stucco
drapery from the loins, put on by order
of the Pope, with which it has been
FIG. 145.
ignorantly engraved in the Museo Pio
THE VENUS OF KNIDOS.
Clementino.
Vatican.
Another statue, considered to
be much finer, is in the Glyptothek, Munich, which is life-size
and of stone; found in a vineyard at Some at the end of last
century.
A bronze statue of the celebrated Venus was made by
Praxiteles, destroyed in the
reign of Claudius by a fire at
Eome. (' Hist. Nat.' lib. xxxiv.
c. 8.)
FIG. 143.—COIN OF KNIDOS.

VENUS.

FIG. 147.—YENUS OF MELOS. In the Louvre. TJie left foot added.

266

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES. V.

VENUS OF MILO or MELOS, the name of the island in which

it was found. (Venus Victrix.) A half-draped heroic-size
statue, the arms and left foot broken off. Marble. Height, 6ft.
8in. In the Louvre; No. 136. Corallitic marble, like ivory in
colour, and very close in the grain.
The name of the sculptor is not known, but this beautiful
statue is considered by Clarac to be of the school of Praxiteles.
But being partly draped some think it to be of an earlier time.
Others have attributed it to Alcamenes and to Agesandros. By
Overbeck it is considered to be of so late a time as that of
Augustus. Mr. Newton would place it about 250 B.C. I t was
found in 1820 by a Greek peasant in getting up the roots of a
tree, when the whole fell through into a hollow place which
proved to be a tomb in the rock. The bust was first found, and
then the trunk in two parts, separated where the drapery
begins, at the hips; but the head was not separate, being
perfect with the exception of the nose; the left foot was quite
lost. A hand holding an apple was found, and a fragment of
a plinth was also found near the statue, inscribed with the last
letters of a name, . . . ANAP02, supposed to be part of the
name'Ay^oraj'opoe, and the rest of the inscription Myvtdov ('Aw)
loxevg diro Maiavdpov kiroiriaev {Clarac Inscrip. pi. 54). " The
son of Menides of Antioch near the river Maeander has done it,"
all in letters of the best period. This fragment, according to
M. Clarac, fitted the broken plinth on which the statue stood.
The statue was purchased by the Count Marcellus (the friend
and secretary of Chateaubriand when he was in London), and
presented by him to the French nation.
Restorations.—The nose, and the left foot. The plinth has
been let into a new block of marble, and until within the last
ten years the figure had an inclination out of the perpendicular
caused by the lower part of the plinth not being quite true.
This has been rectified, and the statue is much improved by it,
but in all the old casts the defect will be noticed.
It may be noticed that the attitude suggests that some object
was held resting on the knee, such as a shield. A bronze statue
in a somewhat similar attitude, now in the Louvre, is a winged
figure of Victory holding a shield, and inscribing it, which was

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

V\

267

found at Brescia about twenty years ago. There is also a
resemblance in attitude to the Venus of Capua in the Naples
Museum. M. Frbhner is of opinion that the left hand with
apple belongs to this statue, but the right hand held the drapery.
M. Claudius Tarral, sculptor, has made the most accurate
investigation of the fragments, and agrees in this opinion. He
notices that certain irregularities in the forms show that the
sculptor was not a copyist but essentially an originator, working
from his own ideal. The right cheek is rather larger than the
left, and the corners of the mouth are not exactly alike, and the
drapery is simple and finely designed so as to avoid all folds not
essential to the position
and not interfering with
the harmony of the figure
(see Louvre Cat., p. 171).

YENUS, Crouching. Pen-

telic m. Ht., 3ft. 7|in.
Yatican. Pound at Salona
at the end of 18th century,
near Preneste. The plinth
is inscribed B0YIIAA02
EnOIEI, but this is regarded as modern; the vase
is, however, partly antique.
Best orations.—Hair, and
upper part of head,and face
retouched, right hand, left
hand partly, fore-part of
right foot and the two first
toes of left.
Yisconti
speaks of a bracelet, but
this is not visible now.
There was a famous statue FlG< 1 4 8 . _ T H E CACHING YENUS. MarUe.
of Yenus at the Bath
Vatican.
by Polycharmes, which Pliny speaks of as in the portico of
Octavia (lib. xxxvi. c. 5), Yenerem lavantem sese. Two similar

268

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

V.

statues once in the Giustiniani Palace are now in the collection
of Prince Torlonia. A similar figure is in a "bas-relief with
two Cupids holding a cloth, in Ludovisi "Villa.

VENUS AND CUPID.

Heroic size; Parian m.

Louvre.

The

goddess arming with the sword of Mars, with Cupid trying
on the helmet. She has an armlet on left arm. A fine group,
formerly in the Borghese Villa and Palazzo della Valle, and
belonged once to Pope Julius I I I .
Restorations.—The whole surface has been rasped over; the
right arm, left hand, left leg from knee to ankle, left arm of
Cupid and right hand, his wings, and visor of helmet. (Clarac.)

VENUS, called the Crouching, or in the bath. Parian m.
Ht., 2ft. 3|in. Louvre. Has the right hand raised above the
head. Differs also from the Vatican figure in being smaller.
Restorations.—Tip of nose, right hand, left arm and leg, part
of thigh, and sole of foot.

VENUS KALLIPYGE.

Life-size; m. Greek.

Ht., 5ft. 2Jin.

Naples Museum. A nude statue holding drapery in front, and
in the attitude of looking back over her shoulder as if admiring
her own beautiful back, from which the statue takes its name
{jcaWiTTvyoQ).

I t was formerly in the Farnese collection with most of the
sculptures at Naples, and was found in the ruins of the Golden
House of Nero. I t was once placed with all the Venuses in the
Naples Museum in a separate room called after the name of this
statue, and kept from the public view.
It has some few good points in the work of the body, but is
not entitled to the reputation it has held of being copied from
one of the Venuses of Praxiteles.
Restorations.—The head, the right leg and hand, part of the
left arm, the hand and the breast are modern, and the work of
the sculptor Albaccini.

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

W.

2G9

(Yenus Kallipyge.) The story goes that two pretty peasant
girls disputed which had the best, figure, and they appealed to a
young noble of Syracuse passing near, who decided in favour of
the elder one. Being desperately smitten with her charms, he
confided his secret to his brother, who begged to see the two
girls, and then preferred the younger one. ('Athenseus
Deipnosoph,' lib. xii. ch. xc.)

FIG. 149.—THE WRESTLERS.
In 'the Tribune of the Vffizi.
THE WRESTLERS.

Group; m. Ht., 2ft. 10 J i n . ; length, 3ft.

11 in. Florence Gallery. A most remarkable group, although
much of it is new. The immense difficulties of such a work are
surmounted with wonderful skill, and in the knowledge of the
figure shows a great mastery of the technical part of the art.

270

DESCRIPTIONS OF STATUES.

Y, Z.

It represents a deadly struggle, not a mere throwing to the
ground, which was another kind of game; in this the upper
figure is about to deal a finishing blow upon his victim. It is
a good example of choice of motive. It belongs to the later
style of Greek art, and has been connected with the Niobe
figures from having been found in the same place, and sold in
one lot with them to the Medici family. Winckelmann thought
they belonged to that group in accordance with another account
of the Mobe catastrophe, which says that the sons were wrestling
when it happened. In treatment it recalls the Laocoon group,
and is classed in the school of Rhodes by some German critics.
Restorations.—The heads, the left arm and foot, right leg
from knee of the upper figure, the right arm and leg above knee
of the lower are modern. It is, however, maintained that they
are antique; the head of the conquered wrestler being retouched
only.
YOUNG SATYR, carrying a goat. M. H i , 4ft. 6in. Madrid
Museum. An excellent and spirited figure, the fir crown and
Syrinx, or pipe on the tree trunk, left unfinished. Found in
Rome near the church of S. Maria in Vollicella.
Restorations.—The arms from shoulders, the left leg from knee
to middle of foot, done by Ercole Ferrata.
A good cast in the Eoyal Academy, London.
YOUTH SUPPLICATING THE GODS.

Bronze.

Hi,

4ft.

2|in.

Berlin Museum. A young athlete invoking success, or giving
thanks. A very fine and perfect work, found in the Tiber, and
presented by Clement XL to Prince Eugene of Savoy, from
whom it passed to Prince Lichtenstein, who sold it to Frederick II. for 10,000 crowns. It resembles in style the bronze
' Spinario,' Fig. 123. A cast is in the Crystal Palace.
Restorations.—Part only of the right arm and hand.
ZEUS (the Jupiter of Versailles). Colossal; Carrara m. H i ,
lift. 4Jin. Louvre. This large decorative statue represents
the god as the Giant-Slayer—' Gigantomachos.' The head is

IMPORTANT BAS-RELIEFS.

271

turned to the right, the hair floating behind as if by the wind.
I t was in the Medici Gardens, Eome, and was^given to Cardinal
Granvelle, who brought it to his Palace at Besancon in 1546.
I t was presented to Louis XIY. in 1668 and placed at Versailles.
Mentioned in Montfaucon (Supplement) and Clarac,' Musee/ pi.
312. There is another colossal Zeus in the Louvre, of Pentelic
marble, about 7ft. Sin. high. Statues of Zeus are not common.
A colossal seated statue much restored was in the part of the
Canpana Collection sold to the Emperor of Eussia.
I t was
found on the shore of the lake of Alba. There is another
colossal statue of Zeus,—'No. 325, Vatican,—formerly in the
Yerospi Palace.

IMPOETANT BAS-EELIEFS.
ENDYMION. Alto-relievo; life-size; m. I n the Capitoline
Museum, Eome. Asleep upon a rock, his head, which is only
blocked out, is inclined upon his breast; the right side of the
figure is shown, the arm fallen by the side, his spear resting on
the left shoulder, his dog starting in the act of barking, as if
he knew Selene was approaching. Selene (moon) came from
heaven to kiss the beautiful youth. This fine relief was found
upon the Aventine Hill during the Pontificate of Clement X L ,
according to Eicorini. I t is thought that the head was left
unfinished, as it was intended for some place where it would be
in shadow and seen from below. Cast in the Crystal Palace,
No. 33.

EEMALB FIGURE m

A CHARIOT.

Bas-relief; m.

Athens

Museum. An important example of the early Athenian sculpture
of the time of Peisistratos (B.C. 560—490), which resembles
the Xanthian bas-reliefs in the British Museum. I t was found
at Athens amongst the remains of the buildings destroyed by
the Persians. The hair of this figure shows resemblance to
the Xanthian figures, and the zigzag folds of the drapery are
similar. A oast of this is No. 59, Crystal Palace.

272
'

IMPORTANT BAS-EELIEFS.

PERSEUS AND ANDROMEDA.

Alto-relievo; life-size; m. I n the

Capitoline Museum, Eome. Perseus with wings on head and
heels, is nude, with the chlamys over the left shoulder and
arm, falling down the left side of the leg. Andromeda is clothed
in a long tunic and peplos, the head of the monster lying dead
at her feet. The left hand of Perseus appears to hold the head
of Medusa, which is not shown. Cast No. 35, Crystal Palace.

Two COMBATANTS AND A HORSE.

Bas-relief; m. Pentelic;

above life-size. I n the Villa Albani, Eome. This is one of the
most beautiful bas-reliefs known, and is considered to have so
much of the grand style that it may be classed next to the
works of Pheidias. I t was found near the arch of Gallienus,
Rome, in 1764.

ANIMALS.
THE DOG ' Molossos.' M. Ht., 3ft. 8jin. Florence Mus.
Two of these stand at the top of the stairs in the Uffizi. Fine
examples of the life-like sculpture of animals by the ancient
artists. There is another in the Vatican.

T H E FLORENTINE BOAR.

M . ; life-size.

The Boar of Calydon

killed by Meleager. A copy in marble in the Louvre, and in
bronze by Pierre Tacca in the Mercato Nuovo, Florence.
The most remarkable collection of animals sculptured in
marble and hard stones of various kinds is in the Vatican.
The collection of casts from antique sculptures recently added
to the South Kensington Museum, at the suggestion of Mr.
Perry, affords many interesting and instructive examples, so that
with those in the British Museum, and the Crystal Palace which
is the most extensive collection of casts available for study to
be found anywhere, the student is now enabled to acquire a
complete practical knowledge of ancient sculpture.

A CHKONOLOGICAL LIST
OF

ANCIENT

SCULPTORS,

AND THEIR WORKS.
In this list the names of the sculptors and their works are spelt as in Greek.
In the text they are given as the Greek names were spelt by Latin writers.
THE names of Egyptian sculptors of the earliest times (B.C. 5000) who
designed those grand works still existing in so perfect a state, are not
recorded. The same is to be said of the Assyrian sculptures, and of those
called Phoenician.
The Shield of Achilles, described by HOMER, and the Shield of Herakles,
the description of which is attributed to HESIOD, were worked in thin
metal, embossed and chiselled ; but no names of the sculptors are recorded.
The date of Homer and Hesiod is doubtful. The middle of the 9th century
B.C. may serve for the time of Homer ; Hesiod was about a century later,
about 735 B.C. The date accepted for the capture of Troy is B.C. 1184.
Certain names of Greek sculptors working in the primitive manner, to
which the general term "Archaic " is applied, are mentioned by Herodotos,
Pliny,'and Pausanias as traditional, but their precise date is not known.
HERODOTOS was born at Halikarnassos 484 B.C., and wrote when an old
man of 77. The date of his death is not known. PLINY was born at
Verona A.D. 23, and perished in the eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79.
PAUSANIAS (a native of Lydia?) wrote in the time of the emperor M.
Aurelius, 161—180 A.D. Pausanias says—" Of my time the Emperor
Adrian," &c. (Taylor's Translation, Book I., p. 14.) This Emperor was
born A.D. 76, and died in July, A.D. 138.
ABBREVIATIONS,: St. = Statue. ~W. = Wood. T. C. = Terra cotta.
M. = Marble. B. = Bronze. G. = Gold. I. = Ivory. E. = Ebony.
B.C.

665 ? Butades or Dibutades—Corinth—Bas-relief in baked clay—Portrait
of his daughter's lover—Said by Pliny to have been still at
Corinth when the city was sacked by Mummius.
666—Eucheir—Diopos — Eugrammos—From Corinth to Etruria—Model500 ?
lers in clay.
A.S.

T

274

CHKONOLOGICAL LIST OF

B.C.

Damophilos—Gorgasos—From Corinth?—Statues in T. C. in the
Temple of Ceres, Rome—Pliny, xxv. cap. 12—" Plastse laudatissimi" &c. Those on the right were by Damophilos, and the left
by Gorgasos.
600 ? Bhoikos—Samos—Figures of Women in the Temple of Artemis at
Ephesus, one called " N i g h t " by the Ephesians—Mentioned by
Pausanias, lib. x. p. 686. Architect also of the Temple.
Theodoros, son of Rhoikos—Samos—Labyrinth of Lemnos, and
Temple of Artemis—Theodoros, said to have learned the Egyptian
canon of proportions in Egypt; so that he at Ephesos made one
vertical half of a statue (in wood ?) while Telekles of Samos made
the other, the two fitting exactly when put together.
Telekles, brother of Theodoros—Sa?nos—Statues in B. and W.
560 ? Theodoros, son of Telekles—Samos—St. in B. and W., and gem
engraving. B. St. of himself holding the ring, or scarab, his
famous work—Flourished in the time of Kroesus and' Polykrates,
whose ring he made.
630 ? Glaukos—Chios—Iron-stand, or large vase with figures, at Delphi—
Said to have invented soldering of metals.
540? Melas—Chios—St., M., none named.
Mikkiades—Chios—St., M., none named.
Bupalos—Chios—St., M., Tyche, at Smyrna. St., G., The Graces
draped.
580—Dipoinos—Skyllis—Crete, and to Sikyon—M., I., and E. St., The
548?
Dioscuri at Argos. St. of Artemis, Athena, Heraldes, &c.—
Called sons of Dsedalos.
560? Dontas—Sparta—W., I., and G., Group, Herakles, Acheloos, Zeus,
and other figures. St. Hera, Athena.
560? Dorykleidos—Sparta—St., I. and G. Athene.
Tektaeos—Angelion—Sparta—W., I., and G. Apollo at Delos.
St., Athene. St., Artemis.—Kallon of iEgina was pupil of these.
Klearchos—Bhegium—St., B. and W., Zeus at Sparta.—Master of
Pythagoras the sculptor.
560—Smilis—JEgina—I. and G. Group of the Seasons.
550 ? Cheirisophos—Crete—St., W. and G., Apollo, and St., M., of himself.
550? Enoidos—Athens—St., W., I., and M., of Artemis, for Temple at
Ephesos. Athene Polias. St., W., with the Graces and the
Seasons in M.
,, Gitiadas—Sparta—St., B., Athene, in Temple at Sparta. Two
tripods at Amyklse—This St. was probably a pillar-like figure,
ornamented with bands of reliefs described by Pausanias, as on a
coin of Sparta.—See ' Hist, of Greek Sculpture/ by A. S. Murray.
1881.
,, Bathykles—Magnesia—"W., B., and G. Statue and Throne of Apollo
at Amyklse—Bathykles was the head of a band of sculptors whom
he brought.
521 Eutelidas—Argos—St. of Athletes—Yictors at Olympia.

275

ANCIENT SCULPTOES.
B.C.

Chrysothemis—Argos—St. of Athletes—Victors at Olympia. Pausanias (lib. vi. p. 362, 25) gives the names as recorded in an inscription : EiiTekidag icai XpvffoOsfxig radt epya TeXearag 'Apyuoi,
rk^vav elSoreg SK 7rporsp(dv.
521—Ageladas—Argos—1. Chariot group, at Olympia, B. 2. St., Ath455 ?
letes, named. 3. Infant Zeus, at Ithone and iEgion. 4. Herakles,
at Melite.—The master of Pheidias, Myron, and Polykleitos.
500 ? Argeiadas—Atotos—Argos—St. at Olympia—Argeiadas was son or
pupil of Ageladas. His name is inscribed on a base found at
Olympia, 1876 ; also another with names of Athanodoros and
Asopodoros.
Aristomedon—Argos—Colossal statues at Delphi.
500—Glaukos—Argos—St. at Olympia—Groups of Amphitrite, Poseidon,
467
and Hestia—Mentioned by Herodotus.
Dionysios—Argos—St., Groups of Deities and Hesiod and Homer.
St., Mare and groom, of Phormis, at Olympia—These horses and
figures were of diminutive size.
Simon—JEgina—St, Horse and groom, at Olympia, in the Altis.
,, Kanachos—Sikyon—B., W., I., G;, M.—St., B., Apollo at Branchidse. St., W., Apollo at Thebes. St., G. and I., Aphrodite at
Sikyon. St., A Muse. St., group, Boys riding—Bronze statuette,
supposed to be copy of this, in B. Mus. His statues alluded to
by Cicero as less soft than those of Kalamis.
Aristokles—Sikyon—St., A Muse at Sikyon—Marble Stele of a
Warrior (fig. 70), bearing his name—He was brother of Kanachos,
and though other works are not named, he was long acknowledged
as founder of a school of sculpture, of which Sostratos and
Ptolichos are named. (Murray, loc. cit.)
523—Kallon—^Egina—St., Persephone at Amyklse. St., Athene at
480 ?
Traszen.
477 ? Onatas—JEgina—St., Group (10) at Olympia—of Greeks casting lots
to challenge Hektor. St., Group at Delphi. Chariot for Hiero
of Syracuse at Olympia. St., B., Herakles at Thasos. St., B.,
Apollo at Pergamus. St., B., Hermes with a ram at Olympia.
St., B., Demeter—'the black draped Demeter' at Phigaleia, a
woman with head of horse. The marble statues of the jEgina
Pediments in Munich Museum (fig. 74) may be by Onatas and
Kallon. (Brunn.)
Kallitales—JEgin%—Assisted Onatas.
485—Grlaukias—Jffgina—Chariot
group, Gelo victor in the race at
477
Olympia. St., B. (3), of victors at Olympia—A base was found
at Olympia inscribed TAAYKIAS AIHNATA2 EII0IE2E.
Anaxagoras—JEgina—St., B., colos. Zeus at Olympia—Contemporary with Glaukias.
Aristonos—JEgina—St., Zeus at Olympia, in the Altis.
Serambos—JEgina—St., Boy, Victor at Olympia.
Theopropos—^ma—St., B., Bull at Delphi.
T 2

276

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF

B.C.

Philesios—Eretria—St., B., Bull at Olympia—The base of this bull
has been found at Olympia, bearing his name.
§10 Antenor—Athens—St., B. (2), Harmodios and Aristogeiton—Carried
off by Xerxes, restored by Alexander. Many of this subject in
the Ceramicum, Pausanias says, but that of Antenor the oldest.
A fragment recently found on the Akropolis bearing the name
ANTENOR.

480 Kritios—Nesiotes {misread Nestokles)—Athens—St., B. (2), Harmo^
dios and Aristogeiton at Athens. Worked together in making/a
group to replace the old one. The group of the tyrannicides found
on coins ; on a vase found in a tomb at Cyrene ; and a relief on a
marble chair in Naples Museum ; and two separate statues in the
same collection which would form a group. All these are of the
style in the time of Alexander the Great. See p. 129.
Amphion—Knossos in Crete—Chariot group at Delphi.
Demokritos—SiJcyon—St., Boy of Hippos, Victor at Olympia.
Amphikrates—Athens—St. of Lesena as a Lioness without a tongue,
in allusion to her secrecy.
Hegesias or Hegias—Athens—St., Castor and Pollux at Rome, and
Boys on race-horses—Mentioned by Pliny, Pausanias, and Lucan.
480? Kalamis—Athens—St., Race-horses for the chariot by Onatas at
460?
Olympia. St., Aphrodite (Sosandra) at Athens. St., Boys, at
Olympia. St., Ammon. St., Apollo Alexikakos. St., Colossal
Apollo at Apollonia. St., Zeus Ammon at Thebes. St., Hermes
Kriophoros at Tanagra (A small marble statue of this is at Wilton
House, and a terra cotta statuette in Brit. Mus.), called so from
carrying a goat on the shoulders. St., M., Dionysos at Tanagra.
The Quadriga on the Akropolis, Athens. Nike Apteros at
Olympia. St.,Alkmene. St., Hermione. St., G., I., Asklepios.
—Famous for his horses. The base of the Aphrodite has been
found inscribed with his name.
Kallimachos—Athens—Surnamed ' Katatexitechnos.' Inventor of
the Corinthian Capital.
Praxiteles (the Elder)—Athens—St., The charioteer for the quadriga
of Kalamis.
Xleoitas—Athens—St., Warrior at Athens. Group of Zeus and
Ganymede at Olympia.
480 Pythagoras—Rhegium—St., B., Philoktetes at Syracuse. St., B.,
Astylos, a runner of Crotona, at Olympia. St., B., Euthymos, a
boxer, Olympia—The marble base discovered at Olympia inscribed
with the names Pythagoras and Euthymos. St., B., Leontiskos,
a wrestler, Olympia. Europa oi\a Bull at Tarentum (Marble of
this is in Brit. Mus.). St., Mnaseas. St., Group, Etiokles and
Polyneikos. St., Perseus. St., Apollo. Group (8 figs.) in the
Temple of Fortune at Rome in Pliny's time.
470 Myron—Athens—St., W., Hekate at iEgina. St., Dionysos with
Apollo and Muses, on Mt. Helicon. St., Erectheus, Athens.
St., Colossal group, Zeus, Athene, and Herakles at Samos. St.,
group, Athene and Marsyas. St., Perseus and Medusa, Acropolis.
St., R., A Cow lowing. St., Oxen (4). St., A Dog. St., Boy

ANCIENT SCULPTORS.

277

boxer Philippos. St., The runner Ladas. St., B., Diskobolos
and other Athletes. St., Apollo (2). St., Herakles.—His style is
by some recognized in the frieze of the Theseium, Athens. Also
in the metopes of the Parthenon.
460 Polykleitos—Argos and Sikyon—St., B., Doryphoros, The Diadumenos. St., G. and I., of Hera at Argos, seated. St., B., Amazon,
copy in the Vatican, and another. St., M., Amazon, Vienna Mus.
St., M., Amazon, at Berlin Mus. B., Group of Astragalizontes.
St., B., Aphrodite at Amyklse. St., B., The Apoxyomenos, and
another Athlete.-—Pupil of Ageladas, with Pheidias and Myron.
Was characterized by making his figures rest on one leg, as in the
two st. of a Diadumenos in Brit. Mus. The author of the canon
called after him. Coins of Argos represent his Hera. A Doryphoros is in Naples Mus. Contended with Pheidias, Kresilas, Kydon,
and Phradmon with his statue of Amazon at Ephesos, and was
awarded the prize. M. Head of Amazon in Brit. Mus.
464? Pheidias (b. 490? d.— ?)—Athens—St., B., colossal, of Athene
Promachos. St., B., The Lemnian Athene. St., co-los., I. andG.,
in Parthenon. St., I. and G., colos., Zeus at Olympic, Altis. The
above four all destroyed—A small m. statue found at Athens, 1880;
"copied from the famous one in Parthenon. St., B., Amazon—
leaning on a lance ; copy in the Vatican. The sculptures of the
Parthenon. Those of the Pediments especially attributed to him
(figs. 88, 89). St., M., Venus Urania. St., I. and G., Venus
Urania, Elis. St., Apollo Parnopius, Athens. G., Athene and
Apollo with the Heroes (Eponymi). The last four named by
Pausanias.
460? Strongylion (ErpoyyvXiujv). St., Amazon, called *Euknemon,'from
the beautiful legs. St., A Boy. Plin. 1. xxxiv. c. 8. St., Artemis.
Group, Three Muses. Paus. 1. 9.
440—Agorakritos—Paws— St., B., Aphrodite, called Nemesis Rhamnusia.
428 ?
St., B , Athene Itonia. St., B., Zeus.—Pupil of Pheidias. Competed with Alkamenes for a statue of Aphrodite, and was beaten
by him ; the ' Nemesis' was the name he gave to his statue.
444—Alkamenes—Athens—St., B., Aphrodite 'of the Garden.' St., B.,
400?
Athene. St., B., Hephaistos. St., Centaur. St., Hera—Juno.
St., Ares—Mars. I. and G., Dionysos. B., Hekate Tricorpor.
St., Asklepios. St., Herakles, colossal. St., Eros. Sts. of the
W. Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. M., Battle of
the Centaurs and Lapithse (discovered 1879).—Pupil of Pheidias,
who is said to have put the finishing touch on his Aphrodite.
Contended with Pheidias for the statue of Athene.
435

Paionios—Mende in Thrace—Sts., M., in E. Pediment of Temple at
Olympia—The contest between Pelops and Oinomaos—Discovered
1879. St., M., Victory with wings—A cast in Brit. Mus.

432—Phradmon—Ephesus—St., B., Amazon—Contended with Pheidias,
439
Polykleitos, and others : he was placed fifth.
Ktesilas (Ktesilaus, Desilaos)—Lacedcemon—St., Amazon wounded.
—The statue in Capitol, Rome, a copy (?). St., Perikles Olympius.
St., A Doryphore.

278

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF

B.C.

415 Pyromachos— Athens—Frieze of Temple of Athene Polias —Named
as Phyromachos, (pvpofxaxog.—Grk. Anth., lib. iv. c. 12.
379 Pythis (Pythios)—Athens—M., Group on the Tomb of Mausolus—
Discovered by Mr. Newton, 1857. In Brit. Mus. called Halikarnassus marbles.
Leochares—Athens—M., The sculptures of W. side of tomb ofMausolus — Also named by Pausanias as the sculptor of a Zeus, Apollo,
and other statues.
Bryaxis—Rhodes—The sculptures of N. side of Mausolus tomb—A
Pasiphae, Asklepios, and Hygeia Liber Pater at Knidos.
Timotheos—Athens—The sculptures of S. side of Mausolus tomb—
A Diana at Rome. A Ganymede ; copy in Vatican.
364 Skopas—Paws— The sculptures of E. side ofMausolus tomb. 1. Venus,
Pothos, and Phaeton. 2. Apollo Palatinus. 3. Poseidon, Thetis,
and Achilles—In the shrine of Cn. Domitius Via Flamm. Rome.
4. Colossal Ares, seated. 5. Aphrodite Pandemon—Bronze.
6. Niobe group (?)—in Pliny's time at Rome. 7. Eros, Pothos, and
Imeros at Megara—Same work as Venus, &c, No. 1 ? 8. Artemis.
9. Asklepios and Hygeia. 10. M., Herakles. 11. M., Hekate.
12. M., Drunken Bacchus. 13. One of theColumnsecelatseof the
Temple at Ephesus (?), begun B.C. 394. Architect of Temple of
Athene Tegea.
364 Praxiteles— Athens—M., Aphrodite (Cnidian Venus)—carried to
Constantinople. M., St. of Phryne, one gilt. M., Eros—carried
off by Caligula; restored by Claudius ; taken again by Nero to
Rome, where it stood in the schools of Octavia ; burnt in that
building, reign of Titus. Faun—' Nobilem Satyrum,5 7repit6r)rov.
St., Sauroctonos. Group, Ceres and otheis, once at Rome. Flora,
Triptolemos, Boni Eventus, Menades, Caryatides, Sileni, Apollo,
Nep unus. Diana and Latona.—The Venus of the Capitol was
thought by Flaxman to be Copied from Praxiteles. The Niobe
statues also attributed to him. Cast of Hermes and Dionysos,
found at Olympia, 1879, is in Brit. Mus. Praxiteles was head
of the later Attic school, with Skopas. A sculptor of the same
name is mentioned in the time of Kimon, 480 ?
372 Kephisodotos, son of Praxiteles—Athens—Group at Pergamos
(' syraplegma')—perhaps the Florence 'Wrestlers.' St., Latona.
St., Venus. St., iEsculapius and Diana—once at Rome, named
by Pliny.
350 ? KTaukydes— Argos—St., Discobolos, in Vatican. St., Hermes. St.,
Hekate. St., I. and G., Hebe.
330 Polykleitos (the younger)—Argos—A younger sculptor of the name,
of the time of Lysippos.
340 Lysippos—Sikyon— (time of Alexander the Great—b. 356 ; d. 323 ;
320
set. 32)—B., Statues of Alexander (celebrated), one holding a
lance. Many of Hercules. B., Hercu.es of T .rentum—Glykon's
well-known statue may be from this one, whicli wTas in the Capitol,
Rome. Colossal Zeus at Tarentum. Equestrian Group of Alexander and the horsemen who fell at the battle of the Granicus,
334 B.C.—brought to Rome by Metellus, 146 B.C. St., B., Apoxyomenos—The statue in the Vatican considered to be copy of this.

ANCIENT SCULPTORS.

279

St., Hephaistion —He is said to have made 1600 works, mostly
in bronze.
300 Polykles—Athens—Amyntas, wrestler.
Hermaphrodite—whether
recumbent is doubtful, but he is said to be the inventor of this
kind of statue, one of which is in the Louvre, another in the Villa
Albani, and another in Florence Museum.
290 Chares—Lindus in Rhodes—B., Colossus of Ehodes, erected 224 B.C.
—Pupil of Lysippos.
Eutychides—SiJcyon—Eurotam (River). St., Liber Pater. St.,
Timosthenes Eleus. St., Tyche (seated), with Orontes river as
a youth at her feet, Seleucus and Antiochus crowning her.—Pupil
of Lysippos.
Lysistratos, brother of Lysippos—Sikyon—Said. to have invented the
taking of casts of the face. Plin., cap. viii. sec. 44.
240—Pyromachos— Athens and Pergamus—St., B., Asklepios. Groups
295
,of battles of Attalus and Eumenes, with other sculptures.—The
Dying Gladiator is supposed to be a copy of a bronze statue in
these groups at Pergamos ; and also the group of Paetus and
Arria in the Ludovisi Villa.
Isigonos—Stratonikos—Antigonos—Athens and Pergamos—"Worked
with Pyromachos—Alto-reJiefs, discovered at Pergamos, now in
the Museum at Berlin. The school of Pergamos was founded on
these.
160 Timokles—Timarchides—Athenians, worked at Pome—St., Asklepios. St., Athene Promachos at Elatea.—The shield of this statue
was an imitation of that of the Parthenon statue.
Kleomenes—Athens—St., M., Aphrodite—' Venus dei Medici.' M.
group, Thespiades—belonged to Asinius Pollio.
Kleomenes, son of the above.—Athens—St. of Germanicus in the
Louvre—The base inscribed as by Kleomenes, son of Kleomenes.
100? Apollonios, son of Nestor—BouUful where from—St., M., Torso
Belvedere—Inscription on the torso. Not the same Apollonios as
he who did the Toro Farnese with Tauriscos. The name is found
also on a statue of iEsculapius at Rome.
Agasias, son of Dositheos—Ephesus—St., The Fighting Gladiator in
Louvre—the name upon the work. This statue formerly attributed to the time of Alexander, B. C. 330. Agasias is not mentioned by Pausanias or Pliny. Visconti suggests it was Hegesias.
90 Pasiteles—Magna Grceeia—St., I., Jupiter in the temple, for Metellus.—Said to have written a book on art (Pliny).
Kolotes—Paros—None known—Pupil of Pasiteles. Another of the
name said to have assisted Pheidias on the Zeus, Olympia.
80 ? Arkesilaos—Greek—St., Venus Genitrix, for the Forum of Caesar.
St., or B. rel., M., Lioness with Cupids, for Lucullus—Praised
by Varro.
50 Sauros—Batrachos—Not known, but Greek—Sculptures in the Portico
of Octavia. They carved a lizard and a frog, to signify their
names, on this work. (Plin.)

280

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF ANCIENT SCULPTORS.

B.C.

30 ? Glykon—Athens—St., M., Colossal Hercules, found in the Baths of
Caracalla, Rome—His name not mentioned by Pliny or Pausanias,
but his only work known bears his name. (Fig. 114.)
26 Diogenes—Athens—Worked on the Pantheon of Agrippa. Caryatides
by him.
A.D.

50? Apollonios and Tauriskos—Tralles—Colossal Group, M., Dirke tied
to the Bull, in Naples Mus. (Fig. 141.)
79 Agesander—Apollodoros—Athenodoros, son of Agesander—Rhodians—Group, M., Laocoon, in Vatican (fig. 136). The work of
these three sculptors in the time of Titus.
60 Zenodoros—A Gaul—St., B., Coloss. of Nero—110 feet high, which
stood before the Golden House. Afterwards dedicated as a Sol, in
A.D. 75.
117—Papias — Aristeas — Aphrodisias — M., Two Centaurs in bigio,
138
marble.
Zeno—Attilianos—Aphrodisias—No works known, but the name
found in inscriptions.
Pantuleios—Ephesus—
,,
,,
,,
,,
Zenophantes—Thasos—
,,
,,
,,
,,
Many more names might be added to this list, but those above given are the
most important.
The great work of Franciscus Junius, ' Be Pictura Veterum' Fol. Roterodami 1694, affords an almost exhaustive collection of quotations from
Greek and Latin writers referring to Sculptors and their works, with a very
full catalogue, which will be found invaluable to students.

INDEX.
The names of Sculptors < in SMALL CAPITALS, and their works in italic.
ire
PAGB

PAGE

Achilles Borghese .
Adonis of the Vatican
.ZEgmetan Statues .
Ms iEgineticum
,, Corinthiacum
,, Deliacum
,, Hepatizon
^Esthetic

217
217
133
,
, 17
17
,: 17
t 17
, 65
AGASIAS
279
AGELADAS
138, 275
AGESANDER .
280
AGORAKRITOS
' 171-- 1 7 3 , 277
ALKAMENES .
171- - 1 7 3 , 277
Alto-relievo .
, 27
Amazon, Wounded
218
AMPHIKRATES
276
AMPHION
. 276
An Has tern King (Gem)
, 8
ANAXAGORAS OE .ZEGIN^
275
ANGELION
274
ANTENOR
276
ANTIGONOS .
.
202, 279
Antinous of the Capitol
. 219
Antoninus, Column of
209
Apollino
225
Apollo Belvedere
# 221
Apollo Sauroctonos .
, 222
APOLLODOROS
209 280
APOLLONIOS .
255 279
Apoxyomenos, The .
193, 224
Archaic Sculpture .
119 128
ARGEIADAS .
275
Ariadne of the Vatican
, 225
ARISTEAS
280
ARISTOKLES .
275
ARISTOMEDON .
275
ARISTONOS
275
ARKESILAOS .
.' 212 , 279
Arrotino
226
Artemis, B. Statue .
121
Artemisium, The, a t Epllesus . 198

Assyrian Bas-relief. 93, 106, 108
,,
Statues .
. 104
Athene, Statues of . 173, 249, 250
ATHENODOROS
. 280
ATOTOS
. 275
ATTILIANOS .
. 280
Bas-relief
Bas-reliefs, important

.
.
BATRACHOS .
.
Boar, The Florentine
.
Boy extracting a thorn .
.
Boy with Goose
.
Bronze with marble
.
Bronze Statues
.
BRYAXIS
186,
BUPALOS
.
Bust
.
.
.
.
.
BUTADES
.

26
271
279
272
227
211
62
17
278
274
28
273

Canon of Proportion
. 31
„
Egyptian
.
31, 35
,, of Leonardo .
. 33
,, of Polycleitus
. 31
,, of Vitruvius.
. 32
,, of Bonomi .
. 39
Carrey's drawings of the Parthenon
144, 156
Casting in Bronze .
. 21
Cavo-relievo .
. 26
Centaur of the Capitol
78, 228
Centaurs and Lapithm
154, 155
CHARES.
. 279
CHEIRISOPHOS
. 274
Chiton
.
.
.
.
. 59
Chlamys
. 58
Chryselephantine Statues 14, 189
CHRYSOTHEMIS
. 275
Cire perdue .
. 23
Coins, Greek .
9, 25, 114
Colossal Statues
. 29

282

INDEX.
PAGE 1

Coloured Marbles .
Constantine, Arch of
Cupid and Psyche of the Capitol
228
Cyprus, Sculptures at
. 116, 122
Dsedalides

.

.

.

.

DAHIPPOS
DAMOPHILOS
DEMOKEJTOS
DESILAOS

.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.

Diadumenos (Brit. Mus.)
Diana with the Stag
DlBUTADES
DIOGENES
DIONYSIOS
DIOPOS
DIPOINOS

.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.

.
.
.

125,

Discobolus of Myron
Discobolus of Naukydes
Discus
Dog {Molossos,' The

.
.
.
126

.

DONTAS
DORYKLEIDOS

Doryphorus of Polyhleitos
Drama, influence of
Drapery

15
202
274
276
277
230
231
273
280
275
273
274
232
234
233
272
274
274
38
84
56

Egyptian Statues, Colossal
,,
,,
Heroic
Elephanta, Caves of
Fleusis, Bas-relief of
Elgin, Lord .
.
. 1 4 5,
ENDOIOS.

Fndymion
.
.
Etruscan Bas-relief.
EuCflEIR
EUGRAMMOS
EUTELIDAS
EUTYCHIDES

PAGB

212 1 Gems, Carved
60
Gigantimachia (Cameo) .
212
Gilt Bronze .

COLOTES

.

.
.

.

.

97
100
111
192
153
274
. 271
115
273
273
274
. 279

Fabulous creatures .
.
29, 76
162
Fates, The, of the Parthenon
Faun, Clapping
.
. 5 2, 237
Faun, Laughing {Brit. Mus.) 237
Faun with patera {Brit. Mus.) 237
Faun, the Piping, of the Vatican.237
Faun of Praxiteles .
235
Female Figure in a Chariot
. 271
F l a t relief
.
.
.
. 26
Galvano-Plastique .

25

GlTIADAS
GITIADES, OF SPARTA

.

Gladiator, The Dying
Gladiator, The
Fighting.
Gladstone,
Mr.,
on
the
Supremacy of Greek A r t

82
275
213, 280
8
274

GLAIJKOS OF A R G O S
GLYKON.

Gonzaga Cameo
GORGASOS

* .

6
6
62
274
22
239
241

.

Hadrian's Villa
Halikarnassos, Mausoleum at .
Harpy Tomb (Bas-relief)
HEGESIAS
134,

211
186
118
276
•HEGIAS .
276
Hercules (Bronze) .
18
Hercules, The Farnese
208, 243
Hermes, The, of the Vatican . 242
Hermes
and
Dionysos , f>y
Praxiteles
.
. 177, 243
Herodotus
273
Hesiod .
273
Homer .
273
Horse's Head, of the Parthenon. 161
Inscriptions, Greek
204
Ipsamboul, Colossal Statues at
5
Iris, The, of the Parthenon
161
ISIGOKOS
. 202 279
Ivory, Carvings in .
13
,

,

Jason
KALAMTS
KALLIMACHOS
KALLITALES .
KALLON.
KANAOHOS

.'

Karnak, Temple of.
KEPHISODOTOS

.

Khorsabad, Sculpture at
KLEAROHOS .
KLEOITAS
K L E O M E N E S , t h e elder

,,

!
the younger

KOLOTES

Koyunjik, Sculptures at
KRITIOS .
KTESILAS

.

243

140 276
276
275
140 275
275
, 98
202 278
105
274
276
270 279
279
279
105
276
277

283

INDEX.
PAGE

KTESILATJS

.

Kypselos, Chest of .
Laocoon and his Sons
LEOCHARES

.

.

. 277 NAUKYDES .
. 21 Nero's Golden House
NESIOTES
. 200, 245 NESTOKLES .

. 186,

278

NESTOR

.

.

.

.

Line, Beauty of
.
. 9 4 Nimroud, Sculptures at .
Lion Gate at Mycence . 112, 124 Nineveh, Sculptures at .
Lloyd, Mr. W. W., on the
Niobe Group .
drama
.
.
.
.84
Luxor, Cavo-relievo at
. 97 OLYMPIOSTHENES .
Lycian Sculptures .
. 118 ONASIMEDES .
Lysikrates,Choragic Monument
ONATAS
.
.
.
.
of
197
Osiris (Bronze)
LYSIPPOS
.
LYSISTRATOS .

.

. 191, 278

. 279 PAEONIOS
. 88 PAIONIOS
Map of Ancient Greece
Marbles, hard, used by Sculptors :
Pallas of the Vatican
Black Basalt
. 64 Pallas of Velletri .
Granite
. 64 Panathenaic Procession .
Porphyry ^ .
. 64 PANTULEIOS .
Rosso Antico
. 64 PAPIAS
.
.
.
.
Sienite
. 64 Parthenon
Marbles, soft, used by Sculptors :
,,
Frieze of
iEginetan .
. 63
,,
Metopes of
Alabaster .
. 64
,,
Pediments of .
Black of Tenaros.%
. 64 PASITELES
Carrara
. 63 Pausanias
Corallitic .
. 64 Peplos, The .
Luna .
. 63 Pergamus, Sculptures at
Parian
. 63 Perikles
Pentelic
. 63 Persepolis, Sculptures at
Phigalian .
. 63 Perseus and Andromeda.
Verde Antico
. 64 PHEIDIAS
Mars, The Ludovisi
. 247
142, 170, 214,
Marsyas of the Lateran Museum 249 1 Phigalia, Sculptures at .
Mausoleum at Halikarnassos . 186 | PHILESIOS
MELAS .
. 274 PHRADMON .
Memnon,
.
3 Pliny
.
.
.
.
Mercury of the Belvedere
. 242 POLUKLEITOS .
Metellus, Triumph of
. 209 POLTJKLEITOS the younger
Metopes of the Parthenon
. 26 POLYDOROS .
Mezzo-relievo .
. 26 POLYKLES
MlKKIADES .
. 274 PRAXITELES, the Elder .
Miletos statues
. 122
. 179,
Minerva, The Farnese
. 250 Profile, value of
Minerva of the Vatican
. 250 PYROMAOHOS .
. 202,
Minerva of Velletri.
. 249 PYTHAGORAS .
PYTHIOS
Monte Cavallo groups
. 195
Morosini, General .
. 144 PYTHIS
.
.
.
.
Mummius
. 210
Mycence, Lion Gate at . 112, 124 Rhodes, Sculptors of
RHOIKOS, OF SAMOS
MYRON .
.
. 1 5 'J, 233, 276
Mythological figures
.
29, 76 1Roman Sculpture .

284

INDEX.
PA.GB

yr, Young.

.

.

. 270

SATJROS

279

Schliemann, Dr. .
.
Selinus, Metopes of
.
Septimus Severus, Arch of

.197
.125
.212

SERAMBOS

.

.

.

.

275

Shield of Achilles .
Shield of EeraHes .

.
.

.273
.273

SlLANION
.
SIMON OF JEGINA

.
.

.
.

. 1 9
. 275

Sir is, Bronzes of

.

.

.20

SKOPAS .
SKYLLIS
SMILIS

.
.

186, 197, 199, 278
. 125, 126, 274
274

Sphinx, Colossal .
.
Sphinxes at Karnak
.
Spinario of the Capitol .
Statuary—its different forms
STRATONIKOS .
STRONGYLION.

.
.

. 9 7
. 9 8
. 227
. 28

. 202, 279
. 212, 277

Style, Assyrian
.
.
. 8 1
„ Greek .
.
.
. 82
Symbolism, Christian & Heathen 79
Tanagra, Statuettes at
TAURISKOS
TEKTAEOS
TELEKLES

.
.
.

.
.
.

.12
.

. 255, 280
. 274
.
.274

THEOPROPOS .

.

.

.275

Theseum, Sculptures of . 136—141
TlMARCHIDES.
TIMARCHOS .
TlMOKLES
.
TIMOTHEUS .

.
.
.
.

.

.

. 279
. 202
.
.279
. 186, 278

Toreutic Art .
.
.
. 19
Torso Belvedere
.
.
.257
Torso Farnese
. 200, 255, 258
Trajan, Column of .
.
. 209
Treatment of different parts of
the human figure .
. 43
Venus of Aries
.
.
.259
,] of the Capitol
.
. 260
„
of Capua .
.
. 261
,,
or Bione
.
.
. 261
,,
of the Florence Gallery . 2 5 9
,,
of Knidos .
.
. 264
,,
crouching .
.
.267
,, . and Cupid .
.
. 268
,,
Genitrix
.
.
. 261
„
de Medici .
.
.262
,', of Melos
.
.
.265
„
Kallipyge .
.
.268
Wolf of the Capitol.
Wood, Statues in .
Wrestlers, The
.
Writing, Greek
.

.
.
.
.

.116
. 1 5
.269
.204

Temple of Apollo at Phigalia . 180
Temple of Athene at iEgina . 132
Temple of Athene at Athens . 142
Youth supplicating the Gods . 270
Temple of Diana at Ephesus , 197
Temple of Nike Apteros .
.182
280
Temple of Theseus at Athens . 136 ZENO
.
.
. 280
Temple of Zeus at Olympia . 174 ZENODOROS .
.
.
. 280
Terra cotta, Bas-reliefs .
. 1 0 ZENOPHANTES
Zeus, Statue of, at Olympia 14, 174
THEODOROS, son of Rhoikos . 274
Zeus, Colossal Bust
.
. 43
THEODOROS, son of Telekles . 274
,, the Jupiter of Versailles. 270
THEODORUS, OF SAMOS •
. 22

285

SOME OF THE ATTEIBUTES SEE1ST IN ANCIENT
SCULPTURE.
JEgis and spear of Minerva—Athene, as protecting and armed for
combat. She sometimes in early works carried a lamp, in allusion to her
wisdom.
Caduceus of Mercury— Hermes, a short round rod, with a pair of wings
near the top, and two serpents twining opposite- each other. Originally
an olive branch served with the ribbons as the emblem of a messenger of
peace. The ribbons (ffrsfifjiafftv) were changed into two entwined snakes, said
by some to have been once separated while fighting by Hermes. It is seen
also in a much simpler form as a staff with two short curved spiral ends at
the top. A staff of this kind was carried by heralds and ambassadors in
war. The wings of course told of speed, and are always seen on the cap
or petasus, and attached to the heels as talaria, for the messenger of the
gods to fly down to earth. As the god of commerce also they have a
meaning.
Diadem—aiptvdovri—to Juno—Here.
Eagle and thunderbolt of Jupiter—Zeus ;—as the messenger and the
weapon of the almighty god. The ruler of Olympus is represented seated
with a figure of winged Victory standing in his right hand, and a sceptre
in his left, with a ' patera' signifying culture ; and with the Modius.
Modius—bearing the 'modius,' a measure for corn, on his head, as the
Jupiter Serapis, all-bountiful. Pluto also has the modius as Serapis, the
name of the corresponding deity in Egyptian mythology.
Hammer and pincers at his anvil, to Vulcan—Hephsestos.
Lyre, to Apollo, as the god of the day and of poetry. The bow and
quiver also to him as the destroyer.
Mirror and flowers belong to Venus—Aphrodite—with the tortoise and
dolphin.
Peacock to Juno, and the Cuckoo on her sceptre.
Pedum—the shepherd's crook-stick, is often given to satyrs and to Pan;
sometimes to fauns and bacchanalians ; to Thalia, as the goddess of pastoral
life. The Centaur of the Capitol has one.
Pomegranate, fruit and flower to Proserpina—Persephone.
Poppy and wheat-ears to Ceres—Demeter.
Spear, two-pronged, to Pluto—Hades, who is sometimes represented with
the modius on his head.
Thyrsus of Bacchus—Dionysos—a staff with a fir-cone on the top, tied
with ribbons ; given to Bacchante and other figures. The fir-cone is said
to have been chosen on account of its giving the resinous flavour to wine
which was so relished.
Torch belongs to Diana—Artemis, whose quiver and bow are later attributes. The spear and hound also belong to her. Ceres also carries a torch,
signifying her search for Proserpina in Hades. The torch reversed is always
funereal.
Trident of Neptune—Poseidon—as the sort of harpoon used by fishermen
in the earliest times.
Turrets on the head of Cybele-—Rhea.

286

GLOSSAEY OF NAMES GIVEN TO STATUES, &c.
Apoxyomenos—The Athlete scraping himself with the strigil (from ano^ou),
to scrape).
Diadumenos—Athlete wearing the victor's fillet (or diadem).
Dioscuri—Twin sons of the god Zens (Castor and Pollux).
Discobolus—The Quoit (or Disc) thrower.
Doryphorus—The Spear-hearer.
Gigantimachia—"Wars of the Giants with the Gods.
Panathensea—Festivals in honour of Athene.
Parthenon—From iragdkvoq, a virgin. The Parthenon was dedicated to
the virgin goddess Athene.
Sauroctonos—Apollo the lizard slayer (from 2avpoQ, a lizard, and KTOVOQ,
one who kills, from Kreiva), to kill).

COEEESPONDING NAMES OF MYTHIC PEESONAGES
IN EOMAN AND GEEEK NOMENCLATIVE.
GREEK

EOMAW

iEsculapius
Aurora
Bacchus
Ceres
Cupido or Amor
Cybele
Diana
Pareas (the Fates)
Flora
Furise (Furies) .
Gratise (Graces) .
Hercules .
Juno
Jupiter
Latona - .
Luna

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Asklepios
'Eos
Dionysos
Demeter
Eros
Rhea
Artemis
Moirai
Chloris
Eumenides
Charities
Herakles
Here
Zeus
Leto
Selene

ROMAN-

Mars
Mercury .
Minerva .
Mors (Death)
Neptune .
Pluto
Pollux
.
Proserpina
Saturn
Somnus .
Sol
Venus
Vesta
Victoria .
Vulcan
Ulysses

GREEK

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
' .
.

Ares
Hermes
Athene
Thanatos
Poseidon
Hades,
Polydeukes
Persephone
Chronos
Hypnos
Helios
Aphrodite
Hestia
Nike
Hephaistos
Odysseus '