Is the art of carving wood or hewing stone into images. It is an art of the most remote antiquity, being practised, as there is reason to believe, before the general deluge. We are induced to assign to it this early origin, by considering the expedients by which, in the first stages of society, men have everywhere supplied the place of alphabetic characters. These, it is universally known, have been picture-writing, such as that of the Mexicans, which, in the progress of refinement and knowledge, was gradually improved into the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians and other ancient nations. See Hieroglyphics.
That mankind should have lived near 1700 years, from the creation of the world to the flood of Noah, without falling upon any method to make their conceptions permanent, or to communicate them to a distance, is extremely improbable; especially when we call to mind that such methods of writing have been found, in modern times, among people much less enlightened than those must have been who were capable of building such a vessel as the ark. But if the antediluvians were acquainted with any kind of writing; there can be little doubt of its being hieroglyphical writing. Mr Bryant has proved that the Chaldeans were possessed of that art before the Egyptians; and Berossus informs us, that Apud a delineation of all the monstrous forms which inhabited Syncllum, the chaos, when this earth was in that state, was to be seen in the temple of Belus in Babylon. This delineation, as he describes it, must have been a history in hieroglyphical characters; for it consisted of human figures with wings, with two heads, and some with the horns and legs of goats. This is exactly similar to the hieroglyphical writing of the Egyptians; and it was preserved, our author says, both in drawings and engravings in the temple of the god of Babylon. As Chaldee was the first peopled region of the earth after the flood, and as it appears from Pliny†, as well as from Hipp., Berossus, that the art of engraving upon bricks baked in the sun was there carried to a considerable degree of perfection at a very early period, the probability certainly tainly is, that the Chaldeans derived the art of hieroglyphical writing, and consequently the rudiments of the art of sculpture, from their antediluvian ancestors.
It is generally thought that sculpture had its origin from idolatry, as it was found necessary to place before the people the images of their gods to enliven the fervour of their devotion; but this is probably a mistake. The worship of the heavenly bodies, as the only gods of the heathen nations, prevailed so long before the deification of dead men was thought of (see Polytheism), that we cannot suppose mankind to have been, during all that time, ignorant of the art of hieroglyphical writing. But the deification of departed heroes undoubtedly gave rise to the almost universal practice of representing the gods by images of a human form; and therefore we must conclude, that the elements of sculpture were known before that art was employed to enliven the devotion of idolatrous worshippers. The pyramids and obelisks of Egypt, which were probably temples, or rather altars, dedicated to the sun (see Pyramid), were covered from top to bottom with hieroglyphical emblems of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and reptiles, at a period prior to that in which there is any unexceptionable evidence that mere statue-worship prevailed even in that nursery of idolatry.
But though it appears thus evident that picture-writing was the first employment of the sculptor, we are far from imagining that idolatrous worship did not contribute to carry his art to that perfection which it attained in some of the nations of antiquity. Even in the dark ages of Europe, when the other fine arts were almost extinguished, the mummery of the church of Rome, and the veneration which she taught for her saints and martyrs, preserved among the Italians some vestiges of the finer-arts of sculpture and painting; and therefore, as human nature is everywhere the same, it is reasonable to believe that a similar veneration for heroes and demigods would, among the ancient nations, have a similar effect. But if this be so, the presumption is, that the Chaldeans were the first who invented the art of hewing blocks of wood and stone into the figures of men and other animals; for the Chaldeans were unquestionably the first idolaters, and their early progress in sculpture is confirmed by the united testimonies of Berossus, Alexander Polyhistor, Apollodorus, and Pliny; not to mention the eastern tradition, that the father of Abraham was a flintworker.
Against this conclusion Mr Bromley, in his late History of the Fine Arts, has urged some plausible arguments. In stating these he professes not to be original, or to derive his information from the fountain-head of antiquity. He adopts, as he tells us, the theory of a French writer, who maintains, that in the year of the world 1949, about 360 years after the deluge, the Scythians under Brouura, a descendant of Magog the son of Japhet, extended their conquests over the greater part of Asia. According to this system, Brouma was not only the civilizer of India, and the author of the brahmical doctrines, but also diffused the principles of the Scythian mythology over Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, and the continent of Asia.
Of these principles Mr Bromley has given us no distinct enumeration: the account which he gives of them is not to be found in one place, but to be collected from a variety of distant passages. In attempting therefore to present the substance of his scattered hints in one view, we will not be confident that we have omitted none of them. The ox, says he, was the Scythian emblem of the generator of animal life, and hence it became the principal divinity of the Arabians. The serpent was the symbol of the source of intelligent nature. These were the common points of union in all the first religions of the earth. From Egypt the Israelites carried with them a religious veneration for the ox and the serpent. Their veneration for the ox appeared soon after they marched into the wilderness, when in the absence of Moses they called upon Aaron to make them gods which should go before them. The idea of having an idol to go before them, says our author, was completely Scythian; for so the Scythians acted in all their progress through Asia, with this difference, that their idol was a living animal. The Israelites having gained their favourite god, which was an ox (not a calf as it is rendered in the book of Exodus), next proceeded to hold a festival, which was to be accompanied with dancing; a species of gaiety common in the festivals which were held in adoration of the emblematic Urotal or ox in that very part of Arabia near Mount Sinai where this event took place. It is mentioned too as a curious and important fact, that the ox which was revered in Arabia was called Adonai. Accordingly Aaron announcing the feast to the ox or golden calf, speaks thus, "to-morrow is a feast to Adonai," which is in our translation rendered to the Lord. In the time of Jeroboam we read of the golden calves set up as objects of worship at Bethel and Dan. Nor was the reverence paid to the ox confined to Scythia, to Egypt, and to Asia; it extended much farther. The ancient Cimbri, as the Scythians did, carried an ox of bronze before them on all their expeditions. Mr Bromley also informs us, that as great respect was paid to the living ox among the Greeks as was offered to its symbol among other nations.
The emblem of the serpent, continues Mr Bromley, was marked yet more decidedly by the express direction of the Almighty. That animal had ever been considered as emblematic of the supreme generating power of intelligent life: And was that idea, says he, discouraged, so far as it went to be a sign or symbol of life, when God said to Moses, "Make thee a brazen serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that every one who is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live." In Egypt the serpent surrounded their Isis and Osiris, the diadems of their princes, and the bonnets of their priests. The serpent made a distinguished figure in Grecian sculpture. The fable of Echidne, the mother of the Scythians, gave her figure terminating as a serpent to all the founders of states in Greece; from which their earliest sculptors represented in that form the Titan princes, Cecrops, Draco, and even Ericthonius. Besides the spear of the image of Minerva, which Phidias made for the citadel of Athens, he placed a serpent, which was supposed to guard that goddess.
The serpent was combined with many other figures. It sometimes was coiled round an egg as an emblem of the creation; sometimes round a trident, to show its power over the sea; sometimes it encircled a flambeau, to represent life and death.
In Egypt, as well as in Scythia and India, the divinity vinity was represented on the leaves of the tamara or lotus. Pan was worshipped as a god in that country, as well as over the east. Their sphinxes, and all their combined figures of animal creation, took their origin from the mother of the Scythians, who brought forth an offspring that was half a woman and half a serpent. Their pyramids and obelisks arose from the idea of flame; the first emblem of the supreme principle, introduced by the Scythians, and which even the influence of Zoroaster and the Magi could not remove.
We are told that the Bacchus of the Greeks is derived from the Brouma of the Indians; that both are represented as seated on a swan swimming over the waves, to indicate that each was the god of humid nature, not the god of wine, but the god of waters. The mitre of Bacchus was shaped like half an egg; an emblem taken from this circumstance, that at the creation the egg from which all things sprung was divided in the middle. Pan also was revered among the Scythians; and from that people were derived all the emblems by which the Greeks represented this divinity.
It would be tedious to follow our author through the whole of this subject; and were we to submit to the labour of collecting and arranging his scattered materials, we should still view his system with some degree of suspicion. It is drawn, as he informs us, from the work of M. D'Ancarville, intitled, Recherches sur l'Origine, l'Esprit, et les Progres, des Arts de la Grece.
To form conclusions concerning the origin of nations, the rise and progress of the arts and sciences, without the aid of historical evidence, by analogies which are sometimes accidental, and often fanciful, is a mode of reasoning which cannot readily be admitted. There may indeed, we acknowledge, be resemblances in the religion, language, manners, and customs, of different nations, so striking and so numerous, that to doubt of their being descended from the same stock would favour of skepticism. But historical theories must not be adopted rashly. We must be certain that the evidence is credible and satisfactory before we proceed to deduce any conclusions. We must first know whether the Scythian history itself be authentic, before we make any comparison with the history of other nations. But what is called the Scythian history, every man of learning knows to be a collection of fables. Herodotus and Justin are the two ancient writers from whom we have the fullest account of that warlike nation; but these two historians contradict each other, and both write what cannot be believed of the same people at the same period of their progress. Justin tells us, that there was a long and violent contest between the Scythians and Egyptians about the antiquity of their respective nations; and after stating the arguments on each side of the question, which, as he gives them*, are nothing to the purpose, he decides in favour of the claim of the Scythians. Herodotus was too partial to the Egyptians, not to give them the palm of antiquity; and he was probably in the right; for Justin describes his most ancient of nations, even in the time of Darius Hystaspes, as ignorant of all the arts of civil life. "They occupied their land in common (says he), and cultivated none of it. They had no houses nor settled habitations, but wandered with their cattle from desert to desert. In these rambles they carried their wives and children in tumbrils covered with the skins of beasts, which served as houses to protect them from the storms of winter. They were without laws, governed by the dictates of natural equity. They coveted not gold or silver like the rest of mankind, and lived upon milk and honey. Though they were exposed to extreme cold, and had abundance of flocks, they knew not how to make garments of wool, but clothed themselves in the skins of wild beasts." This is the most favourable account which any ancient writer gives of the Scythians. By Strabo and Herodotus they are represented as the most savage of mortals, delighting in war and bloodshed, cutting the throats of all strangers who came among them, eating their flesh, and making cups and pots of their skulls. Is it conceivable that such savages could be sculptors; or that, even supposing their manners to have been such as Justin represents them, a people so simple and ignorant could have imposed their mythology upon the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, and Egyptians, whom we know by the most incontrovertible evidence to have been great and polished nations so early as in the days of Abraham? No! We could as soon admit other novelties of more importance, with which the French of the present age pretend to enlighten the world, as this origin assigned by Mr Bromley to the art of sculpture, unless supported by better authority than that of D'Ancarville.
The inference of our author from the name of the sacred ox in Arabia, and from the dancing and gaiety which were common in the religious festivals of the Arabians, appears to us to be very hastily drawn. At the early period of the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, the language of the Hebrews, Egyptians, and Arabians, differed not more from each other than do the different dialects of the Greek tongue which are found in the poems of Homer (see Philology, Sect. III.) and it is certain, that for many years after the formation of the golden-calf, the Hebrews were strangers to every species of idolatry but that which they had brought with them from their house of bondage. See Remphan.
Taking for granted therefore that the Scythians did not impose their mythology upon the eastern nations, and that the art of sculpture, as well as hieroglyphic writing and idolatrous worship, prevailed first among the Chaldeans, we shall endeavour to trace the progress of this art through some other nations of antiquity, till we bring it to Greece, where it was carried to the highest perfection to which it has yet attained.
The first intimation that we have of the art of sculpture is in the book of Genesis, where we are informed, that when Jacob, by the divine command, was returning to Canaan, his wife Rachel carried along with her the teraphim or idols of her father. These we are assured were small, since Rachel found it so easy to conceal them from her father, notwithstanding his anxious search. We are ignorant, however, how these images were made, or of what materials they were composed. The first person mentioned as an artist of eminence is Bezaleel, who formed the cherubims which covered the mercy-seat.
The Egyptians also cultivated the art of sculpture; but there were two circumstances that obstructed its progress, i. The persons of the Egyptians were not possessed of the graces of form, of elegance, or of symmetry; and of consequence they had no perfect standard to model their taste. They resembled the Chinese in the cast of their face, in their great bellies, and in the clumsy rounding of their contours. They were restrained by their laws to the principles and practices of their ancestors, and were not permitted to introduce any innovations. Their statues were always formed in the same stiff attitude, with the arms hanging perpendicular down the sides. What perfection were they capable of who knew no other attitude than that of chairmen? So far were they from attempting any improvements, that in the time of Adrian the art continued in the same rude state as at first; and when their flattery adulation for that emperor induced them to place the statue of his favourite Antinous among the objects of their worship, the same inanimate stiffness in the attitude of the body and position of the arms was observed. We believe it will scarcely be necessary to inform our readers that the Egyptian statue just now mentioned is very different from the celebrated statue of Antinous, of which so many moulds have been taken that imitations of it are now to be met with almost in every cabinet in Europe.
Notwithstanding the attachment of the Egyptians to ancient usages, Winkelmann thinks he has discovered two different styles of sculpture which prevailed at different periods. The first of these ends with the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses. The second begins at that time, and extends beyond the reign of Alexander the Great.
First Style. In the first style, the lines which form the contour are straight and projecting a little; the position is stiff and unnatural: in fitting figures the legs are parallel, the feet squeezed together, and the arms fixed to the sides; but in the figures of women the left arm is folded across the breast; the bones and muscles are faintly discernible; the eyes are flat and looking obliquely, and the eyebrows sunk; features which destroy entirely the beauty of the head; the cheek-bones are high, the chin small and piked; the ears are generally placed higher than in nature, and the feet are too large and flat. In short, if we are to look for any model in the statues of Egypt, it is not for the model of beauty but of deformity. The statues of men are naked, only they have a short apron, and a few folds of drapery surrounding their waist: The vestments of women are only distinguishable by the border, which rises a little above the surface of the statue. In this age it is evident the Egyptians knew little of drapery.
Of the second style of sculpture practised among the Egyptians, Winkelmann thinks he has found specimens in the two figures of basaltes in the Capitol, and in another figure at Villa Albani, the head of which has been renewed. The two first of these, he remarks, bear visible traces of the former style, which appear especially in the form of the mouth and shortness of the chin. The hands possess more elegance; and the feet are placed at a greater distance from one another, than was customary in more ancient times. In the first and third figures the arms hang down close to the sides. In the second they hang more freely. Winkelmann suspects that these three statues have been made after the conquest of Egypt by the Greeks. They are clothed with a tunic, a robe, and a mantle. The tunic, which is puckered into many folds, descends from the neck to the ground. The robe in the first and third statues seems close to the body, and is only perceptible by some little folds. It is tied under the breast, and covered by the mantle, the two buttons of which are placed under the epaulet.
The Antinous of the Capitol is composed of two pieces, which are joined under the haunches. But as all the Egyptian statues which now remain have been hewn out of one block, we must believe that Diodorus, in saying the stone was divided, and each half finished by a separate artist, spoke only of a colossus. The same author informs us, that the Egyptians divided the human body into 24 parts; but it is to be regretted that he has not given a more minute detail of that division.
The Egyptian statues were not only formed by the chief, they were also polished with great care. Even those on the summit of an obelisk, which could only be viewed at a distance, were finished with as much labour and care as if they had admitted a close inspection. As they are generally executed in granite or basalt, stones of a very hard texture, it is impossible not to admire the indefatigable patience of the artists.
The eye was often of different materials from the rest of the statue; sometimes it was composed of a precious stone or metal. We are assured that the valuable diamond of the empress of Russia, the largest and most beautiful hitherto known, formed one of the eyes of the famous statue of Scheringham in the temple of Brahma.
Those Egyptian statues which still remain are composed of wood or baked earth; and the statues of earth are covered with green enamel.
The Phoenicians possessed both a character and situation highly favourable to the cultivation of statuary. They had beautiful models in their own persons, and their industrious character qualified them to attain perfection in every art for which they had a taste. Their situation raised a spirit of commerce, and commerce induced them to cultivate the arts. Their temples shone with statues and columns of gold, and a profusion of emeralds was everywhere scattered. All the great works of the Phoenicians have been unfortunately destroyed; but many of the Carthaginian medals are still preserved, ten of which are deposited in the cabinet of the grand duke of Florence. But though the Carthaginians were a colony of Phoenicians, we cannot from their works judge of the merit of their ancestors.
The Persians made no distinguished figure in the arts. This art not of design. They were indeed sensible to the charms of cultivated beauty, but they did not study to imitate them. Their dress, which consisted of long flowing robes concealing the whole person, prevented them from attending to the beauties of form. Their religion, too, which taught them to worship the divinity in the emblem of fire, and that it was impious to represent him under a human form, seemed almost to prohibit the exercise of this art, by taking away those motives which alone could give it dignity and value; and as it was not customary among them to raise statues to great men, it was impossible that statuary could flourish in Persia.
The Etrurians or ancient Tuscans, in the opinion of Winkelmann, carried this art to some degree of perfection at an earlier period than the Greeks. It is said to have been introduced before the siege of Troy by Daedalus, who, in order to escape the resentment of Minos king of Crete, took refuge in Sicily, from whence he passed passed into Italy, where he left many monuments of his art. Pausanias and Diodorus Siculus inform us, that some works ascribed to him were to be seen when they wrote, and that these possessed that character of majesty which afterwards distinguished the labours of Etruria.
A character strongly marked forms the chief distinction in those productions of Etruria which have descended to us. Their style was indeed harsh and overcharged; a fault also committed by Michael Angelo the celebrated painter of modern Etruria; for it is not to be supposed that a people of such rude manners as the Etrurians could communicate to their works that vividness and beauty which the elegance of Grecian manners inspired. On the other hand, there are many of the Tuscan statues which bear so close a resemblance to those of Greece, that antiquarians have thought it probable that they were conveyed from that country or Magna Graecia into Etruria about the time of the Roman conquest, when Italy was adorned with the spoils of Greece.
Among the monuments of Etrurian art two different styles have been observed. In the first the lines are straight, the attitude stiff, and no idea of beauty appears in the formation of the head. The contour is not well rounded, and the figure is too slender. The head is oval, the chin piked, the eyes flat, and looking aquiline.
These are the defects of an art in a state of infancy, which an accomplished master could never fall into, and are equally conspicuous in Gothic statues as in the productions of the ancient natives of Florence. They resemble the style of the Egyptians so much, that one is almost induced to suppose that there had once been a communication between these two nations; but others think that this style was introduced by Dedalus.
Winkelmann supposes that the second epoch of this art commenced in Etruria, about the time at which it had reached its greatest perfection in Greece, in the age of Phidias; but this conjecture is not supported by any proofs. To describe the second style of sculpture among the Etrurians, is almost the same as to describe the style of Michael Angelo and his numerous imitators. The joints are strongly marked, the muscles raised, the bones distinguishable; but the whole mien harsh. In designing the bone of the leg, and the separation of the muscles of the calf, there is an elevation and strength above life. The statues of the gods are designed with more delicacy. In forming them, the artists were anxious to show that they could exercise their power without that violent distension of the muscles which is necessary in the exertions of beings merely human; but in general their attitudes are unnatural, and the actions strained. If a statue, for instance, hold anything with its fore-fingers, the rest are stretched out in a stiff position.
According to ancient history, the Greeks did not emerge from the savage state till a long time after the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Indians, had arrived at a considerable degree of civilization. The original rude inhabitants of Greece were civilized by colonies which arrived among them, at different times, from Egypt and Phenicia. These brought along with them their religion, the letters, and the arts of their parent countries; and if sculpture had its origin from the worship of idols, there is reason to believe that it was one of the arts which were thus imported; for that the gods of Greece were of Egyptian and Phenician extraction is a fact incontrovertible; (see Mysteries, Mythology, Philology, &c. 7. Philosophy, no 19, and Titan.) The original statues of the gods, however, were very rude. The earliest objects of idolatrous worship have everywhere been the heavenly bodies; and the symbols consecrated to them were generally pillars of a conical or pyramidal figure. It was not till hero-worship was engravened on the planetary, that the sculptor thought of giving to the sacred statue any part of the human form (see Polytheism, no 19, 23); and it appears to have been about the era of their revolution in idolatry that the art of sculpture was introduced among the Greeks. The first representations of their gods were round stones placed upon cubes or pillars; and these stones they afterwards formed roughly, so as to give them something of the appearance of a head. Agreeable to this description was a Jupiter, which Pausanias saw in Tegeum, in Arcadia. These representations were called Hermes; not that they represented Mercury, but from the word herma, which signified a rough stone. It is the name which Homer gives to the stones which were used to fix vessels to the shore. Pausanias saw at Phere 30 deities made of unformed blocks or cubical stones. The Lacedemonians represented Caistor and Pollux by two parallel polls; and a transverse beam was added, to express their mutual affection.
If the Greeks derived from foreign nations the rudiments of the arts, it must redound much to their honour, that in a few centuries they carried them to such wonderful perfection as entirely to eclipse the fame of their masters. It is by tracing the progress of sculpture among them that we are to study the history of this art; and we shall see its origin and successive improvements correspond with nature, which always operates slowly and gradually.
View of Grecian Sculpture.
The great superiority of the Greeks in the art of Canopic sculpture may be ascribed to a variety of causes. The influence of climate over the human body is so striking, moved the that it must have fixed the attention of every thinking man who has reflected on the subject. The violent heats of the torrid zone, and the excessive cold of the polar regions, are unfavourable to beauty. It is only in the mild climates of the temperate regions that it appears in its most attractive charms. Perhaps no country in the world enjoys a more serene air, less tainted with mists and vapours, or pestilential in a higher degree that mild and genial warmth which can unfold and expand the human body into all the symmetry of muscular strength, and all the delicacies of female beauty in greater perfection, than the happy climate of Greece; and never was there any people that had a greater taste for beauty, or were more anxious to improve it. Of the four wives of Simonides, the second was to have a handsome figure. The love of beauty was so great among the Lacedemonian women, that they kept in their chambers the statues of Nereus, of Narcissus, of... Hyacinthus, and of Castor and Pollux; hoping that by often contemplating them they might have beautiful children.
There was a variety of circumstances in the noble and virtuous freedom of the Grecian manners that rendered these models of beauty peculiarly subservient to the cultivation of the fine arts. There were no tyrannical laws, as among the Egyptians, to check their progress. They had the best opportunities to study them in the public places, where the youth, who needed no other vail than chastity and purity of manners, performed their various exercises quite naked. They had the strongest motives to cultivate sculpture, for a statue was the highest honour which public merit could attain. It was an honour ambitiously sought, and granted only to those who had distinguished themselves in the eyes of their fellow citizens. As the Greeks preferred natural qualities to acquired accomplishments, they decreed the first rewards to those who excelled in agility and strength of body. Statues were often raised to wrestlers. Even the most eminent men of Greece, in their youth, fought renown in gymnastic exercises. Chryippus and Cleantes distinguished themselves in the public games before they were known as philosophers. Plato appeared as a wrestler both at the Isthmian and Pythian games; and Pythagoras carried off the prize at Elis, (see Pythagoras.) The passion by which they were inspired was the ambition of having their statues erected in the most sacred place of Greece, to be seen and admired by the whole people. The number of statues erected on different occasions was immense; of course the number of artists must have been great, their emulation ardent, and their progress rapid.
As most of their statues were decreed for those who vanquished in the public games, the artists had the opportunity of seeing excellent models; for those who triumphed in running, boxing, and wrestling, must in general have been well formed, yet would exhibit different kinds of beauty.
The high estimation in which sculptors were held was very favourable to their art. Socrates declared the artists the only wise men. An artist could be a legislator, a commander of armies, and might hope to have his statue placed beside those of Miltiades and Themistocles, or those of the gods themselves. Besides, the honour and success of an artist did not depend on the caprice of pride or of ignorance. The productions of art were estimated and rewarded by the greatest fates in the general assembly of Greece, and the sculptor who had executed his work with ability and taste was confident of obtaining immortality.
It was the opinion of Winkelmann, that liberty was highly favourable to this art; but, though liberty is absolutely necessary to the advancement of science, it may be doubted whether the fine arts owe their improvement to it. Sculpture flourished most in Greece, when Pericles exercised the power of a king; and in the reign of Alexander, when Greece was conquered. It attained no perfection in Rome till Augustus had enslaved the Romans. It revived in Italy under the patronage of the family of Medici, and in France under the despotic rule of Louis XIV. It is the love of beauty, luxury, wealth, or the patronage of a powerful individual, that promotes the progress of this art.
It will now be proper to give a particular account of the ideas which the Greeks entertained concerning the standard of beauty in the different parts of the human body. And with respect to the head, the profile which they chiefly admired is peculiar to dignified beauty. It consists in a line almost straight, or marked by such slight and gentle inflections as are scarcely distinguishable from a straight line. In the figures of women and young persons, the forehead and nose form a line approaching to a perpendicular.
Ancient writers, as well as artists, assure us that the Greeks reckoned a small forehead a mark of beauty, and a high forehead a deformity. From the same idea, the Circassians wore their hair hanging down over their foreheads almost to their eyebrows. To give an oval form to the countenance, it is necessary that the hair should cover the forehead, and thus make a curve about the temples; otherwise the face, which terminates in an oval form in the inferior part, will be angular in the higher part, and the proportion will be destroyed. This rounding of the forehead may be seen in all handsome persons, in all the heads of ideal beauty in ancient statues, and especially in those of youth. It has been overlooked, however, by modern statuaries. Bernini, who modelled a statue of Louis XIV. in his youth, turned back the hair from the forehead.
It is generally agreed that large eyes are beautiful; but their size is of less importance in sculpture than their form, and the manner in which they are enchased. In ideal beauty, the eyes are always sunk deeper than they are in nature, and consequently the eyebrows have a greater projection. But in large statues, placed at a certain distance, the eyes, which are of the same colour with the rest of the head, would have little effect if they were not sunk. By deepening the cavity of the eye, the statuary increases the light and shade, and thus gives the head more life and expression. The same practice is used in small statues. The eye is a characteristic feature in the heads of the different deities. In the statues of Apollo, Jupiter, and Juno, the eye is large and round. In those of Pallas they are also large; but by lowering the eyelids, the virgin air and expression of modesty are delicately marked. Venus has small eyes, and the lower eyelid being raised a little, gives them a languishing look and an enchanting sweetness. It is only necessary to see the Venus de Medicis to be convinced that large eyes are not essential to beauty, especially if we compare her small eyes with those which resemble them in nature. The beauty of the eyebrows consists in the fineness of the hair, and in the sharpness of the bone which covers them; and matters of the art considered the joining of the eyebrows as a deformity, though it is sometimes to be met with in ancient statues.
The beauty of the mouth is peculiarly necessary to constitute a fine face. The lower lip must be fuller than the upper, in order to give an elegant rounding to the chin. The teeth seldom appear, except in laughing satyrs. In human figures the lips are generally close, and a little opened in the figures of the gods. The lips of Venus are half open.
In figures of ideal beauty, the Grecian artists never interrupted the rounding of the chin by introducing a dimple; for this they considered not as a mark of beauty, and only to be admitted to distinguish individuals. The dimple indeed appears in some ancient statues, but antiquaries suspect it to be the work of a modern hand. It is suspected also, that the dimple which is sometimes found on the cheeks of ancient statues is a modern innovation.
No part of the head was executed by the ancients with more care than the ears, though little attention has been given to them by modern artists. This character is so decisive, that if we observe in any statue that the ears are not highly finished, but only roughly marked, we may conclude with certainty that we are examining a modern production. The ancients were very attentive to copy the precise form of the ear in taking likenesses. Thus, where we meet with a head the ears of which have a very large interior opening, we know it to be the head of Marcus Aurelius.
The manner in which the ancient artists formed the hair also enables us to distinguish their works from those of the moderns. On hard and coarse stones the hair was short, and appeared as if it had been combed with a wide comb; for that kind of stone was difficult to work, and could not without immense labour be formed into curled and flowing hair. But the figures executed in marble in the most flourishing period of the art have the hair curled and flowing; at least where the head was not intended to be an exact resemblance, for then the artist conformed to his model. In the heads of women, the hair was thrown back, and tied behind in a waving manner, leaving considerable intervals; which gives the agreeable variety of light and shade, and produces the effects of the claro-obscuro. The hair of the Amazons is disposed in this manner. Apollo and Bacchus have their hair falling down their shoulders; and young persons, till they arrived at manhood, wore their hair long. The colour of the hair which was reckoned most beautiful, was fair; and this they gave without distinction to the most beautiful of their gods, Apollo and Bacchus, and likewise to their most illustrious heroes.
Although the ravages of time have preserved but few of the hands or feet of ancient statues, it is evident from what remains how anxious the Grecian artists were to give every perfection to these parts. The hands of young persons were moderately plump, with little cavities or dimples at the joints of the fingers. The fingers tapered very gently from the root to the point, like well-proportioned columns, and the joints were scarcely perceptible. The terminating joint was not bent, as it commonly appears in modern statues.
In the figures of young men the joints of the knee are faintly marked. The knee unites the leg to the thigh without making any remarkable projections or cavities. The most beautiful legs and best-turned knees, according to Winkelmann, are preserved in the Apollo Sauroctonos, in the Villa Borghese; in the Apollo which has a swan at its feet; and in the Bacchus of Villa Medicis. The same able connoisseur remarks, it is rare to meet with beautiful knees in young persons, or in the elegant representations of art. As the ancients did not cover the feet as we do, they gave to them the most beautiful turning, and studied the form of them with the most scrupulous attention.
The breasts of men were large and elevated. The breasts of women did not possess much amplitude. The figures of the deities have always the breasts of a virgin, part of the beauty of which the ancients made to consist in a body of gentle elevation. So anxious were the women to resemble this standard, that they used several arts to restrain the growth of their breasts. The breasts of the nymphs and goddesses were never represented swelling, because that is peculiar to those women who suckle. The paps of Venus contract and end in a point, this being considered as an essential characteristic of perfect beauty. Some of the moderns have transgressed these rules, and have fallen into great improprieties.
The lower part of the body in the statues of men was formed like that of the living body after a profound sleep and good digestion. The navel was considerably sunk, especially in female statues.
As beauty never appears in equal perfection in every ideal beauty part of the same individual, perfect or ideal beauty can only be produced by selecting the most beautiful parts from different models; but this must be done with such judgment and care, that these detached beauties when united may form the most exact symmetry. Yet the ancients sometimes confined themselves to one individual, even in the most flourishing age. Theodorus, whom Socrates and his disciples visited, served as a model to the artists of his time. Phryne also appears to have been a model to the painters and sculptors. But Socrates, in his conversation with Parrhasius, says, that when a perfect beauty was to be produced, the artists joined together the most striking beauties which could be collected from the finest figures. We know that Zeuxis, when he was going to paint Helen, united in one picture all the beauties of the most handsome women of Crotona.
The Grecian sculptors, who represented with such success the most perfect beauty of the human form, were not regardless of the drapery of their statues. They clothed their figures in the most proper stuff, which they wrought into that shape which was best calculated to give effect to their design.
The vestments of women in Greece generally consisted of linen cloth, or some other light stuff, and in latter times of silk and sometimes of woollen cloth. They had also garments embroidered with gold. In the works of sculpture, as well as in those of painting, one may distinguish the linen by its transparency and small united folds. The other light stuffs which were worn by the women (A) were generally of cotton produced in the isle of Cos; and these the art of statuary was able to distinguish from the linen vestments. The cotton cloth was sometimes striped, and sometimes embellished with a profusion of flowers. Silk was also employed; but whether it was known in Greece before the time of the Roman emperors cannot easily be determined. In paintings, it is distinguishable by changing its colour in different lights to red, violet, and sky-blue. There were two sorts of purple; that which the Greeks called the colour of the sea, and Tyrian purple, which resembled lac. Woollen garments are easily known by the
(A) Men sometimes wore cotton, but all who did so were reckoned effeminate. the amplitude of their folds. Besides these, cloth of gold sometimes composed their drapery; but it was not like the modern fabric, consisting of a thread of gold or of silver upon a thread of silk; it was composed of gold or silver alone, without any mixture.
The vestments of the Greeks, which deserve particular attention, are the tunic, the robe, and the mantle.
The tunic was that part of the dress which was next to the body. It may be seen in sleeping figures, or in those in dishabille; as in the Flora Farnese, and in the statues of the Amazons in the Capitol. The youngest of the daughters of Niobe, who throws herself at her mother's side, is clothed only with a tunic. It was of linen, or some other light stuff, without sleeves, fixed to the shoulders by a button, so as to cover the whole breast. None but the tunics of the goddesses Ceres and comedians have long straight sleeves.
The robes of women commonly consisted of two long pieces of woollen cloth, without any particular form, attached to the shoulders by a great many buttons, and sometimes by a clasp. They had straight sleeves which came down to the wrists. The young girls, as well as the women, fastened their robe to their side by a cinchure, in the same way as the high-priest of the Jews fastened his, as it is still done in many parts of Greece. The cinchure formed on the side a knot of ribbons sometimes resembling a rose in shape, which has been particularly remarked in the two beautiful daughters of Niobe. In the younger of these the cinchure is seen passing over the shoulders and the back. Venus has two cinchures, the one passing over the shoulder, and the other surrounding the waist. The latter is called cefius by the poets.
The mantle was called peplon by the Greeks, which signifies properly the mantle of Pallas. The name was afterwards applied to the mantles of the other gods, as well as to those of men. This part of the dress was not square, as some have imagined, but of a roundish form. The ancients indeed speak in general of square mantles, but they received this shape from four tassels which were affixed to them; two of these were visible, and two were concealed under the mantle. The mantle was brought under the right arm, and over the left shoulder; sometimes it was attached to the shoulder by two buttons, as may be seen in the beautiful statue of Leucothea at Villa Albani.
The colour of vestments peculiar to certain statues is too curious to be omitted. To begin with the figures of the gods.—The drapery of Jupiter was red, that of Neptune was supposed by Winkelmann to have been sea-green. The same colour also belonged to the Nereids and Nymphs. The mantle of Apollo was blue or violet. Bacchus was dressed in white. Martianus Capella assigns green to Cybele. Juno's vestments were sky-blue, but she sometimes had a white veil. Pallas was robed in a flame-coloured mantle. In a painting of Herculaneum, Venus is in flowing drapery of a golden yellow. Kings were arrayed in purple; priests in white; and conquerors sometimes in sea-green.
With respect to the head, women generally wore no covering but their hair; when they wished to cover their head, they used the corner of their mantle. Sometimes we meet with veils of a fine transparent texture. Old women wore a kind of bonnet upon their head, an example of which may be seen in a statue in the Capitol, called the Proserpina; but Winkelmann thinks it is a statue of Hecuba.
The covering of the feet consisted of shoes or sandals. The sandals were generally an inch thick, and composed of more than one sole of cork. Those of Pallas in Villa Albani has two soles, and other statues had no less than five.
Winkelmann has assigned four different styles to this art. The ancient style, which continued until the time of this art of Phidias; the grand style, formed by that celebrated among the statuary; the beautiful, introduced by Praxiteles, A. Greeks, Pelles, and Lykippus; and the imitative style, practised by those artists who copied the works of the ancient masters.
The most authentic monuments of the ancient style are medals, containing an inscription, which leads us back to very distant times. The writing is from right to left in the Hebrew manner; a usage which was abandoned before the time of Herodotus. The statue of Agamemnon at Elis, which was made by Ornatas, has an inscription from right to left. This artist flourished 50 years before Phidias; it is in the intervening period therefore between these two artists, that we are to look for the cessation of this practice. The statues formed in the ancient style were neither distinguished by beauty of shape nor by proportion, but bore a close resemblance to those of the Egyptians and Etruscans; the eyes were long and flat; the section of the mouth not horizontal; the chin was pointed; the curls of the hair were ranged in little rings, and resembled grains inclosed in a heap of raisins. What was still worse, it was impossible by inspecting the head to distinguish the sex.
The characters of this ancient style were these: The designing was energetic, but harsh; it was animated, but without gracefulness; and the violence of the expression deprived the whole figure of beauty.
The grand style was brought to perfection by Phidias, Polycleitus, Scopas, Alcamenes, Myron, and other illustrious artists. It is probable, from some passages of ancient writers, that in this style were preserved some characters of the ancient manner, such as the straight lines, the squares and angles. The ancient masters, such as Polycleitus, being the legislators of proportions, says Winkelmann, and of consequence thinking they had a right to distribute the measures and dimensions of the parts of the human body, have undoubtedly sacrificed some degree of the form of beauty to a grandeur which is harsh, in comparison of the flowing contours and graceful forms of their successors.
The most considerable monuments of the grand style are the statues of Niobe and her daughters, and a figure
(b) This is a proof additional to those that will be found in the articles to which we have referred, that the Greeks received the rudiments of the art of sculpture from the nations to which they were confessedly indebted for the elements of science.
The figure of Pallas, to be seen in Villa Albani; which, however, must not be confounded with the statue which is modelled according to the first style, and is also found in the same place. The head possesses all the characters of dignified beauty, at the same time exhibiting the rigidity of the ancient style. The face is defective in gracefulness; yet it is evident how easy it would have been to give the features more roundness and grace. The figures of Niobe and her daughters have not, in the opinion of Winkelmann, that austerity of appearance which marks the age of the statue of Pallas. They are characterized by grandeur and simplicity; so simple are the forms, that they do not appear to be the tedious productions of art, but to have been created by an instantaneous effort of nature.
The third style was the graceful or beautiful. Lyfippus was perhaps the artist who introduced this style. Being more conversant than his predecessors with the sweet, the pure, the flowing, and the beautiful lines of nature, he avoided the square forms which the masters of the second style had too much employed. He was of opinion that the use of the art was rather to please than to astonish, and that the aim of the artist should be to raise admiration by giving delight. The artists who cultivated this style did not, however, neglect to study the sublime works of their predecessors. They knew that grace is consistent with the most dignified beauty, and that it possesses charms which must ever please; they knew also that these charms are enhanced by dignity. Grace is infused into all the movements and attitudes of their statues, and it appears in the delicate turns of the hair, and even in the adjusting of the drapery. Every form of grace was well known to the ancients; and great as the ravages of time have been among the works of art, specimens are still preserved, in which can be distinguished dignified beauty, attractive beauty, and a beauty peculiar to infants. A specimen of dignified beauty may be seen in the statue of one of the muses in the palace of Barberini at Rome; and in the garden of the pope, on the Quirinal is a statue of another muse, which affords a fine instance of attractive beauty. Winkelmann says that the most excellent model of infant beauty which antiquity has transmitted to us is a fairy of a year old, which is preserved, though a little mutilated, in Villa Albani.
The great reputation of Praxiteles and Apelles raised an ardent emulation in their successors, who desiring to surpass such illustrious masters, were satisfied with imitating their works. But it is well known that a mere imitator is always inferior to the master whom he attempts to copy. When no original genius appears, the art must therefore decline.
CLAY was the first material which was employed in statuary. An instance of this may be seen in a figure of Alcmenes in bas-relief in Villa Albani. The ancients used their fingers, and especially their nails, to render certain parts more delicate and lively; hence arose the phrase ad ungum facius homo, "an accomplished man." It was the opinion of count Caylus that the ancients did not use models in forming their statues. But to disprove this, it is only necessary to mention an engraving on a stone in the cabinet of Stosch, which represents Prometheus engraving the figure of a man, with a plummet in his hand to measure the proportions of his model. The ancients as well as the moderns made works in plaster; but no specimens remain except some figures in bas-relief, of which the most beautiful were found at Baia.
The works made of ivory and silver were generally ivory, fil of a small size. Sometimes, however, statues of a pro-ver, and digious size were formed of gold and ivory. The co-gold, lofial Minerva of Phidias, which was composed of these materials, was 26 cubits high. It is indeed scarcely possible to believe that statues of such a size could entirely consist of gold and ivory. The quantity of ivory necessary to a colossal statue is beyond conception. M. de Pauw calculates that the statue of Jupiter Olympus, which was 54 feet high, would consume the teeth of 300 elephants.
The Greeks generally hewed their marble statues out of one block, though they often worked the heads separately, and sometimes the arms. The heads of the famous group of Niobe and her daughters have been adapted to their bodies after being separately finished. It is proved by a large figure representing a river, which is preserved in Villa Albani, that the ancients first hewed their statues roughly before they attempted to finish any part. When the statue had received its perfect figure, they next proceeded to polish it with pumice-stone, and again carefully retouched every part with the chisel.
The ancients, when they employed porphyry, usually Porphyry, made the head and extremities of marble. It is true, that at Venice there are four figures entirely composed of porphyry; but there are the productions of the Greeks of the middle age. They also made statues of basalt and alabaster.
Without expression, gesture, and attitude, no figure can be beautiful, because in these the graces always reside. It was for this reason that the graces are always represented as the companions of Venus.
The expression of tranquillity was frequent in Grecian statues, because, according to Plato, that was considered as the middle state of the soul between pleasure and pain. Experience too shows that in general the most beautiful persons are endowed with the sweetest and most engaging manner. Without a sedate tranquillity dignified beauty could not exist. It is in this tranquillity, therefore, that we must look for the complete display of genius.
The most elevated species of tranquillity and repose in the gods, and even inferior divinities, are represented without emotion or resentment. It is thus that Homer paints Jupiter shaking Olympus by the motion of his hair and his eyebrows.
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, The stamp of fate and sanction of the god.
Jupiter is not always exhibited in this tranquil state. In a bas-relief belonging to the Marquis Rondini he appears seated on an armchair with a melancholy aspect. The Apollo of the Vatican represents the god in a fit of rage against the serpent Python, which he kills at a blow. The artist, adopting the opinion of the poets, has made the nose the seat of anger, and the lips the seat of disdain.
To express the action of a hero, the Grecian sculptors...
delineated the countenance of a noble virtuous character repressing his groans, and allowing no expression of pain to appear. In describing the actions of a hero the poet has much more liberty than the artist. The poet can paint them such as they were before men were taught to subdue their passions by the restraints of law, or the refined customs of social life. But the artist, obliged to select the most beautiful forms, is reduced to the necessity of giving such an expression of the passions as may not shock our feelings and disgust us with his production. The truth of these remarks will be acknowledged by those who have seen two of the most beautiful monuments of antiquity; one of which represents the fear of death, the other the most violent pains and sufferings. The daughters of Niobe, against whom Diana has discharged her fatal arrows, are exhibited in that state of stupefaction which we imagine must take place when the certain prospect of death deprives the soul of all sensibility. The fable presents us an image of that stupor which Eschylus describes as seizing the Niobe when they were transformed into a rock. The other monument referred to is the image of Laocoön, which exhibits the most agonizing pain that can affect the muscles, the nerves, and the veins. The sufferings of the body and the elevation of the soul are expressed in every member with equal energy, and form the most sublime contrast imaginable. Laocoön appears to suffer with such fortitude, that, whilst his lamentable situation pierces the heart, the whole figure fills us with an ambitious desire of imitating his constancy and magnanimity in the pains and sufferings that may fall to our lot.
Philoctetes is introduced by the poets shedding tears, uttering complaints, and rending the air with his groans and cries; but the artist exhibits him silent and bearing his pains with dignity. The Ajax of the celebrated painter Timonachus is not drawn in the act of destroying the sheep which he took for the Grecian chiefs, but in the moments of reflection which succeeded that frenzy. So far did the Greeks carry their love of calmness and slow movements, that they thought a quick step always announced rudeness of manners. Demosthenes reproaches Nicobulus for this very thing; and from the words he makes use of, it appears, that to speak with insolence and to walk hastily were reckoned synonymous.
In the figures of women, the artists have conformed to the principle observed in all the ancient tragedies, and recommended by Aristotle, never to make women show too much intrepidity or excessive cruelty. Conformable to this maxim, Clytemnestra is represented at a little distance from the fatal spot, watching the murderer, but without taking any part with him. In a painting of Timonachus representing Medea and her children, when Medea lifts up the dagger she smiles in her face, and her fury is immediately melted into compassion for the innocent victims. In another representation of the same subject, Medea appears hesitating and indecisive. Guided by the same maxims, the artists of most refined taste were careful to avoid all deformity, choosing rather to recede from truth than from their accustomed respect for beauty, as may be seen in several figures of Hecuba. Sometimes, however, she appears in the decrepitude of age, her face furrowed with wrinkles, and her breasts hanging down.
Illustrious men, and those invested with offices of dignity, are represented with a noble assurance and firm aspect. The statues of the Roman emperors resemble those of heroes, and are far removed from every species of flattery, in the gesture, in the attitude, and action. They never appear with haughty looks, or with the splendor of royalty; no figure is ever seen presenting anything to them with bended knee, except captives; and none addresses them with an inclination of the head. In modern works too little attention has been paid to the ancient costume. Winkelmann mentions a bas-relief, which was lately executed at Rome for the fountain of Trevi, representing an architect in the act of presenting the plan of an aqueduct to Marcus Agrippa. The modern sculptor, not content with giving a long beard to that illustrious Roman, contrary to all the ancient marble statues as well as medals which remain, exhibits the architect on his knees.
In general, it was an established principle to banish all violent passions from public monuments. This will serve as a decisive mark to distinguish the true antique from spurious works. A medal has been found exhibiting two Assyrians, a man and woman tearing their hair, with this inscription, ASSYRIA ET PALAESTINA IN POTEST. P. R. REDAC. S. C. The forgery of this medal is manifest from the word Palaestina, which is not to be found in any ancient Roman medal with a Latin inscription. Besides, the violent action of tearing the hair does not suit any symbolical figure. This extravagant style, which was called by the ancients parenthysis, has been imitated by most of the modern artists. Their figures resemble comedians on the ancient theatres, who, in order to suit the distant spectators, put on painted masks, employed exaggerated gestures, and far overleaped the bounds of nature. This style has been reduced into a theory in a treatise on the passions composed by Le Brun. The designs which accompany that work exhibit the passions in the very highest degree, approaching even to frenzy; but these are calculated to titiate the taste, especially of the young; for the ardour of youth prompts them rather to seize the extremity than the middle; and it will be difficult for that artist who has formed his taste from such impassioned models ever to acquire that noble simplicity and sedate grandeur which distinguished the works of ancient taste.
PROPORTION is the basis of beauty, and there can be no beauty without it; on the contrary, proportion may exist where there is little beauty. Experience every day teaches us that knowledge is distinct from taste; and proportion, therefore, which is founded on knowledge, may be strictly observed in any figure, and yet the figure have no pretensions to beauty. The ancients considering ideal beauty as the most perfect, have frequently employed it in preference to the beauty of nature.
The body consists of three parts as well as the members. The three parts of the body are the trunk, the thighs, and the legs. The inferior part of the body are the thighs, the legs, and the feet. The arms also consist of three parts. These three parts must bear a certain proportion to the whole as well as to one another. In a well-formed man the head and body must be proportioned to the thighs, the legs, and the feet, in the same manner as the thighs are proportioned to the legs and the feet, or the arms to the hands. The face also also consists of three parts, that is, three times the length of the nose; but the head is not four times the length of the nose, as some writers have asserted. From the place where the hair begins to the crown of the head are only three-fourths of the length of the nose, or that part is to the nose as 9 to 12.
It is probable that the Grecian, as well as Egyptian artists, have determined the great and final proportions by fixed rules; that they have established a positive measure for the dimensions of length, breadth, and circumference. This supposition alone can enable us to account for the great conformity which we meet with in ancient statues. Winkelmann thinks that the foot was the measure which the ancients used in all their great dimensions, and that it was by the length of it that they regulated the measure of their figures, by giving to them six times that length. This in fact is the length which Vitruvius assigns, *Per vero altitudinis corporis sexta*, l. 3. cap. 1. That celebrated antiquary thinks the foot is a more determinate measure than the head or the face, the parts from which modern painters and sculptors too often take their proportions. This proportion of the foot to the body, which has appeared strange and incomprehensible to the learned Huetius, and has been entirely rejected by Perrault, is however founded upon experience. After measuring with great care a vast number of figures, Winkelmann found this proportion observed not only in Egyptian statues, but also in those of Greece. This fact may be determined by an inspection of those statues the feet of which are perfect. One may be fully convinced of it by examining some divine figures, in which the artists have made some parts beyond their natural dimensions. In the Apollo Belvedere, which is a little more than seven heads high, the foot is three Roman inches longer than the head. The head of the Venus de Medicis is very small, and the height of the statue is seven heads and a half; the foot is three inches and a half longer than the head, or precisely the fifth part of the length of the whole statue.
**Practice of Sculpture.**
We have been thus minute in our account of the Grecian sculpture, because it is the opinion of the ablest critics that modern artists have been more or less eminent as they have studied with the greater or less attention the models left us by that ingenious people; Winkelmann goes so far as to contend that the most finished works of the Grecian masters ought to be studied in preference even to the works of nature. This appears to be paradoxical; but the reason assigned by the Abbé for his opinion is, that the fairest lines of beauty are more easily discovered, and make a more striking and powerful impression, by their reunion in these sublime copies, than when they are scattered far and wide in the original. Allowing, therefore, the study of nature the high degree of merit it so justly claims, it must nevertheless be granted, that it leads to true beauty by a much more tedious, laborious, and difficult path, than the study of the antique, which presents immediately to the artist's view the object of his researches, and combines in a clear and strong point of light the various rays of beauty that are dispersed through the wide domain of nature.
As soon as the artist has laid this excellent foundation, acquired an intimate degree of familiarity with the beauties of the Grecian statues, and formed his taste after the admirable models they exhibit, he may then proceed with advantage and assurance to the imitation of nature. The ideas he has already formed of the perfection of nature, by observing her dispersed beauties combined and collected in the compositions of the ancient artists, will enable him to acquire with facility, and to employ with advantage, the detached and partial ideas of beauty which will be exhibited to his view in a survey of nature in her actual state. When he discovers these partial beauties, he will be capable of combining them with those perfect forms of beauty with which he is already acquainted. In a word, by having always present to his mind the noble models already mentioned, he will be in some measure his own oracle, and will draw rules from his own mind.
There are, however, two ways of imitating nature. Two ways. In the one a single object occupies the artist, who endeavours to represent it with precision and truth; in the other, certain lines and features are taken from a variety of objects, and combined and blended into one regular whole. All kinds of copies belong to the first kind of imitation; and productions of this kind must be executed necessarily in the Dutch manner, that is to say, with high finishing, and little or no invention. But the second kind of imitation leads directly to the investigation and discovery of true beauty, of that beauty whose idea is connate with the human mind, and is only to be found there in its highest perfection. This is the kind of imitation in which the Greeks excelled, and in which men of genius excite the young artists to excel after their example, viz. by studying nature as they did.
After having studied in the productions of the Grecian masters their choice and expression of select nature, their sublime and graceful contours, their noble draperies, together with that sedate grandeur and admirable simplicity that constitute their chief merit, the curious artists will do well to study the manual and mechanical part of their operations, as this is absolutely necessary to the successful imitation of their excellent manner.
It is certain that the ancients almost always formed models of their first models in wax; to this modern artists have added substitutes clay, or some such composition: they prefer clay before wax in the carvings, on account of the yielding nature of the latter, and its sticking in some measure to every thing it touches. We must not, however, imagine from hence that the method of forming models of wet clay was either unknown or neglected among the Greeks; on the contrary, it was in Greece that models of this kind were invented. Their author was Dibutades of Sicyon; and it is well known that Arcelias, the friend of Lucullus, obtained a higher degree of reputation by his clay models than by all his other productions. Indeed, if clay could be made to preserve its original moisture, it would undoubtedly be the fittest substance for the models of the sculptor; but when it is placed either in the fire or left to dry imperceptibly in the air, its solid parts grow more compact, and the figure losing thus a part of its dimensions, is necessarily reduced to a smaller volume. This diminution would be of no consequence did it equally affect the whole figure, so as to preserve its proportions entire.
tire. But this is not the case: for the smaller parts of the figure dry sooner than the larger; and thus losing more of their dimensions in the same space of time than the latter do, the symmetry and proportions of the figure inevitably suffer. This inconvenience does not take place in those models that are made in wax. It is indeed extremely difficult, in the ordinary method of working the wax, to give it that degree of smoothness that is necessary to represent the softness of the carvations or fleshy parts of the body. This inconvenience may, however, be remedied, by forming the model first in clay, then moulding it in plaster, and lastly casting it in wax. And, indeed, clay is seldom used but as a mould in which to cast a figure of plaster, stucco, or wax, to serve henceforth for a model by which the measures and proportions of the statue are to be adjusted. In making waxen models, it is common to put half a pound of colophony to a pound of wax; and some add turpentine, melting the whole with oil of olives.
So much for the first or preparatory steps in this procedure. It remains to consider the manner of working the marble after the model so prepared; and the method here followed by the Greeks seems to have been extremely different from that which is generally observed by modern artists. In the ancient statues we find the most striking proofs of the freedom and boldness that accompanied each stroke of the chisel, and which resulted from the artist's being perfectly sure of the accuracy of his idea, and the precision and steadiness of his hand: the most minute parts of the figure carry these marks of assurance and freedom; no indication of timorousness or diffidence appear; nothing that can induce us to fancy that the artist had occasion to correct any of his strokes. It is difficult to find, even in the second rate productions of the Grecian artists, any mark of a false stroke or a random touch. This firmness and precision of the Grecian chisel were certainly derived from a more determined and perfect set of rules than those which are observed in modern times.
The method generally observed by the modern sculptor is as follows: First, out of a great block of marble he saws another of the size required, which is performed with a smooth steel saw, without teeth, calling water and sand thereon from time to time; then he fashions it, by taking off what is superfluous with a steel point and a heavy hammer of soft iron; after this, bringing it near the measure required, he reduces it still nearer with another finer point; he then uses a flat cutting instrument, having notches in its edge; and then a chisel to take off the scratches which the former has left; till, at length, taking raps of different degrees of fineness, by degrees he brings his work into a condition for polishing.
After this, having studied his model with all possible attention, he draws upon this model horizontal and perpendicular lines which intersect each other at right angles. He afterwards copies these lines upon his marble, as the painter makes use of such transversal lines to copy a picture, or to reduce it to a smaller size. These transversal lines or squares, drawn in an equal number upon the marble and upon the model, in a manner proportioned to their respective dimensions, exhibit accurate measures of the surfaces upon which the artist is to work; but cannot determine, with equal precision, the depths that are proportioned to these surfaces.
The sculptor, indeed, may determine these depths by observing the relation they bear to his model; but as his eye is the only guide he has to follow in this estimate, he is always more or less exposed to error, or at least to doubt. He is never sure that the cavities made by his chisel are exact; a degree of uncertainty accompanies each stroke; nor can he be assured that it has carried away neither too much nor too little of his marble. It is equally difficult to determine, by such lines as have already been mentioned, the external and internal contours of the figure, or to transfer them from the model to the marble. By the internal contour is understood that which is described by the parts which approach towards the centre, and which are not marked in a striking manner.
It is farther to be noticed, that in a complicated and laborious work, which an artist cannot execute without assistance, he is often obliged to make use of foreign hands, that have not the talents or dexterity that are necessary to finish his plan. A single stroke of the chisel that goes too deep is a defect not to be repaired; and such a stroke may easily happen, where the depths are so imperfectly determined. Defects of this kind are inevitable, if the sculptor, in chipping his marble, begins by forming the depths that are requisite in the figure he designs to represent. Nothing is more liable to error than this manner of proceeding. The cautious artist ought, on the contrary, to form these depths gradually, by little and little, with the utmost circumspection and care; and the determining of them with precision ought to be considered as the last part of his work, and as the finishing touches of his chisel.
The various inconveniences attending this method of copying determined several eminent artists to look out for one or two ancient statues, which some sculptors have employed with success, even in the figures which they finished after models in clay or wax. This method is as follows. The statue that is to be copied is inclosed in a frame that fits it exactly. The upper part of this frame is divided into a certain number of equal parts, and to each of these parts a thread is fixed with a piece of lead at the end of it. These threads, which hang freely, show what parts of the statue are most removed from the centre with much more perspicuity and precision than the lines which are drawn upon its surface, and which pass equally over the higher and hollow parts of the block: they also give the artist a tolerable rule to measure the more striking variations of height and depth, and thus render him more bold and determined in the execution of his plan.
But even this method is not without its defects: for as it is impossible, by the means of a straight line, to determine with precision the procedure of a curve, the artist has, in this method, no certain rule to guide him in his contours; and as often as the line which he is to describe deviates from the direction of the plumb line, which is his main guide, he must necessarily find himself at a loss, and be obliged to have recourse to conjecture.
It is also evident, that this method affords no certain rule to determine exactly the proportion which the various parts of the figure ought to bear to each other, considered in their mutual relation and connections. The artist, indeed, endeavours to supply this defect by
intersecting the plumb-lines by horizontal ones. This resource has, nevertheless, its inconveniences, since the squares formed by transversal lines, that are at a distance from the figure (though they be exactly equal), yet represent the parts of the figure as greater or smaller, according as they are more or less removed from our position or point of view. But, notwithstanding these inconveniences, the method now under consideration is certainly the best that has hitherto been employed; it is more practicable and sure than any other we know, though it appears, from the remarks we have now been making, that it does not exhibit a sure and universal criterion to a sculptor who executes after a model.
To polish the statue, or make the parts of it smooth of polish and sleek, they use pumice-stone and smelt; then tripoli, and when a still greater lustre is required, they use burnt straw. For the Casting of Statues, see Foundery, and Plaster of Paris.