The Growth of Sculpture [pp. 420-432]

THE GPRO WTII OF SCULPTURE.
lated, shows an immense advance. The attitude
is unconventionalized; the foot, instead of being
planted flat as in the Miletan colossi, is lightly
poised upon the toes alone; the limbs are partially uncovered; and the undulating folds of the
drapery are clearly prophetic of the later Athenian
grace. The nude standing figure known as the
Apollo of Tenea (in the Glyptothek at Munich)
gives us in some respects a still further progress.
The anatomy is excellent; and the attitude,
though stiff, is surprisingly free for an unsupported and isolated figure of so early date. The
arms still hang by the side; but they hang free
in marble, instead of being welded to the body
as in porphyry. Both soles are firmly planted,
but one foot is in advance. Altogether we have
here a statue caught in the very act of becoming
Greek. It is, in fact, an accurate but awkward
and ungraceful representation of a real man,
standing in a possible but ugly attitude. Note,
too, the important fact that this figure is nude.
Most of the archaic Greek statues are fully draped,
and the conventionality of religious art kept many
of the greater gods draped to the last. The Zeus
of Phidias wore vestments of gold, and, even in
the freest days, no sculptor ever ventured to disrobe the wedded majesty of Here, or the maiden
majesty of Pallas. But there were two great
gods whom even the antique conventionalism
represented in the nude-Apollo, and perhaps
Aphrodite; while, with Hermes and Eros, as
well as in the lesser figures of Heracles, Theseus,
and the heroes generally, individual imagination
took freer flights. The bronze Apollo of Canachus, to judge from preserved copies, though
still largely adhering to a conventional type, yields
evidence of some feeling for beauty of nude form.
Thenceforward Hellenic sculpture rapidly advanced, especially in its nude productions, toward the perfect grace of the Periclean period.
The isolated nude statue is, in fact, the true ideal
of plastic art: it represents the beauty of form in
its purest organic type. The groups from the
pediment of the temple at AEgina are admirable
examples of the struggle between conventionalism and freedom in the developing Hellenic
mind. In the very center stands a fully draped
Athene, conventional in treatment and awkward
in proportions, with a lifeless countenance, and
graceless figure wholly concealed by the stiff
folds of the robe. The great goddess still retains her archaic and time-honored type. But at
her feet lies a nude warrior of exquisite idealized
proportions, in a natural and graceful posture,
and carved with anatomical accuracy which would
not have disgraced the glorious sculptor of the
Parthenon himself. To trace the growth of the
art from this point on to the age of Phidias would
involve questions of that higher aesthetic criticism
which I wish in the present paper to avoid. We
have reached the point where Hellenic sculpture
has attained to perfect imitation of the human
figure: its further advance is toward the higher
excellence of ideality, expression, deep feeling,
and perfect appreciation for abstract beauty of
form.
And now let us look for a moment at the
part borne by Greek individuality, Greek freedom, and Greek democracy in this aesthetic evolution. While in Egypt, as we saw, the regal
and hieratic influence caused the primitive free
manner to crystallize into a fixed conventionalism;
while in Assyria it checked the progress of art,
and restricted all advance to a few animal traits;
in Hellas, after the age of freedom, it became
powerless before the popular instinct. While
Egyptian and Assyrian gods always retained
their semi-animal features, in Hellas the cowface of Here and the owl-head of Athene fell so
utterly into oblivion that later Hellenic commentators even misinterpreted the ancient descriptive
epithets of the Achaean epic into ox-eyed and
gray-eyed. Only in conservative Sparta did
Apollo keep his four arms; only in half-barbarian and enslaved Ephesus did Artemis keep
her hundred breasts. In European and insular
Hellas, for the most part, the sculptors chose to
represent the actual human form, and, in their
later age, the nude human form by preference
over all other shapes. In Egypt and Assyria
the king in his conventional representation was
the central figure of every work. But in Hellas,
even in the archaic period, we find plastic art in
the employment of private persons. The monument of Aristion represents a citizen, in the
armor of a hoplite, sculptured on his own tomb;
the Orchomenian monument similarly represents
a Bceotian gentleman in civic dress. In the later
Athenian period portrait busts of distinguished
citizens seem to have been usual. But it was on
the gods, as the common objects of devotion for
the whole city, that the art of the republican
Greek states mainly expended itself. And here
again we see the value of Hellenic individuality.
For while in Egypt a Pasht from Thebes was
identical with a Pasht from Memphis, and while
even in Hellas itself Zeus and Athene and the
other national gods tended to retain conventional
types, yet in each city the special worship of the
local heroes-Theseus and Cephisus, and Erechtheus and Heracles (rendered possible by the
minute subdivisions of Hellenic states) -- permitted the sculptor to individualize and originalize his work. From this combination of causes
it happens that Greek sculpture is modeled from
the life. Egyptian artists probably never worked
from natural models; they worked apparently
from their own imperfect recollections, or copied
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