Books: The Old Roman World

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[Sidenote: Degeneracy of art among the Romans.]

It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its
earlier stages. In a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the
time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The
specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths
make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline
for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross
appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please
corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and
luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The
reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with
those on the Column of Marcus Aurelius.

[Sidenote: Imitation of ancient art.]

But I do not wish to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the names
of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days of
Pericles, or even Alexander. I simply allude to sculpture as an art
which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
a right to infer from the specimens which have been preserved. How many
more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
authors! The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
reproductions. They cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
the Greek Slave a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which have
been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed from
Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving an appearance of living flesh. The
Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand specimens of
ancient sculpture which have been found among the debris of former
magnificence, many of which are the productions of Grecian artists
transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvidere, sculptured by Apollonius, the
Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
the Laocoon, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvidere the work of
Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleepy Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, alone is a
magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was brought
centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues which
now embellish Italy, to say nothing of those which are scattered over
Europe. We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in
their day. Not merely the figures of men are chiseled, but animals and
plants. Nature, in all her forms, was imitated; and not merely Nature,
but the dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern
sculptor has equaled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies even of those
ancient statues, as they appear to us after the exposure and accidents
of two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
Europe, can question that, of all the nations who have claimed to be
civilized, the ancient Greek and Roman deserve a proud preeminence in an
art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity, it should be
remembered, are the result of native genius alone, without the aid of
Christian ideas. Nor, with the aid of Christianity, are we sure that any
nation will ever soar to loftier heights than did the Greeks in that
proud realm which was consecrated to Paganism.

* * * * *

We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
art of painting as we are in reference to sculpture and architecture,
since so few specimens have been preserved. We have only the testimony
of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste and so
great susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot suppose that
their notions were crude in this great art which the moderns have
carried to so great perfection. In this art the moderns may be superior,
especially in perspective and drawing, and light and shade. No age, we
fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when
the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and Domenichino blazed with such
wonderful brilliancy.

Nevertheless, we read of celebrated schools among the ancients, all of
which recognized _form_ as the great principle and basis of the
art, even like the moderns. The schools of Sicyon, Corinth, Athens, and
Rhodes were indebted for their renown, like those of Bologna, Florence,
and Rome, to their strict observance of this fundamental law.

[Sidenote: Antiquity of painting.]

[Sidenote: Painting among the Egyptians.]

Painting, in some form, is very ancient, though not so ancient as the
temples of the gods and the statues which were erected to their worship.
It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and color, and with
the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul by imitation.
The walls of Babylon were painted after Nature with different species of
animals and combats. Semiramis was represented on horseback, striking a
leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus wounding a lion. Ezekiel
(viii. 10) represents various idols and beasts portrayed upon the walls,
and even princes, painted in vermilion, with girdles around their loins
(xxiii. 14, 15). In ages almost fabulous there were some rude attempts
in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues and
reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are painted and written
with religious subjects, but the colors were laid without regard to
light and shade. The Egyptians did not seek to represent the passions
and emotions which agitate the soul, but rather to authenticate events
and actions; and hence their paintings, like hieroglyphics, are
inscriptions. It was their great festivals and religious rites which
they sought to perpetuate, not ideas of beauty or grace. Hence their
paintings abound with dismembered animals, plants, and flowers, censers,
entrails,--whatever was used in their religious worship. In Greece,
also, the original painting consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of
wood and clay. At Corinth, painting was early united with the
fabrication of vases, on which were rudely painted figures of men and
animals. Among the Etruscans, before Rome was founded, it is said there
were beautiful paintings, and it is probable they were advanced in art
before the Greeks. There were paintings in some of the old Etruscan
cities which the Roman emperors wished to remove, so much admired were
they even in the days of the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan
vases are famous for designs which have never been exceeded in purity of
form, but it is probable that these were copied from the Greeks.

[Sidenote: Cimon of Cleona.]

But whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, the art
was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the former. The
development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It probably
commenced by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
markings, such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
designs of Flaxman. They were originally practiced on a white ground.
Then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
eighteen years before Christ. And as the subject was a battle, it must
have represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of
the coloring, or of the real excellence of the work, except that the
artist was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name
connected with the art in Greece, and is praised by Pliny, to whom we
owe the history of ancient painting more than to any other author. He
was contemporary with Dionysius in the eightieth Olympiad. He was not
satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
positions of figures, as they appear when looking upward or downward and
sideways, and hence is the first painter of perspective. He first made
muscular articulations, indicated the veins, and gave natural folds to
drapery. [Footnote: Pliny, xxxv. 34.]

[Sidenote: Greatness of Polygnotus and his school.]

A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463 B.C., one
of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most magnanimous;
and had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding intellectual
activity. He was employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on the
great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously. He
also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the superintendence
of Phidias. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which he brought
nearly to perfection by the ideal expression, the accurate drawing, and
improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity of
his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He was the first
who painted woman with brilliant drapery and variegated head-dresses. He
gave great expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were
models of excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the
cheeks, and the gracefulness of the draperies. He was a great epic
painter, as Phidias was a sculptor, and Homer a poet, since he expressed
not passion and emotion only, but ideal character. He imitated the
personages and the subjects of the old mythology, and treated them in an
epic spirit. He strove, like Phidias, to express character in repose.
His subjects were almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.
His pictures had nothing of that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers
of perspective, so much admired in modern art. His figures were grouped
in regular lines, as in the bas-reliefs upon a frieze. He painted on
panels which were afterward let into the walls. He used the pencil,
instead of painting in encaustic with the cestrum.

Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, [Footnote: H. N.
xxx. 9, s. 35.] are his paintings in the Temple at Delphi, in the
Portico called Poecile at Athens, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in
the Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
took his subjects from the whole range of Epic poetry, but we know
nothing of them except from the praises of his contemporaries.
[Footnote: Pausanias, x. 25-31.] His great merit is said to have
consisted in accurate drawing, and in giving grace and charm to his
female figures. He painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon
symmetrical principles, with great grandeur and freedom, resembling
Michael Angelo more than any other modern artist. Like the Greeks, he
painted with wax, resins, and in water colors, to which the proper
consistency was given with gum and glue. The use of oil was unknown. The
artists painted upon wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon
canvas, which was not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon
tablets or panels, and not upon the walls. These panels were framed and
encased in the walls. The style or cestrum used in drawing, and for
spreading the wax colors, was pointed on one end and flat on the other,
and generally made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and
bleaching, and then mixed with colors. When painting was practiced in
water colors, glue was used with the white of an egg or with gums, but
wax and resins were also worked with water, with certain preparations.
This latter was called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the
most durable of all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time
of Alexander the Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it
prevented the colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practiced
both with the cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burnt in.
Fresco was used for coloring walls, which were divided into compartments
or panels. The Fresco composition of the stucco, and the method of
painting, preparing the walls for painting, is described by the ancient
writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of ordinary plaster,
over which, when dry, were successively added three other layers of a
finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were placed three layers of
a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper one being laid on
before the under one was dry, by which process the different layers were
so bound together that the whole mass formed one beautiful and solid
slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being detached from the wall
and transported in a wooden frame to any distance. The colors were
applied when the composition was still wet. The fresco wall, when
painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish, both to heighten the
color and preserve it from the effects of the sun or the weather. But
this process required so much care, and was attended with so much
expense, that it was used only in the better houses and palaces." The
later discoveries at Pompeii show the same correctness of design in
painting as in sculpture, and also considerable perfection in coloring.
The great artists of Greece were both sculptors and painters, like
Michael Angelo. Phidias and Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus
and Lysippus, were both. And the ancient writers praise the paintings of
these great artists as much as their sculpture. The Aldobrandini
Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount, during the pontificate of
Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is admired both
for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle for his
designs and by Lucian for his color. [Footnote: _Poetica of
Aristotle_, c. 286. _Imagines of Lucian_, c. 7.]

[Sidenote: Contemporaries of Polygnotus.]

Dionysius and Micon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
former of whom was celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were
deficient in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant
drawing. [Footnote: Plutarch, _Timol._ 36.] Micon was particularly
skilled in painting horses, and was the first who used for a color the
light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt vine twigs. He painted
three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and also the walls of the
Temple of the Dioscuri.

[Sidenote: The school of Apollodorus.]

With Apollodorus, of Athens, a new development was made in the art of
painting. Through his labors, about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added
to the style of Polygnotus, without departing from his pictures as
models. "The acuteness of his taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover
that, as all men were connected by one general form, so they were
separated each by some predominant power, which fixed character and
bound them to a class. Thence he drew his line of imitation and
personified the central form of the class to which his object belonged,
and to which the rest of its qualities administered, without being
absorbed; agility was not suffered to destroy firmness, solidity, or
weight; nor strength and weight agility; elegance did not degenerate to
effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to hugeness." [Footnote: Fuseli, Lect.
I.] His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the semblance of
reality. He painted men and things as they really appeared. He also made
a great advance in coloring. He invented chiaro-oscuro. Other painters
had given attention to the proper gradation of light and shade; he
heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus obtained what
the moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred due honor
on the pencil--"primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit." [Footnote:
Pliny, H. N. xxxv. 11.]

[Sidenote: Peculiarities of Zeuxis as a painter.]

This great painter prepared the way for Zeuxis, [Footnote: Born 455
B.C.] who belonged to his school, but who surpassed him in the power to
give ideal form to rich effects. He began his great career four hundred
and twenty-four years before Christ, and was most remarkable for his
female figures. His "Helen," painted from five of the most beautiful
women of Croton, was one of the most renowned productions of antiquity,
to see which the painter demanded money. He gave away his pictures,
because, with an artist's pride, he maintained that their price could
not be estimated. There is a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to
death over an old woman painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the
senses, regarded as a high attainment in art, as in the instance
recorded of his grapes. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose head-
quarters were at Ephesus, the peculiarities of which were accuracy of
imitation, the exhibition of sensual charms, and the gratification of
sensual tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of
Phidias was completed, which modified his style. His marvelous powers
were displayed in the contrast of light and shade which he learned from
Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. [Footnote:
Lucian _on Zeuxis_.] Lucian highly praises his Female Centaur as
one of the most remarkable paintings of the world, in which he showed
great ingenuity in his contrasts. His Jupiter Enthroned is also extolled
by Pliny, as one of his finest works. He acquired a great fortune, and
lived ostentatiously.

[Sidenote: Parrhasius of Ephesus.]

Contemporaneous with him, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native of
Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing, and power of
expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since he painted a curtain
which deceived his rival, whereas Zeuxis painted grapes which deceived
only birds. He was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious, and boasted of
having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined the magic tone
of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis, and the classic
expression of Polygnotus.

[Sidenote: Contemporaries of Zeuxis.]

Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
Christ, not only in Athens, but the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes of
Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same city
founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable--"Let Nature, not
an artist, be your model." Protogenes was celebrated for his high
finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
expression.

[Sidenote: Art culminates in Apelles.]

[Sidenote: The Venus of Apelles.]

The art probably culminated in Apelles, the Titian of his age, who
united the rich coloring and sensual charms of the Ionian with the
scientific severity of the Sicyonian school. He was contemporaneous with
Alexander, and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great
conqueror. He was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of
Amphipolis, and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took
lessons from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court
of Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men
and of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so
assiduously to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day
without practicing. [Footnote: Pliny, xxxv. 12.] He made great
improvement in the mechanical part of his art, and also was the first
who covered his picture with a thin varnish, both to preserve it and
bring out the colors. He invented ivory black. His distinguishing
excellence was grace, "that artless balance of motion and repose,
springing from character, founded on propriety, which neither falls
short of the demands nor overleaps the modesty of Nature." [Footnote:
Fuseli, Lect. I.] His great contemporaries may have equaled him in
perspective, accuracy, and finish; but he added a grace of conception
and refinement of taste which placed him, by the general consent of
ancient authors, at the head of all the painters of the world. His
greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene, or Venus rising out of the sea,
in which female grace was personified. The falling drops of water from
her hair form a transparent silver veil over her form. It cost one
hundred talents, [Footnote: 243 pounds x 100 = 24300 pounds x 5 =
$121,500.] and was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos,
and afterwards placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated
to Julius Caesar. The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could
be found to repair it. Nor was there an artist who could complete
an unfinished picture which he left. He was a man who courted
criticism, and who was unenvious of the fame of rivals. He was
a great admirer and friend of Protogenes of Rhodes, who was his
equal in finish, but who never knew, as Apelles did, when to
cease correcting. [Footnote: Cicero, _Brut._ 18; _De Orat._
iii. 7. Martial, xxx. 9. Ovid, _Art. Anc._ iii. 403. Pliny, xxxv.
37.]

[Sidenote: Introduction of pictures into Rome.]

After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
Mummius, B.C. 146, gave a severe blow to Grecian art. He carried to Rome
more works, or destroyed them, than all his predecessors combined.
Sylla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater injury, and,
from that time, artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and other
flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The masterpieces of
famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and Asia were
ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius Paulus brought
from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to carry them in the
triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece, the migration of
artists commenced, and this spoliation of Greece and Asia and Sicily
continued for two centuries; and such was the wealth of Rhodes in works
of art that three thousand statues were found for the conquerors. Nor
could there have been less at Athens, Olympia, or Delphi. Scaurus had
all the public pictures of Sicyon transported to Rome. Verres plundered
every temple and public building in Sicily.

[Sidenote: High value placed by them on painting.]

Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings of the world, without
the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could soar no higher in the realm of
painting, as well as of statuary. Yet the Romans learned to place as
high value on the works of Grecian genius as the English do on the
paintings of the old masters of Italy and Flanders. And if they did not
add to the art, they gave such encouragement that, under the emperors,
it may be said to have been flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven
hundred portraits of eminent men. [Footnote: Pliny, H. N. xxx. 2.] The
portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in the
temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
filled with paintings.

[Sidenote: Subjects among the Greeks.]

The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul as well as
the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for people
who naturally had taste and sensibility.