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Bible Encyclopedias
Greek Art
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or GREEK ART.
It is proposed in the present article to give a brief account of the history of Greek art and of the principles embodied in that history. In any broad view of history, the products of the various arts practised by a people constitute an objective and most important record of the spirit of that people. But all nations have not excelled in the same way: some have found their best expression in architecture, some in music, some in poetry. The Greeks most fully embodied their ideas in two ways, first in their splendid literature, both prose and verse, and secondly, in their plastic and pictorial art, in which matter they have remained to our days among the greatest instructors of mankind. The three arts of architecture, sculpture and painting were brought by them into a focus; and by their aid they produced a visible splendour of public life such as has perhaps been nowhere else attained.
(It may here be pointed out that it was found impossible, with any regard for the appearance of the pages, to arrange the Plates for this article so as to preserve a chronological order in the individual figures; they are not arranged consecutively as regards the history or the period, and are only grouped for convenience in paging. - Ed.)
2.1 Renaissance Rediscovery
2.2 19th century
2.3 Olympia Excavations
2.4 Other excavations
5.1 Influences
6.1 Function
6.2 Proportion
6.3 Fluidity
6.4 Decoration
7.1 Dating and Attribution
7.2 Classification
7.3 Human Figures
7.4 Sculptures of Gods
7.5 Decorative Sculpture
8.1 Dramatic and Mythical Figures
9.1 800 to 50 B.C.
9.2 Ionian Influences
9.3 Black-Figured Style
9.4 Early 6th Century
9.5 480 to 400 BC
9.6 400 to 300 BC
9.7 300 to 50 BC
Article Scope
The volume of the remains of Greek civilization is so vast, and the learning with which these have been discussed is so ample, that it is hopeless to attempt to give in a work like the present any complete account of either. Rather we shall be frankly eclectic, choosing for consideration such results of Greek art as are most noteworthy and most characteristic. In some cases it will be possible to give a reference to a more detailed treatment of particular monuments in these volumes under the heading of the places to which they belong. Architectural detail is relegated to Architecture and allied architectural articles. Coins (see Numismatics) and gems (see Gem) are treated apart, as are vases (Ceramics), and in the bibliography which closes this article an effort is made to direct those who wish for further information in any particular branch of our subject.
Rediscovery of Greek Art
1. The Rediscovery of Greek Art. - The visible works of Greek architect, sculptor and painter, accumulated in the cities of Greece and Asia Minor until the Roman conquest. And in spite of the ravages of conquering Roman generals, and the more systematic despoilings of the emperors, we know that when Pausanias visited Greece, in the age of the Antonines, it was from coast to coast a museum of works of art of all ages. But the tide soon turned. Works of originality were no longer produced, and a succession of disasters gradually obliterated those of previous ages. In the course of the Teutonic and Slavonic invasions from the north, or in consequence of earthquakes, very frequent in Greece, the splendid cities and temples fell into ruins; and with the taking of Constantinople by the Franks in 1204 the last great collection of works of Greek sculpture disappeared. But while paintings decayed, and works in metal were melted down, many marble buildings and statues survived, at least in a mutilated condition, while terra-cotta is almost proof against decay.
Renaissance Rediscovery
With the Renaissance attention was directed to the extant remains of Greek and Roman art; as early as the 15th century collections of ancient sculpture,coins and gems began to be formed in Italy; and in the 16th the enthusiasm spread to Germany and France. The earl of Arundel, in the reign of James I., was the first Englishman to collect antiques from Italy and Asia Minor: his marbles are now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Systematic travel in Greece for the discovery of buildings and works of art was begun by Spon and Wheler (1675-1676); and the discovery of Pompeii in 1748 opened a new chapter in the history of ancient art.
But though kings delighted to form galleries of ancient statues, and the great Italian artists of the Renaissance drew from them inspiration for their paintings and bronzes, the first really critical appreciation of Greek art belongs to Winckelmann (Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, 1764). The monuments accessible to Winckelmann were but a very small proportion of those we now possess, and in fact mostly works of inferior merit: but he was the first to introduce the historical method into the treatment of ancient art, and to show how it embodied the ideas of the great peoples of the ancient world. He was succeeded by Lessing, and the waves of thought and feeling set in motion by these two affected the cultivated class in all nations, - they inspired in particular Goethe in Germany and Lord Byron in England.
19th century
The second stage in the recovery of Greek art begins with the permission accorded by the Porte to Lord Elgin in 1800 to remove to England the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon and other buildings of Athens. These splendid works, after various vicissitudes, became the property of the English nation, and are now the chief treasures of the British Museum. The sight of them was a revelation to critics and artists, accustomed only to the base copies which fill the Italian galleries, and a new epoch in the appreciation of Greek art began. English and German savants, among whom Cockerell and Stackelberg were conspicuous, recovered the glories of the temples of Aegina and Bassae. Leake and Ross, and later Curtius, journeyed through the length and breadth of Greece, identifying ancient sites and studying the monuments which were above ground. Ross reconstructed the temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis of Athens from fragments rescued from a Turkish bastion.
Meantime more methodical exploration brought to light the remains of remarkable civilizations in Asia, not only in the valley of the Euphrates, but in Lycia, whence Sir Charles Fellows brought to London the remains of noteworthy tombs, among which the so-called Harpy Monument and Nereid Monument take the first place. Still more important were the accessions derived from the excavations of Sir Charles Newton, who in the years 1852-1859 resided as consul in Asia Minor, and explored the sites of the mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the shrine of Demeter at Cnidus. Pullan at Priene, and Wood at Ephesus also made fruitful excavations.
Olympia Excavations
The next landmark is set by the German excavations at Olympia (1876 and foil.), which not only were conducted with a scientific completeness before unknown, and at great cost, but also established the principle that in future all the results of excavations in Greece must remain in the country, the right of first publication only remaining with the explorers. The discovery of the Hermes of Praxiteles, almost the only certain original of a great Greek sculptor which we possess, has furnished a new and invaluable fulcrum for the study of ancient art. In emulation of the achievements of the Germans at Olympia, the Greek archaeological society methodically excavated the Athenian acropolis, and were rewarded by finding numerous statues and fragments of pediments belonging to the age of Peisistratus, an age when the promise of art was in full bud. More recently French explorers have made a very thorough examination of the site of Delphi, and have succeeded in recovering almost complete two small treasuries, those of the people of Athens and of Cnidus or Siphnos, the latter of 6th-century Ionian work, and adorned with extremely important sculpture.
Other excavations
No other site of the same importance as Athens, Olympia and Delphi remains for excavation in Greece proper. But in all parts of the country, at Tegea, Corinth, Sparta and on a number of other ancient sites, striking and important monuments have come to light. And at the same time monuments already known in Italy and Sicily, such as the temples of Paestum, Selinus and Agrigentum have been re-examined with fuller knowledge and better system. Only Asia Minor, under the influence of Turkish rule, has remained a country where systematic exploration is difficult. Something, however, has been accomplished at Ephesus, Priene, Assos and Miletus, and great works of sculpture such as the reliefs of the great altar at Pergamum, now at Berlin, and the splendid sarcophagi from Sidon, now at Constantinople, show what might be expected from methodic investigation of the wealthy Greek cities of Asia.
From further excavations at Herculaneum we may expect a rich harvest of works of art of the highest class, such as have already been found in the excavations on that site in the past; and the building operations at Rome are constantly bringing to light fine statues brought from Greece in the time of the Empire, which are now placed in the collections of the Capitol and the Baths of Diocletian.
The work of explorers on Greek sites requires as its complement and corrective much labour in the great museums of Europe. As museum work apart from exploration tends to dilettantism and pedantry, so exploration by itself does not produce reasoned knowledge. When a new building, a great original statue, a series of vases is discovered, these have to be fitted in to the existing frame of our knowledge; and it is by such fitting in that the edifice of knowledge is enlarged. In all the museums and universities of Europe the fresh examination of new monuments, the study of style and subject, and attempts to work out points in the history of ancient art, are incessantly going on. Such archaeological work is an important element in the gradual education of the world, and is fruitful, quite apart from the particular results attained, because it encourages a method of thought. Archaeology, dealing with things which can be seen and handled, yet being a species of historic study, lies on the borderland between the province of natural science and that of historic science, and furnishes a bridge whereby the methods of investigation proper to physical and biological study may pass into the human field.
These investigations and studies are recorded, partly in books, but more particularly in papers in learned journals (see bibliography), such as the Mitteilungen of the German Institute, and the English Journal of Hellenic Studies. An example or two may serve to give the reader a clearer notion of the recent progress in the knowledge of Greek art.
Architecture
To begin with architecture. Each of the palmary sites of which we have spoken has rendered up examples of early Greek temples. At Olympia there is the Heraeum, earliest of known temples of Greece proper, which clearly shows the process whereby stone gradually superseded wood as a constructive material. At Delphi the explorers have been so fortunate as to be able to put together the treasuries of the Cnidians (or Siphnians) and of the Athenians. The former (see fig. 17 ) is a gem of early Ionic art, with two Caryatid figures in front in the place of columns, and adorned with the most delicate tracery and fine reliefs. On the Athenian acropolis very considerable remains have been found of temples which were destroyed by the Persians when they temporarily occupied the site in 480 B.C. And recently the ever-renewed study of the Erechtheum has resulted in a restoration of its original form more valuable and trustworthy than any previously made.
In the field of sculpture recent discoveries have been too many and too important to be mentioned at any length. One instance may serve to mark the rapidity of our advance. When the remains of the Mausoleum were brought to London from the excavations begun by Sir Charles Newton in 1856 we knew from Pliny that four great sculptors, Scopas, Bryaxis, Leochares and Timotheus, had worked on the sculpture; but we knew of these artists little more than the names. At present we possess many fragments of two pediments at Tegea executed under the direction of Scopas, we have a basis with reliefs signed by Bryaxis, we have identified a group in the Vatican museum as a copy of the Ganymede of Leochares, and we have pedimental remains from Epidaurus which we know from inscriptional evidence to be either the works of Timotheus or made from his models. Any one can judge how enormously our power of criticizing the Mausoleum sculptures, and of comparing them with contemporary monuments, has increased.
Painting
In regard to ancient painting we can of course expect no such fresh illumination. Many important wall-paintings of the Roman age have been found at Rome and Pompeii: but we have no certain or even probable work of any great Greek painter. We have to content ourselves with studying the colouring of reliefs, such as those of the sarcophagi at Constantinople, and the drawings on vases, in order to get some notion of the composition and drawing of painted scenes in the great age of Greece. As to the portraits of the Roman age painted on wood which have come in considerable quantities from Egypt, they stand at a far lower level than even the paintings of Pompeii. The number of our vase-paintings, however, increases steadily, and whole classes, such as the early vases of Ionia, are being marked off from the crowd, and so becoming available for use in illustrating the history of Hellenic civilization.
The study of Greek art is thus one which is eminently progressive. It has over the study of Greek literature the immense advantage that its materials increase far more rapidly. And it is becoming more and more evident that a sound and methodic study of Greek art is quite as indispensable as a foundation for an artistic and archaeological education as the study of Greek poets and orators is as a basis of literary education. The extreme simplicity and thorough rationality of Greek art make it an unrivalled field for the training and exercise of the faculties which go to the making of the art-critic and art historian.
General Principles of Greek Art
The General Principles of Greek Art. - Before proceeding to sketch the history of the rise and decline of Greek art, it is desirable briefly to set forth the principles which underlie it (see also P. Gardner's Grammar of Greek Art). As the literature of Greece is composed in a particular language, the grammar and the syntax of which have to be studied before the works in poetry and prose can be read, so Greek works of art are composed in what may be called an artistic language. To the accidence of a grammar may be compared the mere technique of sculpture and painting: to the syntax of a grammar correspond the principles of composition and grouping of individual figures into a relief or picture. By means of the rules of this grammar the Greek artist threw into form the ideas which belonged to him as a personal or a racial possession.
We may mention first some of the more external conditions of Greek art; next, some of those which the Greek spirit posited for itself.
Influences
No nation is in its works wholly free from the domination of climate and geographical position; least of all a people so keenly alive to the influence of the outer world as the Greeks. They lived in a land where the soil was dry and rocky, far less hospitable to vegetation than that of western Europe, while on all sides the horizon of the land was bounded by hard and jagged lines of mountain. The sky was extremely clear and bright, sunshine for a great part of the year almost perpetual, and storms, which are more than passing gales, rare. It was in accordance with these natural features that temples and other buildings should be simple in form and bounded by clear lines. Such forms as the cube, the oblong, the cylinder, the triangle, the pyramid abound in their constructions. Just as in Switzerland the gables of the chalets match the pine-clad slopes and lofty summits of the mountains, so in Greece, amid barer hills of less elevation, the Greek temple looks thoroughly in place. But its construction is related not only to the surface of the land, but also to the character of the race. M. Emile Boutmy, in his interesting Philosophie de l'architecture en Grece, has shown how the temple is a triumph of the senses and the intellect, not primarily emotional, but showing in every part definite purpose and design. It also exhibits in a remarkable degree the love of balance, of symmetry, of a mathematical proportion of parts and correctness of curvature which belong to the Greek artist.
Temples
The purposes of a Greek temple may be readily judged from its plan. Primarily it was the abode of the deity, whose statue dwelt in it as men dwell in their own houses. Hence the cella or naos is the central feature of the building. Here was placed the image to which worship was brought, while the treasures belonging to the god were disposed partly in the cella itself, partly in a kind of treasury which often existed, as in the Parthenon, behind the cella. There was in large temples a porch of approach, the pronaos, and another behind, the opisthodomos. Temples were not meant for, nor accommodated to, regular services or a throng of worshippers. Processions and festivals took place in the open air, in the streets and fields, and men entered the abodes of the gods at most in groups and families, commonly alone. Thus when a place had been found for the statue, which stood for the presence of the god, for the small altar of incense, for the implements of cult and the gifts of votaries, little space remained free, and great spaces or subsidiary chapels such as are usual in Christian cathedrals did not exist (see Temple).
Here our concern is not with the purposes or arrangements of a temple, but with its appearance and construction, regarded as a work of art, and as an embodiment of Greek ideas. A few simple and striking principles may be formulated, which are characteristic of all Greek buildings:
Function
Each member of the building has one function, and only one, and this function controls even the decoration of that member. The pillar of a temple is made to support the architrave and is for that purpose only. The flutings of the pillar, being perpendicular, emphasize this fact. The line of support which runs up through the pillar is continued in the triglyph, which also shows perpendicular grooves. On the other hand, the wall of a temple is primarily meant to divide or space off; thus it may well at the top be decorated by a horizontal band of relief, which belongs to it as a border belongs to a curtain. The base of a column, if moulded, is moulded in such a way as to suggest support of a great weight; the capital of a column is so carved as to form a transition between the column and the cornice which it supports.
Proportion
Greek architects took the utmost pains with the proportions, the symmetry as they called it, of the parts of their buildings. This was a thing in which the keen and methodical eyes of the Greeks delighted, to a degree which a modern finds it hard to understand. Simple and natural relations, 1: 2, 1:3, 2:3 and the like, prevailed between various members of a construction. All curves were planned with great care, to please the eye with their flow; and the alternations and correspondences of features is visible at a glance. For example, the temple must have two pediments and two porches, and on its sides and fronts triglyph and metope must alternate with unvarying regularity.
Fluidity
Rigidity in the simple lines of a temple is avoided by the device that scarcely any outline is actually straight. All are carefully planned and adapted to the eye of the spectator. In the Parthenon the line of the floor is curved, the profiles of the columns are curved, the corner columns slope inward from their bases, the columns are not even equidistant. This elaborate adaptation, called entasis, was expounded by F. C. Penrose in his work on Athenian architecture, and has since been observed in several of the great temples of Greece.
Decoration
Elaborate decoration is reserved for those parts of the temple which have, or at least appear to have, no strain laid upon them. It is true that in the archaic age experiments were made in carving reliefs on the lower drums of columns (as at Ephesus) and on the line of the architrave (as at Assus). But such examples were not followed. Nearly always the spaces reserved for mythological reliefs or groups are the tops of walls, the spaces between the triglyphs, and particularly the pediments surmounting the two fronts, which might be left hollow without danger to the stability of the edifice. Detached figures in the round are in fact found only in the pediments, or standing upon the tops of the pediments. And metopes are sculptured in higher relief than friezes.
"When we examine in detail even the simplest architectural decoration, we discover a combination of care, sense of proportion, and reason. The flutings of an Ionic column are not in section mere arcs of a circle, but made up of a combination of curves which produce a beautiful optical effect; the lines of decoration, as may be best seen in the case of the Erechtheum, are cut with a marvellous delicacy. Instead of trying to invent new schemes, the mason contents himself with improving the regular patterns until they approach perfection, and he takes everything into consideration. Mouldings on the outside of a temple, in the full light of the sun, are differently planned from those in the diffused light of the interior. Mouldings executed in soft stone are less fine than those in marble. The mason thinks before he works, and while he works, and thinks in entire correspondence with his surroundings." 1
Sculpture
Greek architecture, however, is treated elsewhere (see Architecture); we will therefore proceed to speak briefly of the principles exemplified in sculpture. Existing works of Greek sculpture fall easily into two classes. The first class comprises what may be called works of substantive art, statues or groups made for their own sake and to be judged by themselves. Such are cult-statues of gods and goddesses from temple and shrine, honorary portraits of rulers or of athletes, dedicated groups and the like. The second class comprises decorative sculptures, such as were made, usually in relief, for the decoration of temples and tombs and other buildings, and were intended to be subordinate to architectural effect.
Dating and Attribution
Speaking broadly, it may be said that the works of substantive sculpture in our museums are in the great majority of cases copies of doubtful exactness and very various merit. The Hermes of Praxiteles is almost the only marble statue which can be assigned positively to one of the great sculptors; we have to work back towards the productions of the peers of Praxiteles through works of poor execution, often so much restored in modern times as to be scarcely recognizable.
Decorative works, on the other hand, are very commonly originals, and their date can often be accurately fixed, as they belong to known buildings. They are thus infinitely more trustworthy and more easy to deal with than the copies of statues of which the museums of Europe, and more especially those of Italy, are full. They are also more commonly unrestored. But yet there are certain disadvantages attaching to them. Decorative works, even when carried out under the supervision of a great sculptor, were but seldom executed by him. Usually they were the productions of his pupils or masons.. Thus they are not on the same level of art as substantive sculpture. And they vary in merit to an extraordinary extent, according to the capacity of the man who happened to have them in hand, and who was probably but little controlled. Every one knows how noble are the pedimental sculptures of the Parthenon. But we know no reason why they should be so vastly superior to the frieze from Phigalia; nor why the heads from the temple at Tegea should be so fine, while those from the contemporary temple at Epidaurus should be comparatively insignificant. From the records of payments made to the sculptors who worked on the Erechtheum at Athens it appears that they were ordinary masons, some of them not even citizens, and paid at the rate of 60 drachms (about 60 francs) for each figure, whether of man or horse, which they produced. Such piece-work would not, in our days, produce a very satisfactory result.
Classification
Works of substantive sculpture may be divided into two classes, the statues of human beings and those of the gods. The line between the two is not, however, very easy to draw, or very definite. For in representing men the Greek sculptor had an irresistible inclination to idealize, to represent what was generic and typical rather than what was individual, and the essential rather than the accidental. And in representing deities he so fully anthropomorphized them that they became men and women, only raised above the level of everyday life and endowed with a superhuman stateliness. Moreover, there was a class of heroes represented largely in art who covered the transition from men to gods. For example, if one regards Heracles as a deity and Achilles as a man of the heroic age and of heroic mould, the line between the two will be found to be very narrow.
Human Figures
Nevertheless one may for convenience speak first of human and afterwards of divine figures. It was the custom from the 6th century onwards to honour those who had done any great achievement by setting up their statues in conspicuous positions. One of the earliest examples is that of the tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogiton, a group, a copy of which has come down to us . Again, people who had not won any distinction were in the habit of dedicating to the deities portraits of themselves or of a priest or priestess, thus bringing themselves, as it were, constantly under the notice of a divine patron. The rows of statues before the temples at Miletus, Athens elsewhere came thus into being. But from the point of view of art, by far the most important class of portraits consisted of athletes who had won victories at some of the great games of Greece, at Olympia, Delphi or elsewhere. Early in the 6th century the custom arose of setting up portraits of athletic victors in the great sacred places. We have records of numberless such statues executed by all the greatest sculptors. When Pausanias visited Greece he found them everywhere far too numerous for complete mention.
It is the custom of studying and copying the forms of the finest of the young athletes, combined with the Greek habit of complete nudity during the sports, which lies at the basis of Greek excellence in sculpture. Every sculptor had unlimited opportunities for observing young vigorous bodies in every pose and in every variety of strain. The natural sense of beauty which was an endowment of the Greek race impelled him to copy and preserve what was excellent, and to omit what was ungainly or poor. Thus there existed, and in fact there was constantly accumulating, a vast series of types of male beauty, and the public taste was cultivated to an extreme delicacy. And of course this taste, though it took its start from athletic customs, and was mainly nurtured by them, spread to all branches of portraiture, so that elderly men, women, and at last even children, were represented in art with a mixture of ideality and fidelity to nature such as has not been reached by the sculpture of any other people.
Sculptures of Gods
The statues of the gods began either with stiff and ungainly figures roughly cut out of the trunk of a tree, or with the monstrous and symbolical representations of Oriental art. In the Greece of late times there were still standing rude pillars, with the tops sometimes cut into a rough likeness to the human form. And in early decoration of vases and vessels one may find Greek deities represented with wings, carrying in their hands lions or griffins, bearing on their heads lofty crowns. But as Greek art progressed it grew out of this crude symbolism. In the language of Brunn, the Greek artists borrowed from Oriental or Mycenaean sources the letters used in their works, but with these letters they spelled out the ideas of their own nation. What the artists of Babylon and Egypt express in the character of the gods by added attribute or symbol, swiftness by wings, control of storms by the thunderbolt, traits of character by animal heads, the artists of Greece work more and more fully into the sculptural type; modifying the human subject by the constant addition of something which is above the ordinary level of humanity, until we reach the Zeus of Pheidias or the Demeter of Cnidus. When the decay of the high ethical art of Greece sets in, the gods become more and more warped to the merely human level. They lose their dignity, but they never lose their charm.
Decorative Sculpture
The decorative sculpture of Greece consists not of single figures, but of groups; and in the arrangement of these groups the strict Greek laws of symmetry, of rhythm, and of balance, come in. We will take the three most usual forms, the pediment, the metope and the frieze, all of which belong properly to the temple, but are characteristic of all decoration, whether of tomb, trophy or other monument.
The form of the pediment is triangular; the height of the triangle in proportion to its length being about 1: 8. The conditions of space are here strict and dominant; to comply with them requires some ingenuity. To a modern sculptor the problem thus presented is almost insoluble; but it was allowable in ancient art to represent figures in a single composition as of various sizes, in correspondence not to actual physical measurement but to importance. As the more important figures naturally occupy the midmost place in a pediment, their greater size comes in conveniently. And by placing some of the persons of the group in a standing, some in a seated, some in a reclining position, it can be so contrived that their heads are equidistant from the upper line of the pediment.
The statues in a Greek pediment, which are after quite an early period usually executed in the round, fall into three, five or seven groups, according to the size of the whole. As examples to illustrate this exposition we take the two pediments of the temple at Olympia, the most complete which have come down to us, which are represented in figs. 33 and 34. The east pediment represents the preparation for the chariot race between Pelops and Oenoriaus. The central group consists of five figures, Zeus standing between the two pairs of competitors and their wives. In the corners recline the two river-gods Alpheus and Cladeus, who mark the locality; and the two sides are filled up with the closely corresponding groups of the chariots of Oenomaus and Pelops with their grooms and attendants. Every figure to the left of Zeus balances a corresponding figure on his right, and all the lines of the composition slope towards a point above the apex of the pediment.
In the opposite or western pediment is represented the battle between Lapiths and Centaurs which broke out at the marriage of Peirithous in Thessaly. Here we have no less than nine groups. In the midst is Apollo. On each side of him is a group of three, a centaur trying to carry off a woman and a Lapith striking at him. Beyond these on each side is a struggling pair, next once more a trio of two combatants and a woman, and finally in each corner two reclining female figures, the outermost apparently nymphs to mark locality. A careful examination of these compositions will show the reader more clearly than detailed description how clearly in this kind of group Greek artists adhered to the rules of rhythm and of balance.
The metopes were the long series of square spaces which ran along the outer walls of temples between the upright triglyphs and the cornice. Originally they may have been left open and served as windows; but the custom came in as early as the 7th century, first of filling them in with painted boards or slabs of stone, and next of adorning them with sculpture. The metopes of the Treasury of Sicyon at Delphi (Plate IV. fig. 66) are as early as the first half of the 6th century. This recurrence of a long series of square fields for occupation well suited the genius and the habits of the sculptor. As subjects he took the successive exploits of some hero such as Heracles or Theseus, or the contemporary groups of a battle. His number of figures was limited to two or three, and these figures had to be worked into a group or scheme, the main features of which were determined by artistic tradition, but which could be varied in a hundred ways so as to produce a pleasing and in some degree novel result.
With metopes, as regards shape, we may compare the reliefs of Greek tombs, which also usually occupy a space roughly square, and which also comprise but a few figures arranged in a scheme generally traditional. A figure standing giving his hand to one seated, two men standing hand in hand, or a single figure in some vigorous pose is sufficient to satisfy the simple but severe taste of the Greeks.
In regard to friezes, which are long reliefs containing figures ranged between parallel lines, there is more variety of custom. In temples the height of the relief from the background varies according to the light in which it was to stand, whether direct or diffused. Almost all Greek friezes, however, are of great simplicity in arrangement and perspective. Locality is at most hinted at by a few stones or trees, never actually portrayed. There is seldom more than one line of figures, in combat or procession, their heads all equidistant from the top line of the frieze. They are often broken up into groups; and when this is the case, figure will often balance figure on either side of a central point almost as rigidly as in a pediment. An example of this will be found in the section of the Mausoleum frieze shown in fig. 70, Plate IV. Some of the friezes executed by Greek artists for semi-Greek peoples, such as those adorning the tomb at Trysa in Lycia, have two planes, the figures in the background being at a higher level.
Vase Painting
The rules of balance and symmetry in composition which are followed in Greek decorative art are still more to be discerned in the paintings of vases, which must serve, in the absence of more dignified compositions, to enlighten us as to the methods of Greek painters. Great painters would not, of course, be bound by architectonic rule in the same degree as the mere workmen who painted vases. Nevertheless we must never forget that Greek painting of the earlier ages was of extreme simplicity. It did not represent localities, save by some slight hint; it had next to no perspective; the colours used were but very few even down to the days of Apelles. Most of the great pictures of which we hear consisted of but one or two figures; and when several figures were introduced they were kept apart and separately treated, though, of course, not without relation to one another. Idealism and ethical purpose must have predominated in painting as in sculpture and in the drama and in the writing of history.
We will take from vases a few simple groups to illustrate the laws of Greek drawing; colouring we cannot illustrate.
The fields offered to the draughtsman on Greek vases naturally follow the form of the vase; but they may be set down as approximately round, square or oblong. To each of these spaces the artist carefully adapts his designs. In fig. I we have a characteristic adaptation to circular form by the vase painter Epictetus.
In the early period of painting all the space not occupied by the figures is filled with patterns or accessories, or even animals which have no connexion with the subject (fig. 9).
In later and more developed art, as in this example, the outlines are so figured as to fill the space.
When the space is square we have much the same problem as is presented by the metope spaces of a temple. In the case of both square and oblong fields the laws of balance are carefully observed. Thus if there is an even number of figures in the scheme, two of them will form a sort of centre-piece, those on either side balancing one another. If the number of figures is uneven, either there will be a group of three in the midst, or the midmost figure will be so contrived that he belongs wholly to neither side, but is the balance between them. These remarks will be made clear by figs. 2 and 3, which repeat the two sides of of an amphora, one of which bears a design of three figures, the other of four.
The Greek artist not only adhered to the architectonic laws of balance and symmetry, but he thought in schemes. Certain group arrangements had a recognized signification. There are schemes for warriors fighting on equal terms, and schemes which represent the defeat of one of these by the other; the vanquished has commonly fallen on his knees, but still defends. himself. There is a scheme for the leading away of a captive woman; the captor leads her by the hand looking back at her, while a friend walks behind to ward off pursuit. Such schemes, are constantly varied in detail, and often very skilfully varied; but the Greek artist uses schemes as a sort of shorthand, to show as clearly as possible what he meant. They serve the same purpose as the mask in the acting of a play, the first glance at which will tell the spectators what they have to look for.
No doubt the great painters of Greece were not so much under the dominion of these schemes as the very inferior painters of vases. They used the schemes for their own purposes instead of being used by them. But as great poets do not revolt against the restrictions of the sonnet or of rhyme, so great artists in Greece probably found recognized conventions more helpful than hurtful.
Dramatic and Mythical Figures
Students of Greek sculpture and vases must be warned not to suppose that Greek reliefs and drawings can be taken as direct illustrations of Homer or the dramatists. Book illustration in the modern sense did not exist in Greece. The poet and the painter pursued courses which were parallel, but never in actual contact. Each moved by the traditions of his own craft. The poet took the accepted tale and enshrined it in a setting of feeling and imagination. The painter took the traditional schemes which were current, and altered or enlarged them, adding new figures and new motives, but not attempting to set aside the general scheme. But varieties suitable to poetry were not likely to be suitable in painting. Thus it is but seldom that a vase-painter seems to have had in his mind, as he drew, passages of the Homeric poems, though these might well be familiar to him. And almost never does a vase-painting of the 5th century show any sign of the influence of the dramatists, who were bringing before the Athenian public on the stage many of the tales and incidents popular with the vase-painter. Only on vases of lower Italy of the 4th century and later we can occasionally discern something of Aeschylean and Euripidean influence in the treatment of a myth; and even in a few cases we may discern that the vase-painter has taken suggestions direct from the actors in the theatre.
 Fig. 2. Vase paintings |  Fig. 3. Vase paintings History of Greek ArtWe propose next to trace in brief outline the history of Greek art from its rise to its decay. We begin with the rise of a national art, after the destruction of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations of early Greece by the irruption of tribes from the north, that is to say, about 800 B.C., and we stop with the Roman age of Greece, after which Greek art works in the service of the conquerors (see Roman Art). 800 to 50 B.C.The period 800-50 B.C. we divide into four sections: (I) the period down to the Persian Wars, 800-480 B.C.; (2) the period of the early schools of art, 480-400 B.C.; (3) the period of the later great schools, 400-300 B.C.; (4) the period of Hellenistic art, 300-50 B.C. In dealing with these successive periods we confine our sketch to the three greater branches of representative art, architecture, sculpture and painting, which in Greece are closely connected. The lesser arts, of pottery, gem-engraving, coin-stamping and the like, are treated of under the heads of Ceramics, Gem, Numismatics, &c., while the more technical treatment of architectural construction are dealt with under Architecture and allied architectural articles. Further, for brief accounts of the chief artists the reader is referred to biographical articles, under such heads as Pheidias, Praxiteles, Apelles. We treat here only of the main course of art in its historic evolution. Period I. 800-480 B.C. - The fact is now generally allowed that the Mycenaean, or as it is now termed Aegean, civilization was for the most part destroyed by an invasion from the north. This invasion appears to have been gradual; its racial character is much in dispute. Archaeological evidence abundantly proves that it was the conquest of a more by a less rich and civilized race. In the graves of the period (800-600 B.C.) we find none of the wealthy spoil which has made celebrated the tombs of Mycenae and Vaphio(q.v.). The character of the pottery and the bronze-work which is found in these later graves reminds us of the art of the necropolis of Hallstatt in Austria, and other sites belonging to what is called the bronze age of North Europe. Its predominant characteristic is the use of geometrical forms, the lozenge, the triangle, the maeander, the circle with tangents, in place of the elaborate spirals and plant-forms which mark Mycenaean ware. For this reason the period from the 9th to the 7th century in Greece passes by the name of "the Geometric Age." It is commonly held that in the remains of the Geometric Age we may trace the influence of the Dorians, who, coming in as a hardy but uncultivated race, probably of purer Aryan blood than the previous inhabitants of Greece, not only brought to an end the wealth and the luxury which marked the Mycenaean age, but also replaced an art which was in character essentially southern by one which belonged rather to the north and the west. The great difficulty inherent in this view, a difficulty which has yet to be met, lies in the fact that some of the most abundant and characteristic remains of the geometric age which we possess come, not from Peloponnesus, but from Athens and Boeotia, which were never conquered by the Dorians. The geometric ware is for the most part adorned with painted patterns only. Fig. 4 is a characteristic example, a small two handled vase from Rhodes in the Ashmolean Museum, the adornment of which consists in zigzags, circles ware. with tangents, and lines of water birds, perhaps swans. Sometimes, however, especially in the case of large vases from the cemetery at Athens, which adjoins the Dipylon gate, scenes FIG. 4. - Geometric Vase from Rhodes. (Ashmolean Museum.) from Greek life are depicted, from daily life, not from legend or divine myth. Especially scenes from the lying-in-state and the burial of the dead are prevalent. An excerpt from a Dipylon vase (fig. 5 ) shows a dead man on his couch surrounded by mourners, male and female. Both sexes are apparently represented naked, and are distinguished very simply; some of them hold branches to sprinkle the corpse or to keep away flies. It will be seen how primitive and conventional is the drawing of this age, presenting a wonderful contrast to the free drawing and modelling of the Mycenaean age. In the same graves with the pottery are sometimes found plaques of gold or bronze, and towards the end of the geometric age these somtimes bear scenes from mythology, treated with the greatest simplicity. For example, in the museum of Berlin are the contents of a tomb found at Corinth, consisting mainly of gold work of geometric decoration. But in the same tomb were also found gold plates or plaques of repousse work bearing subjects from Greek legend. Two of these are shown in fig. 6. On one Theseus is slaying the Minotaur, while Ariadne stands by and encourages the hero. The tale could not have been told in a simpler or more straightforward way. On the other we have an armed warrior with his charioteer in a chariot drawn by two horses. The treatment of the human body is here more advanced than on the vases of the Dipylon. On the site of Olympia, where Mycenaean remains are not found, but the earliest monuments show the geometric style, a quantity of dedications in bronze have been found, the decoration of which belongs to this style. Fig. 7 shows the handle of a tripod from Olympia, which is adorned with geometric patterns and surmounted by the figure of a horse.   It was about the 6th century that the genius of the Greeks, almost suddenly, as it seems to us, emancipated itself from the thralldom of tradition, and passed beyond the limits with which the nations of the east and west had hitherto been content, in a free and bold effort towards the ideal. Thus the 6th century marks the stage in art in which it may be said to have become definitely Hellenic. The Greeks still borrowed many of their decorative forms, either from the prehistoric remains in their own country or, through Phoenician agency, from the old-world empires of Egypt and Babylon, but they used those forms freely to express their own meaning. And gradually, in the course of the century, we see both in the painting of vases and in sculpture a national spirit and a national style forming under the influence of Greek religion and mythology, Greek athletic training, Greek worship of beauty. We must here lay emphasis on the fact, which is sometimes overlooked in an age which is greatly given to the Darwinian search after origins, that it is one thing to trace back to its original sources the nascent art of Greece, and quite another thing to follow and to understand its gradual embodiment of Hellenic ideas and civilization. The immense success with which the veil has in late years been lifted from the prehistoric age of Greece, and the clearness with which we can discern the various strands woven into the web of Greek art, have tended to fix our attention rather on what Greece possessed in common with all other peoples at the same early stage of civilization than on what Greece added for herself to this common stock. In many respects the art of Greece is incomparable - one of the great inspirations which have redeemed the world from mediocrity and vulgarity. And it is the searching out and appreciation of this unique and ideal beauty in all its phases, in idea and composition and execution, which is the true task of Greek archaeological science.  Ionian InfluencesIn very recent years it has been possible, for the first time, to trace the influence of Ionian painting, as represented by vases, on the rise of art. The discoveries at Naucratis and Daphnae in Egypt, due to the keenness and pertinacity of W.M.Flinders Petrie,threw new light on this matter. It became evident that when those cities were first inhabited by Ionian Greeks, in the 7th century, they used pottery of several distinct but allied styles, the most notable feature of which was the use of the lotus in decoration, the presence of continuous friezes of animals and of monsters, and the filling up of the background with rosettes, lozenges and other forms. Fig. 8 shows a vase found in Rhodes which illustrates this Ionian decoration.  The sphinx, the deer and the swan are prominent on it, the lastnamed serving as a link between the geometric ware and the more brilliant and varied ware of the Ionian cities. The assignment of the many species of early Ionic ware to various Greek localities, Miletus, Samos, Phocaea and other cities, is a work of great difficulty, which now closely occupies the attention of archaeologists. For the results of their studies the reader is referred to two recent German works, Bohlau's Aus ionischen and italischen Nekropolen, and Endt's Beitrtige zur ionischen Vasenmalerei. The feature which is most interesting in this pottery from our present point of view is the way in which representations of Greek myth and legend gradually make their way, and relegate the mere decoration of the vases to borders and neck. One of the earliest examples of representation of a really Greek subject is the contest of Menelaus and Euphorbus on a plate found in Rhodes. On the vases of Melos, of the 7th century, which are, however, not Ionian, but rather Dorian in character, we have a certain number of mythological scenes, battles of Homeric heroes and the like. One of these is shown in fig. 9. It represents Apollo in a chariot drawn by winged horses, playing on the lyre, and accompanied by a pair of Muses, meeting his sister Artemis. It is notable that Apollo is bearded, and that Artemis holds her stag by the horns, much in the manner of the deities on Babylonian cylinders; in the other hand she carries an arrow; above is a line of water birds. Some sites in Asia Minor and the islands adjoining, such cities as Samos, Camirus in Rhodes, and the Ionian colonies on the Conze, Black Sea, have furnished us with a mass of ware of the Ionian class, but it seldom bears interesting subjects; it is essentially decorative. For Ionian ware which has closer relation to Greek mythology and history we must turn elsewhere. The cemeteries of the great Etruscan cities, Caere in particular, have preserved for us a large number of vases, which are now generally recognized as Ionian in design and drawing, though they may in some cases be only Italian imitations of Ionian imported ware. Thus has been filled up what was a blank page in the history of early Greek art. The Ionian painting is unrestrained in character, characterized by a licence not foreign to the nature of the race, and wants the self-control and moderation which belong to Doric art, and to Attic art after the first. Some of the most interesting examples of early Ionic painting are found on the sarcophagi of Clazomenae. In that city in archaic times an exceptional custom prevailed of burying the dead in great coffins of terra-cotta adorned with painted scenes from chariot-racing, war and the chase. The British Museum possesses some remarkable specimens, which are published in A. S. Murray's Terra-Cotta Sarcophagi of the British Museum. On one of them he sees depicted a battle between Cimmerian invaders and Greeks, the former accompanied to the field by their great war-dogs. In some of the representations of hunting on these sarcophagi the hunters ride in chariots, a way of hunting quite foreign to the Greeks, but familiar to us from Assyrian wall-sculptures. We know that the life of the Ionians before the Persian conquest was refined and not untinged with luxury, and they borrowed many of the stately ways of the satraps of the kings of Assyria and Persia. We may compare some of the gold ornaments from Camirus in Rhodes, which show an Ionian tendency, perhaps combined with Phoenician elements. On one of them (fig. 11) we see a centaur with human forelegs holding up a fawn, on the other the oriental goddess whom the Greeks identified with their Artemis, winged, and flanked by lions. This form was given to Artemis on the Corinthian chest of Cypselus, a work of art preserved at Olympia, and carefully described for us by Pausanias.  From Ionia the style of vase-painting which has been called by various names, but may best be termed the "orientalizing," spread to Greece proper. Its main home here was in Corinth; and small Corinthian unguent-vases bearing figures of swans, lions, monsters and human beings, the intervals between which are filled by rosettes, are found wherever Corinthian trade penetrated, notably in the cemeteries of Sicily. For the larger Corinthian vases, which bore more elaborate scenes from mythology, we must again turn to the graves of the cities of Etruria. Here, besides the Ionian ware, of which mention has already been made, we find pottery of three Greek cities clearly defined, that of Corinth, that of Chalcis in Euboea, and that of Athens. Corinthian and Chalcidian ware is most readily distinguished by means of the alphabets used in the inscriptions which have distinctive forms easily to be identified. Whether in the style of the paintings coming from the various cities any distinct differences may be traced is a far more difficult question, into which we cannot now enter. The subjects are mostly from heroic legend, and are treated with great simplicity and directness. There is a manly vigour about them which distinguishes them at a glance from the laxer works of Ionian style. Fig. 12 shows a group from a Chalcidian vase, which represents the conflict over the dead body of Achilles. The corpse of the hero lies in the midst, the arrow in his heel. The Trojan Glaucus tries to draw away the body by means of a rope tied round the ankle, but in doing so is transfixed by the spear of Ajax, who charges under the protection of the goddess Athena. Paris on the Trojan side shoots an arrow at Ajax. In fig. 13, from a Corinthian vase, Ajax falls on his sword in the presence of his colleagues, Odysseus and Diomedes. The short stature of Odysseus is a well-known Homeric feature. These vases are black-figured; the heroes are painted in silhouette on the red ground of the vases. Their names are appended in archaic Greek letters. Black-Figured StyleThe early history of vase-painting at Athens is complicated. It was only by degrees that the geometric style gave way to, or developed into, what is known as the black-figured style. It would seem that until the age of Peisistratus Athens was not notable in the world of art, and nothing could be ruder than some of the vases of Athens in the 7th century, for example that here figured, on one side of which are represented the winged Harpies(fig. 14) and on the other Perseus accompanied by Athena flying from the pursuit of the Gorgons. This vase retains in its decoration some features of geometric style; but the lotus and rosette, the lion and sphinx which appear on it, belong to the wave of Ionian influence. Although it involves a departure from strict chronological order, it will be well here to follow the course of development in pottery at Athens until the end of our period. Neighbouring cities, and especially Corinth, seem to have exercised a strong influence at Athens about the 7th century. We have even a class of vases called by archaeologists Corintho-Attic. But in the course of the 6th century there is formed at Athens a distinct and marked black-figured style. The most remarkable example of this ware is the so-called Francois vase at Munich, by Clitias and Ergotimus, which contains, in most careful and precise rendering, a number of scenes from Greek myth. One of these vases is dated, since it bears the name and the figure of Callias in his chariot (Mon. dell' Inst. iii. 45), and this Callias won a victory at Olympia in 564 B.C. Fig. 15 shows the reverse of a somewhat later blackfigured vase of the Panathenaic class, given at Athens as a prize to the winner of a foot-race at the Panathenaea, with the foot-race (stadion ) represented on it. A large number of Athenian vases of the 6th century have reached us, which bear the signatures of the potters who made, or the artists who painted them; lists of these will be found in the useful work of Klein, Griechische I V asen mit Meistersignaturen. The recent excavations on the Acropolis have proved the erroneousness of the view, strongly maintained by Brunn, that the mass of the black-figured vases were of a late and imitative fabric. We now know that, with a few exceptions, vases of this class are not later than the early part of the 5th century. The same excavations have also proved that red-figured vase-painting, that is, vase-painting in which the background was blocked out with black, and the figures left in the natural colour of the vase originated at Athens in the last quarter of the 6th century. We cannot here give a detailed account of the beautiful series of Athenian vases of this fabric. Many of the finest of them are in the British Museum. As an example, fig. 16 presents a group by the painter Pamphaeus, representing Heracles wrestling with the river-monster Achelous, which belongs to the age of the Persian Wars. The clear precision of the figures, the vigour of the grouping Copyright Statement These files are public domain. Bibliography Information
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Greek Art'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/g/greek-art.html. 1910.  Ads FreeProfile |