ART. V. THE WORKS AND FAITH OF PHEIDIAS. The Age of Pericles: a History of the Politics and Arts of Greece from the Persian to the Peloponnesian War. By WILLIAM WATKISS LLOYD. (London, 1875.) THE title of this excellent book indicates an almost new step in the study of history, which we take to be of great value to writers and students alike. The author fully recognises the existence of the arts of Greece, not only because they furnish documentary evidence to the historian, but because they influenced and expressed the mind and the life of the contemporary ages. This has been done not ineffectually for other periods, as in great measure by Milman's Histories of the Early Church and of Latin Christianity, and it is now happily repeated in a sketch of the great time of the most artistic and poetic race in the world. And if the monuments of Greek art have been hitherto somewhat overlooked in our Universities, so that, in the midst of accurate teaching and research in history, due importance has not been given to artistic documents, Oxford and Cambridge may excuse themselves by the example of their favourite historian. Had Thucydides said anything about the Parthenon, they would have got up the whole subject, and the progress of art in England would certainly have been greater. But the great historian's mind, like our own, was excusably but entirely occupied by politics; and he wrote his Pentecontaeteris, or history of the fifty years which intervened between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars,' without any notice of the progress of the arts; though the central work of the world in architecture and sculpture may be said to have been done before his eyes within that period. He marked it not: he only says that if no written records of history remained, the State of Athens might be taken to be of more importance than that of Sparta; and this has certainly taken place, in spite of the appearance of things in his time. But our old seats of learning may plead his oversight in mitigation of judgment on their own neglect. They have followed his example not wisely and too well. It has been rather cynically laid down by a member of the University of Cambridge, that the real work of the Universities, 1 Schol. Thuc. i. 18, 97. as it is practically carried on, consists less in educating, or doing anything for people's minds, than in the scrupulously fair distribution of the endowments as prizes; and we cannot quite deny it. The great central schools seem not to care enough about being centres, or to hold forth standards of attainment, or of correctness, to the country. Had they done this, they might have protected us from the somewhat Byzantine strictnesses of modern scholarship. We are lectured for calling Poseidon Neptune, and spelling Socrates with a c Appalling purists call Corcyra Korkyra, and a trumpet a salpinx, as they have a perfect right to do. Let Eschylus be translated into Aischulos, and Psyche be for ever sounded Sukey, but it need not be made obligatory in our time, and our poor old barbarisms may be allowed. So it is, that a new scholarship is announced, of such refinement as never was known, exactly as the Comtists advertised a new morality far above any previous standard. This is allowable in a new persuasion, particularly when one considers that it will never be numerous enough to furnish any statistics to disprove its superiority. In this review we hope to follow our author's orthography, and call gods and heroes by their old names. And as the feeling lately expressed by an enraged painter, that gentlemen and scholars have no business to criticise works of art, is rather prevalent in artistic cliques, where men see little in art beyond their own dodges of technique, we may say that with all deference to professional architects and sculptors, this field is open to scholars; particularly to those who can draw the figure tolerably, and are fairly well up in the easier architectural literature of the subject. Those who have read Mr. Penrose's two letters from Athens will understand what architectural study of the Parthenon really is; but he, we think, would not object to occasional expression of opinions on the sculpture by students of art and history. For, think what we will of these shattered relics, the question of the Greek view of the spiritual world and the human soul has to be fought over them, as over other great poems or creations of the Greek soul; and that question greatly affects the thought and hope of the present day. Such religion as the Athenian had, he expressed by his art. If he believed in an Unknown Zeus or Father of Nature, of gods and of men, these statues personify the attributes of that Zeus; the powers of nature first, then the unseen wisdom, 1 Published for the Society of Dilettanti, 1848. justice, and even perhaps mercy, behind the veil of nature. If he believed in Homeric mythology, that is to say, in a population of beings stronger than himself, and better, yet not best or mightiest, who lived in and throughout earth, sea, and clouds, and had elemental bodies, but could assume the material body, human or other, and so come in contact with him-then he thus represented them to himself. If he retained family or 'gentile' religion, these were gods and heroes, the ancient patrons of his house, and of the valiant who had served them best. And if he really believed nothing, then these things were to him idols pure and simple, and he knew they were nothing at all. Architecturally speaking, they are the decoration of two pediments, east and west, in the Athenian temple of the goddess of wisdom and valour, and of purity, moral and intellectual; of airy thought in the mind, and the healthy breath of life for the body. A certain feeling of awe and interest, amounting to veneration, may be allowed to the Elgin fragments as we see them. Any undergraduate who visits them has before him autograph and holograph records by the right hand of Pheidias. It must certainly have passed all over these sculptures, though they may, of course, have been blocked out for him by pupils from his design or model.1 A great fuss would rightly be made about any autograph of Æschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides; and these too are documents of history. They once occupied the eastern and western pediments of the Parthenon of Athens. What is known of their arrangement, with others now lost, is derived from the drawings made in 1675 for the Marquis de Nointel, by an artist named Carrey.2 Sketches of both are given in Professor Welcker's paper in the Classical Museum, vol. ii. p. 367, and in Mr. Lucas's Remarks on the Parthenon (London, 1845). The literature of the subject is summed up, with full references, in Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, but those who will read Welcker, Lucas, and Mr. W. W. Lloyd's second volume, will learn all about these works of art which can be known to students of history only. To know them one must draw them. And without affectation on this awkward point, we may appeal even to careful spec 1 We are compelled by want of space to refer the reader to Quatremère de Quincy's Jupiter Olympien for much information on Greek material, modelling, and the whole subject of chryselephantine sculpture. 2 Welcker's illustration is derived from Stuart's Antiq. of Athens (Continuation, vol. iv. ch. 4), which contains an accurate copy of Carrey's drawing, further improved in the British Museum, vol. vi. pl. 20. Lucas's model of the Parthenon in the Elgin Room should be studied with his work. tators in the Elgin Room, a limited audience, and ask them to look at the rising or sinking horses' heads alone, or else at a single arm or limb. It is possible to see how the folds of the drapery depend on the heroic mould below, and how the mighty muscles suggest, by curve and texture, all the glow of athletic life, of strong circulation in the hard flesh, and fullness of health shown through the bathed and anointed skin. We think that a draughtsman will assert with confidence, and that, generally speaking, non-draughtsmen will have to accept as a fact, the special and unequalled life of these statues. It may be expressed, with reference to the Theseus and Ilyssus, that they are stronger down the spine than other male sculpture, and that there is an evident unity of muscular action in them from head to foot. In the group of the Fates (or Brightness, Dew, and All-dew), the charis or grace of pose and repose, the unity of rest passing into rhythmic action, all appears to us different from and superior to that of other female forms. It seems that in these forms we know what noble Greek women of high character were like, as Praxiteles afterwards gave the world assurance of the hetera in all her varied characters. Lastly, there appears to have been a unity of action in all the figures in each pediment, certainly otherwise unexampled on such a scale, in which the figures radiate and unfold like petals from the central group, which adds greatly to the pervading sense of life, and helps to make this marble breathe and live beyond other marble. Mr. Lucas's model calls especial attention to this. It is at once recognised in the western pediment, where the V-shape or inverted triangle between Athenê and Poseidon is its keynote. His restoration of the eastern sculpture does not ignore this rhythmic unity of action, as perhaps Cockerell's, Gerhard's, and others do-their work seems less in accord with the springing limbs and flowing draperies that remain. It looks rather perpendicular and sometimes crowded. All the old figures have perfect elbow-room, and are as free as if the marble pediments were the blue empyrean. The technical merits of these sculptures will hardly be disputed. At present there is real and practical reason for considering their religious or spiritual import. The question of their bearing on Greek religion concerns us greatly. Many, we trust, still hold the Christian faith implicitly. But it is an everyday necessity for those of us who are engaged in the vital controversies of the time, to give account of how we came by it, and by what temporal means it was handed down to us. At the first step we find that we owe the actual written word, and a very large proportion of the traditional and patristic literature, to the language and the logic of Athens, as instrumental or sine qua non causes. The word of God is treasure given from these earthen vessels to us who are of other earth and far from depreciating ourselves, we may, on the contrary, congratulate ourselves on certain resemblances to the keen and anxiously-enquiring spirits of earlier days. The Word, said Philo, is twofold,' that which sets in order within, and that which sets forth to others without. The one is reasoning, the other language. Our faith comes to us through this interpreter-race, who excelled so in word, inward and outward. We use their language, forms, and methods of thought every day. We reason with their syllogism; we fall into and out of the fallacies they used, exposed, and analysed; we are guided in principle by the history of their glory and their shame; their mental and moral philosophy still helps us to live in the spirit of the full revelation of God which is our privilege; and, above all, the splendour of their great arts of poetry and sculpture has so commanded the spirits of all educated Christians and heathen, that all have agreed in profitable homage and fruitful admiration. Still, it has not been settled to what province of the soul this admiration belongs. Is it dependent on voluptuous beauty? The higher Athenian sculpture possesses no beauty to which that title can be applied. Then what beauty is there to admire in the Elgin marbles? There is a physical beauty which is symbolic of moral perfection, and was intended to be so. It has been shown by Winckelmann and others how closely these two arts of poetry in words and poetry by symbolism were connected, through the chorus and all the pomps of the Dionysiac theatre and Panathenaic processions, with their statuesque groupings and solemn ingress. Further, it is here again pointed out by Mr. Lloyd how an instinct for moral beauty grew up thus, to aid men's moral sense, and was for a time effective, until, as men grew faithless to the great moral standard of life, beauty took the place of right, and conduct became a matter of æsthetics. For one or two glorious 1 Λόγος προφορικὸς καὶ ἐνδιάθετος. 2 Age of Pericles, vol. ii. p. 192.-'From the Homeric to the historic age, a constant succession of noble poets took it in turn to vary mythology with such freedom as to preclude its hardening into an authorised comment on ignorant idolatries. They constantly made it a vehicle for an advancing and purer theory of moral obligation. It became peculiarly characteristic of the Hellenic world to rely, in unhesitating faith, on the æsthetically beautiful for guidance into the essentially good and universally true.' |