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Show lGO TllE ART OF TllE GREEKS. country like boo-swarms, not in order to extend its power, but to grow up themselves, and to prosper freely and indopond ntly. Within tho same period, Macedonia, Epirus, and the inner countries of Asia Minor, up to tho confines of tho Shomitos, were pervaded by G reck influences in art and manners; and when at last exhausted by their unhappy divisions, tho Greeks lost their indopondonco, tho h llonic spirit still maintained itself in art and science; and, carried by Ma donian arms all over tho Persian empire and Egypt, continued to live and to thrive among nations of a high indigenous civilization. Greece, conquered by l~ome, as lloraco says, subdued tho savage conqueror, and imported art and culture into the rude Latin world. Absorbed ethnically by amalgamation with Roman clements, llcllenism survived oven the political Wl'eck of Rome, and rose to a second though feeble development among the mongrel Byzantines, who, well aware that they were not Greeks, although speaking the Greek language, never ceased to call themselves Romans. Evon now their country is called Roum-Hi, by tho Tnrk, and they call their own language Romaic. Down to our own days, Greek genius exerts its humanizing influences over the most highly cultivated part of the world, constituting the foundation of all the most comprehensive and properly human education. Tho national character of tho Greeks, as expressed in their history, is fully developed in their art, which from its very boO'inning is characterized by freedom and movement, restricted by b tho most delicate feeling for measure, and. r fined by a tendency towards the ideal, wiLhout losing sight of 11aturc. Progt·ossivc in its character, Greek art often chango its forms of expression, -wo may say from gonorati on to generation,-with a fertility of genius, easier to bo admil· d tha~ explained. In Egyptian, Assyrian, and Persian sculpture, we not10ed ~uccossive changes in the details, but scarcely any real and substantial progr ss. Amo11g all tllose nations, tho rudiments of a:'t w.ero not materially diilor nt from their highest developmont; wlnlst 1~ Greece we aro able to trace tho history of sculpture from comparatiVe rudeness to tho highest doO'roo of eminencehuman perfectibility, nuder the rule of frcod~m bas never been more gloriously personified than in the Greek nation. Tho question of tho origin of Greek art bas often been raised in antiqui~y as well as in modern times, but tho answers arc altogether contradiCtory. . The oolobra~od Roman admiral Pliny, a" dilettante" who compiled Ins ~ atural ll1story indiscriminately from all the sources accessible to. h1m, pros~rved tho charming story of the Corinthian girl, who drew tho outhnc of the shadow of her departing lover's face on the TllE ART OF TilE GREEKS. 161 wa11, and mentions it as the first artistical attempt. ITer father, he continuos, filled the outline up with clay, and baking it, produced the first relief. Wo can scarcely doubt that this pretty talc is derived from some Greek epigram, which was popular in the times of Pliny, for connecting art with love; but it cannot satisfy criticism. Winckclman, tho father of scientific archooology, deduced the Greek statue a priori from tho llorma or bust; forgetting that liOl·mas and busts, where tho head has to represent tho whole figure, belong to th lat r, reflecting epoch of sculpture. No little boy over trios to draw a head alone, nor can he enjoy its representation; be looks immediately for its complement, the body, without which he thinks it deficient. Indo d, busts and liermas remained unknown to the national art of Egypt and Assyria; moreover, tho earliest sculptural works mentioned by Greek authors are statucs, . not busts. So are all tho Palladia and Drodalcan works, tho outlines and general features of which arc known from their copies on vases, coins and gcma.w1 The tYl os of tho eat'liost coi11S arc figures, though soon succco<lod by heads. Stoinbtiohel, with apparent plausibility, derives Greek art fi·om Egypt. ~till, it is rather going too far wl1on bo connects its rudiments with tho mythical Egyptian immigration of Cccrops to Attica, and of Daniius to Argos, hypothetically placed about 1500 B. c., when Egyptian art was highly developed. Whatover be the truth about tho nationality of Cecrops and Danaus, so much is certain, that imitative art was unknown in Grecco for at least seven centuries after the pretended date of their immigration; si nco tho earliest records of works of art carry us scarcely beyond the end of tho seventh century, B. c., and tho earliest works extant do not ascend beyond tho first half of the sixth century. Indeed., Greece and Grecians existed a long time before they possessed statuari s. 105 (Plutarch, in Numa, says that images wore by tho learned considered symbolical, and deplored. Numa, tho great Roman lawgiver, forbade his people to represent Gods in tho form of man or boasts; and this injunction was followed for tho first 4 70 years of the rcpublic.100 ) Another opinion, that Greek art is a daughter of tho Assyrian, is likewise often hinted at; but, as already mentioned, tho earliest works of Groe] ~ sculpture arc anterior, by a score of years, to tho bloom of tho Ly<lian empire, by which alone Grecco could have become acquainted with tho art of inner Asia. But though we cannot connect the rudiments of Greek sculpture either with Egypt or Assyria JGl Pnor. EDWARD G•:rtnAnD published mnny of them in his "Oe11lurim." JGG PAuSANIAs, lib. VIII., nnd XXIL; and lib. IX. 1oo VAtmo, apud Au,qusl. de Civil. Dei, lib. IV., o, 6:-R. PAYNE KNIGHT, Symbolical Language of Ancient Art a11d Alytliology, London, 1818, p. 71. 11 |