THE LAW OF GREEK TASTE.

41

but, as in the instance of Thebes, by statute law, to avoid the ugly and depraved, and constantly to aim at the ennoblement of humanity by the suggestion of its most graceful and exalted moods. To such an extent was the devotion to the beautiful carried, that prizes were given to the handsome men or women who won the suffrages of the judges at public competition. Beauty actually conferred historic fame, because, at least in theory, it was associated with corresponding mental and physical gifts. They also believed in the influence of beautiful objects about them to foster and elevate the national standard of beauty, and to impart its magnetism to unborn children, through the impressible faculties of their mothers. Their games, also, were of a joyous, sensuous character, incentive to manly strength, womanly grace, and general elegance; while those of the Romans served to inculcate brutality and thirst of blood. The Greeks, in consequence, grew refined and humane, the Romans rude and fierce in deportment. Next to the moral discipline of Christianity we can cite the Grecian passion for the beautiful as the most cogent refiner of nations. Winckelmann tells us that the Arcadians were obliged to learn music, to counteract their morose and fierce manners, and, from being the worst, became the most honest and best-mannered people of Greece. It is true there were exceptions to these exalted notions of the beautiful, forming a subordinate school, corresponding in character, but with lower motives, to the ordi

42

ARTISTS OF FILTH.

nary genre artists of modern times. Those who delighted in base, common, or morbid subjects were nicknamed "artists of filth." In the case of Pyrecius, cited by Lessing, parents were advised by Aristotle not to exhibit his pictures to their children, lest their imaginations should be soiled by ugly images. Above all faults, Greek taste condemned exaggeration and caricature, or any artifice which could not plead law for its use, as necessary for the asthetic object in view. By artifice we here mean simply imitation in the degree of deception legitimate to art, but foreign to any appearance or employment of trickery, by which the senses are vulgarly deceived. Indeed, Grecian good taste was the ripe product of a slow and steady growth of æsthetic knowledge. Their early statues were rudely built up of different materials, wood and marble for instance, the extremities being made of the more precious article. Sometimes they were painted to imitate dress, and even actually clothed, puerilities of art, which are paralleled by the practice of the Catholic priesthood of today. As fast as the Grecian intellect outgrew priestly domination, it advanced in taste and knowledge.

Antiquity is, however, by no means without plentiful examples of false art. It had its freaks of effect, in the employment of color in statuary, as we perceive in the remains of tints from which Gibson borrows his reprehensible practice and theory, endeavoring to amalgamate hues and forms under conditions not recognized by nature her

FALSE ART OF ANTIQUITY.

43

self, and therefore not to be sanctioned by sound taste, and in the combination of differently colored materials in the same statue, as in the fine Apollo at Naples, whose head, hands, and lyre are of white marble, while the voluminous drapery with which the body is clothed is of black porphyry; thus destroying the unity so requisite in sculpture between the pure and simple character of the material and the singleness and purity of expression demanded solely through form, any attempt to heighten which, by the addition of colored eyes of glass or ivory, or by paint, as we find in some antique bronze and marble busts, naturally shocks, because they are not only ghastly, like rouge on the cheeks of a corpse, but they lie to our senses. Vulgar attempts at deception arouse only disgust and indignation. It is evident they met with no permanent favor in Greece. The Apollo, in the same hall, entirely of dark green basalt, disappoints in statuesque effect as contrasted with the pure white marble; but it is not objectionable on the score of low artifice or lack of unity. We find fault simply with the choice of material to the use of which, in such a character, no treatment, however successful, can wholly reconcile the spectator.

The ability with which the Greek artist, by the rigor of his education and the exactions of his judges, was able to dignify even the commonest act, is prominently shown in the noble statue of Lysippus, or the Athlete of the Vatican. The action is simply scraping the sweat from his arm, than which in idea no subject can well be more

44

REALISM IN GREEK ART.

vulgar; but the attitude and expression, independent of its pure anatomical detail and superior execution, are such as to suggest, in the classical sense, the "godlike." In the statue of Modesty, in the same hall, notice how much its value depends upon its simplicity, repose, and the chaste management of drapery, the seemingly easiest and secondary efforts of the artist being made to give the highest character to his work! So, in the figure of Silence, of the Capitol, we see how successfully it speaks, simply through the nice discrimination of its author in its attitude, every line proclaiming the art-motive and affecting the spectator with a like feeling.

In the multitude of ancient statues we find but few examples of intentional variation from the æsthetic law of Greek art. Of these perhaps the most conspicuous is an Old Hag, (Hecuba?) of the Capitol, admirably done, if one delights in the exhibition of a decrepit female form, and a countenance of care, misery, and possible crime. It is disgustingly correct realism. Once it may have had value as a portrait, like the well-known bust of Esop, in the Villa Albani, but now can conduce to no other end than to justify the refinement of the antique taste in inexorably condemning such a choice and treatment of sculpture. The Drunken Woman, in the same museum, is of a similar character. It repels the feelings from the sex by its opposition to that we hold loveliest and best in it. There are, however, among the bas-reliefs in the Borbo

*

* See Appendix, Note A.

THE BLIND MAN AND THE BACCHUS. 45

nico Museum of Naples, instances of this treatment which, from their spirit and feeling, reconcile one to its occasional use. They are the Blind Man, who touches our emotions rightly, and the Bacchus, who with his gay revellers is so jollily tipsy that it is impossible not to sympathize in their merriment, despite the sage axioms of temperance.

In the representation of animal life the Greek artist was almost equally successful as with the human. In fine, beauty, as evolved from unity, harmony, and the highest truths of form, color, and expression, to the intent to produce intellectual and sensuous satisfaction, was inexorably required of him.