Chapter XII (3)

Grecian sculpture, as we have seen, had attained nearly the summit of its perfection at the commencement of the Persian wars. Among those who now gave to it a wider range may be mentioned Pythagoras, of Rhegium, and Myron, a native of Eleu'theræ. The former executed works in bronze representing contests of heroes and athletes; but he was excelled in this field by Myron, who was also distinguished for his representations of animals. The energies of sculpture, however, were to be still more directly concentrated and perfected in a new school. That school was at Athens, and its master was Phid'ias, an Athenian painter, sculptor, and architect, who flourished about 460 B.C. "At this point," observes LÜBKE, [Footnote: "Outlines of the History of Art," by Wilhelm Lübke; Clarence Cook's edition.] "begins the period of that wonderful elevation of Hellenic life which was ushered in by the glorious victory over the Persians. Now, for the first time, the national Hellenic mind rose to the highest consciousness of noble independence and dignity. Athens concentrated within herself, as in a focus, the whole exuberance and many-sidedness of Greek life, and glorified it into beautiful unity. Now, for the first time, the deepest thoughts of the Hellenic mind were embodied in sculpture, and the figures of the gods rose to that solemn sublimity in which art embodied the idea of divinity in purely human form. This victory of the new time over the old was effected by the power of Phidias, one of the most wonderful artist-minds of all time."

Phidias was intrusted by Pericles with the superintendence of the public works erected or adorned by that lavish ruler, and his own hands added to them their most valuable ornaments. But before he was called to this employment his statues had adorned the most celebrated temples of Greece. "These inimitable works," says GILLIES, [Footnote: Gillies's "History of Ancient Greece," p. 178.] "silenced the voice of envy; and the most distinguished artists of Greece--sculptors, painters, and architects--were ambitious to receive the directions, and to second the labors of Phidias, which were uninterruptedly employed, during fifteen years, in the embellishment of his native city." The chief characteristic of Phidias was ideal beauty of the sublimest order in the representation of divinities and their worship; and he substituted ivory for marble in those parts of statues that were uncovered, such as the face, hands, and feet, while for the covered portion he substituted solid gold in place of wood concealed with real drapery. The style and character of his work are well described by LÜBKE, as follows:

"That Phidias especially excelled in creating images of the gods, and that he preferred, as subjects for his art, those among the divinities the essence of whose nature was spiritual majesty, marks the fundamental characteristic of his art, and explains its superiority, not only to all that had been produced before his time, but to all that was contemporary with him, and to all that came after him. Possessed of that unsurpassable masterly power in the representation of the physical form to which Greek art, shortly before his time, had attained by unceasing endeavor, his lofty genius was called upon to apply these results to the embodiment of the highest ideas, and thus to invest art with the character of sublimity, as well as with the attributes of perfect beauty. Hence it is said of him, that he alone had seen images of the gods, and he alone had made them visible to others. Even in the story that, in emulation with other masters, he made an Amazon, and was defeated in the contest by his great contemporary Polycle'tus, we see a confirmation of the ideal tendency of his art. But that his works realized the highest conceptions of the people, and embodied the ideal of the Hellenic conception of the divinity, is proved by the universal admiration of the ancient world. This sublimity of conception was combined in him with an inexhaustible exuberance of creative fancy, an incomparable care in the completion of his work, and a masterly power in overcoming every difficulty, both in the technical execution and in the material."

Probably the first important work executed by Phidias at Athens was the colossal bronze image of Minerva, which stood on the Acropolis. It was nearly seventy feet in height, and was visible twenty miles out at sea. It was erected by the Athenians, in memory of their victory over the Persians, with the spoils of Marathon. A smaller bronze statue, on the same model, was also erected on the Acropolis. But the greatest of the works of Phidias at Athens was the ivory and gold statue of Minerva in the Parthenon, erected with the booty taken at Salamis. It was forty feet high, representing the goddess, "not with her shield raised as the vigorous champion of her people, but as a peaceful, protecting, and victory-giving divinity." Phidias was now called to Elis, and there he executed his crowning work, the gold and ivory statue of Jupiter at Olympia. "The father of the gods and of men was seated on a splendid throne in the cella of his Olympic temple, his head encircled with a golden olive-wreath; in his right hand he held Nikè, who bore a fillet of victory in her hands and a golden wreath on her head; in his left hand rested the richly-decorated sceptre." The throne was adorned with gold and precious stones, and on it were represented many celebrated scenes. "From this immeasurable exuberance of figures," says LÜBKE, "rose the form of the highest Hellenic divinity, grand and solemn and wonderful in majesty. Phidias had represented him as the kindly father of gods and men, and also as the mighty ruler in Olympus. As he conceived his subject he must have had in his mind those lines of Homer, in which Jupiter graciously grants the request of Thetis:

'As thus he spake, the son of Saturn gave
The nod with his dark brows. The ambrosial curls
Upon the sovereign one's immortal head
Were shaken, and with them the mighty Mount
Olympus trembled.'" [Footnote: Iliad, I., 528-580.
Bryant's translation.]

While the art of painting was early developed in Greece, certainly as far back as 718 B.C., the first painter of renown was Polygno'tus, of Tha'sos, who went to Athens about 463 B.C., and established there what was called "the Athenian school" of painting. Aristotle called him "the painter of character," as he was the first to give variety to the expression of the countenance, and ease and grace to the outlines of figures or the flow of drapery. He painted many battle scenes, and with his contemporaries, Diony'sius of Col'oplon, Mi'con, and others, he embellished many of the public buildings in Athens, and notably the Temple of Theseus, with representations of figures similar to those of the sculptor. About 404 B.C. painting reached a farther degree of excellence in the hands of Apollodo'rus, a native of Athens, who developed the principles of light and shade and gave to the art a more dramatic range. Of this school Zeux'is, Parrha'sius, and Timan'thes became the chief masters.

PARRHASIUS.

Of the artists of this period it has been asserted by some authorities that Parrhasius was the most celebrated, as he is said to have "raised the art of painting to perfection in all that is exalted and essential;" uniting in his works "the classic invention of Polygnotus, the magic tone of Apollodorus, and the exquisite design of Zeuxis." He was a native of Ephesus, but became a citizen of Athens, where he won many victories over his contemporaries. One of these is recorded by Pliny as having been achieved in a public contest with Zeuxis. The latter displayed a painting of some grapes, which were so natural as to deceive the birds, that came and pecked at them. Zeuxis then requested that the curtain which was supposed to screen the picture of Parrhasius be withdrawn, when it was found that the painting of Parrhasius was merely the representation of a curtain thrown over a picture-frame. The award of merit was therefore given to Parrhasius, on the ground that while Zeuxis had deceived the birds, Parrhasius had deceived Zeuxis himself.

The Roman philosopher Seneca also tells a story of Parrhasius as follows: While engaged in making a painting of "Prometheus Bound," he took an old Olynthian captive and put him to the torture, that he might catch, and transfer to canvas, the natural expression of the most terrible of mortal sufferings. This story, we may hope, is a fiction; but the incident is often alluded to by the poets, and the American poet WILLIS has painted the alleged scene in lines scarcely less terrible in their coloring than those pallid hues of death-like agony which we may suppose the painter-artist to have employed.

Parrhasius and his Captive.

Parrhasius stood gazing forgetfully
Upon his canvas. There Prometheus lay,
Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Cau'casus--
The vulture at his vitals, and the links
Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh;
[Footnote: Vulcan; the Olympian artist, who,
when hurled from heaven, fell upon the Island
of Lemnos, in the Ægean. He forged the chain
with which Prometheus was bound.]
And, as the painter's mind felt through the dim,
Rapt mystery, and plucked the shadows forth
With its far-reaching fancy, and with form
And color clad them, his fine, earnest eye
Flashed with a passionate fire; and the quick curl
Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip,
Were like the wing'd god's, breathing from his flight.
[Footnote: The winged god Mercury.]

"Bring me the captive now!
My bands feel skilful, and the shadows lift
From my waked spirit airily and swift,
And I could paint the bow.
Upon the bended heavens, around me play
Colors of such divinity to-day.

"Ha! bind him on his back!
Look! as Prometheus in my picture here!
Quick, or he faints! stand with the cordial near!
Now--bend him to the rack!
Press down the poisoned links into his flesh,
And tear agape that healing wound afresh!

"So, let him writhe! How long
Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now!
What a fine agony works upon his brow!
Ha! gray-haired, and so strong!
How fearfully he stifles that short moan!
Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan!

"'Pity' thee! So I do.
I pity the dumb victim at the altar;
But does the robed priest for his pity falter?
I'd rack thee though I knew
A thousand lives were perishing in thine!
What were ten thousand to a fame like mine?

"Yet there's a deathless name!
A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn,
And like a steadfast planet mount and burn;
And, though its crown of flame
Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone,
By all the fiery stars I'd bind it on!

"Ay, though it bid me rifle
My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst;
Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first;
Though it should bid me stifle
The yearning in my throat for my sweet child,
And taunt its mother till my brain went wild--

"All--I would do it all
Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot--
Thrust foully into earth to be forgot!
O heavens! but I appall
Your heart, old man! Forgive--ha! on your lives
Let him not faint!--rack him till he revives!

"Vain--vain--give o'er. His eye
Glazes apace. He does not feel you now;
Stand back! I'll paint the death-dew on his brow.
Gods I if he do not die
But for one moment--one--till I eclipse
Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!

"Shivering! Hark! he mutters
Brokenly now: that was a difficult breath--
Another? Wilt thou never come, O Death?
Look how his temple flutters!
Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!
He shudders--gasps--Jove help him! So--he's dead!"

* * * * *

How like a mounting devil in the heart
Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought,
And unthrones peace forever. Putting on
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns
The heart to ashes, and with not a spring
Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip,
We look upon our splendor and forget
The thirst of which we perish!

* * * * *

II. ARCHITECTURE.

In Architecture, too, thy rank supreme!
That art where most magnificent appears
The little builder, man; by thee refined,
And smiling high, to full perfection brought.
--THOMSON.

We have already referred, in general terms, to the monuments of art for which the era of Athenian greatness was distinguished, and have stated that it was more particularly in the "Age of Pericles" that Athenian genius and enthusiasm found their full development, in the erection or adornment of those miracles of architecture that crowned the Athenian Acropolis or surrounded its base. The following eloquent description, from the pen of BULWER, will convey a vivid idea of the magnitude and the brilliancy of the labors performed for

The Adornment of Athens.

"Then rapidly progressed those glorious fabrics which seemed, as Plutarch gracefully express it, endowed with the bloom of a perennial youth. Still the houses of private citizens remained simple and unadorned; still were the streets narrow and irregular; and, even centuries afterward, a stranger entering Athens would not at first have recognized the claims of the mistress of Grecian art. But to the homeliness of her common thoroughfares and private mansions the magnificence of her public edifices now made a dazzling contrast. The Acropolis, that towered above the homes and thoroughfares of men--a spot too sacred for human habitation-- became, to use a proverbial phrase, 'a city of the gods.' The citizen was everywhere to be reminded of the majesty of the state --his patriotism was to be increased by the pride in her beauty-- his taste to be elevated by the spectacle of her splendor.

"Thus flocked to Athens all who throughout Greece were eminent in art. Sculptors and architects vied with one another in adorning the young empress of the seas: then rose the masterpieces of Phidias, of Callic'rates, of Mnesicles, which, either in their broken remains, or in the feeble copies of imitators less inspired, still command so intense a wonder, and furnish models so immortal. And if, so to speak, their bones and relics excite our awe and envy, as testifying of a lovelier and grander race, which the deluge of time has swept away, what, in that day, must have been their brilliant effect, unmutilated in their fair proportions-- fresh in all their lineaments and hues? For their beauty was not limited to the symmetry of arch and column, nor their materials confined to the marbles of Pentel'icus and Pa'ros. Even the exterior of the temples glowed with the richest harmony of colors, and was decorated with the purest gold: an atmosphere peculiarly favorable to the display and the preservation of art, permitted to external pediments and friezes all the minuteness of ornament --the brilliancy of colors, such as in the interior of Italian churches may yet be seen--vitiated, in the last, by a gaudy and barbarous taste. Nor did the Athenians spare any cost upon the works that were, like the tombs and tripods of their heroes, to be the monuments of a nation to distant ages, and to transmit the most irrefragable proof 'that the power of ancient Greece was not an idle legend.'" [Footnote: "Athens: Its Rise and Fall," pp. 256, 257.]

1. THE ACROPOLIS AND ITS SPLENDORS.

The Acropolis, the fortress of Athens, was the center of its architectural splendor. It is a rocky height rising abruptly out of the Attic plain, and was accessible only on the western side, where stood the Propylæ'a, a magnificent structure of the Doric order, constructed under the direction of Pericles by the architect Mnesicles, and which served as the gate as well as the defence of the Acropolis. But the latter's chief glory was the Parthenon, or Temple of Minerva, built in the time of Pericles by Icti'nus and Callic'rates, and which stood on the highest point, near the center. It was constructed entirely of the most beautiful white marble from Mount Pentelicus, and its dimensions were two hundred and twenty-eight feet by one hundred and two --having eight Doric columns in each of the two fronts, and seventeen in each of the sides, and also an interior range of six columns in each end. The ceiling of the western part of the main building was supported by four interior columns, and of the eastern end by sixteen. The entire height of the building above its platform was sixty-five feet. The whole was enriched within and without with matchless works of art by various artists under the direction of Phidias--its chief wonder, however, being the gold and ivory statue of the Virgin Goddess, the work of Phidias himself, elsewhere described.

This magnificent structure remained entire until the year 1687, when, during a siege of Athens by the Venetians, a bomb fell on the devoted Parthenon, and, setting fire to the powder that the Turks had stored there, entirely destroyed the roof and reduced the whole building almost to ruins. The eight columns of the eastern front, however, and several of the lateral colonnades, are still standing; and the whole, dilapidated as it is, retains an air of inexpressible grandeur and sublimity.

The Parthenon.

Fair Parthenon! yet still must fancy weep
For thee, thou work of nobler spirits flown.
Bright as of old the sunbeams o'er thee sleep
In all their beauty still--and thine is gone!
Empires have sunk since thou wast first revered,
And varying rites have sanctified thy shrine.
The dust is round thee of the race that reared
Thy walls, and thou--their fate must still be thine!
But when shall earth again exult to see
Visions divine like theirs renewed in aught like thee?

Lone are thy pillars now--each passing gale
Sighs o'er them as a spirit's voice, which moaned
That loneliness, and told the plaintive tale
Of the bright synod once above them throned.
Mourn, graceful ruin! on thy sacred hill
Thy gods, thy rites, a kindred fate have shared:
Yet art thou honored in each fragment still
That wasting years and barbarous hands have spared;
Each hallowed stone, from rapine's fury borne,
Shall wake bright dreams of thee in ages yet unborn.

Yes; in those fragments, though by time defaced,
And rude, insensate conquerors, yet remains
All that may charm th' enlightened eye of taste,
On shores where still inspiring freedom reigns.
As vital fragrance breathes from every part
Of the crushed myrtle, or the bruised rose,
E'en thus th' essential energy of art
There in each wreck imperishably glows!
The soul of Athens lives in every line,
Pervading brightly still the ruins of her shrine.
--MRS. HEMANS.

North of the Parthenon stood the Erechthe'um, an irregular but beautiful structure of the Ionic order, dedicated to the worship of Neptune and Minerva. Considerable remains of it are still standing. In addition to the great edifices of the Acropolis referred to, which were adorned with the most finished paintings and sculptures, the entire platform of the hill appears to have been covered with a vast composition of architecture and sculpture, consisting of temples, monuments, and statues of gods and heroes. The whole Acropolis was at once the fortress, the sacred enclosure, and the treasury of the Athenian people--forming the noblest museum of sculpture, the richest gallery of painting, and the best school of architecture in the world.

2. OTHER ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS OF ATHENS.

Beneath the southern wall of the Acropolis was the Theatre of Bacchus, capable of seating thirty thousand persons, and the seats of which, rising one above another, were cut out of the sloping rock. Adjoining this on the east was the Ode'um, a smaller covered theatre, built by Pericles, and so constructed as to imitate the form of Xerxes's tent. On the north-east side was the Prytane'um, where were many statues, and where citizens who had rendered service to the state were maintained at the public expense. A short distance to the north-west of the Acropolis, and separated from it only by some hollow ground, was the small eminence called Areop'agus, or Hill of Mars, at the eastern extremity of which was situated the celebrated court of Areopagus. About a quarter of a mile south-west stood the Pnyx, the place where the public assemblies of Athens were held in its palmy days, and a spot that will ever be associated with the renown of Demosthenes and other famed orators. The steps by which the speaker mounted the rostrum, and a tier of three seats for the audience, hewn in the solid rock, are still visible.

The only other monument of art to which we shall refer in this connection is the celebrated Temple of Theseus, built of marble by Cimon as a resting-place for the bones of the distinguished hero. [Footnote: Cimon conquered the island of Scy'ros, the haunt of pirates, and brought thence to Athens what were supposed to be the bones of Theseus.] It is of the Doric order, one hundred and four feet by forty-five, and surrounded by columns, of which there are six at each front and thirteen at the sides. The roof, friezes, and cornices of this temple have been but little impaired by time, and the whole is one of the most noble remains of the ancient magnificence of Athens, and the most nearly perfect, if not the most beautiful, existing specimen of Grecian architecture.

The Temple of Theseus.

Here let us pause, e'en at the vestibule
Of Theseus' fame. With what stern majesty
It rears its ponderous and eternal strength,
Still perfect, still unchanged, as on the day
When the assembled throng of multitudes
With shouts proclaimed the accomplished work, and fell
Prostrate upon their faces to adore
Its marble splendor!

How the golden gleam
Of noonday floats upon its graceful form,
Tinging each grooved shaft, and storied frieze,
And Doric triglyph! How the rays amid
The opening columns, glanced from point to point,
Stream down the gloom of the long portico!

* * * * *

How the long pediment,
Embrowned with shadows, frowns above, and spreads
Solemnity and reverential awe!

Proud monument of old magnificence!
Still thou survivest; nor has envious Time
Impaired thy beauty, save that it has spread
A deeper tint, and dimmed the polished glare
Of thy refulgent whiteness.
--HAYGARTH.

So much for some of the architectural wonders of Athens. As BULWER says, "It was the great characteristic of these works that they were entirely the creation of the people. Without the people Pericles could not have built a temple nor engaged a sculptor. The miracles of that day resulted from the enthusiasm of a population yet young--full of the first ardor for the beautiful-- dedicating to the state, as to a mistress, the trophies honorably won, or the treasures injuriously extorted, and uniting the resources of a nation with the energy of an individual, because the toil, the cost, were borne by those who succeeded to the enjoyment and arrogated the glory." TALFOURD, in his Athenian Captive, calls all that went to make up Athens in the days of her glory

An opening world,
Diviner than the soul of man hath yet
Been gifted to imagine--truths serene
Made visible in beauty, that shall glow
In everlasting freshness, unapproached
By mortal passion, pure amid the blood
And dust of conquests, never waxing old,
But on the stream of time, from age to age,
Casting bright images of heavenly youth
To make the world less mournful.