Читать книгу A History of Sculpture - Ernest Henry Short - Страница 15

Scopas was the first artist to realise the new necessity laid upon the plastic arts. He was the chief architect of his day, and in his work we can trace the effect of the new ideas before sculpture was divorced in great measure from architecture. We have already mentioned his association with the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus—one of the “Seven Wonders.” The Carian ruler Mausolus died in 353 b.c., leaving his widow Artemisia to rule. She determined to erect a great monument to his memory, and impressed the best known artists of Magna Græcia into her service for the purpose. The restoration by C. R. Cockerell in the Mausoleum Room at the British Museum, or, still better, that by Oldfield (The Antiquary, vol. liv., pp. 273-362), give some idea of the great pyramidical building, glowing with colour, which stood on a lofty basement by the harbour side. The whole was surmounted by a great chariot group by Pythis, containing the heroic figure of Mausolus, possibly accompanied by Artemisia, after the fashion of Zeus and Hera in the chariot of the gods.

To the art historian, however, the most interesting feature is the frieze. The principal subject of the existing fragments in the British Museum is a fight between Greeks and Amazons. But the most beautiful section is perhaps a sadly-mutilated slab from a portion of the frieze whereon was pictured a chariot race. It is known as the “Mausoleum Charioteer.” Nothing could bring home more clearly the immense strides Greek art has made than a comparison of this tiny marble fragment with the “Bronze Charioteer” from Delphi, sculptured about one hundred and twenty years earlier. The Mausoleum figure is also clad in the long close-fitting robe of his calling. But every trace of conventionalism has vanished. Even the calm restraint with which an Alcamenes would have treated the subject has gone. Instead we find a passionate intensity which is altogether new. As Mr. E. A. Gardner reminds us, the “Mausoleum Charioteer” might well be of the company described by Shelley, who:

“With burning eyes, lean forth and drink With eager lips the wind of their own speed, As if the thing they loved fled on before, And now, even now, they clasped it.”

THE NIOBE GROUP

The “Mausoleum Charioteer” is a beautiful illustration of the more individualistic melody which the early fourth-century sculptor drew from the great orchestra of Greek genius. But we can gauge the effects of the new sympathies still more clearly in the celebrated “Niobe” group. Even in classical times it was a moot point whether its author was Scopas or Praxiteles. Probably the question will never be settled. Modern criticism, however, generally favours its attribution to Scopas. The group certainly contains all the characteristics which we have associated with his influence.

The series was excavated in Rome in 1583 a.d., near the Church of St. John Lateran. It was acquired by one of the Medici family, and placed in the garden of his villa, where it remained until it was removed to its present resting-place in the Uffizi Palace, Florence.

The Florentine “Niobides” are not from the chisel of a fourth-century craftsman. They are probably copies of those described by Pliny as having been brought to the Temple of Apollo Sosianus in 38 b.c. Indeed, other ancient versions of the great group exist, including a magnificent copy of the daughter of Niobe—“The Chiaramonti”—now in the Vatican. The “Niobides” were almost certainly originally designed to serve an architectural purpose. It has been surmised that they formed a pedimental group for a Temple of Apollo in Asia Minor. To judge of their relation to the rest of Greek art, they must be compared with such a pedimental group as that of the Parthenon, and we have, therefore, preferred to illustrate them from the collection of casts at Munich, instead of from the marbles in Rome or Florence. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that Phidias was content to allow three or four figures in the centre of the group to tell the story. We do not, for instance, even know whether the “Theseus” is a god, a hero, or merely a personification of one of the Athenian rivers. But in the Niobe group every figure is concerned with the main theme.

Regarded as an incident in the history of Greek sculpture, the “Niobides” brilliantly illustrate the fourth-century artist’s success in the depiction of human expression and passion. The Theban Queen is the incarnation of the belief that womanhood’s greatest glory is to bring into the world “full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human creatures.” She stands for the Hellene’s agreement with Ruskin’s doctrine that the true veins of wealth are purple—“not in rock but in flesh.” But her proud sense of the glory of motherhood has aroused the ire of the Virgin Artemis. The sculptor chooses the moment when Niobe and her fourteen children are suddenly faced with the dread vengeance of Apollo and the goddess. The unseen arrows have stricken some of the fearful boys and girls. Others are as yet unhurt. A brother supports a sister. The centre of the group is occupied by the unfortunate mother, to whom the youngest daughter has fled in her terror.

These Roman copies of the “Niobides” were carved long after the schools of Pergamus and Rhodes had shown the possibility of a far more realistic presentation of physical terror and bodily pain. But they still retain evidence of the Greek sculptor’s determination not to be tempted beyond the limits set by bronze and marble. A desire for dramatic expression does not interfere with that harmony of the planes which to the purest Greek taste made for perfectly beautiful sculpture. There are none of the nervous suggestions of muscular action whereby later artists conveyed ideas of dramatic intensity. Such figures as Niobe with her shrinking girl rather display a desire to postpone physical to spiritual anguish. Upon analysis, this can be traced to the sculptor’s realisation of the impossibility of expressing the ultra-dramatic in terms of perfect beauty.

THE LUDOVISI ARES

(Page 71)

Vatican, Rome

MENELAUS AND PATROCLUS

Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence

As we look upon the “Niobe,” we feel at once that so dramatic a theme would have made no appeal to the generation before Scopas. But we must also feel that the fourth century has struck a new note—a note, moreover, to which marble can respond. But what is most wonderful is the magnificent reserve, the perfect moderation, with which the artist has expressed emotions that had been considered beyond the range of the art. The sculptor has not sacrificed that harmony and repose which he regards as essential to the idea of the beautiful.

The group usually called the “Menelaus and Patroclus” displays in equal degree this balance between the expression of deep emotion and the perfect moderation which the Greeks regarded as the hall-mark of the truly beautiful. The limitations incidental to marble as a medium for emotional expression are borne in mind. There is no effort to force the note of pathos.