Читать книгу A History of Sculpture - Ernest Henry Short - Страница 17

But even these factors, potent though they were, do not account for the whole of the increased scope afforded to the fourth-century sculptor. We have passed in review various circumstances, political, economic, intellectual and moral. But we have said nothing of a good half of Greek society—the women. Yet the influence exerted by the fairer sex, negatively upon fifth-century, positively upon fourth-century, sculpture was all-important. It must not be overlooked if we would gain a complete understanding of either phase of Hellenic art.

Speaking generally, women occupied a place in Greek society which cannot be readily illustrated from our modern experience. The earliest Greek women is pictured in the pages of Homer. The typical wife is Penelope; the typical virgin is Nausicaa. To Homer, the wife is the trusted friend of her husband. The current belief is that

“The woman’s cause is man’s: they rise or sink Together, dwarf’d or god-like, bond or free.”

HERMES OF PRAXITELES (DETAIL)

Olympia

But prosperity brought a change. At the time of the rise of sculpture—in the early days of Pericles—the interests of the citizens were entirely political. At no time, perhaps, in the history of the world have men and women had so little in common. The duty of an Athenian wife was to stay at home, to order the house economically, and to control the numerous slaves. Wedded, perhaps at fifteen, after a childhood spent in strict seclusion, she could not hope to be a companion to the active-minded Athenian. “The best woman,” said Thucydides, “is she of whom least is said, either in the way of good or harm.”

Towards the end of the fifth century, the political interests became less absorbing, as we have seen. Private affairs began to occupy the major part of the wealthy citizen’s time. It might have been expected that the Athenian wife would have been gradually reinstated in the position of intimate companionship she had occupied before city life became general. But the custom of centuries was too firmly rooted. When the Athenian once more looked for the pleasures that might arise from social contact with his womenfolk he found his wife entirely without charm.

Naturally enough he turned to the Hetaerae. The word is too thoroughly Hellenic to be translated. Demosthenes distinguished the class from the rest of the Athenian women when he said:

“By means of wives we become the fathers of legitimate children and maintain faithful guardians of our homes; the Hetaerae are meant to promote the enjoyment of life.”

The “female friends” were usually captives made in war or, at any rate, strangers who found Athens a convenient market for their physical and intellectual charms. Few Athenian women dared to join their ranks. Every Hetaera was an expert dancer. She could play on the flute or lyre. Her wealth was often considerable. The boast of Phryne—the greatest feminine influence of her day in Greece—did not appear absolutely beyond reason. Yet the courtesan offered to rebuild the walls of Athens at her own cost. Not infrequently the Hetaera’s mental culture was sufficient to enable her to consort with the greatest philosophers and statesmen. Pericles himself imperilled his position in the State by his dealings with Aspasia.

We are not called upon to pass judgment upon these social customs. Our task is rather to estimate the influence of such a state of society upon the child of his time—the artist. Looking the facts in the face, we have simply to note that the old demand for manly vigour and civic unselfishness was giving place to a far less strenuous ideal. The Athenians could applaud a Phryne who at a festival at Eleusis, let down her hair and descended into the sea in the sight of all the Greeks, after the manner of a sea-born Aphrodite. Instead of Zeus and Hera, men looked to Dionysus, the leader of the revels; to Apollo, the chief of the Muses; to Aphrodite, the Queen of Desire, who held in her cestus all the magic of passion.

The greatness of an artist does not rest upon opposition offered to current civic and social ideals. On the contrary, it depends entirely upon the perfect expression which he gives to the body of emotions experienced by the men and women around him. The fame of Praxiteles is due to his complete identification with the paramount influences of his age. A true Athenian, the refined sensuality of his style picked him out as the artist to give objective form to the popular imaginations.

THE EROS OF CENTOCELLE

Vatican, Rome

Praxiteles himself was closely associated with the Hetaera, Phryne. One of his most renowned works was the “Eros” which he carved as the artistic expression of his love for the beautiful courtesan, and which was dedicated by Phryne at Thespiae about 360 b.c. The Epigrammatist said of the Thespian “Eros” that it “excited transports of love by hurling, not darts, but glances.” There have been many attempts to identify this statue with marbles that have come down to us. It has been often suggested that the beautiful torso found at Centocelle, and now in the Vatican, may be a copy. Without dogmatising, we can realise some of the qualities of Praxitelean art from the “Eros of Centocelle.” We can see the dreamy melancholy with which the artist no doubt invested the graceful and tender form of the God of Love. It is strongly typical of the Praxitelean imagination that Eros is depicted as on the very verge of youth, at the dawn of the first forebodings of passion.

Praxiteles’ “Aphrodite of Cnidus” is equally associated with the memory of the Hetaera, Phryne. Originally executed for the islanders of Cos, it was refused by them on account of the daring manner in which the sculptor had imaged the goddess—a manner which can be realised from the epigram to which it gave rise.

“The Paphian Cytherea went down to the waters of Cnidus desiring to behold her own image; having beheld it, ‘Alas! Alas!’ she cried, ‘where did Praxiteles behold me thus? I thought only three persons, Paris, Anchises, and Adonis had done so.’”

The people of Cnidus differed from their brothers of Cos. As Pliny suggests, their acceptance of the statue made their island famous. The marble was placed in the centre of a grove of myrtle, and was approached by several paths so that it could be viewed from every side. The Vatican replica of the Aphrodite is the best known copy of the work. It is, however, at present disfigured by the addition of metal drapery which the taste of the last century considered necessary. The Praxitelean design can be realised from the copy at the Glyptothek, Munich, originally in the Palace Braschi. There is also an undraped cast of the Vatican statue in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. Our own illustration is from a photo of the Vatican copy taken for the Hellenic Society many years ago.

To the people of Cnidus, the statue was not marble white. The eyes and hair of the goddess were coloured. The drapery and the flesh were delicately tinted. In exactly what manner this was done, we do not know. That such statues were painted is beyond argument. Pliny tells that the painter Nicias assisted Praxiteles. He suggests that the sculptor considered the encaustic additions of prime importance and necessitating the greatest skill. Whatever the purpose of this colouring of statues may have been, it is certain that there was no effort to secure greater realism by this addition. The desire seems to have been to soften the harsher tones of the marble and to increase the decorative effect of the statue by distinguishing the principal masses of the composition.

For hundreds of years after it was set up in the myrtle grove in Cnidus, the “Aphrodite” was the most renowned statue in Western Europe. This can only be attributed to the exquisite sense of artistic fitness with which Praxiteles carried out his task, together with the fact that he had enshrined in marble one of the ever potent human passions. Phryne had been Praxiteles’ model. But the statue was by no means a realistic presentation of the erotic beauties of the Hetaera. No fault can be found with Praxiteles’ treatment of his theme on that ground.

APHRODITE OF CNIDUS

Vatican, Rome

Nevertheless the representation of a goddess in the guise of a woman shrinking from the revelation of her beauty to mankind argues the loss of a certain morality. True, the Greek sculptor had never aimed at the inculcation of moral ideas. But in an age before the religious sense of the Greek had become dulled, he would have confined himself to the creation of an atmosphere in which moral ideas could range without friction. The “Aphrodite of Cnidus” belongs to a time which made no such demand upon its artists. The sculptor no longer believed that he owed a duty to the state in this particular respect. Every work now stood or fell by virtue of its innate truth and beauty.

But Praxiteles was in no sense “a brilliant exponent of decadent art.” On the contrary, his sculptures bear witness to perhaps the most magnificent endowment of the Attic brain—the fineness with which it felt. To-day, we are too apt to regard clarity of thought as the chief attribute of genius. Really genius depends upon the power to call up delicate tones of feeling, of infinite subtlety of texture when compared with the ideas which we often regard as its sole endowment.

Praxiteles has been described as “He who actually blended with his marbles the emotions of the soul.” The phrase is a fitting one with which to close our review of his art. His abiding greatness depends less upon sheer beauty of line than upon the delicacy of the feelings which he made marble convey. The play of the passing emotion on the face of the “Hermes,” the dreamy passion of the “Eros,” and the illusive charm with which the “Aphrodite of Cnidus” shrinks from the revelation of her beauty—these are typical of what is most characteristic in the sculpture of Praxiteles and his fellow workers. He felt the emotional appeal of the feminine and the youthful male form rather than saw the beauties of line displayed in the new subjects offered for sculptural treatment. It is far from true that the Greek sculptor generally sought for beauty of form to the neglect of all the varied charm that lies in intellectual and emotional expression. This might be said of Phidias and Polyclitus. The insight of the sculptors of the following century into the depths of human emotion, on the contrary, was infinite. Scopas and Praxiteles made marble speak the more delicate emotions of the soul to the last word.