Читать книгу Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art - Walter Woodburn Hyde - Страница 25

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The literary evidence for Greek sculpture is, for the most part, very unsatisfactory. Though classical writers were uncritical and not fond of analysis, still they have left us some useful opinions about works of sculpture and painting. The history and criticism of sculpture began in Greece, in the fourth century B.C., with the Peripatetics. Aristotle, whose observations on painting and sculpture were slight, did not despise the “mimetic” arts as did the Socrates of Plato.535 In the Rhetoric536 he speaks of the beautiful bodies of youths who trained as pentathletes, since the varied exercises of the pentathlon made them so. We have a similar opinion expressed by Xenophon in what is, perhaps, the most interesting passage in Greek literature on criticism of art.537 He has Sokrates go to the sculptor Kleito and compliment him on his power of representing different physical types produced by various contests, noting differences between statues of runners and wrestlers and between those of boxers and pancratiasts. When asked how he makes statues lifelike, Kleito has no answer, and the philosopher says it is by the imitation of real men, i. e., nature. He adds: “Must you not then imitate the threatening eyes of those who are fighting and the triumphant expression of those who are victorious?” Though some have thought that these words refer to portrait statues, which were spoken of as a matter of course at the beginning of the fourth century B.C., it is more reasonable to suspect that Sokrates was speaking of the older sculptors—for we may recognize Polykleitos in Kleito538—and consequently that he is not referring to portraiture. In the Symposium of Xenophon539 Sokrates also complains that the long-distance runners (δολιχοδρόμοι) have thick legs and narrow shoulders, while boxers have broad shoulders and small legs, and he therefore recommends dancing as a better exercise than athletics. As such differences in physique occur in vase-paintings of the date, but not in statuary, the philosopher seems to be speaking of athletics and not of sculpture. From these quotations of Aristotle and Xenophon, we gather that the all-round development of the pentathlon made beautiful athletes, and this beauty must have been carried over into their statues. It is essentially the young man’s contest,540 and some of the pentathlete victors at Olympia and elsewhere were noted for their strength in after life. Thus Ikkos of Tarentum, who won at Olympia in Ol. 76 ( = 476 B.C.), was the best teacher of gymnastics of his day.541 Gorgos of Elis was the only athlete to win the pentathlon four times at Olympia, besides winning in two running races.542 Another Elean, Stomios, who won three prizes at Olympia and Nemea, later became a leader of cavalry and beat his enemy in single combat.543 The Argive Eurybates, victor in the pentathlon at Nemea, was very strong, and later, in a battle with the Aeginetans, killed three opponents in single combats, but succumbed to the fourth.544 The Spartans and Krotonians seem to have been the best pentathletes.545 Noted sculptors made statues of these athletes.546 Plato, in the de Leg.,547 has the Athenian stranger praise Egyptian art because of its stationary character. This bespeaks but little artistic insight for the philosopher, though he was surrounded by the wonderful artistic creations of the end of the great fifth century B.C. The later classical writers were fond of expressing criticisms of art. Thus Pasiteles, a Greek sculptor living in Rome in the first century B.C., wrote five books on celebrated works of art throughout the world.548 The opinions on art of the Roman Varro appear in the pages of Pliny.549 Of all the ancient critics, Cicero was perhaps the most superficial. In a passage in the Brutus550 he gives us his judgment of several sculptors. He finds the works of Kanachos too rigid to imitate nature truthfully, while those of Kalamis, though softer than those of Kanachos, are hard; Myron, though not completely faithful to nature, produced beautiful works and Polykleitos was quite perfect. The most trustworthy critic of sculpture in antiquity, on the other hand, was certainly Lucian, as we see from many of his utterances, especially from his account of an ideal statue, which combined the highest excellences of several noted sculptures.551 His criticism of Hegias, Kritios, and Nesiotes, to the effect that their works were “concise, sinewy, hard, and exactly strained in their lines,” might have been made in the presence of the group of the Tyrannicides (Fig. 32).552 Unfortunately he touches the subject only casually, though he might have written a fine history of Greek art. We must also refer to two other imperial writers, the elder Pliny and Pausanias. Pliny’s abstracts on art, though our chief ancient literary authority on Greek sculpture and painting, are neither critical nor trustworthy. A careful analysis of his chapters shows that he was a borrower many times removed, though he seldom acknowledged it. This is excusable when we consider the custom of literary borrowing in antiquity and also the fact that his chapters on art form merely an appendix to his Natural History, being joined on to it by a very artificial bond, for his abstract on bronze statuary (Bk. XXXIV) is brought in merely to complete his account of the metals. His knowledge of the older periods of Greek art is small and his bias in favor of the two Sikyonian sculptors Lysippos and Xenokrates is very evident. His worst mistakes are in chronology. He puts Pythagoras after Myron, and both after Polykleitos, while Hagelaïdas, who is made the teacher of Myron and Polykleitos, lives on to the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. His real criticism of sculpture is seen in his dictum of the Laokoön group, that it is a “work superior to all the pictures and bronzes of the world.”553 Our debt to Pausanias, especially for our knowledge of the victor monuments at Olympia, is immense. This debt may be gauged by the fact that he mentions in his work many times more statues than any other writer and that a large portion of the Schriftquellen of Overbeck is concerned with him. However, he shows little real understanding for art. His interest in statues is confined almost entirely to those which are noted for their antiquity or sanctity, and his account of them is usually the pivot around which he spins religious or mythological stories. Throughout his work his chief interest is religious; his interest in art for its own sake is very small. He devotes many pages to the throne of Zeus at Olympia, and describes the temple sculptures merely because the statue of Zeus is within. His detailed account of the athlete statues in the Altis is made chiefly because of his religious and antiquarian interest. Though imitating the style of Herodotos, he does it badly, so that his book is without much charm. In concluding this rough estimate of the ancient criticism of art, we might mention the fragmentary information to be gathered from many other writers, Dio Chrysostom, Quintilian,554 Plutarch, and others, whose names occur frequently in the footnotes. All such references to works of art in ancient writers are conveniently collected in the great compilation of Overbeck so often quoted.555