Part 10

The substances on which the ancients painted were wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, and perhaps canvas. The best painters, however, rarely painted on anything but tablets or panels. “Nulla gloria artificum est nisi eorum qui tabulas pinxere,” says Pliny (xxxv. 37). These panels were of wood; they were prepared for painting by spreading over them chalk or white plaster (gypsum), and on that account were called “λεύκωμα.” All the paintings on walls were also on plaster covered with a composition of chalk and marble dust, as is fully described by Vitruvius.[15]

Let us now apply these facts to Pliny’s statement. May he not intend to say, and is not this a legitimate meaning of his words, that Lysistratus first of all modeled portraits in gypsum from life, and then increased the likeness by color laid on to the plaster bust. He also made colored copies or effigies from brass statues (which were called, as we know, “ceræ”), and these came so into vogue that thenceforward there were no statues without white clay or chalk, which, as we have seen, was a preparation for the wax color as shown by Vitruvius. In this view of his meaning, the statement that this peculiar process is older than that of casting in bronze becomes intelligible, if we suppose him to intend to say that coloring statues was a very old process, while coloring portraits in exact imitation of life was the invention of Lysistratus. The succeeding sentence then becomes clear, in which he says that the most famous plastæ were Damophilus and Gorgasus, who were also painters, and who decorated the Temple of Ceres at Rome in both these arts, since it is plain that these works were both modeled and painted.

The making of portraits in effigy, colored in imitation of life, had been a common practice in Rome, as we learn from Pliny himself, and these, because they were colored, were technically called “ceræ” as well as “imagines.” It was the custom of the great families to set up these colored figures in their atria, and on particular festivals to carry them in procession through the streets of Rome, draped with actual robes such as were worn by the persons whom they represented. Pliny expresses his regret that in his time this custom had fallen into disuse, tending as it did to keep fresh and alive the personal memory of great men who had passed away from this life.[16]

It will be useful here to consider the character of the whole chapter in which this passage appears. It is entitled, “Plastices primi inventores, de simulacris, et vasis fictilibus et pretio eorum.” The object of the chapter is to give an account of modeling and modelers, not of casting. In a previous chapter, where Pliny is speaking of some early products of the plastic art, and particularly of the _signa Tuscanica_, or earthenware statues, he says: “It appears to me a singular fact, that, though the origin of statues was of such great antiquity in Italy, the images of the gods, which were consecrated to them in their temples, should have been fashioned of wood or earthenware, until the conquest of Asia introduced luxury among us. It will be most convenient to speak of the art of making likenesses [_similitudines exprimendi_] when we come to speak of what the Greeks call ‘plastice,’ for the art of modeling was prior to that of statuary of bronze and marble,—[_prior quam statuaria fuit_]. But this last art has flourished in such an infinite degree that to pursue the subject thoroughly would require many volumes.” Thus he announces clearly beforehand what he intends to speak of in this chapter which we are now considering, on plasticæ. It is the art of “making likenesses, of the first invention of modeling, of fictile vases, and of their price,” but not of casting or of any such invention. The previous chapter, in which this announcement is made of his subsequent intention, is devoted to casting in bronze and brass-work, or statuaria. After making this statement, he goes on to enumerate the principal works in bronze, and then says that portrait statues were long afterwards placed in the Forum and in the atria of private houses; that clients thus did honor to their patrons, and that in former times the statues thus dedicated were dressed in togas: “Togatæ effigies antiquitus ita dicabantur;” or ought not “dicabantur” to be _dicebantur_,—meaning that these statues were called “togatæ effigies”?

In the chapter we are now considering, he begins by saying that, having already said enough about pictures, he now proposes to append some account of the plastic art. Then he speaks of Dibutades, and relates the story of his making the portrait of the girl he loved; and adds that he first invented a method of coloring his works in pottery by adding red earth or red chalk. Then follows the passage about Lysistratus, who used plaster instead of clay to make portraits, covering it with wax or color to improve the resemblance. After the passages cited, he goes on to mention other celebrated modelers (_plastæ laudatissimi_), among whom were Damophilus and Gorgasus, who were also painters, and who adorned the Temple of Ceres at Rome by the exercise of both their arts. According to Varro, he says, everything in the temples was _Tuscanica_,—that is, ancient pottery of the Etruscan school; and when they were repaired the painted coatings of the walls were removed and framed. He also mentions Chalcosthenes, who executed several works in baked earth. He cites Varro again as saying that Possis at Rome executed grapes, fruit, and fishes with such truth to Nature that they could not be distinguished from the real things. Dibutades, he also says, invented a method of coloring plastic composition by adding red earth.

Throughout the chapter Pliny is not speaking solely of modelers, but most of those he mentions colored their works. The grapes, fruit, and fishes of Possis, the works of Damophilus and Gorgasus, the _Tuscanica_ in the temples, all were colored in imitation of the objects represented. And besides these he mentions particularly the Jupiter of Pasiteles, made in clay, “et ideo miniari solitum,”—and therefore proper for painting in vermilion. He also speaks of “figlina opera,”—earthenware painted in encaustic,—which were on the baths of Agrippa in Rome. All this seems to lend probability to the interpretation of “cera” to mean color and not wax; at all events, there is not a word about casting, unless the words relating to Lysistratus can be tortured into such a meaning. What adds still more to the probability that this was the real thought of Pliny in the passage cited is the use of the words “effigies” and “argilla.” “Effigies” in Latin is distinguished from “simulacrum” (which may be a picture as well as a statue), both being representations indicating something which shows they are not life itself, the one being flat and the other colorless; while “effigies” carries the idea of deception with it, so far as resemblance goes. Thus Cicero says, “Vidistis non fratrem tuum nec vestigium quidem aut simulacrum, sed effigiem quamdam spirantis mortui.” So, also, “argilla” means white clay, and not ordinary clay out of which terra cotta images were made; and Pliny may have intended by these words to express the idea that after Lysistratus had made effigies or colored copies of brass or marble statues, white clay was constantly used, for the reason that it was manifestly better for coloring. This would relieve him from the absurdity of saying that Lysistratus invented or led the way in modeling in clay, rather than in the use of white clay which he colored. Argilla and gypsum would then be nearly the same thing, both used as a basis for colored walls, upon which “cera” or color was laid or infused. This would clear up the subsequent statement that this art was older than casting in bronze, since it is plain that coloring statues was very ancient. Pausanias mentions two,—one of the Ephesian Diana and one of Bacchus in wood, gilt except the faces,—which were painted with vermilion. So, in the Wisdom of Solomon (ch. xiii. and xv.), images of wood and clay are spoken of, painted in red and vermilion and stained with divers colors; and in 630 B. C. there were images in gold, silver, stone, and wood in Babylon (Baruch, ch. vi. and xiii.), painted and gilded and dressed, and colored purple.

In his chapter entitled “Honos Imaginum,”—the honor attached to portraits,—Pliny says it was the custom of the Romans to adorn their palæstra and anointing-rooms with the portraits of athletes (“imaginibus athletarum”), and to carry about on their persons the face of Epicurus (“vultus Epicuri”); and that they also prized the portraits of strangers (“alienasque effigies colunt”). Afterwards, contrasting the habits of the Romans of his own day with those of the ancient Romans, he says: “And since the former have no longer in them any likeness to the minds of their ancestors, they also neglect the likeness of their bodies. How different it was,” he continues, “with our ancestors, who placed in their atria to be gazed at these ‘imagines,’ and not statues by foreign artists in brass or marble, and kept colored portraits of their faces each in its separate case, to serve as ‘imagines’ to accompany their funerals.”[17] It would seem from this that, besides the draped images or effigies in the halls, modeled and colored busts of others of the family, probably of less distinction, were also kept to be dressed up on occasion, made into effigies, and carried in procession. Other “imagines” of the most distinguished personages in the family were placed outside at the threshold of the house, hung with the spoils of the enemy.

It is of these “expressi cera vultus” and these “imagines” kept by the Romans as proofs of their nobility, and on which their pedigrees were inscribed, that Ovid speaks when he says,—

“Per lege dispositas generosa per atria ceras.”

On the sale of the house they were not allowed to be destroyed or removed, but passed with it, and were bought by “novi homines” (men of no family), and passed off by them as the portraits of their own ancestors,—just as the portraits of Wardour Street are at the present day. Cicero in his invective against Piso cries out, “Obrepsisti ad honores errore hominum, commendatione fumosarum imaginum, quarum simile habes nihil præter _colorem_;” and Sallust in his Jugurtha says, “Quia imagines non habeo, et quia mihi nova nobilitas est.”

Nor were the Romans singular in this custom of draping figures with real stuffs. The images of the gods in early Greece also were draped and dressed in clothes, and crowns were placed on their heads. They had false hair, too, which was dressed regularly by attendants, and at stated times they were washed and adorned with jewels and had their dresses arranged, just as if they were alive. In later times this custom died out; but the colossal Athena’s solid drapery of gold was washed at a certain festival appointed for the purpose, called Plyntheria. In Rome, however, the custom was maintained to a late day. The images of the temples were adorned with real drapery, and purple mantles were hung on the statues of the emperors. The Greeks did not thus treat their portrait statues, and in this the Romans were peculiar.

The Roman “imagines” and “ceræ” were probably executed in plaster or some such material, certainly not in marble, or otherwise they would have been too heavy to be carried about in procession. Apparently they resembled the figures which Lysistratus first began to make, and the process of coloring them, if we understand “cera” to mean color, was little else than the old practice, called “circumlitio,” of covering marble statues with an encaustic varnish of color so as to give them a delicate and tinted surface. The most salient example of this is to be found in the anecdote told of Praxiteles, who, when he was asked which of his statues he most admired, answered, “Those that Nicias has colored,”—“quibus Nicias manum admovisset,”—Nicias, who in his youth was celebrated as a painter of statues, ἀγαλμάτων ἐγκαυστής, having assisted him, “in statuis circumliendis.” A similar process, called καύσις, was also employed in finishing walls, and is thus described by Vitruvius: After the wall had received its color, it was covered with Punic wax and oil, which was laid on evenly with a hard brush, and then half melted or infused into a smooth surface by moving a “cauterium,” or pan of hot coals, close over it; and after that it was rubbed with a candle and a clean linen cloth.

This process, then, was old as applied to marble statues and to plaster walls. What was new in the work of Lysistratus was that he united the two methods, by modeling in plaster the general likeness and then finishing the surface in encaustic. It was an old process with a new application.

To explain such a process, what could be clearer than the words Pliny uses? We do not need to warp a word from its ordinary significance. Lysistratus made portraits in plaster from life, and improved them by color laid on to the model. He thus made realistic, exact resemblances, whereas before him artists had sought only to make heads as beautiful as possible.

What, then, were the “effigies de signis” that he made? We have already seen that the term “effigies” had a significance of reality and absolute imitation, and corresponded in great measure to the English word effigy, meaning colored effigies with real dresses,—like those of Madame Tussaud, for instance. The “imagines” and “ceræ” of the ancient Romans were very much like them; and does not Pliny mean to say that Lysistratus copied marble or brass statues, or pictures, and made these effigies from them, coloring them so as to add to the likeness, and clothing them with real draperies? and that this so grew into vogue that thenceforward there were no statues which were not thus copied in plaster or “argilla”?—using the term “argilla,” or white clay, as equivalent to gypsum, with which possibly the plaster was mixed. As “argilla” was the foundation with which the ancient panels were prepared for painting, this would seem most appropriate in such case.

Such would be the figures alluded to by Lucian, or by Lexiphanes when he says, “If you cull the flower of all these various beauties, you will in your eloquence be like those makers of figures in wax and clay [or argilla] in the Forum, colored outside with minium and blue, and inside only fragile clay.”

According to this interpretation of the passage in Pliny, it not only becomes intelligible as a whole, but is consistent and without contradiction; whereas, if we suppose that he meant to indicate the process of casting in plaster, his statements are not only entirely obscure and inconsecutive, but ignorant and contradictory.

II.

In the previous chapter we have critically considered the text of Pliny bearing upon the question whether the ancient Greeks and Romans were acquainted with the art of casting. Let us now proceed to some general considerations as to the probability that this art was known and practiced by them.

In the first place, the distinction between modeling and casting must be constantly kept in mind, and care must be taken not to confound the two totally different terms “mould” and “model.” That gypsum was used in modeling there can be no doubt, and it is quite possible that it may have been used to fill prepared moulds of stone, terra cotta, or other materials for the making of ectypa. There is indeed no proof of this; but as we know that moulds were made and cut in stone, into which clay was pressed, to be then withdrawn and baked for ectypa with which to adorn houses, so also it is possible that gypsum may have been used for this purpose. This, however, is merely a supposition, and the fact that none of them have ever been found in plaster renders it highly improbable. In these ectypa of clay, as well as in the impressions taken from them, there are no indications of anything like what we call a piece-mould, composed of many sections; and whenever there are under-cuttings in the ectypa, which could not be withdrawn from the mould and which would fasten them into it, these parts of the ectypa are invariably worked by hand. For instance, in the collection of Mr. Fol in Rome there are several terra cotta figures of low relief evidently stamped from a mould, which are appliqué, or fastened subsequently to the cista of which they form a part. The sutures under each figure are still visible, but they are all corrected and worked by hand after being withdrawn, and have evidently suffered in being removed from the mould. In the same collection there are several specimens of plaster reliefs, with such deep under-cuttings that they could not have been withdrawn from a single piece-mould; but all these under-cuttings are freely worked by hand, showing plainly that they were not in the stamp or mould; and it is also clear that they were afterwards worked over with fluid plaster, the edges and flats of which have not been rounded, but left as it was freely laid on by hand. It is probable that in these cases plaster was pressed into a mould in the same manner as clay, and afterwards worked up and finished. But the slightest examination will show clearly that if a mould was employed to give a general form to them, it certainly was not a piece-mould; and that they are not castings in the modern sense of the word, but only rude stamps.

These are the only specimens, however, so far as we are aware, of any such use of plaster for low-relief ornaments,—the ectypa which have been preserved to us being invariably of baked clay. If plaster had been used for this purpose, we should expect to find casts in the interior of houses or tombs, where they would be protected from the weather, and where they could be easily introduced into the walls and ceilings. But though elaborately ornamented designs in relief, worked in gypsum, are to be found still fresh and uninjured on the ancient tombs and baths, all of them were freely and rapidly modeled by hand while the gypsum was still fresh and plastic, and not a single specimen of cast plaster has been found. It is but a few years since the tombs in the Via Latina were opened, and in two of them the ceilings, divided into compartments, were covered with rich and fantastic designs of flowers, fruit, arabesques, groups of imaginary animals, sea-nymphs, and human figures; the designs varying in each compartment, and all modeled in the plaster with remarkable vivacity and spirit: not one of them was cast. So in the houses at Pompeii, not a vestige of a figure or ornament cast in plaster has ever been found,—nor a mould in plaster; and when one considers that, being completely protected, they would naturally have survived as well as other far more fragile and destructible objects which have been preserved, the evidence is almost absolute that they never could have existed there. If so, it is in the highest degree probable that they existed nowhere. It would seem plain, then, that even the first, simplest, and most natural processes of casting in gypsum were unknown to the ancients, for no other process is so easy and simple as to fill a flat mould with plaster and then remove it, provided there are no under-cuttings. In doing this, however, there is a slight practical difficulty if the mould is in one piece, as the least under-cutting would render it impossible to remove the cast without injury or breakage. Indeed, though there were no under-cutting, it would at least be very difficult to remove the plaster from a mould in one piece. Clay would be removed with far greater ease because of its pliancy, and any cracks or imperfections could be at once remedied; add to this that baked clay is one of the most enduring of materials, and we have the probable reasons why the ancients used it instead of gypsum. But whatever may have been their reasons, it is perfectly clear that they did use clay; and we have no evidence that they ever used plaster.

This use of gypsum to take impressions from flat moulds is suggested by Theophrastus, it would seem, in his treatise on mineralogy,[18] in which he says that plaster “seems better than other materials to receive impressions.” The term ἀπόμαγμα means nothing more than an impression, such as one makes in wax from a seal ring, and such as is common still in plaster; it is to this use that he seems to refer. He does not say, however, that gypsum was really put to this use; and if it were, it would advance us little in our inquiry, since any material which is soft will receive an impression, whether it be bread, pitch, clay, wax, or any similar substance.

But the step from this simple process of stamping in a shallow mould to casting from life or from the round is enormous. The difficulties are multiplied a hundred-fold. It is no longer a simple operation, but a nice and complicated one. The part to be cast must first be oiled or soaped, then covered with plaster of about the consistency of rich cream, then divided into sections while the material is still tender, so as to enable the mould to be withdrawn part by part without breakage, then allowed to set, then removed, oiled or soaped on the interior surface, the parts all properly replaced, fluid plaster poured into the mould,—and finally, after the cast is set, the mould must be carefully removed by a hammer and chisel. This is an elaborate process as applied to an arm or a hand, but when applied to a living face it is not only difficult but disagreeable, and unless due care be used it may be dangerous; and after all a cast from the face is hard, forced, and unnatural in its character and impression, however skillfully it may be done, and can only serve the sculptor as the basis of his work. Yet if the common interpretation of the passage in Pliny be accurate, this is the process which was invented and practiced by Lysistratus, and by means of which he made portraits. _Credat Judæus!_ With all our knowledge and practice, we do not find this to answer in our own time.

But to cast from a statue in clay is still more difficult and complicated; there the extremest care and nicety are required in making the proper divisions, in extracting the clay and irons, recommitting the sections, and breaking off the outer shell of the mould. In fact, the modern process is so complicated that no one can see it without wondering how it ever came to be so thought out and perfected, or without being convinced that it must have been slowly arrived at by many steps and many failures.

That statues were modeled in plaster by the ancients there is no doubt. Pausanias mentions several;[19] and Spartianus[20] also speaks of “Three Victories” in plaster, with palms in their hands, erected at one of the games,—and says that on one of the days of the Circensian games when according to common custom they were erected, the central one on which the name of Severus was inscribed, and which bore a globe, was thrown down by a gust of wind from the podium, and that another bearing the name of Geta on it also fell and was shattered to pieces.

Firmicus[21] also relates that after Zagreus, son of Jupiter, was slain by the Titans, his body was cut to pieces and thrown into a cauldron, from which Minerva rescued the heart and carried it to Jupiter. He then gave it to Semele, who resuscitated Zagreus, and Jupiter afterwards preserved his likeness in plaster,—“Ex gypso plastico opere perfecit.”