Part 9

A slight glimpse at the history of the art will clear up this matter. In the early period of sculpture, only statues of divinities were made, and up to a comparatively late time these archaic figures were copied for religious and superstitious reasons, and the old formal hieratic type was strictly observed. It was not until the 58th Olympiad that iconic statues began to be made in honor of the victors in the national games, and these for the greater part were rather portraits of the peculiarities of general physical developments than of the face. Portrait statues of distinguished men now began to be made, but they were very few in number, and only exceptionally allowed by the state. The first iconic statues, representing Harmodius and Aristogeiton, were made in 509 B. C. by Antenor. Phidias followed (480 to 432 B. C.), and during his period the grand style was in its culmination, and for the most part divinities or demigods only were thought worthy subjects for a great sculptor. Iconic statues were, however, executed during this period, and among the legendary heroes and divinities who formed the subjects of the thirteen statues erected at Delphi and executed by Phidias out of the Persian spoils, the portrait of Miltiades was allowed,[11] but the erection of public portrait statues was very rarely permitted, and the introduction by Phidias of his own portrait and that of Pericles among the combatants wrought upon the shield of his ivory and gold statue of Athena occasioned a prosecution against him for impiety. It is said that Phidias, in his statue of a youth binding his hair with a fillet, made the portrait of Pantarces, an Elean who was enamored of the great sculptor, and who obtained the victory at the Olympian games in the 86th Olympiad (B. C. 435). But this story, which is given by Pausanias, rests, even by his own account, purely on tradition, and was apparently founded upon a supposed resemblance between Pantarces and the statue. Portraiture in its true sense, however, now began, and soon after the death of Phidias, about the 90th Olympiad, Demetrius obtained celebrity as a portrait sculptor. He seems to have been the first to introduce the realistic school of portraiture, copying so carefully from life, particularly in his likenesses of old persons, that he was reproved for being too faithful to Nature. Quinctilian accuses him of being “nimius in veritate” (xii. 10); Lucian in his “Philopseudes” calls him an ἀνθρωποποιός, and, describing a statue by him of Pelichus the Corinthian, says it was αὐτῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ὁμοῖον,—like the very man himself. Callimachus, also, at the same period obtained the nickname of Κατατηξίτεχνος, on account of the extreme detail and finish of his works. These artists flourished nearly a century before Lysistratus; and Pliny therefore is incorrect in his sweeping statement that before the time of Lysistratus sculptors had only endeavored to make their statues as beautiful as possible, and not to give accurate portraits. Still, these men must be considered as exceptions to the general practice, and it was not until the time of Alexander that portrait-sculpture in the sense of accurate likeness was developed. Up to that period it still was heroic, generalized, and ideal in its character, with comparatively little individuality or detail. The portrait statues, for instance, of the Royal Family by Leochares (372 B. C.), and that of Mausolus (about 350 B. C.) on the famous Mausoleum erected by Artemisia, were treated in this style. Lysippus, however, during the reign of Alexander of Macedon, by his great talent gave a new impulse and development to the school of portraiture, and while retaining the heroic character he gave a more realistic truth to his works. Pliny speaks of him as distinguished for the finish of his work in the remotest details,—“argutiæ operum custoditæ in minimis rebus.” In his portraits of Alexander he represented even the defects of his royal patron, such as the stoop of his head sideways. Such was his skill that Alexander declared “that none but Apelles should represent him in color, and none but Lysippus in marble.” Lysistratus was the brother of Lysippus, and Pliny says that he introduced the practice of making portraits which were not merely heroic and ideal likenesses, but faithful representations of the real men. In attributing to Lysistratus the introduction of this practice of individual portraiture, Pliny undoubtedly goes beyond the real facts. He did not introduce the practice, he merely developed it by a peculiar process, giving additional verisimilitude thereby. This process was roughly modeling the likeness in plaster, and then finishing the surface and the details in the “cera” with which he covered it.

In painting, the sphere of portraiture was larger than in sculpture, and subject apparently to no such restrictions. The earliest portrait on record by any great painter was not of hero, philosopher, or athlete, but of Elpinice, the daughter of Miltiades and the mistress of Polygnotus, who painted her portrait as Laodice, one of the daughters of Priam, in his famous picture representing the “Rape of Cassandra,” in the Pœcile at Athens. This picture was executed about 463 B. C., when Elpinice must have been at least thirty-five years of age. Dionysius of Colophon was also a distinguished portrait-painter and celebrated for his excessive finish. Nicephorus Chumnus, the grammarian, describes Apelles and Lysippus as making and painting Ζῶσας εἰκώνας καὶ πνοῆς μόνης καὶ κινήσεως ἀπολειπόμενας,—being likenesses only wanting breath and motion. For one of his portraits of Alexander Apelles received twenty talents of gold (£5,000), which was measured, not counted, out to him. He also painted the portraits of Campaspe and Phryne in the character of Venus, taking the face from Campaspe and the nude figure from Phryne. Speaking of Apelles, Pliny himself relates in his thirty-sixth book that “he painted portraits so exact to the life that one of those persons called Metoscopi, who divine events from the features of men, was enabled, on examining his portraits, to foretell the hour of the death of the person represented.” And this monstrous story Pliny apparently accepts. At all events, he does not question it. Parrhasius, “the most insolent and arrogant of artists,” says Pliny, “painted a portrait of himself and dedicated it in a public temple to Mercury; and though the Athenians had publicly proceeded against Phidias for so doing, they allowed it to Parrhasius, thus plainly showing that the dignity of sculpture was higher than that of painting.”

But to return from this digression to the consideration of the passage by Pliny relating to portraiture in modeling and sculpture. In the sentence immediately following, Pliny goes on to say, “Idem et de signis effigiem exprimere invenit, crevitque res in tantum, ut nulla signa statuæve sine argilla fierent,”—Lysistratus also made copies from statues, and this practice came so into vogue that no statues in brass or marble were made without white clay. What the meaning of this sentence is we can only guess; as it stands, it is quite unintelligible. Perhaps he intended to say that Lysistratus set the fashion of making small copies in clay or terra cotta of all the statues that were executed. But it is quite possible that he meant nothing of the kind. It is plain that if Lysistratus had already invented casting in plaster, it would have been unnecessary to copy statues in clay, except for the purpose of reduction to statuettes. Mr. Perkins thinks he may have intended to speak of “esquisses d’argile [maquettes] dont se servent les sculpteurs comme point de départ, esquisse reproduite plus tard en marbre et avec la mise aux points.” But there was nothing new in this; and surely Lysistratus could not be said to have invented, or set the fashion of, a process which certainly had been employed very long before his time. And again, why make a small statue in clay and enlarge it proportionally in marble, if you can make it at once in full size and cast it? Nor does Mr. Perkins seem to be aware that in adopting this view, and translating as he does “de signis effigiem exprimere,”—to make a small model or maquette in clay,—he abandons his explanation of the sentence referring to gypsum. For if “effigiem argilla exprimere” means, as he says, to make a model in clay, why does not “imaginem gypso exprimere” mean to make a model in plaster? Besides, the fact that Pliny applies the same terms to a process in clay as to one in plaster at once puts an end to the matter so far as the question of casting goes. Clay is not a material to cast with, in any proper sense of that term.

Another objection to this interpretation that Pliny meant a maquette, “esquisse,” or sketch is that “effigies” did not mean sketch. It carried with it nearly the significance of our own word effigy,—of great reality of imitation. “Imago” was a vaguer word, and might indicate a delusive resemblance as by painting; but “effigiem” was ordinarily employed to designate a more absolute imitation. Thus Cicero says, “Nos vere juris germanæ justitiæ que solidam et expressam effigiem nullam tenemus. Umbra et imaginibus utimur.”[12] And again, “Consectatur nullam eminentem effigiem virtutis sed adumbratam imaginem gloriæ.” “Effigies” would, therefore, carry no such idea as that of sketch.

Besides, not only is “effigies” not the correct word for sketch, but Pliny would scarcely have used it in this sense, when immediately afterwards, speaking of the sketches of Arcesilaus, which sold for more than the finished works of other artists, he employs the appropriate term for sketches,—“proplasma.” In the translation of Pliny, published by Mr. Bohn, and made by Mr. Bostick and Mr. Riley, this term is translated “models in plaster;” but it simply means sketches or antijicta, in whatever material they were made. The words “plastæ” and “plasma” have nothing to do with plaster. “Plastæ” were simply modelers, and πλαστική was the art of modeling,—the plastic art.

Again, Pliny could scarcely have intended to say that Lysistratus invented modeling sketches of statues in clay before executing them in plaster, since he tells us explicitly that Pasiteles used to say that _plastice_ was the mother of _statuaria, scalptura, et cælatura_; and, though he was distinguished as first in all these arts, he never executed anything in them until he had first modeled it in clay,—“nihil unquam fecit, antequam finxit.”

Before leaving this sentence, let us take a different view of its possible meaning. May not Pliny use the words “signa” and “signis” to mean pictures and not statues? Undoubtedly “signum” was thus used, as where Plautus speaks of a “signum pictum in parieti,”—a picture painted on the wall; or where Virgil speaks of a “pallam signis auroque rigentem,”—a mantle stiff with embroidered figures and gold. In this sense the passage would mean that Lysistratus made effigies from pictures as well as from statues, and that thenceforward not only no statues but no pictures were made without being copied in bas-relief, or in the round, argilla, or white clay. This would account for the use of the word “effigiem,” which has a stronger significance of reality than “imaginem.”

The succeeding sentence is even more obscure; and, unless it be interpolated or out of its proper place, is quite unintelligible. In the connection in which it now stands it is absurd. It is as follows: “Quo apparet antiquiorem hanc fuisse scientiam quam fundendi æris,”—by which it seems that this knowledge or practice was older than that of casting in bronze. What is the “scientiam” to which he refers? He has previously spoken only of two: first, that of making portraits in plaster and wax; second, that of making copies of statues in clay,—both, as he says, invented or introduced into practice by Lysistratus. But to say that that artist could have invented any process older than that of casting in bronze is not only ridiculous in itself, but inconsistent with what he has previously told us; since at least two centuries previous to the time of Lysistratus, Rhœcus and Theodorus of Samos—as we learn from Pausanias, Herodotus, and even Pliny himself—exercised the art of casting in bronze. Pausanias,[13] indeed, tells us that these sculptors invented this art; but Pliny, with his usual inaccuracy and carelessness, says that they invented “plastice,” or the art of modeling (“In Samo primos omnium plasticen invenisse Rhœcum et Theodorum,” ch. xxxv.),—an art which from the very nature of things must have been practiced from the earliest and rudest ages, almost from the time when the first child made the first mud-pie.

Dr. Brunn,[14] in commenting on this passage in Pliny, accepts the first sentence as describing the art of casting in plaster, but, finding it impossible to reconcile it with the subsequent sentences, ingeniously suggests that it was an addition inserted in the margin, and afterwards interpolated into the text by the copyists in the wrong place. Throwing out this first sentence about Lysistratus from this place, he still accepts it, and interprets it to mean that Lysistratus invented the art of casting. The subsequent sentences he connects with a previous passage in Pliny, in which he gives an account of Dibutades of Sicyon, a potter by trade, and relates the legend that this artist drew the outline of the face of a girl whom he loved from her shadow on the wall, and his father pressed clay upon it within those outlines, and made a _typum_ which he baked. The passage, according to Dr. Brunn, then would continue: “He [Dibutades] also invented the making of effigies from signa, and this practice so increased that thenceforward no statues or signa were made without argilla; so that it appears that this art was more ancient than that of casting in bronze.” By accepting this suggestion of Dr. Brunn we certainly relieve Pliny of the absurdity of stating that any “scientiam” or practice invented by Lysistratus was older than casting in bronze, since centuries before his time bronze figures of colossal proportions had been cast. But even supposing these sentences to refer to Dibutades and not to Lysistratus, they are far from being clear or accurate. Is it possible to believe that, while the making of brick and earthenware utensils and fictile vases is so ancient that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, no one before Dibutades had ever attempted to model a figure or a face in clay, or to put a model into a furnace and bake it? All history is against such a supposition. Images in terra cotta were made by the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Ephesians centuries before Dibutades. The ancient Etruscan terra cottas previous to his epoch were scattered, as Pliny himself says, all over the world: “Signa Tuscanica per terras dispersa.” The capitol was decorated with earthen statues at the time of the first Tarquin, and Pausanias mentions many clay statues of gods and demigods executed in the earliest ages of Greece itself.

Again, from this very passage it is clear that Pliny himself admits that there were _signa_ and _statuæ_ already existing at the time of Dibutades, of which he first made effigies. What did Dibutades invent? Certainly not the art of modeling in clay, or of baking the clay. His statement, also, that thenceforward no statues were made without clay is scarcely intelligible, unless we suppose him to mean that clay models were made thenceforward before executing statues in stone or other materials. But he does not say this. Again, he cannot mean that Dibutades first invented taking impressions from indented outlines, or _intaglii_, for this was as old as the first primitive seal, and was no more invented by Dibutades than by Lysistratus.

Dr. Brunn interprets the statement in respect to Dibutades as showing that he was probably the first inventor of casting, at the same time that he also interprets the sentences referring to Lysistratus as declaring that he first invented casting,—the only difference being that the process of the one was in clay, and that of the other in plaster.

But is it clear that Dibutades, according to Pliny, ever made even a stamp in clay from indented outlines on the wall? The passage is ordinarily so interpreted, but is this interpretation correct? Pliny says that Dibutades having traced the shadow on the wall in outline, his father impressed clay within that outline, and thus made a _typum_ which he baked with other articles of earth, and which was long afterwards preserved in the Nymphæum at Corinth. His words are, “quibus lineis pater ejus impressa argilla typum fecit.” What, then, is the meaning of “typum”? Evidently not a mould, or impression, but a relief. Had it been a mould, he could have stamped from it a hundred impressions, since it would have been merely a seal with an irregularly relieved outline; and in order to have the repetition of what was on the wall he must perforce have stamped from it an impression. This he evidently did not do, or at least nothing is said to indicate anything of the kind. He preserved and baked what he first obtained, which, if it was merely a mould, would have produced, to say the least, no effect. The true as well as the literal translation of this passage would seem to be, “within the outlines by putting on clay he made a relief.” This clay he probably modeled as well as he could, keeping within the lines, and then removed it from the wall and baked it. The same interpretation of this passage is given by Giovanni Battista Adriani, in a remarkable essay or rather letter addressed by him to Giorgio Vasari in 1567, in which he gives a summary of the most celebrated Greek artists and their works. “Typus” in Latin had the double significance of “intaglio” and “relievo,” as our word “type” has of the type itself and the printed impression; and sometimes it was used in one sense and sometimes in the other, but it was usually employed to mean a relief. Thus Cicero, in one of his letters to Atticus (lib. i. ep. 10), writes, “Præterea typos tibi mando quos in tectorio atrioli possim includere,”—I commission you also to procure me some reliefs to be inserted in the plaster of the anteroom. And Pliny in this passage would plainly seem to use the word in the same sense; otherwise he would probably have written “forma,” as he did in other cases when he meant a mould. Not that even that word would be free from all ambiguity, but it would more appropriately signify a mould.

But however ingenious is the suggestion of Dr. Brunn that the passages relating to Lysistratus ought to belong to Dibutades, the fact is that in all editions of Pliny they are connected with Lysistratus; and as this suggestion does not dispose of all difficulties and clear up the matter, we will proceed to consider them in that relation, and see if anything can be made clearly out of them.

Plainly, if the “scientiam” here spoken of refers to the invention of Lysistratus, and is interpreted to be the art of casting in plaster, it is ridiculously incorrect to say that it was older than casting in brass. If that invention be of modeling in plaster, it is also entirely incorrect. We know that this was practiced at least a century previous,—as, for instance, in the construction of the great statue of Zeus at Megara, the body of which was of plaster and clay, the head alone being cased in gold and ivory; and also of the Bacchus in painted plaster, of which Pausanias speaks.

The only way in which we can explain the statement that any “scientiam” or process described by Pliny as used by Lysistratus was older than the art of casting in bronze, is by supposing he meant to say that the process he employed was in itself an old one, and that it was only in the practical application to the making of portraits that there was any novelty,—the process of covering a core of plaster with wax being older than casting in bronze, while covering a sketch of plaster with wax and then working that surface up from life was new. The statement so understood would be intelligible at least, and, as far as we know, perfectly correct. The method of the ancients in casting bronze statues is not described by any ancient writer, but it is supposed to have been this: A fire-proof core was first built up of plaster, clay, earth, or other materials, and over this a thin and even coating of wax or pitch was spread; or perhaps, which is not so probable, the surface was rasped down to the thickness intended for the bronze, and afterwards covered with a thin coating of wax. In either case the result would be the same. The outside of this wax being then completely covered with sand or packed clay-dust, there would be a thin coating of wax inclosed between the two surfaces, which, melting away before the fused metal, would allow that metal to take its place. This would account for the remarkable thinness and evenness of the ancient bronzes; for by such a method the core would be perfect, and the artist would naturally put on as little wax as possible. If we suppose the statue, after it was nearly completed in plaster or clay, not to have been rasped down but simply to have been covered with wax, we shall see that the result would be that the bronze cast would be a little fuller in size and thicker in proportions than the original model. And this is a peculiar characteristic of the ancient bronzes, especially to be observed in the limbs and joints, which are generally larger and puffier in bronze than in marble statues.

Now if Pliny meant to say of Lysistratus that his method of modeling portraits by making a plaster figure or core, and covering the surface with wax, was older than that of casting in bronze, he was quite right; for undoubtedly the process of covering a core with wax must have preceded that of casting in bronze, or at least must have been coincident with it. But at the same time this method had previously been used only, or at least chiefly, in casting; whereas Lysistratus was the first to use it for modeling from life and carefully finishing every part. The process was old; the application was new.

Thus far in considering this passage we have proceeded on the hypothesis that the “cera” spoken of was wax. But another and quite different view is also possible, and seems in all probability to be the correct one. Pliny may mean to refer to quite a different thing, and by the term “cera” may have meant not wax but color. “Ceræ” was the common term for a painter’s colors, and Pliny himself thus uses it in defining encaustic painting: “Ceris pingere et picturam inurere.” Varro also says, “Pictores locutulas magnas habent arculas ubi discolores sunt ceræ.” Statius also uses the same term when he says, “Apelleæ cuperent te scribere ceræ.” Anacreon, in his odes, constantly uses κηρός for picture; as, for instance,—

Ἔρωτα κήρινόν τις Νεηνίης ἐπώλει.

Here it is not a waxen figure, but a wax, or oil,—that is, a painting of Eros, not an ἀγάλμα. And in the same ode the youth replies in Doric, “Οὐκ εἰμὶ κηροτέχνης”—“I am not a painter;” or even more manifestly in the ode beginning,—

Ἄγε ζωγράφων ἄριστε, γράφε, ζωγράφων ἄριστε, Ῥοδίης κοίρανε τέχνης, ἀπεοῦσαν, ὡς ἂν εἴπω, γράφε τὴν ἐμὴν ἑταίρην. γράφε μοι τρίχας τὸ πρῶτον ἁπαλάς τε καὶ μελαίνας· ὁ δὲ κηρὸς ἂν δύνηται, γράφε καὶ μύρου πνεούσας.

And again,—

ἀπέχει· Βλέπω γὰρ αὐτήν. τάχα, κηρὲ, καὶ λαλήσεις.

Wax was the common medium used by painters. After it had been purified and blanched, their colors were mixed with it just as ours are with oil; and in like manner, as we speak of painting in oils, they spoke of painting in wax. A head done in chalk would no more necessarily mean a head modeled in chalk or plaster, than “imaginem [or effigiem] cera expressam” would mean a likeness modeled in wax.