Part 2

Apart from the general spirit of Pergamene work there are several definite technical peculiarities which enable us to postulate a Pergamene origin for many unclassed works of the Hellenistic age. These can be gathered from the definitely Pergamene Gallic statues, which we have yet to discuss, and from the satyr types already mentioned. One is the hair tossed up off the forehead and falling in lank matted locks of wild disordered type. The eyebrows are usually straight and shaggy, with a heavy bulge of the frontal sinus over the nose. The cheekbones are prominent, and the lips thick and parted. In the body the most marked feature is the desire to get away from the old-fashioned straight plane for the front of the torso. The lower part of the chest usually projects strongly, while the waist is drawn in, so that the profile of the torso is shaped like a very obtuse _z_. In the female body there is a general affection for rather heavy forms with a good envelope of flesh. The artist’s skill is here devoted mainly to the delineation of surface. The heads of such female figures as we can attribute to Pergamene art show very little expression. The hair is done on the Praxitelean model, but the locks tend to become more rope-like and twisted as time goes on. We cannot point to any great peculiarities in the Pergamene treatment of women. Neither Lysippos nor Scopas seems to have had much effect on the feminine types of Greek sculpture. The whole Hellenistic age is in servitude to Praxitelean ideals of women whether in Alexandria, Rhodes, or Pergamon. The differences are only in the details of execution, the Pergamenes tending always towards clear cutting of hair and features, while the Alexandrines preferred an impressionist smoothing away of all sharp edges.

We come now to the two great dedications of Attalos for his victories over the Gauls.[20] These were made at some time later than 241 B.C., and consist of two series of statues. One is life-size or larger, and is represented by some of the best-known examples of Hellenistic sculpture, such as the Dying Gaul[21] and the Ludovisi group of a Gaul slaying his wife and himself (Fig. 4). The other consisted of a number of small figures about three feet high, and was dedicated by Attalos in Athens, where they stood on the parapet of the south wall of the Acropolis. Four battle-groups were included--a gigantomachy, an Amazonomachy, a battle of Greeks and Persians, and a battle of Greeks and Gauls. Several copies from this smaller group are in existence, the best known being in Naples.[22] The originals of both groups were probably in bronze, and we have the names of some of the artists of the larger group, Phyromachos, Antigonos, and Epigonos or Isigonos. Stratonicos and Niceratos of Athens may also have taken part.[23]

These works all deserve careful study, as they differ in many ways from the rather sensual and ecstatic art which we know to have preceded them, and the very _baroque_ and exaggerated art which followed them in the next century on the great altar. Eumenes and Attalos had to fight for their lives against the Gauls, and a temporary return to an austerer and less luxurious art would be a not unnatural result of the great war. We certainly find in the treatment of the Amazons or of the wife of the Ludovisi Gaul no such insistence on sexual detail as marks the earlier studies of the feminine form, and the expression of the male figures is distinguished by more ideal emotions of courage or resignation than the frenzy of the satyrs and the passions of the later gods and giants. The Attalid dedications show some _bravura_ of pose; the Ludovisi Gaul is a little histrionic in his attitude; but as a whole they are sober and restrained sculpture, when compared with the satyrs on the one hand and the altar frieze on the other. In that sense they represent the high-water mark of Pergamene art, inspired with an equal skill, but with a nobler ideal than the earlier work, and not subject to the somewhat grotesque exaggerations of its later activities. Greek art has few nobler figures to show than the Dying Gaul of the Capitol, itself an admirable and closely contemporary copy, perhaps made in Ephesos, of the bronze original at Pergamon. The sober restraint of the torso modelling is remarkable, and contrasts most forcibly with the altar frieze. The pathos of the expression and attitude is not forced or exaggerated in any way, and if the curious hair gives a touch of strangeness to the head, we must account for it as a naturalistic detail of the Gallic fashion of greasing and oiling the hair. The Ludovisi Gaul is a superb work, rather more exaggerated, both in expression and in detail, than the Capitol figure. The right arm is perhaps wrongly restored, as it hides the face from the front, but it is more likely that the group should be looked at from a position farther to the left, where the face, the fine stride, and the technical _tour de force_ of the cloak can all be appreciated more fully. The woman’s face is not well finished, and her whole pose is more effective from the other point of view. The Pergamene peculiarities in the treatment of chest and waist are clearly visible in this figure.

The little figures in Naples, the Louvre, Venice, and elsewhere are partly recumbent dead figures of Persians, giants, and Amazons, and partly crouching figures defending themselves. None of the victorious Greeks seems to have survived, except possibly the torso of a horseman in the Terme Museum. They are dry, rather hard figures, much inferior in skill to the larger group and much closer to the bronze originals which they represent. The head of a dead Persian in the Terme Museum (Fig. 5) is probably a more worthy copy (on a larger scale) of one of the figures of this series. Its type of features and its moustache resemble the Ludovisi Gaul. Another fine Gallic head is in the Gizeh Museum at Cairo (Fig. 6). This has been often called an original, an Alexandrian variant of the Gallic dedications. There is, however, no need to separate it from the others. If it shows more emotion, that only brings it rather closer to what we know of earlier Pergamene art. The provenance of the Gizeh head is disputed, and it may be only a recent importation into Egypt.[24]

We now come to the frieze of the great altar at Pergamon (Fig. 7), the contribution of Eumenes II to the series of monuments commemorating the defeats of the barbarians. Here again we have several inscriptions of artists,[25] which are especially interesting as showing that four foreign artists of Attic, Ephesian, and Rhodian origin all contributed to the great monument. It is, however, quite uniform and unique in character, and shows a _baroque_ exaggeration of expression and of muscular detail, which in the end becomes monotonous and overpowering. The slight tendency towards a histrionic attitude, which we noticed in the Ludovisi Gaul, has now become much more pronounced. Most of the figures are in stage attitudes of fright, ferocity, attack, or defence. Their bodies are covered either with drapery in wild disorder, or, if naked, with massive rolls and lumps of muscle, which are almost comical in their exaggeration. Their hair is in unrestrained twisted snaky locks; their faces are distorted in fierce expressions of anger or alarm; they are in every conceivable attitude of attack or defence. When we add to this the colossal size of the monument and its figures, we can well understand how its remains became known to early Christian writers as the throne of Satan.[26]

The subject of the frieze is the battle of the gods and the giants, and the members of the Olympic Pantheon are represented in attitudes of triumph over the serpent-footed denizens of Tartarus. This is probably the first appearance in sculpture of the serpent feet of the giant. Every earlier artist had realized how such a ridiculous detail would detract from the strength and probability of his figures, but the Pergamene artists are so glad of the chance of displaying extra technical skill that they pass over the artistic difficulty without hesitation. The great frieze of the altar is like the work of a megalomaniac. The restraint and good taste which have accompanied all Hellenic art hitherto are quite forgotten, and we are reminded rather of some Assyrian scene of carnage and destruction. This is the more curious, because the smaller frieze of the altar, the Telephos frieze, which is contemporary with the larger one, shows altogether a different character. It has therefore been plausibly argued, with the support of some of the artists’ signatures, that the main style of the work is Rhodian rather than Pergamene.[27] The view would only involve us in further difficulties when we come to consider Rhodian art. There is Rhodian influence in the frieze, but the technical details of hair, faces, and bodies as a whole correspond closely to Pergamene art. Moreover, on _a priori_ grounds, Pergamene art is much more likely to be affected by exotic oriental influences than the purer Rhodian. It is easier to assume a special development of Pergamene art in this exaggerated direction for a monument which was itself a special and exceptional memorial. The whole character of the work is a reversion to an earlier idealistic phase of art, though carried out on very different artistic lines. This is no romantic or frivolous treatment of mythological detail. It is a great conception of the victory of right over might, of Hellas over the barbarian, and as such the great altar of Pergamon stands quite apart from most of the work of the Hellenistic age, and serves rather as a connecting link between the Parthenon on the one hand and the Imperial trophies of Augustus, like the Ara Pacis, on the other. It demonstrates the lack of judgement and balance in Hellenistic art, but it is a good proof that the Hellenistic school was not wholly absorbed in questions of _bravura_ and technique, but could rise, even if in rather clumsy fashion, to the level of a great occasion.

The smaller frieze of Pergamon, giving incidents in the myth of Telephos, is of a very different type (Fig. 8). Firstly, the subject is not a unity in time and place, but a continuous narration of mythological episodes. It thus resembles the setting in a continuous frieze of a number of metope-subjects. Telephos appears in different situations in a scene which apparently is uniform. This is a decidedly new departure in artistic theory, and it had the profoundest effect on all subsequent art. We need not, of course, see in the Telephos frieze the first appearance of this custom, but it happens to be the earliest surviving monument in which the principle is easily remarked. Moreover, the information as to change of scene is conveyed by means of changes in the background, so that we see in it another new departure: the use of a significant pictorial background instead of the blank wall against which earlier reliefs had been set. Here again the Hellenistic artist revives rather than originates. The pictorial background occurs as early as the ‘Erechtheum’ _poros_ pediment of the Acropolis, but during the fifth and fourth centuries the idea was dropped only to reappear at a later date.

We have already seen that relief sculpture at all stages of its history is closely affected by the kindred art of painting. During the fourth century painting underwent changes in the direction of naturalism as marked as, if not more marked than, the corresponding changes in sculpture. The late fourth century and the third century form the great period of Greek painting, in which the names of Parrhasios, Protogenes, and Apelles stand supreme. A true and correct feeling for perspective and a naturalistic scheme of colouring were the main discoveries of the period, discoveries which we are only able to appreciate in very roundabout methods through Pompeian wall-paintings and mummy-cases from the Fayum. All Hellenistic sculpture is profoundly influenced by painting, as we shall see; but naturally the art of relief is nearest akin and shows most clearly the effects of graphic ideas. The Hellenistic reliefs are almost all adaptations of pictures, and the Telephos frieze earns its main interest and reputation because it is one of the first monuments to show this influence very clearly. We find a true use of perspective in part of this frieze, and a deliberate intention to create the impression of depth.

One of the first results of these innovations was to free relief from its subordination to architecture. It begins now to take its place as a self-sufficing artistic object like a picture. Greek pictures were mainly of the fresco type, and therefore immovably fixed to walls, though easel pictures now begin to be more frequent. There was nothing dissimilar in the position of a relief decorating a wall-panel without architectural significance. This idea found its earliest manifestation in Ionia with friezes of the Assos type on an architrave block, and therefore at variance with architectural principles. Friezes as wall decorations appear commonly in the Ionian buildings of the fifth and fourth centuries, like the Nereid and Trysa monuments and the Mausoleum. We find in the Hellenistic age the use of panels as wall decorations quite frequent all over Asia Minor. Thus at Cyzicus we have some curious mythological reliefs called Stylopinakia, which appear to have been panels fixed between the columns of a peristyle. We have the Apotheosis of Homer by Archelaos of Priene, a clear instance of the decorative panel with a pictorial background; we have smaller pieces like the Menander relief in the Lateran; the visit of Dionysos to a dramatic poet; and all the series of so-called Hellenistic reliefs ascribed by Schreiber[28] to an Alexandrian origin, by Wickhoff[29] to the Augustan age and Italian art. The reliefs, like other sculpture of the Hellenistic age, cannot be judged as a whole.[30] Some are Augustan, like the reliefs in the Palazzo Spada, and some are undoubtedly Alexandrian, like the Grimani reliefs in Vienna. Others, again, show a strong Lysippic influence, which at once connects them with Rhodes. The Telephos frieze, however, is Pergamene, and the Cyzicus reliefs must have fallen mainly in the Pergamene sphere of art. We are, therefore, entitled to demand a separation of the reliefs into just as many classes as the sculpture. A fine piece of very high relief from Pergamon is the group of Prometheus on the Caucasus freed by Herakles.[31] Besides the influence of pictures on relief there is also the influence of earlier sculpture. One of the figures in the Telephos relief reproduces the Weary Herakles of Lysippos.[32] It would not be difficult to point out other examples of the adaptation of older types. The Marsyas group is itself a case in point. The indifference of the Hellenistic artist to his subject made him the readier to adapt earlier types, provided he had a free hand for his details of execution and expression.

The figures of Pergamene art as a whole are short and stocky with squarish deep heads. They correspond to the Scopaic, pre-Lysippic, and Peloponnesian type, but the Lysippic improvements in pose and swing of the body are thoroughly appreciated and adopted. From Praxiteles are derived the female type and the interest in the satyr as a vehicle of sculptural expression. The athletic art of Lysippos and the school of Sikyon is practically unrepresented at Pergamon or in those regions of Ionia and Bithynia which are connected with it and at which we must now glance.

From Priene we have remains of a gigantomachy and some other sculpture.[33] The influence of Praxiteles is marked, and the work as a whole is clearly under Pergamene guidance. From Magnesia we have remains of a great Amazonomachy belonging to the frieze of the temple of Artemis Leucophryene and dating from the end of the third century. The work is dull and careless but strongly under the influence of Pergamon. We shall in fact find no more architectural reliefs of even tolerable quality. The new landscape or pictorial reliefs occupied the attention of the sculptors, and temple decoration was left entirely to workmen.

One of the great Hellenistic art centres is Tralles, whose treasures are mainly to be seen in the Constantinople museum. The colossal Apollo or Dionysos (Fig. 9) is closely connected in pose and treatment with the Apollo of the Marsyas group, and shows even more clearly than the torso in the Uffizi the influence of Praxiteles. The cloaked ephebe of Tralles (Fig. 10) is a good example of the eclecticism of the age. The leaning attitude with the crossed legs reminds us of the satyrs of Praxiteles and his school, but the head is quite different and is strongly reminiscent of Myron. Boethos of Chalcedon belongs by birth to the northern or Pergamene sphere of influence, but he worked in Rhodes and will be more suitably considered in connexion with Rhodian art. Pergamene influence was also strong in the islands and on the mainland. We shall see that the school of Melos and both Attic and Peloponnesian art during the late third and second centuries were obviously affected by it.

II

THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA

It may well be questioned whether we are really in a position to separate the Hellenistic schools as definitely and surely as we can separate the Attic and Peloponnesian schools of the fifth and fourth centuries or the earlier local schools of the sixth. In the Hellenistic age we find a far greater uniformity and cosmopolitanism in art than ever before. The conquests of Alexander had been in the long run Panhellenic, and outside the mainland at any rate the title Greek came at last to mean more than merely a man’s city or state. It has therefore been argued by some critics that we must not expect to find the same local distinctions in Hellenistic art. In a cosmopolitan world with easy communications local and separate developments were no longer possible. This position is plausible, and so far as the question of ideals or even types is concerned there is little to choose between the Hellenistic schools. The so-called Hellenistic reliefs are probably of very diverse origin; the Hellenistic love for _genre_ scenes and for the grotesque appears to be universally indulged; the erotic groups of Pergamon were certainly equally popular in Alexandria; the influence of painting and the adaptation of earlier sculptural types are found in all parts of the Aegean world. But there does seem to be a distinction in technical execution between the three great schools of the period, which is sufficient to justify their consideration in three separate chapters. While Pergamon is predominantly subject to the Scopaic-Praxitelean mixed tradition with an especial fondness for extremely clear-cut work and soft finish, Rhodes appears to be equally faithful to the Lysippic athletic tradition, and Alexandria to a strongly impressionist development of Praxitelean ideas joined to a fondness for unsparing realism in the grotesque, a combination not infrequent in the decadence of art. For Alexandrian art, more than any of the others, deserves the title of decadent through its abandonment of every vestige of idealism in motive.

We know the connexion of Alexandria with Athens was close in the late fourth century, especially during the rule of Demetrios of Phaleron in its closing decades. It was at this time that Bryaxis made the Sarapis (Fig. 12), which has perhaps survived for us in the innumerable copies of a wild-haired, heavily bearded head with shadowed mysterious eyes. During the next century Macedonia was the chief foe of Athens and of the Ptolemies, and all the earlier Egyptian rulers were on close terms of friendship with the city. Thus a predominant influence of Athens and of the greatest of the fourth-century Athenian sculptors, Praxiteles, is only what we should anticipate in Alexandrian art. It has, however, been argued that we have no evidence for a native art of Alexandria at all.[34] While importing much late Attic sculpture, she borrowed also from Pergamon works like the Gaul’s head at Cairo,[35] and from Antioch a group like the Dresden Aphrodite with the Triton.[36] She was in fact a collecting rather than an originating centre.

This view is improbable on many grounds. The Egyptians were a people with a keen artistic sense, and the sudden introduction of a new race like the Greeks with their passion for cultural expression could hardly fail to give an impetus to artistic output. Moreover, a great revival in architecture is noticeable all over Egypt. The Ptolemaic age is one of the great building periods of the Nile valley. Further, our authorities are unanimous on the importance and brilliance of the Alexandrian school of painting, and we know that in gem-cutting Pyrgoteles started a development never surpassed in antiquity or modern times. In literature, in criticism, and in science the museum of Alexandria held the chief place, and it is impossible to suppose that Egypt remained a mere collector of sculpture without any original development of her own. We must, therefore, examine the artistic products of Hellenistic Egypt to see if they exhibit any technical peculiarities marking them off from other Hellenistic centres and compelling us to credit them with a local origin.

Any study of the sculpture of Alexandrian origin reveals one characteristic almost invariably present in serious work, as opposed to the grotesque, and absent from the certified products of other centres. This is that quality of slurring over all sharp detail in the features and producing a highly polished, almost liquidly transparent surface for which we have borrowed the Italian term _morbidezza_.[37] Instances of this highly impressionist treatment are to be found in the British Museum head of Alexander from Alexandria, and also in the Sieglin head from the same place; in the Triton head of the Dresden Alexandrian group of Triton and Aphrodite; in the many Anadyomene copies which are mostly connected with Alexandria, such for instance as the beautiful statue recently found in Cyrenaica (Fig. 11); in girls’ heads from Alexandria in Copenhagen and Dresden. In most of these works and in many others the soft transparent quality of the face is matched by a quite rough impressionist blocking-out of the hair. Thus we find both the characteristics of Praxitelean impressionism, the rough hair and the soft liquid gaze, exaggerated and intensified in Alexandrian sculpture. While the female hair of Pergamene art is invariably clear-cut and rope-like, Alexandrian hair is normally of the rough crinkly Praxitelean type, sometimes merely formal, at others more complicated and complete. This impressionist character of Alexandrian sculpture is borne out by what we know of its painting, and is doubtless due to some extent to the great influence of painting on sculpture as well as to the influence of Praxiteles.