Part 6

It was my design to explain myself more particularly, concerning the negligences of the Greeks, had I been allowed time. The Greeks, as their criticism on the partridge of Protogenes, and his blotting it[110], evidently shews, were not ignorant in learned negligence. But the Zeus of Phidias was the standard of sublimity, the symbol of the omnipresent Deity; like Homer’s Eris, he stood upon the earth, and reached heaven; he was, in the style of sacred poesy, “_What encompasses him?_ &c.” And the world has been candid enough to excuse, nay, even to justify on such reasons, the disproportions in the Carton of Raphael, representing the fishing of Peter[111]. The criticism on the _Diomedes_, though solid, is not against me: his action, abstractedly considered, with his noble and expressive contour, are standards of the art; and that was all I advanced[112].

The reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks may be reduced to four heads, viz.

I. The perfect Nature of the Greeks;

II. The Characteristicks of their works;

III. The Imitation of these;

IV. Their manner of Thinking upon the Art; and Allegory.

Probability was all I pretended to, with regard to the first; which cannot be fully demonstrated, notwithstanding all the assistance of history. For, these advantages of the Greeks were, perhaps, less founded on their nature, and the influences of the climate, than on their education.

The happy situation of their country was, however, the basis of all; and the want of resemblance, which was observed between the Athenians and their neighbours beyond the mountains, was owing to the difference of air and nourishment[113].

The manners and persons of the new-settled inhabitants, as well as the natives of every country, have never failed of being influenced by their different natures. The ancient Gauls, and their successors the German Franks, are but one nation: the blind fury, by which the former were hurried on in their first attacks, proved as unsuccessful to them in the times of Cæsar[114], as it did to the latter in our days. They possessed certain other qualities, which are still in vogue among the modern French; and the Emperor Julian[115] tells us, that in his time there were more dancers than citizens at Paris.

Whereas the Spaniards, managing their affairs cautiously, and with a certain frigidity, kept the Romans longer than any other people from conquering the country[116].

And is not this character of the old Iberians re-assumed by the West-Goths, the Mauritanians, and many other people, who over-ran their country?[117]

It is easy to be imagined what advantages the Greeks, having been subject to the same influences of climate and air, must have reaped from the happy situation of their country. The most temperate seasons reigned through all the year, and the refreshing sea-gales fanned the voluptuous islands of the Ionick sea, and the shores of the continent. Induced by these advantages, the Peloponnesians built all their towns along the coast; see Dicearchus, quoted by Cicero[118].

Under a sky so temperate, nay balanced between heat and cold, the inhabitants cannot fail of being influenced by both. Fruits grow ripe and mellow, even such as are wild improve their natures; animals thrive well, and breed more abundantly. “Such a sky, says Hippocrates[119], produces not only the most beautiful of men, but harmony between their inclinations and shape.” Of which Georgia, that country of beauty, where a pure and serene sky pours fertility, is an instance[120]. Among the elements, beauty owes so much to water alone, that, if we believe the Indians, it cannot thrive, in a country that has it not in its purity[121]. And the Oracle itself attributes to the lymph of Arethusa a power of forming beauty[122].

The Greek tongue affords us also some arguments in behalf of their frame. Nature moulds the organs of speech according to the influences of the climate. There are nations that rather whistle than speak, like the Troglodytes[123]; others that pronounce without opening their lips[124]; and the Phasians, a Greek people, had, as has been said of the English[125], a hoarse voice: an unkind climate forms harsh sounds, and consequently the organs of speech cannot be very delicate.

The superiority of the Greek tongue is incontestible: I do not speak now of its richness, but only of its harmony. For all the northern tongues, being over-loaded with consonants[126], are too often apt to offend with an unpleasing austerity; whereas the Greek tongue is continually changing the consonant for the vowel, and two vowels, meeting with but one consonant, generally grow into a diphthong[127]. The sweetness of the tongue admits of no word ending with these three harsh letters Θ, Φ, Χ, and for the sake of Euphony, readily changes letters for their kindred ones. Some seemingly harsh words cannot be objected here; none of us being acquainted with the true Greek or Roman pronunciation. All these advantages gave to the tongue a flowing softness, brought variety into the sounds of its words, and facilitated their inimitable composition. And from these alone, not to mention the measure which, even in common conversation, every syllable enjoyed, a thing to be despaired of in occidental tongues; from these alone, I say, we may form the highest idea of the organs by which that tongue was pronounced, and may more than conjecture, that, by the language of the _Gods_, Homer meant the Greek, by that of _Men_, the Phrygian tongue.

It was chiefly owing to that abundance of vowels, that the Greek tongue was preferable to all others, for expressing by the sound and disposition of its words the forms and substances of things. The discharge, the rapidity, the diminution of strength in piercing, the slowness in gliding, and the stopping of an arrow, are better expressed by the sound of these three verses of Homer, Iliad Δ.

125. Λίγξε βιὸς, νευρὴ δε μέγ’ ἴαχεν, ἆλτο δ’ ὀϊστὸς[128]

135. Διὰ μέν ἂρ’ ζωστῆρος ἐλήλατο δαιδαλέοιο,

136. Καὶ διὰ θωρηκος πολυδαιδάλου ἠρήρειστο,

than even by the words themselves. You see it discharged, flying through the air, and piercing the belt of Menelaus.

The description of the Myrmidons in battle-array, Iliad Π. v. 215.

Ἀσπὶς ἄρ’ ἀσπίδ’ ἔρειδε, κόρυς κόρυν ἀνέρα δ’ ἀνήρ.

is of the same kind, and has never been hit by any imitation: what beauties in one line!

Plato’s periods were, from their harmony, compared[129] to a noiseless smooth-running stream. But we should be mistaken in confining the tongue to the softer harmonies only: it became a roaring torrent, boisterous as the winds by which Ulysses’ sails were torn, split only in three or four places by the words, but rent by the sound into a thousand tatters[130]. This was the “_vivida expressio_,” the living sound; supremely beautiful, when properly and sparingly used!

How quick, how refined must the organs have been, which were the depositaries of such a tongue! The Roman itself could not attain its excellence: nay, a Greek father, of the second century of the christian æra[131], complains of the horrid sound of the Roman laws.

Nature keeps proportion; consequently the frame of the Greeks was of a fine clay, of nerves, and muscles most sensibly elastic, and promoting the flexibility of the body: hence that easiness, that pliant facility, accompanied with mirth and vigour, which animated all their actions. Imagine bodies most nicely balanced between leanness and corpulency: both extremes were ridiculed by the Greeks, and their poets sneer at the Philesiases[132], Philetases[133], and Agoracrituses[134].

But though they were beautiful, and by their law early initiated into pleasure, they were not effeminate Sybarites. As an instance of which we shall only repeat what Pericles pleaded in favour of the Athenian manners, against those of Sparta, which were as different from those of the rest of Greece, as their public oeconomy was: “The Spartans, says Pericles, employ their youth to get, by violent exercises, manly strength: but we, though living indolently, encounter every danger as well as they; calmly, not anxiously, mindful of its approaches, we meet it with voluntary magnanimity, and without any compulsion of the law. Not disconcerted by its impending threats, we meet its most furious attacks, with no less boldness than they, whom perpetual practice has prepared for its strokes. We are fond of elegance, without loving finery; of genius, without being emasculate. In short, to be fit for every great enterprize, is the characteristic of the Athenians[135].”

I cannot, nor will I pretend to fix a rule without allowing exceptions. There was a Thersites in the army of the Greeks. But it is worth observing, that the beauty of a nation was always in proportion to their cultivation of the arts. Thebes, wrapt up in a misty sky, produced a sturdy uncouth race[136],[137]according to Hippocrates’s observation on fenny, watry soils[138]; and its sterility in producing men of genius, Pindar only excepted, is an old reproach. Sparta was as defective in this respect as Thebes, having only Alcman to boast of; but the reasons were different: whereas Attica enjoyed a pure and serene sky, which refined the senses[139], and of course shaped their bodies in proportion to that refinement; and Athens was the seat of arts. The same remark may be made with regard to Sicyon, Corinth, Rhodes, Ephesus, &c. all which having been schools of the arts, could not want convenient models. The passage of Aristophanes, insisted on in the letter[140], I take for a joke, as it really is—and thereby hangs a tale: to have the parts, whereon

_Sedet æternumque sedebit_ _Infelix Theseus,_

Virg.

moderately complete, were Attick beauties. Theseus[141], made prisoner by the Thesprotians, was delivered from his captivity by Hercules, but not without some loss of the parts in question; a loss bequeathed to all his race. This was the true mark of the Thesean pedigree; as a natural mark, representing a spear[142], signified a Spartan extraction; and we find the Greek artists imitating in those places the sparing hand of nature.

But this liberality of nature was confined to Greece, in a narrower sense. Its colonies underwent the same fate, which its eloquence met with when going abroad. “As soon, says Cicero[143], as eloquence set out from the Athenian port, she plumed herself with the manners of all the islands in her way, adopted the Asiatick luxury, and forsaking her sound Attick expression, lost her health.” The Ionians, transplanted by Nileus from Greece into Asia, after the return of the Heraclides, grew still more voluptuous beneath that glowing sky. Heaps of vowels brought wantonness into every word; the neighbouring islands partook of their climate and manners, which a single Lesbian coin may convince us of[144]. No wonder then, if their bodies degenerated as much from those of their ancestors, as their manners.

The remoter the colonies the greater the difference. Those Greeks, who had chosen their abode in Africa, about _Pithicussa_, fell in with the natives in adoring apes; nay, even gave the names of those animals to their children[145].

The modern Greeks, though composed of various mingled metals, still betray the chief mass. Barbarism has destroyed the very elements of science, and ignorance over-clouds the whole country; education, courage, manners are sunk beneath an iron sway, and even the shadow of liberty is lost. Time, in its course, dissipates the remains of antiquity: pillars of Apollo’s temple at Delos[146], are now the ornaments of English gardens: the nature of the country itself is changed. In days of yore the plants of Crete[147] were famous over all the world; but now the streams and rivers, where you would go in quest of them, are mantled with wild luxuriant weeds, and trivial vegetables[148].

Unhappy country! How could it avoid being changed into a wilderness, when such populous tracts of land as Samos, once mighty enough to balance the Athenian power at sea, are reduced to hideous desarts[149]!

Notwithstanding all these devastations, the forlorn prospect of the soil, the free passage of the winds, stopped by the inextricable windings of entangled shores, and the want of almost all other commodities; yet have the modern Greeks preserved many of the prerogatives of their ancestors. The inhabitants of several islands, (the Greek race being chiefly preserved in the islands), near the Natolian shore, especially the females, are, by the unanimous account of travellers, the most beautiful of the human race[150].

Attica still preserves its air of philanthropy[151]: all the shepherds and clowns welcomed the two travellers, Spon and Wheeler; nay, prevented them with their salutations[152]: neither have they lost the Attick salt, or the enterprising spirit of the former inhabitants[153].

Objections have been made against their early exercises, as rather derogating from, than adding to, the beauteous form of the Greek youths.

Indeed, the continual efforts of the nerves and muscles seem rather to give an angular gladiatorial turn, than the soft Contour of beauty, to youthful bodies. But this may partly be answered by the character of the nation itself: their fancy, their actions, were easy and natural; their affairs, as Pericles says, were managed with a certain carelessness, and some of Plato’s dialogues[154] may give us an idea of that mirth and chearfulness which prevailed in all the Gymnastick exercises of their youth. Hence his desire of having these places, in his commonwealth, frequented by old folks, in order to remind them of the joys of their youth[155].

Their games commonly began at sun rise[156]; and Socrates frequented them at that time. They chose the morning-hours, in order to avoid being incommoded by the heat: as soon as their garments were laid down, the body was anointed with the elegant Attick oil, partly to defend it from the bleak morning-air; as it was usual to practice, even during the severest cold[157]; and partly to prevent a too copious perspiration, where it was intended only to carry off superfluous humours[158]. To this oil they ascribed also a strengthening quality[159]. The exercises being over, they went to bathe, and there submitted to a fresh unction; and a person leaving the bath in this state “appears, says Homer, taller, stronger, and similar to the immortal Gods[160].”

We may form a very distinct idea of the different kinds and degrees of wrestling among the ancients, from a vase once in the possession of Charl. Patin, and, as he guesses, the urn of a gladiator[161].

Had it been a prevailing custom among the Greeks to walk, either barefooted, like the heroes in their performances[162], or with a single sole, as we commonly believe, their feet must have been bruised. But there are many instances of their extreme nicety in this respect; for, they had names for above ten different sorts of shoes[163].

The coverings of the thighs were thrown off at the publick exercises, even before the flourishing of the art[164]; which was a great advantage to the artists. As for the nourishment of the wrestlers in remoter times, I found it more proper to mention milk in general, than soft cheese.

If I remember right, you think it strange, and even undemonstrable, that the primitive church should have dipped their proselytes, promiscuously: consult the note[165].

As I am now entering upon the discussion of my second point, I could wish that these probabilities of a more perfect nature, among the Greeks, might be allowed to have some conclusive weight; and then I should have but a few words to add.

_Charmoleos_, a Megarian youth, a single kiss of whom was valued at two talents[166], was, no doubt, beautiful enough to serve for a model of _Apollo_: Him, _Alcibiades_, _Charmides_, and _Adimanthus_[167], the artists could see and study to their wish for several hours every day: and can you imagine those trifling opportunities proposed to the Parisian artists, equivalents for the loss of advantages like these? But granting that, pray, what is there to be seen more in a swimmer than in any other person? The extremities of the body you may see every where. As for that author[168], who pretends to find in France beauties superior to those of _Alcibiades_, I cannot help doubting his ability to maintain what he asserts.

What has been said hitherto might also answer the objection drawn from the judgment of our academies, concerning those parts of the body which ought to be drawn rather more angular than we find them in the antiques. The Greeks, and their artists, were happy in the enjoyment of figures endowed with youthful harmony; for, we have no reason to doubt their exactness in copying nature, if we only consider the angular smartness with which they drew the wrist-bones. _Agasias_’s celebrated _Gladiator_, in the _Borghese_, has none of the modern angles, nor the bony prominences authorised by our artists: all his angular parts are those we meet with in the other Greek statues. And this statue, which was perhaps one of those that were erected, in the very places where the games were held, to the memory of the several victors, may be supposed an exact copy of nature. The artist was bound to represent any victor in the very attitude, and instantaneous motion, in which he overcame his antagonist, and the _Amphictyones_ were the judges of his performance[169].

Many authors having written on this, and the following point of the treatise, I have contented myself with giving a few remarks of my own. Superficial arguments, in matters of this kind, can neither suit the deeper views of our times, nor lead to general conclusions. Nevertheless we do not want authors whose premature decisions often get the better of their judgment, and that not in matters concerning the art alone. Pray, what decisions of an author may be depended upon, who, when designing to write on the arts in general, shews himself so ignorant of their very elements, as to ascribe to _Thucydides_, whose concise and energetick style was not without difficulties, even for _Tully_[170], the character of simplicity?[171] Another of that tribe, seems as little acquainted with _Diodorus Siculus_, when he describes him as hunting after elegance[172]. Nor want we blockheads enough who admire, in the ancient performances, such trifles as are below any reasonable man’s attention. “The rope, says a travelling scribler, which ties together Dirce and the ox, is to connoisseurs the most beautiful object of the whole groupe of the Toro Farnese[173].”

_Ah miser ægrota putruit cui mente salillum!_

I am no stranger to those merits of the modern artists which you oppose to the ancients: but at the same time I know, that the imitation of these alone has elevated the others to that pitch of merit; and it would be easy to prove that, whenever they forsook the ancients, they fell into the faults of those, whom alone I intended to blame.

Nature undoubtedly misled Bernini: a _Carita_ of his, on the monument of Pope Urban the VIIIth, is said to be corpulent, and another on that of Alexander the VIIth, even ugly[174]. Certain it is, that no use could be made of the Equestrian statue of Lewis XIV. on which he had bestowed fifteen years, and the King immense sums. He was represented as ascending, on horseback, the mount of honour: but the action both of the rider and of the horse was exaggerated, and too violent; which was the cause of baptizing it a Curtius plunging into the gulph, and its having been placed only in the Thuilleries: from which we may infer, that the most anxious imitation of nature is as little sufficient for attaining beauty, as the study of anatomy alone for attaining the justest proportions: these Lairesse, by his own account, took from the skeletons of Bidloo; but, though a professor in his art, committed many faults, which the good Roman school, especially Raphael, cannot be charged with. However, it is not meant that there is no heaviness in his Venus; nor does it clear him from the faults imputed to him in the Massacre of the Innocents, engraved by Marc. Antonio, as has been attempted in a very rare treatise on painting[175]; for there the female figures labour under an exuberance of breasts; whereas the murderers look ghastly with leanness: a contrast not to be admired: the sun itself has spots.

Let Raphael be imitated in his best manner, and when in his prime; those works want no apology: it was to no purpose to produce Parrhasius and Zeuxis in order to excuse Him, and the Dutch proportions! ’Tis true, the passage of Pliny[176], which you quote concerning Parrhasius, meets commonly with the same interpretation, viz. _that, shunning corpulency he fell into leanness_[177]. But supposing Pliny to have understood what he wrote, we must clear him of contradicting himself. A little before he allowed to Parrhasius a superiority in the contour, or in his own words, _in the outlines_; and in the passage before us, _Parrhasius, compared with himself, seems, in POINT OF THE MIDDLE PARTS, to fall short of himself_. The question is, what he means by middle parts? Perhaps the parts bordering on the outlines: but is not the designer obliged to know every possible attitude of the frame, every change of its contour? If so, it is ridiculous to give this explication to our passage: for the middle parts of a full face are the outlines of its profile, and so on. Consequently, there is no such thing as middle parts to be met with by a designer: the idea of a painter, well-skilled in the contour of the outlines, but ignorant of their contents, is an absurd one. Parrhasius perhaps either wanted skill in the Chiaroscuro, or Keeping in the disposition of his limbs, and this seems the only explication, which the words of Pliny can reasonably admit of. Unless we choose to make him another La Fage, who, though a celebrated designer, never failed spoiling his contours with his colours. Or, perhaps, to indulge another conjecture, Parrhasius smoothed the outlines of his contour, where it bordered on the grounds, in order to avoid being rough; a fault committed, as it seems, by his contemporaries, and by the artists who flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century, who circumscribed their figures, as it were with a knife; but those smooth contours wanted the support of keeping, and of masses gradually rising or sinking, in order to become round, and to strike the eye: by failing in which, his figures got an air of flatness; and thus Parrhasius fell short of himself, without being either too corpulent or too lean.

We cannot conclude, from the Homeric shape which Zeuxis gave his female figures, that he raised them, like Rubens, into flesh-hills. There is some reason to believe, from the education of the Spartan ladies, that they had something of a masculine vigour, though they were the chief beauties of Greece; and such a one is the Helena of Theocritus.

All this makes me doubt of finding among the ancients any companion for Jacob Jordans, though he is so zealously defended in your letter. Nor am I afraid of maintaining what I have said concerning him. Mr. d’Argenville is indeed a very industrious collector of criticisms upon the artists; but as his design is not very extensive, so his decisions are often too general, to afford us characteristical ideas of his heroes.