CHAPTER III, CONDITIONS OF RELIGIOUS ART IN GREECE
The Greeks possessed, as we have seen, to an exceptionally high degree
the vivid anthropomorphic imagination necessary for the expression of
their conception of the gods in their art; we have also noticed the
conditions which encouraged or restricted such representation, and the
influences that affected its nature. Given the desire to represent the
character and individuality of the gods in human form, the next question
we have to consider is how far their art, and especially the art of
sculpture, was capable of giving effect to this desire. The answer lies
mainly in the history of Greek sculpture, which can only be touched on
here in the barest outline. But, at the outset, it is necessary to
remove a misconception which is prevalent at the present day, and more
especially in England, owing partly to the dominating influence of a
great critic. Mr. Ruskin's Aratra Pentelici is full of the most
admirable and suggestive appreciations of Greek sculpture in its more
technical aspects; but side by side with them are found passages such as
the following: "There is no personal character in true Greek art;
abstract ideas of youth and age, strength and swiftness, virtue and
vice—yes; but there is no individuality." Or again: "The Greek, as
such, never expresses personal character, while a Florentine holds it to
be the ultimate condition of beauty." If this criticism were just, it
would follow that any study of the relation of religion to art in Greece
would lose most if not all of its interest. But anyone who is acquainted
with the present state of our knowledge of Greek sculpture will not so
much feel called upon to refute such statements as to explain how so
strange a misconception could have arisen. Nor is the explanation very
far to seek. Mr. Ruskin was writing for a generation not yet penetrated
by the constructive criticism of recent investigation. Its conception of
"the antique" in art was based mainly on the mass of mechanical and
academic copies or imitations, of Græco-Roman date, with which our
museums are filled, and on the influence of such sculpture to be seen in
the work of Flaxman or Thorwaldsen. It had, indeed, learnt from the
Elgin marbles that the Greek sculptors in the fifth century possessed a
nobility in their conception of the human form, a mastery in the
treatment of the nude and of drapery, and a skill in marble technique of
which only a faint reflection can be traced in the later Græco-Roman
tradition; but the great statues in which the sculptors of the fifth
century embodied their ideals of the gods were either entirely lost or
preserved only in inadequate copies; and it is only in recent years that
the discovery of originals or the identification of trustworthy copies
has enabled us to appreciate the intensity of expression and of inner
life which distinguished the work of the great sculptors of the fourth
century, such as Scopas, Praxiteles, and Lysippus. Still, if Mr. Ruskin
had, like Brunn in his Götteridealen, selected heads like those of the
Demeter of Cnidus or the Hera Farnese to illustrate his theme, instead
of a series of heads on coins magnified to many times the size for which
they were designed, he could hardly have written the passages just
quoted. But the second of those passages itself supplies us with another
clue. In this estimate of Greek sculpture there is throughout implied a
comparison with Christian, and above all with Florentine art, and its
desire to
"... bring the invisible full into play;
Let the visible go to the dogs; what matters?"
It is evident that the expression of the invisible, of character and
individuality, will be more striking and obvious in an art which lets
them "shine through the flesh they fray" than in the case of the Greek
sculptors whose respect and even passionate admiration for the human
body would not allow them thus to transfigure it, at least in their
statues of the gods, and led them to seek for subtler methods of
expression by means of the flesh and in harmony with its nature. Their
expression of character and emotion is rendered in terms of a beautiful
and healthy body. How this end was attained we must consider later on;
but there is yet another current prejudice in favour of this
exaggeration of individuality which has its influence especially upon
modern artists. It is sometimes said nowadays that a departure from the
individual model is an attempt to "improve upon nature," and is
therefore an artistic mistake. Now the Greek sculptor, as a rule, did
not work from an individual model at all. He trusted partly, especially
in earlier times, to the tradition which familiarised him with a few
fixed types, on which he made variations, partly to his observation and
memory trained for generations, and daily supplied with new material in
the gymnasium where nude youths and men were constantly exercising, or
in the marketplace where he met his fellow-citizens. To see before him,
whether draped or nude, the figures he wanted for his art, he had no
need to pose a model in a studio; his models were at all times around
him in his daily life. The result was that when he wished to represent a
youth or a maiden, or even to make a portrait of a statesman, he tended
to reproduce the type with certain personal modifications rather than to
produce a portrait in the modern sense. But when he came to making
statues of the gods, his freedom of hand was of incalculable service to
him in giving a bodily form to his imagination; it enabled him to create
after nature, without being dependent on an individual model or having
to fall back upon such vague and generalised forms as are sometimes
associated with an academic or classical art; for it was his own trained
observation and memory that he called into play, not a mere mechanical
system he had learnt from his predecessors. In the more individualistic
art of the fourth century, as we shall see, it is probable that the
personal model was of more importance, especially in female statues; but
even then it was still modified by the tradition and style which makes a
harmonious whole, not only of each Greek statue, but of the development
of Hellenic sculpture generally. In typical examples of the sculpture of
the fourth century we find not only this harmony and restraint, and the
beauty of bodily form in figure as well as in features which is
generally recognised as characteristic of Greek art, but also an
expression of character and individuality, of mood and temperament, of
pathos and passion, which is none the less intense and real because it
is expressed by means of the perfection of physical form, not as wasting
or deforming it.
It may be asked how the invisible, mental, or spiritual qualities can be
portrayed in visible form, especially if that visible form be not
overmuch distorted or modified, and in a more general way, how the
expression of a statue, and the impression it produces, can be analysed
or discussed. For examples of the way this can be done, the reader may
be referred once more to Brunn's Götteridealen, a study of a few
selected representations of Greek gods in which the character of each is
brought out by a subtle and discriminating analysis of the visible
forms. Here it may suffice to quote Brunn's own words from the
Introduction to that work: "The spiritual effect produced on us by a
work of sculpture cannot be comprehended as a moral or a metaphysical
peculiarity, completely independent of corporeal phenomena; it can
become intelligible to us only by means of tangible sculptural forms, as
the exponents of spiritual expression." And again: "The spiritual
understanding of ideal artistic creations can only be attained on the
basis of a thorough analysis of their forms"; hence in such a study we
have to do with "no subjective fancies, but an investigation of
objective artistic principles, according to the method of scientific
work."
There are various ways in which spiritual qualities, mood, and character
may be given material expression in harmony with the bodily forms, not
in combat with the flesh. There are, for instance, certain bodily
peculiarities that usually accompany, and therefore suggest by
association, various temperaments or mental qualities; and, moreover,
the actual effect upon the features and bearing of certain emotions or
moods often leaves permanent traces, from which a habitual or repeated
tendency to such emotions or moods can be inferred. That certain types
of face and certain expressions are usually associated with certain
spiritual or mental qualities will hardly be denied; and here the method
of the Greek artist, in observing and working from memory rather than
from a posed model, gave him a great advantage in variety and freedom in
the expression of character no less than in the rendering of bodily
form. If he realised clearly the individuality of his gods, his skill
and mastery over his material and his store of observation gave him a
facility in giving this individuality a visible form which may not be so
obvious at first sight as the individuality of a Florentine or of a
modern head, but which is none the less there for those who have eyes to
see it, and who can accustom themselves to the subtle atmosphere of
ancient art, and to the moderation and restraint which are seldom, if
ever, violated in its most characteristic productions.
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