When compared with these weighty reasons against the dependence of primitive Grecian sculpture upon that of Egypt, the arguments adduced in favor of the supposition seem insufficient. Chief among these is the opinion of several ancient writers who vaguely imply that the oldest sculpture of the Greeks was related to that of the Egyptians, and derived from it as a later production. But it is well known that Pausanias and Diodoros were not exacting as to proofs of their opinions in regard to the history of art. In this instance, they were deluded by the same outward resemblance which has been so deceptive in modern times,—a similarity dependent upon that stiffness of archaic statues common to every primitive art, and to the attenuation and union of the extremities, which resulted from the economy of material and labor natural to both countries. But though, in the beginning of Greek sculpture, certain difficulties of execution were avoided in the same manner as in Egypt, and the material of the carved figures, whether wood or stone, was meted out as scantily as possible, it does not follow that they were directly dependent upon the Egyptian works which were influenced by like considerations.

It is otherwise with the relations between Western Asiatic art and the early sculpture of Greece. The preceding section has made it evident that the most prominent characteristics of the Ionic style were developed from this root, and the influence of Asiatic motives was as marked in regard to the sculpture as to the architecture of Hellas. The fully perfected flower, however, but little betrays an Oriental derivation in either province. The art of Asia Minor and of Syria had taken an essentially different starting-point from that of Egypt—one more nearly allied to the Greek point of view. Instead of formulating the human figure by a fixed canon after the manner of the Egyptians, it looked to nature itself, with a decided realistic tendency. But in its later development, as already shown, Mesopotamian art went as much too far beyond reality as that of Egypt had remained behind it; and the self-sufficiency of the Eastern despotisms resulted in that utter standstill which checked the life of art in Assyria, Persia, and Phœnicia. The acquired forms, as upon the Nile, stiffened into conventional types, with the difference that those of Egypt took more the character of a written chronicle, those of Mesopotamia and its dependencies more that of ornament. Hellenic genius could only remain upon such a low level during its immaturity; there are, therefore, almost no traces of direct Asiatic influence evident in the sculptures of Greece after the most primitive period, although in this it is unmistakable. We may call this period of development the heroic age, and understand by it the epoch from the earliest times to the first Olympiad, 776 B.C. Even the native legends concerning the beginning of Greek art point towards the East. The mythical founders of monumental buildings, the Cyclops, to whom were ascribed the oldest stone sculptures, like those upon the Lions’ Gate of Mykenæ, came from Lycia. The Dactylæ appear in groups upon the mountains of Phrygia and Crete often bearing names characteristic of their significance as cunning artisans—Kelmis, Damnameneus, and Acmon (hammer, tongs, and anvil); while the Telchinæ—Chryson, Argyron, and Chalkon (workers in gold, silver, and copper)—inhabited Rhodes. The personification of various metal-workers in these mythical guilds is unequivocal, and the attributed locality of their dwellings has a corresponding meaning, pointing to the coasts of Western Asia, where the process of overlaying wooden carvings with beaten metal was predominant, as in Phœnicia and the intermediate island of Cyprus. This empaistic work, of plates shaped upon a model by hammer and punch, presupposes the carving of the model itself, without which the creation of the sphyrelaton was obviously impossible. The gold overlaying of Solomon’s Temple was formed upon reliefs carved in cedar-wood, and was, perhaps, beaten over them: before the discovery of bronze-casting, we may conclude this also to have been the case with works of statuary in the round. The art of sculpture in wood seems to have been native among the early Greeks; carved idols, xoana, soon appearing as substitutes for those stones and trunks of trees (Paus. vii. 22), which, provided at times with the attributes of trident, caduceus, lance, or sceptre, were at first worshipped as divine symbols. These were frequently so old that no account could be given of their origin, and they were consequently said to have fallen from the skies. It is difficult adequately to conceive the rudeness of these most ancient xoana. The arms were not at all separated from the body, and were indicated only in as far as was necessary to attach to them characteristic attributes, like the garment and spindle in one hand, and the lance in the other, of the Trojan Athene described by Homer. The sacred figure was frequently quite covered with real doll-like clothing, as is the Virgin or the Bambino in many modern places of pilgrimage provided by the Roman Catholic Church. The difficulty of representing the hair of these puppets appears, from the later treatment of the heads in marble, as seen in the Apollo of Tenea, to have been evaded by the use of a woolly covering like a wig. The want of definition in the faces is evident from the statement that some xoana had closed eyes. This is not to be explained by the pious legends of antiquity that the image had refused to look upon some deed of sacrilege,—such, for instance, as the rape of Cassandra,—but by the fact that the eye was indicated only by a horizontal painted line. It was from such rude figures that Daidalos advanced. It was not only said that he was the inventor of various instruments for wood-working, such as the axe, saw, auger, and plummet; but certain improvements in the shaping of the statues were also ascribed to him, such as the opening—that is to say, the formation—of the eye, and the separating of feet, as if in the act of stepping. The progress cannot, in fact, have been great. The traditional account that the images had to be bound after the freeing of their legs, to prevent their running away, must not lead us to imagine an ideal perfection, or, indeed, any striking resemblance to life. The classical authorities who knew the works attributed to Daidalos say, indeed, that they were “wonderful to look upon,” and that “the master would have made himself ridiculous by such works in our day.” The personality of Daidalos is hardly better assured than that of the mythical workers in metal, the Dactylæ and Telchinæ; the name itself, signifying the cunning workman, is nothing else than a personification of artistic skill, a collective term for all primitive skill and activity in wood-carving. As this had developed from handiwork, the legend calls the father of Daidalos, Palamaon, the contriver, or Eupalamos, the skilful artisan. The travels which Daidalos is said to have made from Athens to Crete, Sicily, Thebes, Pisa, Egypt, etc., merely result from the appearance of so-called Daidalian works in those places. In the time of Homer, the ninth century B.C., these images were already regarded as of great age; so that the period of the beginning of Greek sculpture must be at least as remote as the tenth century B.C. The one statue directly mentioned in the Iliad, the sitting Athene at Troy, upon whose knees the Trojan women laid a garment, appeared to the author of the Homeric epics to be a work in the manner of Daidalos. If another passage (Iliad, i. 14) may be understood as referring to an image of Apollo, this must, like the Athene, have been at least partially covered with real clothing. Such figures were also overlaid with metal; it is not to be doubted that the gold and silver dogs, and the youthful torch-bearers of gold, in the Palace of Alkinoos were carved models of wood covered with beaten plate. The empaistic process, native to Phœnician countries, was early imitated in heroic Greece. Though the island of the Phæacians was idealized by the fancy of the poet, he yet cannot be supposed to have invented new technical processes in an account which was to be generally intelligible. It seems, however, that sculptural art had no great range during the heroic ages; perhaps the works overlaid with beaten metal, which were known to Homer, may have been the results of an accidental and superficial knowledge gained by intercourse with the Oriental peoples inhabiting the coasts of Western Asia.

Fig. 187.—Cover of Dodwell’s Vase, in Munich. Full size.
Fig. 187.—Cover of Dodwell’s Vase, in Munich. Full size.

The manufacture of furniture and smaller decorative objects was probably more important. Homer was acquainted with the use of the lathe; while relief-carving in wood, and inlaying of metal, ivory, and amber, were early practised. The latter process can also be referred to Phœnician influence, in consideration both of the materials employed and of historical analogy. Even kings busied themselves with such handiwork, as the building of his nuptial couch by Odysseus proves; and royal ladies, such as Penelope, Andromache, and Helen, embroidered and wove elaborate textures. Professional workmen are also mentioned: Icmalios was the maker of Penelope’s seat; and some productions of this nature, like the chest of Kypselos, were as late as the beginning of the historical ages of Greece. Sculptured utensils of metal, vessels, tripods, and weapons, are particularly and distinctly described in the Homeric epics. The jars and vases described as “embossed with flowers” may be imagined as decorated with wreaths, like those found in Assyria and on Cyprus, and as similar to the early Italian bronzes. Cups with knobs (Iliad, xi. 633) were discovered in the excavations at Nineveh; conventionalized animals, serpents and birds (Iliad, xi. 17 and 634; Odyssey, xi. 610, and xix. 227), are to be found upon many primitive vases, and may be supposed to have existed as handles to vessels as well as upon clasps, sword-belts, and armor. References to the Asiatic derivation of the bronze-works known in prehistoric Greece are given by Homer, who mentions craters from Sidon and a Cyprian coat of mail. The shields were especially rich, being formed by several thin plates of metal secured one over the other; every disk was of greater circumference than that above it, only a narrow concentric rim of each thus remaining visible. The inner circle alone upon the comparatively simple shield of Agamemnon (Iliad, xi. 32) was ornamented with sculpture, in this case a Gorgoneion, the outer edges being provided with ten knobs of tin; upon the handle was a three-headed dragon. The shield of Achilles (Iliad, xviii. 468) was wonderfully elaborate, and, as the work of Hephaistos, probably exceeded by far the ordinary ornamentation of heroic arms; but it does not, on this account, give less reliable information concerning the general form and nature of prehistoric armor. Five layers of metal were superimposed,—two of bronze, two of tin, perhaps alternating, that in the centre being of gold; four rings were thus formed around the inner circle, each covered with rich sculptural decoration. Symbols of earth, sea, and sky, with the sun, moon, and stars, were within the golden disk. Upon one side of the first concentric band was shown a city in time of peace, with a wedding procession and a court of justice; upon the other a besieged city, with a sally of the defenders and a general engagement. Upon the second ring were the four seasons, indicated by ploughing, harvesting, the vintage, and by a herd of peacefully grazing cattle attacked by lions. A harvest dance of youths and maidens, before whom was a singer with a harp, decorated the third ring; while the fourth and outermost, probably narrower than the others, was ornamented by waves representing the sea, which, according to the conception of the ancients, surrounded the circular land of the earth. The figures were cut from thin sheets of different metals, and were riveted to the ground; it is uncertain whether these were first beaten to a relief, or were left flat, giving the effect of a silhouette. The metals were naturally chosen of colors different from that of the band to which they were affixed, and the treatment, in principle, thus somewhat approached the art of painting. The ground and the vineyards, in the pictures of the seasons, were of gold, yet “the grapes shone blackish;” the poles appear to have been of silver, the trenches of iron, and the hedges of tin, while upon the dancers “hung golden daggers upon silver straps.” Such empaistic work must have been more closely related to surfaces of inlaid metal upon wooden forms than to the statuesque Phœnician sphyrelaton. Homer’s account of the shield of Achilles should be considered not from a technical, but from an artistic, point of view. The vivid description is, of course, due altogether to poetical license; but we may well believe that subjects like the harvest dances, festive processions, warlike scenes, symbols of the seasons, etc., may have been attempted upon utensils and weapons, though in a more simple and decorative manner, their object not being an artistic setting-forth of details, but an intelligible indication of the whole. With what limited means this is possible is proved by Egyptian coilanaglyphics, Assyrian reliefs, and the paintings upon Greek vases of the most primitive style. (Fig. 187.) The artist of the heroic age cut his figures from thin sheets of metal, just as children snip paper, and set them together upon the background, filling up the intervening spaces as best he might with ornaments and names. Direct Oriental models were hardly needed for this; but it is probable that, as in the sphyrelaton, the influence of Asia Minor was felt: the conventional character of the types painted upon the oldest Greek vases bears distinct evidence of a Phœnician impulse. There was little that was artistic in the details of such early decorations, but all the more in the conception as a whole: the manner of expression was weak, but the thought was admirable. Figures appear upon Assyrian sculptures, so similar to those described by the poet that by their help one might almost reconstruct the Homeric shield; in Mesopotamia, however, the representations lacked unity in the fundamental conception, they were not well grouped in the given space, and appear, as Brunn says, like a chronicle written in figures when compared with such a poem as the artistic compositions, made up, perhaps, of the same elements, described by Homer. The pseudo-Hesiodic shield of Heracles resembled that of Achilles, the chief difference in outward form being that the three inner of the five circular layers were bordered upon the outer edges by narrow rings of steel. The middle plate was decorated with the head of Phoibos, encircled by twelve serpents like a Gorgon. The next band displayed a warlike scene and one of peace: the combat of the Lapithæ and Centaurs in one half, and Apollo among the Muses in the other. The third had a like contrast between a besieged and a peaceful city, similar in composition to those upon the shield of Achilles; while the fourth was also a representation of the seasons, chiefly distinguished from those of Homer by the substitution of a hare-hunt as the symbol of winter. The reliefs upon the four narrow steel rings must have differed in action from the larger groups; in the latter the radial lines of the upright figures prevailed, in the former a contrary movement was predominant. On the innermost steel ring boars and lions moved concentrically around the shield; upon the next following was an arm of the sea, over which flew Perseus, pursued by the Gorgons. The third was a chariot-race at full speed; and upon the outer rim were conventionalized waves, with fishes and swans, forming an ornamental band similar to the border of the Homeric shield.

Fig. 188.—Relief from the Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ.
Fig. 188.—Relief from the Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ.

Our knowledge of the sculptural activity of Greece in the heroic ages has, up to the most recent times, been derived almost entirely from the poets, whose idealized descriptions are supported, in regard to form, only by the analogy of Assyrian reliefs and the paintings upon archaic vases. Works of a primitive period have, indeed, not been entirely wanting; but it being impossible to date them, they lend no aid to an historical consideration. The derivation and age of only two are assured, and the characteristic forms of one of these—the Niobe upon Mt. Sipylos, near Magnesia, mentioned in the Iliad, xxiv. 613—are entirely obliterated. It is so rudely executed, or so weather-beaten, that even in antiquity it appeared to Pausanias, even when seen from the immediate vicinity, as but a shapeless rock, in which the human figure was scarcely to be recognized, while, at a distance, it resembled a woman bowed down with grief and weeping. The account has been verified in recent times by the discovery of a rock-cut relief of three times the size of life, so disintegrated that satisfactory drawings of its human forms could not be made. This renders the other pre-Homeric monument, the most ancient known sculpture of Greece and of Europe, all the more important—namely, the relief over the gate of Mykenæ, called by the poet that of the Lions—the chief portal of the fortress of the Atridæ, the witness of the departure of Agamemnon for the Trojan war, and of the downfall of his house on his return. (Figs. 188 and 126.) The structure has been already described from an architectural point of view. The relief upon the slab which closes the triangle above the lintel represents two lions standing upright upon either side of a column; their heads, turned outward, were separate pieces, fastened with dowels to the background, and have disappeared. The designation of these animals need not be deemed erroneous because they have no manes. Pausanias speaks of them as lions (though this in itself may not be of great weight), and in the Phœnician examples of beaten metal-work, as in the archaic paintings upon Greek vases, the indication of hair is always wanting. The Asiatic influence which, in architectural respects, had made itself felt upon the Tholos of Atreus, must be acknowledged here also; thus alone is it possible to account for a peculiar modelling of the forms, entirely foreign to sculpture in stone. The resemblance of these lions to the animal figures of Assyria is readily recognizable; it is the same resemblance as that which the art industry of the Syrian coasts showed to that of Mesopotamia. The Phœnician tradespeople, themselves skilled in many novel technical processes, formed the medium between the cultured countries upon the Tigris and the Ægean Sea. The Lycian Cyclops had also borrowed from these neighbors, and to them was traditionally attributed this wonderful stone carving at Mykenæ, a work which, from all appearance, was an isolated attempt. Such sculptures could not become national and native so long as the requirements of the heroic Greeks were satisfied with the mere decoration of useful objects. The impulse towards monumental art seems first to have been awakened with the introduction of the columnar temple. Schliemann’s excavations upon the Acropolis of Mykenæ in 1876 have brought to light some few works of sculpture which deserve to be considered. Prominent among them are the memorial stones, two of which are shown in Fig. 189. They are remarkable for a naïve primitiveness of conception and the desire to display the subject chosen as distinctly as possible. A vigorous action and a certain observation of nature are not lacking, though the forms are incorrect, both in general effect and in detail. The similarity of these works to Asiatic sculptures is marked; but no trace of Egyptian influence is to be recognized in the attenuated figures. The same derivation is evident in the spiral ornaments, which closely resemble those upon the façade of the Tholos of Atreus, and upon Phœnician and Cyprian remains. All the reliefs imply models of beaten metal, and lend further support to the hypothesis which connects the heroic age of Greece with the civilization of Western Asia, through the medium of Phœnician traders.

Fig. 189.—Steles from the Acropolis of Mykenæ.
Fig. 189.—Steles from the Acropolis of Mykenæ.

The golden masks found in the graves are not less interesting, whether the assignment of these to the Homeric worthies—Agamemnon, Eurymedon, etc.—be accepted or not. (Fig. 190.) It is at least certain that they are memorials of the heroic age, and the great quantities of gold found in the sepulchres make it probable that they appertained to a royal race, and were buried at a time when the prosperity of Mykenæ was great and its power extensive. The masks, like the grave-stones, are formed with the helpless realism peculiar to the art of Western Asia, and entirely foreign to that of Egypt. It is easy to believe that they were imported directly from Phœnicia. This must certainly have been the case with the beautifully executed ornaments of gold—disks, diadems, stars, etc.—the beaten workmanship of which is of a perfection only possible to trained and practised manufacturers. The spirals and other linear designs are executed with exceeding accuracy, by peculiar instruments. Their motives are taken from the animal and vegetable world, from cuttle-fishes, butterflies, and various forms of leaves and flowers. It is certain that the perforated cylinders, cut, like gems, in intaglio, with scenes of war and hunting, were introduced directly from Asia; they are strikingly similar to the rolling seals of carnelian and agate found in Mesopotamia. A small model of a temple is peculiarly Phœnician, like that repeated upon Paphian coins.

Fig. 191.—From the Vase of Clitias and Ergotimos.
Fig. 191.—From the Vase of Clitias and Ergotimos.

During the first two historical centuries, after the commencement of reckoning time by Olympiads, the direction of activity in art appears to have changed but little. Sculpture, represented by guilds, or families, of handicraftsmen in Athens, Argos, and Sikyon, remained little else than decoration, though, at least in the selection of subjects, it opened for itself new fields. In the heroic ages the scenes were limited to the most immediate realities; but, after the Homeric epics had become the property of the nation, the picturesque treasures of many legends became available. Arctinos of Miletos, in the middle of the eighth century, and, somewhat later, Lesches of Lesbos, continuing the Iliad, sang of the downfall of Troy. Stasimos of Cyprus chose preceding events as his theme; while the myths of the Seven against Thebes, of the Titanomachia, and of the exploits of Heracles and Theseus found similar epic illustration. These poems not only provided the subjects for sculpture, but described them with plastic vividness. This is shown by the two chief works of this period,—the Chest of Kypselos and the Throne of Apollo at Amyclæ. The first was an oblong shrine of cedar-wood, which Kypselos, tyrant of Corinth, consecrated in the Heraion of Olympia, in memory of his preservation as a child, when, hidden in a fruit-box, he had escaped from the persecution of the Bacchiadæ. This chest, either upon three sides—the fourth standing against the wall—or upon the long front side alone, was ornamented with carvings, in five bands, one over the other, probably of unequal height. The reliefs, partly inlaid with ivory and gold, must have been of a workmanship similar to that customary in the heroic ages. The uncommonly rich and varied representations, almost exclusively mythological and heroic, were taken from the before-mentioned cyclic poems (Pausanias, v. 17 to 19). The figures appear to have somewhat resembled in style those upon the Vase of Clitias and Ergotimos in Florence (Fig. 191), which, on account of its banded arrangement and the similarity of its mythical subject, deserves, rather than the cover of Dodwell’s vase given above (Fig. 187), to be compared to the Chest of Kypselos. The Throne of Apollo at Amyclæ, near Sparta, has been connected with the name of one of the oldest artists known, Bathycles of Magnesia, who lived half a century later than the maker of the Chest of Kypselos. This throne also has been minutely described by Pausanias (iii. 18 to 19). In regard to its sculptured decoration, his account of its construction is unintelligible; it is only clear that the framework was colossal, and that the ancient doll-like image stood within it, without any seat. Not less than forty-one scenes, besides the larger compositions upon the pedestal of the statue, covered the outer and inner sides of the throne with carvings in low-relief, similar in style to those of the Chest of Kypselos. Upon the legs in full, or at least in three-quarter, relief were figures of the Graces, the Hours, Tritons, etc.; upon the back were portraits of the master and of his Magnesian assistants, besides sphinxes, panthers, and lions.

These works were still chiefly of a decorative character. Monumental sculpture had not yet freed itself from the trammels of inadequately developed technical processes. So long as the artisan had no choice other than the sphyrelaton and the xoanon, a material foundation was wanting for the development of an independently artistic sculpture. Even when isolated works of a higher order were attempted, as in the colossal Zeus, of beaten gold-plate over a wooden form, dedicated in Olympia by Kypselos or his son Periander, they can be considered, like the other sphyrelata of this and of the heroic age, only as figures of great material value but of little artistic importance. Want of skill in execution favored that clinging to old honored types of devotional figures inherent in the nature of all religions. These influences stood in such close, interchangeable relations that it is impossible to say whether, in the province of sculptured images, the slowness of progress should be placed more to the account of religious prejudices and the difficulties thrown in the way of all change by hieratic institutions, or of the technical limitations of doll-like xoana and sphyrelata.

New mechanical acquirements were needed for the furtherance of the art. Three great discoveries, or, to speak more correctly, the extended application of known processes, date from the beginning of the sixth century B.C.: the casting of bronze, the sculpture of marble, and chryselephantine work (the inlaying of gold and ivory upon a wooden kernel). Each of these had its gradual development, at least the first and the last being furthered by auxiliary inventions. It was indispensable for the casting of bronze that modelling in clay should have attained a certain perfection. The name of the Sikyonian potter Boutades is connected with the introduction of this branch of art; it appears to have been in the middle of the seventh century B.C. that he ornamented the acroteria and antefixes of the temple roof, first with low-relief (prostypon) and then with high-relief (ectypon). He also left a portrait panel in terra-cotta, shown in the Nymphaion of Corinth until the destruction of that city as the first work of its kind. In connection with it was told the pleasing anecdote that the daughter of Boutades, in taking leave of her lover, sketched his shadow upon the wall with charcoal, the father afterwards filling out the outline with clay and burning the relief thus produced. Neither of these accounts are of great direct value, but that a potter could achieve a lasting reputation as an artist may perhaps show that modelling in clay had already made essential progress, and thus prepared the way for brass-founding, which requires an original and mould of this more plastic material. The discovery of soldering was also not without significance; it formed, in metal work, a connecting link between the riveting of the sphyrelaton and casting, even indispensable to larger statues of the latter process, which, at least in the beginning, were executed in pieces. Soldering seems first to have been employed upon iron. Glaucos of Chios attained great results by this means, and attracted general attention to it in the seventh century B.C. His iron crater-stand, dedicated at Delphi by Alyattes, was an elaborate work, ornamented upon the legs and clasps with sculptured animals and plants.

The way was thus prepared for monumental bronze-founding, which was not, indeed, discovered by the Samians Rhoicos and Theodoros, the sons of Phileas and Telecles, to whom it was attributed by antiquity,—for, as has been seen, it was practised by the Phœnicians,—but was by them first introduced into Greek art. The dates assigned to their epoch vary from the beginning of the seventh to the middle of the sixth century B.C.; but it is the more reasonable to place them, with Brunn, at the close of this period, without supposing that there were two masters by the name of Theodoros, a father and a son. The innovation probably began with the solid casting of smaller works, but whether Rhoicos and Theodoros were limited to this is at least doubtful. Economy of material and the lessening of weight in figures of great dimensions must soon have led to hollow casting upon a fire-proof kernel; it is possible that it was this very progress that made the two artists celebrated as discoverers. The development of their technical improvements seems at first to have impaired the artistic aspects of the works; Pausanias says of a female statue by Rhoicos, probably in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, that it was even more archaic and rude than a figure of Athene in Amphissa which was there held to be Trojan. That the two Samians also practised in beaten metal work is clear from the colossal silver mixing-vessel, containing six hundred amphoras (about 200,000 litres), executed by Theodoros and dedicated at Delphi by Crœsus, from a golden vine with grapes of mounted jewels, and a golden plane-tree in the possession of the Persian kings; the latter works remind us of examples of similar workmanship in the Assyrian palaces, the existence of which has been proved by the fragments of palms in gold-plate, lately found by Place upon a portal in the palace of Sargon, at Corsabad. If Theodoros worked thus extensively in the precious metals, it is not surprising that he produced such small toreutic objects as those indicated by the legend of the ring of Polycrates, ascribed to him, and the fabulous portrait statue of a man, with a quadriga in his hand which a fly might have covered with its wings.

A still more brilliant future was open to the second innovation, that of sculpture in marble. Chios was the birthplace of Hellenic marble statuary, as Samos had been of bronze-casting. Coarse stone had been employed from the earliest times, in isolated instances like the relief over the Gate of the Lions at Mykenæ, for figures and for small images; and the introduction of marble statuary was older than bronze-founding, for Melas, ancestor of a long race of sculptors in Chios, lived about the middle of the seventh century B.C. Of Melas himself and his son Mickiades little except the names are known; an artist of the third generation, Achermos, could venture to represent a winged Victory, yet even he was surpassed by his sons Boupalos and Athenis. It is evident, from several notices, that marble sculpture flourished greatly under these latter, who, living about 540 B.C., had become very particular in the choice of material—using only the fine-grained and translucent Parian lychnites. No one venturing to dispute their precedence, they could place upon their sculptures, exhibited in Delos, the self-conscious inscription: “Chios is celebrated, not alone for its vineyards, but for the works of the sons of Achermos.” Numerous works by them are mentioned by ancient visitors, being collected in later times by princely dilettanti. Augustus employed such sculptures upon the exterior of many of his buildings, notably in the gable of the Palatine temple of Apollo; he had an especial and, as it appears, a not ill-founded liking for them, and these works could not have been a disfigurement, even to the universal magnificence of imperial Rome. An explanation of this marked advance at so early a date is given by this very fancy of Augustus: the works thus architecturally utilized could not have been devotional images of the deities; they must have been decorative sculptures. The former class, from reasons already touched upon, were hindered in artistic progress; the latter being beyond the jurisdiction of hieratic institutions, developed untrammelled. It was only in ornamental figures that the assiduous and talented sculptors of early times found free scope, and it was fortunate that the demand for these architectural and decorative works must naturally have been greater than for the more rare devotional images, which were piously transferred from the older sanctuaries to the new buildings which took their place. The gable groups of Ægina show how unequally art advanced in these different and distinct fields.

During the time of Boupalos and Athenis, art began to flourish in other places than Chios. First in Sikyon, with the two Cretans Dipoinos and Skyllis, who may have been even older than the last Chian masters. They were called, it seems, to Sikyon, and there chiefly employed their energies in founding a school, changing at times the site of their labors to Argos, Cleonæ, and Ambrakia. Like the masters of Chios, they chiefly employed the marble of Paros, and it appears, from the accounts of a group representing Apollo, Artemis, Athene, and Heracles, that they too sought their fame less in devotional images for the interior of temples than in monumental compositions for architectural ornament. Although these Cretan sculptors, according to the testimony of Pliny, acquired great celebrity in marble working, they are more important as the founders of the third among the statuesque arts above mentioned—that process of gold and ivory overlaying which culminated in the greatest masterpieces of Pheidias. It seems to have originated from the native xoana of early times, by transferring the inlaid decoration observed upon the furniture of the heroic ages to sculpture in the round. It developed in plainly distinguishable stages. Dipoinos and Skyllis still only in part covered the carved core of wood, and restricted this overlaying to ivory. This is illustrated by the accounts of a group of the mounted Dioscuri, with their mistresses Hilasia and Phœbe, and their sons Anaxis and Mnasinos, in the Temple of the Isius at Argos, which was cut out of common wood and ebony, the former being covered with ivory. Statues were made by Hegylos and his son Theocles, scholars of Dipoinos and Skyllis, for the treasure-house of the Epidamnians in Olympia, which represented Heracles with the Nymphs of the Hesperides, and Atlas bearing the heavenly globe; Pausanias describes this work as cut from cedar-wood, and the serpent and the tree with the golden apples of the Hesperides must certainly have required the inlaying of gold, if not of ivory. The author particularly mentions the employment of gold upon another group: the struggle of Heracles with Acheloos for Deianeira, the work of Donycleidas and Dontas of Lacedæmonia, also scholars of the Cretan masters. The perfection of the chryselephantine process seems early to have been obtained, the wood, before in great part visible, was by the latter artists used only as a kernel, being completely covered with ivory and gold. This was, at least, the case with the Themis of Donycleidas in the Temple of Hera at Olympia. That Pausanias considers these statues extremely archaic must be understood as a relative judgment; it is to be borne in mind that works by which a new process is introduced are always of a primitive and imperfect appearance, if not artistically backward. A sphyrelaton of beaten copper-plates riveted together was still possible to this school, for a figure of Athene Chalkioicos at Sparta was the work of Clearchos of Rhegion, a member of this guild. The sphyrelaton was, indeed, nearly related to chryselephantine work which was virtually a combination of the sphyrelaton with the ancient xoanon. The Æginetan Smilis, of this group of scholars, was celebrated as the first great artist of his island. His connection with the Cretans is more certain than with the later sculptors of Ægina; if he should prove to be older than the native Sikyonian masters, as has recently been asserted, this would add another site to the primitive schools of Greek art.

Fig. 192.—Metope Relief from the Middle Temple of the Acropolis of Selinous.
Fig. 192.—Metope Relief from the Middle Temple of the Acropolis of Selinous.

The history of sculpture, drawn from the remarks of ancient writers, would bear only upon the development of these technical processes, and would give but little information concerning the style of this period, if it were not possible to compare their accounts with several ancient monuments which by great good-fortune have been preserved to our own time. But it is necessary here not to overlook one point which is frequently lost sight of altogether—namely, the local differences betrayed by works of one or the same epoch. Examples of archaic stone sculpture are presented by European Greece, by the Hellenic colonies of the East in Asia Minor, and by those of the West in Sicily, which show the two latter provinces to have followed a somewhat different course of artistic development, and even the works of the Peloponnesos early to have betrayed considerable variations, in conception and in principle, from those of the more northern tracts of the Continent. Among the provincial monuments, the first to be noted, because the oldest known, are the metope reliefs upon the middle temple of the Acropolis of Selinous in Sicily. The city was founded about 628 B.C., and, though this temple may not have been the first built in the new colony, it must be considered as dating at least from the first half of the sixth century. Among numerous fragments of the metope sculptures two tablets have been preserved almost uninjured which are of the greatest value from the plainness with which they express both the artistic advance and the imperfections of this early age. It would be a mistake, however, to see in them representatives of the sculptural style of Greece proper, for they betray in many respects the peculiar influences of Sicilian Doric. In as far as the artistic understanding of the works permitted, they evince a fresh and sound naturalism, and a careful observation of the living model. But this did not extend beyond the more independent members; while arms and legs, hands and feet, are relatively excellent, the body and head are disagreeably heavy, rude, and ill-proportioned. This contrast is particularly noticeable in that of the two reliefs which represent Heracles carrying upon his bow the two Kercopes. The more successful modelling of the details of the limbs shows it to have been the work of an abler artist than the other (Fig. 192), where Perseus, in the presence of Athene, cuts off the head of Medusa. The deity, with naïve helplessness, turns her right foot sideways, though otherwise facing entirely towards the front; the insufficient depth rendered it impossible otherwise to give the foot its full length, and the artist was perhaps withheld from a more correct form by an unconscious dependence upon the more familiar style of low relief. The left leg of the Medusa appears, on account of the confining frame, too short by half, and the little Pegasos stands upon long, kangaroo-like hinder legs, in order that the body may come within reach of the arm of Medusa. Yet the weakness of the transition from the front view of the upper body to the profile of the legs is less striking than in the Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures, and both Perseus and Heracles are wholly free from that typical petrifaction which characterized the art of the Nile and of the Tigris. In spite of the first impression made by the monstrous and disproportioned figures, these works have, with all their imperfections, the peculiar charm of earnest effort, which is the guarantee of ultimate success.

Fig. 193.—Statues from Miletos. British Museum.
Fig. 193.—Statues from Miletos. British Museum.

The most ancient Hellenic sculptures of Asia Minor do not show the same self-reliance and direct study of nature. There the influence of Mesopotamia, Phœnicia, Cyprus, and even of Egypt was so strongly felt that art could not remain wholly free from canonical tendencies, and did not develop simply and directly from natural models. The sitting colossal statues which flanked the sacred way from the port of Panormos to the Temple of Apollo Didymaios near Miletos, and, according to the characters of the inscriptions, date from about 540 B.C., show the naturalistic elements of Greek work in the treatment of the bodies, and especially in the garments, with their scanty but correct folds; though it is not to be denied that the arrangement in rows like the avenues of sphinxes, and the enthroned, Memnon-like position of the priests and priestesses betray reminiscences of Egyptian conceptions,—while the fulness of the bodies and the technical details of the seats are more similar to the traditional forms of Assyria and Phœnicia. The Asiatic influence is still more evident in the epistyle and metope reliefs of the remarkable Doric temple at Assos, now in the Louvre; though the rudeness of their forms may be in part owing to the loss of the stucco coating with which the coarse and excessively hard stone was doubtless overlayed and in which many of the finer details may have been executed. A similarity to the beaten work of metal plate peculiar to Phœnicia is easily recognizable, and reliefs analogous in style, and even in subject, to the sculptures of Assos are offered by the Etruscan bronze-work of a chariot found in Perugia, now in the Munich Glyptothek.

A number of sculptures found in various parts of European Greece are wholly different from these provincial works. Chief among them are entirely nude youthful figures standing in a stiff position, the arms hanging close to the body, and the legs separated—the left being generally a little advanced; the head, with receding brow, is slightly inclined, and looks directly forward; the eyes are large and protruding; the smiling mouth drawn outward at the corners; while the wig-like hair falls low over the shoulders. They are commonly designated as statues of Apollo, although the want of all attributes, such as were so universally employed by primitive art for the figures of deities, and which were so necessary for their characterization, makes this more than uncertain. Moreover, according to Plutarch, a Delian statue of Apollo, the work of Tectaios and Angelion, teachers of the Æginetan Callon, and consequently of this period, showed the god with outstretched hands; a position which was typical in early antiquity, and seems long to have been retained, as in the Milesian Apollo of Canachos, and the small bronze figure in the Louvre. The supposition appears plausible that these figures are those of victors in the national games of Greece; such votive offerings are known to have been carved of wood in the earliest times, but, after 560 B.C., they appear to have been of stone, like that of Arrhachion in Phigalia, described by Pausanias (viii. 40). The Apollo of Thera, now in Athens (Fig. 194), is one of the more ancient of these works; the soft and yet not voluptuous forms of the body, the beauty of outline, united with an evident uncertainty, do not denote a later phase of artistic development than the hard sharpness and strict conventionalism of the greater number of archaic statues. The beginning of this discipline is shown by the Apollo of Tenea, now at Munich, in which there is but little grace and artistic beauty, but all the more an earnest striving after close correctness of modelling, which is more successfully attained in the limbs than in the trunk. Of this epoch, and similar in style, though approaching more nearly to the Apollo of Thera, are the marble statues of Orchomenos, preserved only to the knees, and the torsos of Megara and Naxos, now in Athens. The more ancient sculptures found in Greece proper are less antique in style than the sculptures and reliefs already mentioned, with the exception of some marble steles from Sparta, the most important of which represents upon the one side the meeting of Orestes and Iphigenia, upon the other the murder of Clytaimnestra (Fig. 195). The rude, short figures are somewhat similar to those in the metopes of the middle temple upon the Acropolis of Selinous. This excessive heaviness and awkwardness appears almost entirely overcome in the stele of Aristion, found in northern Attica, and now in Athens. The low relief (Fig. 196), designated as the work of Aristocles, represents a man armed as a hoplite, and is similar, in many important respects, to the Apollo of Tenea, though a decided advance beyond that work. The Attic relief of a woman mounting a chariot, notwithstanding a primitive harshness of form, shows, in the graceful drapery, the inclination of the head and the position of the arms, as well as in the greater certainty of the drawing, qualities which cannot be ascribed exclusively to the superior perception of the inhabitants of Attica, but must be due, at least in part, to a later and more advanced stage of development. With these works may be compared the so-called Leucothea relief in the Villa Albani, which does not, indeed, equal them in composition, but is superior in grace of bearing and beauty of detail. Another sculpture represents the bringing of a child to a female figure seated upon a throne, perhaps the dead mother, and is similar in subject to the celebrated reliefs of the Monument of the Harpies at Xanthos, now in the British Museum, where the Harpies bear children or souls to the deities of the lower world. The former, by greater fulness and softness, as also by less clearness and understanding in the general treatment, seems to precede the latter in point of time, dating from the period between the Milesian colossal figures and the Attic reliefs described, that is to say, from 520 to 500 B.C.