Art Principles Part 6

HERA

There is no fixed type in art of the ox-eyed sister and spouse of Zeus, the Queen of Olympus, whose breast heaves ever high, and flaming, with the rushing fire of jealousy; the Virgilian incarnation of bitter rage; yet withal the symbol of eternal Earth, yearly renewing her fruitful youth with the burning kiss of the sun. The sculptors of Greece saw in her only the supreme Matron-Spouse, serenely pondering the march of time beneath the awful sway of her lord. A mantle she wore, and a high-throated tunic, as she looked into s.p.a.ce from a square-wrought throne; or she stood in her temple with flowing robe and diadem, inscrutable, before the offerings of an adoring mult.i.tude. But nevertheless she was not insensible to the radiance of Aphrodite.

Polyc.l.i.tus did well to place a cuckoo on her sceptre, and who can forget how the lotus and the hyacinth cushioned the ground on the heights of Ida beneath a golden cloud, which held suspended around the glittering couch a screen of sparkling dew?

It is unfortunate that the painter is at a loss to deal with the majestic scenes in great Juno's story. How is he to depict her flying in the celestial chariot between heaven and earth, each leap of the fiery coursers measuring the range of the eye from a lofty peak across the sea to the endless haze? How can he paint her anointed with ambrosial oil which is ever struggling for freedom to bathe the rolling earth in fragrance? He may add a hundred ta.s.sels to her girdle; perhaps give her the triple grace-showering eardrops, and even the dazzling sun-bright veil; but the girdle of Aphrodite, which peeps from her bosom, will fail to turn the brains of men, or pierce their hearts with rays of soft desire. And the more dreadful side of Hera's history would equally trouble the despairing artist, for dire anger and jealousy ill-become the countenance of a G.o.ddess. The smouldering fire must never leap into flame. Eyes may not flash, not the lips quiver, and the n.o.ble brow must be free from fitful thought.

So with Hera there is no middle course for the painter. He must represent her alone, calm and pa.s.sionless, unfathomable, with a sublime disregard of earth; or else join with his predecessors and drag her down to a mundane level in scenes of trivial fable. But there is room for untold Heras of the higher type.

DEMETER

Matron-Guardian of the yielding soil; heart-stricken wanderer over the earth; mysterious silent Food-Mother whom all men love and the G.o.ds revere; eternal life-preserver; fruitful, but pa.s.sionless save where the vision of Pluto looms, Iasus and Poseidon notwithstanding! Such was the Demeter of the ancient Greeks till the hordes of Alexander mingled her fame with the l.u.s.tre from Isis and De. So the mourning _haute dame_ of Olympus came nearer the seat of her care, nearer the dread home of her daughter: pa.s.sed from Homer to Theocritus; from the adoration of the higher priesthood of Greece, to become merged in the Ceres of Rome, the G.o.ddess beloved of the lowly, who received the first fruits of the field amidst joyful measures of dance and song. But it is the _haute dame_ that strikes our imagination--the staid and mystic Demeter of Eleusis, and not the Ceres of the Roman lyric. The light-hearted Ceres, as a beautiful woman in the prime of life, may be adorned with poppies and wheat-ears, may stand serene and smiling as a symbol of harvest or the G.o.ddess of a Latin temple; but paint her as one will, she will do little more than serve to show how fallen are the idols--how immeasurable is the descent from the stately Earth-Mother whose image would be stamped on the brain of a Phidias.

But where is the Phidian Demeter? Surely such a G.o.ddess, "deeply musing in her hallowed shrine," was a theme for the carver of the immortal Zeus and Athena! Perhaps those inscrutable headless "Fates" from the Parthenon, so wonderful in n.o.ble grace that the conception of befitting heads is beyond the reach of our minds, include the Earth-Mother and her daughter! How easy it is to imagine the reclining figure as Persephone leaning upon the mother who loved her so well! But we must be content with what we have of Demeter in art, which is little more than a few fifth century frieze reliefs, the figure from Cnidos attributed to Scopas,[a] and some Damophon memories of Phidias.

[a] See Plate 7.

So the artist is free and untrammelled in respect of the representation of the far-famed G.o.ddess. There is no definite type of her which has fixed itself on the minds of men, though the legend and story weaved about her name are beautiful and wonderful in a high degree.

ATHENA

Though swathed in legend and surrounded with a hallow of Grecian reverence, Athena is always cold. She may dim the sun with the radiance of her armour; ride in a flaming car, and have Strength and Invisibility for her allies; but she fights only on the side of the strong, and uses the tactics of spies against her enemies. With the Gorgon's head on her shield, and a helmet which will cover the soldiers of a hundred towns, she yet whispers advice to Grecian heroes, and deflects a Trojan arrow in its flight. Truly as G.o.ddess of War she is somewhat difficult to generalize. But she is also the divinity of the arts and sciences; invents the pipe and the shuttle, and becomes the depository of all industrial knowledge. Hence she embodies the triumphs of peace and war--combines the extremes of human exertion.

How Phidias overcame the task of representing the G.o.ddess is well known.

He generalized war and wisdom, and from his great work of the Parthenon there can be little departure in respect of bearing and att.i.tude, so long as the province of war is symbolized in the design. The actual work of the Greek master has disappeared, but from various records and copies, it would appear that the Parthenon Athena was the loftiest conception ever worked out in sculpture, if we except the Olympian Zeus.

Majestic grace and the unconscious power derived from supreme knowledge, seem to have been the first qualities exhibited in the statue. In the fourth century there was no great departure from the Phidian ideal, and it is difficult to see how there could be much modification in the direction of bringing the conception closer to earth, for the G.o.ddess had no special presumed form which could be adapted by the artist to popular ideas. A nude figure would be impossible because in this the force and power implied in a hero of war could not be combined with feminine attributes. The Greeks drew the line at observable muscular developments, invariably clothing nearly the whole of the figure, but they did not, and could not, free her general bearing from certain masculine qualities. It is true that the costume of the G.o.ddess might be modified, and Phidias himself represented her in one or two statues without a helmet, an example followed by several artists of the Renaissance,[a] but so long as the symbols of war are included in her habit, she can be only of formal use to the painter.

[a] See Piero di Cosimo's Marsyas and the Pipes of Athena,[47] and Botticelli's Athena and the Centaur.

APOLLO

Although in mythology Apollo is connected with everything on earth which is useful or pleasing to mankind, in art custom has so confined his representation in respect of both appearance and symbols, that a type has been established from which it would be difficult to depart without a suggestion of incongruity arising. This type is of a more purely formal character than that of any other G.o.d, except perhaps Mercury, a circ.u.mstance probably arising from the fact that the reputed hard nature of Apollo fails to lend itself to sympathetic idealization. He does not appear to have been a favourite subject with the greatest sculptors of ancient times, for nearly all the innumerable statues of him which have come down to us, are reproductions of two or three types which in themselves vary but little. It is difficult to see how a really n.o.ble ideal of such a G.o.d can be suggested. Stern and inflexible, with many human vices but no weaknesses or gentle traits, and withal a model of physical beauty without strength or apparent power--in fact an emphasized feminine form: such is the Apollo of tradition and art. We cannot wonder that the type was quickly fixed, the limitations to avoid the abnormal being so well defined.

The painter then has small scope with the figure of this G.o.d. He may only slightly vary the accepted form, which admits of but a negative expression. The best representation of Apollo in modern art is the one by Raphael in the Parna.s.sus fresco at the Vatican, though the beautiful figure in the Marsyas work at the Louvre is very nearly as perfect.[48]

Raphael does not give to the G.o.d the rounded swellings of a female form, but overcomes the difficulty by showing him as a young man of perfect figure who has just reached maturity. The expression is entirely general, but does not suggest a G.o.d-like power.

DIANA

It would scarcely be natural to be sympathetic with Artemis. She seems to be the feminine type of a cold flint-like nature, as Apollo is the masculine, and one can well understand that mythology makes of them brother and sister. Mistress of wild beasts and G.o.ddess of sudden death, she was always worshipped from fear: her wrath had ever to be appeased; she inspired neither affection nor respect. True, she wore the mantle of Ililythia, but only to be dreaded, and even the attempt to throw a warm halo over her by the theft of the Endymion story for her benefit, failed to lift her reputation for the tireless satisfaction of a supernatural spleen. Nevertheless for the painter Diana has always had a certain attraction, because the legends connected with her offer opportunities for the exercise of skill in the representation of the nude. But there is an end of all things, and the bathing and hunting scenes have been fairly exhausted. For the sculptor only is Artemis likely to live.

Bright colours are not the vehicle to represent the symbol of an idea which is beyond, but not above, nature--a useless abstraction which neither warms the heart nor elevates the soul. Callisto draws our sympathy, and Niobe our tears: the G.o.ddess freezes our veins.

NEPTUNE

Brother of Jupiter and Pluto; sire of Theseus, of Polyphemus, and of the t.i.tanic lads who threatened to pile mountain on mountain in order to destroy the home of the deities; the G.o.d whose footsteps tremble the earth; who disputes with the sun; who uses floods and earthquakes for weapons; who owns vast palaces in the caverns of the deep; for whom the angry waves sink down beneath the shining sea, and ocean monsters play around his lightning track across the waters: this is the divinity whom the painter is accustomed to portray as a rough bearded man with dishevelled hair and rugged features, holding a three-p.r.o.nged fork, and a.s.sociating with dolphins, mermaids, and sh.e.l.ls. But Neptune is not a popular G.o.d. He does not appeal to the mind as a good-natured G.o.d like Jupiter or Mercury, with many of the virtues and some of the failings of mankind. His acts are mostly violent; he punishes but does not reward; grows angry but is never kind. There is consequently no sympathetic att.i.tude towards him on the part of the artist, who would sooner paint good than bad actions. Beyond his violent acts, the circ.u.mstances which make up the history of the G.o.d, provide subjects more suitable for the poet than the painter, who is practically confined to unimportant and casual incidents which, with changes of accessories, would answer a thousand scenes in mythological history. Neptune then may well disappear from the purview of the painter, with the tritons and the seaweed entourage.

MARS

From the point of view of the painter, there is little to say about the Grecian Ares. He has not a single good trait in legend or story, and we know nothing of his presumed personal form beyond the military externals. It is difficult to understand how such a G.o.d came to be included among the deities of a civilized race. Of what service could be prayer when it is addressed to a blatant, bloodstained, genius of the brutal side of war, without feeling or pity, and apparently so wanting in intelligence that he has to leave the direction of battles to a G.o.ddess? One would think that Homer intended him as the G.o.d of bullies, or he would not have made him roar like ten thousand men when struck with a stone, nor would he have allowed him to be imprisoned by two young demiG.o.ds, and contemptuously wounded by a third. But who is responsible for the a.s.sociation of such a wretched example of divinity with the radiant Aphrodite, for surely it is only the cloak of Homer that covers the story! Was it a painter who had sought in vain from the poets a suggestion for a composition in which the G.o.d would at least appear normal, or a cynical critic who wished to incite ridicule as well as contempt for the divinity? In any case the painter must sigh in vain for an inspiriting design with Ares as the leading figure: he cannot harmonize love and terror.

The Roman Mars has a slight advantage over Ares, for the name of Silvia is sweetly-sounding, but she should be represented alone, as the star of the wild Campagna, while yet it was forest-clad: the gleaming light whose rays are to illumine the earth. Mars may disappear with the wolf, but who can hide the glory of Rome?

MERCURY

It is difficult to connect the Hermes of the poet with the tedious expressionless figure commonly seen in painting, whose only costume is a helmet, and whose invariable province is apparently to look on and do nothing. For the sculptor he is a G.o.d; for the painter a symbol of subordination. A Rubens may give him the pulse of life, but only the sculptor can suggest the divinity. With the painter the winged helmet is a bizarre ornament; the immortal sandals are shrunken to leather; the caduceus is a thing of inertia which is ever in the way. But with the sculptor all these things may be endowed with the quickening spirit of a soaring mind, for does not Giovanni di Bologna show the lithesome G.o.d speeding through s.p.a.ce ahead of the wind, the feathery foot-wings humming with delirium, the trembling air dividing hastily before the wand? True, the painter may represent the divine herald on his way through s.p.a.ce, as when he conducts Psyche to Olympus, or leads the shades of the suitors to Hades; but the accessories present must surround him with an earthy framework, unless the design be confined to a ceiling, and shut away from things mundane with architectural forms, as in the plan of Raphael at the Farnese Villa, or to a fresco executed in the manner of a Flaxman drawing. Beyond these artifices the artist cannot go with propriety.

Few and worn are the scenes in the history of the G.o.d in which he takes a leading part. The head of Argus seems to be cut off, or awaiting separation, in nearly every collection, sometimes with Juno on a cloud deeply frowning with revengeful ire, occasionally with the peac.o.c.k expectant of its glorious fan, but always with the weak-looking helmeted piper, pa.s.sive and unconcerned as if fulfilling a daily task. A Correggio may weave his golden fancy around a scene where Cupid learns to strengthen his arrows with the rules of science and the wiles of art; but let the painter beware of the infant Bacchus in the arms of the messenger-G.o.d, lest a vision of the Olympian group arise and enfold his work in a robe of charity. The schemes whereby the cradled thief deceived the Pythian G.o.d are beyond the scope of the painter, though there is a certain available range in the charming actions surrounding the invention of the lyre. And if the designs relating to the unfortunate Lara be properly consigned to oblivion, surely the connection of Hermes with Pandora offers a field for the sprightly imagination. But save where the G.o.d is a symbol of commerce or speed, the helmet should be dispensed with, for it is hackneyed beyond endurance. The modern painter is not bound by custom unless the provision of beauty conflict with the lucidity of the design or the reverence for universal sentiment. Let the winged heels suffice, for the shadow of Persius will scarcely rise in protest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 12 (See page 145) Greek Portraiture Head of Plato Head of Euripides]

BACCHUS

Centuries of baccha.n.a.lian festivities and revelries have nearly killed Bacchus for the painter. Who can further interest himself in meaningless processions, where the most prominent figure is a fat, drunken, staggering man, supported by goat-hoofed monstrosities, and attended by all the insignia of vinous royalty? Silenus is no more the loving nurse of the infant G.o.d; the satyrs are no more the followers of a reed-playing woodland deity; the nymphs have long forgotten the flowery dales, the faithful trees that lived and died with them, the fairy bowers where first Semele's offspring clapped his hands to the measure of dance and pipe. Why should the dance be turned into a drunken revel?

Why should the artist remember the orgies of Rome, and forget the Grecian pastoral fancies? What has become of Dionysus, inheritor of Vishnu traditions, the many-named father of song, the leader of the Muses, and the fire-born enemy of pirates? Nothing remains of him worth remembering, save Ariadne the golden-haired, and she must in future be left on the desert isle lest the pathos of her figure be disturbed by the motley followers of her rescuer.

It is pa.s.sing strange that the artists of the Renaissance did not attempt to lift Bacchus out of the ditch of ignominy into which he had fallen. They seem to have taken their ideas from the recorded accounts of the Roman rites and vine festivals, overlooking the Grecian suggestions relating to Dionysus, and even the later restrained reliefs picturing incidents in his history. In their art, however, as is evidenced by Pompeian frescoes, the Romans often treated Bacchus in a serious manner, a.s.sociating him with higher interests than those connected with festival orgies. It may be that the figure of the G.o.d carved by Michelangelo[a] had something to do with the later coa.r.s.e representations of him, for it would have been impossible for artists succeeding so great a sculptor, to ignore the types he created. But it will be an eternal mystery how he came to design such a Bacchus. A voluptuous semi-realistic G.o.d, opposed to everything else that was conceived by the sculptor, and antagonistic to all that was known in Greece, it can never be anything more than a sublime example of a purely earthly figure. One stands amazed before the perfect modelling, but aghast at the conception. It represents the most extraordinary transition from the G.o.d-like man of the Greeks, to a man-like G.o.d, ever seen in art.

[a] In the Bargello, Florence.

The painter then has little left to use of the conventional Bacchus and his history, except the never-dying Ariadne, but there is nothing to prevent him from reverting to the pastoral Dionysus, to the delightful abodes of the nymphs his foster-mothers, where Pan played and the Muses sang, while the never-tiring son of Maia breathed tales of love into willing ears.

VULCAN

The poet may continue to hold our fancy with volcanic fires and cyclopean hammers, but on canvas Etna becomes a blacksmith's forge, and the figure of a begrimed human toiler is given to the divinity responsible for the golden handmaids, and the brazen bull whose breath was scorching flame. There is rarely a painting of Vulcan without a forge and leather bellows, with a smith who is stripped to the waist, which earthly things necessarily kill all suggestions of celestial interest, notwithstanding the presence of Venus, or the never-fading bride of palsied Peleus. Occasionally we have the incident with Mars, and strangely look for the invisible net, but not finding it we are immediately called back to earth to ponder over the wiles of the ancient legend gatherers. The art is lost behind the unreality. But why does not the painter revert to the childhood of Vulcan, when he was hiding in the glistening cavern beneath the roll of ocean, fashioning resplendent eardrops for silver-footed Thetis? Here is scope for the imagination--to indicate the fancies of the budding genius who was to carve the wondrous shield, and adorn the heaven-domed halls of Olympus. Let Hephaestus mature as he will for the poet: he should only bloom for the painter.

GENERAL CLa.s.sICAL COMPOSITIONS

Scenes of adventure from the ancient poets in which the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses are concerned, appear to be rapidly becoming things of the past for the painter. This is partly due to the circ.u.mstance that these scenes have been so multiplied since the early days of the Renaissance, that they are now positively fatiguing to both artists and the public; but there is a deeper reason. If we try to number the paintings of cla.s.sical subjects by first-cla.s.s artists which are enshrined in our minds, we can count very few, and nearly all of these are single figures, as a Venus, a Leda, a Psyche, or a Pandora. We do not call up a Judgment of Paris, or a Diana and Actaeon, or any other design where divinities are mixed with mortals in earthly actions. The cause of this seems to be that our minds naturally revolt against a glaring incongruity. The imagination is unable to harmonize the qualities of a G.o.d with the possession of human instincts and frailties, or strike a balance between divine actions and human motives. We see these pictures and admire the design and execution, but they leave us cold: we are unable to kindle enthusiasm over patent unreality. The general conclusion is that painters would be wise to avoid such compositions, and confine their attention in cla.s.sical work to single figures of G.o.ddesses or heroines, leaving to the poet suggestion of miraculous powers.

CHAPTER IX

EXPRESSION. PART IV.--GENERAL IDEALS

Limitation of the painter with general ideals--Ideal heads interchangeable in sacred and symbolical art--Ideal male human countenances impossible for the painter.

In the arts of sculpture and painting, where it is necessary that the beauty should be immediately recognized by the eye, it is obvious that a general expression is superior to the particular. This is so because the general covers universal experience and the particular does not. But in the art of the painter there is a limit to the expression of general beauty. Theoretically there is no beauty possible to the sculptor which the painter cannot produce, but practically there is. A sculptor may carve what we understand as a G.o.d-like figure--a glorious image embodying all the highest qualities that may be conceived by man, with a general expression covering supreme wisdom and every n.o.ble attribute--such a figure as the greatest Grecian artist chiselled. This figure would stand in front of us, isolated, serene in its glory, and we should look and wonder, and a second or two would suffice to fill our entire mind with the image. For it would be above the earth, above all our surroundings. We could connect nothing on earth with it--neither human beings, nor green fields, nor the seas, and certainly not human habitations, and ways, and manners, and actions. A Phidian G.o.d can have no setting. Everything on earth is too small, too insignificant to bear it company. The reflection from the majesty of the design throws into shadow our loftiest earthly conceptions.