Greek Sculpture Part 3

THE APOXYOMENOS

An important part of the Greek system of education was the training of the body in physical exercise. For this purpose there were gymnasia in every city, where the youth were trained in running, leaping, wrestling, throwing the javelin, and casting the discus. Great s.p.a.ces were occupied by these gymnasia, which included buildings for dressing-rooms and baths, porticoes and halls used as a.s.sembly-rooms, walks, gardens, and the palaestra, or wrestling-field.

Every four years a great national festival was held at Olympia, consisting of games or contests in the various athletic sports. Every freeman of h.e.l.lenic blood had a birthright to take part in them. The contestants were required to undergo a preparatory training, often lasting months, in the gymnasium of Elis, the province in which Olympia was situated.

During the progress of the games a universal truce was proclaimed throughout Greece. All hostilities ceased for the time, and the Greeks as a united people a.s.sembled at Olympia for the joyous celebration in honor of Zeus. So important were these Olympic games that they were used as a standard for reckoning time. In a.s.signing a date to an event, the Greeks used to say that it took place in this or that Olympiad, an Olympiad being the period of four years between two successive festivals.

We may well believe that the Olympic festivals, as well as the ordinary daily exercise in the city gymnasia, had great attractions for sculptors. The palaestra must have been a favorite resort of artists.

What a sight it was when the young men came out of the dressing-rooms stripped for running, their bodies shining with oil,--what a play of muscles in the lithe young limbs as the runners "pressed toward the mark for the prize of the high calling!" The course was usually of deep sand, and was about three miles in length. The runners trained for special emergencies attained extraordinary speed and endurance. The race over, each youth returned to the dressing-rooms of the gymnasium and, taking a small instrument called the _strigil_, made of metal, ivory, or horn, sc.r.a.ped the oil from his body.

It is in this cleansing process that the young man of our ill.u.s.tration is engaged. The statue on this account is called the Apoxyomenos, which is a Greek word meaning "sc.r.a.ping himself." It represents a typical incident of the life of the gymnasium, such as might be seen any day of the year.

Tall and graceful, with slender flexible limbs, the youth stands in an att.i.tude of rest, sc.r.a.ping his right arm. In his fingers is the die which marks his number in the race. His body rests upon one leg, but so light is his poise that he is ready to change his position momentarily.

Neither att.i.tude nor countenance shows any sense of exhaustion, only that delicious fatigue which makes rest so enjoyable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: D. Anderson, Photo. John Andrew & Son, Sc.

THE APOXYOMENOS

_Vatican Gallery, Rome_]

There is a pa.s.sage in the Greek poet Aristophanes' comedy of the Clouds, in which a speaker urges upon a young man the life of the gymnasium. "Fresh and fair in beauty-bloom," he says, "you shall pa.s.s your days in the wrestling-ground, or run races beneath the sacred olive trees, crowned with white reed, in company with a pure-hearted friend, smelling of bindweed, and leisure hours, and the white poplar that sheds her leaves, rejoicing in the prime of spring when the plane tree whispers to the lime." This is the kind of life typified in the figure of our statue,[14] a side of Greek life which no one can overlook if he would understand the genius of the Greek nation.

[14] The application of this pa.s.sage to the Apoxyomenos is made by J. A.

Symonds in his _Greek Poets_.

It must not be supposed that our statue represents an actual individual.

It is not a portrait, but an imaginary typical figure. It is true that portrait statues of athletes were made in great numbers, as we shall note again in another chapter. It was indeed this practical experience among athletes that led sculptors to see what a perfect human figure ought to be. In the study of many different forms they developed an idea of a type common to all and uniting all the perfections. Certain sculptors figured out what they regarded as the true proportions of the ideal human form. One of these was Lysippus, who is believed to have executed this statue as an ill.u.s.tration of his theories. We note as the special characteristics of his ideal figure that it is tall, with slim light limbs, and a rather small head, about one eighth the total height.

We may now see how such a statue as the Apoxyomenos was a preparatory study for statues of the G.o.ds. The G.o.ds were to be represented in the most perfect human forms which it was possible to conceive, and by working out typical figures like this, forms were found worthy of the n.o.blest subjects. Thus the proportions discovered by Lysippus were peculiarly appropriate for the lighter, fleeter G.o.ds, as Apollo and Hermes.

Lysippus executed his works entirely in bronze, and the statue reproduced in our ill.u.s.tration is a marble copy of the original, which was long since lost.

VI

HEAD OF THE APOLLO BELVEDERE

Phbus Apollo was the Greek G.o.d of day, who drove the great chariot of the sun across the sky from dawn to sunset. As the sun's rays pierce the air with darts of fire, so Apollo is an archer G.o.d carrying a quiver full of arrows. The old Homeric hymn calls him--

"Heaven's far darter, the fair king of days Whom even the G.o.ds themselves fear when he goes Through Jove's high house; and when his goodly bows He goes to bend, all from their thrones arise And cl.u.s.ter near t' admire his faculties."[15]

[15] In Chapman's translation.

If we count up all the gifts which the sunlight brings us, we shall have a list of the offices of Apollo. He brought the spring and the summer, and ripened the grain for harvest. He warded off disease and healed the sick. One of his earliest adventures was to slay the serpent Python lurking in the caves of Mt. Parna.s.sus. Like the legend of St. George and the Dragon, the story is an allegory of the triumph of light over darkness, health over disease, the power of good over the power of evil.

Apollo was also the patron of music, having received from Hermes the gift of the lyre. He was wont to play at the banquets of the G.o.ds, and the poet Sh.e.l.ley describes his music in these words:--

"And then Apollo with the plectrum strook The chords, and from beneath his hands a crash Of mighty sounds rushed up, whose music shook The soul with sweetness, and like an adept His sweeter voice a just accordance kept."[16]

[16] From Sh.e.l.ley's translation of the Homeric _Hymn to Mercury_.

Poetry and the dance were also under Apollo's protection, and he was the leader of the nine muses.

His highest office was prophecy, and in all his temples the priestesses gave mystic revelations of the future. The most famous of these was at Delphi, built over an opening in the ground, whence a strange vapor rose. The priestess, a young woman called a _pythia_, from the python slain by Apollo, sat over this opening on a three-legged seat, or tripod, and answered the questions brought to her. Her sayings were in verses called _oracles_, supposed to be communicated to her by the G.o.d.

Now, as might be expected, the character of Apollo was as pure and transparent as the sunlight itself. He required clean hands and pure hearts of those who worshiped him. As the sunlight shines into the dark places of the earth, driving the shadows away, so Apollo hated all that was dark and evil in human life. He was not only the rewarder of good but the punisher of evil. In Sh.e.l.ley's "Hymn of Apollo" these words are put in the G.o.d's mouth:--

"The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;

All men who do or even imagine ill Fly me, and from the glory of my ray Good minds and open actions take new might, Until diminished by the reign of night."

[Ill.u.s.tration: D. Anderson, Photo. John Andrew & Son, Sc.

HEAD OF THE APOLLO BELVEDERE

_Vatican Gallery, Rome_]

The head of Apollo in our ill.u.s.tration is from a famous full-length statue of the G.o.d known as the Apollo Belvedere. The name Belvedere, which is useful only to distinguish the statue from others of the same subject, comes from the fact that the marble once adorned a pavilion of the Vatican called the Belvedere.

The G.o.d stands with left arm extended holding, it is supposed, either a bow or a shield. A quiver of arrows is slung across his back, and a chlamys, or cloak, hangs over his left shoulder. His is the proud att.i.tude of one who is defending some sacred trust. So he holds his head high and gazes steadily before him as if watching an arrow speed to its mark, or perhaps scanning the vanguard of an approaching army. The expression is not a little haughty, and one detects an almost disdainful curve of the lips as if the G.o.d regarded the enemy with scorn. The face is cut in an aristocratic mould, with fine sensitive lines which mark the lover of music and poetry. In fact, the refinement of his beauty has something of a feminine quality.

The carefully curled hair is gathered in a bow knot on the top of his head. It may indeed be supposed that the handsome young G.o.d was by no means unconscious of his charms, and took no little pains to display them to good advantage.

The Apollo, however, is a G.o.d worthy of our admiration for the n.o.ble purity of his countenance. Surely, all base thoughts and mean motives would be put to shame by this pure presence.

The poet Byron, whose "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" describes many interesting sights in Greece and Italy, has written these lines about the Apollo Belvedere:--

"The Lord of the unerring bow, The G.o.d of life, and poesy, and light-- The sun, in human limbs array'd, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight; The shaft hath just been shot--the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might, And majesty flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that one glance the deity."

VII

DEMETER (CERES)

The Greeks worshipped among their deities a G.o.ddess called Demeter, which means "mother earth." It was her office to attend to the sowing and reaping and all kinds of farm work. She first taught mankind the use of the plough; she helped the men in their threshing and the women in their baking. All country folk sought her blessing in their labors. She was, in fact, a personification of nature, and perhaps it is a remnant of the old Greek belief in our speech that we still refer to "mother earth" and "mother nature."

Demeter's only child was a daughter, Persephone, and upon her she lavished all a mother's fond devotion. The story runs that one day Persephone was gathering posies in the meadow when a strange accident overtook her. A beautiful flower suddenly attracted her attention, the like of which she had never before seen. When she put forth her hand to pluck it, the entire plant came up by the roots, leaving a hole in the ground. The hole widened into a great crack, the earth shook with a mighty thundering, and out dashed a chariot drawn by coal-black steeds, bearing Pluto, the king of the lower regions. He caught up the astonished Persephone, and away they sped again into the gloomy kingdom beyond the Styx, where Persephone was installed as queen.

Demeter, missing her daughter, inquired everywhere what had become of the maiden, but none could tell her. Then she lighted a torch and began a weary search for the lost child. Nine days she wandered without finding any clew. But on the tenth day she met the old witch Hecate, who had heard Persephone scream when she was carried away. Together the two sought Apollo, who sees all the doings of G.o.ds and men, and he told them the whole story. "Then a more terrible grief took possession of Demeter, and ... she forsook the a.s.sembly of the G.o.ds and abode among men for a long time, veiling her beauty under a worn countenance so that none who looked upon her knew her." She declared that the earth should not again bring forth fruit till she had seen her daughter.