{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20523/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20523","id":"gutenberg_20523","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20523","summary":null,"tags":["Art and religion -- Greece","Art, Greek","Category: Art","Category: History - Ancient","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Greece","Greece -- Religion","Mythology, Classical, in art","Paganism"],"text":"Produced by Ron Swanson\n\n\n\n\n\nRELIGION AND ART\nIN\nANCIENT GREECE\n\n\nBY\nERNEST A. GARDNER\n\nYATES PROFESSOR OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND PUBLIC ORATOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF\nLONDON; LATE DIRECTOR OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ATHENS\n\n\n\n\nLONDON AND NEW YORK\nHARPER & BROTHERS\n45 ALBEMARLE STREET, W.\n1910\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nGreek religion may be studied under various aspects; and many recent\ncontributions to this study have been mainly concerned either with the\nremote origin of many of its ceremonies in primitive ritual, or with the\nmanner in which some of its obscurer manifestations met the deeper\nspiritual needs which did not find satisfaction in the official cults.\nSuch discussions are of the highest interest to the anthropologist and\nto the psychologist; but they have the disadvantage of fixing our\nattention too exclusively on what, to the ordinary Greek, appeared\naccidental or even morbid, and of making us regard the Olympian\npantheon, with its clearly realised figures of the gods, as a mere\nsystem imposed more or less from outside upon the old rites and beliefs\nof the people. In the province of art, at least, the Olympian gods are\nparamount; and thus we are led to appreciate and to understand their\nworship as it affected the religious ideals of the people and the\nservices of the State. For we must remember that in the case of religion\neven more than in that of art, its essential character and its influence\nupon life and thought lie rather in its full perfection than in its\norigin.\n\nIn a short sketch of so wide a subject it has seemed inadvisable to make\nany attempt to describe the types of the various gods. Without full\nillustration and a considerable expenditure of space, such a description\nwould be impracticable, and the reader must be referred to the ordinary\nhandbooks of the subject. A fuller account will be found in Dr.\nFarnell's _Cults of the Greek States_, and some selected types are\ndiscussed with the greatest subtlety and understanding in Brunn's\n_Griechische Gotterideale_. In the present volume only a few examples\nare mentioned as characteristic of the various periods. It may thus, I\ntrust, serve as an introduction to a more complete study of the subject;\nand may, at the same time, offer to those who have not the leisure or\ninclination for such further study, at least a summary of what we may\nlearn from Greece as to the relations of religion and art under the most\nfavourable conditions. It is easy, as Aristotle says, to fill in the\ndetails if only the outlines are rightly drawn--[Greek: doxeie d' an\npantos einai proagagein kai diorthosai ta kalos echonta te perigraphe.]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER                                                           PAGE\n\n  I.  IDOLATRY AND IMAGINATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   1\n\n II.  ASPECTS OF RELIGION--POPULAR, OFFICIAL, POETICAL,\n        PHILOSOPHICAL  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24\n\nIII.  THE CONDITIONS OF RELIGIOUS ART IN GREECE  . . . . . . . . .  48\n\n IV.  ANTHROPOMORPHISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  58\n\n  V.  IDEALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  75\n\n VI.  INDIVIDUALISM  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  94\n\nVII.  PERSONIFICATION, CONVENTION, AND SYMBOLISM . . . . . . . . . 108\n\n\n\n\nRELIGION AND ART IN ANCIENT GREECE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINTRODUCTION--IDOLATRY AND IMAGINATION\n\n\nThe relation of religion to art has varied greatly among different\npeoples and at different periods. At the one extreme is the\nuncompromising puritan spirit, which refuses to admit any devices of\nhuman skill into the direct relations between God and man, whether it be\nin the beauty of church or temple, in the ritual of their service, or in\nthe images which they enshrine. Other religions, such as those of the\nJews or of Islam, relegate art to a subordinate position; and while they\naccept its services to decorate the buildings and apparatus connected\nwith divine worship, forbid any attempt to make a visible representation\nof the deity. Modern Christianity, while it does not, as a rule, repeat\nthis prohibition, has varied greatly from time to time and from country\nto country as to the extent to which it allows such representations.\nProbably the better educated or more thoughtful individuals would in\nevery case regard them merely as symbolic aids to induce the\nconcentration and intensity of religious ideas and aspirations; but\nthere is no doubt that among the common people they tend to become\nactually objects of worship in themselves. It is instructive to turn to\na system in which idolatry, the worship of images, was an essential part\nof orthodox religious observance. It is easy and customary with a\ncertain class of minds to dismiss all such examples of idolatry with a\nsuperficial generalisation such as \"the heathen in his blindness bows\ndown to stock and stone.\" But it seems worth while to devote a short\nstudy to an attempt to understand how such a system worked in the case\nof a people like the ancient Greeks, who possessed to a degree that has\nnever been surpassed both clearness of intellectual perception and a\npower to embody their ideals in artistic form. Whether it tended to\nexalt or to debase religion may be a doubtful question; but there can be\nno doubt that it gave an inspiration to art which contributed to the\nunrivalled attainments of the Greeks in many branches of artistic\ncreation. We shall be mainly concerned here with the religion of Greece\nas it affected the art of sculpture; but before attempting a historical\nsummary it is necessary for us to understand exactly what we mean by the\nworship of representations of the gods, and to consider the nature of\nthe influence which such representation must have upon artistic\nactivity.\n\nIdolatry--the worship of images--is almost always used by us in a bad\nsense, owing, no doubt, chiefly to the usage of the word in the Jewish\nscriptures. Mr. Ruskin, in his chapter on the subject in his _Aratra\nPentelici_, points out that it may also be used in a good sense, though\nhe prefers to use the word imagination in this meaning. There is\ndoubtless a frequent tendency to failure to\n\n  \"Look through the sign to the thing signified,\"\n\nbut there is no essential reason why the contemplation of a beautiful\nstatue, embodying a worthy conception of the deity, should not be as\nconducive to a state of worship and communion as is an impressive ritual\nor ceremony, or any other aid to devotion. This view of the matter is\nexpressed by some later Greek writers; in earlier times it was probably\nunconsciously present, though it is hardly to be found in contemporary\nliterature. But it was only by slow stages that art came to do so direct\na service to religious ideas; in more primitive times its relation was\nmore subordinate. The worship or service of images, even in the highest\nages of Greek civilisation, was much more associated with primitive and\ncomparatively inartistic figures than with the masterpieces of\nsculpture; and even where these masterpieces were actually objects of\nworship it was often from the inheritance of a sanctity transferred to\nthem from an earlier image rather than for their own artistic qualities.\nIt does not, indeed, follow that the influence of the great sculptors\nupon the religious ideals of the people was a negligible quality; we\nhave abundant evidence, both direct and indirect, that it was very\ngreat. But it was exercised chiefly by following and ennobling\ntraditional notions rather than by daring innovation, and therefore can\nonly be understood in relation to the general development both of\nreligious conceptions and of artistic facility.\n\nHere we shall be mainly concerned with art as an expression of the\nreligious ideals and aspirations of the people, and as an influence upon\npopular and educated opinions and conceptions of the gods. But we must\nnot forget that it is also valuable to us as a record of myths and\nbeliefs, and of ritual and customs associated with the worship of the\ngods. This is the case, above all, with reliefs and vase-paintings. In\nthem we often find representations which do not merely illustrate\nancient literature, but supplement and modify the information we derive\nfrom classical writers. The point of view of the artist is often not the\nsame as that of the poet or historian, and it is frequently nearer to\nthat of the people, and therefore a help in any attempt to understand\npopular beliefs. The representations of the gods which we find in such\nworks do not often embody any lofty ideals or subtle characterisation;\nbut they show us the traditional and easily recognisable figures in\nwhich the gods usually occurred to the imagination of the Greek people.\n\nThe association of acts of worship with certain specially sacred objects\nor places lies at the basis of much religious art, though very often art\nhas little or nothing to do with such objects in a primitive stage of\nreligious development. Stocks and stones--the latter often reputed to\nhave fallen from heaven, the former sometimes in the shape of a growing\ntree, sometimes of a mere unwrought log--were to be found as the centres\nof religious cult in many of the shrines of Greece. These sacred objects\nare sometimes called fetishes; and although it is perhaps wiser to avoid\nterms belonging properly to the religion of modern savages in speaking\nof ancient Greece, there seems to be an analogy between the beliefs and\ncustoms that are implied. Such sacred stocks or stones were not regarded\nmerely as symbols of certain deities, but were looked upon as having\ncertain occult or magic qualities inherent in them, and as being in\nthemselves potent for good or evil. The ceremonies used in their cult\npartook of the nature of magic rather than religion, so far as these\nconsisted of anointing them with oil or with drink offerings; such\nceremonies might, indeed, be regarded as gratifying to the deity\nworshipped under their form, when they were definitely affiliated to the\nservice of an anthropomorphic god; but in a more primitive stage of\nbelief the indwelling power probably was not associated with any such\ngeneralisation as is implied in the change from \"animism\" or\n\"polydaemonism\" to polytheism. We are here concerned not with this\ngrowth of religious feeling, but rather with its influence upon the\nsacred things that were objects of worship and with the question how far\ntheir sanctity encouraged their artistic decoration.\n\nIt is perhaps easier to realise the feeling of a primitive people about\nthis matter in the case of a sacred building than in that of the actual\nimage of a god. A temple does not, indeed--in Greece, at least--belong\nto the earliest phase of cult; for it is the dwelling of the god, and\nits form, based on that of a human dwelling-house, implies an\nanthropomorphic imagination. We find, however, in Homer that the gods\nare actually thought of as inhabiting their temples and preferring one\nto another, Athena going to Athens and Aphrodite to Paphos as her chosen\nabode. It was clearly desirable for every city to gain this special\nfavour; and an obvious way to do this was to make the dwelling-place\nattractive in itself to the deity. This might be done not merely by the\nabundance of sacrifices, but also by the architectural beauty of the\nbuilding itself, and by the richness of the offerings it contained. Here\nwas, therefore, a very practical reason for making the dwelling of the\ngod as sumptuous and beautiful as possible, in order that he might be\nattracted to live in it and to give his favour and protection to those\nthat dwelt around it. Doubtless, as religious ideas advanced and the\nconception of the nature of the gods became higher, there came the\nnotion that they did not dwell in houses made with hands; yet a Greek\ntemple, just like a mediaeval cathedral, might be made beautiful as a\npleasing service and an honour to the deity to whom it was dedicated;\nand there was a continuous tradition in practice from the lower\nconception to the higher, nor is it easy to draw the line at any\nparticular stage between the two.\n\nIf we turn now to the sacred image of the deity we find the same process\ngoing on. The rude stock or stone was sometimes itself the actual\nrecipient of material offerings; or it might be painted with some bright\nand pleasing colour, or wrapped in costly draperies. In most of these\ncustoms an assumption is implied that the object of worship is pleased\nby the same things as please its worshippers; and here we find the germ\nof the anthropomorphic idea. It was probably the desire to make the\nofferings and prayers of the worshippers perceptible to the power within\nthat first led to the addition of human features to the shapeless block.\nJust as the early Greeks painted eyes upon the prows of their ships, to\nenable them to find their way through the water, so they carved a head,\nwith eyes and ears, out of the sacred stone or stock, or perhaps added a\nhead to the original shapeless mass. We find many primitive idols in\nthis form--a cone or column with a head and perhaps arms and feet added\nto it; and the tradition survives in the herm, or in the mask of\nDionysus attached to a post, round which we still see the Maenads\ndancing on fifth-century vases. The notion that such carved eyes or ears\nactually served to transmit impressions to the god is well illustrated\nby Professor Petrie's discovery at Memphis of a number of votive ears of\nthe god, intended to facilitate or to symbolise his reception of the\nprayers of his votaries. In fact, the taunt of the psalmist against the\nimages of the heathen--\"Eyes have they, but they see not; they have\nears, and yet they hear not\"--is not a merely rhetorical one, as it\nseems to us, but real and practical, if spoken to men who gave their\ngods ears and eyes that they might hear and see.\n\nAn imagination so entirely materialistic may belong to a more primitive\nstage than any we can find among the Greeks. As soon as religion has\nreached the polytheistic stage the gods are regarded as travelling from\nimage to image, just as they travel from temple to temple. Even in\nAEschylus' _Eumenides_ it will be remembered that when Orestes, by the\nadvice of Apollo, clasps as a suppliant the ancient image of Athena at\nAthens, the goddess comes flying from far away in the Troad when she\nhears the sound of his calling. The exact relation of the goddess to the\nimage is not, in all probability, very clearly realised; but, so far as\none can trace it from the ritual procedure, what appears to be implied\nis that a suppliant will have a better chance of reaching the deity he\naddresses if he approaches one of the images preferred by that deity as\nthe abode of his power; often there is one such image preferred to all\nothers, as this early one of Athena at Athens. The deity was not,\ntherefore, regarded as immanent in any image--at least, in classical\ntimes; the gods lived in Olympus, or possibly visited from time to time\nthe people whom they favoured, or went to the great festivals that were\nheld in their honour. But the various images of them, especially the\nmost ancient ones, that were set up in their temples in the various\ncities of Greece were regarded as a means of communication between gods\nand men. The prayer of a worshipper addressing such an image will be\ntransmitted to the deity whom he addresses, and the deity may even come\nin person to hear him, if special aid is required. A close parallel may\nbe found even in modern days. I have known of a child, brought up in the\nRoman Catholic religion, who had a particular veneration or affection\nfor a certain statue of the Virgin, and used often to address it or, as\nshe said, converse with it. And she said she had an impression that, if\nonly she could slip in unawares, she might see the Virgin Mary herself\napproaching or leaving the statue, whether to be transformed into it or\nmerely to dwell in it for a time. On Greek vases we see the same notion\nexpressed as in the _Eumenides_, when a god or goddess is represented as\nactually present beside the statue to which a sacrifice or prayer is\nbeing offered.\n\nIn such a stage of religious belief or imagination it is clearly of high\nimportance that the image of any deity should be pleasing to that deity,\nand thereby attract his presence and serve as a ready channel of\ncommunication with him. From the point of view of art, it would seem at\nfirst sight that the result would be a desire to make the image as\nbeautiful as possible, and as worthy an embodiment of the deity as the\nsculptor could devise. This doubtless was the result in the finest\nperiod of art in Greece, and it involved, as we shall see, a great deal\nof reciprocal influence on the part of religion and art. But in earlier\ntimes the case is not so simple; and even in statues of the fifth\ncentury it is not easy to understand the conditions under which the\nsculptor worked without some reference to the historical development\nthat lay behind him.\n\nBefore the rise of sculpture in Greece, images of the gods, some of them\nonly rudely anthropomorphic, had long been objects of worship; and it\nwas by no means safe in religious matters to depart too rashly from the\nforms consecrated by tradition. This was partly owing to the feeling\nthat when a certain form had been accepted, and a certain means of\ncommunication had worked for a long time satisfactorily, it was a\ndangerous thing to make a change which might not be agreeable to the\npowers concerned, and which might, so to speak, break the established\nconnection. But while hieratic conservatism tended to preserve forms and\nformulae almost for what we may call magic reasons, there was also a\nsentiment about the matter which gave popular support to the tendency.\nThus Pausanias probably expresses a common feeling when he says that the\nimages made by Daedalus, \"though somewhat strange in aspect, yet seem to\nbe distinguished by something in them of the divine.\"\n\nIt is true that these early images attributed to Daedalus showed already\na considerable advance on the shapeless or roughly shaped stocks or\nstones that had served as the most primitive objects of worship; but it\nwas their resemblance to these rather than their difference from them\nthat impressed the imagination of Pausanias. He appreciated them not so\nmuch as examples of an art that promised much for the future, but rather\nas linked with the past by the tradition of an immemorial sanctity. We\nfind, in fact, that the rude early images remained the centres of state\ncult and official worship, as well as of popular veneration, long after\nthe art of sculpture had become capable of providing their worshippers\nwith more adequate embodiments of the gods they represented. It was the\nearly image of Athena, not the Athena Parthenos by Phidias, that was\nannually washed in the sea, and for which the peplos was woven by the\nchosen women of Athens. The connection between art and religion is, in\nsuch a case, reduced to narrow limits; but, on the other hand, we hear\nof many instances where new statues of the gods were made as temple\nstatues, to be the chief objects of worship and centres of cult. And\nthis was sometimes done with the official sanction of the gods\nthemselves, as expressed through the oracle of Delphi.\n\nThe sanctity of the old image was sometimes transferred to the new one;\na striking example of this is seen in the case of Artemis Brauronia on\nthe Athenian Acropolis. It had been the custom for the garments\npresented to the goddess by her worshippers to be placed upon her\nprimitive statue; and when a new and worthier representation of the\ngoddess was placed in the temple in the fourth century, we are informed\nby inscriptions that dedicated garments were sometimes hung upon it,\neven though it was a statue from the hand of Praxiteles. It sometimes\nhappened that the old and the new statues stood side by side in the same\ntemple, or in adjacent temples, and they seem then to exemplify the two\nkinds of idolatry--the literal and the imaginative--the one being the\nactual subject of the rites ceremonially observed, and the other being\nthe visible presentment of the deity, and helping the worshipper to\nconcentrate his prayers and aspirations. Here the art of the sculptor\nhad the fullest scope, and it is in such cases that he could, as\nQuintilian said of Phidias, \"make some addition to the received\nreligion.\"\n\nThis duality was, however, the result of accident rather than the normal\narrangement, and, so long as the primitive image remained the official\nobject of worship, it was difficult, if not impossible, for the new and\nmore artistic statue to have its full religious effect. In many cases,\nprobably in most cases, it was actually substituted, sooner or later,\nfor the earlier embodiment of the deity. Sometimes the early image,\nwhich was often of wood, may have decayed or been worn away by the\nattentions lavished upon it; we hear of a statue of which the hand had\nperished under the kisses of the devout. We hear also of cases in which\nit had been entirely lost--for instance, the Black Demete of Phigalia,\nan uncouth image with a horse's head; here, when a plague had warned the\npeople to replace it, the AEginetan sculptor Onatas undertook the task;\nand he is said to have been vouchsafed a vision in sleep which enabled\nhim to reproduce exactly this unsightly idol. It would not seem that\nsuch a commission gave much scope to his artistic powers; but it is\nnoteworthy that the Phigalians employed one of the most famous sculptors\nof the day. Elsewhere the conditions were more favourable, and it was\npossible for the artist, while conforming to the accepted type, to give\nit a more correct form and more pleasing features.\n\nDaedalus, we are told--and in this story Daedalus is an impersonation of\nthe art of the early sculptors in Greece--made statues of the gods so\nlife-like that they had to be chained to their pedestals for fear they\nshould run away. It is likely that this tale goes back to a genuine\ntradition; for Pausanias actually saw statues with fetters attached to\nthem in several early shrines in Greece. The device is natural enough.\nDaedalus was a magician as well as a sculptor; and if he could give his\nstatues eyes that they might see, and ears that they might hear, it was\nan obvious inference that if he gave them legs they might run away and\ndesert their shrines and their worshippers.\n\nWe may very likely find also in a similar notion the explanation of a\npeculiarity often found in early statues of the gods--the well-known\narchaic smile. Many explanations, technical and otherwise, have been\ngiven of this device; but none of them can get over the fact that it was\njust as easy, or even easier, for a primitive sculptor to make the mouth\nstraight as to make it curve up at the ends, and that he often did make\nit straight. When he does not do so, it is probably done with intention;\nand it is quite in accordance with the conditions of early religious art\nthat he should make the image of a deity smile in order that the deity\nhimself might smile upon his worshippers; and a pleasant expression\nmight also, by a natural transfer of ideas, be supposed to be pleasing\nto the god, and so attract him to his statue. We are told that at Chios\nthere was a head of Artemis set high up, which appeared morose to those\nentering the temple, but when they left it seemed to have become\ncheerful. This may have been originally due to some accident of placing\nor lighting, but it seems to have acquired a religious significance; and\nwe can hardly deny a similar significance to the smile which we find on\nso many early statues. In some cases, especially in statues of men, it\nmay have been intended merely as a device to give expression and life to\nthe face; but it cannot have been a matter of indifference to a\nprimitive worshipper that his deity should smile on him through the face\nof its visible image. This point of view being given, it is evidently\nonly a question of how far it is within the power of art to express the\nbenignity of the god, and later on his character and personality, in an\nadequate manner; and this power depends on the gradual acquisition of\nmastery over form and material, of knowledge and observation of the\nhuman body and face, and of the technical skill requisite to express\nthis knowledge in marble or bronze, or more precious materials such as\ngold and ivory. All this development belongs to the history of art, not\nto that of religion. But before we can pursue the investigation any\nfurther, it is necessary to consider the different sources and channels\nof religious influence on art with which we have to deal.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nVARIOUS ASPECTS OF RELIGION\n\n\nReligion, for our present purpose, may be considered as (1) popular, (2)\nofficial, (3) poetic, and (4) philosophical. These four divisions, or\nrather aspects, are not, of course, mutually exclusive, and they act and\nreact extensively upon one another; but, in their relations to art, it\nis convenient to observe the distinction between them.\n\n(1) The beliefs of the people are, of course, the basis of all the\nothers, though they come to be affected by these others in various\ndegrees. There is no doubt that the people generally believed in the\nsanctity and efficacy of the shapeless idols or primitive images, and\nthis belief would tend to support hieratic conservatism, and thus to\nhinder artistic progress. But, on the other hand, the people of Greece\nshowed throughout their history a tendency to an intensely and vividly\nanthropomorphic imagination. This tendency was doubtless realised and\nencouraged by the poets, but it was not created by them, any more than\nby the mythologists who defined and systematised it. The exact relation\nof this anthropomorphic imagination to the primitive sacred stocks and\nstones is not easy to ascertain; but it seems to have tended, on the one\nhand, to the realisation of the existence of the gods apart from such\nsacred objects, and thus to reduce the stocks and stones to the position\nof symbols--a great advance in religious ideals; and, on the other hand,\nto the transformation of the stocks and stones into human form, not\nmerely by giving them ears and eyes that they might hear and see, but\nalso by making them take the image and character of the deity whom they\nrepresented.\n\nIt was impossible for any ordinary Greek to think of the gods in other\nthan human form. He had, indeed, no such definite dogma as the Hebrew\nstatement that \"God created man in His own image\"; for the legends about\nthe origin of the human race varied considerably and many of them\nrepresented crude philosophical theorising rather than religious belief.\nBut the monstrous forms which we find in Egypt and Mesopotamia as\nembodiments of divine power were alien to the Greek imagination; if we\nfind here and there a survival of some strange type, such as the\nhorse-headed Demeter at Phigalia, it remains isolated and has little\ninfluence upon prevalent beliefs. The Greek certainly thought of his\ngods as having the same human form as himself; and not the gods only,\nbut also the semi-divine, semi-human, sometimes less than human beings\nwith which his imagination peopled the woods and mountains and seas. His\nNereids had human feet, not fishy tails like our mermaids; and if\ncentaurs and satyrs and some other creatures of his imagination showed\nsomething of the beast within the man in their visible shape, they had\nlittle about them of the mysterious or the unearthly. It would be a\ngreat mistake to regard all these creatures as mere impersonations or\nabstractions. If \"a pagan suckled in a creed outworn\" could\n\n  \"Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea\n   And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn,\"\n\nmuch more were such sights and sounds familiar to his forefathers, to\nwhom the same beliefs were fresh and real. Even to the present day Greek\npeasants may often be found who can tell of such experiences; to them,\nas to the Greeks of old, desert places and remote woods and mountains\nare terrible, not because they are lonely, but because when a man is\nalone then is he least alone; hence the panic terror, the terror of Pan.\n\nThe same idea, which later takes the religious or philosophic form of\nthe belief in the omnipresence of the deity, peopled the woods with\ndryads, the streams and springs with nymphs and river-gods, the seas\nwith Nereids and Tritons. When an artist represented a mountain or a\nriver-god, a nymph or a Triton, or added such figures to a scene to\nindicate its locality by what seems to us at first sight a mere artistic\nconvention, he was not inventing an impersonation, but he was\nrepresenting something which, in the imagination of the people, might\nactually be seen upon the spot--at least, by those whose eyes were\nopened to see it. It was the same gift of imagination that made Blake\nsay: \"'What,' it will be questioned, 'when the sun rises, do you not see\na disc of fire, somewhat like a guinea?' 'Oh no, no! I see an\ninnumerable company of the heavenly host, crying \"Holy, holy, holy is\nthe Lord God Almighty!\" I question not my corporeal eye, any more than I\nwould question a window, concerning a sight. I look through it, and not\nwith it.'\"[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Blake, \"Aldine\" edition, p. cvi.]\n\nIn the case of the gods, the matter is somewhat less simple than in that\nof all these daemonic creatures of the popular imagination. Gods imply a\ngreater power of generalisation and a higher stage of religious\ndevelopment. It was not thought likely that the gods would show\nthemselves to mortal eyes, as had been their habit in the Golden Age,\nexcept perhaps upon some occasion of a great national crisis; and even\nthen it was the heroes rather than the gods who manifested themselves.\nBut the ordinary Greek believed that the gods actually existed in human\nform, and even that their characters and passions and moods were like\nthose of human beings. The influence of the poet and the artist could\nnot have been so vigorous if it had not found, in the imagination of the\npeople, a suitable and sympathetic material.\n\n(2) Official or state religion consisted in the main of an organisation\nof popular ritual. There was no priestcraft in Greece, no exclusive\ncaste to whom the worship of the gods was assigned, although, of course,\nthe right to practise certain cults belonged to particular families. But\na priesthood, as a rule, was a political office like any other\nmagistracy, and there was no exclusive tradition in the case of the\nchief cults of any Greek state to keep the point of view of the priests\ndifferent from that of the people generally. The tendency of state\nreligion was, as a rule, conservative, for reasons that we have already\nnoticed; innovations in the matter of ritual are dangerous, for the new\nrite may not please the gods as well as the old; and the same feeling\napplies to the statues that form the centres of ritual. Pericles, for\nexample, doubtless wished to make the Athena Parthenos of Phidias the\nofficial and visible representation of the goddess of Athens, and\nthereby to raise the religious ideals of the Athenians. In this last\npart of his attempt he was successful; the statue became the pride and\nglory of the city in its fitting shrine, the Parthenon; but the old\nimage was still preserved in the temple of Athena Polias, and remained\nthe official centre of worship. We are not told that Pericles meant to\nsupersede it; but it is very probable that he intended to do so, and was\nonly prevented by the religious conservatism that curtailed other plans\nof his for the beautifying of the Acropolis. On the other hand, there is\nno evidence that in Greece--at least, in the best period of Greek\nart--any statesman held the views as to the official religion frankly\nexpressed in Rome, that it was expedient for this religion to be\naccepted by the common people, but that educated men could only\nreconcile their consciences to taking part in it by a philosophical\ninterpretation.\n\nThere is something unreal and artificial about any such compromise. If\nPericles was intimate with Anaxagoras, who was prosecuted for atheism,\nhe was also the friend of Phidias, who expressly said that his Zeus was\nthe Zeus of Homer, no mere abstract ideal of divinity. If this was the\ncase with Pericles, who held himself aloof from the common people, it\nmust have been much more so with other statesmen, who mingled with them\nmore freely, or even, like Nicias, shared their superstitions. Under\nsuch conditions the influence of art upon the representations of the\ngods could not well go in advance of popular conceptions, though it\nmight accompany and direct them. The making of new statues of the gods,\nto be set up as the centres of worship in their temples, in some cases\nreceived the formal sanction of the Delphic oracle, the highest official\nand religious authority. Public commissions of this sort are common at\nall times, but commonest in the years immediately succeeding the Persian\nWars, when the spoils of the Persians supplied ample resources, and in\nmany cases the ancient temples and images had been destroyed; and at the\nsame time the outburst of national enthusiasm over the great deliverance\nled to a desire to give due thank-offerings to the gods of the Hellenic\nrace, a desire which coincided with the ability to fulfil it, owing to\nthe rapid progress of artistic power. Such public commissions, and the\npopular feeling which they expressed, offered an inspiration to the\nartist such as has rarely, if ever, found a parallel. But any great\nvictory or deliverance might be commemorated by the setting up of\nstatues of the gods to whom it was attributed; and in this way the\ndemands of official religion offered the sculptor the highest scope for\nthe exercise of his art and his imagination.\n\n(3) The influence of poetic mythology upon art can hardly be\nexaggerated. The statement of Herodotus that Homer and Hesiod \"made the\nGreek theogony, and assigned to the gods their epithets and\ndistinguished their prerogatives and their functions, and indicated\ntheir form,\" would not, of course, be accepted in a literal sense by any\nmodern mythologist. But it is nevertheless true that the clear and vivid\npersonality and individuality given to the gods by the epic poets\naffects all later poetry and all Greek art. The imagination of the poets\ncould not, as we have already noticed, have had so deep and wide an\ninfluence unless it had been based upon popular beliefs and conceptions.\nBut it fills these conceptions with real and vivid character, so that\nthe gods of Homer are as clearly presented to us as any personalities of\nhistory or fiction. They are, indeed, endowed not only with the form,\nbut with the passions, and some even of the weaknesses of mankind; and\nfor this reason the philosophers often rejected as unworthy the tales\nthat the poets told of the gods. But even an artist such as Phidias\nexpressly stated that it was the Zeus of Homer who inspired his greatest\nwork, quoting the well-known passage in the Iliad in which the god\ngrants the prayer of Thetis:--\n\n  \"He said; and his black eyebrows bent; above his deathless head\n   Th' ambrosian curls flowed; great heaven shook.\"\n\nDescriptive passages such as this are not, indeed, common, because, as\nLessing clearly pointed out, the poet depends more upon action and its\neffect than on mere enumerative description. Even here it is the action\nof the nod, and the shaking of heaven that follows it, that emphasises\nthe impression, rather than the mere mention of eyebrows or hair. In\nmany other cases the distinctive epithet has its value for all later\nart--the cow-eyed Hera, the grey-eyed Athena, the swift messenger\nHermes; but, above all, it is the action and character of the various\ngods that is so clearly realised by the poet that his successors cannot,\nif they wish, escape from his spell.\n\nThe influence of the various Greek poets is not, indeed, for the most\npart, to be traced in contemporary Greek art. This is obvious in the\ncase of the Homeric poems, for the art of the time was of a purely\ndecorative character, and was quite incapable of representing in any\nadequate way the vivid and lively imagination of the poets; and, for\nthat matter, for many centuries after the date of the composition of the\nIliad and Odyssey, Hellenic art made no attempt to cope with any so\nambitious problems. Even when the art of sculpture had attained to a\nconsiderable degree of mastery over material and expression, we find its\naims and conceptions lagging far behind those of the poet. This will\nbecome clearer when, in the next chapter, we consider the conditions of\nartistic expression in Greece; but it must be noted here, in order to\nprevent possible misconception. As soon, however, as art became capable\nof aiming at something beyond perfection of a bodily form--a change\nwhich, in spite of Pausanias' admiration of something divine about the\nworks of Daedalus, can hardly be dated earlier than the fifth century\nB.C.--the Homeric conceptions of the gods came to have their full\neffect. Zeus, the king and father of gods and men; Athena, the friendly\nprotectress of heroes, irresistible in war, giver of all intellectual\nand artistic power; Apollo, the archer and musician, the purifier and\nsoothsayer--these and others find their first visible embodiment in the\nstatues whereby the sculptors of the fifth century gave expression to\nthe Homeric conceptions.\n\nThe tales, too, that were told about the gods, some of them trivial\nenough, but others full of religious and ethical significance, had for\nsome time before this been common subjects upon reliefs and\nvase-paintings, and on these also the influence of the poets was very\ngreat. Here we have not only the Iliad and Odyssey to consider, but many\nother early epics that are now lost to us. The vase-painter or sculptor\ndid not, indeed, merely illustrate these stories as a modern artist\nmight; often he had a separate tradition and a repertory of subjects\nbelonging to his own art, and developed them along different lines from\nthose followed by the poets. But although this tradition might lead him\nto choose a version less familiar to poetry, or even to give a new form\nto an old story, his conception was essentially poetical, in that it\nimplied an imaginative realisation of the scene or action, and even of\nthe character of the deity or hero represented.\n\nThe conception of the gods to be found in other early epics probably did\nnot differ essentially from that we find in the Iliad and Odyssey; but\nwith the Homeric hymns and with some of the earlier lyric poets we find\na change setting in. There seems to be a new interest in the adventures\nof the gods themselves, apart from their relation to mankind; romantic\nand even pathetic stories are told about them, implying almost a\npsychological appreciation of their personality--the tale of Demeter's\nmourning for her daughter Persephone, her wanderings and adventures; of\nthe love of Aphrodite for a mortal; of how Hermes invented the lyre and\ntricked Apollo about his cattle; of the birth of Apollo and the founding\nof his worship at Delos and Delphi; of the marvellous birth of Athena\nfrom the head of Zeus. It is hardly too much to say that in the later of\nthese Homeric hymns--those that are mentioned first in the above\nenumeration--an almost human interest is given to the gods, to their\nsufferings and adventures. It is the same tendency which we see in the\nlyric poetry of the Greeks, with its intensely personal note. The\nreflexion of this tendency in art is not, indeed, to be seen until the\nfourth century; not only the power of expression, but the desire to\nexpress such a side of the character of the gods seems to be absent\nuntil this period.\n\nIt may seem curious at first sight that art was so slow in this case to\nfollow the lead given it by poetry; but it is to be remembered that a\npower of expression such as would have enabled it to do so was not\nattained until the fifth century, and that in this age there was an\nexaltation of national and religious enthusiasm, owing mainly to the\nvictories over the Persians, which checked the tendency to sentiment and\npathos; and it was not until this vigorous reaction had died away that\nthe tendency once more asserted itself. The early fifth century was also\nmarked by poets such as Pindar and AEschylus, who raised the religious\nideals of the nation on to a higher plane, who consciously rejected the\nless worthy conceptions of the gods, and, whether in accordance with the\npopular beliefs or not, gave expression to a higher truth in religion\nthan had hitherto been dreamed of. The gods whom the sculptors of the\nfifth century were called upon to represent may have been the gods of\nHomer, but they were the Homeric gods transformed by the creative\nimagination of a more reflective age, and purified by a poetic, if not a\nphilosophic, idealism. But while AEschylus suggests \"a deeply brooding\nmind, tinged with mysticism, grappling with dark problems of life and\nfate,\"[2] and so was, in some ways, remote from the clarity and\ndefinition of sculptural form, Sophocles \"invests the conceptions of\npopular religion with a higher spiritual and intellectual meaning; and\nthe artistic side of the age is expressed by him in poetry, much as in\narchitecture and sculpture it is interpreted by the remains of the\nParthenon; there is the same serenity and wholeness of work; power\njoined to purity of taste; self-restraint; and a sure instinct of\nsymmetry.\"[3] Sophocles was a friend and companion of Pericles, and\ntherefore probably of Phidias; and in both alike we see the same harmony\nand absence of exaggeration that are characteristic of Greek art at its\nbest. In this case we may say with some confidence that the poet and the\nsculptor probably influenced each other.\n\n[Footnote 2: Sir R. C. Jebb in _Cambridge Companion to Greek Studies_,\np. 110.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Ibid_. p. 113.]\n\nIt seems a tempting hypothesis to see something of the influence of\n\"Euripides the human\" in the individualistic tendencies of the art of\nthe fourth century; but it seems hardly to be justified by the facts.\nThe influence of his dramas is, indeed, to be seen in later\nvase-paintings; but this is not a matter with which we are here\nconcerned. In his treatment of the gods, Euripides can hardly be quoted\nas an example of the humanising tendency. \"He resented the notion that\ngods could be unjust or impure\"; but the purer and more abstract\nconceptions of divinity that appealed to him were hardly such as could\nfind expression in art; it has even been said that \"he blurred those\nHellenic ideals which were the common man's best without definitely\nreplacing them.\" The bringing of these ideals nearer to the common life\nof man finds its poetic inspiration rather in the tendency which has\nalready been noticed in the Homeric hymns and the lyric poets, and which\nnow, after the reaction of the fifth century, exerts its full force on\nthe art of Scopas and Praxiteles.\n\nThere is no need to dwell here on the influence of later poets upon\nreligious art, though we shall have to notice hereafter the parallel\ndevelopment of the representation of the gods in Hellenistic sculpture.\nThe Alexandrian poets expressed in elegant language their learning on\nmatters of religion and mythology, but there was no living belief in the\nsubjects which they made their theme; and the art they inspired could\nonly show the same qualities of a correct and academic eclecticism. The\nidylls of Theocritus find, indeed, a parallel in the playful treatment\nof Satyrs and other subjects of a similar character; but these belong to\nwhat may be called mythological genre rather than to religious art. The\ndramatic vigour and intensity which we find in the art of Pergamon\ncannot easily be traced to the influence of any similar development in\nliterature, though its artificial and learned mythology is such as we\nfind also in the work of Hellenistic poets.\n\n(4) The philosophical aspect of religion had no very great influence\nupon art in Greece. We might perhaps expect that, so far as the\nphilosophers accepted the popular religion, they would tend to purify it\nand to give it a higher meaning, just as the more thoughtful of the\npoets doubtless assisted the idealising tendency of fifth-century art.\nAnd it might well seem that, for example, Plato's theory of ideas\nsupplies a more satisfactory basis for an idealist art than any other\nsystem, since it might be maintained that the true artist represents not\nthe material object which he sees before him, but the ideal prototype of\nwhich it is but a faint and inadequate reflexion. This theory is\npeculiarly applicable to statues of the gods, and we find it so applied\nby later philosophical and rhetorical writers; for instance, Cicero says\nthat Phidias \"when he was making the statue of Zeus or of Athena did not\nderive his image from some individual, but within his own mind there was\na perfect ideal of beauty; and gazing on this and in contemplation of\nit, he guided the craft of his hand after its likeness.\"[4] The same\nnotion underlies the saying quoted by Strabo, that Phidias was \"either\nthe only man that saw, or the only man that revealed to others the\nimages of the gods.\"[5] But there is no trace or encouragement of any\nsuch feeling in the philosophic literature contemporary with the great\nage of Greek art. Plato expressly states that the artist only makes \"an\nimitation of an imitation\"; and the higher ideas of divinity preached by\nphilosophers did not so much tend to ennoble the popular conceptions as\nto substitute others for them. Above all, the monotheistic idea, even if\nassociated with the name of Zeus, tended to become an abstract\nconception with little relation to the national god of Hellas, whom\nPhidias embodied in his Olympian statue.\n\n[Footnote 4: _Or_. 2. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 5: viii. p. 353. It does not matter whether the passage is\nquoted by Strabo himself or by an interpolator.]\n\nThe philosophic or theological conception of a monotheistic deity does\nnot, in fact, seem to lend itself at any time to impressive artistic\nrepresentation. We may observe the same thing in Christian art, in which\nrepresentations of God the Father are not very common nor, as a rule,\nvery expressive of the most vivid religious ideals; while Christ,\nusually not as God, but as man or child, and the Virgin Mary are the\nconstant themes of the most devout religious art, not to speak of the\nnumerous saints who correspond more or less to the gods of a\npolytheistic system. Philosophical thought was antagonistic to\nanthropomorphism, which, as we have seen, was the most characteristic\nfeature of popular religion in Greece, and which was essential to Greek\nreligious art. As soon as the human form is a mere symbol, no longer\nregarded as the express image of the god and the embodiment of his\nindividuality, it loses touch with reality. And this reality in the\nrelation of the god to his image must be believed in by the people, and\nat least through the people by the artist, if religious art is to\npreserve its vitality.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nCONDITIONS OF RELIGIOUS ART IN GREECE\n\n\nThe Greeks possessed, as we have seen, to an exceptionally high degree\nthe vivid anthropomorphic imagination necessary for the expression of\ntheir conception of the gods in their art; we have also noticed the\nconditions which encouraged or restricted such representation, and the\ninfluences that affected its nature. Given the desire to represent the\ncharacter and individuality of the gods in human form, the next question\nwe have to consider is how far their art, and especially the art of\nsculpture, was capable of giving effect to this desire. The answer lies\nmainly in the history of Greek sculpture, which can only be touched on\nhere in the barest outline. But, at the outset, it is necessary to\nremove a misconception which is prevalent at the present day, and more\nespecially in England, owing partly to the dominating influence of a\ngreat critic. Mr. Ruskin's _Aratra Pentelici_ is full of the most\nadmirable and suggestive appreciations of Greek sculpture in its more\ntechnical aspects; but side by side with them are found passages such as\nthe following: \"There is no personal character in true Greek art;\nabstract ideas of youth and age, strength and swiftness, virtue and\nvice--yes; but there is no individuality.\" Or again: \"The Greek, as\nsuch, never expresses personal character, while a Florentine holds it to\nbe the ultimate condition of beauty.\" If this criticism were just, it\nwould follow that any study of the relation of religion to art in Greece\nwould lose most if not all of its interest. But anyone who is acquainted\nwith the present state of our knowledge of Greek sculpture will not so\nmuch feel called upon to refute such statements as to explain how so\nstrange a misconception could have arisen. Nor is the explanation very\nfar to seek. Mr. Ruskin was writing for a generation not yet penetrated\nby the constructive criticism of recent investigation. Its conception of\n\"the antique\" in art was based mainly on the mass of mechanical and\nacademic copies or imitations, of Graeco-Roman date, with which our\nmuseums are filled, and on the influence of such sculpture to be seen in\nthe work of Flaxman or Thorwaldsen. It had, indeed, learnt from the\nElgin marbles that the Greek sculptors in the fifth century possessed a\nnobility in their conception of the human form, a mastery in the\ntreatment of the nude and of drapery, and a skill in marble technique of\nwhich only a faint reflection can be traced in the later Graeco-Roman\ntradition; but the great statues in which the sculptors of the fifth\ncentury embodied their ideals of the gods were either entirely lost or\npreserved only in inadequate copies; and it is only in recent years that\nthe discovery of originals or the identification of trustworthy copies\nhas enabled us to appreciate the intensity of expression and of inner\nlife which distinguished the work of the great sculptors of the fourth\ncentury, such as Scopas, Praxiteles, and Lysippus. Still, if Mr. Ruskin\nhad, like Brunn in his _Gotteridealen_, selected heads like those of the\nDemeter of Cnidus or the Hera Farnese to illustrate his theme, instead\nof a series of heads on coins magnified to many times the size for which\nthey were designed, he could hardly have written the passages just\nquoted. But the second of those passages itself supplies us with another\nclue. In this estimate of Greek sculpture there is throughout implied a\ncomparison with Christian, and above all with Florentine art, and its\ndesire to\n\n       \"... bring the invisible full into play;\n  Let the visible go to the dogs; what matters?\"\n\nIt is evident that the expression of the invisible, of character and\nindividuality, will be more striking and obvious in an art which lets\nthem \"shine through the flesh they fray\" than in the case of the Greek\nsculptors whose respect and even passionate admiration for the human\nbody would not allow them thus to transfigure it, at least in their\nstatues of the gods, and led them to seek for subtler methods of\nexpression by means of the flesh and in harmony with its nature. Their\nexpression of character and emotion is rendered in terms of a beautiful\nand healthy body. How this end was attained we must consider later on;\nbut there is yet another current prejudice in favour of this\nexaggeration of individuality which has its influence especially upon\nmodern artists. It is sometimes said nowadays that a departure from the\nindividual model is an attempt to \"improve upon nature,\" and is\ntherefore an artistic mistake. Now the Greek sculptor, as a rule, did\nnot work from an individual model at all. He trusted partly, especially\nin earlier times, to the tradition which familiarised him with a few\nfixed types, on which he made variations, partly to his observation and\nmemory trained for generations, and daily supplied with new material in\nthe gymnasium where nude youths and men were constantly exercising, or\nin the marketplace where he met his fellow-citizens. To see before him,\nwhether draped or nude, the figures he wanted for his art, he had no\nneed to pose a model in a studio; his models were at all times around\nhim in his daily life. The result was that when he wished to represent a\nyouth or a maiden, or even to make a portrait of a statesman, he tended\nto reproduce the type with certain personal modifications rather than to\nproduce a portrait in the modern sense. But when he came to making\nstatues of the gods, his freedom of hand was of incalculable service to\nhim in giving a bodily form to his imagination; it enabled him to create\nafter nature, without being dependent on an individual model or having\nto fall back upon such vague and generalised forms as are sometimes\nassociated with an academic or classical art; for it was his own trained\nobservation and memory that he called into play, not a mere mechanical\nsystem he had learnt from his predecessors. In the more individualistic\nart of the fourth century, as we shall see, it is probable that the\npersonal model was of more importance, especially in female statues; but\neven then it was still modified by the tradition and style which makes a\nharmonious whole, not only of each Greek statue, but of the development\nof Hellenic sculpture generally. In typical examples of the sculpture of\nthe fourth century we find not only this harmony and restraint, and the\nbeauty of bodily form in figure as well as in features which is\ngenerally recognised as characteristic of Greek art, but also an\nexpression of character and individuality, of mood and temperament, of\npathos and passion, which is none the less intense and real because it\nis expressed by means of the perfection of physical form, not as wasting\nor deforming it.\n\nIt may be asked how the invisible, mental, or spiritual qualities can be\nportrayed in visible form, especially if that visible form be not\novermuch distorted or modified, and in a more general way, how the\nexpression of a statue, and the impression it produces, can be analysed\nor discussed. For examples of the way this can be done, the reader may\nbe referred once more to Brunn's _Gotteridealen_, a study of a few\nselected representations of Greek gods in which the character of each is\nbrought out by a subtle and discriminating analysis of the visible\nforms. Here it may suffice to quote Brunn's own words from the\nIntroduction to that work: \"The spiritual effect produced on us by a\nwork of sculpture cannot be comprehended as a moral or a metaphysical\npeculiarity, completely independent of corporeal phenomena; it can\nbecome intelligible to us only by means of tangible sculptural forms, as\nthe exponents of spiritual expression.\" And again: \"The spiritual\nunderstanding of ideal artistic creations can only be attained on the\nbasis of a thorough analysis of their forms\"; hence in such a study we\nhave to do with \"no subjective fancies, but an investigation of\nobjective artistic principles, according to the method of scientific\nwork.\"\n\nThere are various ways in which spiritual qualities, mood, and character\nmay be given material expression in harmony with the bodily forms, not\nin combat with the flesh. There are, for instance, certain bodily\npeculiarities that usually accompany, and therefore suggest by\nassociation, various temperaments or mental qualities; and, moreover,\nthe actual effect upon the features and bearing of certain emotions or\nmoods often leaves permanent traces, from which a habitual or repeated\ntendency to such emotions or moods can be inferred. That certain types\nof face and certain expressions are usually associated with certain\nspiritual or mental qualities will hardly be denied; and here the method\nof the Greek artist, in observing and working from memory rather than\nfrom a posed model, gave him a great advantage in variety and freedom in\nthe expression of character no less than in the rendering of bodily\nform. If he realised clearly the individuality of his gods, his skill\nand mastery over his material and his store of observation gave him a\nfacility in giving this individuality a visible form which may not be so\nobvious at first sight as the individuality of a Florentine or of a\nmodern head, but which is none the less there for those who have eyes to\nsee it, and who can accustom themselves to the subtle atmosphere of\nancient art, and to the moderation and restraint which are seldom, if\never, violated in its most characteristic productions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nANTHROPOMORPHISM\n\n\nWe have already noticed the religious conceptions and impulses which led\nto the substitution of images in human shape for the rude stocks and\nstones of primitive worship. The beginning of the change seems to have\ntaken place at an early stage in the development of Greek art. In\npre-Hellenic times we find representation of gods and goddesses in human\nform upon gems and other small works of art, and also in statuettes that\nwere either objects of worship or dedicated in shrines; but we have at\npresent no evidence as to whether monumental images of the gods were\nmade in human form, though some objects of worship, such as the\ndouble-axe, were certainly set up in regular shrines. We know too little\nabout the religious beliefs and customs of this prehistoric age to be\nable to judge whether such objects were regarded merely as symbols of\nthe deity or as having immanent in them some divine or superhuman power;\nbut survivals, especially of an early tree and pillar cult, are probably\nto be traced in historic Greece, and even to the present day.\n\nThe Homeric poems, on the other hand, supply us with little or no\nevidence as to the existence of any sculptural representation of the\ngods. Although temples are frequently mentioned, we are not informed\nthat any of them contained a sacred image, with the apparent exception\nof the temple of Athena at Troy. There we are told that the Trojan\nmatrons, in a time of stress, brought a robe to offer to the goddess,\nand that the priestess Theano placed it \"upon the knees of\nbeauteous-haired Athene.\" Unless, as is possible, this is a purely\nmetaphorical expression, it would seem to imply a seated statue; but it\nis to be noted that the Palladium of Troy, the sacred image of Athena\nwhich was stolen by Ulysses and Diomed, and which was preserved,\naccording to conflicting traditions, in one or another shrine in later\nGreece, was a standing statue of a primitive type. The inconsistency is\nnot of great importance, except as showing that the supposed mention of\nthe statue of Athena in the Iliad had little, if any, influence on later\ntradition; and in any case it is isolated, and does not refer to a\nGreek, but a foreign temple. On the other hand, we find frequent mention\nin later writers of primitive statues of the gods which were said to\nhave been set up or dedicated by various persons in the heroic age. An\nexample is offered by the Trojan Palladium already mentioned; another\nwas the statue of Artemis carried off from Tauris by Iphigenia and\nOrestes; rival claimants to this identification existed at Sparta and at\nBrauron in Attica. The legends of dedication are of no historic value;\nthe story of the Palladium itself was unknown to Homer, though it\noccurred in later epics. All that can be asserted of such images is that\nthey were of unknown antiquity, and that local patriotism claimed for\nthem a heroic origin. Much the same may be said of Daedalus. It need not\nbe discussed here whether an actual artist of this name ever existed.\nThe information we have as to Daedalus is of two kinds; on the one hand,\nwe find tales of a mythical craftsman and magician, to whose invention\nmany of the most typical improvements in early Greek sculpture are\nattributed; on the other hand, we have records of many statues of the\ngods, extant in historical times in various shrines of Greece, which\nwere attributed to him. Such attributions are not really of greater\nhistorical value than the traditions of dedication in the heroic age\nwhich we find elsewhere. The name of Daedalus having once become famous\nin this connection, it was natural that many statues of primitive style\nand unrecorded origin should be attributed to him. More importance may\nbe attached to the fact that the sculptors who actually made some of the\nearly statues of the gods in Athens and in the Peloponnesus are\ndescribed as the pupils or by some as the sons or companions of\nDaedalus. In this way his name is associated with some of the early\nschools that had the greatest influence in Greece, especially on the\nrepresentation of the gods in sculpture. There are other traditions of\nearly schools of sculptors, the marble workers of Chios, the bronze\nfounders of Samos, who devoted themselves mainly to making statues of\nthe gods, some of which survived throughout historical times. When we\nturn from tradition and consider the early examples of statues of gods\nthat may still be seen or are recorded by extant copies, we find that\nthese fall into two classes. On the one hand, there are more or less\nexact repetitions of the primitive stock or stone, the cylindrical\ntree-trunk or the rectangular block cut from the quarry, with the rudest\nindication of head and arms and feet, deviating as little as possible\nfrom the original shape of the block. When images of this sort were, as\nwas often the case, of wood, they have, of course, disappeared; but we\ncan sometimes recognise copies of them upon reliefs or in stone. On the\nother hand, we find another class of images which approximate more to\nthe attainments of Daedalus as described by rationalising writers of\nlater date. These images are completely in human form, and, if male, are\nusually nude. They have their legs separated in a short stride, the left\nfoot being usually advanced; their arms are either set close to their\nsides, or one or both of them is raised from the elbow; their whole\nshape suggests a rigid system of proportions and a more or less\nconventionalised form. These images have no resemblance to the\nmodifications of the primitive stocks and stones, and could not well be\ndirectly derived from them; they are found in great numbers upon many\nsites of early sanctity in Greece itself and in Greek settlements around\nthe Levant, notably in Cyprus, Rhodes, and Naucratis in Egypt. Sometimes\nthey seem to represent the god, sometimes the dedicator; but all alike\nshow the attempt of the early Greek craftsman to imitate the products of\nmore advanced and finished art which he saw around him. Many of them are\nderived from Egyptian types; others show the influence of Mesopotamian\nart, or of the hybrid craftsmanship of Phoenicia. The borrowing or\nimitation of such foreign types may at first sight appear to show even\nless promise of artistic progress than variations on the old native\nimages; but it is not in its origins, but in its development and\nperfection that the chief excellence of Greek art is to be found.\n\nThe types borrowed by sculpture from foreign art are almost exclusively\nof human form. The monstrous mixed forms in which the deities of Egypt\nor Mesopotamia often found the expression of their superhuman and\nmysterious powers do not seem to have appealed to the imagination of the\nGreeks. Such mixed forms were, indeed, frequently borrowed by early\ndecorative art, and on \"Orientalising\" vases we constantly find\nhuman-headed and bird-headed quadrupeds, usually winged, and\nhuman-headed birds. The delight in winged figures generally, which was\nmainly decorative in early times, also finds its origin in Oriental\nwoven stuffs. Greek sculpture adopted and translated into stone or\nbronze some of these mixed types--notably the human-headed bird and the\nhuman-headed winged lion; these it identified as the Siren and the\nSphinx of Greek myth, and associated them with the mysteries of the\ntomb. To some other forms, that of the Centaur and the Satyr and the\nTriton, it also gave considerable scope. But all these, if not human,\nare hardly to be regarded as divine; they are mostly noxious, and, even\nif benignant, do not attain the rank of gods. Perhaps a nearer approach\nto divine character is to be found in the river-gods, who are often\nrepresented as bulls with human heads or as human with bull's horns; but\nhere, too, we have only to deal with minor deities. No sculptor\nrepresented Dionysus in this way, even though he was called\n\"bull-shaped\" by poets; nor is the horse-god Posidon even represented as\na Centaur. The horse-headed Demeter of Phigalia remains the strange and\nsolitary exception, however we may explain her existence.\n\nThe process by which the early human types were gradually improved and\nmade more life-like, by a continuous struggle with technical\ndifficulties, by constant and direct observation of nature, and by the\nbuilding up of an artistic tradition in different schools and families,\nis a question that concerns the history of art rather than our present\nstudy. But it is impossible to distinguish rigidly between the two,\nbecause these types, whether of the nude standing male figure, of the\ndraped female, or of the seated figure, are all of them used alike to\nrepresent human and divine personages; and, apart from inscriptions of\ndedication or conditions of discovery or distinctive attributes, it\nwould often be impossible to tell whether any particular statue was\nmeant to represent, for example, the image of a god or a conventional\nportrait of a man. These nude male statues, commonly known by the name\nof \"Apollo,\" were certainly, some of them, made to commemorate athletes,\nwhose images were set up either in the place where they won their\nvictories or in their native town; others were placed over graves as\nmemorials of the dead; and even in a sacred precinct it is sometimes\nuncertain whether the god himself is represented or the worshipper who\ndedicates this record of his devotion.\n\nAt this early period, therefore, Mr. Ruskin's strictures as to the\nimpossibility of distinguishing the individuality of the different gods\nmust be admitted, and even supplemented by an admission of the\nimpossibility of distinguishing gods and goddesses from human beings.\nThe explanation is obvious enough. During this age of early progress the\nconstant aim of the sculptor is to attain to complete mastery over the\nmaterial and to perfection of bodily form. In religious art, what\ncorresponds to this is the struggle towards anthropomorphism--first to\nrepresent the gods in human form, and then to make that form the most\nperfect that human art can devise. During this stage of artistic and\nreligious development the type and the ideal cannot be distinguished. It\nwas only when a type or a varying series of types had been brought to\nperfection in the fifth century, so as to satisfy the demand for a\nharmonious system of bodily proportions, for beauty of outline and\ndignity of countenance, that these types could be used as a means of\nexpression for the religious ideals of the nation. In developing the\ntype the accidental has to be discarded, and with it much of the feeling\nof individuality; works of early archaic art, for all their defects,\noften show more sign of individual character than the more perfect works\nof the earlier part of the fifth century. The attainment of the type is\nfollowed by an infusion of character and individuality, drawn from the\nartist's trained memory and observation with clear artistic intention,\nnot from the mere caprice of an accidental recollection or a casual\npeculiarity of a model. The character and individuality thus expressed\nmust be considered in subsequent chapters; it is only necessary here to\ndistinguish it from the suggestion of an individual, almost of a\ncaricature, which we find sometimes in archaic art, and which is\ncertainly to be seen occasionally in works of Florentine sculpture.\nDuring the period of the rise of Greek sculpture the various schools\nwere advancing each in its own way towards what has been called\nnaturalism in art, as opposed to realism on the one side and idealism on\nthe other. That is to say, they were striving by constant study of the\nathletic form, of proportions and muscles, of drapery and hair, to\nattain to a series of types both in harmony with themselves and in\naccordance with nature; and they were too much absorbed in this attempt\nto go far beyond their predecessors in rendering the character of the\ngods according to the form consecrated by tradition. Even in the\nexpression of the face the same process is to be traced. In early works\nwe find sometimes no expression at all, or an apparent stolidity which\nis really the absence of expression; in the archaic smile we see an\nattempt to enliven the face, and possibly also, as we have noticed, to\nexpress and even to induce the benignity of the deity. But this attempt,\nmade with inadequate artistic resources, tends to result in a mere\ngrimace; and as we approach the transitional age before the greatest\nperiod of sculpture, we often find a reaction against any such\nexaggeration of expression in a severity and dignity that may have a\ncertain grace of their own, but that are in some sense a retrograde\nmovement so far as the expression of character is concerned.\n\nIt follows that the statues of the gods dating from this early period,\nhowever interesting they might be for the history of sculpture, would\nnot, even if we possessed many more of them than we do possess, throw\nvery much light upon the development of the ideas of the Greeks\nconcerning their deities. They would probably conform to a limited\nnumber of clearly defined types. The most familiar of all, the standing\nnude male figure, would, if beardless, usually represent Apollo, with a\nbow or a branch of bay, or sometimes other attributes. A similar type,\nbearded, would stand for Zeus or Posidon or Hermes, if provided with\nthunderbolt or eagle, with trident or fish, or with a caduceus. Similar\nfigures might also be draped, and still represent gods; or, if female,\nwould serve for Hera, Artemis, Aphrodite, and sometimes for Athena, if\nshe was represented without her arms and aegis. Then, too, there was the\nseated type, usually enveloped in full drapery, which might readily be\nadapted to a statue of any of the chief gods. In all of these there is\nno question of distinguishing the gods from one another in character and\nindividuality; apart from attributes, there is hardly any attempt to\ndistinguish gods from men.\n\nPerhaps the earliest class of statues in which we find any attempt to\ngive artistic expression to superhuman power is that in which we see the\ngod in vigorous action, often striking with his characteristic weapon:\nZeus with his thunderbolt in his raised right hand, Posidon with his\ntrident, or Athena advancing rapidly with brandished spear and shield\nadvanced. But even these figures, apart from their divine attributes,\nshow no essential distinction from human combatants. It is a significant\nfact that it is still a matter of dispute[6] whether one of the most\nfamous statues of the early fifth century, \"the Choiseul-Gouffier\nApollo,\" represents a god or an athlete. This is neither because the\nGreeks at this time idealised their athletes nor because they humanised\ntheir gods, but because they typified them both; that is to say, they\nrepresented them by a type which was the most perfect rendering within\ntheir power either of man or of an anthropomorphic deity. Here we have\nthe material form provided by means of which the ideals of the\nsucceeding period were to find their artistic expression--such a typical\nor normal human form is, in fact, the logical expression of\nanthropomorphism in its most literal sense--the making of gods after\nman's image. But those who believed rather that man was made after God's\nimage would look to find in the prototype something more and higher than\ncan be seen in its earthly copy. This notion, even if not formulated by\nphilosophy until a later age, certainly underlies the idealistic art of\nthe fifth century.\n\n[Footnote 6: Even if this dispute be regarded as now settled by weight\nof evidence, the fact that such a dispute is possible retains its\nsignificance.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nIDEALISM\n\n\nThe age which followed the great Persian Wars was the time of the\nhighest political, literary, and intellectual development in Greece. Nor\nwas it unfavourable to strength and depth of religious feeling among the\npeople. If the more thoughtful among them were inclined to doubt whether\nsome of the stories told about the gods were either probable or\nedifying, these were the very men who, on the other hand, were most\ncapable of appreciating the higher and nobler conceptions of the gods\nwhich we find in contemporary poets. And the great delivery from the\nPersians not only gave the Greeks a confidence in themselves which\njustly increased their national pride and thereby strengthened their\nnational ideals, but it also gave occasion to a confidence in the gods\nand a gratitude to them which found expression in numerous buildings and\nofferings. All this religious activity could not fail to have\nconsiderable influence upon the common people; and in some cases, as at\nAthens, there was the necessity of replacing the temples and statues\nthat had been destroyed or carried off by the Persian invader. At the\ntime when a demand occurred for new statues of the gods, the rapid\nprogress of the art of sculpture made it inevitable that these new\nstatues should not be mere reproductions or reminiscences of the ones\nthey replaced, but fresh and original conceptions, worthy of the\nincreased skill of the artist and of the nobler ideals of the people.\nAnd by one of those coincidences which we meet so often both in the\nhistory of art and in that of literature, just at the time when the\nmaterial conditions, the spirit of the people, and the rapid advance of\nart gave the utmost scope for artistic creation, there arose the man of\ntranscendent genius to give full expression to the religious and\nartistic aspirations of the time. The age of Pericles was also the age\nof Phidias. It is true that there was an interval between the defeat of\nthe Persians and the period of highest attainment in Greece; and during\nthis interval many temples were built or rebuilt, and many statues were\nset up as objects of worship or as dedications to the gods. Some of\nthese may have anticipated to a certain extent the work of Phidias;\nseveral of them were of colossal size, like his chief masterpieces, and\nthus, even from the technical point of view, may have prepared the way\nbefore him; one, the Apollo by Calamis at Apollonia, was about\nforty-five feet high, and so actually rivalled the Zeus and Athena of\nPhidias in size. But of these statues we know little or nothing. As to\nthe two most famous works of Phidias himself, the Athena Parthenos\nwithin the Parthenon at Athens and the Zeus at Olympia, we are better\ninformed, so far as elaborate descriptions and the somewhat rhetorical\nappreciations of later writers are concerned; and we possess some extant\ncopies which tell us something of their pose and attributes. But any\nnotion we may form as to their true artistic and religious character\nmust be mainly dependent upon our imagination; and even for their\nrelation to the religious ideals of the people we are dependent for the\nmost part upon indirect evidence. Though the art of sculpture was so\nclosely bound up with the life of the people in Greece, we find very few\nreferences to its greatest works; it is evident that the Athenians, for\nexample, took the greatest pride in the buildings that adorned their\nAcropolis and in the sculptures they contained; yet when Pericles, as\nreported by Thucydides, speaks of the statue of the Athena Parthenos, it\nis only to reckon the gold of her drapery as part of the possible\nresources of the state. We know that in the eyes of Pericles and of his\nhearers the preciousness of the material was only an incident in the\nartistic character of the work; but what is felt most deeply is often\nthe least spoken about. Later descriptions, such as that of Pausanias,\nlay emphasis on the details and accessories of the statue, the\nornamentation of helmet and shield and sandals; they lay themselves open\nto the stricture of Lucian on \"such as can neither see nor praise the\nwhole beauty of the Olympian Zeus, great and noble as it is, nor\ndescribe it to others that do not know it, but admire the accurate work\nand fine polish of his footstool and the good proportions of the basis,\nenumerating all such details with the utmost care.\" At the same time\neven such information as they give us is welcome, since it aids our\nimagination to reconstruct the appearance of the whole. These great\nchryselephantine statues were placed within the cella of a temple,\nlighted only through the door and by some infiltration through the\nmarble roof, and their effect was calculated for these conditions. The\nrich tone and subtle reflections of the ivory and the gold, mingled with\ncoloured inlays of enamel or precious stones, and tempered and\nharmonised by a \"dim religious light,\" must have been most impressive;\nand the grandeur of the figures was enhanced by their colossal size. But\nin all this we are still dealing only with conditions and accessories,\nnot with the art itself and the religious ideals which it expressed.\nThese are perhaps easier for us to appreciate in the case of the Zeus\nthan of the Athena, though we are better provided with copies of the\nlatter. We are accustomed in our own religious art to the attempt to\nexpress divinity in the form of a mature man of unspeakable majesty and\nbenignity. To the Greeks, indeed, the human figure of Zeus was not\nmerely an incarnation, but the actual form of the god himself; the god\nwas not thought of as having taken upon himself the sorrows and the\nweaknesses of our mortal nature, but as sharing only its ideal\nperfection. Yet that the effect was not altogether dissimilar is shown\nby such a passage as that we find in Dion Chrysostom: \"A man whose soul\nis utterly immersed in toil, who has suffered many disasters and\nsorrows, and cannot even enjoy sweet sleep, even such an one, I think,\nif he stood face to face with this statue, would forget all the dangers\nand difficulties of this mortal life: such the vision you, Phidias, have\ninvented and devised, a sight 'to lull all pain and anger, and bring\nforgetfulness of every sorrow.'\"\n\nThe same writer elsewhere puts into the mouth of Phidias an explanation\nof how he had attempted to embody in his statue the current conception\nof the god, and even the epithets that belonged to his worship. \"My\nZeus,\" says the sculptor, \"is peaceful and altogether gentle, as the\nguardian of a Hellas free from factions and of one mind with itself.\nHim, taking counsel with my art, and with the wise and noble Elean\nstate, I set up in his temple, mild and majestic in a form free from all\nsorrow, as the giver of life and livelihood and all good things, the\ncommon father of men, their saviour and their guardian, so far as it is\npossible for a mortal man to conceive and to copy his divine and\ninexpressible nature. And consider whether you will not find the image\naccording with all the epithets of the god; Zeus alone is called the\nfather of gods and their only king, and also god of the city and of\nfriendship and society, and of suppliants too and strangers, the giver\nof harvest, and by innumerable other titles. And for one whose aim it\nwas to display all these qualities without speaking, is not my art\nsuccessful? The strength of the form and its imposing proportions show\nthe power to rule and the king; the gentle and amiable character shows\nthe father and his care; the majesty and severity show the god of the\ncity and of law; and of the kinship of men and gods the similarity of\ntheir shape serves as a symbol. His protective friendship of suppliants\nand strangers and fugitives and such like is seen in his kindliness and\nhis evident gentleness and goodness. And an image of the giver of\npossessions and harvest is seen in the simplicity and magnanimity\ndisplayed in his form; he seems just like one who would give and be\ngenerous of good things. All this, in short, I imitated as far as\npossible, being unable to express it in speech.\" This description is, of\ncourse, the work of a late and rhetorical author, but it is the work of\na man who was familiar with these great statues that are now lost to us,\nand was capable of appreciating them. His criticism may not be so\nthorough and subtle as the analysis of the Greek type of Zeus made by\nBrunn in his _Gotteridealen_; but it is based on similar principles, the\nobservation of the physical type and the spiritual expression which\nserves best to embody the majesty and benignity of the god. After all,\nwe come back perhaps to the saying of Phidias himself, and his quotation\nfrom Homer; here, too, it is the brow of the god that is emphasised, and\nthe nod that shook Olympus while it granted a prayer. It is in such\neffects rather than in any detailed description that it is possible to\nrealise the nature of a great work of art.\n\nWhat success in the attainment of its aim was here reached by the art of\nthe sculptor may perhaps best be estimated from the often quoted\nsentence of Quintilian, perhaps the noblest praise ever accorded to an\nartist by a critic: \"The beauty of the statue even made some addition to\nthe received religion; the majesty of the work was equal to the god.\" We\nmight indeed, without irreverence, impute to Phidias the words uttered\nin a very different sense by one who later gave a new and higher\ninterpretation to a formula of \"the received religion\" in Greece: \"Whom\ntherefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.\"\n\nThe other great Phidian ideal, that of Athena, was represented by\nseveral statues, both in Athens and in other cities. As to these we have\na certain amount of information, and even a certain number of copies,\nwhich show us the pose and the accessories of the various statues; some\nof the better ones even suffice to give us some notion of the beauty of\ntheir original. We have also descriptions by ancient writers, which tell\nus, as in the case of the Olympian Zeus, much about the decoration of\nthe statue; but we have not in this case any appreciations of the effect\nupon those who saw it. The ideal of Athena is in some ways more\ndifficult for us to comprehend than that of Zeus, partly because it is\nless universally human, and more peculiarly characteristic of Greece and\neven of Athens. The notion of the mother goddess is common to most\nreligions; that of the \"queen and huntress, chaste and fair\" is at least\nfamiliar to us in literature, and readily commends itself to the\nimagination. But Athena, though she has something of both these\ncharacters, has a nature different from both. It is impossible to derive\nher varied mythological functions from any one origin; but here it is\nnot the origin of her worship that concerns us, rather its meaning and\ninfluence as these affected the people of her chosen city. Just as Zeus\nwas the ideal of all that was best in the Hellenic conception of manhood\nand the god of a united Hellas, so Athena is especially the goddess of\nAthens, the giver and fosterer of all those qualities that made the\nAthenians what they were, the creatress of that ideal city sketched in\nthe wonderful speeches of Pericles. Her gifts are the arts of war and\npeace, and all artistic and intellectual activity, as well as the olive\nand other characteristic products of Attic soil, and the clear and\nluminous air and stimulating climate which Attic writers are never tired\nof extolling, and of associating with the peculiar genius of the\nAthenian race. One can imagine how Dion Chrysostom might have recognised\nthe expression of these various qualities in the broad and majestic, yet\nkeenly intellectual brow, in the wide and clear eyes, and in other\nfeatures; but the extant copies of the Athena Parthenos cannot do more\nthan assist our imagination in realising how the sculptor represented\nthe goddess of Athens. Here, too, as in the case of the Zeus, it is\ndifficult for us to avoid the error of regarding the statue as a mere\nphilosophical abstraction, an impersonation of the qualities it\nrepresents. Athena in later art, as set up in libraries and museums, was\ndoubtless such an impersonation, just as she is in modern art unreal and\ncomparatively uninteresting. But the Athenian believed intensely in the\nexistence of his goddess. He believed that the ceremonies connected with\nher ancient image were necessary to the continuance of her favour to her\ncity and people, and that the new temples and statues set up in her\nhonour would still further delight her and ensure her protection and her\nabode among her grateful worshippers. The statue by Phidias within the\nParthenon offered not merely that form in which she would choose to\nappear if she showed herself to mortal eyes, but actually showed her\nform as she had revealed it to the sculptor. To look upon such an image\nhelped the worshipper as much as--perhaps more than--any service or\nritual to bring himself into communion with the goddess, and to fit\nhimself, as a citizen of her chosen city, to carry out her will in\ncontributing his best efforts to its supremacy in politics, in\nliterature, and in art. If a work of art could have this actual\ninfluence upon religious emotion, and through it upon practical life, it\nmay be said to have attained the utmost that any human effort can\nachieve in the service of God.\n\nThe religious influence of art in the fifth century is, as we have seen,\nclosely associated with the state; the Athena Parthenos and the Olympian\nZeus appealed to their worshippers as citizens of Athens and as members\nof the privileged Hellenic race. It would be easy to trace a similar\ncharacter in almost all the great statues of gods that are recorded as\nbelonging to this period. Thus the Dionysus of Alcamenes is not the\ndreamy god of wine and pleasure that we find at a later age, but an\naugust figure, bearded and enthroned, the giver of the riches of the\nearth and the wine, the god in whose honour all the great Dionysian\nfestivals were held; the same sculptor's Hermes is the guardian of ways\nand gates, the giver of increase to flocks, not the youthful and\nathletic messenger of the gods. Hephaestus, too, especially when\nassociated with Athena, is the patron and teacher of all handicrafts,\nhimself the ideal artisan, practical and genial, but with none of his\ngodhead lost in a too human individuality; even his\nlameness--characteristic of the smith in all folk-lore--is lightly\nindicated, not dwelt on as an interesting motive. Various statues of\nparticular gods may, of course, emphasise one side or another of their\nfunctions. Athena may be worshipped and represented as goddess of\nVictory or of Health; but here, too, it is usually some recognised state\ncult that underlies the representation. Outside Athens we find the same\nconditions. To take only one instance, the colossal gold and ivory Hera\nof Argos, made by the chief Argive master Polyclitus, is the great\ngoddess of the city, just as Athena is of Athens. She was represented as\nthe bride of Zeus, who annually renewed her maidenhood at the great\nArgive festival of the divine marriage; and we cannot doubt that\nPolyclitus expressed in this statue, which was hardly less famous than\nthe masterpieces of Phidias, all the essential features of the great\nreligious ideals that underlay this primitive rite. His Hera had neither\nthe warlike nor the intellectual and spiritual characteristics of the\nAttic Athena; but she was the goddess of womanly grace and beauty in the\nbride, and embodied that perfection of physical form which Argive art\nsought also in its athletic figures, and which was in a sense a part of\nthe religion that found expression in the great athletic games. Some\ngods--Apollo, for example--seem in fifth-century statues to have a more\nindividual character. Just as in earlier times the name Apollo serves to\ncover a multitude of statues of which some may be meant to represent\nindividual men, so even in the age of Phidias we sometimes meet with a\nfigure of athletic type or of youthful beauty as to which it is possible\nto doubt whether it is an Apollo; this may be partly the result of the\ngreat popularity of the type in all ages of Greek sculpture which led to\nits more rapid development and earlier individualisation. But the Apollo\nof this period is never the mere dreamy youth of later time; it has been\nwell said that he is the god who, in the mythical athletic contest,\ncould surpass Hermes in the foot-race and Ares in boxing; the embodiment\nof all-round physical and intellectual excellence, the combination of\nmusic and gymnastic, which again brings us back to a national Hellenic\nideal. Throughout the representations of the gods in the art of the\nfifth century we find the same essential character. They embody in\nthemselves the expression, by means of the most perfect physical forms,\nof the qualities attributed to the god himself, or given by him to his\nworshippers. They are no impersonal abstraction of these qualities, but\nare real and living beings, in whom these qualities exist to a degree\nimpossible for a mere mortal. But, on the other hand, they have nothing\nof the passions and emotions, the weaknesses and imperfections of mortal\nnature. In this they are inconsistent, perhaps, with that Homeric\npresentment of the gods which the greatest artists consciously set\nbefore themselves. But we cannot wonder that an age of such clear and\nlofty intellectual and moral perceptions should have rejected what it\nfelt to be unworthy in the current notions of the gods, and should have\nselected only what it felt to be truly divine. Art did not, however,\nremain very long upon its highest level of religious feeling; but in\nGreece, by a fortunate coincidence, the age of the greatest religious\nideals was also that of the highest perfection of physical type in art\nas well as of technical skill in execution. We do not therefore find in\nthis age that the sculptor lacks the power to express his ideas, or that\nhis ideas are too strong for the forms in which they are expressed;\nthere is rather that perfect harmony between the two that, here as\nelsewhere, is characteristic of Hellenic art.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nINDIVIDUALISM\n\n\nThe great religious ideals of the fifth century were, as we have seen,\nclosely bound up with the subordination of the individual to the State;\nand their expression in sculpture was also due in almost every case to\nthe employment of the artist by the community. In the fourth century, on\nthe other hand, we find on every side a stronger assertion of\nindividuality. It was a commonplace among Attic orators in the fourth\ncentury to contrast the private luxury and ostentation of their own day\nwith the simplicity of life among the great men of the earlier age,\nwhose houses could not be distinguished from those of the common people,\nthough their public buildings and the temples they raised to the gods\nwere of unparalleled splendour. In religion, and above all in religious\nart, we find something of the same tendency. There are few if any\nrecords of the dedication during the fourth century of those great\nstatues of the chief gods which were looked back to by all subsequent\ngenerations as the embodiment of a national ideal. But there were,\nperhaps, more statues of the gods made in the fourth century which were\nthe objects not merely of artistic admiration, but of intense and\nsometimes morbid personal devotion. The mere list of the gods preferred\nfor representation is an indication in itself; while in the fifth\ncentury, Zeus and Athena and Hera, the great gods of the State or of the\nHellenic race, are the subjects of the most famous statues, in the\nfourth century it is rather Aphrodite and Dionysus and Asclepius, those\nwhose gifts contribute to individual happiness or enjoyment, that offer\nmost scope to the powers of the artist.\n\nAnd the sculptors themselves, in the fourth century, show more\nindividuality of style. In the latter part of the fifth century the\ngenius of Phidias had so dominated religious art that the works of his\nsuccessors, men like Alcamenes and Agoracritus, could hardly be\ndistinguished from his. But the great sculptors of the fourth century,\nScopas and Praxiteles and Lysippus, not to mention others of less note,\ndevoted themselves not so much to the expression through perfect\nphysical form of great religious ideals, but to a realisation of the\ncharacter and, so to speak, the personality of the gods whom they\nportrayed. And they did this by the same means by which they expressed\nin their art the characters and passions of heroes or of men, thereby\nremoving the gods from the sphere of passionless benignity and power\nwhich is assigned to them by the art of the fifth century. Such a\ntreatment evidently gave more scope for variety in the styles of the\nsculptors; and although we can sometimes trace the influence of one upon\nanother, yet each clearly shows his own characteristics. We are\nexpressly told of Praxiteles that he showed the most admirable skill in\ninfusing into his marble works the passions and emotions of the soul;\nand the extant remains of the statues made by Scopas and Lysippus show\nthat they also, each in his own way, attained the same results.\n\nIf the sculpture of the fifth century was ethical, expressing noble\nideals of character whether in gods or men, that of the fourth century\nmay be called psychological. It is not content with character; it\nexpresses also mood and even passion, and thereby gives more prominence\nto individuality. At first sight it is not easy to realise how this\nchange came to affect the representations of the gods. The gods of Homer\nare, indeed, full of individual character; but we have seen how in the\nfifth century, though the greatest sculptors declared it was the gods of\nHomer that they represented, these representations were idealised and\nraised above those human touches in which the individuality is most\nconspicuous. There was, in the Homeric hymns and in the lyric poets, a\ndelight in details of incident and in personal peculiarities and even in\nromantic tales about the gods; and in the fourth century, when the high\nidealisation of the preceding age is no longer so strong in its\ninfluence, we find a similar tendency in art as well. While the great\nstatues of the gods in the fifth century are almost all represented as\neither enthroned or standing, not employed in any particular action or\nfunction, the most characteristic examples of the statues of gods made\nin the fourth century have almost all some definite motive. We may take\nas an example what was perhaps the most famous statue of antiquity, the\nAphrodite by Praxiteles at Cnidus. The goddess is represented as nude;\nand it is often said that goddesses would not have been so represented\nin the fifth century. It is true that full drapery seems more consistent\nwith the dignified and august figures of Phidian art. But if the\nreligious type had required that Phidias should make a nude goddess, we\nmay be sure he would have made her naked and unashamed, with no more\nself-consciousness than a nude Apollo; above all, he would not have\nthought it necessary to provide a motive for her nudity. With Praxiteles\nit is otherwise. He represents the goddess as preparing for the bath,\nand just letting her last garment slip from her hand on to a vase that\nstands beside her; and, in addition to this provision of a motive--an\nexcuse, one might almost say--for representing her without her clothes,\nhe hints, from the instinctive gesture of her other hand which she holds\nbefore her body, at a half-conscious shrinking from exposure, a feeling\nof modesty which, however suitable to a woman, is by no means consistent\nwith a high ideal of the goddess. The face and figure are of\nextraordinary physical beauty of type, of a breadth and nobility which\ncontrast with the smaller, prettier, and less dignified forms of later\nart; the gesture, too, has not the conscious coquetry which we see in\nsuch a work as the Venus de' Medici. But, on the other hand, we must\nrecognise that the statue represents the goddess under a human rather\nthan a divine aspect, that even her mood and feeling of timidity are\nportrayed in a manner which, however charming in itself, is totally\ninconsistent with her worship as a great goddess. We are not surprised\nto hear that this statue inspired a personal passion; she is the goddess\nof love, and is represented as not beyond the reach of human attraction;\nbut she is brought down to the level of mortals, rather than capable of\nraising mortals to a higher sphere by her contemplation. It is the same,\nthough perhaps to a less degree, with other statues of the gods made in\nthe fourth century. The motives with which the later Greeks went to\nvisit the great statues of the Phidian age were, as we have seen, to a\ngreat extent religious, and their contemplation was regarded to some\nextent as a service; here we have \"idolatry\" in its highest form. But\nthose who went to see the Aphrodite of Cnidus went chiefly to enjoy the\nbeauty of the statue; and although this may be the best thing from the\nartistic point of view, it certainly has not the same religious import.\n\nThere is another element in the individuality of fourth-century statues\nwhich may appeal to modern artists, and which certainly did appeal--in\nan inverted manner--to early Christian writers of invectives against\npagan idolatry. It was said that Phryne had posed as a model for the\nCnidian Aphrodite of Praxiteles; and the character of the goddess was\ninferred from that of her votary. It is clear that a Greek artist could\nnot have, in the case of a nude female statue, the same choice of types\nconstantly present to his observation and his memory as he had in the\ncase of male statues; and the individuality of the model, however\nbeautiful, would thus tend to assert itself against the type. Thus\npersonality and individual character, \"the ultimate condition of\nbeauty,\" to use Mr. Ruskin's words, in modern as in Tuscan art, comes\nmuch nearer to expression in the fourth century than in the fifth. But a\nstudy of such a statue as the Cnidian Aphrodite shows us nevertheless\nthat in the beauty of the type and the avoidance of the accidental, the\nart of Praxiteles was as far removed from realism as it was from the\nvague generalisation of Graeco-Roman and modern pseudo-classical art. It\nis full of life and individuality, but it is the individuality of a\ncharacter realised within his mind by the artist, not merely copied from\nthe human model he set before him.\n\nAnother method by which the motive becomes prominent in the art of the\nfourth century is to be seen in the interpretation of mythological\nconceptions. These are realised and embodied in statues; but the statues\noffer a new, sometimes, it seems, almost an accidental and trifling\nversion of a solemn religious conception; it appears as if the artist\nwere playing with a mythological subject. Thus in the statue made by\nPraxiteles of Apollo Sauroktonos, \"the lizard-slayer,\" the god stands\nwith an arrow in his hand, as if trying to catch with it a lizard who\nruns up a tree; it suggests a boyish game rather than the epithet of a\ngod. Again, the worship of Artemis Brauronia at Athens was one of the\noldest and most sacred cults in the city, and women at marriage and at\nother critical times of their life used to offer her their garments,\nthereby bringing themselves into close contact with the goddess and\nclaiming her special protection, the garments being actually placed on\nthe old image. If, as is probable, the Artemis of Gabii is a copy of the\nstatue substituted by Praxiteles for this old image, we see there the\ngoddess, as a graceful girlish figure, fastening a cloak upon her\nshoulder. This may be taken as symbolical of the earlier custom of\nplacing the garments on the statue; but we have evidence that the\nworshippers were not content with such a symbolic contact, but had the\nactual garments placed on the new statue as they had been on the old.\nHere we have probably a case of unsuccessful substitution; the artistic\nrepresentation did not suffice to replace the actual rite. But the\nrepresentation itself is doubtless intended in a way which, however\ngraceful, does not represent any deep religious feeling; one feels that\nthe artist found the subject a convenient one as an artistic motive,\nrather than that he had any deep religious idea to express.\n\nWe must not, however, go too far in denying religious ideals to the\nfourth century altogether. Some of the gods, who came very near to the\nlife of man, but who were nevertheless worshipped with a real belief in\ntheir power and benevolence, found at this time their fullest expression\nin art. An example may be seen in the Demeter of Cnidus, the mother\nsorrowing for her daughter, whose suffering brings her into close\nsympathy with human weakness, and whose mysteries, perhaps more than any\nother Hellenic service, brought men and women into personal communion\nwith the gods. We may take as another instance the head of Asclepius\nfrom Melos in the British Museum. Here, as Brunn has pointed out in his\nadmirable analysis of its forms, we may recognise not so much the god as\nthe half-human, half-divine physician, a genial and friendly spirit who\npersuades rather than commands. The expression is not only intellectual,\nbut has also an infinite gentleness, as of one not himself unacquainted\nwith mortal pain and sorrow; and such a conception, as we know from\nChristian art, often appeals to those who find the majesty of Zeus too\ndistant, the idea of his godhead too abstract. In such almost human\nideals the individuality of the fourth century finds its full scope, as\nin other half-human creations of the artist's imagination. Apollo as the\ninspired musician or--if we accept the derivation of the Apollo\nBelvedere from a fourth-century original--as the disdainful archer,\nHermes, the protector and playmate of his little brother Dionysus, and\nmany other such representations of the gods in their personal moods and\ncharacteristic actions, seem in many ways less divine, less full of\nreligious feeling than such an Asclepius; if the great gods are brought\ntoo near to human passions and weaknesses, they cannot but lose much of\ntheir divinity.\n\nOne might easily multiply examples of similar motives in the statues of\nthe gods made in the fourth century; but we should find the same\nunderlying principles in all cases. The gods are indeed more clearly\nrealised as having personal character and individuality, and for this\nreason they may sometimes inspire keener personal feelings of worship or\neven of romantic devotion. But the older and higher conceptions of the\ngods, as an essential part of the State religion, and as embodying the\nideals of the race or of the city, are no longer to be found, except in\na somewhat lifeless continuance of the fifth-century tradition. The\nintensity of expression which we find in human heroes is, indeed,\nexpressed also in such types as that of Apollo the musician or of\nDionysus the god of inspired enthusiasm. But this tendency is not fully\ndeveloped until a later age. The subtle distinctions of character\nbetween the different gods are, on the other hand, now most keenly\nobserved and most skilfully rendered. But in spite of this, one does not\nfeel that the artist has the same belief in the gods and in their power\nas we can see in the Phidian age. If his artistic attainment is possibly\nmore skilful, the religious import of his work is certainly less.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nPERSONIFICATION, CONVENTION, AND SYMBOLISM\n\n\nIn the Hellenistic age we find the Greek types of the gods adapting\nthemselves to new conditions and new meanings. With the conquests of\nAlexander, Greek language and civilisation spread over the Eastern\nworld; and with them went the artistic forms of the Greek pantheon,\nthough often to be modified by local beliefs or influences. Similarly,\nwhen at a later time the Roman conquest of Greece spread Hellenic\ninfluence to the West, there also the types of the Greek deities came to\nbe adopted or adapted to new mythological meanings. Greek art\npractically became cosmopolitan; its influence was broadened; but at the\nsame time its essential nature, in its harmony with the imagination of\nthe Hellenic race, was lost or obscured. It becomes more intelligible to\nus for this very reason, but at the same time less instructive in its\nrelation to religious conceptions.\n\nIn the art of the Hellenistic and Graeco-Roman age we find two main\ntendencies, the one towards academic generalisation, and the other\ntowards excessive realism, often coupled with a theatrical or\nsensational treatment. This latter is the more interesting to us, partly\nbecause it is in itself more original, partly because it is more in\naccordance with modern artistic practice. The two tendencies are by no\nmeans rigidly distinguished; for example, we often find a theatrical\ntreatment combined with academic work; and throughout are to be seen\ntraces of eclecticism--that is to say, of the habit of imitating or\nreproducing, often in an unintelligent manner, the devices and even the\nstyle of earlier art. It does not follow that no great works of art were\nmade in the Hellenistic age; the fine traditions of the fifth and fourth\ncenturies were not easily lost. But the inspiration of the subject, so\nfar as it still exists, comes from new and different sources.\n\nIf we consider first the statues of the older gods of Greece, we often\nfind in them the individualistic tendencies of the fourth century\ncarried to a further pitch--sometimes to an extreme--in the sentimental\nor passionate works of the Hellenistic age; there is often something\naffected or dramatic about them, as if they were not merely realised as\nexpressing their individual character in their mood or action, but\nacting their part as the representative of such a character; in fact,\nthey tend to embody impersonations rather than to express personalities.\nOne might almost repeat here much that has been said about the gods in\nthe fourth century, but that there is often, in this case, a touch of\nexaggeration which is avoided by the finer artistic instinct and\nappreciation of harmony that mark the work of earlier sculptors; and\njoined with this we often find a love of display and a seeking after\neffect which imply that the artist thinks more of his skill than of the\nidea he is striving to express.\n\nWe can trace in the Hellenistic age not only the traditions of earlier\nart, but the direct influence of the masters of the fourth century, the\nPraxitelean cult of beauty for its own sake, the passion and dramatic\nforce of Scopas, and the preference for allegorical subjects and for\nstatues of colossal size which we may see, as well as many higher\nqualities, in the art of Lysippus. We have already noticed how in the\nApollo Belvedere there is an impression of theatrical posing which was\nprobably either introduced by the copyist or at any rate much\nexaggerated by him in imitating an earlier type; and how in the Venus\nde' Medici we find a crude insistence on a gesture of mock modesty which\nis a mere travesty of the hint at half-conscious shrinking from exposure\nwhich we see in the Cnidian Aphrodite. Even in a statue which, like the\nAphrodite of Melos, shows an endeavour to return to the nobler ideals\nand more dignified and simple forms of an earlier age, there is\nsomething artificial and conventional about both figure and drapery; and\none feels that the sculptor, though both his aims and his attainments\nare of the highest, is trying rather to reflect the best influences of\nhis predecessors than to embody a present religious conception.\n\nThe influence upon art of religious personifications is perhaps stronger\nthan any other during this period. There had, indeed, been such\npersonifications at an earlier time, such as the statue by Cephisodotus\nof Peace nursing the infant Wealth. The most interesting example of such\npersonification may be seen in the figures of cities, or, to speak more\naccurately, of the Fortunes of cities, such as the Antioch of\nEutychides. The influence of the city or state upon religious art was\nconspicuous in the fifth century; but here we find the city itself or\nits presiding genius represented in a statue which seems at first sight\na mere allegory of its situation. The way in which the figure is seated,\nhalf turned on herself, and with her feet resting upon the shoulder of\nthe river that swims below her, seems to suggest an artificially\ninvented symbolism; yet we are expressly told that this statue received\ngreat veneration from the natives of the district. In the decay of the\nbelief in the gods, there seems to have been a craving for nearer and\nmore real objects of worship.\n\nWe can see the same tendency in a more extreme form in the deification\nof human beings. Though some examples of this occur earlier, especially\nin the case of the heroes or founders of cities, these are not placed on\na level with the gods; but the worship of Alexander, and in imitation of\nhim, of his successors, placed him in a distinctly divine rank. It is\ndifficult to say how far this was due to non-Hellenic influences. In the\ncase of Alexander, with his marvellous, almost superhuman achievements,\nand his final solution of the great drama of the contest of East and\nWest, such idealisation is easy to understand; and we find not only that\nAlexander is himself represented as a god, but that his expression and\ncast of features come to affect the sculpture of his age, even in the\nrepresentations of the gods themselves. On coins, too, his head occurs;\nan honour that before his time was not given to mere mortals. In other\ncases this worship of men reached a pitch which was a matter of shame to\nthe later Greeks; thus Demetrius Poliorcetes, when he gave Athens back\nher freedom, was welcomed at the city with divine honours. Even hymns\nwere composed in his honour, of which we find specimens preserved.[7]\nAfter welcoming his advent at the same time as that of Demeter, the poet\naddresses him thus:--\"Other gods are either far away, or they have no\nears, or they exist not, or have no care for us. But we see thee, a\npresent deity, not of wood or stone, but real; therefore we pray to\nthee.\" It is true that such materialistic and atheistic expressions were\nprobably reprobated by many at the time, as well as by later writers;\nbut the mere possibility of their public enunciation shows how far the\nAthenians had gone from their old religious beliefs.\n\n[Footnote 7: Athen., VI, 63.]\n\nAllegorical impersonations, such as that of Antioch, are religious\nconceptions of a high order compared to this. Nevertheless, one feels\nthat such impersonations can have no separate divine existence apart\nfrom the city or the people whom they represent. They are on a different\nplane of religious belief from Athena, for example, as the goddess of\nthe city. The goddess was, indeed, in some ways representative of what\nwas best in her chosen people; but she was not a mere symbol of its\ncharacter and its greatness. She existed before it, and would continue\nthough it should disappear from the earth, unlike the Fortune of\nAntioch, whose very existence was bound up with that of the city she\nrepresented.\n\nAnother example of personification may be seen in the recumbent figures\nof river-gods--notably that of the Nile, with his sixteen cubits, as\nbabies, playing around him. River-gods were indeed an object of worship\nfrom early times in Greece, and so appear on coins and elsewhere; but\nthis figure of the Nile, a product of Alexandrian art, is not like the\nearlier gods, who were looked upon as the givers of increase and\nfertility; it is a mere allegorical impersonation of the river, such as\nmight be made by a modern artist who made no pretence to believe in the\nexistence of such an anthropomorphic river-god. It cannot be counted as\nreligious art at all. And the attributes and accessories of such a\nfigure, the crocodile and hippopotamus, the sphinx and corn and horn of\nplenty, are all of them symbolic allusions such as are suitable to such\na frigid personification. The art of Alexandria is full of such devices;\nthat of Pergamon is more vigorous and dramatic; but in both alike we\nfind the influence of a learned study of mythology, full of quaint and\nfar-fetched allusions and symbols. The culmination of this learned\nmythology is to be seen in the great altar of Pergamon, on which the\ngods who are in combat with the giants include not only all figures,\nappropriate and inappropriate, from the Hellenic pantheon, but many\nother deities whose right of admission to that pantheon is more than\ndoubtful. The figures of the gods no longer correspond to the belief in\nany real divinities, but are either mere artistic types, repeated again\nand again in accordance with convention, or else they are regarded as\nsymbols representing different aspects of divine power.\n\nSymbolism of this kind is a common symptom of the decay of religious\nfaith. The more thoughtful or educated classes, who follow the\nspeculations of philosophers as to the nature of the deity, find it\npossible to reconcile these speculations with the forms of popular\nreligion by accepting the forms in a symbolic sense. The common people,\non the other hand, finding the old forms inadequate to satisfy their\nreligious aspirations, import new and strange divinities, whose cult is\noften mixed with magic or mystic rites. Here, too, the symbols have a\nmeaning other than what appears to the uninitiated eye, and the province\nof art, which approaches the mind through the senses, is closely\ncircumscribed. A statue or other work of art which needs explanation of\nits allusions, which does not express an ideal that appeals directly to\nthe imagination of the people, has lost touch with religion, and cannot\nto any appreciable extent influence it or be influenced by it. The age\nof idolatry in the higher sense, of a religious imagination that enables\nthe artist to bring the people nearer to their gods, or even the gods\nnearer to the heart of the people, has passed away, and in its place we\nfind either a superstitious clinging to the magic power of the early\nobjects of worship, or a mere acceptance, as conventional symbols, of\nforms that bear no direct relation to anything that is believed in as\nreal.\n\nOur brief historical survey has shown us how the Greeks, starting from a\nbelief, such as is common to many primitive religions, in the superhuman\npowers or sanctity of certain objects, were enabled by their vivid\nanthropomorphic imagination first to think of the gods as in like form\nto themselves, and then to make their images in human shape. And as\ntheir art progressed towards the power of making a physical type of\nperfect beauty to serve as the means of expression of this \"human form\ndivine,\" and also to skill in expressing character by means of human\nfeatures and figures, it became possible for them to embody in their\ngreat statues the various ideals of divinity which belonged to their\nchief gods. Here the skill of the artist would have availed little or\nnothing if he had not shared with the people for whom he worked a belief\nin the reality of these ideals, not merely as philosophic aspects of the\ndivine nature, but as real beings who were able to help and to inspire,\nand to manifest themselves to their worshippers in this human form. The\nnext step is towards an even more vivid realisation of the personality\nof the gods; but by bringing them nearer to human level it made the\nworship of their images less easy to accept in a literal sense to the\nmore thoughtful, while such worship tended, with the common people, to\nenter upon a more material and less exalted phase. The result was a\ntendency towards symbolism in which the symbol itself was regarded as a\nmere convention, and the inspiration and actual communion with men,\nvouchsafed by the gods through their ideal images, was no longer sought\nafter. When any means of communion between god and man, whether by means\nof a solemn service or by means of an image which the god himself\naccepts as his earthly representative, ceases to be felt as anything\nmore than a human device, its religious power must fail. When, on the\nother hand, we find a union of religion and art to provide a means for\nthis divine intercourse, we may recognise idolatry in its highest form,\nthe use of images not merely as accessories of religious service, but as\nproviding in themselves a channel of worship and inspiration.\n\n\n\n\nWILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.\nPRINTERS, PLYMOUTH\n\n\n\n\nHarper's Library of Living Thought\n\n_Foolscap 8vo, gilt tops, decorative covers, richly gilt backs_\n_Per Volume: Cloth 2s. 6d. net, Leather 3s. 6d. net_\n\n\n\n\n\"Original research of great importance.\"--_Times_\n\nCRETE, THE FORERUNNER OF GREECE\nBY\nC. H. Hawes, M.A. & Harriet B. Hawes, M.A.\n_With Map, Plans, etc._\nPreface by Arthur J. Evans, D.Litt., F.R.S., Etc.\n\n\"Mr. and Mrs. Hawes have a fascinating story to tell--the story of the\nunfolding of a great civilisation which flourished in Crete before\nAbraham was born. Reading these deeply interesting pages we seem to get\nright back into the dawn of history. We seem to enter into the feelings\nof the inhabitants when the ships of the sea-rovers hove in sight. Here\na carpenter's kit lies concealed in a cranny; there a carefully mended\nanvil stands at the door of the village smithy. In the palace at Knossos\nthe system of drainage is superior to any known in Europe between that\nday and the last century. Most wonderful of all is the art; two small\nivory figures of youths leaping, display a life and freedom nothing\nshort of marvellous.\"\n\n_Evening Standard_\n\n\n\n\nHarper's Library of Living Thought\n\n_Now Ready_\n\nAlgernon Charles Swinburne\n  THREE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE\n\nLeo Tolstoy\n  THE TEACHING OF JESUS\n\nW. M. Flinders Petrie\n  PERSONAL RELIGION IN EGYPT BEFORE CHRISTIANITY\n\nSir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S.\n  THE ETHER OF SPACE. _Illustrated_\n\nProf. William Wrede (University of Breslau)\n  THE ORIGIN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT\n\nProf. C. H. Becker (Colonial Institute, Hamburg)\n  CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM\n\nProf. Svante Arrhenius (Nobel Institute, Stockholm)\n  THE LIFE OF THE UNIVERSE. 2 vols. _Illustrated_\n\nProf. Arnold Meyer (University of Zurich)\n  JESUS OR PAUL?\n\nProf. D. A. Bertholet (University of Basle)\n  THE TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS\n\nProf. Reinhold Seeberg (University of Berlin)\n  REVELATION AND INSPIRATION\n\nProf. Johannes Weiss (University of Heidelberg)\n  PAUL AND JESUS\n\nProf. Rudolf Eucken (University of Jena)\n  CHRISTIANITY AND THE NEW IDEALISM\n\nProf. P. Vinogradoff (Oxford University)\n  ROMAN LAW IN MEDIAEVAL EUROPE\n\nSir William Crookes, LL.D., F.R.S.\n  DIAMONDS. _Illustrated_\n\nC. H. Hawes, M.A., and Harriet Boyd Hawes, M.A.\n  CRETE, THE FORERUNNER OF GREECE\n\nSir William A. Tilden. F.R.S.\n  THE ELEMENTS: SPECULATIONS AS TO THEIR NATURE AND ORIGIN\n\nProf. Ernest A. Gardner (University of London)\n  RELIGION AND ART IN ANCIENT GREECE\n\n_Other volumes will be duly announced_\n_Please write for a prospectus_\n\n_June, 1910_.\nHARPER & BROTHERS\n45 Albemarle Street, London. W. : : Franklin Square. New York.","title":"Religion and Art in Ancient Greece","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":20616}