DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9177#0200
180
PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART chap, xi
types, combined with a love of rendering realistic detail in
such matters as the bones of the face and the folds of the skin.
The artist would still work largely from memory, but from a
memory more richly stored than of old with exact knowledge of
the skin and of what lies beneath. He is still an idealist, but
an idealist of wondrous skill in the rendering of life. Such is
certainly the kind of artistic action by which such a work as the
Laocoon was produced. Probably it was by the same kind of
action that both actual and imaginary portraits were made.
When one sees a portrait full of character and life, none but a
very skilful judge can decide whether it is really like the original
or whether it is only lifelike.
Let me sum up in a few words the process we have traced.
In the archaic age of Greece it is not easy to distinguish between
the figures of gods and those of men : the imperfect ability of the
sculptor and his attachment to set types prevent him from giving
much dignity to the god or individuality to the man; usually it
is only by some touch of naturalism slipping in that we can
discern the human portrait. In the first great age of mature
sculpture, the age of Pheidias and Polycleitus, we no longer con-
fuse gods and men; but as the gods take the noblest human
forms, so men are by the genius of the race kept at an almost
godlike level. The typical, the racial, the permanent, is por-
trayed. An undignified subject, and what is unsatisfactory in
the individual, is avoided, and we find the reflex of a noble race
in the full flower of development. In the fourth century the
ideal is lowered, but we still find that it is aimed at, and with an
increasing knowledge of natural fact and appearance. Later,
there is a strong drift in the direction of the individual and the
actual. Yet the admirable artistic sense of the Greeks prevents
their love of the type from disappearing, and preserves them
from a mere slavish external copying of the model. Thus they
set men before us more in the manner of Plutarch than in that
of the interviewer for a modern newspaper.
PRINCIPLES OF GREEK ART chap, xi
types, combined with a love of rendering realistic detail in
such matters as the bones of the face and the folds of the skin.
The artist would still work largely from memory, but from a
memory more richly stored than of old with exact knowledge of
the skin and of what lies beneath. He is still an idealist, but
an idealist of wondrous skill in the rendering of life. Such is
certainly the kind of artistic action by which such a work as the
Laocoon was produced. Probably it was by the same kind of
action that both actual and imaginary portraits were made.
When one sees a portrait full of character and life, none but a
very skilful judge can decide whether it is really like the original
or whether it is only lifelike.
Let me sum up in a few words the process we have traced.
In the archaic age of Greece it is not easy to distinguish between
the figures of gods and those of men : the imperfect ability of the
sculptor and his attachment to set types prevent him from giving
much dignity to the god or individuality to the man; usually it
is only by some touch of naturalism slipping in that we can
discern the human portrait. In the first great age of mature
sculpture, the age of Pheidias and Polycleitus, we no longer con-
fuse gods and men; but as the gods take the noblest human
forms, so men are by the genius of the race kept at an almost
godlike level. The typical, the racial, the permanent, is por-
trayed. An undignified subject, and what is unsatisfactory in
the individual, is avoided, and we find the reflex of a noble race
in the full flower of development. In the fourth century the
ideal is lowered, but we still find that it is aimed at, and with an
increasing knowledge of natural fact and appearance. Later,
there is a strong drift in the direction of the individual and the
actual. Yet the admirable artistic sense of the Greeks prevents
their love of the type from disappearing, and preserves them
from a mere slavish external copying of the model. Thus they
set men before us more in the manner of Plutarch than in that
of the interviewer for a modern newspaper.