unimposing, their houses present within either a profusion of barbarous ornament, or a display of naked poverty, evincing, whatever be the wealth of the owner, the universal corruption of the art, and the vitiated taste of the artist.* In their internal arrangements they still preserve the Gyneconitis, or apartments of the women, separate from the Andronitis, or those of the males; and even in the dwellings of the poor the distinction is accurately observed. cupola is to be a larger or smaller portion of a sphere; to the top of this is fastened a strong pole, so as to move in all directions, and the end of it describes the outer part of the cupola; lower down is fixed to the post another pole, which reaches to the top of the inner part of the perpendicular wall, and describes the inside of the cupola, giving the difference of thickness of the masonry at top and bottom, and every intermediate part, with the greatest possible exactness. As they build their cupolas with bricks, and instead of lime use gypsum, finishing one layer all round before they begin another, only scaffolding for the workmen is required to close the cupola at top." To this I may add the following still more striking anecdote from the Histoire de L'Archipel, 18mo. Paris, 1698. "La Sculpture et l'Architecture sont encore des Arts perdus pour les Grecs; ils n'en ont pas même les premiers principes; j'en ai vû qui bâtissoient d'abord toute leur maison, et qui perçoient ensuite les fenêtres dans les endroits ou ils vouloient se donner du jour." L. iv. p. 380. *Guy's, v. 1. p. 495. let. 31. The reader will remember this distinction so often marked by Homer: σε Αλλ' The Turks are easily induced to abandon the profession of architecture to their rayahs; and all the modern buildings of Constantinople and the other cities are the works of Greeks, assisted occasionally by their Armenian fellowsubjects.* 2. Sculpture in Greece at the period of the Roman conquest, had already begun to exhibit symptoms of decline. During the commotions which under the successors of Alexander the Great had rent and impoverished Athens, her artists, abandoning their homes, had fled for protection to the cities of the Ptolemies and Seleucidæ, in Egypt and Asia. Here, and more especially at Seleucia, far removed from the constant contemplation of perfect models, and retaining merely their memory and taste, the imagination and genius of the Greeks were beginning gradually to decay, when the forma “ Αλλ' ὅτε δὴ Πριάμοιο δόμον περικαλλέ ̓ ἵκανε, Iliad, vi. 1. 242. See Mac Farlane's Constantinople in 1828, vol. i. p. 5. 141. vol. ii. p. 59. tion of the Achaian League, and the partial restoration of their country, recalled them once more to their deserted schools. But the prospect of tranquillity was illusory; the continued dissensions of the League, or their rivals, tended to impoverish the cities of Greece; and so degenerate had the feelings of the nation already become, that in the bitterness of their strife the belligerents turned their arms even against the monuments of art possessed by their opponents.* During the scene of endless turmoil which preceded the subjugation of Achaia, the practice of the arts was in a great degree suspended; and for nearly half a century previous * Scopas, according to Polybius, in the war between the Etolians and Achaians, burned the galleries and other edifices, and destroyed the statues of the Macedonian city of Dios, which had been abandoned by its inhabitants on his approach : ἀνέστρεψε δὲ καὶ τὰς εἰκόνας τῶν βασιλέων ἁπασας· x. T. λ. (l. iv. p. 326.) Dorimachus, the Etolian prætor, in the same war plundered and overturned the temple of Jupiter at Dodona; wapayevóμevos dè wpòs rò wapà Aodwvy ispov, τάς τε στοὺς ἐνέπρησε, καὶ πολλὰ τῶν ἀναθηματων διέφθειρε, κατέσκαψε δὲ καὶ τὴν ἱεραν οἰκίαν. ibid. l. iv. p. 331.) For these sacrilegious atrocities the Macedonians under Philip made ample reprisals, by the destruction of the monuments of Thermium. (ibid. 1. iv. p. 358.) They burned the porticoes, destroyed the offerings in the temple, and broke or carried away, according to the same historian, not less than two thousand statues; ἀνέστρεψαν δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἀνδριάντας, οὐκ ἐλάττους διχιλίων ὄντας. (ibid. l. v. p. 358.) to the capture of Corinth, no one sculptor of eminence appeared in Greece. Nor was their slumbering genius quickly aroused from its lethargy, since, from the latter period till the time of the triumvirate, the page of her history is equally barren in brilliant names. The first symptoms of decline were discoverable in the passion for extreme delicacy of labour, in preference to chasteness of design, manifested by the Grecian sculptors under the successors of Alexander. It had before this time acquired its summit of excellence in the works of the artists from Praxiteles to Lysippus, who form what has been termed the "School of Beauty" in the history of the arts.† *The Torso, or Hercules Belvidere, executed by Apollonius, an Athenian, about two centuries before Christ, and the celebrated Hercules Farnese by Glycon, attributed to the same period, are generally considered as the last great works of the Grecian chisel previous to the fall of Corinth. Winkelmann, 1. vi. c. 4. Musée Franc. p. 93. Disc. Sculp. The reader will perhaps remember the beautiful verses addressed to the former by the first of female poets: "Consummate work, the noblest and the last Of Grecian freedom, ere her reign was past," &c. Mrs. Hemans' Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy, p. 24. ↑ Winkelmann, adopting the idea of Scaliger regarding poetry, has assigned five epochs to the history of art among the Greeks; its invention, improvement, perfection, decline, and decay. The first of these he denominates the ancient style, dating it from Dedalus to Phidias; the second In their hands invention and ideality had reached as it were their limits; and all that remained for future aspirants was an imitation of the immortal masters who had preceded them. Extraordinary precision of finish then became a substitute for boldness of conception; and sculpture, swerving from its masculine character, abandoned itself to the study of polish and decoration.* It was at this crisis of her history that sculpture, after the ruin of Greece, was cast a dependant on the protection of the Romans. Athens, as the taste of Italy gradually improved, became the workshop for their supply; the sublime, which continued from Phidias to Praxiteles, during which period ideality was added to the correct and rigid delineations of natural forms introduced by the early painters and sculptors; the third, or beautiful school, extends to the age of Alexander, when grace and expression were superadded to imagination and design; the fourth was the era of the decline, of which I now treat; and the fifth, its decay, usually includes the period from Septimus Severus to Constantine the Great, when art virtually ceases to exist.— Winkelmann, 1. iv. c. 6. Agincourt, v. ii. Sculp. Introd.p. 11. "Sous les règnes des empereurs et un peu avant, les artistes commencèrent à mettre une application singulière à traiter le marbre avec soin, et surtout à rendre flottantes les boucles des cheveux; ils s'attachèrent à rendre tous les détails jusqu'aux poils des surcils," &c. (Winkelmann, l. iv. c. vi.) "On croyoit montrer un talent particulier en prononçant fortement les veines, contre la maxime des anciens." (ibid.) |