: Hellenistic Sculpture by Dickins Guy Gardner Percy Author Of Introduction Etc Dickins Mary Editor - Sculpture Greek; Sculpture Hellenistic

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The outstanding feature of the history of Greek sculpture during the Hellenistic period is the transference of its vital centres from the mainland to the new kingdoms of the Diadochi on the east and south and to the great new free state of Rhodes. The chief cause was an economic one. Alexander's campaigns brought about a revival of prosperity and wealth in the Greek world, but among his friends and not among his enemies. Athens was always his enemy and the enemy of his Macedonian successors. Consequently during the whole period from the death of Alexander to the Roman conquest Athens was either under Macedonian rule or in danger of Macedonian attack. It was Macedonian policy to keep her weak and isolated, and her trading supremacy began to be transferred to the island of Delos. The great days of Attic art passed with the death of Praxiteles and the coming of Alexander. In the Peloponnese the pupils of Lysippos carried on into the third century the traditions of the Sikyonian school, but we can see from such knowledge as we possess of their activities that the wealth and fame of the new kingdoms were already calling the artists to abandon the impoverished towns of the mainland. The Peloponnese also opposed Alexander and his successors, and Macedonian garrisons held the chief fortresses of the country. We find Eutychides of Sikyon working for Antioch, and Chares working at Lindos in Rhodes. After the date given for the pupils of Lysippos in 296 B.C., Pliny makes the following significant statement: 'cessavit deinde ars, ac rursus Olympiade CLVI revixit.' For 150 years the history of artistic development must be studied on the eastern side of the Aegean.

After the preliminary conflicts between the successors of Alexander for the partition of the empire a number of new states arose, which are known to us usually as the kingdoms of the Diadochi or Successors. Of these the three most important were Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt, under the rule of Antigonids, Seleucids, and Ptolemies respectively. Of smaller importance, but quite independent and self-sustaining, were Bithynia, Pergamon, and the island republic of Rhodes, the latter being the only one which maintained its Hellenic democratic institutions. The attitude of these states towards art differs remarkably. Macedonia remained always a military monarchy in a condition of almost constant frontier war, and was wholly uninterested in artistic developments. Syria seems from the first to have fallen under Semitic and oriental influences, which destroyed its appreciation of the purer forms of Greek art. Bithynia, Pontos, and Cappadocia were barbarian rather than Greek. As a result, we find that the old artistic traditions are maintained prominently in three only of the new states: Pergamon, the home of the very Hellenic race of the Attalids; Rhodes, whose pure Hellenic descent was untouched; and Alexandria, which became practically a Greek town in the midst of an older Egyptian civilization.

One of the most important of the Pergamon finds was the little bronze satyr, which has enabled us to associate with Pergamon a whole host of satyr types of more or less similar style. The Dancing Satyr of Pompeii and Athens, the Satyr of the Uffizi clashing cymbals, with its replica in Dresden, and the Satyr turning round to examine his tail are all variants of the new artistic cult of the satyr, a cult which seems to have had a Pergamene origin. The satyr gave to the Pergamene artist just that opportunity for the display of wild and somewhat sensual enthusiasm which he wanted, for new and original poses, and for combination with his nymphs and bacchanals. In Phrygia especially orgiastic manifestations of religion were the regular practice, and dancing was both wild and universal. The new artistic conceptions show the clear influence of this spirit on the more restrained art of the fourth-century schools. The Dancing Maenad of Berlin, the Aphrodite Kallipygos of Naples, and the famous Sleeping Hermaphrodite are further examples of the marvellous flesh treatment and the wild frenzy of movement which we learn to associate with third-century Pergamene art.

We come now to the two great dedications of Attalos for his victories over the Gauls. These were made at some time later than 241 B.C., and consist of two series of statues. One is life-size or larger, and is represented by some of the best-known examples of Hellenistic sculpture, such as the Dying Gaul and the Ludovisi group of a Gaul slaying his wife and himself . The other consisted of a number of small figures about three feet high, and was dedicated by Attalos in Athens, where they stood on the parapet of the south wall of the Acropolis. Four battle-groups were included--a gigantomachy, an Amazonomachy, a battle of Greeks and Persians, and a battle of Greeks and Gauls. Several copies from this smaller group are in existence, the best known being in Naples. The originals of both groups were probably in bronze, and we have the names of some of the artists of the larger group, Phyromachos, Antigonos, and Epigonos or Isigonos. Stratonicos and Niceratos of Athens may also have taken part.

The little figures in Naples, the Louvre, Venice, and elsewhere are partly recumbent dead figures of Persians, giants, and Amazons, and partly crouching figures defending themselves. None of the victorious Greeks seems to have survived, except possibly the torso of a horseman in the Terme Museum. They are dry, rather hard figures, much inferior in skill to the larger group and much closer to the bronze originals which they represent. The head of a dead Persian in the Terme Museum is probably a more worthy copy of one of the figures of this series. Its type of features and its moustache resemble the Ludovisi Gaul. Another fine Gallic head is in the Gizeh Museum at Cairo . This has been often called an original, an Alexandrian variant of the Gallic dedications. There is, however, no need to separate it from the others. If it shows more emotion, that only brings it rather closer to what we know of earlier Pergamene art. The provenance of the Gizeh head is disputed, and it may be only a recent importation into Egypt.

We have already seen that relief sculpture at all stages of its history is closely affected by the kindred art of painting. During the fourth century painting underwent changes in the direction of naturalism as marked as, if not more marked than, the corresponding changes in sculpture. The late fourth century and the third century form the great period of Greek painting, in which the names of Parrhasios, Protogenes, and Apelles stand supreme. A true and correct feeling for perspective and a naturalistic scheme of colouring were the main discoveries of the period, discoveries which we are only able to appreciate in very roundabout methods through Pompeian wall-paintings and mummy-cases from the Fayum. All Hellenistic sculpture is profoundly influenced by painting, as we shall see; but naturally the art of relief is nearest akin and shows most clearly the effects of graphic ideas. The Hellenistic reliefs are almost all adaptations of pictures, and the Telephos frieze earns its main interest and reputation because it is one of the first monuments to show this influence very clearly. We find a true use of perspective in part of this frieze, and a deliberate intention to create the impression of depth.

One of the first results of these innovations was to free relief from its subordination to architecture. It begins now to take its place as a self-sufficing artistic object like a picture. Greek pictures were mainly of the fresco type, and therefore immovably fixed to walls, though easel pictures now begin to be more frequent. There was nothing dissimilar in the position of a relief decorating a wall-panel without architectural significance. This idea found its earliest manifestation in Ionia with friezes of the Assos type on an architrave block, and therefore at variance with architectural principles. Friezes as wall decorations appear commonly in the Ionian buildings of the fifth and fourth centuries, like the Nereid and Trysa monuments and the Mausoleum. We find in the Hellenistic age the use of panels as wall decorations quite frequent all over Asia Minor. Thus at Cyzicus we have some curious mythological reliefs called Stylopinakia, which appear to have been panels fixed between the columns of a peristyle. We have the Apotheosis of Homer by Archelaos of Priene, a clear instance of the decorative panel with a pictorial background; we have smaller pieces like the Menander relief in the Lateran; the visit of Dionysos to a dramatic poet; and all the series of so-called Hellenistic reliefs ascribed by Schreiber to an Alexandrian origin, by Wickhoff to the Augustan age and Italian art. The reliefs, like other sculpture of the Hellenistic age, cannot be judged as a whole. Some are Augustan, like the reliefs in the Palazzo Spada, and some are undoubtedly Alexandrian, like the Grimani reliefs in Vienna. Others, again, show a strong Lysippic influence, which at once connects them with Rhodes. The Telephos frieze, however, is Pergamene, and the Cyzicus reliefs must have fallen mainly in the Pergamene sphere of art. We are, therefore, entitled to demand a separation of the reliefs into just as many classes as the sculpture. A fine piece of very high relief from Pergamon is the group of Prometheus on the Caucasus freed by Herakles. Besides the influence of pictures on relief there is also the influence of earlier sculpture. One of the figures in the Telephos relief reproduces the Weary Herakles of Lysippos. It would not be difficult to point out other examples of the adaptation of older types. The Marsyas group is itself a case in point. The indifference of the Hellenistic artist to his subject made him the readier to adapt earlier types, provided he had a free hand for his details of execution and expression.

The figures of Pergamene art as a whole are short and stocky with squarish deep heads. They correspond to the Scopaic, pre-Lysippic, and Peloponnesian type, but the Lysippic improvements in pose and swing of the body are thoroughly appreciated and adopted. From Praxiteles are derived the female type and the interest in the satyr as a vehicle of sculptural expression. The athletic art of Lysippos and the school of Sikyon is practically unrepresented at Pergamon or in those regions of Ionia and Bithynia which are connected with it and at which we must now glance.

From Priene we have remains of a gigantomachy and some other sculpture. The influence of Praxiteles is marked, and the work as a whole is clearly under Pergamene guidance. From Magnesia we have remains of a great Amazonomachy belonging to the frieze of the temple of Artemis Leucophryene and dating from the end of the third century. The work is dull and careless but strongly under the influence of Pergamon. We shall in fact find no more architectural reliefs of even tolerable quality. The new landscape or pictorial reliefs occupied the attention of the sculptors, and temple decoration was left entirely to workmen.

One of the great Hellenistic art centres is Tralles, whose treasures are mainly to be seen in the Constantinople museum. The colossal Apollo or Dionysos is closely connected in pose and treatment with the Apollo of the Marsyas group, and shows even more clearly than the torso in the Uffizi the influence of Praxiteles. The cloaked ephebe of Tralles is a good example of the eclecticism of the age. The leaning attitude with the crossed legs reminds us of the satyrs of Praxiteles and his school, but the head is quite different and is strongly reminiscent of Myron. Boethos of Chalcedon belongs by birth to the northern or Pergamene sphere of influence, but he worked in Rhodes and will be more suitably considered in connexion with Rhodian art. Pergamene influence was also strong in the islands and on the mainland. We shall see that the school of Melos and both Attic and Peloponnesian art during the late third and second centuries were obviously affected by it.

THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA

We know the connexion of Alexandria with Athens was close in the late fourth century, especially during the rule of Demetrios of Phaleron in its closing decades. It was at this time that Bryaxis made the Sarapis , which has perhaps survived for us in the innumerable copies of a wild-haired, heavily bearded head with shadowed mysterious eyes. During the next century Macedonia was the chief foe of Athens and of the Ptolemies, and all the earlier Egyptian rulers were on close terms of friendship with the city. Thus a predominant influence of Athens and of the greatest of the fourth-century Athenian sculptors, Praxiteles, is only what we should anticipate in Alexandrian art. It has, however, been argued that we have no evidence for a native art of Alexandria at all. While importing much late Attic sculpture, she borrowed also from Pergamon works like the Gaul's head at Cairo, and from Antioch a group like the Dresden Aphrodite with the Triton. She was in fact a collecting rather than an originating centre.

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