CHAPTER VIII EXPRESSION. PART III. -CLASSICAL IDEALS Ideals of the Greeks-Aphrodite Hera-Demeter-Athena-Apollo -Diana-Neptune-Mars-Mercury-Bacchus-Vulcan-Gen eral classical compositions. WHAT human being can appropriately describe the great ideals in art of ancient Greece? Above us all they stand, seemingly as upon the pinnacle of the universal mind, reflecting the collective human soul, and exhibiting the concentrated essence of human nature. The best of men and women of all ages is combined in these ideal heads, which look from an endless past to an eternal future; which embody every passion and every virtue; every religion and every philosophy; all wisdom and all knowledge. They are ideal gods and goddesses, but are independent of legends and history. They represent no mythological deities except in name, and least of all do they assort with the deities of Homer and Hesiod. In all other religions the ideals expressed in art fail entirely to reach the height of the general conceptions, and are far below the spiritual beings as depicted in the sacred books; but the Grecian ideals as recorded in stone are so far beyond the legendary gods of the ancient poets, that we are unable to pass from the stone to the literature without an overwhelming feeling of astonishment at the contrast. It is unfortunate that we are powerless to re-establish these ideals definitely, for the originals have been mostly lost; nevertheless the ancient copies, a few contemporary complete sculptures, and many glorious fragments; as well as intimate descriptions and repeated eulogies, often reaching to hyperbole, of eminent men, expressed over a succession of centuries when the great works were still exposed to view-all this assembled evidence indelibly stamps upon our minds the nature of the ideals; gives us a clear impression of the most profound conceptions that have emanated from the human brain. The people who accomplished these great monuments seem to have thought only in terms of the universe. They did not seek for the embodiment of goodness, nobility, and charity, perfection in which qualities we regard as divine, but they aimed at a majesty which included all these things; which comprehended nothing but the supreme in form and mind; and with an all-reaching knowledge of the human race, stood outside of it, but covered it with reflected glory, as the sun stands ever away from the planets but illumines them all. The wonder is not that these ideals were created in the minds of the Greeks, for there is no boundary to the imagination, but that minds could be found to set them down in design, and hands to mould and shape them in clay and stone; and that many minds and hands could do these things in the same epoch. That these sculptured forms have never been equalled is not wonderful; that they never will be surpassed is as certain as that death is the penalty of life. So firmly have they become grafted into the minds of men as things unapproachable in beauty, that they have themselves been converted into general ideals towards which all must climb who attempt to scale the heights of art. The greatest artists known to us since the light of Greek intelligence flickered away, have been content to study these marble remains, and to cull from them a suggestion here, and an idea there, with which to adorn their own creations. Indeed it is clear that from the time of Niccolo Pisano, who leaped at one bound to celebrity after studying the antique sculptures at Pisa, through Giotto to the fifteenth and sixteenth century giants, there was hardly a great artist who was not more or less dependent upon Grecian art for his skill, and the most enduring of them all-Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Correggio-were the most deeply versed in the art. 42 Bellori affirmed that the Roman school, of which Raphael and Michelangelo were the greatest masters, derived its principles from the study of the statues and other works of the ancients. This is not strictly exact, but it is near the truth, and certain it is that Michelangelo, the first sculptor known to the world since the Dark Age, willingly bowed his head before the ancient triumphs of art presented to his view. And yet he did not see the Parthenon sculptures and other numerous works of the time of Phidias, a Le Vite de' Pittori, Scultori, e Architteti moderni. with the many beautiful examples of the next century which have been made available since his day. What he would have said in the presence of the glories of the Parthenon, with the Hermes of Praxiteles and the rest of the collection from Olympia, is hard to conjecture, though it may well be suggested that they would have prompted him to still higher work than any he accomplished. With these stupendous ideals in front of us, it seems almost unnecessary to talk of the principles of art. Their very perfection indicates that they were built up on eternal principles, so that in fact and in theory they form the surest guide for the sculptor and painter. But how is the painter to use these ancient gods and goddesses, for the time has gone by to gather them together on the heights of Olympus, or to associate them with human frailties? Surely he may leave aside the fables of the poets, and try to portray the deities as the Grecian populace saw them in their hearts-noble forms of adoration, or images of terror, objects of curses veneered with prayer and of offerings wrapped in fear. The artist has not now to be troubled with pangs of dread, nor will his imagination be limited by sacerdotal scruples. The rivalry of Praxiteles need not concern him, for there are wondrous ideals yet to be wrought, which will be comprehended and loved even in these days of hastening endeavour. But the painter must leave alone the Zeus and the variation of this god in the pictured Christian Deity, for the type is so firmly established in the minds of men that it would be useless to depart from it. The other important Grecian deities with which art is concerned may be shortly considered from the point of view of the painter, though they are naturally of far more importance to the sculptor because it is beyond the power of the painter to suggest an illusion of divine form, since he must associate his figures with human accessories. 43 APHRODITE Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus, Spirit of Love, or by whatever name we call her; the one eternal divinity recognized by all ages, all races; the universal essence whose fragrance intoxicates every soul: the one queen before whom all must bow: the one imperial autocrat sure of everlasting rule-sure of the devoted allegiance of every living thing to the end of time! Such is Aphrodite, for that is the name under which we seem to love her best-the Aphrodite of the Greeks, without the vague terrifying aspect of Astarte, or the more earthly qualities of the Roman Venus. Who loves not the Aphrodite sprung from the foam of the sea; shading the sun on the Cytheran isle with the light of her glory; casting an eternal hallow over the groves of Cyprus; flooding the god-like mind of Greece with her sparkling radiance? What conception of her beauty can rise high enough when the grass in astonishment grows beneath her feet on desert rocks; when lions and tigers gently purr as she passes, and the rose and the myrtle throw out their scented blossoms to |