399 



SCULPTURE. 



SCULPTURE. 



310 



to Mercury, the god of eloquence, Visconti conjectured that the 

 statue might represent some distinguished Roman orator. A Greek ' 

 inscription declares it to be the work of Cleomenes, the son of 

 Cleouienes the Athenian ; a name distinguished among those who 

 illustrated Greece during the prosperous times of sculpture. The 

 names of Apollouius of Athens, and of Glycon, also an Athenian 

 (the sculptors, according to the inscriptions on the works, of the 

 celebrated Torso and of the (Farnese) Hercules), do not occur in 

 Pausanias ; which has occasioned a doubt whether they had executed 

 many works remaining in Greece in the time of that writer. They 

 are thought to have lived in the century before our sera. 



Julius Caesar gratified his taste for the h'ne arts by collecting statues, 

 gems, and similar objects. His patronage extended itself even to 

 remote places, and he not only embellished Rome, but many cities of 

 Gaul, Spain, Greece, and Asia Minor participated in the advantages of 

 his good taste. 



A great impulse was given to the encouragement of sculpture by 

 Augustus. He caused all the finest works that could be procured to 

 be collected, and he had them placed in the public places of Rome. 

 He is also said to have removed the statues of illustrious men from the 

 area of the Capitol to the Campus Martius. (Suet, ' Calig.,' 34.) The 

 example of Augustus was imitated by the wealthy Romans, and no 

 expense was spared in adding new and admired productions to the 

 different collections of statues and paintings. Among the most liberal 

 of the patrons of this period, Agrippa stands pre-eminent for the 

 munificence with which he devoted his fortune to the embellishment 

 of Itome. The Pantheon is a monument of the taste and princely 

 liberality of a Roman citizen. Agrip]>a employed an Athenian sculptor, 

 called Diogenes, to enrich this temple. Pliny particularly alludes to 

 some Caryatides by him, as well as to some figures in the pediment or 

 front (faitigio) ; but these Pliny (' Hist. Nat.,' xxxvi. 4) says produced 

 1ms effect, owing to the height at which thev were placed. It is 

 recorded that Agrippa constructed some aqueducts, which he decorated 

 with three hundred statues in bronze and marble. During the age of 

 Augustus the names of many very distinguished artists occur. Among 

 VitruvhiH, the architect. Positioning, a native of Ephesus, and 

 the celebrated Dioscorides, the engraver of gems, may be particularly 

 mentioned. 



The good effect of the example of Augustus seems to have been long 

 felt in Rome, though it does not appear that Tiberius contributed 

 much to preserve or nourish a taste for art. A circumstance however 

 is said to have occurred during this latter reign which shows that the 

 Romans were alive to the value of tine public works. Tiberius ad- 

 mired a statue representing an athlete anointing his limbs, by Lysippus, 

 which stood in the baths of Agrippa a place, it seems, of public 

 resort. Desiring to have exclusive possession of this work, he had it 

 removed to his own palace ; but the dissatisfaction of the people was 

 so great, and their indignation at the emperor's depriving them of what 

 they considered public property so violently expressed, that Tiberius, 

 fearing a revolt, ordered the favourite statue to be replaced in its 

 original situation. 



Caligula had works of art brought to Home from Greece, but it does 

 not appear that he had any admiration of them as objects of beauty or 

 as memorials of an enlightened people, but rather that he considered 

 them as means of gratifying his personal vanity. He ordered the heads 

 of the gods and of illustrious men to be struck off their statues, and 

 his own to be substituted. This paltry ambition, which couM be 

 exercised at a cheap rate, accounts for the mutilation of many statues 

 that have reached our times, and in which a totally different character 

 will often be observed in the heads and other portions of the work. 

 Caligula is recorded as the first emperor who was guilty of this species 

 of sacrilege ; but he appears to have been imitated by many of his 

 successors. It is a curious fact that, notwithstanding the efforts so 

 unworthily made by Caligula to make himself known to posterity, 

 portrait* or busts of this emperor are extremely rare. The reigns of 

 Claudius and of Nero at first gave promise of encouragement to the 

 arts ; the latter emperor required decoration for his Golden Palace, 

 which he constructed on the Palatine Hill ; and although the vast 

 number of works that had already been procured from Greece would 

 seem to have robbed that country of all its treasures, he procured no 

 fewer than five hundred bronze statues from the temple of Apollo at 

 Delphi. Two of the best works of ancient sculpture, the Apollo 

 Belvedere and the so-called Fighting Gladiator, were found among the 

 ruins of a villa or palace of Nero at Antiurn. Zenodorus the sculptor 

 was employed by Nero to make a colossal statue of him, of bronze, a 

 hundred and ten or a hundred and twenty feet high. (Plin., ' Hist. 

 Nat.,' xxxiv. 18; Suet., 'iNer.,' 31.) Zenodorus was called to Rome 

 from Cisalpine Gaul, where he had executed a colossal statue of 

 ry, a work which had occupied him ten years. Menodorus, an 

 Athenian sculptor, lived at this time. His statues of athlcta, and 

 subject* of that class, are mentioned in terms of commendation. It is 

 probable that there were two artists of this name. 



This may be considered the period at which the introduction of 



variously coloured marbles in statues became the fashion in Rome. 



The Roman /x<'.//iVA/c sculpture differed in some respects from that 



practiiM-d by the Greeks. The Roman mode was to imitate the 



Us of which real draperies were composed, as well as the 



nt.il dressings of the figures, with marbles (usually Orienta 



alabasters, Ike.) closely resembling them in colour. The Greeks 

 occasionally used different materials, not often marbles, for this 

 purpose ; but not with the intention of imitating the particular colour 

 or texture of the object represented. The Romans carried this so far 

 as to express, in white and dark marble, the colours of the eyes in a 

 statue, in black marble, of an Ethiopian. More than, one example of 

 this may be seen in the various collections of ancient statues. The 

 reigns of Otho, Galba, and Vitellius were too short and too disturbed 

 to give those emperors time or opportunity to encourage sculpture. 

 Otho ordered a large sum, ninety millions of sesterces, to be appro- 

 priated for the completion of the Golden Palace of Nero. Busts of 

 these emperors are extremely rare. There is one of Vitellius in the 

 Museum of the Louvre, of very high merit; but most of the portraits 

 of this prince have been considered modern. 



Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian encouraged sculpture. Titus erected 

 two statues, one of gold, the other equestrian, of ivory, in honour of 

 Britannicus, the son of Claudius, who was poisoned by Nero. (Suet., 

 ' Tit.,' 2.) Statues of Domitian are rare, in consequence of the order 

 issued by the senate, after the tyrant's death, that all statues of him 

 should be destroyed. 



But little now occurs in the history of sculpture worthy of notice 

 till the time of Trajan. The taste and energy of this prince reani- 

 mated the arts both in Greece and Italy. Zeno of Aphrodisias was a 

 sculptor of this time. The column of Trajan is an interesting monu- 

 ment of the art in the latter part of the 1st century after Christ. The 

 reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines may justly be accounted 

 the golden age of sculpture in Rome ; though even then it is probable 

 that the art was little practised by native artists. In Hadrian especially 

 the arts found a munificent protector. He restored many of the ancient 

 temples which were falling to decay; he erected others in a style 

 worthy of the best ages of the .art; and, among other public-spirited 

 undertakings, completed the temple of the Olympian Zeus at Athens. 

 Among the enrichments bestowed upon it was a statue of Zeus in gold 

 and ivory, several other works placed there by Hadrian, and finally a 

 colossal statue of the emperor himself. The scale of magnificence in 

 which this prince indulged may be estimated from the remains of his 

 celebrated villa near Tivoli, about eighteen miles from Rome. It was 

 embellished with all the finest works that could be procured, whether 

 the productions of ancient Greek artists or of those of his own time. 

 Some of the most interesting and valuable remains of antiquity have 

 been discovered there ; and even at the present day every fresh exca- 

 vation that is made among these ruins restores to the world some 

 object of interest. Some of the Egyptian superstitions having been 

 introduced into Italy about this time, they were mixed up with the 

 existing forms of worship, and the gods of the Nile were admitted 

 among those of the Romans. The example of the capital was soon 

 followed by the smaller communities ; and, as the new worship was 

 extended over the whole empire, a great demand arose for statues, and 

 other symbols of Egyptian deities and ceremonies. The imitations of 

 Egyptian figures and subjects which are found in Italy, and which 

 particularly abounded among the ruins of Hadrian's villa, may be 

 assigned to this period. 



The numerous specimens of sculpture of the time of Hadrian that 

 are preserved in modern collections are evidence of the high state of 

 the art. The statues and busts of himself, and of the emperors who 

 immediately preceded and followed him, as well as the portraits of 

 Antoninus and Lucius Verus, exhibit qualities that would do honour 

 to the best ages of Greek sculpture. There are two statues of Antinous 

 in the museum of the Capitol, one treated in the Greek style, entirely 

 naked, and the other with Egyptian attributes, which are particularly 

 worthy of notice for the simplicity and beauty united with grandeur 

 that pervades them. They carry us back to the very finest period of 

 the practice of the art. 



Sculpture declined after the death of Hadrian. The difference 

 observable, both in style and execution, in the two columns of Trajan 

 and Antoninus, exhibit a marked change in the condition of art, even 

 in the short period that elapsed between the execution of these works. 

 Antoninus Pius was not, however, neglectful of art; but the chief 

 employment of that time seems to have been in portraits and busts, a 

 sure indication of indifference towards the higher class of design. 



Herodes Atticus claims a distinguished place in the list of promoters 

 of the fine arts. He employed his immense wealth in embellishing 

 Athens and other cities of Greece. Chryselephantine sculpture was 

 still practised ; for it is recorded that he caused a quadriga, with a 

 group of Neptune and Amphitritc, made of gold and ivory, to be 

 placed in a temple of Corinth. By the time of Septimius Severus 

 (about A.D. 200) the arts of design had rapidly declined. The schools 

 for their cultivation, which had been established by Hadrian, were no 

 longer kept up, and the effect of the neglect of pure design is visible in 

 the monuments of this period. The sculpture on the arch of Sept. 

 Severus, in the Forum of Rome, as well as that called the Arch of the 

 Goldsmiths, also at Rome, offer undeniable evidence of the low con- 

 dition of taste, and the inferiority of practice in art. Considerable 

 care was shown in the littlenesses of execution ; but everything that 

 indicated boldness of conception, breadth of treatment, and style, had 

 vanished. With the exception of busts, some of which must be 

 admitted to have great merit, the monuments which remain of the 

 time of Caracalla, Geta, Alexander Severus, and their successors, only 



