Sculpture

Sculpture is the art of producing artistic forms either by cutting wood, stone, or some other hard material, or by moulding a soft substance, such as clay or wax, into the desired shape. In the former case, the sculptor either gives an artistic outline to a level surface, or forms a mass of his material into the likeness of some object. As an independent art, it is the peculiar province of sculpture to imitate the living form; but when subordinated to architecture it serves the purpose of decoration, and its treatment is more or less conventional. The prevailing consideration which invariably guides the sculptor is the nature of the material in which he works. It is impossible to produce with terra-cotta those severe and majestic effects which are easily attainable for the artist in porphyry or granite; but, on the other hand, it is well adapted to the expression of lively and graceful movements. Again, a true artist engaged in the ornamentation of a building like the Parthenon wiil not think merely of the pictorial effect of the work on which he is immediately employed; he must consider the outline and dimensions of the space which he has to fill, so that the general effect of the whole may be harmonious and restful to the eye. The ancient Egyptians were the first people who raised seulpture to the position of an art. Their reliefs and colossal monuments, executed in syenite and basalt, of which the Sphinx (q.v.) is the most noteworthy example, are marked by a severe dignity and repose, but they are lacking in vitality and freedom. The close connection between the arts and the esoteric religion of the country prevented the development of sculpture in a humanistic direction, such as afterwards took place among the Greeks. The most flourishing period of Assyrian sculpture seems to have been the 9th and 8th centuries B.C. Notwithstanding the cramping effects of religious tradition, it shows a realistic spirit and a regard to detail of which there is no trace in the Egyptian monuments; but, on the other hand, it lacks the serenity and grandeur for whieh the latter are so conspicuous. It is doubtful whether Greek sculpture derives its original impulse from Egypt or Assyria, or whether, again, it may be regarded as purely indigenous. In any case, it had completely changed its character by the middle of the 5th century, and the monuments erected at Athens during the age of Pericles may be regarded as the ditect product of the Greek genius. Some indication of its capabilities had already been given in the marble statues for the pediment for the temple of Athene at AEgina, which date from about 475 B.C., and are now preserved in the Glyptothek at Munich; but in the hands of Phidias (q.v.) sculpture reached a point beyond which it is improbable that it will ever advance. His magnificent statues of Zeus and Athene have perished, but specimens of his art remain in the mutilated frieze and metopes from the Parthenon, known as the Elgin Marbles (q.v.), which are now in the British Museum. The peculiar characteristic of the Greek genius - the faculty of presenting the highest type of physical beauty without any admixture of extravagance or loss of self-control - is nowhere more conspicuous than it is in these sculptures. Scopas (390-350) and Praxiteles, the chief representatives of the next_age, abandoned the calm grandeur of Phidias in the effort to give expression to deep and passionate emotion. Scopas executed the sculptures for the Mausoleum or tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus (352 B,C.). The Hermes discovered at Olympia in 1877 is known to be the work of Praxiteles, but for further knowledge of him and his disciples we are wholly indebted to copies preservcd at the Vatican and elsewhere and descriptions by ancient writers. The Venus of Milo or Melos and the Demeter of Cnidos are assigned by some authorities to this period. The group of Niobe and her children was attributed alike to Scopas and Praxiteles. Between the death of Alexander the Great (323) and the incorporation of Greece in the Roman Empire (146) important schools flourished at Rhodes and Pergamus, represented respectively by the famous Laocoon and the Dying Gladiator in the Capitoline Mnsenm, The Apollo Belvidere and the Venus de Medicis were produced at a time when Attic art had been transplanted to Rome. From the 2nd to the 4th century A.D. Roman sculpture steadily declined, but the progress of Christianity from the time of Constantine led to a partial revival of the art under new influences. The scorn of the flesh, however, which formed so marked a feature of the mediaeval Church, greatly impeded its free development; so that the excellence of the Byzantine school, which dominated Europe from the 6th to the 12th century, lay rather in the technical minutiae of design than in the portrayal of the human form. The sudden growth of Gothic architecture gave a new impetus to ecclesiastical sculpture, which in the twelfth century began throughout Western Europe to show a new spirit free from the trammels of Byzantine tradition. Its highest result was the magnificent figure-sculpture, the finest English example of which is the thirteenth-century work at the west-end of Wells cathedral. The French sculptors, however, far outstripped those of other countries, and neither England nor Germany can exhibit anything at all comparable with the sculpture on the three western doors of the cathedral at Chartres. The decline of Gothic architecture which began in the 14th century seems to have been fatal to the sister-art, which, after all, occupied only a subsidiary position in those countries where the Gothic spirit had been fully realised. In Italy, on the other hand, Niccolo Pisano (b. 1205) and his son Giovanni, who were influenced as much by Classical as by Gothic tradition, regarded expellence in sculptural ornament as an end in itself. It is the great merit of the Pisani and their followers that they were able to carry their sculptured work to so high a pitch of excellence without injury to the architectural effect of the buildings for which they vere designed. In Jacopo della Quercia (1374-1438) the influence of the Renaissance is already apparent. The work of Lorenzo Ghiberti (1381-1455), although it is marred by insufficient regard to architectural considerations, shows a further advance in the same direction. The two great sculptors of the Italian Renaissance - Donatello (1386-1468) and Michelangelo (1475-1564) form a strong contrast, for whereas the former is conspicuous among the moderns for the breadth, simplicity, and restraint of his style, Michelangelo's works seem to be the involuntary productions of a passionate and uncontrolled genius. His worst faults were imitated by his successors; and the brief glory of the Renaissance, after awakening Europe from its aesthetic stupor, was followed by a sterile period, in which the quality most valued in the artist seems to have been a shallow cleverness in producing fantastic effects. The great portrait-sculptor, Jean Antoine Houdon (1740-1828), restored to the art something of its lost dignity. In Italy Antonio Canova (1747-1822) attempted to model his style on Classical rather than Renaissance models, but with very varying success. He was followed by Bertel Thorwaldsen (1770-1844), a Dane of Icelandic origin, whose best work has a closer affinity with the sculpture of ancient Greece than that of any other modern artist. The chief representative of this school in England was John Flaxman (1740-99). During the century which followed his death English sculpture was conspicuous only for its tameness and insipidity. Neither Chantrey (1782-1841) nor GIbson (1790-1866) was by any means equal to Flaxman in genius; but England has produced at least one modern sculptor of undoubted power in Alfred Stevens (1817-75) author of the magnificent monument to the Duke of Wellington in St. Paul's Cathedral.