Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 76, No. 467, September 1854Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, Vol. 76, No. 467, September 1854
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
solely to the impetuosity of the genius of Mr Owen Jones, which,
plunging into colouring matter, would vermilionise the palest face of
Death. If paint could “create a soul under the ribs of death,” he would
do it. He must greatly admire the old lady’s dying request to—
“Put on this cheek a little _red_,
One surely would not look a fright when dead.”
We know not where to lay our hand upon the original account of this
statue of the Bacchante of Scopas; but if it says no more than the
Apologist says for it—that the marble represented “living flesh”—it does
not necessarily imply colour. Here is a contradiction: if it be meant
that by “living flesh” the colour of living flesh was represented—for
that must be the argument—there must have been an attempt towards the
exact imitation of nature. “In the first place,” says Mr Owen Jones,
arguing against the suggestion of coloured and veined marble having been
used, “veins do not so run in marble as to represent flesh. In the
second, unless statues were usually coloured, such veins, if they
existed, would be regarded as terrible blemishes, and the very things
the Greeks are supposed to have avoided—viz., colour as representing
reality—would be shown.” Does Mr Owen Jones here admit that this exact
imitation by colour was not usual? If so, as the words imply, what
becomes of his quotation of the words of Socrates with regard to
colouring the eyes? And further, upon what new plea will he justify his
colouring the Parthenon frieze—not only the men and their cloaks, but
the horses—so that the latter exactly resemble those on the roundabouts
on which children ride at fairs? We suppose he meant the men to have a
natural colour, and the horses also—a taste so vile, that we are quite
sure such a perpetration would have shocked Phidias out of all patience.
And if not meant for the exact colour, what can he suppose they were
painted for?—as, to avoid this semblance of reality, the Greeks,
according to him, should have painted men and horses vermilion or blue,
or any colour the farthest from reality, the contrary to the practice of
Mr Owen Jones—and that he should have painted them vermilion he
immediately shows, by quoting Pausanias, where he describes a statue of
Bacchus “as having all those portions not hidden by draperies painted
vermilion, the body being of gilded wood.” What has this to do with
marble statues? But he seems not to understand the hint given by his
commentator, Mr Lloyd, “that the statue was apparently ithyphallic, and
probably archaic”—a well-known peculiarity in statues of Bacchus. Not
having, however, such a specimen in marble, he is particularly glad to
find one of gypsum, “ornamented with paint:” nothing more probable, and
for the same reason that the wooden one was painted vermilion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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