Art, Greek; Greek drama -- History and criticism; Mythology, Greek
That rude image, a work perhaps of Calamis of shadowy fame, belongs
to a phase of art still in grave-clothes or swaddling-bands, still
strictly subordinate to religious or other purposes not immediately
its own. It had scarcely to wait for the next generation to be
superseded, and we need not wonder that but little of it remains.
But that it was a widely active phase of art, with [271] all the
vigour of local varieties, is attested by another famous archaic
monument, too full of a kind of sacred poetry to be passed by. The
reader does not need to be reminded that the Greeks, vivid as was
their consciousness of this life, cared much always for the graves of
the dead; that to be cared for, to be honoured, in one's grave, to
have tymbos amphipolos,+ a frequented tomb, as Pindar says, was a
considerable motive with them, even among the young. In the study of
its funeral monuments we might indeed follow closely enough the
general development of art in Greece from beginning to end. The
carved slab of the ancient shepherd of Orchomenus, with his dog and
rustic staff, the stélé of the ancient man-at-arms signed
"Aristocles," rich originally with colour and gold and fittings of
bronze, are among the few still visible pictures, or portraits, it
may be, of the earliest Greek life. Compare them, compare their
expression, for a moment, with the deeply incised tombstones of the
Brethren of St. Francis and their clients, which still roughen the
pavement of Santa Croce at Florence, and recall the varnished
polychrome decoration of those Greek monuments in connexion with the
worn-out blazonry of the funeral brasses of England and Flanders.
The Shepherd, the Hoplite, begin a series continuous to the era of
full Attic mastery in its gentlest mood, with a large and varied
store of memorials of the dead, which, not so strangely as it may
[272] seem at first sight, are like selected pages from daily
domestic life. See, for instance, at the British Museum, Trypho,--
"the son of Eutychus," one of the very pleasantest human likenesses
there, though it came from a cemetery--a son it was hard to leave in
it at nineteen or twenty. With all the suppleness, the delicate
muscularity, of the flower of his youth, his handsome face sweetened
by a kind and simple heart, in motion, surely, he steps forth from
some shadowy chamber, strigil in hand, as of old, and with his coarse
towel or cloak of monumental drapery over one shoulder. But whither
precisely, you may ask, and as what, is he moving there in the
doorway? Well! in effect, certainly, it is the memory of the dead
lad, emerging thus from his tomb,--the still active soul, or
permanent thought, of him, as he most liked to be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account