If you turn from it to the sculptures of the temple of Selinus, which,
as far as one can say, must have been carved not more than about half
a century earlier, you will see that these are indeed archaic. They
are beneath realism in their coarseness and crudity. But it is in the
sculptures of Selinus, and not in the Apollo of Tenea, or in the best
vases of the sixth century, that you must seek the motive spirit of the
Art which has made the Periclean age so glorious; This striving after
realism, although unsuccessful in the metopes of Selinus, reveals a
different aspiration, a totally different will, from that which created
the Munich Apollo, and it was precisely this aspiration that was fully
realized, with but a slight admixture of the other will, in Athens of
the fifth century.
Some will say that Egyptian influence is apparent in the Apollo of
Tenea, and they will add that the Greek colonists in Selinus, finding
themselves in very close contact with their commercial rivals the
Phœnicians, very naturally scorned all Eastern canons and ideas when
erecting their temples.
Both of these suggestions are perfectly legitimate. The Apollo of
Tenea either betrays Egyptian influence or, owing to its Ruler form,
it takes one's mind back involuntarily to the Ruler-art of the Nile.
The sculptures of Selinus may also be the outcome of the conscious
renunciation of Eastern influence, or they may be the manifestation of
a particular "Art-Will," as Worringer has it, which aimed at realism
and was quite guiltless of any other ulterior motive. In both cases
I favour the latter alternative, and I should like to believe that
in addition to the influences I have already mentioned in respect
of realism there were two Art-Wills active in ancient Greece--each
striving for supremacy and power.
C. The two Art-Wills of Ancient Greece.
I cannot see how any one rising from a study of Hellenic Art can arrive
at any other conclusion. A superior will aiming at a Ruler-art form is
the one, an inferior will aiming at realism is the other. And it is a
significant fact, that while the first will sent forth its last blooms
in the sixth century--a period when, according to Freeman, Hellenic
life readied its zenith,[35] the ultimate triumphs of the other and
inferior will, in the fifth century, marks the first stage in a decline
that was never to be arrested.[36]
[Illustration: The Medusa Metope of Sellinus, Palermo.]
This is not the usual view, I know. As a rule, the art of the age of
Pericles is considered to be the highest that Greece ever produced.
But in this art I see a preponderance of realism which reveals to what
extent the other and inferior will was beginning to prevail. And when I
study Hellenistic art, and see this evil assuming such proportions as
to make even modern historians and Art-scholars deliberately denounce
it, I cannot help but recognize the germs of this decay in the art
which hitherto has been most praised and admired.