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SHELDON CHE
Author of X

New World History oiArt

$12.95

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African, and Amerindian along with the

Near Eastern and the more familiar Western

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of seeking, has accombook of more than 1100

photographs, with a running text and captions that give all the needed background of
history, styles, techniques, schools, and personalities. It will join his major A New
World History of Art, first published thirty
years ago, and its sequel. The Story of Modern Art, as one of the basic art books for the

esEyz^ies

in this

it

.Dresden

^'i^^

Nuremberg

'i^Strasboii^
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Berlin.

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twenty-five years

A>^

C^A^'^^o

the general reader. Sheldon Cheney, after

plished

00388 0984

to today, including the Oriental,

at a price

MM

f^

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It has long seemed an impossible dream to

produce an adequate one-volume history of
sculpture in pictures and words, from the

development,

Uh^ iiiiim
3

WORLD
caveman

SWEDEN

H^

.isrescix
.Brescia,
lU^es

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layman.

"My

aim," he says, "has been

first

of all to

offer the reader pleasure in sculpture." This

art

form can be reproduced

in black-and-

white photographs better than any other,

and the pictures in this volume are an invitation to enjoyment as well as knowledge.
In addition to the hundreds that trace the
Western tradition from Greece and Rome
through medieval and modern Europe to the

jviediterraniIa
SES.

present international scene, there are 120

examples from China, Japan, and Korea; 90

from India and Southeast Asia; 80 from preColumbian America and the Eskimos; 140
from Egypt and the Near East to name some
of the separate or tributary streams. Attractively

arranged with informative captions,

,f

such as has never been assembled before in

as

important

iiuluclcd to

The
aixl

text,

I'.ir-

runnin;: n

'

though encv ?opedic

'o

essei.

vv

ative thi

(Co^

in scope

nevertheless a

and

NEAR EAST

they present a gallery of the sculptural art

one place.

EUROPE

to the liisloix ol sculp-

show

rchitivc locations.

jT

'imited to facts

on back

flap)

Xi

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RET'JRN TO

CSNTRAL

730.9 Cheney, Sheldon; I886Sculpture of

538p

tlie

world

a history.

Viking 1968

illus

Maps on

lining-papers
"history of sculpture in pictures and words, from the caveman to today,
incUiding the Oriental, African, and Amerindian along with the Near
Eastern and tlie more familiar Western development." Publisher's note
For further reading: p513-17

Quarto volume

Mann
1

Sculpture History

n;d

Lrw-ary

TGifc Centsr Adm!nlitr3to

'^"'^

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II.

W.

Wil.son

Company

Sculpt ure
OF THE WORLD:
A History

ALSO BY SHELDON CHENEY;

A Nf If World History
The

Story of

of Art

Modern Art

Expressionism in Art

Primer of Modern Art

The Theatre

Men Who Hare Walked with God

and other books

Sculpture
lOF

THE WORLD:
A History

by

SHELDON CHENEY

NEW YORK: THE

VIKING PRESS

PHOTOGRAPHS PRECEDING THE TEXT

Title page, left to right:

Oar. Wood. Easter Island. Museum of Primitive Art, New York. Text reference on page 25
Bodhisattva. Dried lacquer, gilded. T'ang. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Text reference on page 216
Louise Brogiiiard. Stone. Jean Antoine Houdon. Louvre. (^Bulloz photo'). Text reference on page 463
Yellow Bird. Stone. Constantin Brancusi. 1925. Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Louise and Walter Arensherg Collection. Text reference on page 487
Preface heading:
Ostrich Hunt, impression from a seal. Persian, Achacmcnid. Walters Art
Gallery, Baltimore. Text reference on page 173

Note on Illustrations heading:

Awl with

animals. Bronze. Scythian,

c.

800

Half

b.c. National

Museum, Stockholm

title:

Lion. Aquamanile. Bronze. Flemish. 14th century. Victoria and Albert

Museum

First

Copyright
1968 by Sheldon Cheney. All rights reserved.
published in 1968 by The Viking Press, Inc., 625 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022.
Published simultaneously in Canada by The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited.
Library of Congress catalog card number: 68-11554.
Set in Centaur and Fairfield types by Westcott & Thomson, Inc.

Plates

made and

printed in the United States of America by

Design:

M.

The Murray

Printing

Company.

B. Click.

Acknowledgments for Text Quotations

The author and the publishers gratefully
acknowledge indebtedness for quotations in the
text of this book as follows: to Henry Moore for
lines from The Sculptor Speaks, first published
in

The

Listener,

London,

1937;

to

George

Rickey for lines from a program note in the

catalogue of an exhibition at the Kraushaar Gal-

New York, 1961; to Leonard Baskin for

from a program note reprinted in New
Images of Man, by Peter Selz, published by
leries.

lines

the

Museum

to Small,

of

Modem

Art,

New

Maynard & Company

York, 1959;

for three brief

quotations from Art, by Auguste Rodin, Boston,

to Raymond B. Blakney for an excerpt
1 91 6;
from his Meister Eckhart: A Modern Transla-

tion, published by Harper & Brothers, New York

and London, 1941; to Albert Toft for lines from
his Modelling and Sculpture, published by
Seeley, Service & Company, London, 1921; to
Pantheon Books for two brief excerpts from
translations of Falconet and Maillol in Artists on
Art, compiled and edited by Robert Goldwater
and Marco Treves, New York, 1905; and to
Douglas Pepler for an excerpt from Scidpture:
An Essay by Eric Gill, Ditchling, Sussex, 191 8.
(The several quotations from Michelangelo and
one from Ghiberti have been rewritten from
various translations, so frequently quoted and
so variously phrased that acknowledgment to the
two sculptors seems sufficient.)

,.-

.-7

1::^3^fe-/(

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"i
Preface
In writing this book
to

had one

objective:

bring within the covers of a single volume

a history of

the major phases of the art

from the weapons and fetishes

all

of sculpture,
of the cave

men

products of our latest

to the

generation of carvers, modelers, and welders

of metal;

the

and

Oriental

of

story

wanted

especially to include
as

well

Western

as

There

exist

that carry the

score of books

title

in

English

History of Sciil-pture,

or a similar comprehensive designation.

But

almost uniformly they exclude the magnificent sculptural art of the Orient or compress
into a footnote or an appendix with possi-

My

enjoyment.

aim has been

knowledge of

imparting

of

first

types,

all

What we

have in the

text

But

is

to

and
and

styles,

dates has been a lesser objective.

want something more than

my own

the reader pleasure in sculpture,

offer

mary

master)'.

it

that will pass with conventional educators.

have depended very largely upon

did

picture book.

a sketchy

sum-

of the histor)' behind the creation of

each national

be

art,

Egyptian or Greek,

it

may mention

Chinese or Indian.

brought up firmly

in

that

was

the classical tradition.

At home the Venus de Milo, The Dying

Gaul, and the Boy Extracting a Thorn from
His Foot, in replica, had places of honor on

My

bly tvvo or three illustrations; and almost uni-

the living-room mantelpiece.

formly they ignore the primitive

un-

was devotedly Greek. But

at art school, con-

are 102 illustrations

currently, the influence of

Rodin and Maillol

civdlized peoples.

There

arts of

of Chinese subjects in the pages that follow,

touched us

and more than one hundred devoted to India

and the Southeast Asian states. Scythian art

my

is

brought into the world

of

its

history

own, perhaps
of

with a chapter

stor)',

for the

first

Primitive

sculpture.

me

is

similarly represented. It

that the omission of the rich

and Oriental materials argued

a disaster occurred, as

and family saw

advisers

with modern

Lehmbruck

art.

instrument of

my

undoing. Study of modernappreciation

the

of

sculpture,

sculpture of the primitives and the Orientals.

seemed

to

primitive

a cultural

ar-

course,

of

Many
forties,

years
I

led

later,

planned

to

in

this

the

years of assembling

evident that

had

and exploration

What we

lisherswanted

it

became

collected materials for

volumes.

art.

to

assemble notes and photographs. After ten

covering the whole record of the

bring few credentials

mid-nineteen-

book and began

encyclopedia of sculpture in

up

took

ism,

rogance quite intolerable in books purportedlv

In rewriting history

it:

^vas the special

time in a

whether that of the troglodytes or that of

Oceania or pre-Columbian America or tribal
Africa,

Then

all.

university

three

or

an

four

all author, advisers, pub-

was

simple

one-volume

PRE FACE

VI

We emerge finally with our one volume, and we have in it all the illustrations
that might be expected in a three-volume

convenience of having

encyclopedia.

trouble

work.

From

had set a goal of one

and I resisted all sugfrom editors and publishers that I
the start

thousand
gestions

illustrations,

be reasonable. In the end, with over iioo

productions in the book,

feel that the illus-

They

are

am

alone

else

is

in a

Fauvism, futurism, and cubism, painters had

se-

and

responsible

if

was

to

to

me

to

be in the great tradition of sculpture.

I assume that my readers will go along

me

in the belief that there

is

some-

thing that constitutes the essence of sculpa

ture,

and form inseparable,

spirit

comprehended

over

mine

two Chumash Whales. They seem

with

tween 1940 and 1966 sculpture took on instature as an art, and its leading

creased

took

be blamed for
pieces
as a Tajin
inclusion of such unusual
Stag, or
Marlik
stone ax, a very exaggerated

and no one

ing the period of research and writing. Be-

studios.

an illustration of the A'pollo Belvedere

omitted,

history itself changed, almost epochally, dur-

avant-garde

the vast world's store of sacred stones

I

the book was planned there was one

ahead which we did not foresee:

practitioners

lection, out of his love for sculpture, from

pieces less sacred.

When

con-

they comprise one man's

peculiar way:

the material in one

my

trations represent the better half of

tribution to the volume.

re-

all

volume.

be

to

in terms of mass, three-dimen-

around and always that

by the artist, who relates
the world we know.

leadership

Through

and revolutionary

name

the

But, especially under

art.

became the more inventive and more

ally

celebrated group.

It

a sign of the times

is

no English painter approaches in stature

the sculptor Henry Moore; that the radicalism
of Lehmbruck and Barlach has been more of
a world influence than any other that has
come out of Germany; that the most interestthat

ing figure in the school of Paris has been,

in recent years, the Swiss sculptor Giacometti.

No
so

started

up

unforeseen eddies of invention,

in-

American painter has

living

many

ternationally,

the

as

tory,

the creation to

enlargement of the

text.

The

original wordage,

cyclopedia"
count.

From

proved

still

back in the "en-

was double

days,

the

present

this I cut a "final" text,

too large

if

we were

to retain all

we author and

our pictures. Finally

accomplished the present

text.

which
editors

As an

in-

stance of our methods, one-half of the Intro-

duction was cut away at a single stroke, as

was

right because

aesthetics to
factual
in

many

book.

had elaborated theory

degree

The

unnecessary

chapter

trimmed,

forewords were

cases drastically shortened.

ning text was

in

The

sometimes

to

runthe

have noted.

Traps are
in such

as

final

names.
the

The

Rosetta stone provided a key to

meaning

of

must ask

my

its

pronunciation.

have adopted here, where consistency

possible,

reader

system

names

that

will

bring

of gods, pharaohs,

the most familiar forms.

is

to

imthe

and men in

Cheops

the un-

is

assailably popular transcription of the

of the pharaoh of the Great Pyramid.

name
The

pharaoh of the nearby "second" pyramid (at

Giza or
in

is it

Gizeh?)

the literature of

following

for the sake of the greater

Egyptian hieroglyphic

the

language, but no key to

would be transcribed

it

and

chapter.

especially in the matter of transliteration of

volved a loss of smoothness and some disre-

readers to forgive

part of his-

is

Egyptology and Sinology,

bone. If the process of compression has in-

gard for subtle distinctions,

it

led to rewriting

It

survey writers by scholars

set for

fields

Alexander

sculptor

Calder. This change, since

need pause no more than a moment over

my notes and written

of

expressionism, the sculptors eventu-

intangible added

the

in
story

been the inventors, the providers of a new

sional volume, space

the peregrinations of

the

strictly

Cheops who

is

art,

as

best
as

known,

at least

Khafre; but he

Chephren

if

we were

the discipline that gives us

in turn

would be Khufu

followed the Khafre formula.

The

if

we

third pyra-

mid builder

named here (and

is

Myccrinus,

histories)

form,

museums
they own, we
the

have put names on the statues

have accepted their spelling

in the captions,

regardless of anomalies.

Inconsistencies

are

common

in

tran-

Greek names into English, but there

a more commonly accepted pattern. The

scribing
is

Myron
his name

sculptor

is

given

in the

here, as almost universally,

Greek form; but

if

in

the following paragraph Plato

is

quoted, few

will object that

is

not Platon,

which

Myro with
not

the sanction of

easy

so

the spelling

technically correct.

is

choose

to

Having escaped
parties,

all

among

it

is

Polykleitos,

and Polyclitus; the last is the

Latin form and most favored in English. But
to speak of the famous Doryphoros of Poly-

Polycleitus,

clitus

remains an inconsistency. In

we have

upon
annoy

these

all

art,

Pop

artists.

case the assembly of "found objects"

one

In
is

a litde too casual; in the other, the under-

lying thcor)' that a thing

commonplace seems

is

is

to

good because

me

with every tenable philosophy of

it

at

variance

art.

History,

at present, ends rather with expressionism, in

and includes absolute aband near-abstract works whether in

the broad sense,

straction

as

that

other most active school, the

some thorough Egyptologists have

insisted upon Menkaura. There are many
such choices, and we have chosen Rameses
where others speak of Ramses; and Akhena-

When

and

they believe to be sculptural

though

ton instead of Ikhnaton.

VII

most

in

Latin

the

in

PREFACE

built-up boulder-like

masses in stone or in

the meticulous, almost linear compositions of

the welders of metals.

hundred photographers have contributed

to the book. We have put their names into
the captions under the illustrations, and the
listing there must convey our thanks. I am
indebted to as

many

directors of

collectors,

museums, and owners

gations to them are listed
at the end of the book.

of galleries;

my

obli-

in a special section

It remains for me to add here the acknowledgment of a deeper debt to three individuals. Martha Candler Cheney has been a

through the entire period of

the form

co-conspirator

the edu-

ernment approval, issued a few years ago a

list of changes in spellings of Westernized

in search and research, in

and adventure. In short, we lived
much of the book together.
A very different debt is owing to Bryan

Japanese words, beginning with such appar-

Holme

matters

tried to settle

that will be least likely to

cated

Japanese

reader.

Mount Huzi

ent barbarisms as
Fuji,

and the Sinto

have known
at

Nara

religion

as Shinto.

with

scholars,

gov-

Mount
what we

for

for

The famous

temple

that contains so great a treasure of

ancient Japanese

sculpture,

the

Horiuji or

became the Horyuzi. Even at risk

by the Japanese government,
have stuck by the familiar old-fashioned

Hori-uji,

of being cut off

I

spellings.

In a time such as the present,

ture has surged forward,

of invention

when

and experiment

when

sculp-

twenty

years,

travel

art

at

my

recall the materials for

the book after the project

as impossible of realization

(The Viking

shall

are all about,

reader

who

finds

pleasure

for

well have been no book.

torian to judge

where written

history should

end, where mere experiment begins.

excluded from
craftsmen

who

my

history of sculpture

devise

assemhlages,

have
the

which

marketable

Press

always be grateful to him, as will any

the operations

particularly difficult for the his-

at a

was repeating only

what a dozen of the other most eminent
publishers in America, and two or three
abroad, had told me that I had dreamed up
a wholly impractical book.) Bryan Holme
found a way to overcome the difficulties. I
price.

Seatde,

is

had been dropped

before he became associated with Viking

whether in Philadelphia or Turin, London or

it

His expertise in

publishers'.

books led him to

in

the

volume,

without his constructive aid there might

The
Click,

of

my

collaborators,

Milton

not only great resource-

and ability in designing a format

would contain the great number of il-

fulness
that

third

has shown

PREFACE

VIII

is

many

masses speaks to us today as essential sculp-

juxtapositions of related or contrasting

ture, stirs us aesthetically. I think that ever

with the book-length

text,

but a rare appreciation of the sculptural values

the

in

photographic

responsible for

happy

materials.

what seem

me

to

He

the

Space does not permit more than a gen"thank you"

to

Marshall Best, a helpful

and

friend for thirty years

my

earlier books,

and

editor of

two of

to the other collabora-

the sculptor felt over his artistic

dium,

since

pictures.

eral

ment

meand perhaps over his subject, we

cannot know. But the little knot of shaped

lustrations, along

the experience

of

contemplating that

incredibly old bit of carving,

my

sciouslv oriented

ginnings in the cave men's

story,

have subcon-

appreciation to the beart.

from there through the

It

ages,

is

one

to

the

torseditors, copy-editors, production experts

products that grace this book's final chapter:

who

have become

carvings, castings, forged

Press.

Several have helped

what

it

is,

and

In Paris there

my

am
is

friends at
to

The Viking

make

the book

museum wherein one

can stand before an ivory figure of a woman,

of the sort
It

is

known

sculpture

as "Prehistoric Venuses."

that

has existed at least

30,000 years. Through this

emotion of an

artist

of the

little

image the

Old Stone Age

projected across 300 centuries.

What

have

to

convey the

feeling, even something of the excitement of

sincerely grateful.
a

constructions.

and welded metals,

tried

is

excite-

it,

whole progres-

in narrative, through the

sion;

are

and again

particularly kind

tuting the

unique.

may

in illustrations photographs

find

art,

as

it

to

sculpture,

were, in a

end with the hope

enjoyment in

review of the

art.

reconsti-

manner quite

that the reader

this

well-meaning

6
7

Contents

PREFACE
Introduction:

lo

14

15

The Art

of Sculpture

Primitive Sculpture:

The

Eg)'pt:

From

The Animal

Men

to

Our Stone Age Contemporaries

Etruscan and

The Opulent

Roman

78

Korea and Japan

The Spread

The Maturing

The Flowering

87

13 2

Sculpture

The World's Supreme

of the

The Legacy

to

Islam

Scidptural Achievement
of Buddhist Sculpture

Opident Oriental Style

in Southeast Asia:

Early Christian Sculpture

Camhodia, Siam, ]ava

Coptic, Byzantine

European Christian Sculpture: Barbarian, Romanesque, Gothic

Renaissance:

The South

61

Classicism, Realism

Sculpture of Persia;

From

33

Art of the Eurasian Steppes

The

Pageant: Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria

The Greeks Archaism,

China:

Cave

Eternal in Scul-pture

The Mesopotamian

India:

the

the Pisanos to Michelangelo

Seas and Negro Africa: "Exotic" Sculpture

16
18 4

22 6
24

27 3

294
310
3

64

402

Amerindian Sculpture and the Mexican-Mayan Masters

424

Western Sculpture from the Baroque

to

Rodin

18: Modern Sculpture: Formalism, Expressionism, Abstraction

5 3

477

FOR FURTHER READING

513

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

518

INDEX

2 3

Note on
Because a

serial list

the

list

would be

and

artists are listed in

preceded by the

to distinguish

useless for reference

where

so

many

of illustrations sometimes placed at this point

Instead, the titles

Italic figures,

Illustrations

them from

letters ill, are

text entries,

is

titles

are included,

omitted.

the Index at the end of the book.

employed

which are

in

for illustrations (e.g.,

Roman

figures (e.g.,

///.,

497)

497).

Sculpt ure
OF THE

WORLD

Introduction

The Art of
you take a block of stone, in
IF condition,
and hack and chisel

its

it

down

to a

order, that

is

shape conforming

formless

scene, nor can you effectively

commentary
on life. The dramatic
a
happening that may stir the painter to creation affords no safe starting-point for a sculp-

the

natural

make

and rub

to a vision of

endowing it with a
and vision, you will

sculpture. In

form out of your feeling

Sculpture

tor's

imagination.

The

characters

are

too

naturally stick close to the block, respecting

many, the background, whether landscape or

the stone.

building,

You cannot go very

far

toward reproducing

Womati. Stone. Cycladic, 3rd millennium

B.C.

ment
About

is

5 in.

is

unsculptural,

the

narrative

impossible to sustain. There

high. ^Courtesy Spink

&

is

ele-

some-

Sou, Lotidon^

THE ART OF SCULPTURE

thing about this art that

is

and

single, silent,

remote.

the

of

Bodhisattvas,

John Ruskin

human mind

said

there

that in

the disciplined

no more intense

is

or ex-

He

alted desire than for evidence of re-pose.

work of art can be noble

element, and he added that "all

ment

in the art that

few

without

artisans

art is great in proportion to the

When

appearance of

he searched his memory

amples, he could recall but three

his

them were

sculptors.

the

of

rest

to

artists

who

meaning supremely. Two

Dante alone, among

illustrated

seemed

for ex-

the

Ruskin

of

amplitude,

peak of achieve-

addressed to the

spirit,

vases

Hindu and

sculptors, especially the

Indonesian

it."

is

not just to the senses and intellect of man.

believed that no
this

breathing

and power, mark

quietness,

masters

who

and

the

relief,

Chinese

designed and cast the Shang

jars,

stone-carvers,

of

and the Mayan decorative

have pushed the

art

toward the

and the luxurious

There are, moreover,

elaborated, the complicated,

with wonderful

results.

all

intimate and graceful manifestations, mostly

artists

history,

to

for the

miniature, in which the original massiveness,

and the projected feeling of bulkiness and

known to
be when tested

exalted qualities inseparable from repose the

impersonality,

peer of the creator of the Parthenon marbles

and more harmonious expression. In this category are amulets, seals, and
coins. Few of us, moreover, would willingly
forgo enjoyment of the Assyrian hunting
scenes in relief, which are like masterly drawings traced on stone, or Ghiberti's panels on

and the carver of the

Medici

figures in the

Chapel.

Supremely, sculpture

is

the art of funda-

mental things, of the stone core of the earth,

of the eternal
It

lithic,

is

among

mountains and the

the arts does

man's occasional

it

make

all

concession to

relish for the gay, the trivial,

the fantastic.

or

silent hills.

massive and serene. Least of

Without

loss

of decorum,

music may descend from the realm of the

symphony to the precinct of the gay song

and the merry dance and painting may become lightly decorative or prettily affected.
But

for the sculptor the path

toward fancy,

toward the buoyant and the jocund,

is

way

of peril.

As sculpture

known

has

turies,

is

the soberest of the

arts,

it

a lesser popularity in recent cen-

during the decline of religions and the

spread of materialism and agile intellectual-

But as religion remains the dependable

companion of mankind, so the art that is most
ism.

and nearest to direct revelation,

the observer an incomparably pro-

stable, noble,

offers

to

are

surrendered in

favor

of

lighter, crisper,

the

Florentine

Baptistry

doors,

which

are

bronze approximations of paintings though

we may temper

our enthusiasm because both

displays are unsculptural in conception.

There are other acceptable compromises

and exceptions. The Chinese sculptured landscapes please us in a special way, whether on
the hill jars of ancient times or cut into the

comparatively recent stone

seals.

The

grace-

fully attenuated bronze animals of Luristan

and the similarly slenderized early worshipers

and warriors of the Etruscans are appealing and delightful. But these are exceptions;
and the basic sculptural "fullness" remains
an ideal in the mainstream of Chinese, Etrus-

canand even Lur invention.

In

1930

contemporary

the

mid-1960s),

to the

expanded

in

period

when

(say,

from

sculpture has

accordance with the scientific

found experience. The Pieta of Michelangelo,

or any one of a hundred known Heads of the

advances of the space age, departures from

Buddha by anonymous Cambodian sculptors,

may remind us, by a mysterious and inex-

amazing. So unsculptural in the traditional

sense are some of the results that thev scarcelv

The

Buddha and

hibited under the label "sculpture." But these

other equipment, requires a clairvoyance,

toward the stone, toward his subject.

majestic Chinese statues of the

norm have been innumerable and

come within the basic definition of the art.

Such are the mobiles, constructivist skeletons,
and many of the assemblages so widclv ex-

plicable evocation, that the sculptor,

all

beyond

the historic

THE ART OF SCULPTURE

many

works must of course be considered in our

zenith in the Victorian era.

history.

the illustrations in school textbooks are

Sculpture in bronze
less

naturalistic, tame,

Belvedere

is

basically

Bronze casting
of

is

modeling

massive and masculine.

dependent upon a prior

wax

clay or

in

or plaster.

clay form
and bronzes have been created by man since
the late Neolithic Age and the dawn of the
Bronze Age. Their importance as purveyors

animals,

emotion, their success in har-

libraries

sculptures

Historically,

of sculptural

nessing plastic

vitalit)', is

in

their

not to be lightly

counted, whether in Athens, Ordos, or

Yet carving in stone (or bone or

ivor)'

wood) was antecedent and has remained

core of the

When

appreciation

grandeur

tomb
one

figures, or in a

to

in

The

casts

and

the

deep

schooling,

whether

for

the

the la^Tnan, emphasized a photo-

graphic realism and naturalistic perfection as

criteria

by which

to

statue.

The

Greeks and the

late

judge the excellence of a

less

robust

but more prettily natural of the Renaissance

modelers were

who

violated

exalted,

while

all

sculptors

any aspect of natural appearance

for the sake of aliveness or intensification of

emotion were cried down.

amateur, was led

The

observer, the

to believe that transcription

body
model representing Flora or the
Goddess of Libert\- was the acme of sculp-

into stone or bronze of a naturally lovely

or a posed

glance that the most glorious cycles of

sculptural creation have occurred in times

places not

Since 1930 there has been a revolt against

easy virtues of realism,

embraced in the

and

especially

against the facile naturalism that reached a

and

of fac-

historv'

must be

simile realism. Indeed a truth that

learned (in the West), for the fullest enjoy-

ment

of the great pageant of sculpture illusin

trated

the

following pages,

that

is

the

representation of the surface aspects of nature

is

minor virtue in sculptural

art.

person

looking at a perfect transcription of a

or

characterful

head

marble

in

or

bronze, vet not experience one iota of sculptural or aesthetic pleasure.

On

the other hand,

Chinese monster or a Lur approximated

animal may be wholly unlike any beast in the
a

and an African car\'ed figmask may appear as a near-abstract ar-

zoological manuals,

ure or

rangement of the elements of the human

body or face; and yet any of these may evoke
an immediate aesthetic response.
When we have escaped the habit of looking

first

for the representational element,

have gone about as

far as

we

knowledge can take

us. No commentator can then help us unless,

by suggestion rather than instruction, he can
quicken our perceptive senses. No one can

know ledgeably say what

tural art.

the

be encountered in some

the Orient as well as the Occident, reveals

at a

pretts'

car\'er.

1930, through a period of at least

two centuries,

to

lent further authority to the

perspecti\'e upon the histor)' of the art,

upon ancient periods as well as modern, upon

named Negro

artist or for

still

end-all of sculpture.

may be

to

adorning schoolrooms and public

(and

museums)

works of a Donatello, a Houdon, or an un-

Up

taste

effort.

idea of representational realism as the aim

Michelangelo's

to the less

mistakes adroit duplication for creative

or

Nepalese Buddha, equips

respond spontaneously

common

Ife.

grounded in the basic attributes of sculpture,

one can better enjoy the lesser paths and
b\nvays. To have lived with the noblest monuments, whether of the Egy^ptians or the
Chinese or the medieval Christian masters, to
have absorbed the feeling of silent power and
supernatural

coppng

the toitrs-de-force of exact

art

thoroughly

is

all

have been paraded, until the

dis-

art.

one's

of

still

and unsculptural. From the

and the Dying Gaul to
Ayollo
David
and the sweet Saint
Donatello's
Cecilia, and on down to Carpeaux's photographic nymphs and Bar)'e's photographic

considered a

substantial counterpart of stone sculpture,

which
art

may be

great

it

is

that the artist

creatively puts into the statue,

form-element,

and

how

it

what

speaks

aesthetic faculty of the obser\'er.

is

to

But

if

the
the

he

THE ART OF SCULPTURE

Reclining Figure. Bronze. Henry Moore. C. 1938. Collection of Billy Wilder, Hollywood

can get

down

words some intimation of

if you will which

in

ment now seen

in perspective as twentieth-

the values of the beauty,

century modernism.

more accustomed eyes have experienced,

if he can communicate some hint of the
serene pleasure, even the glow of the spirit,

man, a true

had already

engendered

lized the theory, that "the subject of

his

works, he

contemplation

in

may

stir

certain

of

us to live in the presence

of great works of sculpture

and

to

enjoy them

It is

latter part of his life in

of art

generally agreed today that the creative

sculptor or painter aims at producing a

endowed with

an

work

precious,

indescribable,

four-dimensional quality that most people

call

is

who

Nadel-

spent the

the United States,

written, before Clive Bell crystal-

for

me

any work

nothing but a pretext for

creating significant form, relations of forms

which

to the full.

sculptor, Elie

internationalist

the

create a

German

new

life.

,"

Even

earlier

sculptor Adolf Hildebrand

written a book in

the

1890s entitled

Prohlem of Form in Painting and

which foreshadowed the events and

had

The

Scul-pture
directions

when

of twentieth-century art-progress. Hildebrand

Greek

pointed out that the true

archaic kouros, or a reclining figure by

Henry

create a

form.

we

It is

form that speaks

to

contemplate a Stone Age

us

first

idol,

work "with

artist's

aim

is

to

a self-sufficiency apart

plain the pleasure afforded us

word that can exby the abstract

from nature." The thing created resides, he

said, in a unity of form, or an architectonic

sculptures of, say, the ancient Tajin culture

form, "lacking in objects as they appear in

Moore. Form

is

the only

of Mexico, or the Amerindians of the middle

nature." In addition he spoke out for direct

modern Jean Arp.

The art of sculpture had its own perceptive
pioneers in the vast and determining move-

cutting as against modeling.

Eastern

states,

or the

One
Has

of the tests

the piece a

now most

often applied

of

own, or does

life

its

is:
it

THE ART OF SCULPTURE

Twilight. Stone. Michelangelo. 1520-34.

Medici Chapel, Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. (Brogi photo')

merely

The

reflect

something in objective nature?

Hfe in a Michelangelo piece or in a

Bodhisattva of the T'ang era leaves no doubt

that the intense vitality

is

pendently living creation:

that of

an indeis an

the statue

organism conceived and brought into being

bv the artist, owing only an impulse and a
surface likeness to the model.

Though

the

intensity diminishes as one comes down the

scale toward facsimile realism, the works on

the great middle ground of sculptural achieve-

ment, of the Assyrians and the

late Greeks
and the Romans, of Ghiberti and Donatello
and the della Robbias, of the baroque and

neo-classic

modelers, of the impressionists

and these

are major

names and periods

sculptural activity survive

when

the

some

slight

individual

sculptor

has

infused

measure of creative formal

into the statue.

of

importantly only

life

THE ART OF SCULPT LI RE

you should ask what schools and names
would appear on a guide-map to that part of
sculptural achievement wherein form-creation
If

or form-expression

is

dominant,

swer: the primitives of

the early Greeks, the

all

would

an-

times and places,

Romanesque

masters,

the sculptors of the Orient Scythia, Persia,

India, Indonesia, and China and Jacopo
Quercia and Michelangelo. These
della
schools and masters have left us the works
that are most highly charged with
in

life;

and

general except for the Greeks they are

the ones

who have been more

careless of their

perception of the marvels of nature. "Above

and before

all,

repeat, study Nature.

None

of her works are

mean, low, ugly, or vulgar to

those who, with the patience born of reverent
love, seek out her marvelous and minute

The

beauties."
ever,

other half of training, how-

recommended

is

be study of the

to

Greek and Italian masters, for "inspiration."

There is Tio mention of anything created by
the sculptor in

the nature of a formal or-

ganization or sculptural
typical

life.

The

during

instruction

of

instance

is

century

the

before the post-Rodin revolt into expressionism.

models.

Romanesque expressionism gave way

realism in Italy, the art of sculpture in Europe

Rodin himself lent his name to several

That is, companions and interviewers
transcribed his conversations and pieced out

entered into a slow but lengthy course of

his occasional

After
to

Gothic realism in France, to Renaissance

by the talent
Houdon, and by the

deterioration, interrupted only

of a

Donatello or a

startlingly

independent

genius

Michel-

of

angelo. Except for Michelangelo, the aesthetic

downward

trend in sculpture ran steadily

to

an intellectual academism and a weak natu-

When

ralism.

the tide finally turned, at the

end of the nineteenth century, there was little

in the product of five centuries of European
sculpture to afford either precedent or instruction

young

the

to

radicals.

Since they saw

naturalism as a dead end, since

tions of realism

from Ghiberti

all

the varia-

to the

impres-

were being suddenly discredited, they

sionists

books.

ture.

The

remarks into theories of sculp-

reported comments, or monologues,

illuminating and provocative; but the

modern reader concludes in the end that
Rodin was the last giant figure of the realistic
schools and only marginally a modern. He
was the great, the incomparable impressionist,
are

not properly a post-impressionist.

Rodin speaks for his school when again

and again he notes the importance of "the
palpitating flesh"; or when he declares that
"the principal care of the artist should be to

form living muscles. The

Of

rest matters little."

that specialty of the impressionist sculp-

tors,

minute modeling of boss and hollow

shimmering effect, he said: "Color

to

turned to the primitives which indeed gained

afford a

for the early

moderns a massive strength and

to the Orient, where a rhythmic vitality had
always been considered more important than

These two qualities always accompany each other, and it is

these qualities which give to every master-

surface representation.

piece of the sculptor the radiant appearance

is

the flower of fine modeling.

of living flesh."

Back

in the days

that the

work

of art

when
is

it

was axiomatic

an imitation of nature,

These interesting observations

sharpen

the

reader's

are likely to

perception

of

certain

innumerable books were written by sculptors

surface beauties in sculpture, but those

as introductions to the practice or appreciation

believe that a

of the

art.

Many

of these are instructive, for

the lover of sculpture, both for

what they

say

what they leave unsaid. We may read

with respect a book by Albert Toft, a British
sculptor eminent in the 1920s, and agree with
him that one-half of the artist's preparation is
and

for

to

sculptural

new dimension
creation

his naturalistic early

who

has been added

since Rodin modeled

works may well prefer

his statement about the sculptor's obligation

in

modeling

which he ought
that

alone

portrait:

"The resemblance

to obtain

is

matters."

The

that of the soul;

saying

seems

to

sionatethat

is

what the

in stone or marble,"

sculptor

must express

he wrote. "The grandest,

the noblest, the most striking product of the

sculptor's genius should express only relation-

ships possible in nature its effects,

fan-

its

tasies, its singularities."

At the beginning of the twentieth century

Aristide

Maillol

weakness in the

an

pointed

out

realist's

case:

inevitable

having only

nature's effects as his material, he exaggerates

movements and

nature's
tello's art
it

belongs to the studio.

make

it

locutions:

"Dona-

does not really come out of nature;

lifelike.

He

exaggerates to

His weeping children grim-

ace frightfully. One can express sorrow by

calm features, not by a twisted face and distended mouth."

addiction

If

enough

to

naturalism

was

cause

for the decline of sculpture in

the

nineteenth centur)^, there was a companion

evil in the failure to

The

Kiss.

Marble. Auguste Rodin. C. 1890.

Rodin Museum, Paris

Michelangelo wrote

ment about the

bring

him

into the territory of the moderns,

where indeed he lingered long enough to

design the famous Balzac. (See page 472.)
Better known, unfortunately, and frequently quoted by the devotees of realism,

an early saying of Rodin's:

ever)'thing,
her.

and

sayings

is

to

is

obey Nature in

never pretend to

Aly only ambition

ful to her."

"I

command

be servilely

faith-

This well caps a progression of

explanatory of the naturalism that

had gained

steadily in

Europe over a period

of five centuries.

Lorenzo Ghiberti had written concerning

which he completed

the baptistry doors

in

Florence in 1452: "I tried to imitate nature

as closely as possible,

portions,
to

with

all

the correct pro-

and by using perspective

was able

produce excellent compositions graced with

many

figures.

eloquent of

all

."

comprehend the

differ-

ences between stone-cutting and modeling.

But perhaps the most

the exponents of the natural

the

most-quoted

state-

between true sculptural art and clay modeling: "By sculpture

I mean the thing that is executed by cutting
away from the block; the sort executed by
differences

building up tends toward painting."

Three hundred years later practically no

Europe was capable of cutting a
stone block, and no school taught the process.
The most honored sculptors were claymodelers. They, the "artists," made clay
sketches,
and sometimes plaster models.
Then, if the final statue was to be in stone,
"workmen," or praticiens, made the replica,
using a pointing machine to assure perfect
copying. As the so-called sculptor never
sculptor in

touched the block, the sense of the stone, of

grandeur and heavy monumentality,

lithic

totally disappeared.

One
came

The

of the results

light,

was

that sculptures be-

complicated, spiky, and sketchy.

easy thumbing of wet clay often brought

had been Etienne Falconet of the eighteenth

century, whose nude nymphs are still coldly

strained sort of painting. Subjects not suitable

charming. "Nature

to the stone

alive, breathing,

and

pas-

sculpture into the estate of a second-rate and

abounded; goddesses holding

aloft

THE ART OF SCULPTURE

^''

<iJr.i-^l*^^^:^^^ ]^'^

Museum

Goat. Stone. John B. Flannagan. 1930-31. Baltimore

torches of learning, soldiers bearing guns

winged

bayonets,

portrayed in

creatures

flight.

and

naturalistically

This was the heyday of

Eric Gill, Gaudier, Mestrovic, and Lachaise

were leaders among post-impressionist revolu-

who

tionaries

upon a return to the

and upon the importance

insisted

sculptural process,

and the Greek-born Polygnotos Vagis, have

said that their approach was to wait until the
stone or wooden block in hand created its

own

pictorial sculpture-

of Art

to

up an image

memory
somehow belonged

subconscious

until

subject;

yielded

that

the shape and texture and "feel" of the

rock mass.

Flannagan wrote that an image

within every rock and that "the creative

exists

merely frees

of the "stone feeling" in the finished statue.

act of realization

Eric Gill wrote a famous essay entitled "Sculp-

looking at a field stone or boulder,

and the opening

ture,"

of

Michelangelo:

"I

an echo

are

lines

assume that the

shall

word sculpture is the name given to

and art by which things are cut out
whether in

material,

...

And

again:

'cut'

"The

to

den subject took over

round.

the

word

sculptor's job

is

This idea
1300,

and

statue in

of stone things seen in the mind."

that

The law

that applies to basic sculpture, to

away

the statue cut in stone, applies to

all

art.

the finished

work

in

wood

more
That is,

the

or ivory or clay

will

be true to the character of the material

and

will bear the

Two

American

when

let

his

it

until the hid-

mind.

Then he was

not new. Shortly after the year

wood

or stone,

an

it is

great
artist

preacher
shapes a

not his subject

he puts into the wood; rather he cuts

the covering material that has been

hiding an image.
is

the

"When

what he imparts; it
away of an obscuring
what was hidden in the

It is less

rather the stripping

envelope so that

rough

may

shine

out."

Johannes

Tauler,

sculptor's skill.

another leader in that crowning century of

John Flannagan

mystical perception, reported the incident of

stamp of the
sculptors,

is

Meister Eckhart,

mystic, wrote:

making out

refined or lesser varieties of the

his

Vagis,

ready to begin cutting.

of a solid

relief or in the

oppose the word

'model.'"

that craft

sculptural "feeling" play over

it."

THE ART OF SCULPTURE

Banner stones. Amerindian, Mound Builders culture, 100-500 a.d. Left: Ohio.
Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York. Right: Illinois. Museum of the American Indian, New York
a

sculptor

who

regarded a huge block of

marble and exclaimed, "What Godlike beauty

is

Lending

stone).
abrasion,

here hidden away!"

ficult sculptural

Regarding the materials used in sculpture,

did

though
granite

is

the favorite hard stone,

that

insisting

this

lends

itself

some
best

artists

in

the

creation of "sculptural feeling." Basalt dictates

a

severe

Both of these inwere used from the very start

of recorded history: the Egyptians,

aimed to create images for

used them for their tomb statues.
sciously

who

con-

eternity,

is

not very hard; neither

which are its

Greek and Roman sculptors
favored marble, and even today marble reis

it

soft

like

the limestones

closest relations.

it

non-crystalline limestones have been

but they

cannot be polished and are not durable

weather.

alabaster have

material
tection.

is

The

Another

if

small sculptures in

translucent glow, but the

one of the
soft

softest

medium

and needs
is

is

and

materials
artistic ex-

typical

Stone

shaped stones uncovered

at pre-

Flint

oldest

basalt are

and caves are weapons, and

moot question whether these can be

stage of

pro-

steatite (soap-

weapon

when

day

and there came a

and axes

design,

ceremonial

hatchets

evolved out of the purely functional kinds,

often with an animal form approximated in
the general design or as an added feature.

But

to

of

considered sculpture. Certainly the desire to

ette

exposed

intractability

materials.

The

and monumental compositions.

The

said that primitive peoples

historic campsites

mains the chosen material for portrait busts

freely used throughout the centuries,

dif-

render the shapes pleasing entered at some

Marble, the favorite stone for the middle

ground of sculpture,

the

let

pression.

Age

carving or

scarcely attempted;

check the native impulse toward

simplification.

tractable stones

work was

may be

it

not

facile

to

itself

sometimes appears where more

it

it

may be

was
monest

that the first independent statubone or horn. One of the comfrom

materials was ivory,
early

of

mammoth
ivory

is

tusks.

the

Of

only

three

these

one

materials,

extensively

used

throughout history, from the age of the Cro-

own

Magnons

until our

era of

greatest glory

its

"Dark Ages."

time. Curiously, the

began

in the so-called

THE ART OF SCULPTURE

10

Apart from stone and stonelike materials,

only one other material lends

wood. Impermanent

true sculptural process:

by nature, subject

wooden

breakage and

to

the

to

itself

the

rot,

statue has seldom survived the oldest

as

mind

agreeable
material,

texture

impossible

wood has become

century, as
a

of fluent cutting

itself to effects

it

and of

any other

to

in the twentieth

has been so often in history,

prime vehicle of creative sculptural ex-

pression.

The

rest of the stor)' of materials is in clay,

it we
The word

but with
ture.

turn

away from

"sculpture"

the Latin

word meaning

with clay

we

composition

is

basic sculp-

descended from

to cut or car\'e,

and

enter the field of modeling.

imprisoned

in

block

is

up

by pressing
onto a central mass or core innumerable
lumps of wet clay, thumbing and streaking
them into final place. The piece as it appears
"sculptor" builds

in

the

museum

the image,

case

may be

mud,

clay, or terra cotta,

much

the same. It has been

by hand while the

fired,

mud

labeled burnt

but the process

is

daubed together
clay was wet, then

or

possibly in hot sunshine or in ashes,

most often in an oven.

The

hostilit)'

of

the

copying the effects in marble or bronze.

They

thus lost the characteristic virtues that inhere

in clay or stone or metal expression as such.

Since there are legitimate uses for model-

and indeed some kind of original is

inevitable for statues to be cast in metal, the
modems laid down a rule which seems likely

ing,

to

govern creative sculptural

siderable time to come:

manipulated

by the

efltort

The

artist

is,

the sculptor

if

upon the

capitalizing

characteristic of metal.

he has in

If

and refined product such

a painted

as

colored porcelain (in the tradition of Sevres

Meissen ware), his clay original will have

or

and composiWhereas if the clay statuette is the

whole aim of his endeavor, he may proceed
yet another sort of smoothness

tion.

in a self-proclaiming technique of chunkupon-chunk, thumb-marked modeling; or he

may pursue

naturalism with a detailing and

a finesse of approach impossible to reproduce

any

in

beyond the clay

transfer

or plaster or

wax.

There

mud)

are mar\'elous examples of clay (or

among the Chinese tomb

among the Mexican

statuettes

and

figurines,

Stone Age

again

These are apt

relics.

sionist in

the best sense:

be expres-

to

sculpturally alive,

true to the inner character of the subject,

tj'pically

claylike.

Swiss
to

Among

and

the moderns, sev-

have specialized in capitalizing

eral sculptors

upon the

capabilities inherent in clay;

Herman

and the

Haller especially has served

prove that the terra-cotta figure can have

distinctive

moderns
toward modeling arose when it was recognized that whole generations of modelers had
been falsifying monumental work by creating
in clay, in typical softened modeling technique,
then mechanically enlarging and
apparent

and otherwise

effects

no

longer released by cutting away. Instead the

That

is constrained to think metallically while

producing the clay model, smoothing the sur-

Superbly right for car\ang, lend-

sculpture.

-piece.

he

faces

ing

the final

envisages a bronze statue as the end-product,

though its presence can be surmised

from the time when sculpture first became

cultures,

ap'pear to the beholder in the mate-

it ^vill

rial of

and engaging

Lehmbruck

Some of
among

the

sculpture, partly

by

virtues.

terra-cotta pieces are

masterpieces of

reason of the

modem

artist's

the

scrupulous loyalty to the

clay as such.

On
rary

the other hand, a study of contempo-

bronzes should convince

the

observer

(where they
have not insisted upon working exclusively
in stone and wood, by direct cutting) have
that the great recent sculptors

followed the rule of \asualizing the

effect

final

metal

during the period of producing the

model. Archipenko, Lachaise, Arp, and Moore

provided excellent examples of the cast bronze

for a con-

clay shall be

always

in ac-

cordance with a vision of the completed work

Museum

of

Mail Drawing a Sivord.

Wood. Ernst Barlach. 1911.
the Craiibrook Academy of Art,
Bloomfield Hills, ^lichigan

12

THE ART OF SCULPTURE

endowed with sheer and gHstcning

figure

effects natural to
It

metal but not to

must be added
piece

terra-cotta

clay.

that very often,

has

won an

when

audience, the sculptor's desire to perpetuate

more durable form has led

in

it

to castina in

(Or

bronze, without modification.

appreciative

after

his

death eager executors duplicate clay sketches

happened with Degas, Rodin,

and Renoir.) Thus in museum halls there are
many so-called modern statues that seem to
belie the modern passion for truth to matein metals, as has

rials.

Worse

still,

one of the greatest of the

twentieth-century progressives, Jacob Epstein,

in later years

went back

to

the practice of

reproducing in cast bronze his sketchy, lumpy

clay portraits. Without wanting to detract in
any way from Epstein's genius and his early
service

to

the

modern movement, one may

attention to the illogical duplication in

call

bronze of his streaky and muddy-surfaced

modelings as the most instructive example

extant of a denial of the values of material.

No
values

one can see what formal sculptural

may be hidden

in the materials

now

entering into the manufacturing field of in-

There are new materials such

chromium and magnesium to challenge the

dustrial design.
as

sculptor.

have

Archipenko, Brancusi, and Gonzalez

experimented with

direct

metals (as against casting), and

produced many of

an

artificial

agglomerate,

stone.

cutting

in

Lehmbruck

his outstanding statues in

As

stone and cement

the material

led

the

artist

to

express himself in a fairly smooth, stonelike

idiom, yet with a variation of surface not far

from that possible

new

to

clay.

Most recendy

generation (after Gonzalez) has devel-

oped every phase of sculpture assembled by

welding, and the names of Armitage, Jacobsen,

and David Smith have become familiar

at the great international

There

are scores of

showplaces.

"new"

theories about

the art of sculpture. These range from a frank

neo-primitivism, as in the few sculptures of

Growth. Bronze. Jean Arp. 1938.

Philadelphia Museutn of Art, Arensherg Collection

Modigliani and an early phase of Epstein's

work, through various profound and weighty

works, to the most complicated "light" constructions, as in the airy "mobiles" of Alexan-

der Calder who was originally a sculptor but

is

now

hardly to be contained

may be

It

that

it

any

in

histor-

word.

ical definition of the

is

only because

we

are

so close to the triumphant days of realism

still

that a large group of innovators and settled

moderns remain near the neo-primitive, heavy
or simplified types of sculpture. In any case,

there

is

contemporary

sufficient reason for the

concern

sculptor's

spherical forms,

if

with

ovoid,

cubic,

and

their reiteration helps stir

in the collective public

mind

a long-dormant

love of reposeful, elemental things, of hard,

simple,

solemn things.

immediate

It

may be

that

the

appreciating sculpture hinges

art of

upon some deep-down clairvoyance in

regard, upon subconscious perception of

this
ele-

mental form.

Henry Moore, speaking

of shape-conscious-

and of his own early devotion to bones,

shells, and pebbles, observes that "there are
universal shapes to which everybody is subconsciously conditioned and to which they
ness,

can respond

their conscious control

if

not shut them

Subject-values

from the
ognition

of course,

are,

inseparable

but the proper order of

others;
is

does

off."

an intuitive response

to

rec-

elemental

sculptural beauty, then intellectual pleasure

the

in

descriptive

associations.

Any

truth

alert

and

mind

is

the

Jiterary

pleasantly en-

gaged by a cleverly exact transcription or by a

show

of unusual virtuosity in

smooth tech-

nique. But the mental delight thus

is

awakened
moving

a poor substitute for the profoundly

and

felicitous

response

to

innate

massive

rhythms, whether encountered in the form-

symphonies of Michelangelo or in the "universal shapes" of

Henry Moore.

Montserrat. Sheet iron. Julio Gonzalez. 1936-37.

Stedelijk

Museum, Amsterdam

Primitive Sculpture:
From

Our

to

the

Cave Men

Age Contemporaries

Stone

WE
to

cannot

know

exactly

shape tools or weapons

when man began

with

artistically,

regard to the pleasure afforded by contrived

looks or "feel."

event

of

his

statuette. It
art

is

Even more obscured

cutting

first

an

the

independent

probable that sculpture as an

preceded drawing or painting.

to the very

is

It

goes back

beginnings as does dance, which

durable,
ism,

it

sudden

survives earthquakes
injuries

and vandal-

from wars, and the grad-

ual silting over of ancient living-sites. Primitive sculpture,

recently

though long obscured and only

in art museums, is properly

known

the foundation for

The
tors,

all

study of the

art.

primitives are the world's basic sculp-

and from them each

line of civilized de-

precedes music and poetry. Incomparably old

velopment has branched. Their creations are

among

figurative

arts,

also

in-

fundamentally vigorous, innocent of reasoned

relics

of

purpose, studied detail, and elaborate orna-

nature heavy and

ment. Whether a rough prehistoric "Venus"

sculpture

is

comparably represented among the

prehistoric cultures.

By

its

Baton or symbol of authority. Reindeer horn. Aurignacian,

Isturitz, Basses-Pyrenees. St.

c. 30,000 B.C.
Germain Museum. (_Photo Charles Hurault, St. Germain^

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE

16

of the Aurignacians from the

Old Stone Age

(of perhaps 30,000 B.C.) or a rhythmically

designed stone horse of the

New

Stone Age

(of possibly 2000 B.C.) in Europe, or an idol

of a South Sea island tribe living today

under

Stone Age conditions, the sculpture of the

mind not

primitive mind, a

yet developed to

the point of possessing a written language,

is

and true to the spirit rather

the external and detailed reality of

but there seems

sentations

little

doubt that many repre-

grew from

devotional or ritualistic needs. Instinc-

tively

men wanted
their God

please

to placate the spirits or to

or

gods;

certain

had "magic."
Other manifestations

To

of

this

merely

than to

did only what was necessary.

while he polished

Primitive art cannot be delimited within

dates. In

some

our

own

into

utilitarian.

areas the Stone

Age has

lasted

The American Indian

Mexico were all at the level

time.

cultures north of

object he

They

art

were

man

begin with, early

down

the

first

But
it

after

or

other

more

pleas-

tool

had made and found

ing visually than the

objects
it.

either contained a spirit or evoked

simple, strong,

the model.

and

religious impulses

filled

crude product. At

some point he playfully added ornament.

The

instinct for ornamentation

has been

way before
white man. Some Mela-

claimed by some students as the true origin

nesian and Polynesian cultures and others in

instead of originating independently, might

of the Stone

Age

until they gave

the pressures of the

Africa, Australia,

and the Arctic lands remain

and their arts are tech-

of

all

visual arts.

To them

it

seems that

have evolved from such practices

as

art,

body-

at the primitive level,

painting and tattooing and the later tribal

nically prehistoric.

fashion of wearing ornamental headdresses,

we are at someknow how early man felt

In the twentieth century

thing of a loss to

about

life

or art

and

to

fathom

his reasons

for fashioning a javelin-thrower into

proximation of a stag or a

why,

in

much

or an otter or a

Archaeologists

lion, or to

later times,

hawk upon
have

an apexplain

he carved a duck
his tobacco pipe.

evolved

theories to explain the earliest

Horse. Stone. Neolithic, 3rd or

number

works of

of
art,

fiir

and the

like.

But

to interpret

man's

seems unnecessarily limiting.

we see the prehistoric

man who was extraordinarily limited mentally, who understood some things
and met many others in the natural world
In the simplest terms

artist as a

that

to explain. Swayed by
and emotions, he did not think about

he was unable

instincts

B.C. Woldenberg, Germany. State Museum, Berlin.

Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin}

2nd millennium

QCourtesy Archiv

necklaces,

invention of art according to any one theory

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE
DATE

PERIOD
Eolithic

c.

TYPE OF

2,000,000 years

Homo

habilis

MAN

17

SCULPTURAL ART
Eoliths: crude

(?)

weapons only

slightly

shaped

ago
Paleolithic

(Old Stone
Age):
Pre-Chellean

C.

100,000

Java

B.C.

man
man

Rudely chipped weapons,

Tools improved. Bone implements.

Acheulean
Neanderthal

from
c. 75,000 B.C.

Mousterian
Aurignacian

Solutrean

c.

25,000

C.

20,000 B.C.

QHomo

man

Wildenmannlisloch Venus (?)

sapiens^

Cro-Magnon man

B.C.

Wider range

of shaped tools.
sculpture in the round.

Cro-Magnon man

Culmination
murals.)

C.

of

from possibly
15,000 B.C. in

Age)

(New

Age

Age)

8000

Asia,

in

Confused
terns.

racial

Man

c.

4000

in Orient,

2000

Man

B.C. in

bracelets,

tools,

whence

brooches,

etc.,

and

finally

statuettes.

Man

Possibly c. 1800
B.C. in Asia, c.
1000 B.C. in

Age

tools,

name

Continuing Stone Age arts; but from c. 2500

B.C., widespread use of bronze for weapons,

invents a metal
harder than copper.

B.C.

c.

Europe
Iron

sculp-

"Polished Stone Age." Dolmens, menhirs and other megalithic monuments. Extensive development of pottery;
then clay statuettes. Slow resumption of
figurative sculpture in stone. Rare design in
copper.
alternate

primitive agriculture, housing, animal culture, weav-

B.C.

Europe

Begins

relief.

Peak of shapely stone weapons and

pat-

initiates

ing.

Bronze Age

(Painted

fishers

Begins possibly
I 5,000 B.C. in

Stone

art.

of sculpture in the

Weapons and tools crude. No figurative

ture. Rude beginnings of pottery.

Uncertain tribal elements hunters and

Europe, earlier
elsewhere

cave-dwellers'

Wide range

round and in
Mesolithic Age
(Middle Stone

Some engraving;

Flint points greatly improved; other sculpture

almost lacking.

from
l6,OOQ B.C.

Magdalenian

Neolithic

axes, scrapers, etc.

Peking

Chellean

worker in

No

iron.

epochal change in the sculptural arts, which

vastly expanded in the preceding period.

had

Europe

the desirability of art as such.

the

impulse

little

to

create.

The

He

merely had

process

differs

from that which takes place among

tuitive artists today: first contemplation,

in-

then

the manipulation of materials until the image

takes life in a

come

new embodiment. Afterward

and uses. In
the case of primitive man, if he created a
piece that really pleased him he might
dedicate it to his gods or God. A likeness in
all

sculpture,

the associative values

something

brought

mysteriously

out of the other world, had an element of

magic in
fine;

use or wear

If I

it.

am

set apart

it,

grander or more powerful, or

tractive to the opposite sex.

piece

only

is

am

others,

it

makes me

from other men,

I

Or

am more
again,

if

am
at-

the

an ax head or javelin-thrower, not

I

but

a greater natural hunter than the

I

am

set apart

by

this display of

hunter symbols.

But there

is

nothing that transcends the

truth that art at

its

genesis exists to please

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE
an

lasted

until

attraction

an agreeable

Some

authorities believe

as basic as

our impulse

some deep-rooted faculty

The

aesthetic hunger.

shape holds for us

dance or music.

rhythmic forms in

to create

The immediate
is

is

in us, to satisfy

response to a formal creation

elementary and profound;

may come

later

the realization and the delight of seeing some-

thing familiar reproduced.

What is at present known about

man and his sculptural art is shown
chart on page 17.

Age

The Old Stone

earliest

in the

or Paleolithic

covers roughly the vast period from the rise

man

in the Pleistocene epoch to the culture

Cro-Magnons, an undetermined time
from about 1,000,000 to 30,000 years ago. Dur-

of

of the

ing the

four of the seven periods of the

first

Old Stone Age

a slow development
implement to handaxes and symmetrically shaped scrapers and

The

points.

sort of

fifth

witnessed the

was

there

from the crudest

of the

Aurignacian,

the

period,

rise

Cro-Magnon race
improved weapons

and the appearance of

such as harpoons and javelin-throwers, numerous sculptures in the round, and engravings on bone. The following period, the

named

Solutrean,

what

across to
is

after a people

now

made by

The

all

Cro-Magnon

and

art,

Paleolithic art, occurred in

its

Age)

cave-dwellers, then

The sculptors of the period worked in

mammoth ivory, reindeer horn, bone,

known, but animal

figures were modeled in the round and drawings of figures were incised upon the wet
pottery

walls of the cave.

is

is

The

tional Mesolithic art

art-lover

At the beginning of the

the

of

skills

fined stage, as indicated in the

only claim of transi-

upon the

attention of the

the invention of a rude sort of

Polished

tombs, sometimes as architectural or arranged

monuments,

sometimes

as

monoliths.

The

sculpture.

At the beginning of the Bronze Age there

was little change in sculpture, but a major
advance

toward

man had

used copper for ornaments and oc-

bracelets,

Age

arts,

Stone Age, or Neolithic

era,

Stone Age, pos

as

and

for statuettes.

especially flint-chipping

The Stone
and

pottery-

making, continued through the Bronze Age;

climate due to glacial shiftings.

early

From about

2500 B.C. bronze was used increasingly for

weapons and for such ornaments as brooches

and

as

Neolithic

the era of metals really opened with the in-

vention of alloys, notably bronze.

deterioration of other art forms

also as the Polished

industrialization.

casionally for representational sculpture, but

attributable to the drastic changes of

from

name

It

may be

sibly dates

Stone Age,

was the age also of the dolmens

and menhirs and cromlechs, the megalithic
or "large-stone" art, which appeared as at
Stonehenge and in the French prehistoric
Stone Age.

The

New

New

preceding ages were not

the

transmitted, except in the field of weaponand tool-making. Pottery was substantially a

Neolithic art, and stone sculpture in the
monumental sense was resumed only here
and there at varying and generally untraceable dates. Men, no longer dependent wholly
upon hunting, turned their attention to agriculture and the domestication of animals. The
manufacture of stone weapons reached a re-

pottery.

The
known

of

menhir is traced over with engraved designs

and some of the carefully fashioned stones
do, in fact, evoke an aesthetic response hardly
to be distinguished from our response to basic

of

shelters.

No

dawn

Sumer, Egypt, and China, and

included the bulk of Amerindian, African,
and South Sea island art.

civilized art in

be classed as sculpture, though occasionally a

flint

using not only caves but some rude outside

clay.

era of prehistoric art lasted until the

blades and

with the paintings of

and

world as early

parts of the

others say 2500 b.c. This great

the pressure flaking process.

the Magdalenian period (or Reindeer

stone,

B.C.,

the latter to have

stones are usually not sufficiently shaped to

culmination

therefore of

4000

the Bronze Age.

of

France from the East,

is

remarkable only for the

points,

who moved

some

started in
as

dawn

the

15,000 B.C.

It

typically

Bronze Age

arts persisted in

some

regions long after others started using iron.

In most regions of Europe, the Iron Age,

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE
dating from about

tures,

1300

pertaining

Greek-Roman

to

known

peoples

pre-

Most

The
suggest

and swords.
which illustrate

how

basic

pulse to create,

improve.

From

this

and universal

how

is

chapter

man's im-

man seems

to

have

had an interior sensibility, a sense of form,

an aesthetic impulse. Primitive sculpture is
evocative

of

contemplative

sculptural emotion, as

In the 1960s,
gists in

is all

pleasure,

great plastic

new discoveries by

East Africa have given

of

art.

anthropolo-

rise to articles

appearing under such startling headlines as

"Scientists

add a million years

to the

is

de-

man-apes of South Africa

and supposedly used stone,
bone, and wooden weapons to overcome their
prey. However, many anthropologists today believe that despite their upright posture and

instinctive his urge to

the start

man

were

of the sculpture

plates

still-debated opinion that

scended physically from the Australopithe-

small and incidental to manufacture, as on

urns, pins,

man's existence on earth." Equally starding

was the

the

to

civilization as barbarians,

technically primitive.
is

was not

B.C.,

but the Hallstatt and La Tene cul-

historic,

19

span of

cines, the so-called

who walked

tool-using

erect

the

capability

Australopithecines

were not direcdy ancestral

to

men, but

in-

stead represent an offshoot of the evolutionary

line that led to

man.

It is

possible that these

hominids lived concurrently with the

known
As

true

man,

to dating,

Homo

the lay reader does well to

dawn of art,
and there. The dates

low, near the

here

haps as near right as

scientific

earliest

hahilis.

is

al-

hundred centuries
in this book are pera

possible in a period

of

guessing and scholarly controversy.

Feline. Petroglyph. Solutrean, c. 20,000 B.C.

Les Combarelles, Dordogne. C^J'chives Photographiques, Parish

II

THERE

is

men were

by

complex of activities known as the figurative

arts. It is supposed that from such a begin-

bone which had

ning, perhaps 100,000 years ago, the activity

a marginal theory that the

pieces

first

of

sculpture

bits of stone or

treasured

been worn down by the elements into shapes

resembling animals or

man would

itself

After possibly

him

pebble approximating the

as a

to

human head would

token bestowed by the

might

be instilled with magic.

Through rude
to

forward

value such nature-formed figures

beings.

a precious link with them. It

seem

carried

hunter-savage,

mass of a bison or
spirits, as

was

Early

as luck pieces.

appeal to

human

improve and then

duplicate the nature-formed luck pieces,
efforts to

the theory goes on,

there arose

the whole

the late
sort of

by

the

by

Old Stone Age,

artists

achieved the

animal image shown in the illustration

of the reindeer-horn sculpture

which

Neanderthal

Cro-Magnon man.
seven hundred centuries, in
then

is

supposed

to

from

be an ornament or

Isturitz,

baton

of authority of the Aurignacian epoch. It

is

pleasing but hardly more than rudely resemblant. (Illustrated

There

is

on page

15.)

only one figurative sculpture that

Reindeer; Bison. Javdin-throwcrs. Ivory. Magdalcnian, c. 15,000 B.C.

Bruniquel, Tarn ct Garonne; La Madeleine, Dordogne. British Museum;
Les Eyzies Museum QHurauIt photo')

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE
is

considered by archaeologists to belong to

an earlier period than

is

Woman. The

this baton. Its subject

from

piece

is

known but

Mousterian

to

sumably

at least

Aurignacian

site in

eastern

not only the oldest example

Switzerland,
of sculpture

dated

Wilden-

the

mannlisloch Cave, an Alpine

unique specimen

and thus

times,

pre-

finds.

Some

archaeologists refuse

when

the unique piece

been

assumed

sessed

no

aesthetic sense at

all.

rough

automatically developed into

human

present

obser\'er

saw

mounted

it

in

it

in

The Cro-Magnon
session of

they

ex-

people believed that pos-

its

chase,

from Les Combarelles on page

To

return to the

segment of

be

cave bear's

jawbone. This mounting has lasted through

Not only

animal

stag

widely accepted

possibly 70,000 years.

the

an image of the hunted bison or

Then when some sensitive

an image of a woman he
a

of

of their rock shelters.

shape while being used as a

utilitarian scraper.

look

added the feeling of it. Their little

"statues" form a worthy parallel to the virile
and sometimes superb paintings on the walls

the illustration of a petroglyph of a feline

He had

pos-

therefore suggested that the stone

less

the

had

had

it

man

art.

to

Author-

was discovered,

Neanderthal

that

stone weapons and tools, but no

more or

And

pressively

would afford the hunter mastery in the

and so the sculptors concentrated upon
quarry animals. There is nevertheless a considerable range of material, stone and clay and
horn, and of method, from full-round to incised drawings and figures in low relief. See

knot of sculptural

to believe that this graceful

bulk and the typical movement of a

stag or doe, of a wild horse, bison, or panther.

40,000 years earlier than the

masses was shaped by men, for prior to 1926,

ities

typical

21

Venus
a

human

of Wildenmannlisloch,
as

of

which

unique
is

now

man's handiwork, seems

to

the

figures

known

as

Aurignacian

times.

Scores

of

forerunner of

Venuses

19.

figure, the

the general

shape of the statue but the suggestion of

such

details

as

other scholars to indicate

The Reindeer and

on

carx'ed

figures

javelin-throwers.

and nose seem

the eyes

to

human

useful

artifice.

such

objects

as

are characteristic of a

by the sculptors of the Magwhen the images had become

vigorously lifelike and there was a maturer
dalenian epoch,

feeling for rhythmic design.

are examples of the art of the Cro-

Alagnons, successors in Europe of the Nean-

The Cro-Magnons

derthalers.

walls

and

ceilings

their

of

painted

the

sanctuary cave-

rooms with amazingly truthful pictures of the

animals

they

archaeologists

broken

hunted.

to

piece

how

found

have

such

to

this,

objects

as

and
which have helped them

javelin-throwers,

stone skull-crushers,

addition

In

points,

flint

together a rudimentary picture of

these early

men

lived.

It

seems safe

to

assume that they were exclusively a hunting

people. In their ivory or

bone sculptures (they

did not use metal) they caught the obser\'ed

character,

the alertness

and the

c.

stance,

70,000

the

B.C.

S\^itzerland.

Heimatmuseum,

stage attained

These

Bone. Neanderthal,

Wildenmannlisloch Cave,

Bison represent animal

They

Woman.

St.

Gallen

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE

22

examples have been recovered from European

and Asian caves and campsites. For illustra-

have selected the so-called Venus

tion here I

of Lespngiie

and Venus

These

of Willendorf.

miniature Venuses are generally heavy and

womanly

bulgy, with emphasis on the

The

parts.

faces are mostly without features. Fer-

were among the

tility rites

earliest religious or

conjuring activities of primitive peoples, and

the Venuses are

presumed

have been

to

designed

alistic objects or fetishes,

to

ritu-

induce

fecundity.

The

figures indicate a long apprenticeship

and cutting

the use of chipping

in

They

ments.

as revealing a bent, at so early a time,

toward

and rhythmic ordering

outlining

fluent

instru-

are of interest to theorists of art

They

sculptural masses.

of

interest ethnologists

because the bulginess of certain body parts

seems
the

Cro-Magnon goddesses with

to link the

Bushmen

present-day

This type of
soon after the

art

is

of

the

tribes of Africa.

disappeared from Europe

last glacial age, possibly

10,000 or 12,000
ture

women

steatopygous

similarly

B.C.,

and

then wholly absent.

about

figurative sculp-

The

date

when

the

was reunknown,

practice of carving figures in stone

sumed
or

Europe and Asia is

would seem to be in the

in

though

it

Polished

Stone Age.

New

Stone

Neolithic cultures

appeared at widely separated dates in

differ-

and some survive

today. For that reason the word "primitive,"
like the word "Neolithic," has come to desigent parts of the world,

nate art of a certain type or

The resumption
practice in
in

the

rare

pieces

c.

of

rather than

typical

Age

the Neolithic

early

Venus

side the
is

spirit,

measured time-period.

art of a

Cycladic

figure

of Willendorf.

that

it

seems

primitive
illustrated

shown

The

be-

subject

among Cycladic

(but not unique)

in

is

to

be

directly

in

Venus of Lespugue. Ivory. Magdalenian,

15,000 B.C. Grotte des Ridcaux, Lespugue,
Basses-Pyrenees. Musee de I'Homme, Paris.
(^Photo Giraudon, Paris')

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE

Venus of Willendorf. Stone. Aurignacian. Willendorf, Austria. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna

Idol. Stone. Early Cycladic,

3rd millennium B.C.

Andre Emmerich

line of descent
It

from the Aurignacian Venuses.

has the featureless face and, in the body,

the

steatopygous fatness of

ures.

It

is

at

as a design, clearly a step

tized Cycladic figures.

in

Malta but

the

the same time

is

earlier

fig-

more advanced

toward the schema-

The

thought

was found

piece

be of Pentelic

to

marble.

The
in the

Mention
gests a

Aegean were mostly

of

human

isles

figures,

ranging from practically abstract pieces, like

fat fiddles, to statuettes slighdy

New York

Gallery,

Age

of the Polished Stone

sug-

second line of sculptural development,

and one that bridges the gap between Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures. In both ages
weapons and tools were fashioned with
notable feeling for abstract form.

volumes

shaping

evolution

the

in

Cycladic marbles from the Greek

23

point.

beautifully
of

The handsome

indicate

The

art of

illustrated

head and javelin

ax

skull-crushers

hatchets of the

attractive

is

New

conscious delight in

and the

Stone Age
the

tactile

more detailed

appeal of the sleek worked stone, as well as

than the one shown on page

Primitive

an intuitive feeling for volume organization.

and vigor are inherent, along with

a captivating rhythmic expressiveness. The

chipped scrapers or points, but an increase in

sculptors escaped the pitfalls of intricacy of

sensitivity

i.

simplicity

design,

over-ornamentation,

detailing.

and

naturalistic

The most

the

ancient

of design can

Paleolithic

elegant

artifacts

epochs.

laurel-leaf

blades

were rudely

be traced through

The
of

thin,

the

almost

Solutrean

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE

24

Crescent stone, spear point, ceremonial

baton, boat ax. Stone. Stone Age. Ohio;
Australia; Tennessee; Ostergotland.

Ohio

Museum; British Musemn; Department

of Anthropology, University of Tennessee;
State Historical Museum, Stockholm

State

epoch marked a high point of Cro-Magnon

non-utilitarian

and were surpassed only by the

poHshed knives and points of NeoHthic times.

the absolute

artisanship

In part of Asia the semi-civiHzation of the

New

Stone Age came perhaps as early

as

and in Europe as early as 8000

B.C. Through hundreds of generations thereafter the changes in weapons and other tools
most clearly indicate an awareness of sculp15,000

B.C.,

tural beauty.

suggestion

of

of

natural

treasure

to

abstract,

The imman had begun

polychrome pebbles and bright

as well as shells

and

cultures of later prehistoric

the stone

weapons

and the

teeth,

men

yield

ous types of abstract ornament and

it is

in

objects.

mediate followers of early

crj'stals,

is

of the word, innocent

numerBut

fetish.

that are central to the

exhibit.

This obviously originated

less

from man's

desire to imitate nature than out of

to

sculpture that

meaning

create rhythmically

and

to

an

instinct

shape things

From
the

the useful axes and points and clubs

series

goes on

to

ceremonial weapons,

patently elaborated for display. Often in the

was evidence

into aesthetically pleasing forms. Tools bear

ritual

out this theory, as do the menhirs or "long

of the finer nuances of plastic order, of bal-

stones" set

vive

today

figurative,

up on
as

primitive

impressively

monuments; and

sites,

which

grand,

if

sur-

non-

a store of small,

axes there

of the grasp

anced weight and related mass, and of

ingly

adjusted

simpler

contour

outline.

pleas-

The advance from

and casual form

to

such

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE
elaborated clubs as those of the Maoris and to

Lurs

the rhythmic oars or paddles of the Easter

Persians.

was accompanied by growing apwoods and stones. These mate-

Islanders

preciation of
rials

were valued

markings.

for

their

Eventually,

in

texture or their
this

there

line,

and

If the

the

early

of

art

the

25

civilized

growth of sculptural awareness can

thus be traced in the weapons or tools of

man, there is also confirmation of his

growing feeling for sculptural form in nonearly

appeared the exquisitely fashioned ceremonial

utilitarian objects.

objects of the Chinese, in precious jades.

North American Indians, sometimes appar-

The Bronze Age, marked by

the epochal

sometimes

dawned

used

some Near Eastern regions as early

as 2700 B.C. As always when an art enters
upon a new phase, the idioms and methods

The

of the past survive for a while.

and axes were

at

examples created
the Bronze

Age

modeled

first

knives
the

after

the Stone Age, but, as

in

progressed, refinements ap-

peared. For instance, the axes and adzes of

worked
weapon

animal

Even

in the

though

compositions

or tool designs, the

virile simplicity.

This

is

between prehistoric and

deed there

is

weapons

of

the

artists

into

their

whole retained

transitional sculpture,
civilized art.

no dividing

line

And

in-

between the

superbly right semi-primitive sculpture of the

The "long

stone"

art.

being

Though thousands of banner stones of

North Central Indians have been found,
there is no evidence that they served any purpose beyond pleasing the senses. Variations of
times.

the

type,

known

winged
and so on, are
the museums; but the

lunar

as

stones,

stones, double-crescent stones,

commonly met with

Age.

sometimes

the most lovingly

the

banner stone

Stone

among

fashioned sculptures to survive from primitive

the people of Luristan, while preserving a

the

and

symbolic,

as fetishes, are

primitive vitality, began to take on a fluency

and elegance seldom seen

stones of the

ently treasured for ornamental values alone,

introduction of a metal harder than copper,

in

The shaped

the

most

is,

in

sculpturally speaking at least,

engaging

exhibit.

It

is

typical

primitive art with vigorous simplicity, forceful

ness.

thrust,

Two

and

direct decorative

banner stones are

Introduction on page

expressive-

illustrated in the

9.

second line of Amerindian sculptures

approaches the abstract in forms abstracted

from nature or poetically summarizing

Pre-Celtic. Part of temple remains, Stonehenge, England.

CKean Archives, Philadelphia^

it.

Adze head. Bronze.

1000-800

B.C. Luristan, Persia.

Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston

Club. Wood. Maori.

University

Although

banner

the

nonrepresentational,

same

tribes

are

While

sense.

realistic,

stones

the bird

abstractions

in

this

the

second

these forms are very far from

they are nevertheless

bird feeling.

The

beauty

is

endowed with

at

once that of

the bird-subject and that of the

artist's crea-

tion.

The

lovingly

ifornia (chiefly

miniature

polished

on the

islands of the

Archipelago) are close to

whales

Channel

common

to

untutored

peoples.

whales, especially, are highly attractive.

fishhook

is

from the same culture.

had no other purpose in life than to obtain

food, protect and propagate his kind, and
develop skills that would serve practical ends.
Imitational sculpture, they say, originated as
a side issue of manufacture.
tical

demands had been

Only when

satisfied

prac-

did art come

the Marquesans

ably passed through

long metamorphosis

before

approached the type pictured,

they

with a head or heads terminating the neck

of the pestle.

continued

human

would

The
to

but

who

had

art

been

carved the bird and

on the stone pipes of the

Builders may have done so

Mound

ritualistic

jects

usefulness of the objects

sculptors

figures

American
for

The

unimpaired,

The

occasions.

Non-ceremonial ob-

call for less elaboration.

evolution of pottery

is

another factor

be considered in any study of the origins of

art.

The

making vessels in sunbaked

came fairly late in the rise of
man; meanwhile shells, gourds, and

craft of

or fired clay

primitive

Primitive man, certain pragmatists assert,

made by

of the Antilles prob-

realistic representa-

Yet they never lose the simplicity of

statement

The
The

stone pestles

Zealand.

and by the Amerindians

added.

and other animals found on sites of Amerindian communities along the coast of Cal-

tion.

The

wholly

are

stones of

New

Museum, Philadelphia

hollowed stones served his need for a dish or

a jar.

No

pottery has been found

relics

of

unsettled,

among

the

hunting or

exclusively

migratory peoples. But, once invented, the

baked clay vessel became almost the commonest expression of man's skill, from the

epoch of primal agriculture

The

to a

into being as a playful or pretty addition to

short of civilization.

the plain tool, weapon, or vessel.

velopment, from abstract shaping

period just

line of sculptural deto

elaborated

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE
figurative design,

can be traced once more in

27

Picene

vessel. Prehistoric Italian dishes of the

ceramic pot and storage jar and in rudimentary

culture

statuettes.

figures, and innumerable early Middle American and South

American earthenware vases have incidental
sculpture on their sides. Peruvian wares are

At

first

and, at some undeter-

sentational elements;

mined point

in prehiston,', the

common manu-

facture of clay figurines began.

and massing was instinctive with

and when ornamentawas added, it rarely became excessive or

outlines,

ran counter to functional laws, except, perhaps, in ceremonial

or libation

The

vases.

most ancient vessels are forerunners, on a

primitive level, of the exquisite Chinese

and

bowls

the

sixth-century

vases

Sung

of

the

art historian usually considers as sculp-

tural only those vessels that

tional

crude testimony

which the sculptors integrated

illustrational

features with the design of the pot or bottle,

function or disturbing

its

the decorative unity of the vessel.

Another
sels

line of evolution

is

shown

in ves-

designed in the shape of a head or a

In

body.

the

beginning,

face

urns

were

modeled with hardly more than a representation of eyes and a mouth, or eyes and a nose;
sometimes they are found with utilitarian

The vase with breast

uncommon type. Indeed any

ears pierced for handles.

forms

is

not an

shapely or symmetrical part of the body might

Greeks.

The

if

endlessly interesting for the ingenuity with

without impairing

feeling for good proportion, pleasing

primitive pot-makers;
tion

eloquent

about the beginnings of rim

the abstract elements of composition

were more important than the art of copying

from nature. But very soon the baked clay
vessels began to be embellished with repre-

The

afFord

have representa-

forms in the modeling. At

primitive potters

seem

to

first

the

have experimented

with faintly or crudely imitational details in

handles or on the rim, neck, or shoulder of a

suggest variations of the contours of the clay

vessel.

jars

This progression leads on

to dishes

and

completely composed to approximate the

appearance of a

and sometimes a

The

man

or a

woman, an animal,

fruit.

primitive artist was likely to geome-

Fishhook; Whale. Stone. Amerindian,

Chumash. Channel Islands, California

American Museum of Natural History;

Museum

of Science, Buffalo

Bird stones. Amerindian. Michigan;

Illinois.

American Museum of Natural History;

Museum of the American Indian, New York

Amerindian. West Indies. Museum fi'ir Volkerkunde, Berlin. QPhoto courtesy

Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin. j Right: Polynesian. Marquesas Islands.
Musee de I'Homme, Paris

Pestles. Stone. Left:

Archiv

Bird;

Man.

fiir

Effigy pipes.

United

States.

Amerindian,

Mound

Builders culture, pre-Columbian. South central

American Museum of Natural History; Brooklyn Museum

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE
trize or

conventionalize the natural forms in

clay as he did in his stone effigies.

for

The

gift

formalization and for subordinating the

representational features to the formal needs

of the craft

is

illustrated in

thousands of early

primitive with their simple massiveness

sculptors

living

and they mark a

under Neolithic conditions

final point in the progress of

prehistoric artists toward naturalism.

primary aim of the primitive

treme simplifications, or distortions of nature.

of evidences of his

The two Tarascan

lettered sculptor usually

effigy

and

jars,

simulating

a dog, are essentially

and

rhythmic modeling. These were executed by

American vessels such as the human-effigy

vase from Chihuahua, Mexico, with its ex-

realistically a child

29

Realism cannot, however, be considered a

spirit rather

artist.

In spite

keen observation, the un-

remained true

to the

than the visual fact of his subject-

30

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE

EflBgy vessels. Clay. Amerindian, Stone Age.

University of Tennessee; American Museum of Natural History

EflBgy Jars. Clay. Tarascan, pre-Columbian. Mexico.

American Museum of Natural History

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE
The

matter.
this

last

31

two clay sculptures shown in

chapter are of the type of idol or fetish

found

dawn

at the

of civilization.

They

are

and generally
formalized. The representational element so
highly praised by archaeologists and historians
simple,

in

an

directly

earlier

expressive,

generation now seems

less sig-

nificant than the artist's intuitive mastery of

sculptural method.

with stubby arms

Amlash,
Persia

recently

The
is

figure of a

woman

from the culture called

discovered

northern

in

on the border of the Caspian Sea. The

black clay Mother Goddess figure with a suggestion of outstretched arms, in the Universit)^

Museum,

Philadelphia,

is

more

clearly

a fetish, a descendant of the fertility goddess

commonly found

in the Middle East. This

comes from a northern Persian

example

also

culture,

centered

to

the

eastward

of

the

Human-effigy vessel. Clay. Chihuahua, Mexico.

Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe

Mother Goddess. Clay. Bronze Age. Asterabad,

Persia. University

Museum, Philadelphia

Woman.

Clay. Amlash culture, 2nd millennium

B.C. Persia. Bertha Schacfcr Gallery,
York

New

32

PRIMITIVE SCULPTURE

Amlash

The Dancing

finds.

Girl in

in

mood,

is still

plicity, vigor,

an example of primitive sim-

and directness

The

wood

(from a Chinese tomb) was made a halfmillennium later and, though very different
of statement.

chapter concludes with a

Neolithic

Jaguar in stone, from Panama, which

stylized that

neoprimitive modern of this century.

common

trates a

dent also in the

simplification

a primitive style replete

evi-

from Chihuahua.

effigy vase

and massive

It illus-

sort of geometrization

Squared or rounded forms, graceful

contours,

so

is

might have been carved by

it

elliptical

add up

with plastic

to

life.

For rhythmic massing and pleasing

finish,

the Jaguar might be compared with the Horse

shown on page

i6. It

Age, found

Woldenberg

at

obviously of the Stone

is

in

Germany and

attributed to a prehistoric culture

two

or three

millennia earlier than that which produced

the

jaguar.

This

demonstrates

common

generic likeness existing in prehistoric sculpture,

whether dated

in Asia, or
A.D.

2000

Neolithic

artists,

The

or

combination, in

profoundest sculptural qual-

with such crudities

of dots on head

Middle Europe,

in

1000 in America.

this horse, of the

ities

10,000 or 5000 B.C.

at

b.c.

as the faltering lines

and mane remind us

distributed over

all

that the

the con-

and tenants of Asia through perhaps

tinents,

one hundred and twenty centuries, worked in

societies

at

the

level

of

hunting or rudi-

mentary agriculture and long before the

vention of the art of writing.
itively,

And

in-

yet, intu-

the Neolithic artist grasped the values

monumental massing, melodious proportioning, and vigorous statement of the essen-

of

Dmicing Girl. Tomb figure, wood.

4th-3rd century b.c. Chang-Sha, Hunan, China.

tial

character of his subject.

Fuller Collection,
Seattle Art

Museum
Jaguar. Mortar, stone. Neolithic. Panama.
University Museum, Philadelphia

2 Egypt
:

The Eternal

in Sculpture

HERODOTUS
were the

said that "the Egyptians

to erect to the

first

gods akars and

and they carved in stone the figures

of animals." This Greek historian, writing in
the fifth century B.C., was one of the first to
temples;

and Mycenaean forebears

Cretan

Greeks had formed a

single,

and

sculpture

style

so national.

is

recognizably

Old Kingdom

the

of

primar)%

so

so

piece of Nilotic

so,

whether of the
Middle

of 2600 b.c. or of the

circulate the untruth that the Egyptians in-

Kingdom

vented the

and sculpture.
Coming himself from a country young and
not too firmly established, Herodotus must
have found the relics of three thousand years

thirteen centuries later, just before Herodotus

of Egyptian culture an

plishment far ahead of that of any other

arts of architecture

of age. In the statues

overwhelming token
of the gods and phar-

aohs and animals he would

ment
else

find

the ele-

of timelessness, of eternity, as

nowhere

on

earth.

made

representative

the

visited the cities of the Nile.

The

massiveness

and expressive monumentality combined with

a

plastic

sensitivity

Egyptian accom-

place

people of pre-Classic times.

The
ture

distinguishing

was

the

trait

persistence

of Egyptian sculpof

the

note

eternity, of durability, of timelessness.

Although the people of Egypt had not

vented

of 1900 B.C. or of the Saitic period

art

their

sculpture,

own

as

they

in-

had

had no other

nation. Neither Babylonia nor Persia nor the

it

was

introduce novelty, and as

life

recorded that in the land of the Nile

unlawful

to

of

Plato

went on unchanged, century after century,

the artist too, perhaps, was forced to hold to

Hippopotamus. Stone. C. 3200 B.C. Ny-Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen

34

EGYPT

an unyielding

immensely

Only

tradition.

once, in

the

interlude associated with

fruitful

placed close by to prolong the pleasures of

living that

were dearest

to

him.

The Egyptian

the mystic and heretic king Akhenaton, did

accepted the fact of the afterlife and, sensibly,

the sculptor step out of the role of disciplined

he

servant of a tradition.

Far from being a symbol of sorrow, uncer-

So many generations of

historians

had

por-

trayed the valley of the Nile as the cradle of

civilization that
tur)',

when,

Sumer

to

and gloom,
happy home

tainty,

as his

nineteenth cen-

in the

explorers on the Tigris proved

about to prepare for

set

tomb was looked upon

his

for eternity.

the sculptures

If

he could.

as best

it

we know

best are like-

nesses of the tomb-builders (or likenesses of

be the original home of laws, writing, and

the gods), this

culture, the Egyptologists fought tenaciously,

profoundest love and exertion into the por-

but in vain,

to retain priority for their

land. Today,

potamian

though

stable
ture,

and the

first

the

Meso-

more

as

traits,

There

distinctive

joys

cul-

excepting the

art,

Chinese,

is

so outstanding

grandeur

as

Egyptian sculpture.

for

and tomblike by

dignity and
It

has been

critics to

whom

emotional representation seemed more desir-

addition,

in

are,

sculptures

and the ceremonies, the human and

animal companions, the musicians, and the

dancing

art.

called cold

man's happiness.

to a

with the more

great, consistent sculptural

Perhaps no other national

being central

put their

artists

innumerable minor
and uncounted relief murals in
which have been fixed the familiar life, the

civilized earlier,

as the nation

institutions,

chosen

clear that the

became

cit)^-states

Egypt emerges

it is

because the

is

but obviously the sculptors did

girls;

not give their best efforts

to these

The unending rows

themes.

of

secondary

little

models

houses and granaries and bakeries, and

of

and animals, though fascinating

people

mode

illustrations of a

as

of life in an ancient

hardly warrant being lifted into the

able than the contemplative pleasures arising

land,

But the peace and sense

of eternity of the great statues have endured

category of great

and been admired throughout the centuries.

The convention of frontality was adopted
by the Egyptian sculptors and observed in a
large majority of their monumental w'orks.

belong, then, to the serious works, the images

The

high a purpose, the sculptor was obliged

from peace of

spirit.

was made to stare straight

forward, and the body was so disposed that
a plumbline dropped from the forehead
would bisect the bulk of the figure perfectly.
A leg may be advanced or an arm lifted, but
the two halves of the body have the appearance

face usually

of

equal

weight.

Few

of

the

asym-

and angular posturings

that enliven late Greek art are to be found.
The Egyptians were obsessed with the fundametrical arrangements

mental order or system of the

while the Greeks played upon

human
its

body,

every varia-

and chance singularity.

Most Egyptian sculpture was destined for
tombs. The owner's double was placed in the
tomb as a housing for the soul or, it may be,
to act for the mummified one and servants
and beloved companions and familiars were
tion

The
that

art.

simple magnitude and the eternal note

had

do with

to

religion, those that

designed for survival in an unending

life.

But with the formalism appropriate

were
afterto so

to

develop a degree of realism suitable to portraiture.

It

woman

or

the

would be

the

if

man

no correction could be made.

afterlife

Thus

disastrous

portrayed were mistaken, for in

the sculptors took particular pains in

modeling the faces of their subjects and allowed themselves a mere routine treatment
of the bodies; in these we find an unashamed
repetition of standard poses.

heads

preserved

would seem

among

the

to

in

the

study of the

world's

museums

prove the Egyptians to be

foremost masters of portraiture;

they succeeded in revealing the individual,

even

to the point of psychological disclosure,

but for the reason just noted the bodies often

seem dull and

The

land,

routine.
too,

has

its

influence

on the

EGYPT
sculptural

The unchanging

expression.

sea-

was not into realism

tors

3 5

commonly

as

but into a mode where

de-

was

sonal cycle, the regular habits of the River

fined,

Nile and the consequent repetitive agricultu-

heightened by spiritual revelation and by the

the deserts and the

ral cycle,

doubt was related

sculptors,

and

of the priests

way

the sculptors'

no

who determined

of service. Incidentally the

architecture plain,

enduring grew
flat lands and

massive,

out of the topography, out of

emergent

and the sculpture, to fit the

was heav)', dignified, squared.

cliffs;

architecture,

Only once did the Egyptian sculptors defrom the norm established by
the artists and priests of the Old Kingdom.
Under the encouragement of Akhenaton, the

part radically

pharaoh

who

studio

ton),

influence

until

the

Moslems

and

stylistic

archaeologists have discovered

to

they are portraits not of facial

aspects alone, marvelously copied, but revela-

nuances of character, of inner illumi-

nation.

marry

lost

the country to

Egyptians

the

640,

The famous

bust of Nefertiti, Akhenaton's

on the

naturalistic

marvelously

is

control of the physical

side,

woman by

the

when

era,

the

Saitic

was the decline

in the

sculptors

native

in the time of Cleopatra,

art

tried

The

pictorialism.

The

an era

marked by a weak,

conventionalized

softly

early

masterpieces were then sleeping underground,

and

in a peace

security not to

nineteenth-century

the

put their spades

The

yet the

suggested;

all

their art to that of the Greeks.

Egyptian

of

Akhenaton, and

III,

end came

until

being

a.d.

Saddest of

rulers.

Ptolemaic

inner

in

time of Khafre, the Twelfth Dynasty Kings,

Thutmose

an extraordinary collection of heads in stone

is

Romans

the

B.C.

and wood, and of plaster casts apparently

made by the sculptor as a record of his important works. The masks go beyond mere

queen,

the

sculptors,

modeled with more Sympathy and

regard for character. The most notable later
change of style came after eight centuries, in
the Saitic period, with a high polish and crisp
stylization of the sculptural figures. From 600

again touched the high standards set in the

modem

tions of

Amarna

the

of

faces being

expres-

excursions into the realm

of

naturalism;

Idowever, the statues

the old standards.

copied from ancient models show some of the

the lucky chance of uncovering

made

monotheistic

Thutmose, a sculptor at El
Amarna (the capital established by Akhenathe

After the heretic's brief reign, art returned

to

were sometimes in bondage (to Persians,

Greeks, and Romans) and sometimes in a
nominal independence; but the arts never

religion, they

By

new

introduced a

of psychologic portraiture

sionism.

creative manipulation of sculptural materials.

thinking of the

the

to

cliffs: all this

reality

to

be disturbed
archaeologists

work.

chronology of Egyptian

civilization

can be summarized as follows:

Prehistoric Period: from an

the spirit

undetermined

within, the shadowing forth of a soul and a

date in the fifth millennium to about 3400

mind

B.C.

in perfect poise,

is

as

complete as in

sculptural history.

Although the

portrait

heads of the Eight-

the rubric "realism,"

acter

Few

and feeling

it

is

notable

how

char-

are brought to the surface.

of the heads are without distortion: the

narrowing of the face and elongation of the

skull led scientists to

mark

the royal family

from macrocephaly or as sharing

the strange African custom of skull de-

as sufferers
in

formation.

The

escape of Akhenaton's sculp-

historians prefer

3200

B.C.)
II,

2780 b.c.
Old Kingdom: Dynasties III to VI, 2780
B.C. to 2280 B.C.
Middle Kingdom: Dynasties VII to XVII,
c.

eenth Dynasty are commonly reviewed under

(Some

Protodynastic Period: Dynasties I and

anything achieved in thirty-three centuries of

3400

2280

B.C.

to

B.C. to c.

1570

b.c.

New

Kingdom: Dynasties XVIII to XXX,

c. 1570 B.C. to 332 B.C.
Ptolemaic Period: 332 B.C. to 30 b.c. Egypt
under Greek rule.

Roman
Coptic

art;

Period: 30 B.C. to a.d. 364. Next,

then, in a.d. 640, Islamic.

#^>-

---.^;;-

II

TH

E Stone Age

historic

and

flint

blades of Egypt

are unsurpassed, but the pottery of preof early

remarkable for
decorations.

historic

There

is

also

of

the

its

little

feeling in the polished alabaster

vessels

Egypt

forms than for

its

is

less

sculptural

and porphyry
B.C. and

only an average sensitivity

is

displayed in the

burnt-mud, stone, and ivory figurines of the

predynastic
pieces

Occasionally

period.

the

clay

were modeled with great vividness.

is

the
a

first

work

Egyptian

datable

religious

of extraordinarily fine sensi-

bility.

The

painted

millennium

fourth

ample,
relic,

earliest relief carvings of

Egypt show

probable Mesopotamian or Elamite influence

before 3400 b.c.

Bull Palette
in

is

fragment of the so-called

in a technique not paralleled

known Egyptian

handle

art;

and the

from Gebel-el-Arak

predynastic,

is

subject matter.

alien

On

i\'ory knife-

illustrated,

also

except for the Nilotic

one side

it

vividly

shows a

But Egyptian sculpture at the very dawn

of history shows a mastery of fundamental

African fighters; on the other side a god

volume-relationship and a pleasing technical

represented

finish.

The

alabaster

Baboon

of

King Narmer

is

one of a few surviving pieces from Dynasty

that appear to

dents.

The

have no sculptural antece-

dog-faced baboon was an animal

sacred to the

God

of

The Sphinx and

Wisdom, and

this ex-

scene,

battle

with

apparently

between two

lions,

Asian

and
is

with other

animals below.

succession of slate palettes follows the

typical

ture

Egyptian pattern of low-relief sculp-

with

slightly

crisp

rounded

outlines,

the

at the edges,

figures

only

and the

total

the Great Pyramids. Dynasty IV. Gizeh. C^''(^hives Roget-Viollet, Paris')

EGYPT
area divided into "fields."

King Nanner,

Palette of
I,

with

relief

The

back.

and

The

front

is

the

compositions on the front and

faces

thus early

is

illus-

have individual character,

the documentation

all

played

is

king of Dynasty

curious Egyptian compromise of

realism with convention

trated.

Most notable

first

detailed.

is

Dis-

the artistic convention of the full-

fitted with head and feet

and rudimentary hieroglyphs are

figure

profile,

in
in-

corporated into the design.

How
ward

had then gone

realism, even naturalism,

many
in

far the sculptors

is

to-

illustrated in

of the miniature statuettes to be seen

museums; and

the

particularly

in

ivory figurine of a king at the British

seum. There

is

a feeling of

the

Mu-

monumentality

even in these small pieces where subtleties of

and temperament
"king" even the pattern
pose

is

are

fixed.

In

There

Baboon

Yet

it

than four inches high.

are gaps of centuries in the 3000-

year span of Egyptian

of King

art,

gaps in achieve-

Narmer. Alabaster.

Before 3200 b.c. Dahlem

Relief on knife handle. Ivory. Pre-Dynastic.

Gebel-el-Arak. Louvre. QGiraudon photo')

of the quilted cloak

detailed, without loss of massiveness.

is less

the

Museum,

Berlin

Figure of a man. Stone. C. 3200

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

B.C.

37

EGYPT

3b
ment

rather than in data.

Between Narmer

and the Pyramid of King Cheops (Khufu) at

Gizeh httle notable sculpture sundves, and the
stone

HijJjJO'potamus,

alone

may

shown on page 33,

hundred

serve to illustrate three

About 2900
was resumed, and the

however, the

years of effort.

B.C.,

story

qualities

found

in

the sculptures of Narmer's era appear again

on a larger

The

scale

and

in greater magnificence.

kings of the Fourth Dynasty were the

which

builders of the great pyramids,

repre-

sent colossal pieces of abstract sculpture rather

than the designs of an architect. Cheops

and Khafre (probable King of the Sphinx)

and

iVIycerinus,

who

are

known

to sculptural

history through imposing portraits,

during the

were

rulers

20 years of the dynasty.

Sculpture was already massive and fairly

realistic, as

indicated in the limestone portrait

heads discovered in tombs

"Cheops

Cemetery"

pyramids.

shown,

(The

unlike

at

portrait

most

at

Gizeh

the extensive

beyond

head of

museum

the

a princess

heads

from

Egypt, was designed without a body.) As for

the Sphinx, the

monument, 66

feet high, has

Figurine of a king. Ivory.

I, before 3200 B.C.

Dynasty

been mutilated by the ravages of time and

British

Palette of

King Narmer. Stone.

Before 3200 b.c. Hierakonpolis. Cairo

Museum

head of a princess. Stone.

Dynasty IV, c. 2640 b.c. Gizeh.
Museum of Vine Arts, Boston
Portrait

Museum

by misguided

yet

restorers,

retains

still

it

The

something of the sculptor's intention.

monarch, ennobled, looks out over mankind

Not only

thoughtfully and benevolently.

imposing

the

but a sculptural calm lends

size

majesty and remoteness

to the figure.

There is one perfectly preserved work

which exhibits majesty and remoteness without

recourse

The

dimensions.

oversize

to

seated King Khafre, in hardest diorite,

is

magnificent portrait statue. Beautifully conceived and sensitively modeled and finished,
this

monument
and

solidity

Mitry and His Wife. Wood. Dynasty V.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund

Myceriiius and His Queen. Stone.

c. 2580 b.c. Gizeh.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Egyptian in

essentially

Originally

its

there

were twenty-three other large statues of King

Khafre in the funerary chamber, cut in varying types of stone, but only nine survive.

King
Dynasty IV,

is

simplification.

IVIycerinus

often depicted in sculp-

is

is he shown
more appealingly than in the double portrait
of Mycerinns and His Queen, an almost lifesize monument. As portrait and as sculpture

ture with the gods; but never

the composition

is

than the seated

less vital

Khafre; and indeed the trend of sculpture

was downward

But in

after Khafre's reign.

comparison with similar double portraits of the

Eighteenth and other

late

Dynasties,

it

is

definitely superior.

Usually only the face

portraiture,
at the

is

Egyptian

lifelike in

Woman

but in the torso of the

Worcester Art

of the feminine

Museum

body has been

the loveliness

interpreted, not

with the naturalism of the Greeks but with

The

reticent formalization.

column-like in

its

figure

slimness, but

it

almost

is

loses

nothing

of the melodic curves of the model.

There

are examples of a

more forced and

lighter

type of expression

in

swimming

appear as spoon-handles.

and

deliberate

The

sophisticated,

girls

that

stylization is

and the slender

figures are in strong contrast to the heavier

made to appear in
The famous statue known

sculptures

or near tombs.
as

The

Village

Magistrate demonstrates a peak of naturalistic

art

reached in

Dynasties.

the

Fourth and Fifth

Egyptian diggers

who uncovered

the statue at Sakkara recognized the likeness,

so true to the type of petty functionary

known

EGYPT

King Khafre,

detail. Stone.

Dynasty IV,

c.

2620

b.c. Gizeh. Cairo

Museum

EGYPT

The

\ illu:4c Mw^istrulL.

Dynasty IV. Cairo

W uod.

Museum

41

Womati. Stone. Dynasty IV.

Worcester Art Miisemn

EGYPT

42

Egypt even today. When the statue was

found, the face still had part of its coating of
in

and

stucco

two Seated Scribes

illustrated, there is notable play

and counter-

play without disturbance of the rather heavy

color.

Painting, in a

common

Fifth Dynasties, as in the

few conventional

tints,

was

main rhythm.

The

both in stone sculpture and in wood.

scribes, again

tomb

figures, are to

However, stones susceptible to high polish,

such as diorite or basalt, were left unpainted.

seen in most of the larger art museums.

On

naturalistic,

the other hand, practically every lime-

stone figure
color.

had

its

heightening envelope of

The Nude Walking

Figure, of the Fifth

example from the Louvre

is

tions that so often lead scholars to criticize

Egyptian sculpture as rigid and unnatural.

It is

standing masterpieces of Egyptian sculpture,

insets of quartz, rock cystal,

a conventionalized type in a standard pose

and

as

plastic

exact realistic portraiture, heightened by

and copper

The nude
is

Ha-Shet-Ef,
animated.

exceptionally

ization does not detract at all

eyes straight forward, the two halves of the

pered

body symmetrically balanced except for the

advanced left leg. This stance was copied by
the Greeks eighteen centuries later for their

in

Another standard type

is

that of the scribe,

seated cross-legged with a papyrus roll spread

The

pose affords opportunity for

the rhythmic massing of volumes, and particularly in the examples

The

sculptor

has

noble,

sleek

styl-

from natural-

not

been

ham-

by the conventional runner pose,

used so woodenly in innumerable routine
portraits. So much realism and free action
this

type

sculpture were

of

not to be

achieved again until the seventh and sixth

Apollos or kouroi.

his lap.

ness.

young

The

under the Fourth Dynasty. Hundreds of figures were similarly disposed, with face and

on

in the

eyes.

such lacks something of the sheer

beauty of the masterpieces produced

more than usually

with hardly a trace of the conven-

Dynasty, often singled out as one of the out-

is

be

The

from the Fourth and

Seated Scribe. Stone. Dynasty IV.

Gizeh. Dahlem Museum, Berlin

centuries in Greece.

The

mutilated Senedem-ih-Mehy bears such

a likeness in technique that

the same hand.

The

figure

it
is

might be from
ascribed to the

Sixth Dynasty, a full thousand years after

Seated Scribe. Stone, painted. Dynasty V.

Sakkara. Louvre. (^Giraudon yhoto')

King Narmer; roughly, from the

to

the twenty-fifth century B.C.

thirty-fifth

The

period

Dynasty VI was known

as the Old Kingdom, ending in 2280 B.C.
The Old Kingdom was a golden age of
relief sculpture. From Dynasty III there exists
from Dynasty

to

on
These were found in his tomb.
The one illustrated, showing the accessories
of his office, includes a scepter and writing
a series of three portrait reliefs of Hesire,

wooden

panels.

materials.

The

usual conventions of relief de-

piction are observed, the head, the knees

and

the feet occurring in profile, the upper body

full front.

and

There

is

a liveliness in the figure,

The modeling is
and complete for the

a special linear grace.

exceptionally

varied

period.

Nude Walking

Figure. Stone.

Dynasty V. Sakkara. Cairo

Museum

Ha-Shet-Ef.

Wood. Dynasty
British

Senedem-ib-Mehy Wood. Dynasty VI.

.

Gizeh.

Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston

VI.

Museum

EGYPT

44

was not

It

interior

until the Fifth Dynasty that

tomb walls were covered, like the

pages of a vast stone picture book, with representations of every activity dear to the owner.

Hunting and boating and wrestling, plowing

and harvesting, herding and milking, carpentering and accounting, marketing and
cooking, wildcats and birds, pet donkeys and
calves and ducks, musicians and dancing
girls, the offering of gifts and sacrifices to the
gods, the mourners and the priests, the funeral procession and the feast; all this and
whatever else was important to the man
during his lifetime formed the subject-matter of the low-relief sculpture on the walls of
his tomb.

Today

the reliefs afford a valuable record

for the fact-seeker,

and there

is

much

in the

display besides to delight the art-lover.

reliefs

The

on stone were usually painted, and on

the bare spaces between figures or groups of

figures there

is

often a running

commentary

in hieroglyphics.

At the end of the era of the Old Kingdom

was a period, roughly from the Sixth to
the Eleventh Dynasty, early in the Middle
Kingdom, when there were no kings of united
Upper and Lower Egypt. This feudal age was
there

less

important for

Woman,
Museum

in

wood,

its

sculpture.

now

in

the

statuette.

University

at Philadelphia, indicates

how few

changes occurred between the Fourth and

^3Br^_
Hesire, relief.

Wood. Dynasty

Sakkara. Cairo
Interior wall of tomb, bas-relief.

Stone. Dynasty V. Sakkara.

of Fine Arts, Boston

Museum

III.

Museum

Twelfth Dynasties. Also introduced here are

examples of minor sculptural

arts,

a pottery

perfume spoon from the Toledo

Museum

and two glazed animals (without regard

date).

The

blue-glazed

to

miniature hippopotamuses, often

and traced over with

conven-

tionalized drawings, are especially engaging.

During the Twelfth Dynasty

a renaissance

occurred and some of the old magnificence of

sculpture was recaptured. Although the

artist's

touch

it

is

not so sure or so sensitive as

was

during the Old Kingdom period, there are

portrait statues of

Amenemhet

III that

could

hardly survive from any but a great sculptural

era.

and

crisp,

solid art of stylization, at

once massive

returns, too, in the lesser statues.

Perfume spoon. Faience. C. 12th century

Toledo

Museum

b.c.

of Art

Interior wall of tomb, bas-relief. Stone.

Dynasty VI. Sakkara. Cairo Museum

Woman. Wood. Dynasty

University

XII.

Museum, Philadelphia

^m^^

>''

The

Man, from

stone statuette,

and

strikingly simple

is

Most

but they are imposing neverthedispute

is

among

the archaeologists

as to the dating of the smaller obsidian

of

(now

king

Sometimes

it

Lisbon)

in

identified

is

as

shown
a

Amenemhet III, and, though it

very much in the tradition of the
authorities

would place

more than

a thousand years later.

up

dull

little

the king portraits of a millen-

to

earlier,

There

to

especially

These may seem a

in the sphinxes.

compared
less.

return

the

is

essentially stonelike efiFects,

large,

nium

however,

notable,

the Louvre

alive.

it

head
here.

portrait
is

of

certainly

time, a

few

in the Saitic period,

This points

the fact that the changes of style and

method
over

in

Egyptian sculpture are

embracing

periods

changelessness

is

due

domination of the

largely,

art

slight,

even

millennia.

The

no doubt,

to the

by the priesthood. But

Twelfth Dynasty or the

Twenty-sixth, the head is a superb piece of
whether of

the

portraiture.

The
British

fine Bellowi7ig

Museum

is

Hippopotamus

a massive clay piece

once was glazed.

It

is

in the

which

the sole illustration

from a period of two centuries when the

country was again disunited or held under
foreign domination

was

and when

art expression

largely stifled.

Man.

Collection of Mr.

Stone. Dynasty XII. Louvre

Hippopotamus. Faience. C. 2000 b.c.

and Mrs. A. Bradley Martin, courtesy Brooklyn Museum

EGYPT

47

About

1580 B.C. the Eighteenth EgypDynasty came into power, and at the
opening of this New Kingdom period, sculptian

ture began one of

over-life-size

who

The
Queen Hatshepsut,

cychc upswings.

its

statue

of

reigned in the early fifteenth century

B.C., exhibits a sleek

mental sculpture.

delicacy

fresh

banded eyebrow with

new

to

monu-

convention,

parallel

the

extension of

the line of the eyelid, adds to the alert expression of the face.

many

great

statues of the period indicate

some of the sculptors had developed a

mechanical routine. A smooth mechanical efthat

fectiveness

replaced

the

virility

of

earlier

work. However, the statue of Thutmose

nephew
cessor

of

Queen Hatshepsut and her

on the throne from 1468

The

ception.

an ex-

massive sculptural beauty that

had characterized the

traits

B.C., is

III,

suc-

best

Old Kingdom

por-

appears here, especially in the head,

without

loss of surface sensibility.

The Eighteenth Dynasty

covered one of

the great periods of luxurious living at court,

and new

lavish standards of sculptural

em-

bellishment were established in connection

Head

of a King. Stone. Dynasty XII, c. 1820 B.C.

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon

Bellowing Hippopotamus. Clay, glazed.

Dynasty XVII. British Museum

Monkey. Faience. C. 1400

Brooklyn

Museum

B.C.

EGYPT
with the temples. Quahty gave way

imposing in

tity as figures,

quan-

to

were dupli-

size,

cated along corridors and avenues. But the

stone Lion from Nubia, created in the four-

teenth century a

before

little

building retains

ostentatious

peak of

the
its

sculptural

vitality.

Equally

ization

C. 1400 B.C. British

Museum

The

the Egyptian

umphsto

is

the head-

exaggerated

styl-

known
Thutmose III named

seems quite un-Egyptian.

from the time of

that

Headrest simulating a hare. Wood.

minor way,

fine, in a

simulating a hare.

rest

Napoleon

the reign of

It is

for his imperial

Amenhotep

tri-

three

III,

art-objects

from Crete and

from Mesopotamia appeared

in the markets of

generations

later,

Thebes; but there

headrest

no evidence that the

workman-

is

of other than Egyptian

is

ship.

By
the

the time of

first

Amenhotep

III,

that

is,

in

half of the fourteenth century, mural

through

many changes

at the rich,

almost baroque

sculpture had gone

and had arrived

decorativeness displayed in the fragment of

Amenhotep

a stele illustrated as

Chariot.

The double

a glorification of the

itary hero.

The

in

His

the right half

the relief repeats in reverse

shown is

III

portrait a left half of

king as a mil-

small figures represent cap-

tives.

That some

more engaging

of the

qualities

of the ancient style persisted at this time

is

sufficiently illustrated in the simple statuettes

of

two brothers, in

Metropolitan
traits

when

silver

Museum

and

lifelike.

Most

trayed boys as

in the

Made

as por-

and

the boys died,

their mother's grave,

and wood,

of Art.

later placed in

the images are factual

statues in ancient times por-

little

old

men, but here the

and figure

characteristics of the childish face

were well observed and executed.

In the whole course of civilization there

no stranger transformation
than that which occurred
reign of

Amenhotep

IV,

in

or,

Egypt in the
he renamed

as

Queen Hatshepsut.

Stone. Dynasty XVIII.

Over

el

life size.

Metropolitan

Deir

Museum

Bahri.
of Art

is

of a national art

Two
c.

Brothers. Silver; wood. Dynasty XVIII,

B.C. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

1500

(^Photo by Charles Sheeler")

Thutmose

III, detail.

Stone. Dynasty XVIII.

Cairo

Museum

Lion. Stone. Dynasty XVIII.

Soleb, Nubia. British

Museum

himself, Akhenaton.

le

introduced a reform

religion, Egypt's first monotheistic faith, and,

while suppressing the old gods and the powerpriesthood, he undertook vast works of

ful

public building. As part of the

new

order,

Akhenaton freed artists from traditional restrictions and encouraged individual expres-

The Amarna school of sculptors so

named from the new capital city aimed at

sion.

realistic portraiture,

while expressing the

ner character of the

sitters.

or

The

in-

plaster heads

masks of the fourteenth century

B.C.

un-

earthed in the studio of Thutmose, such as

those of

Akhenaton and

been in the nature of

there

is

Nefertiti,

no mistaking the touch of

artist striving

may have

artist's trial pieces,

but

a master

Amenhotep

III in

His Chariot, detail of

Head

of Nefertiti. Plaster. Dynasty XVIII.

El Amarna. Dahlem

toward realism.

stele.

Museum,

Stone. Dynasty XVIII. Thebes. Cairo

Museum

Berlin

EGYPT
The

lovely

Akhenaton's

51

painted limestone portrait of

queen,

Nefertiti,

most

the

is

Amarna. A perkind, this head can fairly

celebrated of the finds at El

example of

fect

be analyzed as a

its

presentation of both

realistic

and the inner beauty of the

model. Nothing so lifelike had been known
up to this time. But the sculptor departed
from nature sufficiently to make the head
more than a surface copy; he emphasized the
the

external

clear-cut

of the
tilt

exaggerated the slimness

outlines,

neck and shoulders, and underlined the

The

of the head.

full coloring

has sur-

vived, perhaps unfortunately, for while color

was doubtless thought

novation,

Head of Akhenaton. Stone. Dynasty XVIII.

Amarna. Dahlem Museum, Berlin

El

Many

this particular art.

art-lovers

who have

enjoyed the bust of Nefertiti in black-and-

white photographic

Queen Nefertiti. Stone, painted.

El Amarna. Dahlem Museum, Berlin

of as a naturalistic in-

the ancients were not masters of

appointed

illustration

have been

to find the original fully

compromisingly painted in bright

dis-

and un-

colors.

brown sandstone and plaster heads

of Nefertiti and of her daughters in the same
collection, there is less of the subtle charm of
In the

the model, but certainly attainment of creative sculptural form.

The

artists

at

El

Amarna

did not pursue

their naturalistic course for long.

A new

of conventionalization soon appeared,

sort

marked

by an enlargement of the eyes,

and lips, and insistence upon the eggshaped form of the head. The elongation of
the skull, which scientists have attributed to
especially

nose,

advanced cases of macrocephaly in the royal

family, occurs so frequently that it may be a
compositional convention. In the reliefs of the
period the servants and, one fancies occasionally,

cases,

even the animals have

as in

it.

In extreme

the royal family heads shown,

there are abstract sculptural values gained in

the arbitrary manipulation of the oval.

With

the passing of

Akhenaton the reforms

he had introduced and the innovations he had

fostered in the arts disappeared,

and the old

gods and the priesthood were reinstated. Only

faint

influences

from

the

Amarna

school

lingered on in sculpture. Yet here Tutankh-

amen

as the

Moon God,

in the massive old

style,

may well be of
Tutankhamen but from the hand

suggests that the statue

the time of

of one of the surviving sculptors of

Akhena-

ton's group.
It

was the Pharaoh Tutankhamen,

law of Akhenaton,

who

son-in-

restored the old gods

and returned art to the traditional path. At

the same time he revived old ideals of luxurious living and ostentation which led to a
florid exuberance in the arts and crafts. Most
of the furniture and statuary that was so
widely publicized

at the

time of the discovery

Tutankhamen's tomb is
decadent in taste and meretricious as art. The
pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty left some
beautiful and craftsmanlike relics, but degeneration had set in, and there were to be only
two notable revivals before the coming of the
Greeks: the Ramesseid of the Nineteenth and
and

stripping

of

Royal family head. Wood. Dynasty XVIII.

El Amarna. Louvre

Royal family head. Stone. Dynasty XVIII.

El Amarna.

Dahlem Museum,

Berlin

Tutankhamen as the Moon God. Stone. Dynasty

XVIII, c. 1350 B.C. Karnak. Cairo Museum

EGYPT
Twentieth Dynasties, and the

Saitic of

the

Twenty-sixth.
failed to restore

the best ideals of relief sculpture,

wall carvings of the

design was attained in exquisitely carved but

overcrowded panels.

generally

The Eighteenth Dynasty

Amarna

and the

interlude did

panels illustrated

is

One

of

the

Abydos, from the era

at

immediately following Akhenaton.

In the Ramesseid period, the time of the

Karnak, the sculptors recaptured

not reach the standard of the sculpture in the

glories

round. As so often in the tombs, the incised or

something

carved murals were endlessly interesting as

sculpture.

on contemporary life but in general

were inferior as art expression. During the
Nineteenth Dynasty a certain elegance of

but the faces were occasionally

reports

5 3

of

the

of

The

dignity

bodies

of

monumental

were mass-produced

and, more often than not,

lifeless
lit

and dull,
up by the

sculptor's success in capturing the spirit of his

V w
Offerings of Gifts, relief, detail. Dynasty XIX,
c. 1315 B.C. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Relief, detail.

Temple

of Seti

I,

Abydos.

QSebah photo courtesy Giraudon')

ii^m'~^

Statuette of Talcushet. Bronze with silver

Head of Rameses II. Stone. Dynasty XIX,

c. 1290 B.C. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rock-cut Temple of

Amon

at

inlay.

Abu

Dynasty XXV, c. 700 B.C. Bubastis.

National Museum, Athens

Simbel. Dynasty XIX,

c.

1250

B.C.

EGYPT
model.

The head

politan

Museum

the era

and reminiscent of the best work done

at the time of

What
Rameses

Rameses

II in

one of the

Thutmose

III.

sculptors

of

the
II

of
is

and Rameses

sensibility they tried to

the

reigns

of

III lost in creative

make up

for in vol-

ume. The temple at Karnak and the rock

temple at Abu Simbel are embellished by an
almost incredible

number

of colossal

stone

At Karnak these were transported to

the site. At Abu Simbel the figures (seen in
the illustration) are 80 feet high and carved
in the face of the cliff. Behind them the
figures.

temple halls are

to

a depth

of

hewn
120

out of the solid stone

feet,

with two rows of

similar colossi in the great hall.

relics

Some

of these

have been saved from the flood waters

dam
monuments are

caused by the construction of the high

across the Nile.

Many

of the

impressive from sheer magnitude and repetition,

but subtlety

at that

time was no longer

the companion of monumentality.

Five dynasties and as

the Metro-

finest relics of

many

5 5

centuries passed

memorable renaissance occurred. As an empire Egypt crumbled; then

toward the end of the dark age, in the soanother

before

Ethiopian period, there v\as a fresh

called

and new

outlook,

activity in small sculpture.

In the past, Egyptian sculpture, while paying

minimum

attention to the

human

body, pro-

duced the most beautifully sculptured heads.

Now the feminine body began to be studied
and its volumes and curves were sympathetically interpreted,

seen in the statuette of

as

Takushet. Artists delighted in showing the

soft

modulations of the

flesh

under drapery,

do later.
During the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (in the
seventh and sixth centuries B.C.) Egyptian art
Greeks were

as the

flowered for the

to learn to

last time. Artists of

the Saitic

period revived the dignity of large portraiture;

the integrity of the stone block was again re-

and craftsmanship again attained a

spected,

high

level.

Typical of

this

period

is

the pol-

ished surface of both large and small sculptures.

There

is

something essentially Egyptian

about the portrait of Prince Wa-ab-Ra, a

qualit)' felt in the

Bahoon

of

King Narmer,

created twenty-five centuries earlier, and in

many examples through

the block figure

is

the centuries. Novir

realized with the least pos-

from detailing of arms and

and the squared mass is burnished.
Although Saitic art is notable for its craftsmanship and an almost silky stylization,
there is a series of pieces in which heaN'y pat-

sible interference
legs,

terning

is

added in the arbitrary

The

drapery.

stone

Woman

in

folds of the

the Louvre

shows more than usual vigor in the modeling,

and a nice feeling for the effects that arise

from a slight asymmetry. The innumerable
sleek statuettes of Neit, the warlike sky-god-

dess in the Saitic pantheon, are perhaps

more

By this
had become very human, with

care-

in character.
figures

time even the religious

fully sculptured bodies.

Prince Wa-ah-Ra. Stone. Dynasty XXVI,

570 B.C. Louvre. QAli7iari photo')

c.

Head of a Man. Stone. Egyptian, ist century a.d.

Loivie Museum of Anthropology, University of
California, Berkeley. (^Photo by Ron Chamberlain,
courtesy University Art Museum^

The Goddess

Neit. Bronze. 6th-5th centuries b.c.

University

Woman.

Museum, Philadelphia

Stone. 7th-6th centuries B.C.

Louvre. QGiraudon photo^

EGYPT
The

cat,

about which a cult centered in

57

late

Egvptian history, was a frequent sculptural

subject from the Twelfth Dynasty on.

known

the thousands of

from the Twenty-sixth Dynast)',

likely to date

when

Among

bronzes, the best are

and
However, the

the trend toward simplification

for-

malization was

still

lover will find

many statuettes to please him

down to the Egypto-Greek

from

all

strong.

cat-

periods

Ptolemaic.

The

was sacred and the subject

falcon too

Probably

widely varying interpretations.

of

none is finer than the illustrated black basalt

example in the Louvre, handled with tj'pical
Here again the late
Saitic formalization.
Egyptian perfection of craftsmanship

is

dem-

onstrated.

The

Thirtieth

B.C., it

the last truly Egyptian

is

Of

dynasty of kings.

the mid-fourth century

preceded the second Persian conquest

of Egypt, a decade before the

The

ander the Great.

this

coming of Alex-

only illustration from

Sebennytic period, Prince Nechthorheh,

shows,

an uncompromisingly

appropriately,

stonelike statue with something of the true

Nilotic feeling of the eternal in

it.

It is digni-

fied, majestic, serene.

Perhaps the

finest of the relief sculpture of

the Saitic epoch appeared on the granite and

basalt

sarcophagi.

covered led
stj'lization.

to

The

smaller space

crisp,

to

be

shorthand t)pe of

good deal of

earlier idiomatic

method, even of rigid conventionalization,

re-

mained, coupled with late-period sophistication.

The

reliefs

shown

feeling with a subtle,

grace.

These

reliefs,

of the priest

now

possess the old granite

new, almost decadent

covering the sarcophagus

Taho, son of Petemonkh, are

in the Louvre.

relief created two centuries

shows an undulating, ribbon-like composition with st^'lized and somewhat distorted

fragment of a

later

forms.

The

dence,

Rhode

The

Falcon. Stone. 7th-6th centuries B.C.

Louvre. (^Archives Photographiques')

piece

is

in the

museum

at Provi-

Island.

Ptolemaic period followed generations

of cultural interchange with Greece, yet the

Egyptians were
typically national

still

able

to

monuments

produce such
as the

temple

Prince Nechthorheh. Stone.

Dynasty XXX, c. 350 B.C. Louvre

f^^^.i
_
I

EGYPT

59

Facing page: Details from Sarcophagus of Taho. Stone. Dynasty XXVI.

Above: ]ouniey of the Snu through the Undenvorld of Night.
Center: Osiris Enthroned. Louvre. (_Alinari photos')

Above: Relief, detail. Stone. 1st century B.C.

of Horus, Edfou. ^Archives Roget-Viollet)

Temple
Foot of facing page: Offering Scene, relief.
Stone. 3rd-lst centuries b.c.

Temple

of Horus,

Edfou

60

EGYPT

of Isis at Philae

and the temple of Horus

Edfou. However, by

now

round was measurably

trait

heads in

relief

negligible as

were
works of

inferior

(made

mummy-cases)

and the

specifically

generally
art.

picturing on temple walls

at

portraiture in the

dull

por-

complete

now

By comparison the
was still character-

since

Thirty

sculptor

The most

interesting late relic

head in the Lowie

trated on page 56). It shows
that

Roman

candid

of

is

new

portraiture.

idiom made the figures

But the
found in

well in their

architectural settings.

Mural and

relief art

on a small

scale carry

the story of typically Egyptian sculpture into a

period

when

statues in

the round reflected

King, fragment of relief. Stone.

C. 300 B.C. Museum of Art, Rhode Island
School of Design, Providence

statement

is

the
are

Egyptian

old
in

earlier native sculpture,

classic.

Clearly

Greco-Roman

It

is

way

of

integrity.

an idiom not

freshness of aspect

sidered

the

has
curls

(illus-

influence,

carved in Egyptian stone, and the

sit less

the fine

Museum

portrait

and interesting, but the bulginess of the

bodies and the relaxing of the geometrical

istic

had

centuries

unknown

an

fashioned the Baboon of King Narmer,

for

and

decadence.

passed

that

the

traditions

to

be

and there

may be

con-

Egyptian

and

have met.

3:

The Mesopotamian

Pageant:

SumcTj Bahylonia^ Assyria

THE

images that Rachel

stole

from her

father were in

all

clay

portraying gods or goddesses

figurines

that are

known

to

likelihood examples of the

have existed in abundance

become an
Susa

(the

industry, originating possibly in

biblical

Shushan),

Shinar

in

(Sumer), or in the Babylonian centers of the

north. Mesopotamia, the original Garden of

Near

Eden, was the cradle of commerce;

it

Eastern lands. These figures, originally de-

here that systematized manufacturing

first

in

signed as

Age

Alesopotamia

ancient

fertility fetishes, are

levels

potamian,

and

and

at

Syrian,

other

found

at

Stone

succeeding stages in Meso-

and Palestinian

history.

Before the Flood, the making of clay gods had

Bull.

Copper over wood. Before 3000

e.g.

veloped.

The Sumerians even

was

evolved

dea

method

of mass-production, using molds for

casting

the "abominable idols" so often re-

ferred to in

Old Testament

AlUbaid. University

history.

Mtiseutti, Philadelphia

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

62

From beginning

end,

to

Sumerian-

the

Babylonian-Assyrian achievement in the

urative arts

But

immense

these peoples an

was the
state

as second-rate.

other directions the Eurasian world

in

owed

must be considered

debt; theirs

government, and the

first

law,

(including

the

from rude expression

to

a masterly

through fluctuations of flowering and

style,

decline and reflowering, in the vicissitudes of

Babylonian, and Assyrian domi-

Sumerian,

nance. There

practical

nummade

sculpture as a whole that exerts the fascination of

wide use of the wheel),

no book on Mesopotamian

is

any one of several books reproducing

collections of seals.

The examples

development of the arch),

first

the development of the national artistic

talent,

stable

astronomy, agriculture, architecture

mechanics (the

show

first

written language, the

first

bering system. Decisive strides were also

in

fig-

illustrated

impressions from the

course,

of

are,

not the seals them-

seals,

For display purposes, museums

medicine, and literature. Sculptural

selves.

ever, is represented

sculptured or engraved cylinder (a negative)

art, howby only two noteworthy

achievements:

one,

which reached

a proficiency hardly

elsewhere
bas-relief

at

in

the

art

of

seal-cutting,

matched

over tablets of

wax

roll

the

or plaster of Paris to pro-

duce positive images. Originally the owners

the time; and the other, large

of the seals rolled

them over

clay stoppers or

which the Assyrians

on tablet-markers,

to signify

ownership. In a

stone,

to

brought an incomparable

precision.

realistic

dozen examples of
sculptural arts,

most personal of the

this

have

tried to present unin-

volved ornamental designs: simple, readable

compositions where the figures are clear and

sharp against an unbroken background, as be-

miniature

fits

In

art.

their

the

seals,

Sumerians and Babylonians produced

a dis-

tinguished, graceful stylization.

By comparison,

monumental sculptures
and stiff; exceptions are

the

are usually schematic

Cylinder seal, stone, and impression.

Sumerian, c. 3000 b.c. Ur.
University Museum, Philadelphia

to

be found in the marvelous

with

beginning

the

series of reliefs

ninth-century

battle

scenes from the palace of Assurnasirpal and

In the realm of monumental sculpture, the

were greatly inferior to

their Egyptian contemporaries. Their larger
pieces contain no mystery and little grandeur.

Mesopotamian

The

artists

artists

were

sensitive

only to natural

shadings; they were masters only of realistic

interpretation.

This

is

demon-

engagingly

strated in the animals they

hammered out

of

copper (dating as early as the Baboon of King

Narmer

in

Egypt), and in their war and

hunting scenes carved in

in the ninth, eighth,

bas-relief

on stone

and seventh centuries

B.C.

Herodotus noted
carried a seal
of

stone in

that

every

Babylonian

and a cane. Perhaps the

the Valley of the

Two

scarcity

Rivers

progressing, o\'er

of spirited

As

centuries, to the days of

documents was carved in stone.

have hardly been

realistic reporting, these

rivaled in the entire history of art.

that

jects

the

Assyrian

The

bas-relief

sub-

sculptor

excelled at were animals, particularly bulls,

lions, horses,

and

dogs.

These he seemed

enjoy portraying more that he did the

figure.
artist

to

human

In carrying out a royal commission, the

was probably more

wav he

depicted

his

self-conscious in the

king-master.

While

plunging his royal lance into the throat of a

lion, the king appears stiff and wooden, but
the

movement and

the agony of the animal

are represented realistically

dictated the small-scale stonecutting practiced

straint.

In any event the cylinder seals best

The

there.

two

Assurbanipal. During the latter period a series

and without

sculptured records of

life

in

re-

Mesopo-

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

Sumerian decline,
were brave, mighty,

tamia, after the

kings

the

sadistic.
tury',

living,

glor)\

The background,

suggests

hunting,

The

For easy reference, the periods of Mesopo-

us that

cruel,

and

tamian

century after cen-

combination

and

tell

quest

luxurious

of
for

military

artists, like their patrons,

had

to

histor)' are listed

below:

From

Prehistoric or Predynastic Period:

time well before the Flood (sometimes dated

4000

B.C.,

to

3100

be materialists; the one exception was in the

delineations on the seals.

63

c.

sometimes several millennia earlier)

B.C.

Early Dynastic or Sumerian Period:

c.

3100

B.C. City-states of Kish,

Sargonid Period: From

2340

c.

From

Uruk, Ur,
b.c.

etc.

Sumer

ruled by Semitic invaders led by Sargon of

Akkad. Sometimes known

Akkad.

..im

mil

as Period of

Neo-Sumerian Period: From c. 2125 b.c.

Bahylonian Period: From 2000 B.C. The
Semitic Amorites invaded Sumer, founded
Babylon, and, under Hammurabi, sixth king
of the dynasty, formed the country Babylonia
out of Sumer and Akkad.
Period of the Assyrian Em'pire:

Impression from seal. Babylonian.

Babylonian Collectioti, Yale University Library

1270

B.C.

Akkadian, c. 2400 B.C.

Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore

lonia.
seal.

From

From

c.

Assur, a city or city-state in

the far North, the Assyrians spread southward

and over
Contest of Heroes with Lions and
Water Buffalo. Impression from stone

Sumer-

conquered Baby-

several centuries

Under

their king, Assurnasirpal

(884-

subdued Babylon itself and set

up the greatest empire so far known in west860

B.C.), they

em

Asia.

Chaldean or

N eo-Babylonian Emfire: From

606 B.C. The resurgent Babylonians under

Nebuchadnezzar displaced the Assyrians.
Babylon became the world's greatest and
showiest capital, with temples, the palace, the

Hanging Gardens,

the king's library, etc. In

Babylon was taken by the

Persian Cyrus the Great, and Mesopotamia
became a part of the Persian Empire.
539 or 538

b.c.

-^ >

^
<

1-

'^

-v

Runni7ig Animals. Impression from stone seal. Sumerian, before 3UU0 b.c. Lruk.
Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore

II

TH

origins

obscure.

ples

of

Mesopotamian

art

are

Some books begin with exam-

from Susa, in Elam, over the border of the

Iranian highland, and the earliest Sumerian

sculpture

Persian

may well be related to Elamite or

The ruins of the Sumerian cities

art.

Ur and Lagash and

of

relics older

ing

Kish have yielded

than the Susan statuettes, includ-

fragments

dating

4000 B.C. These

and patently less

to

pieces are, however, cruder

likely to

have been in the

line of a developing

tions,

and

It

Ram

illustrated.

stands as one of the earliest attractive ex-

pressions in sculpture from western Asia.

The

alabaster Kneeling

Woman

shown

is

from Susa, though of later date, and is

likewise superior to most of the statuettes
in

Sumer. The piece

in

its

simplifica-

Stag Hunt, relief. Stone. Hittite,

c.

of

technique

materials,

to

The

with hands upholding her

subject, a

woman

breasts, symboliz-

ing the Mother Goddess, or perhaps repre-

woman in the Mother Goddess atticommon to fertility fetishes in Persia,

Mesopotamia, and Syria. The figure possesses

senting a
tude,

is

a sculptural sensitivity seldom manifest either

in the

contemporary Sumerian or in the

later

Babylonian statuettes of idols and adorers.

Among
is,

the Sumerian clay figurines there

however, one strangely di\'erting group of

serpent-headed

women

that

is

superior to any

Though

other sculptures of so early a date.

also

found

fitness

rhythmic orderliness, retains certain

virtues of primitive art.

regional tradition than a figure such as the

Susan stone Curly-Horned

its

its

presumably representing a demon, the

ure illustrated, in the

University

Philadelphia,

to

is

dent civilization

likely

of

today,

fig-

Museum,

suggest the deca-

with

its

12th century b.c. Malatya. Louvre. (Tel photo')

lounge

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

and

lizards

65

exhibitionist ladies with skin-

its

tight skirts.

Some animals devised in copper were

found by the excavators at Ur. The appealing
copper Ass, which had served as mascot on
the rein-guide of the chariot of Queen Shubad, was recovered from a royal cemetery of
possibly

3300

As

B.C.

own

territory.

The

yet this piece

known

lated find, without

an

is

iso-

antecedents in

its

character of the model has

been sympathetically conveyed, with even a

touch of

humor

cocked ear and the

in the

Thus

jaunty pose of the head.

the naturalism

was to become the most notable trait of

late Mesopotamian art is exhibited in one of
the oldest relics of Sumerian civilization.
It is found again in two free-standing bulls,
shaped in sheet copper over wood. These
formed embellishments on a temple facade at
al-Ubaid, of about 3100 b.c. One is shown
that

Kneeling

Woman.

Alabaster.

C. 3000 B.C. Susa.

Louvre. (Tel photo')

on page

61.

An

almost startling lifelikeness

achieved here,

Greek
work

twenty-five

More

realism.
this

at

period

typical

Sumerian

of

the

are

is

before

centuries

skirted

tw^o

Adorers, in which the exaggeration of features

such

the

as

nose,

eyes,

and beard almost

reaches the point of caricature.

The

expres-

on the faces of these male figures, one of

intent worshipfulness, was doubtless the
sculptor's main preoccupation.
sion

After the Adorers there were portraits of

king and
ary

Curly-Horned Ram. Clay.

C. 3000 B.C. Susa.
Louvre. (Tel photo)

officials.

named

Kur-lil

keeper of a temple gran-

from al-Ubaid

is

ject of a blocky sculptural portrait of

in

which the

the sub-

an

feeling for the stone

official,
is

well

preserved, the area of the face alone tending

toward naturalism. This forthright statue

marks one of the peaks of achievement in the
monumental type of art in Sumer. Nevertheless

more conventionalized

art,

prac-

ticed with full respect for the nature of the

medium,
realistic

existed

main

side

effort;

by

side

with

but the surviving

the
relics

are too battered for easy enjoyment.

There was

feeling

of

confinement in

much

of the stone sculpture of the eight cen-

turies

between the Sumer of the First DyUr and the Neo-Sumer of the Third

nastv of

Ass. Figure on rein guide. Copper.

C. 3300 B.C. Ur. British Museum

Kur-lil,

Keeper of the Temple Granary. Stone.

C.

3000

B.C. Al-Ubaid. British

Museum

Adurer. Stone. C. 3000 B.C. Sumer.

Oriental Institute, University of Chicago

Detnon Woman. Clay. Before 3000

University

Museum, Philadelphia

b.c.

AlUbaid.

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

Dynasty.

in the typically squat

It is illustrated

Gudea

statue,

King

dumpy

figure,

Seated.

the portrait

contemporary Egyptian

67

style

is

Despite

the

nearer to the

than

is

any other

surviving Mcsopotamian statue. King Gudea,

though not one of the great conquerors,

best

known

cit)'-states,

of the rulers of the

the

is

Sumerian

through his patronage of sculpture.

score of statues of

him

survive,

whole or

as

fragments, and usually in a conventional pose

such as the attitude of worship, or as architect.

The

stiff

bodies with wide shoulders give the

way not because

the

but because he had an

in-

impression of being that

sculptor willed

it,

complete mastery of his medium.

are

more

lifelike,

at

Adorer. Stone. C. 3000 B.C. Sumer.

University Museum, Philadelphia

King Gudea Seated. Stone.

Neo-Sumerian, c. 2100 b.c.
Metropolitan Museum of Art

ears,

heads

times even catching a

spontaneous expression.

and

The

The

enlarged

eyes

and the feathered eyebrows, were

68

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

head ornament;

Bull's

lion's

head

seal;

duck

weights. Copper; stone. Svunerian; Babylonian.

Metropolitan Museum of Art; Louvre;
University Museum, Philadelphia

local conventions.

Victory Stele of Naram-Sin. Stone. Akkadian,

c. 2300 B.C. Louvre. QGiraudon photo')

Almost Egyptian in

the headless stone statue,

the Louvre.

It is

style is

Gudea Stmtding,

smoothly sculptural, in a

in
set

and it marks the point at which

Mesopotamian sculpture is most profound.
attitude,

But the best is now past in the story of

Mesopotamian sculpture in the round. During
the following two thousand years the major
sculptors produced masterpieces only in the

medium

of bas-relief, in tiny seals or great

stone murals.

The

and weights had been

and in-

seals

exceptionally fine from earliest times,

deed there

is

no more

attractive

ature sculptured stones than

run of mini-

the one com-

duck and frog weights of

Examples are shown above,
lion-head seal and a bull's head in

prised

in

the

Mesopotamia.
with a

copper that once decorated a

The museums
memorial

reliefs,

lyre.

contain innumerable stone

boundary markers,

tablets,

vase decorations, and the

early pieces, the most

like.

famous

is

Among

the

the Victory

Naram-Sin of Akkad, of about 2300

This vividly represents the conqueror-

Stele of
B.C.

king trampling cohorts of his victims as he

leads

his

warriors

up

which the favorable sun

a
is

mountain,

shown.

Gudea Standing. Stone. Neo-Sumerian,

c. 2100 B.C. Louvre. QBuUoz photo)

above

The

con-

Head

Standard. Bronze. Pre-Hittite, c. 2100 B.C. MetroMuseum of Art, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest

politan

ventionalization of the mountain

is

and the

simple,

and the sun

sculpturing has a

relief

roundness, even a flowing grace, unusual in

Sumerian

art.

great quantit)' of sculptured

work must

3300 B.C. cylinder seals had gained popularity

and relief impressions were appearing on clay

(The illustrations show

modern impressions made from originals in
the museums. See pages 62-63 and 70.)

stoppers and markers.

The

have been imported from the north and west.

Most

of the identified relics, however, are in

bronze and are therefore

later

Sometimes

dates.

labeled

be assigned to

to

scepter-cap

though

Mesopotamian,

the

was

prove-

nance must have been Iranian; and there are

harness rings and statuettes that are Cappadocian

or

Babylonian

Hittite

though exhibited beside

relics.

The Head

of a

Dragon

in the

Louvre

is

an

exceptional bronze sculpture, doubtless of a

late period.

It is

supposed

a scepter or staff and,

the Iranian countries,

if

to

be a cap from

not imported from

was made by an

influenced by the art of

Elam

artist

or Luristan.

second animal piece, the bronze standard with

two long-horned beasts skillfully entwined, is

labeled by the archaeologists merely "preHittite (about 2ico b.c.)." Its affinities, stylistically, would seem to be northern Persian.
In Sumerian relief art the best examples
are the work of the seal-cutters. As early as

of a Dragon. Bronze. Possibly Elamite.

Louvre. (Tel photo')

clined
of

art of the seal-cutters flowered

many

times during the

Mesopotamian

history.

thirty'

The

and

experts stress

differences of subject-matter, technique,

aesthetic value in such periods as

Ur

de-

centuries

and

Uruk, Ur

I,

and in Babylonian
and Assyrian examples. There were also incursions of style from Susa and influences
from the confused complex of cultures that
existed in the general direction of the West,
from the Egyptians, the Syrians, and the
Hittites. From earliest times the seals took on
the Sargonid age,

a clarity
to

their

and

III,

a crispness of technique fitting

purpose and

to

the materials and

methods of the art. In many periods the subjects were religious: heroes protecting sacred
flocks, scenes of

judgment,

and demons; and

divinities, priests,

of course the familiar wor-

shiper, adoring or being introduced to the

god

Ocwere hunting scenes, heraldic

or priest, or protecting divine property.

casionally there

motives,

and geometric

or floral patterning.

Impressions from stone seals: hunting scene

and physician's charm. Akkadian.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Louvre
similar Babylonian

and graceful than

Of

the

seals

the

illustrated,

earliest

ex-

amples (from before 3000 b.c.) are notable

freedom of movement and the

for the

of

the

The

designs.

were

artists

The

ninth-century stone statue of Assur-

already

mental work surviving from the sixteen cen-

is

especially successful in fitting

the heavy animals into the

trates

stylized

field.

including

seal

cattle

the

The amber

skirt.

pal in the Boston

gold breastplate

illus-

Less subtlety

are

figures

in

gonid era (approximately 2340 b.c.) a strain

of realistic detailing entered, but the better

sides.

seals are

characteristically decorative.

still

Some

believe

authorities

seal-cutting

the large

seems engagingly

that

the art of

preceded bas-relief sculpture in

and

that the

famous stone murals of

grew out of the smaller

But influences also came from abroad, and
particularly from the Hittites, who emigrated
southeastward from the neighborhood of Anatolia and upper Syria. These people seem to

It is solid

and

are rather

statuette of Assurnasir-

Museum

is

is
is

set into

more clearly deAn ornamented

the amber.

evident in the sculptured

monsters which guarded the Assyrian palaces.

These

it

really

and beard

and more column-like.

fined

"modern." With the compositions of the Sar-

thousand years,

first

coarsely conventionalized, as are the fringes of

second

more conventionalized type and,

the

after five

the

Gudea's reign.

turies following

dignified, but the hair

crisply

monu-

nasirpal II of Assyria

which the Orientals have always excelled.

The seal with running deer (the design, as is
the case with others, was repeated in the impression by rolling the spool through two
is

in

vitality

masters of the sort of decorative design in

revolutions)

work

the large. (See Stag Hunt, page 64.)

not so

much

the round,

The

reliefs

sculptors gave each monster five

legs so that the observer, looking at

from the

engaged

as

viewable from three

side,

would

it

directly

see a required four legs,

and, looking from the front, a required two

legs.

The human-headed winged

bulls are

more impressive

lions

for their size

and
and

the Assyrian palaces

art.

have been the

monumental
outdoor

first to

scale.

reliefs

develop bas-relief on a

Extensive ruins exist with

cut in rock at Yazilikaya near

modern village Bogazkoy, and lesser

monuments are to be found elsewhere. The
the

relics are from the walls of a palace

Carchemish (or Kargamish), a later capital.

best-known
at

The

Hittite style

is

typified in very flat figures

on almost unbroken

flat fields,

and by highly

conventionalized objects and patterning with-

from the
more alive

in precise outlines. Hittite sculpture,

twelfth to the ninth centuries,

is

Column base. Stone. Hittite, c. 12th

century B.C. Tel Tainat, northern Syria.
QCourtesy Oriental Institute, Chicago')

Lions.

THE MESOPOTAMI AN PAGEANT

the

main

sculptors'

been

have

interest

feathers, fringes, tassels,

would seem

as

imposing beards,

ele-

details

gant hairdos, bracelets, and dagger-handles.

boastful inscription, standard for

monuments,

is

to

such

depicting

in

71

all

the king's

written across the face of the

design.

The war and hunting

murals are

scenes in the palace

outstanding, but there was

less

competent practice of a
reach

its

style

which was

to

culmination two centuries later in

the realistic reliefs at Nineveh. In the

Hunt-

ing Scene, a stone relief from the palace of

Assurnasirpal

II,

although

the

woodenness

beard

still

a character-

persists (the King's

is

stereotyped convention), one finds a

growing naturalness in the animals and a
more competent sense of pictorial composition.
less,

After the reign of Assurnasirpal, mural art

The

declined.

artist

conceived each incident

and the panels constituted a series

illustrations which were neither sculptur-

episodically

of

nor integral to an architectural

ally related

scheme.

Some banded

scenes from the gates

of the palace of Shalmaneser III at Balawat

Assurnasirpal U. Assyrian, 9th century b.c.
Left: Stone. Height about 43 in. British Museum.
Right: Amber. Height about 10 inches.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

are of technical interest because they

worked

in bronze.

controlled

and

something of the
massiveness than for any other quahty. Sculpturally speaking, the

volumes are haphazardly

the rhythmic lines broken, and the

related,

The

They

flatly

ornamental,

but lack

liveliness of the stone reliefs.

illustrated panels, Siege Scenes,

palace of Shalmaneser
chariots

were

are architecturally

III,

and the slaughter

from the

show Assyrian war

of prisoners.

patterning of feathers, hair, and beard too

insistent.

Perhaps the best of the massive

monsters

is

nasirpal

II

at

nobility

of

the

stroyed

stone

the

Museum, from

Lion in the British

the palace-temple of Assur-

Nimrud. The largeness and

animal have not been de-

by sculptural niggling or ostentatious

patterning.

The low

reliefs

on immense

slabs of stone

in the palace of Assurnasirpal established a

mode
or

of mural decoration that

less

standard

epoch

and

period.

the

throughout
succeeding

series of stones

Assyrian

neo-Babylonian

depicted giant

ures of protecting deities, or

and

became more
the

fig-

showed the king

his attendants. In these stiff compositions

Lion. Stone. Assyrian, 884-859 B.C. Palace

of Assurnasirpal II, Nimrud. British Museum

.i?l^:

72

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

centur)'

the

later

Nimrud

lath-Pileser III at

toward vivid

trend

From

naturalism returned.

the palace of Tigstones have been

recovered that represent a transition in style

between the

art of Assurnasirpal's palace and

found in the palace of Assurbanipal at
Nineveh. The artists recorded war and hunt-

that

ing scenes with increasing exactitude.

two panels shown, Siege

ing historically, for what they

ture of a city.

One

The

Sceties, are interest-

of the cap-

tell

illustration

depicts As-

syrian scribes listing the spoils taken from the

city's inhabitants.
is

of

Here the wool

of the sheep

nicely differentiated from the sleek hides

the

Another

oxen.

illustration

shows

wheeled, fortified tank with a battering ram,

followed by infantry. Bows, arrows, spears,

and

shields are

shown

in detail.

The

with no attempt

Oriental,

typically

style is
at

sci-

but few observers today

entific

perspective;

would

find the design less satisfying or the

record less telling because the figures

fail

to

diminish in depth.
Since a single Assyrian palace might contain bas-relief

half in length,
it

work

of

murals totaling a mile and a

it

uneven

is

not surprising to find in

quality.

high mark was

reached, however, in a series of well-composed

and

vivid

Hiintmg Scenes and

executed in low-rounded

Battle Scenes

relief, for

the palace

of Assurbanipal at Nineveh. This Mesopo-

tamian ruler was the

last

notable figure of the

Assyrian line the Sardanapalus of romance

Winged

Figure, relief. Stone. Assyrian. Palace of

Assumasirpal II. Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore

and legend. (See page 74.)

The

ultimate point of precise delineation

was attained
Hunting Scene,

relief. Stone.

Palace of Assumasirpal

II.

British

Assyrian.

Museum

in depictions of animals such as

camels, dogs, deer, and lions.

These were cannily observed and superbly
horses,

asses,

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

Siege Scenes, relief. Bronze. Assyrian, 9th century B.C.

Palace of Shalmaneser III, Balawat. British Museum

Siege Scenes, reliefs. Stone. Assyrian, 8th century b.c.

Palace of Tielath-Pilescr III, Nimrud. British Museum

2ili'

n
^giitwi^.

73

Battle Scenes, relief. Stone. Assyrian, 7th century b.c.

Palace of Assurbanipal, Nineveh. British

Museum

Hunting Scene,

relief, detail.

Stone. Assyrian. Palace of

Assurbanipal, Nineveh.
British

Wounded
detail of

Lioness,

Hunting Scene.
Stone. Assyrian.

Palace of Assurbanipal,
Nineveh. British Museum
QHachette photo)

Museum

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

The typical Hiinting Scene illusshowing the hunting of wild horses, is
one of the finest of the mural slabs.

drawn.
trated,

A
tion

similar panel of deer

artists

is

so true to observa-

one cannot doubt that the king's

that

rode beside

him on

ring expeditions just as

his

hunting or war-

newsmen and pho-

tographers have recorded front-line battles in

Reporting could hardly seem

more immediate, more objective than in the
sculptured Wounded Lioness shown, in a detail, from a panel at Nineveh.
our century.

When

the Babylonians regained control of

Mesopotamia,

the

Nebuchadnezzar,

new

kings,

especially

out to surpass the As-

set

and elegance.
However, sculpture suffered a decline except
in a type of relief work on bricks. Small
sections of animals were molded on bricks
syrian achievement in luxury

75

Only the colors varied.

was sacred to the goddess Ishtar or
Astarte. Other animals were represented on
the high gateway towers: rows of bulls and
long-legoed dragons were created in similar
glazed-brick relief, with a few in flat enamel.
to the

The

Ishtar Gate.

lion

When

the Persians conquered Babylonia in

539 B.C. they brought the story of Mesopotamian art to an end, but they utilized the
glazed-brick technique
reliefs

with greater

and created

their

own

finesse.

Meanwhile, among the marginal developart was the continuation of seal-cutting, examples of which are
illustrated. During the final centuries of Assyrian and Babylonian rule, in Syria and
ments of Mesopotamian

Palestine especially, the cultural lines

became

very confused and art influences were inter-

The

mingled.

Hittites

sometimes provided

with colored-glaze facing in such a way that

models; but as far away as Cyprus unmistak-

the animal forms took shape as the bricks

able Assyrian idioms appeared freely in monumental sculpture. In Cyprus and Phoenicia
and Cappadocia small bronzes might be in-

were

fitted together in the

The method

of modeling,

building of a wall.

making molds, then

mass-producing clay figurines and small

liefs,

re-

had been practiced by the early Sumerthen by the Babylonians. Now, in this

fluenced from any one of several cultures or

from two or three

at

once.

The examples

larger-scale application of the technique, the

shown illustrate a wide variety of methods

and motives. The most Egyptian of the

Neo-Babylonians achieved fuller use of

pieces

ians,

The

exceptionally

illustrated

fine

color.

glazed-brick Lion

appeared sixty or more times on

the walls of the Street of Processions leading

is

The God Hadad.

Probably older

are

northern,

possibly

Cretan or from the

Anatolian countries.

Lion, relief. Glazed brick. Babylonian, 604-562 b.c. Street of Processions, Babylon.
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

:^

Ml

is

the sinuous Snake Goddess, whose affinities

lilia^-

^WB^\^

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

76

-< l-^

%..fV ^"

."^

-:r^-

f'^

rr

*<
?

p .^, ^ ^\y W/

'

-r

mr
- -f
-rrf

'

i^.-J^
'
;

;/>-^-:
Impressions of
British

Cow and

seals.

Museum;

Assyrian and Babylonian. C. 1500-5 50 B.C.

Oriental hzstitute, University of Chicago

Calf, high relief. Ivory. 9th century B.C.

North

Syria. Louvre.

The God Hadad; right: Man Walking. Bronze. Phoenician,

Museum; Louvre QAlinari photo"); Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore

Left: Snake-Goddess; center:

1st

millennium

B.C. Brooklyn

QTel photo^

THE MESOPOTAMIAN PAGEANT

These
thought

and the

figures,

have

to

Man

originated

Walking,
in

all

what was

ancient Phoenicia, or in other parts of Syria

or

Canaan, might

Cappadocia,

as well

have been found in

Malta, Carthage, or even

Cilicia,

Thousands more or less like

known to have been produced by

farther afield.

them

are

the Phoenicians for export.

Only

one

other

marginal

but some-

times evident influence of the Scythians, the

who

developed the superb "animal

art" of the steppes.

world sculpture

whereas Scythian

Their special

st)^le

seems

and

ized

was an engaging
art is

The

decorative.

realism,

highly conventionalcontrast

is

interest-

ing between the Lion of the Ishtar Gate and

more

the

virile

sculpture of the Scyths,

which

illustrated in the next chapter.

The

development

slight

The one

contribution of the Mesopotamians to

true

is

might be suggested: the rather

sculptors

enced by the people of the steppe.

77

relief

from North

group of ivory
added here merely
of a

Syria, opposite, part

reliefs

from furniture,

is

emphasize the mixed

to

influences that the Syrians

Eastern craftsmen absorbed.

and other Near

Some details on

and

the ivories are unmistakably Egyptian, but the

rhythmic arrangement of the horses in relievo

whole set might be Cretan, or possibly

Mesopotamian. The plaque shown, with cow
and calf, is perhaps too rhythmic and too

reflected, for instance, in the spiritedness

on the Phoenician silver platter illustrated. It

was the Scyths who helped to sack Nineveh,

weakened the
to

Assyrians,

and opened the way

the final Babylonian hegemony, the last

phase of jMesopotamian independence.

for the

most part

it

seems unlikely that

ian and Babylonian art

was

But

Ass)'t-

essentially influ-

Platter with reliefs. Silver. Phoenician, 1st

graceful to be either.

by

It

was preserved

king of Assyria, Adad-Nirari

for us

III,

who

from King Hazael of Damascus. In

such ways the arts were widely interchanged
stole

it

in the centuries of the

millennium

Babylonian wars.

B.C. Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore

4:

The Animal Art

of the Eurasian Steppes

I
ON

the

maps

of the classical world Scythia

about them historians have had

appears as a variable and unbounded country

foreign

and northeast of the Black Sea,

and the nomadic people who roamed it were
horsemen of the forests and the pastures. The

Greek

to the north

reporters

is

Scyths seldom built cities, and moved on to

more favorable lands when climatic conditions and opportunities to conquer weaker
peoples prompted a change.
Before the flowering of Greek civilization,
the Scyths had helped to destroy the Assyrian
state, and after the seventh century B.C. they
were frequently at war with the Greeks them-

diffusion

selves.

leave

They had no

written language, and to learn

knew

writers

Scyths, however,

mitted

such

as

to rely

upon

Herodotus.

The

only

the

borderland

and what they have

trans-

a fragmentary, half-mythical account

of the vast hordes in the real Scythia of the

steppes.

The

surviving

art,

which

consists mostly of

small sculpture in gold and bronze, with some

antecedent Stone Age bone and horn carvings, also tells

of life

and of
of

something of the Scyths' ways

their culture.

Studies of the

Scythian and related sculpture

no doubt that this nomadic people

roamed a territory larger than all Europe, a

Plaque with fighting animals. Bronze. Scythian. Russia. Art Association of Montreal

THE ANIMAL ART OF THE EURASIAN STEPPES

extending from the

territory

what

modern

the Ukraine in

is

Danube

Basin to

borders of Mongolia, including

the eastern

Russia, the

and most of
the range that some his-

steppes about the Caspian Sea,

Siberia.

So wide

torians

refer

Siberian

the

findings

as

Scytho-

Others, despairing of ever fixing

art.

even vague

is

to

merely of

territorial limits, write

"the

animal

descriptive of Scvthian

human

seldom chose

The

we may

as

call

The

mid-Siberian phase,

distinguishable from the

is

it,

Ural or East Russian phase and from the

Western phase, \\ hich centered in the Dnieper
and Don basins. There is great simplicity,
almost primitive,

even the smallest ren-

in

perfectly

and other beasts

by the Siberian craftsmen. Later a special

for

its

sculptors

way

art,

beings as subject-matter.

sculptural forms of animals are formal-

and decorative, as opposed to

the naturalistic work of the IMesopotamians
late

important as a center.

is

ized, vigorous,

and the

Siberian finds are numerous, and

Minusinsk, near the border of Mongolia, was

style"

"the animal style," or "the art of the steppe."

Certainly

The

covery.

79

Greeks; they are also more

virile

derings of stags,

of formalizing wings, manes,

tigers' stripes,

and even

in flowing linear patterns, en-

riched the style; more involved compositions,

usually

savage

of

beasts

in

conflict,

were

beautifully executed.

Generally

than the idealized sculptures of the classic

may be

Greeks and are Oriental in feeling.

st)'le

Ethnically the Scythian peoples, although

tigers, elk,

speaking,

these

characteristics

said to apply to the Scytho-Siberian

of art as a whole.

though

stylized,

The

representation,

was intensely

true

to

the

doubtless intermixed with Mongolian strains,

nature or

were substantially of the Indo-European

but the formalization of certain parts remained

They were Aryan-speaking, and

stock.

thus closer in

better,

the spirit of the animal,

even extreme.

rigid,

Usually the sculptor's

was to be decorative rather than

and he did not hesitate to distort

Persian neighbors in Iran (an-

purpose

other form of "Aryan") than they were to the

realistic,

Assyrians, Babylonians, or Arabs. It

parts of the body, or to terminate a lion's legs,

spirit to their

is

logical

therefore that Persia, especially, continued the

way

Scythian
ing

it

of art, refining

not only at

it

home but

and perpetuat-

at the courts of

Constantinople (Byzantium) and other

where Sassan-

of the Eastern Christian world

and products were

ian culture

As the designation
"Scythian"

later

welcomed.

of a distinctive artistic style,

ser\'es to

Cimmerians,

cities

cover the activities of the

who were

the predecessors of the

for

instance,

feet, if

with approximations of

bird's

more beautidictated by the in-

the resulting forms fitted

fully within

the limits

tended use of the sculptured object.

It

was

in the

South Russian steppe area,

Dnieper River and

especially along the lower

the upper shores of the Black Sea, that the

Scyths came into trade and cultural relationship with the Greeks. Eventually they even

Scyths in certain western parts of Scythia,

and of the Sarmatians, who

later took over

those lands.

The

earliest

tures left
1

200

B.C.

century

known

gold and bronze sculp

by the Scyths seem not

The
B.C.,

to

antedate

golden age dawned in the ninth

and some

of the most accom-

plished Scythian artists were therefore contem-

porary with the Dorian Greeks, the Assyrians,

and the Persians

The

best

of the

way

to

pre-Achaemenid period.
approach

Scytho-Siberian sculpture
or four

manship

main types

is to

Scythian

and craftsfew centers of dis-

of stylization

in relation to a

or

study the three

Double Animal. Bronze. Scythian. Russia.

Museum

of Science, Buffalo

THE ANIMAL ART OF THE EURASIAN STEPPES

80

accepted and helped spread classical standards

toward Altai and eastern Asia. Before that

had maintained its

and flourished as an

time, the Scythian style

Oriental characteristics

highly

independent,
desipn.

Kuban

The

of

of

was that of an originally

Eastern people who pushed westward from
the gold-producing Altai and Urals.
political organization,

seems

to

minor kings and

about the sixth

have been a federation

of tribes or tribal groups

under a number of

princes,

each

established a regal standard of

of

art.

spirited

stags

they

who formed

terned with double

spirals.

Despite the confusion regarding their

and the many

gins,

thetic

alien or at times

influences borne in

ori-

sympa-

upon the steppe

peoples, the Scythian small sculptures remain

a distinctive and magnificent contribution to

the world's
in the

art.

They

Western

art

are especially significant

world because the basic

whom

principles are similar to those animating the

form-seeking or expressionist schools of the

overcame the original Scyths, and

may have been

The

remarkable illusion of

Finally,

in perhaps the second century B.C., the Sarmatians

achieve

nique, enriched with insets and borders pat-

The amount

belief that the art

B.C.,

Caucasian plaques.

the

especially

sculptural roundness, within the relief tech-

gold discovered there adds evidence to the

The

is

have been in the

finds

of the Caucasian Mountains.

century

patterned borders were developed. There

a special beauty in the bulbous animals within

almost at the western terminus

chief

district,

way

individualized

zation. It is here especially that geometrically

it

a connecting

twentieth century.
It

should be added that the Scytho-Siberian

has been called "the world's oldest style of

was noted between the

link between the Scytho-Siberian animal art

art."

and the medieval

animals of the metal-workers of the steppes

art of

Europe.

Scholars speak of a separate art develop-

development marked

ment

in the Caucasus, a

by

the characteristic vigor of the Scythians,

all

but with

its

own unmistakable

type of

styli-

similarity

lively

and the sculptures and drawings of the cave

men of Magdalenian times. Through pottery
as well

as sculpture,

the proponents of the

theory trace a tenuous line from late Stone

Age effort in Europe to Bronze Age achievement in Scythia. Both styles are primitive,
vigorous,

and

affirmative,

and both

are dedi-

cated to the depiction of animals.

Horse and Wild Goat. Bronze. Scythian,

1st millennium B.C. Crimea. Hermitage, Leningrad. (^Courtesy Iranian Institute,

New

York')

Winged

Lion. Bronze. Scythian, 1st millennium

B.C. Semircchyc, U.S.S.R. Hermitage, Leningrad.

Yorfe)
QCourtesy Iranian Institute,

New

II

TH

dating of most Scythian art-objects

goat's

horns and the horse's

mane (misplaced

cannot be other than conjectural, but

below the neck) in the third example. The

have drawn up a table of periods for

chief traits of Scythian art are reflected in

them, beginning with "archaic Scythian" and

these objects, which, despite their small size,

historians

Scythian."

"classic

The

early examples

dis-

play an extraordinary power and forthright-

two

ness,

characteristics

which

persisted even

have a feeling of largeness, strength, and

movement,

as well as richness of detail.

In the golden Crouching Stag, the strength

in later periods

when ornamentation became

and again toward the end when
the Greeks had taught the Scyths to be more

of the

elaborated,

kept

realistic.

This plaque, from a warrior's

In the three examples here, the

is

Feline

curves

of the design

uninvolved is

contrasted

shield,

must

have been designed with heraldic or

talis-

manic

no less compelling than that of the

Animal and the Wild Goat on an

wood.

spirited

clear,

with the decorative treatment of the horns.

swing of the Winged

are typical.

Lion

The

virile

main motive the body

free,

intent,

and apparently

hammering gold over

The

was made by

a "pattern" carved in

crouching-stag

found among early

it

motive

is

often

in contour, but the sculptors also paid atten-

from the Russian

shores of the Black Sea to Minusinsk in far

tion to secondary elements of design

Siberia.

elongated horse. All three designs are vigorous

the

such as

recurrence of the undulating curve in

nose,

jowl,

wing,

and rump

in

the

first

example; the arbitrary patterning of the paws

in the second;

and the ornamentation of the

relics

Another type of contrast or variation

(still

within the unity of a single main sculptural

movement) is demonstrated in the patterning

of the band about the Panther by means of

Feline Animal. Bronze. 1st millennium B.C. Manchuria or China.

Formerly Eumorphopoulos Collection. QCourtesy Musee Guimet, Paris~)

THE ANIMAL ART OF THE EURASIAN STEPPES

82

Crouching Stag. Gold. Scythian,

1 st

millennium

Panther. Bronze. Scythian, 7th-6th

centuries B.C. Crimea. Hermitage, Leningrad.
QCourtesy Iranian Institute, New Yorfe)

Steppe, Caucasus, U.S.S.R. Hermitage,

Leningrad. QCourtesy Iranian Institute, New York)

Kuban

B.C.

fences;

were

probably

filled

the

with color

enclosed
pastes.

were introduced but only

Again

there

is

of

effects

employed.

briefly

extraordinary

the

is

piece

when polychrome

an early period,

once

spaces

The

sense

of

lack the sturdy simplicity of the Siberian ex-

amples; but the harness ornament, at

the illustration below, has
largeness

and

vigor. It

is

its

own

left in

primitive

notable that the de-

backward to bring
more compact decorative

signer has turned the head

aliveness in the total figure, not at all im-

the

paired by the conventionalization.

organism. Even the very heavy stylization has

The

profile piece is standard in

When

art.

back

the design

as well as

is

Scythian

be seen from the

to

from the front (as in the case

and the handles

and appears
pieces placed back

into

figure

not robbed the animal of truthfulness. The

head with enlarged jaws is more exaggerated,
almost a caricature. The third piece, though

of pole-top standards, mirrors,

heavily stylized, has a lighter sort of rhythm.

of knives) the object

The

is

flattened

two slightly convex relief

to back in the form of a closed bivalve shell.
Besides woodcarving there was the older
Scythian tradition of bone- and horn-carving.

as

The

limitations

imposed by the harder mate-

rials

may have

established the compactness

and

directness of expression seen in the later

phases of Scythian
fairly rare

are

many

among

objects in

art.

Wooden

surviving

figures are

relics,

bone or horn,

all

but there
of

The Western

Scythian bronzes sometimes

Ornaments. Bronze. Scythian. Caucasus; Siberia

Cernuschi Museum, Paris; University Museum,
Philadelphia;

Museum

of Science, Buffalo

example shown, a deer, has

antlers

of repeats of the bird's beak-and-eye

motive, and the feet end in approximations of

birds' heads.
tive

is

This

common and

also seen in the

fantastic

mo-

heads and beaks which

terminate the legs of the horse in the third

illustration

of this section.

Occasionally the

bird-head motive appears at the end of an

animal's

tail,

as

may be

seen in the golden

plaque at the foot of page

which

follow the same rigid type of formalization.

final

made up

There
in

are

museum

84.

numerous separate

collections.

conventionalized

that

The
at

birds'

heads

motive became so

last

representation

was abandoned almost

entirely

in

favor of

when

ornament. Abstract designs resulted also

were based upon an animal's

compositions

hoof or hindquarters.
Occasionally the Siberian sculptors would
restrain

their

tendency

the pole-top figures,

range

formalize

to

Decorative but more

subjects.

from

this

Wild

Goats.

semi-realism

their

realistic

to

are

Examples
the

near-

abstract approximations of animals that decorate handles

on bowl-edges or mirrors, or form

terminal figures on knife-handles.

The
afforded

horse,

interpretation.

Stag. Pole-top standard. Bronze. Scythian, 5th

century b.c. Caucasus. Art Association of Montreal

like

endless

Leningrad

(if,

decorative

tour

the

elk

opportunity

The

for

lead-bronze

indeed,

de

and the

it

force.

goat,

decorative

from

horse

be a horse)

Note the

is

bird's-

head feet, and, above, the extra animal heads

which add contrapuntal movement. The little
bronze running Horse is simpler, but hardly

Wild Goats. Pole-top standards. Bronze. Siberia.

Buckingham Collection, Art Institute of Chicago

THE ANIMAL ART OF THE EURASIAN STEPPES

less

appealing in

its

fluent way.

The

piece

represents the southeastern extension of the

Scytho-Siberian

name "Ordos

style,

best

known under

bronzes." This type of

the

work

comes from the Ordos Desert in Mongolia,

which adjoins the Chinese provinces of
Shan-si and Shen-si.

Horse. Bronze. Ordos Region, China.

of Science, Buffalo

Horse. Lead-bronze alloy.

Museum

Perm

District, U.S.S.R.
Hermitage, Leningrad

Animals Fighting. Plaques. Bronze. Ordos Region.

Collection of Dagny Carter; Detroit Institute of Arts

Antlered Bear Fighting a Tiger. Gold.

1st

century a.d. Siberia. Hermitage, Leningrad

THE ANIMAL ART OF THE EURASIAN STEPPES

series of plaques,

mostly worked in gold

and each with one end

larger than the other,

depicts animals in conflict. This series

fine sculpturally

that

it

is

so

places the Siberian

ahead of the Western Scyths in the

handling of involved animal forms.
The Antlered Bear Fighting a Tiger is a richly
artists

skillful

rhythmic creation. Sometimes as

many

as four

(some unidentifiable) appear

fighting beasts

in a single design. Rarely

is

a man's figure

The

animal-conflict plaques are

almost

invariably

design

reversed,

found in pairs with the

and they are supposed to

incorporated.

have served

The
seem

as girdle-clasps or quiver-clasps.

persistence of the conflict motive

to indicate

some

nificance, but archaeologists

to

would

religious or totemic sig-

have been unable

explain the true meaning.

It is

easy to see

how

the bars along the

lower edges of these plaques, together with

elaboration of the antler motive, might evolve
into an encircling patterned border. It will be

noted on the page opposite

that, for the first

time, bordered Scythian designs are

In

late

shown.

examples the purely ornamental

elements were increasingly stressed, but there

is

no

intricate geometrical fretwork

besque.

did the

Only
artist

and

ara-

in the special Caucasian phase

use border areas with all-over

patterning. (In the other direction both the

vigor

and the decorative richness

sculpture entered into Chinese

during the

Han

period.)

of Scythian

art,

especially

Animals. Bronze. Scythian; Chinese. Russia;

Ordos Region. Cerniischi Museum, Paris;
Collection of Dagny Carter; C. T. Loo Collection
Siberia;

THE ANIMAL ART OF THE EURASIAN STEPPES

86

culture related

to

possibly antecedent to

it,

that of the
is

known

merely by the term "animal

casus."

The most

of the Eurasian animal art led directly into

Scyths,

to scholars

art of the

ern Europe.

important type of sculpture

wide ornamental
border, within which appeared an openwork
animal design. The figures were especially

was

and West-

the barbarian sculpture of Central

Cau-

a square plaque with a

complete survey of Scythian

end with degenerate examples,

the decline that resulted

became

influences

art

would

illustrating

when

Hellenizing

too strong for the native

added weight to the design. The effect of

largeness was increased by slenderizing the

There are many late

Greek workmen living
within or upon the borders of Scythia, and
certainly for centuries there had been a trad-

forms and by curving these into sinuous,

ing of influences at the Black Sea settlements.

spirited,

and an idiomatic use

of swelling or

tradition to withstand.

bulbous forms in the forequarters and flanks

lesser

echoing rhythms. Antlers and

made

to

end

tails

objects

The

were often

to

culture crossed not only with the Greek

but also with the Persian, and there

in spirals as geometric as those in

the patterned borders.

ascribed

Some, perhaps early

to believe that the Persians,

is

reason

unlike the Greeks,

examples, exhibit single animals in silhouette.

derived lasting influences from

Others were rendered more elaborate by the

in Persia,

addition of decorative areas of engraving on

were animal ornaments in the true steppe-art

tradition, and in Luristan, within the Persian
territory (discussed in Chapter 8), a phase

main forms and by an increase

number of figures. In the example
the

Chicago Art Institute

(left,

in

the

at

the

below) the stag

of

is

accompanied by two dogs and a bird. It is believed that the Caucasian or geometrical phase

Stag. Gold. Greco-Scythian, c.

500

b.c.

(^Courtesy Archiv

small

even down

sculpture

to

it.

unmistakably related

the Scythian, equally strong, affirmative,

decorative.

in Hungary. Museu7n of Fine Arts, Budapest.

Kunst iind Geschichte, Berlin^

Found

fiir

Certainly

Sassanian times, there

Plaques with animals. Bronze.

Left: Art Institute of Chicago; center

1st

and

millennium B.C. Caucasus.

right:

Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

to

and

^K^' ^^^^M

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Sn
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ll^^^ ^^^^1
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^^^^^^^^

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fld^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^l

^^^fcjjsr.^i^

*'

!^y *^^' ^t

>

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^^^^^^^^^^^HmKmb&^^^^^^^^v^^^

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'

The Greeks:

Archaism^ Classicism^ Realism

I
GREECE
state.

The

was the

first

beginnings of

civilized

its arts

The Parthenon

European

were epoch-

marbles alone afford machapter in the history of

terial for a glorious

making and the later influence overwhelming

in European and American culture from the
fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Greek
art avoids mystery and complication
and

world sculpture. But the supremacy of Greek

through most of

is

its

its

course

is

distinguished for

realism and

crystal-clear

its

grace.

The

Greeks discarded Oriental conv^entions; they

idolized nature,

end

of the decline in

Greco-Roman natu-

ralism, lucidity

and simple representation

vailed in their

art.

pre-

was

it

is

not as freely

forty or four

dred years ago. Nevertheless the

hun-

classic ideal

respected and recognized as having shaped

European thought and art practice more pro-

foundly than any other.

and, from the time of the

building and decoration of the Parthenon to

the

art over all other expressions

conceded today as

Sculpture took
the

figurative

richly
is

first

documented.

place in Greece

and

arts,

An

its

among

development

is

acute factual interest

evident in the few "monuments" surviving

from the pre-Hellenic periods: the athletes

llissos.

Stone. Parthenon, Athens. British

Museum

THE GREEKS

Statuettes. Bronze. Sardinia. Prehistoric

Statuettes. Clay.

Cj^rus. Metropolitan
Museum of Art

Museum, Rome.

(^Alinari

photo^

THE GREEKS

89

/
Snake-Priestess. Ivory nith gold band. Minoan,
c. 1500 B.C. Crete. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

and snake-goddesses of Crete, the Boxer Vase

and the Vaphio Cups with their exact hmning in gold, to cite a few famous examples.
Before the "true Greeks" emerged, there was
a wide dispersal of the geometric style (in
miniature expressions), which marks the point
where Greek art came nearest to the formalized and unrealistic expressions of Asia. With
the later phases of the Dorian invasion the

was

consolidation of the Hellenic nation

new freedom and

what we now refer to

complished, and a
prevailed in
classic art of

The most

as

the

t\'pical

like

Greek

nature,

reposeful.

is

artistic expression,

Classical sculpture.

clear,

is

noble,

harmonious.

The

lovers of

Greek

art,

one might

almost say the worshipers of Greek

Roman

art,

from

days onward, esteemed the Hellenic

masters above

all

others.

Perhaps the only

service of the twentieth-century critic in this

regard should be to broaden the term "Classical" to enlarge

its

meaning

to cover

not only

the Greek achievement of the Periclean dec-

ades but also the transitional period from the

archaic.

There was already the

votion to the idealized

human

classic

de-

being, to every-

thing that was rational, nobly ordered, and

both

general acceptance. Classical art

reasonably

realism

Greece.

the superb achievement,

By

ac-

Rhyton (the Boxer Vase"). Stone. Cretan, c. 1600

B.C. Hagia Triada. Miiseum of Heraclion, Crete.
(Bhoio of replica, Metropolitan Museum of Art')

inwardly

The grand

and outwardly harmonious.

period in Greece can be placed

between the perfecting of the stone kouroi

and korai of the late sixth century and the
completion of the Parthenon.

THE GREEKS

90

The

response

we

when viewing

feel

the

pre-Classical statuettes, especially the spirited

miniature

figures

geometric age,

the

of

is

very different from that evoked by the soberer

expressions of the Classical

appreciation

stinctive

spirit.

the

of

But our

in-

bronze

little

horses or the fiddle-figured Cycladic marbles

should be a tribute

Greek

when

the Greeks were

East.

The fragmentary

and
a

Ilissos of

higher

an added phase of

to

an early and a minor period

to

art,

influenced by the

still

Dionysus, Goddesses,

the Parthenon pediment are in

They

category.

display

lithic

grandeur, integrity, and amplitude that mark

the sixth-

and

fifth-century

work

as the first

peak of European achievement.

The

years

following

the

Periclean

Age

were

marked by an increased realism in

sculpture which paralleled a decline in the expression of Classical ideals. During the fourth
century, new interest in the individual and
in depicting the actual world was reflected
in the rise of portraiture and pictorial sculpture, while monumental works suff^ered a
loss
of vigor from the overemphasis on
naturalistic detail. As Greek culture spread
to territories beyond the Aegean during the
Hellenistic

Alexander,
diffused
It

period,
its

and

after

the

conquests

original creative spark

of

became

finally died out.

should be added that recently, in the

between the pre-Hellenic

and Greece proper have been
by archaeologists and historians. Ex-

the

1960s,

ties

civilizations

stressed

cavations have brought to light the extent of

commerce between the Mycenaean civilization

and the Athenian territory that later became
the nursery of Greek culture. The MycenaeanMinoan languages, too, have been more fully
identified as early forms of Greek. Whereas a
separate Aegean culture was given independence in earlier histories, the story of
Crete, Mycenae, and Classical Greece is
oftener told in one unfolding history in

to-

sequence

of

day's

accounts.

stylistic

Despite

the

changes in the sculpture pictured on

the following pages, a rather remarkable overall

unity will be noted.

Above and

at left

and

right on facing page: Figures.

Stone. Cycladic, 3rd or

Metropolitan

2nd millennium

B.C.

Museum of Art; British Museum;

Museum of Art, Providence

II

TH

E end

late in

of

the

Stone Age occurred

most parts of Europe. Long

after

Egypt and the Near Asian nations had

ar-

rived at such basic civiUzed attainments as

systematic agriculture, systematic writing, and

and
and untamed, and
northern and central Europe formed little
more than an uncharted wilderness. Even after
1500 B.C., when islands of culture and commerce had risen along the Mediterranean,
from Sidon to Iberia, central and western
Europe remained subject to waves of wandering peoples for another two thousand years.
The lines of migration are confused, and
stabilized law, the lands of Greece, Italy,

Iberia

were

still

primitive

knowledge of the
rope, and of their

"original peoples" of
art,

is

Eu-

vague, to say the

least.

The seaways

of Egyptian,

Mesopotamian,

and Phoenician traders can be traced in early

ages, and the pre-Greek arts of the Mediterranean basin most often bear the stamp of
Nilotic or

Near Asian

cultures.

Iberia

and

Malta both have notable relics of the Stone

Age, especially dolmens and menhirs, and
many Bronze Age figurines have been found.

These

are of problematic date, as are the clay

figurines of the region,

which could be

as-

signed to almost any century from prehistoric

times to the eighth century b.c.

Center: Seated figure. Stone. Cycladic. Melos. Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

Shown on

92

THE GREEKS

Figured cups. Gold. C. 1500 b.c. Vaphio.

page 88 are three bronze votive figures from

sculpture was not foremost

where the influences might be those

of Etruria or an earHer culture imported from

practiced

Sardinia,

the East. In Sardinia the culture

Nuraghian,
tower of

after a

unique type

known as
Age

is

of Stone

fortification.

Crete and C}'prus were outstanding

pre-Greek

artistic

sites of

development, and the early

Cretan achievement

is

pre-eminent in

at the time, illustrations of

Sardinian bronzes,

Cyprian clay figurines (see page 88), and

Cycladic marbles have been placed before
the Cretan

The
Aegean

eflFective as

more than

The

the

Aegean area. However, to stress the fact that

there were areas of sculptural activity in
other regions of Europe and in nearby Cyprus

Cycladic statuettes, originating in the

the

produced in Greek

territory.

first

is

seldom

Boston

(at the

Mu-

seum; see page 89) belongs to the highest

period of Cretan accomplishment. In general,
Cretan

art

is

light, worldly,

capricious

to

even gay, running

and

elaboration

to

representations of athletic feats

surprising

and violent

body movements.
especially the group of god-

ivories,

desses

or

priestesses,

of

the most subtly

which the one at

realistic, are more

Boston

stone

sculptures

appealing than any other local

They

are seldom

more finished than the examples shown.

These works, like those of Sardinia, constitute
a distinctive minor development. Many of the
pieces are intuitively rhythmic and very en-

the arts

routine.

Attica, are

islands southeastw-ard

considered to be

from

genre pieces, the quality

Snake-Priestess

The

relics.

among

by the Cretans. Indeed the surviving body of sculptural art from the Cretan
city-states and from Mycenae in the Peloponnesus is small, and, though some of the semiprimitive statuettes and groups in clay are

is

t)'pe of sculp-

There are painted faience statuettes of

the same subject, but these incline to be
elaborate and garish. The priestesses with
their small waists, bared breasts, and aproned
ture.

loins,

together with the snakes they usually

Minoan

The

gaging. Especially prized today are the early

hold, figured in

schematized figures, almost abstract amulet-

Cretan culture was neither overwhelmingly

like bits of

marble in the shape of spatulas or

centered in religion nor dedicated, as were

Assyria and Babylonia, to glorification of a

fat fiddles.

great commercial civilization prospered

in Crete as early as

religious rites.

500

b.c.

This

is

indicated

by discoveries in the ruined palace of King

Minos at Cnossus, where fine vases and colorHowever,
ful mural paintings abounded.

king-god.

There

are

no

portrait statues; rather

the athlete, the warrior,

are

commonly

and the entertainer

depicted.

The Boxer Vase

(page 89), with

reliefs, is a typical piece. It is

its

spirited

carved in steatite

THE GREEKS

National

Museum, Athens. QGiraudon photos

of replicas in Louvre^

and was probably gilded. Crete also produced

ivory and bronze figurines of athletes and
worshipers, and many gems and seals, interesting but not quite so skillfully

made

as the

Sumerian and Babylonian examples. There

are a few realistic colored faience reliefs, as
well as double axes and ceremonial pillars
which might be classed as abstract designs.
Also

of

Minoan

workmanship,

93

though

found at Vaphio in the Peloponnesus, are the

two Vaphio cups of gold, bearing designs on
the outer shells. The modeling was accom-

In the few notable relics of sculpture from

Mycenae, the city-state that succeeded Cnossus as the dominating power of the Aegean

world about 1400 B.C., we find, as in Crete,

a growing tendency toward naturalism. The
best-known example

is

the famous pair of

sculptured lions carved in stone over a gate

at

Mycenae. There

are also grave stelae with

rather crude low-rehef

work which

suggests

a possible Hittite influence.

The

other

Mycenaean

most

treasured

examples

of

being hammered up from the reverse side and

Golden
cups recovered from graves at Mycenae, like
the Vaphio cups and perhaps also Minoan, are

the detailing probably finished by surface tool-

beautifully designed in abstract shapes; others

plished by

ing.

The

the repousse process,

the metal

designs, one of bull-hunting

other of bulls in a

wooded

ous and marvelously

and the

pasture, are vigor-

realistic.

As

sculptural

goldsmithing they were not surpassed by the

artists of

the golden age a millennium later.

Impressions of

seals.

sculpture are in metal.

are boldly figured in relief. Aside

from these

cups, the most interesting relics in metal from

the

Mycenaean

civilization

are daggers

and

swords with inlaid designs upon the blades.

Many

of these

show

superlative workmanship.

Cretan and Mycenaean. National Museum, Athens

Horse and Rider. Clay. Greek, early 1st millennium

B.C. Attica. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In summar)'

we

can say that the Cretan

had advanced furthest within the

Aegean complex of cultures before 1500 B.C.
civiHzation

Then about 1400

leadership.

Mycenae

took

the

culture, however,

was

b.c.

Mycenaean

soon to be absorbed into that of the Dorians,

the Indo-European invaders from the north,
and for centuries thereafter the figurative arts
were all but obscured. The tenth and ninth
centuries are often referred to as the Greek
dark ages. Animals in clay are the best sculptures surviving from the period before the
eighth century. At that time the islands nearest

Asia were the most progressive, particularly

Cyprus.

The

Cypriote clay figurines are especially

noteworthy.

Four

statuettes

the

of

Mother

Goddess, or of worshipers, favorite subjects in

Cyprus

in

Syria

illustrated

at

the

From

sixteenth

as

the

and Mesopotamia,

are

bottom

88.

of

century

on,

page

Cypriote

sculpture borrowed freely from the Cretans

and Mycenaeans and also from the Egyptians;
and, late in the eighth century, from the
Assyrians when the country became vassal to
Sargon. In many of the remaining works there
is

evidence of diverse influences, including

the Egyptian, the Assyrian

mixed Phoenician

and the already

styles.

Early in the seventh century Cyprus was

already a part of the
there

is

no

Hellenic world, and

clear dividing line

from then on

betu'een the native style and the sculptural

Horse and Rider. Clay. Cyprus. Louvre.

(_Giraudon photo^

Head

of a Man. Stone. 7th century B.C. Cyprus.

Fuller Collection, Seattle Art Museum

THE GREEKS
developments that took place on the Greek

mainland or in

Ionia.

The Head

of a

Man

(at Seattle) cannot be exactly dated but

would seem
at the

to

ing realism.

It

artists

arrived at a pleas-

should be noted that part of

was derived from

the Cypriote stylistic idiom

Europe and

its

later

incorpora-

Romanesque sculpture.
Students of Greek vase-painting recognize

tion into

it

represent Cypriote sculpture

moment when

cultures of

95

similarities in form between the bronze horses

and the engaging beasts found on Athenian
pottery of the eighth century. There is the
same tendency to elongate the masses and to

The

the nature of the limestone or soft sandstone

model

which the sculptors commonly worked,

which permitted fluent cutting and the tool-

compositions
angles.

The depth

ing of sharp edges, characteristics better

back

narrowed, and ribbon forms are played

in

lustrated in the

Before the
istic

head on page

artists

art histories as

st}'le

is

are

rhythmic

silhouettes.

most often based on

of the figure

tri-

from front

to

against sudden excrescent cur\'es.

148.

achieved this fairly

standard, the geometric

il-

graceful,

real-

(known

in

one of the most widely diffused

modes of stylization) had

Cyprus as well as in the

It

to

would be an

assume

that,

oversimplification of history
after

the

eclipse

of

the

iMinoan and Mycenaean cultures, the Hellenes

of European-Asiatic

from the north brought

been in vogue

but the typical combinations of zigzags, meanders, and checks, and of virile geometrized

in

neighboring cultures. In the Cycladic Islands

human

figures

geometric

style,

had been produced in the

and Greek potter)^ was often

decorated with highly conventionalized hu-

man

forms.

in the geometric style;

figures, do seem to have spread with the

Dorian invaders. The geometric style filled
the gap between the Cretan-Mycenaean art of

Popular subjects in the round

were horses with

riders,

and

in

the

later

phases of the geometric style animals were the

essential

many

subject-matter for bronzes and for

painted

decorations.

Some

scholars

plausibly infer a connection with the animal

art of the steppe country,

and imposing charts

have been compiled showing the diffusion of

the

geometric

style

within

the

barbarian

Horses. Bronze. 9th 7th centuries B.C. Greek,

early and late geometric. Art Museum,
Princeton U7iiversity

Deer and Faivn. Bronze. Greek, geometric period,

9th-7th centuries b.c. Mtiseum of Fine Arts, Boston

the Heroic

Age and

The

st)'lization of

Greek art that is,

Greek development.

archaic

the oldest recognizably

animals deriving from the

northern countries has

no connection with the

approach of the Cretans and

more
Mycenaeans; eventually the Greeks too benaturalistic

came obsessed vdth

The
largely
Ionia.

realism.

monuments of Hellenic art came

from Asian provinces, especially from

early

Certain ivory figurines from Ephesus

are t)'pical of Oriental ideals (if not work-

manship), but are unmistakably related

the
sort

first
is

Greek mainland

to

Of this
man stand-

sculpture.

the bronze figure of a

ing erect and column-like with arms held

Kouros. Bronze. Greek, 7th-6th centuries b.c.

National Museum, Stockholm

Hera of Samos. Stone. C. 590

b.c.

Louvre

.J

THE GREEKS
Stiffly

the

to his sides

neck

so

that

and spread locks widening

the single-block effect

is

not disturbed. This type of figure was the

forerunner of the two commonest kinds of

another century or more and did not become

a

common

The Hera

kouros or hero-athlete, and the kore or maid-

definitely

bronze kouros

one of the
period.

It

now

finest surviving
is

noteworthy

in

Stockholm

is

examples of the
that

while

male

were commonly presented in the nude,

the undraped female figure was not seen for

figures

of Samos, one of the earliest

monuments

large

The

the middle of the

subject until

fourth century.

sculpture practiced in the sixth century: the

en.

97

shows

of

Hellenic

Oriental

scholars attribute the

stiff

sculpture,

influence.

Some

effect to a slavish

copying of prototypes in wood, where the

tree-trunk

dictated

the

mode

of

carving.

However, a change from the former, Oriental

tradition is seen in the arm, which is raised

Kouroi. Stone. 6th century B.C. Tenea; Melos. Glyptothek, Munich; National
QAlinari photo')

Museum, Athens.

fl

THE GREEKS

98

to the breast.
is

further attempt at naturalism

seen in the treatment of the

separately

if

which

toes,

somewhat awkwardly

are

character-

ized.

By

the late seventh century the peoples of

Greece had

and

their

common

own

language and literature

but strangely

and minor

elastic

hierarchy

They

also had
and athletic festivals
which periodically drew the leaders together.
But the tendency of the Greeks toward the
centralization of their empire was balanced
by a fanatic loyalty to the individual citystates that collectively formed the Hellenic

of gods

established

divinities.

religious

Sculpture

nation.

progressed

in

much

the

same way. While the art followed a common

national ideal, the work of different regions
such

Ionia,

Attica,

as

and Crete was

Epirus,

would be wrong,

Arcadia,

Corinth,

recognizable. It

still

for instance, to overlook the

and korai just because

had become standardized.

variations in the kouroi

the types

The

kouros type of figure, long

known

erroneously as the archaic Apollo, had a prototype in Egyptian sculpture.

with hands at sides and

vanced,

is

The body

pose,

left foot slightly ad-

so similar to the Egyptian conven-

tion that there

can be

doubt that the

little

Greeks worked from Egyptian models. From

this point on,

gan

to

however, Greek sculpture be-

change quite

radically.

Despite the set

pose and such schematized details as the

ment

treat-

and eyes in the two stone

figures illustrated, from Tenea and Melos, the
natural rendering of the body definitely shows
of the hair

new direction.
The Greeks began to crystallize a
ophy that made man the measure
things. The gods, as revealed in the

a step in a

were human, and

The

of

all

myths,

fidelity to the ideal physical

standard soon became the prime

art.

philos-

figures long

known

test of visual

as Apollos

were

probably hero-statues of youths (generalized

as to features

but true

to the

common

ideal), depicting athletic heroes

athletic

and probably

used as votive figures.

For

some

time

the

anatomy

of

body, though more realistically rendered,

the
re-

Bust of a young man. Stone. Late 6th century

Museum. QAlinari photo}

B.C. Athens. Acropolis

Kouros. Stone. Boeotia. Late 6th century b.c.

National Museum, Athens. (^Alinari photo}

THE GREEKS
tained a certain schematized symmetrical pat-

This

terning.

is

seen in the

stiffly

frontal

atti-

99

Probably not since the era of Minos, a thous-

and years

earlier,

had

a staute

on Greek

soil

tude and the balancing of such stressed parts as

possessed a head that did not face directly

breast muscles, shoulder contours, the outline

toward the

abdomen and

kneecaps all of
which are evident in the example from
Tenea. Originally these statues were colored,
of the

painted

or

tinted

of the

sculpture

stone

being

standard throughout Greek history.

latest

kouroi are ascribed, a greater

understanding of anatomy

we

see

still

little

is

sculptures of the

evident.

Even

so,

deviation from the careful

first

taining to the kouroi

known

and the

korai.

frontal

rigid

The

Winged

scheme.

to

hold

Victory from Delos follow this tradi-

tion only

from the waist up; the lower limbs

are sculptured in profile to suggest motion.

The one

condition, illustrating a variant type,

rather less protruding, perhaps, but the lips

Moschofhorus

Neverthe-

to the

But fragments of a

The face too remained a "type," the eyes

fixed in the "archaic" smile.

well-

seated figures, mostly battered, from

balancing and stressing of symmetrical parts.

still

half of

the sixth century escape the basic rules per-

Branchidae in Greek Asia seem

In the latter half of the sixth century, to

which the

front.

Few known

notable relic that survives in fair

is

the

or Calf-Bearer, a votive offer-

ing to Athena. Possibly this was a portrait

in

of the donor, Rhombos. Stripped to essentials

at left, is more natural and believamore human and active. The statue may
remind us that the Greeks had now estab-

and formalized only in certain details the

man's garment is indicated only by faint

less,

the

third

of

the illustrated kouroi

stone,
ble,

the

lished

human

free-standing

figure

as

central in the art of sculpture, in accordance

with their man-centered philosophy, a gain

lining over the modulations of the

whole

exhibits

body the

an entirely new sculptural

mastery.

The famous

Lions of Delos, which stand

revolutionary and historic, and a gain destined

to

be

passed

Renaissance

on

Italy,

as

standard

and

for

eventually

Rome,
all

of

Europe.
In the battered bust of a young
Acropolis

Museum,

man

in the

the stereotype smile per-

but there is increased freedom in the

modeling of the head. This is slightly turned
sists

and

a very long tradition

was thus broken.

Moschophorus. Stone. Mid-6th century B.C.

Athens. Acropolis

Museum.

(^Alinari photo')

100

THE GREEKS

Kore. Stone. Mid-6th century B.C. Athens.

Acropolis Museum. (_Alinari photo')

Sphinx. Stone. Mid-6th century B.C. Athens.

Acropolis Museum. CA^'nari photo)

Kore: La Boudeiise. Stone, c. 490 B.C.

Athens. Acropolis Museum.
QAlinari photo')

Kore. Stone. Mid-6 th century B.C. Athens.

Acropolis Museum

THE GREEKS
row on

in a

a ruined terrace, are

101

somewhat

weathered but remain monumentally impres-

These mark

sive nevertheless.

peak of the

archaic style as developed in the Cycladic

A common

was

tury sculptors
fully the

Isles.

tendency among the sixth-centheir failure to differentiate

male from the female

many

Calf-Bearer and

almost androgynous

figure.

of the kouroi

air.

The

waist

The

have an
is

nar-

rowed, the hipline rounded. Conversely the

or maidens,

korai,

often have a masculine

look.

The
cally

early korai statues are not as aestheti-

satisfying

as

the kouroi, nor do they

demonstrate so well the transition from rude

convention to

realistic statement.

Nevertheless

there are finely statuesque figures

among

the

Athenian "maidens" discovered in the ruins

of the Acropolis.

antique dress

is

The
solid

way

maiden

in

has broken the figure at the waist.

is

particularly

in

sculptural, except

which the sculptor

The head
accomplished, and the dress

for the unfortunate

Head. Stone. Greek. C. 500 b.c.

Nelson GalleryAtkins Museum, Kansas City

figure of a

and

Horse. Stone. C. 500 b.c.

Athens. Acropolis Museutn. QAlincri photo~)

THE GREEKS

102

when draped

notably simple for a time

folds

and painted ornamentation were strongly

ex-

statues with riders survive, but in the frag-

ment

of a Horse shown,

from Athens, there

is

ploited.

a direct statement of the essentials in sculp-

The most majestic of the korai is the example known as of the Oriental type. Extreme

tural terms,

formalization persists in the treatment of the

neck, and back are fixed perfectly, then rein-

hair

and drapery, and the

rigid pose adds to

the air of dignity and reserve.

The

statue

is

but the conventions are

less

marked,

The

superb lines of the head,

forced by the simple and effective formalization of the

of approximately the date of the preceding

piece,

without undue insistence on ana-

tomical fidelity.

mane.

In the bronze Charioteer at Delphi, the

known

best

of the

monumental bronze

sculp-

and the full lips

modify the archaic smile. Another step toward
the classic profile is seen in the way in which

tures of the early fifth century, only the

the slope of the subject's nose follows the

rather

slope of the forehead.

character of the body; but the head, set firmly

the eyes are inset better,

The

pensive maiden, sometimes

La Bondeuse,
chronological

naturalism

were

order)

for

striving.

hardly

less

shown here

is

known

(slightly out of

demonstrate

to

the

of

when

great

moments

stylization

in

obtains but

still

is

Head now

at

quality

their quest for

mid-sixth-century

of

and an animation derived

is

less

from observed form and movement than from

for

sculptural

masses

rhythms of formal creation.

After Phidias, Greek artists were

and

the

it

could not be mistaken for

ventions persisted, but the total aspect of the

sculptured figure or face was becoming more

done

Athens and Olympia.

in

as

limestone

Head

of a Priest

The

shown (probably

a quarter-century before the Charioteer^,

despite

beard,

schematized hair, mustache, and

its

and the unnatural

eyes,

is

graphic and

factual.

Among

the Cypriote pieces there

head which has achieved fame

ing the "eternal

human

which these

feeling

the

any other people. Certain archaic con-

that of

by hardly more than a century. But here

Persia,

Seas.

the

largeness

over

victories

its

archaism preceded the Parthenon sculptures

both simple

the coasts of the Mediterranean

of

masterpieces

is

period before Greece achieved

last

after

and the

Hellenic settlements were scattered around

realistic

expression.

The

In this

lifelike,

which is so
typical of Egyptian sculpture was never more
nearly attained in Greek work than in the
sixth-century Sphinx shown. It represents a
brief period before the Hellenes became completely absorbed in

upon the column-like neck,

and believable.
unity

here,

treated drapery nuHifies the

distinctive that

Kansas City.

The monumental

evident

main

of the

sculpture,

closer

by knowledge and the desire to present the

natural nobility and dignity of the model.
The same tendencies are illustrated in the
lovely

is

Some

controlled

is

indeed one

is

Greek

stiffness

awkwardly

a lost group.

and Aegean
At the opening of the fifth century,
although Cyprus was already thoroughly
Hellenized, the work of her sculptors was so

conventionalized than before, but

anatomical form. This

archaic

the

which the Greek sculptors

The hair and garment are

the carving of the face and the ear

to true

as

from

figure survives

critic."

Readers

is

a type

as represent-

who know

type can appreciate the

skill

with

sculptors caught in light carica-

ture a characteristic mixture of eagerness

and

colossal

and scorn. In the

stone Head shown, from the seventh

century

B.C.,

superiority,

of

alertness

note

how

the wide-open mascu-

matter, but in the archaic period they were

brow and beard contrast with the rather

precious and feminine mouth.
In Greek relief sculpture the conventions

proficient in representing the character

of the archaic style disappeared sooner than

strangely

still

indifferent

of the animal model.

to

No

to

prove

animals as subject-

complete equestrian

line

thev did in statues that were carved in the

round.

One

reason was that the rigid rule of

was

frontality

less logical

on

inserted serially

where

a flat panel.

figures

were

Moreover,

re-

were particularly suitable for the

depiction of scenes that called for pronounced
lief figures

action.

Almost

as early as the action reliefs,

compositions of figures in the round were

placed in the pediments of temples.

There

are existing reliefs

illustrate

on pediments that

every step from the archaic

style,

famous panel showing Perseus

and the Gorgon (from an early sixth-century
temple at Selinus, a Greek colonial city in
Sicily), to the free action panels showing
Youths at Games on a statue base found at
as seen in a

Athens. Here, despite the archaistic treatment

of the heads, free bodily
variety of poses
first

time.

The

is

movement

in a

wide

achieved, perhaps for the

which was

athletic ideal

blossom during the next century

is

to

already

evident
Head. Stone. 7th century B.C. Colossal. Cyprus.
Cesnola Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Charioteer. Bronze. 470 b.c. Delphi.
Delphi Museum. QAlinari photo}

Head

of a Priest. Stone. C.

500

Cesnola Collection, Metropolitan

b.c. Cyprus.

Museum

of Art

Youths

at

Games,

relief. Stone. Attic, c.

510

b.c. National

Museum, Athens

(Vhoto by Clarence Kennedy^

Death of Aegisthos, high

relief. Stone.

Archaic. Argos.

Ny-Carlsherg Glyptothek, Copenhagen

One
is

of the finest of the transitional pieces

the panel depicting the

now

at

Death

Copenhagen. The

of Aegisthos,

relief displays the

major archaic conventions in the treatment of

hair

and drapery, but there

movement about

flowing

work

is

is

the

of Argos

is

The

relics are part of great decorative

groupings of statues once designed integrally

The figures from the

two pediments which formed the gable ends

with the architecture.

rhythmic,

of the temple vary greatly in lifelikeness. In

This

the nineteenth century they were subjected to

whole.

which flourished
Athens, where Hagelaidas

of the Argive school,

before the one at

realism.

reputed to have taught Polyclitus,

process

of enthusiastic

restoration

who added

heads, legs, and weapons as he

thought they would originally have looked.

The

ruins of the temple there are, in fact, the

Greece's progression toward her

to

suggest the

dawning

of the

new

first

classic

the

neo-classic sculptor

and Myron.
Another accomplished school was that of
Aegina, and the sculptures recovered from
Phidias,

at

Thorwaldsen,

hands of the

least battered

remain

The

of

great

(and

least restored) pieces

interest

as

restorations of the total

examples

of

classic ideal.

pediment com-

THE GREEKS
positions,

though doubtless inaccurate

are

tails,

aspect

105

instructive

suggestions

as

in de-

the

of

afforded by monumental temples

half-century

before

building

the

the

of

Parthenon.

The Hercules from

and

the Temple of Aegina

Dying Warrior are important

a similar

examples of the new, factual representation.

While hidden

restorations

the

increased

sculptors'

have been made,

and

mastery

their

grasp of free action are plainly to be seen.

Many

years before, the workers in bronze

had produced the superb Apollo shown at

left.
This was excavated as recently as 1959,
at Piraeus, the port of
life-size. It is

as

520

first

B.C.

The

Athens.

figure

is

dated by some scholars as early

It

might

monument

be termed the

fairly

Greek

fully in the Classical

style.
It

was about 460

sculpture reached a

that

b.c.

new

tion of the temple of

architectural

height in the decora-

Zeus

at

Olympia.

The

remains of the pediment groups, which were

destroyed by an earthquake, are unfortunately
Apollo. Bronze. Late 6th century b.c. Attica.

more scant than those recovered

National Museutn, Athens

but the fragments point toward a culmination

in the pediments

Perhaps the

and

friezes of the

finest of the

though not the most

Hercules. Stone. C. 485 B.C. Temple of Aegina.
Glyptotheky Munich. QGiraudon photo^

The
god,

strength portrayed here

known

cessful,

as

Parthenon.

Olympian
is

of

more than

The head

Kladeos,

is

figures,

the Apollo.

realistic, is

merely physical kind.

Aegina,

at

of a river

particularly suc-

and the modeling of the face

is

even

superior to that in the Apollo.

There were technical advances

in

relief

sculpture too, particularly in gravestones and

other commemorative stelae.

More appealing

than any surviving examples, however, are

the panels of the so-called Liidovisi Throne.

These are obviously of a period when sculptors still found decorative value in the old
conventions, while they strove for more realistic means of expression. In the Birth of
Aphrodite the
artificial

veil-like

garments create an

yet most pleasing effect, while the

rounding of the figures produced a feminine

charm not
positions,

earlier

encountered. Three com-

including one not visible in the

THE GREEKS

106

here,

illustration

were carved on one block

of marble.

The
about

athletic ideal

this time,

came

into full flower at

and the Discohohis

or Discus-

Thrower, by the most renowned of early

Greek

sculptors,

Myron,

is

exist, all of

Myron

which are more

or less imperfect.

his as a

triumph of reproductive

opinion

is

echoed in schoolbooks

art,

and

to this day.

many moderns who

artist

with the physical body.

this

agree

was overconcerned

is lost,

later

benefit

copies

work

Museum

original

The illustration here is the restoration

known as the Castel Porziano copy. The
Romans of Nero's time wrote of the Discoho-

with Pliny that the

original

the British

example

many Greek and Roman

however,

The

The

Discobolus of Myron, in bronze, does not

survive, but

are,

which probably formed part of

a larger

composition including the goddess Athena.

a pleasing

of the classical figure in action.

There

Equally accomplished was Myron's Marsyas,

of

is

but

if

the copy in

accurate and without

knowledge by the

copier,

achieved a comprehension of anatomy

and an all-around

lifelikeness

unknown

be-

fore his time.

The recendy

discovered bronze

according to some

scholars,

a further gain in exact copying.

though the statue

tegrity of the

is

in

its

Zeus or,

Poseidon marks
Interesting

own way,

mass has been

the in-

sacrificed for the

privilege of presenting a detailed imitation of

life

and

figure

action.

The whole

conception of the

can be considered anatomical rather

than sculptural.

Ludovisi Throne: Birth of Aphrodite. Stone. 5th century B.C.

National Museum, Rome. (^Alinari photo^

\
"^

Apollo, detail. Stone. C.

460

Kladeos, detail. Stone.

B.C.

Temple

Temple

of Zeus, Olympia.

of Zeus, Olympia.

Museum, Olympia.

Museum, Olympia.

CAlinari photo~)

QAlinari photo')

108

THE GREEKS

Zeus. Bronze. C.

460

Discus-Throiver. Bronze. Copy of original by

Myron. C. 450 B.C. National Museum, Rome.
QAlinari photo^

B.C. National

Museum, Athens

Marsyas. Bronze. Myron.

British

Museum

THE GREEKS
Gem-cuttino continued
ing minor
typical

to

be an outstand-

can be seen from these

as

art,

compositions.

During the

fifth

and

fourth centuries they were often amazingly

true to the model.
or engraving

on

of a finger-ring.

The
stone,

The

orioinal

was

a cutting

sometimes the stone

impression, taken usually

in

wax

or

plaster

of

Paris,

miniature bas-relief sculpture.

illustrated

follow

the

as

The examples

show how the jewel-like imprints

main lines of Greek sculptural

development, even while possessing the precision

and

crispness

that are required in

miniature.

iJlI^TSU/:

^^^^

Impressions from stone gems. Greek, 8th 1st centuries b.c.

of Fine Arts, Boston; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Museum

appears

109

THE GREEKS

10

Museum

Dionysus. Stone. C. 433 b.c. Parthenon, Athens. British

When the free-standing sculptures of Myron

were being produced,

the

Parthenon,

the

Athens dedicated to Athena Parwas being adorned with pediment

groups and friezes. The completion of this
great edifice marked the culmination of heroic
temple

at

thenos,

architectural sculpture.
sions

and

battles

The

long

subjects, proces-

since

standardized,

varied only in the devotional scenes centering

These minor

desses.

divinities are

godlike, familiar but remote.

human

The

yet

triangular

space occupied by Dionysus, and by the Three

as a group, was determined, of
by the architectural form of the pedi-

Goddesses
course,

The

ment.

entire composition within the pedi-

ment was known

as

The

Birth of Athena.

Un-

fortunately the central standing figures, pre-

sumably the commanding ones, are

The

lost.

The Athens

of

had drawn sculptors from all parts

Greece. Though Phidias has been named

of

from a group in the western pediment depict-

as

ing the contest between Athena and Poseidon

genius of the Parthenon, no

It has been possible to reconscheme of the western pediment

group of figures more plausibly than that of

around the

lives of the gods.

Pericles

the

directing

sculpture survives which can be identified for

From

and a small
Athena which
stood within the Parthenon, it would seem
that it was a pretentious and florid "showpiece"; in fact, the figure was encrusted with
plates of gold and ivory. It was approximately
certain as his.

descriptions

replica of his colossal statue of

forty feet in height.

Among

the extraordinar)' single figures of

the pediments, the Dionysus perhaps represents the highest

There

is

achievement of Greek genius.

a similar grandeur in the

Three God-

so-called Ilissos, symbolizing a river,

is

for the land.

struct the

the ones occupying the eastern pediment, but

again the dominating figures have perished.

The

Ilissos

suggests that the genius of the

artists

was hardly

ment

than

in

less

the

brilliant in

other.

one pedi-

Certainly

the

Athenian sculptors achieved a richness of

design and a show of power in repose unequaled in the pediments at Olympia and
Aegina.

One

(The
of the

Ilissos is illustrated

few

details that

on page 87.)

have escaped

THE GREEKS

Three Goddesses. Stone. Parthenon, Athens. British Museum

serious

since

damage

the

into place

in the twenty-four centuries

Parthenon sculptures were Kfted

is

the Horse of Selene.

At the

treme right of the eastern pediment,

ex-

filling

the edge of the

fectly

is
is

nature.

as

it

now

protrudes over

marks per-

There

the muzzle protruding outside and below the

much

base. It

grandeur about the piece, which

an

floor

museum

advance from archaic stylization

into the full Classical style.

the angle of the gable, the head rested, with

pediment

the

interpretation

The

designs in

Horse of Selene. Stone. Parthenon, Athens. British

and

an

at

once

enlargement

high and low

Museum

a simple

relief

of

are

Metopes. Stone. C. 440 B.C. Parthenon, Athens. British

Museum

THE GREEKS
only slightly

impressive than the figures

less

the round that decorated the pediments.

in

A series of ninety-two

sculptured compositions

formed the metopes,

originally

between the triglyphs

The

in

relief,

and of action

frieze.

of the figures

The two

situ

or

The

expression

natural

greater here than in any earlier

the

of

porticoes

335
in

is

only about

the highest projection

Phidias

Myron

is

the

first

is

depth

Vi inches, and

2V4 inches.

important

name

after

profusion of panels with narrative scenes in

the

of

Originally a frieze 525 feet long decorated

as

in space, yet the average

museums. The subject was the

skill

adapting their designs to

in

space.
is

the

of

panels

Greek work.
inner

mirac-

be seen, in

architectural

many

relief

and
Greek
Olympia was one of
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
It was more than forty feet high, and like
his Athena Parthenos it was cased in plates
of gold and ivory. In the throne upon which
the god sat were inlays also of ebony and
precious stones. Many minor statues were
set into the composition, and there was a

indicative

are

best sculptors

the

The low

ulously creates the effect of rounded forms

panels

deal chiefly with contests between the

in the faces

perfection."

"classical

the

Lapiths and the Centaurs.

shown

seeking to comprehend the mystery of

artists

the Doric

surviving examples, carved in very high

113

figures are

still

As

Parthenon.
to

sculpture,

in the history of

his figure of

Zeus

at

and others with painted

was

Panathenaic Procession, picturing a group of

relief

gods and with them the horsemen, marshals,

doubtless a wonderful and glittering example

sacrifice-bearers, musicians,

izens

who marched

to the

maidens, and

year during the Panathenaic Festival.

free action

sculptures

illustrated

The

and flowing rhythm of the com-

positions reached a

the

cit-

temple every fourth

has

of

new
the

been

peak, especially in

horsemen.
studied

The

endlessly

slab

by

scenes. It

of bravura sculpture, and to the Greeks it

was a holy symbol of the Olympian religion.

In the nineteenth century

classicist scholars,

accepting a series of "brilliant conjectures,"

praised Phidias as the greatest of

and

They

as

creator

of

the

Greek

artists

Parthenon marbles.

accepted as "in the style of Phidias"

Horsemen. Stone. C. 440 e.g. Frieze of the Parthenon, Athens

the incomparable Dionysus and the Three

Goddesses of the east pediment. In the twentieth

century scholars reassessed

these

ments, pointing out the fundamental

judgdiffer-

the
monumentally solid
and the two showpieces as
described by ancient writers and as known in
incomplete replicas. It became clear that
Phidias had been a showman and a director

ences

between

pediment

figures

of other artists rather than the foremost genius

of

Greek

sculpture.

He

died in disgrace, hav-

ing been accused, according to Plutarch, of inserting portraits of himself

elaborate

reliefs

on

the

and

Pericles in the

shield

of

Athena

Parthenos.

The names

of a

number

of Phidias's con-

temporaries are known, but only two or three

can be connected with surviving works.

Head
is

of

The

an Athlete (possibly a Roman copy)

ascribed to Cresilas,

famous bust of

who also sculptured

The athlete's head

Pericles.

Doryphoros. Stone.

Roman copy

of original by

450-440

b.c. National

Polyclitus. Argive,

Museum, Naples.
Boy Athlete,

QAlinari photo')

or Idolino. Bronze.
copy. Argive, c. 440 b.c.
Archaeological Museum, Florence. QAlinari photo')

Roman

Head of an Athlete. Stone. Attributed to Cresilas.

440-420 B.C. Metropolitan Museuttt of Art

THE GREEKS
smooth, harmonious perfection

illustrates the

at

which Athenian

In

it

we

115

had now

artists

arrived.

find the most prized attributes of the

Classical school: idealization, dignity, nobility,

firmness,

repose.

Polyclitus reached the athletic ideal in his

The

Doryphorus, or S-pear-Bearer.
wrote a

theme

on proportion

treatise

being

proportion

human model

of old as

the

presenting

the

rather than in compositional

Some

division or adjustment.
lieve the

in

sculptor
art,

in

authorities be-

Doryphorus to be the statue known

"the Canon," a demonstration piece

by which PolycHtus sought to illustrate the

ideal measurements of head, shoulders, arms,

and

legs.

Taking the palm

hand

of the

measurement, he constructed

basic

statues with thighs six

The

The head measured

total

height.

man

new^ interest in

t)'pe is illustrated

handsome, the body

slight,

The

face

rhythmic, and

Pausanias considered that

of youth.

typical

physical

as

again in the Boy Athlete,

sometimes known as the Idolino.

is

his

palms wide, feet three

palms long, and so on.

one-seventh of the

as a

all

Polyclitus in his time "had brought the art

of bronze-casting to perfection."

The
group

several figures

supposed

one

in

to

from a

the

illustrating

pediment
Niobe are

lost

of

stor)'

of

the

Asian

Peloponnesian

or

cities.

The Wounded Niohid shows

tically

no

an arrow

facial

in

prac-

though she has

contortion,

her back.

figure, its firm

The

dignity of the

modeling, and the rhythm of

the masses, raise

it

above most of the work

of the period, except for the Parthenon marbles.

Especially noticeable

is

the avoidance

and gesture that would carry the

observer's eye away from the center, a comof

line

mon

fault in the routinely sculptured athletes,

Amazons, and goddesses of the Polyclitan

and later schools.

About this time (after 435 b.c.) there

developed in Arcadia a school largely devoted
to the depiction of violent action.

and Amazons
temple

at

Wounded Niobid. Stone. C. 435 B.C.

National Museum, Rome. QAnderson photo^

have been the work of sculptors

Battling

on the

In Greeks

frieze

from a

Bassae near Phigaleia, Arcadia,

we

Greeks and Amazons Battling. Stone. Arcadian,

c.

420

B.C. Bassae. British

Museum

|l

Maiden Untying Her Sandal.

Stone. C.

410

b.c. Athens. Acropolis

Museum

THE GREEKS
thrown into confusion and horses
and stumbHng. Even garments are

see warriors

rearing

arranged so that they appear to be blown

117

balustrade of the Temple of Athena Victor

on the Acropolis. The draperies are rhythmically handled, and the way in which the

this

way and that, to increase the impression

movement. The designing is effective in
the large, and only a lack of subtlety in the

fabric clings to the curves of the maiden's

of

body brings

from taking

and wore a transparent little tunic."

Something of the same lightness, charm,
and liveliness characterizes the Venus Genetrix, although the work is known to us only
through copies. The original statue may have
been the A-phrodite of the Gardens by Alcamenes. As yet there were few female nudes

actual carving prevents the frieze

its

place with the great works.

The Athenian sculptors seldom carved a

more graceful and ingratiating figure than the
Maiden Untying Her Sandal. This is one
of the slabs

from a

frieze that

adorned the

lines

in

to

about the

Greek

mind
girl

Aristophanes'

famous

who "had had

a bath,

sculpture, but here, certainly, the

underlying graces of the body are more

re-

vealed than veiled by the effectively arranged

garments.

As

in the

Venus Genetrix,

so in

many

of

found on gravestones of the period,

effect
the sculptors sought was more
the
pretty than profound. The example illusthe reliefs

trated,

the gravestone of Hegeso,

the best
in

Venus Genetrix. Stone. Athenian, c. 400

Museum, Rome. (^Brogi photo^

B.C.

National

Gravestone of Hegeso. Stone. Athenian,

c.

400

B.C. Keramikos, Athens. QAli7iari photo}

its

known

of

its

particular field.

is

perhaps

type and a masterpiece

THE GREEKS
By

many

Greek writers, coinage

the Lydians in the
by
had been invented
eighth century B.C. Designed and identifiable

Greece proper and of the Asian, African,

disks of electrum, gold, and silver were used

coins.

for barter instead of cattle, axes, bullion, or

Greek designs

According

to

the

had previously been used

whatever

else

standard

measures

of

value

in

was Croesus of Lydia who

regularized minting and values.

regions.

It

as

different
first

the early fifth century

Sicilian,

are

Italian colony-states

the

ancient

in the average coin collection

Most

of these

the head of Arethusa, or Persephone, on

obverse,

and on the

reverse

favorite motive of a chariot.

Coins. Silver. Greek, 5th-4th centuries b.c. Bibliothequc Nationale, Paris;

of Art, Rhode Island School of Design; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Museum

were issuing

most beautiful

the Syracusan examples.

show
the

and

Perhaps

cities of

side

the

THE GREEKS
It

used

be said that the second great

to

dismiss such works as the

19

Hermes with

the

period of Greek sculptural art opened with

Infant Diot2ys2ts as merely pretty and aflfecting

the appearance of Praxiteles. Generations of

would not be

art-lovers

who

looked for faithful transcrip-

tions of attractive

models in graceful poses

praised the statues of Praxiteles

as

examples of supreme

time,

critics

and Lysippus

lithic art.

In our

who have reawakened

primitive

and

to

own

typical in

body.

Its soft

fair.

The

handsome

statue of

face

and

Hermes

is

substantial

modulations and pleasing finish

are a great deal

more expert than the work

of copiers in later centuries.

The

the

expressive

its

A-phrodite of Cnidos by Praxiteles was

one of the outstanding statues of the fourth

values

of

rather

than representational sculpture have

century.

The

to some extent undermined the reputations

Phryne,

of the fourth-century Classical masters. But to

shapely,

beauty, was obviously

and the sculptor has portrayed her

art

Hermes with Infant Dionysus.

of

Stone. Praxiteles. C.

350

b.c.

model, reported to have been

famous

Museum, Olympia.

QAlinari photo')

THE GREEKS

120
prettily

only

and acceptably although we have

Roman

replicas of the statue as evidence.

Ancient writers were eloquent in their praise

of

the

declared

original
in

his

marble
Natural

composition.

History

that

Pliny
"the

finest statue, not

only of Praxiteles but of the

entire world,

the Aphrodite.

is

traveled to Cnidos just to see

Many

have

be

figures.

statue,

ancient

copies

of

the

Cnidian

The Head of a Girl, from a draped

now at Toledo, is typical of the

Praxitelean grace, charm, and tenderness;

is

characteristic

face with

too

of

the

it

regular-featured

dreamy eyes then fashionable.

In the fourth century the sculptor Scopas

it."

Several heads exist which are considered to

from

Afhrodite or of other of Praxiteles' female

was among those who opposed the current

Afhrodite of Cnidos. Stone. Attributed

to Praxiteles. C.

340

b.c.

Louvre

tendency

human

and sentimentalize the

soften

to

figure, especially the face.

His model-

ing appears to have been vigorous and firm

while that of most of his contemporaries was

Unfortunately

weak.

the

only

uncontested

originals of Scopas that survive are fragmen-

tary or in poor condition.

Also of the fourth century was Lysippus,

who

has generally been

and Scopas
masters.

He

named with

Praxiteles

one of the foremost Greek

as

tried

to

perpetuate the natural

own

idealism of Praxiteles and invented his

canon of proportion,
done.

No

Polyclitus

as

surviving works are

from his hand,

Roman

just

copy,

known

the

A-poxyomenos, suffers in

typically naturalistic figure of

is

commonly

be

and the one outstanding

comparison with copies from Praxiteles.

cannot be

had

to

The

Hermes Resting

Head of a Girl. Stone. School of Praxiteles.

Late 4th century B.C. Toledo Museum of Art

attributed to Lysippus, but this

verified.

Hermes

Resting. Bronze. Attributed to Lysippus. 4th century b.c. National

Museum, Naples

l|

THE GREEKS

122
The

relief

panels on the so-called sarcoph-

agus of Alexander are characterized by vigor

and

lively action.

Though

they

the melodramatic side, there

is

may be on
no denying

that the presentations of Alexander in battle

against the Persians,

and Alexander

in a lion

hunt, are visually exciting. In small reproductions the composition seems crowded, but
in

reality

well spaced and

the

figures

the

characteristic

are

rhythmic.

Among

reliefs

of

the

mid-fourth century, the most famous was the

frieze decorating the

of Caria,

tomb

of Mausolus, ruler

The Mausoleum

at Halicarnassus.

The

panels are superior to the designs on

the

Sarcophagus

of

Alexander

(produced

several decades later) in their simpler

position

and the firmer handling

dividual figures. Scopas

is

com-

of the in-

believed to have

Battle Scene. Stone. 4th century b.c.

been one of the sculptors involved in the

making of these vigorous reliefs, but no
specific part of the frieze

can be convincingly

ascribed to him.

In

the

fourth

century

the

decline

of

monumental sculpture into naturalism was

matched by the rise of lifelike portraiture.
The statuette Socrates was not a study from
the life (the philosopher had been put to
death in 399 B.C.) but was a later sculptor's
version,

and

expressing alertness, inquisitiveness,

As sculpture

kindliness.

achieves

it

sense of controlled organization.

had said that the purpose of porwas to represent a man's features,

Aristotle
traiture

"and, without losing the likeness, to render

him handsomer than he

Great objected

to

is."

Alexander the

being portrayed

and appointed Lysippus

Mausoleum, Halicarnassus.

British

sole

realistically

imperial

por-

Museum

So-called sarcophagus of Alexander. Stone. 4th century B.C. Istanbul Miiseuvi

iMptll^piljjiliM^iM^y;
W\V^iV^nV^)(V<)l^^llV^)IV^)iV^iaf)\^^ilV*MV^MV?MVtMVti|V'*'IVm'?'IV'Vf'lVfMWMWi|V'f'K^'t\f'IVf'n^'l\^'tV^(\?'i\''\
UtHkUtULULUlULUtUklitULiik

:m;.);.y|y^.^A:;.>>^
.

-.^<

THE GREEKS
traitist

according

because,

had

others

and leonine

"failed

The

Lysippus made

look."

This

them.
parallel
ture.

rather

bust here

than
is

sort

Plutarch,

all

convey his masculine

to

of Alexander, picturing

queror

to

123

him

many

busts

as a heroic con-

plausible

individual.

probably a copy of one of

of

with the

heavy idealization ran

realistic

Hellenistic sculp-

Comparison with the bust

of Pericles

by Cresilas may suggest that little progress

had been made in the intervening years.

The

fourth century was also notable for

the charming terra-cotta statuetttes generally

known

as

cates the
in

Tanagra

figurines.

provenance of the

modern times and

also

The name
first

one of the impor-

tant sites of manufacture. Less well

are the Alyrina figurines

made by

Socrates. Stone.

Pericles. Stone. Cresilas. 5th century B.C.

British

Museum

known

the artisans

Roman copy.
Museum

After 350 b.c. British

Alexander. Stone. Lysippus. 4th century B.C.

Capitoline Museum, Rome. QAlinari photo^

indi-

large finds

THE GREEKS

24

Myrina

of

were

Minor. In addition, there

in Asia

schools

sculptors

of

devoted

the

to

miniature clay compositions in Smyrna, in

Rhodes,

and,

way,

smaller

many

in

including Athens and the Greek com-

cities,

munities in

Italy.

Terra-cotta

from

in

statuettes

had been common

but in the fourth century

earliest times,

the sculptors abandoned the subjects that had

been popular earlier notably the gods and
specialized in
girls,

intimate portraits of

and eccentric

characters.

women,

Women,

grace-

fully dressed, conversing, walking, reclining,

dancing, were the commonest and the most

successfully
figures

are

subjects.

treated

are attractive

illuminating

as

Many

the

of

and engaging, and

social

documents.

all

The

examples shown. Dancing Girl and Standing

Woman,

are typical of the

to

The

Myrina were more amand they often returned to the gods

and legends for their subjects. Four exceptional little statuettes from Myrina and other
sculptors of

bitious,

provincial centers are illustrated.

The Crouch-

ing Eros and the Ve^ms Rising from the Sea,

at the

Royal Ontario Museum, are examples

which combine exquisite

superior

feeling

Horseman,

at the

for

sensibility

plastic

Louvre,

is

with a

rhythm.

The

another excep-

tional piece.

After the conquests of Alexander,

vast territories outside

when

Greece were Hellenized

and leadership slipped from Athens and the

original Greek territories, eccentric portraits,
and occasionally pornographic
caricatures,

Girl; Standing Woman. Clay. Hellenistic. Tanagra.

Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Louvre. QGiraudon photo^

Dancing

many hundreds

be seen in the world's museums.

THE GREEKS
genre compositions became a "leading line"

among

the

statuette-makers.

At Smyrna

pecially, the artisans delighted in oddities

exaggeration.

Favorite

subjects

were

es-

and

Eros,

old people, actors, slaves, and the like; and

there

was an extraordinary run

caricature heads.

now

lost

from

The
his

of miniature

bent Slave (the bundle

back) gains sculpturally

from the clever exaggeration of natural

fea-

125

and the Comic Actor, a Boeotian piece,

extraordinarily alive and expressive.
The two caricature heads, which might be
tided "Loud-Mouth" and "Thick-Head," are
typical of the combined alert observation,
tures,

is

also

satirical

intention,

and

intuitive

feeling for

medium that went into the artisans'

equipment. They are from a large collection
the

of caricature heads at the Louvre.

Caricature heads. Clay. Hellenistic.

Smyrna. Louvre. (Tel photo')

Comic

Slave. Clay. Hellenistic.

Smyrna. Louvre

Boeotia.

Venus Rising from the Sea; Crouching Eros; Horseman; Cupbearer. Clay.

Actor. Clay. Hellenistic.

Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston

Hellenistic. Tanagra; Myrina.

Royal Ontario Museum; Louvre. QAlinari photo^

THE GREEKS

126

Whatever Greek sculpture may have

in the later centuries, dignity

One

very end.

remained

the grander

of

after the Hellenistic dispersion

and

spirited Victory of

is

lost

to the

generalized and

that

the

monuments

rather than a

preserved

many

is

possible

to

for

generic

woman

it

stands

statue

the majestic

Samothrace or Winged

which

least

naked model. The head

is

feel

better

than most ancient examples and

shows the persistence of the ideal

classic face.

group of horses surmounting the porch of

St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. Once an
adornment of a Roman arch in Byzantium,

During the latter and more degenerate

phases of Greek culture, one of the largest
monuments of architecture and sculpture, the
Altar of Pergamon, was erected in Asia Minor.
This had an enormous frieze on which the
battle between the gods and the giants was
pictured in high relief. The work here is too
vigorous and melodramatic to be counted

the Horses of St. Mark's were for long con-

among

Victory, in the Louvre,

servers

ranks

still

among

for

ob-

the greatest statues

in the world.

Almost the only equestrian monument suris the imposing

viving from late Greek times

sidered

Roman origin, but their

now generally accepted as

be of

to

provenance

is

breath of

What

remained of Greek
in

and

went

into

cutting.

beauty.

No

Hellenistic era

the

the devoted re-creation of

human

god was so glorified as Aphrodite, and in the

artists' hands she became a very womanly
woman. Some of the most famous life-size
nude figures are shown on pages 128 and
129. One can realize what study and loving

went

care

into the conception

and carving

Cyrenian Afhrodite and the Syracusan

of the

sculpture

repro-

Aphrodite.

Insofar as

ductive

and observation of and feeling

art,

is

for

natural beauty a source, these are examples

of high accomplishment.

In

this

realistic

sculpture the comeliness

of the model counts for a great deal.

observers find the Capitoline
similar

Venus de Medici^

it

originality

them.
freshness

the masterpieces of sculpture, but

important as 'marking the culmination of a

tendency to which it gave the name "the

Pergamene style." This style had already
begun to form in the days of Scopas. Technically it is distinguished by a special boldness
of handling, with vigorous ridging and under-

Whatever their date, there is a

grandeur and monumentality about

Grecian.

is

Some

Venus (and

the

less attractive be-

The method

is

nowhere

better illustrated

than in the portrait of Homer.

and verve here

a

series

of

The

strength

are tj'pical of the handling of

portraits of famous poets,

and statesmen, which do not

t)'pe

philosophers,

pretend to be personal portraits but rather

crystallizations of the popular idea of

Homer,

Socrates, or Epicurus. Paradoxically they are

conventionalized in the Pergamene

yet remain

manner

naturalistic in the sculptor's obser-

and intention. Even the head of

Anytos, an extreme example of the Pergamene
vation

type of carving, with turbulent modeling, has

a lifelike aspect.

The
through

Dying

Gladiator,

replicas, is

The head

so

well

known

another example of this

cause the clean-cut, athletic ideal seems to

style.

have given place

amplitude

but the anatomical truthfulness, together with

These were among the univera few decades ago.

the sentimental subject-matter, has made the

work famous. This was the Dacian "butchered
to make a Roman holiday," whom Byron

and

softness.

sally

The
in

to a preference for

admired statues only

A'pollo

Belvedere has similarly fallen

popularity,

on

account

of

the

fem-

inine head and the almost painfully naturalistic

A'phrodite of Melos, or

Venus de Milo,
more

a refreshing figure after a century or

of facsimile realism.

not especially noteworthy,

wrote about in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

The

Capitoline

example

is

copy of the

bronze original from the Pergamene Acropolis.

treatment of the body.

The
is

is

Here womanhood

is

at

Recent authorities prefer the name Dying

Gaid and reject the gladiatorial inference.
Athens was not without sculptors to vie

Victory of Samothrace.
Stone. Rhodian, c. 250 B.C.
Louvre. (^Roget-V toilet photo^

T 'J*

<#

w
Syracusan Aphrodite. Stone. 3rd century
Museum. QAlinari photo^

B.C. Syracuse

Horses of

St.

Mark's. Bronze. 4th century B.C. San

Cyrenian Aphrodite,
B.C. National

detail. Stone.

3rd century

Museum, Rome. QAnderson photo^

Marco Cathedral, Venice.

(^Alinari photo")

.__..

THE GREEKS

Yenus de Medici. Stone.

Hellenistic.

Ufjizi Gallery, Florence.

QBrogi photo^

Homer. Stone. Greco-Roman.

British Miisentn

Aphrodite of Melos,

detail. Stone.

Louvre.

29

C. 150 B.C.

(Jciorillo photo')

The Titan Anytos. Stone. 2nd century

National Museum, Athens

B.C.

Laocoon. Stone. Rhodian, 1st century b.c. Vatican

Museum

The Dying Gladiator. Stone, after bronze original.

Pergamene, 2nd century B.C. Capitoline Musemn, Rome

THE GREEKS

131

with those of the Pergamene and Rhodian

As seen

Schools.

carved

The

Athenian

in the

style

was hardly

practiced

that

it

the

in

Although Glycon
cules,

work

of Glycon,

who

Farnese Hercules, the Hellenistic

is

forced than
schools.

credited with the Her-

sometimes

is

less

provincial

considered

be

to

model by Lysippus.
After Greece succumbed politically to the
Roman armies, Greek restraint in matters of
art also came under pressure from the Romans, and the style that evolved became
an

after

known
were

as

still

We

earlier

Greco-Roman. The

artists,

however,

Greeks.

see

the

degeneration

of

vigor

into

and even sculptural anarchy

in the Laocoon, a group of figures by the
Rhodian sculptors Agesander, Polydorus, and
physical violence

Athenodorus. The work would hardly be

worth reproducing, had it not precipitated
one of the most protracted debates in the
later histor)' of aesthetics, a

debate revolving

around the question of emotion's place in art,

and especially around the humbug of the
pathetic appeal.
restored after

and

new

initiated in

The Laocoon was

its

discover^' in

restoration

or

extensively

1506 in Rome,

"correction"

was

i960.

As often happens
period of decline, the
a final effort to

at

the end of a long

artists of

Greece made

upgrade their sculpture by

returning to older masters for their inspiration.

They

copied the surface virtues of the sculp-

ture of the fourth century

into

the

territory

Occasionally they

and even ventured

of fifth-century archaism.

managed

to achieve the old

grace and naturalness, but the creative

fire

had long since burned out.

Five hundred years after the carving of
the archaic korai and kouroi, the story of
Greek sculpture came to an end with graceful
but weak and conventional work. The West-

em
i /.e

i.w,.^,^ iLi^.ii^'. .Munc. Glycon.

century B.C. National

QAnderson photo^
1st

Athenian,

Museum, Naples.

world was waiting for a

in art.

There was an

air of

new impetus

expectancy, as

heralding the birth of Christ.

if

6:

Roman

Etruscan and

Sculpture

I
I

Augustan Rome there was

vogue

for

twentieth century did English-speaking peo-

Etruscan literature and for Etruscan bronze

ple

While the Imperial Romans reverenced Greek art, they recognized that an
antecedent native art had existed and that
this had served as a foundation for their

Victorians

sculpture.

own

artistic

achievement. Especially admired

were the statues brought

conquered mid-Italian
long

to

cities.

Etruscan

periods,

art

Rome from

the

Later,

and over

was

forgotten.

During the eighteenth century the sculpture

was rediscovered and Italian and German
scholars contributed to the literature about

However, only

after

the

it.

beginning of the

begin

to

who

as "rude sculptors"

fully to imitate the

The

range

of

the

the

art,

Etruscans

attempted unsuccess-

Greek

style.

Etruscan

sculpture

is

re-

markable. As well as the primitive, simple

work,

realistic pieces existed at

The most

an early

unnatural

and

date.

interesting examples to the twen-

tieth-century eye are the spirited

statuettes

of

and frankly

warriors,

maidens,

and the magnificent

bronzes of animals which might well have
been inspired by Scythian art. There are not
votive

figures,

She-Wolf or CapitoUne Wolf. Bronze. Etruscan, early 5th century

Museo

Etruscan

appreciate

having dismissed

dei Conservatori, Rojne. C^^if^^fi photo')

b.c.

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

only

resemblances

stylistic

but exactly

re-

At one time Roman

art

was universally

considered a reflection of Greek art (accom-

Roman

by imported or captured

soil

Greeks), and the outstanding achievements

Roman

of

and

sculptural artistry, in portraiture

decorative

in

relief-cutting,

were

garded as extensions of the Greek or

re-

classic

one can judge by the sculpture exhumed

If

Herculaneum, and other

Pompeii,

what counted most

of the Empire was Greek

to the art-loving

desses,

statuary

sites,

Roman
of

period especially

Hellenistic

realistic

the

the

of

figurines

terra-cotta

Tanagra,

Myrina, and Rhodes. The conquering Roman

armies brought back to their capital city
marvels

Greek

of

sculptural

achievement.

Emperor Nero is recarried

away five hundred
to
have
ported
statues. The Etruscan sculptors, who were
already proficient at portraiture, possibly were
then influenced by Hellenistic naturalism.

From Delphi alone

What Rome

Etruscan

art

By

in the

flowering of

the mid-fourth

Roman

century Greek influence and

modified the native Etruscan

pressure

although

style,

superb manufactures in bronze were

still

pro-

There followed the indeterminate

Etrusco-Roman period, and even after the
Romans became masters of a vast empire that

the

known

included

minor

all

arts

Roman
I.

Period

from

of Etruria, certain typical Etruscan

were fostered by the emperors.

history can be divided roughly
of

the

consolidation

earliest

as:

and expansion,

settlement

perhaps as early as looo

B.C.,

in

Latium,

through the

period of the city-states and local kings to

the expulsion of the last Etruscan king of

Rome
509

in about 509 B.C. 2. Republican period,

B.C. to

27

B.C.

3.

Imperial period, from

the Augustan age through the great era of

conquest and building

Aurelius in a.d.

180.

to the
4.

death of Marcus

Degeneration and

for artistically

break-up of the empire, ending with the final

immense structures decorated with

and also, toward the end of its
era, the impressive carved tombs and

occupation by the barbarians in a.d. 476. Be-

is

best

the

date the Byzantine style

fore that

born in Eastern

In portraiture there were

always the

portraits.

occasional

variations

in

the

form of

full-

wealth of

human

interest

is

to

appeared

to

the

be found

and wives

the age of Virgil, Horace, Ovid,

realism

in

as they

uninhibited portraitists of

the time. In the Augustan era,

sculpture

which was
and Livy,

reached a peak.

The

quantity of sculpture produced by and for

Romans would seem to have exceeded

known to any other Western civilization.
A few historical guideposts may help one

that

appreciate

the

chapter. First there

work illustrated in this

was a pre-Etruscan period,

from which sculptural fragments are

rare.

These are artifacts of the Villanovans, Bronze

Age Indo-Germanic people who had pushed

to

sweep all but the last vestiges of the Roman

style from large areas of Europe.

in the faithful imaging of emperors, generals,

senators, actors, courtesans,

had been

Christendom, destined

length figures and equestrian statues.

to

Then

occurred from the seventh cen-

tury to the late fifth century.

great

the

The

tenth or ninth century B.C.

bas-reliefs,

north.

overcame the "native" people, probably

god-

nymphs, and legendary heroes and

late

are

Tuscany from the

duced.

style.

at

into

the Etruscans presumably invading by sea-

peated idioms.

plished on

down

133

Kouros. Bronze.
Etruscan, 7th-6th
centuries B.C.
Metropolitan
Museum of Art

II

MANY
are in

of the
at the

trated here in the bronze Warriors.

figures of priestesses

and gods (or

as illus-

There

are

athletes) be-

longing to the same period, similarly stylized,

thinned and rhythmic.

bronzes,

and

development of the Greek kouroi, and

main Hellenic centers of the art there
hardly an example to be compared

of the early Etruscan bronzes

an attenuated idiom,

few

Some

seventh-century

figures in the native huc-

was

artistically

with a host of Etruscan "Apollos,"

and female worshipers.

athletes,

Despite the tendency to depart from nature

and render the

total figure

rhythmically and

manner,

chero or black-clay ware, seem closer to the

decoratively,

Phoenician or the Greek

Etruscans soon began a course of individ-

shown

in the

authorities,

subtle

museums

sculpture

style. If

the examples

by the
was more

are not misdated

in

Etruria

and expressive than that in Greece

This was at the very beginning

at the time.

ualized

in

The

Oriental

representation.

when Greek
with

an

type
clav

sculpture

faces

Woman

and

This was

was

still

at

Portrait figures on a sarcophagus. Clay. Early 6th century B.C.

Cerveteri. Villa Giulia, Rome. QAiidersati photo^

time

concerned

standardized

illustrated,

the

figures.

from the British

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

Museum,
It

is

patently an individual portrait.

is

one of a

features,

135

the

series

which the
and the expression

in clay in

contours,

vary widely.

The

Etruscans could, however, yield to a

vogue and meet foreign

ground.

with

The

all its

rivals

on

their

own

kouros figure finds treatment

limitations recognizably

many bronze

if

liberally

and the
so-called A'pollo of Veii in clay witness. Even
the "archaic smile," which conditioned Greek
observed, as

representation of the

athletes

human

face for a con-

siderable period longer, appeared in the prod-

ucts of Etruscan studios.

The

portraits

on the

lids

of

sarcophagi

yielded temporarily to the vogue, as in the

double-portrait arrangement on the sarcoph-

agus from Cerveteri.

identification

is

The

intent of personal

plain, despite the smile

and

a likeness in the two faces arising out of a

Woman.
Warriors. Bronze. Etruscan. 7th century B.C.
University Museum, Philadelphia;
MetropoUtaji Museum of Art

British

Clay. C. 600 b.c.

Sculpture,

Museum. QFrom Etruscan

courtesy Phaidon Press,

London^

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

136

The statues on coffin

man entombed, or

conventional method.

likeness of the

in

slabs,

the man and his wife, are among the commonest and most distinctive relics from pre-

Roman

The

Italy.

gressively

more

Roman

Many
even

portraiture of the Republican era.

of the sarcophagus groups are "light,"

general

in

satiric,

used

pro-

until that pitch of

was attained which led on

exact delineation
to

became

portraits

realistic,

to teach that

and somber, but

art

was funereal

possible

is

it

Authorities

aspect.

Etruscan

these

that

people, like the Egyptians, enjoyed planning

and contemplating

The
is

their

charming tombs.

so-called A-pollo of Veii, in terra cotta,

Greek work of the time, more

is any other important statue.

related to

obviously than

The

treatment of the hair, the brows, the eyes,

and the smiling

and

lips is clearly Hellenic,

the treatment of the draperies closely parallels

500 B.C. But

unusual boldness in the thrust and

that seen in the korai of about

there

is

stride of the figure,

and the face

is

lifelike

and individual.

The Worshiper
earlier date,

in

probably

bronze,

of

a marvel of sculptural expres-

is

sionism, distorted anatomically for both decorative purpose

and increase of meaning.

twentieth-century

Votive Figure. Bronze. Etruscan, 7th-6th

centuries b.c. University Museum, Philadelphia

Lehmbruck could hardly

have slenderized and manipulated a body

with happier sculptural

effect.

not a variation of a type but

The
is

interpretation of an individual.

the

face

is

artist's

Though

the

idiom or mannerism of thinning the figure

persisted through four centuries,

one of the

surprising- things about Etruscan bronzes

is

the wide variation of types and methods.

Vigor and animation distinguished Etruscan sculpture, and in the animal pieces these
qualities

attained

perfection.

smaller bronze figures,

orative

accessories

on

Some

which appear
vases,

of

the

as dec-

carriages,

and

furniture, suggest a relationship to the spirited

animal sculpture of the Scyths.

The two

early

shown here, probably eighth-century,

are somewhat characteristic of the "steppe art."
In the Chimera at Florence the animal's
pieces

strength

has

Head

of a Warrior. Stone. Etruscan, 6th century

Museum, Florence.

B.C. Archaeological

been expressed in a frankly

QBrogi photo^

Apollo of Veil. Clay. Late 6th century B.C.

Villa Giulia, Rome. QAlinari photo}
Warrior. Bronze. Late 6th century b.c.
Louvre. QGiraudon photo')

Worshiper. Bronze. 6th century B.C.

Rome. (Fro?H Etruscan Sculpture,
courtesy Phaidon Press, London')

Villa Giulia,

wj;^:k

138

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

Pantheress. Bronze. Etrusco-Roman.

Dumbarton Oaks

Collection,

Washington

Chimera. Bronze. 5th century b.c. Arezzo. Archaeological Museum, Florence. QAlinari photo')

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

decorative creation.

brought

to a

new

It is

139

the Scythian formula

refinement. Other animal

as the head terminating

and the ibex head and
neck stemming unaccountably from the ani-

forms are added, such

the

chimera's

tail,

mal's back.

The

Pantheress,

thorities

typical

by some auexhibits

the

and verve hardly known

Roman product. Again ornamen-

litheness

in the later
tation

described

Etrusco-Roman,

as

superimposed, on the throat.

is

The She-Wolf, sometimes known

as

the

Wolf and famous as a symbol of

the founding of Rome, is another example of
Cafitoline

with both decorative and

Nothing could be truer to
wolfish nature, to strength and alertness. The
superb

limning
intent.

realistic

ornamental treatment of the

fur, in arbitrarily

chosen areas only, indicates that the intention

non-naturalistic. The presence of Romulus
and Remus in the statue today distracts attention from the animal and destroys sculptural unity. The child figures were added at
is

the time of the Renaissance.

is

(The

illustration

on page 132.)

The

Etruscan workers in bronze sometimes

achieved an equal elegance and suavity in

sculpturing the

Hercules body
satiny,

Hercules or Warrior. Bronze. Early 5th century

B.C. Nelsoti Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City

Bull, aquamanile;

while

human
is

the

The

figure.

bronze

clean-cut, smoothed, even

characteristic

contrast

is

gained by ornamental enrichment of the scant

draperies

and texturing

of hair

and beard.

wheeled censer. Bronze. 8th 7th centuries b.c. Tarquinia Museum. (^Anderson photo')

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

140

Like the Chinese, the Etruscans frequently

combined

and free-standing

reliefs

embellish metal vessels.

The

figures to

legs, clasps,

and

handles were adapted from objective nature,

and

pictorial scenes in relief either circled the

vessel, as here, or filled four side panels.

elaborate composition

on top of the

The

cist is a

device often encountered.

museums once
The more usual

Scores of statuettes in our

adorned the
subjects

were

lids

of urns.

acrobats, or satyrs

and nymphs,
body

or warriors: a single acrobat arched his

Bronze

cist

to

form a handle, or two wrestlers formed a

and a nymph stood with arms

loop; a satyr

two warriors carried a mate crosswas used to vary the

formula, and the technique of the casting

locked, or

wise. Great inventiveness

and finishing was extraordinarily refined.

Such figures are found on incense-burners,
candelabra, mirrors, and other small furniture,
as well as on vessels.
There was a special division of Etruscan
sculpture in terra cotta in which naturalism
was pursued

for its

with relief of Amazons in battle. Vatican

own

sake.

Some

oversize

Museum

H^H^^^^/^^^M
Etruscan Dining. Portrait on sarcophagus cover. 3rd century b.c.
Archaeological Museum, Florence. QBrogi photo')

^^P^^^^^H

^^H

^80^

r-

\v^

'

jAfl

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

tion

the rich

for

Roman

pictorial

were

sculptors

to

reliefs

make

most distinctive contribution

141
which

in

their second

to sculpture.

After Greek influence had been assimilated

in the Etrurian cities, local sculptors created

panels and even temple friezes in which each

was obviously studied from

figure

They

life.

reached a degree of truthfulness unsurpassed

even by the melodramatic works

carnassus and Pergamon.
in the scene of warriors

gus

Boston

at

cutting suffers

is

The

Hali-

at

design

relief

on a stone sarcopha-

The

simple and stylized.

somewhat from crudeness, but

the sculptural effect carries well to a distance.

This was preparatory

to the

famous Warriors'

Dance of the Roman collection

Museum.
During the fourth century
important

to lose

of a Woman. Clay. 3rd century b.c.

Civic Museum, Chiusi. QTrom Etruscan Sculpture,
courtesy Phaidoti Press, London')

Head

and

warriors, with every detail of dress

ac-

couterment meticulously shown, are notable.

But the more engaging examples are the portrait slabs adorning sarcophagi and cinerary
urns. The deceased was usually shown reclining, often as if dining in the Roman manner.
The faces were minutely representational and
cruelly candid.

The Head

and

Woman

at

Chiusi

is

a strik-

ing example of the progress of portraiture.

suggests modeling from life

and shows

It

psy-

chological understanding, recalling the Egyp-

Amarna

in

on the cover

is

tian realism of the sculpture at El

the time of Akhenaton.

Greeks, another gives

it

The Head of an
Museum is another

Athlete in

its

to the Etruscans.

modeling
edge

is

the sides of the casket. Etruscan portraiture

Roman

as the

because

it

it

The

Every

even forcefully marked, yet

the details comprise a whole

and sculpturally compelling.

final

to bear

firmness and

vigorous but restrained.

is

clearly,

fitting

likely

its

British

dated by

could hardly be mistaken as Hellenic.

examples of more standard decorative

or formalized sculpture in the relief panels on

sarcophagus or urn

is

the

masterpiece,

clean-cut, subtly formalized expression

life-size

portrait

Etruria began

Romans; but as the art of the vanquished

merged into the art of the victors, Etruscans
became the most accomplished of Roman
artists. There were, too, increasing waves of
influence from Greece, so that the fine workmanship ceased to be identified nationally.
The brilliant Head of a Horse at Florence
would seem to be in direct line from the
Chimera and the Pantheress illustrated previously. Elsewhere the styles are so mixed that
while one scholar credits the piece to the

The
known

Even when the

Vatican

territories to the

experts as late as 200 b.c. In

of a

naturalistic, the

cities

at the

that

is

massive

bronze portrait of Aule Meteli,

Orator or the Arringatore,

is

example of Etruscan invention,

leads directly into the following

developments. Again the portraiture

is

led into the literal

exact and uncompromising. Neither decora-

traiture

tive

and precise sculptural porof the Romans, and the relief panels

of the Etruscans partly afforded the inspira-

nor rhythmic intention

is

important com-

pared with presentation of an image true

to

142

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

every wrinkle, hair, and mole of the original.

The

apotheosis of this naturalistic

method

ap-

pears in the illustrations on pages 144 and

145.

Perhaps the excellent forthright

The Actor

C. Norhamis Sorix,

is

portrait,

the best

surviving example of a transitional type, in

which sculptural

nobility

with painstaking

fidelity.

The

Roman

t)'pical

is

discernible, along

portrait soon lost the

Etruscan characteristics, except the

ness,

as

in

lifelike-

the marble portrait bust at the

Museum

Metropolitan

of

Art,

illustrated,

which would seem to be marvelously exact,

but hard and cruel. Henceforward there is
only a determination to present the individual as he

is,

manner) nor

neither improved (in the

at

any point

Greek

falsified for

fancied

most

telling

aesthetic requirements.

The Roman gallery

men of an

record of the

is

the

era as they outwardly

looked, stripped of dignity, pride,

Head of a Horse. Bronze. Etruscan.

Archaeological Museum, Florence. QBrogi photo")

The

Relief on a stone sarcophagus. 3rd century b.c.

Sarcophagus. Stone. Tarquinia

and inner

aim was to reveal character,

not in the noble sense, by portraying essential
humanity or divinity, but by imaging the
individuals with their defenses down. As
light.

artists'

Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston

Museum. ^Anderson photo)

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

Orator. Bronze. 3rd or 2nd century B.C.

Archaeological Museim2, Florence. QBrogi photo')

Head

143

of an Athlete. Bronze. Etruscan,

c. 200 B.C. British Museum

The Actor

C. Norhanus Sorix.
Bronze. Etrusco-Roman, 1st century
B.C. National Museum, Naples. QAlinari photo)

Portrait bust. Marble. Roman, 1st

century B.C. Metropolitan Museum of Art

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

144

often as not, evidences of physical degeneration are

added

decadent character,

to those of

Boston

as seen in the clay portrait bust in the

Museum,
The rather

battered first-century B.C. stone

Museum might

head in the Metropolitan

be

entitled

"The

pression.

The head in the British Museum is

menacing subject, and the workman-

of a less

Pugilist," so brutal

the im-

notable for the subtle, flowing model-

ship

is

ing,

although the material

The

portrait bust of

sort.

is

follows

It

Greco-Roman

hardest marble.
is

the

closely

style

is

Seneca

known

of a different

late

as

Greek

or

Pergamene,

with rough exaggeration of the features and a

sketchy

vigorous,

however,

is

Sometimes
bust of a

technique.

Lifelikeness,

not sacrificed.
historical interest is

man who was

despot. In general the rulers

Rome were shown more

added

in the

a military genius or

and emperors

of

sympathetically, with

some softening if not idealization. This is true

the head reputed to be that of Julius

of

Portrait busts. Stone. 1st century B.C.

Museum of Art; British Museum

Metropolitan

.X\

'/

Portrait bust. Clay. Roman.

of Fine Arts, Boston

Museum

Seneca. Stone. 1st century a.d. Vffizi Gallery, Florence. QBrogi photo')

Supposed bust of Julius Caesar. Stone.

Louvre. QGiraudon photo)

Pompey. Stone. Natiotial Museujii, Naples.

(^Anderson photo)

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTU

146

is illustrated, and of the bust of

Pompey. By the time of Augustus the sculptors, possibly Greek, frankly improved upon

Caesar w hich

nature.

The famous
in the Vatican

full-length figure of
is

excellent mythological
in

relief

Cupid
It is

upon

Augustus

a showpiece, enriched with

and

historical

the breastplate,

scenes

and with

riding a dolphin at the emperor's feet.

the best full-length figure in the whole

range of

Roman

appropriately opulent

effort,

and imperial, though lacking in sculptural

integrity. The most interesting part of it is
shown in the illustration, from which some
disturbing elements the outstretched oratorical arm, the lance, the wooden, overlabored
draperies, and the Cupid have been sheared.
Of the studies of children, one of the most
appealing

the portrait

is

Youthful Roman.

Mastery of child portraiture followed long

after that of reproduction of the adult face

and

figure.

medieval

As we know from ancient and

the child was often limned as a

art,

small man. So rare are realistic children in

classical sculpture that

many

standard books

on the subject yield no more than an occasional

tively.

Cupid

or a bevy of babes used decora-

Here, however, the

artist

has realized

Augustus, detail. Bronze. C. 20 B.C.

Vatican Museum. QAnderson photo^

the special anatomical character of the youthful head.

In the symbolic statue

The

Nile, the chil-

dren (there are sixteen of them, representing

the cubits of the river's annual rise) are

among

some question as to whether

the statue may be Greek rather than Roman.
The Nero on a horse is one of the curithe best. There

osities of

is

Roman

sculpture.

The

masses have

been related with some competence; there

is

even a certain nobility in the stance of the

whose intention was

some of the requirements of
correct reporting. Other equestrian statues,
notably a marble one portraying Lucius Cornelius Balbus and a bronze one of the
Emperor Marcus Aurelius, suffer from the
same fault. The animals are out of drawing.
The compositional relationship of horse and
rider has not been solved.
horse.

But the

sculptor,

realistic, failed in

Youthful Roman. Stone. Barracco

Museum, Rome. CAUnari photo')

Nero, equestrian statue. Bronze. 1st century a.d. Pompeii.

National Museum, Naples. C^rogi photo~)

The

Nile. Stone.

Greco-Roman. Vatican Museum. QAnderson photo')

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

148
The

tradition

of

naturalistic

delineation

The

continues long after the Augustan age.

portrait of L.

Caecilius Jucundus, a banker,

belongs to the reign of Nero, in the second

half of the
It

is

first

century of the Christian

a mercilessly candid

In

the portrait of a lady in

the

Museo

self-assuredness of the subject has

the

been ad-

mirably caught. Certainly no attempt

is

made

In the bust of Marcus Aurelius, attempted

affinity

the

is

illustrated.

with the Etruscan

truth

that

were the best of

plastically

Roman

style

It

suggests

and points

to

the earlier works

sculpture.

The Romans seldom excelled in animal

The Young Deer found at Hercu-

sculpture.

laneum

Portrait of a lady. Stone. 1st century a.d.

QFrom Roman

or possibly provincial Greek, of the

third century B.C.

hide the signs of advancing age, the pro-

tuberant eyes and the sagging cheek muscles.

treatment of eyes, eyebrows,

and draperies has ended in a rather

unnatural fuzzy and plushy effect. This is a
link with a type of over-ornate bust which
later became popular. As contrast, an admirable bronze head of an African, provincial
beard,

Roman

image of the man.

Chiaramonti, of about the same time,

to

era.

prime example of camera exactitude,

naturalism in

Portraits, courtesy

is

a lone piece, hardly

Museo Chiaramonti, J\ome.

Press, London^

Phaidou

approached in

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

L. Caecilius Juciindiis. Bronze.

1st

149

century a.d. National Miiseinn, Naples. QBrogi photo')

Bust of Marcus Aurelius. Bronze. 2nd century a.d.

Private Collection. QGiraudon photo)

Head

of an African. Bronze.

3rd century B.C. British

Museum

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

150

by

attractiveness

Roman
is

similar

Greek
the work

a copy of a

deduction,

if

Otherwise

centur)' B.C.
as

any

from

statue

original.
is
it

It

is

a fair

tion

of the early fifth

could be accepted

achieved mastery of

picturing in stone,
the

field

relief

which they extended

decorative carving.

free

of

into

Their

from the Greeks,

whose grave monuments especially had been
in the bas-relief mode; and from the Etrus-

was double:

inheritance

reversion to simple, rhythmic composiis

to

be seen in the Warriors' Dance, in

the Vatican

Museum, where

gained by a related

the

effect

is

series of isolated figures,

creating strong shadows, against an unbroken

Etrusco-Roman.

The Romans

feature not previously notable in sculpture.

it

hands. Experts have surmised that

background. This panel, however,

by some

historians to a period

centuries

and

earlier,

may,

is

ascribed

two or three
indeed,

be

Etrusco-Roman.

The

love of the

Romans

for landscape

is

evident again and again in their bas-relief

who had embellished stone sarcophagi

and bronze urns with lively and striking
compositions. The panel here, Air, Earth, and

sculpture.

Water, an ingratiating

shaping of the foreground group. But the

cans,

piece,

is

if

superficial master-

from the famous Ara Pacis or Altar

commemorative monument
erected by Augustus about 13-9 b.c. Inner
and outer walls were sheathed with sculp-

of

Peace,

tured slabs.

male

The

figures

three admirably placed fe-

symbolize

Earth, and Water.

Air,

Without

the

fecund

calling into play

the principles of mechanical perspective, the

sculptor achieved a sense of objects receding

in

space

and

thus

added

an

illusionary

There

is

a sentimental note in the

treatment of the Peasant Taking a

Market, and considerable

skill

all-inclusiveness of the picture

ing.

The

shrine

and

statue

Cow

to

in the realistic

is

disconcert-

on the ledge

at

the top, the circular building at the center,

opened
Diana,

to

show

the

tree

pillar

with offerings

growing

to

incongruously

an archway at right, the basket

by the peasant, and the rabbit on a
pole-end this might not tax a painter's
power of integration, but the burden all but
through

carried

breaks the sculptor's back.

1st

Youtig Deer. Bronze.

century a.d. Hcrculancum.
National Museum, Naples.
(^Andersoyi photo^

Air, Earth,

and Water. Stone. C. 13-9

Warriors' Dance, high

Peasant Taking

B.C.

relief. Stone.

Cow

to

Ara

Pacis,

Vatican

Rome.

Museum.

Uffizi Gallery,

C Anderson

Florence

photo^

Market. C. a.d. 50. Glyptothek, Munich

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

152

In the wave of building and decoration

that increased consistently during the reign

of

sculpture

Trajan,

more opulent than

the period

Forum
and

in

113.

is

became grander and

e\'er

Trajan's

Column

in the Trajan

Rome, constructed between

Around a stone shaft 11

diameter, rising 100 feet in the

carved

Typical of

before.

pictorial

record

of

air,

the

a.d.

io6

feet in

sculptors

emperor's

military expeditions against the Dacians.

The

armies in preparation, the river crossings, the

fortified

towns,

the

victorious

battles,

the

were all shown in vivid if

overcrowded and generally undistinguished
reliefs, flowing spirally round and round the
column. The monument was copied often in
later times but never surpassed. Because each
pacified

land

of the 155 episodes flows into the next, the

picturing
style.

650

is

said to be in

the "continuous"

Trajan himself appears 70 times in the

feet of picturing.

The triumphal arch was another type of

monument frequently erected by the Romans
to commemorate personages and events. Some
of

the

structures

survive

in

more

or

less

ruined condition, as in Rome, in Benevento,

and

Orange

in

panels

from

in

others

France,
are

and sculptural

preserved

in

the

museums. The sculptors worked in high relief and aspired to effects of pictorial depth
formerly considered beyond sculptural atattainment. The panels from a destroyed Arch
of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, now in the
Capitoline
acteristic.

Museum, are
The foreground

thoroughly

char-

figures appear al-

most in the round, heads on hidden bodies

Preparation for War with the Dacians. Stone. C. a.d. 113.

Base of Trajan's Column, Rome. QAlinari photo")

mwm

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

suggesting

made

to

and the background is

were at a considerable

depth,

appear as

if it

As well

wooden,

flows

into

round sculpture of

winged animals. In other examples

cer-

and symbolic females and winged beasts,

carry the style into a mixture of methods
and to a distressing decadence.
The most distinctive and masterly work in

It is reflected in

the exquisite re-

ICO B.C.). Sculptors attained their

to

unequivocal

success

in

ornamental

panels, instituting floral wall decoration

and

decoration for furniture, destined to be revived

with enthusiasm
sance

into the

graceful designing in very low relief

if

on Arretine pottery (which was now in

back

tracery

low-relief

and

tain standard motives, including cornucopias

as this rather

decline artistically, after a history dating

most

relief

ambitious

continued.
liefs

high
the

distance.

style,

Museum. The

153

at the

and even

twentieth

at

century.

the

The

time of the Renais-

beginning

of

the

transformation

of

late

Roman

sculpture

adorned with
ples

is

sarcophagus

the

relief

panels.

Exam-

survive illustrating the transition from

pagan

The

pictorial

to

Christian symbolism and purpose.

compositions carry on the

st)'listic

dition of the high-relief panels of the

memorative

arches

(while

recalling,

tra-

comof

and sprays of common

flowers into exquisite all-over patterns was

course, the Etruscan sarcophagi). It

superbly accomplished.

Middle Ages and dawning Renaissance were to draw inspiration for

garlands,

The
put

is

wreaths,

use to which this decorative style

Roman

reliefs that the Italian

sculptors of the late

is

almost sumptuous in such compositions

as the stone table support in the Metropolitan

Reliefs

study of these

was from

their pulpit panels, as seen especially in the

work

of

the Pisanos.

The two

panels

first

from Arch of Marcus Aurelius. Stone. C. a.d. 130. Capitoline Museum, Rome. C^rogi -photo^

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

154

A-

Table support with

shown,

in the

MetropoHtan

reliefs. Stone.

Museum

of Art,

Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

became

in general low, for their production

both illustrating the story of Endymion and

commercialized. Boxes were put on sale with

continuous-composition

the sculptural decorations completed; only a

Selene,

are

the

of

figure

type-

The

appeared on

friezelike panels usually

more

the two sides of the coffin, and smaller,

on the top

slab, usually a portrait of

the owner, was left unfinished to the day of

many

Nevertheless there were

sale.

reliefs

formalized reliefs upon the ends. Often the

beautifully designed and competently carved.

edges of the slab forming the coffin lid were

The coming of Christianity marked a

change from secular and pagan mythological
subjects (such as the Circus Races illustrated,
with Cupids acting as horsemen and as

adorned with
scale,

adding

second

frieze,

smaller

in

to the sense of rich elaboration.

Sometimes curved ends permitted a continuous relief around the whole coffin, as seen in

To

intensify

charioteers)

to

Christian

At

themes.

Roman mythology was drawn upon

the second illustration.

sculptural

values,

the

sha-

first

for epi-

sodes that might suggest the immortality of

Then

dows were deepened. The sarcophagi showing a Bacchanalian scene and the story of

the soul or the resurrection.

Orestes illustrate

openly introduced. As soon as Christian wor-

and

the

contrast

of

low-relief

ship was legalized, depiction of Christ and

high-relief methods.

Elaboration could hardly go further than

in the panel depicting

Christian

motives and scenes from the Gospels were

Romans and

Barbar-

on a sarcophagus in the National Museum, Rome.

There are hundreds of the carved stone
coffins in the museums, and the standard is
ians Battling,

the Apostles

became common,

Judeo-Christian

ment.
the

The

niched

Adam and

figures

Museum

Old Testa-

includes

type,

scenes

such

as

Eve, Daniel in the Lions' Den,

and Christ hefore

of Art, Rogers

as well as the

the

sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, of

Pilate.

Endymion, panel on sarcophagus. Stone. 2nd century

Metropolitan

of

Fund

a.d.

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN

Sarcophagus with Endyuiion

story. Stone. C. a.d.

200. Metropolitan

Museum

SC ULPTURE

of Art, Rogers

Fund

Sarcophagus with Bacchanalian scene. Stone. National Museum, Naples. QBrogi photo")

Sarcophagus with story of Orestes. Stone. Latcran Museum, Rome. QAlinari photo)

Romans and Barbarians

Battling. Stone. National

Museum, Rome. CBrogi photo)

15

156

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

S^s^^Efc-r

Circus Races with Cupids. Stone. Vatican

Museum. (^Anderson

Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus. Stone, a.d. 359. Vatican Grvttocs,

Feats of Hercules. Stone. Borghese

Pio>iie.

'photo')

C Anderson

Museum, Rome. (_Anderson photo)

photo)

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

pm
^Kh^
^^R^jr^-^

The

Bk>i;^|^^^|

^ BHfP4^\j^^^^^^^^H

^^^EH ^wgL^i
^^^^^^^^^^^Hll^&u

T^^^^^^^^^^^^^H

^^^^

twfr^

^^^^^^k&iS Fv'^

^^^^^^^P^^ vj"

^i^^^^^^^^^^^H

o^^^^^^H

i^^^^l

^^^^^^^^P^iiyn i5E\
^^^^^^^^^^H i\^H|
BJr y \

KL^iV
KkpX

^^^K||l tWcp
y^

tl

T^-^j^^l^^^

IC^

niched type commonly shows

seven scenes on each side, or

figures,

x^^-^

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1

five or

seven

five or

separated by classical columns.

The

many: tree trunks and foliage

for columns and arches; Apostles and saints
where Roman gods or the seasons used to be;
variations are

austere
scenes;

single

figures

and frequent

too mechanical niche effect

group

detailed

or

efForts to

break up the

by the thrust of

an arm or a drapery-end across a column.

curious fact

that in a time

is

when Roman

had degenerated, so that there

portraiture

is

hardly a competent bust extant of any of the

emperors from
^/m

157

Great,

Commodus

to

Constantine the

the heads and figures in

the relief

compositions are often natural and believable

1 Tl

^B^-^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^H
as well as sculpturally sound.

The shepherd

^^-

1 If

cowherd carrying a lamb

was not a new
figure in classical art. But when the Christians were being persecuted by official Rome,
in the days of the catacombs and the casting
of martyrs into the arenas, an old, recognized subject could be repeated with new
or a calf

Ik^^^^^I^^^^^h

on

significance

for

the persecuted followers of

m\ I^H

was generally interpreted

rather woodenly, as in the famous statuefamous for sentimental reasons illustrated.

h*.^'"

-,,

_^|

Good Shepherd. Stone. 3rd century

Lateran Museum, Rome.
T/ze

or

his shoulders

a.d.

Christ.

The Good Shepherd became

ard figure in

a stand-

art. It

characteristic setting of the symbolic figure

into a richly sculptured panel

is

in the sarcophagus Vintage Scene,

ple of third-century

almost Oriental in

Roman

its

illustrated

an exam-

decorative

opulence.

Vintage Scene with the Good Shepherds, panel from sarcophagus. Stone.
Lateran Museum, Rome. (^Anderson photo')

work

158

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

The removal of the capital of the

Roman state to Constantinople in

Christian
a.d.

330

was a turning point and presaged the converging of East and West. How much
longer

Roman

Roman
is

remained

art

debatable.

On

might mark

as

Roman

monuments

in

which

stylistic

intrinsically

grounds one

those last story-telling

classic

naturalism and

extravagant grouping of figures persisted.

When

recognizably

Byzantine

style

emerged that is, an Oriental Christian style

marks that distinguished it from the sculp-

tural practice of the Western Christian realm

were a pronounced rounding of all forms
and the return to design with separate fig-

ures against bare backgrounds.

One might

choose contrasted coffin panels that exhibit

Roman and
But the ivory
showing the Ascension and the
at the Totnh is even more eloquent

the difference between the late

the

dawning Byzantine

plaque

Women

style.

new ideal. Its serenity of design and

harmonious grace, and the distinctive Byzantine rounding of the figures, mark it as postof the

The Ascension and Women at the Tomb. Ivory. 4th or 5th century
Bavarian National Museum, Munich. (^Giraudoti photo^
Story of Jonah, panel from sarcophagus. Stone. Latcran

a.d.

Museum, Rome. CAUnari photo}

ETRUSCAN AND ROMAN SCULPTURE

placing the

A new way of art was disRoman, even before Rome itself

succumbed

to

Roman

in style.

the assaults of Northern Bar-

lief.

Endless ingenuity was exhibited by the

Roman

cameo-cuttcrs to obtain natural

trational effects.

The Gemma

Cameo-cutting was a minor sculptural

that reached

The cameo

its

is

apogee among the Romans.

soldiers

orate example.

cut in agate, sardonyx,

stands

out in

way

that a

one color on

Roma among

attendant gods and mortals, over a scene of

gem

or other layered stone in such a

composition

art

illus-

Angnstae, show-

ing Augustus enthroned with

barians.

159

and

is the most famous elabBut many art-lovers prefer the

sharper-cut, more decorative designs, such as

the neat

captives,

Venus Bathing,

in the Bibliotheque

background of another commonly white on

some reddish hue. Unlike the seals of the

compositional laxness and the naturalistic ap-

ancient world, which were engraved in in-

peal which, here and elsewhere, vitiate so

taglio,

the designs

ological,

on cameos, whether myth-

genre, or portrait, were cut in re-

Nationale in Paris, because they escape the

much

of the general run of

Roman

ucts.

Cameo. Stone. Roman. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, (fiiraudon

Cameo. Stone. Roman. Bibliotheque Nationale,

Paris.

photo')

QGiraudon photo)

art prod-

7:The Opulent Sculpture of Persia;

The Legacy

to

Islam

I
IF

there

is

such a thing as a characteristic

Oriental style in

art,

The

ancient Persia was at

clay,

is

product of cultures outside the main

historical

path of Persian

civilization.

The

monu-

peoples or tribes were similarly Aryan but

ments that survive in Iran are not many, nor

are they all in the full current of Oriental-

they were of Outer Iran as distinguished

from the Inner Iran of the vast Iranian pla-

ism. There is at times obvious borrowing of

method from the Babylonian, with evidences

of Luristan, several in Azerbaijan, one

of a naturalism that has affinities with the

as

the heart of

West.

It

it.

was rather

ture in lesser size

large sculptural

some types of sculpand marked by Eastern

in

formalism and richness that the early

working on Iranian
Their

sculpture,

soil

artists

achieved supremacy.

mostly

in

bronze

Crouching Panther.

Museum

and

teau.

The

peripheral cultures included those

Caspian (in the present-day

known

territory

of

Mazanderan), and an Eastern phase centered

at Asterabad. During the 1960s an Amlash or
Marlik Culture was identified, though some
authorities

sought to classify

the Caspian.

Silver. Parthian.

Of

all

3rd-2nd century

of Art, Princeton University. (Enlarged)

it

as

part of

the bodies of sculpture

B.C.

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

Horse. Bridle

from the outer

stan

however, that of Luri-

states,

and most

the largest

is

bit.

No

individual piece can be placed,

except provisionally, but

that the earliest typical

before

looo

tinued

down

sporadically,

that

and

b.c.

to

era

that

no doubt,

"civilized" Assyrians

production con-

later. It is

people

remarkable

known

to

and Babylonians

the

of the

rude provincial horse-traders should

as

have

may be assumed

works were produced

the fifth century^ B.C. and

highland

it

created

such

sensitive

and

Institute,

refined

of the glories of Babylon

those

fluence,

to

Outer Iran

of

small

animals in metal in the

tradition,

and

into one national entity

empire

to

brought

Median lands

and expanded the

include Mesopotamia and Armenia,

Minor and

Macedonia
and Thrace, Eg)'pt and Libya, and a segment of India. It was the greatest empire
known to history in 500 B.C., but it had no
cohesive force and certainly no single style

Asia

of

parts of Greece,

far-traveled

emperors

commissioned

on pages

172-73O

The

empire's process of disintegration con-

tinued for over two hundred years. Persian

was not much changed by the conquest

323-330 B.C., but

Greek grace and Greek realism sometimes

crossed

with Oriental elements

produce

to

hybrid forms, as witnessed in Gandhara (in

Afghanistan and India)

After

(named

Alexander's
after

at a later time.

death

Seleucus,

the

territories so that the

Seleucids

one of the Greek

generals) consolidated Persia and

its

eastern

empire stretched from

Aegean to the Indus. After a period of

rule by the Parthians, who were eastern
the

Iranians,

art.

The

fully Orientahzed

jewel-like trinkets. (See illustrations

art

the Persian and

to

Nebuchadnezzar and Assurbanipal and called in artists and craftsmen

from near and far. Achaemenid sculpture
varied from friezes showing Babylonian inrival

of Alexander the Great in

all

and Nineveh. At

Susa and Persepolis they built palaces

was the Achaemenian kings (Cyrus the

Great, Darius, and Xerxes) who, despite the
It

together

York^

palaces and gateways of honor and sculptured

products.

barriers to unification of the countrv,

New

murals worthy of conquerors and reminiscent

distinctive.

As yet no calendar of the Luristan achievement has been worked out on archaeological
evidence.

Bronze. Luristan.

Mott Giinther Collection, Washington. QFhoto courtesy Iranian

Frankliti

161

in

224

a.d.

the

Sassanian kings,

the true Persians, brought back earlier

tra-

A
THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

162
ditions

and inspired

The peak

arts.

the

reached in
sanian

size

was

that of the

the

Sas-

tury,

Sculptural
cliff

compositions

carvings to coins

and jewelry. Persian

influence in

extended

civilized

to

all

the

the arts

countries

of

Asia and Europe.

had

Mongols

brought in a
little

upon

effect

The Moslem

and Turkistan

art of

sculpture.

began

nations

Islamic

painting,

By

to

deteriorate,

The

list is

accurate guide, although

fairly

offered as a

it is

sometimes

impossible to determine exactly in what year a

king took over the majority of the Persian

in

states.

restriction against the

B.C.

Achaemenid Dynasty

B.C.

Seleucid Dynasty

550-330
323-250

like art in metal, stucco,

and wood, though

animals and flower motives, as well as some

250 B.c.-A.D. 226

226-641

human figures, appeared in the compositions.

Mohammedans introduced the written word,

641-1037
1037-1194

Seljuk Dynasty

1256-1501

Mongol Dynasties

and stucco or stone panels were overlaid with

calligraphy. The beautiful Arabic script was
inset in bands of tile ornament circling
rooms, and was interwoven with the relief
ornamentation on bronze ewers, silver platters,

and

was complete.

following reference

use of figures contributed to hght arabesque-

the east.

it

the end

from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries its eclipse

in Spain in the west

in the thirteenth cen-

new

of the fourteenth century the sculpture of the

was

Islamic
a development of
extended,
with slight varithe Persian and
ation, into India and Egypt, but was recreated as purest Persian in Iraq and Arabia

sculpture

and

the last great invasion of Persia,

sculpture

four centuries of

from

Though

flowering of the

Persian

of

period.

ranged in

new

Parthian Rule
Sassanian Dynasty
Early Islamic

(and successors)

and wooden sarcophagi.

1499-1736

Safavid Djoiasty

1736-1786
1794-1925

Afghan and other

1925 to date

Pahlevi Dynasty

rule

Kajar Dynasty

Tribute-Bearers, detail. Stone. Palace of Darius I, Persepolis.

QCourtesy Oriental Institute, Chicago^

<

v;

^rP

'->;,'

-,>'

"J^v

-J >y

-^jU

"^jj--

-,.>

\r,'\

-<iv

-oiy

"-ij^

'^xP

'h{r

'^,if

'J

tufpC

S/ff

-t^j.,--

4VI

''ti(kfv"'

u.

II

THE

Standing Stag shown in the

tration

minate date in

and

is

one of the

from Outer

illus-

some indeterthe second millennium b.c

attributed

is

earliest

Iran.

It

to

known bronze

represents one

pieces
of

the

found in Luristan, Azerbaiand the area along the south coast of

several cultures
jan,

the Caspian Sea.

In Luristan,

in

heraldic

and

vigor,

through the follow-

The

subjects may have

been almost wholly symbolic or religious;
each represented an animal related to an
astral

whether

deity,

lion,

goat,

or

The exclusively talismanic pieces were

common than usable objects such as

the most famous of the

less

bridle

usual subjects, with every line and feature

knives,

and recorded. Though con-

movement was

many examples

grace,

horse.

later,

of the beast noted

The

attributes of Persian art

ing twelve centuries.

outer cultures developed. Animals were the

ventionalized,

fashion.

elegance of the Luristan bronzes were to be

a strict

intensified.

In

symmetry was main-

tained, with animals confronting each other

Center: Standing Stag. Bronze.

Metropolitan

parently

vases
a

and harness rings, axes and

and personal ornaments. Apcertain

reverence

attached

to

everything pertaining to the horse, and axes

and vases had divine

four examples are

2nd millennium

Museum

bits

significance.

The

finials.

B.C. Pusht-I-Kuh Mountains, Persia.

of Art, gift of Mrs. Khalil

Rabenou, 1959

Left and right: Finials. Bronze. 1000-800 B.C. Luristan.

Tyler Collection QGiraudon photo^; City Art Museum, St. Louis

first

Confronted Animals. Finials. Bronze. 1000-800 B.C. Luristan.

It

is

not the symbolic or magic

signifi-

cance, or the notable functional fitness,

how-

Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston

from fantasy

flight

the

to

best

The Lurs might have been

reahsm.

ever, that attracts the attention of art-lovers

ing

more than twenty-five centuries

the Assyrian reliefs in the same era)

but

later,

the inherent beauty of the designs.

As

if

to

prove that their success proceeded from no

trick

of elegant attenuation,

the Lurs pro-

ceeded from slender conventionalization to

sturdy, even

Horse

heavy

illustrated

Practically

effects, as in

on page

known

all

the bronze

bits,

in pairs, are

Luristan

grave-finds. Horses

beings.

Today

among

culture

art

had been

one, for there

(as were the sculptors of

anatomy.

The

bronze vase with ibexes

sculpture

the

commonest

were buried with human

zoologists are able to identify

which were
twenty
pitcher

is

Persia, of

libation

characterize

to

centuries

later.

about looo

ewer

sculpturally refined.

sculptural

effects.

The

ibexes were often given

remained true

the

stags,

range
lions,

of

and

wings, but others

outward nature. From the

to

Winged Rams on
the meticulously

is

handles

the bridle bit opposite to

documented Rams below

is

to

Persian pottery

The

spouted

clay

b.c.

The bronze

spouted

patently a lineal descendant,

is

tent

remarkable

as

of a culture centered in northern

the breeds of horse from the characteristics

more

their

and a sound knowledge of

conveyed in the plaques.

Yet

if

a scientific or materialistic

ample evidence of camera-

is

like observation

of

has something of the delicacy and richness

i6i.

has been dug from graves, and plaques for

horse

realists in

sort

surpass-

Whether

there

was

suggest bird form in the pieces

inis

questionable.

series of

be assembled

to

prove that the basic elegance,

such products could

the feeling for a rich but simple refinement

of forms,

and

that,

Persian

was

a gift of the

when
style

mountain peoples,
was formed, the

the empire

emerged

with

characteristics

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

Winged Rams.

Bridle

bit.

Bronze. C. 1000 b.c. Luristan. Nelson Gallery-Atkins

165

Museum, Kansas

City

Vase with ibexes as handles. Bronze. Luristan.

Rams. Bit plaques. Bronze. Luristan,

University Museiun, Philadelphia

AI.

and R. Stora

^Courtesy Iranian Institute,

Collection.

New

York')

166

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

Spouted pitcher. Clay. C. 1000 B.C.

Spouted libation ewer. Bronze. Luristan.

^Courtesy Iranian Institute, New York')

Museum

U^^^^

BESflMU];

nnuiu

^,
{^^

oifiuaa^

Above: Pins; below: pinhead; right: finial.

Bronze. Luristan. Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston; Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sialk, Persia.

of Science, Buffalo

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

native to Iran rather than borrowed from the
artists of

Mesopotamia,

as

some

scholars

had

Animal motives were predominant

ornament, on vases and mirrors, on
and
weapons. Necklaces were closed
tools
with animal clasps, bracelets were plain or
braided bands endino
o in matched animal
heads, and pins often had animals as terminal
ornaments. Note especially how well fitted
in per-

sonal

the natural object

the

to

stylized.

actual

The

is

pin,

to its placing, in relation

and

how

completely

awls, too, are examples of the

object designed to function, then embellished

by

a talismanic decorative animal.

rare

exceptions

feeling for the abstract values of proportion,

and balance

silhouette,

in the design of axes.

Perhaps more ceremonial than

previously believed.

when human

There

beings

167

utilitarian, the

bronze ax heads have notable rhythmic flow.

For pulsing surge of
passed;

and

in edgings
allv,

there

line,

they are unsur-

a wealth of counterplay

is

and patterned

bits and, occasion-

superimposed animal forms.

The

beauty of the Luristan miniature

goat, or unicorn

is

lion,

formal, aesthetically real-

ized, rather than lifelike. The Camel shown,

which looks quite unlike the graceful and
elegant products of the Lurs, is from the adjoining province of Azerbaijan, and is from

are

a different

Persian) culture.

Its

(or

fixed expression of disdain can be seen

on

(though

still

gods) have been represented, just as an oc-

the head of any present-day camel.

casional Luristan stone relief or clay figure

decorative

No

less

indeed

more "distorted," and

superb example of expressionistic

metal finds.

design,

is

the Leafing Lion of the

As among the Scythians and other primitive Asian peoples the Lurs had a special

Collection.

has

turned

up among

the

ver\'

numerous

but even

Ax head with

lion. Bronze. Luristan.

(^Courtesy Iranian Institute^

Warburg

Pins. Bronze. Luristan.

University

Museum, Philadelphia

Left: Pin. Bronze. Caucasus.

Museum

of Science, Buffalo.
Center: Ibex. Harness ring. Bronze.
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Right: Camel. Bronze. Metropolitan

Museum

of Art, Rogers

Bull's Head. Bronze.

C. 1200 B.C. Azerbaijan.
Collection Mrs. Otto Kahn.
(^Courtesy Iranian Institute^

Leaping Lion. Bronze. C. 1000 B.C. Luristan.

Collection Mr. and Mrs. E. M. M. Warburg

Fund

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

The
1

200

Head from

Bull's
B.C.,

has

Azerbaijan, of about

elegant

the

169

simplification

which later marked the best Persian sculpture. Again animals predominated as subjects,
and there were pieces with close affinity to
the Luristan bronzes. Others have no discoverable prototypes and are labeled by
archaeologists
sian."

merely "pre-Achaemenid Per-

The Prancing Unicorn

of a heavier decorative type.

is

representative

second Bull's

Head, in the Cleveland IMuseum, illustrates

interesting variations from
the one just
shown. It is a little less refined but still is
marked by bullish character and plastic vigor.

The
the

province of Azerbaijan also yielded

rare

copper head of a

which, like the bronze Bidl's

same

area,

might be

bearded man,

Head from

link

the

in

the
true

Persian tradition, of the indeterminate pre-

Achaemenid
naturalistic,

period.

It

giving us

is

but non-

lifelike

individual

the

man

within a conventionalized sculptural conception.

early

Achaemenid

is

limestone head, probably from the

period,

now

nearer to the true Persian

at

tj'pe.

Brussels,

Orientally

formalized (as in the patterned beard), and

escaping the influence of Chaldea and Babylon, which was to intrude at the very moment when Persia's political power was at its
greatest.

Head. Copper. Before 1000 B.C. Azerbaijan.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund

On

facing page:

Prancing Unicorn.
C. 1000 B.C. Kuh-I-Dasht.

Museum

of Science, Buffalo

Bull's Head. Bronze. Persian,

pre-Achaemenid, 6th century B.C.
Cleveland Museum of Art

Head. Stone. Achaemenid. Adolphe Stoclet

Collection, Brussels. QCourtesy Iranian Institute')

170

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

Great parts of the stone mural

the palace of Darius at Persepolis

and

are

typically

Persian,

brick,

reliefs of

still

and here Persian rhythmic feeling and

luxurious Persian ornament prevailed.

sur\dve

but the glazed-

In the sculptured capitals of the palace of

Susa

the Babylonian

brick relief figures of the palace at Susa re-

Artaxerxes

verted to Mesopotamian models. In the latter

models were forgotten, and work of essen-

was taken over

and only a little of
the t)'pical Iranian formalization was added.
The animals are spirited and decorative, but

II,

at

also,

Persian beauty was revealed.

The main

the technique of neo-Babylon

tially

by the Persian

forms, of bull or unicorn, are monumentally

there

is

frieze of the

builders,

Babylonian

Spearmen

shallowness.

at Susa,

ject-precedent in Babylon,

is

preserved, the parts are disposed with sculptural

The

the

without appearing obvious.

the special Persian elegance to be

seen in the refined architectural columns.

also in glazed

j':sWk/;..iv

effect

They have

without sub-

Tribute-Bearers, relief. Stone. Palace of Darius

compactness, and the detail enhances

rich

I,

Persepolis. Courtesy Oriental Institute,

Chicago

:i

Capital with bulls. Stone.

521-485

k-i^i

B.C. Palace of Artaxcrxcs, Susa. Louvre. QAlinari photo')

Spearmen. Glazed brick. Achaemenid. Palace of Darius

I,

Susa. Louvre. (Giraudon photo)

172

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

The same

slender,

rounded elegance

found, without the luxurious note, in

stone

friezes

slightly

at

earlier

show Darius

Persepolis,

date,

about

which
500

are

B.C.

is

the
of

They

the Great, attended by his son

Xerxes, giving audience to a petitioner and

tribute-bearers.

They appear

as

murals flank-

ing a great stairway of the palace. As sculp-

and as architectural embellishment they

more dignified and architectonic than the
Mesopotamian murals from which they distantly derive. (See pages 162 and 170.)

improved the

type.

But these

"set pieces" are

not important artistically in

sculpture,

though

illustrated

the

history

of

widely because

of their imposing size. Almost

any piece from

the mural series, such as the Ahiira

Mazda

Fogg Museum, tells more

competence and reticent

of the

in the
tural

of the sculptaste

Persian craftsmen. In the murals at Persepolis

ture

the single figures of tribute-bearers, even of

are

camel or horse or goat, have a character

On
a

the platform above, the Persians set

gateway or doorway of honor, derived from

the winged-animal or sphinx gateways of the

(who had taken

Assyrians

from

the

changes

Hittites);

as

and

substituting

Semitic head,

the

the idiom in turn

aside

from

such

an Aryan for the

Persians

formalized

and

The

relief. Stone.

Fogg

Museum

Achaemenid.

of Art

golden appliques, supposed

to

seems

to

menid
a

origin, nevertheless

perfectly within the characteristic Achae-

fit

art-craftsmanship.

They were

hoard of two hundred and

part of

five gold orna-

ments found together, some figurative and

some not, all supposed to have decorated a
single garment. The stamped animal figures
less

than
Persepolis.

set of

be Scythian in

are
Ahiira Mazda,

suit-

able to the stone, a sculptural dignity.

is

fantastically

treated,

less

distorted

usual in the products of the Scyths,

and may have been designed

in

Scythian

Appliques. Gold. Scytho-Persian, Achaemenid.

Kuban Region, U.S.S.R.
University Museum, Philadelphia

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

workshops

Persian

for

taste.

The

golden

armlet from the Treasure of the Oxus, one

of two sun'iving as a pair,

even

entity

without
the

that

ornamental

colored

the

once embedded upon

indication

a rich

is

its

surface.

vigor

and

enamels
It

is

an

originality

Indo-European or Iranian line con-

of the

Achaemenid

tinued

uncurtailed

in

the

period,

with

an

added

only

luxurious

refinement.

In

small

so

achievement

is

craft

as

repeated.

seal-making,

The

the

Persian seals

have a wider range of subject, though obviously

deriving

tamian.

and

The

fluent,

part

in

st)'lization

from
is

the

oftener

Mesopograceful

with clear outlines against plain

backgrounds.
In the Seleucid and Parthian periods,

fol-

lowing the Achaemenid, there was growing

influence from outside cultures, especially the

Greek, after 330

B.C.

Nevertheless examples

of small sculpture exist that continued the

traditional

vitalit)',

Crotiching

Panther,

character,

shown

at

as

illustrated

enlarged
the

to

in

show

beginning of

the
its

this

chapter, on page 160.

Armlet. Gold with depressions for inlays.

Achaemenid. From Treasure of the Oxus.
Victoria and Albert Musentn

Impressions of

seals.

173

Assyrian Qtop^; Persian,

Achaemenid. Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore;

Bibliotheque Natiotiale, Paris; British Museum;
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

174

The glazed-clay head in the

Museum of Art was actually
or

The

gargoyle.

glaze

has

Metropolitan
a

waterspout

all

but disap-

peared, but the earthenware color beneath

is

pleasing and the total effect singularly sculptural.

The

creative composition indicates the

which the Persian

master)' to

artists

had

the great period

tained just before

at-

known

silver

Amazons Hunting

plate with

Lions, of the Parthian period and probably

more
Greek
design would have made it, with a more
rhythmic treatment of the animals than any
Minor,

from Asia

is

composition

found among the Greeks. Note the sprit of

the lions and of the horse's head, in relation
the

Sassanian

following.

repetition

of

and enrichment of patterning were

t)'pically Oriental. But cliff art was unsuited
to the Persian genius and is better seen in
India or China.

The

decoratively disposed than traditional

to

rhythmic

Taq-I-Bustan the
forms

as Sassanian.

The

The famous rock-cut tombs of the kings,

some celebrating the defeat of Roman emperors and generals by the Persians, are imposing and quite ornamental for the narrative
type of sculpture. Though somewhat derivative they are not naturalistic, and in the finexamples as at Naksh-I-Rustum and
est

silver

plates

immediately

But the lightness of touch and

small sculptures, especially the surviv-

ing figured silver dishes, were lavishly orna-

and

mental
is

sensuously

full.

The method

not far different from that of the Scythians

and the Lurs, and

of descent through

it

indicates a direct line

Achaemenid and Parthian

But the Sassanians added a wealth of

an abundance of patterning, and a

silver.

breath of naturalism in detail are Hellenic.

figures,

Throughout the Near East at this time there

was a confusion of the elements which even-

variation of surface appeal fitting to art at

tually

formed the Byzantine

st)de.

the

some
Head, downspout. Clay, glazed. Parthian.
Metropolitan
gift of

Museum

of Art,

Walter Haiiser, 1956

regal

art-lovers

there can be

craftsmen

sumptuous

most

world's

aristocratic,

sculpture at

court.
its

It

best.

is

For

it may seem ostentatious, but

no doubt that the Sassanian

here

touched

high

mark

of

relievo.

Comparatively

graceful

bronze ewer shown, with an ab-

stract all-over

feline

is

the

itself

and

animal

at-

design on the vessel

undecorated

sinuous,

restrained

tached as handle.

The
silver
is

extraordinarily spirited design of the

wine bowl with an eagle

t)'pically Iranian,

tive

at the center

but the emphatic narra-

treatment and the melodramatic poses

indicate late

Greek

Ewer. Bronze.
Sassanian.
6th century a.d.
Metropolitan Museum
of Art, Fletcher Fund

influence.

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

Amazons Hunting Lions. Silver, repousse.

Parthian. Asia Minor.

Brummer

Shapur

II

Collection,

New

York

Hunting. Silver dish. Sassanian.

Collection of Mrs. Cora

Timken

^Courtesy Iraniati Institute)

Burnett.

175

Hunting Lions. Silver dish.

Sassanian. Hermitage, Leningrad.
^Courtesy Iranian Institute, New York')
Shapur

Wine

bowl. Silver, repousse,

partly gilded. Seleucid. Bactria.

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington

Horse. Bronze. Sassanian. Arabia.

in bronze, char-

make

small figures of animals, such as the

Lion

shown.

phase, comes from Arabia of the Sassanian

sculptural

Period, a reminder that Persian art

rings, medals,

had con-

The

quered great parts of Asia beyond the borders

of the Iranian plateau.

Persian-Arabian

Washmgton

Collection,

but of a less extravagant

The monumental Horse

acteristically Persian

Dumharton Oaks

second example of

craftsmanship

is

the

small

There
and

beautiful

are

compositions,

little

the

coins,

seals of Sassanian

times.

in

too,

decorative gold medal in

the Freer

Washington, marvelously illusBahram Gur hunting with a falcon.

Collection,
trates

bronze Bull, identified by authorities as Sabean

from Sabea,

decoration occurs in the coin showing a lion

the biblical Sheba. (Recently the

Horse has been relabeled

"late

Roman" by some

completely contrasting style of posteresque

and

a peacock

on obverse and

reverse.

The

scholars, despite its Oriental style marks.)

decorative script here adds to the ornamental

Although from the seventh century onward Persian accomplishment is oftener

known as Islamic art, there are some minor

fullness. In the abstract

design are realized.

The beauty

manifestations seals, coins, the crafts neces-

calligraphy as seen

in

sary to dress,

and miniature metal sculptures

that seem

steel

some of the

proverbial.

to belong to the Persian community rather than to Islam. Technically,

figurative art was henceforward forbidden in

fields of

Moslem communities;

and

but

many

Persians

took the prohibition lightly and continued to

too,

in

The

the

ornament of gold on

possibilities of

later

of

of Persian

manuscripts

lovely writing

floriation

nonobjective

is

is

embedded,

engraved

bronze

ewers and jugs, and even in the elaborate

ornament on carved wooden doors

screens.

Finally,

there

was

a great deal of stucco

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

177

Bull. Bronze. Sabean, 6th century B.C.

South Arabia. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Horse; Lion; coins; ornaments. Silver; bronze;

gold; other metals. Private Collection;

Ackerman-Pope Collection; Freer Gallery

of Art. QCoiirtesy Iranian Institute)

Hunting Scene; Boars,

panels in relief.
Stucco. Sassanian.

Philadelphia
of Art

Museum

sculpture

embellish houses and palaces,

to

and profuse stucco decoration spread later

to all Mohammedan lands and can be seen
today in Granada and Cairo, Samarkand and
Agra. The arabesque was considered a discreation

tinctive

Arabian-Islamic

of

men, although foreshadowed

ornamentalism

Abstract

compositions.

crafts-

Sassanian

in

folded in lacelike profusion, in

un-

flatly sculp-

tured panels or in tracery over the whole

architectural composition.

When
it

is

the

likely

Moslems

revert to figurative art,

be reminiscent of Sassanian

to

The

craftsmanship.

motives,

of

repetition

geometrical yet with variation, as seen in the

Hunting Scene and Boars, and the weaving

main outlines and repeated details into

of

an

all-over effect,

medan

were echoed in

from

lands

twelfth century.

all

Moham-

seventh

the

the

to

Sculptured frieze. Stone. 4th-7th centuries.

Thus

Persian sculp-

t)'pical

ture continued as Islamic sculpture in Asia,

Africa,

and

of

Mohammedan

occurred

that golden age

the

in

fourteenth centuries.

building and

and

thirteenth

The mural

reliefs

of

were unrivaled in decorative

opulence and almost incredibly profuse on

The

the inner walls of mosques and palaces.

stone or stucco reliefs vibrate with

Mihrab wall
liness and the
the

sculptural

at

absence

if

this

figuring

of

as in

the lovet)'pe

in

is

of

illus-

ac-

Mohammedan command-

no animals

or plant-forms ap-

ample suggestion of them, eswhere the modeling is most vigorous.

pear, there
pecially

of

"lightness"

cordance with the

ments; but

life,

Hamadan. Both

design are here supremely

The

trated.

is

Indeed, despite the prohibition, the

spirit of

Scythian, Luristan, and Sassanian sculpture

was revived

medan

in

lands.

and

Persia

One might

in

all

of

Luristan

Moham-

put side by side

the latest of Sassanian wall plaques

earliest

heraldically

and the
balanced

animals to indicate the two prime sources of

Islamic wall decoration,

the one typical of

the over-all ornamentalism,

trating the virility of the

In

Syria.

a fringe of Europe.

The peak
sculpture

Omayyad Palace, Mshatta,

State Museum, Berlin

the sculptured

the other

illus-

main motive.

frieze

at

Mshatta the

Mihrab of Oljeitu, Friday Mosque, Isfahan.

Stucco. 1310. (Photo by Arthur Upham Pope)

.m

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

Detail of the Mihrab, Alaviyan, Hamadan, Persia. Late 12th century.

(_Photo by Arthur Uphatn Pope, Iranian Institute^

179

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

180

familiar animals,

rhythmic and formal-

still

surrounded by areas of lacelike ornament. Authorities differ as to the probable

ized, are

date,

and some scholars

Omavvad

Palace

Islamic. It

was perhaps

as

insist

on classing the

Byzantine rather than

a product of Christian

craftsmen working under

Moslem

rulers.

In Moslem-ruled Spain the abstract sculpdecoration spread over great areas of

tural

courtyard wall and inner partition, especially

at the

Alhambra, built in the thirteenth and

fourteenth centuries. In the Court of Lions

here, the fountain's lions (imported
Persia, the scholars say)

and

disposition are Oriental, as

is

from old

their geometrical
their unrealistic

appearance. But the carved screens set into

the walls, and the light foliation traced over

every structural member, are more trulv

lamic. In Spain the style

is

Is-

called Moorish.

Even when the prohibition of imaging

was no longer observed except by the most
puritanical

human

followers

of

the

Prophet,

the

was seldom depicted. Animals,

as so often in the Near East, were the prime
inspiration. Ewers, jugs, and incense-burners
were designed as birds or beasts, free or even
fantastic in detail, and pierced, abridged, or
figure

hollowed for functional purposes.

In Venice, the Treasury of

St.

Mark's owns

the Persian silver casket with conventional

on top and

sides,

showing

a continuous

com-

C-'^>'c^^'''-^(^s

Roget-VioUet')

refoiisse designs in panels

but

set

on

a base

Court of the Lions, Alhambra Palace, Granada. 13th-14th centuries.

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

position of intertwined animals of a sculp-

common

tural excellence not

The

period.

little

frieze

is

in Islam at this
directly

from Scythia and Luristan.

It

is

in

line

spirited,

The Moslem
as carvers also

displayed

artists

on such

their

skill

craft objects as book-

bindings and wooden and ivory chests. Their

cutting

wood

of

sitely rich.

compositions,

was
The Moorish

panels

inlaid
style,

relief

or in ivory,

are

that

signed primarily to provide convenient areas

be engraved or chased.

to

burner from Kariz

from the

whether

in

worker in reyousse and engraving

fill

the bazaars with debased representations

ture has generally

In the West, clay-molded and glazed sculpfigures

lain

opulent workmanship.

bright

Islam were often de-

to practice

Even today Oriental craftsmen

his art freely.

trivial

in

The

arbitrary simplification of forms allowed the

small ivor)' inlays are marvels of delicately

figures

but pos-

masterpieces in

and in India large pierced screens and

Animal

naturalist's point of view,

of such beasts.

the

incensefalsified,

and exquichests of Spain bear

intricate

The Lion

shamelessly

is

unmistakable leonine character.

sesses

decorative, fanciful, yet virile.

181

But

and

in

and

seemed

frivolous,

coloring
Persia,

a lesser art: porce-

groups

is

are

likely

to

and the common

essentially

where the

be

over-

unsculptural.

potter's

art

was

Casket. Silver. Persian, 12th century.

Treasury of Saint Mark's Cathedral,

Venice. (^Courtesy Iranian Institute^

'4.';:

ii'^

Lion. Incense-burner. Pierced bronze.

12th century. Hermitage, Leningrad

Lion. Incense-burner.
Pierced bronze. 12th century.

Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

Ewer. Bronze with silver inlay. Mosul period,

13th centiiry. University Museum, Philadelphi

Vase. Clay, glazed. Persian, 13th century.

Kashan. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington

Aquamanile. Clay, glazed. Persia.

(^Courtesy Iranian Institute^

Lion, detail. Incense-burner. Bronze.

Seljuk period, 1181-82. Kariz, Khurasan, Persia.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund

THE OPULENT SCULPTURE OF PERSIA

carried to a glorious achievement surpassed

nowhere

except

in

China,

the

sculptor

with the potter to produce serious

(and sometimes half-serious) works. There
are sumptuous designs with animals in the
round added to vases and jugs already rich
with intricate molded and painted patterns.
The aquamanile shown, very diflFerent in
method, as regards both total design and
surface decoration, seems like a playful work
joined

in comparison; but

it is

nonetheless a typical

example of Islamic craftsmanship,

sculpture and ornamentally alive.

vital

It is

as

proba-

bly late in date.

The

Persian vases, plates, and jugs were

was completely appropriate. The illustrative

were usually kept to proportioned
bands within a controlled all-over pattern. The
designs

glazed-clay vase at the Freer Gallery,

ington,

and

is

form

lively in decoration.

Persian sculpture declined

when Europe

advanced into the period of the Renaissance,

but examples can be found which indicate
native feeling for the fundamentals of the
art, particularly for fitness of subject and
method to material. Islam invaded India,
which possessed a great body of sculpture of
its

own. The eighteenth-century pierced-ivory

plaque from Madura, Indian Prince and At-

proportioned as beautifully as the Greek, and

tendants, inherits from Indian art

the

were employed to enrich the surfaces the modeled composition

Wash-

characteristically graceful in

when

figurative reliefs

183

richness

of

Persian-Islamic

and from

artisanship.

Indian Prince and Attendants. Pierced-ivory plaque. 18th century. South India.
Victoria and Albert Miiscuiu

8:

China:

The World^s Supreme Sculptural Achievement

CHINA

been colorful and picturesque, from the entry

is the oldest civilized nation on

and the Chinese people have persisted
in one recognized national culture longer
than any other. Incursions from outside

in 1908. Court life in the

amounted

enriched through devotion to the

earth,

at

times to conquering invasions,

of the
to

Shang emperors

the

exit

but the native populace so far outnumbered

there

the invaders and was so fixed in

scholars,

that

the

conquering

art,

culture.

even a

A new

new

but did not

method

religion,

alter the

social life

newcomers were

sorbed in the typically Chinese

and

its

way

ab-

of life

or intention in

might be introduced

mainstream of Chinese

tradition.

The

life

of the Chinese ruling class has

of

was an

who

the

upper
are

in possibly 1523 b.c.

last

Manchu empress
many periods was

class

especially

arts,

and

(including

the

honored)

that

cherished art works and kept alive the records

of outstanding

The

artists.

magnificence of decor at the courts

was attested in the writings of Marco Polo,

and the books of China's own historians
reflect the vigor and opulence of the nation's
artistic life. The Chinese have seldom de-

Lao-Tse on a Water Buffalo. Bronze. Sung. Worcester Art

Museum

CHINA
archaeological

veloped

systematic way,

and

exploration

it is

of sculptural material

likely that a

still

lies

in

any

wealth

underground.

which corresponds
aissance

the

ritual masterpieces

but they were copies

the

rather than

few Stone Age finds are related easily to

more pronounced idioms in a profusion
of small sculptures and calligraphic scratchings found at Anyang, dated between 1900

These display the squared

in relief and serrated
edges which appear on the bronze ritual
and

1200

B.C.

ornamental

vessels

ribbons

of the early Dynasties,

stituting

the

first

achievement as

The
to the

Chou

great

Shang
(c.

con-

now known.

ritual vessels,

era

vessels

Chinese sculptural

era (1523-c. 1028 B.C.) and the

1028-222 b.c.) all early dates are

debatable give evidence of the existence of

spirit- worship and ancestor-worThese bronze ceremonial jugs and jars,
cups and caldrons, beakers and basins, were

widespread
ship.

nation leads the world.

we know)

flourishing

in the era of the

Chou

emperors.

very intimate appeal.

piece

and "luck" tokens. The dead were buried with

symbolic jades placed in or upon the ears,
eyes, and tongue. Various jade animals were
found in the graves of the Chou Era, especially those

favored.

vessel.

The most

such as the disk on page 194, may even have

been venerated. Others served as emblems

They were designed over a considerable

number of centuries. In the Ming Dynasty,

Wine

style

Jade as a material was highly prized and

rection,

Left:

the historic

period of sculpture in jade began (so far as

generally altar furnishings, used for sacrificial

rites.

in

to

were produced,

newly imagined works.

Carving in jade in China has a history
longer than that of bronze-casting. This is one
of the branches of sculpture in which the

possessed

dated by most authorities

Ren-

Europe, vessels very similar

in

Chou

to the period of the

185

Many

of

symbolizing immortality or resur-

which the cicada was the most

respected historians claim that every

Bronze. Shang. Mf^tropolitan

Museum

Right: Ritual wine vessel. Bronze. Early Chou. Fogg

of Art

Museum

of Art

Dragons. Jade. Late Chou. freer Gallery of Art; Nelson Gallery-Atkins

Kansas City. (Bottom figure enlarged)

motive found in Chinese

West

the

or the North.

art

originated in

Scholars have un-

covered protot)'pes of the animals, masks, and

technique
bronzes

of

the

suggests

bordering

steppe

Museum,

earliest

that

known

countries,

Shang

from

invasions

where

the

metal-

figures that appeared as subject-matter in the

working was carried on, had occurred long

Chinese repertory. Rostovtzeff, in his book

before authenticated Chinese history begins.

The Animal

The Shang Dynasty lasted more than five

hundred years and gave way gradually before
invaders who founded the Chou Dynasty in

Style

in

South

Russia

and

China, even questions whether the dragon

is

an invention of the Chinese and prefers

to

accept as

its

ancestor the "wolf -dragon" of the

Mesopotamians.

was the Chinese

It

whether

who

invaders

or

sculptors,

long-resident

gave magnificence

to

however,
natives,

the dragon idea.

In every particular the sculptural carving on

the ritual vessels of the

seems

to

to

Shang and Chou

eras

prove a long antecedent period of

practice in this

1028

B.C.

Among

the

disorders

of

warring

feudal states lived the great sages Lao-Tse

one highly original

style.

As

the craft of bronze-casting, the masterly

and Confucius. The philosophy of Lao-Tse,

called Taoism, had profound effect on the
arts later, after the introduction of Buddhism.
In the second half of the third century the

Ch'in

Dynasty conquered and united the

name China to the

country and gave the

nation. In the time of Ch'in there

were only

the relics called the Ch'u bronzes, from the

CHINA
of Ch'u,

State

to

with repeated animals or with a scene of

style as typified in

the richly adorned ceremonial vessels.

known

animals, and others composed into plaques

indicate radical departure

from the Shang and Chou

Best

conflict

Ch'u or Ch'in works are the

bronze mirrors discovered in the Huai River
Valley; the backs were worked with an intricate but subdued all-over patterning, upon
which appear low reliefs of fantastic dragons

They

With

Chou

about

this

Scytho-Siberian

steppe

country,

kistan

in Scythia

Much
now

at

from the
was even

and

style"

parts of Siberia.

buckles,

etc.

Bears. Bronze, gilded.

of

dynastic

Han

of the sculpture of the

of

Han

relief picturing

of the

omamentalism

Han
is

Han.

era, as it

suggestive

The

invented a sort of low-

on stone unique

in the annals

art.

They

also began manufacture of clay tomb

which led on to the familiar decorated ladies, caparisoned horses, dancers and
lute-players, dogs and camels. These figures
vary in size from the common six- or eightinch height to more than twenty-four inches.

rings,

They may be unpainted,

single

A great many

QCourtesy

familiar

figures,

as

Han. City Art Museum,

are

which

change,

emperors,

appears in the museums,

sculptors

Besides purely

Some were formed

the

of the link with the art of the steppes.

and the steppes of Tur-

ornamental items, there were harness

next

in

simplicity, especially in the animals of

bronze have been turned up, with the spirited

known

all

art.

of the earliest ritual vessels to an inspired

more important. In Suiyuan in Inner Mongolia and especially in the Ordos Desertalong the border of Shensi in China proper
thousands of small animal compositions in
rhythmic qualities of the "animal

a horse:

Chinese history begins. Sculpture had pro-

heavily decorative style.

time, apparently direct

and

gressed from the magnificent

are essentially Chinese, even

Another invasion from the northwest

a tiger

the

brought

while differing markedly from the Shang and

early

between

patently an extension from the steppe

of the

or birds.

187

St.

that are

now

painted, or glazed.
terra-cotta in color

Louis; Adolphe Stoclet Collection, Brussels

Madame V eron-Stoclet')

1
T^^^^p
SB
^^^^

CHINA

have

the

In

were often

unglazed.

left

the tomb figures

T'ano

golden age of

which ended about ten centuries

era,

and

figures

objects into the graves of

Han.

clay statuettes are supposed to have

first

been introduced
straw

the

The

sometimes placed in the

is

the probable introduction of the clay

after

The

pigment in deep cracks

women's figures the faces

traces of brighter

or folds.

as

Chou; those

face

typical

Shortly

Indian.

most sculptural

and a treatment of

folds,

Greco-Indian rather than

is

art of

thereafter

China was

native Buddhist monks.

And

the

fore-

that of the

indeed, through

the most glorious period of national expansion,

through the

Wei Dynasty and

the Six

Dynasties period, culminating in the T'ang

Dynasty, the images of the Buddha and the

Bodhisattvas were the inspiration for Chinese

had been substituted

for

who had been entombed

with the corpse of emperor or noble in

earliest

sculpture.

by the em-

invasion, encouraged

At

last

human figure became

and the Chinese came to

the

central to the art,

The

use the basic sculptural material, stone.

period

times.

A new

that

to replace

in turn

the living retainers

the

used during the era of

an improvement

figures

posed in low-relief

of

magnificent

in the fifth century

achievement opened

and continued

until the

perors and sages, produced a totally different

decline of the T'ang Dynasty in the ninth

China during the

Buddhism

and tenth centuries.

There had been many sects of Buddhism
a schism in India had divided the faithful

India,

into a southern school, strict in

flow'ering of sculpture in

centuries immediately after the

Han

period.

as a religion was brought from

and Buddhist statues and probably
Buddhist sculptors were imported. Knowl-

edge of Buddhism and devotion

to the

Buddha

had been pushed eastward to the border of

China before the birth of Christ. The actual
introduction of the faith into the Far East
generally dated from a.d. 65,

when

is

the Chinese

Emperor Ming Ti saw the shining figure of a

and sent a mission to India

savior in a dream,
to investigate the

new

By

the second

it

lowing,

though

turies witnessed a flowering of

comparable

tural

art

ment

in India.

to

the

ments

as the statue-filled caves at

(many

by name), and

statues, in

achieve-

was taken

such monu-

Yun K'ang

Doubtless Indian mismissionaries are

known

sculptors from invader groups

trained in the animal art of the steppes, at

first

gave direction

artists.

Among

the

to

their

interpre-

and

more relaxed and tolerant northern school

and Chinese sculpture mirrored many of the
variations in belief.

Ch'an Buddhism came as a cult within

Buddhism, but it was the Taoism of Lao-Tse
and of his disciple Chuang-Tse, two centuries
later, that

gave

new

direction to the religion

as also the

from the Indian

sionary-artists

its

injunctions,

Buddhist sculp-

great deal of the iconography

Shansi province.

Master's

the

Gupta

direct

in

of

and in turn influenced sculpture. Chinese art

had been magnificent, full, rhythmically active. Now it was quietened. The sculptors
relied upon simplicity. The statue itself spoke
of withdrawal, contemplation, and an inward
peace attained. The unassertive art of Ch'an
(later Zen) intimated the peace of Lao-Tze

religion.

had claimed a considerable folit was not until the third

centur)^ when the Han Dynasty had come to
an end, that Buddhist art began to penetrate
into China proper. The fifth and sixth cencentury

tation

Chinese fellow

distinguishing marks of

Buddha's vision of Nirvana.

During the famous Sung Dynasty and the

following Yuan Dynasty sculpture was plentiful but its quality began to deteriorate. Sung
painting and porcelain were of the finest,
but the sculpture began to be generally overornamented,

or

merely

of

the

Chou

to T'ang.

Another type of sculpture was introduced

oversize guardians of tombs or palaces

the Indian sculptural idiom were schematic

lustrated

on page 204).

arrangements of the draperies, usually

ures

men

dis-

reflective

masterpieces of the great periods from

of

or

The

animals

colossal

were

set

in

(ilfig-

like

Buddha. Stone. 5th century. Yun Kang Caves. Metropolitan Museum of Art

sentries

along

the

avenues leading

the

to

tomb entrances. Sculpturally the surviving

examples in stone are magnificent, whether
in

museums abroad

or

still

at their original

to

the

Even

surviving

so,

in

amount

Chinese

a proportionate

degenerate dictators.

nation that

A
as

inhospitable

to

the

arts

at

certain

periods.

Although the legacy of Chinese sculpture is

so great that examples can be found in
market places the world round, the loss of
monuments was perhaps greater than any
Again and again the edict
went out from an incompetent emperor's
nation's.

court than

constitute

usually accepted follows:

Hsia (largely legendary)

ending about

Shang (sometimes Yin)

approximately

Chou

c.

Ch'in

221-207 B.C.

in

flan

Wei &

the Six Dynasties

T'ang

The

the

land must be delivered for

Sung
Yuan (Mongol)

The

losses of

were fewer, but the

monuments
colossal

in

animal

and in the caves of Buddhist

carv-

B.C.

1523-c. 1028 B.C.

bronze or copper vessels or

guardians of the tombs were neglected for

centuries,

1523

all

melting down.
stone

products

ap-

quality,

table of the historic periods or dynasties

now

Confucius during his lifetime was obviously

statues

often
in

the most magnificent body of sculpture in

share of the

could snub and obscure "the perfect sage"

other

are
as

successive Chinese dynasties gave rise

more than

world's

parent.

the world.

sites.

The

the signs of vandalism

ings

Five Dynasties

Ming
Ch'ing (Manchu)

1028-222 B.C.

206 b.c.-a.d. 220

220-618
618-907
907-960

960-1280
1280-1368
1368-1644
1644-1912

After 1912, the Republic, then

Communism

II

IN the
us from

earliest relics that

to

the

Shang

have come down

period,

the

dences of a formal style are implicit.

evi-

The

grain jar of the Freer Gallery, Washington,

relief

ornament can be read

as

an animal

decorative, talismanic jades cannot confidently

form imaginatively paraphrased.

The

Shang era, but the

oldest known bronzes seem clearly to be
early Shang, and they present a fully formed

and the ornamentalism of these

reliefs

be dated

to

the

early

majestic Chinese style.

The

ornamentation on

apparently ab-

and weapons

Museum

of Art (page 185),

and
the wear and

where the

tracings

usually proves to be conventionalizations of

been

in

tear

animal forms, oftenest the

centuries, the contours of the vessel

tao-tieh, the "dra-

gon" or imaginary monster, or other

tradi-

of

ritual vessels

sculptures

relief

figures

in

form a magnificent group

bronze.

The

can be identified

geometrized
as

dragons and parts of dragons, or

and
beast

later,

lost

have

of

thirty

still

stand

out with controlled power and a rhythmic

massiveness.

tional beast.

The

are

In the bronze wine vessel at the Metropolitan

encrustations

tools

vigor

superb.

incidental

stract

is

especially instructive because each unit of the

as owls, pheasants,

and

fantastic

less often,

with

surface reliefs

monster"

or

vessel,

The

panels

tigers,

and bird fragments combined.

The combination
design

creative

of

sculptural

sumptuous elaboration of the

is

vessel.

better seen in the "horned

It

is

functional libation

vaguely suggesting a monster, with

containing

other

Ax. Bronze. Shang, 1523-c. 1028 b.c. Whittemore Collection, Cleveland

monsters.

Museum

of Art

Heads,

CHINA

"Horned monster" vessel. Bronze. Early Chou.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Grain

jar.

Bronze. Early Chou, 11th century B.C.

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington

eyes, or tails cover

mystery

which
ants,

convey the

to

technique

in

uniquely Chinese.

is

The

wide areas

animal-power,

of

the

Freer

Gallery,

is

pleasing

Symmetric form has been achieved

by placing the birds back to back or "ad-

variation.

dorsed."

The

summarily

pheasants, which have been very

presented,

are

conventionalized

almost beyond recognition and

endowed with

rams' horns.

The

ritual

traditionally

ences are

bronzes were limited to a few

determined

those

of

tj'pes.

use,

The

differ-

choice of subject-

wing
feet

Sometimes

begin.

may

relief.

The owl-shaped

Fogg Museum, which

style,

of

animal motives and suggests a

of

tails

a
or

After the Shang Dynasty gave way to the

Chou, there was a weakening of the art. The
bronze vessels became less imposing in massiveness of design and wealth of decoration.
The Pheasant in the Dumbarton Oaks collection
is
shown quite realistically, though
traced over with patterning and calligraphic

maker

locking

outline

terminate in birds' beaks, in the

very opulence of the wine vessel from the

the inter-

the

Scythian fashion. (See page 185.)

a severer style but

illustrates

not clear where

resolves into a coiled dragon;

and abundance of detail. Today some

of them seem overloaded with ornament,
though there is a certain magnificence in the
matter,

It is

the tiger-headed beast ends and the birdlike

forms

two pheas-

libation vessel suggesting

in

link with the Scythians.

In the early

is

jar at

Chou

period design was at

times exuberant and even

lost

as

dignity,

the

well
the

florid.

rectilinear

as

Yale returns to

equally readable.

accustomed

Ele-phant

Though

crispness

libation

of

reserve
jar,

for

the
the

and
ex-

192

c HINA

Libation vessel. Bronze. Shang.

Freer Gallery of Art

Pheasant. Libation

jar.

Bronze.

Shang or Early Chou.

Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Washington

Ritual vessel. Bronze. Chou.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Owl.

Jar.

Bronze. Yale Uiiiversity Art Gallery,

Hobart and Edward Small Moore

Memorial Collection

CHIN A

193

Elephant. Libation jar. Bronze. Early Chou.

Freer Gallery of Art, Washington

Ritual bell. Bronze. Late Chou,

5th-4th centuries B.C.
Winthrop Collection, Fogg Museum of Art

ample,

is

masterpiece of

its

try'pe.

Many

bronzes.

ritual

The

bronze gongs and bells have survived from the

tion

Chou

astronomical ring

and are among the finest products

of the time. The reliefs on the bodies of the
era

bells vary

widely in elaboration and in

vaHdit)\

thetic

A common

accessory

aesis

be

to

subtle aesthetic percep-

inferred

sculptural history elsewhere.

of the

emblem

compelling

art

maker

the

in

But the owners

doubtless regarded

The

manent Power.

two dragons face to face, forming a handle or

hook for hanging. The motive is one of the
most beautifully handled in the whole range
of Chinese conventionalized animals.

associated with the early Chinese

In both

the

late

Shang and the Chou

It

design

been

has

also

dualism

masculine-feminine
basic to world order.

The

periods the carvers of jade produced gemlike

shown

tions in jade surviving

astronomical disk or symbol of

is

an example of the

pieces.

The

Heaven shown

ritual objects basic to the

religion of the times.

is

intimately

myths of

interpreted

as

recognized

as

plaque with dragons

Intensity of feeling, even the ferocity, of the

monsters in bronze
of

is

animals, however, are

little

were generally kept as simple as the bronze

vessels were elaborate. Since the pieces were
treasured as amulets or charms, they were as
replete with symbolism as the designs of the

in marble.

The

Bird

still
is

on account
medium. The

lacking,

the softer quality of the

formalized

is

is

one of the most elaborate composifrom an early period.

notable that jade figurative designs

It

less as

symbolic of the yin principle of the yang-yin

compositions such as amulets, emblems, and

ornaments and minor figurative

it

than as a link with the im-

pierced, flattened composition, with perhaps

Heaven.

the

of

not easily matched in

is

superbly alive.

The

exceptional in being

Stags are simply set out but

with each animal's characteristic form and

feeling recognized

The

figure of a

and expressed.
in the group of small

man

CHINA

195

Plaque with dragons. Jade. Period of the Warring States, 481-221 B.C.
Nelson GalleryAtkins Museum, Kansas City

jades

the

the only

is

human being

twenty-two

first

to

illustrations

Chinese sculpture. This

is

appear in
of

early

a fair index to

survived to delight the lover of near-abstract

art.

As one

the rarity of the anthropomorphic image dur-

Chou

ing the Shang and

The Chinese
jade

carvings

range from rare

type

objects

that

is

realistic pieces

conventionalization

of

compositions.

The

treasury of

unsurpassed.

They

through every
to

abstract

animals such as dragons,

and cicadas had

Where jade was the

bulls, deer, tigers, pheasants,

religious

significance.

standard

"luck stone,"

the

pieces

included

many poorly designed and executed examples.

The stone's texture and color appealed rather
than the

number

But an extraordinary
exquisitely carved ornaments have

artistic value.

of

five jewel-like

turns again to the bronzes,

it

ap-

that these ancient Chinese statuettes

pears

periods.

form

This may be seen in the

examples on page i86.

and the dragon. The

by the all-

also portrayed the tiger

pieces are rendered ornamental

over patterning, which

a

is,

language of symbols.

of course, in itself

How

far

the artist

sometimes went in the addition of relievo

is

indicated in the Tigers shown, though the

characteristic

beasts

strength

seem not

As against the
the

tigers,

Head

of a

curve was

litheness

of

the

simplified ornamentalism of

there

Dragon

made

and

have been impaired.

to

is

the

fantastically

ornate

at the Freer Gallery.

Each

the excuse for a flourish. But

CHINA

196

Tigers. Bronze.

Chou. Shen-si. Freer Gallery of Art

Head of a Dragon. Bronze.

Late Chou. Freer Gallery of Art

Ax head

with dragon. Bronze. Chou.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

in

spite

of

redundance

this

the

intrinsic

dragon seems reahzed and expressed in an

unmistakably Chinese work.

The two

little

bronze

of

late

Chou

sophisticated

when

ornate

design

style

and

Greece was largely

The

came

the Greeks were

archaic

ax-head design

far the

Chinese

style.

still

to

there

Buffalo,

are

The group

of

illustrations

dealing with

Ordos bronzes found in China and upon its

border. Again a selection of the Ordos products (or as some insist, truly Chinese counterparts) is introduced: a Horse, a Tiger, and a

had progressed from

bronzes such

be a direct descendant of the heraldically

conventionalized animal art of the steppes.

perfection

its

and mere
Between naturalism and a frank

ness

formalized composi-

Scythian sculpture ended with examples of

when Europe beyond

an unknown wasteland.
of a dragon shows how

artists

The

on the back technically the lid seems

This type of

developing their

primitive rudeness

species perfectly.

tion
to

Winged Dragons

the Pillsbur)' Collection are masterpieces of

the

its

literalism.

as

where the animal seems

decorative-

the

Water

to represent

Stag. In the

repeatedly

West,

who

first

millennium

overrun

by

B.C.

China was
from

invaders

the

in general adopted Chinese cus-

toms and the Chinese

st)'le

of

art.

But

it

would

be foolish to believe that conquerors

from

Mongolia

and

the

steppe

country

CHINA

Winged Dragons. Bronze. Late Chou. Pilhbury

Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Art

Water

Buffalo. Vessel. Bronze.

Chou.

Museum

of Art

Fogg
Horse; Tiger; Stag. Bronze.

Han

Period. Ordos Region; Siberia.

Hanna Collection, Cleveland Museum of Art;
C. T. Loo Collection; Mrs. Jess Bryan Bennett

Collection

QCourtesy Philadelphia

Museum

of Art)

197

CHINA

198

Deer. Bronze. Ordos. Adolphe Stoclet Collection, Brussels. (^Courtesy

Winged

Horses, plaques. Bronze. Han. Metropolitan

beyond, owning a distinctive and

of

art,

contributed nothing

Chinese

tradition.

to

vital style

the subsequent

As the invaders

at

one

time revolutionized the military science of the

Museum

China, generations
mixture

of

believe

authorities
artists

Greek

who

learned

The two
Han

Chinese, so they seem to have contributed

sculpture.

much

ascribed to the

of their art vitality to the country they

overran.

down

The

as

influence can hardly be

marked

Han

period,

of the Ch'in or the

though the simplification and directness of

statement in

debt

to the

At the

Han

steppe

time

sculptures

may owe some

art.

when Buddhism came

to

Madame

of Art

later,

in
that

earlier

there

Indian
it

directly

was an
art.

ad-

Some

was the Wei

from Western

winged-horse

plaques,

Dynasty, suggest that a

Greco-Scythian influence

with some

Feron-Stoclet')

may have

arrived

nomadic invaders.

Truer indications of influence through the

Ordos style are found in
the two Deer shown. Identified by some
scholars as products of the Ordos region, they
concise, rhythmic

CHINA
are claimed by others to be strictly Chinese.
Without being unnatural, they escape de-

variation of the dragon of earlier plates, but

tailed naturalism.

lacks

some of the pieces are more realistic

than is usual in early Chinese sculpture, the
period, which is not far from the time of

vigorous

If

Christ's birth

though

Shang art,
The Chimera
late

yields
is

thousand years after

many

fantastic designs.

surprisingly

rugged

Collection of Mrs. John F. Lewis,

Fantastic Animal. Bronze.

Cleveland

y\

-zm^

199

Museum

o/ Art

Han,

and

massive,

all

considering

small

its

serpentine character.

Lion,

profusely

It

Above

decorated

it

is

is

and of

similar stylistic character.

The

horned, yet partly feline, partly equine

Fantastic

powerful.
this

Animal

is

clean-cut, rhythmic,

and

In spite of the stripped style of

animal

and

the

simplicity

Lion. Bronze. Han.

Philadelphia. (Photo courtesy University

Jr.,

size.

and

un-

Museum')

Chimera. Bronze. Han.

Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City

CHINA

200

Head

of a

Water

Buffalo. Bronze with inlay of gold

and

silver.

Chou. British

Museum

decorated appearance of the Bears (page 187),

the hking for profusely decorated sculpture

was

to

continue through

art that

many

The

centuries.

began in the legendary Shang times

ornament at last
and directness of
representation though what is represented
might still be imaginary or mythical.
Bronzes with inlays of gold and silver were
especially prized in the late Chou and the
Han eras. The inlaid pieces were usually
vases, fibulae, and mirror-backs; but the Head
with

display

reached

of a

this

added

of

simplicity

Buckle with antelope. Jade. Han.

Collection, Fogg Museum of Art

Winthrop

Water Buffalo shown is sculpture in the

made to serve as an axle cap and

round,

presumably one item in an array of orna-

Ceremonial ax head. Jade. Han.

mental chariot hardware. From such

British

in our

museums

it

relics

has been possible to gain

added insight into the sumptuous and

liant life at the

The Han

Han

jades continued the double tradi-

tion of abstract or near-abstract

highly

bril-

courts.

formalized

figurative

stylization that reverted to the

emblems and
carvings.

animal

art of

the steppes marks the ceremonial ax head

surmounted by a dragon. The reversed head
is a familiar Scythian motif and the addition
of a second animal, the hare in this instance,
is

also characteristic.

Museum

The

jades

example

offer

and

Han. City Art Museum,

occasional

for

engaging

the

clean-cut

Hill jar. Clay, glazed.

and

the

antelope,

on the buckle, which

sheer,

richly patterned for contrast.

cun'es

realism,

little

svelte

The

elongations

is

repeated
of

the

animal are far removed from the fantastic

The
tomb

first

St.

Louis

conspicuous output of the famous

statuettes occurred at this time.

were

beings

portrayed,

Especially ingratiating are

of dogs,

often

Human
groups.

in

some perky figures

and the many horses are impressive.

Already sculptors were producing models of

treatment of the beaked, winged Dragon in

houses,

the group on page 202, or the lush orna-

household paraphernalia, which are valuable

mentalism of countless dragon charms and

as

buckles in the museums.

rather

Seemingly there was nothing the sculptors

of

Han would

not

Portrayal

attempt.

of

landscape would seem to be the province of

painters

and

poets,

but one of the most

tinctive products of the time

The

the hill

jar.

is round with a bas-relief

But the lid is a composition
which the mountains rise up out of a

vessel itself

panel circling
in

is

dis-

perianth

of

it.

waves.

The

subject-matter

is

drawn from the Taoist legend of the Blessed

Isles. The elements of mountainous island
and surrounding waves are manipulated for
rhythmic sculptural beauty, and the effect as
abstract composition is definite and compelling. The bas-reliefs molded on the pottery
vessels demonstrate the liveliness and strength
so usual in

Chinese

relievo.

court)'ards,

garden

and

pavilions,

clues to the life of the Chinese people

than

masterly

Han

as

such

Despite

sculpture.

Head

pieces as the

of a Horse,

the high periods of production were to occur

Wei and the T'ang

The Chinese had been

in the

Dynasties.

masters

of

bas-

and the very shallow reliefcutting illustrated by the Scenes of Chinese

Liang Tzu,
Life from the tomb of one
who died a.d. 147, is a typically Chinese
relief

carving,

Wu

development.

Here

the

reduced in effect almost

black-and-white

drawings;

has

design
to

the

but

it

been

status
is

of

stone-

cutting and therefore technically sculpture,

although the figures are only slightly raised

from

their

background. As practiced, the

art

and contrast. The

voluminous horses and men and the accented
contours mark the artists as sculptors at heart,
has

unrivaled

vivacity

202

CHINA

Head

of a Horse. Clay. Han.

Royal Ontario

'

Dog. Clay. Han.

Royal Ontario Museum

Museum

^^

CHINA

203

Scenes of Chinese Life, reliefs. Stone. Han. Shantung.

C. T. Loo Collection: Musee Guimet, Paris. QLowcr photo, Giraudon')

rather than

mere draftsmen. The

illustrations

usually seen (including one of those here)

are

from ruhbings or "squeezes" brought out

China by archaeologists. Throughout the

stones,
which depict military and other
earthly scenes and life in fantastic realms of
air, wind, and water, the sense of movement
of

is

extraordinary and there

pending drama. From

incised

design,

depending

linear exactitude,

is

mood

so

and high

to cutting in full

There

is

of im-

kind of shallowly

one can go on

of normal bas-relief,

back

this

largely

upon

to the

study

relief,

and

so

volume.

a series of colossal stone animals.

Lion. Stone. Han.

Chimera. Stone. C. a.d. 518. Near Nanking.

(Fhoto by Osvald Siren^
Animal. Stone. C. a.d. 1400. Near Nanking. (Vhoto
by Claude Arthaud and Frangois Hebert-Stevetis^

CHINA

20

incorporating the fullest resources of sculp

tural art,

Wei

which date from the

The

period.

breathe

Whether
but no

into the

seem

or

lion-like,

an overwhelming

Chimera, the sense of a

sixth-centur)'

to

magnificence.

the Lion shown, fragmentary

is

it

less

and

power

forth

Han

beasts

oversize

cious guardian animal

is

fero-

conveyed

as fully

as

and grandeur. The statues have magnitude and nobility and may mark one of the zeniths of art
is

the impact of sculptural energy

in stone.

In the third example. Animal, a series of

bold and masterly decorative additions,

modify

cally Chinese,

appearance

Such

figures pro-

of overwhelming grandeur.

tected the "spirit paths" leading to the

of

men.

great

t)'pi-

a little the

Approaches

to

tombs

palaces

also

might be lined with the animals or with

colossal stone soldier-guardians.

One

thousand years after the coming of

two

China's

supreme

Lao-Tse

sages,

and

Confucius, the influence of a third sage, the

Buddha Gautama, whose

had inspired

religion

works of

great

art

already

in

India,

brought about a revolution among Chinese

medium
figure,

became

Sculpture

artists.

of

this

religion,

essentially

the

and the human

long neglected as subject-matter, be-

came central, owing to Buddhist concentration

upon the human mind and its development

Bodhisattva. Stone. North Wei.

Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston

toward enlightenment.

There can be no doubt that Hindu models

had effect upon the Chinese sculptors; and
through the
inherited

t\'pe of

from

the

Hindu

figure that

Greeks,

via

had

Gandhara,

some slight influence from Greece lingered

on. There is an unmistakable aura of classic
grace.

the

figure such as the Bodhisattva

Boston

Museum

exhibits

from

idioms easily

from Indian masters, and

Greek and Eastern feeling is

identified as taken

the mixture of

The

Buddhists of India had fashioned ex-

filled

with

Buddha and
in

his

life.

cave-temples,
rock-cut

The

and

were

these

representations

his attendants,

the photographs of the caves in their present

condition
statues,

in

fail to

Honan

justice to the individual

indicates

jestic effect of

One

do

though one of the Lung

Men

Caves

something
of the macs

the major figures.

rather angular

and slenderized

style

stands out distinctively and unmistakably in

faintly evident in the face.

traordinary'

more restraint, hollowed out shrines quite as

amazing and exuberantly decorated. Perhaps
the most satisfying examples date from the
late fifth and sixth centuries. In general,

of

the

and of incidents

Chinese, with only a

little

semidetached figures from, and

Men
Loo

Caves.

collection

been referred
tendency

The
is

a beautiful

to as

to play

in,

the

Lung

seated Bodhisattva of the

example and has

Gothic on account of the

with the flowing contours.

Buddha and Attendant. Lung Men Caves, Honan, China.

QPhoto by Claude Arthaud and Francois Hebert-Stevens^

and the abstract, almost geometrical design.

Another stylistic development, characteristic
of the earlier painted sculpture of the

Kang Caves

Yun

in Shansi, resulted in rounder

fine

of

ornamental panels carved upon the face

the

monument, and usually

in

which full-rounded

The Buddhist

more in harmony with the serenity of

Buddhism. Many of the cave Buddhas in situ

placed.

demonstrate the quiet nobility of the

relief-carving

figures

and

style,

example

there

is

deep-cut niche (sometimes more than one)

or

engaged

votive

figures are

stelae

shown

two types of decorative flattened

illustrate

much

practiced

China

in

through several centuries.

from the Metropolitan

Museum of Art makes clear the sculptural
idioms by which the workers at Yun Kang

monumental blossomed

achieved their

Sculpture in bronze developed in two direc-

In

the

the

effects.

early

(See page 189.)

century shrines were

sixth

built in incredible

numbers

in China.

During

only two reigns the emperors erected thirteen

thousand

Buddhist

temples.

The

shrines,

except the caves, have disappeared but considerable

statues

numbers

of stelae

have survived.

stele is a stone slab

and

high

graphic

relief.

pictorial

and independent

A common

kind of

carved in combined low

There
scenes

are

and

wonderfully
exceptionally

The

tions.

small sculptural arts as well as the

One was

in the

Wei

Dynasty.

the utter simplicity of such

concise expressions as the Buddhist

Though

small in

size,

Monk.

the figure affords an

impression of solidity, power, even magnitude.

Every unnecessary feature, every complicating

detail has
at

the

from an

been sheared away. The Buddha

University

Museum,

altar group,

though simple, has been

decoratively enriched.

most baroque.

Some

Philadelphia,

pieces were

al-

CHINA

Seated Maitreya. Stone, a.d. 512. Lung Men

Caves. University Museutn, Philadelphia

Top left: Buddhist Monk. Bronze. Wei.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Center: Buddha. Bronze. Sui.

University Museum, Philadelphia

Left:

Seated Bodhisattva. Stone. Early 6th century.

Lung Men Caves. C. T. Loo Collection

Buddhist votive

Muscinn

North Wei. 6th century.

Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City

stelae. Stone.

of Fine Arts, Boston;

CHINA
The

bronzes were mostly devotional figures

Unmistakable influence

or groups of figures.

from India

evident in the Buddhist

is

though the animal figures

have come down direct

and the

The

Chinese

in the

Lung Men

leaf-form

line,

sug-

is

stone figures.

nimbus

filled

the

of

characteristic

altar,

base seem to

at the

angular sculpturing

lean,

gestive of the

was

209

with flames

earliest

dated

Chinese Buddhist sculptures, bronzes of 437

and 444. The exquisite little gilded bronze

Buddha

at the University

Museum

nimbus. This was adapted in

to

shows

later sculptures

appear as a decorative canopy, along a line

of development that

more often encoun-

is

tered in Japan.

The wide

diversity of techniques can

be

noted also in the surviving monuments of

carved

sculpture.

The

Bodhisattva

Freer Gallery, essentially Chinese,

farthest

too

Buddhist

altar.

Musee Guimet

Bronze, gilded.

the

at the

remove from the austere treatment

previously, though it
unmistakably a product of Chinese

is

Buddhist

A.D. 518.

of

Monk shown

the

of

is

art.

The "feel of the stone" is inherent in the

Head of a Buddha at Minneapolis, which is
typical of many detached heads taken from
China into the museums of the Western
world. The colossal Head of a Bodhisattva
at the University Museum, though decorahas impressive and silent grandeur.

tive,

As

if

to prove their

independence of any

cave

stylistic limitations,

artists,

at

about the

same

time,

light,

almost frivolous touch evident in the

produced mural

Apsara in
linear

grace

the Fogg

reliefs

with the

Museum. Seldom

has

been woven more charmingly

into stone patterns than in the series of cave

decorations at T'ien
this

Lung Shan from which

The differences of

fragment was taken.

style in

the statues

and

reliefs

of a single

cave shrine are attributable to the fact that

sculptors

many

came

to a

few working centers from

from India. There

distant points, even

Buddha. Bronze,
University

gilded.

Wei. a.d. 536.

Museum, Philadelphia

Head of a Bodhisattva.
Stone, colossal. 6th century.
University Museum, Philadelphia

Bodhisattva. Stone.
Period of the Six Dynasties.
Freer Gallery of Art

Head

of a Buddha. Stone.
Northern Ch'i. Honan.
Minneapolis Institute of Arts

CHINA
are diflFerences,

Eastern

Wei

too,

between the

211

art of

the

regime and the Western.

was during the Wei Dynasty that the

making pottery figurines came to a
chmax. In accordance with men's behef that
it was good to be surrounded in the tomb
with what had been interesting and agreeIt

of

art

able in hfe, the statuettes represented court

dancing

ladies,

and

so

both

pet dogs, pigs, horses,

girls,

on though anything and

been depicted sooner or

Among
more

everything

and legendary seems

actual

the most intriguing objects are the

or less imaginary beasts, such as

catlike

Tiger (or dog) from the Loo

The most

tion.

Providence.

the

collec-

were
Dragon

spirited of the figures

often the dragons or chimeras, as the

at

have

to

later.

The

ancestors of this beast can

be found, of course, in the bronzes and jades

of

Chou

the

era

of

thousand

years

earlier.

Most

of

statuettes

Apsara. Stone. Northern Ch'i.

T'ien Lung Shan Caves.
Fogg Museum of Art

the

were

at

terra-cotta

or

earthenware

one time painted, and those

that have survived bear traces or patches of

and only very

coloring, often white,

full

rarely a

coating of pigment. Already glazed or

partly

glazed

appeared

figures

among

the

earthenware pieces.

Dragon. Clay. Wei.

Rhode hland School

Tiger. Clay. Wei. C. T.

of

Museum

Design,

Loo Collection

of Art,

Providence.

CHINA

212

Fragmentar)'

ornamental

horses'

heavy

with

horses

clay, and
and unusual

heads in

trappings

remain

additions

Wei and T'ang

examples of the

pieces illustrated, at Cleveland

perfect

as

The

mastery.

and Oxford,

once massive, beautifully rhythmic,

are

at

and

reposeful.

The

essential sculptural large-

ness suffers no diminution from the profuse

adornments.

The Wei

Period and the follow-

ing T'ang give to the world

its

largest trea-

sure of sculpture in clay.

The human

figure in the time of

treated, in the statuettes,

Wei was

with something

less

than the finesse shown in the T'ang Era.

But the kimonoed

into

solidly

flaring at

skirts

ladies, generally

pillar-like

The

faces of the

ples at the Royal Ontario

and

The
buted

Bodhisattva in stone

Wei

in
is

Museum

and

exam-

are typi-

full of character.

to the Ch'i

bud,

with

the feet, are engaging

sculpturally correct.

cal

modeled

compositions,

550).
car\'ed

is

attri-

The

holding a lotus

figure,

with a remarkable simplicity.

dignified material solidity

remoteness

shown

(which displaced Eastern

from

the

W.
Museum

Horse. Clay. Wei. Charles

Collection, Cleveland

and

world

a sense of

have

Harkncss
of Art

been

Women.

Clay. Wei.

Royal Ontario

Museum

Horse. Clay. T'ang.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

CHINA
achieved. Captured in stone

213

the stillness,

is

the awareness of an interior hfe, which

is

at

the heart of Buddhist devotion.

The
581

to

tions

the

following Sui Dynasty, in power from

618, brought in no stylistic innova-

but fostered the

arts as

Six Dynasties emperors.

known under

high point

was reached in the portion of

a shrine now at the Nelson Gallery, which
epitomizes the colorful and vigorous Oriental
mode. It commands attention for the skill in
marshaling mass and movement, and in
stressing a main line of direction through a
writhing pattern of virile bodies and thrusting ornament. It marks a peak in the sculpof elaboration

tural design that parallels to

some extent the

unrivaled Chinese silk embroideries.

Elaboration
ful

in

the

is

more

limestone

restrained

and

Kiian-Yin

at

From this time forward

known as Kuan-Yin, and

grace-

Boston.

the god of mercy,

later as a goddess,

the Merciful Mother, was a favorite figure

in

'>t

the enlarged pantheon of Buddhist and

Taoist divinities.

The

suavely decorative Kuan-Yin at the

Metropolitan

Museum

is

counterpart

in

Bodhisattva. Stone. Northern Ch'i.

University Museum, Philadelphia

Portion of Shrine. Stone. Sui.

Nelson Gallery- Atkins Museum, Kansas City

CHINA

bronze. At this time the repeated forms in

the

draperies

elaborate

of

Buddhist

the

bronzes began to be more fluent: a step

ward the tMpe

era.

characteristic

of

to-

the T'ang

Especially notable here are the ribbon-

and edgings.
The seated Kuan-Yin of the Freer Gallery was produced at a time when many of
the bronze figures were being dressed up in
elaborate garments and garlands. This one
achieved sculptural solidity and even re-

like accessories

markable

of

the

retaining

The
in

New

York

and religious feeling in a

more lyric and more graceful

sions of aesthetic

great era

and

is

than most of the stone sculpture of the time.

of the

the

stone

heights

of

statue

that

Ktian-Yiu. Bronze. Sui.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The

sive qualities

is

to

and mas-

of graceful

be seen in a Bodhisattva

Tien Lung Shan

is

caves.

The

large

not unusual for that

time, but the subtle shaping of the

body and

the delicacy of feeling in the treatment of

to

new

the draperies suggest an exceptional refine-

dignit)'

and

ment

was carried

achievement.

rocklike

one of the sublime expres-

is

mass of the statue

and bronze and wood, were practiced

all it was

of

Bodhisattva from a private collection

The

in clay

quality

solidity.

histor)'.

with surpassing mastery, but above

undis-

are

and Bodhisattvas are subtlv expressi\e even

while

nificent,

techniques of sculpture,

pieces

mass and surface variation. These Buddhas

by reputation the most magthe most gorgeous period of Chinese

is

lesser

the

turbed by the counterpoint of line and minor

The same combination

plastic integrity.

The T'ang

monumentalism

of the

art.

Kuatj-Yii:. Stone. Sui,

6th 7th centuries. Mit^euvi of inc

Arts, Boston

^ .^M^

Kiiati-Yiii.

Bronze.

an;^.

Fill

'

-f

Art

gilt and color. T'ang,

8th-9th centuries. Freer Gallery of Art

Bodhisattva. Stone, with

Bodhisattva. Stone. T'ang. 8th-9th centuries.

Private Collection, Neiv York

CHINA

216
The
dried

the

title

lacquer.

which

Mu-

Bodhisattva of the MetropoHtan

seum on
is

premely

The

a central
felt.

page of

The

volume

this

quiet

in

is

expressiveness,

aim of Buddhist

art, is

sculptural character

suin-

is

politan

Museum, with

The Kneeling
much smaller in
is

the treatment of draperies.

ously the garment

technique of dried lacquer results in

different effects

from those of stone carving

and clay modeling. Over an armature of

wood

or a removable clay core the figure

roughly modeled with cloths soaked in

quer.

Successive layers of lacquer-wet cloth

or of lacquer paste are

been built out

face has

when

added
to

until the sur-

its

a coating of lacquer paint

Smooth

surfaces,

sharpened

method.

banded

area-edges

The

are

Bodhisattva

shape,

final
is

applied.

and

draperies,

natural
of

the

to

the

Metro-

Bodhisattva. Stone. T'ang. T'ien Lung Shan

Caves, Shansi. ^Courtesy Osvald Siren^

Tiiii

and

how

worth noting

treatment

is

less

verv

is

power-

colossal figures. It

simply and harmoni-

Again the

suggested.

is

reminder

Chinese sculptors

of

the

debt

of

the Buddhist sculptors

to

of India.

The

is

lac-

but hardly

ful than the life-size

creased by surface harmonies, particularly in

The

typical.

is

Bodhisattva in stone
size

and

features

facial

drapery edges cleanly accented,

technical

marked edges

is

expedient
not,

of

carved stone statues.

in

The

have been noted in some of the

of the
sisted

Buddha carved

unknown

device might
earliest

in China,

and

heads
it

through the following centuries,

Head of Buddha in the

Museum.
That the medium of wood

the

sharply

of

course,

Victoria

per-

as in

and

Albert

also

could be

Kneeling Bodhisattva. Stone. T'ang.

Fogg Museum of Art

used for the noblest purposes, with amplitude

and

impersonal

proved in the

grandeur,

life-size

the Metropolitan
ness of the

wood

Museum
is

is

sufficiently

Kuan-Yin shown, from

of Art.

The

soft-

properly revealed in the

deeper cutting and the freer play of ribboned

forms.

When
sculptors

they worked with wood, Chinese

sometimes

copied

nature

exactly,

as they did also in later lacquer figures.

lacquer

Head

tive of a

at

Chicago

is

model and marks the

attained by the Chinese in

The

obviously imitafarthest point

their excursion

into naturalism at a far distance from their

normal Oriental formalism.

All the collections of Oriental art include

Head. Dried lacquer. T'ang.

Art Institute of Chicago

Kuan-Yin. Wood. T'ang or Sung.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

figures of

tomb

or temple guardians in stone

Head

of Buddha. Stone. T'ang.

Victoria and Albert Museum

218

CHINA

and wood. The bulky bodies and brutal

considered appropriate

themselves well

The example

to

to

heavy sculptural

Hoyt Collection is undried lacquer. Somewhat less

horrendous than some,

subtlety of expression.

effect

is

of

it

an unusual

The amount

extraordinary,

solidity,

has

is

the

of

minor

considering

the

not to say concentrated

power, conveyed by the figure.

example

effects.

in the

usual, being of

modeling

faces

purpose lent

the

Head

related

of a Lion, exceptionally

there

In small clay sculpture the T'ang era

is

Wei. Primitive expression-

and

mastery

realistic
is

to

in

more
but

in

the

little to

as

too,

Camel shown.

The Horse
poulos

in

Collection

Comhat
at

the

the

Eumorfo-

British

Museum

of

indicates that the spiritedness

common

to the

treatment of animals in the Chou, Han, and

Wei

eras has

been maintained.

study could be

made

An

endless

of the caparisoned ani-

mals and the ways in which their trappings

The

saddle robe here, in

form and the direction of

its

its

edges, provides

an instructive example of creative composing.

Camel. Clay. T'ang. Fuller Collection, Seattle Art Mtisentn

Horse

elaboration,

expression

direct

are represented.

in cast iron.

fully as rich as the

ism and simplicity give way a

Combat. Clay. T'ang. British Museum

CHINA
The unusual rounding

of the forms

and

the smoothing of the surfaces of the Polo

Player at Stockholm

make

ing appeal, though perhaps a

more

ingratiat-

less

profound

compared with the Camel or the

Horse. It is an extraordinarily accomplished
one

as

and

fluent design, hardly rivaled in

ticular

field

outside

the

219
its

par-

body of Chinese

work.

The tomb

statuettes of the

be masterpieces of

realistic

T'ang era can

reporting.

The

Equestrienne Dismounting, and the group of

posed Ladies are typical treatments of themes

from everyday

life.

They

illustrate the appli-

cation of solid sculptural artisanship to the

slightest subjects.

Tetnple Guardian. Dried lacquer. T'ang.

Collection of Charles B. Hoyt.
(^Courtesy Fogg

Museum

Head

of a Lion. Cast iron. T'ang.

Detroit Institute of Arts

of Art')

Equestrienne Dismounting. Clay. T'ang.

Detroit Institute of Arts

Polo Player. Clay. T'ang.

Museum of Far Easter^i Antiquities, Stockholm

CHINA

220

Wei and

Both the

the T'ang statuettes on

these pages are executed in clay

from

vary

plain

terra-cotta

to

and they
examples

painted in white or varied colors, and glazed

examples.

seem not

most
1

were generally

sculptural

values

which

loss of

sculpture.

the

contribution was
wooden statues. They
large and captured the com

distinctive

painted

bination of magnificence and quiet feeling

have been harmed by the

In general
to

The
made

had

characterized

The

massive and rich in

color.

One
t}'pe is

flaring

detail.

It

is

is

both

utterly re-

poseful yet sculpturally alive, a masterpiece

the

of the style.

and sophisticated
Lady with festooned sleeves and
shoulder patches. Her headdress and
with flaring

but the pointed effect

is

ruffles to

relieved

rounding of the statuette

match,

by the

that repeats the oval of the face,

collar

and by a

at the base.

After the T'ang Dynasty came to an end

907, five minor dynasties rose and

fell

Sung Dynasty came into

This was a turning point in

before the powerful

being

religious

especially attractive

skirts are fitted

A.D.

T'ang

Kiian-Yin at Boston

a.d. 960.

Chinese historj'; but the more than three

hundred years of Sung yielded little superlative sculpture.

Fhtte-Player; Lute-Player; Lady. Clay. T'ang. Victoria and

Albert Museum; British Museum; Royall Tyler Collection

Bodhisattva.

Wood. Sung, 12th-13th

centuries.
Collection of Charles B. Hoyt.
QCourtesy Fogg Museum of Art^

Vase. Clay, glazed. Sung.

Freer Gallery of Art

The

Bodhisattva of the

Hoyt

Collection

more dignity and reserve than most

of the wooden figures of the period. The
technique of cutting, too, is crisper, and the
graceful draperies resemble the T'ang. This
retains

piece

exceptional for the expression of both

is

discernment

spiritual

and sculptural

sensi-

The bronze
Water Buffalo

realism.

who

action,

is

China in the Sung

and dishes were unsurpassed for form, glaze, and texture, and
at its best the ceramic vessel had abstract
the heights achieved in

The

era.

sculptural

The

architecture

the

of

The

abstractly

The

sage

of

non-resistant

put his trust in mystic under-

at

ease

beasts.

the significance of
the

beauty.

properly adjusted, with feeling for

is

shown, from the Freer Gallery,

shown

recognize

vases, bowls,

ordered mass and svelte contour.

most refractory of
to

no other

on a

Lao-Tse

of

standing and a serene power derived from

nature,

generally believed that at

exact and subtly expressive,

statuette
is

avoids the over-detailing of a too ob-

it

servant

know

is

bowl

bihty.

yet

It

time or place did the art of the potter reach

upon one of the

But one need not
this Taoist theme

superlative

treatment. (See page 184.)

values of

the

designed,

is

hardly

less

vase

sculptural than the

infrequent ones with representational touches

in high relief.

A
(of

set of six

an

Lohans, or disciples of Buddha

original

probable

eighteen),

forms

one of the curiosities of the late period of

Chinese sculpture. These
of clay, glazed

the potter)' that

and

we

life-size figures are

fired in
call

the

manner

of

chinaware. Because

CHINA

Kuan-Yin. Wood. Yuan.

Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City

Lohan. Clay, glazed. Sung or Ming.

University

Museum, Philadelphia

of the size, each piece constitutes a man'el

of ceramic achievement.
versity

Museum

is

The one

at the

Uni-

particularly interesting for

the fine head and expressive face.

The

vir-

tues of the series, however, are comparative.

It is

obvious, from the laxness of sculptural

expression in the figure, that the standards

of the art

The

had already

223

seriously deteriorated.

colors, unfortunately, are overbright

and

inharmonious.

the

of

earlier

achievements.

The

heavily

decorated Kuan-Yin of the Nelson Gallery,

which
ever, a

is

Yuan

ascribed to the

Era,

is,

how-

welcome exception.

The Yuan

Dynasty, of the Mongols, suc-

ceeded the Sung and in 1368 gave way to

the

Ming, which

came into
among the

the

to 1644. Century
and no fresh inspiration

lasted

after century passed,

art.

The

ivory carvings are

best works from the

Ming

period.

In the Orient a replica of a masterpiece

Objects in ivory had been treasured im-

was valued as highly as the original, if it

was as fine, and copying the great works of
the past now became a recognized industry.

memorially but had been overshadowed by

Works dated to the Sung and Yuan and

Ming Dynasties but "in the style of Han"
or

"Chou"

or

rarely does a
or

Lohan

"Wei" are numerous. Yet only

Kuan-Yin or a tomb guardian
substantially reflect

the glories

the popular and exquisite carvings in jade.

Most distinctive of the Chinese ivories in
Western museums are figures, often of old
men, shaped to preserve substantially the outline of the tusk; that

but slightly

cut.

is,

The

with the indentations

effectiveness

of

pieces arises from the resulting slender

the
styli-

Seated Kiian-Yi7i. Porcelain. Early Ch'ing.

Buckingham

Collection,

Art Institute of Chicago

Kuan-Yin. Porcelain. Late iMing

Seattle Art Museum

Old Men.

Museum

Ivory.

Ming. Metropolitan

of Art; Royal Ontario

Museum

CHINA
zation

and

ized old

fluent channeling.

man

The

standard-

of these pieces, representing the

dignity and serenity of the aged,

is

some-

times called the god of longevity.

Porcelain figures became a standard prod-

and the hundreds of known examples

are pleasing and distinctive. The \drtues here
are grace and the fitness of the creamy white
ware to its sentimental-symbolic subject matter. The figure is most often the Kuan- Yin,
now become a feminine deit)% and as comidolized in the Far East as the
is

in

the

West.

Chicago and Seattle are

The

objects

shown

intricate

ivory

carvings

in

Ma-

The examples

at

typical.

in the facing illustra-

arouse our wonder more

ing, too,

was

carried on, both in

in relief,

throughout the world.

The

account

that artisans

may

were

best

still

end with the truth

occasionally, in objects

such as stone seal-handles and jade figures,

capturing a

little

of the magic of early Chi-

nese animal sculpture.

Shang and Ming. Some

massing and exquisite

of the most ingenious

workmanWoodcarvthe round

for their

and the spread and the ornateness of the fretwork screens and panels, the
hiah-relief carvings on beam and balustrade,
and the melodramatic figures in the temples,
pagodas, and palaces of Peking are known
and

and have sentimental appeal

but cannot compare with the profound works
produced in the twenty-five centuries between
tions are prett)'

relief mar-

velously cut fans and screens and box panels

ship than for artistic originality.

uct,

monly
donna

and

225

composition such as

the appealing Horse in white jade affords us

something of the old delight in rhythmic

finish.

Horse. Jade. Ch'ing. Kang Hsi period, 16621722.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, gift of Heber R. Bishop, 1902

9:

Korea and Japan:

The Spread of Buddhist Sculpture

I
KOREA'S

location

on a peninsula point-

actual

models

of

Buddhist

sculpture

into

ing southward from the Manchurian main-

Japan, and from this beginning the whole

land toward the westernmost islands of Japan

monumental

was

a factor in the spread of sculptural art in

the

Far East.

In

the

period

of

the

Han

art of the

Japanese was

to flower.

who

Racially the Koreans were Siberians

had

from

settled in the peninsula as refugees

They

Dynasty the Chinese Empire had expanded

to embrace both lower Manchuria and Korea.
Korean art was destined, in the centuries im-

the war-torn states of upper China.

mediately following, to be a brilliant reflection

Japanese. Their social and cultural customs

of Chinese

and

art.

Korean

Wine

artists

in

turn took

per-

sisted physically as a distinctive people, differ-

ing both

from the Chinese and from the

institutions

were those of China (includ-

vessel, tomb figure. Clay. Possibly 4th century a.d.

Kyungju, South Korea. National Museum, Seoul

KOREA AND JAPAN

ing ancestor-worship and spirit-worship, edu-

fifth

tide

and

money,

cash

system,

cational

the

were full in the

of Buddhist ardor that was then sweeping
sixth centuries they

The Korean

the Chinese Empire.

Buddha and

the

In

etc.)-

statues of

made

Bodhisattvas

at

that

currents

The

arts.

begins with

from Korea

kingdom both the knowledge of Buddhism and the tradition of Buddhist sculpture.
Korean art is competent, craftsmanlike, and
pleasing, but most of it is derivative. While
island

sculpture
tery

is

particularly

The

among

noticeable

the field in

is

please

their arts, pot-

which the Koreans more

discriminating

collectors.

porcelains were developed with original-

and rivaled the Chinese products.

There were three phases in Korean

The

sculpture,

first,

from a tomb,
imagination.
in

and

The

second phase,

dependence upon China

for

method.

still

In

this

an

indicates

Bodhisattva in bronze,

sculp-

a local type of mortuary

illustrated in a terra-cotta piece

is

there

inventive

as instanced

illustrates

the

both subject and

persist

vaguely

some traits inherited from the Greeks through

the Romans, developed idiomatically by the
sculptors of Gandhara, absorbed into the main
body of Indian Buddhist art, carried to the
Chinese, and handed on by them to the

The

Koreans.
relief

in

third phase

panels from the

is

illustrated in the

Temple

of Sok-kul-am

South Korea, where the Korean sculptors

known
Lung Men Caves and other Chinese
and endowed their work with a

departed somewhat from the models as

in the

shrines

serenity

and

lifelikeness not

encountered be-

introduction

in a.d. 552,

and the cultural

ideals

Korea from the Buddhist

China

of

Japan

Buddhism

of

determined

Japanese

practice for centuries.

Although the

tide of

Buddhism swept over

Japan from outside, transforming worship and

that the Japanese

art, it is clear

who were

trained artisans

had previously
work with

able to

and understand the immigrant Korean sculptors, and in time to make the traditional Buddhist sculpture their own in a personal and
national way. There is a primitive Japanese
sculpture which goes back to the later Neolithic

In a period

era.

known

as

Jomon

and anthropomorphic
techniques were made in

figures in potter's

considerable numbers.

and

fifth

oped

Later,

form of sculpture

Haniwa.

It

folk

and

art,

in

centuries, the Japanese

had

devel-

known

as

in appearance a primitive or

is

recently for

in clay,

the fourth

it

has been widely celebrated

sirtiple

its

virtues

and a naive

individuality.

The Haniwa compositions were generally

tomb figures; again China is paralleled,
though there is no stylistic connection with
Chinese.

the

The Haniwa

figures,

seldom

more than three feet high, were set outside

the burial mounds, usually on cylinders built
as reinforcement of the mounds, whereas the
Chinese clay ladies, dancers, and musicians
were interred inside with their owner. The
may have been the same: to relieve the

origin

loneliness of the afterlife by providing loved

amusing companions at the tomb, mercimanufactured in clay so that the originals might stay alive though once ser\'ants,
or

fully

fore.

entertainers,

Owing

the

special sort of pottery

it)'

tural art.

philosophies, religions,

real story of the art of

through

sculptors

annexed. But in the sixth century, in one of

they passed on to the

new

tions introduced

and

derived

quieter periods,

when

interchange with the nearby continental na-

from the mainland figures. The

Koreans were harried by the nearby Japanese,
were sometimes conquered and had their land
the

commerce. Between periods of

of

withdrawal, however, there were times

time and in the T'ang era are hardly distinguishable

227

to

their

geographic position,

the

withdrew
from contacts with the mainland and from contamination bv the world
island people of Japan sometimes
for long periods

and horses had been buried with

their masters.

The new Buddhist

religion

was not im-

mediately established; political factions fought

for

and against

it

until Prince

Shotoku Taishi

^^/,?^-^-^,^-^
Triad

\vith

Buddha. By Tori.

became Regent to the Empress Suiko and

gave official encouragement to the building of
monasteries and temples. However uncertain
and delayed official acceptance may have
been, the Buddhist art style was established
by the importation of Korean images and by

The
name of

the arrival in Japan of sculptor-monks.

period was

known

as

Suiko from the

a.d. 613. Horiuji

Temple, Nara

and taught with

emphasis that a

special

spirit

inhabited every person, phenomenon, or object.

While not a particularly exacting reShinto had its ritual and reached into

ligion,

every home, since every piece of furniture

and cooking or washing

with a

utensil

was endowed

an

unquestioning

spirit.

There

also

developed

and obedience

an emperor whose

the Empress (reigning from 593 to 628), or

Asuka, from the name of the district in which

patriotism

the culture formed, in Yamato.

dating from feudal times, led to dominance

Shinto had been the distinctive religion of

the Japanese.

It

was

a mosaic of beliefs

which

included nature-worship and ancestor-worship

spirit

to

was the sun-goddess.

by the samurai or military

tured onlv a few of the

caste

class.

arts,

system,

Shinto nur-

most notably the

formalized no drama and the minor sculp-

KOREA AND JAPAN

tural art that provided

remained

Shinto

masks

the

for the

ofBcial

no

rehgion

of

Japan until 1945, even though the showier

rehgious monuments of the country had been
for

more than

thirteen centuries the Buddhist

and the Buddhist

monasteries,

the

priests

most active workers in sculpture. Buddhism

opened new vistas of universal spirituality,
self-giving, and compassion. But the individual was still surrounded by those thousands
of minor spirits, and he had no reason to give
up the main beliefs and observances of

The

horizon was widened as was

art

re-

and the Japanese went

the Biiddhas and Bodhisatt-

perception,

ligious

to creation of

vas in

who

did

much

wood

or bronze to celebrate the

Bud-

dha Sakyamuni. They learned to provide the

vehicle by which the devotee might be stimulated

spiritual

to

mood

into the

contemplation or be led

of quiet peace, the token on

earth of nirvana.

Because the islands lacked workable stone,

the sculptors turned to wood, of

which there

was a plentiful supply, and they learned to

work bronze. In Japan too, as in China,
statues of life size or over were built up in

The

appreciation

increase

to

229

pioneer scholar-writer

of

Japanese sculpture in America and England,

wrote in

The Enduring

Art of Jafan that

means

"possession of the mysteries of a craft

nothing

and

than a power over nature gods

less

Japan's sculpture

extraordinary

and

man who

creates a priest out of the

trols it."

power

to

understand

priest's business.

Throughout
is

nature

man

inner

with an image sufficiently true

is

con-

evidence of an

is

to transmit the spirit of

world the priest-sculptor

Shinto.

on

Langdon Warner,

actors.

along

to nature.

It

the Buddhist

found, and Bud-

and

dhist sculpture attains spiritual quietude

repose more fully than any other.

One
in

of the waves of influence from China,

the period of the T'ang emperors

(a.d.

618-907), brought a modification of the im-

which is implicit in
monumental sculpture. Ch'an

personality or aloofness
early Japanese

Buddhism had turned the Chinese product

toward humanism and simplification, and
temporarily at least toward realism. Ch'an or

Zen Buddhism

in Japan brought in a gradual

toward lifelikeness in portraiture, and

drift

(from the Taoist element especially) an ease

and methods of cut-

in both pose of subject

tree, a species of

ting or modeling. In later centuries, as sculp-

both countries. But the

ture entered fields other than the religious,

Japanese genius found noblest expression in

some of the stiffer poses came back into

At the same time the craftsmanship
began a centuries-long decline, ending in a

lacquer.

lacquer or lac

sumac, was native

the

medium

to

of wood.

fashion.

For thirteen centuries the Japanese have

and protected the early wooden

and the wooden temples and
monasteries in which many of them are
housed. While a few centuries of wars or a
few decades of religious intolerance have obtreasured

rather slick sort of stylization.

masterpieces

The earliest two historic periods, the Suiko

and the Nara, were comprised in slightly
less than two hundred and fifty years and
produced the best of which Japanese artists
were capable. The Suiko period ended within

literated

most of the images in wood in the

rest of the civilized

succeeded

in

world, the Japanese have

preserving

major heritage.

Their wooden figures form the world's most

successful

achievement of sculpture in the

medium. The African body of sculptures in

wood, which is equally craftsmanlike and
aesthetically

form of
rose to a

Africans.

as

appealing,

creation,

is

also

ritual

but the Japanese figures

monumcntality seldom attained by

a century, in a.d. 646.

In the late seventh

century art flowered anew, in what

as the

The

Nara

period,

which was

following period

is

known

is

to last to 794.

known

as the

Heian,

from a word meaning "Capital of Peace,"

referring to the

new

capital,

Kyoto. Despite

successful repetitions of traditional types, the

time

is

somehow an unexciting

circumstances
fresh

should

modes of

have

expression.

one.

given

New

rise

Buddhism

to

ex-

KOREA AND JAPAN

230

panded with the rise of mystical sects, and

the court and nobles strove to lift the arts to
new creative levels. But the golden age was
past. Sculpture lost its simplicity and somedignity, although

thing of

its

liveliness

and outward decorative

The

it

acquired a
grace.

Heian period (or

Heian II, as it is sometimes referred to) was
also called the Fujiwara period. The Kamapart of the

latter

kura period (from

about a return

1186

1392) brought
Curiously

to

to older standards.

enough, the destruction of some of the great

Buddhist temples at Nara occasioned the
renaissance.

Tokyo.

Government-approved publications
list and dates of the historical

compile the

periods thus:

Asuka period (or Suiko)

Nara period
Fleian period

Heian period

II

(sometimes Fujiwara)

Kamakura period
Muromachi period

Momoyama

period

552-646
646-794
794-897

897-1186
1186-1392
1392-1568
1568-1615

Yedo period

1615-1867

Modern

1867-to date

period

Leading sculptors were brought

together and were set the task of producing

images "as fine as the ones destroyed."

It

turned out that they did not possess the genius necessar)' to the conception and execution of statues as magnificent as the Biiddhas

and Bodhisattvas

of the eighth century, but

they did develop a school of woodcarving

that excelled in realistic portraiture.

After

Kamakura

the

came

period

the

Muromachi, from 1392 to 1568,

to 161 5, and the Yedo to 1867.
But by any profound standard the history of
Japanese sculpture had all but ended in the
then the

Momoyama

thirteenth or at latest the fourteenth century.

The

late

and

sometimes

Kamakura

interesting

portraits are

an

illustrate

extraordinary

combination of realism and schematization.

Zen Buddhism
tendency

retained

suppress

to

none

the

of

personality,

early

and en-

couraged the production of images of saints

and

priests.

acters

From

portraying religious char-

the sculptors began

noblemen and

From
tieth

commemorate

to

warriors.

the seventeenth to the early twen-

century

monumental

sculpture

is

mentioned in serious books about

the art, and Japanese sculpture is known to
most Western collectors and students in such
small objects as masks, netsuke, and sword
scarcely

and

guards,
larger

in

ivory

tiny

with

masterpieces,

carvings.

rare

The

exceptions,

are to be seen only in the Buddhist monasteries,

or

national

occasionally

museums

at

at

one of the three

Nara,

Kyoto,

or

Bodhisattva. Bronze. 7th century.

Sankoku, Korea. Fogg

Museum

of Art

n
TH

Korea of the sixth centur)^ was

successful in art in

the fields culti-

all

vated by the Chinese of the era of the Six

There

Dynasties.
the

fourth

wine

or
in

vessel

are

some clay
century,

fifth

of

form of

the

pieces from

which the
warrior on

horseback, at the head of this chapter,

abstract sculpture.

curred

also

tombstones,

in

native development oc-

memorial lanterns and

the

which take simple form, then

blossom in incidental ornament

on stone

is an
amusing example. But the commoner type
of early Korean sculpture is so similar to the

wall coverings. Those at the

Chinese, as in the case of the bronze Bo-

which

dhisattva

All

opposite,

name

able to

the

that

only specialists are

types of statue

common

to

Buddhist centers of China under the

the

Wei

emperors are duplicated in the products of

the Korean
ciples

from

are

states.

The Buddha and

found in everv

colossal

stone

figures

his dis-

near

kul-am,
is

Kyungju

in

part cave-shrine

tural structure,

slabs for

Temple

of Sok-

South

and part

Korea,
architec-

form one of the noblest of the

art

meccas in the Far

East.

Like the Chinese models (and similarly

fluenced by Greco-Indian

sculpture),

in-

these

half-round figures, ascribed to a.d. 752, have

dignity, amplitude,

size

and form,

also

to

diminutive

nately Korean.

The tomb guardians, both human

and animal, abound, and relief sculpture is
varied and spirited.
The design of pagodas in Korea was original and might be considered as a sort of
bronzes.

series of large figures cut

many Buddhist

the origin immediately.

as distinctive

found on the Celtic crosses of Ireland.

Most worthy of attention, however, is a
as that

Of
the

special

the Neolithic
figure

at

shown between

and

serenity.

They have

rounded grace which

the

is

in-

Jomon culture in Japan,

Musee Guimet, Paris,

primitively decorated jars,

simpler than most and

pleasing pre-Buddhist

is

is

one of the more

Jomon

products.

Teapot; figure; vase. Clay. Japanese, Jomon culture. Musee Guimet. QPhoto Giraudon^

232

KOREA AND JAPAN

Buddhist

figures. Stone, a.d.

752. Temple of Sok-kul-am, South Korea.

(_Photos courtesy National

Museum,

Seoul')

KOREA AND JAPAN

>
I

\t'

t>

;'

<

s
ik^

V i

\
V

Temple of Sok-kul-am.
QPhotos courtesy National Museum, Seoul~)

BocUiisattvas. Stone.

233

KOREA AND JAPAN

234

The Horse

of

the

Haniwa

primitive

or

shows surprising intuitional graces

and an amusing mixture of formal short-cutfolk

art

ting

and

The
image,

realistic detailing.

bronze Buddha from Seoul, a Korean

is

an idiom reminiscent of the

in

carvings of the

Lung Men Caves

Wei

of the sixth

century and of the Chinese bronze statuettes

and seventh
wooden Buddha of

of the sixth

the

centuries.

the

early

But with
seventh

century from the Chuguji Temple there

is

a suggestion of a native Japanese modifica-

imported

tion of the
clarity

were

style.

to characterize

several centuries following.

native

upon

sculptors
a

and

Japanese work for

And, indeed, the

already

setting

out

course that would lead them to a

distinctive

ment.

were

Simplification

The

and magnificent national achievevery fine Buddha in wood, shown

Buddha. Bronze, gilded. Korean,

Period of the Three Kingdoms, 7th century.
National Museum, Seoul

Buddha, detail. Wood. 7th century.

Chuguji Temple, Nara

KOREA AND JAPAN

only in

here

detail,

said

is

to

235

have been

can'ed in Japan by Korean sculptors.

It

was

one of the images produced under the patronage of Prince Shotoku, in whose private
chapel

it

stood.

The Buddha

in bronze, be-

low, indicates the direct descent of methods

(most

which

notably

the

scalloped

draperies)

are to be seen, less regularized, in the

Chinese Biiddhas of the Northern

Prince Shotoku.
the

work

artist in

It

Wei

pe-

with the memory of

riod. It is also associated

bears a date, 625, and

is

of the priest-sculptor Tori, a native

the second generation from an immi-

grant Korean carver.

As

early as the

first

half of the seventh

centur)' a national genius different

from the

Chinese was indicated especially in sculpture

in wood.

grain
knife.

The

Japanese craftsmen valued the

wood and the marks of

The Buddha at Kyoto is cut with

of

directness

the

and smoothness of

to the native cypress used.

way

of slenderizing the

the

stylization proper

Not only

nique of the carving but the

the

the tech-

facial type

figure,

and a

fashionable

style, 6th century.

QCourtesy Society for International
Cultural Relations, Tokyo^

Horse. Clay. Japanese, Hanivva

Buddha. Bronze. Japanese, early 7th century.

Horiuji Temple, Nara
Buddha,

Wood. 7th century.

Koryuji Temple, Kyoto

detail.

236

KOREA AND JAPAN

for a considerable period after, proclaim that

the statue belongs to a national expression

from any other.

different

The Kwannon from

(corresponding
a

the Horiuji

more extreme example

style.

Temple

Chinese Kuan-Yin)

to the

Except for the nimbus, there

herence

to the reticent

is

of the slenderized
is

ad-

carving and exquisite

formalization that best represent the Japanese

achievement.

The

flattened

and the

detail

repeated curvilinear rhythms are beautifully

manipulated,

without

detracting

from

the

sculptural "set" of the piece.

There

are

statuettes

to

statuettes

are

seventh-century

also

pieces in bronze

which range

the

colossal.

oversize

The

from

Buddhist

comparable with the Korean

and Chinese bronzes

in

master-

in size

metal

of the
figures

same period; but

Japanese

the

achieved a distinctive variation.

The

detail

shown, of Yakushi, the god of healing (or

the

healing

Buddha),

bronze triad about twice

central

figure

life-size, is

of

modeled

with perfect mastery of the bronze medium.

God of Healing, detail. Bronze, colossal.

Early Nara period. Yakushiji Temple, Nara

Kwannon. Wood. 7th century.

Horiuji Temple, Nara

KOREA AND JAPAN

Amida

(The mastery
thorities

Triad. Buddhist shrine. Bronze. Late 7th century. Horiuji Temple,

is

assert

evident that some au-

After the late seventh century China was

under the influence of the T'ang emperors,

and again there was interchange of ideas

countries

come from China or Korea,

owning a longer tradition of metal

casting.)

The

must

have

surface,

the

massing,

smoothness of

the

avoidance of undercutting,

all

indicate comprehension of the special possibilities

method.

of
It

bronze-casting
a

is

work

of

sculptural

as

the

late

seventh

century.

the

central

next shown
plicity

between China and Japan. The God Protector in unbaked clay (page 238) may conceivably indicate renewed discipleship to the
Chinese masters. As written language, edumanners, and dress were changed, so

cation,

the

Chinese

style

in

sculpture

was re-em-

braced.

By comparison
of

Nara

the craftsmen involved

so

that

237

and

whether the

a miniature work, the

figure

in

the

head

Amida Triad

equally a masterwork of sim-

is

subtlety.
trinity

The

whole

piece,

of free-standing figures

or the exquisitely graceful complex of reliefs

on the shield
metalwork and

at

the back,

is

miracle of

prime example of Oriental

mastery of abundant design.

The

clay

medium

has seldom been em-

ployed so skillfully in large images as in the

case

of

this

treatment

of

over-life-size

the

figure.

draperies

is

The

crisp

especially

notable. The body is built up on a framework of wood, and there is an admixture

of very small amounts of other substances:
straw fiber, paper fiber, and mica, with the
clay.

238

KOREA AND JAPAN

God

Protector. Clay. 8th century. Todaiji

Guardian King, detail. Clay. 8th century.

Todaiji Temple, Nara

Temple, Nara

Guardian,

detail. Clay. 8th century.

Shinya-Kushiji Temple, Nara

The

seated clay Bodhisattva (at the right)

even more obviously a

is

spired

by the Chinese

work,

reflective

artists

in-

of T'ang. Yet

the Japanese at this time, after three or four

generations of practice, had as patently de-

veloped

own

their

methods.

Nowhere

is

and overlife-size, and in dignified mien, more beautifully exemplified than in this and the illustramodeling in clay in

tion

facing

Originally the second statue

it.

was finished

near-life-size

in porcelain clay

but the colors have worn

a

thousand years since

The

its

the

more than

creation.

Japanese originality of statement

many series
The Japanese

seen too in the

up

and painted,

off in the

in temples.

common tomb

is

of guardians set

guardian, unlike

guardian of the Chinese,

is

usually an image of one of the Protectors of

the Buddhist Faith or Kings of Heaven.

same frightening aspect

both groups.

The

is

characteristic

so

many

There
is

is

seldom

human

of

Japanese were perhaps the

greater masters in this ogreish

has the

Bodhisattva. Clay. Early 8th century.

Horiuji Temple, Nara

The

mode. Seldom

visage been sculptured into

fearsome but engaging variations.

a breath of realism here, too, that
felt in

Naturalism

the Biiddhas

is

and Bodhisattvas.

also seen in the delineations

of the legendary disciples, as in the eighth-

century lacquer Disci-pie of

Buddha shown.

Disciple of Buddha. Lacquer. Late Nara period,

8th century. Kofukitji Temple, Nara

^
1

Left:

The

Priest Ganjin, detail. Lacquer.

period, 8th century. Toshodaiji

Nara

Temple, Nara

KOREA AND JAPAN

240
There

are

many

of these disciples, the face of

each so individuahzed that they would appear

to

be portraits from

life.

And

indeed portrait

the

statue

Kivannon.

and from
later periods (though sometimes they were
carved a century or two after the subject
had died).
But it is the dignity, the solemnity, the
quiet power and some unexplainable sculp
tural revelation of inner majesty and other-

is

worldliness that
ties

above

all

lifts

this

the statues of the divini-

other categories. Something of

the majesty and remoteness can be seen in

the

lacquer

Temple

at

Kwannon from

Nara. Perhaps a

the

little

Shorinji

more

It

known, on

is

ac-

count of the headdress, as the Eleven-headed

statues of the greatest Japanese teachers of the

Buddhist faith survive, from

can nevertheless rank with the

masterpieces of T'ang.

(A

miniature head

at the

very top

cut off in the photograph shown, without

loss to the

composition as a whole.)

Although the golden age of Japanese sculpture may be said to have ended by the
opening of the ninth centur)', there were
enough repetitions of the masterpieces of the
seventh and eighth centuries to leaven the

mass of
lacquer

New

reflective

Buddha

York,

is

and

at the

"light"

The
Museum,

works.

Metropolitan

one of the exceptional monu-

mentsmajestic, remote, serene.

artifi-

cial, in the repeated circlings of the draperies,

than the comparable works of the Chinese,

Buddha. Lacquer.
Metropolitan

Kwann07i. Lacquer, over

8th century.
Shorinji Temple, Nara

life size

Museum

of Art

KOREA AND JAPAN

A
is

truer expression of the taste of the time

in a

famous

scries of apsaras or

heavenly

maidens and flying angels; in the decorative

reliefs adorning architecture; and in elabora-

art of the

Heian period

has, in fact,

is

an aspect

The Heavenly Mu-

reminiscent of baroque.
sician illustrated

instead a relief, from a

panel in a famous octagonal bronze lantern

Great Buddha

tion of headdress or aureoles; not to speak of

that

the semi-sculptural picturing on lacquer boxes

Hall at Todaiji.

and the engraving on mirrors. In the Byodo-in

Temple at Uji in Kyoto there are fifty of the
apsaras and angels, figures with flowing

the

wrought on pierced bronze insets.

The sculptors Unkei and Kaikei

draperies, clouds, etc., apparently floating be-

pecially

fore the walls, enclosing a colossal gilded

dha

or

They
able,

Bud-

entwined in the decorative aureole.

are, in a

but

far

small way, charming and agree-

from profound.

A good deal of the

241

before

stands

still

heavenly

six

known

illustrated

the

The

shows one of

detail

musicians

for portraiture.

demonstrate

The

period,

which opened

The

exceptional
realistic

and

study of

and

full

asceticism.

It

and

Unkei,

possibly

Ascetic.

it

is

the

An Old

character

centur)'

An Old

in

are

are

piece,

es-

portraits

naturalness

the

aspect that was an ideal in the

century.

they

as

of

Kamakura

late

twelfth

Ascetic

is

an

painstakingly

of the feeling of old age

may be

as

late

as

mid-

ascribed to a follower of

Tankei.

Wood. Early

Unkei

himself.

3th century.

Sanjusangendo Temple, Kyoto

Heavenly Musician, detail of lantern panel.

Bronze. 8th century. Todaiji Temple, Nara.
QPhoto Asuka-en, Nara')

The Great Buddha.

Shigefusa. Wood. 14th century

Meigetsuin Temple, Kamakura

Bronze. 13th century.

Kamakura

Guardian with Lantern. Wood. By Koben. a.d. 1215.

Kofukuji Temple, Nara

KOREA AND JAPAN

whom

Japanese

the

almost

revere

243

as

Michelangelo, car\'ed the portrait statue of

Buddhist disciple shown

the

to spread the gospel of

Buddha

in Japan. Exact

was then an aim, and

portraiture

achieved a

li\'ing,

the

right,

at

whose writings did much

great Indian Asanga,

Unkei

believable figure despite the

lapse of centuries since Asanga's time.

named Kobcn, who

a son of Unkei,

was

It

carved two Guardians with Lanterns for the

temple

which

in

the

The one shown

stands.

statue
is

Asanga

of

t)^ical of religious

of the time: more human, more

and understandable than the older
images had been even where the subject was
mvthical. There is great vigor here, and complete knowledge of human anatomy and

figuring

natural

Whether such

posture.

natural

demon

equals the more restrained and majestic ones

of the eighth centur)'

The

is

open

Buddha

Great

to question.

Kamakura

of

The

erected in the thirteenth centur\'.

sal

almost

figure,

feet

fifty

in

was
colos-

has

height,

long since been deprived by the elements of

protecting temple;

its

jestic,

and

peace,

stands silent and ma-

illumination

Conceived

as

Buddha but

at

faith.

it

reminder of the solemnity,

lasting

of

the

Buddhist

monument honoring

same time to the

Kamakura, The
Great Buddha recaptures the largeness and
the spiritual remoteness of sculpture of an
the

the

glory of the communit)^ of

earlier time.

The portrait
who lived in

Shigefusa, a feudal lord

of

the

thirteenth

was

centur)',

carved after his death. Sculpturally the representation of the

stiff

wardthis was the

brocaded robes
carver's

awk-

is

counterpart

of

the ceremonial portrait-painting of the time

but

the face

closure.

The

is

makes an excellent
play;

but

marvel of character

dis-

sheer cutting of the upper body

this

sort

foil

to

the subtle facial

of simplification

was

lead to a rather slick schematization, as

many later portraits.

The Amida Buddha from

to

illus-

trated in

century

is

sculpture

the

fifteenth

inserted as evidence that religious

was continuously produced,

and

Asanga. Wood. By Unkei. a.d. 1208.

Kofukuji Temple, Nara

Amida Buddha. Bronze. 15th

century.

Detroit Institute of Arts

244

KOREA AND JAPAN

that occasionally the old ideals of an impersonal, formalized,

art persisted.

and

spiritually

compelling

Nevertheless Japanese sculpture

had retrogressed as did the Chinese and

Hindu from the fifteenth to the nineteenth
century so that shallowly appealing works,
such as cleverly streamlined
outstanding exhibits from

portraits, are the

five

hundred years

rest,

that

little

the story

is

chiefly of small

wood

carved images in

terminated

the

cords

closing

beings,

and other

objects in daily life

or legend.

In

ivory

the

adroit

Japanese

made innumerable miniature

liefs,

often

exquisitely

d'art.

and

re-

almost

great

deal

of their best sculptural effort, in recent cen-

guards bearing decorative patterns or anec-

flourished in the Suiko, Nara,

turies,

has gone into decorative

wood

eras.

carving

But nothing

has served to revive the creative

Masks; sword guards; ornaments. Wood; metal; metal with inlays.

16th- 18th centuries; recent. Victoria and Albert Museum

Ast0- ^-^y^

but

carved

in connection with architecture.

and the

craftsmen

statues

objects:
the masks made for use in the
no dramas, often characterful and carved
with charming fluency and finish; the sword

dotal bits of relief, even landscapes;

or ivory

bags or

pouches, cleverly reproducing animals, flowers,

human

never important ohjets

of production.

For the

netsuke,

spirit

that

and Kamakura

lo: India:
The Maturing of

the

Opulent Oriental Style

SCULPTURE

in India is one of the

media for story-telling, and its theme is overwhelmingly religious. The densely popu-

lated land teems with temples

and shrines,
and the buildings are encrusted with sculp
tural works, which form a vast picturebook
of popular religious tales.

old in

spiritual

Gautama came
it

to

The Hindus were

wisdom when

the

Buddha

in the sixth centurv B.C.,

was the Buddhist

but

was destined
inspire mankind's noblest achievement in
faith that

the realm of devotional art in stone.

Technicallv the

thousand

years

and

AIohenjo-Daxo

stor)'

earlier,

begins nearly two

for

excavations

Chanhu-Daro

in

at

the

Indus and at
Punjab have uncovered clay
figurines and seals which are important in
that thev indicate an advanced independent
culture of the Indus Valley by the year 2500

Sind

district of the valley of the

Harappa

B.C.

in the

Because of the profusion of

seals,

it

would seem possible that the Sumerians who

pushed into Mesopotamia possessed a com-

mon

anccstr)'

with the people of the Indus.

Miracle of the Drunken Elephant. Medallion. Stone. 2nd century a.d. Amaravati.

Government Museum, Madras

246

INDIA

India includes minorities of half a dozen

ethnic strains, from Negroid and Mongoloid

to

Dravidian and Aryan types, but the cenruling

tral

as

element

commonly accepted

is

The

Ar)'0-Dravidian.

were

Dravidians

dominant when the Indo-European Aryans,

and Greeks, poured down
and
northwestern
passes
the
through

related to Persians

The

pressed the Dravidians into the south.

as the govern-

Aryans established themselves

ing power, shaped the

made

their

common

Brahmins the only

religion,

and

priests;

they

developed a basically Aryan language in

form,

literary

Sanskrit as

tongues of India.
as

saw

they

To

the

protect their superiority,

invaders

the

it,

among

first

its

the caste system that persisted

established

down

the

to

twentieth centur)'. Neither upheavals caused

Hun

by the

centuries
lasted

over

eleventh
quests

invasions of the fifth and sixth

and

the

many

and

Moslem

invasions

nor

by the Moguls

the

especially

centuries,

twelfth,

that

again

the

of stone

were

monuments

columns upon which

These

inscribed.

are the

would appear to have had the simand elegance of Persian work, al-

sculpture
plicity

though the

had native modifications.

pillars

During the

first

half of the second century

however, the indigenous idioms began

B.C.,

and from then on

reappear,

An

flourished.

art

exuberant

of the noblest faiths,

it

type

naturalness

the

Temple
by

tolerated

in

of the sculpture

Sun

of the

the

Konarak in the
and would not be

religious or civic authorities in

the West, and such scenes are occasionally

and

encountered elsewhere in India on religious

and temples. This decorative

to

have

supposition

independent states invasions and conquests

before the British administration seldom in-

had developed a
Aryan officials

volved more than a segment of the land and

large

a fraction of the people.

Sanchi, they had no choice but to

Aside from the Indus Valley culture, the

earliest history of sculpture in India tells of

Alexander invaded

he left part of his

army as settlers and administrators in the
Ghandaran section of the country. Three
in the fourth century B.C.

centuries

sculpture

later

development

met surviving Greek influence

believed,

of

occurred where Buddhism

encountered

new

or, as is

influences

now
from

sculptural

element came
or

relics of

to

and

that

master caste

of

projects

Thus

as

at

a lush

when

initiated

Barhut and

and

call

in

tropical

be incorporated in the

architectural

is

The

inhabitants

early

"people's art"

people's sculptors.

stupas

these

that

is

style

Dravidian source.

federation of principalities a mosaic of near-

four

sensual

on the walls of

at

district of Orissa is erotic

thought

classic

art

One

encourages asceticism

indulgence

of

Much

world.

shrines

or

of

and mystic contemplation and promises rewards of harmony and peace to those wise
ones who progress beyond the dance of the
senses, and at the same time it recognizes the

caste system. In a countr)'^ with a loose con-

When

to

a truly Indian

developed within the Hindu religion.

sixteenth centuries, were able to destroy the

outside influences.

first

The crowning

that can be dated.

con-

the fifteenth

in

number

great

his edicts

first

mounds enshrining

the Buddha.

The gateways
be in the

style

at

of

Sanchi especially seem

an

art

for

the

to

masses.

Thenceforward the innumerable temples

were embellished with figures, panel groups,
and festoons of foliation. A particular art
form in ancient India was cliffy sculpture, a

and

rocky outcrop carved into a thousand figures,

clean Greek cutting are notable, especially

and pasand architectural pillars and

vv'alls shaped from the monolithic mass.
When the stupa at Barhut and the great

Rome.
in

of

Greek

realism

the free-standing figures of the Buddha,

already
in

Reflections

known

Ceylon by

in several parts of India

and

a.d. 200.

or the rock-cut temple, with rooms

sages carved out

In the third century B.C. Asoka proclaimed

stupa at Sanchi were built and decorated,

Buddhism as the state religion of India and

commemorated the occasion by erecting a

though the illustrated stories were Buddhist,

no image of the Buddha appeared. A sym-

IN DiA
Sculptured gateway. Stone. C. 150 b.c. Sanchi.
QPhoto Goloubev, courtesy Musee Guimet')

247

INDIA

248
bol

the

sufficed:

appeared,

tree

of

instead

The

following

is

and

therefore a shortened

the Master, in the episode of the enhghten-

not quite complete table of periods of Indian

ment; the wheel in the account of the

history.

first

sermon; or a lotus blossom; or footprints; or

But gradually the Buddha's injunction against the worship of images was forootten, and his own likeness became the

Prehistoric period:

Down

to

c.

3000

B.C.

a stupa.

Pre-Dravidian and Dravidian peoples.

central motive.

Sumerian and Egyptian beginnings, but

more conservatively dated 2500-1500 B.C.
Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, and

duced

first

Whether

by

the

the image was intro-

Mathura

of

artists

or

Sarnath, or of some other center but faintly

touched by Hellenism, or by the sculptors

Gandhara, seems still undetermined,
of

though the date probably was the

first

cen-

Elie Faure eloquently described the Indian

temples and the sculptural style that derived

South in

tropical

de

"Everything

I'Art:

statue, everything

his

may

may

book Histoire

serve to carry a

swell into a figure

the capitals, the pediments, the columns, the

upper stages of the pyramids, the

balustrades,

Formidable
horses,

groups

warriors,

grapes,

like

banisters

the

rise

human

eruptions

of

the

stairways.

of

and

steps,

fall rearing

beings
bodies

in

clusters

piled

one

as early as

recently at Kalibangan.

Aryans entered India, probably between

2000 and 1500 B.C., to become the dominating element of the population.

Pre-Maurya

tury of the Christian era.

from the

Indus Valley Cidture: Possibly

notable date

642-322

period:

Most

B.C.

when Alexander

327-323
Macedonian and Greek
countrymen in Gandhara (which is mostly
in Afghanistan) and the northwest area of
is

B.C.,

the Great settled his

India.

Maurya period: 320-185 B.C.

Andhra and Indo-Parthian

period:

Ap-

proximately 185 B.C. to A.D. 320.

Gupta

period: a.d. 320600.

Medieval period and Decline:

a.d.

600

to

the seventeenth century.

over the other, trunks and branches that are

crowds sculptured by a single move."

ment as if spouting from one matrix.
sumhistorian
French
perceptive
Thus the
alive,

marized "the orgy of ornament" that

is

part of the Indian heritage in sculpture.

knew

one

He

but did not so tellingly dwell upon the

which drew some of its clarity

and simplicity from the sculptors of the Gansoberer part,

dharan school.
Because of sectional differences, and frequent dynastic changes, a complete chronology would be more confusing than helpful.

Flying Figures. Stone.

6th century. Aihole

.rjl

II

INDIAN

is nowhere surpassed
charm and opulence. There

sculpture

in sensuous

are diverse major styles, but the oldest relics

are of a civilization scantily represented

works

of

art.

The Indus

Valley

by

culture

more than a store of well-designed seals, a very few battered statuettes in

stone, and the usual commonplace figurines
in clay. The seals, of which hundreds have
been found, are carved in ivory or stone, or
(more rarely) modeled in terra-cotta. The
examples illustrated, from the excavations
at Mohenjo-Daro, are in steatite, a soft stone.
The commonest type of design shows an
animal on a more or less squared field, with

covered.
tural

a line of hieroglyphs above.

and

indicate

In general the

to

It is likely that

many

The

Christ still

lie

cities. The torso of

known of the few

century

mals, clear

Dancing God

is

the best

Seals. Stone.

The

for

now

missing

and

Asokan columns
feet in height,

the

are

pillars of the third

Em-

beautifully formalized ani-

bold, are perfectly fitted to

their decorative purpose.

The

six

surviving

are monoliths, forty to fifty

each with a decorated capital

and abacus surmounted by

a single

animal

figure, or, as in the first of the illustrations,

"multiple

first

stone statuettes so far dis-

feeling

bearing the edicts of the

B.C.,

peror Asoka.

inally at

buried in the Indus Valley

subtle

monuments

datable

first

Buddhist commemorative

significant relics of

the time late in the third millennium before

with

be sockets for affixing of the

from the

an admirable sense of

along

head and limbs.

style

a competent craftsmanship.

distinguished by great sculp

is

mass and contour. Drilled holes are believed

yields hardly

seals

It

vigor,

animal."

preached.

The

The

pillar at Sarnath,

The

Rampurva

bull

is

multiple lion

is

where the Buddha

from a pillar orig-

in Bihar.

details of relief medallions illustrated,

from the Buddhist stupa or shrine at Barhut,

show the voluminous figures, the abundant
detail, and the crowded composition which.

Indus Valley culture, 2500-1500 b.c. Mohenjo-Daro.

National Museum, New Delhi

250

INDIA

Relief medallions. Stone. C.

150

b.c. Stupa, Barhut. Indian

Museum,

Calcutta.

QPhoto Goloubev, courtesy Musee Guimet')

Dancing God,

statuette.

Stone.

2400-2000

b.c.

Harappa, Punjab. National Museum,

New

Delhi

for

centuries,

were

to

characterize

Indian

Other decorated structures

indicate that the opulent mode had then been
established over a wide area. The next outstanding exhibit, the gates and pillars at
relief

sculpture.

Sanchi, generally credited to the

tury B.C.,

show

first

the style matured

and

cenex-

uberantly manifested.

The

vigor,

the richness, the ver)' volume

of this outpouring of sculpture usually ap-

pears

overpowering

any chosen

panel

to

Westerners.

illustrates

Almost

remarkable

mastery of plastic design and extraordinary

craftsmanship

in

cutting.

This ornamental

more important than the structure it adorns. Supremely showy, at times

extravagant and gaudy, it nevertheless maintains a standard of splendor and opulence
sculpture

is

Asokan column and capital figures. Stone. 3rd

century B.C. Sarnath (afcove); Rampurva (fceZoiv,
right^; Lauriya Nandangarh. Sarnath Museum;
National Museum, New Delhi; in situ. {Photos
by Archaeological Survey of India^

'A-' -.-it

km
l^^'v^-^

25 2

INDIA

ll

Facing page:
Panels from gateway. Stone.
1st century b.c. Sanchi

Detail of gateway. Stone.

1st

century B.C., Sanchi

253

INDIA

which is most characteristic of the Indian

and Indonesian contribution to sculpture. In
the nineteenth century Ruskin and, indeed,
most authorities considered it so barbaric and
so physical that

was relegated to the ethnomuseums. Now,

it

ogical rather than the fine-arts

when

are

tastes

Hellenic,

rigidly

less

sensuous Oriental

st^'le

the

recognized as one

is

of the major achievements within the history

There

innumerable
on pillars, that
show how the female body became standard-

of creative sculpture.

are

figures in the panel groups, or

ized in early Indian

art,

small of waist, gen-

erously full in breast and

Museum

torso at the

though somewhat battered, may

point better than the more

duced

pillar

The

thigh.

fine

of Fine Arts in Boston,

illustrate the

commonly

repro-

n)Tnphs from Mathura.

The Indian stj'le may have been

formed in the Maurya period but the

fully
flood

came only in the Andhra

which belong the masterpieces of
Sanchi and the relief from Amaravati shown
at the beginning of this chapter (though the
sculpture of the Barhut stupa and some

of typical products
period, to

parts at Sanchi are of earlier date).

The

Wead. from Mathura, with

and heavy

ized curls

Andhra
is

features,

or the succeeding

in line with the

The

Gupta

its

formal-

of the late
period.

It

voluminous composition

and heavy richness of

ments.

is

earlier native

chapter-opening

monu-

illustration,

medallion from the stupa at Amaravati,

illu-

strates

the legend of the drunken elephant

and

a relief that could not

is

other than Indian.

and

its gates,

The

be mistaken as

railing of the stupa,

supported nearly 17,000 square

feet of reliefs.

The

stone figure of the

Buddha now

Kansas City obviously departs from the

tions.

signals

It

style,"

austere.

the

in

illustrated

style

It

Western

is

nobly

preceding

illustra-

India's

"second

at

serene

and

almost

Indian, with a suggestion of

classicism

and there
purity and restraint.
draperies,

four

arrival

at

style

in
is

the handling of the

a general air of classic

Similarly,

Buddha
so

far

fourth-century

the

(at right)
illustrated

is

different

Head

of

from anything

from Middle Indian

art.

For three hundred years nothing had been

produced in Europe

and

as solidly sculptural

as subtly beautiful as this.

But

in the

Bud-

whether in India or in Afghanistan,

Greek manner had been preserved, and

dhist East,

the

continued from the time of Christ's birth to

the tenth century.

though

classic,

The

appear

serenity

to

be

and calm,

Buddhist

in-

fluence rather than Greek.

The two heads next shown are of types

commonly found in the Gandharan country.
They are so numerous in smaller size that
it is

inferred that molds were sometimes used

for duplication.

Sculptor-monks believed that

merit was earned

when images

of the

Buddha

were multiplied. The great number of detached heads in the

museums

is

partly ex-

Buddha. Stone. Gupta, 5th century.

Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Kansas City

Torso of a Yaksi. Stone. 100-50 B.C. Sanchi

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Head. Stone. 2nd-5th centuries.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Mathura

INDIA

Head

of

Buddha. Stucco. Gandharan, 4th century. City Art Museum,

Head of Buddha. Clay with gesso. 7th-10th

centuries. Gandharan. Metropolitan Museum of Art

Head

of

St.

25

Louis

Buddha. Stucco. 5th century. Hadda.

Victoria and Albert Museum

25 6

INDIA
Buddha. Stone. Gupta, 5th century.
Mathura Museiim. QCoiirtesy Musee Guimet)

plained by the fact that bodies often were

Cv

modeled in impermanent materials

and collapsed during the following centuries.
(But some heads were obviously made for
hastily

mounting on walls.)
There is a range of Gandharan heads

may be

and endowed with the serenity

ized

Buddha. Occasional

Head

ing

that

described as the Apollo type spiritualof the

such as the smil-

pieces,

of a Devata, indicate less serious

intention.

The

Buddha

full-length

in stone (at left)

unmistakably Indian, a representative work

is

of the

centur)^

fifth

The Western
type of

Gupta

the

in

period.

influence has been absorbed.

Buddha

been established,

figure has

with incidental Hellenic features, which in

Cambodian,

its

Javanese,

and

Chinese,

Japanese interpretations provides the largest

treasury of exalted statues devoted to a single

many

subject. In India, at

centers, the paral-

abundant sculpture, of

art of luxuriously

lel

swelling forms and sinuous line, was being

emergence of the solemn,

practiced; but the

awe-compelling Buddha was the main feature

of the period.

The

figure, as

it

was absorbed

into Indian iconography in the fifth century,

has

the

of

left

little

naturalistic

Greek

Apollo, though some of the minor sculptural

idioms

marked

are

by experts

as

Greco-

Roman.

The

early sculpture

entirely
hibits

in

exceptionally

But from the

is

almost

(but rarely) in stucco.

century there were master-

fifth

pieces in metal.

from India

with the Gandharan ex-

stone,

The Buddha

at

Birmingham

shows the simplification and calm dignity of

the stone

Buddhas

of Sarnath translated into

metal. This over-life-size figure

not bronze, and

a

core

of

clay,

it

is

sand,

figures in smaller size

Head

cast in

is

cinders,

etc.

Bronze

became more common.

of a Devata. Stucco. 4th century.

Kurgan, Turkestan.

of copper,

two layers over

Museum

Tash

of Fine Arts, Boston

INDIA

25

Buddha

Delivering His First Sermon. Stone.

5th century. Sarnath. Sarnath Museum

Asoka had established Buddhism as the

and sent missions
to introduce the cult in neighboring and
allied countries. His son visited Ceylon, and
the island adopted Buddhism and has continued, unlike India, to be overwhelmingly
national religion in India

Buddhist.

The

remains of the ancient

Anuradhapura,

include

specimens of the
Indian sculpture.

several

Gallery,

Buddha

styles

of

Sinhalese

type

is

most

dignity and clarity of the stand-

ing figures are qualities transmitted in course

Buddha. Copper. 5th century. Bengal.

Birmingham Museum and Art

The

capital,

remarkable

diverse

Among them

version of the austere

notable.

many

England

of time to

Cambodia and Java

also.

Buddha. Stone,

colossal.

3rd or 4th century. Anuradhapura

The colossal seated Buddha of Anuradhapura is one of the most impressive monuments in the East. The simplicity, the bulk,
rhythms reinforce the human

and the

plastic

serenity

and the cosmic

statue

designed

There

is

are

to

stillness

which the

evoke in the worshiper.

companion

figures less well pre-

many

Ceylon

developed the ample,

also

rated style, as

is

deco-

seen in such a fragment as

the voluptuous Coit-ple on a guardstone end-

ing a balustrade

at

248

of

Anuradhapura.
Flying

Figures

On

page

from

relief

temple

at

Aihole in southern India, where

similar

figures

is

illustrate

the

mature Gupta

style.

The

treasures of that ancient city have counter-

many

centuries in temple sculpture, whether

parts at the later capital, Polonnaruva.

Buddhist, Jainist, or Hindu.

served at Anuradhapura; and

of the

Buddhist Figures. Stone, over

life size.

(_Photo courtesy

m^^X

sensuous note was dominant for

C. 200. Anuradhapura, Ceylon.

Musee Guimet')

INDIA
At

Ellora in the

Deccan the outstanding

hewn complete from

The Hindu sculptures were

temple, the Kailasa, was

rock

mass.

carved in a mixed fashion, with dominating

figures in the round,

and some engaged

ures and areas in low relief.

strated,

The

scene

fig-

illu-

Siva and Parvati on the Motintain,

At the edge

of a lake near

259

Anuradhapura
huge

the sculptors of Ceylon transformed a

mass of rock into a devotional sculptured

composition. But the most amazing example
of such car\'ing

is

on

a cliff, or rather

an

upthrust rock wall, in the complex of monolithic

temples and cave shrines at Mamal-

t)'pical

lapuram in eastern South India. The rock

mass, some thirty feet high and one hundred

gally

feet long,

with

Havana

the

Earth-Shaker

Below,

is

of the intensely vigorous and prodiabundant compositions. There are both

Buddhist and Jainist rock-cut shrines at
Ellora, profusely sculptured, and at Badami
there are cave temples with similarly sumptu-

ous rupestrian

The

Siva

at

Elephanta

is

a cave

famous for its splendid reliefs and

the Three-Headed Mahadeva. The cave

shrine
for

temple as an entity can be studied as early

as the third centur)' B.C.,

but in the

examples the display of sculpture

earliest
is

com-

paratively meager.

Anuradhapura.
QPhoto Goloiibev, courtesy Musee Guimet')

Hindu legend

life-size

of the Descent

(See following page.)

elephants afford some focus

in the confusion of figures, but the effect

is

However, many of the separate

groups in relief, and certain processions of
figures, are effective and even masterly. The
animals are especially charming, more nadisordered.

turalistic

carved,

Couple. Stone. 5th-8th centuries.

the

illustrate

of the Ganges.

The

art.

Temple

was car\'ed with hundreds of figmen, nymphs, and animals, to

ures of gods,

Siva

than

is

usual in India, but sheerly

with perfect understanding of the

Parvati on the Mountain, with Ravana

the Earth-Shaker. Mid-eighth century.
Rock-cut Kailasa Temple, Ellora

and

Detail of cliE sculpture. Early 7th century.

Mamallapuram

The Descent of the Ganges, detail, cliff sculpture.

Early 7th century. Mamallapuram. QCourtesy Musee Guimet")

-Tit-

'tX:

'^

:^V
If^

^1<

WS^
%:

^^

< HkZ^7

'f>^:i^!^i

'^

."^ 1

*i

INDIA
medium as may be

lithic

of the

two deer and the

The

Three-Headed Mahadeva. 8th century.

Rock-cut temple at Elephanta.
CCourtesy Musee Guimet')

tortoise.

of the Kandarya
Khajuraho serves to
how the unruly elements in the

detailed

picture

Mahadeva Temple
illustrate

seen in the detail

at

sculpture could be brought into subjection to

architecture.

Building logic had almost

dis-

appeared, but the inset traceried panels and

the half-contained figures are unusually interesting.

Back

(See following page.)

in the fifth century, the beautifully

simplified,

rather

severe

image had become

bronze

(page

The

statuettes.

263,
larger

illustration)

Buddha
is

beside

it

identified

as a fifth- or sixth-century

of

Buddha

common among

The example

lower

in Indo-China but

style

fairly

at
is

261

Boston
typical.

was found
by scholars

product of Indian

Detail of cliff sculpture.

Mamallapuram

262

INDIA

Kandarya Mahadeva Temple, Khajuraho. C. 1000

m
Bodhisattva, Bronze. 8th century. Ceylon.

Museum

'9m.

^^Ss*-*..-

Buddha. Bronze. Gupta, 5th-6th

centuries.

Found

in

Annam.

(Courtesy Musee Guitnet^

Buddha. Bronze. Gupta, 5th-6th centuries.

Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston

of Fine Arts, Boston

INDIA

264

craftsmen, and

is

thus an example of Gupta

workmanship.

The tradition was continued

The fluidity of pose of the

times.

centurv Sinhalese Bodhisattva

the

way

in

There

great

are

numbers of the bronze

museums, with a

(or copper) figures in the

which the

is

in medieval
little

eighth-

indicative of

Ceylon

sculptors of

matched or foreshadowed the developments of mainland art. It is in line with the

early medieval style

known

as Pallava.

The

purity

certain

medieval

style.

of

feeling

Much

famous Rajrani Temple

tuous

style,

from the
tan

the

at Orissa

is

early

in volup-

the stone figures of

as

British

Museum

from

of the sculpture at the

Museum and

nymphs

the Metropoli-

clearly demonstrate.

Despite the spirituality and austere ideal-

Parvati shows traces of the classic treatment

ism of true Hinduism, the popular deities

of drapery, but the general aspect

are dualistic,

medieval

piece,

is

of a late

foreshadowing the coming

wantonness.

imagery they become

decadence. (Below, at right.)

Panel figures. Stone.
llth-12th centuries. Orissa.
British Museum; Metropolitan

and occasionally they express an

understandable

less

In

and

popular

less

remote,

Parvati. Bronze. C. 900. South India.

Cora Timken Burnett Collection,

Museum

of

Art

Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

INDIA
less

and

less s\Tnbolic.

superbly

with a

virile

Bow

In the end they appear

sculptural, as in the

Rama

But they are a great

any divinity that could be

illustrated.

from

distance

and

imagined by a Christian or a Moslem or a

Buddhist of the

By

this

decorative.

The

pre-

preceding piece,

The

later

notable.

is

Hindu

sculptors were

more

terested in precise adjustment of attitude

sculptural

entity.

In

in-

and

than in a massive

the

late

Medieval

period and in the decadent period to follow,

deities that illustrate the rest of the

the lithic element virtually disappeared; and

reflect

is

Ceylon continued

mainland tendencies in sculpture,

and the Yoiithfid Saint shown is reminiscent

of South Indian or Dravidian expression, if

Rama

more obviously

largely the

story of Indian sculpture.

to

little

cision of pose in the bronze here, as in the

in symbolic appurtenances

strict sect.

time Buddhism in India had been

in a centuries-long decline. It

Hindu

265

with a Bow. Copper.

12th century. South India.
Victoria and Albert Museum

in

the

bronzes

that

represent

the

best

in

Indian achievement after the twelfth century,

refinements assume importance rather

than largeness and dignity. Even so satisfying

Youthful Saint. Bronze.
Ceylon. 12th-l 3th centuries.

Colombo Museum

a statuette as the seated

a

toward

little

Uma, which

reverts

classic repose, gains part of its

from the piling up of decorative

and lacks the quiet dignity of the

effectiveness
accessories,

bronzes of the golden age.

the

In

North,

especially

in

and

Bihar

Bengal, a different kind of omateness was

cultivated

at

this

time,

demonstrated in a

long series of high-relief plaques or stelae

dedicated to the sun-god Surya, or occasionally to Siva.

The

plastic unity often suffered,

and

as in the Siva-Sakti

Siirya shown.

They

are typically crowded, perhaps typically over-

loaded.

The

st)'le

of cutting

is

hardened, as

if

the cancers of stone had attempted to approxi-

mate the properties of sculpture in metal.

Often the crowded-in masks, flowers, scrolls,
and minor figures are marvelous, both compositionally and as skillful carving. The SivaSakti

is,

of course, profoundly symbolic, each

detail contributing to the

The

sculptors

of

meaning.

Nepal, the country

to

the northwest of Bihar and Bengal, with a

Uma. Copper. 12th-14th

centuries. South India.

Museum
Left: Siva-Sakti. Stone.

10th century. Bengal. British

of Fine Arts, Boston

Museum

Right: Surya, the Sun-God. Stone. 12th century. Bengal. Victoria

and Albert Museum

267

INDIA
history

and

bound up

a people inextricably

with those of India, but generally independent, developed an attractive variation of the

Hindu

or

Buddhist-Hindu

art.

The

statuettes

Tara, a goddess in both the

Buddhist pantheons in the

Hindu and
latter as

the

mother

wisdom and therefore, bv associMother of Buddha. Statuettes of simi-

of mystic
ation,

of bronze

and copper often combined sheer,

modeled masses and elaborated dec-

lar

prettily

have been brought from Tibet, where sculp-

orative

accessories.

sometimes led

to

The

the bronze floriation.

illustrated

co\ering.

is

t\'pical.

The

decorators'

instinct

the insetting of jewels in

The

copper Lokesvara

Traces remain of a gold

six-armed figure

tation of the beneficent

is

a manifes-

Dhyani Bodhisattva

worshiped in Nepal.

later in date, is the

was strongly influenced by the Nepalese,

not produced by immigrant craftsmen and

their descendants.

Nepalese

art,

in turn,

was

influenced by contact with both Tibet and

China.

The

deities

Parvati,

Uma, and

Kali

(all

manifestations of the Spouse of Siva) reflect

second copper figure, very similar in

idiom though

ture
if

nature, but generally less accomplished,

image of

Lokesrara. Copper, gilded. C. 12th century.

Nepal. Whittemore Collection,
Cleveland Museum of Art

the

vine

three
triad:

responsibilities

creation,

of

the

Hindu

preservation,

and

di-

de-

Avalokita. Cast copper, gilded, inset with jewels.

C. 16th century. Tibet or Nepal.
Victoria and Albert Museum

268

INDIA

Tara. Copper, gilded, inset with jewels.

Nepalese-Tibetan, probably 16th century. Victoria and Albert

Museum

INDIA
Kali

struction.

the

is

269

goddess-manifestation

and bloody horrors. The

Kali -nHth Cymbals, despite

of evil, destruction,

example here.

the scarecrow face and the haglike skinniness

of limb, achieves a truly rhythmic sculptural

movement.

favorite subject

bronzes

is

among

South Indian

late

Siva represented as Nataraja or

Lord of the Dance, one of the thousand

Hindu

manifestations of the supreme

Usually

the

dancing figure

surrounded by a

circle of fire,

on

a dwarf.

to

two of the hands,

headdress,
ples;

and standing

Often the halo of flame, attached

is

to the hair,

and

however,

Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum,

Kansas City

Siva as Lord of the Dance. Bronze

16th- 17th centuries. South India.
Philadelphia Museum of Art

*--^^^--^^'

to the

missing from surviving examthe

precise

movement and

balance of the figures are remarkable.

Kali with Cymbals.
Bronze. 14th century.

deity.

four-armed,

is

270

INDIA

The

second example illustrated of Siva as

Lord of the Dance is a richer decorative unity,

and it illustrates almost scientifically a frequently forgotten truth about sculptural compositionthat

although basically an art of

related masses, sculpture implies space carv^ed

out,

and an ordered relationship

surrounding space. Here the

of solids

artist

and

has out-

lined a circular space, and implied a spherical

space,

and he has brought

alive both solids

and spaces in a composition full of

movement. The significance

brated

that this

the

Siva dancing joyously, to

figure

is

set in

motion the pulse of

is

equili-

of

life in

everything

and physical.
Great numbers of bronze statuettes were
produced after 1600, but the best were copies
of earlier styles; the mass comprised crude
spiritual

trade pieces.

The museum

such as the Lakshmi

Siva as Lord of the Dance. Bronze. South India. Royal Ontario

pieces of later date,

illustrated, are notable

Museum

more enjoyably conveyed

hundred or a thousand years earher.
In the Western world, appreciation of
Indian sculpture has been delayed almost as
if it were as strange as the arts of the South
as reflecting merits
five

The

Seas.

classically trained

European, hold-

ing to Greek standards of a simple, clear,

idealistic art,

the

human

and puritanically
figure

was

where

reticent

concerned,

closed his eyes to the gorgeous

if

simply

sometimes

sensual display existent in the lithic and metal

arts of India. Fortunately, in

the mid-twenti-

eth century appreciation has widened as the

has weakened. Even in

Western ideals of logic and discipline have been relaxed and the temples and
shrines have been widely enjoyed. The buildings, of which the frames often seem to be
obscured under cascades and torrents of

Greek

influence

architecture.

sculpture, are seen

to

be consistent and in

the spirit of the national culture.

illustration

is

of

The

final

two gopurams, the temple

Lakshmi. Bronze. 16th-17th centimes.
South India. Musee Guimet. QGiraudon photo')

Aiyanar. Bronze. Victoria and Albert

Museum

272

INDIA

gateways that are characteristic features oF

so

many

of the sacred cities of South India.

Hardly buildings or

Gopurams

shelters in the orthodox

at

sense,

they are signs and expressions of a

national ethos, of a distinctive religious fulfillment.

Meenakshi Temple, Madura. (Government of India

official photo')

ii:The Flowering in Southeast Asia:

Cambodia y Siam^ Java

THE
back

history of art in Southeast Asia goes

to

the

fifth

century

rather in the seventh

the

a.d.,

but

it

was

and eighth centuries,

time of the achievements at Mamalla-

puram,

Burma,

Siam,

Cambodia,

dominantly religious
ticed widely.

Laos,

Champa,

which was preand Buddhist was prac-

Sumatra, and Java, and

The Hindu

art

culture also sent out

and flourished

and Elephanta, that the Indian

style of art was fully embraced. When the
Emperor Asoka had consolidated his empire
he grew tired of war and turned to religion.
He was personally converted to Buddhism
and sent missionaries abroad. Eventually

middle Java before the eighth centurv. The

artists were evangelists and created figures

Buddhism became

then ruled also in Siam (Thailand), created a

Ellora,

the dominant religion in

its

missionaries

Cambodia and

to glorify

especially

gods and

The Khmers,

in

for a time in

western

and

saints.

people of Cambodia,

The Buddha Receives the Rohe of the Monks, relief. Stone.

Buddhist, 8th-9th centuries. Borobudur Temple, Java. {Musee Guimet photo^

who

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

274

distinctive style of East Asian art as early as

suffused with the spirit of Hinduism, and

the seventh century, a style that culminated

the craftsmanship of the Indo-Chinese peo-

in a classic period lasting from a.d. 900 to

ple

an extension of Indian

is

They developed both a Buddhist and a

Hindu art. The superbly sculptured heads
brought to distant art museums have become
identified especially as examples of the Khmer
They afford a revelation of a basic
stA'le.

day Vietnam.

Buddhist principle concerning peace of mind

the Polynesians.

on earth and eventual rest in the bliss of

Nirvana. As the classic period came to its end
there were, of course, variations and influences owing to dynastic changes and pres-

heavy stonelike quality.

conquer Champa, along the coast of presenta

Siamese

The Thais had

identical.

Chinese

the

art,

affinities

with

but, in the period of assimilation

and Thai subservience, the Indian and Cambodian influence prevailed.

It

identify early Siamese works.

called the

Mon

style,

is

not easy to

What may be
who

developed
it

was

more

primitive, with a

It

of special in-

is

many

because

pieces

suggest a link between further Indian art and

the art of the

Mayans

in Central America.

culture of western and central

Java before the eighth century, allied espe-

with the Pallava culture of South India,

cially
is

represented by few surviving monuments.

The

monument

is

the temple-complex of Borobudur, which

is

greatest existing Jav^anese

Buddhist.
ustrades,

It consists of

terraces, stupas, bal-

and niches with

The two

after the people

Burma

It is

terest for archaeologists

The Hindu

began as early as the Camdevelopment was at first

art

and

The Champans had

the Indian tradition, but

in

style

modified by contacts with the Chinese and

sure of successful invaders.

bodian

skills.

After Cambodia, the Siamese went on to

1200.

statues.

religions imported

from India are

and, by infiltration

often strangely mixed in Southeast Asia. In

southeast, in Siam, prevailed until the tenth

many cases the two faiths persisted at the

same court. The ruling classes in the several
kingdoms were often Hindu. But the
Hindus, even in India, incorporated the
Buddha and the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara

settled in part of

century.

After their invasions of the eleventh and

twelfth

centuries,

from the north

made

the

Thais,

who became

Mongolians

the true Siamese,

their concerted stand in the thirteenth

century against the Khmers

southern Siam.

who

In the fourteenth and

teenth centuries the Thais conquered

fif-

Cam-

Khmer civilization.
Angkor Thom, built about the

bodia and destroyed the

The

city of

end of the ninth century, and the temple of

Angkor Vat became lost in the jungle and the
ruins were discovered only in the late nineteenth century. The mature Siamese style is
especially
fifteenth

the product of the thirteenth

centuries,

into their pantheon.

ruled over

to

though many appealing

Late in the ninth century the Javanese

wrested

central

from

and Brahma. The center of

the

Sailendra

Sumatra.

cultural activity

1000, and
Chandi Kidal, Chandi Djago near Malang,
and the mausoleum temple of King Erlanga

passed

at

to

east

Belahan

Java before a.d.

were

built.

In

the

fifteenth

century Java was taken over by the Moslems,

works were

and

teenth

portantly

to be produced also in the sixand seventeenth centuries. Siamese,

Cambodian, and Javanese art products are

Java

who had come from

Buddhism then gave way to Hinduism and the

next group of temples celebrated Siva, Vishnu,
rulers

figurative sculpture has never

revived,

folk art surviving.

only

been im-

woodcarving

as

II

TH
A.D.

Cambodian

style ap-

century

peared in the sixth or seventh century

in their

The

recognizable

relics

from those centuries include

such proficient sculpture

Head

of

Buddha and

as

the two standing figures,

Harihara and Female Figure.

is

reminiscent of

sculpturally

akin

statues of China.

The

Hindu
to

the pre-Khmer

the

The

stone head

types but
earliest

it

is

also

Buddhist

(See page 277.)

full-length figures are similarly remi-

niscent of Indian sculpture, but by the seventh

Head

of

Buddha. Clay.

Mon

Khmer craftsmen had become masters

own right. There is a liveliness here,

an aesthetic
into

line

that brings the figures

vitality,

with

the

simple,

Old Kingdom Egypt and

Wei

Period.

It

is

is

timeless

China

worth noting

cately yet fully each

rangement

of

art

how

deli-

garment and hair

indicated,

without

of

the

in

ar-

detracting

from the massiveness and unity of the figure:

how minor enrichment is added without
sacrificing the integrity of the block.

type, 6th-7th centuries. Prapatom. National

Museum, Bangkok

276

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

The Buddha now

progress

made

at Seattle indicates the

the

in

seventh

and eighth

No

centuries toward a national, classic type.

less

simple than the preceding figures,

brows

approaches

lips are

The

idioms.

wide and

the

of

line

horizontal

Above

full.

bears,

marks of certain

especially in the head, the

crystallizing

it

all, it

the

eye-

and

the

possesses

Head

of

Buddha from

the Sachs Collection, which dates from the

height of the classic period, there

is

wonder-

Here again
Buddhism, a state-

ful expression of peace of soul.

is

a fixing of the spirit of

ment

like

the Indians, developed

Hindu and a Buddhist art, but it

was to the Hindu gods that the greatest
monuments were erected, not without concessions to Buddhist iconography.

The mag-

Angkor Thorn and Angkor

Vat (meaning "capital city" and "capital
nificent ruins of

temple") comprise one of the most impressive

landmarks in the advance of Eastern sculp-

a serenity of spirit.

In the fragmentary

The Khmers,
both a

in terms of art, of the felicity of in-

undation in Nirvana.

They

are rivaled in opulence

and Indian temple

Sinhalese,

Javan,

At Angkor there
bridges,

there

palaces,

are

and the

among

is

the

areas.

complex of gateways,
and terraces, and

temples,

miles of walls

ornamented with

figures or carved in abstract or floral themes.

Female Figure. Stone. 7th century. Cambodia.

Musee Guimet. QGiraiidon

ture.

prevalence of masterpieces only

photo')

Harihara. Stone. Early 7th century. Phnoyn Penh

Museum. (Photo Musee Guimet, courtesy Tel)

Head

of

Buddha. Stone. Pre-Khmer,

6th century.

Phnom Penh Museum

Buddha. Stone. Mon-Cambodian

centiuries. Fuller Collection,

Head

type,

Seattle Art

6th-7th

Museum

of Buddha. Stone. Khmer. 9th century.

Cambodia. Fogg Museum of Art,
Meta and Paul J. Sachs Collection

c3

:^<5^^i
0-;

-^^

.^

a -V

Procession of Troops before the King, mural

QGiraudon photo from

Frieze of

relief. Stone.

Angkor Vat.

replica")

Dancing Apsaras. Stone. 12th century. Bayon Temple, Angkor Thom.

From Replica in Musee Guimet

THE FLOWERING
While

the profounder relics of

culture

show

affinity

Indo-Khmer

with the austere type of

ample evidence at
Indian
is
Angkor Vat that the Khmers had also fallen
heir to the mastery of the abundant decorative
image,

mode.

The

there

impression

is

less

turbulent,

fecund and
and Elephanta; but
at Angkor there are relief scenes and surrounding ornamentation which occupy acres.

and the piled-up

illogical,

than

Some appear
entire

display

at

figures are less

is

at

The

an extraordinarily high

level of narrative representation

tive

and decora-

embellishment.

The

frozen into superb rhythmic friezes.

is

subject-matter

nominally religious,

but the sculptors devote considerable attention to the apsaras or

dancing nymphs,

who

combine ample physical loveliness with their

saintly function. As they appear at both
Angkor Vat and Angkor Thom, they are
captivating creatures, and sometimes they are

There

and every variation from

half-emergent, dominating figure to

the murals,

a single,

vast battle scenes which are, indeed,

among

the most animated in the history of plastic

art.

The

superbly

sculptured

heads,

statues at the original temple sites,

brought

distant

to

art

of the

Khmer

style.

from

have been

museums, and they

have become identified especially

The

as

examples

calm, the serenity,

the sweetness are to be found in a multitude

of examples.

is

279

every degree of low relief and high relief

among

Ellora

in the details illustrated.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

IN

The

lithic quality is consistently

maintained, and the fineness of the cutting

is

remarkable.

comprise
acteristics,

of

Decorative mural panel with Apsara. Stone. Khmer,

and

true

with

hands.

reflects the

mind on

1 1

is

these

heads

standardized

char-

that

but each one has come alive in

the sculptor's
entity

It

type,

Each

is

sculptural

Buddhist ideal of peace

earth and rest in the bliss of

th century.

Angkor Thom, Musee Guintet

Head of Buddha.

Stone.

Khmer. Lopburi, Siam. Collection of Reginald Le May, Tunhridge Wells

Head

Head

of Buddha. Stone.
Collection of C. T. Loo

Khmer, 12th century.

of Buddha. Stone. 12th century.

Prah-Khan Temple, East Cambodia.
Musee Guimet. QGiraudon photo")

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Nirvana.

The example

shown

lection,

May

Le

in the

opposite,

col-

a masterpiece in

is

The Head

The Head

tive simplicity.

of Biiddlia beside

for a new mannerism

The Head of Buddha at

Museum
Khmer

(page 282)

being in wood.

relics,

the most beautiful surviving

The Mon-Gupta
has Indian

from Gupta
st)'le

Buddha

art,

one of

is

pieces.

and

in

is

descent

direct

art.

and Head

the

Mon

style,

Khmer

As an example

Head

India,

of

the

counted

of a Bodhisattva. Stone.

the

Mon

which

Pala

Khmer,

still,

sculpture.

Siam,

south

in

particularly,

that

art

of

the

was

little

more than

contemporary Cambodian.

The two

substantially
cation:

mouth

the
is

are different only in that

one

pure Khmer, while the other

like

Khmer, with some

eyebrows

less

wide,

definitely

the

is

racial modifi-

meet,

the

cheeks are often

puffed to give the face a more oval outline.

style

Siamese

12th-13th centuries. Musee Guimet

in bronze.

Heads of Buddha ascribed to the eleventh

and twelfth centuries are barely distinguishable from the examples uncovered at Angkor
seems

in

is

of

the

workers, mixing with the Khmer,

produced

Vat.

influence has been slight.

northern

At Lopburi

of

work

of Art. It

at

Seated on a Serpent of the

much Buddhist

of so

in

one characterized by excepthe other a

Law now

adjoining illustration, a figure timelessly

Buddha

of

the

statue

epitomizes the ideal of serenity characteristic

The Mask

clay (page 275) are rare early examples of

tional subtlety,

The Buddha

unusual

the

is

Museum

Metropolitan

variation

an example of the

is

Siamese

in stucco

It

among

stone head from Lopburi

attributes,

of

of sharp

the Fogg

exceptional

is

fluent

its

and

cutting

Mon

a primi-

to

of a later type, interesting for

ridging.

Musee

of a Bodhisattva from the

Guimet, below, marks a return

is

there

Mon

by Khmer or

affected

little

influence,

Buddha Expounding

every sense.

it

parently

281

but

from
ap-

Again the Buddhist sweetness and peace are

apparent.

Head of Buddha. Stone. Khmer,

12th-13th centuries. Musee Guimet

Head

of Buddha.

Wood

with traces of gilt.

12th- 13th centuries.
Fogg Museum of Art

Head of Buddha. Stone.

Mon-Gupta type. Lopburi, Siam.
Collection of Reginald Le May

Mask

of

Buddha. Stucco. Mon,

6th-7th centuries. Prapatom.

Collection of Reginald Le May

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

283

Buddha Expounding the Law. Bronze.

Mon-Gupta, 9th-10th centuries. Devaravati.
Metropolitan

Upper

Museum

of Art, Fletcher

left:

Buddha Seated on
Khmer style.

a Serpent. Stone.

Collection of Reginald

Le May

Head of Buddha. Stone.

Mon. Siam. British Museum

Fund

It

sometimes claimed

is

that

the

name

Siam should not be applied before the invasion from the north, which gathered force
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and
reached its peak in the thirteenth. Only late
in this period was a thoroughly typical
Siamese

st)'le

first

marked.

It

then presents

from the
Khmer. For example, in the bronze Head of
Buddha (below, right) the nose has become
long and thin, the eyebrows are arched, the
mouth is more delicate and the head ovoid.
The squared face, leveled brows, and full
lips of the Cambodian heads are gone.
a facial type considerably different

The

bronzes, in particular,

now

attain

refinement seldom equaled in the history of

sculpture,

an elegance sustained with great

The

subtlety.

small

figures

with very careful attention

are

graceful,

to attitude.

It is

not unusual to find a detached hand

played

in

museum

as

masterpiece

dis-

of

Buddha. Bronze. Sukotai Period, 13th-14th

centuries.

sculptural expressiveness.

Museum

of Fine Arts, Boston

Head

Head of Buddha. Stone. 14th century. Lopburi.

Detroit Institute of Arts

of Buddha. Bronze, gilded. Ayrudhya type,

15th-16th centuries. Collection of Reginald
Le May

*^,

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

characteristic

285

Siamese type of head in

stone has protruding eyes, long turned-down

and Hps noticeably upturned at the

The monumental lithic element is
beautifully displayed in the example at the
nose,

*f

corners.

Detroit Institute of Arts (on facing page),

't

hR^^

one of many sur\'iving heads in

museums and private collections. Other vari-

which

is

ations

are

illustrated

heads, two in the

Montreal.
the

The two

refinement

latively,

Le

in

May

series

.<i fc

-^

.-'

.-

^^

j-^
j J

three

one

and

one

elegance:

at

super-

in a smooth, suave stylization;

top idiom goes back to the

Khmer

The

at

India.

'

in bronze display again

other in a decorative composition.

to

of

collection,

Yaai.,

*- 1.

stone

head

The

the

flame-

period and

Montreal

is

monumental and commanding and is a late

variation of the Buddha type. Here again the
artist seems to draw upon spiritual philosophy for aid in his craftsmanship.

Below and upper right:

Heads of Buddha. Bronze. Thai.
Collection of Reginald Le May

Head

of Buddha. Stone. Thai-Lopburi type,

14th century. Art Association of Montreal

A'.'>.

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

286
The
is

illustrations

final

statuettes.

The one

from Siam are of

evidence indicates direct importation of the

Hanoi Museum

art with settlers from India. As

Hindus amalgamated with other peoples,
with substantial Mongolian elements from

the

in

dated by authorities as late as the seven-

teenth

or

possibly

the eighteenth

Though unmistakably Thai,

it

century.
in

reverts

feeling to the art of India of the classic or

Gupta

The

period.

Siva Seated

t)^ical of the

is

from

Champa and

of the characteristic device of playing

areas of rich

is

heavy conventionalization and

minor

ornament against simplified and

bold masses.

One

occurred

during

medieval

the

centuries. In the island of Java the simplified,

austere image of the

the

narrative

relief

Buddha
art

lived again,

arrived

at

precedented lavishness of display.

of

early

the

the north but with a possible admixture of

Hinduism
and Buddhism, along with Indian religious
art, were unreservedly adopted.
Almost the oldest and certainly the greatPolynesians, the Indian religions,

estJavanese

development are vague,

Siva Seated. Stone. 9th century.

Champa. Collection of Baron
Eduard von der Heydt, Switzerland

an

The
but

and
unlines

the

monument

plex of Borobudur, which

earlier relics

other flowering of the Indian style of

sculpture

sculptural

had been

the temple-com-

is

is

Buddhist, where

Sivaist.

The

dynasty

under which Borobudur was erected had

pushed

in

count the

from Sumatra, and some authorities

true

Javanese

art

later

type,

more sensuous, and therefore more

Indonesian and akin to the Polynesian. But
Borobudur is so overwhelming in its extent
and its wealth of sculpture that later developsofter,

Buddha, statuettes. Bronze.

14th 15th centuries. Victoria and Albert
Museum. Right: 17th century. Hanoi Museum.
Left:

CMusee Guimet

photo")

Head

Museum
ments in the

island,

of Buddha. Stone. 8th century. Borobudur.

of Asiatic Art, Amsterdam, Van der Mandele Gift

even though more truly

native, sink into comparative insignificance.

The temple

least three miles

devoted to panels crammed

with narrative sculpture.

strictly a

The

building, but a coating of terraced pavements

tached

and walls over an

Western museums (often

at

Borobudur
artificially

is

not

shaped

hill,

with

an almost unbelievable number of turreted

shrines

disposed

geometrically

around

crowning stupa. There are gateways,

forms,

niches,

plat-

and mural carving, with

Seated Buddha. Stone. 9th century.

Borobudur, Central Java

at

amples

which

de-

displayed

in

large seated Biiddhas, of

heads

Javanese

of

numbered

frequently

are

505.

The

as

Head

of

only ex-

probably

sculpture),

generally high standard

attained in cutting the statues

the examples shown.

the

The

is

attested in

stone figures are

Buddha. Stone. 8th or 9th century.

Borobudur. British

i:

Museum

Borobudur Temple. Total height 100

8th-9th centuries.

feet.

COfficial photo, Republic of Indonesia')

at

time

this

Buddha
inner

subtly

less

modeled, and the

face generally lacks the reflection of

superbly displayed in the

bliss so

bodian

examples;

models

of

but

religious

they

are

Cam-

impressive

iconography.

All

the

figures are in the traditional attitudes of the

Buddha, such

The marvel

as in meditation or preaching.

of marv'els at

Borobudur

superb series of mural illustrations of

from the Buddhist

a

narrative

much

been

classics.

Nowhere

displayed

ambition and mastery.

tomb walls

are

comparison;

the

sculptured

cliffs

pale

with

The

is

the

but

else has

quite

so

Eg)^tian

and unsculptural

in

Indian temple murals and

and
unique

at

shown are representative and

some of the happy groupings of
protagonists and minor characters. The first
shows the Buddha in meditation under the
tree, like a rock amid the allurements of the
episodes

temptresses of Mara.

The

second

is

panel

both

In

horses.

treatment,
little

less

more graphic and

sculptural,

The

outstanding.

ship

is

For a freer

detailed

next

the

The

two

first

typical of the

st)'le.

balanced

the

cases

and

panels

are

in itself a tour-de-

force in rock-carved illustration.

illustrations

The human

(Page 290.)
more
are

Java, as well as the customs

have

figures

an almost voluptuous grace, and the

flora of

and costumes of

the people are represented in conventionalized

detail.

The

Java of Borobudur (and of one earlier

important temple, Candi

Mendut) was

a part

of a Sumatran-Javanese empire, that of the

The Buddha

Sailendra kings.

Worcester)

a single

is

in bronze (at

example

the sculpture of Sumatra, and

remind

illustrate

central female

secondary figures are notable.

are perhaps as extensive

nearly two thousand "leaves."

The

and

its

flanking figures, and trees, elephant,

figure,

stories

Borobudur there is
sculptural discipline and unity of impression.
The panels appear on the walls flanking the
terraces, and if laid out in sequence would
form a storybook several miles in length, with
as elaborate,

equally well composed, with

us

of

the

to represent

may

widespread

embraced in the
and Indonesia and

sculptural art

Indochina

ser\'e

heritage
relices

the

other lands which were influenced by

culture.
is

The

recaptured

lingering beauty of
in

this

statuette,

to

of

from

several

Hindu

Gupta
but

manifestation shaped by a local culture.

in

art
a

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

289

^gintir rii^L

Stories of the

Buddha,

Buddhist Story,

relief panels,

relief panel. Stone.

iitone.

'

""=^i./;

Borobudur. QCoiirtesy Musee Guimet)

Borobudur. QPhoto Victoria and Albert Museum')

N 'Ili fii^M MiW 'iiti^'-'l^ji^^

i

''
-

wi<J<rL'j.JuXi

-'J>

i ii^'

1%'
^^^^^k-?

,i;tf*%

IN'"

?*;*

'liWi wi \

The

reproduction from the temple of

first

Siva at

Prambanan

dent of

Rama drawing

to

hand

gain the

in Java

the

shows the

bow
and

of Sita,

inci-

Djanaka
would be

of
it

conceive of a happier illustration

difficult to

of this story

from the Ramayana. The second,

with a battered central stone showing Vishnu

on the serpent,

is

notable for the compositions

on the side stones: Garuda, the sun-bird,

and a cluster of attending gods. Next is an
incident of the monkeys
and the sea
creatures,

to

illustrate

method,

relief

draftsman's

in

an

somewhat amusing

exceptional

The

technique.

sculptor-

final

scene,

and dynamic, tending toward

sculpture in the round, marks a step toward
the melodramatic action and the crowded
mise- en- scene that were to characterize Javathough

vital

nese sculpture in the period of decadence.

was

this excessively vigorous

that prevailed

Gradually

and crowded

It

style

from the tenth century onward.

the

reliefs

take

and angular ornamentalism

on

of the

the

flat

Wayang
Buddha. Bronze. Sumatran, 9th century.
Negapatam. Worcester Art Museum

Stories of the

Buddha,

relief panels. Stone.

Borobudur.

(^Official

photo. Republic of Indonesia')

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Panels from the Siva Temple, Prambanan. Stone. CCourtesy Musee Guimet^.
Top: Story of Rama and Sita, detail. Center: Story from "Ramayana," detail.
Bottom: Scene froju the "Ramayana," detail

291

292

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

^|
^IH
v^^l
>

^^r

I-

1ll
1

l-i
c

^flH^

^^1

^d^S

w
1

'

i2

fk

*^
Fountain or downspout. Majapahit Period,
14th century. East Java.
Majakerta Museum CCourtesy Musee Guimet)

Scenes from the "Ramayana,"

detail. Stone.

"*-:

'

|_

Avalokitesvara. Bronze. C. 14th century.

Golden Monastery, Patan, Nepal.

CCourtesy Asia House, New York')

Siva temple, Pramhanan. QCourtesy

Musee Guimet')

THE FLOWERING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

puppets, but without the rich expressixeness

ally

in

uniquely spirited

those

of

there

actors.

Occasion-

an example of figure-modeling

is

which the garlands and

traceries

enhance

293

Buddhist Monk, a typical work of the East

Javanese school.
frontation,
first,

The two

exhibits,

that the sculpture of Central

fundamentally

con-

in

emphasize two underlying

facts:

and South-

the sculptural effect, as in the fountain piece

eastern Asia

or gargoyle illustrated.

examples from India and Nepal, or from the

is

alike,

so that

there

Golden Lands, whether Burma, Cambodia,

were sculptors in Further India who were

masters of the art (as the illustrations from

or Java, cannot be mistaken as creations from

Even

at

that

Siam show).

late

date,

however,

graphic lesson can be read

in the reproductions here of a subtly beautiful

Avalokitesvara,

fourteenth

product of Nepal of the

century,

Head

and,

the

Head

of

of a Buddhist Moitk. Stone.

any other part of the world; and second,

that within this unity the differences are so

marked, the originality

this

Head

of a

Monk,

is

so inherent,

that

for instance, could not

be guessed as other than Javanese.

Candi Scvvu. ^Courtesy Mtisee Guiinet')

12: Early Christian Sculpture:

Coptic J Byzantine

THE

nothing as

and the gospel stories of Christ and the saints,

became standard, whether the tombs were designed in Rome, Gaul, or centers in the East.

and scratchings in the

Rome, which were hidden from

Christian art were the Coptic style in Egypt

beginnings of Christian

art

developed

Roman

within the tottering framework of the

Empire, but in sculpture there

is

early as the frescoes

catacombs of
official eyes.

On

the later

however, the Christian

religious significance,

Roman

such

sarcophagi,

could read a

initiate

as the parable of

the strayed sheep in the figure of a shepherd

Emperor Constantine

the

Byzantine

under

at

had been fully

was Oriental mysticism

cultural center, Alexandria,

but

legalized the

it

rather than

Greek

after

three

Christianity

its

persecution,

that

the

Bible

termined aesthetic expression.

centuries

of

in

could be safely incorporated into the

sarcophagus compositions.

Then

the favorite

became
its

emperor's

the

313,

religion

which

early

Constantinople. Egypt, as represented by

fiellenized,

It

style,

in

influence

focused

a.d.

Christian

stories

and

developments

distinctive

was not

carrying a sheep on his shoulders.

until the

Two

logic

essential

that afforded early

character

The

and

Coptic style developed in Egypt, close

spiritual

sources

of

Christian

to the

monasticism,

incidents, such as Daniel in the lions' den,

but elements similar to the Coptic were

the stories of Jonah, of David and Goliath,

appear

later in

Byzantine works.

Peacocks Drinking, building stone. Byzantine, 7th century. Venice.

State

Museum,

Berlin

QGiraudon photo')

de-

pro\incial

to

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

The Miracle

The Byzantine

at

Cana. Ivory. Coptic, 6th century. Victoria and Albert

was

st)'le

being through the fusion of

and

Eastern,
flowering,
spirit
life

was

Hellenic

its

brought

into

Roman, Near

elements.

The

re-

Oriental terms, of the Greek

in

burgeoning aesthetic

allied to the

of the Christian religious communities in

and Syria, and in Conbecame the capital of the

Christian world. A minor influence was the
Egypt,

Palestine,

stantinople

of

art

when

it

northern

the

or

barbarian

people,

be more fully integrated much

Romanesque style.
Sculpture was not a foremost art in early

which was
later, in

to

the

Christian times. Indeed, nothing in the entire

range of Coptic or Byzantine art in stone

matched the

glories

of

Byzantine architec-

and frescoes. As the ancient

Roman Empire became a slackly organized
ture,

mosaics,

Christian

empire,

295

Museum

sculpture

deteriorated

to

and hardly more than auxiliary

art.
Apart from a few exceptional works,
monumental expression was lacking from
a secondary

the

second

the

to

ninth

centuries.

The

surviving relics consist of ivory plaques or

marble

coffins in

Near Eastern
in

or

the

Roman and

then the

There were reliefs

metals, such as plaques for book covers,
ritual platters, and a multitude of architec-

tural details

tradition.

such as decorated

capitals. Slabs

of various types were carved in low relief

in ivor)%

wood, or stone, and were

Greece

in

and

Constantinople.

common
But

the

church or palace of monumental proportions

was

sheathed

at

with

colorful

mosaics

or

and sculpture enriched the buildings

only a few points. The influence of Persia

frescoes,

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

296

and Mesopotamia, where building art leaned

but lightly upon sculpture for embellishment,

years.

seen in the architecture of Santa Sophia

Rome

is

church in Constantinople, constructed in

a.d.

There were one

fourteen-foot bronze

the

as

Valentinian
Italy,

which

two major monuments,

or

now

I,

figure

of

Barletta in southern

at

illustrates the survival of

Roman

portraiture into the latter half of the fourth

century.

It

however,

is,

sculpturally clumsy.

once

melted

for

The arms and

use

awkwardly replaced
period. There is also

in

in

and
were
were

nondescript
legs

and

bells

Renaissance

the

a group of four figures

in stone, set into a corner of the Treasury of

St.

Mark's Cathedral in Venice.

interest

historians

to

ascribed to the

of

end of the

It is

of great

because

art

it

third century

is

and

yet already exhibits the essential characterof the Byzantine style:

istics

a total lack of

many

for

Theodoric the Goth became ruler of

in

but

493,

Romans had been

Egyptian

532-537-

such

and Roman elements

barbarian

barbarians

as

monasticism was intro-

Christian

duced into

well

as

Christianized long since.

by

Benedict (480-544)
Subiaco and Monte Cassino, and a net-

at

work

Italy

St.

Benedictine monasteries began

of

to

spread over Europe under a rule encouraging

the

arts.

The
the

early Byzantine style prevailed

from

The

sixth

third

century
pieces

the fifth centuries.

to

is

the period

and the climax,

the

of

great master-

group of buildings

at

the famous throne of

church
and the

as seen in the

of Santa Sophia in Constantinople

Ravenna. In sculpture

Maximian

at

Ravenna,

sheathed with ivory plaques, belongs

to this

period. After three centuries of lesser activity,

during which

the

iconoclast

wars stopped

production for a time, there was a renaissance

Many

Greek (or Roman) naturalness, an attempt at

rhythmic composition, and addition of rich

in the mid-ninth century.

patterning in every available area.

wealth and prosperity. There was a further

busts in the

Roman

Portrait

tradition soon sink to

almost unbelievable ineptness.

an

very few

heads, showing signs of a more truly Eastern

approach,

such

as

Oaks (page 303),

The

the
are

one

and

vivid.

only consistent triumph of portraiture

in these times

is

on the

the

time

Rome

fell

Near

the period of decadence

many

East,

Eastern

art,

barbarian

in-

vaders in 410, a vast part of the empire had

been ruled (or wasted in wars) under mixed

the

came

of

in the

characteristics

with the Romanesque

Many

Byzantine

plaques, book covers,

to

period

of

as seen in the Byzantine master-

pieces, fused

West.

of

or pyx, were portable

faces or in the historical portraits of the

By

When

and occasionally

late compositions.

of the finest

this

renaissance in the twelfth century.

in idealized heads

coins,

on the ivory plaques, either

and

at

attractive

Dumbarton

were carved during

ivories

objects

art of the

such

as

and the circular box

and were circulated in

countries from the eastern Mediterranean to

the British Isles, and in turn they affected

Western Christian art. The Byzantine Empire

lasted

fell to

technically until

the Turks in 1453.

Constantinople

II

TH

ivory with Scenes from the

Testament

Roman

affinities.

compositions

suggest

with

classic

narrative

New

an Early Christian piece,

is

While
a

panels,

the story-telling

legacy
there

from
are

the

new

vividness and vigor that can be counted only

as Eastern.

As

in so

many

ivories of the early

period, there are touches of Oriental pattern-

Scenes from the

State

New

Museum,

ing and the over-all design

is

rhythmic and

The

two parts of the plaque

(matched here from two museums) show also
the typical fullness and roundness of each

opulent.

figure,

against

uncluttered

generally

back-

grounds.

The two
The Story

plaques Miracles of Christ and

of

Joseph,

also

Testament. Ivory. Italian, 5th century.

Berlin; Louvre. (^Giraudon photo^

labeled

Early

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

298

Christian or Latin,
influence.

The

first

Miracles of Christ. Ivory. C. 5th century.

Victoria and Albert Museum

show even more Eastern

places the rounded

fig-

ures against backgrounds entirely traced over

with patterning. In the other, although the

workmanship
again

somewhat clumsy,

is

exceptional

richment.

The

deeplv pierced

feeling

animals
to

for

there

surface

and the

is

en-

foliation,

produce sparkling

light-

and-shade, are Oriental in feeling. Here the

classic

West and

East have met in a

the

new

plastically

inventive

fusion, in the style

called Byzantine.

As Byzantine

architecture developed,

the

columns in the Christian churches were

often capped with sculptured compositions.

The

Story of Joseph. Ivory. C. 5th century.

Treasury of Sens Cathedral. QGiraudon photo')

ra^.

'Vlis^A.Wi,'^''

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

These range from the

abstract

(very

hke

Islamic designs, in the later periods) through

compositions

semi-abstract

and on

ation,

to

based

on

fully figurative types

with

tian icon

museum

the

at

Ravenna, and, in

with animals,

rhythmic

whelmed

France.

Late

The

mastery in sculpture had been

best expressed in the sarcophagi of the

first

wholly

composition

There

had

all

but

pyx

Florence

at

the

over-

Eastern
detail.
is

in
If

its
it

the

reveals

a slightly different way.

in

nevertheless

Pyx. Ivory. 5th century.

National Museum, Florence. QGiraudon photo^

Capitals. Stone. Byzantine. 6th-7th centuries.

Above: Museum, Ravenna. (^Anderson photo").
Belo^v. Church of S. Michele, Pavia. (Alinari photo)

one

possible to find

classic realism of statement.

little

transition

wealth of
classic

it is

to Chris-

piece. In

century Oriental decoration and Oriental

in place

still

the

motives

Good Shepherd. By

both Jonah and the

Church of San Michele in Pavia,

Italy. There is in the latter composition more
than a hint of the Romanesque style that
was to succeed the Byzantine in Italy and

contrast, a capital

in

Roman

and Christian genre

of the panels (page 301)

fifth

and
was com-

in the third

progression

the

centuries

pleted from purely

figures. Illustrated are a near-abstract capital,

in

fourth

But

centuries.

flori-

knotted animals or conventionalized biblical

now

and second

299

exuberance

It

and

lacks logical order

is

its
it

wonderfully alive and vibrant.

are ivories

that juxtapose a story-

300

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

and

telling composition

and the two

decorative panel,

traditions can

The

not quite fused.

be detected,

still

didactic figures in the

ivory at Liverpool have been

composed

into

a rhythmic group. In the figures of the top

and

panel,

also

below, there

which was
Byzantine

One

the

animals of the scene

the special rounding of forms

is

persist

to

as

a hallmark of the

style.

of the most instructive examples

famous

bishop's

Ravenna,

throne

of

with

sheathed

is

the

Maximian

at

representational

and running borders of ornament.

panels

Though

the

figure

have

panels

didactic

Roman

traits,

and the

aesthetic sensibility of the East. Like

all

else has the

new freedom

most of the accomplished ivory of so early

time

(the sixth century),

it

was

until

re-

cently credited to the studios of Alexandria.

Later attributions are to other centers.

Byzantine style was in

The

full tide over a vast

by the mid-sixth century. A new

had evolved, and centers of
manufacture existed on three continents.
territory

way

of design

The Coptic composition in the Louvre

showing a god, a horse, and a crocodile, has
hardly more than a heavy manner, a lithic
beauty, and direct statement to link it with
earlier

Egyptian work.

It is

transformed, by

workmen imbued with

Eastern feeling, into

No

Greek in the classic

no Roman, could

a decorative entity.
tradition,

and

certainly

have rendered the two animals

Throne of Maximian. Ivory over

vi'ood.

6th century. Archepiscopal Palace, Ravenna.

QAnderson photo')

at

once so

unreal and so alive, or the whole composition

so

compact and

Early Christian sarcophagus. Stone. 3rd-4th centuries. Vatican

so decorative.

Museum, Rome. QBrogi

photo")


EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE
.^^^^^^^w-^^^^

V.---;

w^t.-j^''?:

J^^

century. Liverpool

Museum. QGiraudon

A God

oil

301

photo')

a Horse. Stone. Coptic. Egypt.

Louvre. QGiraudon photo)

Early Christian sarcophagus. Stone. 3rd-4th centuries.

Church of S. Maria Antiqiia, Rome. QBrogi photo)

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

302
It is

the frank decorativeness of Coptic art

that sets

it

Egyptian

soil;

from earher developments on

off

and indeed the majority

museums

Coptic sculptures in the

and not

stractly decorative

They comprise
and

of the

are

ab-

figurative at

all.

floriated capitals, rich friezes,

all-over-patterned panels.

But the Copts

could treat figure compositions without losing

the play of light and
areas,

producing

shadow upon patterned

luxuriant

designs.

The

stone relief from Greece, with animals and

birds,

pressed

how

shows
itself

Byzantine

this

somewhat

art.

It

ornamentalism

represents the florid aspect

Cana (page 295)

fluent

Greece. Louvre. QGiraudon photo')

of

there are the full

the

Byzantine

style.

and

The

counterpoint, and the hair

is

mentalized not in the

Roman manner,

late

frankly orna-

but in patterning that heightens by contrast

the

Even

smooth modeling of face

the wine jars are disposed

and

figure.

rhythmic

for

counterplay. Yet the Christian story-theme

is

served.

The
of

silver

Cyprus,

plate,
is

part of the Treasure

reminder

further

mixed nature of the sculptural

the

formative

The

centuries

of

the

art

of

the

during

Byzantine

David and Goliath is told

explicitly in three scenes, in the manner of
Hellenistic Rome rather than in the sumptuous Persian manner. But there is enough

style.

Relief. Stone. Byzantine. 9th or 10th century.

figures

drapery ends are composed into ornamental

ex-

later in the course of

of the Byzantine style.

In the ivory panel illustrating the Miracle

at

story of

ornamentalism
draperies,

on the

and

shields,

in

the

treatment

especially

in

the

of

the

patterning

echoed in the stippling of the

towers, to indicate the meeting of the two

traditions.

The

Story of David

and

Goliath. Silver.

6th century. From the Treasure of Cyprus.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

Portrait head. Stone.

Dumbarton Oaks Collection

The
had

Portrait head. Stone. Coptic,

6th-7th centuries. Louvre

never fully

Byzantine

artists

Roman

portraiture

Ravenna,

Byzantine

Byzantium.

at

so degenerated that there could

be no

strong influence from that direction, and by

the eighth century the iconoclast

movement

within the Eastern Church had put a serious

check upon
trait

were working in Rome. In

art of portraiture in stone

developed

all

The few

figurative art.

por-

heads that survive are marked by

complete

understanding

necessarily

grave

which one seldom

in-

anatomy not

of

fault,

but

303

fault

for

finds compensation in su-

had predominated

art

by

for three centuries, as witnessed especially

the

monuments and

architectural

mosaics.

There was no notable sculpture other than

the

carved

beautifully

laced

ornament,

with

capitals

comparable

Coptic Egypt and of Byzantium

after a.d.

sance,

inter-

those

to

itself.

of
Just

800 there occurred a minor renaiswith the religious and

associated

cultural

advance in Europe under Charle-

perior plastic sensibility or striking sculptural

magne's patronage, and there are groups of

aliveness.

illuminations

The head
lection

is

in

something of an exception;

striated treatment of

though

Dumbarton Oaks Col-

the

the

beard and hair

contrast

of

is

unbroken surfaces

with beard and hair so heavily ridged

cally Eastern.

The head

indeterminate date,
Phoenicia,

Roman
By

and

is

has

the

novel,

in the

thought

some

is

Louvre
to

typiis

of

be from

affinity

with

art.

the end of the eighth century Greco-

and

ivories

the

of

period,

catalogued by scholars as "Ada" (from the

name

of

Charlemagne's

"School of

sister),

Reims," and so on. In the early tenth and

the

eleventh centuries,

new wave

of

at

time

when

Orientalism had swept over

the Eastern studios,

there

termining renaissance in the

was

more

West known

deas

the Ottonian (or Orthonian), which led on

to

Romanesque and

belong

to that style.

is

considered by some to

304

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

In both periods of revival the general expression

Byzantine or Byzantesque. (Ire-

is

land alone then clung

to Celtic

and was

ac-

complishing the chief flowering of the Barbarian

style

in

imported

Justinian

Theodoric

sculpture.)

and

architects

and

artisans

to design and build churches

and palaces at Ravenna in the sixth century,
and Charlemagne's architects sent to Ravenna
for models and materials for the new capital
at Aachen in the eighth and ninth centuries,

from the East

while the Ottonian kings simply revivified

the

st)'le

ivories

The

early Ottonian

especially spirited

and dramatic.

closest at

are

hand.

Objects in ivory in a wide range of design

and subject

are

shown on

this

and the

fol-

lowing pages. They are probably of the tenth

and eleventh

centuries, except those

marked

and the panel of the Veroli

its several faces, shows
lively treatment of Christian and pagan
themes, strangely mixed together. It is of

workmanship and it affords an inway in which artists full of

enthusiasm for their medium, with superb
exquisite

stance of the

technical

mastery,

written

misunderstood the

often

and

texts

the

painted

miniatures

which were their chief sources of inspiration.

In one panel Europa and the Bull usurp the
place of Achan amid the Israelites hurling
stones.

As the Church had been the only

shape any

sort

and

national

of unity

racial

elements, so art became

now an appanage of
power. The thematic
from the

life

Testament

with

Christ

the

the ecclesiastic ruling

materials

were taken

of Jesus or of Mary, or from

Old
in

force to

from the confused

in

stories.

majesty

Cluny Museum,

The

Crucifixion,

and other
is

scenes,

particularly

Carolingian,

beautiful example of the story-telling type.

Casket, which, on

It is

of Charlemagne's time.

The

central leaf of a triptych illustrating

Christ crowning the Emperor Romanus IV

Panel with fantastic subjects. Ivory. Byzantine, 9th-10th centuries.

Formerly Collection de Vasselot, Paris. QGiraudon photo")

Veroli Casket. Ivory over wood. Byzantine, 9th century. Victoria

and Albert Museum

and Empress Eudocia is of special interest

union of Church and state.
It is equally an index to the artistic methods

in indicating the

of the Byzantine craftsmen.

The Madonna

and Child ivith Samts in the Dumbarton

Oaks Collection is a work in the mature
Byzantine manner, showing slenderized figures though without losing the idiomatic
rounding of forms.

The Christ in Majesty is a distinctive German variation. That the Orient was again
asserting
attested

itself

by the

in

the

Western

studios

is

spirited symbolic animals at

the base of the design, these being the symbols of

Mark and Luke. The Crucifixion at

Museum, which borders on ex-

the British

Madonna and Child with

Saints, Ivory.

Dumbarton Oaks

Collection

Christ Crowning
Crucifixion from book cover. Ivory. French,
Carolingian. Cluny Museum. QGiraudon photo")

Romanus IV and Eudocia.

Ivory. Byzantine, llth century.

Bihliotheque Nationale, Paris. QGiraudon photo')

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

306

pressionistic

distortion,

nevertheless

exhibits

an expert sense of space design and a pleasing

counterpoint.
vigor

It

of

Ottonian

the

illustrates

process

in

transformation

Romanesque dynamism.
The freedom and variety

into

of treatment in

Byzantine ivories can be explained by the

great

territor)-^

over

which

the

from Africa and Asia

spread,

France and western Germany, so

barian.

The

under a

it

is

lately bar-

t)'pically

ornate

dome

its

is

or

canopy

so frankly

general richness of effect that

surprising to find each figure, in

might

easily

composition,

had

northern

Crucifixion with other scenes,

supported by pierced columns,

Oriental in

style

to

what

be a cluttered and confused

set

out

with

decision

and

clarity.

In contrast, there are reliefs that pile scene

Christ in Majesty. Ivory. Ottonian.
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Crucifixion. Ivory. British

Museum

Crucifixion. Ivory. lOth-llth centuries.

Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

upon

scene, employing,

times,

at

307

ure

two

or

rather

upon

to

dominate

the

of

scores

supernumeraries, depending not upon a

design,

fig-

but

a tapestry-hke distribution of ele-

ments, with a flowing rhythm which unobtrusively holds the composition together.

Munich

panel from a bookbinding at

pleasing

unconventional

if

National
plicit

and

The
cifixion

Museum
fluid,

in Zurich,

and indeed

is

now
at

is

The

example.

panel illustrating Psalm XXVII,

The

at the

once ex-

masterpiece.

ivory leaf at Zurich showing the Cru-

and Deposition

conventional

work.

is

more sober and

The upper

panel

illu-

strates beautifully the art of space-filling, in

Illustration for

Psalm XXVII.

Ivory. French,

Carolingian, 9th century. National Museum, Zurich

Crucifixion and Related Scenes, panel from a

bookbinding. Ivor)'. lOth-llth centuries.
State Library, Munich. QCourtesy Archiv
fiir Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin)

and Deposition.
Museum, Zurich.

Crucifixion

National

Ivory. 10th century.

(_Giraiidon -photo')

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

308

which the Byzantine

incomparably

carvers

surpassed the Classical Greeks.

The

relative

sizes of the figures are interesting, as is the

turned,
It

tion

is

by the two

served

function

winged

religious

the devo-

stress

emotion expressed in

the Carolingian and Ottonian ivory panels.

They were produced during one

of the su-

preme periods of Christian mysticism and

worship, and something of the divine awareness and the reverence of the spiritual
pilgrim breathes from these miniature devotional works. They were often made as portable altars or as insets for the bindings of

Bibles

or

for

psalters,

or

religious

works

adorning

reli-

Notable

The

relief

from southern

Italy

too.

portable

Gladiators

While Barbarian and

played

their

part

in

Irish

influences

forming the impulse

were potent currents from Italy too.

There the Lombards had already developed
which pointed toward the
variation
a
Romanesque style.
A panel treating the old theme of animalthere

combat, below,

is

typically

Byzantine.

The

Adoration of the Kings, an English piece,

demonstrates how fully the Oriental manner

had penetrated even westward of the European continent. Coptic and Byzantine art had
developed within the Church. There was a
third source of medieval Christian sculpture,

quaries.

metal

ings.

that led to the metal-casting at Hildesheim,

half-figures.

hardly necessary to

and the

inward-

little

or Germano-Byzantine examples
were more often plates adorning bookbind-

Byzantine

diptych.

were made in
of Christ Enthroned is
and is one leaf of a

The

and Lions.

important

Frankish-

Ivory. Byzantine.

Hermitage, Leningrad. (Giraudon Photo")

seemingly alien: the barbarian works of the

itinerant peoples.

chapter

we

At the beginning of a new

turn to the art of the successive

waves of Wanderers.

Adoration of the Kings. Ivory. English,

II th century. Victoria and Albert Museum

EARLY CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

Christ Enthroned, with Symbols of the Evangelists, leaf of diptych. Metal.

Treasure of Cathedral of Lucera, Apulia, Italy. (^Alinari photo")

309

^.

-V

'

"^v'

_gMs

3:

European Christian Sculpture:

BarhariaUj Romanesque^ Gothic

MIGRATORY

had no cities and

and so the Barbarian sculpture of the North achieved even
less monumental expression than did Byzantine sculpture. The t)'pical invention was in
jewelry, weapons, and horse trappings; especially in metalwork studded with enamels
built

or

traced

signs.

tribes

no churches or

over

with

palaces,

enriching

graved

de-

Like the Scyths, the Celts and the

manship, but they produced objects that are

marvels of spirited design.

Through more than

art

the

to

Greco-Roman

flourishing,

millennium the barthen

tradition. In the

overcome, just

as,

the

way

of

waning,

end they were

after sacking

Rome

again

and again, they were absorbed into a new

empire which was Christian and most de-

Gauls, the Franks and the Goths and the

pendent

Lombards concentrated on miniature

From

crafts-

barians opposed their Indo-Germanic

Gargoyles. Stone. 12th century. Notre

upon Byzantium

for

its

the centuries of opposition

Dame

de Paris.

(ND

photo")

culture.

there

re-

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

311

Roman

main rich remnants of Barbarian art; and in

the end it was the spirited free design and

cessive barbarian invasions modified

ornamental richness in the Northern

Christianity was the great catalyst in the

Dark Ages and Middle Ages. The barbarians
who arrived in Central and Western Europe

that transformed

Roman and

Byzantine

into the glorious expression of

style
arts

Romanesque.

art

almost beyond recognition.

The Romans had pushed their way northward, spreading Roman civilization through-

were anti-Christian

out Western Europe. Paris of the third cen-

opportunistic leaders, they sometimes drifted

tury was Gallic-Roman, but the

coming

of

the Franks in the fourth and fifth centuries

added

to

the

Germanic element. The

suc-

But

as

as

well

minority groups,

as

anti-Roman.

with shrewd and

and sometimes fervently

religion. It marked a
history when Clovis, King

into acceptance of,

espoused,

the

new

turning-point in

Fibulae and ornaments. Bronze. Art of the wandering peoples.

Albania, Austria, Switzerland, etc. St. Germain Museum; Cernuschi Museum; National

Museum, Zurich

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

312

Franks, the

of the

who had been

bowed

his

first

truly

converted

to

Christianity,

head in the Church of

St.

Etienne

is

stor\'

the

late

ele\'enth

of artisan guilds that

century,

Celtic,

The
count

for.

names

of

early decades of Gothic that the Christian

notably

art

worked

to

more personal

With

produce the

fabric of the cathedrals.

extraordinary production

had been absorbed

into the expressionistic Romanesque st)'le. It
was in the Romanesque centuries and the
and Prankish

Gallic,

of the building of the cathedrals

well known, and especially the emergence

immensely complex

in Paris.

By

The

French king,

art,

is

more

of

sculpture,

difficult to

ac-

few exceptions, even the

the sculptors are unrecorded. Most
a

at

Gislebertus signed his name at

Autun and has been credited with much of
the work there between 1125 and 1135.

no other time so glorious. The cathedrals of

Chartres, Amiens, Reims, and Paris are
among the most inspired buildings erected by
men; the English cathedrals are hardly less

Three centuries later Nicolas Gerhaert of

Leyden was chiseling sculptures for Strasbourg Cathedral and left a unique signature
in a stone self-portrait. But the artists who

spirit
art.

most richlv and most truly inspired

The

noble.

story of Christian architecture

is

In spite of seven or eight centuries

and vandalism, the sculpture in the

cathedrals and churches of the Middle Ages
remains the one supreme exhibit in the West

of wars

to

compare with the

art

that flourished in

Persia, India, and China.

The Royal

Portal, Cathedral of

created

James

at

the

St.

Peter

Moissac,

at

the

St.

Compostela, and the Old Testament

figures of the

Royal Portal

at Chartres,

who

covered with statues the portal recesses and

facades of practically

and often

their choirs

all

the great cathedrals,

and other

Notre Dame, Chartres. lMid-12th century.

(ND

areas within

photo')

The

Tympanum
as well, at Paris

Salisbury, Burgos

few these

Last Judgment, detail. Stone. 12th century.

of Cathedral of St. Lazare, Autun. QGiraudon photo')

and Reims, Strasbourg and

and Leon, to name but a

are anonjonous.

Barbarian art

is

safet)'

known through

the minor

pins for their clothing, and

harness ornaments and sword-guards. Their

style

of

served in

curling,
its

twisting

pure form in

was prethe Irish and the

shapes

Scandinavian national expressions.

in

France the

the revelations of Christ, or takes account of

the sources

The

upon which

the early Christian

Fathers drew, such as the myster)'-religions of

Greece, of Asia, of Eg)'pt, the old Palestinian

was from

trend

and

Platonism,

learning,

Spiritual

st}'le

the portrayal of animals.

reads Christian history

unfolding of man's understanding of

classic

Mithraism,

the

intellectualism

and

materialism toward the spiritual

was absorbed into

the Romanesque. Thousands of capitals on
columns in the Romanesque churches of
Europe exhibit in their sculpture the spirit
of the Indo-Germanic invaders especially in
But

Whether one today

as the

sculpture the migrants brought with them,

such as

storybook of religious legend and instruction.

expressionistic

or distorting element in the larger sculptural

spiritual

artist

cept as a

discounts

art

turns

means

image formed

as

life.

of communication,
a

The

body.

away from nature

result

aesthetic contemplation.
as far as exact

the

of spiritual

Nature

is

ex-

an

to

and

discounted

measurements and

lines

and

Romanesque marks
supreme instance in the West of emo-

masses

are

concerned.

investiture at Vezelay, Moissac, or the early

the

doorways

tional or spiritual attainment in sculpture.

When

at

Chartres has a similar origin.

Romanesque

fully

Classically trained historians in the nine-

developed, the prodigious feats of medieval

teenth century found no excuse for the de-

and sculpture were accomchurchmen, architects, and

whether working in stained glass or
had a single vision of the unified

formations of surface realism, and especially

the

style

became

architecture
plished.
artists,

stone,

cathedral,

The

awe-inspiringly simple in

gineering, amazingly adorned on

All

worked

for their

God

to

its

its

en-

surfaces.

provide a vast

human and animal figRomanesque works at such centers

Moissac, Vezelay, and Autun. They glori-

the unnaturalness of
ures,

as

fied

in

the Gothic as the supreme art of the

medieval
opinion,

centuries.

however,

the

In
art

twentieth-century
of

the

eleventh

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

314

and twelfth centuries

is

considered more cre-

ative.
It

cept that of Paris, were in process of build-

At Amiens, Chartres, Reims, Sens, they

had been started in the Romanesque style
but became Gothic in the course of construction. Notre Dame de Paris was a little later,

ing.

remains only

to

add dates

for the e\ents

was being carWestern Europe over a period of

1300 years. The Gauls had spread over
France in the fourth and third centuries
B.C. Although Gallic France was put under
Roman rule by Julius Caesar in 58-51 B.C.,
of this period. Barbarian art
ried into

begun in 11 60, a date sometimes given for

the emergence of the Gothic style.
This was the time of the decay of feudalism and the rise of town communes and the

the barbarian incursions continued for cen-

powerful

and culminated in the Frankish

invasion of the third and fourth centuries.
Celtic culture had pushed as far as Ireland
in 400 B.C. The old Celtic art lived on for
another twelve hundred years, in its purest

ism and the

turies after

form, in the Irish goldwork, stone sculptured

and manuscripts (as in the famous

Book of Kells, of the eighth centur)0.
Romanesque architecture developed over
an indeterminate period. Romanesque sculp-

crosses,

ture,

however, matured only in

the

early

eleventh century and was dominant for the

following two hundred years.

It

was

trans-

formed into Gothic about the year 1200.

The architectural metamorphosis can be
ascribed
centur)',

approximately

to

for

the

earliest

the

mid-twelfth

combination

of

Romanesque vaulting with the pointed arch

is commemorated in accounts of the building
of the Cathedral of

Aquitaine,

shown

then

St.

Queen

Denis. Eleanor of
of

France,

the "new"
by Suger in 1144. The great cathedrals,

was

style in the cathedral choir

ex-

state; of
first

the beginnings of capital-

emergence of a bourgeoisie.

The Church, without seeming

trol

to relax con-

men's minds, was admitting into

over

life new disruptive and divisive

was permitting changes in civil organization, education, and even ecclesiastical
philosophy that were to lead to separation of
Church and state, and to post-medieval
intellectualism and materialism. The universities became centers of learning in a new
sense. The transformation of Romanesque art

everyday
forces,

into Gothic has

Church

polity

its

perfect parallel within the

and the Church teaching,

in

the triumph of the Scholastics over the pro-

ponents
faith.

of

The

Christian

early
logic

and

and

mysticism

clarity of St.

Thomas

Aquinas and the science of Roger Bacon

were replacing the mystic self-giving and the
revelatory outpouring of St.
tional

and

fore a

new

spiritual

Bernard.

Emo-

expression retreated be-

confidence in

reality, a

new

de-

votion to the non-abstract.

But the sculptors remained Romanesqueminded until well into the thirteenth century. As Gothic realism and Gothic grace
took over in sculpture, the old expressionism

died in France.

It

survived fitfully in Spain

and the Spanish colonies until some centuries later.

Broadly speaking, the years be-

tween about 1200 and

1500 in European

sculptural history were substantially Gothic.

II

BARBARIAN
name from

which

art,

rivalry

takes

its

with Greco-Roman

("barbarian" meaning "foreign"),

art

classic

its

Macedonia and
Iberia. Here is
descent,

and

Ireland, the Baltic Sea

visual

evidence of lines of

among people

known

Celts,

as

flourished before the centuries of the organi-

Franks, Goths, and Anglo-Saxons, from

zation of the Christian Church. It precedes

mote ancestors

and

parallels the Early Christian art of the

foregoing chapter.
it

the

as

chief

Its

spirit

and drive mark

forerunner of the

creative

monuments of Romanesque art. Except for

the monumental Celtic crosses and some of
the Viking figureheads,

its

works are small:

usable jewelry such as fibulae, and harness

accessories,

The

sword guards, and

illustrations

showing

orna-

re-

where

the animal art had developed a thousand or

more

years before Christ.

The

st)'le

or expression

is

limited, as

is

the

means: laboriously worked metal, quite com-

monly inset with enamel or colored stone,

and embossed or engraved. Geometric or
vaguely zoomorphic ornament is standard
over the entire territory.

coins.
fibulae,

in the steppe country',

outline

The

and mass, suggests

total design, in

Scythian con-

ments, and animals indicate both the wide

nection or perhaps connection with a late

and the na-

development of Scythian such as Sarmatian.

The fish and the birds and the ornamental

diffusion of the Barbarian style

ture of Iron

Age

art as a

continuation of an

The animals, and the fibulae

and ornaments that suggest animals without

Asian tradition.
recognizably
legs,

are

depicting

from

districts

the
as

first

group of

illustrations,

with

depressions once filled with enamels (page

body,

or

311), and formalized animals, mostly from

separated

as

Central

head,
far

fibula of the

Europe,

above

and

opposite,

are

Animals and Animal Abstraction. Bronze; gold. Celtic, Avaric, 9th century B.c.-6th century a.d.
Switzerland; England; France; Albania. Metropolitan Museum of Art Caboie, left and center'); British
Museum (_above, top right); Art Museum, Princeton University (_abore, lower right, and facing
page, left); National Museum, Zurich (^facing page, right)

reminiscent

indeed

country

(The

art.

of

bird

steppe-

work

with wings spread

when

the

from Asia.) The bordered

old

in gold

of the

first

century

a.d.,

at

the time

the Emperor Claudius was initiating

successful invasion

of the islands;

the

first

a perfect example. In the European fibulae

and

the sparse ornamental ridgings along the

and brooches the animal form

back and the concave ears are idioms in

is

rather

than

stated.

The

griflfin

spirit

is

is

implied

the beast

of

ornaments of the time.

The

survives in decorative rather than figurative

pin of bronze wire

compositions.

pin type, but the general form of

The Boar (page

315, top right)

is

a British

traced back

is

an

many

brooch or safety

Irish variation of the

through the

it

La Tene

Brooches and fibulae. Bronze; silvered bronze. Celtic, various dates.

Tessin, Switzerland; Ireland; England; France.
National Museum, Zurich; British Museum; Louvre; Victoria and Albert Museum

can be
Periods

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

and through
civilizations

western

Ilallstatt

The

Asia.

the

to

brooch

bronze), with animal heads

geometric pattern,

penannular

best

t)'pe

but closely related

to

(in

but

all

typical

is

Bronze Age

Europe and north-

Eastern

of

silvered

in

British

Museum,

steppe-art

so

ancestry,

The

fourth centur)'.

to

to

of

Merovech,

reservoir

Altai-Iran.

bronzes.)

The

suggesting

type of Barbarian art best

the

known

in panels

of Oriental-looking interlaced ornament set

into architecture.

The most
in

important phase of Christian

Barbarian

purely

style

art

produced the

rarer

towering Celtic stone crosses of Ireland and

the borderland of Scotland and Northumber-

territory

itself

and the

land.

Elsewhere the barbarian

rulers,

when

converted to Christianity, had called in late

Roman and
to

adorn

their

especially

Byzantine craftsmen

persons,

their

churches,

as

their

palaces,

and

Theodoric had done

Charlemagne was doing

at

Luristan

Ravenna, and

when

they are

about the time

uncommonly

graceful

was at its peak.

During the darkest period of the struggles
of barbarians and Romans, the Irish had be-

illustrations

Celtic animals,

of

elegant.

Indeed, despite miles of exhibits uncouth

and fumbling as works of art, in naturalhistory museums, the best of Gallic-Celtic

Beak-flagon, with detail. Bronze.

4th century. British Museum

Celtic,

of

be of the

wandering peoples, to the

upper Eurasia and back
(An early example will be

free of ornament, are

and even

Salian

art,

in

found among the

king

Irish

centuries of the
racial

Merovingian, from the legendar)'

Franks and grandfather of King Clovis, a

beak-flagon form

can be traced back over the

art

as

figure

illustrate

phase of Celtic and are said

\ital.

phase of Prankish

the

to

the

and Scandi-

directly

on

leads

known

animals on a pair of beak-flagons in

the British
their

It

the

navian design. (At bottom of facing page.)

The

sculpture comprises a style brilliant and

of

lost in

Celtic,

known

317

as

when

at

the Irish monastic art

Burial crosses. Stone. Celtic,

come

the foremost conservators of Christian

10th century. Ireland

c.

times of St. Patrick.

The ornamental

panels

learning and of the arts of the scriptoria.

portray the beasts of the earlier Celtic

They founded famous monasteries as far

away as Fulda in Germany and St. Gall in
Switzerland, and were known at St. Denis

dition
est

approximations of the Scythian

else

they luxuriate in

and

England. They jealously guarded their

tra-

spirals

this

the Irish illuminated manuscripts.

surviving

crosses,

cemeteries,

are

still

in numberless

generally in the form of a

Celtic cross, with a ring encircling the inter-

arms and

section of

monument

is

mented with
positions.

The

shaft.

Each

face of the

divided into panels and ornafigure

groups or other com-

figures are those of the

Testament or Christian

tradition

and

ornament

Old

and some-

become unfavorably known

down

the

The

Celtic art can be traced.

Isles

known

in

from the great

also

Eastern reservoir to which

conquerors

or

on endless

built

interlacings, as better

The Norsemen were

sculptural expression.

distinctive

The

and they emerged with

stvle

terns of abstract

style;

the fascinating pat-

in France, and, of course, in Scotland

ditional

tra-

and represent them in one of the bold-

as

creators

of

Vikings had

marauders and

the coasts of the British

and along the

rivers

of

France,

and

through the European-Mediterranean water-

way

as far as Sicily.

To

the Irish they were

sometimes neighbors, but

as pirates

and

in-

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

vaders they carried
booty, including

How

away

great quantities of

many examples

oF Irish

art.

imported pieces affected native

far the

319

adorned with figureheads, though these were

mostly patterned over until the
light

play of

vital

and shade became more important than

The

Scandinavian industry can only be guessed.

the beasts portrayed.

emerged in Scandinavia a
of
sculpture,
dated
from the seventh to
type

upon study the interlacings, the

endless spirals, and the abstract leaf motives
of Irish Celtic decoration. The wood carving
on the door of a church at Urnes in Norway,

In any

the

case, there

eleventh

sister

art

to

centuries,

that

is

patently

the geometric and zoomorphic

sculpture of Eire

The prows

of

and Saxon England.

the

Viking

ships

Stern-post of a Viking ship. Wood. C. 800.

The Oseberg Find. Historical Museum, Oslo

mixing vaguely
were

near-geometric pat-

terns yield

animalcsque

motives

with

one of the few surviving masterpieces in the style. It is beautiful and

abstraction,

is

The

modem

and, though recut in

vital,

apparently has

none of the

lost

artist-craftsmen

handsomely

trated bronze clasp

The

legions of

it

Iceland contributed

of

Northern

to the

times,

original elan.

below

Rome

style.

is

The

illus-

typical.

brought

civil

organi-

and Roman luxuries and arts to the

new territories of Gaul and Britain. Such
architectural masterpieces as the Pont du
Gard and the temple known as the Maison
Carree at Nimes were produced, but, on the
whole, provincial Roman art in Western
Europe was mediocre. As Roman power colzation

lapsed, the

Roman

style

somewhat influenced

the barbarians of France in a variation

as

known

Gallo-Roman. Rare examples of architec-

tural

sculpture uncovered on walls of early

churches in southwest France represent the

best of the style,

which

is

heavy and more

Clasp. Bronze. Icelandic, lOth-llth centuries.

National

Museum, Reykjavik

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

320

Norse woodcarving. Possibly 10th century. Doorway of church

transferred from earlier building

at

Urnes, Norway,

They were

massive than Byzantine or the Romanesque

of Byzantium.

was to follow later. The figure panel

shown is thought to have been transferred
to a niche on a church at St. Astier, in the
Dordogne, from an earlier building. Scholars

another line by the Celts, the Gauls, and the

that

believe

illustrates a local transformation of

it

insensitive

Roman imaging

into a distinctive,

frankly decorative native mode. Perhaps ten

centuries later, Breton folk art
style

vival

which looks
of

the

like a late

seventeenth century.

tals

but direct sur-

Gallo-Roman, unlike the

Gothic expression of

Some

embodied a

authorities

and other

its

own

late

time, about the

(Facing page, above.)

would mark

details

in

certain capi-

the early French

churches as purest Barbarian, possible only

to

descendants of the creators of the Asian

The

inherited through

Vikings, and had gone through tortuous and

confusing permutations. These are animals

by one road or another, from

transmitted,

without

Altai-Iran,

loss

of

spiritedness

or

change of emphasis. In the West

significant

they are encountered oftenest in the churches

of Provence

and of Southwest and Central

France.

Those who named the Romanesque

thought of

mance

as

countries,

Roman and
seems

it

to

acter of

reflowering,

of

classic

qualities

culture.

in

style

the

inherent

Roin

But now there

be more reason to identify the char-

it

as rising

tine sources.

The

from barbarian and Bvzanmysticism of

it

is

Eastern

Lurs and

to the

and Northern, and the outward expressionism, with frequent reliance upon exaggeration and distortion, is totally foreign to

Sassanian Persians and to the mature

artists

Roman

animal

and

style.

beasts are at once

dynamic

decorative, originally Scythian or Indo-

Iranian,

known

alike to the

ideals.

Yet
the

classical

decorative

Gard and upon

ornaments are embedded in

complexes

at

Gilles

St.

Trophime

St.

in Aries,

in

and

essentially Roman arches are superimposed

on the facades at Poitiers and at Angouleme.
The figures on these churches, nevertheless,

could not by any stretch of imagination be

linked with the classic, and the added patterning

The

richest Oriental.

is

truth

may

be that the architectural mode of Romanesque design grew logically out of experi-

ment

Roman

with

builders

forms

but

that

the

sought their sculptural adornment

from other sources.

Whatever
Romanesque

the

the

roots,

sculpture

is

flowering

of

one of the most

art. The
Rome and from

magnificent in the records of the

crossing

of

the East

is

like

vividly illustrated in the tapestry-

fagade

Poitiers.

from

currents

of

Notre

The complex

foliage in the capital

Dame
figures

Grande at
and opulent

la

from Angouleme Cathe-

emphasize the non-classical

dral

sufficiently

Head

of Christ, detail of Calvaire. 16th-17th cenPleyben, Brittany. QPhoto by Jean Roubier")

turies.

Figure panel. Stone. Gallo-Roman.

Church of

St. Astier,

Dordogne

Capital with animals. Stone.

Romanesque. France. QBuIloz

photo')

322

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

nature of certain of the sculptural detail set
into the architectural fabric of early

Roman-

esque design.

The appearance

of the

Romanesque

style

marks the great revival of the building

which had known

in France,

mental

expression

since

pleted the last provincial

and

As was

arenas.

to

of

little

the

arts

monu-

Romans com-

temples,

theaters,

be expected, some of

up from Italy, where

had been followed by
early Christian basilicas and by such monuments as the Byzantine churches at Ravenna
the

influence

Roman

crept

architecture

and some
northern

related
Italy,

monuments

too,

the

eleventh century, had created a

version of
If

works
Capital.

Stone.

Sicily.

In

first

tentative

Romanesque.

there

is

not the magnificent show of

LomTuscany (despite fascinating

Pistoia and Parma and elsewhere),

Romanesque
bardy

in

Lombards, by the

sculpture in the cities of

and
at

Romanesque, llth-12th century.

Cathedral of Angouleme. ^Archives Roget-V 101161")

Fagade of Church of Notre Dame la Grande, Poitiers. 11th- 12th century. ^Archives Roget-Viollet')

!';>

Germans

the Italian

with one of the

new
at

The

style.

are yet to be credited

earliest contributions to the

stone

reliefs

Modena, Verona, and

relief

on cathedrals

Ferrara,

and the

panels on the bronze doors (of later

date)

Cathedral

Pisa

of

and

Benevento

Cathedral, present sometimes competent and

crisp relief scenes, more
and nearer the full round than
similar Byzantine reliefs had been. (Benevento, in southern Italy, had been a Lombard duchy from the sixth to the eleventh

often

beautifully

sculptural

centuries.)

The
as

Prankish Germans at the same time,

mentioned

in

an

earlier

chapter,

had

created or fostered fresh idioms as the Ot-

tonian School matured, especially at Hildes-

heim, where the style of the cathedral doors

is

reminiscent of the Byzantine-Romanesque

found

in Italy.

Ottonian

the

figures,

In the ivory reliefs the late

sculptural

changes,

the

slenderer

asymmetrical compositions,

the

more dramatic presentation of the story element, and a certain twisting, even tortured
Detail of door of Pisa Cathedral. Bronze.
Pisano. 12th century. (_Alinari photo')

Bonanno

Detail of door of Benevento Cathedral. Bronze. 12th century. CAlinari photo')

'M:

^^

Z^.

G)

Ck\\CA\^C^\\CA\

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

324

mark the
more aspirThere is a new

quality entering into the drawing,

from Byzantine into

transition

ing and

vital

The

art.

drama, for exaggerated action.

relish for

on

carvers of portable ivories carried

trade

their

language of

throughout

the

and

eleventh

twelfth centuries, the approximate period of

Romanesque

The

ascendancy.

of

Spanish diptych, showing Bihlical Scenes,

at

leaf

Museum

combines Byzanand ornamentalism

with the new dramatic statement by means
of exaggerated gesture, forced action, and a
degree of distortion not to recur in Europe
the Metropolitan

rhythmic

tine

design

before twentieth-century expressionism.

The

workers in metal also reflected the

transition,

especially

Crucifixion on

little

Metropolitan

enamelers.

the

bookbinding

Museum,

In

the

at

the

the Byzantine round-

ing of forms survives but

is

modified by exag-

gerations that give alertness and fuller plastic

life

to

the

figures.

medallion (which
tered

reliquary

at

strates the artist's

still

Bihlical Scene, leaf of a diptych, detail. Ivory.

Romanesque, llth-12th centuries. Spain.

eleventh-century

Metropolitan

attached to a bat-

Conques) likewise

Museum

of Art

illu-

training in Byzantine dis-

and his attempt to

more emotional and dynamic mode of

ciplined
find a

is

The

craftsmanship,

expression.

Medallion on Reliquary of Begon. 11th century.

Treasure of Church of Sainte-Foy, Conques,
France. QGiraudon photo")

Crucifixion, on a boolc cover. Ivory, metals,

jewels. Romanesque, 11th century. Spain.

and

Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

James,

St.

relief.

Romanesque, llth-12th

Stone.

centuries. Spain.

Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

But

return

to

mainstream,

the

to

Christian reUgion enjoyed one of

glorious

the

in

revivals

the

most

its

eleventh

century.

There occurred then an unparalleled

out-

pouring of works of aesthetic creation, that

record on innumerable portals and in

left its

the

tympanums

of

and

Moissac,

Vezelay,

Chartres, and on the facades and naves of so

many

lesser

and

cathedrals

churches

of

France.

The

figure of Christ in the ambulatory of

Sernin at Toulouse, at right, too solidly

St.

monumental and too roundly chiseled to be

called Romanesque, is yet a focal point in a
church architecturally in the
aspect of the figure

is

The

later style.

Oriental and Byzantine.

In Spain the Oriental tradition was even

reinforced by

stronger,

the

Moors.

Compostela

disputes

honor of being the

ment

of

with

earliest

Romanesque

of

contribution

the

The Church

St.

St.

James

Sernin

of
at

the

outstanding monu-

building,

and

it

is

adorned with a greater wealth of transitional

sculpture.

moment

The

relief

of

St.

James

at

of the Transfiguration, above,

is

the
in-

Christ in a Mandorla. Stone. ByzantineRomanesque. Choir of Church of St. Sernin,

Toulouse. QPhoto by Noel le Boyer")

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

326

deed more magnificent than any contemporary French

masterpiece

This early Romanesque

piece.

the

of

is

decade of the

final

eleventh century or the early twelfth.

There

are

innumerable

the

Spanish churches that show inspired sculpat

Compostela many

figures in high relief are

worthy companion

tural

invention,

and

But

pieces to the St. James.

that the

new

style

found expression

in

mode

an unmistakable

Madeleine

at

fluence

that

the dynamic

of design crystallized as

style.

its

in France

an amazing number of

Vezelay

tium has made

was

swept over the land and

cathedrals and churches;

expressionist

it

In the
it

is

Church

clear that

contribution but

has largely passed.

There

Central portal of Church of

S.

areas

and

borders

of

enchanting

these are incidental to an exhibit of figure

sculpture of sheerest creativeness, consistent

in

capitals

terned

medallions and beast-and-flower capitals, but

of St.

Byzanits

are

in-

pat-

stylization,

and extraordinary

plastic

sensi-

bility.

This
art,

is

the morning of European Christian

the time of vision and aspiration and in-

spired craftsmanship. Sustained by the Christian

philosophy, by an inspiring mysticism,

and by

wholehearted dedication

the service of

masterpieces of devotional
the

spirit

of

to

work

in

God, the sculptors produced

Christianity

As growth of
marked a revolt

art.

against the violence and materialism into

which the Roman world had sunk, so Christian art might be read as a reaction from the

Madeleine, Vezelay. llth-12th centuries.

(ND

photo")

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

naturalism and materialism of late Greek and

in the First

Empire, was

Roman

monument

of

art.

At Vezelay, Autun, and Moissac the "unnatural" phase of Christian sculptural art

supremely

Despite

illustrated.

arrangement of

cated

the

is

compli-

the

tympanum,

the

composition at Vezelay holds together perfectly, constituting, as

may

be seen from the

In

below).

is

scene from the Last Judg-

tympanum

at

Autun (page 313)

an example of the most exaggerated

tion. It indicates

both likenesses

ations in the style in neighboring

ties,

styliza-

and

to

vari-

communi-

both near Cluny. At Cluny

itself

the

The French

movement

tan

the

figures,

and

its

of St. Peter at

Moissac affords as near a complete range of

clasts

detailed

relief

Church

the

Romanesque sculpture

nave.

The

isolated

its

cloister capitals,

illustration, a fitting portal to the impressive

ment on

as the richest

Romanesque design in France.

tympanum, its porches with story

its

scenes,

known

327

who

in

as

can be found (see

Revolution and the Puri-

England

let

loose

icono-

did a stupendous job of smashing

and

denuding churches of their

and painted wealth. Moissac is far
to the southwest, but on the Burgundian
"pilgrim road" to Spanish shrines. Here the
"idols"

sculptural

extreme stylization
gerations,

is

evident, but the exag-

even the deformities, are

less strik-

abbey church, which was largely destroyed

Biblical Scenes, detail. Porch of

TrTT%cm>

Church

of St. Peter, Moissac. QPhoto hy Jean Roubier')

/e^yy^^TiTf^ni fT^%^>^ynri r^
-\v
'^^
-O
i

^M

c^

CS;

-^ -^ ^^

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

328

One of the characteristics which separate

Romanesque from Gothic sculpture is the
respect shown by the earHer artists for the
whole architectonic composition. They

dom

obscured a structural line or impaired

They could however,

a boundary.
a

on a

figure

relief

extraordinary

jamb

introduce

jamb with
At Moissac the

or a

pillar

effectiveness.

among the most notable isoknown to Romanesque sculpture.

figures are

lated reliefs

The

sel-

St.

Peter illustrated

is

in the

nel of the style elongated

main chan-

and forced

an extreme gesturing pose, carved

purest

manner (with

accentuating the long

St. Peter.

Stone.

lightly
lines,

Church of

QGirandon photo')

in

into

the

repeated folds

and relieved by

St. Peter,

Moissac.

rich

but restricted patterning), with special

intentness displayed in the face, above hands

less expressive. Even the key is decorative.
Mention has been made of the eccentric-

no

ities,

not

to

say

the

wild

Autun. These ran not only

tions but to the depiction of

tures

distortions,

to stylistic

at

deforma-

abnormal

crea-

such as human-headed monsters and

monster-headed humans, or two beasts with

To

one head.
purposes

of

create horror

the

sculptors

of the

the

of

time;

on the

added to
Judgment at Autun the admonition,

Gislebertus

Last

was one

his

signature

"Let these terrors frighten

their lives

on earth in

sin."

those
St.

who

live

Bernard of

Angel. Stone. 12th century. Within a porch at

St. Gilles du Gard. QPhoto by Noel le Boyer')

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

the greatest churchman of the
whose one purpose was to bring men

Clairvaux,
age,

into consciousness of God's presence, abhorred

the sculptured horrors

them

as

pagan and

and protested against

alien

disturbances

of

Christian calm. (See page 313.)

To

and even subject-matter standard along the

pilgrim road. In Provence the style became
more exuberant, and this may be attributed
to the continual traffic and influence along
the littoral from Italy and by sea from the
Orient through Marseilles.

the north the church-builders borrowed

them
without so much distortion. At Aulnay, where
the north portal of the transept is a model of
restrained but rich Romanesque design, the
arch over the outermost columns bears thirtvfour of the monstrous car\'ings, which seem
here to have little more than a decorative
purpose. Each capital and each semicircular
unnatural animals but portrayed

the

329

At Aries and in St. Gilles-du-Gard the

and sculptors composed scenes in
which the Apostles and Church Fathers, with
traces of Roman, Byzantesque, and Romanesque ways of imaging, consort with unreal
Oriental beasts, Lombard variety, amid panels
of patterning that strangely oscillate between
architects

the doorway. In the central part of France,

and Roman styles. Corinthian

and acanthus borders, the lions of the
Lombard porches, friezes crowded with figures
in the southwest Romanesque style all were

Auvergne and westward, such adaptations of

the Romanesque style developed.

integrated, local language of sculpture.

panel

is

The

vital,

as

is

the horizontal frieze of

school of the south, sometimes called

the School of Languedoc, with the Cluniac

or

Burgundian

truer

countr\'

had

provided

the

Romanesque sculpture
Romanesque archiwhile Auvergne and the central-west
and Provence drew upon methods

pattern

(though not
tecture);

School,
of

so fully of

Doorway

of

Church

of

St.

the Byzantine

capitals

incorporated into a rich,

if

not very well-

Some

of the single figures at St. Gilles, moreover,

like

some of the

Aries, indicate a

mental
effect.

along

capitals in

with

The Angel

feeling

at left,

stylistically, is arrestingly

Bv

the

the cloisters at

mature sense of the monufor

decorative

not to be identified

handsome.

mid-twelfth century the

Peter, Aulnay. (_Photo Roget-VioUet')

Roman-

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

330
esque

had spread over a great deal of

style

France and notable monuments were being

Normandy (where the

had been among the inventors of
Romanesque rib vaulting), and in the He de
France. The more eccentric and angular of
the peculiarities evident at Moissac and
Vezelay were modified in the north, so that
erected in Brittany, in
builders

at Chartres there

the

dynamism

vigor and

enough

is little to

though the

realist;

of

the

distress the

survive,

together with

seen

as

st)'lization,

eye of

Romanesque

t)'pical

in

the

slenderized figures and the schematic treat-

ment

of draperies

and

hair, to

mark

parts of

the decoration as pre-Gothic.

The way
sculptors

decorate

in

which the

utilized

the

columns or

late

slender

pilasters,

Romanesque
figures

without

to
dis-

turbing architectural lines,

is

Romanesque

Byzantium

heritage from

is still

evident in the patches of rich ornamentation,

soon to be suppressed by sculptors devoted to

naturalism,

and the gesture and the

alert

pose are typical.

The

cathedral at Chartres most nobly

lustrates

esque

to

the whole transition from

il-

Roman-

Gothic (with some unfortunate post-

Gothic "improvements").

The

sculpture

of

must be dated close to 1 1 50,

while other parts of the church and decorations belong to the late twelfth century and
the west fagade

the

thirteenth.

The

typical

Romanesque

respect for the architectural line

is

observed

in the west or Royal Portal, as seen in the

main portal of the Church of St. Trophime, Aries.

Southern Romanesque. QGiraiidon photo')

Detail of the

especially well

by the Christ on the trumeau at

the church of St. Loup de Naud. Here the

illustrated

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

on trumeau. Church of
QPhoto by Jean Rouhier')

Christ,

St.

Loup de Naud.

photograph on page

312.

(It

331

necessary

is

only to look at page 340 in order to realize

how

the later sculptors spilled their figures

beyond the implied architectonic

ing a statue a display in

motive

in

each

Portal,

flanking

figures

on a

carved

mak-

limits,

rather than a

and

preconceived

The

fabric.)

itself

controlled

Royal

the

are

pillar-stone,

among the most impressive in the late

Romanesque restrained style. The utterly
stylized figures seen in close-up (in the photo-

graph on the following page), with folded

draperies

mark

the

in

Burgundian

old

tradition,

and

a high point in sculpture serving

intensifying architectural appeal.

At the time of the Norman invasion the

Romanesque builders carried their art to England.

The new

rulers

were inspired

to erect

churches as large and majestic as those of

They

France.
ers,

them religious leadand masons; and thus Roman-

took with

engineers,

esque became the standard

monuments as
Durham, and

style

for

such

the cathedrals at Canterbury,

The Romanesque name

Ely.

has generally been discarded in England in

"Norman."

favor of

Architecturally, there
first

from the

Durham

the

style as

was

little

known

structure

change

in France.

at

At

has generally heavy

round arches, and first

step toward the Gothic rib vaulting over the
nave and aisles. Ely Cathedral outwardly re-

columns

tains

in the nave,

more of the Romanesque appearance.

At many

of the cathedrals Salisbury, York,

Canterbury, Lincoln, Worcester, Wells the

outward aspect
to

is

Gothic, owing to change

the pointed style during construction, or

to later additions.

In the English cathedrals the art of sculpture

was

well served than at Aries or

less

Moissac or Chartres. Romanesque carving as

known

in

France

is

surprisingly scarce

incidental in the magnificent cathedrals

abbey churches. English

Norman

and
and

sculpture,

and appealing by
reason of elements surviving from an antenevertheless,

cedent native

is

interesting

style.

\ ^?*

i^M
V

m
^(L^a^Xf

Zri

j|

^
N^--^
T

y>feid

^e*^

i (l^TTi

gii^^, ^^
'^^
"^^

>r iT^lnrrr .,m^.i:^^

'

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

The

Celtic crosses, best

known

333

in Ireland,

found occasionally in the counties of the

West and North of England. After the Celts
are

had been the Saxons, brinoing an

there

closely related to that of earlier

(The next

Peoples.

Danes, had

little

invasion,

effect

art

Wandering
that

of

the

upon Anglo-Saxon

art.)

In a church at Kilpeck in Herefordshire

there are figures

seem

to

Celtic

and Anglo-Saxon

that recall the

dition

The

and panels of ornament that

be descended directly from the old

of

the

art,

Romanesque

and other

French pilgrimage churches.

detail illustrated, a section of a

column
suggests

figures

expressionist tra-

or shaft flanking the

double

church doorway,

an origin in the interlacing oma-

Facing page:
Detail of Royal Portal, Chartres.
(ND photo')

Decorative panel.
Stone. 8th century.
Eashy Abbey, Yorkshire.
Victoria

and Albert Museum

Warrior, detail from door shaft. Stone.

12th century. Church of St. Mary ami
Kilpeck, Herefordshire.
(Photo by Jean Roubier)

St.

David,

334

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

ment and the attenuated figuring familiar in
Irish and Scandinavian sculpture of the preceding centuries. Dated c. 1160, it is an excepexample of English Norman sculpture

tional

enlivened by lingering Iro-Celtic

spirit.

de-

from Easby Abbey in Yorkshows a fragment of a decorative panel

tailed illustration

shire

of earlier date

than the imported Norman,

but with the vigorous carving, rich patterning,

and carelessness of nature that characthe

terize

Romanesque

style.

It

is

a sort of

sculpture rooted in the Celtic style but modified

in

Saxon

the

following Germanic or Anglo-

centuries,

and perfectly

fitted for fusion

with twelfth-century Norman.

In the

number

of

Norman

cathedrals of

monumental

England

sculptural designs are

known. At Chichester in the choir aisle are

two large panels of patched-together stones
bearing scenes picturing Christ meeting with

Mary and Martha and

the Raising of Lazarus.

These ambitious and rather crowded

Head

of Christ, detail of a Crucifixion. Bronze.

German, 11th century. Abbey Church, Werden an

derRuhr. {Archiv fur Kunst and Geschichte, Berlin)

The Lion

reliefs

of Brunswick. Bronze. 1166.

Burgplatz, Brunswick, Germany.
(_Archiv fiir Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin)

Head

of Christ, detail of Crucifix at top of facing

page. National Museum, Nuremberg.
CArchiv fUr Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin')

Wood. German, 11th century.

National Museum, Nuremberg
Crucifix.

however, from a certain clumsiness in

suffer,

the carving. Salisbury Cathedral and Wells

Cathedral
western

are

two of several

but

fagades

having
with

embellished

richly

sculptured figures 350 at Wells; but the

rangement

is

unimaginative,

generally

ar-

in

mechanically repeated niches, and the qualthe individual car\'ings

ity of

top

sional

Norman doorways

handsome

panum

Romanesque

early
it is

true that the

in pre-Conquest

Occa-

level.

survive, such as the

Prior's Portal at Ely,

seemingly in

not at the

is

Romanesque (or Gothic)

direct

with a tym-

line

of Southern

from the

France. But

Norman builders, whether

Normandy or in England,

put less stress on sculptural adornment and

more on purely architectural invention. And
in England the Reformation iconoclasts destroyed or defaced most of the "idols" they

could reach.

What

is left is

hardly more than

monuments and portals mentioned.

The real treasures, Romanesque or Gothic,
the few

consist of fonts, tomb figures, capitals, and

what would be beam-ends if we were talking
of wooden buildings. The capital illustrated

Capital. Stone. Early 12th century.

Cantcrhiir} Cathedral. (Photo by ]can Roiibicr)

from Canterbury Cathedral, with its

composition of a griffin and a serpent,

spirited
is

char-

acteristic.

There
and

crucifixes in

metal

monuments in Germany,
Romanesque architecture;
wood and a multitude of

are prime

especially of early

works have survived that are

in the pre-Gothic expressionist vein.

fully

One

of

the most distinctive works of the eleventh

century, marking the early

Bvzantine sculptural
fixion in the

art, is

abbey church

Ruhr. (The head

This striking and,

is

morning of
at

Werden an

illustrated

to

some

post-

the bronze Cruci-

der

on page 334.)

eyes, distressingly

stylized interpretation of Christ

on the Tree

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

336
is

product of the Saxon School, which was

some of the finest bronzecasting of the Middle Ages. The Lion of

Brunsioick is another example from this accomplished school. Hardly since Etruscan art
faded into Roman had such a spirited beast
been cast in Europe; it is the only free-standing Romanesque survival in monumental size.
Among the Romanesque relics in wood,
responsible

the

for

German

are particularly fine,

crucifixes

marked with an expressiveness

and
wholly different from the Byzantine on one
hand and the Gothic on the other. The
Crucifix at Nuremberg is especially notable.
The body is characteristic of a school of
woodcutters of upper Germany. The statue is
thev are

although the body is hardly less summary

and symbolic than the extreme German ex-

amples of a century

earlier, the face

is

livingly

(The head is on this page, far left.)

The Romanesque style lived on in Spain long
dramatic.

Gothic in France, and

after the transition to

in
Mexico and in
South America yields examples to the nineteenth century. The Prophet shown is a

Spanish

colonial

art

Spanish work of the fifteenth century, and

the treatment of the eyes and brows, and the

general heavy ridging for dramatic light-and-

shade are Romanesque mannerisms.

The bronze work of the transitional period

was even more varied, and even after 1200
the candlesticks, and especially the aqua-

perhaps the outstanding masterpiece of the

manili, were apt to exhibit

German

frank distortion, and the fancifulness belong-

school

expressionist

the

of

late

eleventh and the early twelfth centuries.

The
of the

toward

head, shown separately,

Romanesque woodcarvers

marks

lifelike

statement.

The

prisingly natural, with just the

formalization
the

transition

of

ing

a trend

Germany

face

is

sur-

change from

and generalization
from Romanesque

that
to

spells

Gothic

painted wooden crucifix at the Metro-

politan

the vigor, the

invention,

with

some

Byzantine ornamentalism. This development

occurred

Northern

first

in

Italy,

Germany,
France,

and

later

England,

in

and

Flanders.

The

illustration of the

horseman and two

candleholders shows three examples in the

Louvre and exhibits strikingly different modes

sculpture.

Romanesque

to

all

Museum

t)'pe.

Again

Head

of Christ.

it is

illustrates a

a late

Wood,

common Spanish

example of the

painted. Spanish,

12th century. Metropolitan

Museum

of Art

style:

of formalization.

and

it

artist's

is

clear

The

style

was

still

distorted,

from each example that the

intention was not to represent nature

Prophet, detail. Wood. Spanish, 15th century.

Ridgexvay Collection, Paris. QGiraudon photo")

A Horseman and two candleholders. Bronze.

Flemish; Italian; German. llth-12th centuries
Louvre. QGiraiidon photo')

but to create

self-sufficient

The

of a knight on

statuette

artistic

entities.

horseback

is

and is supposedly Italian. The rather

lumpy primitivism of the sculptural method
oldest

is

extraordinarily effective.

on the
Flemish.

left

is

The

The

commoner

candleholder

type,

probably

frank conventionalization,

as

seen especially in the horse's haunches and

tail

in

and

in the virile, curving lines, survived

the metalworkers' studios as late as the

fifteenth century.

The

candleholder on the

right

might be of

a time

when Byzantine

art

was first giving way before the more dramatic

Romanesque, but it has also been accorded a
considerably later date.

The aquamanile

in

polished bronze,

be-

low, a fauceted vessel representing a Horse,

now

at

Cluny

the

connection
beak-flagons;

with

the

Museum,
style

of

suggests

the

Celtic

and from the Scythians survives

the art of imposing one animal, in the handle,

upon another

Horse. Aquamanile. Bronze. Flemish, 15th century. Cluny

of a totally different kind.

Museum,

Paris. (^Alinari photo')

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

338

Naturalism began
art,

and

for

time

to

take over Christian

new reahsm was

the

column statues to the column width

no longer holds, as in the beautifully stylized
of the

conditioned by imagination and by a hnger-

figures

ing ideahsm. But late Gothic sculpture was

tendency

to illustrate a

melancholy descent from

architectural

carving,

tegrity

fitting

from architectonic

and disciplined group expression,

into a

parade of occasional pieces, each effectively

"real"

sentimentally engaging or clever,

or

With
spirit,

the

first

outpouring

of

the

new

Gothic sculpture bounds forward on a

grand and disciplined scale, lit up with a

new and perceptive interest in the phenomenal

world.

The

logic

that

cathedrals of Paris, Amiens,

renders

the

and Reims three

of the most superbly knit buildings of the

to

excrescences

various

that

is

dull

the edges of the structural courses. But at this

stage these

may be

taken as merely signs of

the exuberance of artists intoxicated with a

ease.

The tendency

in keeping

and laudable
and the

newly gained freedom and

to realism,

when

but without framework.

and there

the west portal,

of

too,

is

gives us the sensitive faces

it

dignified figures seen in the illustrations of

Chartres.

(Facing and page 341.)

In the best of these figures there

is

still

the boldness and telling dramatic posing of

Romanesque

design,

but the expressionistic

deformations are gone.

The

treatment of hair

ages transforms

and beards, halfway between the old heavy

and formalized ridging and the careful four-

destroying

teenth-century curls,

sense of

north

Romanesque carving without

emotional richness and the
architectural fitness. At Chartres the
the

and the south porches are glorious

and

displays of the blending of architectural

sculptural

fabrication.

The

strict

limitation

Figures in North Portal, Cathedral of Notre

is

a typical transitional

method (though naturalism in representing

the hair, as understood by the Florentine
sculptors of the mid-Renaissance, never did
interest

Dame,

the Gothic carvers).

Chartres. 12th century.

C^D

Naturalism as

photo")

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

339

a pen'ading interest in the surrounding world

as

it

looks claims the artist increasingly, so

and fauna of France begin to

be documented in stone, and litde humaninterest touches, and even anecdotal or biothat the flora

graphical

trivia,

are

introduced

among

the

impressive representations of God, Christ, the

prophets, and the angels.

Chief of the technical changes was the

of the figure from the background.

lifting

While

relief-carving did not disappear, figures

were oftener worked in the round, whether

left slightly engaged or set out in total in-

dependence of column or wall. At first the

Thomist passion for order and clarit}% still
operative at the level of architect and masterbuilder, restrained the sculptor who wished

make

to

the

spirit,

showpiece of his

statue.

Indeed,

and specifically the guild

operated to harmonize the sculptures

group

and stained

spirit,

glass

with the cathedral's archi-

tecture.

Each of the rigidly upright, attenuated

on the pillars of the Royal Portal at

figures

Chartres (page 332) bespeaks care for the

member. In the

integrity of the architectural

illustration

one

may

Cathedral the statue of

see
St.

how

at

Sens

Stephen on the

St.

John the

Baptist. Stone.

12th century. North Portal, Chartres.

QHouvet photo')

Isaiah

and Jeremiah.

Stone.

North Portal, Chartres.

QPhoto hy Jean Rouhier')

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

340

trumeau of the central doorway accords with

figure,

the architect's intention but

wings, and other accessories without regard

little

indulges in

more spread than was permitted at

The Madonna on the portal of the

Chartres.

Dame

north transept of Notre

become

work

of art in her

and the

pillar lines

are obscured,

integrity

no longer served.

Some

is

in Paris has

own

the

right:

structural

to a

that

which medieval sculpture came

of age,

and

disposal

free

of

cramping framework. Others

the

structure

loss
is

draperies,

feel certain

magnificent cathedral

the

to

greater than the gain:

architectonic fabric

is

rent.

that the

After a.d.

1200

the single face or figure held the interest.

Notre

observers consider this the point at

and the

(i

Dame

in Paris

160-1225) so that

classically

was
its

built early

and the

simple,

enough

west fagade remains

portal

sculpture

they praise the increased freedom of group-

(comparatively dull as restored in the nine-

ing, the greater naturalness of the individual

teenth century)

St.

Madonna, trumeau
North

Portal,

Notre

figure. Late

Dame

13th century.

de Paris

is

laid into

the fabric per-

Stephen, trumeau figure. Stone. 12th century.

Central portal of Cathedral of Sens.
(Photo by Jean Rouhier')

Apostles. Stone. South Portal; Chartre

QGiraudon photo

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

342
fectly.

and

The

gargoyles are an added feature,

the best of the sculptural exhibit,

are

vigorous,

and

fanciful,

essentially

(Shown on page

310.)

some of the

story-telling

realistic

later

lithic.

Exceptional

too

is

sculpture, in

vein but cut with notable feeling for

stonelike effect

and

however,

Gothic character. (See below,

little

sensitive modeling. It has,

But

at

Amiens

it

is

the Gilded

(page 347) or the Beau Dieu, and

Madonna
Reims

at

the Smiling Angel or the Virgin of the Visitation

life

the facade. Second, the in-

which

attract the eye.

At Reims the

sculpture serves two main purposes.

It

adds a

an Angel. Stone. Notre Dame de

QGiraudon photo, Archives Roget-Viollet')

Adam and

Paris.

to

a rich play of light

dividual statues and certain groups present

the Christian lessons.

cathedral

is

still,

religious story

casionally the

The

sculpture on each

of course, a picturebook of

and

pageant ordained
figure or a

left.)

and

sense of profuse

and shadow

instruction, in a systematic

by the theologians.

artist's

mastery

lifts

Oc-

a face or

group above the inevitable routine

average of design and cutting; so that within

a porch at
of

Reims one comes upon such

masterpieces of the

new

row

realism as the

four figures of the Purification. Each superb

statue

is

set

out to be studied and enjoyed for

Smiling Angel. Stone. 13th century.

Portal of Cathedral of Reims

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

What was begun

343

Chartres, in the period between the adorn-

dream of a building grandly composed, simple, and richly adorned. These great

ment

monuments

its

patent

virtues.

and the adornment

of the west portal

north portal

at

(or perhaps

of

the

St.

Denis, in compositions destroyed during

earlier

at

the Revolution), ended in these high Gothic

profusion

of

sculpture

at

Reims

is

almost equaled in the porches at Chartres;

but Reims and Amiens

illustrate the

Small portal,

detail.

Gothic

of the

West might conceivably

be placed beside the lushest Indian temples

or the ruins of Angkor Vat and Borobudur

and not seem sculpturally meager.

The

masterpieces. (Page 344.)

The

architect's

evolution

of

medieval

architecture,

Byzantine and Lombard into Romanesque,

and Romanesque into Gothic, was primarily

dependent on the development of methods

13th century. Cathedral of Reims. QISID photo')

344
of

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

arching,

vaulting,

pointed arch,

the

and

ribbed

buttressing.

The

the

flying

buttress are basic to the Gothic style.

There

vault,

Beneath, the structure remained as

as rightly adjusted, as ever.
tive elements,

logical,

But the decora-

even the decorative sheathing,

further evolution, without basic structural

took on increased importance as can be seen

change, after the high Gothic of Amiens and

in the illustration of the fagade at Strasbourg.

is

Reims,

say, after the year 1300.

The

daring

What

interests

us here

is

the use of inset

u'hich had raised the organism to unprece-

sculpture to enrich and accent the pointed

dented heights and

arches,

to a

way

marvelous structural

pinnacles,

and

At

Stras-

hardly as

much

traceries.

to pretty inventions in

bourg and Rouen there

the nature of lacelike screens and walls lost

figurative sculpture as at

Amiens and Reims,

in forests of beautiful tracery.

but

sculpturally

perfection gave

The

the

impression

Purification. Portal of Cathedral of

Reims

is

is

richer,

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

because the statues are bedded in a delicate
fabric of

shaped architectural elements, which

themselves
art in stone.

constitute

species

Beyond the middle

of

abstract

portal in the

345

ample evidence at Strasbourg that very great

sculptors were employed during the cathedral
building, as the vigorous and forthright heads

of St. Philip

be

and

St.

Stephen witness. These

perhaps

German

or

west fagade of Strasbourg Cathedral, figura-

should

and architectural detail are

tive
distinguishable
from each other.
barely
This is, of course, a lighter form of Gothic
art, yet only an extreme purist would be likelv
to call it decadent or overstrained. There is

Alsatian Gothic works rather than French.

sculpture

Facade of Cathedral of Strasbourg,

detail.

There
of

labeled

are

as

signs of decadence in

the pretentious story

Cathedral, where a

scenes

tympanum

at

certain

Bourges

contains rows

of lively, even boisterous figures. In activeness

C. 1300.

(ND

photo, Archives Roget-V toilet')

St. Philip.

Stone.

Cathedral of Strasbourg.
CPhoto by Jean Roubier')

Lower

left:

Virtue. Stone.

13th-14th centuries.
Cathedral of Strasbourg.
Musee de I'Oeuvre, Notre Dame,
Strasbourg. (Tel photo")

St. Stephen. Stone.

Cathedral of Strasbourg.
(Photo by Jean Roubier')

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

and

they

eccentricity

347

reminiscent

are

Vezelay and Autun, but they lack the

and the engaging

Romanesque masters.

ciplined grouping
of the

stylization

which

contrasting phase of Gothic

more vigorous,

the

Semur

Church

Notre

Dame

in

Burgundy, and the

in

is

of

Burgundian school
school of the

is

heavy, perhaps, and

trifle

earlier in feeling if not in date, is to

at

of
dis-

differs

be seen

Semur.

style of the

from that of the

He de France; here

it

has en-

tered a flamboyant phase.

Both Strasbourg and Rouen are sometimes

monuments

classed as

of flamboyant Gothic,

but the incidental sculpture hardly deserves

the

to

The

description.

became

angels

smiling

even

cathedral,

during

the

thirteenth

century, but generally they lack dignity

Though

restraint.

charm,

surface
inferior

to

the

Rouen fagade
as

The Gilded Madonna. Mid-1 3th

century.

South Portal, Cathedral of Amiens.

(Archives Photographiques)

Detail of

Notre

that

popular were copied from cathedral

so

is

Dame

they have an

as

works

of

Romanesque

and

irresistible

art

they

angels.

are

The

not as solemn and impressive

or Chartres, but

it is

a tour-

de-force of graceful architectural draping.

The

course of the Gothic style in general

was marked by growing

tympanum. 14th century. Church

of Notre

Dame, Semur.

realism,

(ND

photo')

but from

Cathedral of Rouefu CPhoto hy Jean

Detail of fagade. Flamboyant Gothic, 14th century.

RonhieO

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

the

century

mid-thirteenth

followed

there

some four hundred years of French sculpture

that is hardly more than transiently appealing.
trouble

was

destroyed

the

the

Basically

naturalism
sculptural

superseded

old

the

opportunities

feeling

The new

block.

for

devotion

that

guild

to

the

for

individualism

and

spirit

disciplined

the

cooperative

expression.

The
Rouen

maintained between design of the

scene for

which
to

its

figures

produce

facades

lacelike

Strasbourg

of

on the

late

and

Gothic ivory

sake and composition in

and

their setting are arranged

a flat, tapestry-like eff^ect.

The two

leaves of a diptych at Providence

tend to sacrifice

flatness,

more

fully in a larger space.

Single leaves could

change from Romanesque

Museum. Though

Gothic, to a more lifelike middle phase, and

on

to the glittering

flamboyant, can be traced

in the marvelously carved French ivory panels

of the thirteenth

The

leaf of

Museum

is

and fourteenth

an ivory dipt}'ch

representative of the

religious stories

were presented.

centuries.
at the

way

in

balance

Biblical Scenes, leaf of diptych.

Ivory. Gothic, French, 14th century.

Cluny Museum,

Cluny
which

Paris. (_Giraudon photo')

is

little

suggest

still

a sug-

be designed in a
style, as is evi-

the accessories

and

it,

Cluny
mark it as

a certain frank

Romanesque

the

Vividly contrasting

is

the Life of Christ

now

Albert

is

Crucifixion of the

Gothic, the vigor of

distortion,

There

(Page 350.)

and architectural

firm, clear,

dent in the

early vigorous

and compartmentali-

zation, for the sake of presenting the story

plaques; and indeed the whole histor)^ of the

to

illustrative

own

gestion of perspective.

are reflected

349

style.

a set of eight panels of

Museum. The

in the Victoria

and

lacy ornamentalism

is

obtained by the use of architectural tracery

and by the sharpening

of the figures so that

Scenes from the Life of Christ, leaf of diptych.

Ivory. Italian, Milanese School, 15th century.
National Gallery of Art, Washington

LI
\\

:r>^ '/ jV'^IOVTtv

"III

mm
m

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

350

Crucifixion. Ivory.

French, 14th-15th centuries.

Cluny Museum. CGiraudon

they

fill

each panel without permitting the

eye to escape

to the

background.

ture craftsmanship here

ing

the

attained

photo')

heights
the

in

to

is

The

which Gothic

fifteenth

minia-

marvelous, display-

century,

artistry

in

the

(Page 351.)
Two further phases can be seen a group of
ivories containing some graceful but not very
important plaques devoted to pagan or lay

flamboyant

style.

themes, especially love-making, jousting, and

hunting, and examples of religious picturing

even more attenuated and filmy than the

panels

shown.

just

The

Scenes from

the

Life of Christ on a leaf of a diptych at the

National Gallery, Washington, are characteristically

and

lacy

ornate, and, like the pre-

ceding example, are in a pierced technique

which
figures.

prominence

the

lends

peculiar

This

an Italian work of the Milanese

is

to

School of the fifteenth century. (Page 349.)

After this technical virtuosity, a simple.

Biblical Scenes, diptych. Ivory. Gothic, French, 13th-14th centuries.

Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

and

vigorous,

utterly

of sculpture occurred
tany, in the

351

genuine development

on French

same century.

important especially for

its

soil,

in Brit-

folk art arose,

religious

monu-

ments or "Calvaires" in stone. The two details

shown, and one illustrated earlier with an
example

Gallo-Roman art, suggest an

method and perhaps a direct line
descent, and show the strength and sculpof

affinity of

of

tural

soundness of

this

are parts of groups

more masterly

in

Breton

art.

The

figures

which unfortunately
detail

are

than as integrated

compositions; but seldom are reverent attention

and

utter piety so perfectly expressed.

Christ of the Resurrection, detail of Calvaire.

Stone. Breton, 16th-17th centuries.
Pleyben, Brittany. QPhoto by Jean Roubier')

Life of Christ. Ivory.

French, 14th-15th centuries.

Victoria and Albert Museum

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

Passion, the life of the Virgin, such incidents

martyrdom of Thomas Becket, and so

reliefs were much
prized by devout Christians throughout the
as the

on.

Since the alabaster

many were

breadth of Europe, a great

trans-

ported from England, and enough have survived to prove the quality and the originality
of the products of the

Although
partly for

Nottingham

alabaster,

its

like

jade,

school.

prized

is

and the translucent

texture

char-

nately,

were
and painted. Time, perhaps fortuhas worn off most of the color. The

reliefs

are

acter of the stone, the English panels

freely gilded

sculpturally notable for a sound

sense of space-composition, for dramatic disposition

Two

the

of

method

figures,

and

for

cutting

especially suited to the softish stone.

examples, a beautifully realized Christ

on the Cross and the surprisingly

St.

indicate

Jiide,

real

stylized

mastery

in

the

medium.

The
noted

heads

at

Strasbourg have already been

German, and there

as

impressive

statues

Naumberg,
Romanesque expres-

and elsewhere. More of

German

sionism survives in

equally

are

Bamberg,

at

carving than in

French, and the Gothic style

is more rugged
and often touched with distortion. The Head
of King Stephen at Bamberg (part of an

one of the most expressive

Apostles, detail of Calvaire. Stone. Breton,

16th-17th centuries. Guimiliau, Brittany.

equestrian figure)

is

carvings

fourteenth

(Photo by Jean Roubier)

prime example of German workmanship.

of

the

Other heads

at

century,

Bamberg, such

as the

and

Head

of Elizabeth, are remarkable for their extra-

In

England,

second only

where

to those of

cathedrals

the

are

France in architectural

ordinary^ portrayal of

Teutonic types that have

persisted recognizably into a period six cen-

but the vigorous designing and

splendor, the iconoclasts destroyed almost the

turies later,

whole body of important religious sculpture.

Fragmentary evidence indicates an original

the fluent cutting are perhaps the more signif-

rich

investiture

stonecarving

of

in

many

Gothic buildings or parts of buildings. But

today

the

great

English

cathedrals

stand

almost denuded of their sculptural treasures.

During the fourteenth and

turies

there

arose

school

Nottingham which specialized

portable panels and portable
baster, dealing

fifteenth cen-

of

carvers

in

in producing
altars

in

ala-

with the usual subjects of the

icant achievement.
It

has been said that

German

sculpture of

more emotional than the French.

perhaps true in the sense that more

this period is

This

is

feeling appears in the faces, as in the Prophet

Joel

in

St.

Peter's

Church

at

Hamburg

(page 354), but the word "emotion" demands

some delimiting: German emotion is more

homely and more poignant and often more

exaggerated.

In

France,

too,

the

tone

of

Head

of King Stephen, detail of an equestrian

German, 14th century. Bamberg
Cathedral, Bavaria. (Archiv fiir Kunst
und Geschichte, Berlin)

Head

St.

Jude. Alabaster. English,

Nottingham School, 14th-15th centuries.

Victoria and Albert Museum

German, 13th century.

Bamberg Cathedral, Bavaria.
Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin')

of Elizabeth. Stone.

statue. Stone.

QArchiv

fiir

Christ on the Cross. Alabaster. English,

Nottingham School, 14th-15th centuries.
Victoria and Albert Museum.

354

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

Head
Church of

Altar,

of the Prophet Joel. Master Bertram. German, 1379.

Hamburg. QArchiv fiir Kutist und Geschichte, Berlin')

St. Peter,

iconography had changed in the

Christian

and awe had

sentimental interest and per-

leading

religious

Then

sculptors

in

late

Gothic

naivete blossomed again. Gothic

early Gothic centuries. Dignity

times.

given place to

though there is no other

which the woodcarving of the Rhine
valley, Bavaria, and the Tirol can be linked.
The statuettes of Christ and John in which
the sleeping John rests his head on the
Savior's shoulder, his hand in Christ's hand,
form a beautiful image even if sentimental.

sonal identification with

the Virgin or the

Where

Christ in Majesty

sufiFering

Christ.

might have been the central motive of a

tympanum

or

tragedy and

were

later

diptych

panel before,

the pathos of

the

the

Crucifixion

dwelt upon.

The Germans

succeeded the French

as the

sophistication fades,
style to

The German

folk artists had, in general, an

innate

talent

carving

for

for

rhythmic massing before

natural effects.

There

They

wood.

in

remembered the block and indulged

a passion

tr)'ing to imitate

are examples of folk

sculpture that are a lasting delight, for their

near-primitive directness of statement,

their

naively emotional approach, and their sound

They were produced

from the sixteenth century on, until, by the
sculptural composition.

end of the eighteenth century,

realism had swept through and left
of

weak

naturalistic groups

and

of

tide

a plethora

figures,

from

such centers as Nuremberg, Oberammergau,

and the Tirolean towns. But the detail from

a Madonna and the Mary Kneeling (two
centuries later in date) are typical of a style
of sculpture too often overlooked in the histories

because

is

it

people's

art

and

people's expression.

The German folk

much of the church

feeling

entered

naive story-scenes and quaint decorative

ures
Bishop Friedrich von Hohenlohe. Stone. German,
school, c. 1352. Bamberg Cathedral,
Bavaria. (Archiv fiir Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin)

Wurzburger

Madonna,

detail. Wood. German-Swiss,

Rhineland school. Historical Museum, Basel

into

sculpture too, so that

may be encountered

in

fig-

the churches,

especially the creches at Christmastime.

The

Riding

the

illustrated

figure

of

Christ

Mary Kneeling. Wood. German-Swiss,

Rhineland school. Historical Museum, Basel

The Peasant Saint Nicholas von Flue, detail.

Wood. Swiss, 15th century. Stans Museum.
(Photo by Franz Schneider, Lucerne)

Christ Riding the Palmesel. Wood.

Bavarian school, 15th century.
Historical Museum, Basel

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

Pahnesel (the ceremonial

Sunday

ritual)

is

ass

of

Palm

the

in

portrait of

1487,

is

Nicholas von

an

Fliie,

extraordinary

who

died

example

of

homely, truthful carving by an anonjTnous

from the Swiss Unterwalden or the neighboring canton of Lucerne.

sculptor, apparently

The

subject,

known

also as

Brother Claus,

was born a peasant, became an inarticulate

mystic and ascetic, and a hermit. But such
was his innate honesty and his clear seeing
that

he gave counsel

to

his fellow peasants

and later to the canton officials, high churchmen, and foreign noblemen who sought out
hut and chapel in an Alpine
Monumental, official German

his

course,

felt

Renaissance.

the

influence

of

inherited

from the Gothic but were well aware of new

a Bavarian piece.

Switzerland also has a long folk-art history.

The

who

group of German sculptors

357

the

a large extent their

baroque

of

Italian

style

than

to

Gothic.

In Flanders the power of

Burgundy was
and the Gothic develop-

for a time supreme,

ment followed
ters of art.

Most

of the

Gothic sculpture in the

at the

French cen-

monuments

Low

some vigorous and

gated

wood.

in

image of

St.

type,

The

of late

Countries

French grace and realism. There

ever,

Many

closely that in France.

Flemish sculptors worked

figures

gorge.
art had,

and fresh impulses from the south. To

work is outside the commonly named styles, and there is confusion
over it because it comes closer to an incipient

ideals

are,

strikinglv
illustrated

reflect

how-

stylized

Flemish

an upstanding, elon-

James

is

quite

diff'erent

from

French

Veit Stoss was but one of a

Paul. Wood. French, 15th century.
Toulouse Museum, QGiraudon photo^

St.

James. Wood. Flemish. 16th century. Formerly

Collection of Peers de Nieuberg, Briissels

St.

35S

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

Presumed

by Nicolas Gerhaert of Leyden. Stone. 1467.

Miisee de VOeuvre, Notre Dame, Strasbourg

self-portrait

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

models.

Some

likeness

of

method may be

seen in the St. Paul at Toulouse.

The

mural-like

screens

Nicholas Gerhaert of Leyden was a Low

Country sculptor who had gained experience
in the Burgundian school and went as a master to Strasbourg. The unique self-portrait

of

tive

the

The

style.

sculptured

of

art

and choir screens

359

is

altar

the most distinc-

Hispanic developments in

altar

backing

at

Pilar at Saragossa, with Gothic tracery

Gothic niche

The

figures,

the

Neustra Senora de

and

produces a dazzling

ef-

shown was recovered from the rubble left by

the iconoclast mobs when they desecrated the

dral of Seville

cathedral during the French Revolution.

the figure groups are less well submerged in

Spain,

French

where Byzantine, Moorish, and

Romanesque currents had crossed,

was influenced also by Gothic art. The French

churchmen who went into Spain as the Saracens withdrew included architects and sculptors. While there is no outstanding monu-

ment of Gothic design as

Romanesque in St. James

there

is

of

the

Compostela
the cathedrals at Burgos and Leon are interesting examples of the style, with some
modifications in

panums and

the

the

of

features

flanking

such as tym-

figures

of

the

fect.

better-known reredos of the Catheis

inferior (as a

whole) because

the decorative screen. Flemish sculptors also

specialized in devising intricately carved altar

screens in wood, and they developed a tradition in carving tiny scenes of the Passion or

the

life

of the Virgin, cut in

wooden

shells

hardly larger than walnuts.

The

Italians

started

their

adventure

in

Renaissance classicism long before the northern Gothic style had run

many

rated facades of
effort

its

to

There are
on the deco-

course.

statues of Gothic aspect

Milan Cathedral, but the

cover the cathedrals with pictorial

storybooks of Christianity extended only to a

portals.

The

Last Judgment, detail. Stone. Taqade of Cathedral of Orvieto, Italy

16th century.
Altar area and reredos. Wood. Damian Forment. Early
Church of Nuestra Senora de Pilar, Saragassa, Spain.
(Photo courtesy Department of Photographs, Princeton University^

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

361

Stone. French, 15th century.

of St. Fortunade, Correze.

St. Torttniata.

Church

(Giraudon photo)

few Italian cities. The illustration from Italy

showing a part of the front of the cathedral
at

many

Orvieto exhibits

of

the character-

of late Gothic art in France: a relish for

istics

naturalism in the accessories, shown here in

the vine that grows from the base, branching

and the sense of

to divide the figure groups;

loosened composition in the grouping of the

The

figures.

classicists,

condemn
Judgment here as
Italy the theme had
however,

the treatment of the Last

ugly and northern; in

generally been treated with restrained emotion

if

not sunny confidence.

It is

known

that

Lorenzo Maitani,

a Sienese architect-sculptor,

was

called to Orv'ieto in 1310 to supervise the

planning of the cathedral, and then to work

on the sculptural adornments.

But innumerable other sculptors came and
went in the first half of the century.
for ten years

In Touraine the chapel fagade at the

Chateau of Amboise where the Italian Leo-

nardo da Vinci died in 1519, has the fragile

of late flamboyant Gothic, and the

grace

sculpture

The

charming though

is

marks the end of the period of

as seen here,

great

a trifle playful.

separation of sculpture from architecture,

mural sculpture in central and northern

unmarked

Leonardo's

Europe.

thought

be in

to

this

The

now

restored.

lous

conversion

Chapel

tomb

of St.

is

Hubert,

story of Hubert's miracu-

is

graphicallv

told

the

in

sculptured panel o\'er the doors.

Claus Sluter of the school of Burgundy

is

considered a leader in the reforms that briefly

of mannerism and soBurgundian school was
known for vigorous facial expression and
heavily folded and deeply undercut draperies.

stemmed the currents

phistication.

The

The

late

finest of the surviving

Fountain of the Prophets

Monastery
it

fails

to

at

Champmol

integrate

architecture,

it is

monuments
at the

is

most

the

near Dijon.

Though

the sculpture with the

notable for the massive and

expressive figures of the six prophets.

Moses

is

Carthusian

effective

and

is

The

generally con-

Moses, detail of Fountain of the Prophets.

Claus Sluter. Burgundian School, 15th century.
Champmol Monastery, near Dijon. (^Giraudon
photo^

Portal of the chapel, Chateau of Amboise, Touraine, France. Late Gothic, 16th century.

(ND

photo}

EUROPEAN CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

363

sidered the peak figure in

cover picturesque gargoyles which retain the

style,

robust realism of the early examples of the

the Burgundian
which after this date about 1405
was more successfully followed in Flanders
and Holland than in France.

The charming

fifteenth-century head of St.

Fortunata was at one time counted as Gothic.

surmounts a reliquary in the Church of

It

St.

Fortunade in the town of that name in the

Rhone
no

Valley.

The
is

the

sensitive

work,

and

winged

Ox

of St. Luke. Decorative

the unnaturalness of

sculpture,

it

recaptures

and

dull

Ox

definitely

with animal sculpture and with

Upon

late

rest of

and often

churches or chateaux,
the sculpture

ill-placed,

is

routine

one may

of St. Luke. Stone. French,

expression-

dis-

traditional

animal

something

spiritedness of the

of

northern peoples.

art

art.

The

next flower-

ing of sculpture had already begun in

And

interest in the Renaissance spirit,

in the formative years, as Italy

had shown

the Gothic.

Italy.

France and England showed almost the

same lack of

Burgundian school,

the

of

and

Gothic was a northern

even when the

in the

escapes

barian animals of early medieval European

or relaxed school.

grotesques.

it

and

strength, ruggedness,

in connection

somewhat

Romanesque

might have been produced at one of the

ateliers of the French sculptors of the detente

more

is

ism and the distortion of the Celtic or Bar-

an isolated work, though

spirit persisted

it

Glaus Sluter, and although

it

The Gothic

another Burgundian

is

solidly sculptural,

spirit of

from pre-

final illustration

Renaissance France,

is

sweetness of the face

remarkable than

less

fluent cutting. It

Here, as a

style.

5th century. Louvre. QGiraudon photo")

in

14: The Renaissance:

From

the

Pisanos

Michelangelo

to

I
I

N each visual art there

is

a difference,

it'

not

between two kinds of communicaone embodying expression of the inner

opposition,
tion,

the other the visible appearances of the

spirit,

world.
arts,

true,

Never was the transformation of the

from the

spiritually true to the physically

more completely accomplished than dur-

ing the Italian Renaissance.

ized Italo-Byzantine

From

the formal-

and Romanesque

styles,

from the Sienese painters who

so beautifully adapted the "unreal" medieval

and

especially

The Expulsion; Adam and Eve

Church

style, to

the Florentines of the generation of

Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and Donatello, practicing hardly

there

later,

is

expression of

reasoned

and

more than one hundred years

a full turn of the circle, from
inner, mystical meaning to a
"natural"

depiction

of

the

world.

In the earlier phases of the Renaissance,

however, the two

styles existed side

bv

side.

Nicola Pisano revitalized the Italian medieval

st)'le

with

Roman

idioms and

Roman

at Work. Stone. Jacopo dclla Qucrcia. 15th century.

of San Pctronio, Bologna. (^Anderson -photos')

natural-

THE RENAISSANCE
ism in his pulpit

while his son

bas-reliefs;

Giovanni Pisano looked northward

duce Gothic

sensitivity

to intro-

and Gothic second

meaning, and was abetted by Amolfo

bio

Camand echoed by Orcagna and Nanni di

di

the Lombard cities, and as far south as the

Apulian and Calabrian towns. Truly Gothic

expression

from the
thedral

rarer,

is

and

is

an exception,

ues including

had directed the course

and Germany and by

of art back to the clas-

seemed an

inspired

Sienese,

Jacopo

it

della

late

the

to

many by

northern

breathes uneasily

it

Italian churches;

Banco. Even after Brunelleschi and Donatello

sicalby a stroke epochal and heroic, as

365

though Milan Cainnumerable

its

stat-

sculptors from France

local masters converted

st)'le.

exceptions

But,

aside, the transformation to reasonable, clear,

Quercia, continued to produce works of such

graceful sculpture in the classic tradition

grandeur and such

the great historic fact of early Renaissance

plastic sensibilitv that they

attach perfectly to the northern

tradition.

But

in such

doors of Ghiberti,
figures of Donatello,

works

and

the

in

Roman

classic lifelikeness prevailed,

committed

and

anti-classic

as the baptistry

neo-Grecian

pictorialism

and

and Europe was

to a revival of art

conforming

to

the appearances of the actual world.

Italy

had never given

Romanesque

times.

The change might

transfer

traiture of lay

hardly to be

figure,

ligious

found

at

Parma, Florence, and

Pistoia, in all

Pulpit. Stone. Nicola Pisano.

and

figure. It

is

to

portrayal

true that por-

men and women became

fash-

But sculpture remained primarily reand intent. Donatello, a key

ligious in subject

dis-

relics,

some minds imply a

ionable during the mid-period of the Renais-

tinguished from Byzantine at times, are to be

st)4e.

in

from religious imaging

of secular scene

sance.

in fully to the Gothic

is

cola

is

known

almost entirelv for his

re-

monuments. (The famed bust of Nida Uzzano in the Roman manner is al-

1266-68. Cathedral of Siena. ^Anderson

photo")

Dawti. Stone. Michelangelo. 152034.

Medici Chapel, Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. (^Alinari photo')

most the

sole exception.

The appeahng

are scarcely to be distinguished

futti

from angels

ture. It is that

and cherubs.) Even the fabulously popular

"truth" in the

works of the della Robbias are religious

all

subject-matter.

closing

years

When
of

the

there

comes,

Renaissance,

in

in

the

the

one

chapels.

From

a worker in churches

and

the lovely Pieta of his youthful

in which he depicted himself as a stricken

mourner over the crucified Christ, Michelangelo is religious and Christian. The Renaissance freed men's minds and opened the way

sculptural

new forms

of intellectual enlightenment,

still

was the

crucial motivating

force in artistic creation.

There

is

third fundamental fact about

the Renaissance in relation to the art of sculp-

Against

inner

the

to

above

these

illustrational,

outward

and

virtues,

Michelangelo pitted a passionate devotion

years to the stark Deposition of his old age,

but religion

as a creator rising

had become veracious,

graceful.

all

but

Donatello to the later della Robbias. Sculp-

he

of

art,

had been exalted by the outstanding

sculptors from Nicola Pisano, Ghiberti, and
ture

first

as

that

transcending genius of the era, Michelangelo,

is

Michelangelo appeared not

crowning figure in the progression toward

central
art,

elements

that

to

constitute

devotion to the integrity of the

stone block, to the living qualities of massive-

and majesty and power. He wrote he

was the greatest of the writing sculptors that
ness

work of

true sculpture, that

modeled, should retain so

is,

much

one

cut, not

of the form

of the stone block, should so avoid projections

and separation of
downhill of

its

own

parts,

that

it

would

roll

weight. There one hears

THE RENAISSANCE
the voice of the lover of the quarried block,

who

the giant cutter of stone,

way could

other

the artist

no

felt that in

endow

work

his

with the grandeur and the hint of eternity

that are
is

its

most precious

assets.

Michelangelo

a sculptor apart, mystical, contemplative, in

love with the stone.

Through

his feeling for

the basic, profound sculptural process, he

is

one with the archaic Greeks and the Indian,

Chinese, and

The

Mayan

and the revival of the claswas essentially Italian in

of Latin literature
sical

style
It

spirit.

masters.

Renaissance in the sense of the rebirth

and the

in

art

developed out of the special nature

rivalries of the Italian city-states,

and

many

367

the extension of the Italian spirit was

marked, especially in woodcarving, and in

Spain the
tense

classic

religious

movement modified

realism

surviving

the in-

from

late

Gothic times.
In Italy the end
saw the perfecting

of the virtues of the gold-

smith Cellini, in

unparalleled

of the Renaissance period

numbers of
was also a time
when the Michelangelesque virtues were
transformed into the rather empty dramatics
of the mannerists, and the accomplishments
of a few scholar-sculptors who carried on the
tradition initiated by Donatello or hopelessly
pretty mantelpiece bronzes. It

tried to imitate

Michelangelo. Sansovino,

who

out of dominance by a ruling class which

died in 1570, was the most successful, retain-

enormously expanded economic power and

ing a sense of the monumental while avoid-

commerce and patronized

ing the bizarre effects of the mannerists.

less in the

arts.

Neverthe-

northern countries the Renaissance

changed the course of sculpture,

spirit

tardily.

style

the

did not fade until the end of the

teenth

if

In France the vitality of the Gothic

century,

and

there

was

no

fif-

great

French sculptor in the time of Donatello,

Luca

della Robbia,

and Michelangelo. In Ger-

those

who

Of

gained from the freedoms intro-

duced by mannerism, Giambologna, who

sur-

vived into the early years of the seventeenth

century,

was most

notable.

His was, indeed,

name

in the era be-

tween Michelangelo and the

Baroque style, Bernini.

initiator of the

the last world-famous

Death of the Virgin. Stone. Tilman Riemenschneider. German, 16th century.

Cathedral of Wiirzburg. QArchiv fUr Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin}

II
IF

the Renaissance style in sculpture

alistic,

clear,

is

and harmonious, there

nevertheless forerunners

who

re-

are

speak with an

Romanesque accent.
Three illustrations show stages of the transformation from Lombard Romanesque, as

inherited Gothic or

seen in the bronze door at Pisa, through the

on the cathedral facade at Orand on to that landmark of sculptural

Gothic
vieto,

reliefs

progress, the pulpit designed

by Nicola

sano for the baptistry at Pisa. Three of

columns
arches

its

from the backs of lions in the

Romanesque manner, and the

rise

Lombard
pointed

Pi-

suggestions

retain
style;

of

the

northern

but the major panels are

filled

with picture compositions resembling the basreliefs

of

ancient

torically this is

realism

known

and
as

Roman

sarcophagi.

an epochal revival of

Nicola,
though
had come from Apulia,

pictorialism.

Pisano,

Hisclassic

where he must have examined

hand
was the first
to introduce Roman naturalism into what had
been till then Italian medieval art; the painters were
still
Italo-Byzantine, or Sienese
the

exhumed

classical relics.

at first

He

"Primitives."

Between 1266 and 1268 Nicola Pisano and

produced another famous pulpit,
for the Cathedral of Siena. Romanesque lions
were used as supports, but again the relief
panels showed the sculptors' masterly abilitv
in adapting Roman idioms to decorative and
pictorial uses. (Illustrated on page 365.)
his pupils

Giovanni Pisano, son of Nicola, tempered

the over-literal

Roman

expression with a pic-

turesqueness and a sensitivity learned from

contemporary Gothic

practice.

His panels on

the pulpit at Pistoia are lively and dramatic

and naturallv composed. Single

are

among

figures of his

the finest sculptures of the time.

Detail of door. Cathedral of Pisa. Bronze. Romanesque, 12th century. (Alinari photo). (See also page 323)

THE RENAISSANCE

Creation of

Man and

other scenes. Stone. Italian Gothic, 14th century.

Cathedral of Orvieto. (^Anderson photo")

Pulpit. Stone. Nicola Pisano. Italian, 1260. Baptistry, Cathedral of Pisa. (^Anderson photo")

369

370

THE RENAISSANCE

Adoration of the Magi,

relief panel. Stone.

Nicola Pisano. Cathedral of Siena. QAnderson photo')

Birth of Christ, relief panel. Stone. Giovanni Pisano.

QAlinari photo)

Church of San Andrea,

Pistoia.

Extreme Unction; Baptism.

Stone.

Andrea Pisano. 13th-14th

Giovanni's pupil,
nolfo di
for a

centuries. Campanile, Cathedral of Florence. (^Alinari photos')

Andrea Pisano, with Ar-

Cambio and Andrea Orcagna,

while the tide toward classicism. Andrea

Pisano's

diamond-shaped

little

panels

set

excelled in both

arts,

retained Andrea Pisano's

Gothicism in the main features of the famous

within

the

Michele, Florence.

The

tabernacle

Church

of

Or San

architectural forms of

Tower)

the tabernacle are Italianate Gothic, in the

Florence have more the feeling of vigorous

and lacy manner of Milan Cathedral,

and the sculptural picturing is what an artist

into the cathedral campanile (Giotto's

at

stayed

Romanesque

expression; but a larger set after

Giotto's designs,

from Andrea Pisano's

borrowed from Gothic

studio,

composition.

known for his

but Andrea Orcagna, who also

Arnolfo di Cambio
architecture,

realistic

is

better

light

who knew
ward

the northern style but looked for-

to the

be expected

Nanni

di

triumph of neo-classicism might

to

produce.

Banco was a sculptor who

Creation of Woman; Horse and Rider. Stone. Andrea Pisano and Giotto.
13th 14th centuries. Campanile, Cathedral of Florence. QAlinari photos')

re-

THE RENAISSANCE

372

verted even more fully to late Gothic mannerthe prettily designed marble relief

isms in

over the Porta della Mandorla of the Florentine cathedral.

vacit)',

eries
late
full

The

lightness of touch, the vi-

the sinuous grace of limbs and

drap

are attributes of sculpture during the

medieval period rather than during the

Renaissance. (Facing page.)

The

Sienese sculptor Jacopo della Quercia

rose above all schools

was the very

Through

his

and

antithesis

all

influences.

of

He

neo-Roman.

emotional force, his dramatic

composing, and his sense of rhythmical plasorder he came closer to the anonymous
Romanesque masters. His versions of the Madonna and Child suggest an influence from

tic

transmitted to us in a series of reliefs on the

portal

the

of

Church

beautifully

so

sional

space,

youthful

ordered
so

Michelangelo

tive plastic sense to

chelangelo, the works from della Quercia are

was

lithic

grandeur pro-

The

genius of Jacopo della Quercia

Madonna and

is

best

reported

is

that
to

the

have

triumph

and humanly

his personal

brilliantly

with a

sculpture that

felt

interpretation of the Hel-

lenic ideal.

By

duced in Renaissance Europe.

three-dimen-

alive,

and 1378, assiduously studied the remains of

ancient architecture and believed that they
were reviving the spirit of the golden age of
Greece, though instead they adapted the more
pedestrian style of Rome. They were followed
in their researches by Donatello, who sometimes copied Roman forms and mannerisms
but possessed sufficient imagination and naclearly seen

ones with

in

been inspired by them. (Pages 364 and 373.)

Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, born in 1377

Byzantine hieratic formalism. Except for the

last

within

plastically

products of the overwhelming genius of Mi-

almost the

San Petronio

of

Bologna. These are compositions so powerful,

the

first

decade of the

Florence had taken the lead,

quattrocento

artistically,

Child. Stone. Jacopo della Quercia. Sienese school, 14th-15th centuries.

Louvre; Church of San Petronio, Bologna. QGiraudon, Alinari photos^

po-

and financially, among Italian cityThere were great projects for the
glorification of the city, and none created
more stir than a competition for the design
litically,

states.

of

new bronze
In a

tistry.

doors for the cathedral

trial

showed how he would

panels

eight

leschi's design,

may be
berti;

of

the

fill

one of the twenty-

doors.

preserved

still

Today Brunelat the Bargello,

considered superior to that of Ghi-

the sacrifice of Isaac

tically,

bap

piece each of sev'en sculptors

readably,

is

pictured

realis-

and with shrewd regard

to

the filling of architectural space. Ghiberti, on

the other hand, produced a

somewhat con-

fused and lumpy, but episodically dramatic

and sentimental panel and won the commission to design the portals. There is no further
record of sculpture by Brunelleschi, who beCreation of Man. Stone. Jacopo della Quercia.
1 5th century. Church of San Petronio, Bologna.

QAnderson photo}

Madonna
Nanni

in a Mandorla, relief. Stone.

Over Porta della Mandorla,

di Banco.

Cathedral of Florence. QAlinari photo}

374

THE RENAISSANCE

Doors of the baptistry, Cathedral of Florence. Bronze. Lorenzo Ghibcrti.

15th century, CAlinari photo')

THE RENAISSANCE
came the
Itahan

first

leader in the transformation of

from

architecture

mixed medievahsm

to a clear

and
and harmonious
hngering

neo-classic style.

The

was set in
and the second, known as the
Gates of Paradise, was completed in 1452.
Lorenzo Ghiberti outgrew some of the depair of baptistn,' doors

first

ficiencies

revealed

Abraham

and

in

Isaac,

the

sketch-panel

and

certain

twent\'-eight compositions are clear

of

of

the

and

har-

moniously composed, within the limits of

delighted

millions

of

casual

observers.

The

truth

is

that these pictorial composi-

designed in a technique learned from

tions,

place in 1424,

have

panels

375

the painters of the era, with landscape vistas,

perspective effects, foreshortening, and other
attributes of the

new

realism, are essentially

Each design is a masterpiece of

relief sculpture masquerading as painting.
According to modern opinion, in the ten pictures on the "Gates of Paradise" Ghiberti
unsculptural.

il-

proved himself a painter in bronze, without

But the "Paradise" series is more mature and more interesting

because it marks the highest point reached in

elementary feeling for plastic relationships or

lustrational bas-relief.

make

the

West

the

work of painting, legibly and engagingly.

up the idea of dividing the

in the effort to

sculpture do

Ghiberti gave

Up

1400 the Pisans, the Sienese, and

had served the Florentines and had
taught them, but then Florence became a cento

others

ter for locally

born sculptors,

of

whom

had imparted to the first doors (and an

by Andrea Pisano) an effect of

He

every later Italian sculptor except Michelan-

small panels, a device

earlier pair

all-over

ornamentalism.

limited himself to

ten major panels and set out to

make each

gelo.

He

developed

a clearly stated, idealized,

masterpiece of miniature sculptural picturing.

and gracious

figuring,

and

He

that sweetly

embody

his

greatly pleased his patrons,

The

many

became world-famous. Donatello (1386 1466)

was the first of the very great Florentine
sculptors, rising above his contemporaries and

door surface into

that

many

the effects appropriate to his material.

Story of

Abraham

and

his

bronze

left a

dozen statues

vision as well as

Solomon Receiving the Queen of Sheha

Panels on the baptistry doors. Cathedral of Florence. (_Anderson, Alinari photos')

masterpiece of natural movement, of camera-

eye observation and casual depiction.

Some of
among his

the early works of Donatello are

The

best.

round, including a

Cathedral and a

series of statues in the

John

St.

St.

in the Florence

Mark and

a St.

George

Or San Michele, retain a massive

later lost. The St. George, of 141 6,

executed for
simplicity
IS

one of the most appealing works of the

quattrocento, a perfect revelation of the sculptor's

vision

chivalry.

a niche

of

youthful

The Zuccone,

on

Giotto's

determination

and

or "Pumpkin-head," in

Tower,

is

an equally

strik-

ing creation, expressing a rugged realism at

a

moment when

scending

The

the art

was in danger

of de-

to a pretty surface naturalism.

masterly modeling and clean chiseling

that characterize Donatello's early works can

be seen

also in the

Youthful

St.

John, a study

Nicola da Uzzano. Clay, painted. Donatello.

142830. National Museum, Bargello, Florence

such experiments

Uzzano, which
re-creation

as
is

the bust of Nicola da

Roman

of

perfect

naturahstic,

cruelly

interesting

as

candid portraiture; and the great equestrian

Monument

Gattamelata

at

Padua, on which

the noblv conceived and finely modeled head

of the rider

He

is

one of the notable

produced

many

reliefs

features.

in

the exces-

sively painterly technique of the followers of

Ghiberti; those representing scenes from the

Passion on the pulpits of San Lorenzo, begun

in his old age

and completed by

his assistants,

Bertoldo di Giovanni and Bartolommeo Bellano, are typically graphic, delicate, crowded,

and washy, hie played with oversweet Madonnas and cherubs and putti in the manner
that led to the sentimental art of the della

Robbias and the superficially graceful

reliefs

and of Agostino di Duccio. In

panels such as the famous Annunciation at
Santa Croce and the equally beloved frieze

of Desiderio

of the Cantoria in the

Museum

of the Flor-

entine cathedral, he related the figures with-

out

adequate

frieze,

with

its

sense

of

plastic

order.

The

jolly babes, is nevertheless a

Gattamelata Monument, detail. Bronze.

1444-50. Before Church of
Sant' Antonio, Padua. (_Anderson photo')
Donatello.

THE RENAISSANCE

377

'

-^r

Details from frieze of the Cantoria. Stone. Donatello, 1433-38.

Museum of the Cathedral of Florence. QBrogi photo')

Ziiccone

(A Prophet).

1435-36. Campanile, Florence.

St.

Stone. Donatello.
(_Alinari

photo)

George. Stone. Donatello. 1416. National

Bargello, Florence. QAnderson photo)

Museum,

THE RENAISSANCE

378

every detail but so clearly the em-

realistic in

bodiment of
that

it

a personal

and noble conception

transcends nature.

Though

sculptural grandeur

and the basic

"feeling for the stone" were going out of the

during the fifteenth century, Donatello

art

and

his followers

carved direcdy in the

still

marble and maintained the autographic

tues that

were

when

lost

"sculptors"

vir-

began

be content with making clay models

to

for

by masons with pointing

machines. For works in bronze the artist
necessarily modeled in clay (or wax).
Some authorities prefer Donatello's David
transfer to the stone

to all his other

works. Despite the beautiful

modeling and the perfectly caught pose,

too prett\' a

work

it is

stand comparison with

to

the St. George or the Youthful St. John. Ver-

David,

rochio's

here, suffers

though

it

matched

with

Donatello's

from some of the same

faults,

escapes the over-prettification of the

boy.

Andrea del Verrocchio produced few masterpieces,

but in the

final

seven years of his

1481-1488, he designed the

life,

monument

Bartolommeo Colleoni in Venice, which

to

surpassed his

rival's

equestrian work. Verroc-

and imon
parade. It breathes strength, power, and
human mastery. The excessive amount of dechio's statue

is

bued with the

consistent, well set,

feeling of the condottiere

tailgoldsmith's work, for most of these Flor-

entine sculptors were trained to goldsmithing

as well as architecture, painting, stone-carv-

modeling, and casting fails

ing,

from the

effect of vigor

and

to

detract

largeness.

Bernardo and Antonio Rossellino, Desiderio

da Settignano,

Mino da

Fiesole,

Francesco

Laurana, the della Robbias, and other lesser

imitators of Donatello's pretty

works formed

within the Florentine school a group con-

cerned with the smaller sculptural virtues.

The

statues of the late quattrocento,

the

500s, cannot be judged

applied to della Ouercia or

up

most

of

sweet and sentimental.

No

test

shows

and of
by the standards
Michelangelo; any

them as rather
body of works has

been more extravagantly praised.

Youthful

St. John. Stone. Donatello. 1434^0.

National Museum, Bargello, Florence,
CBrogi photo')

David. Bronze. Donatello. National

Bargello, Florence. QAlinari photo")

Museum,

Bartolommeo CoUeoni. Bronze.

Verrocchio. 1481-88.
Piazza SS. Giovanni e Paoli, Venice.

CAnderson photo)

David. Bronze. Verrocchio. National

Museum, Bargello, Florence. C^rogi photo)

da

Desiderio

Settignano

is

perhaps

the

best of this school of deUneators of the sweet

and the charming. He speciahzed in cherubs,

young mothers, and pretty boys. But much
can be forgiven

him even

of the children when

one

the frozen smiles

sees the grace

the delicate restraint of the Bust of a

Woman

the

at

Bargello.

Here

and

Young

sculptural

suavity has done everything possible to represent to the observer the natural

an

charm

of

aristocratic girl. Desiderio's fault of a too

scrupulous detailing

is

character

and

revealed,

is

for flowing contour,

here

Inner

curbed.

a sensitive feeling

even for proportion and

mass.

The

Bust of a Little Boy in the National

is a chubby, perky,

Gallery in Washington
irresistible

immortalized.

child

when

But

Desiderio decorated tombs he was likely to

destroy the architecture by the unrelated col-

and

lection of reliefs

Indeed
statue

at

as

this

other

figures in the round.

time the feeling for the

than

passed. Agostino di

display

piece

Duccio learned

to

his graceful relief figures flat to the wall,

had
keep

and

sometimes, as at Perugia, he disciplined his

sinuous

angels

into pleasing

Bust of a

trailing

fluttering

Bust of a Young Woman. Stone. Desiderio

da Settignano. Mid- 15 th century. National

Museum,

Bargello, Florence. QAlinari photo')

draperies

mural decorations.

Little Boy. Stone.

Desiderio da Settignano. Mellon Collection,

National Gallery of Art, Washington

Saint Bernardino in Glory, detail. Stone.

Agostino di Duccio. C. 1460.

Fagade of Church of
Bernardino, Perugia.
(^Anderson photo)

S,

y^.S^'^'^
'''^^^f'***^^

"^

THE RENAISSANCE

381

Francesco Laurana, born in Dalmatia, was

a roving sculptor

who

almost equaled Desi-

derio in suave portraiture, as

the appealing

Aragon

at

portrait,

Bust of a

Neapolitan

name

may be

Princess of the

Washington.

of

Another exquisite

Woman,

school,

seen in

House

with

is

ascribed to the

which

Laurana's

has been associated. Benedetto da Mai-

ano, sculptor of a famous pulpit at the Santa

Croce Church, Florence,

critics

to

be superior

and others

is

held by some

Laurana, Desiderio,

of the Florentine school

of his portraiture
torial

to

and

by reason

his reliefs in the pic-

style of Ghiberti.

Antonio

Pollaiuolo

introduced

and

melodra-

to do
In
general
he
desame
for
sculpture.
the
stroyed whatever traces of massiveness and
quietude were left in the art. The oncefamed statuettes of Bertoldo di Giovanni

matic action into painting,

tried

today seem overactive and rather insensitive.

He had been a student of Donatello's and

was an early teacher of Michelangelo. II
Vecchietta Lorenzo di Pietro of Siena more
successfully added a sort of nervous energy
to his

modeling and preserved

Bust of a Woman. Stone. Neapolitan school,

15th century. Louvre. (^Alinari photo')

a total unity

while enlivening the surface appeal.

The Risen

Christ. Bronze. Lorenzo Vecchietta.

15th century. Church of Santa Maria delta Scala,

Siena. QAlinari photo')

"Princess of the House of Aragon. Stone.

Francesco Laurana. Venetian school, 15th
century. Mellon Collection, National Gallery of

Art,

Washington

THE RENAISSANCE

382

Since Luca della Robbia founded a family

business for producing brighdy colored glazed
plaques,

terra-cotta

many

so

of

have

these

appeared in and on the buildings of Florence

that they

have constituted

kind of folk

art.

In the time of Donatello's triumphs, Luca

began

to

experiment in clay modeling in high

The

were painted white against

a background painted blue, and the whole
was glazed and fired. Shortly after, the common polychromed garlands of flowers and
relief.

figures

appeared as borders, and there were

fruits

experiments in

less

the medallions,

simple color schemes in

his studios. Luca, the

a

true

sculptor

tabernacle

lunettes,

and free-standing busts

of

that

first

his

panels,

streamed from

della Robbia,

time,

versatile

was
and

The
phia,

a perfect example, in

The

details

the

of

Florence

near

sentiment,

from the

of flying angels

predella of the Altar of the

Church

at Philadel-

its

and beautiful surface composi-

naturalism,
tion.

now

Virgin in Adoration,

is

Holy Cross

Madonna
are among

dell'

the

in the

Impruneta
best-known

works of Luca della Robbia. There are also

a few independent glazed figures and freestanding groups from his hand.

Andrea, Luca's nephew, was brought into

partnership

at

age of twenty-five, suc-

the

ceeded as head of the studio at forty-seven,

and

He

lived to be ninety.

turn

out countless

confusion

"della

trying

historians

of

thus was able to

Robbias" to the
to

separate

Luca's designs from later and generally

less

His marble panels of singing cherubs

made for the cantoria of the cathedral have
been hardly less praised than Donatello's

competent works. Andrea too pleased an im-

more

orate.

skilled.

riotous,

though

less

distressingly cute,

Luca had a sensitive feeling for surface

composition, and he designed panels filled
with the most popular devotional subjects,
the Virgin in Adoration, the Annunciation,
the Resurrection, Angels, Cheruhs, and

style

which

is

tions

Bam-

rounded, and highly colored

purely pictorial.

but in general his composi-

public,

were a

The

singing children.

hini, in a pretty,

mense

more crowded and

little

altarpiece

with

the Virgin at Siena

cessful of his designs.

is

the

elab-

Coronation

of

one of the most suc-

The

predella panels are

characteristic of the best period of full pictorialism,

achieved with a shrewd sense of

composition and a graceful naturalism.

other

members

of the della

The

Robbia family

continued with the manufacture of colored

Virgin in Adoration. Faience. Luca della Robbia. Florentine, 15th century.

Philadelphia MuseuTn of Art. QGiraudon photo')

Angels, detail. Faience. Luca della Robbia. Chapel of the Holy Cross,
of the Madonna dell' Impruneta, near Florence. (^Alinari photo")

Church

Coronation of the Virgin. Faience. Andrea della Robbia.

dell' Osservanza, Siena. C^rogi photo)

Church of the Convento

THE RENAISSANCE

384

ware through many decades, but the plaques

after Luca and Andrea died were in-

of the Renaissance should have appeared at

made

the time

ferior.

weakest. Michelangelo was born nine years

Instead of the score of world-famous and

important sculptors produced by

and

Italy,

especially Florence, during the quattrocento,

the cinquecento produced but one.

is

Not only

Michelangelo the outstanding sculptural

creator of Italy's
also transcends

High Renaissance, but he

any other figure in the

his-

tory of the art in post-medieval times.

He

sometimes turbulent. But in

is

was
a stormy individual, and his sculpture and
painting are elemental, overpowering, and
and profound

in the

art,

all

that

basic

in lithic grandeur,

in stonelike quietude, in the implication of

spiritual

he

is

meaning and four-dimensional

order,

supreme.

It is difficult to

Battle of the Lapiths

why

the giant

and the Centaurs, high

Florentine sculpture

after Donatello died.

cio,

itself

was

His work matured long

after Verrocchio, Desiderio,

Agostino di Duc-

Laurana, and the other secondary mas-

had disappeared from the scene. Luca

Robbia had gone, and his nephew Andrea was filling orders for "della Robbias"
with diminishing invention and taste. Michelangelo was engaged as an apprentice
sculptor for four years to the great Medicean
patron of the arts, Lorenzo the Magnificent.
Then he spent a season in Bologna, where
he had leisure to study the sculptures of
ters

della

Jacopo della Quercia, the only Italian (except

for

the

fitted

understand

when

to

anonymous
influence

Romanesque masters)
profoundly so gifted a

sculptor.

relief panel. Stone.

Michelangelo. 1490-92.

Casa Buonarroti, Florence. QBrogi photo^

THE RENAISSANCE
Certain of the very early works of Michelangelo exhibit those attributes of powerful

contained

movement and monumental

impressiveness so patent in the late figures.

Even

trial

piece, the relief of the Battle of

and the Centaurs, carved when

he was eighteen years old, is imbued with
elemental movement and plastic order. In two
the Lapiths

David. Stone. Michelangelo. 1504.

Academy, Florence. QAlinari photo^

early single figures, a

385

Bacchus chiseled when

and the David

San Miniato, the profounder feeling for
plastic rhythms and monumental order is
tempered by an apparent desire to conform
he was no more than

a youth,

at

to

the tradition of Florentine neo-classic nat-

uralism.

The

early

side the unfinished

David is shown here be(and much later) David

David. Stone. Michelangelo. 1529. National

Gallery, Bargello, Florence. QBrogi photo')

386

THE RENAISSANCE

Pietd. Stone. Michelangelo.

of the Bargello.

Rome was

The

carved

twenty-five years old,

monuments

1499-1500.

Pieta at St. Peter's in

before

and

is

the

artist

was

one of the great

Western world.
Its realism is so far transcended by the sculptural ordering of masses and the symphonic
interplay of line, of thrust and counterthrust
rehgious

of the

St. Peter's Basilica,

Rome. QAlinari photo^

and containing contour, that one's eye reads

the composition easily and agreeably, in a
melodious language perfectly suited
spiritual

and

tragic

to

the

message of the monu-

ment.

The
tor

special dignity with

endowed even

which the

sculp-

the smallest piece of mar-

THE RENAISSANCE

Moses. Stone. Michelangelo. 1515. Church of San Pietro in Vincoli,

ble

is

inherent in

tomb

the

Moses,

the

central

Pope Juhus II in the

Church of San Pietro in VincoH, Rome. The
whole monument was to have been from the
hand of the master, but after heartbreaking
feature of the

delays, during

the

of

which he was forced

incomparable

frescoes

of

the

to

paint

Sistine

Chapel, which he regretted as an interruption of his

more beloved

labors in sculpture,

Michelangelo gave over the scheme

artists.

for the

Two

to lesser

Slaves which he originally cut

tomb of Julius

II are in

the galleries

of the Louvre,

387

Rome

where they seem

other Renaissance sculpture.

to

dwarf

The Moses

is

an individualistic conception of the Lawgiver,

movement,

spe-

cific

in detail yet held within a unity.

The

man

is

rocklike yet vibrating with

sternly the instrument of

God, majesti-

cally portrayed.

From 1520

to

1534 Michelangelo labored

intermittently to put into effect the elaborate

architectural

Medici

and sculptural scheme of the

in
the Church of San
Florence. The one part nearest

Chapel

Lorenzo in

THE RENAISSANCE

Night. Stone. Michelangelo. Medici Chapel, Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. QBrogi photo')

completion, the tomb of Lorenzo de' Aledici,

period

shows the figure of Lorenzo, known as The

Thinker, over two figures symbohzing twihght and dawn. The three statues Hnk well

Jacopo della Quercia's works, are of a certain

and the unfortunate location of the

fails to dim the
sense of spiritual power and elemental
grandeur flowing from these essentially living figures. The Daivn is illustrated on page
366 (and the T\inlight in the Introduction).
On the tomb of Giuliano de' Medici, the
matching figures are of Night and Day (the
latter with the head not fully chiseled out of
together,

group in an overbare room

the marble block).

are

The

four symbolic figures

generally considered

sculptures inherited

the most masterly

by mankind from the

of

magnitude.

Renaissance.

the

They

have

These,

sheer

like

physical

and an appearance of contained,

concentrated power that make a comparison
with the marbles of the Athenian Parthenon
largeness

inevitable.

The
many

figure of

Night has been counted by

authorities

statue of the series.

less

the

incomparably

great

But the Day appears no

magnificent, in spite of being unfinished.

conveys a sense of grandeur hardly surpassed in the history of art. Dawn might be
It

compared with the Goddesses, the

llissos,

and

the other elemental figures of the Parthenon

pediment.

THE RENAISSANCE

389

Day. Stone. Michelangelo. Medici Chapel, Church of San Lorenzo, Florence. QBrogi photo')
(See illustrations on pages 5 and 366)

In

the

chapel

there

is

statue

of

Madonna and Child, endowed with

human tenderness and the tragic pity
these great works,
final

of the four Prisoners at

or died.

Florence was hardly more than half worked

so

from the block and was intended for the

tomb of Julius II. Just as the immediate suc-

beautifully carved into the Pieta. Apart from

Fiume, and a

The group

the

the

there are a fragmentary

work, a Deposition, in the

cessors of Michelangelo, the Florentine

nerists,

were

to imitate certain

art his large masses and

Cathedral at Florence, in which Michelan-

acteristics

of

gelo, nearing ninety years of age, surv'ivor of

emphatic

movement without

one on the stormiest

symphonic

art,

lives

in

the annals of

portrayed himself as a mourner helping

to release Christ

from the Cross, thus

affirm-

ing his final mystical and passionate devotion

to the Christ.

From

various periods in his career there

when, for examunstable patrons changed their minds.

are statues left half finished

ple,

his

order,

man-

surface char-

so,

nearly

his

sense

of

hundred
Rodin, was

four

years later, a great individualist,

enormous creative possibilities in a

worked marble block, though he
never quite achieved the magnificent power
to see the

partially

of the Prisoners.

Raphael was

stirred

by the ambition

to

equal the one rival whose stature had over-

Prisoner. Stone. Michelangelo.

National Museum, Bargello, Florence.
QMannelli photo^

THE RENAISSANCE
shadowed
ture,

as

his

in

own, and he

painting,

lesque masterpieces.
stone,

to

He

set

out in sculp

create

Michelange-

could not carve in

but he made sketches or models for

which Lorenzetto executed for the Chigi Chapel of

Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. At first
glance the Jonah and the Elias seem like
works of the master, being massive and superficially rhythmic. But the synthetic nature
of the pieces soon becomes clear in the softening of the forms and a violation of feeling
heroic figures of the prophets,

these da Vinci models.

(without a rider)

seum

in

One
list

New

other

is

at the

391

very similar horse

Metropolitan

Mu-

York.

name should be included

of sculptors influenced

Jacopo Sansovino,

in the

by Michelangelo:

who had been

a pupil of

for the block.

Other imitators fared

less well, as

the

huge

malformations, not to say monstrosities, in the

Piazza della Signoria in Florence especially

Baccio Bandinelli more successful in

works erected the huge, tasteless Hercules and Cacus there and proved how easily
sculptural largeness and power could be
turned to uses of sensationalism and melodrama; while Bartolommeo Ammanati, with
testify.

lesser

collaborators

who

included the very talented

Giambologna, contributed a distressing Foun-

Neptune that stands nearby.

Andrea del Verrocchio had been Leonardo
da Vinci's master, and the equestrian monument to Francesco Sforza over which Leo-

tain of

nardo labored so

many

years, only to see the

model destroyed before

bronze, was an attempt

final

it

in

to

Colleoni

chio's

Monument.

could be cast
rival

The

Verroccolossal

mock-up constructed by Leonardo and his

assistants at the Sforza castello in Milan was
extravagantly praised. There are several spirited small bronzes

approximating

to the surviv-

made by Leonardo for the Sforza

and for a planned monument to Tri-

ing sketches
statue

and each is claimed to be, in miniature, the Horse of Leonardo. One of these
may well be cast from a sketch model, and
others may be free copies, for several are
outstandingly strong and rhythmic in comvulzio;

parison with the hundreds of weakly realistic

statuettes

of

the

period

450-1 600.

The

bronze at Budapest, with a tiny rider mounted

on a

spirited stallion,

is

perhaps the

finest of

Madonna and

Child. Stone. Michelangelo.

Medici Chapel, Church of San Lorenzo,

Florence. (.Brogi photo}

1
Horse and Rider. Bronze.
After Leonardo da Vinci.
Early 16th century.
Museum of Fine Arts,
Budapest

Apollo. Stone. Jacopo Sansovino. C. 1540.

Logetta at the Base of the Campanile,
Piazza San Marco, Venice. QAlinari photo^

Andrea Sansovino and took his surname.

A good Sansovino may be an echo of the
largeness and vigor of Michelangelo or a
nearly

successful

monious

attempt

neo-classicism,

revive

to

in

as

har-

pleasing

the

campanile of San

figures of the loggetta of the

Marco, Venice.
Baccio

de

Montelupo

was

Alessandro Vittoria, both of

than

older

Michelangelo but had been his student,

whom

had
men-

as

are

tioned in the histories and are creditably repre-

sented in the churches. Baccio de Montelupo's

St. Damian, beside Michelangelo's Madonna
and Child in the Medici Chapel, does not too
badly suffer in such stupendous company,

though there might have been collaborative

help from the teacher.

The

specialists in small

bronzes were

to

the

forefront in sculptural history during the fol-

was

Benvenuto

lowing

half-century.

Cellini's

ambition to equal the greatest, but

his talents

It

remained only those of the

goldsmith. There

is

too

much

detail,

skillful

and

too

THE RENAISSANCE

Perseus.

Wax. Benvenuto

Cellini. C.

393

Perseus. Bronze. Benvenuto Cellini. C. 1550.

Loggia dei Lanzi, Piazza della Signoria,
Florence. QAlinari photo)

1550.

Bargello, Florence. C^rogi photo')

much ornament, in almost ever)' one

The work generally accepted

statues.

of his

sands of statuettes were turned out, as original

as his

pieces, very realistic

masterpiece, the bronze Perseus in the Loggia

dei Lanzi, Florence,
tion,

and

but Cellini

shows

left a

this early version

this overelabora-

sketch-model in wax,

has the grace and vitality

of the larger figure without the distracting accessories, as

can be seen

when

the two versions

are pictured together.

The

schools of bronze-workers were

Florentine, Paduan, Venetian.

many:

Untold thou-

and softened and

in general; as imitations of the

devotion to Greece and

least

trivial,

antique (for

Rome had

not in the

diminished); and as echoes of the recent

Florentine masters, from the powerful Michel-

angelo

to

the

graceful

Donatello

and the

pretty della Robbia pictorialists.

Giambologna, or John of Boulogne, who

was born in 1524, when Michelangelo was at
the height of his powers, and lived into the

THE RENAISSANCE

394

seventeenth century,

is

the best-known of the

producers of bronze mantelpiece

He

art.

was

a prolific sculptor in the large, too, but his

heroic-sized statues in emulation of Michelan-

Ammannati

gelo and

There

are less successful.

are untold thousands of miniature replicas of

Mercury.

his Flying

and

naturalistic

Bather

in technique

it is

The

to the last detail.

perhaps a better work of

is

certainly

smooth

It is

down

and

art,

superior to hundreds of the genre

pieces surrounding

it

at the Bargello.

The small bronze was, of course,

medium of Benvenuto Cellini.

the natural

Riccio

II

(Andrea Briosco), of the Paduan School; Pier

Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi,
as

I'Antico;

Pietro

Francesco

da

who,

Francavilla,

was an

who

is

better

known
and

Sant'Agata;

like

Giambologna,

by adoption, were other

Italian only

successful producers.

Some

of the finest bronzes of the Renais-

sance period are medals. Restricted

to a

small

space within a geometrical outline, certain

The

and created
ablest and

most original medalists date back

to the gen-

sculptors disciplined their talents

appropriate formal designs.

and Ghiberti. The medalNinfa is proof enough that

eration of Donatello
lion-bust

of

Donatello (if the attribution

manage
trait

a graceful

is

and pleasing

correct) could
bas-relief por-

within a constricted outline.

contemporary,

known

as

Pisanello,

It

was

or Vittore

Antonio) Pisano, of Verona,

as

became the

known

II

his

(also

who

greatest of the medalists. Better

one of the most original painters of

the time, Pisanello specialized, as a sideline, in

the commemorative medals.

many who

He

is

superior to

followed in his steps because he

kept his designs simple, formalized, and bold,

within the small space at his disposal.

examples shown (page 396), made

The

for the

Estes and for Nicolo Picininno, are typical.

Matteo de' Pasti of Verona and, later,

Benvenuto Cellini were outstanding in the
field.

Flying Mercury. Bronze.

Giambologna. 16th century.
Bargello, Florence. (^Alinari photo')

Medallion with bust of Ninfa. Stone. Attributed to

Donatello. Archaeological Museiim, Milan.
QBrogi photo')

Bather. Bronze. Giambologna. 16th century.

Bargello, Florence. CBrogi photo)

''''>..

Medals. Bronze. Benvenuto Cellini (left); Matteo de' Pasti (center and right). 15th-16th centuries.
Bargello, Florence; Brera Gallery, Milan; Bihliotheque Nationale, Paris. (^Alinari photos)

396

THE RENAISSANCE

Medals. Bronze. Pisanello.

5th century. British

The most original and accomplished German sculptor of the period was Tilman
Riemenschneider. The group scenes, such as

neo-classic

the Death of the Virgin at Wiirzburg Cathe-

who ended

and notably the altar panels,

are well composed, and do not strain after the
perspective vistas and other graphic effects in
the Italian manner. Single figures are carved
(in wood) with an instinct for the ordering
of masses and the rhythmic play of contours.

ated the new.

dral (page 367),

Some

of the heads taken alone, out of the

context of the surrounding figures, are

the

among

most pleasing sculptural works of the

time about the end of the fifteenth century.

Because Riemenschneider avoided the liter-

alism

Museum

and sentimentalism
sculpture after

torians consider

him

in

typical

Italian

many

1450,

the Gothic line rather than

his-

a pre-Renaissance figure

transitional figure,

he

is

initi-

per-

haps the greatest North European sculptor of

the period.

Certain works, not very important intrin-

become interesting as turning-points in

Eve by Peter Vischer the Younger is a sign

sically,
art.

of the triumph of Italian ideals north of the

Alps in the early

500s.

The nude

the realistic representation

current

of

Renaissance

show

subject and

that the full

neo-classicism

had

flowed over parts of Germany. Peter Vischer

the

Younger here proved himself the equal

of his Italian contemporaries in the art of the

small bronze.
ure,

The

plastic integrity of the fig-

and the avoidance of

mentalism,

make

it

statuettes of the

self-conscious senti-

preferable to thousands of

kind.

known Vischer work,

In perhaps the best-

King Arthur at Innsbrucka collaboration between father and son

overdetailing was allowed to destroy the
unitv of the statue. But Peter Vischer the
vounger remains a key figure in the transformation of German

the

time be-

art in the short

tween medieval practice and the entry of the

baroque style. The bronze foundry of the
Vischers at Nuremberg remained perhaps the
most notable in Europe for twenty years after
the deaths of the two Peters in 1528 and 1529.

From

the end of the fifteenth century the

French kings and

transforming
Italian

their

dreamed of
and lodges into

their courtiers
castles

Renaissance palaces, at

chateau country' of Touraine, then

bleau,

and

finally

at

Versailles

first

at

in

the

Fontaine-

and

Eve. Bronze. Peter Vischer the Younger.

German, c. 1500. Museum of Art,
Rhode Island School of Design

Paris.

Bernard of Wiirzburg. Wood. Riemenschneider.

16th century. Kress Collection,
National Gallery of Art, Washington
St.

/^^
^;

Early

St. John, detail. Wood. Riemenschneider.

6th century. Church of St. Nicolas, Kalkar.

(_Archives Roget-Viollet')

Crucifix. Iron, silvered. French, 17th century.

Curtis Collection. QGiraudon photo")

Eve. Wood.
Attributed to Riemenschneider.
16th century. Louvre.
(^Giraudon photo")

Tomb

figure of Rene de Birague. Bronze.

Germain Pilon. French, 16th century.
Church of St. Catherine, Paris.

Louvre. CAlinari photo)

THE RENAISSANCE
They imported

leading Italian

includ-

artists,

ing Francesco Laurana, Leonardo da Vinci,

and Benvenuto
artists in

Cellini;

and

minor
and the

a host of

painting, sculpture, music,

arts of the theater.

Among

died about 151

no works comparable

5, left

those of the secondary Italian masters.

rather Jean

who

It

Goujon who, by midcentury,

to

was
es-

tablished the native Renaissance style as the

typical court art of France.

work

His one famous

Their treatment

and

logically

seen

is

more

affecting, both ideo-

aesthetically,

in

upon the Cross

at

than the Italian

Donatello's

famous Christ

Padua.

The fact that French Renaissance sculpture

was not superlative did not prevent influence
from Fontainebleau and Versailles reaching
most of the courts of Europe. From the

late

seventeenth century every country north of

Foun-

the Alps emulated French styles and manner-

Each panel

repre-

isms.

sents symbolically, in pretty Italianate

one of the

manner,

rivers of France.

latter half of the sixteenth century.

of the Chancellor

Rene de Birague,

The

eflfigy

in bronze,

in the Louvre, has both originality

and

sensitive

would suggest

and beautiful

cruci-

that even in the seven-

teenth century the Gothic style remained pre-

dominant

in French,

tutors in the earlier period,

and the

Alonso Berruguete, had received his training

in

His tomb of Cardinal Tavera

Italy.

at

Toledo, even though too decorative, possesses

power reminiscent

a hint of

of Michelangelo.

Spanish Renaissance sculpture developed

into a forced style congruous with the overen-

certain massive integrity.

Innumerable

Spain fortunately had both Italian and

French

greatest of the Spanish transitional sculptors,

A more original and forceful sculptor was

Germain Pilon, whose career fell within the

fixes

and

consists of the relief panels of the

tain of the Innocents, Paris.

now

tenderness

even touches of Romanesque expressionism.

realism

the French, Michel Colombe,

Gothic

retaining

practice,

399

German, and Flemish

crusted

architecture

known

as

Churriguer-

which inspired much of the Colonial

Spanish architecture of Mexico and South
America. Some sculpture, however, became
esque,

Tomb of Cardinal Tavera.

Stone. Alonso Berruguete. Spanish, 16th century. Hospital de Afuera, Toledo

THE RENAISSANCE

400

intensely realistic, like that of Pedro de

Mena
The

in the middle of the seventeenth century.

painted wooden statues of the Spanish carvers

of this time gained unity through the swathing

of head

and

and

figure in cowl

cassock,

and

touched a high point in sensitive naturalistic

representation. Intense spiritual feeling

vealed in the faces.

as

well

as

the

The

re-

is

smallness of the head

idealized,

almost Christlike

features in the figure of St. Francis in the

Toledo

Cathedral

even asceticism.
lineation

is

The

suggests

unworldliness,

extreme delicacy of de-

notable also in the

Madonna

of

Sorrows in the Victoria and Albert Museum,

by Juan Martinez Montanes.

new world

American
and devotional dedication crossed with native Amerindian and Mayan strains and produced some of
In

the

of

Spain's

colonies this art of tender feeling

the most original and attractive of the

known

types of folk sculpture, as well as a great deal

of

disagreeably

realistic

treatment

tragic aspects of the Christ story.

sculpture was

common

of

the

Gruesome

in Spain, too, in the

Counter-Reformation period.

But the serious and appealing San Bruno

may remind us that extraordinarily fine details may be found in the altar screens, decorated portals

and incidental adornments

of

churches and monasteries. This masterly head

is

at

the Carthusian convent of Miraflores

near Burgos.

St. Trancis. Wood. Pedro de Mena. Spanish,

17th century. Cathedral of Toledo. (L. L. photo')

Madonna

of Sorroivs.

San Bruno,

Wood,

detail.

painted. Juan Martinez Montanes. Spanish, 17th century.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Wood,

painted.

Manuel

Pereira. Spanish, 17th century.

Cartuja de Miraflores, Burgos

'SR-]

15:

The South

Seas and

Negro

Africa:

^^ExotK^ Sculpture

THE carvings of the primitive peoples of the

South Sea Islands and of Negro Africa have
revealed profound sculptural values and

They were
ethnographic museums in

unique decorative
covered by the

stylization.

art

by the French and German

to

enjoyable

manifestations

the

on our maps. Some

revolutionaries of the early twentieth century,

and are now included in histories of sculpture.

Open-minded observers, trained to respond to
the values of form-organization and abstract
creation, have penetrated beyond the strange-

basic

In the Pacific Ocean there are a thousand

islands that appear as

artist-

of

sculptural emotion.

dis-

nineteenth century, were hailed as consum-

mate

ness

tor

no more than pinpoints

that are north of the equa-

and not geographically in the South Seas

have jdelded objects commonly included with

South Seas art, most notably the Hawaiian

South from the equator are dotted the

Islands.

great

number

of inhabited islands, including

such fabled places

Tahiti, Samoa,

Heads. Stone. Polynesian. Easter Island. (Fhoto courtesy American

as

the

and Easter

Museum

Marquesas,
Island.

There

Fiji,

are

of Natural History')

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

New

also the great island masses of

Guinea,

masks represent

north of Australia, of which the eastern and

ritual properties

northeastern coasts are in Melanesia, and the

berty

New

the men's secret societies.

Zealand islands southeast of Australia,

The Maori art of New

known, since the native style
has been encouraged by the white settlers

which

are in Polynesia.

Zealand

well

is

The

after earlier suppression.

art of Easter Is-

rites, etc.,

The

spirits

and are ceremonial and

used in religious dances, pu-

by such

tribal organizations as

sculpture from the South Sea Islands

and from

tribal

Africa

primitive, for there

The

403

is

technically called

was no written

culture.

show an intuitive grasp of sculp

fundamentals and are innocent of pur-

carvings

land, an eastern outpost of Polynesia, has also

tural

been celebrated by writers and widely

played in museums.

on its own account, as

can be seen in the following illustrations.

The

dis-

suit of natural imitation

territory of the Pacific tribes or nations,

main areasand Melanesia although Australia and Tasmania are also in this

called Oceania, comprises three

Micronesia,

Polynesia,

geographical

region.

The Micronesian

area

northward of the hypothetical Oceanic

Center, up toward Japan; Melanesia is southlies

New

westward, stretching from

Fiji;

Guinea

and Polynesia occupies the

to

rest of the

islanded space, being a vast territory reaching

eastward

to

American
Hawaiian

coast

Polynesia

Easter

Islands.
is

Island

The

western boundary of

Fiji Islands to

Zealand.

In Africa there are

tures

include the

roughly on a line drawn from the

Hawaiian Islands through the

New

to

South

the

off

and northward

many Negro

which have produced

and appealingly human

tribal cul-

strikingly st)'lized

carvings.

The

area of the differing cultures yields no

by which objects can be readily

vast

norm

classified,

but

native African statuettes, masks, or utensils

can be distinguished immediately from the

products of American Indians or South Sea

The

Islanders.

utensils
districts

impulse

to beautify

by means of carving
in

Africa.

is

Spoons,

everyday

notable in

many

bobbins,

cups,

weapons, and weights are but a few of the

objects

commonly enriched with

figurative

sculpture.

Within the African

tribal expressions of

outstanding

style are

imaginative

skill,

such as

the Baluba, the Ashanti, and the Benin.

divisions of

Negro

Two

non-utilitarian art are the

ancestral, or devotional,

and the ceremonial.

African sculptured figures are not

sense of gods to be worshiped.

idols, in

Many

the
Secret-society

of the

mask. Ivory. Warcga. Congo.

Museum of Primitive Art

II

ALTHOUGH
sculptures

it

from

"Hght," often being

may be

the

said

South

made from

Seas

that
are

pith or bark

or the hghter woods, or from grasses, cloth,

feathers, basketry, hair,

mental basis of the

denser woods.

Amid

art

and
is

shells, the

funda-

and the
carved and

in stone

the intricately

beautifully decorative things there are important

examples

of

instinctively

lithic

rock

sculpture.

There

sians.

is

nothing light or fantastic in the

on page 402.

idols of the Polynesians are in general

monumental. They are heavier and

closer to

Statuette. Stone. Polynesian.

Statuette. Stone. Polynesian.

Whether

Marquesans

the small stone

tiki

the

of

or the five-ton images carved

by

the Easter Islanders, the Polynesian statues

are characterized

by an

intuitive feeling for

masses in formal relationship and for simple

The two

large-eyed, squat-

shown above

are variations of a

melodic rhythms.
figured images

type recognizable as Marquesan.

cate

primitively simple stone figures

The

basic sculpture than are those of the Melane-

survival

of

primitive

They

indi-

feeling direct,

vigorous statement and instinctive squaring of

forms, relieved by only the barest detailing and

ornamentation.
In the colossal stone idol from Easter

Marquesas Islands. Mtisec de I'Homme, Paris

Marquesas Islands. University Musciiniy Philadelphia

Is-

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

land where surviving statues range up
times human size and to a weight of
tons the main masses

to ten

almost barren fragment of the earth, but they

thirty

developed a surprising range of sculptural ex-

are hardly less compact,

pression.

though the edges are cut

crude colossi in stone, there are

rhythms are linear

more sharply and the

effect. One of the wonis that stonecutting was

fully polished stylized

in

ders of Polynesian art

accomplished
tools.

with

stone

instead

(In smaller work, tools of

of

metal

shell, or tools

incorporating a boar's tusk or a shark's tooth,

were sometimes used.)

The Easter Islanders occupy a remote and

or even a rat's tooth,

405

Besides

elemental

the

wood with an almost

and rather

many

beauti-

images, fashioned in

sophisticated regard for

melodic line and flowing contour.

distinc-

tive type is illustrated in the ancestral figure

with

its

elliptical

masklike head, excrescent

ribs,

and

limbs (below).

Within Polynesia, excepting

the art of sculpture

is

New

Zealand,

best represented thus

by three-dimensional statues and statuettes.

Many relief carvings in wood from the Cook
Islands

Idol. Stone, colossal. Polynesian.

Easter Island. British Museum

and Samoa

are interesting for their

Ancestral figure. Wood. Easter Island.

University Museum, Philadelphia

rich patterning,

and there are hair ornaments

canned in bone from the Marquesas Islands.

But the

and of decorative

art of rehef-cutting,

elaboration in the combined media of bas-relief and painting, will

work of the natives of

by
Guinea and of

best be illustrated

Nevi^

the Maoris.
Idols,

ancestral images,

and

fetishistic fig-

ures found in the smaller Polynesian islands

indicate a

common

acteristic

idioms

The

racial ancestry,

that

spell

illustrated larger-than-life

with a frightening mask

presents

Woman is

war-god.

Fijian,

is

with char-

local

tradition.

wooden

figure

Hawaiian and

The

peaceful

re-

little

from an island on the fringe

of the Melanesian culture.

The

New Guinea in MelaHere the characterful face and the

sheerly carved body contrast effectively with

is

Oracle figure. Wood.

University

oracle figure

New Guinea.

Museum, Philadelphia

from the island of

nesia.

the ornamental screen.

(The

piece

is

twelve

Woman. Wood.

Fiji Islands.

National Museum, Washington.

CCotirtesy

Museum

of

Modern

Art,

inches high.)

V^

>J'"C^', "V*

War-God. Wood. Hawaii.

Peabody Museum, Salem, Massachusetts

New

York')

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

407

The sculptors among the Maoris of New

Zealand had a distinctive native style and
seldom concerned themselves with free-standing figures.

The

best of their art consisted of

richly carved relief patterns with incidental

human

forms,

embellishing the prows and

stem-boards of canoes, and the

pillars,

beams,

and window-frames of the great assembly-houses. These communal buildings functioned as combined men's clubhouses and
holy arcana. The decorated weapons also are
very fine, and minor objects in jade, especially
the Hei-tiki, are exquisitely cut and polished,
lintels,

often with bold yet sensitive sculptural feeling.

The

distinctive curvilinear style of design

illustrated in the

canoe prows.

The

two house
art of the

lintels

Maoris indicates

a strong feeling for the contrast of

and

richly

main motive

embellished but subdued

Lintel.

is

and the
Whale ivory; jade. Maori. University
Museum, Philadelphia; Brooklyn Museum

Hei-Tikis.

relief,

Wood. Maori. New Zealand. Peabody Museum, Salem.

^Courtesy Museum of Modern Art, New Yorfe)

Canoe prow. Wood. Maori.

New Zealand.

American Museum of Natural History

408

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

New

Zealand.

British

Museum

Hei-Tikis. Greenstone. Maori.

University Museum, Philadelphia; British

Museum

Lintel.

Wood. Maori.

Canoe prow. Wood. Maori. New Zealand.

American Museum of Natural History

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

whereas,

in

general,

South Sea decorative

carving was rich in aimless patterning.

The

figures that stand out are, of course, stricdy

conventionalized,

mony with

if

not geometrized, in har-

the mathematically conceived

all-

Maori

of

flute or paddle, or

food bowl or

and

ceremonies,

socio-religious

it

doubtless had spiritual and totemic meanings.

For

elaboration and ultimate fantasy the

South Sea Islanders are rivaled in the rest of
the world only among the distantly related

Malayan

over design.

max

409

peoples, or those of Borneo, Bali,

and

Java.

is

The Melanesian style has affinity with elements in Indian and Sinhalese art, which

the fruit of an instinctive urge to create and

lends credence to the theory that the Pacific

toilet

box, lovingly carved with traditionally

significant

and patently

attractive designs,

made

way

be surrounded with beautiful objects.

tribes

The

best of the arts of Melanesia are to be

Indo-Chinese and Malayan peninsulas. Their

New Guinea
and the nearby archipelagoes known as the
Admiralty Islands, New Ireland and New
Britain,
the Solomon Islands, the New
Hebrides, and New Caledonia. The gaudily
exotic and colorfully fanciful, even grotesque
nature of the designs, often in combined sculpture and painting, is matched occasionally by
pieces that are simple, sober, and dignified.
The departure from natural forms, the expres-

ethnic background of Indo-European, Dravid-

to

found on the immense island of

sionistic distortion,

does not preclude the carv-

ing of heads and masks as nearly

the

wooden one from

New Britain.

realistic as

(Page 410.)

Among

masks the bark-cloth one below is gorgeously decorative and inhumanly grotesque,

more typical example. It is a

property used by dramatic dancers at the cli-

and

is

the

Mask. Bark

cloth. Melanesian.

New

their

as

immigrants from the

ian,

and Mongolian

fied

with a Negroid element.

The

less elaborate

strains

was further modi-

masks of the Melanesians

include types nearer to basic sculpture and

extraordinarily

interesting

approximations of the
are

sometimes

and

human

near-abstract.

imaginative
visage.

The

They

sculptor

began with the elements of the face but

lowed

his aesthetic fancy to lead

visionary design

him

al-

off into

and decorative improvisation.

sometimes produced
masks which are incomprehensible to us need
not blind us to his amazing virtuosity in creating such effective analogues (at once sug-

That

his

imagination

gesting and denying the

human

visage) as

the elongated one on the following page.

Britain.

American Museum of Natural History

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

410

which featured a
meet the chin or
considered bv some ethnolopists

conventionalization

long hook nose curved in

the breast

is

to

as representing a bird beak.

To

others

it is

proboscis very exaggerated

shown.
terly

The

kind of carving,

different

The

survival of an elephant's trunk, in direct line

nesian

minor carving suggests a

the

Hindus and the Indonesians. In the

illu-

with

the

stration

highly

stylized

figure,

is

an

is

ut-

on a fan

handle, similar to the squat, large-eyed Poly-

from the well-known elephant-faced

idols of

and prominent,

fourth illustration here

idols.

different continent:

totem-pole

form of

racial

link

this

to

to the "native" races of

North America.
Ancestor mask. Wood, clay, shell, and seeds,
painted. latmul, recent. Sepik River area. New
Guinea. Lowie Museum of Anthropology,
University of California, Berkeley

m.

isri

^^^"^^

^^^<^1

Mask. Wood. Melanesian. New Britain.

Chicago Museum of Natural History

Totemic carving, ivory fan handle.

Polynesian. Marquesas Islands.
University

Museum, Philadelphia

Figure with a proboscis or trunk. Wood.

Melanesian. New Guinea. University Museum,
Philadelphia

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

Decorative compositions such as the dance

and

shield

Trobriand

the

Islands

type

beautiful

prow ornament from

of

particularly

illustrate

low-relief

carving,

with

and painting. The bird motive,

perforations

the beak,

especially

the

conventionalized

is

al-

most beyond recognition.

It is

and

the social objectives

and the emotions and the sexual

taboos,

codes of the dark-skinned races in order to

enjoy

many

much

of

the

ever, after

respond
purity

sculptured figures

carved

ornamentation.

some exposure

sometimes
utensils,

the

of

repellent

even
to

and

How-

to the strange

effigies,

masks,

Western-trained

and

and
and

perceptions

aesthetic values of a remarkable

a

master of fundamental sculptural design,

creating plastic works of an amazingly direct

expressiveness.

He

compelling

intensity.

Negro, especially, reveals himself

The

as instinc-

Canoe prow ornament. Wood. Trobriand

Guinea. Chicago

Museum

Islands,
of Natural History

The

the

to

virtues

of his art are the basic ones of formal signifi-

cance and

lyric invention.

and

massive

primitive examples the stone

effect.

When wood

an

essentially

is

three-dimensional
is

art

of

In

solids.

implicit in the

became the medium, the

sense of the trunk as cylinder pervaded the

design.

Only

a small

number

of major stone relics

from ancient times or ancient cultures

re-

mains, and the primitively heavy things

re-

semble those found

Sumer

at

comparable

or Egypt, or the

Amerindian

the two figurines

levels in

lands.

Of

shown from French Guinea,

only the second exhibits mannerisms, or ac-

complishments,

New

seldom succumbed

easy lure of naturalistic appeal.

African sculpture

necessary to understand something of

the religious impulses,

tive

411

uniquely

belonging

to

the

(Page 412, center and right.)

Woodcarvings, on the other hand, display

Negro

artist.

a full mastery of plastic expressiveness.

Ceremonial dance
Islands.

shield. Melanesian.

The

Trobriand

Newark Museum, Newark, New

Jersey

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

412

Ritual Figure, with arms raised in supplication,

the

is

a supremely simple work in which

meaning

is

conveyed directly and instan-

taneously. Sculptural form

enforce one

impression.

intellectually

knowing

unable

manipulated

were often

thus

Here body measurements have

tionship

to

intensified.

directly.

little

human anatomy, but

gesture, the essential

meaning,

is

rela-

the

one

profoundly

The Standing Woman,

also

Bambara

no

the facing page, a

to

Sculptors of older,

civilizations

emotion

express

to

is

piece,

is

on
less

summary and expressive. It and the Figure

Holding a Bag (below, left), from the Bahuana, show a considerable advance as

human dimensions and sinand the Rhythm Pounder (page

transcriptions of
gularities;

Figure Holding a Bag. Wood. Bahuana. Gabon.

Matisse Gallery, New York

"Pierre

414) shows conspicuous mastery of human

anatomy, with a marvelous study of facial expression.

The

headdress of

wood with

a hide

covering returns us to the simplest primitive

expression, superbly direct

and packed with

means are not ob-

feeling.

The

trusive.

In spite of the unrealistic features,

the

whole

expressionist

visage

is

understandable

and

soundly sculptural.

A
the

familiar subject in African sculpture

woman

is

holding a bowl. In this group

one commonly finds the primitive directness

and solidity, the carelessness of nature, the
intensification

of a

single idea or emotion,

and the intuitive playing up of the material,

wood, for its fullest sculptural appeal. The
example in the British Museum is twenty
inches high and representative of all these
Figurines. Stone. African, Kissi.

French Guinea. Musee de I'Homnte, Paris

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

Ritual Figure. Wood. Warega. Congo.
Collection of John P. Anderson,

Red Wing, Minnesota

Standing
Brooklyn

Woman. Wood. Bambara. French Sudan

Museum

413

414

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

Man QRhythm

Pounder^. Wood.

Senufo. Ivory Coast.

Museum

of Primitive Art

Headdress for dance. Wood, with hide.

Ibibio. Nigeria.

Museum

of Primitive Art

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

The

qualities.

reduced

to

relatively long arms, the torso

the same thickness as the neck,

and the skimped and

arbitrarily

curved-in

legs are details in a process of shaping the

figure

to

scheme.

vigorous and weighty rhvthmic

To be

ornamentation,

Some

noted also
scar

is

the one touch of

patterns

on the trunk.

authorities believe that the

many com-

415

From the Baluba tribe in the Congo there

many carved stools, following a few gen-

are

which the seat is held

up by a single figure or grouped figures. The
same loving care is given to the cutting and
eralized patterns, in

polishing of the figures in these utilitarian

pieces as
religious

is

evident in the religious or semi-

masks and ancestral

figures.

like-

which a woman holds a bowl

constitute no more than a sort of genre art;
but others regard them as offering figures,

stool-figures suggests

designed to be placed before the dwellings

the singlefigure composition and the double-

positions in

of

women

upon

Woman
British

unable

to

work and dependent

charity.

with a Bowl. Wood. Baluba. Congo.

Museum

ness in the faces of large

numbers

continuing repetition of

a standard face. Yet, as

may be

figure stool illustrated, there

interest in

Woman

of the

is

seen from

a wealth of

each separate object.

Supporting Seat. Wood. Baluba. Congo.

Collection of Congregation des Orphelins d'Auteuil,

Paris. (^Courtesy Musee de I'Homme')

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

416

The predominant
as in the three

the

medium;

known

quality in

heads here,

is

the figures,

the feeling for

anonjTnous

artists

have

intuitively the susceptibility of

wood

the

to fluent cutting

and high

polish, appealing

trations.

from the standard figure in

purely
serious

variation

An

in

may be

memory

amazing amount

of character has been infused into

the fetishes, as

found in the ivory fetishes of the

Baluba and Bapende tribes in the Congo.
Miniature masks as well as miniature figures
were carved as little pocket-pieces or pendants

wood

have been carried

are said to

many

seen from the

some of the depictions seem

If

of

illus-

to

non-native eyes to border on caricature, the

to the touch.

and

of important ancestors.

is

Figures Supporting Seat.

sculptural

and

Through
pression

types

is

virtues

are

nevertheless

expert.

the wide range of masks the ex-

conventional and impersonal.

and the materials

Wood. Warua. Congo. Museum

fiir

are

as

Volkerkiinde, Berlin

-ah*^i55r>-z>*i

The

varied

as

Head. Congo.
University

Museum, Philadelphia

Heads and figures: fetishes. Ivory. Baluba and

Bapende. Congo. Museum of Science, Buffalo;

Museum

African Venus. Wood. Collection

of Louis Carre, Paris. (^Courtesy

Museum

of

Modern

Art,

New

York')

Head. Wood ^vith metal. Fang.

Gabon. Museum of Primitive Art

of Primitive Art

among
there

the American Indians, and in general

an "abstraction" of the

is

face,

approaches the nonobjective. Deity

sonal
cally.

is

which
imper-

and cannot be thought of naturalistiBut a mask symbol of divinity, to

endow

the wearer with deity during a dra-

matic dance or ceremony, recalls the only

real

countenance known

to

human.
There is no show element

the

audience,

the

in the masks.

In the carving, the creator follows a tradition

and endeavors

or custom

to please the

gods

or spirits. Yet the aesthetic values are real

and pure. The grasp

of the basic elements of

design, the relieving of

symmetry by

a slight

asymmetry, the knowing use of geometrical

equivalents

for

the

individualized

human

and
and hollow; above
all, the rhythmic organization of the sculp
tural masses these are matters for wonder
and delight. (See also page 403.)
features, the effective reversal of positive

negative, or protuberance

Antelope mask. Wood, painted. Guro.

Ivory Coast. Lowie Museum of Anthropology,
University of California, Berkeley

Mask. Wood. Guro. Ivory Coast.

University

Museum, Philadelphia

Mask. Wood. Baule. Ivory Coast.

University

Museum, Philadelphia

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

The
tical

objects next illustrated are for prac-

bobbins

use,

Coast

Ivory

tribes.

among

originating

The rhythmic

the

contours

and, in the woman's head, the counterplay

of

ornamental ridgings are admirable.

gazelle

of

and the antelope head

fanciful

French

design,

Sudan.

Tjiwara head,

is

ism noticeable in
In

the

not

as

a fully mastered

fifteenth

primitive

in

in

kingdom
Nigeria.
to

traders brought
civilization

back reports of
Benin,

of

what

of the Bini people, in

The

is

the

now

Bini were sufficiently advanced

have a capital with broad avenues and

the

bronze heads, figures, and

by

the

difficult

reliefs

cire-ferdue

produced

process,

are

mostly scattered in European and American

art.

ex-

Bobbins: animal; human. Baule. Ivory Coast.

Musee de I'Homme

Collection Louis Carre, Paris;

and

remarkable

sumptuously decorated public buildings. The

remains of their art, including innumerable

manner-

century Portuguese

the

the

are examples

uncommon

Streamlining,

much

The

plorers

419

museums and

private collections.

Tjiwara, bobbin.

Wood. Bambara. French Sudan.

Museum, Philadelphia

University

The two bronze heads illustrated are of

common types. The Head of a Bini Girl indicates a departure of the Bini artists

extreme expressionism that

is

from the

standard over

most of Negro Africa; though, aside from the

face, reahsm gives way before a strictly con-

The

ventionalized stylization.

Museum

in the
is

It

typical of

may

fiir

second Head,

Volkerkunde

in Berlin,

an archaic period of Benin

date back to the fifteenth century.

so-called classical period that followed

to

have been terminated

late

teenth century during terrible

in

art.

The

seems

:he seven-

civil

wars.

During the centuries of the greatest prosperity of Benin there was a school of ivorycarvers that turned out some of the most
intricate and elaborate pieces known to the
art, and many other crafts were practiced
efficiently. The Leopard shown is an ivory
piece studded with copper. The Lion, a work
of the Dahomans, who lived to the west of
the Bini in what is now a state in its own
has achieved a considerable fame.

right,

It

was fabricated in territory where metal casting was hardly known, and has the appearance of a solid or hollow
actually

silver piece,

whereas

shaped in wood with patches of

sheathing nailed on with silver

silver
It is

it is

nails.

one of the rare African sculptures sug-

gesting Oriental influences, possibly from the

Chad

the northeast, where the

mixed
Negro and Arab. In
population was

Head

of a Bini Girl. Bronze. Benin. Nigeria.

British Museum

district

to

Lion. Silver over vpood. Dahomey. Formerly

Ratton Collection. (^Courtesy Musee de I'Homme^

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

Head. Bronze. Nigeria.
Volkerhunde, Berlin.
QCourtcsy Musee de IHomme')

Museum

fiir

Leopard. Ivory and copper. Benin. Nigeria.

British

Museum

l?ak

421

422

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

Ethiopia

and through

considerable

area

southward, true Arabs, from Saudi Arabia,

had

infihrated

Negroes.

Chad

and

The Arabs who had

district

infihrated the

were rather the product of

blending of several

centuries-old

with

intermarried

races,

in

Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and other regions.

Dahomey and Benin

Between
territory of

Yoruba, and

it

is

lies

the

there that the

most recent and some of the most renowned

finds of African sculptural treasures have

been

made.

Extraordinarily

accomplished

heads in terra cotta were unearthed

and a

at Ife,

collection of related heads in bronze

has been found.

to the

standard

the

of

heads belong

portrait type, as

El

at

Amarna

to

the

known many

in Egypt.

tery passed to or

psychological

centuries before

How

a similar mas-

was developed by the sub-

tribe Ife is a mystery.

Formerly

was suggested

it

made

bronzes had been

that the

Benin

possible because a

European explorer had taught the Negroes

the cire-'perdue or lost-wax process of casting.

Now

it

seems more likely that centuries ago

the Bini inherited the process from an older

culture in

Ife.

The

bronzes and

bronzes from Benin and

terra-cottas

from

Ife

both terra-cottas

greatly to the sculptural prestige of the

near these Ifan

race.

realistic portraiture

Some

character as well as outer appearance.

the

The examples shown, of

and bronzes, indicate how
works are

Europe. Their lifelikeness reveals inner

of

After

the

razing of Benin

Heads. Clay. Ife. Nigeria.

QPhotos courtesy Musee de I'Homme')

add

Negro

City by the

THE SOUTH SEAS AND NEGRO AFRICA

much

423

There is a local legend that a king of Benin

begged a metal-caster from the nearby Ife

and animals and a notable series of rewhich sumptuously decorated the palace
walls of baked mud.
In some tribal areas the sculpture of the

The

people, mostly in woodcar\'ing, remained crea-

whites in 1897, research revealed

about

the history of the sculptural art of the Bini.

tribe

and

Bini

artists

set

up

a guild of metalworkers.

quickly excelled in the

art,

which

flowered about 1500, the period of the bronze

heads. In bronze also there were

human

fig-

ures

liefs

tive

up

to the

nineteenth or even the twen-

century.

Now,

in spite of continuous

crumbling of

tribal

traditions

tieth

and

extraor-

dinary political changes, African sculptors are

continuing

to

send out trade pieces of good

quality, higher in aesthetic value than

folk exports.

British

Heads. Bronze. Benin; Ife. Nigeria.

fiir Volkerkuude, Berlin. QCouHesy Miisee de VHomme')

Museum; Museum

most

i6:

Amerindian Sculpture

and

the

Mexican-Mayan Masters
I

SINCE

the Amerindians who occupied

North America before the white man arrived

area;

never rose out of a near-primitive

generally elaborate and often over life size,

whether cut by the Tlingit of Alaska, the
Kwakiutl of British Columbia, or the Iroquois

is

status, there

an appearance of Stone Age monumental-

ity,

of primitive heaviness, about the earHer

sculpture found throughout the territory. This

larly those
to

the

few

cultures, particu-

coast, even down

when white men invaded the

on the northwest

time

Killer

On

the whole, the relics from

Canada and

the United States are mostly minor or miniature manifestations, or are restricted to a nar-

row kind

Whale. Shaman's charm. Whalebone.

Portland Art

monumental totem poles are eviand the ceremonial masks were

this,

of the East Coast woodlands.

particular attribute of basic sculptural expres-

siveness survived in a

the

dence of

Museum,

of stvlization.

The

Tlingit. Sitka, Alaska.

Vortlatui,

Oregon

aboriginal

North

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE
American continent has yielded such diverse
rehcs

Mound

carved

the

as

tobacco

Builders of the

pipes

of

the

Middle West and

South, the bird stones and banner stones of

the East, the Eskimo bone and ivory carvings,
and the groups of miniature effigies of animals, such as the whales of the Channel
Islands of California, the sheep of the Zuiiis,

and the

Lenni Lenape on the

turtles of the

East Coast.

The most

productive tribes were situated

along the northwest coast from the Columbia River Valley north to Alaska,

where the

figure

states,

the larger pieces rare.

There

are

where

known and

some

indica-

clay vessels with figures,

and influence from Mexican
cultures. The Mound Builders were Stone
Age men, and their mounds were tumuli and
tions, especially in

of contact with

mounds,

in

var\'ing

shapes.

The

in the shapes of animals

and

approached sculpture in conception.

ettes in stone

and clay are

fairly

effigy

birds,

civilization of the

Mayas

in

Mexico and Central America is traced back to

Mongolian or Mongoloid racial stock represented by the Amerindians north of the Rio
Grande. There is litde information as to what
happened to these southern cousins of the
Eskimos from the time when the parent

when

the small stone sculptures are best

the

least practiced forms.

The advanced

to

Ohio, and the middle Southern

enclosures

one of the

Christ,

and opulently decorated chest and domestic

utensil, is not surpassed in any part of the
United States or Canada.
Next in importance was the Mound Builder
culture of the Midwestern states, especially

of

community), the Hopi,

and the Navajos, were, and still are, very
accomplished in the arts, but sculpture was

bridge,

to expressive

those

(originally a Pueblo

mask

and elaborate totem

tribes,

Southwest, including the Pueblos, the Zuni

and Tlingit
The range here, from heavy stone

cultures of the Kwakiutl, Haida,

flourished.

Another complex of

425

migrated from Asia, by

way

the time well before the

the

founders

tribes

of the Aleutian

of

the

life

of

Mayan

empire emerged with a culture of a level

higher than any other on the continent. Their

amazingly proficient sculpture in stone was

accomplished with

tools

of hard

stone ob-

and flint. The cities of the Mayan

Classic began to be deserted in the seventh

sidian

The people migrated north into

now Yucatan, and there a new Mayan

century.

what

is

empire prospered from about looo onward,

though in sculpture
less

its

achievements were

notable than those of the old or Classic

empire.

The

beginnings of Middle American

are hidden, but there

art

were two main areas of

Statu-

common, but

the carved pipes comprise the most remarkable realistic figurative sculpture in the

Amer-

indian collections.

The

prehistoric arts

among

the Eskimos of

coming of the white

man and possibly date back one thousand
years or more. The Arctic Eskimos are now
believed to be a part of the largely Mongolian
the Arctic preceded the

people

who once

ringed the vast polar

sea.

In

Greenland and on the north Canadian shores

and in Alaska the Eskimos developed their
separate culture, quite diff'erent from that of
the Eurasian shore-lands which formed a halffrom the present Bering Strait
through the frozen northern areas of Siberia

circle opposite,

and Russia

to

Lapland.

Hawk. Platform pipe. Stone. Hopewell Culture.

Tremper Mound, Ohio. Ohio State Museum.
(Photo courtesy Museum of Modern Art, Neiv York)

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

426

development, one in the Valley of Mexico

(the present Mexico City district), the other

American primitive work, to exquisite jade

carvings and little clay figures fantastically

comprising southern Yucatan and parts of

elaborated.

Honduras and Guatemala. Apart from the

but

The Totonacs were also long established

on the Gulf coast, to the north of the Olmecs.

as

the

The

and

the

a full range of clay sculpture, and

were

central cultures there

artistically

Olmecs

productive

(predating

less civilized

peoples

the

such

Mayas)

Zapotecs.

cial

Mexico

Relics from the Valley of

tion can be roughly
tec,

grouped

and Aztec, in chronological

six

which

and symbolic

artistic

genius of the ancient

Age

as

spe-

yoke-

designs.

The

art.

mains.

fourteenth century their

the

power was weakened by other invading peoples. Toltec sculpture, based on that of the
culture,

was

products in jade and in clay.

established

puzzle

first

to

American

in connection with the

the Southwest.

Pueblo

pueblos, the foundation date of any pueblo

The Toltecs

gave

Tenochtitlan

or

could be ascertained.

New

argon-dating systems are

is

known

that

man

rounding nations so that when the Spaniards

arrived they ruled most of Mexico.
lived east of the Valley of
city of Veracruz.

The

range

remarkable, from colossal

apparendy related

to

Central

carbon-dating and

now

widely used.

It

has inhabited the conti-

era, and migration

America may have begun as early as
unearthed
years ago,
as
forty thousand
weapons indicate. It is believed that from

gated not only the Toltecs but the other sur-

is

of

and

into

Mexico, near the

was devised

civilization of

By an ingenious method

nent since the Pleistocene

of their sculpture

re-

archaeologists.

firm structure of dates

Mexico City in 1325 and eventually subju-

The Olmecs

archaeological

dating of pre-Columbian art has been

great

The

for

masks and in

before the next empire-building tribe, the

They

The
a

region has not yet been sys-

explored

counting tree-rings in wood found in old

interesting

varied, especially in the stone

heads,

some

and west of the Valley of Mexico, produced

works of heavy stone, a near-primitive Stone

and frightening. The Toltecs were an invading tribe with no known

background, who ruled from the tenth cen-

stone

such

Guerrero, a generally mountainous state south

general, barbaric

Aztecs.

vast buildings,

Yet another culture, of the Mezcalas in

tematically

way

its

ex-

and

Teotihuacan

for

stonecarving,

of

valley people. Their large sculpture was, in

tury until in

famous

square miles not far from the

present Mexico City, are witness to the native

originality

types

is

shaped stones, richly carved with decorative

The

order.

architectural ruins of Teotihuacan,

tend over

civiliza-

as archaic, Tol-

culture

about the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic

period wave after wave of migrants entered

North America by

a route across the Bering

Strait.

Whale. Stone. Chumash. Catalina Island, California. Museum of the American Indian

II

TH

animal figures pictured here are

physically

mon

small

but

aspect of massiveness.

There

com-

Seldom nearer

are

some

ple shown, the pointed or "mountain" stones

up to one-half life size and over,

and the totem poles of the Northwest are
monumental in a restricted, conventionalized
mode. There are, too, the masks, face-size and
stone figures

over,

from

tribes east

the "triangular stone," illustrated on page 428.

illustrate

and west; the one on

naturalism than the exam-

to

exhibit an intuitive feeling for near-abstract

too,

Sculpturally

massing.

sculptural

stonelike,

with a tendency toward abstract

tion of the

mask

human

at the

features,

Museum

is

altera-

the Caribbean

of Primitive Art,

New

page 428 is a superb example. Nevertheless

Indian sculpture in the United States and

York. (Illustrated on page 429.)

Canada

forms, as in the thousands of banner stones

is

oftenest in miniature form, though

The

stylization

may

appear in more refined

and bird stones of the Northeastern and Cen-

primitively heavy.

The Mountain Sheep from

studied observation. Simple, st)'lized objects,

tral
Indians, or the woodcarvings of the
Northwest Indians. The bird stones and the
banner stones reveal a difference between two

however, are

at the heart of the

kinds of abstract

achievement.

They may be roughly

a mortar (illustrated

ized,

Arizona, really

on page 428), indicates

even crude images, such

both useful and

fetishistic

Amerindian

as

formal-

appear in

objects from the

The virtues of the

human heads, as shown

Antilles.

pestles

with

at

carved

page 28 of

the "Primitive Sculpture" chapter, are simple

and

close to the native rock, as are those of

Seal.

Charm.

acter

New

the bird stones are semi-

from the

subject.

The banner

stones,

on

the other hand, are fully nonobjective.

As miniature sculpture
sign,

the

of symmetrical de-

banner stones (probably used

as

added weights on spear-throwers) are outstanding. There are variations known as cres-

Stone. Tlingit. Alaska. Portland Art

Sheep. Stone. Zuni.

art:

abstract compositions, each stone taking char-

Museum,

Portland, Oregon

Mexico. University Museum, Philadelphia

Mask. Stone, painted. Tsimshian. British Columbia. National Museum of Canada, Ottawa.
^Courtesy Loivie Museum, University of California, Berkeley')

Mountain stone. Arawak culture.

Dominican Republic. Musee de I'Homme

Mountain Sheep. Mortar. Stone. 700-900

Arizona. Museum of the American Indian

"\""flpTOllfft

a.d.

^B

i.:'*^-^^^^H3|^B

^R

'''\j^

1
Bird stones. Georgia; Michigan; Illinois.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arensherg Collection;
Collection of A. Bradley Martin,
courtesy Brooklyn Museum;
Museum of the American Indian

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

Banner

stone.

Mound

429

Builders Culture. Possibly a.d. SOO.Ohio.

Gallery, New York

Andre Emmerich

cent stones, lunar stones, spade stones,

and these

mere ornaments.

objects or amulets, or

The

etc.,

are thought to have been ceremonial

abstract or semi-abstract "stones" are

found over

a considerable part of the United

from the central Mississippi Valley
eastward and in nearby parts of Canada.
Many of the fine specimens have been collected from the country of the Iroquois and
States,

the Algonquins.

Stone tobacco pipes were chiefly the product of the

Mound

Builders,

who

probably for some centuries before

flourished
a.d.

500.

The culture had disappeared when the white

men pushed into the territory west of the
Appalachians. There are undecorated pipes

and non-figurative
a carved animal

designs, but the pipe with

is

Sometimes an
between bowl and

standard.

otter crouches in the angle

stem, or a squirrel decorates the front of the

bowl. Oftener the bowl

of a crow or a dog, or
soft

Mask. Stone. Arawak. Puerto Rico.

Museum of Primitive Art, New York

stones

is

rises

up from

hollowed in

the back
it.

Fairly

were used. The two platform

Double Goose. Pipe. Stone. Hopewell Mound.

Ohio State Museum

Hawk;

Otter with Fish. Pipes. Stone. Mound

Builders Culture. Tennessee; Ohio. Museum of the
American Indian; Ohio State Museum. QPhotos
courtesy Museum of Modern Art, New York')
pipes,

one with a hawk (page 425) and the

fish, are exam-

other showing an otter with a

ples of observant

reaKsm and have notable

sculptural quality.

The

human

standing

Mound

in

Ohio,

formalization

is

pipe in the form of a

figure,
is

among

rare

from

Adena

the

unusual. This type of

the Indians of the

Eastern and Central States. There

is

unmis-

takable stylistic evidence of a connection with

the art of Mexico and Central America.

The

totem poles, usually great trees carved

with the heraldic insignia of family or clan,

are a most spectacular exhibit, but they should

be seen in their native

example, in stone,
fective

method

setting.

miniature

illustrates the curiously ef-

of squaring the

main forms,

deep inand with fluent rounding of the minor

forms. The totemic motives and significance
then carving as

in relief, without

if

cisions

are present also

charms and

is

tricate

Tennessee; Ohio State

Museum

carved wooden masks,

wooden boxes with panels
in such

minor objects

sucking tubes, spoons, and dishes.

ing

effigy pipes. Stone. Mound Builders

Culture. Tennessee; Ohio. University of

in

rattles,

and even

in relief,

Human

The

as

carv-

of a distinctive style, vigorous yet in-

and

subtle, as indicated in the ivory

shaman's charm and the composition of bird

and

frog.

The commoner

types of ceremonial masks

are fanciful or grotesque, or constitute geo-

metric

nance.

abstractions of the human counteThe Kwakiutl mask (page 432) is a

direct expression in the heavy, highly decorative style of carving to

poles.

in

the

The Cowichan
truest

sense,

be seen in the totem

mask, while sculpture

illustrates

the

way

in

which the Indians of the Northwest utilized

paints and stains to enrich their carvings. The

1*

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

Shaman's charm. Ivory. Haida.

Island. Chicago Natural History

431

Queen Charlotte

Museum

Totemic composition of bird and frog. Wood.

Volkerkundemuseum, Munich.
QArchiv fUr Kunst und Geschichte^

Totem pole. Stone. Vancouver.

Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Rattle.

Wood, leather, etc. Tlingit.

Museum, Philadelphia

University

432

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE
masks are

ritualistic

objects,

and

in general

they represent famed ancestors or

the animal that

is

spirits,

or

the totemic ancestor or pro-

tector of family or clan.

The Kwakiutl mask

an articulated
two compositions, a
bird's head and the man-mask. It is enriched
with a great deal of painting and with patches

dance mask,

of cedar bark.
that of the

at right,

consists of

The

man,

lower jaw of the bird, like

is

movable by

the painted flaps can be

carved face.

The whole

is

drawn

strings,

an impressive and

original expression of Indian religious

and native

and

in over the

custom

skills.

In contrast a pair of carvings in the simple

sculptural tradition

mask

is

a traditional

is

shown.

The

ancestral

one and depicts the soul

man. The eagle head is a superb

from
the Haida tribe, whose territory
carving
was in southern Alaska and the Queen
of a dead

Charlotte Islands off British Columbia.

Tlingits w^ere

Mask. Wood, painted. Kwakiutl.

American Museum of Natural History

an Alaskan

The
tribe.

Dead Man. Mask. Wood. Tlingit.

Wrangell, Alaska. Portland Art Museum

Spirit of

Mask. Wood, painted. Cowichan.

Denver Art Museum

essentially

Articulated dance mask.

Head
Wales

Wood,

bark, paint. Probably Kwakiutl. Portland Art

of Eagle. Mask. Wood. Haida. Prince of

Island. Portland Art Museum

Museum

Head. Mortar. Stone. Columbia River culture.

Sauvies Island. Portland Art Museum

^^^^^^^^^

Mask. Wood. Eskimo. Southwest Alaska. Lowie Museum, University of California, Berkeley.
CPhoto courtesy Museum of Modern Art, New York')

There was interchange of style between

and the southern Eskimos, especially in masks. The Eskimo ceremonial masks
were on the whole less ostentatious. The
these tribes

an extension of the culture or style northward to Puget Sound and the Eraser River.

strange mask-with-appurtenances from south-

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Eskimo sculpture has tended toward the realistic and the graphic, and nowhere is it monu-

west Alaska

is

an Eskimo product, probably

of the nineteenth century, and

the

is

prophetic of

twentieth century experiments in

structivism in Europe.

The

are generally included in the culture

as

Northwest Indian.
Most of the Northwest

con-

southern Eskimos

known

art is primitive ex-

pression of a comparatively recent time.

But

mental.

Some

centuries

earlier,

however,

had been an Eskimo culture, centered

in the Bering Sea area, which produced designs richer in decorative values, and sculpture in the round with more serious implications. The Seal is one of the rare pieces
surviving from the Old Bering Sea civilizathere

remarkably

tion. It is

and

vital

both as representa-

markings

at the lowest border of the territory, in the

tion

Columbia River Valley, relics of a prehistoric

culture have been found. The Head (page
433) is a mortar from Sauvies Island on the
Columbia River, where many of the some-

are patently like the linear tracings

times utilitarian, sometimes free pieces have

how

been found.

It

opment

Stone Age cultures in other parts

is to

of the world.
vital, direct in

tuitively

suggests

It is a

close the devel-

typically primitive piece,

expression, unadorned,

sculptural.

There

and

in-

are evidences of

as sculptural creation. Its

on the
winged object shown with it. In
marks the old Eskimo artifacts are

near-abstract
their style

not too unlike those of the Gilyaks of Eastern

Siberia, a Neolithic people supposed to

an unbroken history of

thirty

from a cave-man beginning. (The cave

of

Europe

have

thousand years

men

lived at the edges of icefields, as

do

the Eskimos, and were similarly hunters of

the reindeer.)

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

Man

435

with Wings, back. Ivory. Old Bering Sea culture, Northwest Alaska.
University Museum, Philadelphia

Seal. Ivory.

Old Bering Sea

Alaska. American

Museum

culture. Northwest
of Natural History

There are many clay vessels from the

Lower Mississippi Valley and from the south
Appalachian area which were modeled as
both pot and statue. The motives and methods suggest a link with the ancient Mexican
cultures, but no evidence of direct contact

The

has been established.

phase of Amerindian

art

tendency of

this

toward realism sug-

gests the existence, several centuries ago, of

F.ffigy jar.

Clay. Arkansas.

Museum

of the

American Indian

an

art culture far

advanced in the

skills

of

representation, extending across the southern

states

to

from Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana

Georgia and Florida, with a northern ex-

tension in Ohio.

The

pipes of the

Mound

Builders, adorned

with near-realistic animals, and such frankly

realistic clav jars as the one illustrated here,
as well as the

wooden masks dredged

Marco, imply a viadespread talent

tively

Head

representational
is

carving.

one of the most

at

Key

for sensi-

The

Deer's

lifelike things to

discovered in the range of Amerindian

which, like the Asian

motely descended,

and

decorative.

is

art

from which

it

be
art,

re-

usually unreal, formal,

Deer's Head. Mask.

Wood. Key Marco,

QPhoto courtesy

The

first

of the

Museum

Middle American

speci-

mens of sculpture illustrated is tj^pically heavy

and massive. This man seated on a bench (a
difficult subject to

style)

is

compose in

stone, in

any

lifelike,

if

sum-

Modern

body of known Mayan work

broken away
from combinations of low and high relief,
like the two heads from the ruins of the city
of Copan in Honduras. They were attached
greater

in relief, or exists in fragments

EflBgy jars. Clay.

Mound

Art,

Museum,

ISIeiv

Philadelphia.

York")

parts of architectural relief sculptures, beauti-

Mayan

fully expressive of the

purpose of im-

personal and hieratic representation.

both sensitive and soundly

The
is

They

are

lithic.

grotesque head, facing at top right,

of a frightening subject

American

mar)', treatment of the face.

The

of

shaped into a near-geometrical ap-

proximation, except for the

is

Florida. University

art.

Human

common

sacrifice

and

to

Middle

terrifying,

implacable deities were often depicted on the

stone temples; but the range of pre-Colum-

bian sculpture includes

lous ornaments in gold,

animals,

Builders Culture. Arkansas.

common

Museum

Peahody Museum, Harvard University

folk,

prett)' and even frivoand representations of

and smiling girls.

of the American Indian;

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

437

Seated Figure. Stone. Mayan. Guatemala.

American Museum of Natural History

Head

of Maize God. Stone. Mayan. Copan,

Honduras. American Museum of Natural History

Above and helow.

Heads. Stone. Mayan. Copan.
American Museum of Natural History

Seated

The
above

and

Figure. Jade. Olmec, a.d.

miniature jade Seated

is

mental

Human

directly in line

with

Human

Figure

pie walls are difficult to read, for both subject-

Mayan monu-

matter and aesthetic impression, but one can

This

hardly escape the decorative impact and the

art of the early Classic period.

related pieces are

among

the finest jades

of the realistically figurative type

any

There

civilization.

more usual

relief

The Mayan

known

to

varied and expert.

It

opulence in cylindrical

an extraordinary piece of sophisticated minia-

early

times

jars brightly

painted

Mayan. C. a.d. 600,

Copan. Copan Museum. QVhoto hy E. Z. Kelemen')
Ball-court marker. Stone.

mm.

is

was

of

pictorial

-i>^

It

reached a climax of

and hieroglyphic scenes paralleling the reliefs on stelae and walls. Mayan
monumental sculpture was freely painted, but
all trace of the color has long since been
washed away. The stelae and the panels and
agglomerations on early Classic Mayan temwith

sheer design value in such a minor relief as

the marker for a ball court at Copan.

600 and
probably depicts a ceremonial meeting of
priests and player. The ornament in shell is

are in jade also the

plaques and masks.

pottery

100-400. Cleveland Museum of Art

^-jr

from a stone

ture carving.

ball court of

about

a.d.

few Mayan heads

or

masks

rank among the supreme examples of "psychological

The

realism,"

with

the

Amarna

masks.

very fine stucco mask (facing) has the

appearance of exact portraiture, with the aim

of revealing the inner character,

the usual

Mayan

as

against

style of conventionalization.

Bird and God's Head. Ornament. Shell. Mayan.

Chiapas, Mexico. Museum of Primitive Art

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

439

Certain cultures apparently once allied to

the old empire

nant

still

exist

among Mayan rem-

Guatemalan and Honduran highlands. The many relics from the

Central American region are difficult to date,
and primitive idioms may have persisted
tribes

in

the

through a dozen centuries.

Many

stone figures

found in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The

strangely geometrized effigy from the American Museum of Natural History is the faare

miliar prehistoric "idol" as uncovered in midAsia, the

South Seas, or North America;

it is

crude but formalized in an angular, rhythmic

way

that renders the piece appealing.

figure

on the ceremonial

The

slab represents facile,

less expressionistic sculptural expression.

The

variation

by means of areas of pattern

playing against sheer surfaces

of one phase of Central
is at its

best, perhaps, in the

tables for grinding corn,

is

characteristic

American design.

manv

from the

It

vietates, or

coastal re-

gion between Guatemala and Panama. These

Mask. Stucco. Mayan. Palenque.
National Museum, Mexico City

Ceremonial stele, detail. Stone. Costa Rica.

America?: Mtiseum of Natural History

may be simple and utilitarian, or elaborate

and therefore probably ceremonial. The ornaFigure. Stone. Nicaragua.

American Museum of Natural History

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

440

Ceremonial corn grinders. Stone. Guatemala; Panama.

Museum, Philadelphia; American Museum of Natural History

University

mentation of edges, and sometimes of

lends a richness, even an elegance,
composition. Those

shown here

to

legs,

the

are of an ex-

ceptional reticence of design except in the

contrasting heads,

which

are formalized

and

Such idiomatic expression sugbetween the Central American

and the Classic Mayans.

older cultures of

Mitla.

The

Mayans

to

is best known
Monte Alban and

Mexico and

through the excavations

at

Zapotecs, near neighbors of the

the westward,

had

their

monu-

mental palaces and temples, but they are

some

imaginative.

famous rather

gests a link

elaborated incense-burners, of which the one

cultures

group of

Mayan

carved marble vessels

was found exclusively in the valley of the

Ulua River in Honduras. The beauty of these
is due partly to the milky texture of the stone.
In the largest example shown, the low-relief,
mask-and-spiral

design

contrasts

round handles, each formed

as

with

the

an animal

shown is typical. (Facing page, lower left.)

Mayans and Zapotecs and, in general, the
Mexicans of the successive Amerindian cultures worked with an especial sense of the fitness of the stone or clay or gold for effects

mass and texture and surface interest. The

Middle American sculpture in clay surpasses
that of any other culture except the Chinese.

of

holding a smaller animal upside down. These

The

Mayan

Mexican mask

were fashioned with stone

tools and are unsurpassed even by the alabaster vases of Europe and Asia.

The

vessels

Zapotec was one of the greatest of the

for clay wares, especially

stony heaviness of the ancient

is

sculptural emotion.

The

effect of the

handling

and the suitability of terra cotta

modeling surface variations are expertly

of the clay
for

Olmec

instrumental in evoking a

Sculptured cups. Stone. Mayan. Honduras. University

Museum, Philadelphia

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE
brought out in the contrasting piece,

441

Tohec

head.

The

extensive ruins of the

huacan

the

illustrate

which

Mexico,

cit)'

of Teoti-

culture

early

Valley

of

Mayan

civilization of the south,

the

though the

best-known sculpture from Teotihuacan

profusion of stone masks.

the

of

paralleled

When

is

the warlike

Toltecs overran the valley, they modified the

The

earlier culture.

to a

new

distant

culture spread not only

Tula but

capital city at

centers,

to

many

Chichen-Itza

including

in

Yucatan, a creation of the Mayans of the

The pictured buildings

when Mayan architecture and

Late Classic period.

are of the time

sculpture

had

been

altered

under

Toltec

pressure.

The coming

of the Aztecs

soon overshadowed

all

else.

from the north

They seem

have had only a tenuous hold upon the

and took over the methods and the

to

arts,

style of

the country they invaded, but their sculpture

of

the

and

fourteenth

achieved a solid realism.

the grandeur of the
barbaric

fifteenth
It

centuries

lacked, however,

Mayan and its controlled

The five Aztec stone

exuberance.

Xipe. Incense-burner. Clay. Zapotec.

Monte Alban, Oaxaca. National Museum,

Mexico

Museum

of

City.

Modern

QVhoto courtesy
Art,

New

Yorfe")

Mask. Stone. Olmec. Mexico.

British

Museum
Head. Clay. Toltec. Mexico.
Musee de I'Homme

'

-^
canings
ence

of

illustrated are witness to the exist-

great

two statues of a

and

subtle

man

The
man sit-

sculptors.

standing and a

ting are typical pieces. In one a certain blunt

conventionalization persists, with considerable

squaring of forms for massive

more
The mask

other

is

skin,

is

effect.

a reminder of the sacrifice of

beings in the

The

and the rhythms are freer.

Xipe,
of
the god of the flayed
alive

name

of religion.

the suffering face was

common

At

human

this period

in masks,

and

monumental sculpture was overpowering and

awe-inspiring.

The mask

the moderate side,

here, an

example on

beautifully carved with

is

reliefs at the back.

Animal sculpture seems

to

cialty of the Aztecs. Subjects

ligators

and snakes

grasshoppers.

proach the

realistic,

formalization

Temple

to

Though

have been a speranged from

turkeys,

frogs,

the treatment

as in the

was more

usual.

may

al-

and
ap-

Dog, a heavy

The

massive-

Remains of sculptured pillars.

Chichen-Itza, Yucatan

of the Warriors,

^J?*?1?"

"-^TtsiT'

^-^'"^T

C--|
s^.
..'?f:

>.:^'^v

I,

'^'m

'^w.^^^'

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

Man. Stone. Aztec.

Musee de I'Homme,

Paris

Young God. Stone. Aztec.

National Museum, Mexico City. QPhoto
courtesy Museum of Modern Art, Neiv York')

Xipe. Mask.
Stone. Aztec.
British

Museum

443

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

444

ness and density of the stone are expressed,

as well as

The

coiled snake provoked the artist's imag-

ination,

are

animal character.

and many versions of the rattlesnake

superb

compositions:

sculptural

pact, massive,

symphonic.

The

com-

serpent head,

carried to the most unrealistic point of con-

ventionalization,

was one of the commonest

motives in decoration of Mexican temples.

The Olmecs,

to

especially

the east of the valley of

exaggerated

There

suited

to

expressionistic

or

strikingly

simple

unadorned

masks to be seen in abundance in the museums of Paris, New York, and Mexico City.
Collectively the stone masks and heads of
ancient Mexico constitute one of the most
conspicuously

mature

achievements

The

Olmec

age of the

Mayan

beginnings.

The

distinctive decorated

mask from Oaxaca (facing page)

Its facial

tracings

is

typical.

elements are schematized and

fitted

The

linear

into a preconceived plastic pattern.

add

god with

The

to the non-realistic effect. It

cast

Head

Museum

similar

black

in

to

that

of

lip is

an animal's muzzle.

ling of the masses,

stone

in

the

of Natural History has a

mask, and the upper

like

is

young

partially jaguar features.

fine

American
facial

effects.

are

art.

variation of the tiger-mouth deity, a

Mexico, did not lack realism but their genius

was

the range of lithic

masks cannot be estimated. The civilization

probably goes back to a time before the

The

and the

the

tiger-face

pushed forward
creative handessential

form-

organization, are at a high level.

within
Dog. Stone. Aztec. Pueblo Museum.
QVhoto by E. Z. Kelemen')

Head. Stone. Probably from Vera Cruz.

American Museum of Natural History

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

445

The Totonacs, to the north of the Olmecs,

were carvers of yoke stones and other distinctive types of sculpture. In Hne with their
ceremonial use,
tricately

many

of the yokes were as in-

cut and as highly polished as the

jewel-like jade carvings of the Olmecs.

One

of the most extraordinary in a series of

heads sculptured

to

of a ceremonial ax

approximate
is

to the

idence. (Following page.) Despite

bug

its

bulging cheeks, and flattened nose,

how

shape

the example at Proveyes,

it

some-

has the aspect of a portrait as do

many

of the specimens in the group of flattened

heads.

The

piece

shown with

it

finely pre-

and is a good illusof consistent heavy formalization. It

serves the feel of the stone

tration
is

noticeably ax-head shaped.

tive

ax from Tajin

The

nonobjec-

illustrates beautifully the

type form to which the heads were approxi-

mated.
Rattlesnake. Stone. Aztec.
Museum of Primitive Art,

New

The Totonac heads were

supposedly

York
Hacha. Stone. Tajin. Vera Cruz.

Museum

Mask. Stone. Olmec. Oaxaca.

Peabody Museum, Hanard University

of Primitive Art

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

446
worn

as

body gear

in the ball

part of human-sacrifice
-pahnas

had

rituals.

games forming
The Totonac

a related ritual purpose.

The

pal-

mate stones are like stelae with flattish relief

designs on back and front, and flaring, rounded
tops,

usually with concave bases.

They

are

modeling of individual pieces by hand, but

times great

The

in molds.

known

numbers

for

Tarascans were not especially

monumental

or other sculpture in

though they created some of the most

fascinating genre types in clay. There are

stone,

generally fashioned from volcanic stone

well-known warriors with

are left with a rough grain surface.

and
Those

modem

carved with near-abstract designs are

among

the most pleasing, though the transition from

the low-relief, nonobjective

mode

to figurative

elements almost in the full round

fully accomplished,

as in

is

grace-

the second exam-

at

were made

of figurines

baseball players.

illustrated

is

more

side this is a small

which

is

very

plification.

seated

exact delineation

like

Woman

subtle and rhythmic. BeTotonac or Tarascan head,

lifelike, despite a

How

very

clubs,

The

far the
is

general sim-

Tarascans went in

illustrated

on page 30 of

the "Primitive Art" chapter, where a child

ple here.

Throughout Middle America minor sculpThe usual method was

tures in clay abound.

and

dog,

actually

jars,

are

rendered.

Heads. Stone. Totonac.

Museum

of Art,

Rhode Island School

Robert

realistically

Woods

of Design, Providence;
Bliss Collection, Dumbarton Oaks,

courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Palmas. Stone. Totonac. American

Woman. Clay. Tarascan.

Brooklyn Museum.

Museum

of Natural History;

Museum

of Primitive Art

Head. Clay. Totonac. Central Vera Cruz.

American Museum of Natural History

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

448

way down through Central Amerand in the Andean country of South

America small clay sculptures are found in
All the

ica

great quantities
st)'les.

The

in

are famous, but there

ful

bewildering range of

pre-Incan painted vases of Peru

were amazingly beauti-

wares also from Cocle in Panama; and the

pottery of Colombia, Ecuador,

and Bolivia

is

unusually varied.

The famed Nazca wares and

those

of

Tiahuanaco, representing two of the pre-Incan

most beautiful and colorful, but

depend upon painting rather than modeling
for their appeal. But the early Chimu or
Mochica effigy jars are among the world's most
diverting minor clay sculptures. The Mochican potters were especially concerned with
human and animal figurative designs, natural-

cultures, are

istically depicted.

Outstanding examples of the

so-called portrait vessels are illustrated here.

The stone

sculpture of South America

is

rare

and in most categories is inferior to Mayan and

Mexican examples. Some stone bowls in animal
form are, however, outstanding. The Puma,
thought to be of the Chavin culture of the high
Andean country, indicates a stylistic bond with
the Olmec. A more typically Peruvian expression

is

instanced in a series of miniature llamas,

almost jewel-like in workmanship and

with

pleasing

sculptural

rhythm.

Llama. Lamp. Stone. Inca. Peru.

Philadelphia

Museum

Arensherg Collection

of Art,

endowed
and

simplicity

Chimu. Peru.
Linden Museum, Stuttgart. QArchiv
fiir Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin^

Portrait jars. Clay.

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE
There

449

are fabulous stories of the treasure in

sculptured gold taken from Panama, Costa

and Peru by the Spanish and British

to be melted down. The
museums have saved enough from later finds
to prove that the artisans of Central and South
America surpassed all others in the ability to
fashion living little statues and strikingly
beautiful ornaments in precious metals. The
Rica,

fortune-hunters,

gold

and

silver

animals

alligator, llama, bird, shark,

occasionally

Examples

man

or

include

woman

illustrate the vitality

of believable reality attained

tors

crocodile,

and monkey, and

is

depicted.

and the aspect

when

the sculp-

curbed their decorative aims.

The

mode
common. An animal or a

conventionalized or decorative

was, however, more

Puma.

Stone. Chavin culture. Peru or Bolivia.

University ^liiseum, Philadelphia

Llamas. Stone. Inca. Peru. University Museum, Philadelphia

Llamas. Silver. Inca. Peru. Art Association of Montreal; American

Museum

of Natural History

serpent's

head or

human figure was taken

The object as cast or ham-

as a starting point.

mered out became an approximation

subject, but often only

ascertain
is

what

inspired

of the

an archaeologist can
the composition.

It

easy to identify the bird in gold on a bronze

knife; but

it

will

be seen that the

human and

animal motives have strangely changed in the

group of pendants following. In the

literally

thousands of examples in public and private

collections the

wonder

of the composition

is its

bold ornamentalism and the consistency with

which the sculptor

carried through his decora-

tive conception.

Alpaca. Silver. Inca. Peru.

American Museum of Natural History

Man. Hollow
Knife. Bronze and gold. Inca. Peru.
University Museum, Philadelphia

silver.

Robert Woods Bliss Collection, Courtesy

National Gallery of Art, Washington

AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

bell. Gold. Quimbaya, Chibcha, and other cultures.

of Primitive Art; Robert Woods Bliss Collection, Dumbarton Oaks,
courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington; American Museum of Natural
History; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arensberg Collection

Pendants, ornaments,

Museum

PANAMANIAN

451

452 AMERINDIAN SCULPTURE

The

chapter

is

best concluded with a return

to primitive or near-primitive

Stone Age

art.

In

toward abstraction.

The Standing Man

Guerrero, a generally mountainous state south

aspect of monumentality,

and west
Mezcala

inches high.

of the Plain of Mexico, there

culture, of

was the

which the chief known

works of heavy stone. The most notable finds have been comparatively recent.
There may have been thirty centuries of production of stone sculptures in the area, and
relics are

they show

lingering

Neolithic

tendency

Mask. Stone. Mezcala Culture. Guerrero.

Andre Emmerich

Gallery,

New

York.

QPhoto hy Lee Bolting

Standing Man. Stone. Mezcala Culture. Guerrero.

Andre Emmerich Gallery, Neiv York.
CPhoto hy Lee Boltin')

in

black stone, with typical high polish and an

influences

The

is

only five and a half

superb stone mask shows that

from the better-known cultures,

Mayan, Olmec, and Teotihuacan, had seeped

into Guerrero State and into the Mezcala Valley at one time or another. Mezcala adds one
more vivid chapter to the history of Amerindian
sculpture in Middle America.

17 ^Western Sculpture
From

Baroque

the

to

Rodin

I
BY

the year 1620, in Italy

and France, the

two great art-producing countries of Europe,

art

was

Italy,

hands of

dilettanti

and pedants.

however, produced one

last sculptor

in the

had become routine

and trivial. The smaller pieces were naturalistic fragments or sentimental and fanciful.
Monumental sculpture, approached more se-

He had
and vision and created a style,
the baroque, which swept over Europe and
dominated Italian, German, Austrian, and

riously, nevertheless suffered

from a pictorial
and compositionally it was disunified and mannered. The best of the post-

Spanish

obsession,

Counter-Reformation.

baroque

Alichelangelesque producers of mantelpiece art

Renaissance realism and pictorialism, though

and of busts most notably Giambologna and

classic

the output of sculpture

Alessandro Vittoria were long since dead.

Model

for a

monument

to Louis

The

genius, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini.

originality

design

marks

through the period of the

a

To many

prolongation

historians

of

Italian

calm and purity are not evident in

Bernini's major works.

XIV. Bemini. Galleria Borghese. CAnderson photo")

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

454

From about 1620

fully

from baroque

graphically

1920

to

neo-classic,

to

to

realistic,

to

photo-

impressionistic;

and

then, by a revolutionary leap, to an expression-

ism

unknown

Baroque and

since the

its

French

Romanesque

masters.

variation, rococo, lived

on especially in Spain, Portugal, and the Spanish American colonial cities long after the

and Germany had been won

sculptors of Italy

styles shifted fit1

simple listing of

and

styles, leaders,

dates,

620-1 9 1 7, follows:

The baroque style, brought to focus by

Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, who lived from
to 1680, is

1598

generally dated from the

first

half of the seventeenth century to the late

eighteenth century.

It is

the style of the

Coun-

ter-Reformation and flourished especially in

the Catholic countries,

Austria,

Italy,

Ger-

over to neo-classicism. In France the Renais-

many, and

had never quite faded, and in

neo-classic were
hardly more than minor interruptions in the
flow from late Renaissance realism to the native
graceful realism of Clodion and Houdon.

longer period in Spain and the Spanish Ameri-

sance

spirit

French sculpture baroque and

Realism continued

to

be pre-eminent during

the nineteenth century.

From

Pierre

Puget (i 622-1 694),

Bernini in

disciple

France, but France was slow to accept the

and extravagance

theatricality

of

it.

Rococo, a refined version of baroque, was

form practiced by Rude, tinged with roman-

developed in France under Louis

eighteenth century.

and on to the unashamed

it all seemed to be leading
up to Rodin. In his works all aspects of realism
were expressed. His early naturalistic figures
surpassed those of Barye; his portraits were

Houdon

slightly poetic style,

more

of

took the baroque style to

Italy,

ticism or melodrama, through Carpeaux's

naturalism of Barye,

for a

can colonies.

the full-blooded

still

and

parts of Switzerland,

sculptor

of

XV

in the

741-1828), the greatest French

the

six

centuries

between the

fourteenth century and Rodin, resisted the

baroque influence and favored classicism or

a slightly idealized realism.

and more lifelike than

Houdon's; the modeled pieces that gained from
impressionistic attributes had a new exactitude
but at the same time a luminous gloss beyond
any known to the figures by Falconet and

Neo-classicism as a school was founded by

Antonio Canova (i 727-1 822) in Italy; he
was followed by a Dane, Bertel Thorvaldsen

Clodion. At the end, before the break into

Romanticism returned European sculpture

substantial

formalism

and expressionism,

there

was

The

770-1 844).

1790

to

from the

classic

period of honest reappraisal, typified in the

never

knew

whose return

such

painters

work

of Maillol,

in stone

and

to a general

reversal historic

There

and

to direct

cutting

weightiness marked a

beneficial.

will always be confusion at this point

in history because the last

renowned

realists-

Rodin, Maillol, Bourdelle, Despiau, Kolbe

practiced at a time

when

expressionism was

being widely introduced. Rodin, anticipating

modernism, produced at
one major monument, the Balzac, and

post-impressionist
least

some minor modeled pieces

Ci^is, etc.)

By

the

time of his death in 191 7 the leaders of the

expressionist school

and England

were active

in

as well as in France.

Germany

vogue lasted from

school's

about 1840 and was international.

The French

path about 1830; but

this art

revolutionaries of the stature of

as

Delacroix

and Gericault.

sculptor Francois

Rude (1784-

1855) is pre-eminent.
Realism became the ideal of the sculptors
of

Europe and America

in the 1850s especially,

though the move toward verisimilitude had

been going on

for a long time.

dation of realism,

its

most

The

final degra-

superficial product,

naturalism, occurred later in the century.

The

impressionist school flourished from the

mid- 1 870s on.

Rodin C1870-1917) was a master of naturalbecame the greatest of modem realists, and

ism,

later

turned to expressionism.

II
early work, an Afollo and Daphne
INof an623-1
624, Bernini had developed

harmonizing movement and accessories within

butes of baroque. Swiftly he capitalized upon

attri-

his

innovations flutter)^ mov'ement, emphatic

and naturalistic depiction. His father

had been a sculptor, and the son possessed ex-

gesture,

chapter)

is

example of

a perfect

his genius in

sound sculptural unity.

Classicists

view

all

baroque

as

an appeal

to

the sensual side of man. Bernini's most famous

statue, St.

Theresa in Ecstasy with

its

marble

knowledge of the technique of the

art and an aptitude for striking composition.
The model for the monument to Louis XIV of

gilded rays, has been mercilessly criticized for

France (illustrated

ject

ceptional

at the

beginning of

this

figures in

marble clouds and a background of

and melodramatic treatment of a subwhich should be pictured only reticently

realistic

Saint Theresa in Ecstasy. Stone. Bernini. 1644. Santa Maria della Vittoria,

Rome. (^Anderson photo)

456

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

Innocent X. Stone. Bernini.

Palazzo Doria, Rome. (^Anderson

Fountain of Trevi. Design attributed to Bernini,

executed by others. Mid-1 8th century. Rome.
QAnderson photo')

'photo')

and purely. The apologists for Counter-Reforart, on the other hand, have found the
statue reverent, emotionally true, and moving.
mation

Certainly Bernini ran to excess at times.

Purists

feel

that

the

baldaquin

the high altar in St. Peter's in

sculptural aberration

eye and

spirit.

And

and an

sheltering

Rome

is

affront to both

there are other failures

and trumpery half-victories. At the far extreme

from these are the comparatively restrained
portrait busts, as illustrated in the
at the

Innocent

illustrates

of

Trevi

the

Fountain

work projected by Bernini but

executed by others long after his death.

It is

two similar fountain complexes

which the artist designed and executed. Beyond
superior to

its

patent attractiveness,

model

for

Alessandro

Algardi,

who was

only

both monumental work and

He tried to moderate the intensity

and the reliance upon swirl implied

portraiture.

of feeling

in Bernini's approach, but he never succeeded

in

endowing

surface

his pieces

appeal

with the unity and the

Bernini's

of

soberer

works.

Algardi had studied under the three Carracci

in Bologna

and was well

fitted to practice in a

school glorifying violent action.

the Carracci tendency

But perhaps
and loose

to rhetoric

composition spelled the measure of his failure

Doria Palace.

The photograph

rival,

slightly inferior in

it

is

important as a

innumerable works in the category

of "exposition sculpture." It

had

its

imitators

in rivalry with the creative Bernini.

a host of local imitators, but

appear in the

importance

no other

Italians

of sculptors of world-wide
a

century

after

Bernini's

death in 1680.

At the time when baroque

art was flourishing

were marching back and forth
through the German principalities, and the

in Italy, armies

in the grounds of every ostentatious palace in

Thirty Years'

Europe.

an end

Bernini had a host of imitators but only one

list

until

There was

War

(1618-1648) almost put

to art practice. Nevertheless, in Bavaria

and in the Rhine cities, and

in the Austrian

and

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

457

Right: Equestrian statue of the Great Elector, with added figures.

Left: Detail. Bronze. Andreas Schliiter. 1701.
Court of Charlottenhurg Castle, Berlin. QArchiv fiir Kunst und Geschichte")

Swiss lands closely tied

to

the baroque style spread in

nowhere

else outside Italy.

Andreas

Schliiter,

German

late practitioner,

monument

designed the

the Great Elector in Berlin,

culture,

pure form as

its

which

is

of

considered

the finest of baroque equestrian statues, though

the figures and panels of the base are inferior.

While

in northern

Germany

the impetus

was partly from an earlier native tendency to

activate and elaborate sculpture, baroque was
accepted as a valid expression of the Counter-

Reformation, as

it

was

in Austria. In

Munich,

many

a village

Salzburg, and Vienna, and in

and painters worked together to

(Page 458.)
Pierre Puget had been among the numerous
assistants of Bernini in Rome, and he took the
new st)'le back to France. He was considered
the most truly baroque of the Frenchmen, who
were then becoming leaders in the European
art world; but his most enjoyable works are,
for most people, not the overactive, even torarchitects,

create a dazzling baroque effect.

tured reliefs and groups, but his portrait busts.

(See page 459.) France held stubbornly to the

classical tradition, which had been watered

down

to a prettified realism,

and the violence

baroque was never

church or isolated mountain monastery in the

of

German, Austrian,

accepted. Rather, the late Renaissance manner,

or Swiss Alps, the altars

are decorated with swirling groups of figures

and opulent canopies

The

theatrical

the church at

Hardly

of carved

wood

or stone.

but not unpleasing group in

Rohr

in

Lower Bavaria

less restrained is

is

typical.

the sculpture in the

monastic church at Stams in the Austrian

Tirol.

The photograph

indicates

how sculptors.

Italian

as exemplified especially in the

northern

artists

to

two

be fully
Italicized

Giovanni da Bologna and

and was gradually given

some impetus by the impact of Puget and
Francavilla, persisted

other baroque enthusiasts.

Whatever elements

of the

new

Italian style

were adapted soon took on grace and feminin-

The Assumption of Mary. Stucco.

171719. Cosmas and Egid Asam.
High Altar of the Pfarrkirche,
Rohr, Lower Bavaria

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

ity.

But

certainly the productions of Antoine

Coysevox, Guillaume Coustou the Elder, and

Francois Girardon
court of Louis
Italian

for

XIV

baroque,

the

brilliant

French

lack the spontaneity of

as well as classic reposeful

beauty. Girardon,

who made

famous eques-

trian statue of the king, typically half natural,

artificial, also contributed a work which
was utterly symbolic of the court spirit, and
a landmark in the French drift toward graceful
pictorialism and sensitive naturalism, in the

half

lead reliefs of Bathing

Nymfhs

pool in the Versailles gardens.

decorating a

Of

its

kind,

nothing could be more graceful but at the

same time more

trivial

from the point of view

of the lover of profound sculptural

Robert Le Lorrain,

who was

art.

pupil of

went a step further in feminizing

sculpture and rendering it painty when he
cut the Horses of the Sun on the wall of the
Hotel de Rohan, now the Imprimerie Narionale, in Paris. Here every implication of basic
sculpture, of the method itself, is negated.
The composition represents a pretty and
Girardon's,

graphic wash-drawing transferred to the stone

and, like the baptistry doors at Florence, marks
a high point in diverting but unsculptural

Louis XIV. Stone.

Pierre Puget. Musee, Aix.
(^Giraudon photo')

sculpture.

Horses of the Sun. Stone. Robert Le Lorrain. Hotel de Rohan, Paris, (_Giraudon photo")

459

460

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

The sculptors of the

late

Lemoyne, Bouchardon,
still

eighteenth century,

were

Pigalle, Pajou,

appreciated in the Victorian era, but their

works now seem

to justify the

and

lifeless

of statue did maintain

cold.

One

type

popularity and seems

its

once transcending reputation of

two other late-eighteenth-century

practitioners,

Etienne-Maurice Falconet and Clodion. This

is

the immemorially popular bathroom nude.

The charming
prettiest

creatures, represented in the

poses,

the

register

farthest

point

reached by realism in re-creating physically

the miracle of feminine loveliness.

As seen

here. Falconet's Bathing Girl escapes the cold-

nymphs about

ness of the goddesses and

to

be

introduced by the neo-classicists; and certainly

it

is

superior as a

unidealized naked

work

of art to the wholly

women

of

Carpeaux in the

following period of avowed realism.

Clodion (Claude Michel) sometimes

dis-

guised his bathers as ancient goddesses and

n)Tnphs and agreeably

fulfilled

the frankly

sensual aims of the courtly sculptors.

baroque in

his

momentary

gesture

devotion to

but

in

He

was

movement and
accessories

he

sometimes lapsed into the excesses of rococo.

Spanish sculpture tends more than any other
to

be over-ornate. In Spain and in the Spanish

was considered peculiarly

became
standard. However, no Spaniards could compare with Bernini, and if there are masterpieces at all, they are on the sensational side.
The Catholic churches of Middle America
and South America are filled with generally
colonies the style that

the expression of the Catholic reaction

debased examples of the baroque

Sooner or

style.

later in art, excess of violence, of

ornament, and of the playful virtues brings

reaction toward soberer methods.

against the tidal

wave

of baroque

The

reaction

came not

in

Rome, with its revived

interest in the exhumed monuments of Greek
and Roman art, became an international center of study the story of American sculpture,
for example, may be said to have begun there.
It
was painters, led by Mengs and
Winckelmann, who expressed the principles
of neo-classicism and began a retreat toward
France but in

Italy.

classical purity, repose,

tors

and

coldness. Sculp-

reproduced figures of the Greek gods

and the heroes and heroines of the Greek

Often the versions were scarcely
more than paraphrases of the Aphrodites,
Afollos, and Marble Fauns of Greco-Roman
times. Even contemporary portrait pieces were

myths.

accoutered in togas or peplums, or bordered on

nudity. Unfortunately

interpreted

Greek

idealization

smoothing-down

as

was

process

which largely removed character from the

face and beaut)' of modulation from the body.
In 1 787, at the age of thirty, Antonio Canova
was the leader of the neo-classicists. He was
a

Venetian in early training, but resident in

Rome from
graceful

his twenty-third year.

statue

of

the

The

coldly

Pauline

Princess

Napoleon Bonaparte, as
and
half Greek, pleasing in its lines but really more
Borghese,

Venus

notable

sister

reposing,

as

of

is

typically half natural

sculptural

woodenness, a lack of
terizes

practically all

smoothed down

to

curiosity.

It

has a

sensitivity, that charac-

sculpture intentionally

approximate Greek

effects.

Satyr

and Nymph.
Metropolitan

Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Reposing. Stone. Antonio Canova.

Villa Borghese, Rome. CAlinari photo")

Stone. Clodion.

Museum

of Art

Self-Vortr ait. Johann von Danneker. Stone.

Landesmuseum, Stuttgart.
CArchiv fur Kunst und Geschichte")

The

sculptors of the modern neo-classic

which can be dated 1 790-1 840, were
still thinking of Praxiteles and Lysippus and
later
artists
the Greek masters. The
as
Parthenon marbles and the earlier schools
then seemed less pure. Canova was born with
a sense of rhythm, and his statues escape the
stiffness which most of his fellows considered
part of the classic endowment.
Compositionally his Cwpid and Psyche, his
Venus, and his Hehe are pleasing, and there is
school,

seductive prettiness that

achieved by his
tion

is

rivals.

The

is

generally not

pleasing composi-

a surface one, for all neo-classic sculptors

seem

to

the

architectonic,

have

lost the basic feeling for the block,

sculptural

integrity

of

Michelangelo or della Quercia.

Rome, was

so popular that at Canova's death

he succeeded

to leadership of the classic school.

In Copenhagen there is a Thorvaldsen Museum where some hundreds of his works are

on permanent exhibition, but

has diminished.
classicism

It is

his reputation

seen that his devotion to

bound him

to

His inheritors became the emotionless and

correct academic sculptors during the latter

half of the nineteenth century. In England

John Flaxman and John Gibson made local
reputations, though some of Flaxman's designs
in

Wedgwood

pottery

achieved

wider

acclaim.

Among

Germans, Johann von Danwork was an Ariadne, of

which there were innumerable replicas. He
tempered classicism with a sturdy naturalism,
as illustrated here by the bust, a self-portrait,
draped in the antique fashion. His contemporar)% Johann Gottfried Schadow, was even
less bound by Thorvaldsen's strict rules, though
the

neker's best-known

Danish expatriate

Bertel Thorvaldsen, the

to

Diana. Bronze. Jean Antoine Houdon.

Louvre. (BmZIoz photo")

sunless formula.

he profited by study of

Of Americans

in

classic grace.

Rome,

several

became

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

463

routine sculptors in the neo-classic manner.

Hiram Powers achieved wide popularity. Best

known were two simple nude figures of The
Greek Slave and California.
In France baroque had never quite won
over either the sculptors or the court patrons
of

A fairly

art.

straight line

can be traced from

the realism and pictorialism of Ghiberti and

Donatello to Falconet and Clodion, with only

By
Houdon, born in
ten years in Rome, there

occasional bending to baroque pressure.

the time of Jean Antoine

1 741 and a worker for

was a marked current toward simplification
and toward a revival of classic conventions.
Houdon was the most original and the most
talented French sculptor between the late

Gothic masters and Rodin, and he helped

to

hasten the establishment of naturalism as the

standard sculptural

st)'le

of the early nine-

teenth century, in advanced circles where neo-

was already challenged

classicism

and

Comedie

don's Voltaire at the

many

shown on the

page, despite an occasional

pupils,

above

all,

diadem

Le Bailli de Suffren. Houdon.

Musee, Aix. QGiraudon photo')

title

picturer but without the instinct for sculp-

or toga,

tural integrity, and Jean Baptiste Carpeaux

combined the new realism with some of the
lingering spirit of rococo. Barye's Lion (page

toward the realism of Carpeaux,

steps

Houdon

Rodin, and Despiau.

his

Houand

art.

Frangaise,

other portraits, including the charming

bust of Louise Brogniard

mark

as lifeless

echo of the echo of an

as the

"Copy,

keep

said

once

to

on copying, and

copy exactly."

In the history of sculpture the nineteenth

centur)'

is

one of the weakest, and the

artists

patently

naturalism

for

is

sake,

without deviation

tural

inventiveness which

renders the ani-

Chou and Han

sculptors superbly

mals of the

toward

who were only recently considered masters

are now generally seen to be second-rate. In

alive aesthetically,

France, which produced more sculptors than

ferently in Carpeaux's opulent

any other country

terpiece

at

the time, the forceful

who

but melodramatic Frangois Rude,

de-

Verisimilitude

is

Dance on
It

as interpreted

sometimes considered

the sculptural representative of the romantic

school.

This challenged neo-classicism in the

The

reaction in

which Courbet and Manet

led revolutionar)' painters, in the

known

as "realism,"

movement

produced Antoine-Louis
who had a cam-

Barye, a sincere nature-lover

era eye

Another

and a

talent for forceful modeling.

sculptor,

Jules Dalou,

was

a vivid

expressed somewhat difart.

His mas-

The

Opera House.

has a certain swollen grace, but the subject,

by the

artist, is

more suited

painting than to sculpture. As to

its

to

realism,

one may note that the dancing figures are

perfectly transcribed

third decade of the century.

sculp-

although "unreal."

is

a wall of the Paris

signed the Marseillaise group on the Arc de

is

its

the

the rhythmic group entitled

Triomphe

in Paris,

own

465)

coldly idealized

naked women. Even the

nymphs

of the neo-classicists

seem superior to the realistic nudes from innumerable sculptors' studios after 1850.
Paris had displaced Rome as the world center for art study. And although some of the
finest realism of the period was produced by

464

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

The Dance.

Stone.

Jean Baptiste Carpeaux. 1869.

Exterior of Paris Opera House

On

facing page:

The

Marseillaise. Stone.

Franfois Rude.

1837. Arch of Triumph, Paris.

QGiraudon photo')

Lion. Stone. Antoine-Louis Barye.

Ministry of the Colonies, Paris.
QRoget-Viollet photo")

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

466

Germans,

Russians,

and

Americans,

they

The

were mostly pupils of the French school.

half-American Paul Troubetz-

half-Russian,

and France.

koi received training in Italy

specialized, along

of

tors

the

late

He

ing clay sketches of dancing figures modeled

by the painter Degas, and Renoir's occasional

genre pieces.
to give

nineteenth

after the

in

sketchy realism bordering on impressionism.

The
dom

attractive spontaneity

and healthy

free-

of a small bronze such as the Tolstoi

on

a Horse are hardly to be denied.

The

transfer of

into bronze

is

effects

faintly disturbing, since a part

is

to express the

values inherent in his materials. Later mod-

were

Brancusi

especially
to

search

for direct

and

Archipenko,

expressiveness in

who

fin-de-siecle sculptors

to

an

air of agitation

seem

and confusion

transformation into metal.

of the great

monumental

to cut stone.

expert

The
stone

sculptors

was trained

made a clay model,

carvers made the final

artist

product mechanically, reproducing the model

by means of a pointing machine. This

The
eler

softer virtues of the talented clay-mod-

became standard, whether expressive

Augustus St. Gaudens, an American born

and schooled in Paris, escaped to

in Ireland

believed that the dash and sparkle of a

Their statuettes remain, often, appealing

and persuasive products, although one may

rate higher the

bronze replicas of the divert-

Dancer. Bronze, with hair ribbon, vest, and

Edgar Degas. Metropolitan Museum
of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection

tulle skirt.

Tolstoi on a Horse. Bronze. Paul Troubetzkoi.

Formerly Luxembourg Palace, Paris.

(Giraudon

of

academic classicism or of realism.

sketchy impressionism would enliven plastic

art.

ex-

plains the lack of basic feeling for the stone.

bronze and copper. Troubetzkoi, however, was

but one of hundreds of

spontaneity and earthiness

In the nineteenth century practically none

and

thumb-marked clay

of the task of the sculptor

ems,

way

with other Parisian sculpcentury,

The

of the original clay compositions often

-photo")

v._

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

some extent from the

soft

and

glittering style

encouraged by the Ecole des Beaux-Arts

that time,

and he inestimably

at

raised the stand-

ard of sculptural achievement in the United

States.

realist

and,

in

certain

elaborate

monuments, a pictorialist, he succeeded in en

dowing public statuary with dignity and a
rather sincere sentiment, though he lacked
the sense of sculpture as a massive

art,

as

proceeding from the block by direct cutting.

His Abraham Lincoln in Chicago, impressively

simple

(considering

tendencies of the era),

the

lifelike,

ing a popular conception of the

coln,

marks

tury-end

extravagant

and embody-

humane

Lin-

high point touched by the cen-

sculptors

who

adapted camera-eye

realism

sentimental

to

Medardo
than

St.

Rosso,

and

who was

idealistic

467
ends.

ten years younger

Gaudens, escaped the limitations of

The most daring Italian

a too-binding realism.

innovator of his time, a rebel against

of classicism

Rodin the

all

types

and academism, he shared with

credit for bringing the free model-

ing and the luminous surfaces of impression-

ism

to sculpture.

He

did not possess the pro-

found vision and the grand schemes of his

French contemporary, but his insight into

human

nature

made

his "soft-focus"

works ap-

pealing and revelatory. His understanding of

children

is

beautifully externalized in the sev-

eral versions of

beautiful

is

Ecce Pner. Perhaps the most

the one illustrated here.

Ecce Puer. Wax over plaster. Medardo Rosso. 1906.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lewis Winston, Birmingham, Michigan

FROM THE BAROQUE

468
The

RODIN

Story of nineteenth-century sculpture

culminated in the work of one towering

fig-

Auguste Rodin, who practiced every type

of "natural" sculpture, beginning with the
camera exactitude of The Age of Bronze and
ure,

St.

John the

Baptist,

moved on

smoothed-

to

down, summary, and impressionistic variaand finally created the extraordinarily

tions,

real

but distorted Balzac, a post-impressionist

triumph.

Rodin

came

training

gelo's

art.

standard

the

His

schooling

where he

later a visit to Italy,

and

Donatello

to

Michelan-

studied

experience

masterpieces;

mediocre sculptors
before

in

from elsewhere: an early course

largely

under Barye;
admired

escaped

fortunately

Beaux-Arts

whom

under

he was

becoming an independent

the

assistant,
artist

in

Paris in his mid-thirties.

The

first

of

many skirmishes with the auwhen The Age of Bronze

thorities occurred

was submitted

Salon in 1877. So
was the piece that
Rodin was accused of making direct plaster
casts from a human body. He eventually disproved the charge by taking casts from his
model and showing that these differed in
some details from the statue.
To carry the naturalness to an even higher
degree, Rodin gave up the universal custom
of posing the models on a throne in preconceived attitudes; instead they could wander
transcendingly

to

the

natural

freely about his studio.

He

thus ruled out the

artificially set and awkward posing that rendered so much Salon statuary static and unnatural. The St. John the Ba-ptist, a work of

876-1 878, stands beside the Age of

Bronze as a masterpiece of Rodin's studiedly

the years

spontaneous naturalism.

St.

John the Baptist. Bronze. Auguste Rodin.

1876-78. Rodin Museum, Paris

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

The

transcribing of

the caught attitude,

suggesting the possibiHty of movement,

one side of Rodin's devotion

From

to

is

but

impressionism.

the concept of the single, fleeting aspect

the impression the impressionist painters

had gone on to achieve a sparkHng surface
HveHness.

They made

their canvases brilhant

by means of broken color or controlled lightvibration. Rodin saw the opportunity to render sculpture more "colorful" than ever before

by modeling

his

statue's

surfaces with

minutest variations of boss and hollow.

gave a

new meaning

to

He

an old saying that the

many

related works,

469

and the sensuous minor

play of surface contours and textures are re-

markable.

Rodin

and

achieved a

his

praticiens

tactile quality in

no one before them. The

and

statues in

are luminous, ingratiatingly soft,

Some

finishers

sculpture as had

marble

even

silky.

of the portraits are, indeed, oversweet

and over-facile. Basic

under the atmospheric
such beloved groups

as

tion in Introduction),

sculpture
finish.

The
The

was

lost

Nevertheless,

Kiss (see illustra-

Eternal Idol, and

Pygmalion and Galatea constitute the most

many would say, the most beaubody of stone sculpture achieved in Eu-

trick in sculpture is to create interesting ar-

original and,

rangements of mass and shadow. The larger

play of light and shade in The Thinker, and

tiful

rope after Michelangelo.

The Thinker. Bronze. Rodin. 1880.

Rodin Museum, Meudon. (Bulloz photo')

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

470

Rodin excelled also

that by contrast
showed up the weakness and impotence of
routine contemporary sculpture. The Thinker,
in

great individualist,

vigorous

composition

originally conceived as a
tides of

human

misery, in the sculptor's un-

finished Gates of
as

symbolizing

Dante surveying the

Hell hut widely interpreted

primitive

man brought

to

The Adam and

torsos,

Hanako

the Japanese

typical, possess a vigor

which Rodin

dancer

is

alone

seemed able

wax masks
realistic

endow

the

figure with a feeling of bursting physical

power. There
erful

had been no such innately pow-

figure

since

Rodin generally

that fourth dimension

gelo's element.

great, the

Michelangelo,

though

failed to achieve expression in

which was Michelan-

The Frenchman

incomparable

realist;

here the

is

the Italian

to

impart.

Among

the

bronze and marble heads and the plaster and

The pugilist's body and the small head, the

huge fist pushed against the jaw, and, above
the savagely forceful modeling,

for the

hands, even portrait heads, of which

the bronze portrait of

pause by thought is almost brutally vigorous.

all,

Eve (studies

the

Gates of Hell composition), the controversial

Old Courtesan, and numerous fragmentary

nesses

there

is

portrayal

and

the

every intermediate type of

between the rugged

silkily

finished,

like-

prettified

things.

This very great master of modeling

dom

touched stone or metal.

He made

sel-

small

clay originals, or a full-size clay or plaster

model.

From

these his assistants

made

replicas

or casts, generally in mechanically enlarged

size.

There

is

no doubt

that

Rodin was the

is

the creator of vast melodies from some other

world.

Head

of Hanako. Bronze. Rodin.

California Palace of the Legion of Honor,
San Francisco, Alma de Bretteville Spreckels Gift

mm?-::.

,;

"'::,',..

Head

r
HvHP^spHHv^^^^^Si 'iyT--'-

'

of Mahler. Bronze. Rodin. Rodin Mmeum,\

Philadelphia. QPhoto by A. J. Wyatt)

Head

of Sorrow. Bronze. Rodin. 1882. Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Mrs. Patrick Dinehart

genius; his works are too genuinely touched

of

with his individuahstic magic

school, admitted

trust

of

his

vision

or

his

admit

to

abihty.

But the
his work

one criticism that can be leveled at

as a whole is that he had no instinctive
ing for the virtues of stone.
opposite pole from

who were
by

He

the primitive

dis-

is

at

feel-

the

sculptors,

so close to the materials,

moved

a passion for expression in those materials,

instinctively capitalizing

upon the

virtues of

stone or wood.

The
cases

replicas.

in

museums

are

in

many

This need not diminish ap-

preciation of Des-pair or
Kiss,

The Thinker

or

The

but the lack of basic sculptural emotion

prevents Rodin's works from ranking with

those

of

It

Michelangelo or the

Egyptian masters.

The

fact

is

Chinese or

that the School

leading

nineteenth-century

no allegiance

to the stone.

was against unsculptural sculpture and

against naturalism that the revolutionaries of

1905-1930 dissented most strongly. In his

to Balzac, Rodin did transcend
naturalism and grasped the key resource of

monument

the expressionists distortion in the service of

emotional and formal intensification.

the material
last

exhibits

the

Paris,

was

Though

clay or plaster, the artist at

reached an ultimate secret of his

art

and

rendered the Balzac figure into a menhir-like

column. There are both grandeur and depth

of emotion in the piece. Official Paris rejected
it.

The

incomparable

nevertheless,

had proven

realist-impressionist,

his position as fore-

runner of the twentieth-centurv insurgents,

with a vision beyond realism. His path can

Despair. Stone. Rodin. City Art

Museum,

St.

Louis

Balzac. Plaster. Rodin. 1897. Rodin

Museum, Mcudon. (^Giraudon photo^

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

be charted from the point where reaHsm
an exact repHca of nature

to

reaHsm that

is

is

the younger sculptors. His sweetly modulated

an

new study of the nuances of

modeling and challenged the dicta of the

momentary impresa single monumental examgoes beyond impressionism.

intensified expression of a
sion,

and

later, to

ple of the art that

Many

smaller

pieces

are

expressionistic

in

surfaces inspired

still-lingering

naturalists.

example of

method, with free use of nature-distortion

Thinker.

summary, untidy, and sometimes savagely

These emotionally powerful works
were dismissed by critics and public in the
artist's lifetime as studies and "unfinished
work," though now they are prized possessions of museums and private collectors, and
are valued as products of an extreme sensi-

imitators.

slashed.

tivity

and

creative vision.

Rodin was the most subtle and successful

histor\% and his method
proved to be an overwhelming influence upon
modeler in Western

473

neo-classicists

Most

potent,

and

his vigorous figures

He

had,

of

mere

the

however, was the

such

course,

as

The

countless

The eminent men among

his contempohad sufficient individuality to rise above

schools and above imitation. Aristide Maillol
was a great transitional and independent
raries

whose role was to restore the ancient

and massiveness of the art before
the twentieth-century moderns could begin
sculptor,

simplicity'

their explorations

in

cubism, expressionism,

constructivism, and the various

modes

of ab-

straction.

Seated Nude. Stone. Aristide Maillol. 1931. Collection of Pierre Matisse,

New York

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

474

Maillol beautifully demonstrated sculptural

simplification

was not
oflF

and devotion

to the block.

truly post-impressionist, but

He

branched

before impressionism became a creed and

a method.

He

simply

felt

sculpture as a vo-

and he returned to the problem

of endowing simple, and generally heavy,
works with rhvthmic plastic life. He achieved
largeness and repose. He was the negation of
all that had happened in the art since Miluminous

art,

chelangelo, having rejected baroque ostenta-

and

wooden convenand overdetailed, camera-eye naturalism. He was a realist returning to the basic
expressive means of the art, and he rose above
the ruck of realists by his instinctive compositional sense and genius for capturing the
character of the model in the life and charaction

flourish, neo-classic

tionalism,

ter of the sculptural piece.

forerunner of the mod-

less substantial

erns,

but certainly the second great creative

figure of the period in France,

Bourdelle

Rodin's pupils

who added

even a personal
master's

and

was Antoine
was

one

of

personal note,

force, in application of the

precepts.

sionistic

He

(1861-1929).

His sculpture

suff^ers

is

impres-

from being patently the

But it has a certain largeness

and breadth. In many portraits the sculptor's
art of a modeler.

marvelous naturalism veered slightly toward

post-impressionist

Archer

is

graphic figure compositions.

its

sort,

Hercules

distortion.

typical of Bourdelle's vigorous

though

It is

a modeler's piece,

what removed from the

the

and

the best of

and someand the

substantiality

repose that characterize the greatest sculpture.

Next

to

Rodin, the most popular sculptor

of the century-end
a Belgian,

was Constantin Meunier,

an honest and talented

artist

who

chose his subjects from the ranks of manual

laborers.

The vogue

been recognized

as

for his bronzes has later

being due

in his choice of themes,

mentalism,

rather

to the novelty

and perhaps

than

to

his

to senti-

sculptural

treatment.

In the main, portraiture continued to be

naturalistic after

Rodin and Bourdelle. Won-

derfully exact likenesses from clay modelings

were produced in

all

the Western countries.

The amazingly

factual heads

can

Jo

sculptors,

Davidson

by two Ameriand Charles

Grafly, failed in revealing inner character in

the

way

of

Benno Elkan

ter of sensitive realism.

Germany, a maswas surpassed only

of

He

by the Parisian Charles Despiau. Discerning

portraiture, with regard to both the outward
look of the sitter and the animating personal

Head

of

Mme.

Dcrain. Plaster. Charles Despiau.

1922. The Phillips Collection, Washington

character,

could hardly go further than in

Despiau's works.

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

Georg Kolbe,

475

German, was one of the

most sensitive of the early-century reahsts,

by reason of

partly
trait

heads, but

group of revealing por-

more

especially for a long

series of tenderly realized figure pieces.

are so exact in pose

and

so sensitively

These
mod-

eledand so personal in presentation that

Kolbe enjoys a place in history as distinctive
of

that

as

Medardo
the

Despiau, or that of the Italian

Rosso.

In the Dancer, illustrated,

arms violate some funda-

outstretched

mental tenets of the moderns, being dangerously "away from the block"; but the melodic

modeling of the piece and the associative

rhythmic emotion are appealing.
Stursa

Jan

closely in

came

the

closest

of

Czechoslovakia

Rodin
to

him

tradition
as

followed

and perhaps

sensitive

impres-

sionist.

Hercules the Archer. Bronze, gilded.

Antoine Bourdelle. 1909.
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Anatole France. Bronze. Bourdelle. QBulloz photo')

476

FROM THE BAROQUE TO RODIN

During the Victorian era Alfred Stevens

had been the most original and interesting
British sculptor. The influence of Rodin was
less pronounced in England than on the
Continent. The first modern to emerge was
Frank Dobson,

who was

indebted rather

to

Alaillol. After a period of working in the

most sober kinds of realism, Dobson accepted
the formalism and expressionism that were to

animate an extraordinary group of creative

English sculptors working from 1925
present.

Dancer. Bronze. Georg Kolbe. 1912. Formerly Natioiial Gallery, Berlin

to

the

%
i8:

Modern

Sculpture:

Formalism^ Expressionism^ Abstraction

modern

sculptor, Etienne

how he went

to Paris

Hajdu, has

told

sance Italy influenced him.

his native

Ru-

Rodin, and finally came

from

1927, when cubism was twenty

and surrealism was the current fad.
He met a great number of students and became acquainted with leaders of the avant-

mania

in

years old

garde.

He

relates that

he arrived

at "a state of

foremost rebels of his

He

learned from

understand the

to

own

time,

Brancusi,

Arp, Giacometti, and Moore. His work began

with simple forms, "as the

ture

first

signs of a fu-

language," and ended in a distinctive

style, rocklike, abstract,

suave,

and appealing.

the most absolute confusion" and abandoned

In the 1960s he has been recognized as a mas-

sculpture for two years, returning to practice

ter original

only after a period of reading and subjecting

himself

to

influences:

the

Egyptians, the Cycladics, and

The

primitives,

many

the

another.

sculpture of pre-Columbian America, of

Africa, of

Romanesque France, and

Red G,

of Renais-

The

and in the

truest sense

modern.

Hajdu points up sevabout modern sculptors. They did

story of Etienne

eral truths

indeed flock

to Paris

from

all

the countries of

the world. But they did not go on to great

achievement because they learned the

mobile. Metal. Alexander Calder. 1963. ?erh Galleries,

New

York

ele-

MODERN SCULPTURE

478

ments of cubism or surrealism, or because

they were influenced by Picasso, who "cubed"
a portrait

head in 1909, or because the ad-

vanced painters of the

faiives school discov-

ered the effectiveness of African tribal masks.

hundred influences came

upon

to bear

the

students in Paris rather than one dominating

Rodin had opened the way

The

School of Paris remained supreme, as

study center, until the beginning of the

next war; but after Despiau there were no
a

Frenchmen among
rank

the foremost creators.

as opinion in

leaders,

were

them,

The

the mid-1960s might

(Rumanian),

Brancusi

Lehmbruck (German), Gonzalez (Spanish),

for the post-

Archipenko, Gabo, and Lipchitz (Russian),

decade before Braque

and Picasso developed cubism. Even earlier

and Giacometti (Swiss); all these had close

ties to Paris. Without Parisian training, and

idea.

realistic

the

style

full

German moderns had turned

malism

as a revolt against Rodin's

The

to

for-

dominating

had followed
with nonrealistic works from 1906 on, and
arrived at theoretical abstraction by 1910.
They, like the fanves in Paris, were drawn to
sculptures from the primitive cultures, Afrirealistic st\'le.

expressionists

can, Oceanic, Amerindian.

few youthful

ready

equipped

Gonzalez with

original

to Paris al-

achievement:

knowledge of metal forging,

pioneer work in welded
metals; Calder with a knack for invention
with wire which culminated in creation of a
a

which led him

to

new world

of mobiles, stabiles,

sculptures.

Nevertheless,

and animated
"modern
movement" gained impetus from the hundred
sources. Even the greatest creators acknowledge debts

the

total

rediscovered historic cultures:

to

Henry Moore equating

tur)',

was

Many

historians

a miner's love of the

stone with a deep study of ancient

the

Englishman Henr)' Moore.

would include Jacob Epstein,

American,

originally

French-trained,

but a

modern art from 1905.

These sculptors, and a host of car\'ers in
the second rank, had been freed from the
giant figure in English

realist's

went

sculptors
for

perhaps the greatest sculptor of the mid-cen-

obsession with

From

pearances.

copying natural ap-

the time of

Lehmbruck and

Brancusi on, distortion, in one sense or another, Nvas at the heart of

Whether

modern

practice.

and
monumental approximations by
Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, or the

Arp,

the purified art of Brancusi

the

roughly

modeled

Giacometti,

portraits

modem
man as he

all

rejection of

by Epstein and

sculpture entailed a
is

superficially seen

in a mirror or photographic lens.

Sculptors

were now preoccupied with interpretation,

sences, and inner vision.
"Expressionism"

Mexican

the

is

es-

most often

term

images; Brancusi simplifying forms until they

used today in writing about the international

comport perfectly with Cycladic

art that is patently post-realistic.

idols,

but

with an immediacy of material and method

learned from

modern

architecture

and mod-

Up

to

about

91 5 post-impressionist art was

The

revolutionar)'

schools, from neo-impressionism to cubism

and surrealism, were painter-inspired. The

sculptor

members

followed,

absorbing

into

their techniques the neo-impressionist surface

lighting, a "fauvish" carelessness

ture, a

toward na-

squaring of forms and an inclination

toward a study of planes from the

But

after the

war

cubists.

years of 1914 to 191 8 the

sculptors took over leadership

most of the world-famous

mans

name

at first a

to describe

the

Expression-

applied by the Ger-

work

of their radicals.

Therefore in Paris the term was opposed as

ern industrial design.

shaped mostly by painters.

ism was

and provided

artist

figures.

alien,

and

was widely thought

it

that "post-

impressionism" or perhaps just "modernism"

would

serve.

But

found

historians early

anal-

the expressionistic art of primitive

ogies in

peoples, in a great deal of Chinese sculpture,

in

the

"distorted"

manesque

figures

religious art.

historians speak of

As

of

French

Ro-

and
other mod-

a rule artists

French and

all

ern sculpture since about 1910 as a part of

expressionism.

Some

of the

most recent and unorthodox

innovations constructions and assemblages

MODERN SCULPTURE
are probably best considered as experiment.

But the most widespread current work, that

of the sculptor-welders, seems to mark the beginning of an activity that extends the boundaries of the sculptor's art.

listing

names

schools

of

and

of leaders

Not

or

styles,

with the

dates, follows.

a well-defined

From Paris the influence spread to

George Minne of Belgium and to Carl Milles
of Sweden. Paul Manship was a leader in a
tioner.

group

large

United

sculptors

the

in

The

Fauves, or "wild men," were

group of painters

Paris in

who came

to notice in

of the individual revolutionaries of post-im-

most

notably

Gogh, and Gauguin. The

Van

Cezanne,
Fauvist

leaders

bear

the

name "School

of

Paris."

Fauves practically revolutionized the

painting.

The

1908.

they

disassembled

and these

But no leader among

and reassembled planes,

number

The

first

were

creative

among whom
Lipchitz,

Raymond Duchamp-

and

Laurens,

Jacques

Villon.

Futurism.

group of

Originally

Italian painters

the

invention

who

talked

of

much

of

dynamism, futurism created a minor sensation in Paris in 1909. But it was soon recognized as advocating a return to illustrational

Umberto

art.

was sculptor
istic

Boccioni, one of the founders,

as well as painter,

but his futur-

innovations proved not to be along the

main way

of progress in plastic art.

Vorticism. This

was an English movement

inspired directly by the futurist rebels.

important

except

young

the

that

sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska enlisted in

marked by a high degree

was recognized later

of distortion. His oeuvre

as expressionist.

Constructivism. At

first

a school

formed

ganized group of "constructors" that included

Vladimir Tatlin, Antoine Pevsner, and

school of expres-

Gabo.

Naum

impetus

Its

was accepted
beyond cubism,

further

structivism

as

torf, just

in

which

machine-age

plastic art

second group of

could be invented.

Dutch

in origin,

called themselves neo-plasticists (though

generally

expressionism was the Blaiie Reiter

man

in 191

up
1.

painter Franz

a secessionist exhibition
Its

leaders

Marc and

were the Gerthe

Russian

the

known

name

merged

of

easily

groups tended

an

artists,

ideal

as the

terri-

a typical

German

Munich

in

191 7 by a varied and loosely or-

Russia in

was organized in 1905 in Dresden,

under the name Die Briicke. More central to

in

its

ranks and produced exceptionally fine com-

imagery, was widely developed. In Paris con-

sionists

group, which set

Un-

French

of

was

involved.
Ex-pressionism.

generally after

of sculptors,

The

art

sculptors

well.

by two

Picasso, in 1907
squared forms and

cubists

activities attracted,

most

Henri

as

in painting

Braque and Pablo

fauvists,

the

sculpture

was international, and

an important kind of modern sculpture, antiimitational and concerned with machine

were Matisse, Rouault, and Derain. In 1907

Braque joined the group, which was the first
to

creative

development

and

1905, bringing into focus the ideas

pressionism,

positions in stone,

States.

Fmivisni.
a

formalist

of

include

to

Ciihisvi.

1909, a

movement;
preceded the more spectacular French schools
and provided a first challenge to the realists.
Beginning in Germany in the earliest years
of the century, it was known through the
Adolph Hildebrand (1847-1 921)
theorist
and in the works of Franz Metzner (18701919), leading on to the more radical insurgency of Wilhelm Lehmbruck (i 881-19 19)
and Ernst Barlach (i 870-1 938). In France
the movement was not unrelated to the art
of the symbolists; Joseph Bernard (18661931) was the most notable French practiForvialism.

over

479

De

Stijl

who
more

group, from

magazine they published),

with the constructivists; both

to

of

geometrical designing and

abstraction.

The

Belgian

painter Vasily Kandinsky. Both groups were

to

devoted primarily to painting, but as the word

Georges Vantongerloo from the Dutch group

and the Russian Gabo were outstanding

"expressionism" took on meaning as a label

for all

Western

anti-realism in art,

it

spread

pioneer

sculptors.

Much

of

contemporary

480

MODERN SCULPTURE

welded sculpture

is

in

Russian constructivism.
Purism. In painting

tect

"purist"

is

in

1920.

work

Surrealism.

1924

the archi-

But the word

often used in describing the near-

abstract sculpture of Brancusi

abstract

from

minor school was

cubism and was

Amedee Ozenfant and

Le Corbusier

line

tried to

and the

The

bers of the school, but outgrew

its

as

mem-

limitations,

the one as a leading abstractionist, the other

because he turned

to a

very personal type of

Not

expressionism.

Ahstractionism.

school or a move-

ment, abstractionism has been a worldwide

founders of this school in

a veil of

Arp and Giacometti were claimed

fully

of Jean Arp.

throw

over subject-art. But the principles were more

easily realized in painting than in sculpture.

this

descended from flat-plane

created by

direct

"dream

reality"

development in the

The main aim

isolate,

arts

since

the formal element in

After

structure.

about

1900.

has been to achieve, even to

the

art,

the form

Cubist work,

late

in

about 1909 and 1910, and the paintings and

pronouncements of the Blaiie Reiter group
in 1 910 and 191 1, abstraction in sculpture
was achieved by Brancusi, by Arp, by Hajdu
and Viani, and after 1930, by the forgers and
welders of metals in a dozen countries. Where
absolute abstraction has not prevailed, emphasis has been thrown on the essential form
values, with subject values secondary. Treated
in
it

many

histories as abstract expressionism,

includes

nonobjective

pieces as seen

certain sculptures of Arp,

in

Gabo and Hajdu

the slightly objective compositions by

and

the foremost sculptors of the mid-nineteensixties,

such as Henry Moore and Jacques

less well-known
Kenneth Armitage
England, and David Smith of America.

Lipchitz,
Fritz

of

or

those

Wotruba

Abstraction,

of

the

of Austria,

too,

fathered

the

Alexander Calder's mobiles and

Tate Gallery, London.

(Photo hy Roland Federn)

Stele. Stone. Eric Gill.

invention of
stabiles.

II

TH

first

widespread reaction from

real-

ism occurred even while Rodin was. at

the height of his

beginning
tionary

it

power and

influence. In the

corative

conventionalization

and the

horse's

and expressionist movement, but

as a

Natural

became less important than a conand pleasing stylistic artistry. The

movement was toward the formal and decorative ideals of the Orient. It was most marked
in Germany, where Franz Metzner stylized
his figures with a smooth decorativeness and
a heavy "bluntness" found in his work and
aspect

sistent

that of

was

Hugo

not

smoothed
and the frankly de-

It is typical in its prettily

surfaces, linear rhythms,

took shape not as a wildly revolu-

toward formalized sculpture.

trend

Amazon.

Lederer.

primarily

A German
sculptor,

artist

who

Franz

von

Stuck, achieved a minor masterpiece in the

The

of

the

helmet

mane.

formalized

treatment lends

itself

to

As seen
in certain figures by the Frenchman Joseph
Bernard, it became a pleasing simplification,
whereas in the hands of certain talented mannerists it became a borrowed artistry, consciously manipulated to create charming and
pretty rather than profound effects.

fanciful decorative effects, without deep sense

of plastic
ship,

rhythm

or plastic order. Paul

an American, was

Man-

a leader in the for-

malist group. Another sculptor, with a lighter

touch, was the

Dane Kay

Nielsen.

Reclining Figure, three-piece ("Bridge Prop")- Bronze. Henry Moore. 1963.

City Art Gallery and Museum, Leeds

482

MODERN SCULPTURE

Girl Carrying Water. Stone. Joseph Bernard

QAnnory Show official photo, 1 91 3)

Amazon. Bronze. Franz von Stuck. Art

Institute

of Chicago, Fritz von Fratitzius Collection

The

formalizing

trend

continued

has

through more than a half-century, along with

the more turbulent movement initiated by the
avowed expressionists. Both movements op
posed realism, and especially naturalism. Carl
Milles, a Swedish sculptor who lived in the
United States after 1929, began as a formalizer and became a leading sculptor because he combined a feeling for essential
sculptural traits with his flair for charming
decorative effects. His monumental work has
largeness and dignity and considerable feeling
for the special massiveness which is, the mod-

erns of the thirties believed, the basic test of

the

art.

The

solidity of his designs

and

a char-

acteristic preciseness in fixing gesture or

are illustrated in the

Linkoping, Sweden.

pose

Folkunga Fountain

The

illustration here

at

is

version in bronze of the dominating figure.

Ivan Mestrovic developed from a moderate

formalization to a heavier expression without
hesitating

to

distort

aims could be served.

peared in

all

his

nature

An

when

aesthetic

elemental note

aj>-

work, as was natural, per-

MODERN SCULPTURE
marked the

emergence of sculpture

first

unaffected by the Italian

tally

483
to-

Renaissance

and the post-Renaissance schools of

realism.

there are influences in Mestrovic's work,

If

they are archaic and Byzantine.

He was

a fervent Christian

and mystic, and

one of the very few modern

artists

creating religious sculpture.

The

capable of

era of real-

ism had been an era of growing paganism

and devotion to profane beauty. Mestrovic
restored the impersonal grandeur and the
reverent sentiment that are inseparable from
spiritual expression in sculpture.

Eric Gill

was

a less profound sculptor, but

formalized reliefs and his half-

his prettily

round and round

figures for

church walls are

very attractive. His earliest training had been

and he preferred

as cutter of stone lettering,

be called a workman rather than an

to

He

disapproved of

reputations to

artist.

who owed

artists

anonymous workers'

their

replicas,

and deplored the machine's inroads upon

hand craftsmanship. A helpful patron managed to persuade him to go to Paris for training,

but one day in the great

art metropolis

and he decided upon an immediate

return to England. The example illustrated is
sufficed,

typical of his clean-cut, sensitively felt,

sturdy

The

but

(Page 485.)

art.

sculpture of the impressionists

and

of

the devotees of the utterly natural had been

most often showpieces, expressive in

own

integral

come photographic,
tory, so that it

Figure from Folkunga Fountain. Bronze.

Carl Milles. City Art Museum, St. Louis

a frame.

rectly

in

wood and

stone

when he was

shepherd boy in the mountains of Serbia. By

1912 Mestrovic was an internationally
artist,

the

first

giant

modern

known
who

sculptor

impressionistic, declama-

could not easily be held within

The modern movement,

sionism,

restored

sculpture.

haps, since he began his career by carving di-

their

was no longer produced as an

part of a building. Its virtues had be-

right. It

post-impres-

conceived

architecturally

Often the compositions of Mestro-

and Gill were destined for specific places

on buildings. Their works fitted perfectly
with simple walls and doors and windows.
vic

One

product of modernism

turally conceived

monument,

gained such renown independent of Paris.

His powerful, often heroic statues, touched
with the somber and sometimes pathetic ap-

while the figures

peal natural to themes from Serbian history.

monument

to

afford

scheme

as

fullest

validity
fit

into

a focal point.
at

is

an architec-

a structure built

to

the

the

sculpture,

architectural

The Reformation

Geneva, while hardly more

484

MODERN SCULPTURE

than good sculpture in the formahst vein

if

the figures are examined separately, becomes

majestic as an architectural whole.

Brancusi,

modern

and

Gill,

sculptors

Gaudier

who most

the

effectively

and

was

art.

is

the

Feeling for the stone

basic to their creations.

Each one of them

visualized the complete figure in the uncut

block. Eric Gill

condemned

French-trained sculptors

the French and

who modeled

in clay;

a stone imita-

tion of a clay model.

Expressionism as a

were

most passionately emphasized that stone

key material of the

he considered the finished work

olutionary

movement

post-realistic art

is

name
in

justified

for the

main

by the

emphasis from representation

to

transfer of

expression.

Intensification of the expressiveness

emotional and formal.

value

is

intensified

The

rev-

twentieth-century

is

both

subject or content

by dwelling upon the

es-

sential or inner attributes of the subject, often

to the extent of noticeable distortion of out-

Head

of St. Christopher. Plaster.

Ivan Mestrovic. 1947. Collection

of Mrs. Olga Mestrovic,
South Bend, Indiana

MODERN SCULPTURE

485

Tobias and Sara. Stone. Eric Gill. 1926

QFrom Eric Gill by Joseph Thorp,
courtesy Jonathan Cape
and Harrison Smithy

Monument

of the Reformation. Stone. Henri Bouchard and Paul Maximilian Landowsky.

Geneva

ward

aspects,

and by communication

of the

passion over the subject. Inseparable

artist's

from that expressiveness

intensification of

is

the character of the materials, of the feeling

for the stone, as so beautifully demonstrated

by Gill, Brancusi, and Gaudier.

Henri Gaudier, later Gaudier-Brzeska, was
a French sculptor who spent his few creative
years in England but was killed in the First

World War
was author

Naturally

sionist.

amount

first

there

but the few

certain

and student work;

such as the Seated Fig-

statues,

indicate

called expres-

survives

of his experimental

He

consistent series

which could be

of sculptures

ure,

age of twenty-three.

at the

of almost the

how

far

he

had

gone

in

achieving simplification, a primitive massiveness,

a rhythmic formalization,

trated feeling.

quoted
tural

ing

is

to

explain

energy

is

and concen-

Gaudier's definition

modern

is

often

sculpture: "Sculp-

the mountain. Sculptural feel-

the appreciation of masses in relation.

Sculptural

ability

is

the

defining of

masses and planes."

Old

Woman

Seated Figure. Stone. Gaudier-Brzeska.

Vormerly John Quinn Collection

these

After the prolonged epoch of clay modelers

Cane. Ernst Barlach.

CPhoto courtesy Paul Cassirer, Berlin^
ivith a

there came,

among

other influences, a study

and exotic sculpture exhibited

natural-history museums. There the lesson
of primitive

in

of

adapting design to the material, of formal

beauty arising in part from the shapes,

and hardness of stone

ture,

or wood,

tex-

was

re-

learned. Just as certain of the revolutionaries

were inspired by the emotion of the stone

were inspired to cut directly

block, so others

and they found

in wood;

Negro

sculpture, with

its

special pleasure in

exquisite craftsman-

ship and loving care for the beauty of the

wood manifested in each

mask or instrument.

few

ancestral figure or

of the pioneers of expressionism exe-

cuted pieces in imitation of the Negro

But the

when

real rebirth of

other

artists

wood

went back

figures.

came
enough to

sculpture
far

regain by experience the values special to cutting in wood. Ernst Barlach of

Germany gave

the modern Western world almost

its

first

demonstration of a considerable oenvre cut

rectly in
ral to

wood.

the

He

di-

preserved the forms natu-

wood block

as

opposed

to

the stone

MODERN SCULPTURE
block, rendered the masses fluently, with easy

unlike the then standard bronze busts

undercutting, and gained surface values, of

as

variation

and

texture, out of the

marks of the

With Constantin
artist who spent the
was the

it

Brancusi,

Rumanian

greater part of his life in

direct

expression

of

the

values in metals or polished marble that be-

came an
radical

ward

He

was one of the most

the expressionists and veered to-

obsession.

of

abstraction.

He

own

por-

inner emotion regarding the subject.

head appeared

as

hardly more than a

highly polished egg-shaped mass of bronze or

brass or stone, with only the barest indication

of facial features.

(Nothing could be more

Mile. Pogany. Stone. Constantin Brancusi. 1913.

Philadelphia Museum of Art.

(Photo hy A.

frank

geometrization,

J.

Wyatt^

tapered shaft, so

mounted

hardly more

bird

that

made

torso be-

its

became

movement

and balance

afford vaguely (or perhaps quin-

tessentially)

the feeling of a bird, whether

perched or in
Brancusi's,

flight.

among

all

the

near-abstract

moderns, was the most independent and the

simplified natural forms

almost beyond recognition to convey his

trait

came

from clay models.)

than a cylinder of brass.

cutting tool.

Paris,

transfers

487

Bird in Space. Polished bronze. Brancusi.

1925. Philadelphia Museum of Art

MODERN SCULPTURE

488

most subtle achievement of intrinsic sculptural values. His handling of the polished

new meaning

metals gave

hancing aesthetic

effect

to the idea of en-

through creative use

His works, whether symbols,

of materials.

ab-

stractions, or formal creations only faintly re-

lated to life

vey the

He

and the phenomenal world, con-

spirit rather

served as

than the natural shape.

an example

to all

contemporary

sculptors, in his return to elementary relating

of masses

and

to a

meticulous care for sen-

suous surface appeal.

The

second great adventurer in the

abstraction

was Alexander Archipenko,

sian-born artist
life

of Central

War, and

who was prominent in the art

Europe before the First World

1923 resided in the United

was the most extreme of the pioneer workers in near-abstraction and through
States.

his

after

He

experiments

in

nonobjective,

geometri-

and "reversed" forms where,

for instance, hollows suggest projections he
exerted tremendous influence upon internacally simplified,

tional practice.

are

The two

indicative of

statuettes illustrated

the harmonies he sought,

the one an early simplified Torso, the other a

field of

a Rus-

Flat Torso. Bronze. Alexander Archipenko.

1914. Perls Galleries, New York

late

"modeling of space,"

as the artist

termed

it.

Empire. Bronze. Archipenko. 1956.

MODERN SCULPTURE
Sculptors

made

less

progress than painters

and pleasNevertheless the overemphasis during the

sculptural form that lies at the heart of the

become mere illustraToday content remains, but the giants

modern art in stone are those who endow

in rendering abstraction acceptable

art,

ing.

tion.

nineteenth century upon literary content, or

upon mere

naturalness, led to a determined

489

of

sculpture tends to

each statue with a sculptural

life

of

its

own,

search for the values of abstract formal order,

over and above representational or associative

or absolute sculptural beauty. Purely nonob-

value.

jective

compositions and partial abstractions

Arp, like Brancusi, sought to penetrate

to

became common in the avant-garde galleries.

But in modern sculpture there was no artist
to match the achievement of Kandinsky in

compositions such as Growth (page 12) sug-

abstract painting.

gest

What was
Brancusi

gained, through Archipenko and

and such

lesser

pioneers as Jean

(originally Hans) Arp, was a general conviction that without the abstract values

creative

formal

rhythm

or

the

and the

expressive

the heart of sculptural emotion

and

to

escape

from the tyranny of worldly appearances. His

rather than define aspects of the phe-

nomenal world. His

is

near-abstract sculpture

with a sure surface appeal.

in individual creative

Two

sculptors

very dissimilar abstractions are Etienne

and the

Fern. Bronze. Etienne Hajdu. 1959-60.

Italian Alberto Viani.

M. Knoedlcr

&

who

ways have produced not

Co., Neit;

York

Hajdu

MODERN SCULPTURE

490

More profound and more

disturbing

sculpture of the Englishman

is

the

Henry Moore.

mations that achieve melodic and often pro-

found sculptural

forms, seldom nonobjective in the total sense

Moore
His work

but certainly extreme,

power.

His work ranges from composition of mere

human

to presentation of the

figure in altered

and oblique approxi-

with

gets

to

primitive

solidity.

elemental in the sense of creative

is

He

order.

back

is

close to the beginnings of things,

unfailing

expression

Glenkiln Cross. Bronze. Henry Moore. 1955-56. CCourtesy M. Knoedler

&

of

Co.,

those

New

forms

York)

MODERN SCULPTURE

Reclining Figure.

Wood. Henry Moore. 1959-64. QCourtesy

which man subconsciously relates to earth

and creation. He has repeated some of his
simple figures in various sizes from a few
inches in length or height to over

but the sense of weight, of mass,

The

is

life size;

never

lost.

Reclining Figure illustrated in the In-

troduction

is

only

six

inches in length. At the

Tate Gallery in London there

tably

of the artist^

suggesting Calvary.

Glenkiln Cross

is

491

The

near-abstract

one of the most impressive

of the sculptor's uprights, and it may bear for

some obseners vague connotations of some of

the profoundest truths of existence.

IVIoore

went on

two- and

to

three-piece

compositions, as variations on the Reclining

a version in

Figure theme (page 481); or sometimes two

and a half feet long.

Through the vears from the mid-twenties to
the sixties this was Moore's most frequent
subject, in \ariations from merely moderate
expressionistic caning to near-abstraction. But

upright figures related to a wall. But the most

imposing multiple works are those in great

stone

that

is

is

four

in the 1950s the artist

began

to create in a

very different vein, and he was as successful

in his "upright motives" as in the horizontal

and as fundamentally sculptural. The

motives were nearly architectural abstractions
at times, and became sugoestive of human
figures, and then unmistakably were figures;
and at one point he sculptured a cross ineviseries,

size,

immense, boulder-like masses,

ing distant likeness to

still

bear-

human

forms, arranged

They

are perhaps the

in craglike conjunction.

most stately most mysterious works in twentieth-century sculpture

up

to this time.

England, though long hostile

in art,

became

in the 1930s

to

modernism

one of the world's

foremost centers for experimental effort in

sculpture.

Frank Dobson

is

a less radical artist

than Moore and a follower in Maillol's path,

but honestlv expressive in any chosen ma-

MODERN SCULPTURE

492
terial.

Barbara Hepworth

rect carving

and

is

a pioneer in di-

in devotion to abstraction.

turned

and

to

modeling, and the most numerous

characteristic

of

his

later

She has been second only to Henry Moore in

achieving monumental effects. The Figure for

bronze casts after clay originals.

Landsca-pe illustrated

portraiture.

is

impressively massive.

Richard Bedford is knovi'n for his engaging

rhythmic compositions from flower and ani-

mal forms. But until Moore's triumphs, Jacob

Epstein, an American expatriate, was the most
famous modern sculptor in England.
In his early years Epstein experimented in
all

the varieties of expressionism, and he was

an advocate of direct carving and

full capi-

talization of the values inherent in the

material.

chosen

His most impressive monuments,

in-

Day on the St.

London Under-

cluding the heavy Night and

James's

Building

of

the

ground, were cut in stone. But Epstein

re-

No

contemporary

nuances

surpassed

Despiau was not more

of

Despiau's

artist

works were

outward

subtlety

expression,

and

him

in

sensitive to

precision

and

to

Epstein

added some slight distortion in the expressionmanner. His was a supreme psychological

ist

with the outward aspect deformed

and re-formed for intensification of character.
But even the most devoted admirer of his
amazingly revelatory and always interesting
portraits must note uneasily the lumpy surface and the general looseness and muddiness

portraiture,

evident in the bronze replicas.

the

work has the

air

Unfailingly

of authenticity, of a

unique mastery of the clay medium; but some

Figure for Landscape. Barbara Hepworth. 1960. Marlborough-Gerson Gallery,

New

York

of this

one

is lost

in the transfer to bronze.

removes

inconsistency

Epstein's

This

work

from the company of the world's great masterpieces of the

German

art.

artists

were

at

modern experimentation

in

the

forefront

sculpture

of

until

the Nazi dictatorship's suppression of libert)'

in the arts. Lederer

background

rebels;

and Metzner had been

Adolph Hildebrand, not

himself one of the greatest sculptors of his

time,

was the formulator

of a theory of form-

organization; Ernst Barlach

carver in wood;

ward

was the pioneer

Hermann Hahn went

far to-

realizing Hildebrand's aims of simpli-

fication

and rendering the sculptured

a living entity in its

own

right.

figure

Others were

Ernesto de Fiori (of Latin origin), Gerhard

Marcks, and Georg Kolbe.

But Wilhelm Lehmbruck was the greatest

Germans, and perhaps the most gifted
of modern sculptors up to mid-century. He
of the

Visitation, detail. Bronze. Jacob Epstein.

1926. Tate Gallery, London

Senegalese Girl.
Bronze. Epstein. 1921.
Weintraiib Gallery,

New

York

Bathing Woman.
Cast stone. Lehmbruck.
Private Collection

Kneeling

Woman.

Cast stone.

Wilhelm Lehmbruck. 1911.

Museum of Modern Art, New York

died by his
eight.

own hand

Lehmbruck

at the

age of thirty-

rose above the hmitations

of the routine sculptor's training in natural-

He

Lehmbruck's

sculpture

romantic on account of

its

has

been

termed

with medi-

affinity

eval sculpture, but nothing could be further

worked in Germany and in Paris but

found no instructor capable of lastingly influencing him. By 1908 he was experimenting

from the French or German romanticism of

1830. He was a pioneer who returned to pure
and essential expression. His work had move-

with subtle distortions for greater rhythmic

ment within

ism.

effect.

period of heavy simplification and

with utter

contained structure, vitality

stillness,

elegance and

monumen-

which might be noted as not

greatly unlike Maillol's on one hand and
Metzner's on the other, was followed by that

tality.

Many

cotta.

Most

period of utterly original stylization, with dis-

artist.

which culminated in
the famous Kneeling Woman, the Dying Soldier, and other characteristic masterpieces.

of elongated forms and the sensitive surface

formalization,

tortedly slender forms,

artificial

of his smaller works are in terra

of the larger statues were cast in

stone and then worked over by the

The

carefully controlled compositions

expressiveness are well

medium.

served in

this

new

MODERN SCULPTURE
Between 1910 and 1940 Paris was
center of

study,

still

the

but native sculptors were

overshadowed (except for Despiau) by Brancusi, Arp, Lehmbruck, Zadkine, and Lipchitz.

There were also the painters of the fauvist

and cubist schools, most notably Pablo Pi-

who made

casso,

brief excursions

into

the

Between 1926 and 1940

Picasso's fellow countryman Julio Gonzalez
did revolutionary groundwork in forged, hammered, and welded metals in Paris and infield

fore he developed an individual, rather heavy

and vigorous style of his own. Forced out of
France by the German occupation, he went
to New York in 1941 and since then has been
a modeler of elemental form-organizations
and one of the most powerful of modern
sculptors.

Other French sculptors came to the foreHenri Laurens,

of sculpture.

spired the international school of welders.

The

Russian Ossip Zadkine, hke Brancusi

and Gonzalez, remained

chief experimentalist
expressionists.

He

in Paris

among

and was

the post-cubist

produced a wide range of

original pieces, nonobjective as well as figura-

front at this time, including

who made

cubist and expressionist works.

Germaine Richier insisted upon using strange
new and broken forms in metal and enjoyed
a vogue when ultra-modern collectors began
to

value especially the imaging of degraded,

dehumanized, and twisted man. At the

treme, Francois

with

distortion of na-

down

bom

in Lithuania in

White Bear

the latter with

ture.

Jacques Lipchitz,

89 1, went to Paris to study in 1909. He

adopted a series of styles and techniques be1

Prometheus Strangling the Vulture.

Pompon

to the point of slickness.

at the

Musee

d'Art

Paris has solid sculptural virtues

of true

modem

Plaster. Jacques Lipchitz.

(^Courtesy Philadelphia

Museum

smoothed

The marble
Moderne
and

Owned by

the

in

a touch

short-cutting.

1944.

of Art^

far ex-

delighted the public

statues, especially of animals,

marked

tive,

495

artist.

MODERN SCULPTURE

496

In this second group of School of Paris

the

sculptors,

Russian

Ghana

Orloff,

the

of womanliness; but his finely lithic portrait

heads are held in greater esteem.

Spanish Pablo Gargallo, and the Rumanian-

born Etienne Hajdu, adopted members of the

Paris school,

By

artists.

were among the more creative

the

1926

now

internationally

famous Swiss Alberto Giacometti had become

a

provocative experimental

figure

Gaston Lachaise emigrated

1906

at the

the United States.

rectly in stone.

here

is

Paris.

The

modern

sculp-

Lachaise cut

di-

sculptural head illustrated

and

1935,

ing

already successful in

artists

sculptors rise to a position of world celebritv.

All the following

would

named

of the dozen most original

in

any

and

loosely the

He

and
which he

also created a series of statues

Europe Lip-

and Mestrovic, Archipenko and Milles

Americans had yet to see any of their own

portraits of its

statuettes of the female figure in

American studios

chitz

and quite un-

or

the

no native sculptor grew to the stature of a

Maillol or a Lehmbruck. Fortunate in attract-

French

American

1950

seethed with sculptural experimentation, but

tj^ically neo-primitive

like other

time.

in

America in

age of twenty-three and became

the acknowledged leader of the

tors in

to

In the years between the death of Lachaise,

in

list

certainly have

been

what may be termed

York school: Alfeo Faggi,

creative sculptors in

New

(who was
when he ar-

Polygnotos Vagis, Jose de Greeft

by exception

well-known

artist

Heinz Warneke, OronAhron Ben Schmuel, Ghaim

rived in America),

showed an obsession with the idea of fecundity. Using distortion of nature freely, he

zio Maldarelli,

achieved his purpose, a statue at once mas-

Gross, Isamu Noguchi, Goncetta Scaravagli-

sively sculptural

and emotionally expressive

one, and Robert Laurent.

The

national

Head. Stone. Gaston Lachaise. Roland P. Murdoch Art Collection, Wichita Art

ori-

Museum

MODERN SCULPTURE
gins of this rather remarkable group, ItaHan,

stone

Greek, Spanish, German, Austrian, Japanese,

darelli

497

and wood. His work and that of Maland de Creeft stayed generally within

and French, were hardly more varied than

the

might be termed the

first

the t)'pes of experiment or style they prac-

phase of twentieth-century modernism:

the

ticed.

The

primitive integrity and soliditv of

movement

movement

that

that brought about restoration of a

Vagis, the sensitive Ivricism, with a spiritual

stonelike massiveness as the basis of the art,

overtone, of Faggi. the essential stone feeling

and

of

Warneke's

figures,

and the overwhelming

need

terial, a

to

work

directly in the final

power of Ben Schmuel's compositions are all

traits within the modern movement, though

teenth-century lapse into modeling.

none perhaps could be

identified as typifying

ated between

America. Rather there

is

evidence of a

new

Traditionalists in the group

who

found in Wil-

(born in Lithuania) a leader

created a considerable body of advanced

work and went on

to aid his fellow artists

bv

promoting government encouragement of the

visual arts, writing,

vounger

men

to

and lecturing

practice

Jose de Creeft was, in the oeuvre he cre-

1930 and i960, the surest in

his creative touch.

The two

illustrations are

representative of two phases of a widely varied

internationalism here.

liam Zorach

ma-

reaction to the almost universal nine-

direct

to

urge the

carving in

output.
of

all

The

piece entitled

that has

Cloud

is

eloquent

been said about return

to the

compact and sculpturally

alive creation. More on the sensitive side, but
still notably blocklike, is the head in beaten
lead over plaster, called Himalaya. Its expresstone: a primitively

sionistic

distortions are evident but not dis-

tracting.
St.

Francis. Bronze.

Alfeo Faggi

The two men who

its own sake to

for

carried the love of stone

the ultimate conclusion

were Polygnotos Vagis and John B. Flannagan. Both affirmed that the block of stone
itself dictated the subject and the form of
the sculptured piece. There

is

a boulder-like

Cloud. Stone. Jose de Creeft. 1939.

Whitney Museum

of

American

Art, Neiv

York

aspect in

many

of Vagis's later compositions,

though he patently draws upon

a respect for

and worth of the human being

or animal. The two illustrations indicate
two quite different ways in which the feel of
stone is used: one almost a natural boulder,
for the dignity

only slightly shaped; the other a completed

composition but

The work
Lehmbruck,
kind

to

of
a

rocklike

still

Flannagan,

and elemental.

who

was,

like

suicide in a world often not

has generally the imme-

sculptors,

morial lithic look, out of "the eternal nature

of the stone itself," as he phrased
is

it.

His Goat

illustrated in the Introduction.

In the early 1960s the American sculptors

were

typical

with

the

of

artists

the

new

sharply

internationalism,

divided

into

two

groups: one within the historical tradition, the

other branching out into fields hitherto un-

known, such as the aerial sculpture invented

by Alexander Calder; the forged or welded
linear sculpture of
a
hundred "far-out"
shapers of metal; compositions in strange materials, derivative from the Russian school of
constructivists;

school;

Himalaya. Beaten lead.

De

Whitney Museum of American

Creeft. 1942.

Art,

New

Revelation. Stone. Polygnotos Vagis. 1951.

Museum of Modern Art, New York,
Gift of Mr.

and Mrs. John de Menil

York

and

so

so far distant

the

the

found-object

or

"junk"

on into avenues of confusion

from basic bulk-in-space

word "sculpture" hardly

art that

applies.

Bear and Cub. Stone. Vagis.

QCourtesy of the artist')

MODERN SCULPTURE
An American
tion,

one

499

within the historical tradi-

who came

to the fore

only in the

was Leonard Baskin. Obsessed

by the negative and shameful aspects of

early sixties,

man's progress through the ages, with an eye

to death and the corruptions of the flesh, he
at first alienated observers;

but as his mastery

and the sincerity and depth

of his feeling became recognized he was accepted by a growing audience. There is, for
of his materials

instance, a figure entitled

Man, which
scrutiny for

its

spirit

and

Dead-

thoughtful

deathlike stillness and

and suggested repose of

rigid,

for a certain dignity

the

The Great

long

invites

expressed in

the

other figures the bloated flesh

face.
is

In

many

strangely at

variance with the intellectual or aspiring look

of the heads.

The

first

illustration

is

a satirical

interpretation of this theme, because

we

are

apt to think that a poet should not be grossly

fat.

The

large statue of

Thomas Aquinas

is

outside the satirical group and can be read as

humanized portrait of a saint. It is at the

same time a very fine sculptural composition.
Baskin spoke for a considerable group of

Head. Stone. John B. Flannagan.

Gallery, New York

Weyhe

Poet Laureate. Bronze. Leonard Baskin. 1956.

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger,
(Courtesy Grace R. Borgenicht Gallery, New York)

500

MODERN SCULPTURE

modern

artists.

"Our human frame, our Putted

mansion, our enveloping sack of beef and ash

is

yet a glory."

And: "Man

has charted

the earth and befouled the heavens

tonly than ever before.

He

has

more wanof Arden

made

a landscape of death. In this garden

and ...

to

hold the cracked mirror up

dwell,

man.

All previous art makes this course inevitable."

Baskin's course
can.

was not

Germaine Richier

particularly Ameri-

in France

in this pessimistic vein;

and

in

had worked
England no

phenomenon was more

talked about than the

"kitchen

of

sink school"

painting and

the

Angry Young Men of the theater. England's

young and revolutionary sculptors joined the
effort to create a new and fuller image of
St.
St.

Thomas Aquinas. Wood. Baskin.

John's Abbey, Collegeville, Mhinesota.

QPhoto by Walter Rosenhlum')

man,

his tensions, frustrations,

and sexual

cor-

Reg
Butler, followed closely by Lynn Chadwick
and (in a somewhat soberer vein) Kenneth
ruptions included. Foremost perhaps was

Armitage. All are welders or forgers, and But-

and Chadwick

ler

first

became known

for

metal figures on the abstract and somewhat

spidery side, but progressed to greater bulk

and

solidity.

international

In 1953 Butler won the historic

competition in which 2500

sculptors submitted models for a

to

the

Unknown

ficially his

Political

monument

Prisoner.

model might be described

Superas three

incidental figures, a cagelike structure in the

new

metal

technique,

and

nonexistent

prisoner.

Maquette for The Unknown

Political Prisoner.

Bronze, wire, stone base. Reg Butler. 1952.

^Courtesy of the artist")

Horse and Rider. Bronze.

Marino Marini. 1947-^8.

Museum

New

of

Modern

Lillie P. Bliss

The most

pleasing

revolutionary like

artist,

these others, but holding to the historical

dition in the matter of sculptural

even with a touch of archaism is

most modem, Marino Marini.

known by

tra-

volume-

Italy's fore-

He

is

best

some
grew while the artist
observed the bewildered animals and men
under attack by bombers in wartime. Although not afraid of expressionistic distortion, he held to the general form of the beast
and man. Without comment, without anger,
with

a series of statues of horses,

riders, a series that

the artist has

a

made each

piece in the series

reminder of mankind's as yet ineradicable

penchant

for war.

portraitist,

in

Marini

which

field

is

known,

he

is

too, as a

hardly sur-

passed.

Late

emerged

in

the

as the

1950s

Alberto

Giacometti

most popular sculptor of the

He had been bom

and had received his early training in Switzerland. In 1922 he went to Paris to study, and
survived association with the surrealists, then
School of Paris.

a Swiss

Art,

York,

Bequest

the constructivists. In the 1940s he developed

sheerly

original

stj^le

of

expressionistic

image-making and produced ever more

uated figures, remote from reality.

atten-

method approaches

sensi-

caricature,

but the

His

of his touch ensures a spiritual com-

tivity

pleteness for each image; for Giacometti

first

of all reveals imaginative aspects of life in

The Large Head

sculptural terms.
is

illustrated

modem expressionistic
The Man Pointing is t\'pical
peak of

at a

ing.

many

utterly slenderized pieces

done

most

to

win the

artist

modelof

the

which have
international

recognition.

The
ential

School of Paris, the world's most influ-

producer of revolutionary painting, had

few French members among internationally

known sculptors after Bourdelle, Maillol, and
Despiau.

Raymond DuchampVillon

created a

few monuments within the idiom of cubism,

but he died at the early age of forty-two during

World War

I.

Some

School of Paris also

of the painters of the

left

notable sculptural

MODERN SCULPTURE

503

Head. Stone. Amcdco Modigliani.

Victoria

and Albert Museum

works. Matisse produced some small figures

obviously influenced by Rodin; later he

re-

verted to modeling, but his sculpture does not

compare

with

magnificent

his

decorative

paintings. Modigliani also practiced sculpture

but was forced

for a time

up

to give

the art

because of the effect of stone dust upon his

His sculptural works, cut

lungs.

stone, are solidly blocklike, with

expressionistic

ual,

But again there

the

artist's

is

directly in

an individ-

deformation

very

little to

nature.

of

compare with

The

strangely appealing paintings.

bronze figures from Renoir's clay studies

little

are intriguing, but possibly the artist only in-

dicated their form and substance, since a co-

operating professional modeler put them into

final shape.

Gauguin carved

in

wood

a very

few compositions, but his mastery of the me-

dium was evident and

the several pieces are

very appealing.

Pablo Picasso took over the leadership of

the School of Paris

when

the fauvist Matisse

did not embrace cubism, and there were

ics

who

But

greatest living sculptor.

his oeuvre

scattered clay, wax, plaster, wood,

modeling,

old-fashioned

cubism,

crit-

him

in the early 1960s termed

the

is

so

tin, iron;

construc-

pottery that he can hardly be said to

tions,

have found a

have affected the

style or to

world current of sculpture. In most pieces

formal aliveness, and occasionally

there

is

there

is

a creative

and

satisfying attainment,

but there are also willful

lapses of taste. Beside

per\'ersities

and

Moore, Picasso seems

hardly more than a dabbler in sculpture; be-

Lehmbruck he seems

side

insensitive.

Yet his

diverse sculptures are part of a stupendous

personal achievement in the

arts,

and

of an

unprecedented triumph.
Practically all the artists

been described
of

so

twentieth-century

within

the

in

far

tradition

whose work has

this

remained

massive

sculpture.

of

That

tradition has lasted for at least 30,000

years,

and its essential appeal and its variaform substantially the history of the art.

tions

In the present era there are

so-called

On

facing page:

Large Head. Bronze. Alberto Giacometti.

1960. The Phillips Collection, Washington

Left:

Right:

Man

Gift of

Pointing. Bronze. Giacometti.

Modern Art, New York,

Ahhy Aldrich Rockefeller

Museum

of

1947.

brief outline

modernism

sculpture

that

many

kinds of

negate massiveness.

ta^

MODERN SCULPTURE

504

began

that

as offshoots of the tree of sculp-

but pushed so far into

tural creation

and new appeal

pression

The

experimental.

that they are

still

"found objects," indi-

and

cate the directions of experiment

withdrawal from

The most

ex-

given them, "mo-

labels

biles," "constructions,"

tain

new

a cer-

tradition.

noted innovator was Alexander

Calder, an American. Born in 1898, son of a

respected

traditional

sculptor,

he was edu-

cated in engineering, then painting. Before

he was known

America and

in

1930
France for his wire compositions.

The

in

virtues

of these pieces were novelty, humor, and not

a

sound sculptural

little

artistry.

From

near-

works in wire a famous one, dated

was entitled Kiki's Nosehe went on to

abstract
1

93 1,

his

most

characteristic

tions, the mobiles.

and inventive construcare hanging contri-

They

Nature's laws permit. ...

embody

this as-

pect of Nature in freely composed 'kinetic'

The

sculptures.

designs behave like machines

but echo and suggest living forms.

The

They

looked forward

an

to

art

purified of

natural appearances and material representa-

an

tion,

such as

new

new

art of

or overlooked materials

glass, celluloid, the plastics,

and the

had
Although they pursued
a kinetic or dynamic ideal, they early dropped
the element of movement from their conmetals. Their constructions generally

and

a light

airy look.

They spoke

trivances.

against sculpture's ob-

vances of heavy wire rods supporting com-

session with volume; but their leaders,

plexes of metal stems terminating in sheet-

notably Antoine Pevsner and

metal

whole

the

leaves,

weighted so that the

air

adjusted

slightest

and

movement

of

keeps the several parts in gentle motion.

There

a fascination in the drift

is

and flow of

the terminal elements, a pattern of motion

foreseen by the artist

which

invention into the realm of

It

that

is,

art.

(See page 477.)

of course, the element of

marks

stillness,

this as a

new

movement

departure. Repose,

has been a basic quality of historic

sculpture.

many

clearly brings the

mobiles

Calder's

have

inspired

kinds of moving constructions, some

fell
if

back

not bulky compositions, even to Arp-like

These two

The United

international

States,

influence.

England, France, and

have exercised a

wide influence in many lands. (See page 506.)

An individual vision and a strict adherence
to

pold.

principle

constructivist

single

were

an American, Richard Lip-

characteristic of

His hanging constructions, complex and

precise mathematical cal-

dependent upon
culation,

wires

of

are

"found objects."

had

has

both Russian, through their

artists,

airy improvised abstractions

energy.

Calder

most

Gabo,

concretions or figures futuristically assembled.

what

agitators,

Naum

at times into creation of substantial

some powered with

electric motors; and soon, no doubt there will
be contrivances kept in motion by atomic

with clockwork

forces

which come to bear and the shapes and movements they engender do not imitate Nature.
But their performance is analogous to organic
life and may appear to be associated with it."
Another nontraditional activity was carried
on by the constructivists from about 191 7.

or

rods

formation and gleaming with

One
is

in

pleasing

light.

path of modern experiment led

to

"assemblages," or sometimes

called

Artists

discovered in some

picked-up object a quality or attribute which

could be used

to

form part of a sculpture,

Japan are but four countries where younger

artists have become his disciples, and where

mobile fender, a detached mannequin's leg

mobiles are constructed and give pleasure.

or a seashell.

George Rickey was born in America but educated in Scotland and England in his formative years, and he most successfully widened

on this beginning a structure or medley of

harmonious objects. Most exhibitions of
assemblages show the bizarre, the quaint, and
the amazing aspects of creation. Certainly no
became known primarily
great
sculptor
through association with the movement. But

the scope of mobile or kinetic composition.

He

explained the basis of the

words in 1961:

"I

new

art in these

study the motions which

such

as

a rusted pitchfork or a bent auto-

The

inventive artist could build

Variation within a Sphere, No. 10: The Sun.

Gold-filled wire. Richard Lippold. 1953-56.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund

]J

_*

MODERN SCULPTURE
was connected with that of the
and with that of the new

the activity

constructivists

school of metal welders.

It

who

groups,

bring us back to true sculpture, to an

but creative

attenuated

The

among modern

the welders,

is

metal

composition.

new especially

are

tools

the acetvlene

torch but the aims are those of

plastic artists

dou n the ages. A retreat from stone and wood

was inevitable with the coming of the Space
Age. Metals, in the form of machines,
surround the
Metals, no

human being

less,

in everj'day

To

(or the subconscious) of man.

temporary

been

remarkable

how much

of the achieve-

modern school

of direct workers

was foreshadowed

in the oeiivre of

of the

in metal

Julio

the con-

the accessibility of metals has

challenge.

It is

ment

artists

life.

condition the consciousness

Gonzalez,

Spanish

the

Parisian

who

died in 1942. His exceptionally voluminous

Montserrat
It

is

is

work

monument

to

illustrated in the Introduction.

in sheet iron,

human

dignity

composed as a
and defiance in
Spanish Civil

face of the atrocities of the

War. But he was

as skilled as

any of the

later

welders or forgers in the more linear and

tenuous stvle that

The Danish

is

most practiced today.

Robert Jacobsen

artist

has

become internationally known for his originality, as shown in works which combine
sturdiness

with

grace.

The

Reg

English

prac-

Eduardo
and Lynn Chadwick, have added
especially

titioners,

Paolozzi,

Butler,

individualistic contributions within the style.

The Americans have shown

tion:

David Smith with

totem-like

striking imaginahis

signlike

David Hare; Mary Gallery with her

tinctive,

and

standards raised against the sky;

dis-

rhythmic, continuous figures; Her-

Ferber; Ibram Lassaw, who was preeminent in elaboration of the metal structure

bert

and in

Theodore Roszak, inventor of

flowers and stranger
birds; Seymour Lipton, somewhat simpler in
\ision and more a purist all these are in the
full tide of a sculptural art unlike any other
strange

color;

metal-inspired

in histor)' since the Renaissance.

Column. Glass, plastic, metal,

and wood. Naum Gabo. 1923.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
Neii7 York

507

Ancestor. Nickel-silver on monel metal.

Seymour Lipton. 1958. Height: 87 inches.
The Phillips Collection, Washington

MODERN SCULPTURE

508
It

may be

modern
stage.

that

architecture,

modem
is

sculpture,

like

as yet in its primitive

After the pale sweetness of the neo-

classic age,

routine

and the ensuing degeneration

sculpture

Insect.

Burnished

into

steel.

marvelously

of

true

but

uncreative

naturalism,

new

start,

embodying a return to the primitive virtues,

was necessary. So far the world has seen,
in post-impressionism or expressionism which
is
the main movement of the twentieth

David Smith. 1948. Marlborough-Gerson Gallery. i?hoto by O. E. Nelson')

Menand

VII. Painted steel.

David

Sitting Figure VI. Bronze. L)Tin

bimith.

1963. Marlborough-Gerson Gallery

Chadwack. 1962. Marlhorough-Gerson Gallery. (Pfcofo by O. E. Nelson')

MODERN SCULPTURE

510

century chiefly the impulsive, powerful beginnings.

bruck or

Only a rare artist such as LehmMoore has been able to add sen-

sitivity to basic sculptural

tive personal

organization.

emotion

to

page 508

of a "real" subject.

ment

Lynn Chadwick's

architectonic form-

Figure.

But Gonzalez and

his followers

If

at

areas of invention.

idea

workers in metal have been leaders in

march toward

the twentieth-century

Many had

tion.

the

realistic

their

modelers

abstrac-

early training

of

under

1900- 1930.

Fritz

Wotruba, an Austrian artist, bom in 1907,

began with fully figurative modeled sculpture,
then

made an

an Insect by David Smith, also

grandeur, an effec-

have afforded glimpses into new and exciting

The

is

leaning to the abstract, but also reminiscent

international reputation with

is

seen

in

different sort of achieve-

today there are more creative sculptors

work
is

in the world than ever before the

defensible it

is

partly because a multi-

tude of only partially recognized experimenters,

not yet ready for history, exists in the

background.

The

object-makers, the stringers

of wires, the constructors of

monumental box

forms, the builders of shaped walls, the ad-

venturers

in

moving

sculpture:

Among

the obscure

of

invention and creation.

in

workers are doubdess geniuses

human

form, he declared for an image nearer

the abstract and, as he thought, nearer the

essence of sculpture.
in metal,
this

final

is,

One

of his late pieces,

perhaps appropriately, placed on

page of a history of the

art.

On

all

unbounded

heavy stonecut

mid-career, without ever quite forgetting the

these

contribute to an atmosphere of

vigor

pieces. His style was born

and consciousness of the block. But

Sitting

part of tomorrow's history.

who will be
At the moment it

to end with the creations of

and Gabo, Smith, Chadwick, and
Wotruba. Explorers and adventurers in their
day, they now seem to be safely within

seems

fairer

Lipton

history.

Reclining Figure. Bronze. Fritz Wotruba. 1960. Marlborough-Gerson Gallery. (Vhoto by O. E. Nelson')

For Further Reading

Acknowledgments

Indiex

PHOTOGRAPHS FOLLOWING THE TEXT

For Furtlier Reading heading:
Dynasty VI. Sakkara. Cairo

Interior wall of tomb, bas-relief, detail. Stone.

r>ionysits,

Acknowledgments heading:
Pan, and a Bacchante. Relief, stone. Greco-Roman. National
Na-ples. (Alinari photo)

Ceremonial corn grinder,

Museum

Museum,

Index heading:
Panama. American Museum of Natural History.
Text reference on pages 43940

detail. Stone.

M Ml., t/^l Jiri1iiul

nJi^ >f

tillMii'liiiilfM ^illi

\^i A'*

V^..

I:

-',

7or Further Reading

Beyond the usual bare listing of title, author,

and date, I have added brief
notes of three kinds: i) indicating the number

place of publication,

of illustrations, because pictures

to

enjoyment in

this field;

3) inserting occasionally the

as

less

name

expensive;

of publisher

"Phaidon monograph" or "Pelican

History of Art"
frequently a

so greatly

2) indicating which

books are paperbacks and therefore

or series

add

as

indication of excellence. In-

title fails to

under discussion;

identify the civilizations

have then added a few words

indicating coverage.

Only books

in English are

The Dawn

of Civilization:

essays

by thirteen

toric arts

and

Cultures in

authorities.

(Covers prehis-

earliest cultures in Asia,

Europe,

Eg\^t, the Americas; de luxe format; 940

trations.)

London,

New

illus-

York, and Toronto,

1961.
Egyptian Art, by Werner and Bedrich Forman

and Milada Vilimkova. (118

London, 1962-

The Art

of Ancient Egypt.

graph; brief text, 341

London, and

listed.

Human

Early Times, edited by Stuart Piggott, with

New

large

(A Phaidon mono-

illustrations.)

York,

plates.)

Vienna,

1936; London and

Toronto, 1937.
Eternal Egypt, by Pierre Montet, translated by

PERIODS, PEOPLES, STYLES

and Primitive Man, by Andreas Lommel. (Landmarks of the World's Art series;
210 illustrations.) London, New York, and

Prehistoric

Toronto,

1966.

Prehistoric Art,
trations;

by T. G. E. Powell. (263

paperback.) London and

New

illus-

York,

1966.
Prehistoric Art: Paleolithic Painting

and Sculf-

by P. M. Grand. (Pallas Library of Art

series;
115 illustrations; de luxe format.)
Greenwich, Connecticut, 1967.
The Art of the Cave Dweller: A Study of the
Earliest Artistic Activities of Man, by G. Baldwin Brown. (166 illustrations.) London, 1928.
In the Beginnings: Early Man and His Gods, by
H. R. Hays. (Worldwide coverage; 116 illusture,

trations,

maps.)

New York and Toronto,

1963.

Doreen Weightman. (no photographic

trations, textcuts, maps.) London, 1964;

illus-

New

York, 1965.
Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt, by
W. Stevenson Smith. (Pelican History of Art;

The

308 photographic illustrations, textcuts.) Harmondsworth and Baltimore, 1958.

The Ancient World, by Giovanni Garbini. (Landmarks of the World's Art series; 227 illustrations; covers Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and
early Persian civilizations.) New York and
Toronto, 1966.

The Art and

Architecture of the Ancient Orient,

by Henri Frankfort. (Pelican History of Art;
covers Mesopotamian, Hittite, and early Persian sculpture;
textcuts.)

1954-55-

192 photographic

Harmondsworth

and

plates,

117

Baltimore,

514

FOR FURTHER READING

Meso-potatnia and the Middle East, by Leonard

(60 photographic illustrations, 73

text figures.) London, 1961.
Cylinder Seals of Western Asia, by D. J. Wiseman, with photographs by W. and B. Forman.
(118 plates showing each seal in actual size
Woolley.

and

greatly enlarged; covers British

collection only.)

London,

Museum

n.d., recent.

The

Heritage of Persia, by Flichard N. Frye.

(126 illustrations, maps.) London, Cleveland,
and New York, 1963.
The World of Islam, by Ernest J. Grube. (Landmarks of the World's Art series; 2 1 1 illustrations.) London, New York, and Toronto, 1966.
Art of China, Korea, and Japan, by Peter C.
Swann. (261 illustrations.) London and New
York, 1963.

Scythian Art, by Gregory Borovka. (74 plates.)

London and New York, 1928.

A History of Ear Eastern Art, by Sherman E.

Scythians and Greeks, by Ellis H. Minns. (9

(Covers India and Southeast Asia,

textcuts.)

351

plates,

Cambridge, England,

Art of the

Ste'p'pes,

series;

by Karl Jettmar. (Art of the

New

195 illustrations.)

York,

Four Thousand Years Ago: A World Panorama of

Life in the Second Millennium B.C., by Geof-

(38 photographic illustrations, textcuts, maps.) London and New York, 1962.
The Classical World, by Donald E. Strong.
(Landmarks of the World's Art series; 220
illustrations.) London, New York, and Tofrey Bibby.

Chinese Monumental Art, by Peter C. Swann,

with photographs by Claude Arthaud and

(157 plates, maps;

de luxe format.) London and New York, 1963.
Pageant of Japanese Art: Sculpture, edited by
staff

members

ronto, 1965.

of Classical Greece,

by Karl Schefold.

The Enduring

Roman

London and

New

M.

C. Toynbee.

90

illustra-

(Phaidon monograph; brief text,

135 illustrations.) London and New York,
of Pre-lslamic Times,

Edith Perada. (60 photographic plates,

textcuts.)

by
125

London, 1963.

Masterpieces of Persian Art, by Arthur Upham

Pope. (206 illustrations.) New York, 1945.

New

York, 1929.

Craft of the Japanese Sctdptor, by

Warner. (89
(355

illustrations.)

New

Langdon

York, 1936.

by Noritake Tsuda.
Tokyo, New York, and

of Japanese Art,

illustrations.)

Toronto, 1936.
of India: Traditions of Indian Sculpture,

Painting and Architecture, by Stella Kramrisch.

(196

illustrations.)

The Art and

Hindu,

London, 1955.

Architecture of India: Buddhist,

Jain,

by Benjamin Rowland. (Pelican

History of Art; 289 photographic illustrations,

textcuts.)

Harmondsworth

and

Baltimore,

1953Indian Sculpture: Masterpieces of Indian, Khmer

and Cham Art, photographs by W. and B.

M. Deneck. (Almost

exclusively a picture book,

264

illustrations.)

London, 1962.

The Art

n.d.

The Art

London and

illustrations.)

Forman, text by M.

York, 1965.

Portraits.

Ancient Iran:

Art of Japan, by Langdon Warner,

paperback.) New York and

Toronto, 1952.

The Art

series;

is

Sculpture of Japan, from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Century, by William Watson. (129

(Phaidon monograph; brief text, 169 illustrations.) London and New York, 1941.
Etruscan Art, A Study, by Raymond Bloch. ( i o i
illustrations; de luxe format.) London, 1959.
The Etruscans, by M. Pallottino, translated from

1955The Art of the Romans, by J.

(Ancient Peoples and Places

illustrations.)

illustrations;

Handbook

illustrations;
J. Cremona. (51
paperback.) Harmondsworth and Baltimore,

119

a de luxe edition, Tokyo, 1954.)

(120 photographic illustrations, 77 textcuts.)

London and New York, 1967.
Etruscan Sculpture, by Ludwig Goldscheider.

the Italian by

Tokyo National Museum.

Tokyo and Rutland, Vermont, 1958. (There

The

York, 1965.

of the

(Popular edition; boards,

(92

Greek Art, by John Boardman. (251 illustrations.) London and New York, 1964.
The Civilization of Greece, by Frangois Chamoux.
(229 illustrations, maps.) London and New

tions.)

New

Frangois Hebert-Stevens.

1967.

The Art

Japan; de luxe format; 716 illustrations.)

York, 1964.

1913-

World

Lee.

China,

of Nepal,

by

Stella Kramrisch. (Cata-

logue of an exhibition at Asia House,

York; 127 illustrations.)

The Ctdture

New

of Soiith-East Asia:

The

by Reginald Le May. (215

maps.) London, 1954.
India,

New

York, 1964.

Heritage of

illustrations,

FOR FURTHER READING

A

Concise History of Buddhist Art in Siam, by

illustrations, maps.)

Reginald Le May. (206

New York, 1938.

A Handbook of the Archi-

Cambridge, England, and

The Art

of Thailartd:

tecture,

(^Siam^,

Scidfture and Painting of Thailand

and a Catalogue of the Exhibition in

the U7tited States in

19606162. Includes
of Siam," by A. B.

"The Art and Sculpture

illustrations;
paperback.)
C163
Published by 9 American Museums under

Griswold.

London

trations.)

and

New

York,

515
1967.

Scidpture in England in the Middle Ages, by

Lawrence Stone. (Pelican History of Art; 305

illustrations.)
Harmondsworth
and Baltimore, 1955.
English Scidpture of the Twelfth Century, by F.
Saxl. (100 plates, 50 textcuts.) London, 1954.
photographic

nth

Gothic Art from the

to the

i$th Centuries,

by Andrew Martindale. (207

London and New York, 1967.

illustrations.)

Museum,

Gothic Scidpture, by Hans Weigert, edited by

Byzantine Art, by D. Talbot Rice. (Revised edi-

Harald Busch and Bernd Lohse. (201 plates,

minimum text.) London and New York, 1963.
Gothic Sculpture: The Intimate Carvings, by

direction of Indiana Universit\' Art

Bloomington, i960.

tion,

paperback; 80 photographic illustrations,

textcuts,

maps.)

London,

Melbourne,

and

Baltimore, 1954.

Max H.

von Freeden. (35 large

New

don, 1962;

Byzantine Aesthetics, by Gervase Mathew. (25

illustrations.) London and New York, 19631964.

Lon-

Sculpture in the Netherlands, Germany, France

and Spain, 1400

(Pelican

Arts of the Migration Period in the Walters Art

plates.)

York, 1963.

to

1500, by Theodor Miiller.

History of Art;

192

illustrations.)

and Viking, by Marvin Chauncey Ross.

Harmondsworth and Baltimore, 1966.

Renaissance Scidpture, by Hans Weigert, edited
by Harald Busch and Bemd Lohse. (225 illustrations, minimum text.) London and New

(61 illustrations.) Baltimore, 1961.

Early German Art and Its Origins, from the Beginnings to about 1050, by Harold Picton.

York, 1964.
Larousse Encyclopedia of Renaissance and Baroque Art, edited by Rene Huyghe. (Arts and

Gallery:
ish,

Hunnish, Gothic, Ostrogothic, Prank-

Burgundian, Langohard, Visigothic, Avaric,

Irish

(Covers Germanic "barbarian" sculpture in

and out of Germany; loi plates bearing 434
illustrations.) London, 1939.
Pattern and Purpose: A Survey of Early Celtic
Art in Britain, by Sir Cyril Fox. (81 plates,
textcuts.) Cardiff, 1958.
Irish

to

800

by Frangoise Henry. (160 illustrations.)

London, 1963; Ithaca, New York, 1965.
Viking Art, by David M. Wilson and Ole KlindtJensen. (80 plates, 69 textcuts.) London, 1963;
A.D.,

New York,

1966.

London, 1962.

French Scidfture of the Romanesque Period:

Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, by Paul

Deschamps. (96

plates.)

Florence and

New

York, 1930.

don and New York, 1965.

Architecture and Sculpture in Early Britain: CelSaxon,

photographs

illustrations.)

New

and the Renaissance, by Andrew Martin(Landmarks of the World's Art series;

.204 illustrations.) London, New York, and
dale.

Primitive Art:
S.

Its

Traditions and Styles, by Paul

Wingert. (Covers Oceanic, African

tribal,

and Amerindian sculpture; 126 illustrations.)

London and New York, 1 962.
Polynesian Art, by Edward Dodd. (341 illustra-

New York,

1967.

Oceanic Sculpture: Sculpture of Melanesia, by

Carl A. Schmitz, photographed by F. L. Kenett.
(35 large plates; de luxe format.) Greenwich,
Connecticut, 1962.

Tribes and Forms in African Art, by William

Fagg. (122 large plates.)

London and

New

York, 1965.

European Sculpture from Rom.anesque to Neoclassic, by H. D. Molesworth and P. Cannon

Brookes. (276 illustrations; paperback.) Lon-

tic,

Man

tions.)

Romanesque Sculpture, by Hans Weigert, edited

by Harald Busch and Bemd Lohse. (181
plates.)

121

series;

York, 1964.

Toronto, 1966.

Art in the Early Christian Period

Ithaca,

Mankind

Norman, by Robert
by

Jean

Roubier.

Stoll,

(254

with
illus-

African Sculpture:

An

Anthology, by William

Fagg and ^largaret Plass. (176 illustrations.)

London and New York, 1964.
The Sculpture of Africa, by Eliot Elisofon, with
by William Fagg. (405 exceptional photoLondon and New York, 1958.
Indian Art in America, by Frederick J. Docktext

graphs.)

FOR FURTHER READING

516

(250 illustrations.) London, New York,

and Toronto, 1961.
T^orth American Indian Art, by Ema Siebert and
Werner Forman. (Covers Northwest Coast
sculpture only, in two little-known collections
in Leningrad and Moscow; 107 extraordinarily
stader.

fine plates in color, 35 black-and-white illustra-

London, 1967.
North American Indian Mythology, by Cottie
Burland. (176 illustrations.) London, 1965.
Art before Columhus: The Art of Ancient Mexico
from the Archaic Villages of the Second
tions.)

Millennium B.C. to the S'plendor of the Aztecs,

by Andre Emmerich, with photographs by Lee

(172

Boltin.

maps.)

illustrations,

New

York,

1963.

Kelemen. (2 volumes, 306

Survey,

by Pal

plates, bearing

980

New York, 1946. (Popular

New York, 1956.)

illustrations.)

print,

re-

volume.

The Ancient Maya, by Sylvanus Griswold Mor-

W.

by George

revised

ley,

photographic

Brainerd.
textcuts,

illustrations,

(226

maps.)

Stanford, California, 1963.

Ancient Arts of the Andes, by Wendell C. Bennett. (Museum of Modem Art monograph;

209

illustrations,

maps.)

New

York, 1954.

Baroque Scxilpture, by Werner Hager and EvaMaria Wagner, edited by Harald Busch and

Bemd

(216

Lohse.

New

text.)

illustrations,

minimum

York, 1965.

Larousse Encyclopedia of Modern Art, from, 1800

to the Present Day, edited by Rene Huyghe.

(Covers

from

i8th

century

neo-classicism

through romanticism and realism to 20th century experimental modernism;

tions.)

1228

illustra-

London and New York, 1965.

History of Modern Scidfture, by Her-

A Concise

bert Read.

don,

The

New

(339

illustrations;

paperback.) Lon-

York, and Toronto, 1964.

Sculpture

of

this

Century,

by

Michel

Seuphor. (414 illustrations.) Neuchatel, Switzerland, 1959; London and New York, i960.

Modern

Scul-pture:

Origins and Evolution, by

Jean Selz. (233 illustrations.) London and

New York, 1963.

Eorm and Space: Sculpture

of

the Twentieth

Century, by Eduard Trier. (213 illustrations.)

London and New York, 196162.

Modern English
macher. (128

London, 1967.

Sculpture,
illustrations;

Donatello.

The

(Phaidon monograph;

London and

tions.)

New

319

illustra-

York, 1941.

Sctdptures of Michelangelo. (Phaidon mono-

200

graph;

illustrations.)

London and

New

York, 1940.

The

Art

and Thought

of

and Toronto, 1964.

Rodin, by Albert E. Elsen.

by
York

Michelangelo,

New

Charles de Tolnay. (48 plates.)

(Museum

Art monograph; 161 illustrations.)

of Modem
New York,

1963.

Auguste Rodin, by Robert Deschames and JeanPrangois Chabrun. (388 illustrations; de luxe
format.) London, New York, and Toronto,
1967.

Mediaeval American Art:

monographs: individual artists

by A. M. Hamde luxe format.)

by John Rewald. (H)^erion Press monograph; 165 illustrations.) London, Paris, and

Maillol,

New York, 1939.

Constantin Brancusi, by Carola Giedion-Welcker.
New

illustrations.)

(157

York and London,

1959.

Alexander Calder, by James Johnson Sweeney.

(Museum of Modern Art monograph; 56 illustrations; paperback.)

New

York, 1943.

by Richard Buckle. (667

illustrations.) London, 1963.
The Art of Henry Moore, by Will Grohmann.
(239 illustrations.) London, i960.
Henry Moore: A Study of His Life and Work,
]acoh Epstein, Sculptor,

by Herbert Read. (245 illustrations; paperback.) London, 1965; New York, 1966.
Gonzalez, by Leon Degand. (Universe Sculpture
Series; paperback; 32 illustrations.) London,

New

York, and Toronto, 1959Scidpture of Picasso, by Roland Penrose.

(Sumptuous paperback; Museum of Modern
Art monograph; 284 illustrations.) New York,

The

1967.
Ivan Me^strovic: Scidptor and Patriot, by Laurence

Schmeckebier.

New

(201

illustrations.)

Syracuse,

York, 1959.

Arp, edited by James Thrall Soby.

Modern Art monograph;

117

(Museum

of

illustrations.)

New

York and Toronto, 1958.

Sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz, by Henry R.
Hope. (Museum of Modem Art monograph;

The

102

illustrations; boards.)

New

York and To-

ronto, 1954.

Alberto

Giacometti,

Peter Selz.

with

(Museum

of

graph; 112 illustrations.)

an

introduction

by

Modem Art monoNew York, 1965.

FOR FURTHER READING

GENERAL
About

The Metamorphosis
these books of theory, historical back-

ground, and reference,

am adding

few words

of evaluation, for guidance of the reader

may be

who

unfamiliar with the literature of the

raux.

(184

i960.

Art of Sculpture, hy Herbert Read. (225

New York, 2nd edition, 1961.
This is the number-one book on the theory of
illustrations.)

sculpture.
cultures,

Well chosen illustrations from many

primitive and Oriental as well as

European. Comprehensive, sound,

The

modem.

The Concise Encyclopedia

by Leonard

of Archaeology, edited

scholars;

New

(Text by 48 eminent
illustrations, maps.) London,

166

York, and Toronto, i960.

though

on Art, from the XIV to the XX Century,

compiled and edited by Robert Goldwater and

by William

Marco Treves. (100

1945; London,

the histories of sculpture

of text, in miniature pocket

ing.

The

128 pages
size
outstand-

volume

illustrations, so far as

chosen, though the Far East

sented; there are

no

is

they go, are well

poorly repre-

is

illustrations

from China

and Japan. Readable, modem.

Henry Moore on Sculpture: A Collection of the
Sculptor's Writings and Spoken Words, edited
by Philip James. (128 illustrations.) London
and New York, 1967. The best book by a

The illustrations inown works, outstanding

mainly

Dictionary of

man

story,

revealing hu-

combined with more wisdom about

the art than can be found in any other volume.

York,

but including statements

by many

sculptors.

Convenient

Modern

Sculpture, edited by Robert

New York,

1962.

Remarkable coverage of 412 sculptors, alphabetically from Achiam to Zwobada, in time

from Rodin and Hildebrand to the latest experimenters in metal contrivances.

Encyclopedia of World Art, 1 5 volumes. New

York, 1 959-1 968. Generally excellent covertions.

New

anthology devoted

Maillard. (453 illustrations.)

age of

periods.

An

collection of first-hand theories.

clude, beside Moore's

many

art

illustrations.)

1947.

to painters,

about their

sculptor about sculpture.

examples from

reference

Artists

London and

Of

very useful,

work.

illustrations.)

York, 1966.

one-volume

incomplete,

of Sculpture,

in English, this ver)' small

stim-

Cottrell.

Book

New

through history
Perceptive,

ulating.

Gaunt. (Boards; 64

Ohserver's

trip

with the sculptured gods.

subject.

The

by Andre MalLondon, New York,

of the Gods,

illustrations.)

and Toronto,

517

all art topics,

The

with thousands of

standard

reference

illustra-

work;

but

awkward to use because plates are banked at

the end of each volume, away from the text
entries. Authoritative,

modem, comprehensive.

Acknowledgments
In this book the names of

museums and

of

photographers are included in the captions with

the pictures. Therefore the usually appended
of owners

and

Instead

have

who have

lists

of photograph-sources are omitted.

set

helped

down

notes about individuals

me

my

in

search for illustra-

and about certain museums that have responded with exceptional generosity'. Added are
acknowledgments to international institutions
and to archives, in cases where names could not,
tions,

for reasons of space, appear in the captions.

Over

period

twenty years

of

number

friendly help from a

known

of internationally

and anthropologists. The

first was the late Dr. George C. Vaillant, Director
of the University Museum in Philadelphia and
an honorary Curator at the American Museum
of Natural History in New York. He had written
a pioneer book, Indian Arts in North America.
Interested because I was planning to afford primithe

art,

coverage in a world history of

he contrived that

should have free

from which

volume
At the Musee Guimet in

access to the photographs

had been illustrated.

Paris I had the good fortune

his

to obtain the co-

operation of Jeannine Auboyer, Curator of the

National

Museums and

in the field of Asian arts.

at the

Musee Guimet

1940 the extraordinary Exhibition of Persian

New York, I was

Art for the Iranian Institute in

able to obtain from their negatives

til

it

two
by Dr.

Pope in Persia.
At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York I enjoyed the friendship and aid of the late
Francis

Henry Taylor, then

tude also goes

to

Alan

Priest,

My

director.

grati-

Curator of the De-

partment of Far Eastern Art. Richard E. Fuller,

Director of the Seattle Museum of Art, noted

been parAt the Philadelphia Museum

collector of Far Eastern sculpture, has

ticularly helpful.

of Art, Stella Kramrisch, Curator of Indian Art

and author
of India

of the

Phaidon monograph The Art

through the Ages, has answered

queries patiently and graciously.

vidual specialists

record

opinion expressed in

staff

bevond estima-

to the

private

will be noted that there are

To

her and to the

museums and

Islamic subjects from photographs taken

add that not one of them

a debt

photo-

then had been litde known. In addition

illustrations of objects in

a distinguished scholar

owe

many

graphs of important Persian sculptures which un-

collections,

received

archaeologists

tive sculpture full

tion, for the many photographs made from the

museum's negatives. Similar gratitude must go
to the American scholars Arthur Upham Pope
and Phyllis Ackerman. When they mounted in

My

my

my
is

To

thanks.

my

these indiI

hasten to

responsible for any

text.

debt to one other scholar

is

unique. Dr.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
May

Reginald Le

New

York and San Francisco. For

book I am
especially indebted to Andre Emmerich, a noted

Southeast Asian sculpture.

writer as well as dealer. Photographs of objects

of

reproduce in

to

of

valed collection

and from the books he

has written see my list "For Further Reading"
I gained in knowledge and enjojTnent of the

From

his friendly letters

"Further India." Thanks are due to sev-

arts of

eral other collectors:

Heydt

Baron Eduard von der

to

of Ascona, Switzerland, for information

about his

Dagny

collection

who

Carter,

and

photographs;

for

to

provided photographs of out-

and London

seen

at his gallery in

first

especially

in

chapters.

An

Matisse,

for the

photograph of

Anderson

for the

and to John
photograph of the Warega

ritual figure in his collection.

ago

was permitted by Adolph

long, long time

Stoclet to see the

extraordinary collection of Chinese sculpture in

home

his

Mme.

Brussels.

at

Recently his daughter,

L. Feron-Stoclet, has provaded two photo-

graphs of objects in the collection for reproduction in this book. Asia

House

Gordon

the enlightened direction of

bum, has

me

let

New York,

in

B.

under

Wash-

have certain photographs other-

Because

started

my

search for illustrations in

the troubled days following

cial

World War

II,

spe-

problems arose in connection with the photo-

graphs needed for the chapter on Japanese and

Korean sculpture. In Japan the Kokusai Bunka

Shinkokai or Society for International Cultural
Relations cooperated by having twenty-one subjects specially

photographed.

More than

one-half

of the chapter's illustrations are from that group,

and

am

grateful to the society

and

to

its

Man-

aging Director, Kikuji Yonezawa, for this friendly

ser\'ice. I

must record

my

African figure.

Thanks

are

and Company,

ler

Klaus Perls,

By

all

a coincidence four of the final five illus-

from photographs from the files of the

Marlborough-Gerson Gallery in New York or
their London affiliate, Marlborough Fine Art,
Ltd. Thanks are owing also to the Grace Borge-

New

nicht Gallery in

in Paris.

That prince

Louis Carre

to

of dealers, C. T. Loo, from

New

and

Paris

treasure-house galleries in

his

In a few cases the photographs have come

from the artists. Among American sculpGaston Lachaise and Polygnotos Vagis especially were friends and helped with prints. I
directly
tors,

have had friendly response from

artists

gracious

were

two

Moore and Reg

English

Butler.

sculptors,

Henry

Mrs. Olga Mestrovic

kindly provided the photograph of the

St.

abroad

vrating to request photographs. Particularly

Head

of

Christofher by Ivan Mestrovic.

Although the names of photographers (in genit would be less than

courteous to omit acknowledgment of indebtedness to certain ones here. Perhaps the best-known
eral) appear in the captions,

"artist-photographer" in the field of sculpture

Jean Roubier of Paris.

specialized

He

gave

knowledge when

me

is

freely of his

was

in

Europe

countr\' the extraordinarily fine photographs of

Lee Boltin have put us

in Berlin.

all

in his debt. It

that his contribution to this

am

grateful

Dr. Wilfried Gopel, and to Miss

Marie L. Gericke of the German Information

acted as intermediary.

have enjoyed a friendly relationship with many gallery owners, from Paris

book

is

is

likely

greater than

the captions indicate, since he has photographed

Histor)%

who

for illustrations; to

York, was consistently friendly and helpful.

extensively for the

York

Spink and Son in London; and

museums there,
Kunst und Geschichte

York,

to

New

of Korea

Germany, or in lesser-known
were provided by the Archiv fiir

New

M. Knoed-

also to

Bertha Schaefer, and

to

Museum

a score of photographs of sculpture

Over the years

of photo-

proprietors of galleries in

at various sites in

Office in

due

number

well as a wanted

gathering illustrations some years ago. In this

ing questions at a difficult time.

to the Director,

Chewon

forwarding photographs and answer-

More than

is

down

thanks also to

Kim, Director of the National

at Seoul, for

debt

equal

has traced

field as

when

wise unavailable.

be found
and Amerindian
owing to Pierre

modem

trations are

their spirited Luristan Lea'ping Lion;

New York will

Primitive

graphs in the

York.

Edward M. M. Warburg

the

who

Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lewis Winston for the

photograph of Rosso's Ecce Puer; to Mr. and Mrs.
to

to

aid in gathering the pictures for this

standing pieces in her collection of Ordos bronzes;

P.

19

Tunbridge Wells has permy book photographs

Siamese and Cambodian works in his unri-

me

mitted
of

which

American

issues

its

Museum

of Natural

prints without photogra-

pher-identification. Elisabeth Z. Kelemen was

good enough to send me two prints of Mayan
and Aztec subjects from negatives made for her
husband's book. Mediaeval American Art. Claude

and Francois Hebert-Stevens kindly

provided prints of two subjects photographed for

Arthaud


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

520

sumptuous volume Chinese Momimental

their

Art (with text by Peter C. Swann).

The

thanks

here should go also to the original publisher, B.

Arthaud of Paris, and to Thames and Hudson
of London, first publishers of the translation into
English. In a few cases the names of noted photographers have not been placed in the captions
because the material supplied by the museums

omitted them.

Occasionally space limitations

especially in cases of group illustrations: of seals,

medals, coins,
credits

etc.

determined that photographic

should be withheld.

special

who

thanks should go to Soichi Sunami,

many

tographed so

Museum

Modem

of

grateful also to

who

sculptural

George

Art in

W.

word

has pho-

exhibits

New

York.

Bailey of

of

New

at
I

prints, printing

owe an inestimable debt

the Department of Photography and Slides
Princeton University, which provided a score

Press in London, through

its

tion of three plates

seum's unrivaled collection of Scythian and

Iranian Institute in

from Etruscan

Scnd'ptiire

by

from their publication Scythian Art by Gregory Borovka. One

illustration is from La Sculpture Irlandaise by
Frangoise Henry. Two illustrations are, by the
author's
courteous permission, from Osvald
Siren's A History of Early Chinese Art.
for three reproductions

must make some accounting to the

great museums. Mv gratitude to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art is well nigh overwhelming. There
are in this book photographs of more than sixty
objects owned by the institution; in addition the
I

have permitted reproduction of a num-

members
Cairo Museum. All the

ber of photographs taken by their

staff

phenomenally rich
illustrations have come from the Metropolitan's
own photographic department, where the staff
in the

has been patient and helpful to

me

over a period

found the same sort of aid at

Museum in London, which is repre-

of twenty years.

the British

for

di-

sented by sixty-two illustrations in these pages.

than from mu-

At the Hermitage

in Leningrad
was accorded the rare privilege of examining
piece by piece many masterpieces in the muexhibits.

at

Ludwig Goldscheider, and one from Roman

Portraits. These were cases in which Phaidon's
own photographer, L Schneider-Lengyel, had
made prints patently superior to any others available. Thanks are due also to Ernst Benn, Ltd.,

directors

seum

of France, but for photographs of his-

of

Dr. B. Horowitz, has permitted reproduc-

Finally

from Alinari, the Tel

are due to Archives
Photographiques, a department of the National
also

Thanks

agency, and Bulloz.

re-

though I had to look elsewhere

photographs of them, particularly to the

New

For material in the

The Phaidon

London,

from Giraudon, but

lated bronzes;

very few illustrations are taken from books.

rector,

photographic firms or agencies: in largest number

to

illustrations.

and Albert Museum, where I was especially aided

by Mr. Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith. In the
case of the Louvre in Paris, my photographs,
about fift)' in all, were obtained from commercial

toric sculpture still in situ rather

from old negatives, and

one original photo-

interest in

problems and immediate cooperation. There

are forty illustrations from subjects in the Victoria

Museums

Hope,

to the book. I

found sympathetic

my

am

so forth, besides contributing

graph

graphic Service,

the

has done skilled work in rephotographing

borrowed

Uniformly, from the museum's director. Sir Frank

Francis, to the workers in the museum's Photo-

collections of the

American

have yielded

Histor\'

York.

field of primitive art, the

Museum

many

of Natural

outstanding

illustra-

These include not only a score of objects

owned by the museum but photographs of sculptions.

ture

in

out-of-the-way

My

Island.

thanks go

such

places

many

to

staff

as

Easter

members, and

especially to those in the Division of Photogra-

phy. In this
the

Museum

field I

am

Musee de I'Homme
number

of

Finally,

among

wanted

its

own

collections and a
from other sources.

prints

Museum

Heye Foundation,

cially to its director,

museums, I
American
York, and espe-

of the

New

Dr. Frederick

J.

Peabody Museum at Har\'ard

the Lowie Museum of Anthropology
to the

versity of California, Berkeley, the

Science, Buffalo,

Museum.
The Museum

The

York.

the anthropological

indebted to the

Indian,

New

in Paris has provided photo-

graphs from objects in

am

deeply indebted also to

of Primitive Art in

Dockstader;
University',
at the

Uni-

Museum

of

and the Chicago Natural His-

tory'

of

Modern Art

in

New York

courteously supplied illustrations in the

field,

has

modem

but even more notably many photographs

its Amerindian, South Seas, and

from exhibits in

other primitive exhibitions.

have

many

friends

two who
connection: Alfred H.

there but can name, gratefully, only

have cooperated in
Barr,

Jr.,

director

this

of

the

collections

at

the

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
museum, and

Pearl

photographic

Museum of
my requests

Moeller,

L.

for

many fields, from

such modems as Rodin and

photographs in

to

Brancusi. Hardly less varied,

Museum

and

as valued, are

Museum

from the Boston

illustrations

Fine Arts, which

land

Philadelphia

Art has been generous in answering

the primitive

the

supen'isor of

The

reproductions.

number

The

thirty-five.

of

Cleve-

of Art, the Art Institute of Chi-

Museum at St.
Museum

cago, the Cit^'

are represented

by

and the

Louis,

Nelson Gallery-Atkins

at

Kansas Citv

large groups of illustrations.

The

Art Association of Montreal kindly provided

five

photographs of Scythian and Middle Ameri-

The Walters Gallery

with me generously,

can works.
cooperated

seum

of

Design

at

Baltimore has

Mu-

as has the

Art of the Rhode Island School of

The

at Providence.

chapter on Chinese

sculpture was enriched especially with photo-

Wash-

graphs from the Freer Gallery of Art in

trations

from objects in the collections

owe

gratitude

came from the Royal Ontario Museum

onto, with also a number of primitive
tions.

in Torillustra-

For smaller groups of illustrations

Toledo

grateful to the

Museum

am

Min-

of Art, the

of

staff

Ashmolean

the

Henry Taylor and Daniel Catton Rich,

Francis
I

must record

special thanks.

The

National Gal-

Washington, through its director,

John Walker, and Charles C. Stotler of the
lery of Art,

been cooperative and helpful.

from the
collection and also for photographs of

library staff, has

The

debt

gallery's

many

is

for outstanding exhibits

Woods

objects in the Robert

Bliss collec-

pre-Columbian American art, now permanently housed at Dumbarton Oaks. The National
tion of

Museum

of India at

important

book

the

to

Museum at Oxford University for courteous aid.

To the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, I am deeply indebted for unique exhibits in
the field of Amerindian sculpture. To the Worcester Art Museum and to its successive directors,

was the Persian chapter. Another

illustrations for the Oriental section of the

in-

expeditions in the Orient. In England

stitute's

erous.

group of

Chicago

but for "field" photographs taken during the

ington, a part of the Smithsonian Institution, as

large

at

521

New

Delhi has been gen-

In addition to photographs

information

from

the

have had

director.

Dr.

Grace Morley. Of the larger national museums,

that at Athens cooperated generously, as did that
at

Mexico

nally rich

City.

dealt less with the

museums

phenome-

in Italy than with commercial

photographers. In pursuit of certain prints

we
Mu-

neapolis Institute of Arts, the Detroit Institute

have gone further

afield:

and the California Palace of the Legion

in San Francisco.
For years I have found especially helpful the
museums at universities. The Fogg Art Museum
at Harvard University has permitted illustration
of many objects in its rich collections, and mem-

seum

where the director, Kristjan

wanted Icelandic photograph;

of Arts,
of

Honor

me to obtain photoThe Dumbarton Oaks

arrangements for us to receive photographs of

certain of the

But
those

it is

Collection in

way

officials,

mv illustrations set. The

Museum at Philadelphia more fully
Museum of the University of Pennsylvania

additional exhibits for

University
the

has aided with

available,

many photographs

not otherwise

especially for the primitive,

Mesopo-

thirty pieces.

The

staff at

the Yale

University Art Gallery has been generously helpful.

owe thanks

also

to the Yale

Library for impressions of Babylonian

Art

Museum

University
seals.

of Princeton University

is

The

repre-

sented in the Greek and Persian chapters.

My

debt to the Oriental Institute of the University

of

Chicago

is

especially heavy, not only for illus-

treasures.

down

the full

list

of

contributed to the book in one

or another; in the case of those

museum

and photographers who are

represented by only one or two illustrations, I
collectors,

can only ask that they be content with the inscribing of their names in the captions under the

though

pictures

add

general

and sincere

"thank you" here.

A number of museums especially photographed

tamian, and Oriental chapters, to the extent of

more than

museum's

impossible to set

who have

of the

Washington is a specialized branch

Fogg Museum, and there I have found

National

and to the National Museum at Phnom Penh,

where the conservatrice, Madeleine Giteau, made

bers of the staff have helped

graphs from other sources.

at Reykjavik,

Eldjarn, provided a

to the

Among them were the

Museum of Natural History; the
Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Walters Art
Gallery at Baltimore; the Royal Ontario Museum
exhibits for this book.

American

at

Toronto; the University

phia; the

Museum,

Philadel-

Ohio State Museum; and the Oriental

Institute of the University of Chicago.

My

grati-

tude goes in special measure to these museums.

522 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Not given

credit in the captions are the gov-

ernment agencies and the tourist bureaus in New

York which suppHed photographs from their files
or (in some cases) obtained prints from their
governments abroad. In this categors' I had valued
aid from the French Information Center, the
Greek Press and Information Service, the Government of India Tourist Office, the Swiss NaTourist Office, the Indonesian Informa-

tional

tion

Office,

The

Italian

Tourist

Information

Spanish Tourist Office, the Austrian

Office, the

United Arab Republic Information Office, and the Mexican Government Tourism Department. To these should
be added the Irish Tourist Association in Dublin.
I have already noted my debt to the German
Information Center, which made arrangements
for my alliance with the ver\' helpful Archiv fiir
Kunst und Geschichte in Berlin; for the other major contribution from a foreign institution, that of
State Tourist Department, the

dred or so prints
as

prints

were more

sulate in

have

New

thank both the Japanese ConYork and the Japan Society of

to

America.
I

ing out of their

way

to

make

fugitive

prints

and second, the commercial photographers who sold me photographs by the dozen or
score, or even by the hundred. Of the personal
available;

I may cite Miss Elisabeth

down from her living-room

friends

took

Lawrie,
wall

is

few here, a
and the

The

salesroom

helpful,

as

the firm's sixty-two photographs in these pages

will indicate.

second fruitful source in Paris

was the "photographic document center" administered by H. Roger-Viollet. My debt there is

twofold: in addition to a

number

of photographs

by Roger-Viollet, I found fugitive prints, even

from other countries, for reproduction in chapters
beyond the French. In Italy the gallery bearing
the

name Francesco

Pineider provided the

many

Anderson photographs of classical subjects that

I have used; Mr. Giuseppe Kaiser of the staff was
particularly helpful. Giacomo Brogi of Florence
provided

twenty-seven photographs of historic

sculptures.
If certain

minor inconsistencies appear in these

acknowledgments, and possibly in the wording

of the captions, these are the reasons: Attribu-

works to the Persian Institute in

York indicates only that the photographs
came into my hands before the institution
changed its name to Iranian Institute. (The
words "Persia" and "Iran" are used as synonyms
throughout the book.) Certain museums have
changed their names during the period of the

New

who

book's

rare

were obtained while a sculpture was in earlier

ownership; an example is a group of photographs
from the Joseph Brummer collection, from which

it long enough for rephotoand Miss Elisabeth Naramore, who

long ago sought out certain photographs which
I had been told were unavailable. Of the commercial photographers, I remember best, with
friendly regard, A. Giraudon. After one of the
wars I spent several days in his unheated office
in Paris while he combed his files for the hun-

photograph and lent

graphing;

him

Alinari

tion of certain

acknowledge aid from friends who

helped in tvvo directions: the first group by goFinally

to

The

arrived at Florence

of Fratelli Alinari.

offices

debt

was uniformly courteous and

staff

the Society for International Cultural Relations in

Tokvo,

Mv

easily obtained, a

dozen there, before

main

needed.

captions will show.

the

great,

production.

objects

of Art

were sold
and other

easily traceable. I

and
for

am

to

Occasionally

the Metropolitan

institutions,

am

photographs

grateful

Museum

some of them not

to Mr. Brummer,

any museum or collector finds,

these reasons, that some piece of sculpture in
I

sorry

his collection

is

if

not properly attributed.

Aachen, Charlemagne's capital huildings at, 304, 317

AhToham Lincoln, Augustus St.
Gaudens, 467
Abstract ornaments. Islamic, 176,
178; ill., 177
Abstract sculpture, 4, 23-26, 27, 92,
193. 195, 222, 427-29, 445, 479,
480, 487-89, 492, 504, 507-510;

Amerindian shaped stones, 25-26,

427-29; Chinese jades, 193, 195;
Chinese pottery, 222; Cycladic
marbles, 23; modern development,
480, 487-89, 504, 507510; prim-

weapons and

2324.
See also Constructivism; Mobiles
Abu Simbel, temple of Amon at, 55;
ill, 54
itive

tools,

Achaemenid

sculpture, 161, 169-73

Acropolis. See Greek sculpture. Classical

Actor C. Norhanus Sorix, The,

Etrusco-Roman, 142; ill., 143
Ada, School of, 303
Adam and an Angel, Notre Dame de
Paris,

342

ill.,

Work, Jacopo della

Quercia, 372; ill., ^64
Adena Mound, Ohio: pipe in form
of standing human being, ill., 430
at

Adoration of the Kings, English,

ill.,

Alcamenes

Persian, 163; Romanesque, 320;

Scythian, ill, 8s; from Ur, 65
Animals Fighting, Ordos Region, 85;

Adoration

(c.

400

117

B.C.),

Alexander, Lysippus, 122-23;

123
Algardi, Alessandro, 456

*''>

ill,

Alhambra

Palace, Granada, ill, 180

Alpaca, Inca, ill, 450
Altar of Pergamon, 126
Al-Ubaid: Bidl, 65; ill, 61
Amaravati: Miracle of the Drunken

Elephant, 253;

ill,

245

Amarna. See El Amarna

Amazon, Franz von Stuck, 481; ill,
482
Amazons Hunting Lions, Parthian,
ill,

174;

Amenemhet
Amenhotep

III,

head

III

of,

46; ill, 47
Chariot,

His

in

Amerindian sciilpture, 42452; areas

and tribes, 425-26; chief art-producing cultures, 42426, 42935,
436-52; dating of, 426; early
products, 424, 425, 452; primitive
or near-primitive works, 424, 427,

429, 434, 452. See also Middle

American

Amida

of

the

Magi,

Nicola

Pisano, 364-65, 368; ill., 370

Adorers, Sumerian, 65; ill., 66, 67
Adze head, Luristan, 25; ill., 26
Aegina, temple of: figures from pediments, 104; ill., 105
African tribail sculpture. See Negro
African sculpture

African Venus, 416; ill., 417

Agostino di Duccio, 380; Saint
Bernardino in Glory, detail, ill.,

380

sciilpture

Biuidha, Japan, 24344;

ill,

ill, 151
Aiyanar, India,

zji
Akhenaton, 35, 48-51; head of, ill,
51
Akkadian (Sargonid) period, Mesopotamia, 63, 68: seals of, ill, 70;
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, 68ill,

68

ill,

in.,

418

Antlered

Bear

Fighting

Siberia, 85; ill,

Tiger,

84

Anuradhapura, Ceylon, 257-58, 259;

Buddha, ill, 258; Biiddhist Figures,

ill,

258; Couple, 258;

ill,

259
See Venus de Medici;
Genetrix; Venus Rising
from the Sea
Aphrodite of the Gardens, Alca-

Aphrodite.

menes, 1 1
Aphrodite of Melos (Venus de Milo),
detail, Greek, 126; ill, 129
Apollo, Attica, ill, 105
Apollo, Jacopo Sansovino, ill, 392
Apollo, detail, Olympia, 105; ill, 107
Apollo Belvedere, Greek, 3, 126
Apollo of Veii, Etruscan, 135, 136;
ill; 137
Apostles, Brittany, 351; ill, 352
Apostles, Chartres, 338; ill, 341

Apoxyomenos, Lysippus, 121

243
Triad, Japan,

Amlash

ill,

culture, Persia, 31, 160; ill,

31. 163

Ammanati, Bartolommeo, 391, 394

Ancestor, SevTnoirr Lipton, ill, 507
Ancestor mask, latmul. New Guinea,
409; ill, 410
Ancestral figure, Easter Island, ill,

405

ill,

Achae172

ill,

211;

Scytho-Persian,

Appliques:

237

menid, Kuban Region,

Apsaras:
China, 209;

Angkor Thom, 279; ill, 278, 279

AquamanOe, Persia, 183; ill, 182
Ara Pacis: Air, Earth, and Water,
150;

ill,

Arabesques,

151
Arabian-Islamic,

178;
178, i7g
Arawak culture, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico; mask, ill, 429;
ill,

Angel,

St. Gilles

329;
Angels,

ill,

du Gard, France,

328
Luca della Robbia, 382;

ill,

383

Ahura Mazda, Achaemenid, ill., 172

Air, Earth, and Water, Roman, 1 50;

84

Antelope, French Sudan, ill, 41 g

Antelope mask, Guro, Ivory Coast,

Venus

175

Egypt, 48; ill, 50

IV. See Akhenaton

Amida

308

69,

Animals: Aztec, 442, 444; Dog, ill,

44S; Islamic, 178, 180-81, 183;

Amenhotep

period

Adam and Eve

Alabaster reliefs, Nottingham School,

352; ill, 353

Angkor Thom, Cambodia, 276

Angkor Vat, Cambodia, 274, 276-79
Angouleme Cathedral, 321; ill, 322
Animal, China, 205; ill, 204
Animal art of the Eurasian steppes,
7886, gs. See also Caucasus;
Chinese sculpture; Ordos bronzes;
Scythian sculpture

Animal forms: barbarian, 314-20;

Gallo-Celtic, ill, 314-15

mountain
Arcadian

stone, ill,

428

115; Gods
Battling, Bassae,

School,

Amazons

and
ill,

"5
Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Rome,
152-53; in., 153
Archaism, Greek. See Greek sculpture, Archaic period
Archipenko, Alexander, 10, 12, 466,
478, 488, 496; Empire, ill, 488;

Flat Torso, ill,

488

Argive school, Greece, 104

INDEX

524

Aristophanes, 117

dise"), Ghiberti, 2, 7, 365, 372,

122

Aristotle,

Aries, France, 329; St.

Trophime

in,

330
Armitage, Kenneth, 12, 480, 500
Armlet, Achaemenid, ill., 173
321, 329;

in.,

Arnaldi, Alberto, 371

Arp, Jean (Hans), 4, 10, 477, 478,

480, 489, 495, 504; Growth, ill.,
12
Arretine pottery, Roman, 153
Articulated dance mask, Kwakiutl,
Amerindian, 432; ill., 433

Asam, Cosmos and Egid, Assumption

of Mary, ill, 458
Asanga, Unkei, ill., 243
Ascension, The, Byzantine, ill., 158
Asoka, 257, 273
Asokan columns, India, 246, 249;
ill.,

251

Ass, Ur, 65; ill,

Assemblages,

2,

66

II,

70-71; figures

ill,

sculpture

Athena Parthenos, throne of, 113

Augustus, Roman, ill, 146
Avalokita, Tibet or Nepal, ill, 267
Avalokitesvara, Nepal, 293; ill, 292
Ax, China, ill, 190
Ax head with dragon, China, ill, 196
Ax head with lion, Luristan, 167;
ill, 166
Azerbaijan, Outer Iran: early bronze
figures of animals from, 160, 167,
169; ill, 168, 169
Aztec sculpture, 441; Dog, ill, 444;
Man, ill, 443; Rattlesnake, ill,
445; Young God, ill, 443; Xipe,

44S

Baboon

of King Narmer, Egypt, 36,

60, 62; ill, 37
Babylonian sculpture, 61-63, 69,
7577; seals and weights, 62, 68
70, 75; ill, 63, 76. See also Mesopotamian sculpture

Bacchus, Michelangelo, 385

a falcon,

Sassanian, 176; ill, 177.

Bailli de Suffren, he, Houdon,

ill,

Mayan, Copan,

438

Baluba
ill,

marker,

Baroque
Italian,

manic
st>'le,

415, 417

Balzac, Rodin, 7, 454, 468, 471; ill,

472
^

460;

Spanish colonial

rococo

457;

in Spain and
countries, 454,

460
Antoine-Louis, 3, 454, 463;
Lion, ill, 465
Baskin, Leonard, 499, 500; Poet
Laureate, ill, 499; St. Thomas
Bar>'e,

ill,

500

Bather, Giambologna, 394; ill, 395

Bathing Girl, Falconet, ill, 460

Woman, Lehmbruck,

ill,

Baton, Aurignacian, 20; ill, 15

Battle
Lapiths and the
of the
Centatirs, Michelangelo, 385; ill,

384
Battle Scene, Mausoleum, Halicarnassus, ill, 122
Battle with Stags in an Arena, 300;
ill,

301

Beak-flagon, Celtic, ill, 317

Bear and Cub, Vagis, ill, 498
Bears, Han, China, 200; ill, 187
Bedford, Richard, 492
Bell, Clive, 4

Bellowing Hippopotamus, Egypt,

Banco, Nanni di. Madonna in a

Mandorla, 371-72; ill, 373
Bandinelli, Baccio, 391
Banner stones, Amerindian, 25, 427,
429; ill, 9, 429
Baptism, Andrea Pisano, Florence,
ill; 371
Baptistry doors ("Gates of Para-

ill,

47
Bells

and gongs, Chou, China,

ill,

Birth of Aphrodite, Ludovisi Throne,

Greek, 105; ill, 106
Birth of Athena, Parthenon,
Birth of Christ, Giovanni Pisano,
368; in., 370
Bishop Friedrich von Hohenlohe,
Wurzburger School, ill, 355
Bison, Magdalenian, Dordogne, 21;

no

ill,

20

Boar, British, 316;

ill,

315

Boat ax, Swedish, ill, 24

Bobbins: Baule, Ivory Coast, ill, 419;
Bambara, French Sudan, ill,

419
Boccioni, Umberto, 479
Bodhisattva: Ceylon, 264;

ill,

263;

China, 209, 212-13, 214, 216;

ill,

page, 205, 210, 213, 215, 216,

222; Japan, ill, 239; Korea, 227,
231; ill, 230, 233
Book of Kells, 314
title

Borobudur, Java, 273-74, 287-88;

ill, 273, 287, 288, 289, 290
Bouchard, Henri, 483-84; ill, 485
Bourdelle, Antoine, 454, 474; Anatole France, ill, 475; Hercules,
the Archer,

ill,

475

Bourges Cathedral, 345

Boxer Vase, Cretan, 92; ill, 89
Boy Athlete Cldolino^, Greek, 115;
ill, 114
Branchidae, seated figures from, 99
Brancusi, Constantin, 12, 466, 477,
478, 480, 484, 486, 487-88, 489;
Bird in Space, ill, 487; Mile.

Pogany, ill, 487; Yellow Bird,

title page
Bridle bits, Luristan, 164;

ill,

ill,

161,

165
Brooches, Celtic, 316-17; ill,
Brunelleschi, 364, 372, 373

316

193
Benevento Cathedral, detail of door,
ill, 323
Benin sculpture, 403, 41920, 422423; Head, ill, 423; Head of a

Bucchero, 134
Buckle with antelope, Han, China,
201; ill, 200
Buddha, Anuradhapura, Ceylon, ill,

Bini Girl, ill, 420; ivory carvings,

420; Leopard, ill, 421; metalwork

Buddha, Bengal, 256; ill, 257

Buddha, Borobudur, Java, ill, 287
Buddha, Gupta, India, 253, 261-64;
ill, 254, 256, 263
Buddha, Japan, ill, 240
Buddha, detail, Japan, Chuguji
Temple, ill, 234
Buddha, Japan, Kor>'uji Temple,
Kyoto, ill, 235
Buddha, Khmer style, 276; ill, 277
Buddha, Korea, ill, 234
Buddha, statuettes, Siam, ill, 286

in,

42223

Bernard, Joseph, 479, 481; Girl Carrying Water, ill, 482

Bernard of Clair\'aux, St., 314, 347
Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo, 453,
455-56; Fountain of Trevi, ill,
456; Innocent X, ill, 456; Monument to Louis XIV, ill, 453; St.
ill,

455

Berruguete, Alfonso, 399; Tomb of

Cardinal Tavera, ill, 399
Biblical Scene, Romanesque, Spain,

Amer-

Sui period, China, 206;

207
Buddha, Sukotai period, Siam, ill,
284
Buddha, Sumatra, 288; ill, 290
Buddha, Tori, Japan, 235; ill, 235
Buddha, Wei, China, ill, 209
Buddha, Yun Kang caves, China,

Bird and God's Head, Mayan, Chia-

Buddha and Attendant, Lung Men

ill,

Africa, 403, 415-16;

tribe,

countries,

454,

Theresa in Ecstasy,
ill,

463
Ball-court

Old

with a Cane, ill, 486

sculpture, 45360, 463;
456; French, 463; in Ger-

494

portrait statues, 70; seals, 62, 6870; ill, 76. See also Mesopotamian

Bahram Gur hunting with

Man

Woman

Bathing
of,

ill, 71
Assyrian sculpture, 62, 63, 70-75,
77; bas-relief murals, 62, 7175;

ill,

19
Barlach, Ernst, 479, 486, 493;
Drawing a Sword, ill, 10;

Aquinas,

478, 504

Assumption of Mary, Asam, 457;

458
Assurbanipal, 72, 75
Assumasirpal

375-76; ill, 374, 375

Barbarian sculpture, Europe, 310-13,
315-19; Asian tradition in, 315;
Celtic, 315, 31618; diffusion of,
315; Irish, 316-18; Norse, 318373,.

324

Biblical Scenes, detail. Church of St.

Peter, Moissac, ill, 327
Biblical Scenes, Gothic, French, ill,

349, 350
Bird, Mound Builders culture,
indian, 26; ill, 28
pas, ill,
ill,

ill,

ill,

189

caves, China, 205; ill,

438

Bird in Space, Constantin Brancusi,

487

Bird stones, Amerindian,

429; ill, 27, 428

Btiddha,

26,

427,

Buddha Delivering His

206

First Sermort,

Sarnath, India, 256; ill, 257

the Law, Pala
style, 281; in., 283

Buddha Expounding

INDEX
Buddha Receives

the

Rohe of

the

Monks, Borobudur, Ja%'a, ill., 273

Buddha Seated on a Serpent, Khmer
style,

281;

283

ill.,

Borobudur, Java,

figures,

287

ill.,

Buddhist figures. Temple of Sok-kulam, Korea, 227, 231; dl., 232

Buddhist heads, Khmer style, 279;
ill., 280
Buddhist
Monk, Wei dynasty,
China, 206; ill., 207
Buddhist sculpture: in Ceylon, 257,
259; in China, 188-89, 198, 205206, 209, 212-17, 222-25; in
India, 24567; in Japan, 226,
228, 22944; in Korea,
227,
226-28, 23134; in Nepal, 266
267; in Southeast Asia, 273-93.
See also Cambodian sculpture;
Siamese
sculpture;
Javanese

206;

North Wei, China,

stelae.

ill.,

208

Buddhist

stupa, relief medallions

from, Barhut, India, 249; ill., 250
Bidl, aquamanile, Etruscan, 136; ill.,

139
Bidl,

Mesopotamian, Al Ubaid, 65;

61

ill,

Bidl,

Rampurva, Bihar,

India, 249;

251
Btdl, Sabean, South Arabia, 176;
177
Bull palette, Egypt, 36

Head, Azerbaijan,

ill.,

Persia, 169;

168

ill,

Head,

Bidl's

menid,

ill,

Persian,

pre-Achae-

i6g

Bull's-head ornament, Sumerian,

ill,

68
Burgundian School: Moses, Champmol monastery, near Dijon, ill,
361
Bust of Alexander, Lysippus, 122,
123; ill, 123
Bust of a Little Boy, Desiderio da
Settignano, ill, ^80
Bust of Marcus Aurelius, Roman,
148; ill, 149
Bust of Nicola da Uzzano, Donatello,

375-76; ill, 376

Bust of Pericles, Cresilas, ill, 123
Bust of a Woman, Neapolitan school,
ill, 381
Bust of a Young Man, Greek, 99;
ill,

98

Bust of a Young Woman, Desiderio

da Settignano, ill, 380
Butler, Reg, 500, 507; model for

The Unknown

Political Prisoner,

500
Byron, George Gordon Lord, 126
Byzantine sculpture, 15859, 294308
ill,

Calder,

Alexander,

498, 504;

Calvaires, Brittany, 320, 350-51; ill,

321, 351, 352

Cambio, Arnolfo di, 364, 368
Cambodian dancing figures, reliefs,
279; ill, 278-79
Cambodian sculpture, 2, 273-74,
275-81, 284; development of and
classic
period,
275-81;
274,
Khmer style, 27374, 275-79;
Siamese phase, 274, 281. See
also Angkor Vat; Siamese sculpture

Camel, Azerbaijan, Persia, 167; ill,

168
Camel, T'ang, China, ill, 218
Cameos, Roman, ill, 159
Candleholders, Flemish, German,
352; ill, 353
Canoe prow ornament, Trobriand
Islands, ill, 411

Canoe prows, Maori,

407; ill, 407, 408

Red

478, 480,
G, mobile, ill, 477
13,

New

Zealand,

of Polyclitus, 115, 121

Canova, Antonio, 46162; Pauline

Bonaparte as Venus Reposing, ill,
461
Canterbury
Cathedral,
England,
331; capital with composition of a
griffin and a serpent, ill, 335
Capital with animals, Romanesque,
France, ill, 321
Capital with bulls, Susa, 170; ill,
171

ill.,

Bull's

sculpture, 162; 176; ill, 177, 178,

Canon

sculpture

Buddhist

Mary, 507

Calligraphy in Persian and Islamic

179

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, Japan,

229
Buddhist ahar, Wei, China, ill., log
figures,
Buddhist
Anuradhapura,
Ceylon, ill., 258
Buddhist

Gallery,

Capitals, Byzantine, Pavia,

Ravenna,

29899; ill, 299

Capitals, Romanesque, France, 320;
ill, 321, 322
Capitoline Venus, Greek, 126; ill,
129
Capitoline Wolf CShe-Wolf^), Etruscan, ill, 132
Caricature heads, Hellenistic, Smyrna, ill, 125
Carolingian and Ottonian carvings,
304, 307, 308
Carpeaux, Jean Baptiste, 3, 454, 463;

The Dance,

465
Carved marble vessels, Mayan, Honduras, 43940; ill, 440
Carved relief panel, Maori, ill,
407
Carved stools, Baluba, Congo, 415;
ill, 415, 416
ill,

Casket, Persian, Treasury

Mark's, Venice, 180-81;

of

St.

ill,

181

Caspian culture, Persia, 31, 160

Cats, Egyptian cult figures of, 57
Caucasus, animal art of, 80, 86; ill,
86
Cave figures, Yun K'ang, China,
188, 206; ill, 189, 206
Cellini, Benvenuto, 392-93, 394;
medals, ill, 395; Perseus, ill, 393
Celtic art, 310-12, 314, 315-21
Celtic burial crosses, 314, 315,

317-

318, 333; ill, 318

Central America, patterned design
from, 43940; corn-grinding tables; ill, 440, 523

52

Central and South America, gold and

silver figures and ornaments from,
449-50; Alpaca, Inca, Peru, ill,
450; Knife, Inca, Peru, ill, 450;
Llama, Inca, Peru, ill, 449; Man,

4SO

ill,

Ceremonial ax, Australia, New Stone

Age, ill, 24
Ceremonial ax head, Han, China,
ill, 200
Ceremonial ax head with lion, Luristan, 163; ill, 167
Ceremonial baton, Amerindian, ill,
23
Ceremonial corn grinders, Guatemala, Panama, 439-40; ill, 440, 523
Ceremonial dance shield, Melanesian, Trobriand Islands, ill, 411
Ceremonial mask, Eskimo, Southwest Alaska, ill, 434
Ceremonial mask, Kwakiutl, 430;

432

ill,

Ceremonial
mask.
North West
Indian, Cowichan, 430; ill, 432
Ceremonial stele, detail, Costa Rica,
ill, 439
Ceylon. See Sinhalese sculpture
Chadwick, Lynn, 507, 510; ill, 509
Chapel of St. Hubert, Amboise, 361;
ill, 362
Charioteer, Delphi, Greece, 102;

ill,

103
Chartres.
dral,

Dame

See Notre

Cathe-

Chartres

Chateau

Amboise,

of

Touraine,

362
Cheops (Khufu), 36, 38
"Cheops cemetery," Gizeh, 38;
trait head of a princess from,
chapel portal, 361;

ill,

porill,

Chichen-Itza, 441; ill, 442

Chimera, Etruscan, 136, 139;

ill,

138
Chimera, guardian tomb figure, near
Nanking, China, 205; ill, 204
Chimera, Han, China, ill, 199

Chimu

Pre-Incan;

ill,

2, 184-225,
animals as subject matter in,
1 87;bronze ritual vessels, 185,
193; Buddhist tomb and cave

186
190

effigy

jars,

448
Chinese sculpture,

478;

carv-

188, 205-206; clay figures,

201, 212, 21820; debt to GrecoScythian art, 198; debt to Indian
art, 188; dynasties, 189; influence
on Korean and Japanese sculpture,
226-27, 229, 231, 237; jade carvings, 185, 19395, 200-202; porcelain statuettes, 222, 225
Christ, St. Loup de Naud, France,
ings,

330;
Christ

ill,

331

Crowning Romanus IV and

Eudocia, Byzantine, 304-305;

ill,

305
Christ Enthroned, with Symhols of
the Evangelists, Apulia, 308; ill,

309
Christ
in.,

Christ

in

Majesty, Ottonian,

305;

306
in

Mandorla,

Romanesque,
louse, ill, 325

St.

ByzantineSernin, Tou-

INDEX

526

Christ Meeting Mary and Martha,

and The Raising of Lazarus,
Chichester Cathedral, England,

334-35
Christ of the Resurrection, detail of a
Calvaire, Breton, ill., 351
Christ on the Cross, French Romanesque, ill, 335
Christ on the Cross, Nottingham
School, England, 352; ill., 353
Christ Riding the Pahnesel, Swiss
folk

ill., 356
Notre Dame, Semur, deof tympanum, 39596; ill., 395

art,

Church
tail

Church

355;

of

San Michele, Pavia, capi299

Cimmerians, 79
Circus Races with Cupids, relief on
of

tal, ill.,

a sarcophagus,

Roman,

154;

ill.,

ill.,

140

Clasp, Barbarian, Iceland,

Classical sculpture, Greek,

ill.,

319

87, 89,
90, 10520. See also Greek sculpture, Classical period
figurines,

Cyprus: Mother Godill., 88

desses, statuettes,

Clay

Mound

jars,

Builders culture,

435, 436
Clay vessels, southern United States,
435; ill., 435, 436
Cliff sculpture, India, 246, 259, 260;
435;

in.,

Mamallapuram,

Descent

of

the

Ganges, details, ill., 260, 261

Clodion (Claude Michel), 454, 460;
Satyr and Nymph, ill., 461
Cloud, Jose de Creeft, ill., 497
Club, Maori, New Stone Age, 25;
ill, 26
Cluny, 327
Coin with lion and peacock, Islamic,
176; ill, 177
Coins, Greek, 5th-4th centuries b.c,
ill, 118
Colleoni,

Bartolommeo

monument

to, by Verrochio, 378; ill, 379

Colombe, Michel, 399
Column, Naum Gabo, ill, 506

Comic

Actor, Boeotia, ill, 125

Confronting Animals, Luristan, 163,
167; ill, 163, 164
Confucius, 186, 189
Congolese mask from Warega, 418;
ill, 403
Constructivism,
2,
479-80; 504;
Column, Naum Gabo, ill, 506
Contest of Heroes with Lions and
Water Buffalo, Akkadian, ill, 63
Coptic sculpture, 295, 300-303, 308
Coronation of the Virgin, altarpiece,
Andrea della Robbia, 382; ill, 383
Couple, Anuradhapura, Ceylon, 258;
ill, 259
Court of the Lions, Alhambra Palace,
Granada, Spain, ill, 180
Coustou, Guillaume, the elder, 459

Cow

Creation of Man and other scenes,

Italian Gothic, Cathedral of Orvieto, 368; ill, ^6g
Creation of Woman, Andrea Pisano

and Giotto,

Giotto's tower, Flor-

ence Cathedral, ill, 371

Creeft, Jose de, 496, 497; Cloud, ill,
497; Himalaya, ill, 498
Crescent stone, Amerindian, Ohio;
ill, 24
Cresilas: Pericles, ill, 123;

Head

of

an Athlete, ascribed to, ill, 114

Cretan sculpture- Boxer Vase, 89,
92; bronze figurines, 93; clay statprimitive, 92; impressions
of seals, ill, 93; Pre-Hellenic, 89,
90, 9293; Snake-Priestess, ill,

uettes,

88
Croesus of Lydia,

and Calf, North

Syria, 77; ill,

Abbey Church at
Werden an der Ruhr, Germany,
335;

372;

ill,

373

detail,

ill;

Crucifix,

334

Cluny museum, 349;

ill,

350
Crucifix, French, 399; ill, 398
Crucifixes: Romanesque woodcarvings, 336; Crucifix at Nuremberg,
336; ill, 335; detail QHead of
Christ'), ill,

334

Crucifixion, Byzantine, ill, 306

Crucifixion, Carolingian, 304;

ill.,

305
Crucifixion, French, 349; ill, 350
Crucifixion, Ottonian, 305-306; ill,
Crucifixion,

Romanesque, Spain,

ill,

324

and Deposition, Byzanill, 307

Crucifixion and Related Scenes,
Crucifixion
tine,

307-308;

panel from a bookbinding, Byzantine, 306; ill, 307

Cubism, 477, 478, 479> 495, 5!
Cupbearer, Hellenistic, Myrina, 1 24;
ill, 125

Cups, sculptured, Mayan, Honduras;

ill, 440
Curly-Horned Ram, Susa, 64; ill,
65
Cycladic figures, 22-23, 90, 92, 95;
ill,

I,

23, 90, 91

279;

Angkor Thom,

Apsaras,

278

ill,

Dancing

Hunan, China,

Girl,

ill,

32

Dancing

Tanagra,

Girl,

ill,

124

Daticing God, Harappa, Punjab,

249; ill, 250
Daniel in the Lion's Den, sarcophagus relief, Roman, 157
Danneker, Johann von, 462; SelfPortrait, ill,

462

Dante, 2
Darius the

Great, Attended hy
Persian, 172; ill, 162,

170
Daind, Donatello, 378; ill, S79
David, Michelangelo (1504),

ill,

385
David,

Michelangelo

(1529),

David, Verrochio, 378;

Davidson, Jo, 474

ill,

Dawn,

ill,

379

Alichelangelo, 388;
366
Day, Michelangelo, 388; ill, 389
De Stijl group, 479
Death of Aegisthos, Greek, ill, 104
Death of the Virgin, Tilman Riemenschneider, 396; ill, ^67
Decorative objects, Trobriand Isill,

lands, ill, 41
Decorative panel, Easby Abbey,
Yorkshire, England, 334; ill, 333
Deer, Ordos, China, ill, 198
Deer and Fawn, Greek, ill, 95
Deer's Head, mask, Amerindian,
435; in., 436
Degas, Edgar, 12, 466; Dancer, til,

466

Woman, Sumerian, AlUbaid, 64; ill, 66

Descent of the Ganges, details,

Cy'priot sculpture, 92, 94, 95, 102;

clay figurines of Mother Goddess,
88; early
prehistoric,
94; ill,
Eurasian stjdes in, 94-95; geostv'le in,

man,

ill,

95; ill, 103; head

India, 259; ill,

260, 261
Desiderio da Settignano, 380; Bust
of a Little Boy, ill, 380; Bust of
a

Young Woinan,

ill,

380

Despair, Rodin, ill, 471

Despiau, Charles, 454, 463. 474,
478, 492, 495, 501; Head of
Madame Derain, ill, 474
Detail from frieze of the Cantoria,
Donatello,
Cathedral,
Florence

376; ill, 377

Detail from a

355
Detail from

Madonna, German,

Cyrenian Aphrodite, Greek, 126;

128
ill,

ill,

420

Maori assembly house,

407; ill, 408

Diana, Houdon, ill, 462
Dionysus, Parthenon, Athens,

no;

ill.,

Greco-Roman,
Disciple

of

90,

no
Pan, and a

Dionysus,

ill,

94

Dahomey, 420, 422; Lion,

Mamallapuram,

ill-,

Cycladic idol, 22-23; ill, 23

Cylinder seal, stone and impression,
Sumerian, Ur, ill, 62

of a

Dancing

Demon

306

metric

76

Cowichan mask, Amerindian, 431432; ill, 432

Coysevox, Antoine, 459
Creation of Man, Jacopo della Quercia,

culture, 18, 2022, 24;

Venuses, ill, 22, 23
Cromlechs, Stone Age, 18
Crouching Eros, Myrina, Hellenistic,
124; ill, 125
Crouching Panther, Parthian period,
Persia, 173; ill, 160
Crouching Stag, Scvthian, Caucasus,
81; ill, 82

Crucifix,

Dalou, Jules, 463

Dance, The, Paris Opera House,
Carpeaux, 463; ill, 465
Dancer, Edgar Degas, ill, 466
Dancer, Georg Kolbe, 475; ill, 476

Xerxes,

1 1

Cro-Magnon

156
Cist, Etruscan,

Clay

ill,

Bacchante,

518

Btiddha,

Nara, Japan,

239

Discoholus, or DiscMS Thrower, Myron, 106; ill, 108

Disk or astronomical ring, Chou,

China, 193;

ill,

194

INDEX
Dobson, Frank, 476, 491
Dog, Aztec, 442; ill., 444
Dog, Han, China, 201; ill., 202
Dolmens, Stone Age, 18. See also
Stonehenge
Donatello (i 386-1466), 3, 7, 364,
365, 366, 372, 375-78, 394, 399,
468; Dax'id, ill., 379; Frieze of the
Cantoria, Florence Cathedral, ill.,
377; Gattemelata monument, detail, ill., 376; Medallion with bust

395; Nicola da
Uzzano, ill., sy6; St. George, ill.,
3,77; Yonthfid St. John, ill., 378;
Zuccone, ill., 377
Doorway, Church of St. Peter, Aulnay, France, ill., 329
of

Ninfa,

ill.,

copy

DorypJioros,

of

Polyclitus, Argive,

original

115;

ill.,

by
114

Douhle Animal, Scythian, Russia;

ill,

79

Double

Goose,
Mound, Ohio;

Double

portrait,

Hopewell

pipe,
ill.,

429

Etruscan, 135;

ill.,

13,4

Dragon

Chinese sculpture, 186,

190, 195-96, 201, 211; ill., 186,
19$, 196, 197, 202, 211
Dragons, jade, Han, China, 201; ill.,
202
Duchamp-Villon, Raymond, 479,
in

501

Durham

Cathedral, England, 331

Dying Gladiator, Pergamene school,
3, 126; ill., 130
Early Christian art, Byzantine and
Coptic, 294-308
Early Christian sarcophagus, Rome,
299; ill., 301
Easter Island, 403; ancestral figure,
ill.,

40^; Heads,

ill.,

402;

404405; ill., 405

Ecce Puer, Medardo Rosso,

idols,

ill.,

467

Eckhart, Meister, quoted, 8

Effig>', Nicaragua, ill., 439
Effigy jars,

Amerindian, 27, 29;

ill.,

29,30,31
Effigy jars, Arkansas, Mound Builders culture, 435; ill., 435, 436
Effigy jars, Tarascan, Alexico, 29,

30, 447
Effig\' of the Chancellor Rene de
Birague, Germain Pilon, 399; ill,

446;

ill,

Elkan, Benno, 474

Temple

Ellora,

Ely

of Kailasa, ill,

Cathedral,

259

Norman,

English

331, 335

Empire, Alexander Archipenko,

ill,

488
Endymion, panel on a sarcophagus,
Roman, 2nd centur\'; ill, 154; sarcophagus with Endymion stor\', c.
200 A.D., ill, 155
English architecture. See Norman
sculpture
Epstein, Jacob,

12, 478, 492, 493;

Night and Day, 492; Senegalese

Girl,
ill,

ill,

493; Visitation, detail,

Equestrian statue, the Great Elector,

Andreas

Schliiter, ill,

457

Equestrienne Dismounting, T'ang,

China, ill, 219
Eskimo sculpture, 425, 434; Man
with Wings, ill, 435; mask, ill,
434; Seal, ill, 435
Etruscan Dining, portrait on sarcophagus cover, ill, 140
Etruscan sculpture, 2,
132 141;
early
figures
and portraits in
bronze, 132, 134; in clay, 136,
141; Greek influences on, 132,
141-42; historical periods of, 133;
late naturalism, 142; relation to
Scythian st>'le, 132, 136; portraits,
135, 14142; portraits on sarcophagi and funerary urns, 135, 136,
141. See also Roman sculpture
European Christian sculpture. See

Barbarian sculpture; Romanesque

sculpture; Gothic sculpture
Eve, attributed to Riemenschneider;
ill,

398

Eve, Peter Vischer the Younger, 396;

ill; 397
Ewer, Persia, 181; ill, 182
Ewer, Sassanian, Persia, ill, 174
"Exotic" sculpture. See South Sea

Island sculpture; Negro African

sculpture
Expressionism, modern, 478, 479,
480, 482, 484-86, 487-510
Expulsion, The, Jacopo della Quercia, 372; ill, 364
Extreme Unction, Andrea Pisano,
ill,

pipes,

Amerindian,

Mound

Builders culture, 26, 425, 42930;

bird, 429; ill, 425, 430; bird, man,
ill,

28; double

ill,

429

head

effigy pipe,

Egyptian sculpture, 3360; characteristics of, 33-35; chronology', 35;

conventions of figure carving, 34;
earliest carvings, 36-37; foreign
influences, 48; great ages of, 36
42; 50, 51, 55; portraiture, 34, 37
42, 46, 47, 5052; Sphinx and
pyramids, 38, 39; temples and
tombs, figures in, 34, 38, 39, 55,
60; tomb reliefs, 44, 48

El Amarna, 35, 50-51

Elephant, libation jar, Chou, China,
191; ill, 193

Facade,

Church

of Notre

Dame

Poitiers, 321; ill,

Rouen

la

322

Cathedral, 347; de-

348

tail, ill,

Faggi, Alfeo, 496, 497; St. Francis,

ill,

497

Falcon, Saitic, Eg>'pt, ill, 57

Falconet, Etienne, 7; Bathing Girl,
ill,

Mesopotamian, 61
Fibulae and ornaments: Barbarian,
Albania,
Austria,
Switzerland,
etc., 315; ill, 311; Celtic, 316-17;
Fertility fetishes,

ill,

316

Mino

da,

Figure, Nicaragua,

380
ill.,

439

Figure from. Folkunga Fotmtain,

Cari Milles, 482; ill, 483
Figure Holding a Bag, Bahuana,

Gabon,

ill,

412

Figure for Landscape, Barbara Hepworth, ill, 492

Figure panel, Gallo-Roman, 320;
ill, 321
Figure of Buddha, Gupta, India,
253; ill, 254
Figure of Christ, St. Sernin, Tou-

louse, ill,

325

Figure of a Man, Eg>'ptian, ill, 37

Figure with a Proboscis, Melanesian,

New Guinea, ill, 410

Figured cups, c. 1500 B.C., Vaphio,
93; in., 92, 93
Figures, Cycladic, 92; ill, 90, 91
Figures in North Portal, Cathedral
of Notre Dame, Chartres, 12th
century, 338; ill, 338, 339

Figures supporting a seat, Warua,

Congo, 415; ill, 416
Figures with talismanic animals,

163-64; in., 164

Figurine of a king, Egypt, Dynasty
I, 37; ill; 38
Figurines, African,

Guinea, 411;
Fiji

islands,

woman,

ill,

Kissi,

402, 403, 406; Fijian

ill,

406

Finials, Luristan, 163, 167; ill, 163,

164, 166

Ernesto de, 493

Fishhook, Amerindian, Channel
Fiori,

Han, China,

ill,

Flamboyant Gothic,
teau of Amboise, 361; ill, 362;
Church of Notre Dame, Semur,
ill; 347
Flannagan, John B., 8, 497, 498;
Goat, ill, 8; Head, ill, 499
Flat Torso, Alexander Archipenko,
ill, 488
Flemish image of St. James, ill, 357
Flute Player, T'ang, China; ill, 220
ill;

259
,

Flying Mercury, Giambologna,

199

Han,
dragon,
beaked
China, 201; ill, 202
ill,
131
Farnese Hercules, Glycon,
Faure, Elie, Histoire de I'Art, 248
Fauvism, 478, 479, 495
Fantastic

of

phagus

Is-

Flying figures, Aihole, India, 258;

460

Fantastic Animal,

Feats

French

412

27
347-50; Cha-

Grande,
Facade,

276
Ferber, Herbert, 507
Fern, Etienne Hajdu, ill, 489
Ferrara
Cathedral,
Romanesque,
stone reliefs on, 323

lands, California, 26; ill,

371

398
Effigy

Feline animal, Manchuria or China,

ill, 81
Feline Animal, Solutrian, Dordogne,
ill, 19
Female Figure, pre-Khmer, 275; ill,

Fiesole,

493

527

Hercules,
relief, ill,

Roman
156

sarco-

.
ill,

394
Folk art, late Gothic period, 35o-5i>
354-57; Breton Calvaires, 350351; ill, 321, 351, 352; German
wood car\'ings, 354, 355; ill, 35 5,
356; Swiss wood carvings, 357,
ill;

356

528

INDEX

Folkiinga Fountain,
482; ill., 483

Carl

Milles,

Man

Formalism, modern, 479, 481, 482,

483

Found-object or "junk" sculpture, 2,

498, 504
Fountain of Trevi, Bernini and followers,

456

ill.,

France, Anatole, portrait bust by

Bourdelle, ill., 475
or
GermanoFrankish-Byzantine
Byzantine religious works, 308
Frieze, Omayad Palace, Mshatta,
ill.,

178

Frieze of the Cantoria in the Cathedral museum, Florence, Donatello,

376; ill, 377

Frieze of dancing apsaras, Angkor
Thom, 279; ill., 278
Friezes, Persepolis, 172; ill., 170-

172

ill,

502;

502

ill,

391. 393-94, 453; Bather,

395; Flying Mercury, ill, 394

Gilded Madonna,
Cathedral
Amiens, 342; ill, 347

of

8, 483, 484, 485; Stele,

480; Tobias and Sara, ill, 485
Gilyaks, Eastern Siberia, 434
Giotto, 371; relief panels by Andrea
Pisano and Giotto, campanile,
Florence, ill, 371
Giovanni, Bertoldo di, 381
Girardon, Frangois, 459
Girl Carrying Water, Joseph Bernard, 481; ill, 482
Gislebertus, sculptor of The Last
Judgment, Autun, France, 312,
ill,

328-29
Gizeh, Egypt, Cheops cemetery

at,

103
Futurism, 479

Gabo, Naum, 478, 479, 480, 504;

Column, ill., $06
Gallic-Celtic sculpture, 317
Gallo-Roman sculpture, 31920; ill.,
321

Gandharan sculpture,
248, 254-56
Gargallo, Pablo, 496

246,

205,

Gargoyles, Cathedral of Notre Dame

de Paris, 342; ill., 310
Gates of Hell, studies for, Rodin,

472
"Gates of Paradise," Ghiberti,
365, 372, 373, 375-76; ill.,

2,

7,

3,74,

Assyrian,

figures,

70-71;

71; Persian, 172

or doorway of honor, palace of Darius I, Persepolis, 1 72

ill.,

Gateway

Gattamelata

monument

detail, Donatello,

ill.,

Padua,

at

376

later
GaudierHenri,
Brzeska,
8,
479, 486; Seated

Gaudier,

Figure, ill., 486

Gauguin, Paul, 503

Gem cutting, Greece, 109;

Gemma Augustae, Roman

109
cameo,

ill.,

ill, 159
Geometric or zoomorphic ornament,

barbarian, 313,

Geometric style,
95-96; ill, 95

31516
pre-Hellenic,

90,

Gerhaert, Nicolas, of Leyden, 312,

359; self-portrait on Strasburg
Cathedral, ill, 358

German Gothic

sculpture,

352-53;

and folk arts of late period, 354

355; monumental official style in,
357

87, 89, 98,

115; Classical
period, 87, 89, 90, 105120; coins,
of,

1 18; Cycladic marbles, 2223, 9,

92, 95; geometric style, 90, 9596; gems and gem cutting, 109;
Hellenistic period, 90, 12126;
kouroi or Apollos and korai or
maidens, 89, 97, 98102; naturalism and realism in, 87, 90, 95, 98,
105106, 115, 121, 12223, 126;
pre-Hellenic period, Crete, Cyprus, Mycenae, 89, 90, 9195,
review,
reliefs,
historical
102;
102104; reliefs of the Ludovisi
throne, 105; reliefs of the Parthe-

non,
ettes

111-113; terra-cotta statuTanagra, Myrina, and

of

Sm}T:na, 23-25
Greek Slave, Hiram Powers, 463
Greehs and Amazons Battling, Arcadian, 115, 117;
Gross, Chaim, 496

sculpture: Neo-Babylonian, ill,

75; Persian, 170; ill, 170, 171
Glenkiln Cross, Henry Moore, 491;

Guardian,

ill,

ill,

4go

Glycon, 131; ill, 131

Goat, John B. Flannagan, 498; ill, 8
God Hadad, The, Phoenician, ill,

God

of Healing, Yakushiji Temple,

Nara, Japan, 236; ill, 237
God Protector, Todaiji Temple,
Nara, Japan, 237; ill, 238
God with a horse, and crocodile,
Coptic, 300; ill, 301
Goddess Neit, The, Egyptian, 55;
ill,

56

Gold cups from Mycenae and Vaphio, ill, 89

375

Greek sculpture, 87-131; Archaic

period, 89, 96102; characteristics

and Lions, Byzantine,

308
Glazed brick technique in relief
Gladiators

Frontality: in Eg>'ptian sculpture,

34; in Greek sculpture, 98, 99,

Gateway

ill,

Gill, Eric,

Fountain or downspout, Majapahit

period, Java, 293; ill., 292

Syria,

Pointing,

Giambologna (John of Boulogne),

367,

496, 501; Large Head,

Gonzalez, Julio, 12, 478, 495, 507,

510; Montserrat, ill, 13
Good Shepherd, The, Roman, ill,
157

Gopurams, Meenakshi Temple, Madura, India, 271; ill, 272

Gothic

sculpture, 312, 313, 314,

328, 338-63, 365, 367, 368-72;
anonymity of sculptors in, 312;

change in style of figure carving,

338; in French cathedrals, 312;
growing realism in, 338, 339,
34748; ivory carving, 34950;
Amiens and
masterpieces
of,
Reims, 343; spread through Western world, 352-53, 357-59; Strasbourg and Rouen, flamboyant
phase of, 347. See also Folk art,
late Gothic period
Goujon, Jean, 399
Grafly, Charles, 474
Grain jar, early Chou, China, 190;
ill,

191

Gravestone of Hegeso, Athenian,

ill, 117
Great Buddha, Kamakura, Japan,

Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 2, 5, 6, 7, 365,

372, 373. 375-76; and Brunelleschi, 372; Baptistry doors, Florence Cathedral, "Gates of Para-

Great Elector, portrait bust, Andreas

dise," 375; ill, 374, 375

Giacometti, Alberto, 477, 478, 480,

Greco-Roman

243;

in.,

Schluter,

242
ill,

4S7

st>'le,

131

ill,

115

Growth, Jean Arp, 489;

detail,

ill, 12
Shinya-Kushiji
Japan, 239; ill,

Temple, Nara,
238
Guardian King, Todaiji Temple,
Nara, Japan, 239; ill, 238
Guardian with Lantern, Koben,
Kofukuji Temple, Nara, Japan,
243; ill, 242
Guardians. See Tomb and temple
guardians

Gudea, Sumerian king, 67, 68; portraits of, ill, 67, 68

Hacha, Tajin, Vera Cruz,

Hagelaidas of Argos, 104

ill,

445

Hahn, Hermann, 493

Haida culture, 425, 432; Head

of

eagle, 432; ill,

433
Hajdu, Etienne, 477-78, 480, 489,
496; Fern, ill, 489
Haller, Herman, 10
Hallstatt culture, 19
Haniwa sculpture, Japan, 227, 234;

235

ill,

Hare, David, 507

Harihara, Khmer, 275; ill, 276
Ha-Shet-Ef, Egypt, 42; ill, 43
Queen, portrait of,
Hatshepsut,
Egypt, 47; ill, 48
Hawaiian Islands, 402, 403; War

God,

Hawk,

ill,

406

pipe.

Mound

Builders Cul-

Ohio, ill, 430

Hawk, platform pipe,
Mound, Ohio, 429-30;
ture,

Tremper
425

ill,

Head, Achaemenid, Persia, ill, 169

Head, Byzantine, 296; ill, 303
Head, Columbia River culture, Sauvies Island, 434; ill, 433
Head, Congo, 416; ///., 417
Head, Cyprus, 102; ill, 103
Head (downspout or gargoyle), Parthian, ill, 174
Head, Fang, Gabon, 416; ill, 417
Head, Flannagan, ill, 499
Head, Greek, 102; ill, 101
Head, Lachaise, ill, 496

INDEX
Mathura, India, 253; ill., 254
Modigliani, ill., 50^
Nigeria, 420; ill., 421
shaped like ceremonial ax,
Totonac, 445; ill., 446
Head, shaped like ceremonial ax,
Vera Cruz, 445; ill., 446
Head, Strasburg, 344-45; ill., 346
Head, T'ang, China, ill., 217

Head,
Head,
Head,
Head,

Head, Tarascan or Totonac, 446;

ill, 447
Head, Toltec, Mexico, 440; ill., 441
Head, Vera Cruz, ill., 444
Head of an African, Roman, 148;
ill.,

149

Head

of

ill,

Head

of

Athlete,

Cresilas,

ill., 114
an Athlete, Etruscan, 141;

143
of a Bearded

Man, pre-Achae-

i6g
Head of a Bini Girl, Benin, Nigeria,
menid, Azerbaijan,
ill,

Head
ill,

Head

ill,

of a Bodhisattva, China, 209;

210
of a Bodhisattva,

Khmer,

ill,

of

centuries, ill, 281

Buddha, Khmer, Lopburi,

Siam, 279, 281; ill, 280
Head of Buddha, Khmer-Siamese,
281; in., 282
Head of Buddah, Mon style, Siam,
281; ill, 27s
Head of Buddha, Mon stvle, Siam,
28i;iZZ., 282
Head of Buddha, Mon style, Siam,
284; ill, 283
Head of Buddha, Mon-Gupta style,
281; ill, 282
Head of a Buddha, Northern Ch'i,
Honan, China, 209; ill, 210
Head of Buddha, Prah-Khan Temple, East Cambodia, ill, 280
Head of Buddha, pre-Khmer, 275;
ill, 277
Head of Buddha, T'ang, China, 216;
ill, 217
Head of Buddha, Thai-Lopburi style,
Siam, 285; ill, 284
Head of Buddha, Thai-Lopburi type,
Siam, ill, 285
Head of a Buddhist monk, Java, ill,
of

Head

of Christ, detail of Calvaire,

Brittany, 320; ill, 321
Head of Christ, detail of Crucifix,

Nuremberg, 336;

ill,

334

of Christ, detail of a Cruci-

fixion,

Abbey Church, Werden an

Germany, 335; ill, 334

der Ruhr,

Head

69

Head

of eagle, mask,

ill;

Haida, 432;

433

Head

Bamberg Cathe-

of Elizabeth,

dral,

352;

ill,

of a Girl, School of Praxiteles,

120; ill, 121

Head
Head

of Hanako, Rodin, ill, 470

of a Horse, Etruscan, 141; ill,

Head

202

ill,

of a King, Egyptian, 46; ill, 47

of King Stephen, Bamberg,

Germany, 352;

Head

of Christ, Spanish, ill,

336

ill,

353

of a Lion, T'ang, China, 218;

219

ill,

of

Mme.

Detain, Despiau,

ill,

474

Head
Head
Head
Head
Head

ill,

47S
Resting, attributed to Praxi120; ill, 121
with the Infant Dionysus,

teles,

Hermes

Praxiteles, ill, iig

Herodotus, 33, 62, 78

tomb

Hesire,

Han, China, 201;

of a Horse,

Head
Head

Hercides the Archer, Bourdelle, 474;

Hermes

353

Head

of Mahler, Rodin, ill, 470

of Maize God, Mayan, Copan,
ill,

of the

Prophet

Church

Hamburg, 352;
Head of Rameses

Joel,

of

ill,
II,

Master
Peter,

St.

354
Egypt, 55;

ill,

54
of St. Christopher, Ivan

trovicf, ill,

Head
Head
Head

Me-

484

of St. Fortunata, 363; ill, 361

of Sorrow, Rodin, ill, 471
of a Warrior, Etruscan, ill,

136

Head

Water

of a

China,

Head

ill,

of a

Buffalo, late

Chou,

200

Woman,

Etruscan,

ill.

Head-dress for dance, Ibibio, Nigeria, 412; ill, 414

Headrest simulating a hare, Egypt,
ill, 48
Heads, Benin, Ife, Nigeria, ill, 423
Heads, Ife, Nigeria, ill, 422
Heads, Mayan, Copan, 436; ill, 437
Heads, Polynesian, Easter Island,

404; ill, 402

Heads and figures, fetishes, Baluba
and Bapende, Congo, 416; ill,
417
Heads of Buddha, Gandhara, 5th
centur>',
ill,

Heads
ill,

Heads

of,

493

323
jar, Han, Chica, ill, 201
Himalaya, Jose de Creeft, 497;

7th-ioth centuries, 254;

255
of

ill,

498

Hindu

4S7

of a Man, Cyprus, 95; ill, 94

of a Man, Egyptian, 60; ill, ^6
of a Priest, Cyprus, 102; ill,

Bertram,

Head

reliefs

Hildesheim, metal-casting at, 308

Hildesheim Cathedral doors, Ottonian school. Prankish German,

sculpture, 245-72, 274, 276,

290; antecedent to Buddhism, 245;

Aryan and Dravidian dominance,

246; characteristics

246, 248,
Valley
culture, 245, 249; influence in
Ceylon, 258; influence in Southeast Asia, 274, 276, 290; lush st>'le

251-53,

Head

portrait

Egypt, 43; ill, 44

Hildebrand, Adolf, Problem of Form
in Painting and Sctdpture, 4, 479,

Hill

Buddha, Thai, 284-85;

Gothic

and

St.

style,

Stephen,
345;

ill,

346
Heavenly Musician, Todaiji Temple, Nara, Japan, ill, 241
Hegeso, gravestone of, Greece, ill,
117
Hei-tikis, Maori, 407; ill, 407, 408
See Greek
sculpture.
Hellenistic

sculpture, Hellenistic period

of,

Indus

Hippopotamus, Egypt, c. 2000 B.C.,

45, ill, 46
Hippopotamus, Egypt, 3200 B.C., 38;
ill; 33
Hittite sculpture, 69, 70; ill, 64, 70
Homer, portrait of, 126; ill, 129
Hopi, Amerindian tribe of the
Southwest, 425

Horned Monster,

libation jar, early

Chou, China, 190, 191; ill, 191

Romanesque,
Horse,
aquamanile,
Flemish, ill, 337
Horse, Athens, 102; ill, loi
Horse, Ch'ing, Kang Hsi period,

China,

ill,

225

Han

period, Ordos region,

Chinese border, 196; ill, 197

Horse,

Horse, Haniwa, Japan, 234; ill, 235

Horse, Luristan, 164; ill, 161
Horse, Ordos region, China, 83; ill.

Horse,
Horse,
ill,

of St. Philip

265-66;

in South India, 25861; medieval

and late periods, 26466; variant
types in Bihar and Bengal, 266;
in Nepal, 266-67

ill;

285

Alsatian

293

Head

ill,

Hercules, temple of Aegina, Greece,

ill, 105
Hercules or Warrior, Etruscan, ill,

ill,

of a Dragon, late Chou, China,

195; in., 196
Head of a Dragon, possibly Elamite,

436;

Buddha, Aytudhya style,

Siam, ill, 284
Head of Buddha, Borobudur, Java,
ill, 287
Head of Buddha, fragment, T'ang,
China, 216; ill, 217
Head of Buddha, Gandhara, 254;
ill, 255
Head of Buddha, Khmer, 12th century, 281, ill, 280
Head of Buddha, Khmer, 12th- 13th

Head

Head

Hepworth, Barbara, 478, 492; Figure

for Landscape, ill, 492
Hera of Samos, 97; ill, g6

Head

420

281

Head

of a Devata, Turkestan,

256

142

an

Athenian,

Head

Head

529

Ordos region,
197

Perm

district,

China,

196;

U.S.S.R., 85;

84

Horse, Persia, ill, 177

Horse, Sassanian, Arabia,
Horse, Scvtho-Siberian

ill,

176

st\'le,

84;

ill, 85^

Horse, T'ang, China, ill, 212

Horse, from a sketch model by Leonardo da Vinci, 391; ill, 392
Horse, Wei, China, ill, 212
Horse, Woldenberg, Germanv, 32;
ill, 16

INDEX

530

Horse and Rider, Attica, ill., 94

Horse and Rider, Cyprus, 92; ill., 94
Horse and Rider, IVIarino Marini,
500; ill., 501
Horse and Rider, Andrea Pisano and
Florence

Giotto,

371
Horse and Rider,

Cathedral,

after

Vinci model, 391;

ill.,

Leonardo da
392

ill.,

Horse and Wild Goat, Scythian,

Crimea, 81; ill., 80
Horse in Combat, T'ang, China, ill.,
218
Horse of Selene, Parthenon, Athens,
ill,

III

Horseman,
in.,

Myrina, 124;

Hellenistic,

125

Horseman, probably Italian, 352; ill.,

353
Horseman and two candleholders,
Romanesque, Flemish, German,
Italian, 336-37; ill, 337
Horsemen, Parthenon, Athens, ill,
113
Horses, geometric style, Greek,

ill,

95
Horses of St. Mark's, Greek, 126;
ill, 128
Horses of the Sun, Robert le Lorrain,
ill,

4S9
Houdon, Jean Antoine,
463; Diana,
Siiffren,

ill,

niard, ill,

3, 6, 454,
462; Le Bailli de
46^; Louise Brog-

ill,

title

Human-effigy
ico, 29; ill,

jar,

page
Chihuahua, Mex-

Impression from seal, Uruk, Sumerian, ill, 63

Impressionism in modern sculpture,
454, 466, 467, 469, 473, 474, 483
Impressions from gems, Greece, ill,
log
Impressions from seals: Akkadian,
69, 70; ill, 70; Assyrian and Babylonian, 75; ill, 76; Assyrian, Persian, Achaemenid period, ill, 173;

Cretan and Mycenaean, ill, 93;

Mesopotamian, 62, 6870, 75.
See also Seals and seal cutting
Incas of Peru: culture of, 448-49;
Alpaca, ill, 450; jars and portrait
vessels, ill, 448; knife, ill, 449;
Llamas, ill, 448, 449; Puma, ill,

449
Incense burners, Mexico, Zapotec,
440; ill, 441
Indian Prince and Attendants, South
India, ill, 183
Indian sculpture, 188, 205, 245-72,
Buddhist281,
286;
273-76,
Hindu styles, 246, 248, 267; cave
shrines, 248, 259; earliest datable
sculpture, 249; earliest figures excavated, Indus Valley, 245, 249;
ethnic cultures and history, 246248; female body in early art, 253;

Greek influence, 253-56; Hindu

264-69; twelfth -century
decadence, 265
Indus Valley culture, 245, 249; figdeities,

ures and seals

of,

245;

ill,

249,

Innocent X, Bernini, ill, 456

Insect, David Smith, 510; ill, 508
Interior, monastic church at Stams,
Austrian Tyrol, 457; ill, 458

Hunting

Interior

boars, Sassanian,

178; ill,

177

Hunting Scene, palace

of Assurna-

72

sirpal II, Assyrian, ill,

Scene,

from

impression

Akkadian, 69;

seal,

ill,

70

ill,

Nineveh,

of AssurAssyrian, 72;

and Malta; relics of stone and

bronze ages, 9192
Ibex, Luristan, ill, 168
Idol, Cycladic, 22-23; ^'^v 23
Idol, Easter Island, 404, 405; ill,
Iberia

405
ill,

Idols:

Boy Athlete, Greek, 115;

14

South Sea Islands, 404405;

hei-tikis,

404;

ill,

407, 408;

sta-

tues, Easter Island, 405; ill, 402,

405
Yoruba, recent discoveries in,
ill, 422, 423
lllissos, Parthenon, Athens, 90, no;
ill, 87
Illustration for Psalm XXVII, Carolie,

422;

lingian, ill,

^07

Impression from
Impression
ill, 63

ture
Irish people,

Age

art,

317-18
315;

ill,

ture of Hallstatt
tures,

315-17; sculp-

and Le Tene

cul-

modern sculpture. See Gonzalez

Iroquois, 424, 425
Isaiah and Jeremiah, North Portal,
Cathedral of Notre Dame, Char-

Iron in

74

Idolino, or

tomb wall reliefs, Sakkara,

Egypt, 44; ill, 44, 45.513
Iranian sculpture. See Persian sculp-

Iron

Hunting Scenes, palace

banipal,

from

Gothic, 349-50; Romanesque,

ill,

324
Ivory fetishes of Baluba and
tribes,

ill,

Bapende

417

Ivory figurines, Ephesus, 96

Ivory knife handle, pre-dynastic,

Egypt, 36;

ill,

37

Jacobsen, Robert, 12, 507

Jade carvings, China, 185, 193-95,
200201; ill, 186, 194, 195, 200,

202
Jaguar, Neolithic, Panama, ill, 32
Japanese sculpture, 226-44; bronzes,
from 7th century, 236; characteristics of, 234, 235, 236; folk art

(Haniwa), 22734;

historic periods of, 230; important periods of

Buddhist sculpture,
Suiko to

Kamakura, 23540; guardian

fig-

231,
239; primitive art
(Jomon), 227, 231; wood-carved
statues, 229, 235. See also Korean
sculpture; Chinese sculpture
Jar with effigy added, Peru, ill, 27
Javanese sculpture, 274, 28693;
ures,

Borobudur, 28688; SumatranJavanese empire, 288; Temple of

Siva at Prambanan, 290
Javelin throwers, Magdalenian, Dordogne, 21; ill, 20

Joman

31

Human-effigy pipe, Adena mound,

Ohio, ill, 430
Amerindian,
Human-effigy
pipe,
Tennessee, ill, 430

Hunting

305, 306, 308; periods of renaissance, Carolingian and Ottonian,

303-304, 308; portraiture on, 296;
in
China, 22425; ill, 224;

seal,

Akkadian,

seal,

ill.

Babylonian,

tres, ill,

Ishtar

S39
Gate (Gate of Processions),
ill, 74

Babylon,

Islamic sculpture, 176-83; abstract

decorative character of, 17880,
183; lacelike ornamentation on
buildings, 180; pottery, 182-83;
prohibition of image-making lifted,
178, 180; in Spain, 180; use of
stucco in, 178. See also Persian
sculpture
Ivories and ivory carvings: Byzantine, 295, 296, 297-98, 299-300,
302, 303, 304-308; ill, 295, 297,
298, 299, 300, 301, 304, 305, 306,
307, 308, 309; Coptic-Byzantine,
302; early carvings, 3rd 5th centuries, 297, 298; formative period,
302; fully developed style, 302;
Oriental influences on, 297, 298,

culture.
Neolithic, Japan,
227, 231; ill, 231
Journey of the Stin through the Underworld, Saitic, Eg^'pt, ill., 58
Julius Caesar, reputed portrait bust
of,

14446;

ill,

145

Kaikei (Japanese sculptor), 241

Kailasa Temple, Ellora, India,

ill,

259
Kali with Cymbals, Nepal, ill, 269
Kandarya Mahadeva, Temple, Khajuraho, India, detail, 261; ill, 262
Kandinsky, Vasily, 479, 489
Khafre, king of Egypt, 38, 39; ill, 40
Khmers, 273-81. See also Cambodian sculpture; Siamese sculpture
Killer Whale, shaman's charm, Tlingit, Alaska, ill, 424
Kinetic sculpture, 504. See also
Mobiles
King, dynasty I, Eg\'pt, 37; ill, 38
King, fragment of relief, Eg\'pt, ill,
60
Kiss, The, Rodin, 469, 471; ill, 7
Kladeos,

detail.

Temple

of

Zeus,

Olympia, 105; ill, 107

Kneeling Woman, Wilhelm Lehmbruck,

ill,

494

Woman, Susa, 64; ill, 65

Knife, Inca, Peru, ill, 450
Knife handle, pre-dynastic, Egypt,
Kneeling

ill; 37
Koben, Japanese
242

sculptor, 243; ill,

Kolbe, Georg, 454, 476, 493;

Dancer, ill, 476

Kore, Athens, 10 1;

ill,

100

The

INDEX
La Boudeuse, Athens,

Kore,

102;

100

ill.,

Kore, Oriental

t>'pe,

Athens, 102;

Laurent, Robert, 496

Leaping Lion, Luristan,

100

Korean sculpture, 226-27, 321, 234,

235; Buddhist influence on Japanese sculpture, 22627; dependence
on Chinese culture, 226-27, 231;
pottery and porcelains, 227; temple

Amaravati, India, 253;

man,

224
Kuan-Yin, Sui, China, 213; ill., 214
Kuan Yin, Sui, China, 213-14; ill.,
214
Kuan Yin, Sung, China, 220; ill.,
ill.,

Yin, T'ang, China, 214;

ill.,

215

Kuan
ill.,

Yin, T'ang or Sung, China,

217

Kuan

Yin, Yuan, China, ill., 223

Keeper of the Temple Granary, Al-Ubaid, Sumer, 65; ill., 66

Kur-lil,

Kwakiutl culture, British Columbia,

424, 425, 430, 432; ceremonial
masks, ill, 432, 433
Kwannon, Horiuji Temple, Nara,
Japan, ill., 236
Kwannon ("Eleven-headed"), Shorinji Temple, Nara, Japan, ill.,
240
L. Caecilius Jucundus,
ill.,

245

12, 478,

ill.,

Lenni Lenape,
425

ill., 459
Amerindian

Roman,

148;

149

Lachaise,

Head,

Gaston,
ill.,

496;

Woman's

496

485

204
Lion, Islamic, ill., 181
Lion, detail, Khurasan, Persia, 181;

Lao-Tse, 186, 188, 201; Lao-Tse on

a Water Buffalo, 222; ill., 184
Lao-Tse on a Water Buffalo, Sung,
China, 222; ill., 184
Lapiths and Centaurs, Parthenon,
Athens, ill., 113
Large Head, Alberto Giacometti,
501; ill., 502
Lassavv, Ibram, 507
Last ]udgment, detail. Cathedral of
Or\'ieto, 361; ill., 359
Last Judgment, detail. Cathedral of
St. Lazare, Autun, 327; ill., 313
La Tene culture. Iron Age, 19
Laurana, Francesco, 381;
Vrincess
of the House of Aragon, ill., 381

182

Lion,

palace of Assurnasirpal II,

Nimrud, Ass\Tian, ill., 71
Lion, Persia, 176; iH., 177
Lion, Street of Processions, Babylon,
iW; 75

Lion of Brunswick, Brunswick, Ger-

many, 336; ill., 334

Lions, Achaemenid, Susa, ill., 170
Lions, Hittite, Syria, ill., 70
Lion's Head, Babylonian, ill., 68
Lions of Delos, Cycladic Isles, 10 1;
Jacques, 478, 479, 480,
495, 496; Prometheus Strangling
the Vidture, ill., 495
Lippold, Richard, 504; Variations
within a Sphere, Numher 10, ill.,

Lipton, Seymovu, 507, 510; Ances-

"Long stone

art,"

pre-Celtic,

18;

Stonehenge, England, ill., 25

Lopburi, Siam, Buddhist heads and
masks from, 281
Lorenzo Maitani, 361
Louis XIV, Pierre Puget, 457; ill.,
Louis XIV, monument to, Bemmi,
455; ill, 453
Louise Brogniard, Houdon, 463; ill,
title page
Lower Mississippi Valley culture,

435

340;

in.,

Madonna,

Paris,

341
detail,

German

Swiss,

354; dl, 355

Madonna and
389;

in.,

Child, Michelangelo,

391

Madonna and
Quercia,

Child, Jacopo della

ill,

372

Madonna and Child with

Saints,

ivory, Byzantine, ill,

305
Madonna in a Mandorla, Nanni di
Banco, 372; ill, 373
Madonna of Sorrows, Juan Martinez
Montanes, 400; ill, 401
Maiano, Benedetto da, 381
Maiden Untying Her Sandal, Athenian, 1 17; in., 116
Maillol, Aristide, 7, 454, 473, 476;

Seated Nude, ill., 473

Maitani, Lorenzo, 361; Cathedral at
Orvieto, detail, ill, 359
Maldarelli, Oronzio, 496, 497
Mamallapuram, India, cliff sculpture
of, 259; ill, 260, 261
Man, Aztec, 442; ill, 443
Man, effigy pipe, Amerindian,
Mound Builders culture, ill, 28

Man, Eg\-pt, ill, 46

Man, Inca, Peru, 449; ill, 450
Man, Shang or Chou period, China,

Man

195

'',

Drawing a Sword, Ernst Bar-

lach, ill, 10

Man

Pointing, Alberto Giacometti,

501; ill, 502

Man (Rhythm

Pounder^, Senufo,

Man,

stags,

414
Chou, Shang,

ill,

hird,

china, 193;

507

Llama, Inca, Peru, ill., 448

Llamas, Inca, Peru, 448; ill., 449
Lohan, Sung or Ming, China, 222
223; ill., 223
Lokesvara, Nepal, ill., 267
Lombards, development of Byzantine art and Romanesque style by,
308

459

in., 487
Madonna, Notre Dame de

Ivory Coast, 412;

505
ill.,

Honan, China,

205; ill, 206, 207

Luristan, Outer Iran, 2, 161, 163
167. See also Persian sculpture
Lute Player, T'ang, China, ill, 220
Lysippus, 121, 122-23, 131; i^l->
121, 123

193-95;

99

Lipchitz,

tor,

Laocoon, group by Rhodian sculptors, Agesander,

Polydorus, and
Athenodorus, Greco-Roman, ill.,

Laurens, Henri, 479, 495

Lion, Dahomey, ill., 420

Lion, Egypt, 48; ill., 49
Lion, Han, China, bronze, ill., 199
Lion, Han, China, stone, 205; ill.,

ill,

Lacquer, 216, 229, 241

Ladies, T'ang, China, 220; ill., 221
Lady, T'ang, China, ill., 220
Lakshmi, South India, ill., 171
Landowsky, Paul Maximilian, 483
484; Monument of the Reformation, with Henri Bouchard, ill.,

ill,

Mile. Pogany, Constantin Brancusi,

tribe,

Leon, Cathedral, Spain, 359

Leopard, Benin, Nigeria, 420; ill.,
421
Libation vessel, Shang, China, 191;
ill., 192
Life of Christ, ivor>', French, 349;
ill; 35^
Lintels, Maori, 407; ill., 407408
Lion, Antoine Louis Barye, 463; ill.,

in.,

caves,

105;

494

Lorrain, Robert,

465

221

Kuan

ill.,

10,

479, 493-94, 503, 510; Bathing

Woman, ill., 494; Kneeling Wo-

Le

Ludovisi Throne, Greek,

106

Lung Men

Lehmbruck, Wilhelm,

227

ill.,

Le Corbusier, 480
Lederer, Hugo, 481, 493
Legend of the Drunken Elephant,

shrines, 227, 231; three phases of;

Kmiroi, Tenea, Melos, 97-98; ill., 97

Koxiros, Boeotian, 99; ill., 98
Kouros, Etruscan, 135; ill., 133
Kouros, Greek, 97; ill., 96
Kouros, 97, 98-99, 10 1 ill., 96, 97,
g8. See also Apollo of Veii
Kuan Yin, late Ming, China, 225;

167;

168

ill.,

531

Man

ill, 194
Walking, Phoenician, 77;

ill,

with Wings, Eskimo, 434;

ill,

76

Man

435
Mannerists, Florentine, 389, 391
Manship, Paul, 479
Maori sculpture. New Zealand, 403,
407-409; canoe prows, ill, 407;
hei-tikis, ill,

407-408;

lintels,

ill.,

407408
Marcks, Gerhard, 493
Marco Polo, 184

Marcus Aurelius, Roman, 148;

149
Marini,

Marino, 500; Horse

Rider, ill, 501
Marlik culture, Persia, 160

Marquesas

ill,

and

402, 404, 406;

mask, ill, 410;
totemic carving, ill, 410. See also
Polynesian sculpture
Islands,

statuettes, ill, 404;

INDEX

532

Frangois Rude, 463;

464
Marsyas, Myron, Greek, 106; ill.,
Marseillaise,
ill.,

108

Mary

Kneeling, German-Swiss,

ill.,

71, 72, 74-75; seals and seal carving, 62, 69, 70, 75; Stone Age
fertility idols. 61
MeStrovic, Ivan, 482-83;
St. Christopher, ill, 484

modern

Head

of

Metal

Mask with

Mihrab, Alaviyan, Hamadan, Persia, 178; ill, 179

appurtenances, Eskimo,
Southwest ^aska, ill, 4^4
Masks, Melanesian, New Britain,
409; ill, 4og, 410
Masks, Negro African, 403, 416-18;
ill,

40^, 418

sword guards, ornaments,

Japan, ill, 244
Matisse, Henri, 479, 503
Masks,

Mausoleum,

Halicarnassus,
122;
Battle Scene, ill, 122
Maximian's throne, Byzantine, Ra-

venna,

ill,

sculpture, 2, 425-26, 436440. See also Amerindian sculpture

Medal, Islamic, 176; ill, 177
Medallion on a reliquary, Byzantine,

Conques, ill, 324

Medallion with bust of Ninfa,
to

Donatello,

394;

atill,

395
Medals, Pisanello, ill, 396
Medals, Renaissance, 394; by Cel-

Matteo de' Pasti, Pisanello,

ill; 395, 396
Medieval architecture, 34345
Megalithic art. Stone Age, 18; ill,
lini,

25
Melanesian sculpture, 403, 404, 406
409, 410, 411; ceremonial dance
shield, ill, 411; masks, ill, 4og,

410; prow ornament,

Mena, Pedro de, 400;
ill,

2, 5, 6, 7, 13, 366,
367, 372, 378, 384-92; Battle of
the Lapiths and the Centaurs, ill,
384; David, ill, 385; Dawn, ill,
3,66; Day, ill, 389; Madonna and
Child, ill, 7,gi; Moses, ill, 387;
Night, ill, 388; Pieta, ill, 386;
Prisoners, ill, 390; Twilight, ill,

Middle American sculpture, 425-26,

430, 43652; beginnings of, 425;
main areas of, 425-26; gold sculpture in, 449-50; styles, 448

Mihrab

of Oljeitu, Friday

ture, 274, 281; ill, 275, 280, 282,

283
281;

Lopburi,

head,

stone

282

ill,

Monkey, Egypt,

45; ill, 47
Monster guardians of Assyrian palaces, 70-71; Lion, Nimrud, ill, 71
Montaiies, Juan Martinez: Madonna
of Sorrows, 400; ill, 401
Montelupo, Baccio de, 392

Montserrat,
ill,

Julio

Gonzalez,

507;

13

Monument

Reformation,

the

of

Geneva, Henri Bouchard and

Maximilian
Landowsky,
Paul
483-84; in., 485

Monumental
Arabia,

Sassanian,

horse,

176

ill,

sculpture, Mesopotamian, 62
Moore, Henry, 4, 10, 13, 477, 478,
480, 49091, 503, 510; Glenkiln
Cross, ill, 490; Reclining Figure,
ill, 4, 481, 491
See
Islamic
sculpture.
Moorish

sculpture

Moschophorus QCalf
ens, ill,

Minne, George, 479

Minoan

sculpture. See Cretan sculp-

Ath-

Bearer'),

99

Moses, Michelangelo,
Moses, Claus Sluter,

ill,

387

361-63;

ill.

Mother Goddess, Bronze Age, Per31

sia, in.,

431

Mother Goddess, Cretan, 91; ill, 89

Mother Goddess, Mesopotamia, 61,
64

ture
clay sculptures.

ica,

446; portrait

30;

Tarascan

Middle Amer-

jars,

Woman,

Peru,

ill,

ill,

447

Minor

objects, Persian-Arabian art

(seals, coins, ornaments, miniature metal sculptiures), 176; ill.

Miracle at Cana, Coptic, 302;

ill,

295
Miracle of the Drunken Elephant,
India, Amaravati, 253; ill, 245
Miracles of Christ, early Christian,
Byzantine, 297; ill, 298
Mitry and His Wife, Egypt, ill, 39
Mobiles, 2, 13, 478, 480, 498, 504.
See also Calder, Alexander
Model for a monument to Louis

XIV, Bernini, 455;

Modena
Modern

ill,

sculpture,
of,

in,

477-510; chief
50410; main
478-80; modern

massive

malism; Welded sculpture

Modigliani, Amadeo, 12, 503;

503
Mohenjo-Daro

Builders culture, Amerindian, 26, 425, 429-30, 435; effigy

pipes, ill, 28, 425, 429, 430; jars
with animals, ill, 436; mask, ill,

436
Mountain Sheep, Amerindian, Arizona, 427; ill, 428
Mountain stone, Arawak, 427; ill,
428
Mural panel with apsaras, Khmer,
ill,

Mural
172;

279
palace of Darius, Susa,
170, 171
sculpture, 90, 92, 93,

reliefs,
ill,

Mycenaean

94. 95, 96
Mycerinus and His Queen, Gizeh,
Eg>'pt, ill,

39

Asia Minor, Hellenistic

statuettes from, 123, 124; ill, 125

sculpture,
503504; new internationalism of
the 1960s, 498; schools or styles,
with leaders and dates, 479-80.
See also Abstract sculpture; ConExpressionism; Forstructivism;
of

Mound

Myrina,

453

Cathedral, 323

movements

foreign
influences on, 6970; history of recarving,
"Hittite
lief
6970;
style," 69; monumental figures,
70; hunting and war scenes, 70,
62;

Mosque,

Ispahan, ill, 178

Milan Cathedral, 365
Milles, Carl, 479, 482, 496; Figure
from Folkunga Fountain, ill, 483
Miniature totem pole figure, ill,

tradition

of,

Siamese sculp-

early

in

style

Monumental

Micronesia, 403

Francis,

Merovingian sculpture, 317

Mesopotamian sculpture (Sumeria,
Babylonia, Assyria), 61-77; characteristics

452

St.

509

113;

seals

328

ill,

Mon-Gupta

Michelangelo,

innovations

ill,

498,

ill, 112
Metzner, Franz, 479, 481, 493, 494
Meunier, Constantin, 474
Mezcala culture, Guerrero, Mexico,
mask, ill, 452; Standing Man, ill,

411

Vll, David Smith,

495,

Parthenon, Athens,

ill,

400

Menand

Aletopes,

Minor

300

Mayan

tributed

hammered, welded),
500, 504, 507-10

(forged,

and

figures

from, 245, 249; ill, 249

Moissac, jamb figure of St. Peter,

Mon

355
Mask, Amerindian, Tsimshian, 427;
in., 428
Mask, Arawak, Puerto Rico, 427;
ill., 429
Mask, Baule, Ivory Coast, ill., 418
Mask, Cowichan, Vancouver Island,
430-32; in., 432
Mask, Guro, Ivory Coast, ill., 418
Alask, Kwakiutl, Vancouver Island,
430; ill, 432
Mask, Mayan, Palenque, 438; ill.,
439
Mask, Mezcala culture, Guerrero,
Panama, ill., 452
Mask, Olmec, Mexico, 440; ill., 441
Mask, Olmec, Oaxaca, Mexico, 444;
ill, 44S
Mask, Warega, Congo, 418; ill, 40^
Mask, Zapotec, Vera Cruz, 444; ill,
445
Mask of Buddha, Mon style, 281;
ill, 282
Mask of Xipe, Aztec, 442; ill, 44s

sculpture,

Indus Valley,

ill,

Myron, 104, 106;

Nadleman,

Elie,

Naram-Sin, stele
69; ill, 68

ill,

108

4
of,

Akkadian, 68-

Nataraja (Siva), South India, 269;

ill, 269, 270

Neanderthal Woma^j,

ill,

Near-abstract

Eskimo, 432;

object,

21

ill, 433
Nebuchadnezzar, 75

Nefertiti, 35, 50, 51; portrait

and

Chanhu-Daro,

of, ill,

50, 51

heads

INDEX
Negro African

sculpture,

3, 402,
403, 41123; ancient works, 411;
carvings of ever>'day objects, 403;
characteristics of, 403, 411; civilization of the Bini, 419, 420-23;
Oriental influences in, 422; tribal
expressions in, 403; wood as a
medium in, 411 16
European ( 1 790Neoclassicism,
1840), 454, 460-63

Nepal, variation of Buddhist-Hindu

26667; Avalokitesvara,
art in,
293; ill., 292; bronze or copper
statuettes,

ill.,

267, 268

Nero, equestrian statue, Roman, 146;

ill, 147
Netsuke, Japan, ill., 244
New Guinea, 403, 409; bas-reliefs,
406; oracle figure, ill., 406; Sepik
river mask, ill., 410
New Stone Age (neolithic), 18, 29,
32; figures from, 2225; human
figures from the Aegean isles, 23;
18;

potter>',

weapons and

tools,

See also Stonehenge

New York school of modern sculpture, 496-97, 498
Nicholas von Fliie, 357; ill., 356
Nicola da Uzzano, Donatello, 365,
24.

376; ill, 376

Nielsen, Kay, 481
Night, Michelangelo, ill, 388
Nile, The, Roman, 146; ill, 147
Nimbus, in Buddhist sculpture, ill,

209

No

drama masks, Japan,

Noguchi, Isamu, 496
Nonobjective

art.

ill, 2.44

capital,

See Abstract sculp-

sculpture,
331, 334-35;
Canterbury Cathedral, ill,

335
Norse

woodcarving,
doorway
church, Urnes, Norway, 319;

of
ill,

320

Norsemen

Southern Europe, 318

in

319
North and south porches. Cathedral
of Notre Dame, Chartres, 338,
339;

Notre

^11-,

341

Dame

Cathedral,

Chartres,

312, 313, 314, 325, 33o-3i> 338340, 343, 347; ill, 312, 332, 338,
339, 341
Notre Dame Cathedral, Semur,

Burgundy: detail of tympanum,

i47
Notre Dame de Paris, 340, 341; ill,
310, 341, 342
Notre Dame la Grande, Poitiers,
321; ill, 322
Nottingham School, England, 352;
ill; 353
ill,

Nude

figure (Eve), Peter Vischer

the Younger, 396; ill, 397
Nude Walking Figure, Sakkara,
Eg>'pt, 42; ill,

43
Nuestra Seiiora de Pilar, Saragossa:
altar backing at, 359; ill, 360

Nuraghian
ill,

culture,

Sardinia,

ture

Offering of Gifts, Eg>'pt, ill, 53

Offering Scene, Temple of Horus,

Edfou, Eg>'pt, 60;

92;

88

page

ill;

371

Roman

Panels: in

decoration, friezes,
traceries, 153; in

low-relief

high

Unkei, Kyoto, Japan, ill, 241

Old Men, Ming, China, 223; ill,
224
Old Stone Age (Paleolithic), 15-18;
seven periods of, 17-18 Cchart,
17). See also Cro-Magnon culture
Old Stone Age implements: spear
point, boat ax, from Ohio, Aus-

slabs

153, 154; on coffin

and sarcophagi, 153-57

59

of

tralia; ill, 2.4

Old

Woman

with a Cane, Ernst

Barlach, 486-87; ill, 486
Olmec sculpture, Mexico, 426, 440,
444; ancient mask, ill, 441; mask,
ill, 44S
Olympia, Temple of Zeus at, 105;
in., 107; figure of Zeus by Phidias, 113, 114

Omayvad

Palace, Mshatta, Syria,

180; ill, 178
Oracle
figure
with
ornamental
screen,
Guinea, ill, 406
Orator, Etruscan, 141; ill, 143

New

Orcagna, Andrea, 368

Ordos bronzes, China and Inner
Mongolia, 84, 186, 187, 196; ill,
84, 8s, 197, 198. See also Animal
art of the Eurasian steppes; Chinese sculpture
Orissa, India: panel figures, ill, 264

relief,

Panathenaic Procession, Parthenon,

Athens, ill, 113
Panther, Scythian, Crimea, 81; ill,
82
Pantheress,
Etrusco-Roman,
1 39;
ill, 138
Paolozzi, Eduardo, 507
Parthenon Athens, 1 10-14; freestanding figures in pediments,
1

10, 114;

ill.

87,

and low

high

JO, III; friezes,

111-113;

reliefs,

112, 113
Parthian period, Persia, 161, 173-74,
226; ill, 160, 174, 175
Parvati, India, ill, 264
Pasti, Alatteo de', 394; medals by,
ill,

ill;

395

Paidine Bonaparte as Venus Reposing,

Antonio Canova,

ill,

461

Pausanius, 115
Peacocks Drinking, Byzantine, Ven-

294

ice, ill,

Cow

Peasant Taking a

Roman,

to

Market,

151
Pendants, ornaments, bell, Colombia and Panama, 450; ill, 451
Pereira, Manuel, 400; Bust of San

Bruno,

150;

ill,

detail, ill,

401

Ghana, 496
Ornament, Islamic, 176; ill, 177
Scythian,
Caucusus,
Ornaments,
Siberia, ill, 82

Perfume spoon, Egyptian, ill, 45

Pergamene style, 126, 131; altar of
Pergamon, 126; Dying Gladiator,
3, 126; ill, 130; Homer, 126; ill,

Gothic reliefs,
369
Osiris Enthroned, Eg\'pt, ill, 58
Otter with Fish, platform pipe,
Amerindian, 42930; ill, 430
Ottonian school: doors at Hildes-

129; Titan Anytos, ill, 129

Periclean period in Athens, 89,

Orvieto
368;

Cathedral:

'dl,

heim Cathedral, 323; innovations

in ivory carving, 303, 304, 323
jar, Shang or early Chou, 191;

10-

114
PericJes, Cresilas,
ill,

Greek, 114, 123;

123

Persepolis, stone murals at, 170-72.

See also Persian sculpture
Persian sculpture, 86, 160-83; ani-

160-63, 16469,

Owl,

mal designs

192
Ox of St. Luke, French, Burgundian
school, ill, 363
Ozenfant, Amedee, 480

arabesques,
178;
181;
176,
bronzes, 161-68; calligraphy, ill,
178; early cultures: Outer Iran,
Luristan, 160-69; importance of
stucco in Islamic design, 178; Is-

in.,

in,

Spanish,

lamic style from 7th centur>', 1 76178; palace and temple friezes of

of King Minos, Cnossus,

vases from, 92. See also Cretan
sculpture
Palaces of the Achaemenid kings,
Persepolis and Susa, sculptures of,
161, 170-72; ill, 162, 170, 171,

Achaemenian rulers, Persepolis

and Susa, 170-72; reference list

Painted
ill,

wooden

crucifix,

336

Palace

Paleolithic sculpture. See

Old Stone

Age
Palette of
ill,

of dynasties, 162; rock-cut tombs,

174; seals, 173. See also Islamic
sculpture; Luristan sculpture; Sas-

sanian sculpture
Perseus,

172

King Narmer, Egypt,

37;

38

Palmas, or palmate stones, Totonac,

446; ill, 447
Panel figures, Orissa, India, ill, 264
Panel of Hesire, Eg\'ptian, 43; ill,

44
ill, title

Panels, Andrea Pisano after Giotto's

designs, Giotto's Tower, Florence,

Ascetic, ascribed to a follower

Old

Panel with fantastic subjects, ByzanOar, Easter Island, 25;

5 3 3

and

ill,

Orloff,

ture

Norman

Oceania. See South Sea Island sculp-

tine, ill,

304

ill;

early

393

wax model,

Cellini,

Perseus, Cellini, 392; ill, 393

Persian silver casket. Treasury of St.
Mark's, Venice, 183; ill, 181
Pestle, Amerindian, Antilles, 26; ill.,

28
Pestle,

Polynesian,

Marquesas

Is-

lands, 26; ill, 28

Pevsner, Antoine, 479, 504

Pheasant, libation jar, Shang or early

Chou, China, 191;

ill,

19Z

INDEX

534

Phidias, 104, iio, 113 14

Phoenician

Portrait figures

God

figures:

Hadad,

Man

Walking, Snake Goddess,

75-77; in., 76
Phoenician silver platter, ill., 77
Physician's charm, impression from
a seal, Akkadian, ill., 70
Picasso, Pablo, 478, 479, 495, 503
Pictorial relief panels,

late

Roman,

153
Michelangelo,

Pieta,

386;

2,

ill.,

Vecchietta),

(II

381

ill.,

Germain:

Pilon,

Siena

of

di,

effigy of

Chancel-

lor Rene de Birague, 399; ill., 398

Pin with animal head, Caucasus,
167; in., 168
Pins and pinhead, Luristan, 167;
in., 166
Pipes, Amerindian. See Effigy pii>es
Pisa Cathedral detail of bronze door,
:

Bonanno

Pisano,

323,

368;

ill.,

323, 368

head of a
Egypt, ill; 38

Portrait heads, Byzantine, in., 303

Portrait heads, royal family, Egypt,
dynasty XVIII, 5 1 head of Queen
Nefertiti, ill. 50, 51; heads of
royal children, ill., 52
Portrait of Homer, Greco-Roman,
;

126;

ill.,

Peru,

129

Chimu

jars,

il

(Vittore

or

Pisano, Giovanni, 365, 368; panel,

pulpit, Church of S. Andrea, Pistoia, 368; ill., 370
Pisano, Nicola, 364, 365, 366, 368;
Adoration of the Magi, ill., 370;
pulpit, Pisa Cathedral, ill., 369;
pulpit, Cathedral of Siena, ill.,

Mochica,

or

448
Portrait of King Khafre, Egypt,
ill., 40
ill.,

39;

of Kur-lil, keeper of the

temple granary, Al-Ubaid, Sumer,

65;

66

ill,

Portrait

of

Roman,

lady,

ill,

148
Portrait of Nicholas
ill;

von

Fliie,

355;

356

Pottery: Arretine,

Roman,

153; Per-

riod, China, ill, 222

Powers, Hiram, 463
Prancing
Unicorn,
Kuh-I-Dasht,
Persia, 169; ill, 168
Praxiteles, 119-20; Aphrodite, ill,

120;

Head

Hermes
Hermes

a Girl, ill, 121;

Resting, 120; ill, 119;
with the Infant Dionysus,
of

ill, iig
Pre-Colombian art, dating of, 426
Pre-Greek arts of the Mediterranean

365
Plaque with Dragons, period of the
Warring States, China, 193; ill..

See also Primitive sculpture

Pre-Hittite standard, ill, 6g
Preparation for War against

the

Plaque

152
Priest Ganjin,

Dacians, Trajan's column,

Animals,

Scythian, Russia, ill., 78

Plaques with Animals, Caucasus, 85;
in.,

86

Plato, 33
Platter with reliefs, Phoenician,

ill.,

77
Pliny, 106, 120
Plutarch, 123

Poet Laureate, Leonard Baskin,

ill.,

499
Pollaiuolo, Antonio, 381
Polo Player, T'ang, China, ill., 219
Polyclitus, 104, 115; Doryphorus,

114
Polynesian sculpture, 403, 404, 405
409. See also Easter Island; Maori
sculpture; South Sea Island sculpill.,

ture

Portal,
ill;

detail.

ill.,

145

Cathedral of Reims,

343

Portion of shrine, Sui, China,

2I3_

ill.,

Portrait of Asanga, Unkei, ill., 243

Portrait busts, Roman, ill., 143-46
Portrait of an Etruscan dining, sar-

cophagus

lid,

ill.,

140

Roman,

ill,

144

Cathedral, Nicola Pi364, 368; ill, 369

Siena Cathedral, Nicola Pi364, 368; ill, 365
Pisa

Puma, Chavin culture, high Andes,

448; ill, 44g
The, Cathedral of
Reims, 342; ill, 344
Purism in modern sculpture, 480
Pyramids, Egypt, 38; Sphinx and
Great Pyramid, Gizeh, ill, 36
Pyx, ivor>', 5th centur^', ill, 299
Purification,

The,

Roman,

detail,

Nara

period, Japan, 240; ill, 239

Primitive sculpture, 1 5-32; characteristics of, 15; dates and periods
of,
1619 C^hart, 17); earliest
examples of, 20; evolution of, 17
19, 23-25; importance of pottery
in, 2631; Japanese (Jomon culture), 227; ill, 231. See also
Amerindian sculpture; Negro African sculpture;
Stone Age;

New

Old Stone Age; South Sea Island

sculpture
Prince Nechthorheh, Egypt, ill, $7
Prince Wa-ah-Ra, Eg>'pt, ill, 55
Princess of the House of Aragon, A,

Francesco Laurana, ill, 381

Michelangelo, 389;

Rama
ill,

with a Bow, India, 264-65;

265

Rama and

Sita, detail,

panel of Siva

Temple, Java, 290; ill, 291

Rameses U, Karnak, Egypt, ill, S4
Rameses II and III, 55; rock-cut

Temple
ill,

Amon, Abu

of

Simbel,

54

Rams, Luristan, 164; ill, 165

Raphael, 39091
Rattle, Tlingit, Amerindian, ill, 431
Rattlesnake, Aztec, 444; ill, 445
Ravenna, Byzantine architecture at,
303, 304
Realism and naturalism: theories of,
3, 5-7; Western, 1 8th- 19th centuries, 454, 459-60, 463-68, 470-

Reclining Figure, Henry Moore,

491; ill, 4
^^
Reclining Figure ("Bridge Prop"),
Henry Moore, 491; ill, 481
Reclining
Figure,
wood,
Henry

Moore,

ill,

491

Fritz Wotruba,
510
Red G, mobile, Alexander Calder,
ill; 477
Reims Cathedral, 338, 342-44; Puri-

Figure,

Recliriing
ill,

ill,
344; Small portal,
343; Smiling Angel, ill, 342
Reindeer, Magdalenian, Dordogne,

fication,

ill,

21; ill, 20
Relief,
stone,
ill,

Relief,

ill,

Byzantine,

Greece,

302

Temple

Egypt,
Relief

ill,

ill,

of

Seti

I,

Abydos,

53

carving,

Maori canoe, 407;

408

Relief figures on cathedral, Verona,

390
Procession of Troops, Angkor Vat,
279; ill, 278
Prometheus Strangling the Vulture,
Jacques Lipchitz, ill, 495
Prophet, detail, Spanish, ill, 336
Protectors of "spirit paths," Chinese,
205; ill, 204

Ptolemaic era, 60
Pueblos, Amerindian

Quattrocento, Florence, 372-82

Quercia, Jacopo della, 6, 365, 372;
Adam and Eve at Work, ill, 364;
Creation of Man, ill, 373; Expulsion,
ill,
364; Madonna and
Child, ill, 372

475

ill,

Prisoners,

Pompey, Roman, 143-44;

Pompon, Frangois, 495

Pulpit,
sano,
Pulpit,
sano,

26-

sculptural development in,

2526; ill, 28, 29, 30; Sung pe-

31;

3 2;
17.

Fighting

459

Pugilist,

Portrait

basin, 9192
Prehistoric sculpture,
16-17,
periods and types of, chart,

with

Puget, Pierre, 454, 457; Louis XIV,

ill;

princess, Gizeh,

sian, 183; ill, 182; primitive,

Antonio
Pisano): commemorative medals
by, 394; ill; 396
Pisano, Andrea, 368, 371; ill., 371;
Creation of Woman (with Giotto), ill., 371; Extreme Unction,
ill, 371
Pisano, Bonanno: details of bronze
door, Pisa Cathedral, ill., 323, 368
Pisanello,

134

Portrait

Portrait

Lorenzo

Pietro,

on sarcophagus, Cer-

veteri, 135; in.,

tribe,

425

322
Relief

medallions,

Stupa,

Barhut,

India, 246, 250-51, 253; ill, 250

Relief on knife handle, Eg>'ptian,
36; ill, 37
Relief panel. Birth of Christ, Giovanni Pisano, Church of S. Andrea, Pistoia, ill, 36S
Relief panels, bronze doors of cathe-

INDEX
drals at Pisa

and Benevento,

ill.,

320, 321,
character

Relief panels, so-called sarcophagus

of Alexander,

ill.,

121

Relief patterns, Maori carvings,

ill.,

407408
Relief sculpture: Assyrian, 62, 7075, 164; Babylonian, 7577
Relief on stone sarcophagus, Etruscan, 141; ill., 142
Reliefs, Altar of Pergamon, Asia

mals

Arch of Marcus AureRoman, 15253; ill., 153

Remains of pillars, Mayan, ChichenItza, Yucatan, 441; ill., 442
lius,

331-35;
Italy,

Renaissance

sculpture,
364401;
characteristics of, 364, 365, 367,
372, 376; Florentine school, 372

Richier, Germaine, 495, 500

Tilman,
396;
Death of the Virgin, 396; ill.,

vessels,
Shang and early
Chou, China, 185, 190, 191; ill.,

Ritual

St.

on sarcophagus, Roman, 154;

155
Romanticism, European, 454, 463,
lief

494

ill.,

467

Rostovtzseff, M.,

469
rib

mandy, 330;
dral,

England, 331

Romanesque
314,

vaulting: in Norin Durham Cathe-

sculpture, 312, 313,

characteristics of,

320-40;

186

328
Cathedral of Strasbourg,

346

ill;

Stephen, Cathedral of Sens, 339340;

ill,

340

Stephen,

St.

bourg,

ill,

Cathedral

of

Stras-

346

Theresa in Ecstasy, Bernini, ill,

455
St. Thomas Aquinas, Leonard Raskin, 499; ill, 500
St. Trophime, Aries, France, 321,
St.

329;

detail

of

main

portal,

ill,

330
Salisbury'

Cathedral, England, 335

detail, Spanish, 400;

San Bruno,
ill,

401

Sanchi, India, stupa at, 246, 251253; ill, 247, 252, 253, 254
Sancta Sophia, Constantinople, 295
Sansovino, Jacopo, 39192; Apollo,

392

Sarcophagi, early Christian,

ill, 300, 301
Sarcophagi,
Etruscan,
136,

299;
141;

Roszak, Theodore, 507

Royal family portrait heads (Akhenaton's daughters), Egypt, 51; ill.,

double tomb portrait from Cerveteri, in., 137

Sarcophagi, Roman, 15354, 299;

52
Royal

154, 155, 156, 157, 158,

300, 301
Sarcophagus, early Christian, Ravenna, ill, 300
Sarcophagus, Etruscan, ill, 142
ill,

Portal,

figures

Adoration, ill., 382

Rock-cut shrines, India, 259; at Elephanta, ill., 261; at Ellora, ill.,
259; at Mamallapuram, ill., 260,
261
Rock-cut Temple of Amon at Abu
Simbel, Eg\'pt, 55; ill., 54
Rock-cut tombs, Persian, 174
Rococo, 454, 460
Rodin, Auguste, 6, 7, 12, 389, 454,
468-73, 477; Balzac, ill., 472;
Despair, ill., 471; Head of Hanako, ill., 470; Head of Mahler,
ill.,
470; Head of Sorrow, ill.,
471; John the Baptist, ill., 468;
The Kiss, ill., 7; The Thinker,

ill,

ill,

Dame,

tion of the Virgin, ill., 383

Luca della, 382; Angels
(detail),
ill.,
383; Virgin in

Bernardo,

Medardo, 467; Ecce Puer,

190,

Robbia,

Antonio and

Rosselino,

191, 193; ill, 185, 191, 192, 193

Robbia, Andrea della, 382; Corona-

ill.,

to

325,
336;

sculpture, 132, 133, 14259;

Etruscan-Roman st>'les, 142, 150;
figures of rulers, 146, 148; funerary arts, coffin slabs, sarcophagi,
141, 153-58; Greek influence on,
132-33, 141, 150; minor arts,
carvings and decorative panels,
153. 159; Oriental Christian style,
158; portraiture,
144-48;
133,
reliefs, importance of, 150, 153
159; on columns and arches, 152
Romans and Barbarians Battling, re-

Rosso,

Romanesque

324,

324, 336-37

380

185,

Spain,

St. Philip,

398;

St.

190; relief figures on,

to

336; to Spanish colonies,

transformation,
Romanesque to
Gothic, 314, 330; works in metal,

Bernard of WUrzhurg, ill., 397

Risen Christ, Lorenzo di Pietro (II
Vecchietta), ill., 381
Ritual bell, Chou, China, ill., 193
Ritual Figure, Warega, Congo, 412;
ill; 413

to,

Germany, 335-36;

John the Baptist, north portal,

Chartres Cathedral, ill, 339
St. John the Baptist, Rodin, ill, 468
St. Jude, Nottingham School, England, 352; ill, 353
St.
Madeleine Church, Vezelay,
France, 313, 325-27; ill, 326
St. Mark, Donatello, 376
St. Paul, French, 358; ill, 357
Sf. Peter, Church of St. Peter, Moissac, France, ill, 328
St. Peter's, Rome: baldaquin over
the high altar, Bernini, 456
St.
Peter's
Church,
Moissac,
France, 325, 327-28; St. Peter,
St.

Roman

Riemenschneider,

ill.,

to

323;

ill;

Rickey, George, 504

^gy; Eve, attributed

ani-

in,

313, 320, 329; realism

and naturalism in, 336, 338;
spread of the style to England,

Minor, 126

364- 365
Renoir, Pierre Auguste, 12
Revelation, Polygnotos Vagis, 497498; ill., 4g8
Rhodian sculpture, 124, 131; ill.,
126, 131
Rhyton, Cretan. See Boxer Vase

of,

323-24; portrayal of

ivories,

Reliefs from

394; Gothic spirit in, 365, 367,

368-72; in France, 367, 39899;
in Germany, 396-97; in Spain,
367, 399-401; medals and small
bronzes, 394; religious character
in, 36566; Roman naturalism in,

328-29;

devo312, 326;
error in naming, 320; expressionist elements in,
313, 314, 320,
328, 333-37; flowering of the
style in 12th century, 312, 321,
325, 326, 330; formative influences on, 322; Indo-Germanic
source,
313; in France,
330;
313.

tional

535

ill,

Cathedral

Chartres,

on
332

330;

of

Notre

ill.,

pillar stones, 331,

312;
339;

Rude, Frangois, 463; Marseillaise,

Arc de Triomphe, Paris, ill, 464

Running

Animals,

Uruk, Sumer,
Ruskin, John, 2, 253
seal,

impression
ill,

of

63

Sacrifice of Isaac, Brunelleschi,

373

Bernard of Wiirzhiirg, Riemenschneider, 396; ill, ^97

St. Bernardino in Glory, Agostino
St.

di Duccio, ill, 380

Denis, Paris, 314

St.

Fortunata, Church of St. Fortunade, France, 363; ill, 361

St. Francis, Alfeo Faggi, ill, 497
St.

Pedro de Mena, ill, 400

Gaudens, Augustus, 46667
St. George, Donatello, 376; ill, ^77
St. Gilles, Card, France, 321, 329
St. James, Cathedral of Santiago de
Compostela, Spain, 32526; ill,
325
St. James, Flemish, ill, 357
St. John, detail, Riemenschneider,
396; ill, 397
St. Francis,
St.

Sarcophagus
Alexander
(soof
called), Greek, 122; relief of Alexander in battle, ill, 122
Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Roman, 154; ill, 156
Sarcophagus of Taho, Egypt, 57;
ill, 58
Bacchanalian
Sarcophagus
with
scene, Roman, 154; ill, 155
Sarcophagus with Orestes story,
Roman, 154; ill, 155
Sardinia, votive figures from, 9192; ill, 88
Sarmatians, 79, 80
Sassanian period, Persian sculpture,
161, 17476; bronze figures, 176;
ill, 177; small metal sculptures,
ill, 176. See also Islamic sculpture; Persian sculpture

Satyr
ill,

and Nymph, Clodion, 460;

461

Saxon School, Germany, 336; Crucifixion at Werden an der Ruhr,

335-36; ill, 334; Lion of Brunswick, 336; ill, 334

^
5

36

INDEX

Scandinavian sculpture,
yth-iith
centuries, 31819. See also Norse
woodcarving; Viking ship prows

and

stern-pieces

Secret society mask, Warega, Congo,

ill,

Section of cathedral front, Orvieto,

i''-,

Scaravaglione, Concetta, 496

Scenes from the Life of Christ, leaf
of a diptych, 350; ill., ^49
Scenes from the New Testament,
Italian, Byzantine, ill., 297
Scenes from the Ramavana, Siva
Temple, Prambanan, Java, 290;
ill., 291, 292

Scenes of Chinese life, Han, Shantung, 201; in., 203

Schadow, Johann Gottfried, 462

Schliiter, Andreas, ill., 457
Schmuel, Ahron Ben, 496, 497
School of Burgundy, 361-62; ill.,
361, 363
School of Languedoc, 329
School of Paris, 477-78, 479, 495,
496, 501-503
Scopas, 12021, 122
Scribes, Egyptian, ill., 42
Scythian ornaments, Caucasus, Siberia, ill., 82
Scythian sculpture: animal art of
the steppes, 78-86; characteristics
of, 78-79; conjectural periods of,
81; gold and bronze figures, 7879; Hellenizing influences on, 86;
main t>'pes, 79-85; link with
medieval Europe, 86; the Ordos
84; related art of the
Caucasus, 84. See also Chinese

region,

Persian art
Scytho-Siberian sculpture. See Scythian sculpture
Scyths, 7880. See also Scythian
sculpture; Ordos bronzes
art;

403
359

Seleucid dynasty, Persia, 161, 173

Self-portrait,
ill,

Johann von Danneker,

462

Seneca,

Roman,

144; ill, 14$

Senedem-ih-Mehy, Gizeh, Egypt, 42;

ill; 43
Senegalese Girl, Epstein, ill, 493
Shaman's Charm, Haida, Queen
Charlotte Island, 430; ill, 431
Shapur II Hunting, Sassanian, Persia,

ill,

Shapur

175

Hunting Lions, Sassanian,

174; in., 175

She-Wolf

in.,

New

or Capitoline

244

Shrine, detail, Sui dynasty, China,

ill, 213
Siamese sculpture,

274,

281-86;

characteristic st\'le of, 284-86; influences on, 273; sculptured heads

287; ill, 286

Seated figure, Cycladic, Melos, 92;
ill, 91
Seated Figure, Gaudier-Brzeska, 484;
ill,

486

Seated figure, Mayan, Guatemala,

436; ill, 437
Seated human figure, Olmec, ill,

438
Kuan-Yin, early Ch'ing,
Seated
China, 225; ill, 224
Seated Kuan-Yin, T'ang, China,
214; ill, 215
Seated Maitreya, Lung Men caves,
China, 205; ill, 207
Seated Nude, Maillol, ill, 473
Seated scribes, Eg>'pt, ill, 42

274.

Spouted pitcher,
166

pulpit,
Nicola
Cathedral:
Pisano, ill, 368; relief panel, ill,

Siena

370
,

364
174; ill, 17s
Sinhalese sculpture, 246, 257-58,
259, 264, 265; Buddhist figures,
sia,

Smith, David, 12, 507, 510; Insect,

ill, 508; Menand VU, ill, 509
Smyrna, Hellenistic statuettes from,
125; ill, 125
Snake-Priestess, Minoan, 92; ill, 88
Snake-Priestess, Phoenician, 75; ill,
Socrates,

Roman

copy, 122;

ill,

166
Persia,

164;

ill,

Stag, Greco-Scythian, ill, 86

Stag, Ordos, China or Siberia, 196;
ill,

197

Stag, Scythian, Caucasus, 82; ill, 83

Sienese painters, early Renaissance,

Anuradhapura, 257-58; parallels

to late mainland sculpture, 264;
rock-cut carvings, 259
Sitting Figure VI, Lynn Chadwick,
510; in., s9
Siva as Lord of the Dance, South
India, ill, 269, 270
Siva and Parvati on the Mountain,
with Havana, the Earth-Shaker,
Kailasa Temple, India, ill, 259
Siva-Sakti, Bengal, India, ill, 266
Siva Seated, Champa, Siam, ill, 286
Siva Temple, Prambanan, Java, 290;
ill, 291, 292
Skull crusher, Australia, ill, 24
Slave, Hellenistic, Smyrna, ill, 125
Sluter, Claus, 361-63; ill, 361
Small portal. Cathedral of Reims,
ill, 343
Smiling Angel, Cathedral of Reims,
ill, 342

Seated Bodhisattva, Horiuji Temple,

Nara, Japan, ill., 239
Biiddha,
Anuradhapura,
Seated
Ceylon, ill, 258
Seated Buddha, Borobudur, Java,

of,

Assyrian, 71; ill, 73

Siege Scenes, palace of Tiglath-Pileser III, Nimrud, Assyria, ill, 73
III,

jo-Daro; 245, 249; ill., 249; Mesopotamian, 62, 68-70, 75; ill., 62,
63, 68, 70, 76. See also Impressions of seals
Bodhisattva,
Lung Men
Seated
ill.,

274, 281; periods

style,

See also Angkor Vat; Borobudur

Spanish Renaissance sculpture, 399400
Spear point, Amerindian, in., 24
Spearmen, frieze from palace of
Darius I, Susa, 170; ill, 171
Sphinx, Athens, Greece, 102; ill,
100
Sphinx, Gizeh, Egypt, 38, 39; ill,
36
Spirit of Dead Man, mask, Tlingit,
Alaska, ill, 432
Spouted libation ewer, Luristan, 164;

Silver dishes, Sassanian period, Per-

207

27374, 28693; Khmer

Mon
275-81;
273-74,

nese,

Khmer-Siamese t>'pe, 281-85;

Thai element in, 274, 284
Siege Scenes, palace of Shalmaneser
of

Seal, Eskimo, 434; ill., 435

Seal, Tlingit, Alaska, ill., 427
Seal-handles, stone, Chinese, 225
Seals: Indus Valley culture, Mohen-

Caves, Honan, China, 205;

404; tribes and tribal cultures,

405-11. See also
402,
403,
Alelanesian sculpture; Polynesian
sculpture
Southeast Asia, sculpture of: Cambodia, Siam, Java, 273-93; Cambodian, 27374, 27581; Javastyle,

Mexico, ill, 427

Wolf, Etruscan, 139; ill, 132
Shigefusa, Meigetsuin Temple, Kamakura, Japan, 243; ill, 242
Shinto, 22829; masks of no drama,
Sheep, Zuni,

Sok-kul-am Temple, Korea, 227, 231;

ill, 232, 233
Solomon Receiving the Queen of
Sheha, Ghiberti, ill, 375
South portal, Cathedral of Notre
Dame, Chartres, 338, 340
South Sea Island sculpture, 402,
403, 404-11; characteristics of,

ill,

123

Stag Hunt, Hittite, ill, 64

Standard, pre-Hittite, ill, 69
Sta}iding

Man,

Guerrero,

in.,

Mezcala
452

culture,

Standing Stag, Outer Iran, ill, 163

Standing Woman, Bambara, French
Sudan, 412; in., 413
Standing Woman, Tanagra, ill, 124
Statuettes, Cyprus, pre-Hellenic, 89;
ill, 88
Polynesian, Marquesas
Statuettes,
Islands, ill, 404
Statuettes, Sardinia, 92; ill, 88
Statuettes, Siamese, ill, 286
Statuettes, Wei and T'ang, China,
ill,

219

Statuettes

on

portrait-slabs

and

fu-

nerary urns, Etruscan, 141

Stele, Eric Gill, ill, 4S0
Stern-post of a Viking ship, ill, 319
Stone Age carvings: Scythian, 78;
Scytho-Siberian, 80
Stone Age fetishes, Mesopotamia, 61

Stone Age implements, 23, 24;

title

ill,

page, 24

Stone
Age sculptures, Anyang,
China, 185
Stone bowls in animal form: Chavin
South America, 448;
culture,
Puma, Peru or Bolivia, ill, 449
Stonehenge, 18; ill, 25
Stories of Buddha, Borobudur, Java,
288: ill, 289, 290
Story from Ramayana, Siva Temple,
Prambanan, Java, 290; ill, 291

INDEX
Story of Ahraham, Ghiberti, ill., 375
Story of David and Goliath, 6th
century, ill., 302
Story of Jonah, Roman, ill., 158
Story of Joseph, early Christian,

29798;

ill.,

298

Rama and

ple,

Sita,

291

monuments,

Stor>'telIing

man,

ill.,

Ro-

late

158

345

Stucco sculpture, Sassanian, Persian,

and Mohammedan, 178
Stuck, Franz von, 481; Amazon, ill.,

482
Stursa, Jan, 475
Sumatran sculpture, 288; ill., 290
Sumerian sculpture, 6468; clay
figurines, 64; copper figures, 62,
65; seals, 62, 68, 69-70; statues,

65, 67, 68
Surrealism, 478, 480
Surya, the Sun God, Bengal, India,
ill,

266

Susa, 61, 170-72; ill., 64

Switzerland, folk art in, 355
Sword guards, Japan, ill., 244
Syractisan Aphrodite, Greek,
ill,

126;

128
of, ill,

118

Table support with reliefs, Roman,

153; ill, 154
Taho, tomb of, Saitic, Egypt, 57;
ill, 59
Tajin sculpture, 4, 445
Takushet, Bubastis, Eg>'pt, 55;

54
Tanagra

figurines, Hellenistic,
124; ill, 124, 125

Tankei, 241
Tara, Nepalese-Tibetan,

267;

ill,

123-

ill,

268
Tarascan sculpture, Middle Amer29, 446; effigy jars, ill, 30;
]A/oman, ill, 44J
Tatlin, Vladimir, 479
Tauler, Johannes, 8
Teapot, figure, vase, Jomon culture,
Japanese, ill, 231
Temple Guardian, T'ang, China,
217; ill, 219
Temple of Amon, Abu Simbel,
ica,

Eg>'pt, 55; J^2-> 54

of Athena, the Virgin,
ens. See Parthenon

Temple

Ath-

Temple

of Horus, Edfou, Egypt, 60;

ill,

S9

Temple
Temple
j^'v

of
of

Isis,

Seti

Philae, Egypt, 60
I,

Abydos, Egypt,

231;

of Sok-kul-am, Korea, 227,

ill,

Temple
India,

Temple

232-33

of the Sun, Konarak, Orissa,

246
of

Zeus,

Olympia,

figures from, ill, 105, loy

Teotihuacan culture, Valley of
ico,

446

ill,

426; stone masks,

ill,

105;

tomb

441,

ill,

ill,
ill,

124,
124, 125

125;

469

Thorvaldsen, Bertel, 104, 454, 462

Three Goddesses, Parthenon, Athens, 90, no, 114; ill. III
Three-headed Mahadeva, Elephanta,
India, 259; ill, 261

Throne of
300
Thutmose,

IVIaximian, Ravenna, ill,

Amama,

III,

Egypt, 47, 48;

ill,

49

Tibetan sculpture, 267

Tiger, Han period, Chinese border,
196; ill, 197
Tiger, Wei, China, ill, 211
Tigers, Chou, China, 195; ill, 196
Tiki, Marquesan, ill, 404
Titan Anytos, The, Greek, Pergamon, 126; ill, 129
Tjiwara, bobbin, Bambara, French
Sudan, ill, 419
Alaska, 424, 425,
431; Spirit of Dead

432; ratde, ill,

Man, mask, ill, 432; Seal, ill,
427; Whale, ill, 424
Tobias and Sara, Eric Gill, ill, 48s
Toft, Albert, 6
Tolstoi on a Horse, Paul Troubetzkoi, ill,

466

Toltec culture, Valley of Mexico,

426, 441; ill, 441, 442
Tomb and palace guardians, HanWei periods, China, 188-89, 203205; ill, 204, 219
Tomb and temple guardians, Japan,
239; ill, 238, 272
Tomb figure of Chancellor Rene de
Birague, Germain Pilon, 399; ill,

39S

Tomb

figures,

Han and T'ang

eras,

201, 211-12, 218202, 211, 212, 218,

China,

187,

220; ill,
219, 220, 221

Tomb

ill,

254
Amerindian, 430; miniexample, Vancouver, ill,

pole,

43,1

Totemic carving, ivory fan handle,

Polynesian, Marquesas Islands,
ill, 410
Totemic composition of bird and
430;

ill,

St.

ill, 152
Mark's Cathedral,

Venice, 296
Trevi fountain, Rome, projected by

453
Buddha, Tori,
Japan, 237; ill, 228

Triad

with

Nara,

Tribute Bearers, palace of Darius I,

Persepolis, 172; ill, 162, 170
Triumphal arches, 15253; panels
from destroyed Arch of Marcus
Aurelius, ill, 153
Troubetzkoi, Paul, 466; Tolstoi on a
Horse, ill, 466

Tutankhamen
Egypt,

ill,

as

the

Moon God,

52

Twuight, Michelangelo, 388;

ill,

Brothers, Eg>'pt, 48; ill,

49

Uma, South India, ill, 266

Unkei, 241; Asanga, ill, 243

Unknown

431

Totonac sculpture. Gulf coast, Mexico, 426, 445-46; ill, 445, 446,
447

Political

Prisoner,

Reg Butler, ill, 500

Norway, woodcar\'ing

ma-

quette,

Urnes,
door of church

at,

319;

ill,

on
320

Vagis, Polygnotos, 8, 496, 497-98;

Bear and Cub, ill, 498; Revelation, ill,

498

Valentinian

I,

fourteen-foot bronze

portrait of, Byzantine,

296

Mexico, chronological
of
order of civilizations and arts in,

Valley

426
Vantongerloo, Georges, 479

Vaphio cups, 89, 93; ill, 92, 93

Variations within a Sphere, Number 10, Richard Lippold, ill, 505
Vase, Persian, 183; ill, 182
Vase, Sung, China, ill, 222
Vase with ibexes, Luristan, 164; ill,
165
Vecchietta II, (Lorenzo di Pietro);
The Risen Christ, ill, 381
Venus Bathing, cameo, Roman, ill,
159
Venus de Medici, Greek, Hellenistic,
126; ill, 129
Venus de Milo. See Aphrodite of

Melos

Venus Genetrix, Athenian, ill, 117

Venus of Lespugue, Magdalenian,
ill,

of Cardinal Tavera, Toledo,

Alonso Berruguete, ill, 399

Tomb of Mausolus, Halicamassus,
ill, 122
Tomb or temple guardian, T'ang,
China, 218; ill, 219
Tori, in., 235
Torso of a Yaksi, Sanchi, India, 253;

Totem

Treasury of

35,

50

Thutmose

Column, Rome,

Trajan's

Two
studio of. El

537

Bernini,

figure, Korea, 227;

Thailand. See Siamese sculpture

Thinker, The, Michelangelo, 388
Thinker, The, Rodin, 470, 471, 47a;

frog,

Mex-

My-

226

ature

53

Temple

Sm>Tna,

125;

Tanagra, 123;

Tlingit culture,

Syracuse, coins

Hellenistic,

123-25; Boeotia, ill, 125;

Asia Minor, 123-24;

rina,

ill,

Strasbourg Cathedral, France, 344

345, 347, 349; detail of facade,
ill;

figurines,

Terra-cotta

Siva TemPrambanan, Java, 290; ill.,

Story of

Terra-cotta

22

of Wildenmannlisloch, Neanderthal, ill, 21

Venus of Willendorf, Aurignacian,
22; ill, 23
Venus Rising from the Sea, Tanagra,

Venus

124; ill, 125

Veroli casket, Byzantine, ill, 304
Verrochio, Andrea del, 378; monument to Bartolommeo Colleoni,
378; ill, 379; David, 380; ill, 381
Vessels, bronze, China, 185, 190,
191, 192; ill, 190, 191, 192
Vessels, clay, prehistoric, 27-31; ill,
29, 31, 32. See also Effigy jars
Viani, Alberto, 480, 489

Victory of
Victory^,

Samothrace

QWinged

Hellenistic,

126;

ill,

127
Victory Stele of Naram-Sin, Akkad,

68-69;

ill;

68

5 3

INDEX

Viking ship prows and stern-pieces,

315, 318-19; ill, 319
Village Magistrate, Egypt, 39;
41
Villanovan sculpture, 133
Vinci, Leonardo da, 361, 391;

ill.,

Wells Cathedral, England, 335

Whale, Amerindian, Chumash, 26;
ill, 27
Whale, Amerindian, Chumash, Catalina Island, California, 425; ill,

ill.,

426

wheeled

392
Vintage Scene, panel from sarcophagus, Roman, ill., 157
Virgin in Adoration, Luca della Robbia,

ill.,

382

Vischer, Peter, the Elder, 397

Vischer, Peter, the Younger,
ill,

Wine bowl

with eagle,
Bactria, 174; ill, 175

Wine
ill,

396-

Wine

vessel,

Shang,

Seleucid,

China,

397

493
Vittoria, Alessandro, 393,

453

Vorticism, 479

Votive figure, Etruscan, ill, 136

Votive stelae. North Wei, China,

208

190;

vessel,

tomb

figure,

4th cen-

Winged Dragons,

late

Chou, China,

196; ill, 197

Winged Figure, palace of Assurnasirpal, Assyria, ill, 72
Winged Horses, plaques, Han dynasty, China, ill, 198
Winged Lion, Scythian, 81; ill,

War-God, Polynesian, Hawaii, ill,

406
Warneke, Heinz, 496, 497
Warner, Langdon, The Enduring

Winged Rams,

Art of Japan, 229

Warrior, Church of St. Mary and
St.
David, Herefordshire, Eng-

Woman,

Warrior, Etruscan, ill, 137

Warrior with Cluh, Tarascan, Middle America, 446; ill, 447
Warriors, Etruscan, 134; ill, 135
Warriors' Dance, Roman, 150; ill.

Water
ill,

Buffalo,

Wei

23-25;
dynasty,

tools.
ill,

Stone Age, 15,

China,

small

207

Weights, Mesopotamian,

ill,

sculp-

68

sculpture, 12, 479, 480, 495,

498, 507. 510

Wounded

Victory,

fragment,

ill,

74

Niobid, Greek,

ill,

115

ill,

Xipe, incense burner, Zapotec, 440;

Delos,

441

ill,

Xipe, mask, Aztec, 442;

ill,

443

Yakushi, Nara, Japan, 236-37;

ill,

236
Yazilikaya, Hittite, reliefs near, 70
Yellow Bird, Constantin Brancusi,
ill, title

Yoke

Winged

page

stones, Totonac,

445

Young Deer, Roman, 149-50;

ill,

ISO

99

Amlash

culture.

North

Persia, ill, 31

Woman,
Woman,

Cycladic, ill, i
dynasty IV, Egypt, 39;

ill,

41

Young God, Aztec, 442; ill, 443

Youthful Roman, ill, 148
Youthful Saint, Ceylon, ill, 265
Youthful St. John, Donatello, 376,
378;

Woman,

dynasty XII,

Egypt,

44;

45

Woman,

7th-6th centuries B.C.,

Egypt, 55; ill; 56
Woman, Etruscan, 134-35; ill, 135
Woman, Neanderthal, Mousterian

Woman,
ill,

2.4

tural arts of, 206; ill,

Welded

164;

period, ill, 21

197

Weapons and
18,

Chou, China, 196;

Luristan,

165

ill,

225; ill, 217, 221, 223; French,

334; ill; 335; German, 334; ill,
Romanesque,
335;
333,
334,
Spanish, 335; ill, 336
Worshiper, Etruscan, 136; ill, 137
Wotruba, Fritz, 480, 510; Reclining
Figure, ill, 510
Wounded Lioness, detail of hunting
scene. Palace of Assurbanipal,

226

80

land, 333-34; ill, 333

Supporting a Seat, Baluba,

Congo, ill, 415
Women, Wei, China, ill, 212
Wood sculpture, Japan, 229, 235
Woodcarving: Chinese, 217, 220,

Nineveh, 75;

185

tury, Korea, 227, 231; ill,

Visitation, detail, Jacob Epstein, ill,

ill,

139

White Bear, Frangois Pompon, 495

Wild Goats, Scythian, Siberia, ill,
83

Virgin of the Visitation, Reims, 342

Virtue,
Cathedral of Strasbourg,
344; in., 345

397; Eve,

censer, Etruscan, 136; ill,

Woman

Polynesian,

Fiji

Islands,

406

Woman, Tanagra, ill, 124

Woman, Tarascan, 446; ill, 447
Woman, Wei, China; ill, 212

Woman

Holding a Bowl, Baluba,

Congo, 412-15; ill, 415

Youths
104

ill;

at

378
Games, Athens, 103;

Yun Kang
206;

ill,

caves,

Shansi,

ill,

China,

i8g

Zadkine, Ossip, 495

Zapotec culture, Amerindian, 440;
incense burner, ill, 441
Zeus, Phidias, 1 13
Zeus, or Poseidon, Athens, 106; ill,
108
Zorach, William, 497
Zuccone, Donatello, 376; ill, 377
Zuiiis, Amerindian, 425

AZERBAUAN

Tehran r^^-p^

"^ \

SamarkaiicL

^PUNJAB

BeniHas^xi
ElAmariLa

^,

IvlamallapurajxL ^

Annratj kaptxra \

Abu

Simbel.

^XUBJATsT

CEYLOJ

An ART MAP of ASIA with \.

an INSERT MAP of EGYPT
In addition to old cities, sites,
ture,

some modern

and areas important to the histor\ of sculpshow relative locations.

capital cities arc included to

(Continued

.WA

{ront flap)

,'',),

hut brings otw

}.he istheti(*

Each of .'^ivv
duced hy a gentM
also.

Mi^

hy the chronicle

*>>v'*^een

viirai survey,

>

representative works.

^ GO LI A

considerations

sections

i-

intro-

f^l^v^<^

'nes, dates, types,

The

and

writing reflects

the knowledgeable views, not always orthodox, of an art-lover who has been a devotee
of sculpture through a long

and productive

life.

^^STBll

SHELDON CHENEY was born in Berkeley,

California,

and educated

at the University of

California. In addition to his two standard

art histories.

and The Story

World History of Art

Modern Art, he has written

Pseiv

of

such shorter books as Expressionism in Art

and A Primer of Modern Art. He

is

also the

author of the monumental The Theatre and

work on mysticism. Men IF/io Have

with God. He has been a writer,
critic, and lecturer since his student days
hut has never had formal academic connections. He and his w ife live and work in New
Hope. Pennsylvania.
of a

W alked

.LopBuri

Bangkok

'^

.An^r
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