Religion and Art in Ancient Greece.
by Ernest Arthur Gardner.
PREFACE
Greek religion may be studied under various aspects; and many recent contributions to this study have been mainly concerned either with the remote origin of many of its ceremonies in primitive ritual, or with the manner in which some of its obscurer manifestations met the deeper spiritual needs which did not find satisfaction in the official cults.
Such discussions are of the highest interest to the anthropologist and to the psychologist; but they have the disadvantage of fixing our attention too exclusively on what, to the ordinary Greek, appeared accidental or even morbid, and of making us regard the Olympian pantheon, with its clearly realised figures of the G.o.ds, as a mere system imposed more or less from outside upon the old rites and beliefs of the people. In the province of art, at least, the Olympian G.o.ds are paramount; and thus we are led to appreciate and to understand their worship as it affected the religious ideals of the people and the services of the State. For we must remember that in the case of religion even more than in that of art, its essential character and its influence upon life and thought lie rather in its full perfection than in its origin.
In a short sketch of so wide a subject it has seemed inadvisable to make any attempt to describe the types of the various G.o.ds. Without full ill.u.s.tration and a considerable expenditure of s.p.a.ce, such a description would be impracticable, and the reader must be referred to the ordinary handbooks of the subject. A fuller account will be found in Dr.
Farnell"s _Cults of the Greek States_, and some selected types are discussed with the greatest subtlety and understanding in Brunn"s _Griechische Gotterideale_. In the present volume only a few examples are mentioned as characteristic of the various periods. It may thus, I trust, serve as an introduction to a more complete study of the subject; and may, at the same time, offer to those who have not the leisure or inclination for such further study, at least a summary of what we may learn from Greece as to the relations of religion and art under the most favourable conditions. It is easy, as Aristotle says, to fill in the details if only the outlines are rightly drawn--[Greek: doxeie d" an pantos einai proagagein kai diorthosai ta kalos echonta te perigraphe.]
RELIGION AND ART IN ANCIENT GREECE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION--IDOLATRY AND IMAGINATION
The relation of religion to art has varied greatly among different peoples and at different periods. At the one extreme is the uncompromising puritan spirit, which refuses to admit any devices of human skill into the direct relations between G.o.d and man, whether it be in the beauty of church or temple, in the ritual of their service, or in the images which they enshrine. Other religions, such as those of the Jews or of Islam, relegate art to a subordinate position; and while they accept its services to decorate the buildings and apparatus connected with divine worship, forbid any attempt to make a visible representation of the deity. Modern Christianity, while it does not, as a rule, repeat this prohibition, has varied greatly from time to time and from country to country as to the extent to which it allows such representations.
Probably the better educated or more thoughtful individuals would in every case regard them merely as symbolic aids to induce the concentration and intensity of religious ideas and aspirations; but there is no doubt that among the common people they tend to become actually objects of worship in themselves. It is instructive to turn to a system in which idolatry, the worship of images, was an essential part of orthodox religious observance. It is easy and customary with a certain cla.s.s of minds to dismiss all such examples of idolatry with a superficial generalisation such as "the heathen in his blindness bows down to stock and stone." But it seems worth while to devote a short study to an attempt to understand how such a system worked in the case of a people like the ancient Greeks, who possessed to a degree that has never been surpa.s.sed both clearness of intellectual perception and a power to embody their ideals in artistic form. Whether it tended to exalt or to debase religion may be a doubtful question; but there can be no doubt that it gave an inspiration to art which contributed to the unrivalled attainments of the Greeks in many branches of artistic creation. We shall be mainly concerned here with the religion of Greece as it affected the art of sculpture; but before attempting a historical summary it is necessary for us to understand exactly what we mean by the worship of representations of the G.o.ds, and to consider the nature of the influence which such representation must have upon artistic activity.
Idolatry--the worship of images--is almost always used by us in a bad sense, owing, no doubt, chiefly to the usage of the word in the Jewish scriptures. Mr. Ruskin, in his chapter on the subject in his _Aratra Pentelici_, points out that it may also be used in a good sense, though he prefers to use the word imagination in this meaning. There is doubtless a frequent tendency to failure to
"Look through the sign to the thing signified,"
but there is no essential reason why the contemplation of a beautiful statue, embodying a worthy conception of the deity, should not be as conducive to a state of worship and communion as is an impressive ritual or ceremony, or any other aid to devotion. This view of the matter is expressed by some later Greek writers; in earlier times it was probably unconsciously present, though it is hardly to be found in contemporary literature. But it was only by slow stages that art came to do so direct a service to religious ideas; in more primitive times its relation was more subordinate. The worship or service of images, even in the highest ages of Greek civilisation, was much more a.s.sociated with primitive and comparatively inartistic figures than with the masterpieces of sculpture; and even where these masterpieces were actually objects of worship it was often from the inheritance of a sanct.i.ty transferred to them from an earlier image rather than for their own artistic qualities.
It does not, indeed, follow that the influence of the great sculptors upon the religious ideals of the people was a negligible quality; we have abundant evidence, both direct and indirect, that it was very great. But it was exercised chiefly by following and enn.o.bling traditional notions rather than by daring innovation, and therefore can only be understood in relation to the general development both of religious conceptions and of artistic facility.
Here we shall be mainly concerned with art as an expression of the religious ideals and aspirations of the people, and as an influence upon popular and educated opinions and conceptions of the G.o.ds. But we must not forget that it is also valuable to us as a record of myths and beliefs, and of ritual and customs a.s.sociated with the worship of the G.o.ds. This is the case, above all, with reliefs and vase-paintings. In them we often find representations which do not merely ill.u.s.trate ancient literature, but supplement and modify the information we derive from cla.s.sical writers. The point of view of the artist is often not the same as that of the poet or historian, and it is frequently nearer to that of the people, and therefore a help in any attempt to understand popular beliefs. The representations of the G.o.ds which we find in such works do not often embody any lofty ideals or subtle characterisation; but they show us the traditional and easily recognisable figures in which the G.o.ds usually occurred to the imagination of the Greek people.
The a.s.sociation of acts of worship with certain specially sacred objects or places lies at the basis of much religious art, though very often art has little or nothing to do with such objects in a primitive stage of religious development. Stocks and stones--the latter often reputed to have fallen from heaven, the former sometimes in the shape of a growing tree, sometimes of a mere unwrought log--were to be found as the centres of religious cult in many of the shrines of Greece. These sacred objects are sometimes called fetishes; and although it is perhaps wiser to avoid terms belonging properly to the religion of modern savages in speaking of ancient Greece, there seems to be an a.n.a.logy between the beliefs and customs that are implied. Such sacred stocks or stones were not regarded merely as symbols of certain deities, but were looked upon as having certain occult or magic qualities inherent in them, and as being in themselves potent for good or evil. The ceremonies used in their cult partook of the nature of magic rather than religion, so far as these consisted of anointing them with oil or with drink offerings; such ceremonies might, indeed, be regarded as gratifying to the deity worshipped under their form, when they were definitely affiliated to the service of an anthropomorphic G.o.d; but in a more primitive stage of belief the indwelling power probably was not a.s.sociated with any such generalisation as is implied in the change from "animism" or "polydaemonism" to polytheism. We are here concerned not with this growth of religious feeling, but rather with its influence upon the sacred things that were objects of worship and with the question how far their sanct.i.ty encouraged their artistic decoration.
It is perhaps easier to realise the feeling of a primitive people about this matter in the case of a sacred building than in that of the actual image of a G.o.d. A temple does not, indeed--in Greece, at least--belong to the earliest phase of cult; for it is the dwelling of the G.o.d, and its form, based on that of a human dwelling-house, implies an anthropomorphic imagination. We find, however, in Homer that the G.o.ds are actually thought of as inhabiting their temples and preferring one to another, Athena going to Athens and Aphrodite to Paphos as her chosen abode. It was clearly desirable for every city to gain this special favour; and an obvious way to do this was to make the dwelling-place attractive in itself to the deity. This might be done not merely by the abundance of sacrifices, but also by the architectural beauty of the building itself, and by the richness of the offerings it contained. Here was, therefore, a very practical reason for making the dwelling of the G.o.d as sumptuous and beautiful as possible, in order that he might be attracted to live in it and to give his favour and protection to those that dwelt around it. Doubtless, as religious ideas advanced and the conception of the nature of the G.o.ds became higher, there came the notion that they did not dwell in houses made with hands; yet a Greek temple, just like a mediaeval cathedral, might be made beautiful as a pleasing service and an honour to the deity to whom it was dedicated; and there was a continuous tradition in practice from the lower conception to the higher, nor is it easy to draw the line at any particular stage between the two.
If we turn now to the sacred image of the deity we find the same process going on. The rude stock or stone was sometimes itself the actual recipient of material offerings; or it might be painted with some bright and pleasing colour, or wrapped in costly draperies. In most of these customs an a.s.sumption is implied that the object of worship is pleased by the same things as please its worshippers; and here we find the germ of the anthropomorphic idea. It was probably the desire to make the offerings and prayers of the worshippers perceptible to the power within that first led to the addition of human features to the shapeless block.
Just as the early Greeks painted eyes upon the prows of their ships, to enable them to find their way through the water, so they carved a head, with eyes and ears, out of the sacred stone or stock, or perhaps added a head to the original shapeless ma.s.s. We find many primitive idols in this form--a cone or column with a head and perhaps arms and feet added to it; and the tradition survives in the herm, or in the mask of Dionysus attached to a post, round which we still see the Maenads dancing on fifth-century vases. The notion that such carved eyes or ears actually served to transmit impressions to the G.o.d is well ill.u.s.trated by Professor Petrie"s discovery at Memphis of a number of votive ears of the G.o.d, intended to facilitate or to symbolise his reception of the prayers of his votaries. In fact, the taunt of the psalmist against the images of the heathen--"Eyes have they, but they see not; they have ears, and yet they hear not"--is not a merely rhetorical one, as it seems to us, but real and practical, if spoken to men who gave their G.o.ds ears and eyes that they might hear and see.
An imagination so entirely materialistic may belong to a more primitive stage than any we can find among the Greeks. As soon as religion has reached the polytheistic stage the G.o.ds are regarded as travelling from image to image, just as they travel from temple to temple. Even in AEschylus" _Eumenides_ it will be remembered that when Orestes, by the advice of Apollo, clasps as a suppliant the ancient image of Athena at Athens, the G.o.ddess comes flying from far away in the Troad when she hears the sound of his calling. The exact relation of the G.o.ddess to the image is not, in all probability, very clearly realised; but, so far as one can trace it from the ritual procedure, what appears to be implied is that a suppliant will have a better chance of reaching the deity he addresses if he approaches one of the images preferred by that deity as the abode of his power; often there is one such image preferred to all others, as this early one of Athena at Athens. The deity was not, therefore, regarded as immanent in any image--at least, in cla.s.sical times; the G.o.ds lived in Olympus, or possibly visited from time to time the people whom they favoured, or went to the great festivals that were held in their honour. But the various images of them, especially the most ancient ones, that were set up in their temples in the various cities of Greece were regarded as a means of communication between G.o.ds and men. The prayer of a worshipper addressing such an image will be transmitted to the deity whom he addresses, and the deity may even come in person to hear him, if special aid is required. A close parallel may be found even in modern days. I have known of a child, brought up in the Roman Catholic religion, who had a particular veneration or affection for a certain statue of the Virgin, and used often to address it or, as she said, converse with it. And she said she had an impression that, if only she could slip in unawares, she might see the Virgin Mary herself approaching or leaving the statue, whether to be transformed into it or merely to dwell in it for a time. On Greek vases we see the same notion expressed as in the _Eumenides_, when a G.o.d or G.o.ddess is represented as actually present beside the statue to which a sacrifice or prayer is being offered.
In such a stage of religious belief or imagination it is clearly of high importance that the image of any deity should be pleasing to that deity, and thereby attract his presence and serve as a ready channel of communication with him. From the point of view of art, it would seem at first sight that the result would be a desire to make the image as beautiful as possible, and as worthy an embodiment of the deity as the sculptor could devise. This doubtless was the result in the finest period of art in Greece, and it involved, as we shall see, a great deal of reciprocal influence on the part of religion and art. But in earlier times the case is not so simple; and even in statues of the fifth century it is not easy to understand the conditions under which the sculptor worked without some reference to the historical development that lay behind him.
Before the rise of sculpture in Greece, images of the G.o.ds, some of them only rudely anthropomorphic, had long been objects of worship; and it was by no means safe in religious matters to depart too rashly from the forms consecrated by tradition. This was partly owing to the feeling that when a certain form had been accepted, and a certain means of communication had worked for a long time satisfactorily, it was a dangerous thing to make a change which might not be agreeable to the powers concerned, and which might, so to speak, break the established connection. But while hieratic conservatism tended to preserve forms and formulae almost for what we may call magic reasons, there was also a sentiment about the matter which gave popular support to the tendency.
Thus Pausanias probably expresses a common feeling when he says that the images made by Daedalus, "though somewhat strange in aspect, yet seem to be distinguished by something in them of the divine."
It is true that these early images attributed to Daedalus showed already a considerable advance on the shapeless or roughly shaped stocks or stones that had served as the most primitive objects of worship; but it was their resemblance to these rather than their difference from them that impressed the imagination of Pausanias. He appreciated them not so much as examples of an art that promised much for the future, but rather as linked with the past by the tradition of an immemorial sanct.i.ty. We find, in fact, that the rude early images remained the centres of state cult and official worship, as well as of popular veneration, long after the art of sculpture had become capable of providing their worshippers with more adequate embodiments of the G.o.ds they represented. It was the early image of Athena, not the Athena Parthenos by Phidias, that was annually washed in the sea, and for which the peplos was woven by the chosen women of Athens. The connection between art and religion is, in such a case, reduced to narrow limits; but, on the other hand, we hear of many instances where new statues of the G.o.ds were made as temple statues, to be the chief objects of worship and centres of cult. And this was sometimes done with the official sanction of the G.o.ds themselves, as expressed through the oracle of Delphi.
The sanct.i.ty of the old image was sometimes transferred to the new one; a striking example of this is seen in the case of Artemis Brauronia on the Athenian Acropolis. It had been the custom for the garments presented to the G.o.ddess by her worshippers to be placed upon her primitive statue; and when a new and worthier representation of the G.o.ddess was placed in the temple in the fourth century, we are informed by inscriptions that dedicated garments were sometimes hung upon it, even though it was a statue from the hand of Praxiteles. It sometimes happened that the old and the new statues stood side by side in the same temple, or in adjacent temples, and they seem then to exemplify the two kinds of idolatry--the literal and the imaginative--the one being the actual subject of the rites ceremonially observed, and the other being the visible presentment of the deity, and helping the worshipper to concentrate his prayers and aspirations. Here the art of the sculptor had the fullest scope, and it is in such cases that he could, as Quintilian said of Phidias, "make some addition to the received religion."
This duality was, however, the result of accident rather than the normal arrangement, and, so long as the primitive image remained the official object of worship, it was difficult, if not impossible, for the new and more artistic statue to have its full religious effect. In many cases, probably in most cases, it was actually subst.i.tuted, sooner or later, for the earlier embodiment of the deity. Sometimes the early image, which was often of wood, may have decayed or been worn away by the attentions lavished upon it; we hear of a statue of which the hand had perished under the kisses of the devout. We hear also of cases in which it had been entirely lost--for instance, the Black Demete of Phigalia, an uncouth image with a horse"s head; here, when a plague had warned the people to replace it, the AEginetan sculptor Onatas undertook the task; and he is said to have been vouchsafed a vision in sleep which enabled him to reproduce exactly this unsightly idol. It would not seem that such a commission gave much scope to his artistic powers; but it is noteworthy that the Phigalians employed one of the most famous sculptors of the day. Elsewhere the conditions were more favourable, and it was possible for the artist, while conforming to the accepted type, to give it a more correct form and more pleasing features.
Daedalus, we are told--and in this story Daedalus is an impersonation of the art of the early sculptors in Greece--made statues of the G.o.ds so life-like that they had to be chained to their pedestals for fear they should run away. It is likely that this tale goes back to a genuine tradition; for Pausanias actually saw statues with fetters attached to them in several early shrines in Greece. The device is natural enough.
Daedalus was a magician as well as a sculptor; and if he could give his statues eyes that they might see, and ears that they might hear, it was an obvious inference that if he gave them legs they might run away and desert their shrines and their worshippers.
We may very likely find also in a similar notion the explanation of a peculiarity often found in early statues of the G.o.ds--the well-known archaic smile. Many explanations, technical and otherwise, have been given of this device; but none of them can get over the fact that it was just as easy, or even easier, for a primitive sculptor to make the mouth straight as to make it curve up at the ends, and that he often did make it straight. When he does not do so, it is probably done with intention; and it is quite in accordance with the conditions of early religious art that he should make the image of a deity smile in order that the deity himself might smile upon his worshippers; and a pleasant expression might also, by a natural transfer of ideas, be supposed to be pleasing to the G.o.d, and so attract him to his statue. We are told that at Chios there was a head of Artemis set high up, which appeared morose to those entering the temple, but when they left it seemed to have become cheerful. This may have been originally due to some accident of placing or lighting, but it seems to have acquired a religious significance; and we can hardly deny a similar significance to the smile which we find on so many early statues. In some cases, especially in statues of men, it may have been intended merely as a device to give expression and life to the face; but it cannot have been a matter of indifference to a primitive worshipper that his deity should smile on him through the face of its visible image. This point of view being given, it is evidently only a question of how far it is within the power of art to express the benignity of the G.o.d, and later on his character and personality, in an adequate manner; and this power depends on the gradual acquisition of mastery over form and material, of knowledge and observation of the human body and face, and of the technical skill requisite to express this knowledge in marble or bronze, or more precious materials such as gold and ivory. All this development belongs to the history of art, not to that of religion. But before we can pursue the investigation any further, it is necessary to consider the different sources and channels of religious influence on art with which we have to deal.
CHAPTER II
VARIOUS ASPECTS OF RELIGION
Religion, for our present purpose, may be considered as (1) popular, (2) official, (3) poetic, and (4) philosophical. These four divisions, or rather aspects, are not, of course, mutually exclusive, and they act and react extensively upon one another; but, in their relations to art, it is convenient to observe the distinction between them.
(1) The beliefs of the people are, of course, the basis of all the others, though they come to be affected by these others in various degrees. There is no doubt that the people generally believed in the sanct.i.ty and efficacy of the shapeless idols or primitive images, and this belief would tend to support hieratic conservatism, and thus to hinder artistic progress. But, on the other hand, the people of Greece showed throughout their history a tendency to an intensely and vividly anthropomorphic imagination. This tendency was doubtless realised and encouraged by the poets, but it was not created by them, any more than by the mythologists who defined and systematised it. The exact relation of this anthropomorphic imagination to the primitive sacred stocks and stones is not easy to ascertain; but it seems to have tended, on the one hand, to the realisation of the existence of the G.o.ds apart from such sacred objects, and thus to reduce the stocks and stones to the position of symbols--a great advance in religious ideals; and, on the other hand, to the transformation of the stocks and stones into human form, not merely by giving them ears and eyes that they might hear and see, but also by making them take the image and character of the deity whom they represented.
It was impossible for any ordinary Greek to think of the G.o.ds in other than human form. He had, indeed, no such definite dogma as the Hebrew statement that "G.o.d created man in His own image"; for the legends about the origin of the human race varied considerably and many of them represented crude philosophical theorising rather than religious belief.
But the monstrous forms which we find in Egypt and Mesopotamia as embodiments of divine power were alien to the Greek imagination; if we find here and there a survival of some strange type, such as the horse-headed Demeter at Phigalia, it remains isolated and has little influence upon prevalent beliefs. The Greek certainly thought of his G.o.ds as having the same human form as himself; and not the G.o.ds only, but also the semi-divine, semi-human, sometimes less than human beings with which his imagination peopled the woods and mountains and seas. His Nereids had human feet, not fishy tails like our mermaids; and if centaurs and satyrs and some other creatures of his imagination showed something of the beast within the man in their visible shape, they had little about them of the mysterious or the unearthly. It would be a great mistake to regard all these creatures as mere impersonations or abstractions. If "a pagan suckled in a creed outworn" could
"Have sight of Proteus coming from the sea And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn,"
much more were such sights and sounds familiar to his forefathers, to whom the same beliefs were fresh and real. Even to the present day Greek peasants may often be found who can tell of such experiences; to them, as to the Greeks of old, desert places and remote woods and mountains are terrible, not because they are lonely, but because when a man is alone then is he least alone; hence the panic terror, the terror of Pan.
The same idea, which later takes the religious or philosophic form of the belief in the omnipresence of the deity, peopled the woods with dryads, the streams and springs with nymphs and river-G.o.ds, the seas with Nereids and Tritons. When an artist represented a mountain or a river-G.o.d, a nymph or a Triton, or added such figures to a scene to indicate its locality by what seems to us at first sight a mere artistic convention, he was not inventing an impersonation, but he was representing something which, in the imagination of the people, might actually be seen upon the spot--at least, by those whose eyes were opened to see it. It was the same gift of imagination that made Blake say: ""What," it will be questioned, "when the sun rises, do you not see a disc of fire, somewhat like a guinea?" "Oh no, no! I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host, crying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord G.o.d Almighty!" I question not my corporeal eye, any more than I would question a window, concerning a sight. I look through it, and not with it.""[1]
[Footnote 1: Blake, "Aldine" edition, p. cvi.]
In the case of the G.o.ds, the matter is somewhat less simple than in that of all these daemonic creatures of the popular imagination. G.o.ds imply a greater power of generalisation and a higher stage of religious development. It was not thought likely that the G.o.ds would show themselves to mortal eyes, as had been their habit in the Golden Age, except perhaps upon some occasion of a great national crisis; and even then it was the heroes rather than the G.o.ds who manifested themselves.
But the ordinary Greek believed that the G.o.ds actually existed in human form, and even that their characters and pa.s.sions and moods were like those of human beings. The influence of the poet and the artist could not have been so vigorous if it had not found, in the imagination of the people, a suitable and sympathetic material.
(2) Official or state religion consisted in the main of an organisation of popular ritual. There was no priestcraft in Greece, no exclusive caste to whom the worship of the G.o.ds was a.s.signed, although, of course, the right to practise certain cults belonged to particular families. But a priesthood, as a rule, was a political office like any other magistracy, and there was no exclusive tradition in the case of the chief cults of any Greek state to keep the point of view of the priests different from that of the people generally. The tendency of state religion was, as a rule, conservative, for reasons that we have already noticed; innovations in the matter of ritual are dangerous, for the new rite may not please the G.o.ds as well as the old; and the same feeling applies to the statues that form the centres of ritual. Pericles, for example, doubtless wished to make the Athena Parthenos of Phidias the official and visible representation of the G.o.ddess of Athens, and thereby to raise the religious ideals of the Athenians. In this last part of his attempt he was successful; the statue became the pride and glory of the city in its fitting shrine, the Parthenon; but the old image was still preserved in the temple of Athena Polias, and remained the official centre of worship. We are not told that Pericles meant to supersede it; but it is very probable that he intended to do so, and was only prevented by the religious conservatism that curtailed other plans of his for the beautifying of the Acropolis. On the other hand, there is no evidence that in Greece--at least, in the best period of Greek art--any statesman held the views as to the official religion frankly expressed in Rome, that it was expedient for this religion to be accepted by the common people, but that educated men could only reconcile their consciences to taking part in it by a philosophical interpretation.
There is something unreal and artificial about any such compromise. If Pericles was intimate with Anaxagoras, who was prosecuted for atheism, he was also the friend of Phidias, who expressly said that his Zeus was the Zeus of Homer, no mere abstract ideal of divinity. If this was the case with Pericles, who held himself aloof from the common people, it must have been much more so with other statesmen, who mingled with them more freely, or even, like Nicias, shared their superst.i.tions. Under such conditions the influence of art upon the representations of the G.o.ds could not well go in advance of popular conceptions, though it might accompany and direct them. The making of new statues of the G.o.ds, to be set up as the centres of worship in their temples, in some cases received the formal sanction of the Delphic oracle, the highest official and religious authority. Public commissions of this sort are common at all times, but commonest in the years immediately succeeding the Persian Wars, when the spoils of the Persians supplied ample resources, and in many cases the ancient temples and images had been destroyed; and at the same time the outburst of national enthusiasm over the great deliverance led to a desire to give due thank-offerings to the G.o.ds of the h.e.l.lenic race, a desire which coincided with the ability to fulfil it, owing to the rapid progress of artistic power. Such public commissions, and the popular feeling which they expressed, offered an inspiration to the artist such as has rarely, if ever, found a parallel. But any great victory or deliverance might be commemorated by the setting up of statues of the G.o.ds to whom it was attributed; and in this way the demands of official religion offered the sculptor the highest scope for the exercise of his art and his imagination.
(3) The influence of poetic mythology upon art can hardly be exaggerated. The statement of Herodotus that Homer and Hesiod "made the Greek theogony, and a.s.signed to the G.o.ds their epithets and distinguished their prerogatives and their functions, and indicated their form," would not, of course, be accepted in a literal sense by any modern mythologist. But it is nevertheless true that the clear and vivid personality and individuality given to the G.o.ds by the epic poets affects all later poetry and all Greek art. The imagination of the poets could not, as we have already noticed, have had so deep and wide an influence unless it had been based upon popular beliefs and conceptions.
But it fills these conceptions with real and vivid character, so that the G.o.ds of Homer are as clearly presented to us as any personalities of history or fiction. They are, indeed, endowed not only with the form, but with the pa.s.sions, and some even of the weaknesses of mankind; and for this reason the philosophers often rejected as unworthy the tales that the poets told of the G.o.ds. But even an artist such as Phidias expressly stated that it was the Zeus of Homer who inspired his greatest work, quoting the well-known pa.s.sage in the Iliad in which the G.o.d grants the prayer of Thetis:--
"He said; and his black eyebrows bent; above his deathless head Th" ambrosian curls flowed; great heaven shook."
Descriptive pa.s.sages such as this are not, indeed, common, because, as Lessing clearly pointed out, the poet depends more upon action and its effect than on mere enumerative description. Even here it is the action of the nod, and the shaking of heaven that follows it, that emphasises the impression, rather than the mere mention of eyebrows or hair. In many other cases the distinctive epithet has its value for all later art--the cow-eyed Hera, the grey-eyed Athena, the swift messenger Hermes; but, above all, it is the action and character of the various G.o.ds that is so clearly realised by the poet that his successors cannot, if they wish, escape from his spell.
The influence of the various Greek poets is not, indeed, for the most part, to be traced in contemporary Greek art. This is obvious in the case of the Homeric poems, for the art of the time was of a purely decorative character, and was quite incapable of representing in any adequate way the vivid and lively imagination of the poets; and, for that matter, for many centuries after the date of the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey, h.e.l.lenic art made no attempt to cope with any so ambitious problems. Even when the art of sculpture had attained to a considerable degree of mastery over material and expression, we find its aims and conceptions lagging far behind those of the poet. This will become clearer when, in the next chapter, we consider the conditions of artistic expression in Greece; but it must be noted here, in order to prevent possible misconception. As soon, however, as art became capable of aiming at something beyond perfection of a bodily form--a change which, in spite of Pausanias" admiration of something divine about the works of Daedalus, can hardly be dated earlier than the fifth century B.C.--the Homeric conceptions of the G.o.ds came to have their full effect. Zeus, the king and father of G.o.ds and men; Athena, the friendly protectress of heroes, irresistible in war, giver of all intellectual and artistic power; Apollo, the archer and musician, the purifier and soothsayer--these and others find their first visible embodiment in the statues whereby the sculptors of the fifth century gave expression to the Homeric conceptions.