NOTES ON WORKS OF ART S THE NEWLY-DISCOVERED STATUE BY ALKAMENES WHEN it is considered how slight our knowledge is of the works of the great Greek sculptors, and how remote the chance of further originals being yet discovered, we may well be grateful for any evidence which helps to lift the veil. Fortunately for posterity, the exhaustion of the Greek creative genius was followed under the Roman empire by a revival which was especially marked by extensive copying of Greek masterpieces. Wickhoff, in his suggestive essay, 'Die Wiener Genesis,' acutely observes that this movement in turn aroused the attention of cultured society in Rome, and thus was instrumental in bringing about the interest among men of letters which has left us so much of the information we possess. Of the artists who are named as the reputed 'pupils' or immediate followers of Pheidias, the most eminent is certainly Alkamenes, a native of Lemnos, who worked in Athens, and who, if tradition may be believed, was even a rival of the great master himself. Of his works we could not hitherto claim to possess an original, nor even with any certainty a copy; unless indeed the sculptures of the West Pediment at Olympia may be associated with his name: the attribution to him of the well-known Louvre Aphrodite as being a copy of his 'Aphrodite in the Gardens' is indeed probable, but a conjecture; and for an estimate of his style we were obliged to rely almost entirely on the scanty references in classical literature. On the other hand, we know that Alkamenes was a prolific artist, whose works were much copied in antiquity. Pliny says that in the temples of Athens he was represented by opera complura; but it is only now for the first time that a statue has been found which can definitely be assigned to this artist. It is a marble figure of Hermes (shown in two views on page 99), which was discovered last November in the German excavations at Pergamon. It recently formed the subject of a notice by Professor Conze,1 to whose kindness I am indebted for the gift of the photographs and for the permission to give a brief description of them here. The figure is terminal-that is to say, a square shaft surmounted by a head and with the mark of sex carved in relief, and two rectangular sockets sunk beside the shoulders to receive the short projections which in these figures take the place of arms. The head, which is over life-size, is that of a man in the prime of life, with long flowing beard in large wavy tresses, eyes somewhat deep-set with heavy eyelids, and broad low forehead surmounted by a mass of hair conventionally rendered in three formal rows of curls. At the back the hair falls in a mass down the neck, surmounted by a knot separating it from the smooth surface of the skull; 1.Sitzungsberichte der kön. Preuss. Akad. der Wissensch.' 1904, 14 Jan. from this, single locks detach themselves and fall in front on each side over the shoulders. On the front of the shaft is engraved an inscription in five lines; below is the saying of the Sage, 'Know thyself' (Tv Zavrov), and higher up the epigram Ειδήσεις ̓Αλκαμένες περικαλλὲς ἄγαλμα Ἑρμᾶν τὸν πρὸ πυλῶν. Εἴσατο Περγάμιος. 'Thou shalt know that this is that surpassingly beautiful statue of Alkamenes, Hermes who stands before the gates. Pergamios set it up.' From the general character of the inscriptions, as well as from the style of the sculpture, it is evident that the figure dates from about the time of Hadrian; but the name of Pergamios is otherwise unknown to us. The idea of a terminal statue of Hermes is of course perfectly familiar in Greek art, and is perhaps best known in history from the fateful episode of the Mutilation of the Hermae which startled the Athenian world on the eve of the departure of the Sicilian expedition in B.C. 415. Such terminal figures of the god were of ordinary occurrence before the doors of Athenian houses, but, as Conze points out, this statue is the Hermes Propylaios par excellence, a description. which can only apply to the figure mentioned by Pausanias (i. 22. 8) as standing at the entrance to the Akropolis, 'the Hermes whom they call Propylaios.' The description of Pausanias, which is somewhat involved, has led some critics to suppose that the Hermes in question formed part of a relief representing the Charites made by a certain Sokrates; but it is now clear that the relief and the statue were (as was already suspected) separate works; the new discovery enables us to confirm this, and also to assign the statue to its true author. Just as the citizen of Athens might have a terminal statue before his door, so Athena before her gates had a glorified image of the same type, but from the hand of a great master. The identity of Pergamios is comparatively unimportant beside the statement that his statue is a copy of that of Alkamenes. The truth of this there seems no reason to doubt. The head is of a large and dignified type of godhead, and yet has the traces of archaism (often considered appropriate in a cult statue) still lingering in the treatment of the hair around the forehead. These characteristics coincide well with the types which we know to have been in favour in Athens at the latter part of the fifth century B.C. The artistic associations of Pergamon and Ather.s were an old tradition, and it would not be surprising to find that the fashion obtained in Pergamon of copying the Attic masterpieces. In more than one instance the German excavations have produced evidence of this; the fashion, if fashion it was, may even date back in origin to the time when Pergamenian sculptors were capable of creating, and when Attalos was presenting sculpture to Athens. The type of head, as personifying Hermes, comes as a surprise; had it been found separately it would almost certainly have been identified as Dionysos, or even as Zeus himself; and it seems. a far cry from this to the Praxitelean type at Olympia. This, and the question as to how far we must modify our preconceived ideas of the style of Alkamenes, are among the many topics of interest raised by the new discovery. C. S. THE NARDON PENICAUD TRIPTYCH BELONGING TO MR. J. PIERPONT MORGAN AMONG the many important works of art that our great American competitor has been so fortunate as to secure during the last few fruitful years, the fine Limoges enamel obtained in Barcelona and shown in the accompanying plate must be reckoned among the more interesting. It is true that the peculiarities of style to be seen in Limoges enamels detract from their charm in the eyes of some artistic purists. True it is that in many cases the drawing cannot be defended; equally true that at times the colours are over-vivid when compared with the time-chastened hues of a painting of the quattrocento. If, however, the amateur had regard only to the relation of the highest art to his possessions, collections would be small and collectors few. It cannot even be claimed for the art of enamelling at Limoges that any of the artists who worked in the medium were of the first rank; they were principally engaged in translating into brilliant colour-pictures the sober black and white of the contemporary engraver. Here the success was marked; and it is a notable fact that when the Limoges enameller departed from his legitimate domain of a decorative artist and attempted portraiture, he was only moderately happy in his results. Mr. Pierpont Morgan's triptych is one of the successes in decorative quality; it has the rich full tints that satisfy the eye and form a pleasing contrast to the sadness of the subject. To the modern eye, or it may be to the English mind, the treatment of the subject is somewhat more On the gruesome than artistic needs demand. other hand, it must be remembered that such a triptych was primarily a devotional object, and no doubt ornamented the oratory of some wealthy citizen whose daily life may have called for a memento mori at his devotions. However this may be, the subject was commonly seen at the time; and in fact a replica of this triptych (from Fonthill and Hamilton Palace) exists in the collection of the Rev. A. H. Sanxay Barwell, as those who saw the exhibition of enamels at the BurThe lington Fine Arts Club may remember. differences are slight, with the one exception that Mr. Barwell's triptych lacks the three uppermost panels that are seen in Mr. Morgan's, and unquestionably render its proportions more agreeable, while two cupid-like figures occupy the spandrils in the middle panel. Further, the latter is signed by the artist, N. PENICAVLT, a detail of considerable documentary value, and has in addition various texts forming the borders of garments, or otherwise disposed, where in Mr. Barwell's the borders are formed of the jewelled rosettes commonly used by Nardon Penicaud and his school. Otherwise the two triptychs are identical as regards the three principal subjects, unless it be that Mr. Barwell's has come through the fire with a trifle more of brilliancy and depth in the colours. The history of enamelling at Limoges is still unwritten. A beginning has been made by MM. Bourdery and Lachenaud in their excellent monograph of Leonard Limousin. It is naturally to our French friends that we look for such a history. The earlier period of the so-called champlevé enamel has been treated in a portly quarto by Monsieur Rupin, but the later renaissance of enamel still awaits a historian. English museums contain many fine pieces, but to treat the subject from that side is apt to lead to empiricism. It is the documents in the French archives that must be made to yield the true story of the craft. The facts known about Nardon (or Leonard) Penicaud are few. His earliest dated work is of the year 1503, and is to be found in the Cluny Museum. It may well be, therefore, that some of his enamels were executed in the fifteenth century, a period fully in accordance with their style. That he had a number of pupils is certain; the number of enamels in his peculiar style is great, and it is improbable that they are all by the same hand. A few words in conclusion seem to be needful to make it clear that a reproduction, such as we give of Mr. Morgan's triptych, can only at the best be a paraphrase of the intention of the Limoges artist. The virtues of an enamel lie in its unchangeable brilliancy of colour; and be the drawing good or bad, the charm of the original is necessarily much impaired by the translation into black and white alone. Until science shows us how to make colour-photography permanent, we must needs be content with the unassuming process block. This enamel was formerly in the collection of the Marquis de Ferraz of Barcelona, and was brought to England by Mr. Harris, of the Spanish Galleries. It was said to have been purchased in Italy in the eighteenth century by an ancestor of the marquis who was ambassador in that country. C. H. R. |
