POMPEII AS AN ART CITY BY E. v. MAYER New York : FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY Printed in Great Britain. Jr.-' All rights reserved. CONTENTS Introductory Origins of Pompeian Culture Influence of Hellenism Peculiar character of Pompeian Art- The Pompeian House Evolution of its internal arrange- ment Roman and Greek family life Their effect on the formation of character The Pompeian art of mural decoration The place of Man in Hellenic and Hellenistic Art Pompeian Painting Influence of the Dionysian and heroic legends, and of Greek history, on Pompeian Art Pompeian Sculpture Portrait busts The Artemis The "Dancing Faun The Narcissus The Pompeian art of common things Joyousness the key- note of Pompeian Art Centres of Pompeian life Pompeian Architecture The Thermae The Bath as a factor in social life Street of Tombs Conclusion. 45677- ILLUSTRATIONS NARCISSUS (Photogravure) . . . , Frontispiece GENERAL VIEW OF FORUM fadgp. 4 VESTIBULE, HOUSE OF PANSA , ... . ATRIUM, HOUSE OF CORNELIUS RUFUS . , . . 12 PlFISTYLl, HOUSE OF THE VETT1I . . . . 1 6 RECONSTRUCTION, HOUSE OF TRAGIC POET . . . 20 MURAL DECORATION IN STUCCO-RELIEF AND FRESCO . 28 CENTAUR CHIRON INSTRUCTING ACHILLES . . . 36 ZEUS AND HERA . ,,44 ARES AND APHRODITE ......* 52 DANCING FAUN . . ....,, 60 TEMPLE OF AFOLLO ,,64 DRESSING-ROOM, STABIAN THERMAE ....,, 68 PALISTRA, STABIAN THERMAE ,,72 STREET or TOMBS ........ 76 INTRODUCTORY BESIDE the Java-strewn shores of the Bay of Naples there lies a shattered city a- laby- rinth of ruins, the legacy of a Past from which twice ten centuries divide us, yet fraught with interest and significance to the age in which we live, and with potential influence upon its joys and sorrows. Pompeii, the finest antique treasure-trove of modern times, possesses for ourselves a living value that is unique, unparalleled ; and the secret of this importance lies in her Art. But if this be true of Pompeii, why is it not so in equal measure of many other Art Cities of the past whose treasures also have descended to us ? The Philistine in Art may be indifferent to the character of the curios adorning his drawing room a Tanagra figure may jostle a statuette of Buddha, or a cup from Mycenae form the incongruous pen- dant to a Louis XV. snuff-box ; but those to whom Art conveys the pulsations of humanity's deepest heart-throbs are speedily brought, into such intense personal sympathy with her works that they cannot AS AN ART CITY endure the presence of objects that discourse to them in foreign tongues of alien gods. Greatly as the mature and refined art of Japan may fascinate and stimulate us, we must nevertheless recognise that our own life and our own art is rooted in that Caucasian civilisation whose birthplace was the Mediterranean shore. Between ourselves and a true conception of the genius of Mongolian life there is a great gulf fixed ; and our guiding principle must be found in the matured culture of nations bordering the great inland sea. Such an example once existed in Pompeii. POMPEII AS AN ART CITY NOT favoured Hellas, with its alternating climatic conditions of invigorating severity and glowing, intoxicating heat, but the re- laxing, enervating Campania saw the rise of Pompeii. Its original inhabitants were no proud, hardy Dorians or versatile lonians, but Oscans and Etruscans, agricultural Latins, whose servile spirit found its satisfaction in sinister religious rites. The Golden Age of Hellas, from the tenth to the fifth century B.C., when, almost unaffected by the archaic civilisation of the Semitic and Egyptian races, she was developing her own culture in undis- turbed isolation, was already long past ere Pompeii reached her zenith. Pompeii, sharing the rate of all Samnite cities, had been for two centuries incorporated in the growing world-empire of the Romans, when Sulla's mercenaries, hardened in the wars of Spain and Asia, razed its towers and walls and converted it into an open town a town which subsequently acquired Roman civic rights, and became a popular summer resort of wealthy Senators. -A'S 'AN ART CITY But what, after all, was this triumphant Roman- ising influence but the bastard product of ancient Latin boorishness and Etruscan, Egyptian, Asiatic, and, above all, Hellenic civilisation. Partly the product of Greek and Roman in- fluences, and also to some extent indigenous, the growth of Pompeian culture is only partially Hel- lenistic. But the value of Pompeii to ourselves lies not in that which she either never spontaneously produced or had long since lost, but in that which she assimilated of Greek culture ; or, rather, in that with which Greek culture was able to endow her. Pompeii supplies a test of the intrinsic living value of Hellenism. The conditions of Pompeii were essentially unfavourable to culture a languid cli- mate, the hybrid population of a sea-port town, and the near example of the capital, Rome, And yet Hellenism was able to stimulate this its offshoot to a high pitch of cultured refinement a proof of its own intense vitality, of its own peculiar energy. Granted that every revival of that culture can be but a picture and artificial view in perspective of the past, still the ideality of a condition of life finds its measure in the lasting progressive force of its idea. If we think out the aims of Hellenic life to their conclusion, if we set forth in detail the aspirations of genuine Hellenism, we find that everywhere the directing lines converge into a common focus of animated sensuous beauty. With us, on the other hand, they diverge in all directions. Our culture is therefore unideal, because its ideals and its aims are so very different. With us every object attained POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 5 implies an open breach with all other aims, and it is only thanks to the conflict that the life of our world is prolonged. Thus, in an ethical sense, the small Campanian provincial town, in all its ruin and incompleteness, is a picture from the Hellenic world, and an anti- type of our own age. Pompeii possesses all the greater significance for us inasmuch as it was one of the most unimportant transplantations of Greek culture indeed, it was not even Hellenistic, but merely Hellenised not a Hellenic city in a foreign land, but only a Hellen- ised barbarian town. Leaving out 5F the question the world-renowned Alexandria, whose existence was a continual process of development, it was quite otherwise that the refinement of Hellenic life flourished in Capua or Baiae. Had Baiae instead of Pompeii been preserved to us, we should doubt- less have possessed a greater abundance of the best productions of Hellenic art ; we should have beheld a second, and still more luxurious, Palatine covered with imperial palaces ; we should have seen all the arrogant splendour of the worthy Trimalchio ; but, on the other hand, we should never have known what was the influence of Hellenism on the life of the masses. Not even Herculaneum which yet reserves in its volcanic sepulchre many an enchanting surprise for future generations not even wealthy Herculaneum itself, .for all its Hellenic origin, is of more vital importance to our knowledge of antique life than Pompeii. 6 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY Pompeii was a provincial city of about 30,000 inhabitants a busy town, but of very moderate opulence. The sea-breezes for which it was indebted to its situation on the coast, it is true, allured Cicero to the acquisition of a villa there ; but in Pompeii houses of any pretension to grandeur were few and far between. The city possessed two theatres and an amphitheatre, which, however, paitially depended on the support of the neighbour- ing inland towns, whose sea-port Pompeii was. Existence may have been easy and comfortable in Pompeii, but luxury found no place there. Its worthy citizens had no money to spare for costly works of art, but Art as a whole was dear to their hearts. The art of Pompeii is distinctly an art of tri- vialities, not the colossal art that twined the frieze of Phidias, a garland of immortality, around the Parthenon, or raised the Olympic altar at Pergamos. It was not in mighty works such as those that stood in the sanctuaries of Greece, a prey beyond the reach of any but the greatest robbers, but in the smaller appliances of domestic life, articles within the reach of all, that Pompeii displayed the Hellen- istic distinction of her characteristic art. She did not aspire to the possession of original creations by artists of renown, but entrusted her modest com- missions to minor craftsmen capable of fashioning, at a moderate recompense, artistic objects calculated to be a continual joy to their owners. Thus Pompeii continued to create in the spirit of the great works with which Rome was adorning POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 7 herself; but this was only possible inasmuch as her own exuberant impulses carried her more than half-way upon the road along which her great model beckoned her. Every individual experienced the desire to see his own sentiment crystallised into palpable shape, and it lay within the means of many minor artists to embody these emotions in plastic form. Many of these were only master- craftsmen ; but in Greece, as in the time of the Renaissance, the creative artist remained nominally a tradesman. Perhaps it is to that very fact that the vigorous sense of Nature which distinguishes those artists is due, as well as the loftiness of such artistic craftsmanship. Since Art did not disdain to take her stand upon the fast foundation of trade, the latter was less apt to lose touch with Art. A glimpse of an artistic industry of matured refinement, then, is what Pompeii offers us. In the direct pleasure with which those miniature works of art inspired, and still inspire, the beholder the spirit of Hellenism declares itself ; in this un- pretentious art of everyday life lies a weightier testimony to that age and its worth than in many a lofty creation. The art of Pompeii is not an art of great achievements, commissioned by wealthy buyers, possibly merely desirous of the notoriety conferred by their outlay, but of patrons of modest station and limited means. Its productions were not the works of individuals whose personalities stand out far above period, environment, or race, but of far humbler artists, in whom, nevertheless, the spirit of their blood, their world, and their times is 8 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY manifest. The fact that these humble and even insignificant workers universally aspired towards Art, and attained it, is the one essential feature that commands our admiration and invites our imita- tion. The learned collector Athenaeus has bequeathed to us innumerable descriptions of the usages and conditions of life prevalent among the ancients ; but where the dead text confronts us with many an obscure enigma, the ocular evidence that Pompeii provides assists us to a living comprehen- sion. To the receptive mind, the character of Hellenic life, and of that of its immediate offshoots, is no longer strange. Its profound source, the Olympian theory of the universe, has been pre- served to us in the works of the Greek poets ; it was reserved for Pompeii to afford us tangible evidence of its direct operation. The mature Hellenistic art-industry whereon the value of Pompeii is based continually diverts our attention from fascinating details, to fix it upon the entire scheme of the Pompeian life to which it bears witness. This Pompeian life is concentrated into one focus, small but absolutely perfect, in the Pompeian home. Pompeii, the City, as our fancy restores it, overflows with charms. Its position on a rising shore of the Bay of Naples, girdled and yet not dominated by the mountains around ; its picturesque gates, approached through avenues of imposing tombs ; its stately colonnaded squares ; its fine public buildings temples, theatres, baths, courts of justice ; in its streets the unconstrained Photo. Sotnmer VESTIBULE OF THE HOUSE OF PANSA POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 9 life of the South on all sides the receptive mind is subject to the stimulus of Nature's own art. But all these attractions pale before the grace of the Pompeian House. A penetrating aroma of the life of yore yet clings to its ruined walls and faded pictures ; for the house in those days was of higher importance to the social life of the community than in our own age. The animated and more comprehensive social life which was the outcome of Pompeian culture did not stifle domesticity ; rather does the latter supply the principle of the former, but in a more concentrated and therefore more fruitful form. Collectivity can claim no prerogative when its pressure is exerted from without and above upon the individual. It is only when it develops from minute and spontaneous formations, expanding upwards from below and from within, that social life can be welded from a many-headed monstrosity into richly proportioned and natural homogeneity. Thus alone can it afford the individual an object commensurate with his existence a complete utilisation of his glowing energies. The absorption of smaller States by larger, if carried too far, paralyses all independence, and is intolerant of all combination, unless for economic purposes. Boundless world-empires, by the irresistible weight of their component masses, have deprived the direct creations of mankind of all value, strength, and cohesion. Yet primaeval civilisation grew organically out of primitive life ; the State was little more than a municipal area ; want of room set a natural limit to the preponder- 10 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY ance of the community, and the social constituents, Personality, Family, Friendship, remained alive and independent. It is the social condition that the ancient world embodied in its conception of the House ; and it is this ancient world that we learn to know in the Pompeian dwelling, whose plan is a plan of life. The House, in its Pompeian form, is an organic building. A clear fundamental idea here finds architectural expression, and creates a genuine style logical, characteristic, and therefore impor- tant. It is the jftrium that groups all the other apartments around it, and forms the theoretical, though not the actual, centre of the whole. The dark, unpartitioned interior of the ancient peasant's hut has now developed greater freedom and com- fort. No longer bed-room, dining-room, and living- room in one, the atrium still remains sentimentally and ethically the principal apartment, with its Al O E W H b O W _t I 2 w PL, POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 17 his attention to the inscriptions, still extant, roughly scratched or painted on the stucco, which served as a pathetic, humorous, or serious commen- tary on public life neighbourly chaff, witticisms, election notices, appeals for assistance. But these manifestations were confined to the outer walls of the house. The door-porter turned away every importunate intruder who sought shelter in the porch not solely, perhaps, on account of the rain ; while a chained dog in mosaic " Cave canem " also gave unmistakable expression to the desire of the household for quiet. A revered sym- bol of life, the phallus, carved in the plaster, let into the wall, or painted in red the lucky colour beside the door, afforded protection against the black magic of the malignant wish or the evil eye. Or a painted altar adorned with snakes placed the dwelling under the guardianship of those ancient and mysterious divinities, while a graceful youth personified the Genius loci. Like blood through the veins, the stream of public life pulsated along the streets of Pompeii towards the market, the theatres, and the temples, whence the ebbing tide of humanity recoiled to surge about the threshold of the house. As he stepped across that threshold the citizen once more retired into himself, his faculties stimu- lated and developed by contact with the events and occurrences of the outer world, and, safe in the peaceful stronghold of his home, was able to collect and arrange his thoughts. Whether his atrium was of the simplest, or girt with gorgeous and B 1 8 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY brightly painted columns ; whether his peristyle rose in artistic terraces, like that of Marcus Lucretius, adorned by cool ponds and lovely plants, or whether he contented himself with a garden painted in one corner of his court and a tiny shell- fountain ; whether he possessed special dining- rooms for summer heats and winter chills, or whether the stone bench of his triclinium stood in the middle of the court the citizen of Pompeii in his own house was ever the monarch of his modest realm, lord in his own right of a domestic system that use had converted into nature, which not merely provided for the needs of the moment, but was in itself an elevating influence a homogeneous education to its members. In truth every Pom- peian house was a centre of culture. The Pompeian house is no longer entirely Hellenic, but Greco- Roman in type. The concep- tions of life characteristic of the two races were nearly akin, and the distribution of the interior chambers is consequently similar in all essential points ; but their domestic uses, which were de- termined by the position of woman in the social system, differed widely. That women in general occupied a position of inferiority in the antique world is a myth. The fact that they filled the office of priestesses is proof to the contrary. But, after all, it is a question of proportion. In the honest world of the ancients body, soul, and intellect were all of equal value* It was in no spirit of depreciation, then, that the POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 19 functions of mistress, wife, and mother were esteemed the most important of woman's duties. Nor was it out of contempt that she was expected to busy herself in cooking and needlework, instead of dulling her fresh intelligence by learning. Women with whom intellect would have its way had no difficulty in finding an outlet for it : Corinna, Sappho, Diotima, Aspasia, Hypatia, are only a few among many such names. The exi- gences of our state of over-population may in these days stimulate a girl to the acquisition of every available accomplishment, as a matter of policy ; in olden times it would have been a waste of her powers, a detriment to her attractions. But between Hellas and Rome there is a finer distinction in the appreciation of woman, which is at base a type of the difference prevailing in educa- tional ideals, an expression of divergent objects in life. This we find clearly defined in the contrasts of the Hellenic and the Pompeio-Roman house. The tablinum, or reception-room, formed the inner boundary of the Pompeian house. The laws of hospitality made visitors free of the apart- ments situated on the hither side of this point, but all that lay beyond the narrow side-passage, or fauces, was sacred from the intrusion of the outside world. This line of demarcation existed also in the Hel- lenic house ; but in this case it did not separate the family life from that of general society, but served as a barrier between the male and the female mem- bers of the household. Woman 1 s domain lay in 20 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY and around the larger garden-court in the rear ; while in the front of the house man reigned supreme, and formed the sole point of contact between public and private life. When a boy, at the age of seven, was received from the gyn&ceum into the andrelon he cast off feminine influences, and became a man among men. Brought at an early age into contact with social life at the palestra, the boy was still subject during a lengthy period, first of all to the tutelage and advice of the pedagogue, and then, in the bond of friendship, to his intimate companion. The girl, whose sports and aspirations were for the most part bounded by the walls of the gynseceum, owed her education to the ties of female friendship, and at Sparta even shared in gymnastics. Then when the young people of opposite sexes, their characters formed, were brought into contact, they sought and found in one another's society companionship and friend- shipas d stinguished from the alternate comedy of master and female slave, bondsman and mistress. Amoi g th* Latin races individual character was less marked, and friendship consequently less es- teemed and valued : family ties formed the sole basis of social intercourse. Thus, there being no separation of the sexes in domestic life, the boy remained until a late period under feminine control ; he was not hardened by contact with men. If this system of education did not result in moral disaster, it is to the natural freshness of the universal con- ception of life that the credit must be attributed. But is it due only to chance that among the Latins POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 21 that unfettered flight of the Hellenic character is nowhere perceptible ? Now Pompeii, it is true, added no illustrious names to the roll of fame ; but the Pompeian house is all the more eloquent of the natural comfort of average Pompeian life. The very existence of ex- ceptional personalities is more or less a martyrdom. Their genius can neither be transferred nor imitated ; but at the same time their share in the common task of humanity is also exceptional. The lesser and attainable happiness, on the other hand, is com- pounded of the everyday forces of the world. Shattered and crumbling though it be, the Pompeian house yet proves that it is practicable that it is at least possible to bring intelligence and beauty into the daily existence. From a purely architectural point of view, the Pompeian house is a work of genuine art ; but its value is enhanced by the fact that it became in its turn the medium of a still higher form of human achievement. The spirit that had inspired its walls and chambers had not exhausted itself in the effort ; rising ever to fresh heights of living feeling, it gave expression to the latter in fresh forms. It clothed the interior of the house with a garment of beauty floors, ceilings, and especially walls though with a brilliance less audacious than that of the Renaissance. The walls, to which the gaze involuntarily directs itself without effort or constraint, became the field upon which decorative art blossomed forth into blithe and luxuriant vigour. 22 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY To the Pompeian his wall was no dead blank of masonry, but was transformed into a mirror of his sentiments. The wall entered into his life, and its decoration drew therefrom its deepest inspiration This was only partially a matter of architectural principle. Such a style is, in truth, rooted in the general conception of life, and the latter, again, in the unfathomable depths of the individual nature. It is only natural that the ancient world, which recognised the body as the highest proof of the existence of a soul, should have nourished especially lofty sentiments with regard to the receptacle in which that body moved, as well as to those physical actions of which that receptacle was the principal scene. It was no arid, meticulous symmetry of the foot-rule which in every art revealed to the Greek the secret proportions of the parts ; the harmony that grows from the co-operation of all the senses was the infallible touchstone of his creations. The epic of the Iliad, like the frieze of the Par- thenon, was a complete and perfect symphony. In measured rhythm rises and falls, waxes and wanes, the part allotted to each figure, each movement, each action. On a foundation of minor details and com- monplace events there is built up a structure of lofty and imposing narrative, which in its turn cul- minates in supreme flights of genius : the jubilant procession at the banquet of the Olympian divinities ; the ever-changeful fight, and its holo- caust of victims, with which Achilles honoured the obsequies of his friend before Troy on the one side the din of battle and the pathos of unhappy love. POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 23 on the other valour and beauty carrying out the behests of the gods all the parts are inexorably grouped around one living centre into foreordered, imperishable form. It is especially characteristic of every product of Greek plastic art that it is instinct with that vitalising energy which, emanating from the artist, so inspired the dull marble and brass that the reposeful harmony of limbs proclaims nothing but latent and expansive power. The Hellenic temples and theatres, in their purely sensuous features, prove that beauty of form merely reveals the excellence of the essential idea. And the same applies to the Hellenic art of mural decoration. In its early stages, before it commences to scale its own steep path, even lofty religious art is but a form of the decorative. In its maturity it rewards its ancient foster-mother by the bestowal of its own treasures of form upon her airy trifles. In the hey- day of Hellenic art artistic mural decoration was reserved for temples and public buildings, the walls of houses and chambers remaining plain, even if colour-washed ; and it was reserved for the wealthy Greek bourgeoisie to effect a change in this respect. But the spirit of Hellenism, breathing its inspiration into Hellenistic Greco-Roman art, owned but a transient allegiance to mural splendours in costly marble, and, harking back to Nature, set the walls aglow with scenes that spoke of life to their living beholders, bestowing upon man what had hitherto been sacred to the Deity an only too intelligible retrograde movement of the social instinct in times of social laxity. 24 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY Greek architecture reached its zenith in the temples of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., when the community was the most powerful factor of social life ; Greek painting attained its perfec- tion between the middle of the fifth and the close of the fourth century B.C., when the develop- ment of individualism was at its height ; but Greek domestic art did not reach its high-water mark until mighty Hellas had crumpled into ruin ; and it is in a foreign land, and in the Greco-Roman mural art of Pompeii, that we have to admire this autumnal luxuriance of the Hellenic genius. The most ancient of the Pompeian styles of mural decoration still shows leanings towards the opulent splendours of Alexandria, and strives to emulate its glittering marble panelling by means of veneer. The demand for such works of ostenta- tious elegance was enormous, but the costly material was not easy to procure, and thus the brush was called into requisition to imitate the variegated markings and veinings of the genuine marble. The entire wall might then be made to appear as though it were formed of real blocks, set obliquely, and this artificiality pose as art. But before long a healthy reaction set in, and mural art aimed at attaining its results by means of colour alone, preferring simple contrasts, such as red against green, yellow against blue, or relying on monochrome red or black. And it is on the basis of this severe and reposeful style that the genuine and characteristic, in short the Pompeian POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 25 art of mural decoration arose. The feeling for space developed in a new direction, and began to include the wall-surfaces. The spectator's point of vision naturally deter- mined the very centre of the wall-space as the key to the whole scheme of decoration ; all that lay above or below, to right or left of this point, was utilised for the accessories and setting. The wall- space did not fall perpendicularly and horizontally into a symmetrical double range of triple panels, but was multiplied, as it were, into nine fields, which, again, were not defined by cold straight lines, but whose borders themselves fell into the scheme of decoration. Here and there the side fields were also subdivided affording a wealth of artistic opportunities. That these opportunities were but seldom abused, that artistic effect is but seldom spoilt by overcrowding, is not the least tribute to the mature refinement of Hellenic and Greco- Roman culture. The object of that culture was not the display of skill, but the realisation of its own aims to stimulate and refresh the senses, not to blunt them ; not to disintegrate by want of proportion, but to blend together in harmony. And hence the eight marginal fields of the Pompeian wall produce the effect of only four separate component parts base, cornice, and two pillars, all throwing into relief the central subject. By an easy transition, this architectural style of Pompeian interior mural decoration repeatedly makes excursions into the province of outdoor 26 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY architecture, and imitates or even reproduces its forms ; such was also the aim of earlier decorative art. Endeavours were made to reproduce in stucco the white splendour of marble, and the whole wall was thus transformed into the bas-relief representa- tion of a palace. Lofty columns, dividing the wall, frame glimpses into stately vaulted saloons, pavilions, and halls. Flights of stairs appear to afford access to these scenes, and open doors show the coming and going of the servants. But even the realism of this sham architecture is enhanced by the aid of painting, and galleries, terraces, staircases, and arches are piled up in a bold barocco style by the fantastic brush. This, the characteristic style of the last days of Pompeii, is but an active reflection of the riotous architecture of the Caesars, as it flourished on the other side of the bay, at -Baiae, and culminated in the tastelessness of the Golden House of Nero. Just as the splendour of the mid- Renaissance merged directly into the barocco^ so did Hellenic art towards the end repeatedly expend itself in exuberant tours deforce, such as the " Laocoon " or the " Farnese Bull, " until the consciousness of its own loftiness was blunted and lost in the ser- vice of the gaudy courts of the usurper and the Roman. Absolute perfection of artistic medium leads to misguided attempts at reproducing the substance of one art with the forms of another the technical artificiality of an over-ripe period. At the same time the satiated and wearied senses yearn for the abnormal and startling : unconsciously they follow POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 27 a retrograde impulse leading them in the direction of the childishly barbaric the earliest stages of art, when, still unschooled and undifferen dated, its aim was decoration pure and simple. The glorifica- tion of the humours of a Maecenas : the playthings of a moment : glittering spectacles adapted to the narrow point of view of the spectator such are the theatrical glories of the barocco art of all time. i This style of architectural painting occurs fre- quently, though not to an excessive extent, at Pompeii ; but it often conveys, perhaps unintention- ally, an impression of irony of a smile of superio- rity. The arches curve into huge flourishes ; the figures on the cornices engage in the maddest dances and combats ; the pillars are indescribably slender (possibly there were just such golden columns in the Roman palaces) : here they no longer rest upon the solid ground, but spring from the heads of genii and fabulous sea-monsters, from plants and grotesque ornaments. In some of the most striking instances they represent elegant candelabra. Whereas Rome degraded serious art to mere decorative purposes, Greco-Roman Pompeii, with a distant echo of Attic wit, took her decora- tive art with genuine seriousness. After all, her great ambition was mockingly to trump the artistic extravagances of the capital ; and thus she flung a joyous network of dazzling decoration athwart her walls, to the exhilaration of her own senses. And the airy grace of this sportiveness proves that it was not the sheer exaggeration of 28 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY provincial copyists, but the result of originality of conception and refinement of technique. But this mastery of the language of form also teaches us that it is not prudent to regard every ac- cessory detail of an antique work of art as necessarily true to life. This is a fashion with many enthusiasts, who, reversing the procedure of the naturalist, are de- sirous of interpreting the life of the ancients by the light of such contemporary representations, pictorial or plastic, as may survive. It is true that the crea- tions of the Greek artists, high priests of Nature, emanated directly from the precincts of reality ; but these works were also of the nature of religious acts, and it is consequently an ideal aspect of life that they present to us. They hallowed Nature, instead of transgressing against her, by perpetuating the rich natural beauty of contemporary humanity only in its choicest forms. If they rose superior to chance which is nowadays idolised as the only real fidelity to Nature it was in the pursuit of lofty objects. But the external accessories of civilised life gar- ments, utensils, buildings exacted no such scrupu- lous conscientiousness, and thus we may take unfettered delight in the architecture created by Pompeian imaginations ; since, belonging neither to the naturalistic nor to the classical school, it testifies to freedom of artistic feeling and the merry sportiveness of unfettered humour. The main divisions of the Pompeian wall were designed to facilitate free and unconstrained con- templation. Next followed the ornamental framing POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 29 of the main subject. Unfettered by any serious function, this ornamentation was free to spin the bright threads of its sparkling tale. It follows the sportive law of its being, and now soothes by its regularity, now excites by its fickleness ; while the arrangement of the wall-spaces lends to it a facile and pleasing symmetry, calming and peaceful in its effect. The perpendicular lines, whether of columns overtopping one another or of slender tree-trunks towering into the sky, carry the eye easily upward ; while the horizontal forms lead the spectator through rural landscapes, or hunting scenes sweep past him. Not even the angles of intersection remain un- utilised, but are pressed into the service of a rhyth- mically flowing fancy which sees life in every- thing. Here a winged boy bears upon his head a plant, which higher up becomes a column and bursts afresh into bright foliage ; the foot of the winged genius, however, merges into the graceful spiral of a half-open acanthus leaf, which masks with its con- volutions the stiffness of the angle, and diverts the attention of the observer from the perpendicular to the horizontal lines of the composition. The eye is then caught by a rollicking procession of marine monsters, until the eel-like prolongation of the body of sea-horse or dolphin once more carries it up- wards. Everywhere it encounters fresh surprises. Here the projection of a feathery side-branch ; or a coloured riband, borne in the beaks of birds, invites to a rope-dance. There a tree is transformed into a candelabrum, whose manifold knobs and flutings 30 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY are so many steps enticing the unwearied gaze onwards and upwards. Only actual vision can convey an adequate idea of the infinite variety of these creations, and of the innumerable combinations of groups and scenes ; any written description can be but a halting one. Thus one single door-frame displays a bordering garland of acanthus spirals, and, of thirty-four, all are different ! And, besides this, there dwells among the leaves, stalks, and thorns a merry little world of birds and beetles, hares, mice, lizards, and snails flying, hopping, and crawling, pecking, gnawing, and snarling, hunting and hunted in no case repeated, amid the labyrinths of the multiform foliage. Fantastic, perhaps ! but, still more than that, a primitive fellowship of Man with Nature, which brought him such unsought treasures of spontaneity, grace, and humour. It is only an eye so richly endowed and responsive, only a sensibility so finely strung as this, that would venture to outvie Nature, (and to unite forms that she has kept severely apart. It is only a mind imbued with a reverence for Nature, to which every form is but the manifestation of an inward force, and every force finds embodi- ment in form, that could fashion from the shapes of man and beast Fauns, Centaurs, Tritons, and Nereids, could call sea-horses and sea-griffins into being, could conjure the tender forms of lovely children out of flower-bells, and conceive human limbs terminating in the tendrils of plants. Pom- peian art converted these impossibilities into realities. POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 31 This world of fable came to life upon the walls of Pompeii, and transformed its bare rooms into an enchanted bower of garlands, woven from all that was fair and bright and joyous. Compare the modern treatment of wall-spaces with that of Pompeii ! The Middle Ages saw their walls hung with weapons and armorial bearings. It was reserved for the Renaissance to recognise once more, during a limited period, the decorative value of these walls, and to adorn them with its most brilliant conceptions. The Gobelins of a subsequent period was at best a makeshift, and then the modern wall-paper ! With what tastelessness of perverted ornamentation has the past century and a half often presumed to torture us, in a nightmare of casual caricature, grinning forth from a mono- tonous wilderness of distorted posies ! Even gloomy panelling and cold whitewash were not so hopeless, for they could always be brightened by a fine picture. Even the fresh energy of the latest artistic industry devoted to mural decoration is still occupied in feeling its way : the threefold harmony of its scroll-work, the purer style manifested in its employment of forms of life, has still to find an outlet into the realms of art not, by the way, in mere imitation of either Pompeian or Greek forms, but in a comprehensive grasp of our own conditions of life and of our mental processes. When that time arrives our dwellings will no longer be taste- lessly ornamented, but really adorned. To the Pompeian his decorated wall was by no means an optional piece of ornamentation, but a 32 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY second skin, sensitive to the impression of his feelings : no inanimate generator of dulness, but the reflection of his soul, and at the same time its guiding influence. This cultured decorative taste of the Pompeians bears witness to the fact that under the sway of Greco-Roman and how much more of Hellenic ? art human achievement once walked hand in hand with culture. Had it, however, remained the sole manifestation of the sensuous joyousness of Pompeii, the decora- tive art that ornamented Pompeian walls would be of but secondary importance. The call cf full- blooded life would have been weak indeed had it awakened no other echo than the airy play of mere decoration. But the Pompeian walls bear witness, in the subjects depicted upon them, to the senti- ments, aspirations, and ideals that animated those who once dwelt within them. Pompeian painting has been occasionally stig- matised, with a contemptuous shrug, as purely " illustrative," as consisting, to some extent, of cold and insignificant object-lessons in the religious history of the Hellenic world. It would indeed be no small credit to Greek painting to have " illus- trated " and " illuminated " contemporary life ; but, at any rate, cold and insignificant it is not. Its best works speak for themselves, even without the necessity of referring to the original fables for enlightenment. Those fables, and the subjects of many of the pictures, have given rise to lengthy controversies ; but even when first revealed to the POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 33 world these striking works excited an admiration in which there was no discordant note. Naturally the different technique of modern painting attains, and strives to attain, other effects ; but Greek painting came to maturity in the glowing light and free air of the South, hand in hand with sculpture each the mirror of that nude art which drew its inspiration from the Palestra. The chief subject of their art being the human form that exact likeness of the Deity, and his noblest Temple the painters of those days had no reason for refining their colouring into the hundred nuances of tone that^mingle in the drapery and flesh- tints of figures seen in the damp shade of trees, or the chiaroscuro of a glazed apartment. In the misty Netherlands the task of the soft oil-medium was to reproduce vague and dissolving contours, and the native land of oil-painting was also that of Rembrandt. In Venice, the City of Waters, Titian, Tintoretto, and the Veronese carried the art of warm diffused colouring to its highest pitch : hence we acclaim them as masters of colour. In bright Hellas the function of colour was not to dazzle, but to depict limbs of splendid physical beauty. That which in a Northern atmosphere would have appeared stiff, wooden, and lifeless was transformed by the clear light of the South into free and natural simplicity. The severest school of Greek art admitted only red, yellow, white, and black as artistic colours, rejecting violet, blue, and green ; and yet it was to the works of these artists that the fullest measure of appreciation was accorded. c 34 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY The painters of the early Renaissance, somewhat like Van der Goes and the inventor of oil-painting, Van Eyck, himself, aimed at fulness of colouring, at resonance of vivid tone. Michelangelo, sculptor and painter of the nude, despised oil-painting as effeminate and amateurish ; while Leonardo, a master of the magic of chiaroscuro, carried his re- searches into the technique of the art of Polygno- tus just as Bocklin later on succeeded in drawing new power from the old mediums. Undoubtedly Pompeian painting had its limits, and its peculiarities proceed in part from the fact that it was executed neither upon canvas or wood, nor yet upon the hastily prepared surface of the more modern fresco, but that, owing to the pre- liminary apportionment of the available space, almost the entire wall admitted of treatment in colour at the artist's complete leisure. But, after all, the severer style of technique is only the tool of a master spirit. Greek painting is the art of line, as far as line can convey form, and by means of form the workings of the life within ; but it is at the same time the art of colour, for the blue of the heavens, the green of the trees, the rose on a maiden's cheek were too dear to the Greeks to be altogether renounced as subjects for their art. Their brightly coloured draperies, brilliantly decorated temples, and painted statuary testify to their high appreciation of colour, which even the weather-beaten condition of the Pompeian colour- tones cannot altogether disguise. It is only when wan listlessness, anaemic spiri- POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 35 tuality, and Northern mysticism are to be galvanised into life and interest by the tremulous play of broken light and colour that the art of Greek painting fails to convince ; but it is by no means on that account debarred from the representation of those vague, inchoate, and shadowy sentiments which pass in these days for the true, because the only tolerated spiritual life. Pompeian painting includes the whole range of subjects treated by later art, with the exception of portraiture, which was relegated almost entirely to the sculptor, and is therefore in this connection of relatively little importance ; though the portraits ofPaquius Proculusand his wife may be mentioned. Apart from this branch of art, we have still-life . and genre, landscape and animal subjects ; but the ^ principal place is taken by descriptive painting, and that chiefly of a religious character. The architectural arrangement of the walls, on whose surfaces all these arts are represented, classifies them according to their respective intrinsic values judged by human standards. Still-life, genre^ landscape, and animal studies, so far as they consti- tute independent subjects, are almost entirely con- fined to the border spaces, and even the two large side compartments to the right and left are reserved for more important themes. In the majority of cases it is thus the horizontal decorative framework, such as the representations of cornices and pediments, which, in intimate connection with the rich orna- mentation, provide a base for the still-life and the 36 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY genre, the beasts and the trees. This differentiation in values is still further accentuated by the less careful execution of these secondary paintings. Man is undoubtedly the central figure in Greek art, the rest of Nature having no essential claim to consideration, except as the environment of Man. But, encompassing Man, she derives from him also his sense of vitality, and beasts as well as plants in the Pompeian scheme of Nature lead a conscious existence, whereby their human interest is enhanced. It is thus incorrect to deny to the art of the Greeks a comprehension of " landscape " : their belief in the (jentus loci, in the nymphs of the springs, in the Dryads of the trees, in the deities of the forest and the stream, are proof to the contrary. But the humanised, polytheistic attributes with which such fancies invested it prevented its ever becoming a subject of art for its own sake. Here again Dutch genius was the first to reveal to modern mid- European fog-chilled culture the artistic values that lay in meadow, wood, and copse, and the sentimentality of a Pantheism shrinking from the haunts of men served to enhance the reverence evinced for Nature's solitudes. The deck, however, child of the South, regarded Nature simply as a setting to the figure of Man, and it was through and by the latter that the landscape derived its awesome grandeur or disclosed its joy- ous grace. Thus, in Homer, the storm at sea redoubles its living fury that it may lash Odysseus on his wreck ; while Theocritus makes the fragrance of the earth, of the vineyards and olive trees, ascend *M Photo. Alinari THE CENTAUR CHIRON INSTRUCTING ACHILLES IN THE ART OF PLAYING THE LYRE POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 37 mingled with the joys and sorrows of the peasant folk. Painting, as we know it in Pompeian examples, is content in its more important compositions simply to indicate the landscape. Yet it is in truth merely a matter of condensation, when a mountain range is represented by a single rock, or a forest by two or three trees. For the human interest, the true sub- ject of the picture, requires but a limited space for its development, and any delineation of the distant landscape would only distract the observer's atten- tion and depreciate the human value. In the less ambitious works, however, landscape stands, as is reasonable, on a footing of its own. Perchance a traveller is represented passing a rustic sanctuary ; an antique Hermes indicates the road, a sparse grove of cypresses clings to the steep sides of the mountains, cleft by ravines, which enclose the valley just such a woodasBenozzoGozzoli's "Procession of the Magi," in the domestic chapel of the Medici, shows upon the Tuscan hills. Or we are shown an altar with two stone pillars ; the sturdy limb of a forked oak-tree has grown through the cross-piece forming the frieze, in like manner that picturesque holm-oaks are frequently represented in well-executed studies of foliage, r arther on, embosomed mid a distant range of hills, we catch a glimse of an arm of the sea, into which projects a peninsula bearing a small temple. Chapels, temples, images of the Gods, are not infrequent, and there is also no lack of ruins broken columns, ruined halls and causeways a legacy of the civil wars ; in short, all the elements 38 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY of genuine romantic landscape ! We encounter characteristic rustic dwellings, stately buildings, or even the whole of an opulent seaport town, with just such effect as the Bay of Naples might be ex- pected to exercise upon the rendering of such a subject. Animals are frequently depicted in a setting of landscape, to the mutual advantage of both subjects. Was it not in the animal studies of Jordaens that his collaborator Rubens proved his worth as a land- scape-painter ? Thus on the Peristyle wall of the Casa della Caccia the scene of the hunt is laid in a forest. But where the artist has drawn upon his imagination for the landscape the animals also are unconvincing at all events, in cases where the possibility of ocular experience was precluded ; such as the Nile scenes, in which dwarfs engage in combat with hippopotami and crocodiles. On the other hand, animals indigenous to the country are genuinely true to Nature the cat killing a quail, the hare nibbling grapes, the fish, the dogs, wolves, deer, and wild boars. The chargers in the mosaic of the " Battle of Alexander " are full of life, and even the lion in a large picture of Orpheus, although in spite of all the baiting of wild beasts at the amphitheatre hardly convincing, at least possesses the naturalness of the conventional lion of Greek statuary. Granting that the renderings of animal life are thus occasionally inadequate or conventional in effect as, for instance, the serpents on the domestic POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 39 altars, the explanation is generally to be found in the fact that the aesthetic and religious needs of the generality of Pompeians depended for their expres- sion solely on the artistic skill of worthy artisans. But it is at least more pleasing to see animals ren- dered with artificiality and man depicted with animation and truth, than to find beasts and flowers portrayed, as in Japanese art, with astonishing fidelity, while the human figure remains at a dead level of stiff and sprawling conventionality. Animal life is, however, most widely drawn upon for the higher order of decorative work, and in this connection one of the most popular subjects is the flying swan also occurring in pairs, as companion figures. But theirs is no stretching flight, but rather a soaring ascent, calculated to carry the eye, by way of the long, curving necks, up to the garlands fluttering above. Later on the representation of animal life passes almost directly into the region of genre hunting scenes, battles, and races between beasts and Genii frequently occur ; but in these studies the Genii soon become the central figures. Excellence in execution and fidelity to Nature distinguish these studies in genre, or, rather, in Genii. The idea which our imagination clothes with the forms of withered gnomes or bearded cobolds, Pompeian fancy invested with the charming attributes of charming children. The spirit and the joy ousness of boyhood breathes in all these youthful forms that people the Pompeian walls akin, indeed, to the putti of the Renaissance, 40 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY but frequently a shade older, freer, more mature. We surprise these gleesome spirits m the full swing of their blithe progress. They dance along, making music as they go, in ever-changing poses, astounding in their variety, yet unstudied and free as Nature herself. It is only in the playground that the eye could seek to accustom itself to such poetry of motion. A stucco ceiling from neighbouring Grag- nano affords the highest manifestation of this art. Elsewhere we encounter these youthful Genii, often of both sexes, gathering flowers and grapes. We find them, like their faraway kiri in old Cologne, working in wood and metals, at the fulling-mill and the wine-press, or engaged in burlesque combats with monsters. In a similar capacity to the guardian angels of the present day, they are interwoven with the whole life of the Pompeian, peopling his walls with silent asso- ciates in his joys and sorrows. Whither have they vanished, these friendly gnomes ? The inquisitive wife of the Burgomaster of Cologne is a parable ! Decadent ourselves, and incapable of creating living forms, we have dissected and resolved all things into their constituent elements, until we have proved the ultimate atom to be but an aggre- gation of negations ! Blind to the real kernel of our own being, we have lopped off as useless the flower-decked branch from whence the tiny divinities of the beneficent powers of Nature smiled upon us. Now, impoverished through our own covetousness, we one and all languish in bondage to the sole god, Mammon. POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 41 Hellenism although in the Olympian religion of morals it had scaled a human heaven, never wan- dered far from Nature, and the earth which formed the complement of that heaven rested on the ancient reverence for Nature, which recognised on all sides independent vital forces. It was to these that the Pompeian paid his tribute of gratitude and reverence when he summoned youthful Genii their brightest manifestation into his presence in his pictures and the decorations of his walls. And even if this faith had done nothing more than rejoice the eye and refresh the senses by the Anacreontic sweetness of its conceptions, it would still have conferred a blessing and a benefit on life which we might well envy. Reared on deeply-rooted foundations, the genre- painting of Pompeii casts aside those paltry and trivial qualities which are characteristic of the style. The insignificance of pictures owing their origin to the mere accident of circumstances gives place to a network of more refined and definite personal relations; while the subjects chosen approach more nearly to the severity of the religious, the heroic, and the erotic. The boy now becomes a full-grown youth, the sportings of the Genii wax into the heroic deeds of the mighty Past, and the lax bond of their influence is replaced by an earnest inter- change of sentiment between Gods and men. In this manner does the Pompeian art of Genii-paint- ing serve as an immediate stepping-stone to a higher plane of achievement* 42 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY On entering this fresh phase we are at once greeted by the same Genii ; but they are now God- like youths, who skim through the blue heavens bearing torches, like incarnate beams of light, or sit, in the form of their lord and master Eros, by the waterside, and aid the Goddess of Love in her Jishing. Or they pace along in the guise of the Muses, or form the retinue of Apollo the Sun God the sun-disc in his hand and a flaming corona about his brow. In proportion as the Genii thus rise towards the level of the high Gods, they give place at the other end of the scale to lesser spirits to that hardy race of elves and water-sprites, the Fauns and Tritons, wild sprigs of Nature ; or there are Bacchantes, cradled in the intoxicating maze of the Dionysian mysteries, and followed by a heavy cavalry of male and female Centaurs, curvetting and prancing in lickerish wantonness ; or Nereids, borne along on foam-crested sea-horses, represent the meaner, older, more mundane deities. Very frequently, however, the lesser powers are but the retinue of a greater deity, and in that case find their allotted position in the side spaces of the wall, the place of honour being reserved for the mightier divinity. Thus the Fauns, Hermaphro- dites, Satyrs, and Bacchantes of the accessory pic- tures are only apparently independent compositions, and in reality form the retinue of Dionysus, supreme in the central picture. In the same manner, priestly youths and virgins are depicted in the imme- diate vicinity of the deity whose ministers they are ; while the decorative portions of the wall become as POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 43 it were the wings of the scene, behind which the remaining actors in the incident portrayed are gathered in plastic groups. There is nevertheless a well-defined boundary line, beyond which these forms cease to be mere generic types, and, assuming a personality of their own, enter, duly provided with names and cha- racters, the great Pantheon of Mythology thus speaking to the observer of personal life and expe- rience, even though its purport be one of eternal, universal application. However captivating and full of charm the effect of the figures and pictures of the earlier phases may be in the freshness of their rendering, still it is far outweighed by the thrill with which the more personal interest of these later compositions grips the imagination ; as though actual life radiated from these fading colours and lines which are rapidly vanishing beneath the hand of Time. A melancholy glamour steals over the solitary beholder, a feeling of awe pervades his senses, which empty words could never convey ; but on the wall of a small lonely house, that of Lucius Cornelius Diadumenos, in the Vicolo del Ealcone Pensile, there is a priceless but little-known picture which inspires these sensations in a peculiar degree. The circular olive - green background, from which the smiling, sunburnt, curly-headed flageolet- player meets our gaze, harmonises well with the red of the wall. But it is not merely a comely Campanian shepherd-boy, playing a reed-pipe, that we have here before us ; nor yet the portrait of 44 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY some contemporary dear to the artist or his patron. To the Pompeian it was the picture of the beauti- ful Olympus, once wooed by Marsyas, or even by Pan himself a story immortalised by the fine marble group at Naples. Here he is alone, but the whole cycle of legend to which he belongs was a living reality to the minds of the age which created the picture, and the man whose wish it was to have it ever before his eyes. And yet, again, this is not merely the hero of an ancient fable, but the incarnate roguishness ofjoie de vivre^ rejoicing in its glamour of love, and seeking in the play of Art a higher revelation a resonant affirmation of its existence. The comprehensive significance of these mythi- cal representations must not be lost sight of. Half poesy, and as such a gospel of natural religion, and half primordial human life, celebrating every day its own regeneration, and in the joy which it begets finding its own nobility such was the function of mythology in Greek art, and all Art is comprised in it. And there is no essential difference in the manner in which the artists of the Renaissance genuine children of Nature in their freshness of perception transfused the blood of their own per- sonal experience into the sacred legends that had been taught them ; ever and again transferring the pious drama to the stage whereon their own parts were played ; transforming the Holy Family into Italians, in a setting of Italian landscape, and casting their own mistresses for the part of the Madonna, and their bosom friends for those of youthful Saints. Naples, Museo Nazionale ZEUS AND HERA POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 45 But genuine Art can do no other. What has once been divinely established as a profound truth of human existence must ever again in fresh form confirm the ancient mystery ; that is the ultimate essence of Art. As symbols of Eternity, compre- hending all human nature, and reflecting it back to ultimate primordial causes, these myths do not by any means support the one-sided logic of the brain. The latter may, in its receptivity, here too observe and anticipate, but has not the task of reconciling deep primaeval associations with the short-lived mosaic of its own ideas. It is only when viewed in this light that Art becomes anything more than mere technical facility, truly undeserving of the sympathy which Humanity, wiser than either practical or abstract book-learning, has ever bestowed on her. Art is either a living natural religion or nothing. An especially prominent part is played in Pompeian art by the Bacchic legendary cycle. Although pre-Olympian, the cult of Bacchus survived under Greek influence even in its older form, which not only exalted joyousness as the true Dionysian spirit, and created for itself important functions in the drama, but also celebrated it in the intoxicated exaltation of humanity to an enraptured union with Divinity itself by wine, by the dance, by music, and by the joys of love. Naturally this older range of emotions, ever resurgent in mystics, from the Persian Sufi to the Christian monk, ac- quired renewed force when the Olympian religion, 46 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY with the decline of Greek influence, decayed at its roots. But as all religions were represented in the Roman world-empire, every single cult was inspired with apprehension at this Bacchanalian recru- descence, and even the arid spirit of the Capitol stamped as an orgy what had hitherto been simply a festival procession : Bacchanalian sensualities were evolved from the commemorative sports of inspired servants of the God. Nevertheless, that which in actual life had so completely lost its significance was re-invested at the hands of Art with all its ancient splendour, its ancient glamour, and shines upon us in untarnished brilliance from the Pompeian walls. Not that there was any lack in Pompeii of that class of minor incidental pictures the object of which is frankly the titillation of the senses ; but, even then, they were almost entirely confined to the places in which we find them houses of ill-fame, long ago transformed from temples of joy, served by priests and priestesses of pleasure, into semi-clandestine abodes of ignoble de- sires. Widely different is the spirit that animates the genuine pictures of the Bacchanalian-erotic cult, and only prudery in search of a pose could take ex- ception to a naked Silenus, or could even consign to seclusion, on the plea of indecency, a painting of such natural refinement as that of Priapus, the God of generation, with his fruit-laden scales, so jealously confined under lock and key in the entrance to the House of the Vettii. The principal hero of these Bacchic paintings i& POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 47 naturally Dionysus himself. We encounter his youthful flower-crowned figure either alone or ac- companied by his panther, and perchance ministering to its thirst ; or leaning upon his favourite Ampelos; or erect in hermaphroditic beauty, while Silenus plays the lyre. Then again we see him approach the sleeping Ariadne, whilst audacious Fauns draw aside her veil ; or else the God and his beloved sweep by in joyous procession. The numerous pictures of Ariadne, which usually depict the boy Eros pointing out to the abandoned maiden the ships of Theseus upon the high seas, also belong, strictly speaking, to this cycle. Around these two principal figures there groups itself the entire Bacchanalian pageant, the Fauns and Bacchantes whose pictured forms mark the elevation of the art of Genii-painting to a higher plane. Rising above the jubilant throng we recog- nise the figures of Pan and Olympus, of whom Pompeii has yielded us two fine representations ; with frank tenderness the youth approaches his lover, sits near him receiving instruction upon the flute, or, as in the marble group at Naples, listens to his words of affection. One picture of Pan and Olympus pos- sessed a pendant, and both adorned a quite ordinary house ; the latter represents the Centaur Chiron in- structing the youthful Achilles in playing the lyre. And this external similarity of form is not the only connecting link between the two pictures ; there is a deeper current of ethical sentiment. Silenus and Dionysus, Pan and Olympus, Chiron and Achilles . . . Socrates and Alcibiades all 48 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY illustrate that great double chord of love and learning which re-echoes through the ages both of myth and of history. The picture of " Achilles and Chiron " is said to have had its origin in an Hellenic marble group which actually stood in Rome opposite to that of " Pan and Olympus." Now it is true that the background of our picture (originally at Hercula- neum) is architecturally conceived as the wall of some interior, before which the two figures stand. But that it could be a mere copy is out of the question. The idea of treating anew a familiar theme may well have been suggested both to artist and patron by the celebrated Roman group, and the execution may also have been influenced by re- miniscences of that group ; but the figure of Achilles is so essentially a creation direct from life, so thorough in perception, and in itself such an excellent artistic achievement, that it could not possibly owe its origin to the brush of any cool, clever copyist, but must undoubtedly be the work of a genuine artist. Farthest removed from the spirit of Hellenic art are those who attempt to flatter it by imitating its external characteristics, when it is only artistic feeling, operating from within, that could ever hope to accomplish kindred work. The easy pose, the graceful attitude of the youth, the turn of the head and the soulful gaze, tell of unbounded affection and trust ; they suggest, and are themselves suggested by, deep feeling. That gaze alone should be sufficient to dispose once for all of the stupid and time-worn assertion POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 49 that Hellenic art created purely physical, and Christian art moral, beauty. If the soul be not in the body, where is it to be found ? And if it were not expressed in the more refined motions of the limbs and features, how should we know that our fellow-men were not all soulless automata ? But the soul is more than mere intellect, or intellectual expression. It is, beyond all, that which gives form, and an attractive, well-propor- tioned, and therefore beautiful figure, in its graceful freedom of movement, indicates a soul full of power and worth, even though it may not be adapted to all relations of life ; such a form, however, is the type and the measure of beauty. The only element of truth in the contention we have men- tioned is, that Christian art was compelled to de- vote a one-sided attention to the soul, because it had been taught to regard the body as an abomi- nation, and thus a soul torn by sorrow, a body shattered by pain, became its fixed criterion of beauty. Hellenism never recognised this unnatural and profane distinction, and the great artists of the Renaissance, taking a lofty standpoint, declined to acknowledge it to our salvation. But the world is still haunted by the mediaeval delusion that beauty of form is but superficial, and ugliness alone is real ; a self-passed encomium on our chaotic, anti-cosmic want of culture. In divers other fashions is the great theme of passion, sacred in the eyes of the ancient world, celebrated in Pompeian paintings. First we have So POMPEII AS AN ART CITY Zeus seated upon Mount Ida, Hera approaching him 5 the picture is unfortunately so mutilated, that the figure of Hera alone testifies to the life and spirit of the whole. Then we see the God in the form of an eagle perched upon a tree, above the beautiful sleeping Ganymede ; or in the likeness of a swan caressed by Leda. As a pendant to the Ganymede, we see another comely sleeper, Endy- mion, approached by crescent-crowned Artemis, descending from the mountains ; a theme frequently repeated. Here Apollo pursues the flying Daphne, or is seated beside his favourite Cyparissus, who laments his wounded stag. Aphrodite stands dis- consolate behind the bleeding Adonis, whose arm is supported by Cupids, who are elsewhere seen binding up with lamentations his wounded thigh. The inward anguish, the consciousness of ap- proaching death, the growing torpor induced by loss of blood, and the innate tender sensibility of the beautiful youth find living expression in his features. The Goddess who here sued in vain we find elsewhere wooed by the caresses of Ares, whom Cupids are despoiling of his weapons. In the " House of Adonis " there was yet another picture expressly representing Adonis as a her- maphrodite, with Aphrodite and her retinue in the act of performing his toilet. His coy repugnance to the advances of the Goddess thus rested on a deeper foundation, at once mystic and biological. And this picture of the hermaphrodite Adonis is in intimate connection with another myth which was especially dear to the Pornpeian that of Nar- POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 51 cissus. This warning, and at the same time ethi- cally significant, legend of the youth who, deaf to all wooing, and fascinated by his own beauty, pined away in self-adoration, and was turned into a flower this admonition against the exclusion of fertile and glowing love, and also loftiest tribute to the supremacy of beauty over the senses, this in- tensely Greek conception of Life, which is so inexhaustible we find it again and again mate- rialised upon Pompeian walls ; rendered in one place with consummate art, and in another without the slightest aesthetic pretensions : in the homes of rich and poor alike : from the hand both of the artist and of the mere mechanic. There sits the beauteous youth upon the rocky shore, gazing down at his own reflection, or leaning upon a stafl, amid clumps of dead-green rushes, he stoops with longing gaze over the water. Occasionally from behind the rocks there peeps the nymph Echo, who, shunned by Narcissus, pursued him with vain ap- peals, and was mocked by the echo of her own voice as he by his own reflection. Or perchance a votive column, entwined with a bright riband, and decked with pious offerings, intensifies the im- pression of loneliness possibly because it reminds the modern observer of the silent, crumbling em- bellishments of Roman villas or ancient castles. He is filled with infinite sorrow for a world that is dead, and at the same time with the conviction that beauty of form is the loftiest and most comprehen- sive ideal, the true cosmic life-object of both Man and Nature, like Eternity so near, and yet so far. 52 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY To the Pompeian the Hellenic world was very much alive. This is proved, quite apart from those subjects taken from sacred mythology, by the numerous representations found on Pompeian walls of scenes out of the great heroic age. The Hellenic legendary cycle reached the Latins at an early date by means of the trade in Greek vases. The pottery of Apulia and Campania re- peated and diffused Hellenic designs, and schooled the Latin idea to the free flow of line characteristic of Hellenic conceptions. The clumsy cinerary urns of the Etruscans show how conversant even they had become with the story of the heroes. Later on, the influence of imported Greek poetry deepened the impression already created, and thus we have small cause for wonder that in a country so strongly Hellenised as Campania the deeds of the heroic age were sufficiently familiar to find a place among the subjects of mural decorations. We encounter Hercules as a child strangling the serpents, bringing the Erymanthian boar to the cowardly Eurystheus, or standing beside Deianira and threatening with his club the Centaur Nessus, who vehemently protests his innocence. Orpheus sings his lays in the mountains, and the wild beasts listen, spell-bound. Theseus stands beside the slain bull-headed Minotaur, and the released victims kiss his hand a picture often repeated ; or else he is finding his father's sword. Hermes puts Argus, the watcher of lo, to sleep (at Herculaneum) ; lo lands in Egypt, received by Isis. Perseus frees Andromeda. Medea meditates the murder of her Photo. Brogi Naples, Museo Nazionale ARES AND APHRODITE POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 53 children, who are playing beside her, or broods over her lot, the sword pressed to her breast, while her features are distorted by conflicting emotions gnawing resentment, dark forebodings of the crime which obtrudes its horrid suggestion upon her, and terror at her own dread resolve. We see the torment of Ixion, the cruel punishment of Dirce, and the fate of Icarus. Actaeon is torn to pieces, Pasiphae with Daedalus admires the bull, and Leda shows Tyndareus a nest with the infant children of Zeus. But above all the Iliad, with its related sagas, bears evidence of the personal interest taken by the Pompeians in the Hellenic past. One of their finest paintings depicts the departure of Chryseis from the tent of Agamemnon. The latter sits with averted countenance, while the maiden's gaze is fixed on the distance, and her cheeks reflect the inward anguish aroused by the cruel necessity of deciding between the conflicting claims of her lover and the father to whose arms the ship now waiting at the shore is to bear her. Had nothing else been preserved to us of Greek painting but the charming flush of modesty mantling this maiden's cheeks, and the head of Achilles in the picture of Chiron, we should still possess sufficient evidence of the loftiness of its spiritual conceptions. Another picture, once a companion work to the last in the so-called " House of the Tragic Poet," shows Briseis carried away from Achilles. Then we have a fragment apparently representing Patro- clus beseeching Achilles for permission to fight : 54 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY the only portion completely preserved is the seated figure of the latter, but the expression of those noble features, surveying the world with a gaze of such profound penetration, endows the picture with a high degree of merit. Once more we encounter Achilles, as he is being recognised by Ulysses in female attire in the company of Deidameia 5 the identity of the youthful hero is indicated by the figures of himself and Chiron upon the shield which he has grasped. We see Ulysses himself, unrecog- nised by Penelope, giving the latter news of her missing spouse. In conclusion, since it is impos- sible to enumerate all, only the legend of Orestes need be mentioned. Here we have Iphigenia sacrificed and rescued, Orestes recognised by Elec- tra, Orestes and Pylades in the presence of Thoas, whose hands are rendered with intelligence and refinement. In this picture one of the youths, with woebegone, downcast gaze, resigns himself to the death that will bring him deliverance ; while his companion, daring and indomitable, still clings to the hope of saving both himself and his friend. And the great Mosaic of Alexander shows not only how the prehistoric myths of Hellas had established a firm hold upon Pompeian sentiment, but also that the latter brilliant episodes of her history were regarded by the Pompeians with sympathy and veneration. Like that momentous day, big with the fate of nations, when the Macedonian decided the issue of the heroic struggle carried on for ages against the Persian yoke by the Greeks whom -he had brought under his sway, and diffused Hellenic POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 55 culture throughout the barbarian world ; to the ruin of Hellenism itself for its life-blood ebbed away with the glories of its heirs and successors, far from the heart of its parent land, amidst the court ceremonial of lesser nations but to the inex- haustible blessing and advantage of the rest of humanity. The art which confers such especial value upon Pompeii in the eyes of our own age is that of her mural paintings. There, on the spot that gave them birth, and with which their existence is almost inex- tricably interwoven, they provide ocular demonstra- tion of that which was near and dear to the spirit of the Pompeians. Nevertheless this reflection of their artistic sense would be incomplete apart from the plastic creations which found their home at Pompeii. These, it is true, unlike the wall-paintings, are movable, and there can thus be no conclusive evi- dence that the origin of any single " find " was in any way connected with the spot on which it may have been discovered ; it would be as easy to bring it thither as it has been to remove it. Neverthe- less, collectively, this treasure-trove proves wherein the pleasures of Pompeii consisted, and it is in a people's pleasures that its essential character is re- vealed. The works of plastic art that have come to light at Pompeii are almost all of small dimensions. The beautiful life-size bronzes of " Mercury Reposing," the " Drunken Faun," and the " Runners," and also the marble group of but also to the ethical sentiment 74 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY of the ancients, it was inevitable that the build- ings devoted to the purpose should be artistically decorated ; but with graceful refinement not with ponderous magnificence. Thus in one of the men's baths the niches for depositing clothes are separated by athletic figures of Atlas. Thus, too, in the Frigidarium of the Terme del Foro, beneath the vaulting there runs a frieze in white stucco on a red ground, representing a race ; upon the walls flowers are painted, and birds flutter amongst the rushes, as though the place were in the open greenwood. In the damper apartments pictures are judiciously replaced by stucco reliefs, and we find the vaulting of the vestibules, dressing and bath rooms adorned with charming figures of Genii. The perpendicular portions of the wall display, as in the private houses, architectural designs, which are here in relief; while between the pillars, garlands, and trophies we encounter Fauns, or a Prometheus in chains, or Ganymede with the Olympian Eagle. But the Palestra once the scene of merriment and the arena of feats of strength, now but a quiet court is of the highest charm. The sanded floor is there, but no joyous figures now animate it, as they vie one with the other at putting the weight. The altar of Hermes still stands there, but the image of the God has vanished, and were it still in its place there would be none to deck it with garlands. The anointing-chamber now hears no boasting of triumphant athletes, and in the swimming-bath the splashing and the laughter are stilled. The bright and animated paintings upon the walls are fading POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 75 under exposure to the weather, and in the colon- nades the dreamer only catches a ghostly echo of that lively camaraderie, which here disported itself wisely, untrammelled by deceptive clothing. It was here that the body was developed, and together with it the soul, in healthy freedom of sentiment, and that fresh spirit of earth which finds its affinity in the blue sunlit sky. It was from the spirit here incul- cated that the ancient world derived the serenity it displayed in living and dying. He who had spent his life thus his spiritual personality untrammelled, his physical beauty cultivated and developed quitted this life as though leaving the dinner-table when the meal was over. u Stoicism" is an inadequate name for this spirit of the ancients. Although some tyrants may have quailed at the prospect of dissolution, the death of the voluptuary Petronius shows that even such late votaries of Bacchanalian revelry knew how to die with dignity : how much more, then, might it be expected of the great majority, whose lives had been marked by no such excesses ? To them the fear of Death was unknown, because they had never been afraid of Life. And when the bitterness of existence had been subdued into cheerfulness by an heroic moderation an honoured grave awaited the dead without the gate. In Life the Pompeian was his own master ; in Death he belonged to the community. When his feet no longer trod the familiar path homewards from the Theatre, the Forum, or the Baths, his resting-place was by the public highroad. With 76 POMPEII AS AN ART CITY awed solemnity were the dead sequestered from the neighbourhood of the living ; but before long the living themselves invaded their quiet solitudes. The city outgrew her walls, and the bustling life of the outside world the traffic with the green country and its fields and plantations passed be- tween the serried ranks of graves. There stood the monuments of notable citizens, the stately tombs of the wealthy, the family sepulchres, where the urns of a whole generation and its retainers found a resting-place ; while immediately above ground appeared those memorial stones to which the ancients gave the name of Cippus, shaped like a human head, but devoid of features one of the most primitive forms of sculpture. A walled court is the property of a College of priests the modern Italian arclconfraternita. In front of some of the graves stands a semicircular stone bench for the use of surviving relatives ; but it also invites the wander- ing stranger to repose, if the large public shelters should happen to be occupied. And these tombs are eloquent of that living tide of humanity which ebbed so long ago of the offices it once filled, the honours it bore, the benefits it conferred. It is re- corded in relief upon one seat that the dead man once possessed the distinction of the biselliurn^ or double seat of honour, at the Theatre ; a vessel with swelling sails is perhaps a memento of bold com- mercial venture; an inscription by Naevoleia Tyche dedicates the grave to herself and her freedmen, and testifies to the humane spirit prevailing even in a slave-holding " times. Among ourselves, indeed, POMPEII AS AjF'ART -Cl-TY' 77 there are now none but free men, who may do as they will except honestly live their own lives. And yet no ghosts of famine-stricken souls rise from Pompeian tombs to rail against a hard-hearted world ; the Street of Tombs without the gates of Pompeii is no standing reproach, but, rather, a becoming finish to that life which wrought and enjoyed amidst cheerfulness and beauty within its walls, which added to the treasures of Art and of Life, and piously offered them upon the altar of the Powers of Nature. Deeply as we commiserate the tragic fate of the Pompeians so suddenly annihilated, we can still, with the egotism of the living, analyse the course of events which terminated in the utter destruction of Pompeii, overwhelmed by oceans of ashes and mountains of pumice-stone in the latter part of the first century of our era. Two centuries earlier the greater portion of the treasures of Greek art still remained on its native soil ; but very shortly after that date, as the result of great forays for plunder and of voyages for trad- ing purposes, there began to arrive in Italy those Greek sculptures which brought with them the true Hellenic spirit, and therewith speedily fer- tilised Latin life. Manifested in Rome, where Art never really took root, merely in works of superficial brilliance, Hellenism inspired the art of rugged, but characteristic, Etruria to achievements of a more pleasing type and in later ages the Renaissance at least joined hands with the ancient , AN ART CITY tradition of technique. Hellenic influence, how- ever, was most beneficial in the almost purely Greek district of Neapolis Parthenopeia, where it had already long operated, and which thus became the field of all the progress made by civilisation during the last century before Christ. Had Pompeii perished then, in the time of Augustus, we could have formed no opinion as to whether Hellenism, at all events on the spot where it had once taken root and undergone modification by Roman and local influences, could survive the heavy test of Roman Caesarism. We can now be certain upon this point, for Pompeii displays in all its average relations the joyous con- ception of Life characteristic of the Antique to use once more that inaccurate collective term, in describ- ing Greek and non-Greek civilisation in organic connection. Already the death-watch was ticking in the patched-up walls of the Roman State : behind the religious Carnival of all the faiths the spectre of the Christian Ash Wednesday arose. Not far from Pompeii, where the Temple of Apis and Osiris stood in Puteoli, near the Serapeum of Puzzuoli, there had landed the great Scribe of Tarsus, Paul the Loyola of primitive Christianity, who transformed the original tidings of great joy, newly born with Christ, proclaiming Man as the child of God, back into a tyrannical ordinance of self-abnegation a Pretorian of religion. At Rome the first Christians speedily fell victims to a frenzied orgy erf persecution. Another hundred years, and POMPEII AS AN ART CITY 79 Pompeii would have possessed Churches and Catacombs, Bishops and Martyrs, and the spirit of Christianity would here too have commenced to depreciate by imitation the works of joyous Pagan Art ; from depreciation would have passed to disfigurement, and from disfigurement to libel. But, as it is, Pompeii offers us the picture of an original Civilisation, untouched by Christianity; which, however many worldly imperfections and human defects it might display, was nevertheless free from the great inward reproach that is the canker of our own age. Pompeii calls back to us a day in the late summer of the ingenuous ancient world. When she vanished from the face of the earth that ancient world yet lived, and the humane Emperor Titus held sway therein. But the mixture of civilisation and blood which formed the atmosphere of the Roman Empire was already far too widely diffused to admit of the maintenance of more than a mere phantom of the harmonious life of old. Precisely fifty years later, with the days of Hadrian, the history of that ancient world drew to its close. Antinous was its last real Divinity, and that less by Imperial decree than owing to the melancholy charm of his youthful figure. As a matter of fact, Theodosius was the first ruler to close the temples, but Marcus Aurelius was almost a Christian. How melancholy is the expression of all his portraits ! how weary is his hair-splitting self-introspection ever questioning, and despairing at the answers ! The Roman Empire had effectually prepared the way for that of Jehovah j go POMPEII AS AN ART CITY blind obedience was now the instinct of a world from which individuality had been eliminated. As in all periods of transition, the ancient spirit once more flared up passionately in revolt this time in the Bacchic worship of the hermaphrodite upon the Imperial throne, Heliogabalus, of whom only lately has an impartial estimate been formed. Next, Decius saw in Christianity a foe to be en- countered on equal terms, and Constantine signed, together with his decree of toleration, the abdication of defeated Paganism. Of all this turmoil, of all this strife, Pompeii has naught to tell us. Within her shattered walls we see neither the Christian idea distorted into carica- ture nor Paganism in its dotage. Her resurrec- tion reveals the calm serenity of an ingenuous and a beautiful world. A ruin, indeed perhaps a mere torso ! but, shattered and crumbling, still a work of the highest art of that Art which is Life. LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. DUE AS STAMPED BELOW AUTO DISC DEC 2n '88 If UL 01 2007 ~Utr ^1 rk JAff L HOV 2 9 tK FT CIRCULATION DEPT. NOV 2! |jfi5 ?' FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 YB 17655 45677? UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY