My aim has not been to create yet another survey of Greek sculpture - there are enough excellent specimens of that already available - or indeed to be confined by the strictures of a survey at all. For this reason the criterion for the selection of works to be discussed could not be to illustrate regional schools or the careers of individual sculptors or the range of motifs in use. Rather my criterion was to show fundamental aspects of Four Elements thinking found to be incorporated in the ever-changing renderings of human form executed by a long-lasting race of gifted sculptors. My ultimate goal is to add another dimension to the style historical analysis generally practiced nowadays by art historians or, more specifically, by critics of Greek art. That analysis generally proceeds on an empirical basis and I saw the possibility of underpinning this with some factors arising out of a study of Greek philosophy. This in itself is no startling innovation, given the contemporary trend to multi-disciplinary studies in various fields.
However, in this particular case there might be very limited value in simply lining up in parallel columns the stock materials of two experts. I felt that the inherent dynamic quality of Greek achievement would have to be appreciated and commingled in one mind applying itself to more than one narrow subdiscipline of Classical studies. The vital clue arose in the realization - not itself original, of course, but experienced vividly - that early Greek philosophy is de facto Greek science also (and the beginning of science as we know it) and that Late Classical philosophy is also Greek psychology in so far as it can be said to have existed. This situation gave me the two poles which are discussed in the Introduction (Four Elements philosophy and faculty psychology); the resulting necessity to relate these poles to the artistic tradition led me to results that constantly confirmed my intuitions.
A preface is normally the place to express gratitude to specific people and institutions for support and assistance in carrying out the project being presented. This has already been done in the preface to Greek Color Theory and the Four Elements, the companion volume of this study, and I refer the reader to that and also to the credits in the present volume.
Abbreviations follow Select Bibliography except some explained within the List of Figures.
| Fig. 1 | Bronze statuette Metropolitan Museum, New York: Herakles (?) and Centaur. 8th century B.C. |
| Fig. 2 | Bronze horse Antikenmuseum Berlin 8th century B.C. H.0.16. |
| Fig. 3a-b | Bronze Statuette Museum of Fine Arts Boston: Apollo (votive of Mantiklos). H.0.20 Early 7th century B.C. |
| Fig. 4 | Ivory panel of bed-head Baghdad(?) Figure grasping palmetto-tree. From Nimrud Later 8th century B.C. M. Mallowan, Nimrud and its Remains v. II (London 1966) fig. 391. |
| Fig. 5 | Bronze statuette NM Delphi Mid-7th century B.C. H.0.20. |
| Fig. 6 | Limestone statue NM Cairo: Ranufer Ca. 2500 B.C. |
| Fig. 7 | Marble kouros Metropolitan Museum, New York, Ca. 620 B.C. G. Richter 1969, Fig. 54. |
| Fig. 8 | Marble kore Pergamon Museum Berlin Ca. 580 B.C. G. Richter 1969, Fig. 66. |
| Fig. 9 | Marble kouros NM Athens from Anavysos Ca. 530/525 B.C. G. Richter 1969, Fig. 85. |
| Fig. 10 | Attic blackfigure amphora Vatican Museum: Achilles and Ajax. Ca. 530 B.C. E. Buschor, Die griechischen Vasen (Munich 1940) fig. 130. |
| Fig. 11 | Opposite side of fig 10 with Return of the Dioskouroi. Ca. 570 B.C. |
| Fig. 12 | Marble panel North frieze of Treasury of the Siphnians, Delphi: (detail, gods and giants). Ca. 525 B.C. H.0.64. |
| Fig. 13 | Identification as fig.12. |
| Fig. 14 | Marble statuary East pediment of Old Athena Temple, Acropolis: Athena and Giant. 520-510 B.C. H.2.0 G. Richter 1969, fig. 107. |
| Fig. 15 | Marble panel (detail) NM Athens: base of athlete's statue 510-500 B.C. H.0.317. G. Richter 1969, fig. 109. |
| Fig. 16 | Attic redfigure kylix (detail) MvWagner Museum inv. 1479 Würzburg: comast and hetaira; attributed to the Brygos Painter. 500-480 B.C. pl. 154. |
| Fig. 17 | Marble metope (no. 21) Treasury of the Athenians, Delphi 500-480 B.C. After de la Coste Messelière, Fouilles de Delphes IV, 4 (Paris 1957) pl. 60. |
| Fig. 18 | Marble statuary Glyptothek Munich from Aphaia Temple, Aigina. 500-480 B.C. D. Ohly 1976, pl. 73. |
| Fig. 19 | Attic redfigure kylix (detail) Staatliche Museen Berlin inv. 2309: satyrs cavorting; attributed to the Dokimasia Painter "perhaps 480". |
| Fig. 20 | Attic redfigure kantharos (detail) Musees Royaux de l'Archeologie et d'Historie, Brussels A718: Herakles and Amazons. 490/480 B.C. |
| Fig. 21 | Attic redfigure belly amphora (detail) Staatliche Museen Berlin F 2159: scene of wrestling. Ca. 525-520. |
| Fig. 22 | Marble kouros NM Athens from Ptoon (no. 20). 515-500 B.C. H.1.03. G. Richter 1970(2), fig. 450. |
| Fig. 23 | Marble kouros NM Athens no. 3686 from Keos. 530-525 B.C. H. "overlife-size" G. Richter 1970(2), fig. 419. |
| Fig. 24 | Back view of fig. 23. G. Richter 1970(2), fig. 422. |
| Fig. 25 | Back view of fig. 22. G. Richter 1970(2), fig. 451. |
| Fig. 26 | Marble kouros Acropolis Museum no. 692 from Athens. 500-480 B.C. H.0.87. G. Richter 1970(2), fig. 464. |
| Fig. 27 | Back view of fig. 26. Richter 1970(2), fig. 465. |
| Fig. 28 | Bronze statuette NM Athens no. 6445 from Athens. 500-480 B.C. H.0.273. G. Richter 1970(2), fig. 474. |
| Fig. 29 | Back view of fig. 28. Richter 1970(2) fig. 475. |
| Fig. 30 | Bronze kouros Louvre Paris from sea at Piombino. 500-480 B.C. (?). H.1.15. M. Collingnon I, p. 312. |
| Fig. 31 | Marble kouros Acropolis Museum no. 698 ("Kritios Boy"). Ca. 480 B.C. H.0.86. |
| Fig. 32 | Side view of fig. 31. |
| Fig. 33 | Attic redfigure Panathenaic amphora (detail) MvWagner Museum Würzburg (from Vulci): Herakles; by the Berlin Painter. 500-490 B.C. |
| Fig. 34 | Attic redfigure neck amphora (detail) Harrow School (England): satyr; by the Kleophrades Painter 500-490 B.C. J. Boardman 1975, fig. 140. |
| Fig. 35 | Attic redfigure cup (detail) Berlin Staatliche Museen inv. 2269 from Chiusi; lovers; by the Kiss Painter. 500-480 B.C. |
| Fig. 36 | Attic redfigure belly amphora (detail) MvWagner Museum Würzburg: warrior's return; by the Kleophrades Painter. 500-490 B.C. Furtwängler-Reichhold. Griechische Vasenmalerei: Auswahl hervorragender Vasenbilder. (Munich 1909) pl. 113 |
| Fig. 37 | Another scene from the foregoing: revellers. |
| Fig. 38 | Marble statue NM Naples: Roman copy of Doryphoros of Polykeitos. Original: Ca. 440 B.C. H.2.12. |
| Fig. 39 | Repeats fig. 31 |
| Fig. 40 | Bronze statue NM Delphi: charioteer. 480-470 B.C. H.1.80. |
| Fig. 41 | Marble statue NM Olympia: Oinomaos from east pediment. Ca. 470 B.C. H.2.95. |
| Fig. 42 | Marble statue NM Olympia: Apollo from west pediment. Ca. 460 B.C. H. |
| Fig. 43 | Marble metope NM Olympia Zeus Temple: Augean Stables. 470-460 B.C. H.1.60. Yalouris, Olympia, fig. 202. |
| Fig. 44 | Marble metope NM Olympia Zeus Temple: Apples of the Hesperides. 470-460 B.C. H.1.60. |
| Fig. 45 | Marble kouros NM Athens no. 45: Omphalos Apollo (Roman copy). Original: 460-450 B.C. H.1.77. M. Collingnon I, fig. 15. |
| Fig. 46 | Bronze statue NM Reggio di Calabria: bearded man. 460-450 B.C. |
| Fig. 47 | Repeats fig. 38. |
| Fig. 48 | Marble metope British Museum London Parthenon no. 31: Lapith and centaur 450-440 B.C. H.1.48. |
| Fig. 49 | Marble panel NM Athens: Eleusinian votive relief. 440-430 B.C. H.2.40. M. Collingnon I, fig. 68. |
| Fig. 50 | Marble statue NM Athens: "Diadoumenos" (Roman copy). 420-410 B.C. H.1.86. E. von Mach, Greek Sculpture (Boston 1903) pl. XXII fig. 3 |
| Fig. 51 | Marble statues Erechtheion Athens: "Karyatids" 420-410 B.C. H.2.31. |
| Fig. 52 | Marble panel British Museum London: from frieze of Apollo Temple at Phigaleia: Amazonomachy. 410-400 B.C. H.0.64. |
| Fig. 53 | Marble grave relief NM Athens inv. 3624: Hegeso. 410-400 B.C. H.1.49. M. Collingnon I, pl. IV. |
| Fig. 54 | Marble statue Staatliche Museen Munich: Eirene and Ploutos (Roman copy). Original: 380-370 B.C. H.1.99. W. R. Biers AG, fig. 9-9. |
| Fig. 55 | Marble statue NM Olympia: Hermes and Dionysos. Ca. 350 B.C. H.2.13. W. R. Biers AG, fig. 9-20. |
| Fig. 56 | Bronze statue NM Athens from Piraeus: Athena. Ca. 350 B.C. |
| Fig. 57 | Marble panel British Museum London from Halikarnassos: Amazonomachy no. 1022 ascribed to Timotheos. Ca. 350 B.C. H.0.89. |
| Fig. 58 | Marble grave stele NM Athens from Ilissos. 350-340 B.C. H.1.68. M. Collingnon (1911), fig. 82. |
| Fig. 59 | Marble panel NM Athens from Mantineia: three muses. Ca. 375 B.C. M. Collingnon (1911), p. 192. |
| Fig. 60 | Marble statue Metropolitan Museum, NY: wounded Amazon (Roman Copy, probably after Polykleitos) Ca. 440-430 B.C. G. Richter 1969, fig. 163. |
| Fig. 61 | Bronze statue NM Athens from Cape Artemision: god with missile. 470-460 B.C. H.2.09. |
| Fig. 62 | Marble statue Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: Maenad after Skopas (Roman copy). 350-340 B.C. |
| Fig. 63 | Marble statue Agora Museum Athens: akroterion from Stoa of Zeus. 410-400 B.C. |
| Fig. 64 | Marble grave stele Kerameikos Museum Athens: Dexileos. Ca. 390 B.C. H.1.75. M. Collingnon I, fig. 89. |
| Fig. 65 | Marble statue NM Delphi: Agias. 350-340 B.C. H.1.97. |
| Fig. 66 | Marble statue Vatican Museum: Scraper by Lysippos (Roman copy). 340-330 B.C. H.2.05 E. von Mach, fig. 16 (opp. p. 290). |
| Fig. 67 | Bronze statuette Louvre Paris: Alexander with the lance. 330-300 B.C. |
| Fig. 68 | Marble statue Vatican Museum: Apollo Belvedere attributed to Leochares (Roman copy). Original: 330-300 B.C. H.2.24. M. Collingnon I, fig. 161. |
| Fig. 69 | Bronze statue Galerie Beyeler Basel "Homme qui marche" 1980 H.1.82. "Alberto Giacometti" by Alexander Watt in Studio International Art January 1964 p.24. (Priam Publications London). |
| Fig. 70 | Wooden statue Egyptian Museum Cairo Ka'aper from Sakkara. Ca. 2400 B.C. H.1.10. H. Schaefer and W. Andrae, Die Kunst des Alten Orients (1928) p. 239L. |
| Fig. 71 | Gilded wooden statuette Egyptian Museum Cairo Tutankhamen as Horus from Sakkara. 1340 B.C. H.0.695. |
| Fig. 72 | Bronze statuette Metropolitan Museum NY Herakles from Arkadia Ca. 530 B.C. H.0.12. |
| Fig. 73 | Bronze statuette Staatliche Museen Berlin (West) Zeus from Dodona. Ca. 460 B.C. H.0.138. |
| Fig. 74 | Limestone metope NM Delphi Cattle theft by heroes from monopteros of Sikyon. Ca. 560 B.C. H.0.58. |
| Fig. 75 | Marble coffin NM Istanbul the "Alexander Sarcophagus" 320-300 B.C. G. Richter SSG, fig. 748. |
| Fig. 76 | Marble statue Lateran Museum Rome Sophokles 335-330 B.C. M. Collingnon I, fig. 178. |
| Fig. 77 | Marble statue Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek Copenhagen: Demosthenes (Roman Copy) 300-280 B.C. H.2.07. G. Richter SSG, fig. 757. |
| Fig. 78 | Marble Statue NM Rome: Gaul and wife 230-200 B.C. H. 2.11. M. Collingnon I, fig. 258. |
| Fig. 79 | Marble panel Pergamon Museum Berlin: Athena and Giants from Altar of Pergamon. 230-200 B.C. H.2.30. M. Collingnon I, fig. 272. |
| Fig. 80 | Marble statue Capitoline Museum Rome: drunken woman. 2nd - 1st century B.C. H.0.92. |
| Fig. 81 | Marble statue Louvre Paris: "Borghese Warrior". 2nd - 1st century B.C. H.1.55. M. Bieber 1961, fig. 688. |
| Fig. 82 | Marble statue Louvre Paris: Aphrodite of Melos 2nd - 1st century B.C. H.2.04. M. Bieber 1961, fig. 674. |
| Fig. 83 | Marble statue NM Naples: Orestes and Elektra. 2nd - 1st century B.C. H.1.50. M. Collingnon I, fig. 347. |
| Ill. 1 | Weight of air |
| Ill. 2 | Development of contrapposto in the three-dimensional figure |
| Ill. 3 | Development of contrapposto in relief composition |
| Ill. 3bis | Cross-balance between light and gravity |
| Ill. 4 | Macrocosmic processes |
| Ill. 5 | Microcosmic processes |
I wish to acknowledge the generous cooperation of the following persons in establishing the illustrations in this volume:
Halil Oezek (Istanbul); Alain Pasquier (Paris); Stephano de Caro (Naples); Dr. Dyfri Williams (London); Drssa Anna Somala Mura (Rome); Dr. Irma Wehgarten (Wuerzburg); Kalliope Christophis (Athens); Prof. Dr. Klaus Fittschen (Athens); Dr. Mohamed Abdul Shimy (Cairo)
Since the "discovery" of Greek sculpture by Winckelmann, it has been customary to study that sculpture for influences going to and from it, for its stages of development, and for intentions ascribable to its creators. Starting with Winckelmann himself, connoisseurs and scholars have more or less continuously written interpretations of those factors, often in the form of histories, from a particular vantage point. My interpretation necessarily builds upon that tradition, using the results of analyses of technical problems connected with various sculptural creations, that being typically the focus of scholarly studies. However, my interest in the subject goes well beyond that. It is my belief that all Greeks, not merely sculptors, oriented themselves in the world by means of a deeply underlying mythos - a set of attitudes towards the outside world of nature and the inside world of thought and feeling - contained in one inspired system which was eventually organized in the so-called philosophy of the Four Elements. This constitutes the culmination of the work of the "Ionian School".
By "mythos" here I am now referring to the factor that makes Greek sculpture the unique thing it is: the "Greekness" which is anterior to whatever influences may have impinged on it from the outside world, that is, from a revival of Bronze Age traditions or from Aegypto-Near East traditions. Important as influences are, the very selectivity of Greek artists in using them and, above all, the way they are transformed into something dynamically different, indicate that there is a mythos in operation. It remained for native philosophers eventually to give it verbal formulation.
In a companion volume entitled Greek Color Theory and the Four Elements I have presented in detail my conception of the Four Elements as a scientific hypothesis. It is not feasible to reintroduce that here (although some diagrams referred to in the present text are given in Appendix A). However, it is appropriate to give a few indications of my thinking. The key factor is the invaluable information - implied almost casually by a late commentator - that both Empedokles and Demokritos considered that each of the four elements had its own color - out of a field of black, white, red and yellow. But which goes with which is not given. Using density of the elements as a criterion made it possible to assign the colors to their respective elements and then to compare the results with the ancient testimonia and color usage on objects with figural painting.
To a small extent the information about colors obtained in the way described can be applied to sculptured figures; in practice, however, that is difficult because color that may once have been applied to Greek sculpture has largely disappeared, leaving, as it were, pure form. Regrettable as this is for us, it may be some consolation that sculptors had to be independently oriented to the aesthetics of pure form while they "liberated" the figures they were envisioning from the marble or limestone block. And, since those figures were to a great extent the nude male body, generation after generation, they present the opportunity to think about stages of development. This has, of course, often been done but generally without reference to color and largely in anatomical terms. What now remains to do is to discover how changes in the conception of the body, especially of stance, are related to the central mythos of the four elements. That is, in essence, the theme of the present study.
It would not, however, be possible to connect the stages of development of sculpture with the elements without taking into account a factor which seems rarely even to be pointed out, or at least clearly explained, by historians of science. In the present context it must on the contrary be emphasized as the connecting link: fire, air, water and earth were conceived of in both a macrocosmic form (the world) and a microcosmic form (an organism). A compatible essence and structure in world and organisms is the basis of perfect symbiosis and a sure ground for cognition; this is similar in principle to the more advanced ecological thinking of our own century. Given the closeness to nature which was inevitable in the non-technological world, and the specific Greek tendency to pursue thought systematically - culminating in the formulation of the rules of logic by Aristotle - the macro/micro character of the fundamental Greek mythos should not be surprising.
Nevertheless, looking away from the principle of mythos and from the idea of stages of development to the actual functioning of those stages, that is, the way they progress, one is confronted with a rather complex situation. No commentator on Greek sculpture ever neglects stance; it would be impossible to overlook the slow progression from the Archaic static equilibrium to the creation of true contrapposto in mid-fifth century and the resulting experiments from it. However, the tendency has been to study that progression on the basis of anatomy and technique. Extraordinary acumen has been lavished from that angle on the statues and fragments now existing. For a few scholars, however, the psychological implications rather than the bodily mechanics of the various stances have seemed a burning issue. Yet the complications and difficulties in making that connection are so daunting that opinions or theories, if expressed at all in writing, have been cautious or even veiled in ambiguous terms. Thus, not much attention has been paid to this factor - quite understandably, given the sketchiness of such concepts and the temper of our age.
It has seemed to me that there must be a way to put this matter on a firm, or at least a discussable, basis. What is needed is a paradigm, most particularly one that does not impose the purely modern, materialistic view of human consciousness on the progression. The appropriate paradigm should in some sense run parallel to impulses that would be discernible in the incipient, barely existent discipline of psychology that was forming in the minds of Plato and Aristotle (that phenomenon is discussed in Chapter I). My researches did discover such a modern paradigm, as given in Appendix B, even though it seems to be little more than a note for future reference never activated by its author. Wilhelm Dilthey. Yet it exists in his published writings and it sums up in a finished, balanced, rhythmical way the ideal functioning of the three basic faculties of the human ego; thinking, feeling and willing. That concept floated in the air, so to speak, of German Idealism and its aftermath. It is, I feel, the last afterglow of two millenia of a rational/religious view of reality before it was replaced by a rationalistic/ mechanistic conception of the world.
From the latter conception emerged the popular view of the universe as a vast, indifferent mechanism and the human being as a fortuitous assemblage of chemicals. While that is not necessarily the view of every scientist who has contributed to the sum of knowledge and, indeed, in view of the staggering scientific discoveries of the later 20th century it has become increasingly suspect and even irrational to increasing numbers of contemporaries, including scientists, nevertheless its impact went deep into 20th century consciousness.
On that basis the question might readily arise: how is it possible that an apparently arbitrary (though certainly not illogical) rhythmical scheme of overlapping, repetitive psychic functions can be applied to works of Greek artists over some hundreds of years of unbroken creativity?
The answer may be twofold. First, it cannot be applied abstractly as an explanation of the behavior of Greek artists, but only in connection with their experiencing of a mythos (see above, Introduction, paragraph 2). Second, it can be considered on its own merits only apart from a widespread prejudicial conviction that history is totally untidy, a more or less chaotic series of unforeseeable events based on a mechanical cause-and-effect series too complicated to be knowable. It may readily be granted that this seems to explain, or at least fit, the world since about mid-19th century; however, it may be less appropriate for the pre-industrial world. One can trace an increasingly chaotic state of world events from the inception of an ever growing and finally completely uncontrollable technology that draws all life in its train. The tenor of life will have been quite different in earlier times when, for the most part, civilization consisted of farms and villages. In the case of ancient Greece it has been argued recently (V. D. Hanson, The Other Greeks, passim) that even in the most advanced polis (Athens) agriculture shaped and determined the pace and direction of political and economic development. Nowhere more than in agriculture are the principles of intuition and of rhythmical, repetitive processes determinative - with resulting conservative attitudes that value stability over rapid change. While the central town contrasts with the rural setting in some ways, it is noteworthy that the craft of ceramics in Athens can be characterized with the same words: intuition, rhythmical and repetitive processes and techniques, conservative in style, tenacious in use of motifs and themes. Mutatis mutandis these words also apply to Greek sculpture. In fact, an unsympathetic modern observer might ask why it took so many decades and generations to go from A to B. Yet it is the remarkable stability of, and continuity of, Greek artistic concepts that made them models for later cultures.
On the foregoing basis, the intuitive scheme of Dilthey, offered to the world unconditionally in connection with his concept of Weltanschauung, may have the potential to contribute to our understanding of the way Greek art developed. However, I must make it clear that this study was not written to justify Dilthey's theory. On the contrary, what appears in the following chapters was already to a considerable extent worked out in my courses and research without its application. Nevertheless, once that took place, I discovered - for myself at least - a hitherto unsuspected poignancy in the relation of form and content in Greek art. It seems, therefore, appropriate to suggest briefly the place of Dilthey in 19th century intellectual history.
Undeniably the fabric of present-day thinking is woven through with many strands from three enormously powerful influences: the work of Isaac Newton and his successors in physics, the ideas of Charles Darwin on the physical evolution of species, and the theories of Sigmund Freud as the discoverer of the realm of the subconscious.
In the interpretation of Greek art it is therefore not a question of bringing these particular influences to the forefront of our consciousness; they are already there and indeed have been used rather consciously in discussing such things as Greek science and Greek sexuality. Behind these influences implicitly and explicitly is the legacy of 19th century scientism with its professed ideals of neutrality and verifiability. In the 20th century it has become clear from life itself that these ideals leave much to individual, and all too frequently arbitrary, interpretation. A broadening of this frame of reference is, therefore, not unreasonable, if done carefully and with a specific purpose. Indeed, this is not only theoretically possible but also justifiable because, after all, the tenets and presuppositions of our secular, materialistic world were not - and could not have been - those of the ancient Greeks themselves.
The premise of this book, therefore, is to take into account another sphere of (human) consciousness which, in the late 19th and into the 20th century, was very much an important cultural factor and, in fact, one which has continued to be a powerful, if not always so obvious, force shaping the world's destiny. I refer to what is called - not happily in every ramification - the Romantic Movement, in a broad interpretation of which I would include, on the one hand, such things as German idealism, the scientific work of Goethe, hermeticism, alchemy - itself a progeny of Four Elements philosophy - and Platonism, and then on the other hand such things as American transcendentalism, the arts and crafts movement, and the beginnings of ecological awareness opposing the ruthless exploitation of natural resources around the world. Painters like John J. Enneking and planners like Frederick Olmstead involved themselves in this aspect of the urbanization of Boston and can serve as examples of what I mean. A conflict of seemingly irreconcilable values arose and has continued to carry through into every phase of public and private life, not stopping at the doors of humanistic scholarship. The actuality of the Romantic Movement, just as of that of the tradition of scientism - both in innumerable variations and adaptations - down to our present time is indisputable.
The Romantic thought stream carries on to a degree impulses of the Renaissance that in their turn were derived from the traditions of the ancient world. This orientation was, of course, increasingly pushed aside as a result of the Enlightenment and the euphoria of a new scientific vision which, it was thought, would at last solve all the persistent social and economic problems of the world. Much of this promise has indeed been fulfilled - but at a cost - already foreseen by the Romantics - which now poses serious threats to a secure future for the world.
Inevitable as this development may have been, there may be a gain at this very point in attempting to complement methods (attitudes) that are indebted to Newton-Darwin-Freud (among others) with some serious attention to insights characteristic of the Romantic direction. The need for such a complementation arose for me out of an interest that reaches as far back as my doctoral dissertation when I began considering how periods of Greek artistic creativity can and should be named and divided - in short, what are the principles underlying periodicity? The little that could be gleaned from the few art historians who have given real thought to this problem was helpful but not sufficient for me (see Ch. III) and it was not until I discovered a somewhat obscure passage in the writings of Wilhelm Dilthey (see Appendix B) that a real breakthrough became possible. Dilthey stands squarely in the stream of Romantic aesthetics (hermeneutics)1 and philosophy; with his Lebensphilosophie he is part of the late 19th/early 20th century elite trend to organicism (particularly visible in artistic movements, such as Art Nouveau, and organic architecture).2 He influenced several important younger philosophers who stood outside mainstream positivism. To a considerable extent parallel with Dilthey's conception of the three functions of the ego in the passage referred to above are the views of Rudolf Steiner, who, moreover, fits into the Romantic stream in the additional sense that his world view is compatible with the Four Elements philosophy of the Greeks, while at the same time in his ideas on scientific matters he was greatly indebted to Goethe for inspiration.
How did these factors come together in my experience to inspire this book? When I began to consider seriously the seemingly mysterious affinity of Greek artists and philosophers for the specific colors: black, white, red and yellow, I could find no satisfactory orientation until my own artistic efforts with watercolors led me to study Goethe's theory of colors. In connecting that with the Greek four color problem I was compelled for the sake of clarity to involve myself deeply with the concept of the four elements - out of which emerged the considerations brought forward in Appendix A. These considerations enabled me to realize how Dilthey's periodicity, if taken in combination with the four elements concept, could become filled with the life-experience (Erlebnis) quality he intended it to have, although in a field he was almost certainly not acquainted with: Greek sculpture (Ch. IV) as well as Greek painting.
In order to explain the background of combining the factors just described, I must refer to Dilthey's two best-known concepts: Weltanschauung and Geistesgeschichte. The former term is generally translated as world view (on that translation, see Chapter I, The Author's Conception of How "The Structure of a World View" May Throw Light on Greek Art, paragraph 1) and has, as it were, conquered modern consciousness and become an everyday necessity in the vocabulary of our era. The latter term is more difficult to translate. W. Kleinbaum3 wrote: "A branch of the history of ideas, Geistesgeschichte might be rendered in English as "intellectual history" (or, even less accurately, as the "history of the human mind")."
While it is true that the German word includes the notion of cultural activities in a collective sense, in the actual description of the structure of a world view excerpted here (in Appendix B) the phases involved arise clearly and specifically out of the progressive metamorphosis of the mental life of a single individual as model and prototype. Indeed, emphasis on individuality is the keystone of Dilthey's thought. Yet in this one vital instance of psychic structure, Dilthey himself at once proceeded to its, of course, equally valid collective use, thereby leaving the impression that his structure really has significance only for global world views and intellectual history. His failure to do justice to the balancing polarity of individuality and collectivity is the basis of much of the later criticism of Dilthey, including the Marxist.4
When, therefore, in this book I refer to history of the mind, instead of ideas, I am attempting in a small way to address this imbalance, for "mind" at least forces the reader to recall that "ideas" which are treated in a collective sense, generally, if not always, originate in individual minds and also operate at that level. Above all, this alternative translation allows me to pull attention back to one of the great insights of Dilthey - also apparently ignored by him after its "birth" - namely, microperiodicity, which will be applied in connection with Greek sculpture, passim. Again I emphasize that Dilthey did not concern himself with the visual arts but dealt only with large categories and types into which world views could be classified, viz., the religious, the poetical and the metaphysical (this latter again subdivided).5 His direct comments on the way Greek philosophy evolved6 are thus not of much assistance to my theme, since he did not suggest a context for Greek culture broad enough to encompass all his categories, that is, a context so deep and powerful that his own words (elsewhere)7 could apply to it: "Because no demonstration could ever call them (world views) into being, so no demonstration will ever be able to dissolve them". Such an indemonstrable but also indissoluble world view is, in my experience, that of the philosophy of the Four Elements and its visualization in contrapposto (see Chapter V).
It is not part of my purpose to criticize Dilthey, for his legacy is greater than generally realized and can be built upon. My use of it is as follows. His concept of the continual and sequential processes: thinking, feeling and willing as the technical structure of a world view is combined with the concept of a Four Elements world (as elucidated above) in order to throw light on the problem of periodicity in Greek art. As I show in Chapter I, there is some - if only vaguely realized - parallel in Greek philosophy to Dilthey's technical structure, while the actual articulation of the four elements concept is entirely a Greek contribution to world history. Therefore my method, while innovative, does not go beyond the presently existing western tradition. I know of no evidence that Dilthey was consciously dependent on the Greek parallel just mentioned, but he was, of course, very well acquainted with Greek philosophy. In view of the importance of Dilthey's ideas for the structure of my study, I have devoted considerable attention at the end of Chapter I to a careful explanation of how I interpret them and further, in Chapter II as an exercise intended to demonstrate the wide applicability (though not necessarily universality) of those ideas, worked out in that sense the history of the scholarship about Greek sculpture. This gives me an opportunity to be quite explicit in modern terms before the reader copes with Chapter IV, in which the problem of periodicity in Greek sculpture is dealt with.
Notwithstanding all that, since Dilthey is not well known to the present generation of lay readers - a category to which I myself belong - I have prepared for the benefit of any readers who care to go more deeply into the background of this book an explanation (Appendix C) of how I see his system in relation to the developments in 19th and early 20th century philosophy. This includes a few remarks on the relation of the subject of periodicity to the way Greeks experienced time, supplementing my treatment of that theme in Chapters III and IV.
Though taken over directly from the Latin language, the term ego1 has particular overtones for the modern ear that cannot have been present in ancient usage. The mere fact that, as a personal pronoun, it was normally omitted leads to the thought that, throughout Graeco-Roman antiquity, consciousness of self as something separate from nature (however conceived) was not an experience of people of that time. A feeling of such separation did not become intellectually acute, apparently, much before Kant and particularly J. G. Fichte, whose formulation of ego and non-ego continues to be a factor in modern philosophy. Nevertheless, some kind of consciousness of self did exist in ancient times because the pronoun existed and could be used for emphasis and self assertion (see note 1).
The concept of a distinct operative entity: "a consciously thinking subject"2 was (and is) emphasized in modern languages by the convention of saying "I" with every verb in the first person and it is surely this which eventually demanded recognition in philosophy of the 18th and 19th century. So at least I explain the adoption of the ancient pronoun as an abstraction capable of adjectival and nominal variations: egohood, egoity, egomania, egotism, egotistical, to mention some. As the prototypical symbol of man's ability to reason and hence exist self-consciously and creatively in a sphere unattainable by animals, it refers to the highest member of the four member schema that Aristotle used. He designated this member as nous3, usually translated as mind, reason, intellect, giving the adjective noetic. To this limited extent the system of Aristotle is still current. But modern philosophy, with perhaps rare exceptions, has no perception of a macrocosmic intelligence - or at least would relegate it to speculation or religious faith - whereas such a force was taken as a matter of course to be the active principle of the universe by ancient philosophers from Anaxagoras to Zeno and Plotinos.
One might conclude from this congeries of circumstances that human self-consciousness has increased so dramatically in modern times as to blind it - in the sense that glaring lights blind the eyes - to any such correlative higher consciousness that was still almost automatically evident to earlier thinkers. Such thinkers could be described as more balanced than we - at least not isolated and alienated like many modern thinkers, especially existentialists - and this is perhaps generally the emotional reaction we have to ancient thought and art. Yet at the same time we find these latter, by our standards, strangely incurious about the possibility of fully experiencing and exploiting the physicality of self and world.
In particular the later 20th century seems to have lost consciousness of the fact that the conception of a microcosmic ego - best known in its Platonic form - was based on - or, as it were, consisted of - three soul faculties. These are distinguishable if not easily definable and they seem at least analogous to what 19th century philosophy regularized conceptually as thinking, feeling and willing. I have been unable to find a methodical history of that concept but it was in practical usage at least by the time of Descartes4. These faculties are still very much a part of popular usage5 but there is no longer a trace of them in academic psychology as a triadic interlocking soul-unity, and seemingly the last exposition of them as such was given by Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) and Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) in the early part of this century. There has been, to my knowledge, no direct issue of Dilthey's brief and almost mysteriously isolated and systematic exposition of the concept as an evolutionary process in the life of societies - hence, in its macrocosmic aspect (see "The Structure of a World View" below). Steiner, working on both the microcosmic and macrocosmic level, seems to be the only thinker to make a direct connection with Aristotle's views on the subject (to which I shall return) and evidently with Plato, in that he located these functions anatomically, although not in the same way as Plato6.
In formulating these relationships I have not gone beyond the evidence but I am obliged to emphasize, if it is not clear already, that Greek "psychology" is much more fluid and, basically, seminal than Greek science, which was so firmly organized on the basis of the four elements. Even so, the question arises once again as to whether Platonic-Aristotelian soul triadism rationalizes some quite general, perhaps loose, conception that had been handed down. I believe that there is a case for a positive answer to be made, primarily, if not exclusively now, from the field of artistic convention.
A triadic division of human psychic functions is described by Plato in the Timaeus. These seem to correspond roughly to thinking, feeling and willing in this way: the activity of high reasoning is said to take place in the head; courageous manly feeling (thumos, also thought-penetrated feeling) has its seat in the breast; and desire for food, drink, etc. is considered to originate in the belly but can get out of hand and override rational control. There may be hints of this view in earlier literature, which remains to be investigated7. Above all, however, the fact that Plato himself embodied the moral consequences of this system in a striking pictorial image in the Phaedrus can perhaps suggest a course of investigation into iconography: a charioteer (generally equated with the reflective part of the soul: logistikon) is confronted with the task of controlling his steeds of whom one "is noble and good, and of good stock, while the other has the opposite character, and his stock is opposite" (Hackforth translation)8. We are almost, if not quite, compelled to suppose that the "spirited (thumoeides)" and "appetitive (epithumetikon)" souls are alluded to as the driver seeks to keep his winged steeds from grounding.
It is not a question of weighing this passage as proof of a doctrine but of seeing it as an artistic reflection of a fundamental orientation toward human behavior. It is not necessarily inconsistent of Plato to think at one point in terms of a bipartite nature and at another to imply a tripartite soul. In the framework of the four member system, the physical body, nutritive and sensitive souls would constitute a mortal part and the nous as a whole an immortal part9, just as we speak in popular language of the body-mind split. In Aristotle, a similar dichotomy: rational-irrational is mentioned as a contemporary usage. But none of this prevents the same thinker, in another context, from looking at nous with a magnifying glass and finding it to consist in a tripartite structure. In the chariot myth nous is surely to be thought of as something intact in itself, whether incarnate and hence bound in with the lower members or discarnate, as it would be in a god. If we go to the Timaeus for Plato's more clinical analysis of the nous , and obviously the one to be preferred, we find that only a part of it, the logistikon, is actually divine. It is quite understandable that Plato should approach such complicated matters with diffidence. He himself does not admit to confusion about them but he may have felt that to deal with them in sufficient depth was not right for his purposes or for the times, especially if his ultimate source was the Mysteries of which he was an initiate, so that great discretion was in order.
The poetic quality of the myth, which involves a description of how human beings incarnate and then find themselves faced with diverging or unharmonious forces, is heightened by the contrast with Zeus who as a discarnate deity has no such problems in driving, for (the chariots of the gods) "are well-balanced and readily guided; but for the others (men) it is hard, by reason of the heaviness of the steed of wickedness, which pulls down the driver with his weight, except that driver have schooled him well" (Hackforth). Surely the general idea for the picture must come from the story of Phaeton and Helios10, for the basic parallel occurs there: Helios never had any trouble keeping his steeds on exactly the right course (they were well schooled), but Phaeton, as not fully divine, could not manage them and came to grief. I refer here only to artistic continuity, not continuity of content.
Out of his poetic consciousness Plato suggested a visual image of great power, one that can offer inner guidance. We know from Egyptian and Christian iconography that morally educative concepts could be conveyed in actual visual images supplied by written sources (Book of the Dead, Bible). In Minoan/Myceanaean Greece - a culture without such a (known) written source - there are iconographic elements that suggest similar educative concepts11. Faute de mieux one may suggest that these were handed down verbally, perhaps leading to adaptations in literary form12. Plato's chariot imagery seems to offer itself as a microcosmic moral lesson, but the collective application of the same idea, as the structural principle of the state given in the Republic, is so insistent that it has tempted some commentators to regard the military contingencies involved in activating it as the source of tripartition in Plato's works13. In the light of the chariot myth such an interpretation is altogether too simple a solution. Moreover, the parallel myth of moral choice, Herakles at the Crossroads, guarantees that Plato did not have to observe the state in order to achieve a concept of three factors: a conscious agent and a choice between good and bad14.
Aristotle proceeded differently from Plato. Eschewing poetic visions, he worked in the dispassionate manner of a scientist in dealing with the theme of the triadic ego. First he gives an account of the nutritive and sensitive souls and then, instead of referring directly to the nous , mentions three further soul members which at first sight have a strong resemblance to the system of Plato, viz., (at 433bl): "an intellective, a deliberative and now an appetitive part; for these are more different from one another than the faculties of desire and passion" (J. A. Smith translation).15 The latter comment is not entirely easy to understand, especially since Aristotle did not really explain his own version of the triadic nous , nor give its source. The passage has regularly been taken to be a rejection of Plato's system. In this regard it may be noted that Aristotle uses the term epithumetikon (desirous) and thumikon (high-spirited) both in this passage and earlier in 432a22 and seems to have regarded them as subsumable - as two aspects of one faculty(?)16 - under other faculties. In the earlier of the passages he introduces the imaginative soul above the sensitive soul - incompatibly with the neat multi-partite list in 433bl. In any case, his main criticism is that he equates Plato's epithumetikon and thumikon17 with his own orektikon and does not want to see the latter divided. He also has reservations about having appetite appear in all three faculties. In modern triadic theories (Dilthey and Steiner) such an admixture of soul qualities is regarded as natural and necessary, even though one quality is always recognizably dominant.
Out of all this complexity I believe that a few general conclusions can nevertheless be drawn. First, although Aristotle clearly did not approve of Plato's terminology and what he thought it harbored, he was by no means specifically rejecting the whole idea of a triadic ego; in fact, the version of it he reports in 433bl seems to suggest that, if one were to pursue that line of investigation, one would have to use this particular frame of reference as a scientific starting point18. He himself chose not to do so and we hear no more of it in a systematic sense. Perhaps the conception of nous pathetikos and nous poetikos, which he apparently originated, seemed a more promising way to investigate the human mind, even though again he did not discuss it very extensively and it remained for later philosophers, particularly in the Middle Ages, to raise a philosophical structure on it. In this realm we see Aristotle pretty much as a compiler of current ideas - and a tripartite ego must have been one of them.
The second conclusion is correlative. In the circumstances it is impossible to imagine that Plato did not know the concept of the three lower members. If he did take them for granted, then his triad in the Timaeus is indeed his version of the subdivisions of the nous . Furthermore, pace Aristotle, the sense of these subdivisions does not seem irreconcilable19 with the sense of Aristotle's list at 433bl. And despite the more vague poetic references elsewhere, Plato's treatment of the triadic concept in the Timaeus shows the characteristic Classical consciousness of the human organism which is so dynamically revealed in the phenomenon of the contrapposto stance; for he locates his souls among the actual areas and organs of the physical body.
I should find it difficult to doubt that both philosophers were aware of a conception of the structure of the nous as three soul faculties which is as basic to the reality of the human being as the Four Elements theory is to the general cosmic structure. The souls-theory, if the artistic parallels are to be trusted, has a traditional aspect but seemingly very little an intellectual one - or at least this was not agreed on - and was therefore not something that could pass into the general consciousness in the same way as the Four Elements theory. Its brief appearance, as if by the raising and lowering of a curtain, in the Late Classical period nevertheless technically rounds off the achievements of Classical Greece as the prototype of all subsequent cultural development in Europe.
Aristotle, choosing to let the triadic ego as a theme for investigation drop, left it to continue a subterranean existence in artistic composition, which is yet to be properly investigated. In his investigation of thinking, however, and in his conviction that mind and nature comprise a unity, Aristotle kept his psychology within the Classical spiritual vision, although driving it to a point where it could no longer be understood even by his closest successors, as has been pointed out by a recent sympathetic critic20. This is basically in accord with the view of Rudolf Steiner, which is worth quoting as a kind of summary21 of the ancient and a modern view of the triadic ego:
Many of the expressions used by Aristotle are no longer understood. However, they are reminders that there was a time when individual members of man's soul being were known; not until Aristotle did they become abstractions. Franz Brentano (1838-1917, German professor of philosophy - ed.) made great efforts to understand these members of man's soul precisely through that thinker of antiquity, Aristotle. It must be said, however, that it was just through Aristotle that their meaning began to fade from mankind's historical evolution. Aristotle distinguishes in man the vegetative soul, by which he means approximately what we call ether body, then the aesthetikon or sensitive soul, which we call the sentient or astral body. Next he speaks of orektikon which corresponds to sentient soul, then comes kinetikon corresponding to the intellectual soul, and he uses the term dianoetikon for the consciousness soul. Aristotle was fully aware of the meaning of these concepts, but he lacked direct perception of their reality. This caused a certain unclarity and abstraction in his works, and that applies also to the book I mentioned by Franz Brentano. Nevertheless, real thinking holds sway in Brentano's book. And when someone applies himself to the power of thinking the way he did, it is no longer possible to entertain the foolish notion that man's soul and spirit are mere by-products arising from the physical-bodily nature. The concepts formulated by Brentano on the basis of Aristotle's work were too substantial, so to speak, to allow him to succumb to the mischief of modern materialism.
Dilthey discusses his "Structure of a World View" in terms of psychical processes (three phases of consciousness) which occur (and recur) in a fixed order, that is, over a period of time which is required for a development and its true fulfillment. The "structure" rests on a concept of reality which can be called a cosmic (thought) picture. On the basis of this, situations and objects are evaluated in sympathy and antipathy (feeling), thus fostering ultimately the formation and direction of the will. In this way Dilthey sees the formation and then the simultaneous operation of first one substratum, then two, with a new leading principle, until finally all three are intermingled in a whole (three-story) edifice: "indeed a structure, where eventually the permeating influence of the soul finds its expression".
In another sentence he terms this "a structure of psychological life". The successive steps are now more clearly defined: observation of occurrences within us and objects outside us; clarification of such observation by emphasizing fundamental relations of reality; depiction and classification of these in a world of ideas (essentially all this is the activity of thinking); in the second stage: becoming conscious of ourselves we enjoy the full measure of our existence; then we ascribe to objects and persons around us a certain effectual value; we then determine these values according to their prospective influence, useful or harmful, giving rise to a search for an absolute standard of measurement, a way to evaluate meaningfulness. (In short, at this level we are guided primarily by our life of feeling). The third is the highest stage, for here are the ideals, the highest good and the supreme principles. This stage also is experienced in three phases: momentary intent, striving and tendency; permanent aims directed toward the realization of a concept (relation between means and ends, choice between goals, selection of means of attainment); the final systematization of all aims into a highest order of our practical behavior - highest good, highest norm, highest personal and social ideal. (All this, if properly realized, amounts to transmutation, if not transfiguration, of our life of will).
In reviewing Dilthey's formulations, we realize that the whole process includes nine phases in three groups of three, as follows:
|
Cognitive activity dominates throughout |
|
Affective activity dominates throughout |
|
Volitional activity dominates throughout |
First of all, I consider it necessary to find another term for the translation of "Weltanschauung" than (the usual) "world view", for this latter seems less flexible in English than its equivalent in German. I suggest "understanding of life" in the sense of an active, as opposed to a contemplative, process. This has at least two advantages: it eliminates any overtones of political power struggles that may be present in the literal translation, and it calls attention to Dilthey's real contribution, which is to insist that an emotional and a volitional factor are just as significant for a view of life as an intellectual one. For this is often ignored or suppressed in arguments by antagonists who imagine or pretend that they are acting purely out of principles arrived at only by rigorous intellectual analysis unadulterated by their own deep emotional prejudices and intentions.
Thus, if considered with an open mind, Dilthey's analysis of human activity is so disarmingly simple and indisputably cogent as to seem an unexceptionable commonplace: any completed human endeavor must have had a beginning, reached a middle and then an end stage. But to explain this, the dynamic energy inherent in the endeavor has to be considered. It must have been planned (thought out) out of a physical and soul environment. Then the feeling life of the planner must have consented to execute the plan; and, finally, the will actually to achieve it - to whatever degree successfully - had to have been activated. It is clear that these phases are present whether the activity is quite private, or in a social context (affecting other people) or, indeed, carried out in cooperation with other people (in which case complexities in clearly differentiating the stages can easily be imagined).
But Dilthey goes further. He sees this threefold sequence as so fundamental that, in any long term endeavor, it is repeated as a necessary, inescapable technique of the human condition within each one of the stages. Thus the planning stage, the stage of primarily intellectual activity, goes through a subtle metamorphosis of feeling and willing - but always under the aegis of the intellectual, structural problem involved - in order to get successfully to the next major phase, in which the feelings are aroused to justify, judge, above all to feel joy or satisfaction (or even the opposite) in the creativity that is going on. But always, feeling is decisive for the carrying on of the project. It is not uncommon at this stage to say: I feel that the project cannot be carried out because the planning is insufficient, the enthusiasm of the co-workers has dissipated, the opposition is too great or the criticism too devastating, etc. Supposing that the second stage has in fact been successfully achieved, then the third phase is one of refining and honing the "product" for distribution, for wider use, for admiration, for influencing the course of things willfully. It is easy to see how this process might involve renewed intellectual consideration and judgmental activity to accommodate changing or unexpected conditions - but always with the now fully aroused volition in control.
I do not pretend to be a Dilthey specialist, but even with considerable effort I have not been able to discover any attempt by him or his followers to apply this theoretical pattern of periodicity for the emergence of an "understanding of life" to the life of a specific person or culture, though it seems to have a potential value in either case. Obviously, real life comes upon us in such a complicated way that one may not easily become aware of patterns of events. Moreover, in our age there can be an underlying fear that any theory of patterns in human activity is incompatible with freedom of action, particularly of artists. Such an objection seems to me to result from comparing apples and oranges: the problem of freedom, in the sense intended, exists on the level of morality and, above all, on the level of individuality. Our conception of these levels is strongly affected by the materialistic, scientific civilization in which we live, whereas earlier cultures had quite other conditions with their own special conception of morality and of individual freedom - if they had any conception of the latter.
In any case, what Dilthey proposed has nothing to do with the problem of freedom of action, which does not legitimately arise in this context. For his reasoning concerns only the natural limitations which the sheer task of physically functioning on a purposeful basis in a material environment imposes on any human being any time, anywhere. The effectuation of any impulse in the plastic arts, for example, ultimately involves a sequence of phases by an individual or a group of individuals. Character, status, destiny itself are marked by the thousand-fold coping with the sequence over the lifetime of an individual or - in the collective sense - throughout an era. This process itself is not a case of "determinism", for not the goals are what Dilthey had in mind but the process by which, for better or for worse, they are achieved.
Accordingly, in my attempt in Chapter IV to make Dilthey's insights fruitful in understanding the emergence of Greek sculpture, it must be reiterated: the stages by which it emerged reflect only the procedural solutions with which Greek sculptors responded to felt needs. In this study, the philosophy of the four elements is treated as the underlying "understanding of life" of the Greeks, that is, the driving force to which expression is given by Greek art. The unceasing metamorphoses of this force have emerged for me more clearly by taking into account Dilthey's stages than would be the case without them.
To try to clarify this in another way: the stages themselves have nothing to do with the reasons of the Greeks for making sculpture, or the socio-religious-economic conditions in which it emerged. All that exists on another level. The stages involved are thus not "an understanding of life" but only the vehicle for one. It is perhaps doubtful that such stages could emerge very clearly in the study of more recent, especially contemporary, art, for we are too close to it. But the situation of Greek art is more favorable. First, it has receded far enough from us in time that we can get a certain perspective on it. Second, Greek culture in general as seen in this perspective was extraordinarily homogeneous and original, regardless of the varied influences it absorbed, or may have absorbed, and of internal interactions of Greek city states; and it lasted over a long period of time, by any standards. However, with the increasing complexity of Greek culture and its position in the world in the later 4th century and especially in the Hellenistic period, it is much more difficult to discern the sub-phases (Dilthey's microperiods) than in the earlier periods. At the risk of being importunate, I shall state again that his macro- and micro-periods have no existence whatsoever in themselves. Only in conjunction with "an understanding of life" do they become operative. At that point, the question can be raised as to when and how they are effectuated. That is the question posited here in relation to Greek art.
My task will, therefore, be to evaluate the progress of Greek art from its beginnings in terms of the "understanding of life" behind it. This understanding I take to be the emergent, exploratory, not fully conscious goal-seeking which culminated conceptually in the Four Elements philosophy of Empedokles, but did not ever cease to be lived out. To achieve this I will assume that this "understanding of life" went forward in some semblance of the Diltheyan stages. Can these in fact be recognized? At this point a reader might have the impression that such an undertaking would not bring us closer to life - as Dilthey intended - but remain theoretical. Against this I must affirm that such was not my experience in actually creating Chapter IV (where the stages are worked out) and simultaneously ask for suspension of judgement until the entire chapter has been read. Moreover, as a kind of prelude to Chapter IV I have experimented with a project closer to our times. Is there an "understanding of life" which scholars who (have worked and) work on ancient art take for granted, and if so is this collective understanding and the work resulting from it susceptible of being articulated in the Diltheyan stages? These questions proved to have sufficient substance in their own right to justify a separate chapter (II), as well as being a "dry-run" for Chapter IV. Chapter III takes up an additional factor of importance to the results of Chapter II: the difference of the time-sense of the Greeks from our own time-sense.
It has not been my intention to bring together an exhaustive collection of period sequences proposed by scholars in our age, but rather enough examples to illustrate my remarks in Chapter IV about the problems of articulating the specimens of Greek art that have survived. For the sake of completeness in understanding these problems, I preface the later systems with the famous style stages of J.J. Winckelmann, since all subsequent conceptions of Greek style are to some extent derivative from them - to the annoyance of some critics.1 The limits of acceptability of Winckelmann's stages in relation to later criteria have, of course, been sharply drawn.2 New questions then naturally arose out of the revised criteria, e.g., on the basis of Heinrich Brunn's history of artists.3 Further affecting all this was the flood of objects and artifacts and new information yielded by the unceasing excavations that began seriously in the third quarter of the nineteenth century and continues unabated: these give the possibility of striving for a more accurate picture statistically of the development of ancient art. On the other hand, this very possibility carried (carries) with it the danger of a totally objectified archaeology that shuns the effort of striving to understand the conditions of consciousness that the objects themselves reflect.
Among the more or less comprehensive studies of Greek art (or specifically of Greek sculpture) available, some are more designed to deal with problems of categories, distribution and other special concerns than to reflect periodical development. These could not be considered here.4 The following survey begins with the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when apparently such books began to be used for instruction, and continues chronologically, which allows for the possibility of seeing influence from theoretical scholarship on periodicity (Riegl, turn of the century; Wölfflin, early decades; Buschor and Focillon, thirties and forties). A few books that are concerned exclusively with Hellenistic art are included here because of the special challenge to period-setting inherent in that age.5 In regard to the two major innovations in nomenclature suggested by me, one (Protohellenistic: 340/330-300) concerns that period: Hellenistic. Only W.H. Schuchhardt seems to have largely anticipated my thinking on this,6 and even he did not suggest a name for this phase. In the circumstances it seems appropriate to cite the passage that presents his reasoning on the subject (see below for reference: his p. 428):
In terms of archaeology, particularly its art historical aspect, Hellenism should begin at the end of the fourth century, not with the death of Alexander the Great, where Droysen set it with full justification from the purely historical standpoint. For the last quarter of that century is a time of transition, in which the sublime Classical conceptions of Praxiteles and Leochares unfold their last flowers, but in which simultaneously a new, early Hellenistic art begins to take form. This is a time of transition, embodied in the work of the aged Lysippos. By the turn of the century, however, a generation of artists was arising with new ways of thinking and fashioning that are often in crass opposition to those of the expiring Classical period. By the same time, in the historical-political realm, the individual Diadochian states had become consolidated and a new political configuration of the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world was in place.
In regard to my second innovation: Protoclassical (525-480), Buschor and Schefold, followed by others, saw problems with calling the first two decades of the fifth century Archaic, and began the Classical period about 500. Thus in a certain sense this was a step in the direction of my reorganization of the work of the two generations before 480 as Protoclassical. In regard to the first of those generations, Martin Robertson referred to the redfigure style as a "revolution", thus implying that it departed from Archaic standards. This concept has also gained adherents.7
After these introductory remarks I can perhaps best introduce the subject of this chapter by recalling the stages of Greek sculpture proposed by J.J. Winckelmann.
J. J. Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Altherthums (Dresden 1764) 213-312:We can now address the question of how our era: the so-called modern age, which can be defined chronologically in various ways according to fields of interest, is related to the subject of periodicity. For that purpose it is indeed right to begin with Winckelmann.
Let us recall that stages of development in Dilthey's sense have no significance except in the context of a particular understanding of life. Therefore, it is necessary to ask, in what context was Winckelmann finding the stages of his scheme? The intellectual milieu in which he moved was that of the Renaissance Neoplatonic tradition of humanism as that survived in the 18th century. Winckelmann transformed that tradition dramatically - and thereby introduced the era of modern art history - by penetrating the old tradition with a sense of the development that Greek culture went through, or must have gone through, in real - not ideal - terms. He studied Egyptian and Near Eastern cultures as a prelude and accompaniment of a completely different kind from the Greek development, which stood out from that background in stark contrast. While he could not have known anything about the Minoan-Mycenaean world as we have recovered it, his strong preoccupation with the Homeric poems gave him a sense of the unique native Greekness out of which the visual arts would emerge. Above all, in working out the several stages of cultural development he set the world on a totally new path of understanding and, in effect, anticipated unconsciously the very paradigm that Dilthey, digging deep in his own consciousness, managed to bring to light and formulate. That task of recognizing chronological stages and thereby bringing into new relationships the physical remains from the ancient world, had to be done intuitively. But the other task: defining the substance of the Greek world - in short its understanding of life - had to be a conscious activity, a deliberate re-ordering of 18th century curiosity about other cultures (for instance, the Chinese). And Winckelmann confirms this explicitly, as shown in the following passage quoted from the biography by W. Lippmann:8
"The History of Ancient Art that I intend to write," he had already announced in the preface, "is no mere description of the sequence of its development and the changes it underwent; rather I take history in the broader meaning it possessed in Greek (information, tidings), and therefore propose to design a systematic doctrine." The climate, which actuated and continued to nourish the Greek cult of beauty and fitness; a form of government that among other things gave birth to philosophy and rhetoric, disciplines which do not thrive under tyrants; the esteem in which the Greeks held their artists, who were credited with being wise as well as skilful, and were so honored that many of their names defied the passing of time; and the uses to which art was put by them (to reward outstanding athletes and other citizens as well as to venerate the gods) are cited among the causes of the superiority of Greek sculpture, painting, and architecture over those of other nations.
The heritage, therefore, that later writers on Greek art took over from Winckelmann was not simply the doctrine of the aesthetic achievements of Greek artists but a solidly grounded view of the culture behind these achievements; even if individual parts of the historical view might be questioned, it gave a firm point of departure.
Thus, Winckelmann achieved two separate but interrelated goals, the effect of which, when their import came to be fully realized much later, was to revolutionize the understanding of art. First, he saw that it is necessary to understand the historical background of artistic development in as deep a perspective as possible. Second, that it is necessary to find an internal order in the development of works of art which gives them meaning as links in a chain, as it were. This two-pronged approach is still incontrovertibly valid: it corresponds in a broad sense to the art historian's preoccupation with absolute and relative chronology which explains and justifies the expression "history of art." Constantly balancing these two factors, the art historian evolves an aesthetic interpretation. But the mighty deed of "The Father of Art History" does not quite stop with that, for - as I said above - the particular sequence he worked out by this method contained within it, unbeknownst to him, the seeds of an understanding of the periodical factor in aesthetics which started to bear fruit only in a much later period.
I have devoted considerable attention to Winckelmann's work, partly because it has not been sufficiently appreciated by archaeologists, as Karl Schefold9 pointed out, and partly because - for my thesis - it was necessary to demonstrate that Winckelmann performed the initial hard intellectual work for the "understanding of life" (world-view) of modern art history. This is another remarkable instance of the historical phenomenon of the right man or woman turning up in the right place at the right time to bring a new direction to human affairs. Of course, the right time does not always mean that there is an immediate appreciation or follow-up of the impulse offered.
Winckelmann's insight into the historical movement of Greek art is indeed a remarkable and admirable achievement in view of the limitations of his era: geographical and technical in particular. Yet his pioneering perceptions, formed in the absence of direct experience of the major sculpture to be found at Greek sites, and even in Magna Graecia, were doomed to remain merely aesthetic formulae - albeit the best available - for several generations, during which the study of Greek art proceeded in the spirit of the great philological tradition of German scholarship; among the best of this was the work of H. Brunn. In fact, not until Greece itself had attained independence and begun to sort out its treasures on the basis of western museology (itself not very advanced at that time), and the wave of excavations of the last third of the 19th century was underway, could there have been any reason to attempt an up-to-date survey of Greek sculpture on an art historical basis at all. But when this did take place, it may surely be said that the large picture which Winckelmann had sketched out began to prove its worth, whether there was much consciousness of it or gratitude for it or not. In fact, given the spirit of the scientific age just beginning at that time, there was almost necessarily more concern with descriptive analysis of the great stream of discoveries that were pouring into the museums and onto pages of scientific periodicals than with seeking in these materials great underlying thought structures. Constant improvement in grasping the absolute and relative chronology of Greek art on a pragmatic basis obviously would have seemed more important than theoretical considerations of periodicity.
On the basis of the preceding summary I shall undertake a broad interpretation of the periodicity factor in the history of scholarship on Greek sculpture. It is, however, not feasible in the framework of this study to attempt this in great detail. I believe that a minimally adequate basis for it is a review of the chapter headings of the books I have been able to consult, since the structure of an author's thought is generally encoded in these headings. It appears that the degree of elaboration - or the virtual absence of it - in the table of contents is likely to give a clue to the weight which an author attaches to the problem of periodicity.
The first generation of the type of book involved with this problem seems to begin in the early 1880's and to last about two decades (1906 is my cut-off date) and it follows rather closely on the Winckelmann prototype.
L. M. Mitchell, A History of Ancient Sculpture (London 1883)
J. Overbeck, Geschichte der griechischen Plastik (Leipzig 1893)
Maxime Collignon, Geschichte der griechischen Plastik (Strassburg 1897)
E. A. Gardner, Greek Sculpture (London 1898)
H. B. Walters, The Art of the Greeks (London 1906)
It may, in fact, actually be surprising how closely Mitchell's book does reflect Winckelmann's approach. "Archaic Greek Sculpture" is comparable to "The Earlier Styles" with still no clear concept of Early Classical; "The Age of Pheidias and Polykleitos" is the "Sublime Style" and the "Age of Skopas, Praxiteles and Lysipppos" is the "Beautiful Style"; "Hellenistic Sculpture" is "Age of the Imitators". What appears modern is, of course, the substitution of terms we still use for 18th century terminology and the addition of rough limits of absolute chronology. And, indeed, apart from the overextension of the Archaic period, Mitchell's scheme may still seem adequate for critics who choose to work with the most non-committal blocks of time possible. Despite the greater attention paid by Collignon and Walters - at the turn of the century - to defining the earlier stages, there are no clear gains in the articulation of the Classical period (a term not used by them) beyond the appreciation that 480 was an epochal date for the subject.
I have found almost no general studies of Greek sculpture that appeared in the first two decades of the 20th century (apart from the overlap of Walter's book) and it is therefore not clear whether they should be added on to the "founders" generation or start the next stage. These were, of course, years of turmoil in contemporary artistic practice and theory and also art historical theory. In the latter category are the writings of E. Loewy, Alois Riegl, W. Pinder, F. Wyckoff, Max Dvorak among others, but above all of Heinrich Wölfflin. The practical result of all this, as I see it, was a new interest in the "typical" or even typological nature of stages in the history of artistic creation rather than with eras as the personal creation of particular artists. This must have been at least partially owing to the tremendous expansion of interest at this time to ages and cultures of which the artistic creations remain anonymous. This by definition excluded the biographical approach which had been so evident in Classical art scholarship - which in any case was now running into great skepticism about attributions. Thus, to define periods, Wölfflin looked for general tendencies which all artists shared.
In the light of this it is not surprising that the first intimation of that definitely microperiodic organization of the Classical period (the word "classical" was used) which we now take for granted, was proposed in the work of A. von Salis, himself an admirer of Wölfflin. Yet von Salis did not carry this principle through to other periods (the Hellenistic is for example divided into two parts). In fact, for the next 30 years, the same tendency to see development in terms of three parts shares the stage with a tendency to subdivide into two parts.
A. von Salis, Die Kunst der Griechen (Leipzig 1919)
F. B. Tarbell, A History of Greek Art (New York 1919) (Greek sculpture)
C. Picard, La Sculpture Antique (Paris 1923, 1926)
A. W. Lawrence, Later Greek Sculpture (London 1927) (Hellenistic)
G. M. A. Richter, Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks (New Haven 1929)
A. W. Lawrence, Greek and Roman Sculpture (London 1929)
B. W. Byvanck, De Kunst der Oudheid (Leiden 1949) Tweede Deel
A. W. Lawrence, for example, followed von Salis almost exactly in 1929; in fact, in a special treatment of Hellenistic art in 1927 he had already opted for a tripartite arrangement of that period. F, B. Tarbell divided the Archaic period into two parts but kept a tripartite division of Classical art under non-committal names (of the subdivisions). C. Picard reverted to artists' names to define the stages. G. Richter in 1919 employed a tripartite division of Classical art - again under non-committal names. After the long interruption of the war Byvanck in 1949 was still dividing the Archaic period into two parts but he introduced a four-part division of the Classical phase, the first time that this occurred, apparently. Yet even without adequate terminology this innovation had much going for it and has become rather commonplace.
In the two decades from 1950 on, interest in periodic rhythms literally surged, so to speak, particularly but by no means exclusively among German scholars. A partial explanation for this phenomenon may be that during the interim between the two wars and even, perhaps, during the second one a new interest in the higher meaning of periodicity in its broadest form can be detected. One might include in this tendency, in a general way, already Oswald Spengler's Untergang des Abendlandes (1918) but more specifically, in the German sphere, Paul Frankl's Das System der Kunstwissenschaft (1938) and particularly Ernst Buschor's Vom Sinn der griechischen Standbilder (1942) and - in the French sphere - H. Foçillon's La Vie des Formes (1934). The latter study ensures that this trend was not merely a Germanic inspiration. There was at that time obviously a strong feeling about the religious and philosophical implications of art sequences (this being particularly evident in G. Kantorowicz' Vom Wesen der griechischen Kunst, even though this was not published until later), although to express this defied the general prohibition on bringing such aspects existentially into the supposedly objective sphere of scholarship.
I can hardly escape the conclusion that all this was in some way a preparation for the efflorescence of periodic thinking on Greek art that characterizes the years from about 1950-1970. These two decades seem to form a separate phase as a kind of culmination, well set off from a long beginning and, as we shall see, from what seems to be an ending.
G. Lippold, Die griechische Plastik Hdbh d. Arch. III, 1 (Munich 1950)
"Die Enstehung der griechischen Geschichte in eine archaische, klassische und hellenistische Epoche hat auch fur die Plastik ihre Berechtigung. Richtig verstanden, lassen sich auf diese drei Perioden auch die Begriffe von Aufstieg, Blüte und Niedergang anwenden" (p.5)Richard Haman, Geschichte der Kunst von der Vorgeschichte bis zur Spätantike (Munich 1952)
L. Alscher, Griechische Plastik I (Berlin 1954)
Karl Schefold, Klassische Kunst in Basel (Skulpturhalle) n.d. (1950's)
G. M. A. Richter, A Handbook of Greek Art (London 1959)
G. Hafner, Geschichte der griechischen Kunst (Zurich 1961)
John Boardman, Greek Art (1964)
J. Boardman, J. Dörig, W. Fuchs, Hirmer, Die griechische Kunst (Munich 1966)
G. M. A. Hanfmann, Classical Sculpture (London 1967)
P. Arias, L'Arte della Grecia (Turin 1967)
W. Fuchs, Die Skulptur der Griechen (Munich 1969)
J. Charbonneaux, R. Martin, F. Villard, Das Archaische Griechenland (Universum der Kunst)
Eidem, Das Klassische Griechenland Munchen 1971)
Eidem, Das Hellenistische Griechenland
In these years the principle of seeing Greek sculpture as a whole in terms of a succession of three major stages is not only everywhere in evidence but it frequently carries with it elaboration into microperiodic triadism. This latter practice is, admittedly, rather selectively applied, especially since a four-stage microperiodic sequence (as already in Byvanck) is used in some instances (e.g., Schefold's "Klassisch" and Fuchs' "Klassik"). It is, nevertheless, rather astonishing how strong a triadic view of development prevailed, even though no single scholar quite reproduced Dilthey's scheme (see Chapter I, Recapitulation and Interpretation of Dilthey's "Structure of a World View", paragraph 3) in its entirety -and even though it cannot really be supposed that anyone at that time was even aware of the existence of that scheme. Instead the triadism seems to have been taken as self-evident and not in need of defense or philosophical explanation as undertaken in this study.10 Therefore I take it that something in the mental climate of that era was nudging in the direction of triadism as a technique of understanding artistic activity. How much consciousness was there that the expansive mood, the exciting vistas of new humanistic possibilities which accompanied the earlier postwar years of themselves favored a very ordered process in understanding and interpreting the art of the Greeks? Indeed, as I look back on that era, I sense that a kind of Greek fever, not unconnected with the liberation of Greece from the fascist and then the communist threat, and perhaps distantly reminiscent of the previous liberation of Greece from the Turks, swept through a relieved Western world.
There may have been also another factor involved in this. I propose a thought that is far from original, viz., that thinking, whether individual or collective, proceeds from the general to the specific, that is, from large generalizations to re-structurings on the basis of ever greater accumulation of knowledge and, finally, to quite detailed insights and ramifications. The generation of scholars I am discussing took, after the war, a fresh look at a large but not yet overwhelming heritage of scholarly research from the first half of the century (e.g., Schefold 1949, passim) and felt the need or challenge to give it a much firmer organization than had existed before. The enthusiasm of this period corresponds exactly to the requirements of Dilthey's middle stage, when feeling - in this case of a positive kind - infuses the other faculties and, having found the game worth the candle, gets on with the task.
While the effect of this carried through the 60's, as the structure of the books shows, that decade was notoriously a drastic turning point for the established criteria of society in general - a reflection of which I believe to have registered itself in the following decades which I shall consider to be the final stage in this periodic survey (final in the sense of being the end of a coherent development).
W. H. Schuchhardt, Geschichte der griechischen Kunst (Stuttgart 1971)
Richard Brilliant, Arts of the Ancient Greeks (New York 1972)
Martin Robertson, A History of Greek Art (Cambridge 1975)
H. Groenewegen-Frankfort & B. Ashmole, Art of the Ancient World (New York 1977)
R. Lullies, Griechische Plastik (Munchen 1979)
W. R. Biers, Archaeology of Greece (Ithaca 1980)
C. Vermeule, The Art of the Greek World I,1 (MFA Boston 1982)
J. J. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age (New Haven 1986)
W. Hautumm, Die Griechische Skulptur (Cologne 1987)
A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture An Exploration (New Haven 1990)
In terms of this study it is not difficult to characterize what happened. The elaborate periodization schemes just described largely though not entirely disappear and it may not be an exaggeration to comment that any concern at all with triadism vanishes with them (but Pollitt and Stewart are the exceptions that prove the rule). The corollary to the generalizing process discussed above (see Chapter II, paragraph 20) sets in: that is, when thought structure becomes too elaborate, a reaction against it may occur in the direction of simplification - sometimes even radical simplification (which is not lacking in the above lists). The will asserts itself in a critical, possibly even truculent form (but not necessarily fully consciously). One might even expect, by Diltheyan standards, that at this point the proponents of Greek sculpture (and Greek art in general) as a pedagogical force would step forth with a stripped-down and even rather aggressive message, intending to conquer - in this case - the academic community. To some extent, perhaps, this did happen, though not so much by the efforts of ancient art historians as in the wake of the phenomenal success of Janson's History of Art (of course this is an American phenomenon). Whether or not there were conscious imitations of Janson's methods11 in the field of ancient art, we do find there not only the virtual disappearance of microperiodicity, but a playing with terms like First and Second Classic Style or, more poignantly, the use of centuries (fifth, fourth, etc.) as a structuring principle - thus masking even the very limited habit of thought which still actually serves as a generally accepted orientation on the part of professionals, viz., Archaic - Classical - Hellenistic.
Nevertheless, in the actual circumstances of the 70's and 80's, it seems highly doubtful that there ever could have been a chance of making the values of the Greek "understanding of life" as inherited from Winckelmann an article of faith in higher education. Such was doomed from two directions. First, by the general disillusionment resulting from the Vietnam war, the bitterness of the Cold War, the collapse of traditional morality, the rise of multiculturalism, the denigration of the political process even in democracies - to name just some of the disruptive problems plaguing society. The second direction was internal. The cumulative effects, deadening if not deadly, of modern technology on the "inner life" of all human beings are being felt not only in the spiritual but even in the economic sphere (thus constricting educational funding). In reality, Renaissance humanism as purveyed by Winckelmann is hardly any longer viable in a world culture now effectively defined by anthropological theory ("Darwinism"). I do not find it difficult to understand that now only "facts" seem safe, for these can not be challenged. But ancient Greek values are not much concerned with facts as such. Therefore, although the final phase defined above can be prolonged, if a new cycle is to begin, it must be on the basis of seeking the spiritual values of Greek art, however difficult and unpopular this may be. It is entirely appropriate, moreover, to point out that the feminist art movement arose exactly in this period (70's and 80's). Part of its agenda is that art historical studies need to take into account real human values.
At this point it may be appropriate to recapitulate and evaluate the contents of this chapter.
Around the middle of the 18th century a new discipline was born in Western Europe: the history of Greek sculpture. This was conceived and formulated in the mind of one man who also invented, as it were, the terms - in this case the chronological stages - on which that sculpture could be studied.
In due course the discipline attracted many minds in many countries through a number of generations. Despite tremendous diversity of attitude and method, partly dictated by national languages and styles, scholars posited the outlines of the subject and marked out steps of progress. The basis of this work was largely pragmatic with much reference to excavations and scientific analysis, but without ever totally losing sight of Winckelmann's vision of how Greek sculpture came into existence and was developed according to certain values.
It may seem paradoxical that the combined work of the discipline's members appears in retrospect to have taken place in stages somewhat similar to those just mentioned as pertaining to Greek sculpture, that is, in a sort of cycle in four large stages; the "founders"; the early triadic innovators; the microperiodic culminators; and the eclectic successors, whereby the second, third and fourth roughly parallel Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. Yet now in the "postmodern" 1990's, the original substance or vision holding together these stages seems to have dissipated for many reasons. Fragmentation has become the tendency (i.e., specialist analysis rather than synthesis) and even new efforts at multidisciplinary approaches have greater factual accuracy as their focus.
It must be stressed that few if any of the practitioners of the discipline were or are aware of the structuring discovered here; rather they simply see themselves as part of a scholarly tradition. The last thing that could occur to them is that they were compelled by abstract laws of periodicity to take part in this time-structure and to act in the particular way they acted. I should like to emphasize that statement in relation to the idea of determinism, which is regularly brought up as an objection to periodical analysis.
The rationale of defining periods in art history, including the Greek, seems not to be regarded as an important field of research, especially in recent decades. Despite one or two valiant attempts1 to find principles, there has been no general discussion nor much interest in the matter. A conventional framework is either accepted silently or else this framework, behind which a certain wisdom can indeed be discerned, is - equally without discussion or justification - expanded or simplified at will; and this too is accepted without comment. It is almost axiomatic that not much significance is accorded to the structure of setting periods. This I believe to be a result of the modern conception of time. We perceive the flow of time as a continuum of events (in this case an object of art is an event in past time) that, particularly in earlier art, may not be well documented. In later art, where the documentation may be more plentiful, the continuum of events is not necessarily clear and uncontested. It is thus understandable that the concern with external documentation - given the vital necessity of it for ordering artistic events - should have become a disproportionately large content of art historical studies. "Disproportionate" because I believe that many in the profession today would agree that this concern should ideally be only ancillary to a search for a core of spiritual values that actually link past and present, researcher and the consciousness of the creator of the art researched - and nevertheless have to admit that the process of finding new information (or putting old information in a new context) takes precedence in the current academic milieu and leaves little time for the more contemplative activity mentioned above.2 Even when very favorable conditions make this possible, re-interpretation is likely to be proscribed by academic custom within fairly narrow limits (I leave out of account here feminist art approaches with which I am insufficiently acquainted).
In an earlier generation somewhat different attitudes were feasible, as my survey of the history of scholarship revealed (Chapter II). Even then there was hardly much real interest in a fundamental philosophy of periods in Greek art; but as a critical interest in an accurate apprehension of relative chronology arose, it was realized - almost instinctively, it might seem - that the flow of events in Greek art could best be grasped in terms of the generations of artists who accomplish specific work in the development of style3; in other words, human beings themselves are the ultimate measure of time. The work they did and the work we do (in grasping theirs) coalesce into one in our consciousness. There is not only no place here for the idea of a disinterested spectator - there is no possibility of it; it is an illusion. If we did not have a personal interest in Greek art, we would be doing s