Head of Bronze from Cerigotto. J.H.S
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J H S. VOL. XXMI. (1903). PL. Vlll. HEAD OF BRONZE FROM CERIGOTTO. J.H.S. VOL. XXIII. (1903). PL. IX. o o cc UJ o S o x u. < W UJ N Z O or THE STATUES FKOM CERIGOTTO.1 [PLATES VIII, IX.] I. THE bronze Hermes recovered from the wreck off Cerigotto is one of those works which must be judged from internal evidence alone : no reference to it has as yet been found in the ancient authors, we have no hint as to the city from which it originally came, no inscription to give us a clue to the name of the artist. It is at once apparent that the style shows no trace of severity, much less of archaism. It is therefore by some considered to be a work of the 4th century. The figure is rather above life size; it represents a young man, nude, resting the main weight of the body on the left leg while his right is slightly bent: there is however no forward motion suggested, the Hermes is standing with a somewhat languid grace. The right arm is raised and is extended half outwards, half sideways, while the head is also turned a little towards the right, thus displaying the muscles of the neck (see J.H.S. vol. XXIII. PI. IX.) The left hand may have held a caduceus, which would dispel any doubt as to identification, but apart from such an attribute the whole character and treatment of the face seem to suggest a God and not a human athlete. The indications of a violent and passionate nature which Scopas used with such effect are smoothed over or fined away, while in the features and expression the intellectual rather than the animal side of human nature is emphasised. This seems an insuperable objection to the assignment of this work to Scopas by Dr. Waldstein, who is however probably right in supposing that here Hermes is represented as the God of Oratory. Yet though we see him exerting his eloquence rather than his muscles, he is mighty in chest and limbs, as befits one who was also the God of the Palaestra and the messen- ger of Zeus. He might indeed appear to be the embodiment in bronze of the verse of Horace :— Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis, Qui feros cultus hominum recentum Voce formasti catus et decorae More Palaestrae. 1 This article reproduces in substance an but modified to suit some recent publications, account of these statutes written two years ago, For Plates VIII, IX, see Part I. of this Vol. H.S.—VOL. XXIII. Q 218 K. T. FROST So striking is his athletic character that Dr. Waldstein has dwelt on his manly and vigorous nature in contrast to the Hermes of Praxiteles, whom, he taunts with effeminacy, and ' whose beauty,' he says, ' is apt to wane if not to pall.' A comparison between these two works is obviously one of the first steps in any criticism of the Cerigotto statue, although Dr. Waldstein himself no longer assigns the newly discovered work to the Praxitelean school. The face of the bronze is oval and Praxitelean in outline: the hair is short, curly, and upstanding; the forehead broad, the nose fine but strong, the eyes deep-set. But the analogy to the Praxitelean Hermes is by no means close in all points: the mouth is very short and slightly opened; the lips are fine, but cut so that the red part is broad ; the upper lip is very short, and is prettily worked like a Cupid's bow, while the grooves from the nostril are shown. The chin is firm but pointed. It is neither broad and heavy as in the Doryphoros nor so long and deep as that of Apollo Belvedere, nor is it bossy; it is different, too, from that of the Olympian Hermes and is without his dimple. This face is beautiful and the effect is striking, yet when compared with his rival we miss the hand of a master. There is not nearly so much modelling, such care of details, nor such artistic finish : for example the surface about the- temples which Praxiteles renders so beautifully is unnoticed in the bronze : but though some details may be omitted, others seem to suffer not so much from want of care as from want of mind to put into the work. The eye-lids, for instance, in the bronze are most carefully treated: the lashes, too, are shown by a row of minute notches, while the lashes on the lower lid are also marked. But if we look at the marble the difference is seen at once : there the lids, and not only the lids but the whole surface round the eye is treated with such skill, and given such a distinctive character, that though the circumlitio would enhance the eye's beauty it would add nothing fresh to its expression; whereas if the bronze were to lose its eyes the glance would lose half its meaning. The same lack of life is shown even more strikingly in the hair. The early masters (e.g. in the Aeginetan bronze head in the National Museum) tried to represent each hair; the sculptor of the Delphian charioteer uses the hair on the forehead and round the ears to form a sort of lace pattern; it is not hair, but it forms good material for drawing and design. In the 5th century they. kept it close and short. Praxiteles adopted quite another method; far from being ' sketchy' he represents hair more successfully than any of his predecessors. In the Hermes, the Eubuleus, and the Hygieia, we find the same Praxitel- ean method used to produce three quite different effects:—a number of locks are shown in masses, which are not grained, while the play of light and shade is skilfully employed to give the general impression. About this time, too, the hair seems to have begun to stand up in shorter or longer locks, as may be seen in the Olympian Hermes and in the bronze Satyr in Munich. (This treatment must be distinguished from the Lysippean hair which stands up to fall down again, as in the Zeus, Poseidon, and Alexander heads.) In our bronze the hair is short and stands up abruptly: no triangular scheme is formed, though over the middle of the forehead it is higher than THE STATUES FROM CERIGOTTO. 219 at the sides, but a pattern over each side of the brow is formed of as it were Gothic arches of short upstanding locks, while just in the middle the hair is very short and stands up straight: the rest of the head is covered with short curly locks. The effect however is not good : there is no life in the design: this is partly because the pattern is too mechanical, partly because the locks are grained. It seems as if the artist had the Praxitelean idea in his mind without understanding that to adapt it to the requirements of bronze in this modified form was to spoil it. The influence of the athletic schools on the figure is striking: the shoulders are broad, and the chest deep and massive: the arms are very powerful. All this upper part of the body is more fully grown and highly developed than the face would have led us to expect. Yet the arms are not very happy in design or execution : the raised right forearm when seen from above is ungraceful, while the wrists are rather coarse. The first and middle fingers of the right hand show curious marks, but it is difficult to make out what object it held. The hips are strongly marked, the legs are graceful and well-shaped, but hardly perhaps as powerful in proportion as the arms. The heavy abdominal muscles are due chiefly to modern restoration. The type of build of the Hermes of Cerigotto is more obviously athletic than the Hermes of Praxiteles. Neither is in hard training nor for the moment exerting physical force, but each shows the result of careful training of mind and body, and sets before us the Greek ideal of what a man should be. Above all things the Greek demanded that an ideal man should be what we term ' all-round,' that all his faculties should be symmetrically developed. How then is this ideal realised in the two works ? If we can answer this we shall catch a glimpse of that which lies at the back of all points of technical likeness or contrast, the ideal in the artist's mind. Perhaps the most striking quality of the Hermes of Praxiteles is his harmony, his complete harmony with his surroundings and in himself. Of his beauty there can be no doubt: yet it has often been asserted that his face is too sentimental and that the whole composition is listless and dreamy. Many, too, maintain that his body, though well proportioned, is heavy and lacks character. It is necessary to consider these charges for a moment and the grounds on which they are based. The whole composition shows a mood, and the expression and pose suggest a reverie: but there is much in the face and form to show that this is but one aspect of the God : it is not that the artist shows one mood only, he has emphasised one and suggested the others. There is strength as well as charm in the whole personality: the interest of the work lies not in the motive of the group but in the type represented.