Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/367

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
ABC—XYZ

FIRST PERIOD.] ARCHAEOLOGY 345 wo:ks (1.) iheGeschiditc der Kunst de s Alterthums, Dresden, 17G4, and with additions, 1767; and (2.) Monumenti Antichi Inediti, Rome, 17G7, 2 vols. fol. It was in the former that he elaborated his two theories first, that the quality of artistic productions is always in harmony with the character and the events of the times; and, secondly, that ideal beauty originates in the union of individually-beautiful forms observed singly and apart in nature. Whatever may be said of the narrowness or want of precision in his artistic and philosophical speculations, it still stands to his great praise and renown that he was the first to undertake a vigorous examination of the terms, beauty and ideal, in their relation to nature. It was through his influence that the history of ancient art was introduced into the course of academical study by Heyne, that Goethe, Lessing, and Herder turned each the force of his consummate genius to ancient art, and that the publication of ancient monuments with critical apparatus received a new impulse. Among the immediate disciples of Winckelmann were Zoega (1755-1809), Visconti (1751- 1807), and Millin. After Winckelmann, the next history of ancient art that appeared was Meyer s Geschichte der lildcnden Kiinste bei den Griechen und Rdmern, Dresden, 1 82-i-36, 3 vols.; contemporary with which the only important contributions to the subject were those of C. A. Bottiger and Hirt. While German activity was engaged on theories of art based principally on the monuments existing in Italy, a practical view of the subject was taken in England, the first issue of which was that Stuart and Eevett went to Athens in 1751, and spent nearly three years in exploring and drawing its remains, the result appearing in the work Annuities of Athens, vol. i., 1762; vol. ii., 1787; vol. iii., 1704; and vol. iv., 1816. The task begun by them was taken up by the Society of Dilettanti (founded 1734), whose first expedition under Dr Chandler, Eevett, and Pars, an artist, in Greece and Asia Minor, was productive of two works (1.) Ionian Antiquities (published in 1769, and again, largely increased by the researches of William Geli, in 1797); and (2.) Unedited Antiquities of Attica, 1817. At this time, Lord Elgin, then British ambassador at the Porte, had a large force of workmen employed in removing the sculptures of the Acropolis of Athens, which, after years of tossing hither and thither in London, at last, in 1816, found a resting-place in the British Museum, of which they continue to form the greatest ornament. In 1811-12 a number of English, German, and Danish travellers (Cockerell, Forster, Stackelberg, Haller, Linckh, and Bronstedt) undertook the exploration of /Egina at their own expense, and were fortunate in the recovery of the sculptures of the temple of Athene, now in Munich. In 1812 the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Phigalia was explored by Cockerell, its sculptured frieze recovered and obtained for the British Museum, and its architecture elucidated in the still unapproached work of Cockerell, The Temples of Jupiter at ^Eyina, and of Apollo at Basscc, near Phirjalia, 1860. Among the other researches under taken about this period were (1.) The French Expedi tion scientifique de la Moree, the chief result of which was the discovery of some fragments of the metopes of the temple of Zeus at Olympia. (2.) The excavations on the Acropolis of Athens, directed by L. Ross, in 1834-36. (3.) The excavations of Angell and Harris on the Acropolis of Selinus in Sicily in 1822-23, resulting in the recovery of three sculptured metopes of a very archaic style, and fragments of three more metopes (Samuel Angell and Thomas Harris, Sculptured Metopes of the Ancient City oj Selinus in Sicily, London, 1826, fol.) (4.) The exploration of the same site by the duke of Serradifalco (L Antichila ki Sicilia, Palermo, 1834), with the further gain of four metopes sculptured in a more advanced style (O. Benndorf, Die Metopen von Selinunt, Berlin, 1873). These sculptures are in the Museum of Palermo. (5.) The extensive opera tions in Etruria from 1828 onwards, the enormous spoils of which, consisting of painted vases, bronzes, <tc., led to the foundation of the Institute di Corrispondenza Arche- ologica at Rome, which has continued uninterruptedly, with the support of the Prussian Government, its publication of Annali, Bullettino, and Monumenti, furnishing a com plete repertory of archaeological research up to the present day. (6.) The removal of the sculptures on the Acropolis of Xanthos (Fellows, Asia Minor, 1839, and Travels in Lycia, 1841), and the remains of the Mausoleiim at Hali- carnassus (Newton, History of Discoveries, <S:c., 1862, and Travels in the Levant, 1865), have been the principal additions of that class to our national collection, which, however, lias been immensely enriched in objects of minor artistic importance, but of great archaeological interest, from excavations in Greece, at Camirus and Jalyssus in Rhodes, in Sicily, in the Cyrenaica, and in Cyprus. In the Crimea the excavations of the Russian Government have brought very important treasures to light (Antiquitcs du Bosphore Cimmcrien conserves au Musee Imperial de VErmitage, Petersburg, 1854; Comptes Rendus de la Commission Archeologique, from 1859). The rapid and vast accumulation of new material after the time of Winckelmann required a new informing spirit. The first to assume this function was Thiersch, in three articles, " Ueber die Epochen der bildenden Kunst unter den Griechen/ 1816, 1819, 1825, in which he endeavoured to prove the influence of the Egyptians and Phoenicians on early Greek art. Against him appeared K. 0. Miiller, denying altogether an exoteric influence, and comparing the development of Greek art to the organic development of plants, its various periods being coincident with the marked periods of political history. These opinions he propounded first in a series of articles (Kleine Schriften, ii. pp. 315-398), and afterwards in the celebrated Handluch der Archaoloffie (1830; 2d ed. 1835; 3d ed. 1848, with additions by Welcker), which, with the plates by Oesterley (Denkmaler der alien Kunst), is still unsurpassed in its kind. Miiller s view has continued to be adopted by all the leading archaeologists since his time, among whom may be here mentioned Gerhard, Welcker, Otto Jahn, and the historians of art generally, Schnaase, Kugler, and Liibke. Besides the Handbuch, however, with its additional volume of Denkmiiler>y Wieseler, it is necessary, for the most recent information, to consult Brunn s Geschichte der Griechischen Kiinstler, 2 vols. ; Overbeck s Geschichte der Griechischen Plastik, 2d. ed., 1872; Friedcrichs s fiausteine, Berlin, 1868; KleineKunst und Industrie, Berlin, 1871, by the same author; G. Semper. Der Stil in den technischfn und tektonischen Kun- sten, Munich, 1860-63; C. Botticher, Die Tektonik der Hellenen, 2d. ed., Berlin, 1872-3; Helbig s Wandgemiilde Campaniens, 1868; vol ii. of Schnaase s Geschichte der bil denden Kiinste ; Helbig s Untersuchunyen uber die Wandge- malde Campaniens, 1873; the publications of the Institute di Corrispondenza Archeologica of Rome, and the Archaolo- gische Zeitung of Berlin. It is not assumed that this list exhausts the number of books that may be consulted with profit ; but it is hoped that no essentially important work has been overlooked. First Period. The oldest remains of workmanship in Greece, if we Earliest except the series of stone implements discovered within the Greek re- last few years in various localities, are the ruined walls of maias< Tirynth and several other ancient citadels, the stupendous masonry of which, together with the primitive manner of ccnstmction by means of unhewn polygonal blocks of

II. - 44