self-Eschylus. If such statues as
he speaks of were painted generally,
and as
a necessary part of their
completion, could he have brought
into poetic use and sentiment their
vacancy of eyes? It is a remarkable
passage. He is describing Menelaus
in his gallery full of the large statues
of Helen. It is in the "Agamemnon:"

Ενμόρφων γὰρ κολοσσῶν
Εχθεται χάρις ἀνδρί.
Ομμάτων δ' ἐν ἀχηνίαις
Εῤῥει πάσ' 'Αφροδίτα.

There was ་་ no speculation in those eyes." The eyes were not painted certainly; as the poet saw the statues in his mind's eye, so had he seen them with his visible organs. The charm of love was not in them, because the outward form of the eye was only represented in the marble. The love-charm was not in those "vacancies of eyes." Schütz has this note upon the passage: "Quamvis nimirum eleganter fabricatæ sint statuæ, carent tamen oculis, adeoque admirationem quidem excitare possunt amorem non item."

These lines of the poet Eschylus, repeated before an acute and critical Athenian audience, would have been unintelligible, and marked as an egregious blunder, if the practice of painting statues, or even their eyes alone, had been so universal as it is represented in this "Apology." Can there be a more decisive authority, than this of the contemporary Eschylus? It is certainly a descent from Eschylus to Virgil; but we follow the apologist.

"Marmoreusque tibi, Dea, versicoloribus alis

In morem pictâ stabit Amor pharetrâ."

judicein favour of marble, for “Amor” shall be marble-that is the first word, and first consideration. In the next quotation Virgil, as provokingly, sets his heart upon marble-nay, smooth polished marble-and the whole figure is to be entirely of this smooth marble; but he gratifies Mr Jones by "scarlet" -the colour of colours, vermilionand thus so reconciles the Polychromatist to the marble, as to induce him to quote the really worthless passage:

"Si proprium hoc fuerit, levi de marmore

tota

Puniceo stabis suras evincta cothurno."

It is not of much moment to the main question what statue one clown should offer to Diana, in return for a day's hunting, or the other to a very different and far less respectable deity, whom he has already made in vulgar marble, pro temp. only, and whom he promises to set up in gold, though simply the "custos pauperis horti."

"Nunc te marmoreum pro tempore fecimus; at tu

Si fætura gregem suppleverit, aureus esto." The poetical promises exceeded the clown's means; neither Diana, nor the deity, odious to her, saw the promises fulfilled. The Apologist is merely taking advantage of a poetical license, a plenary indulgence in nonperformance. It is quite ridiculous to attempt to prove what Phidias and Praxiteles must have done, by what Virgil imagined. But as Mr Owen Jones delights in such quasi modern authorities, we venture to remind him of the bad taste of Horace, who loved the Parian marble; and to recommend him to consider in what manner white marble is spoken of by as good authority, Juvenal, who introduces it as most valued in his time-white statues.

"Et jam accurrit, qui marmora donet
Conferat impersas. Hic nuda et candida
signa,

Hic aliquid præclarum Euphranoris et
Polycleti."

It may be as well to quote also what he says in reference to waxing statues :

"Propter quæ fas est genua incerare Deo

rum.'

sueverant Deorum simulacra cera illinire (the old word of dispute) ibidemque affert illud Prudentii, lib. i., contra Symonachum,

-Saxa illita ceris

Viderat, unguentoque Lares humescere nigros.""

And in Sat. XII., "Simulacra intentia cerâ."

-

We have already treated of this custom of waxing the statues, and given the recipe of Pliny, to which we revert for a moment, because the advocates for the colouring theory insist that illitia, linita, illinere, linire, all of one origin, are words applicable to painting. Pliny says,-we quote from Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, after showing how the wax should be melted and laid on, "It was then rubbed with a clean linen cloth, in the way that naked marble statues were done." The Latin is-"Sicut et marmora nitescunt." The writer in the Dictionary speaks as to the various application of the encaustic process, to paint and to polish: "Wax thus purified was mixed with all species of colours, and prepared for painting; but it was applied also to many other uses, as polishing statues, walls, &c."

Lucian, who died ninety years of age, 180th of the Christian era, although he relinquished the employment of a statuary, and followed that of literature, had certainly an excellent taste in art. His descriptions of statues and pictures prove his fondness and his knowledge. What he says of the famous Cnidian Venus of Praxiteles is very remarkable. After admiring the whiteness of the marble and its polish, he praises the ingenuity of the artificer, in so contriving the statue as to bring least in sight a blemish in the marble, (a very common thing, he adds). It would not have required this ingenuity in the design, if Praxiteles had intended his statue to be painted, for the paint would have covered the stain in the marble wherever placed. We may learn something more from Lucian. In his "Images," wishing to describe a perfect woman, he will first represent her by the finest statues in the world, selecting the beauties of each. It is in a dialogue with Lycinus and Poly

He

stratus. "Is there anything wanting?" asks Polystratus, after mention of these perfect statues. Lycinus replies that the colouring is wanting. He therefore brings to his description the most beautiful works of the best painters. Enough is not done yet; there is the mind to be added. He therefore calls in the poets. Here, then, we have statuary, painter, and poet, each by their separate art to portray this perfect woman. does not describe by painted statues, but by pictures. Had painting statues been universal, as pretended, Lucian must have seen examples, and his reference to pictures would have been unnecessary. If it be argued that the paint had worn off, that argument will tell against the Polychromatists, for it at least will show that, in an age when statues were esteemed, the barbarity of colouring was not renewed.

In his "Description of a House," he says, "Over against the door, upon the wall, there is the Temple of Minerva in relief, where you may see the goddess in white marble, without her accoutrements of war." The painter, it may be fairly conjectured, painted inside on the wall of the house, the common aspect, and the white marble statue.

In his "Baths of Hippias," he mentions "two noble pieces of antiquity in marble of Health and Esculapius." Nor does he omit noticing paint, and that vermilion-but where is it? Then you come to a hot passage of Numidian stone, that brings you to the last apartment, glittering with a bright vermilion, bordering on purple."

According to Mr Owen Jones's theory, all these exquisite works in white marble are to be considered as unfinished; if they have not been handed over to the painter, they should be now. Why did Phidias and Praxiteles so elaborate to the mark of truth their performances? The reader will be astonished to learn the reason from Mr Owen Jones. It was from the necessity of the subsequent finish by paints!

"People are apt to argue that Phidias never could have taken such pains to study the light and shade of this bas-relief, if the fineness of his work

manship had had to be stopped up when bedaubed with paint." It is astonishing that not a glimmering of common sense was here let in upon the work of Phidias, while the whole light of his understanding showed the effect of his own handiwork on the plaster; for he, in that case, says, "But when the plaster has further to be painted with four coats of oil-paint to stop the suction, it may readily be imagined how much the more delicate modulations of the surface will suffer." Does he suppose that the eyes of Phidias, and of people in that age, were blind to the suffering of these nice modulations from the stucco, or over-coats of paint? But why did Phidias so finish his works?-hear the polychromatic oracle "Now, people who argue thus have never understood what colour does when applied to form. The very fact that colour has to be applied, demands the highest finish in the form beneath. By more visibly bringing out the form, it makes all defects more prominent. Let any one compare the muscles of the figures in white with the muscles of those coloured, and he will not hesitate an instant to admit this truth. The labours of Phidias, had they never received colour, would have been thrown away; it was because he designed them to receive colour, that such an elaboration of the surface was required." This is the most consider able inconsiderate nonsense imaginable. Common sense says, that one even colour, or absence of colour, gives equal shadows, according to the sculptor's design; but if you colour portions of the same work differently, the unity of shadows will be destroyed, for shadows will assimilate themselves to the various colourings, be they light or dark. This necessity of colouring would impose such a task upon the sculptor, so complicate his work and design, and so bring his whole mind into subservience to, or certainly cooperation and consultation with, the painter, that no man of genius could submit to it; for it is the characteristic of genius to have its exercise in its own independent art. The assertion of this effect of colour, by Mr Jones, is untrue in fact, and if he could make it true, would so complicate, and at the same time degrade,

the statuary's art, that in the disgust of its operation it would be both out of the power, and out of the inclination, of men to pursue it. Will the people of England take Mr Owen Jones's reproof? To them the labours of Phidias have hitherto been thrown away, for they have only as yet seen his works in white marblein fact, unfinished. In this state Mr Jones thinks they have been very silly to admire them at all-and how they came to admire them who can comprehend? they have no colourable pretext for their admiration. Not only have the labours of Phidias been "thrown away,"-but, what is more galling to this age of economists, some forty thousand pounds of our good people's money have been thrown away too. What is left to be done? Simply what we have often done before-throw some "good money after the bad," and constitute Mr Owen Jones Grand Polychromatist-plenipotentiary, with competence of salary and paint-pots, and establish him for life, and his school for ever, in the British Museum. It is well for him and for them the innocent marbles have no motion, or the very stones would cry out against him, and uplift their quiescent arms to smash more than his paint-pots.

And here let us be allowed to remark of Mr Owen Jones's colouring, having been thoroughly disgusted at the Crystal Palace, that he is as yet but in the very elements of the grammar of colour. He has gone but a very little way in its alphabet. He has practised little more than the A B C

that is, the bright blue, the bright red, the bright yellow. But the alphabet is much beyond this. What of their combinations? These are so innumerable that, as if in despair of their acquirement, he puts his whole trust in the blue, red, and yellow, so that the very object of colour, variety, is missed, and the eye is wearied and irritated in this Crystal Palace with what may be called, in defiance of the contradiction of the word, a polychromatic monotony. His theory of colour stops short at the beginning-it is without its learning. The sentiments of colours are in their mixtures, their relative combinations, and ap

propriate applications, and we venture to suggest to other Polychromatists, besides Mr Owen Jones, that the grammar of colouring, if learned properly, will lead to a mystery which the blue, red, and yellow, of themselves the A, B, C of the art, are quite insufficient to teach. The study is by none more required than our painters in glass; nor are some of our picturemakers, as our Academy exhibitions show, without the need of a little learning. We scarcely ever see a modern window that does not exhibit a total ignorance of colour. The first thing that strikes the eye is a quantity of blue, for it is the most active colour, and it is given in large portions, not dissipated as it should be-then reds, and as vivid as may be-and yellows. Attempt at proper effect, such as the genius loci requires, there is none. With the unsparing use of these three unmitigated colours only, we do not see why decorators should be called Polychromatists at all; they should style themselves Trichromatists. But of Mr Owen Jones's polychromatic theory and practice, do not let him so slander the tasks of the ancients as to pretend that he has it from them, if by the ancients he means those artists of good time. They delighted in white marble," nuda et candida signa,"the naked and the white. The pretence that he had it from them, is as the

--

"Painted vest Prince Vortigern had on, Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won."

The grandsire never took it; the naked Pict never had it. And yet the directors of this Crystal Palace have taken Mr Owen Jones's word for it. They have inconsiderately, and with the worst taste, delivered up the Palace into Mr Jones's hands. We dread his being put into any other palace, for he evidently longs to be stuccoing and daubing the real marbles. "The experiment cannot be fairly tried, till tried on marble”— and he looks to a wide area, ample verge, and room enough, "and in conditions of space, atmosphere, &c., similar to those under which the originals were placed.' We however owe it to Mr Owen Jones's candour in admitting a note by Mr Penrose,

which vindicates the character of this odious marble. Thus speaks Mr Penrose: "An extensive and careful examination of the Pentelic Quarries, by the orders of King Otho, has shown that large blocks, such as were used at Athens, are very rare indeed. The distance, also, from the city is considerable: whereas there are quarries on Mount Hymettus at little more than one-third the distance (and most convenient for carriage), which furnish immense masses of dove-coloured marble, much prized, it would seem, by the Romans (Hor., ii. 18), and inferior in no respect but that of colour to the Pentelic. It could, therefore, only have been the intrinsic beauty of the latter material that led to its employment by so practical a people as the Athenians." It will occur to the reader to ask if there is not here something like a proof that they did not intend this Pentelic marble to be painted; for it is manifest, under the stucco-and-painting theory, the dovecoloured of Hymettus_would have answered all purposes. But Mr Owen Jones triumphs over his own candour. He sees nothing in the admission of this note of Mr Penrose; he takes it up, he exhibits it, merely for the purpose of throwing it down and trampling upon it. He gives it a scornful reply.-Reply in large letters. It is a curious one, for, like the boomerang, it flies back upon himself, and gives his own arguments a palpable hit. The reader may remember how he had asserted that "the Athenians built with marble because they found it almost beneath their feet." In his oblivious reply, he discovers that the Athenians used it because it was a great way off from their feet; nay, that the worst part of the matter was, that it was no farther off from their feet. He uprises in reverential dignity, to reprove "our present ideas of economy.' "I do not think that, with our present ideas of economy, we are able to appreciate the motives of the Athenians in choosing their marble from the Pentelic quarries, in preference to those of Mount Hymettus. We must remember that the Greeks built for their gods; and the Pentelic marble, by presenting greater difficulties in its acquisition, may have been a more precious offering." Mr

Jones thus offers two contradictory motives on behalf of the Atheniansone must be given up. It would be strange in so few pages that a writer should so contradict himself, if we did not bear in mind with what ingenuity a theory will invest its own pertinacity. Surely no man on earth will believe that the Athenians, either by any extraordinary devotion* they showed towards their gods in the time of Pericles, or by an unheard of folly (for they were a practical people), chose the one quarry in preference to the other, for no other reason than its greater cost and difficulty.

We are referred to the evidence of Mr Bracebridge, produced before the committee of the Institute, which Mr Jones says settles the point" as far as regards monumental sculpture." The evidence is, that in the winter 1835-6, an excavation, to the depth of twenty-five feet, was made at the south-east angle of the Parthenon. "Here were found many pieces of marble, and among these fragments parts of triglyphs, of fluted columns, and of statues, particularly a female head, which was painted (the hair is nearly the costume of the 'present day)." It is quite an assumption that the spot of this excavation was the place where "the workmen of the Parthenon had thrown their refuse marble." There is no proof whatever that these fragments were even of the age of the Parthenon; even if they may be supposed so to be, we presume that, as works of art, they are worthless, for they are called refuse, and most likely had nothing to do with the work of the Parthenon. We believe at the same time was found the very beautiful fragment in relief, the Winged Victory, of which but very few casts were taken. One of these we have just now seen, and doubt not its being of the age of Phidias. This is white marble, and we have never heard that it has any indication of having been painted. If Mr Owen

Jones could prove to us that the whole Parthenon, with all its statues, showed certain indications of paint, we still have not advanced to any ground of fair conclusion; for, in the want of contemporary evidence-(we cannot call anything yet adduced evidence) -we are left to conjecture that the daubing and plastering were the work of a subsequent age, or ages, when ornament encroached upon and deteriorated every art in Greece, whether dramatic, painting, or sculpture. "Pliny and Vitruvius both repeatedly deplore the corrupt taste of their own times. Vitruvius (vii. 5), observes, that the decorations of the ancients were tastelessly laid aside, and that strong and gaudy colouring and prodigal expense were substituted for the beautiful effects produced by the skill of the ancient artists." (Smith's Antiquities.)

We pay little attention to what has been said by the writers quoted regarding Acrolithic or Chryselephantine statues, whether of the best or lowest character. Whatever they were, they have perished, and there is nothing left for modern barbarism to restore. We have looked chiefly to undoubtedly good genuine marblewhite marble statues, and reliefs of the best times, of such as are to be seen and admired, unadorned, in our British Museum. "It is the custom of all barbarous nations to colour their idols," says the writer of the historical evidence. We perfectly assent to this, and believe we shall ourselves be a very barbarous nation whenever the statues in that Museum shall be plastered with stucco, or painted over with four coats of vermilion or any other colour. Barbarous nations have painted, and do so still, not only their idols but themselves. Our Picts, with their woad colouring, may have emulated the peculiar beauty of bluefaced baboons. We dispute not the point that Greece, as well as every other country, at some period of its