omnino durabilis." The two words Superlitio and Circumlitio,*—the first applicable to such a surface as a picture; the last to statues, which present quite another surface. But if it could be proved—and it cannot-that the works of Praxiteles were in Mr Owen Jones's sense painted over, would that justify the colouring the frieze of the Parthenon, the work of Phidias, who preceded Praxiteles more than a century, during which many abominations in taste may have been introduced? We are quite aware that, at a barbarous period, images of gods, probably mostly those of wood, were painted over with vermilion, as a sacred colour and one of triumph. We extract from the old translation

of Pliny this passage:- "There is found also in silver mines a mineral called minium, i. e. vermilion, which is a colour at this day of great price and estimation, like as it was in old time; for the ancient Romans made exceeding great account of it, not only for pictures, but also for divers sacred and holy uses. And verily Verrius allegeth and rehearseth many authors whose credit ought not to be disproved, who affirm that the manner was in times past to paint the very face of Jupiter's image on high and festival daies with vermilion as also that the valiant captains who rode in triumphant manner into Rome had in former times their bodies covered all over therewith; after which manner, they say, noble Camillus entered the city in triumph. And even to this day, according to that ancient and religious custom, ordinary it is to colour all the unguents that are used in a festival supper, at a solemne triumph, with vermilion. And no one thing do the Censors give charge and order for to be done, at their entrance into office, before the painting of Jupiter's image with minium." Yet Pliny does not say much in favour of the practice; for he adds "The cause and motive that induced our ancestors to this ceremony I marvel much at, and cannot imagine what it should be." The Censors did but follow a vulgar taste to please the

vulgar, for whom no finery can be too fine, no colours too gaudy. However refined the Athenian taste, we know from their comedies they had their vulgar ingredient: there could be no security among them even for the continuance in purity of the genius which gave them the works of Phidias and Praxiteles; nor were even these great artists perhaps allowed the exercise of their own noble minds. The Greeks had no permanent virtuesno continuance of high perceptions: as these deteriorated, their great simplicity would naturally yield to petty ornament. They of Elis, who appointed the descendants of Phidias to the office of preserving from injury his statue of Jupiter Olympius, did little if they neglected to secure their education also in the principles of the taste of Phidias. The conservators would in time be the destroyers; and simply because they must do, and know not what to do. When images

their innumerable idols-were carried in processions, they were of course dressed up, not for veneration, but show. We know that in very early times their gods were carried about in shrines, and, without doubt, tricked up with dress and daubings, pretty much as are, at this day, the Greek Madonnas. Venus and Cupid have descended down to our times in the painted Madonna and Bambino. Whatever people under the sun have ever had paint and finery, temples, gods, and idols have had their share of them. We need no proofs, and it is surprising we have so few with respect to the great works of the ancients, that these corruptions would take place. It is in human nature: barbarism never actually dies; it is an ill weed, hard entirely to eradicate, and is ready to spring up in the most cultivated soils. The vulgar mind will make its own Loretto: imagination and credulity want no angels but themselves to convey anywhere a "santa casa;" nor will there be wanting brocade and jewels, the crown and the peplos, for the admiration of the ignorant. Are a few examples, if found and proved, and of the best

will be restored until funds shall be found for stucco, inside and out, as preparation for Mr Jones's bright blue and unmitigated vermilion and gold. It is frightful to imagine Mr Owen Jones and his paint-pot over every inch of Westminster Abbey, inside and out.

Let us take a nearer view of the

historical evidence. We are told,

"Ancient literature abounds with references and allusions to the practice of painting and dressing statues. Space prevents their being copiously cited here." We venture to affirm, that the lack of existence is greater than the lack of space, if by ancient literature is meant the best literature

times-which is not clear-to establish the theory as good in taste, or in any way part of the intention of the great sculptors? If authorities adduced, and to be adduced, are worth anything, they must go a great deal farther. Take, for instance, a passage from Pausanias, lib. ii. c. 11: Καὶ Ὑγείας δ' ἐσι κατα ταυτον αγαλμα οὐκ αν οὐδὲ τοῦτο ἴδοις ῥᾳδίως, οὕτω, περιεχουσιν αυτὸ κόμαι τε γυναικὼν άΰ κειρονται τῇ θεῶ, καὶ ἐσθῆτός Βαβυλωνίας τεNapoves." And after the same manner is a statue of Hygeia, which you may not easily see, it is so completely covered with hair of the women who have shorn themselves in honour of the goddess, and also with the fringes of the Babylonish vest." Here, surely, is quite sufficient authority for Mr Jones to procure ample and variously-coloured wigs for the Venus de Medicis, and other statues, and to order a committee of milliners to devise suitable vesture. Images of this kind were mostly made of wood, easy to be carried about; and were often, doubtless, made likest life, for the deception as of the real presence of a deity. The view of art was lost when imposture commenced. Mr Jones admits that the Greek sculptors did not intend exact imitation, but his theory goes so close to it, it would be difficult to say where it stops short. Indeed, he had better at once go the whole way, or we may better say, "the whole hog," with bristle brushes, for when he has got rid of the "prejudice" in favour of white marble, his spectators will be satisfied with nothing less than wax-work.

We remember hearing, in a remote village, the consolation one poor woman gave another" Look up to them pretty angels, with their lovely black eyes, and take comfort from 'em." These were angels' heads in plaster, round the cornice, which the church-wardens, year after year, with the official taste and importance of the Roman Censors, had caused to be so painted when, as they announced on a tablet, they "beautified" the church. Of late years we have been removing the whitewash from our cathedrals, thicker, by repetition, than Mr Owen Jones's prescribed coats of stucco. Should his theory prevail, we shall be again ashamed of stone; white-lime

VOL. LXXVI.-NO. CCCCLXVII.

the literature contemporary with the works of the great sculptors. There were poets and historians-can any quotation be given at all admissible as evidence? It is extraordinary that the advocates for the theory, if it were true, can find no passages in the poets. Is there nothing nearer than what Plato puts into the mouth of Socrates? "Let it be remembered that Socrates was the son of a sculptor, and that Plato lived in Athens, acquainted with the great sculptors and their works; then read this passage, wherein Socrates employs by way of simile the practice of painting statues

Just as if, when painting statues, a person should blame us for not placing the most beautiful colours on the most beautiful parts of the figure-inasmuch as the eyes, the most beautiful parts, were not painted purple but black,-we should answer him by saying, Clever fellow, do not suppose we are to paint eyes so beautifully that they should not appear to be eye.'-PLATO, De Repub., lib. iv. This. passage would long ago have settled the question, had not the moderns been preoccupied with the belief that the Greeks did not paint their statues; they therefore read the passage in another sense. Many translators read

เ

pictures' for statues.' But the Greek word Avôpias signifies' statue,' and is never used to signify' picture.' It means statue, and a statuary is called the maker of such statues-AvoplavтOTTOLOS. (Mr Davis, in Bohn's English edition of Plato, avoids the difficulty by translating it human figures')."--Mr Lloyd, in his remarks upon this passage, confesses

Y

that it does not touch the question concerning the painting the flesh, but refers to the eyes, lips, and ornaments. We object not to admit more than this, and, as we have before observed, that certain images, mostly of wood, were painted entirely, excepting where clothed; and, for argument's sake, admitting that Socrates alluded to these common images, if we may so speak, the ancestors of our common dolls, should we be justified in building a theory subversive of all good taste upon such an ambiguity? For nothing is here said of marble statues; and there is nothing to show that marble statues are meant. The writer in the "Apology" says, with an air of triumph, that Avopias always means statue, and never picture; but these were figures, that he would call statues, of wood and of clay, and of little valuea kind of marketable goods for the vulgar, as we have already shown. But if the writer is determined to make them marble statues, and of the best, he might certainly have made his case the stronger; for when he says, and truly, that Socrates was the son of a sculptor, he forgets that Socrates was himself a sculptor,-and some have supposed him to have been a painter also, but Pliny is of another opinion. The three Graces in the court before the Acropolis of Athens were his work; and it is probably to the demands these Graces made upon his thoughts the philosopher alluded in his dialogue with Theodote the courtesan. She had invited him to her home; he excused himself that he had no leisure from his private and public affairs," and besides," he adds playfully, "I have pia-female friends-at home who will not suffer me to absent myself from them day or night, learning, as they do from me, charms and powers of enticement." So that we may suppose him to have been no. mean statuary. Yet, considering that his mother followed the humble occupation of a

midwife, and that consequently his father was not very rich, it may not be an out-of-the-way conjecture to suppose that the family trade may have had its humbler employments, of which the painting images may have borne a part. Ships had their images as well as temples, and we know that the ship's head was "MATônápños.” The custom has descended to our times. But we are not to take the word put by Plato into the mouth of Socrates-avdplavras-necessarily in the highest sense, and imagine he speaks of such works as those of Phidias or Praxiteles. Although the Greeks did distinguish the several words by which statues were understood, they were not very nice in the observance of the several uses. Ανδριαντας may have been applied to any representation of the human figure. AvdpiavTоTous, says the Apologist, was a statuary-so may have been said to be Ανδριαντοπλάσης the modellist in clay or wax; but neither word is used by Socrates-simply Avôpiavras, (images). There is not a hint as to how, or with what materials, they were made. The scholiast on the passage in Aristophanes respecting the work of Socrates (the Graces), makes a distinction between ανδριαν τας and αγαλματα-noticing that Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus,

fogós, with whom he took his share in the polishing art, adding that he polished ανδριάντας λίθινες ἐλαξεύε, and that he made the "ayaλpara" of the three Graces. Now, let avopias be a statue, or human figure, of whatever material, and grant that some such figures had painted eyes, and probably partially coloured drapery, possibly the whole body painted-what then? they might have been low and inferior works. Who would think, from such data, of inferring a habit in the Greek sculptors of painting and plastering all their marble statues-asserting too, so audaciously, that we the moderns have, and not they, a prejudice in

favour of white marble? But Mr Lloyd, in his note on this passage, with respect to Socrates (vide "Apology"), admits that it is no evidence of the colouring the flesh. "The passage is decisive, as far as it goes, but it does not touch the question of colouring the flesh. It proves that

as late as Plato's time it was usual to apply colour to the eyes of statues ; and assuming, what is not stated, that marble statues are in question, we are brought to the same point as by the Æginetan marbles, of which the eyes, lips, portions of the armour and draperies, were found coloured. I forget whether the hair was found to be coloured, but the absence of traces of colour on the flesh, while they were abundant elsewhere, indicates that, if coloured at all, it must have been by a different and more perishable process-by a tint, or stain, or varnish. The Æginetan statues, being archaic, do not give an absolute rule for those of Phidias. The archaic Athenian bas-relief of a warrior, in excellent preservation, shows vivid colours on drapery and ornaments of armour, and the eyeballs were also coloured: here again there is no trace of colour on the flesh." But notwithstanding that no statue has been found with any trace of colour in the flesh, and not satisfied with Mr Lloyd's commentary, Mr Owen Jones seeks proof and confirmation of the sense of the quotation from Plato, in a caution given by Plutarch, thus mistranslated: "It is necessary to be very careful of statues, otherwise the vermilion with which the ancient statues were coloured will quickly disappear." What kind of care is necessary? Plutarch uses the word γάνωσις, which means more than care-that a polishing or varnishing is necessary (if, as we may presume, they would preserve the old colouring of an archaic statue), because, not perhaps of the quick fading of the vermilion, as translated by Mr

Lloyd, but the vermilion eέav0eî— effloresces; or, as we should say, comes up dry to the surface, leaving the vehicle with which it was put on. However, let the passage have all the meaning Mr Owen Jones can desire, it relates only to certain sacred figures at Rome, not in Greece, and which may have been, for anything that is known to the contrary, figures of sacred geese. How do these quotations show the practice of Phidias? In the first place, Plato, who narrates what Socrates said, was nearly a century after Phidias, and Plutarch nearly six hundred years after Phidias. On every account the authority of Plato would be preferable to that of Plutarch, who kept his school at Rome, and was far more fond of raising questions than of affording accurate information.* Mr Owen Jones, however, in the impetuosity of his imaginary triumph, outruns all his given authorities to authorities not given. He says: "There are abundant notices extant which illustrate it (the painting of statues). One will suffice. The celebrated marble statue of a Bacchante by Scopas is described as holding, in lieu of the Thyrsus, a dead roebuck, which is cut open, and the marble represents living flesh." We willingly excuse the blunder of the living flesh of a dead roebuck, ascribing it solely to the impetuosity of the genius of Mr Owen Jones, which, plunging into colouring matter, would vermilionise the palest face of Death. If paint could "create a soul under the ribs of death," he would do it. He must greatly admire the old lady's dying request to

"Put on this cheek a little red, One surely would not look a fright when dead."

We know not where to lay our hand upon the original account of this statue of the Bacchante of Scopas; but if it says no more than the

Apologist says for it-that the marble represented living flesh "-it does not necessarily imply colour. Here is a contradiction: if it be meant that by "living flesh" the colour of living flesh was represented—for that must be the argument-there must have been an attempt towards the exact imitation of nature. "In the first place," says Mr Owen Jones, arguing against the suggestion of coloured and veined marble having been used, "veins do not so run in marble as to represent flesh. In the second, unless statues were usually coloured, such veins, if they existed, would be regarded as terrible blemishes, and the very things the Greeks are supposed to have avoided-viz., colour as representing reality-would be shown." Does Mr Owen Jones here admit that this exact imitation by colour was not usual? If so, as the words imply, what becomes of his quotation of the words of Socrates with regard to colouring the eyes? And further, upon what new plea will he justify his colouring the Parthenon frieze-not only the men and their cloaks, but the horses-so that the latter exactly resemble those on the roundabouts on which children ride at fairs? We suppose he meant the men to have a natural colour, and the horses also-a taste so vile, that we are quite sure such a perpetration would have shocked Phidias out of all patience. And if not meant for the exact colour, what can he suppose they were painted for?-as, to avoid this semblance of reality, the Greeks, according to him, should have painted men and horses vermilion or blue, or any colour the farthest from reality, the contrary to the practice of Mr Owen Jones-and that he should have painted them vermilion he immediately shows, by quoting Pausanias, where he describes a statue of Bacchus 66 as having all those portions not hidden by draperies painted vermilion, the body being of gilded wood." What has this to do with marble statues ? But he seems not to understand the hint given by his commentator, Mr Lloyd, "that the statue was apparently ithyphallic, and probably archaic" a well-known peculiarity in statues of Bacchus. Not having,

however, such a specimen in marble, he is particularly glad to find one of gypsum, ornamented with paint:" nothing more probable, and for the same reason that the wooden one was painted vermilion.

"But colour was used, as we know," says Mr Owen Jones; " and Pausanias (Arcad., lib. viii. cap. 39) describes a statue of Bacchus as having all those portions not hidden by draperies painted vermilion, the body being of gilded wood. He also distinctly says that statues made of gypsum were painted, describing a statue of Bacchus γύψου πεποιημένον, which was-the language is explicitornamented with paint, (eπɩKEKOσμNμEνον γραφη.) These are statues of Bacchus, and, as the Apologist is reminded by his commentator, Mr Lloyd, "apparently ithyphallic," and therefore painted red. The draperies are the assumption of the writer; he should have said ivy and laurel. Mr Owen Jones, to render his examples" abundant," writes statues in the latter part of the quotation, whereas the word in his authority, Pausanias, is singular. We stay not to inquire if ypan here means paint, though, speaking of another statue, Pausanias uses the verb and its congenial noun in another sense—“eniyрaμμα ἐπαντῆ γραφῆναι.” We the more readily grant it was painted vermilion, because it was a Bacchic statue; and grant that it was seen by Pausanias. We daresay it was ancient enough; but for any proof we must not look to Pausanias, who lived at Rome 170th year of the Christian era;-and here it must be borne in mind, that of the innumerable statues spoken of by that writer, of marble and other materials, the supposed painted are a very few exceptions. Not only does he speak of marble, without any mention of colouring, but of its whiteness. In this matter, indeed, the exceptions prove the rule of the contrary. Before we proceed to the examples taken from Virgilweak enough-let us see if there may not be found something nearer the time of Phidias than any authorities given. Well, then, we have an eyewitness, one who must not only have seen the statues of Phidias, but probably conversed with Phidias him