Ancient art and its remains, or, A manual of the archaeology of art / By C.O. Müller.

  • Karl Otfried Müller
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ancient art and its remains, or, A manual of the archaeology of art / By C.O. Müller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    180/664
    fested itself here and there in different ways and in all_ sorts of works;—but that when art in Greece attained its highest stage, the intercourse of the two nations, on the one hand, was too restricted by reason of various events,—especially the Samnitic conquest of Campania about the year of Rome 332 —and on the other, the Etruscan nation itself was already too much broken, too degenerate and inwardly decayed, and after all did not possess sufficient artistic spirit to be able to ap- propriate art in an equal degree when carried to perfection; hence, notwithstanding the excellence of particular perform- ances, the art of the Etruscans, on the whole, declined into a sort of plodding handicraft, and lost all pretension to Greek ^ elegance and beauty. Accordingly, the art of design was always a foreign plant in Etruria, foreign in forms, foreign in materials which she borrowed almost entirely, not from the na- tional superstition, which was but ill-adapted to artistic repre- sentations, but from the divine and heroic my thi of the Greeks. 2—5. Accordingly the Etruscan works fall into five classes: 1. The real Tuscanica, QuintU. xii, 10. i:vppn'jix.A, Strab. xvii. p. 806 a., works which are placed in the same rank with the earHest of Greek art. Heavier forms, and details of costume, as well as the almost universal want of beard in the Etruscan works of art, constitute the difference. To this class belong many bronzes and engraved works, some stone statues, many gems, some patera, and the older wall-paintings. 2. Imitations of orien- tal, chiefly Babylonian, figures which had become diffused by tapestries and engraved stones; always merely in decorative statuary of an ara- besque character. Thus on the Clusinian vases, whose figures often recur on Perso-Babylonian stones (as the woman holding two lions m Dorow, Voy Archeol. pi. 2, 1. b., is very similar to that in Ouseley, Travels i. pi 21 16), and at the same time bear a great resemblance to those on the so-called Egyptian vases (§. 75), (for instance, quite the same female figure strangling two geese, appears on both, Micali, tv. 17, 6. 73,1; 5 ana on engraved stones, especially where there are animal compositions (comp%. 175), and battles of wild beasts similar to those of Persepoks. That the Greek monstra did not yet satisfy the Etruscans is shown by the figure of the scarab^us in MicaU, tv. 46, 17; a centaur of the an- tique form, with gorgon-head, wings on the shoulders, and the fore-feet like the claws of an eagle. 3. Intentionally distorted shapes, especially in bronzes 172) and in mirror-designs. Comp. Gerhard, Sformate Imagini di Bronzo, BuUet. d. Inst. 1830. p. 11. The later waU-paintmgs (S 177) also belong to this class. 4. Works in a fine Greek style, very rare; only a few mirror-designs and bronzes. 5. Works of the later me- chanical exercise of art, which is to be observed in nearly aU cinerary urns. On the peculiar Etruscan profile in ancient works m stone, and its difi-erence from the Egyptian Lenoir, Ann. ^- I^^^ J' ^i^^^J^^ [Epochs of Etr. art according to Micali, Annah xv. p. 352 s. On Etruscan antiquities, Quarterly Review, 1845. N. cU. by an eminent connoisseur.] LiTEKA^KE of the Etruscan antiquities of art. Thomas Dempster^s work (written in 1619) Do Etruria Regah, 1. viu. ed. Tho. Coke. F. 1723.