A Text-Book of the History of Painting | Page 8

were gathered from it. There is no record that the Egyptians ever traversed the Mediterranean, the Assyrians were not sailors, the Greeks had not yet arisen, and so probably Phoenicia and her neighbors had matters their own way. Colonies and trading stations were established at Cyprus, Carthage, Sardinia, the Greek islands, and the Greek mainland, and not only Eastern goods but Eastern ideas were thus carried to the West.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--PAINTED HEAD FROM EDESSA. (FROM PERROT AND CHIPIEZ.)]
Politically, socially, and religiously these small middle nations were inconsequential. They simply adapted their politics or faith to the nation that for the time had them under its heel. What semi-original religion they possessed was an amalgamation of the religions of other nations, and their gods of bronze, terra-cotta, and enamel were irreverently sold in the market like any other produce.
ART MOTIVES AND METHODS: Building, carving, and painting were practised among the coastwise nations, but upon no such extensive scale as in either Egypt or Assyria. The mere fact that they were people of the sea rather than of the land precluded extensive or concentrated development. Politically Phoenicia was divided among five cities, and her artistic strength was distributed in a similar manner. Such art as was produced showed the religious and decorative motives, and in its spiritless materialistic make-up, the commercial motive. It was at the best a hybrid, mongrel art, borrowed from many sources and distributed to many points of the compass. At one time it had a strong Assyrian cast, at another an Egyptian cast, and after Greece arose it accepted a retroactive influence from there.
It is impossible to characterize the Phoenician type, and even the Cypriote type, though more pronounced, varies so with the different influences that it has no very striking individuality. Technically both the Phoenician and Cypriote were fair workmen in bronze and stone, and doubtless taught many technical methods to the early Greeks, besides making known to them those deities afterward adopted under the names of Aphrodite, Adonis, and Heracles, and familiarizing them with the art forms of Egypt and Assyria.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--CYPRIOTE VASE DECORATION. (FROM PERROT AND CHIPIEZ.)]
As for painting, there was undoubtedly figured decoration upon walls of stone and plaster, but there is not enough left to us from all the small nations like Phoenicia, Judea, Cyprus, and the kingdoms of Asia Minor, put together, to patch up a disjointed history. The first lands to meet the spoiler, their very ruins have perished. All that there is of painting comes to us in broken potteries and color traces on statuary. The remains of sculpture and architecture are of course better preserved. None of this intermediate art holds much rank by virtue of its inherent worth. It is its influence upon the West--the ideas, subjects, and methods it imparted to the Greeks--that gives it importance in art history.
ART REMAINS: In painting chiefly the vases in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Louvre, British and Berlin Museums. These give a poor and incomplete idea of the painting in Asia Minor, Phoenicia and her colonies. The terra-cottas, figurines in bronze, and sculptures can be studied to more advantage. The best collection of Cypriote antiquities is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. A new collection of Judaic art has been recently opened in the Louvre.
CHAPTER III.
GREEK PAINTING.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: Baumeister, Denkm?ler des klassischen Altertums--article "Malerei;" Birch, History of Ancient Pottery; Brunn, Geschichte der griechischen K��nstler; Collignon, Mythologie figur��e de la Gr��ce; Collignon, Manuel d'Archaeologie Grecque; Cros et Henry, L'Encaustique et les autres proc��d��s de Peinture chez les Anciens; Girard, La Peinture Antique; Murray, Handbook of Greek Arch?ology; Overbeck, Antiken Schriftquellen zur geschichte der bildenen Kunste bie den Griechen; Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Greece; Woerman, Die Landschaft in der Kunst der antiken Volker; see also books on Etruscan and Roman painting.
GREECE AND THE GREEKS: The origin of the Greek race is not positively known. It is reasonably supposed that the early settlers in Greece came from the region of Asia Minor, either across the Hellespont or the sea, and populated the Greek islands and the mainland. When this was done has been matter of much conjecture. The early history is lost, but art remains show that in the period before Homer the Greeks were an established race with habits and customs distinctly individual. Egyptian and Asiatic influences are apparent in their art at this early time, but there is, nevertheless, the mark of a race peculiarly apart from all the races of the older world.
The development of the Greek people was probably helped by favorable climate and soil, by commerce and conquest, by republican institutions and political faith, by freedom of mind and of body; but all these together are not sufficient to account for the keenness of intellect, the purity of taste, and the skill in