Religion and Art in Ancient Greece | Page 9

art of the time was of a purely decorative
character, and was quite incapable of representing in any adequate way
the vivid and lively imagination of the poets; and, for that matter, for
many centuries after the date of the composition of the Iliad and
Odyssey, Hellenic art made no attempt to cope with any so ambitious
problems. Even when the art of sculpture had attained to a considerable
degree of mastery over material and expression, we find its aims and
conceptions lagging far behind those of the poet. This will become
clearer when, in the next chapter, we consider the conditions of artistic
expression in Greece; but it must be noted here, in order to prevent

possible misconception. As soon, however, as art became capable of
aiming at something beyond perfection of a bodily form--a change
which, in spite of Pausanias' admiration of something divine about the
works of Daedalus, can hardly be dated earlier than the fifth century
B.C.--the Homeric conceptions of the gods came to have their full
effect. Zeus, the king and father of gods and men; Athena, the friendly
protectress of heroes, irresistible in war, giver of all intellectual and
artistic power; Apollo, the archer and musician, the purifier and
soothsayer--these and others find their first visible embodiment in the
statues whereby the sculptors of the fifth century gave expression to the
Homeric conceptions.
The tales, too, that were told about the gods, some of them trivial
enough, but others full of religious and ethical significance, had for
some time before this been common subjects upon reliefs and
vase-paintings, and on these also the influence of the poets was very
great. Here we have not only the Iliad and Odyssey to consider, but
many other early epics that are now lost to us. The vase-painter or
sculptor did not, indeed, merely illustrate these stories as a modern
artist might; often he had a separate tradition and a repertory of subjects
belonging to his own art, and developed them along different lines from
those followed by the poets. But although this tradition might lead him
to choose a version less familiar to poetry, or even to give a new form
to an old story, his conception was essentially poetical, in that it
implied an imaginative realisation of the scene or action, and even of
the character of the deity or hero represented.
The conception of the gods to be found in other early epics probably
did not differ essentially from that we find in the Iliad and Odyssey; but
with the Homeric hymns and with some of the earlier lyric poets we
find a change setting in. There seems to be a new interest in the
adventures of the gods themselves, apart from their relation to mankind;
romantic and even pathetic stories are told about them, implying almost
a psychological appreciation of their personality--the tale of Demeter's
mourning for her daughter Persephone, her wanderings and adventures;
of the love of Aphrodite for a mortal; of how Hermes invented the lyre
and tricked Apollo about his cattle; of the birth of Apollo and the

founding of his worship at Delos and Delphi; of the marvellous birth of
Athena from the head of Zeus. It is hardly too much to say that in the
later of these Homeric hymns--those that are mentioned first in the
above enumeration--an almost human interest is given to the gods, to
their sufferings and adventures. It is the same tendency which we see in
the lyric poetry of the Greeks, with its intensely personal note. The
reflexion of this tendency in art is not, indeed, to be seen until the
fourth century; not only the power of expression, but the desire to
express such a side of the character of the gods seems to be absent until
this period.
It may seem curious at first sight that art was so slow in this case to
follow the lead given it by poetry; but it is to be remembered that a
power of expression such as would have enabled it to do so was not
attained until the fifth century, and that in this age there was an
exaltation of national and religious enthusiasm, owing mainly to the
victories over the Persians, which checked the tendency to sentiment
and pathos; and it was not until this vigorous reaction had died away
that the tendency once more asserted itself. The early fifth century was
also marked by poets such as Pindar and AEschylus, who raised the
religious ideals of the nation on to a higher plane, who consciously
rejected the less worthy conceptions of the gods, and, whether in
accordance with the popular beliefs or not, gave expression to a higher
truth in religion than had hitherto been dreamed of. The gods whom the
sculptors of the