TERRACOTTAS
TERRACOTTAS Finding the term
κεραμικὴ
τέχνη too comprehensive, since it included the whole of the
potter's art, the Greeks had recourse to certain special names or phrases
for works of art modelled or moulded in terracotta: they called the maker of
statuettes a
κοροπλάστης or
κοροπλάθος; ἰπνοπλάθος was one who modelled
figures to be fired in a kiln; a relief made from a mould was an
ἔκτυπον or
ἐκτύπωμα; and, in general, terracottas were
ἀγάλματα ὀπτῆς γῆς. The Romans, while using
such special words as
antefixa and
ectypa for reliefs, designated statues and
statuettes of terracotta as
signa fictilia, and
the makers of them
fictores or
plastae. They had no extensive art of pottery and
vase-painting as had the Greeks; and for that reason the term
ars fictilis adequately described all their
productions in terracotta.
In Greece the oldest application of terracotta as an art independent of the
vase-maker was for the roofs and cornices of temples. For this purpose
marble is said to have been first introduced by Euergos of Naxos, whom
Pausanias (
5.10,
3)
confounds with his son Byzes. This happened as early as the seventh century
B.C., during the reign of Alyattes in Lydia.
But that the invention had not at once found acceptance is certain from
fragments of cornices found at Olympia and in Sicily, which show that
terracotta had continued to be employed in architecture long after this
date. A very careful inquiry on this subject, with plates displaying the
original patterns and colours of the archaic terracotta cornices, will be
found in a memoir by Dörpfeld and others (
Die Verwendung von
Terrakotten). The designs of these cornices were made from
moulds (
τύποι), and one mould of a lion's
head, for example, would be sufficient for a whole cornice. The uniformity
of effect was compensated by brightness of colouring. According to
tradition, it was a Corinthian, Butades, who first made terracotta masks for
the fronts of the roof-tiles; that is, for the cornices of temples. His date
has not been ascertained; his personality has been rendered slightly
legendary; but the tradition embodies a fact otherwise known, viz. the
important position of Corinth in early times as a centre of work in
terracotta, having a powerful influence in Greece on the one hand and in
Etruria on the other. Meantime as regards the continued use of terracotta in
architecture down to Roman times, we may cite the examples of cornices found
in the ruins of Pompeii (H. von Rohden,
Die Terracotten von
Pompei, 1880) and the numerous panels with reliefs obtained from the
neighbourhood of Rome, of which a specimen will be seen under
ANTEFIXA representing the
making of the Argo. Or, to take an earlier example from Greece itself: when
Pausanias (
1.3,
1)
speaks of
ἀγάλματα ὀπτῆς γῆς on the
roof of the Stoa Basileios at Athens, he probably refers to such decorations
of the cornice as those just mentioned. The Stoa in question stood in the
Ceramicos, at Athens, and the
agalmata represented
Theseus throwing Sciron into the sea and Hemera carrying off Cephalos. Two
subjects, unless repeated in the manner just described, could not be
regarded as sufficient decoration for a Stoa. Further, it may be inferred
that the two groups were in relief, from the fact that the violent action of
the figures would not suit sculpture in the round in a material so weak as
terracotta. Hemera carrying off Cephalos occurs in a fine archaic relief in
the British Museum found at Camiros in Rhodes, and evidently made to be
attached as an ornament to some background. For similar reliefs found in
Athens, and treated in the same severe but delicate style, see
Schöne,
Griechische Reliefs, pll. 30-35. They may
have been made to be attached to the walls of tombs, or for the internal
decoration of houses, and would come within the term
τυποι. The Ceramicos at Athens was so named, according to
Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 35.155), from its being
there that Chalcosthenes had his workshop and made rude figures (
cruda opera) of clay. When marble finally replaced
terracotta for architectural purposes, the designs and processes of
colouring which had been evolved in the decoration of the clay were
transferred without change to the new material.
In Etruria and among the early Romans the application of terracotta to
architecture appears to have been more extensive than in Greece. Pliny says
(
H. N. 35.157), “elaboratam hanc artel Italiae et
maxume Etruriae;” and these words follow upon a statement quoted
from Varro that all the artistic decorations of temples were of Etruscan
workmanship, previous to the time when Damophilos and Gorgasos adorned with
sculpture in terracotta and with paintings the temple of Ceres in Rome. Of
terracotta was the statue of Jupiter in his temple on the Capitol which
Tarquinius Priscus (or perhaps Superbus) colmmissioned the artist Turrianus
to make (Pliny,
loc. cit.). On high festivals the
face of this statue was painted with minium. On the highest point of the
front pediment of this temple stood a terracotta quadriga (
κατὰ κορυφὴν ἐπιστῆσαι, says Plutarch,
Publicol. 13, but Pliny,
loc.
cit., is less explicit: “fictiles in fastigio templi ejus
quadrigas” ). This quadriga had been removed forcibly by Tarquin
from Veil, where it had been held sacred and inviolable from a circumstance
attending the making of it, as related
[p. 2.795]by Plutarch
in the passage just cited. When put into the kiln to be baked, the quadriga,
instead of shrinking in size as usual from the drying--up of the moisture in
the clay, expanded so much that the roof and sides of the kiln had to be
removed to get it out. As regards this technical effect, it may be remarked
that the Assyrian tablets with cuneiform inscriptions frequently have a
number of small: holes punctured in the clay to allow the escape of moisture
during the process of baking. In a work of art, however, especially a large
group modelled in the round, the only safeguard against its being destroyed
by the shrinking of the clay in the kiln lay in its being hollow and thin,
so that whatever moisture was in the clay could readily escape. How
difficult a task it was to obtain success under such circumstances may be
seen in the large sarcophagus from Caere (Cervetri) now in the Etruscan
saloon in the British Museum (engraved, Dennis,
Etruria, 2nd edit. i. p. 227, and
Encyclopaedia
Britannica, 9th edit., s. v. Etruria, vol. viii. pl. 8). In this
case the clay seems to have been largely mixed with pounded brick, and to
have acquired thereby great tenacity. But notwithstanding this precaution,
and the fact that the two figures reclining on the lid of the sarcophagus
are hollow even to the toes, it will be seen in several places that the
shrinkage has seriously damaged the artistic effect. The date of the
sarcophagus in question can hardly be later than B.C. 550, and it may thus
perhaps fairly be taken as an illustration of the style of art presented by
those statues in terracotta, which Pliny says (
H. N. 35.157)
the early Romans were not ashamed to worship: such for example as the
Hercules he mentions, the quadriga and the Jupiter already referred to.
Probably also the pediments of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, as of
other temples, were occupied with statues of terracotta (Vitruvius,
3.3,
5, “ornantque
signis fictilibus aut aereis inauratis earum fastigia Tuscanico
more.” Cicero,
de Divinat. 1.10, 16,
“Cum Summanus in fastigio Jovis O. M. qui turn erat fictilis a
caelo ictus esset,” &c.). What appears to be the front of
this Temple of Jupiter, with the quadriga on its apex, and with Jupiter,
Juno, Minerva, and other deities in the pediment, is represented on a
bas-relief of the time of Marcus Aurelius (engraved,
Mon. dell' Inst.
Arch. v. pl. 36). Cato complained (Livy,
34.4,
4) that these oldfashioned
terracotta decorations of temples were despised in his time. The high
antiquity of this branch of art may be seen from the fact stated by Pliny
(
Plin. Nat. 35.159), that among the
trade guilds instituted by Numa was one of workers in clay.
While surpassing the Greeks in the production of large groups in terracotta,
the Etruscans failed in their statuettes. We may take as examples two, now
in the British Museum, that were found in the Polledrara tomb near Vulci,
with objects reaching back to at least B.C. 600, if not half a century
earlier. These terracottas (one of which is engraved in Micali,
Monumenti Inediti, pl. 4, fig. 5), though rude in design,
are of a fine clay, and present a combination of colour and gilding from
which it could be supposed that in the phrase above quoted from
Vitruvius--“signis fictilibus aut aereis inauratis” --this
last word may have applied to the terracottas (
fictilibus) as well as to the bronzes (
aereis). Terracotta figures combined with vases are of pretty
frequent occurrence in the black ware of Chiusi (Clusium), and, like this
ware itself, they appear to be imitated from designs in bronze or other
metal. It is reasonable to conclude so from the fact that the details on the
surface of them are marked by hatched lines, as in metal working. The
modelling is always rude, and a considerable antiquity may be claimed for
these terracottas; no less than for a small but more freely-modelled vase,
in the form of a lion, from Veii, and inscribed in Etruscan characters,
Felthur Hathisnas, now in the British Museum (Fabretti,
C. I. I. No. 2561).
Etruscan urns of terracotta are for the most part of a late date, and deal
with popular Greek myths and legends, or parting scenes, according to
designs evidently invented by Greek artists. The numerous portraits in this
material are also as a rule late. But though very deficient in execution,
they are mostly marked by great force in the conception, and the broad forms
by which it is conveyed. It has been supposed that the Etruscans had
obtained this art, or at least a strong impetus to the practice of it, from
the artists (
fictores) Eucheir, Eugrammos, and
Diopos, who, to escape the tyranny of Cypselos in Corinth, accompanied
Demaratus, the father of Tarquin, to Etruria (Brunn,
Griech.
Künstler, i. p. 529). It is known that Corinth was one
of the earliest seats of the fictile art in Greece, and, considering the
inexhaustible quantities of fine clay lying close at hand still, it is not
strange that this art had flourished there. Etruria, however, surpassed her
instructress, at least in the magnitude of her works. It was at Corinth that
the idea of a pediment for a temple, doubtless filled with figures in
terracotta, was invented (Pindar,
Pind. O.
13.21); and it was Butades of Corinth who, as has already been said,
was believed to have been the first to introduce into the architectural
decoration of temples those antefixal ornaments which have been found at
Olympia and in Etruria.
By far the most numerous class of Greek terracottas consists of statuettes,
and the great majority of them represent more or less youthful female
figures, whence arose the name of
κοροπλάθος or
κοροπλάστης,
applied to the makers of them. A female figure draped to the ground
naturally presented a broad base on which it could stand securely, as
compared with an undraped figure with easily-broken ankles to support it. It
was not strange, therefore, that the latter--and the same applies to male
figures--should have been generally avoided, unless where a convenient
attitude, such as sitting on a rock, could be found. Again, whether it was
from the unsuitability of the material to the prevalent conceptions of gods
and heroes that figures of these latter were not reproduced as terracotta
statuettes, the fact remains that deities and heroes are of extremely rare
occurrence. Yet it is clear that figures of deities were used for domestic
worship, as in the case of a small clay figure of Hephaestos mentioned by
the Scholiast of Aristophanes (
Aristoph. Birds
436) as seated at the hearth in the character of Ephoros of the
fire. Among other deities Aphrodite, Artemis, Eros, and Hermes may be said
to have been fairly
[p. 2.796]identified. Scenes from daily
occupations are frequent; so also are dolls and playthings, more or less
comic, such as the graves round Corinth still yield in numbers. A fair
proportion of the statuettes represent what seems to be an ideal of a
beautiful young woman, much as in the China ware of our own time.
Except the earliest examples, which are rudely modelled with the hand, these
statuettes are made from clay moulds, many specimens of which still exist
(see the collection in the Terracotta Room of the British Museum). More
correctly, only the front of the figure is made from the mould, the back of
it being as a rule merely a plain piece of clay formed by the hand [see
ECTYPUS]. Or when the design is
carried round the back, as in forming the head for example, it appears to
have been usually executed by the hand. Even in the beautiful group of
Astragaligusae in the British Museum (
Gaz. Arch. 1876, p.
97), the back of which, contrary to what is customary in terracottas, is not
without considerable attractions, the modelling seems to have been completed
in this manner. It was necessary that there should be no undercutting in the
mould which would obstruct the removing of the figure from it; for the
ancients do not appear to have known the modern process of making
piece-moulds. Or if any injury were done in the removing, it would be
necessary to restore it afterwards with the hand, just as it was necessary
to carry out afterwards in this way whatever part of the design could not be
expressed in the mould. The scope thus allowed for variety in the finishing
of the figures enabled the coroplastes to give a different appearance to
figures from the same mould, in which also he was greatly aided by freedom
in the use of bright colours (
τῶν δὲ κοροπλάθων
ἴδιον τὸ τὰ χολοβαφῆ βάπτειν, Pollux,
Onom. 7.163). For example, there are two groups from the same
mould, the one found in the Crimea and now in St. Petersburg
(
Compte-rendu, 1873, pl. 1, fig. 2), the other found at
Naucratis and now in the British Museum (
Naucratis, Pt. ii. pl. 16, fig. 18), which yet express
differently this or that feature of the mould, and show also what changes
could be effected by colour. To produce a mould, the first step was to model
the desired figure in clay or in wax; if the former material, a core of wood
was used, which was called
κάναβος (Pollux,
Onom. 7.164, and 10.189); if in wax, the model was next
covered with clay and subjected to fire, upon which the wax melted away,
leaving its impression on the clay covering, which then became a mould. This
clay covering is called
ἡμίλιγδος in
Pollux (
Onom. 10.190), and from his description it would
appear that the clay was pierced with a number of small holes for the escape
of the vapours rising from the melting wax, whence the
ἡμίλιγδος was compared to a shield pierced by many darts.
In most cases the colours are simply painted on the terracotta and easily
destroyed, yet instances are not uncommon in which the whole figure is
covered with a glaze which gives it the appearance of an enamelled surface.
In the best period of this glazed ware the colour is a uniform white.
Somewhat later we find white, brown, and green, as in the unique vase from
Tanagra, in the British Museum, in the form of a goose, on which rides Eros.
Apparently this is a revival of a process which may be seen in certain
archaic vases from Camiros, either made or influenced by Phoenician
processes. In late Greek and Roman times there is the green glazed ware,
consisting chiefly of vases with designs in relief. Among the terracottas
found at Pompeii may be mentioned a group painted in bright and varied
colours which have been converted by fire into a glaze. This is the
interesting group representing Pero giving her breast to her famished father
Cimon, and commonly known as the Pietà Romana. This group is
further interesting for comparison with the existing ancient paintings of
the same subject (Rhoden,
Terracotten von Pompeii, pl. 47:
cf. pp. 58, 59).
There is no class of antiquities with so little of general interest in the
subjects they represent as these terracotta statuettes, unless perhaps the
Athenian lecythi, which are known to have been made expressly for tombs; and
from this comparison, together with the fact of their being mostly found in
tombs, it is a reasonable conjecture that they were in many cases made for
funeral purposes. Others, doubtless, like the figure of Hephaestos already
mentioned, were destined for domestic use. There is still a belief that the
female figures among them often represent Demeter or Persephone, though the
symbols by which these deities are commonly recognised are more or less
wanting. But undoubtedly there are many statuettes which, though not to be
positively identified as belonging to the lower world, yet clearly convey an
impression of their having been destined for sepulchral ends. Such, for
example, are the figure of a youth holding a cock at his side, or female
figures holding an egg or a pomegranate. So also the masks with which the
tombs of Camiros have enriched the British Museum. For there is little doubt
but that the original purpose in making masks of this kind was to cover with
them the faces of the dead. Nor would this exclude the giving of others of
less than life-size as tributes to the dead. Grotesque figures do not seem
appropriate for tombs; yet there they are in not inconsiderable numbers.
|
Terracotta from Gela. (British Museum.)
|
It has been found strange that so prolific a profession as that of the
coroplastes should not have frequently reproduced the celebrated statues of
the Greek masters. Among the known instances may be cited the terracotta
here figured as a copy probably from the Hermes Criophoros, by the sculptor
Calamis; or again, there is the very fine statuette of a Diadumenus
(
Hellen. Journal, vi. p. 243, pl. 61), which reproduces
the canon of Polycletus as modified afterwards by Lysippus.
[p. 2.797]An attempt has also been made to prove that the not very
uncommon group of one female figure carrying another on her back is a copy
from a group of Demeter carrying Persephone, by Praxiteles, known generally
as the
Catagusa. But in the first place there
are doubts as to the meaning of
κατάγουσα
in this instance, a German archaeologist having interpreted it as
“spinning” (Loeschke,
Arch. Zeitung, 1880,
p. 102). While there is no good reason for this interpretation, the fact
remains that there is no authority for assuming Praxiteles to have
represented Demeter and Persephone in this attitude, even if he did
represent the one carrying or conducting the other. It is the attitude of
play, as in the accompanying group of Eros on the shoulders of a maiden, and
answers to the game in daily life called the
Hippas. These
groups are published, and the theory of a Praxitelean origin of them
strongly advocated, by M. Rayet, in his
Monuments de l'Art Antique.
|
Terracotta from Centorbi in Sicily. (British Museum.)
|
Judged according to artistic qualities, the oldest Greek statuettes are well
represented in the British Museum by a series found in tombs at Camiros, in
which, while the head is modelled with some skill and care, the body is only
a rudimentary trunk. Colour is sparingly employed. Equally rude is a smaller
series from Tegea, in Arcadia, but they are more ambitious in regard to the
body, and less so in regard to the head. No colour is applied to them. The
terracotta is coarse, and of a dark red colour. A slight advance, but not
enough to constitute a new period, will be seen in others from Camiros,
where there is an attempt to indicate the limbs in due proportion to the
head, where colours are more freely used and the quality of the clay finer.
These are mostly female figures seated, with their hands on their knees, and
their arms not detached from the mass of the body. It may be regarded as the
beginning of a new period, when the drapery comes to be indicated by
modelling in the clay, and some action or attribute is conveyed: for
example, a female figure holding a dove, as in specimens from Camiros; a
female figure, perhaps a priestess, holding a pig for sacrifice, as in
specimens from Sardinia; or grotesque figures from Camiros. Occasionally
strong contrasts of colours--red and blue--are employed, generally as a mere
coating, but sometimes to pick out details of dress not indicated in the
modelling. This period did not close till it had attained what may be
considered the ideal and best stage of archaic terracottas, as represented
by numerous female figures, tall, severe in attitude and aspect, with
drapery falling in simple but stately lines, the left hand holding the skirt
and the right raised to the breast. Of this stage are the masks already
spoken of from Camiros, vases modelled in the form of Sirens, or to imitate
the head of Heracles, of Achelöos, apes and other animals: so also
the archaic reliefs, emblemata, in the British Museum, representing (1)
Bellerophon mounted on Pegasus slaying the Chimaera, from Melos; (2)
Perseus, also mounted on Pegasus, which apparently has just sprung from the
decapitated body of Medusa, from Melos; (3) group described as Sappho and
Alcaeus, from Melos (Welcker,
Alte Denkmäler, ii.
pl. 12, fig. 20). Of the same style and period are the groups of Peleus
carrying off Thetis, and Eos carrying off Cephalos, from Camiros. Usually
the Melos clay is of a pale colour, better seen in the statuettes than in
the reliefs of this period. The Camiros clay is always a faint red, with
innumerable fine points in it sparkling like mica. The age of Pheidias, or
nearly so, is represented by a few terracottas from Athens. For example,
|
Bellerophon and the Chimaera. (From the terracotta in the British
Museum.)
|
three figures, possibly of Leda holding a swan. The one is a
massive, noble figure, standing
[p. 2.798]nearly nude; in
the other two Leda has one foot raised on a rock, and throws up an end of
|
Perseus and Medusa. (From a terracotta in the British
Museum.)
|
her drapery, as if she were about to spring on the rock: but here,
though the two figures are at first sight the same, the action of the arms
is in fact reversed, and an extensive yet subtle variety introduced. The one
figure is glazed over in a white colour; the other is merely painted white.
These three Ledas are in the British Museum, as are also several other
female figures of this period from Athens, with white glazed surfaces, and a
relief in which one Maenad plays on a tympanon while another dances, the
scene being before a temple, indicated by an altar and a column.
From the next period of art, as known from the sculptures of the Mausoleum,
there are such terracottas as the female figure found by Sir C. T. Newton at
Cnidos, closely corresponding in action and drapery with the statue of
Artemisia from the Mausoleum, the fragmentary figures from the ruins of that
building, and some few examples from other localities, as Athens and
Corinth. A slight advance towards florid treatment of drapery and other
details may be seen in the terracottas found near Larnaca, in Cyprus,
consisting frequently of female figures with high richly-ornamented crowns
(see the collection in the British Museum; and Heuzey,
Terres cuites
du Louvre, pl. 15). The climax of this stage is reached in the
ordinary type of the terracottas which have been found in such great numbers
in the tombs at Tanagra, in Boeotia, since 1873, when this cemetery was
first discovered. Some of the tombs are of an archaic character, but the
majority are of the age here in question (the 3rd cent. B.C.), and contained
statuettes of terracotta, the most beautiful of which were found enclosed in
coarse clay vases. They represent usually subjects from daily occupation, or
youthful ideal figures, interesting from their costume, and especially for
the hat they sometimes wear, suggesting the reference to Sophocles,
Oed. Col. 314,
κρατὶ
δ᾽ἡλιοστερὴς κυνῆ πρόσωπα Θεσσαλίς νιν ἀμπέχει. The
attraction exercised by these figures from Tanagra maybe judged from the
numbers of them that have been engraved and published in almost every form,
from the costly volume of coloured designs issued by the German
Archäologisches Institut, under the editorship of Prof.
Kekulé (Stuttgart, 1878), to the slight outlines of the
Gazette des beaux Arts (11.1875, pp. 297 and 551, and
12.1875, p. 56), and other publications enumerated in, Rayet's
Monuments de l'Art Antique. Next in rank to Tanagra for
the number of interesting terracottas which it has yielded is Myrina, in
Asia Minor, where the French carried on extensive excavations in 1880-82.
The results appear in the work of MM. Pottier and Reinach,
La
Nécropole de Myrina, 1887 (see also Froehner,
Terres cuites d'Asie Mineure, 1881), with numerous
plates, and containing, among other interesting matter, a detailed account
of the processes employed in producing the statuettes: e. g. the quality of
the clay, with its differences of colour, due partly to differences of
firing and partly to materials employed in the preparation; the moulds, of
which a large number were obtained, many of them bearing the names of the
artists who made them; and the various methods of colouring the statuettes.
In these respects the Myrina terracottas do not differ from those of
Tanagra. But in an artistic sense they are readily distinguishable by a
degree of coarseness and voluptuousness which is wanting at Tanagra, by a
greater love of nude forms, and by a strong desire for groups in which
accuracy is sacrificed to picturesque effect. At present it is difficult to
say from what source the coroplastae, whether at Myrina or at Tanagra,
derived their inspiration. In some instances we find types of figures or of
attitudes that may very well have been derived from the painted Greek vases
of the latest period--towards the end of the 4th cent. B.C. But a more
accurate comparison may be found in some of the mural paintings that have
survived in Rome and Pompeii, which, if not actually executed in the
Hellenistic period,
|
Terracotta statue found at Pompeii.
|
are always believed to be derived from originals of that age. We
may assume that the coroplastae by the nature of their profession appealed
only to a particular class of sentiments, which required for their
gratification nothing more than some easily recognised type of beauty, or
some grotesque figure drawn from daily life. Possibly, therefore, much that
we do not now understand in the work of the coroplastae would be accounted
for if we had any records of the public demands which they worked to supply.
So far at least we may agree that these demands had been mostly of a local
character, from the fact that the figures of Tanagra, of Myrina, of Cyrene,
of Sicily, are distinguishable
[p. 2.799]as no other class
of Greek antiquities, except the Athenian lecythi. The terracottas from the
Cyrenaïca are mostly of a late period, and only rarely possessed of
beauty or interest. Late also are those from Centuripa (Centorbi), in
Sicily, elongated in figure, sometimes coarsely modelled (Kekulé,
Terracotten von Sicilien). Of coarse clay and with a
preference for pink and white colouring, is the still later and numerous
class from Canosa, in Italy, intended mostly to be attached to large
ornamental vases. Of life-size terracottas only a small number exist, and
these are generally of a late period, such as the statue of an actor from
Pompeii figured above.
[
A.S.M]