beautiful tombs, adorned with seated or standing portraits or with reliefs, which were erected in great numbers on all the main roads of Greece. A great number of these from the Dipylon cemetery are preserved in the Central Museum at Athens, and impress all visitors by the gentle sentiment and the charm of grouping which they display (Gardner, Sculptured Tombs of Hellas).
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| Hamdy et Reinach, Nécropole à Sidon, Pl. 30. |
| Fig. 46.—Battle of The Granicus: Sarcophagus from Sidon. |
Period IV. 300–50 B.C.—There can be no question but that the period which followed the death of Alexander, commonly called the age of Hellenism, was one of great activity and expansion in architecture. The number of cities founded by himself and his immediate successors in Asia and Egypt was enormous. The remains of these cities have in a few cases (Ephesus, Pergamum, Assus, Priene, Alexandria) been partially excavated. But the adaptation of Greek architecture to the needs of the semi-Greek peoples included in the dominions of the kings of Egypt, Syria and Pergamum is too vast a subject for us to enter upon here (see Architecture).
Painting during this age ceased to be religious. It was no longer for temples and public stoae that artists worked, but for private persons; especially they made frescoes for the decoration of the walls of houses, and panel pictures for galleries set up by rich patrons. The names of very few painters of the Hellenistic age have come down to us. There can be no doubt that the character of the art declined, and there were no longer produced great works to be the pride of cities, or to form an embodiment for all future time of the qualities of a deity or the circumstances of scenes mythical or historic. But at the same time the mural paintings of Pompeii and other works of the Roman age, which are usually more or less nearly derived from Hellenistic models, prove that in technical matters painting continued to progress. Colouring became more varied, groups more elaborate, perspective was worked out with greater accuracy, and imagination shook itself free from many of the conventions of early art. Pompeian painting, however, must be treated of under Roman, not under Greek art. We figure a single example, to show the elaboration of painting at Alexandria and elsewhere, the wonderful Pompeian mosaic (fig. 47), which represents the victory of Alexander at Issus. This work being in stone has preserved its colouring; and it stands at a far higher level of art than ordinary Pompeian paintings, which are the work of mere house-decorators. This on the contrary is certainly copied from the work of a great master. It is instructive to compare it with the sarcophagus illustrated in Fig. 46, which it excels in perspective and in the freedom of individual figures, though the composition is much less careful and precise. Alexander charges from the left (his portrait being the least successful part of the picture), and bears down a young Persian; Darius in his chariot flees towards the right; in the foreground a young knight is trying to manage a restive horse. It will be observed how very simple is the indication of locality: a few stones and a broken tree stand for rocks and woods.
Among the original sculptural creations of the early Hellenistic age, a prominent place is claimed by the statue of Fortune, typifying the city of Antioch (Plate VI. fig. 81), a work of Eutychides, a pupil of Lysippus. Of this we possess a small copy, which is sufficient to show how worthy of admiration was the original. We have a beautiful embodiment of the personality of the city, seated on a rock, holding ears of corn, while the river Orontes, embodied in a young male figure, springs forth at her feet.
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| From a photograph by G. Borgi. |
| Fig. 47.—Mosaic of the Battle of Issus (Naples). |
This is, so far as we know, almost the only work of the early part of the 3rd century which shows imagination. Sculptors often worked on a colossal scale, producing such monsters as the colossal Apollo at Rhodes, the work of Chares of Lindus, which was more than 100 ft. in height. But they did not show freshness or invention; and for the most part content themselves with varying the types produced in the great schools of the 4th century. The wealthy kings of Syria, Egypt and Asia Minor formed art galleries, and were lavish in their payments; but it has often been proved in the history of art that originality cannot be produced by mere expenditure.
