METOPE 
C 0 LOU R 

	FROM 	TEMPLE 	"C" 
RECONSTRUCTION 

• 
B Y 

SELINUS SICILY NORA COATON 

One of the most interesting examples of early Dorian Colonial Architecture in Sicily is the temple "C" at Selinus. An extremely fresh and vigorous interpretation of the Doric standard it has all the vitality and decision which characterises the initiation of a great architectural drive. The temple dates from 570 B.C., and though only a few columns stand to-day many fragments remain to us. 
The Metope illustrates something of the startling splendour which must have informed these early temples. The original measures four feet ten inches high-and a trace of strong red which was found on the background has been taken as the starting point of the scheme. The rest of the arrangement follows a generalisation based upon the researches of Dickins, Sturgis, Poulsen and others. 
It is generally accepted that Greek architectural and sculptural colour schemes were purely architectonic in arrangement - especially in early work - and bright blue and red appear to have predominated. Greens and red-browns were employed in a subordinate capacity. The Greeks were tone - rather than colour conscious so that naturalism played no part in the tints employed. 
This reconstruction indicates a new orientation to the understanding of Greek architecture; it shows a formal and disciplined art which has too long been stigmatised as stiff; crude and grotesque. 
R.M. 

280 

THE CHANGING GENERATOR IN GREEK SCULPTURE. 
It is unfortunate that so many archreologists and art historians cherish the ingenuous belief that all creative visual art aims at imitation; and that the process permits only those variations from the original which are dictated by the change in scale and medium involved. Thus in many instances the critichistorian evaluates a work in terms of his own conception of reality without investigating the basic impulse which initiates its production. 
In the case of Greek sculpture the criterion tends to become an extreme version of " realism" in marble-a praxitelean robot suspended in time. This acceptance of a standard of realism is a convenient one, and simplifies the whole field of criticism. It is assumed that all sculptors attempt to portray a physically ideal human type, from which it is necessary to postulate only one successful example, and grade or reject all other works by comparison. This is the basis of the "naturalistic" school of thought whoiJe estimates complacently ignore the element of inspiration. 
The fallacy lies in the assumption that the intitial inspiration and the ultimate aim of the artist conform to some definable constant, connected with external appearance. This arbitrary standpoint necessarily rejects a large body of work which is not commensurable with the examples chosen, and we find such work devaluated as unimportant, immature or crude. Contemporary standards insist on a more adequate critical framework, but unfortunately the placid reiteration of ready -made judgments is still accepted by many students as a basis of approach. This method has lulled the mind into a listless and confused state in which masterpieces, schools and periods blend in a thick impasto which precludes further thought or judgment. 
A revaluation is indicated, and in this note I shall attempt very briefly to analyse the " realist" or " naturalist" prejudice, and indicate one or two lines of action for independent study and appreciation. 
The position, then, is that the "realist" school assumes a standard, and without justification decides that every sculptor is striving to attain the qualities which exist in the work it has selected as an ideal. Thus we could say that with Canaletto as our standard Cezanne's Provencal landscapes are childish and inadequate attempts to render with realism the scenes which he perceived. 1 This is obviously nonsense, but the nonsense was not apparent until the camera overtook the realist painters and de- 
	1 (During Cezanne's lifetime his methods were attributed to incompetence. 	In the first 
years of this century a more tolerant attitude allowed him a dangerous but not unamusing ns,ivete. To-day Cezanne 'is an old master as secure as Corot or Poussin!) 

prived them of a function. Superficially the time-factor appears to support the ideal-realist theory, for whereas in the CezanneCanaletto examples the "primitive" follows the "mature" in time, thus reversing the order and allowing the attribution of incompetence (or downright wilfulness) to the latter, in the history of Greek sculpture the apparently crude precedes the technically competent work. The sequence is too tempting and invites fallacious valuation; so we are told (in so many words) that since the" rude" and" grotesque" Cycladic idols appeared many years before the" stern inflexible" Apollos of Sunion and Argos, and since these Apollos in turn appeared before the limpid and polished high-school athletes of Polyclitus, it follows that the island sculptor and the Argive sculptor must have been striving to produce the outward likeness of some slim gymnasium hero! 
We are to believe that it was presumption to create sculpture -a slightly ludicrous effort which fell far short of the embodiments of Scopas-passion, Lysippus-elegance and Phidias-serenity which were to flower later. We are to believe that the red Sunion Apollo and the timeless Delian figure were but pathetic attempts to achieve" perfection." The camera has overtaken Courbet, Madame Tussaud has overtaken Phideas, but the fallacy survives. 
If realism is the final goal there is nothing lacking in Tussaud. 
For if Argos only partly achieved what Athens triumphantly produced-then Madame Tussaud far transcends in reality the finest work from Athens. It is this "copy-of-nature" basis on which the critical apparatus of the realists collapses. 
Even Mr. Stanley Casson, who is usually free from time-andsuccess prejudices, says: "Admit rather that in the primitive period lies interest, the interest of unsuccessful ambition; in the Arch~ic period lies the charm of the exquisite, of the formal and of the imaginative; , ... "2 One cannot accept this" unsuccessful ambition," for, as Mr. Casson himself says, " . , .. we learn of the intentions of individual artists by judging their work by the standard of what they wanted to achieve."3 Surely this is a contradiction-or at least an elliptical proposition, since the objective of the primitive artist is not defined. What was he ambitious to achieve? Are we to assume that he, too, was aiming at the " formal, exquisite and imaginative" in his work? If so Mr. Casson does not define the nature of his failure. 
It might be more satisfactory to attempt a statement of the criteria of successful achievement than to assume. comparative standards. 
2(Greece and Rome," Vol. 2, No.4, p. 19.) 
3 (ibid.) 

281 

REX MARTIENSSEN. 
I 
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For if we agree with Miss Jane Harrison4 that art is not simply imitative but implies an emotionally coloured re-enactment or re-statement of something observed or felt, then in the case of even the" crudest" Cycladic idols we must allow that an intense religious impulse has found plastic expression without reference to any external existing standards. 
Without investigating in detail the function of these idols, we can reasonably attribute to them a ritualistic significance. So that here at the outset of our inquiry we are concerned with a category of works of art whose validity cannot possibly be tested on a sliding scale of" imitative perfection." Subjectively only the artist himself can give some idea of his initial inspiration. We perceive the final form, and it receives fulfilment and completion in our reaction to it. When the impulse is of an abstract nature (as, for instance, the idea of a deity conveyed by a carved idol) our interpretation should not be coloured by comparison with forms found in nature. For by such a comparison we deny immediately the metaphysical attributes of the work. The degree of interaction between observer and work of art will depend on the quality of the perception. Our judgment is primarily visual and tactile, and if we find awakened in us a response to, and a sympathy with, the arrangement of forms-that is to the formal quality of the work-we shall participate in the creative act without conscious intellectual effort. 
If we eliminate the "imitative" prejudice-" the too lofty ambition unachieved "-then in an abstract work of the idol type we shall find a high index of selective ability and emphasis displayed in the best examples. For whether the impulse to plastic creation be purely religious in origin, or whether the final arrangement of form be implicit in a desire for aesthetic satisfaction unrelated to religion (or erotic for that matter) the material process of selection and emphasis of significant form is constant., 
Art implies human intervention; the impact of a creating will on inanimate material, but in the functioning of this humanizing agency the outcome is coloured by economy. To evoke a response it is not necessary to re-create the whole idea or form conceived in the mind it is sufficient to evoke a reaction in terms of a symbol. So that in examining a group of works we shall fiild failure or success not on a basis of successful imitation of objects in nature, but in the vividness and intensity of our response to an idea conveyed by formal arrangement. If the artist fails to achieve an arrangement which we can apprehend as an. artis~ic unity with its attendant reaction, then only can we conSIder hIm to have fallen short of his purpose. 
!(Ancient Art and Ritual.) 
282 

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