A similarly strong contrast between the two sides of a figure is noted in high relief, with the only difference being that the side nearest the light is bright while the other is dark. For the casual observer who pays no attention to the light’s direction, and provided he is not too near the composition, the two types of relief are identical. The Greeks, doubtless familiar with the Egyptians’ island relief, never introduced it into their own work. Their columns were to be seen both from a distance and close at hand. Their temples were public buildings, and the colonnades were intended to serve as shelter against the heat of the sun and the inclemency of the weather. The Egyptian island relief, which looks good at a distance, is painful to a sensitive eye close up. This is why the Greeks decorated their columns with simple flutings and not figures. The differences in the Egyptian and the Greek practice offers new, invaluable proof of the Greek taste’s gracefulness.
Physical Effort and Pleasure in Viewing Extended Compositions
A major distinction can be made between looking and seeing. One often sees in spite of one’s self; but it takes a certain degree of mental and physical energy to look at an object. If a statue is placed in one’s way, one cannot help but see it. To understand its message implies a certain mental effort, but it would be improper to speak of a physical effort on the spectator’s part. An extended composition in either high or low relief, on the other hand, cannot be seen at a casual glance; one must look at it. The eye focuses on the relief; it stays there and follows the sculptor’s lines, up and down and from side to side, until the entire relief has been surveyed. This requires a physical effort on the part of the spectator, who would quickly weary unless the artist has utilised all possible devices to render viewing easy and pleasurable. In addition, the spectator’s attention should not centre in his sight, as this would impede his understanding the artist’s thoughts.
If human vision were unlimited, and followed as readily the impulse directing it up as the one urging it down, or moving as willingly on the zigzag line as on the straight, the sculptor’s task would be comparatively simple; since our vision, however, is erratic and subject to many limitations, the work of the sculptor becomes complex. Although the Greeks seem to have felt them instinctively, it is only recently that experiments have ascertained the physical laws governing eyes movement. To be sure, the Greeks introduced numerous techniques into their sculpture that can only be explained if regarded as the semiconscious endeavour to comply with the requirements of these laws. It must not be believed that sculptors deliberately deviated from their original designs to make allowances for the peculiarities of the public eye. They identified with the public; what displeased the eyes of the people was also unpleasant to them, though perhaps to a greater degree. The original designs, then, doubtless embodied many if not all the devices exhibited in the finished works.
Even the earliest Greek art displays such fine taste that it is a pleasure to let one’s eyes glide over their decorations. Often, circles are found, rarely mathematically accurate, but infinitely more gratifying and restful to the eye than those on later vases, drawn with compass. It is hard to imagine a simpler geometric figure than the circle; every point of the circumference is equally removed from the centre, and the curvature follows a continuous fixed and never changing ratio. One imagines that one’s eyes can run its circumference with perfect ease. This is not the case, because the eyes glide more readily to the right and left than up and down, and more swiftly up than down. The time and effort spent in scanning the left semicircle varies from that spent on the right. The eye running the circumference of a mathematically correct circle receives the impression of having run an uneven course. The mental image and the actual visual impression through do not tally. If one knows the circle to be accurate, one tends to compel one’s eyes to run its circumference with even rapidity, an uncomfortable exercise for the natural character of one’s vision. The resulting sensation of discomfort, if not actual physical pain, is unpleasant at best. The Greeks drew figures to avoid this phenomenon. The difference in rapidity with which one’s eyes glide over a circle is reflected in corresponding deviations from the mathematically correct shape; the result is not only thorough agreement between the mental image and the visual impression but also a sensation of both mental and physical pleasure. Today when people push their geometry studies far enough to become thoroughly familiar with its figures, the early Greek circles prove wrong even before the eye has run their circumference, so that they often fail to give satisfaction. Sufficiently restraining the accuracy of one’s scientific mind to obtain the physical pleasure with which the eye scans figures designed to meet its peculiarities, produces a favourable impression of the Greek practice.
Zeus and Porphyrion during the Battle with the Giants, pedestal frieze, Great Altar of Zeus, Pergamon, c. 180 B. C. Marble, h: 230 cm. Pergamonmuseum, Berlin.
Fight Scene: Herakles and Triton, Temple of Athena, Assos, c. 550–525 B. C. Trachyte, h: 81 cm, l: 294 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Banquet Scene, Temple of Athena, Assos, c. 550–525 B. C. Trachyte, h: 81 cm, l: 287 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
What is true of the circle holds true of curves and lines, though much more difficult to demonstrate. In addition, not all eyes are equally sensitive. Attempting to point out all the fine points is ill advised. However, no careful student of the best Greek reliefs can remain oblivious to the ease with which his eyes scan the compositions, often experiencing physical pleasure. The wonderful ease with which one looks along the Parthenon frieze has become almost proverbial.
Another peculiarity of the human eye must be taken into consideration in designing extended compositions. The eye glides not smoothly from one end of a line to the other, but by jerky leaps and bounds, as people with sensitive eyes can discover through self-observation, and others by watching people read. A limited space can be seen at one glance; if one focuses one’s eyes on a single spot, one can see a short distance in every direction. When reading, we focus our eyes not on the beginning of each line, but slightly to the right of it. After the words or syllables falling within the range of the focus have been read, the eye jumps to the right, and so on, until all the words on the line have been read. If three short words can be read at one glance, and there are nine words in the line, it will take three movements of the eye to read the line. Add another word, and an additional movement for this word will be required. This is a waste of energy, because the addition of three words would not require more than this one. Everyone knows that lines of certain lengths can be more easily read than others.
In a relief the lines are not continuous; every now and then prominent masses call for accurate eye focus. Such eye-arresting masses are distinguished in technical parlance from the lines that carry the eye, and are often called spots. The heads of prominent figures, their hands or elbows, the hilts of their swords, and the like, are spots. The artists who place them where the eye naturally stops in its jerky advance, save the spectator the effort of focusing his eyes upon them, and help tremendously in making his task easy.
The Parthenon sculptors and their contemporaries believed in keeping the spectator continually engaged. Wherever the eye alighted, it fell upon a prominent spot. This explains the crowded compositions: the eye should never rest on an empty place; in their view this would have wasted vital energy. This absence of empty space in ancient works has often been noticed, and the term horror vacui coined. Horror vacui faded in the fourth century, reappearing later. The sculptors of the Mausoleum in Halikarnassos (350 B. C.) apparently held that an occasional rest would please the eye more than an obligatory survey of each significant element in a composition. Their reliefs (1 and 2), uncrowded, present many empty spaces to rest the eye. Of the many devices the Greeks used to ease human vision, none is more remarkable than the practice of isokephalism, which required all the figures’ heads to be at nearly the same level. The Greeks seem to have felt it necessary to make it easier for the eye to glide along a relatively straight line rather than move in a zigzag. The Parthenon’s isokephalism frieze executes this technique so expertly one views it unconscious to incongruities arising from such a depiction; as, for example, when the heads of men on horseback