Archaic Italian and Etruscan sculptures


The history of Italy until two centuries after the foundation of Rome still remains obscure to us. We may have many clues and ideas but little concrete facts about the peoples that inhabited the peninsula, their arrival and origins and their earliest relations with each other. That the Villanovan, Picentines and Latins were natural inhabitants of the Italian peninsula is probable however what little we know of the Etruscans seems to indicate that they originated in asia and then migrated to the Italian peninsula. Much of what we do know is largely a matter of conjecture, based either upon literature, tradition, or archaeological evidence. We can hardly state more than that there were from the earliest times two currents of emigration, one by land from the north and the other by sea from the south; that the land invaders were probably the more numerous and certainly the least civilized; that the Oriental and Greek civilizing influences came in periodic waves, through immigration and commerce, and powerfully affected the less civilized races.


The pre-Roman sculptures have little uniformity and unity both in its styles, subjects, materials and even methods. When the art of sculpture was “discovered” by the Etruscans it was essentially utilitarian and had little aesthetic mission. It was employed to decorate objects of common use and ornament. When the Etruscan religion was bought into closer contact with the Hellenistic religion we begin to see the first pieces of “Mythological sculpture”, however many of these seem to be but an echo of the Greek mythology, transcripting scenes that seemed to the Etruscans suitable to illustrate the life, death, and future of their dead.


Materials and Methedology:

Bronze, terracotta, stone, marble, and silver were used by both Etruscan and Italian sculptors. In bronze work the earliest reproductions are in “repousse” relief, of which good examples are the “situlae” or buckets. The similarity of Etruscan sculptures and work to the Greek style is sometimes so great as to make it almost impossible to distinguish them apart. However after a long period of mixing between these two great cultures the Etruscan “borrowing” from the Hellenes was normal. The favoured material for sculpture throughout Central and Southern Italy from the sixth to the third centuries, and we have many examples of this work


Terracotta was used instead of stone or marble in many places during much of the afor mentioned period for the temple sculptures. The gables and friezes were often made of terracotta slabs, in high or low relief, fastened to a sturdy wooden framework. Similar reliefs were used in a smaller scale during the decoration of Etruscan tombs. The acroteria and antefixes were usually figures, busts, or heads, in relief, of terracotta, and were used on a large scale throughout the south of Italy.


Stone was used as a sculpting medium mainly in connection with funerary sculptures. At least as early as 600 B.C. reclining stone statues on funeral beds were executed for the domical tomb of Vetulonia. Soon afterward carved stone stelae were erected to mark the site of the graves through a great part of central and Northern Etruria. Not until late in the fifth century does the use of large carved stone or terracotta sarcophagi come in, and then only for a limited time and in a restricted regions. It seemed to be a “fashionable” thing to have done during this period, but the high costs made it a luxuary that only the rich could afford. In the following century, when Etruscan art had taken a much stronger Greek characterthe new fashion was to be cremated and then to have ones ashes placed in burial urns which were often decorated with bass motifs and elaborate carvings. The burial urns were most often small and oblong in shape while the face of the funeral effigy were covered in with reliefs of funerary significance, and the cover was surmounted by the figure of the deceased individual. The great mass of late Etruscan sculptures belongs to this class of monuments, which exercised considerable influence upon the formation of Roman sculpture, and then, in its turn, was reacted upon by the Roman school.


An examination of the Peninsula as a whole shows that the earliest monuments of sculpture date no further back than the eighth-ninth century B.C. The majority of the sculptures were from the larger settlements and the coastal cities and regions of Etruria. The entire region north of the Po was less productive until the fifth century, when it began to produce certain funerary and industrial objects in a far more simplistic style that can be divided into two schools: the Euganean, with its centre at Este, which was thoroughly independent, and the Vilianova style, with its centre at Bologna, which seemed to be a less refined branch of Etruscan art. These two schools remained almost unchanged until the time of Roman domination. South of the Po we find that the present province of Tuscany, with part of Umbria and the Roman section of Etruria, furnished the great bulk of sculpture during the entire pre-Roman period. Farther south, where the Greek influence was stronger and where contact between the two peoples was not only Closer but more established the art was far more Hellenic. However at Capua we see a stronger Etruscan strain in the art work there and though we can identify the archaic Hellenic influence, Capua seems to be a natural metting place for both art styles but the Etruscan style in itelf is not suffocated by the Greek art but rather draws off it to become its own, and original form.


Confining ourselves, therefore, to Etruria proper, where alone we have a continuous series of monuments interesting in the history of art, we find that the first period—that of the eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries—is essentially Oriental or Archaic Greek. At that time Etruria was still dependent for its objects of luxury and art upon the Eastern market and upon the Phoenician merchants, especially those of Carthage, who still retained the dominion of Italian waters. The Etruscans themselves were slowly making their mark in the peninsula by conquering north and east. This movement, begun in the eighth century, did not end until the close of the sixth century, with the conquest of Perugia. Clusium, Arretium, Volaterm, Ruscellae, and Vetulonia were among the last cities to resist them. In several of the cities of Etruria which were, according to tradition, of " Pelasgic" (i.e., primitive Greek) foundation, we find monuments apparently antedating the Etruscan conquest. The Regulini-Galassi tomb at Vulci, and other tombs with domical or arched vaults, notably the recently discovered chamber at Vetulonia, were certainly not, the work of the Etruscans, whose tomb-chambers invariably copied wooden constructions with flat or gabled ceilings. The contents of the tombs of this class, and of thousands of contemporary tombs of lesser importance, show that sculpture was at that time put almost entirely to decorative purposes and utilized in the service of industrial and not of monumental a r t , and that, furthermore, the great majority of the objects found were imported, and were either of Phoenician manufacture or brought by the Phoenicians from Egypt and Western Asia. Extreme luxury was indulged in by the women, who wore earrings, bracelets, and necklaces of gold having decorations of heads, figures, and reliefs. The house furniture appears to have been rich, judging from the tombs, which contained silver bowls, bronze tripods, and candelabra, jewelry cases, couches, etc. The style of these works is always Oriental, even when one discerns the hand of a native artist, and it bears not even a remote resemblance to the later native Etruscan art. The same judgment may be passed upon the few remains of contemporary monumental sculpture. The earliest examples appear to be the stone female figures, about life-size, lately discovered in the domical chamber of la Pietrera at Vetulonia. They are completely nude, and are represented either rigidly reclining on their backs on funereal couches, or standing upright, the pointed base on which they stand being fixed in the ground. The proportions are good, and the heads interesting and of precisely the same type as the heads on the gold jewelry found in the earliest Vetulonian tombs. Almost contemporary with these unique female figures are the earliest of the stone stelae usually marking the tombs of men, especially warriors. The connection with Greece as well as with the Orient is based not only upon the traditions of Greek emigrations, but upon the continuous relations with Greece as shown by the fact that Cere, and probably also Tarquinii, had treasuries at Delphi, and were therefore regarded as Greek cities during the seventh century. Bronzes of the sixth century, found at Perugia (Perusia) and Chiusi (Clusium), antedating the capture of these cities by the Etruscans, are of purely Ionian Greek style. These objects, therefore, although not equalling the Oriental in number and influence, hold a distinct place in this early period.


ARCHAIC ETRUSCAN style, in all its primitive crudeness and beautifull simplicity and realism is the only period when Etruscan art has little ouside influences (Carthage and Greek), though many perceive traces of the lingering of Oriental and the more frequent incoming of Greek wares. It lasts through the fifth century and the carly part of the fourth. The importation of Greek Corinthian and black-figured vases had a strong influence upon the style of Etruscan sculpture, especially upon the funeral bas-reliefs and the bronzes. The shapelessness of the figures betrays the copying of flat models. The sites of the tombs are now often marked by sculptured stelae and figures in place of the earlier undecorated cones. In the warrior figures on the stelae, in the winged lions or sphinxes in stone that guard the entrances, we trace Oriental traditions. Some early reliefs on large sarcophagi seem copied from the banquet scenes on Greek vases; while on some carved stone cippi there are mourning scenes in low-relief of extreme realism, which give the truest measure of early Etruscan sculpture, with its lack of artistic sense both in composition and design.


This lack of artistic sense is also well illustrated by some early burial urns of stone or terracotta in the form of hollow statues, seated or standing, with removable heads ofr placing the ashes of the deceased. Among the large sculptured sarcophagi of the period are two of remarkable interest— one in the Louvre and the other in the British Museum. The realism of the strongly marked and ugly features is enhanced by brilliant coloring and by an elaboration of the most minute details of costume and ornament. During this period we no longer find as great a wealth of jewelry and other objects in metal in the tombs. The most important works were, without doubt, the terracotta sculptures with which the gables of the Etruscan temples were decorated. Such were the gables of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome, executed by Etruscan sculptors.


THE HELLENIC PERIOD, or the third period, lasts during a great part of the fourth and third centuries. Etruscan art became more supple and varied in its forms, threw off some of the crude qualities of its realism, and not only attempted to copy closely the style of the numerous works of Greek art imported either directly or from the cities of Southern Italy, but adapted to its use a large number of the scenes of Greek mythology. Terracotta, which had hitherto been the favorite material, was now rivalled by bronze and marble. With the spread of the practice of incineration, the small marble cinerary urn, with reliefs on its sides and reclining figures on its cover, were manufactured by the thousand. The bronze-workers had become so skilful that their works were eagerly sought for, even in Attica. There was a revival of decorative art, shown especially in the multitude of bronze engraved mirrors, in the famous "cistae", or jewel cases, in arms and armor, and in statues. The Romans found two thousand bronze statues in Volsinii alone in 280 B.C. Very few bronze statues have been preserved that may be regarded as Etruscan. The Wolf of the Capitol, the Minerva, and the Chimaera seem to be Greek. The Mars of Todi, the Orator of Florence, and the Child with the Bird in the Vatican seem genuine examples of Etruscan work. Terracotta continued to be in use for temple sculptures. Only a few fragments of the gable statuary of this period remain; for example, some figures from a temple at Luni, in the Florence Museum, others from an unknown temple in the Vatican Museum, and from the temple of Juno at Falerii, in the Papa Giulio Museum at Rome.