Ornament and Archetype

Balthasar van den Bos
Ornamental Knot Pattern
1554
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Giuseppe Maria Mitelli after Agostino Mitelli
Two Cartouches
ca. 1655-60
etching
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Virgil Solis
Design for Cup Decoration with Trojan Hector
before 1562
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jean Mondon
Rocaille Chinoiserie
1736
etching
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Monogrammist IB
Ornamental Panel with Cuirasse and Tendrils
ca. 1520-30
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Kaspar Hegner
Wovenwork Ornament
1543
woodcut (pattern-book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Kaspar Hegner
Wovenwork Ornament
1543
woodcut (pattern-book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Jost Amman after Wenzel Jamnitzer
Perspectiva
1568
etching (book illustration)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jost Amman after Wenzel Jamnitzer
Perspectiva
1568-
etching (book illustration)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Sebald Beham
Proportions of Female Head
1542
engraving (drawing manual)
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Sebald Beham
Proportions of Male Head
1542
engraving (drawing manual)
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Luca Ciamberlano
Hands trimming and using a Pen
ca. 1626
engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Luca Ciamberlano
Hands trimming a Pen
ca. 1626
engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jusepe de Ribera
Studies of Eyes
1622
etching (drawing manual)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jusepe de Ribera
Studies of Ears
1622
etching (drawing manual) 
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Heinrich Vogtherr the Elder
Foot Studies
1572
(reprint of original from 1538)
woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

What desert, sunless hill of Northern Scythia nourished thee, wild vine? Or was it the eternal ice of the snowy Celtic Alps or the iron-bearing soil of Spain – thee, who didst bear the sour grapes, the unripened clusters – that yielded this harsh juice? I seek for thy hands, Lycurgus, to tear up by the roots the whole plant of that vine, the mother of crude fruit.

If thou findest anywhere Democritus the lover of fruit, give him, Sir, this light message: that this is my season, the white-fruited fig-tree, and I bear for him the bread that wants no baking. Let him make haste, for my position is not secure, if he would pluck the fruit from my branches before they are stoned.

Heaven shall sooner quench its stars and the sun make bright the face of night; the sea shall sooner provide sweet water for mortals to draw, and the dead return to the land of the living, than oblivion of those ancient pages shall rob us of the glorious name of Homer.

My friend, if thou art learned, take me in thy hand; but if thou art ignorant of the Muses, cast away what thou canst not understand. I am not accessible to all, but the few admire Thucydides, son of Olorus, by birth an Athenian.

Look well on this statue, stranger, and tell on thy return home: "I saw in Teos the statue of Anacreon, a song-writer most excellent of those of old." And adding that he took delight in young men, thou shalt exactly describe the whole man.

This is the picture of Thaumareta. Well did the painter render the bearing and the beauty of the gentle-eyed lady! Thy little house-dog would fawn upon thee if it saw thee here, thinking that it looked on the mistress of its home.

– from Book IX (Declamatory and Descriptive Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

A Superior Character, or an Habitual Politeness

Ancient Greek Culture
Wounded Amazon
400-350 BC
marble relief
(from the Temple of Artemis, Ephesus)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Naiskos with Enthroned Woman and Attendant
100 BC
marble relief
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
The Victorious Youth
300-100 BC
bronze statue
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Stele of Family Group
360 BC 
marble relief
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
Tiepolo Aphrodite
2nd century BC
marble statue
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Naiskos of Young Woman
360 BC
marble relief
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
Figure of a Young Man
200 BC
marble relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greek Culture
Nereid
390-380 BC
marble statue
(from the Nereid Monument, Lycia)
British Museum

Ancient Greek Culture
Youth from Ionia
1st century BC
marble statue
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Ancient Greek Culture
Hermaphrodite
2nd century BC
marble statuette
Princeton University Art Museum

Ancient Greek Culture
Alexander the Great as a Hunter
250-100 BC
bronze statuette
British Museum

Ancient Greek Culture
Alexander the Great
2nd century BC
marble statuette
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Stele of Dionysios and Melitinec
125-100 BC
marble relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Stele of Youth and Slave
375-350 BC
marble relief
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Ancient Greek Culture
River Ilissos
440 BC
marble statue
(from the west pediment of the Parthenon)
British Museum

"The design of the ancients is distinguished by an union in the proportions, a simplicity of contour, and excellence of character.  Of the first I have said as much as I might do without venturing too far into the mechanics of the art; but as I have only hinted at the others, some more particular remarks may not be improper.  There is no one excellence of design from which we receive such immediate pleasure as from a gracefulness of action.  If we observe the attitudes and movements of the Greek statues, we shall mark that careless decency and unaffected grace which ever attend the motions and gestures of men unconscious of observation.  There is a prodigious difference between those movements which flow from nature and those which are directed by art.  The ancients knew this well, and hence followed that singular simplicity which characterises their works.  For though at times – as in the Venus of Medicis and daughters of Niobe – they rise to an assumed gracefulness and even profess a desire to please, yet this is confined to so simple a contour, it is so little above the measure of ordinary action, that it appears less the effect of study than the natural result of a superior character, or an habitual politeness."

– Daniel Webb, from An Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting (1760)