Art historian on works of art destroyed throughout the age

Waetzoldt, Wilhelm, 1880-1945

eVols at University of Hawaii at Manoa

THE CENTURIES' TOLL OF ARTBy WILHEUI W.-\ETZOLDTThe 1011(1 callI/ally list of ar~ is bei,.!! added 10 by II. prellellt phase of IMs wrrrill a ',rrrrowilig mallll r. Work" of (Ir/ hrr~'e also fail II ";("I;m 10 former 'I'flr.~. II/IIIhere i" pra!>a1Jiy 110 olher 'U'CIf "ch'irh ra'/l compare 10 Ihe pn"'.111 aile in 'il" des/r/lel;,·:ffcl'l. For at "0 olher lime /I(I"C old alld neu' ,corks of fir/ beell ('ollee/ed. pr Hert·cd.,,,,,/ I/H"cmbh'd itt 1ItUSeIW/N l1'ill< slIch paiIl8takin!! care (UJ i" the decrrdes pread;lI11Ihi" w(lr; (lnd nerer before horc "liCit. I'oncell/raled 'lIIcrrll,' of dc.•lrllclion beell employ,,",}'eI "''''r i8 Ollly aIle allll,ll!! '/I'fIlly fa'rces rll;IIO'". 10 ''''ork" of arl. III Ihe lolt'III'i"!1II' pre"elll fI welt,klloll'll I:alll'''' (Irl hill/arian'" tholl!!1Its 011 Ihe 'lI'orkll of arl de Iroy dIhrollyho/ll Ihe age,WH F.!\ we !<peak about the los of workof art" we usually think chicfly ofwar. nut if statistic' on their deathcauses were to be compiled, theywould show that it is the great natural disasters-earthquake!:! and volcanic eruptiolls-whichha\'e claimcd most victims. During the la1:lttwo thousand year, the cOlUltries of the Medi·terranean ba in, e. pecially Italy, Greece andAsia ~[jnor, sutTered about ten thousand earth·quakes. This soil of the south, exceedinglyrich as it was in the fruit,s of art, knew also nomoderation in their destruction. The tcmple ofOlympia, the thermae of Miletus, the sanc·tuaries of Delphi and Didyma, the templeprecincts of Selin us, collapsed in the trem blingsof thc earth. I:>eaquakes and tidal wavesswallowed up whole cities: the memory of suchIIi. a,'5ter; Ij"cs on in the legends about Atlant.is(lnd \'ineta. The eruptions of )Iount '"csuviusand )Iount Etna buried Pompeii, Herculaneum,and Catanin; conflagrations destroyed parts ofRome and Alexandria. In l7iG, a water·sllCwing volcano destroyed the ,. Pompeii ofAmerica," Antigua, the capital of Guatemala.with its Hispano,Jl1dian baroque churche;; andCOI1\'ents.The bowels of the earth dispense ble sings a.iwell as ruin. The earth lets rock and ore grow,it bestow wood and pigments on u. The saltof the earth is al 0 a. blessing to mankind, butit spells ruin t,o the work of human hands.For t he salts of t hc soil collect at the base ofancient nmrble columns, eating awa,y at thestone substance and reducing their girth untilthe columns topple over. In Palmyra andKarnak the temples suffered this fate. Thesand duncs of the Kort,h African coast, althoughburying the major part of the ruins of kptisMagna, preserved them from fi l1al decay. Indry desert region t he natural force destroyingworks of art is the wind carrying particles of"and. It grinds and blasts. The wind of thedesert has gnawed a way the face of t,}le Egyp.tian Sphinx.E\'en the gentlest of the elements, the air,hates the creation of tlle hands of luan. Thedampnes of the sea air de\·our·<I Giorgione'l'frescoe in "enicc. Destructi\'e substances con,tained in the air, o\'er indu trial ities, for in,stance, cnu ed the building stone of cathedralsto crumble awny, as was the case in ColognelLlltil modern science undertook the protectiouof these monuments aga.inst wind ami weatherwith the weapons of chemistry.T HERE is no end to the list of art treasuresof which fire has taken toll. It wasnot alway mischanc or coincidencewhich fanned the flames; ju 1. as oft.en itwas folly, greed, or lust of destruction. Evenmarble was not safe from these enemies; beinga limestone, limekilns were fed with works ofart from l~olllan days up to thc htte Henaissanceperiod. When German archaeologists excM'atedthe Hermes of Pra~iteles in Olympia theycould not find the lower part of his legs. Xearby, a. limekiln of the Byzantine period wasdiscovered, surrounded by a lot of limbs fromstatues: they had all been destined to feed thekiln. The right foot of the .Hermes statue wafound here.Nor were works made of metal or woodprotected from the fate of being thrown intothe fire. Throughout the ~Uddle Ages, metalthieves ran Rcked antique temple ruins for thebronze dowel pins and clamps which joined thestone blocks and the drums of the columntogether. The walls of the temple and theeohllllllli still sltoW the bore holes of thoselooters, who st.<Xe the metal to melt it down.Sometimes, however, it was imminent perilwhich made it necessary to return preciousmetals from the artistic fornu! given them intothe Illore utilitarian form of bars. In times ofwar the. onorous bronze of malH' church beU-was transformed into the roartng barrels ofcannons. When the plight of his countrymade it neee ary, Frederick the Great did nothesitate to have the silver furniture of theBerlin ]la-lnce and the sih'er trumpeters' choirin tllll knights' hall melted down to repleni"hhis war trea ury. Sih'ered wood replaced theprecious metal.THE XXth CENTURY21lfOne would think it wa~ useless to burnworks of art made of wood. But there havebeen examples of this, too, wood being, afterall, a fuel. How many wooden saints from oldchurches must have s~ffered a second martyr'sdeath in the stoves of the Reformation period!Conflagrations have robbed the history ofart of some of its chief monuments. In theDoges' Palace in Venice, Titian's Battle ofCadore went up in flames; in San Giovanni andPaolo in Venice, his altar painting The DEathof Peter the .1J1.a,rtyr. Dilrer's Heller altar forthe Dominican Church in Frankfurt am Mainwas burned early in the eighteenth century inMunich. Holbein's murals and ceiling paintingsin London were devoured by fire, his fa9adepaintings in Lucerne and Basel destroyed.Some fire ruins were presenTed, for exampleRembrandt's painting of The Anatom.y ofDoctor Deymann.OF all the powers between heaven andearth, the soul without feeling is themost destructive to art. The Gothiccathedrals were preserved in all theirglory because the spiritual yearning fromwhich they once sprung endured. The proudcastles of the medieval emperors, on the otherhand, crumbled as soon as the need for themvanished.Every period allows part of that to perishwhich existed before and which has lost itsa.ppeal; but every period has also ignoredthings for which there was as yet no feeling:that has often enough been the tragic fate ofartistic geniuses and their works. The slothfulheart, the callous soul, are quick to find thebrutal fists which complete the actual work ofdest.ruction, as is proved by ·the history oficonoclasts from the Middle Ages up to theFrench Revolution. Even well-meant bequestsmay mean death scntences to ancient arttreasures. From IG30 to 1708, for instance,the oustom existed in Paris of the corporationof goldsmiths prescnting a ncw altar paintingto Notre Dame on May I of every year. Whatbecame of the old alta.r paintings and carvings?Later the mania fo "reason" and the fury ofthe mob of the Revolution decapitated t.hes~one Mints in Paris, Reims, And St. Denis, asthey could not drag them to the guillotine.During the sixt,ies of the last century the Tai-ping Rebellion destroyed the Porcelain Pagodawhich Emperor Yung Lo had built in 1403-1428 in Nanking; it was onc of the wonders ofthe world.To political and religious fanaticism is addedan aesthetic fanaticism. It is, for instance, anopen question whether in the looting of theGreek temples by the Roman conquerors it wasthe soldiers or the collectors who destroyedmore. Great art collectors such as Sulla.,Lucullus, and Pompey systematically strippedthe provinces and carried 01I thousands ofworks of art to their villas. When Verres, thegreatest of these art fiends, was given the choiceby Mark Antony either of handing over bis(looted) Corinthian bronzes or of dying, hepreferted death to the loss of his belo\Ted collec-tion. Private collections have always beenmore threatened than public ones, since thesense of responsibility of the individual is, usa rule, a protection very limited in duration.After Mazarin's death, his famous collection fellinto the hands of the uneducated husband ofhis niC<'e. This barbarian had the nakedstatues hacked to bits because they offendedhis modesty. One of the finc-fit novels in theworld's literature, Victor Hugo's The Hllnchbacl"of Notre Dame, was born out of the writer'sindignation over the mutilations threateningthe cathedrals from all sides: "The priestcovers them with paint, the architect scrapesthem, and finally the people come and tearthem down."In the We3t it was Christianity which,through the commissions given by the Church,became the greatest power since classica.1 timesto promote art. During the Middle Ages byfar the largest number of all works of art owedtheir existence in one way or another to theworld of faith and the forms of ritual. Onthe other hand, countless art treasures fellvictim to religious fanaticism. The Spanishconquests in Central America were accompaniedby the destruction of ancient Aztec, Maya, andInca monuments of art and culture. The vic·tory of the Cross in the Oriental countries wasbought with the 1038 of art treasures. In 435A.D. Theodosius II ordered the dest,ruction ofall heathen temples. At that t·ime Phidias'sgold and ivory statue of Athena disappearedfrom the Parthenon in Athens, and a soldierdestroyed the Serapis statue in Alexandria withan a·x. In the davs of Constantine the Greatthere still were in Rome some 3,800 bronzestatues and some 6,000 other publicly exhibitedworks of art. What has become of these bronzeregiments? How little has been preserved, andthat only because chance, size, or some at·tributed meaning saved it from extinction, aswas the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius(later set up in the Capitol Square in Rome byMichelangelo), which was protected by thelegend that it represented Constantine the Great.The fear of hell and of demons destroyed thenaked heathen gods; but sometimes it al'lo sur·rounded them with an invisible armor, so thatmany a vandal hesitated at the last momentto touch their noble limbs. Meanness andstupidity, however, have rarely felt any qualmsat leaving their murderous traces. After thecapture of Milan by the French in 1499, thearchers of Louis XII dest.royed Leonardo'smodel for an equestrian statue of FrancescoSforza. But it was not only the folly of laymen,religious fanaticism, and human callousnesswhich sinned against the works of bygone arl:

The Centuries' Toll of Art

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The Centuries' Toll of Art

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