Page:EB1911 - Volume 04.djvu/120

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
  
BÖCKLIN
107

and illustrated them by his practice. Discarding the old notion that philology consisted in a minute acquaintance with words and the exercise of the critical art, he regarded it as the entire knowledge of antiquity, historical and philosophical. He divides philology into five parts: first, an inquiry into public acts, with a knowledge of times and places, into civil institutions, and also into law; second, an inquiry into private affairs; third, an exhibition of the religions and arts of the ancient nations; fourth, a history of all their moral and physical speculations and beliefs, and of their literatures; and fifth, a complete explanation of the language. These ideas in regard to philology Böckh set forth in a Latin oration delivered in 1822 (Gesammelte kleine Schriften, i.). In his speech at the opening of the congress of German philologists in 1850, he defined philology as the historical construction of the entire life—therefore, of all forms of culture and all the productions of a people in its practical and spiritual tendencies. He allows that such a work is too great for any one man; but the very infinity of subjects is the stimulus to the pursuit of truth, and men strive because they have not attained (ib. ii.). An account of Böckh’s division of philology will be found in Freund’s Wie studirt man Philologie?

From 1806 till his death Böckh’s literary activity was unceasing. His principal works were the following:—(1) An edition of Pindar, the first volume of which (1811) contains the text of the Epinician odes; a treatise, De Metris Pindari, in three books; and Notae Criticae: the second (1819) contains the Scholia; and part ii. of volume ii. (1821) contains a Latin translation, a commentary, the fragments and indices. It is still the most complete edition of Pindar that we have. But it was especially the treatise on the metres which placed Böckh in the first rank of scholars. This treatise forms an epoch in the treatment of the subject. In it the author threw aside all attempts to determine the Greek metres by mere subjective standards, pointing out at the same time the close connexion between the music and the poetry of the Greeks. He investigated minutely the nature of Greek music as far as it can be ascertained, as well as all the details regarding Greek musical instruments; and he explained the statements of the ancient Greek writers on rhythm. In this manner he laid the foundation for a scientific treatment of Greek metres. (2) Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener, 1817 (2nd ed. 1851, with a supplementary volume Urkunden über das Seewesen des attischen Staats; 3rd ed. by Fränkel, 1886), translated into English by Sir George Cornewall Lewis (1828) under the title of The Public Economy of Athens. In it he investigated a subject of peculiar difficulty with profound learning. He amassed information from the whole range of Greek literature, carefully appraised the value of the information given, and shows throughout every portion of it rare critical ability and insight. A work of a similar kind was his Metrologische Untersuchungen über Gewichte, Münzfüsse, und Masse des Alterthums (1838). (3) Böckh’s third great work arose out of his second. In regard to the taxes and revenue of the Athenian state he derived a great deal of his most trustworthy information from inscriptions, many of which are given in his book. It was natural, therefore, that when the Berlin Academy of Sciences projected the plan of a Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, Böckh should be chosen as the principal editor. This great work (1828–1877) is in four volumes, the third and fourth volumes being edited by J. Franz, E. Curtius, A. Kirchhoff and H. Röhl.

Böckh’s activity was continually digressing into widely different fields. He gained for himself a foremost position amongst the investigators of ancient chronology, and his name occupies a place by the side of those of Ideler and Mommsen. His principal works on this subject were: Zur Geschichte der Mondcyclen der Hellenen (1855); Epigraphisch-chronologische Studien (1856); Über die vierjährigen Sonnenkreise der Alten (1863), and several papers which he published in the Transactions of the Berlin Academy. Böckh also occupied himself with philosophy. One of his earliest papers was on the Platonic doctrine of the world, De Platonica corporis mundani fabrica (1809), followed by De Platonico Systemate Caelestium globorum et de vera Indole Astronomiae Philolaice (1810), to which may be added Manetho und die Hundsternperiode (1845). In opposition to Otto Gruppe (1804–1876), he denied that Plato affirmed the diurnal rotation of the earth (Untersuchungen über das kosmische System des Platon, 1852), and when in opposition to him Grote published his opinions on the subject (Plato and the Rotation of the Earth) Böckh was ready with his reply. Another of his earlier papers, and one frequently referred to, was Commentatio Academica de simultate quae Platoni cum Xenophonte intercessisse fertur (1811). Other philosophical writings were Commentatio in Platonis qui vulgo fertur Minoem (1806), and Philolaos’ des Pythagoreers Lehren nebst den Bruchstücken (1819), in which he endeavoured to show the genuineness of the fragments.

Besides his edition of Pindar, Böckh published an edition of the Antigone of Sophocles (1843) with a poetical translation and essays. An early and important work on the Greek tragedians is his Graecae Tragoediae Principum . . . num ea quae supersunt et genuina omnia sint et forma primitiva servata (1808).

The smaller writings of Böckh began to be collected in his lifetime. Three of the volumes were published before his death, and four after (Gesammelte kleine Schriften, 1858–1874). The first two consist of orations delivered in the university or academy of Berlin, or on public occasions. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth contain his contributions to the Transactions of the Berlin Academy, and the seventh contains his critiques. Böckh’s lectures, delivered from 1809–1865, were published by Bratuschek under the title of Encyclopädie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaften (2nd ed., Klussmann, 1886). His philological and scientific theories are set forth in Elze, Über Philologie als System (1845), and Reichhardt, Die Gliederung der Philologie entwickelt (1846). His correspondence with Ottfried Müller appeared at Leipzig in 1883. See Sachse, Erinnerungen an August Böckh (1868); Stark, in the Verhandlungen der Würzburger Philologensammlung (1868); Max Hoffmann, August Böckh (1901); and S. Reiter, in Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum (1902), p. 436.


BÖCKLIN, ARNOLD (1827–1901), Swiss painter, was born at Basel on the 16th of October 1827. His father, Christian Frederick Böcklin (b. 1802), was descended from an old family of Schaffhausen, and engaged in the silk trade. His mother, Ursula Lippe, was a native of the same city. In 1846 he began his studies at the Düsseldorf academy under Schirmer, who recognized in him a student of exceptional promise, and sent him to Antwerp and Brussels, where he copied the works of Flemish and Dutch masters. Böcklin then went to Paris, worked at the Louvre, and painted several landscapes; his “Landscape and Ruin” reveals at the same time a strong feeling for nature and a dramatic conception of scenery. After serving his time in the army he set out for Rome in March 1850, and the sight of the Eternal City was a fresh stimulus to his mind. So, too, was the influence of Italian nature and that of the dead pagan world. At Rome he married (June 20, 1853) Angela Rosa Lorenza Pascucci. In 1856 he returned to Munich, and remained there four years. He then exhibited the “Great Park,” one of his earliest works, in which he treated ancient mythology with the stamp of individuality, which was the basis of his reputation. Of this period, too, are his “Nymph and Satyr,” “Heroic Landscape” (Diana Hunting), both of 1858, and “Sappho” (1859). These works, which were much discussed, together with Lenbach’s recommendation, gained him his appointment as professor at the Weimar academy. He held the office for two years, painting the “Venus and Love,” a “Portrait of Lenbach,” and a “Saint Catherine.” He was again at Rome from 1862 to 1866, and there gave his fancy and his taste for violent colour free play in his “Portrait of Mme Böcklin,” now in the Basel gallery, in “An Anchorite in the Wilderness” (1863); a “Roman Tavern,” and “Villa on the Sea-shore” (1864); this last, one of his best pictures. He returned to Basel in 1866 to finish his frescoes in the gallery, and to paint, besides several portraits, “The Magdalene with Christ” (1868); “Anacreon’s Muse” (1869); and “A Castle and Warriors” (1871). His “Portrait of Myself,” with Death playing a violin (1873), was painted after his return again to Munich, where he exhibited his famous “Battle of the Centaurs” (in the Basel gallery); “Landscape with Moorish Horsemen” (in the Lucerne gallery); and “A Farm” (1875). From 1876 to 1885 Böcklin was working at Florence, and painted